#26 April 2019

[zoennes]

2.01 ♡⃛ 2.10

[throwbackgaylor]

april 26, 2019 | five years ago today

taylor swift released the music video for ‘ME!’

“kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats”: a reference to ‘welcome to new york’

inside of the kaleidoscope is a heart shaped room with the color scheme of the lesbian pride flag

[rabbitcruiser]

On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States on April 30, 1789.  

[mermaidinthecity]

April 26, 2019

[rageserenity]

It's 2024. Are you still thinking about movieverse!Cherik? Because I am.

For the past several months, there's only been a very slow trickle of posts/fics in the xmcu cherik tag. Let's try to breathe some life back into this incredible pairing!

With one clear winner of my poll, here's thirty prompts for the thirty days of April. (This is a super chill, laid-back event---do these in any order, interpret them as loosely as you like! Create in any medium! Fic, art, gifs, meta, incoherent screaming about the otp…all winners in my book.)

The only rule here is to cherik too close to the sun. Alright. Here are the prompts.

Mutual Pining

Doesn't really even need elaboration! Write that horrifically slow slow-burn. Gif every time McAvoy made insane fuck me eyes on screen. Make a playlist of songs about impossible love.

2. Alternate Meetings

There are endless quotes about how these two complete each other in a way no one they'd met before or after ever did. How else could they have met?

3. Erik Has A Telepathy Kink

This is basically canon. Let my boy get freaky!

4. Canon Fix-It

All the times Fox fucked it up. There are endless options.

5. Hurt/Comfort

Put them in that Situation. Put them in that Blender. Break them apart and put them back together ❤️‍🩹

6. Canon Compliant

Draw that missing scene! Gif your favourite cherik moment!

7. Beach Divorce

Make it worse. Make it better. Show it to us exactly how it was. Break it down in a 3,000 word meta. Go wild!

8. Domestics

Sometimes you just want to see them doing normal couple things. Erik put the gun down.

9. Found Family

The real heart of x-men!

10. Time Travel

There are SO many possibilities here. Stick them in a time loop. Give them a chance to change their past.

11. AU

Love a good AU!

12. There Is Only One Bed

Had to get this one in here. What better way to amp up the tension?

13. Genosha

By some miracle, cherik actually did end up together at the end of 2019s trash bag disaster Dark Phoenix. We aren’t making a big enough deal about this.

14. Declaration(s) of Love

Who says it first? How do they say it and when? Have they said it…without saying it?

15. Jealousy

Need I say more.

16. Reunion

These two have absolutely no chill.

17. Soulmates

Classic prompt, had to get this in here too.

18. The DOFP Aircraft

The TENSION here. Break it down for me. How does Charles feel about his injury? How does Erik feel about his injury?

19. Gay Mutant Road Trip

You already know.

20. Body Swap

SO fun when people have superpowers.

21. First Kiss

When? How? Who initiated it?

22. The Mansion

Mansion!content is a genre of its own.

23. Conflicting Ideology

Give me your theses. Who’s right? Can they ever reconcile completely? Write a fic where it drives them apart.

24. Sebastian Shaw

A trope unto himself.

25. Team As Matchmaker

They had to have known something was going on, didn’t they?

26. Cooking

Charles deserves a good meal. Also, imagine Erik using his powers in the kitchen. The sheer domesticity…

27. Hurt No Comfort

Plenty of scope with these two 🥲

28. Growing Old Together

Giving Sirs Ian Mckellan and Patrick Stewart their props as well!

29. Making Up

*pushes chess board across the table* sorry babe

30. Charles Xavier Did More For Mutants Than You'll Ever Know

Rising to each other’s defense. Only I can insult this man.

I will be tracking #revivecherik to reblog stuff! Here’s a fic collection for the same. Let’s get this ball rolling! Please feel free to send me an ask if you’ve got anything to say! And most importantly, let’s all have fun 😁

*I know a few of you preferred something like a gift exchange because of the commitment factor—I’m super down to organise a tiny one for the handful of us! If this promptathon doesn’t flop horribly, we can hopefully do a whole bunch of stuff :)

If you read this post all the way through, please reblog for reach! Thank you! Hoping you participate come April.

Shoutout to @inmymagnetoera for reaching out and helping with this!

[reasonsforhope]

"Dear EarthTalk: What is wind repowering and why are environmentalists so bullish on it?

—H. King, Mesa, AZ

One of the most common forms of clean energy is wind power. People from around the world could recognize a wind farm from just one look. While wind power has been a staple in renewable energy since the idea’s inception, many of the original and old wind turbines have begun to show signs of aging. Wind repowering aims to fix this, by revamping old turbines with more efficient components, or putting in new, state-of-the-art turbines as a whole. These new components and units can reduce noise, more efficiently power a turbine, and a deliver a higher overall energy output.

Denmark, an early adopter of wind repowering, saw a 1.3 GW gain in capacity and a reduction of 109 wind turbines, enabling substantially increased wind energy production with fewer turbines. This promising data prompted a surge in wind repowering projects, and in 2019, 86 percent of wind energy projects there were classified as “repowered.”

These signs of success and scalability showed other countries the benefits of wind repowering. The U.S, with help from large energy corporations like General Electric, has more than 40 active wind repowering sites, with over 2,500 turbines having some type of renovation. This hefty wind repowering advancement is responsible for four gigawatts of energy, or the power for more than 30 million homes.

It’s no secret how fast wind repowering is growing, but upgrades can be made to many different types of renewable energy. Why do eco-advocates support wind repowering so strongly? Wind repowering has energy, financial, aesthetic and technological benefits. Not only does it make units more efficient, it also removes units that might be aesthetically unpleasing, or in less efficient spots than they could be. Wind repowering also increases the lifespan of turbines by as much as 20 years, and reduces the need for maintenance. Repowered turbines are also quieter, sleeker, and produce considerably more energy.

So, while there are many types of repowering efforts for other renewable energy sources, none are as comprehensive or successful as wind repowering. Not only is it a comprehensive option for revamping clean energy, but it does not require the entry costs that just building new wind farms requires.

The only barrier to wind repowering at the moment is legislation. Bills and policies cannot keep up with the demand for it. Readers should call local officials, or urge any nearby wind farms to look at wind repowering. Spreading awareness is the first and most important step."

-via E: The Environmental Magazine, April 26, 2024

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

This blog is officially 6 months old!

With over 1000 polls posted and more than 2500 submissions received, I think it's time for a little recap of all the data I collected thanks to all of you!

Starting with some fun facts, the countries of origin of the series submitted are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan!

Under the cut I've compiled the 10 Most Avoided and 10 Most Watched series of Tumblr, according to the results I've received these past months. ^^

> Thanks, but No

Despite being generally well known, there's something about these series that simply didn't captivate the Tumblr population. Here are the 10 Most Avoided shows of Tumblr! Well! There's other sites.

10. Cowboy Bebop (2021) with 72.2% "No" results;

9. Euphoria (2019) with 72.4% "No" results;

8. The Sopranos (1999) with 73.7% "No" results;

7. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) with 73.8% "No" results;

6. Ahsoka (2023) with 74% "No" results;

5. She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985) with 74.3% "No" results;

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022) with 74.4% "No" results;

3. 13 Reasons Why (2017) with 75.5% "No" results;

2. Young Sheldon (2017) with 75.9% "No" results;

And our unhonourable champion, Battlestar Galactica (1978) with 77.2% "No" results!

> THEE Hall of Fame. Like for Real

Now unto the actual Tumblr Royalty, these are the Top 10 Most Watched series as of April 26 2024! :)

10. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) with 47.2% "Yes" results;

9. Gravity Falls (2012) with 49% "Yes" results;

8. Our Flag Means Death (2022) with 50.1% "Yes" results;

7. Danny Phantom (2003) with 51.1% "Yes" results;

6. Sherlock (2010) with 54.5% "Yes" results;

5. Over the Garden Wall (2014) with 54.5% "Yes" results;

4. Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993) with 56.4% "Yes" results;

3. The Good Place (2016) with 56.6% "Yes" results;

2. Steven Universe (2013) with 68.6% "Yes" results;

And our reigning champion, monarch of Tumblr culture, is Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) with 74.1% "Yes" results!!

Thank you everyone who has voted or submitted, running this blog has been quite fun and it couldn't have lasted this long without all of you! I look forward to the months to come, and to collect even more sweet, sweet data. ^^

[audhd-nightwing]

batfamily ages

as of April 2024

alfred: August 16, 1943-2019 (died at 76)

bruce: February 19, 1979 (45)

babs: September 23, 1992 (31-32)

dick: March 20, 1995 (29)

cass: January 26, 2001 (23)

jason: August 16, 2001 (22-23)

tim: July 19, 2004 (19-20)

steph: August 11, 2004 (19-20)

duke: August 13, 2006 (17-18)

damian: ???, 2010 (13-14)

i tried to be as accurate as possible to canon but some stuff just. isn’t ever revealed. the birth DAYS are what is generally accepted as canon but the years/ages are mostly up to interpretation. also i have no fucking clue when damian was born so

[sapchat]

IDK if this has been done but I went through the 3 reboots and did a timeline of events so you wouldn't have to!

Side notes: sometimes I use the first initial for who it is! also some of MW3 has timestamps. I also apologize for spelling. Also, lots of this shit happens over like 7-12 days April 6, 2019 Makarov bombs Verdansk Price, Ghost and Soap know each other at this point, have NOT met Gaz

Start of MW1 Oct 24 2019 'Al Qatal' moves gas Oct. 25 2019 Piccadilly Square Oct. 25 2019 Price meets Gaz Oct 26 19 Alex & Farah blow Barkov's bombs Same day destroy one of B's bases Oct. 27 19 Price and Gaz go to Picc Safe house Oct 28 19A&F go to Urzstan hospital for "The Wolf" Oct 28 19 P&G meet up w/ A&F for the Wolf Oct 29 19 Plan ambush for Butcher & Wolf - Hadir uses the gas, learn Hadir stole the gas Oct 29 19 PGAF Go to kill W, & get H Oct 29 19 PGAF kill the wolf, H is 2 Russia Oct 31 19 PGN go 2 Russia, Capture Kill Butcher (and traumatize a family) Nov 1 19 Hadir is handed over to Russia Nov 3 19 Take down Barkov's gas production plant & K Price meets Kate @ Tea shop makes TF 141 w/ Ghost, Soap, & Gaz END of MW1 - May 22, 2022 Soap goes side questing, turns green (idk I didn't watch the trailer (I did but I just know there's like green gas)) Start of MW2 July 15 22 Ghost Blows AlMazrah base (Honestly didn't get the point of us seeing this) Oct 28 22 GS Kill/Cap Mission for Hassan -> Find American Missiles not Hassan Oct 28 22 PG in Amsterdam for Missile info (Think they used it as an excuse to swim) Oct 29 22 Capture a cartel mem 4 info Oct 29 22 Alej. Go for cartel jumping border Oct 30 22 GSAlej go 4 Hassan safehouse They capture Hassan (picnic in the desert omg!) Oct 31 22 PG in Spain for Hassan info Kate gets caught Shepherd tries to abandon her Nov 1 22 PG meet with F to get Kate (they get her and get juicy gos on Shep) Nov 1 22 Soap goes into Casa de Sin Nombre Nov 2 22 Gulf oil rig, blows up by G&S (philip was here too) Nov 3 22 Soap & Ghost are fighting Shadow co Nov 3 22 SG go for Alej w/ Rodolfo. PG meet up Nov 3 22 141 goes for Graves Nov 4 22 Go 2 Chicago 4 Hassan & missile kill both END of MW2 - Kate (& tech. Gaz) learn about Makarov

Start of MW3 Nov 10 23 Makarov is broken out of jail 2am Nov 10 23 Farah is ambushed Konni got missiles around 6am Nov 10 23 141 go for Nuc Power Plant, P get gased 9am Makarov has been out for 6 hours Nov 11 23 They go for Missiles in Urzikistan Nov 11 23 Kate is going 4 intel on Makarov meets Yuri @ 3pm Nov 11 23 Makarov crashes plane, blames Farah and Alex go there 7:30-9:30pm meet with Kate and Nikolai in hanger Nov 12 8am Nov 12 23 they go for Milena 7pm Nov 13 23 they get Makarovs right hand man Nolan 11am Nov 14 23 They find Shepherd swimming at some point 9:30 Nov 16 23 SG stop Verdansk dam bombing Same time PG are at airsti Nov 21 23 141 go after Makarov Hacker Nov 21 23 They stop Makarov bomb, Soap gets killed. Price kills Shepherd after spreading Soap's ashes.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

So whenever your disability pride flag is shared on tiktok, ive noticed people asking why do disabled people need a pride flag, or saying that we dont deserve one because we are "co opting" the gay pride movement... and i am honestly at a loss at what to say to them

Okay, then: here's some Disability Pride Talking points for you, when you come upon that assumption:

First: The Disability Rights Movement gained steam in the U.S. at the same time as the Civil Rights Movement was advocating for racial equality, and the Women's Rights movement was advocating for gender equality -- all in the same decade as the Stonewall Riots.

Second: it may seem like Disability Pride Month is "copying" Queer Pride Month, because July comes right after June. But the reason we celebrate Disability Pride Month in July is because that's when The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed: on July 26, 1990. This was the first Disabilities Rights act in the world. It was followed in 1995 by the Disabilities Discrimination Act in the U.K., and in 2019 in Canada.

Third: on April 5, 1977, the (American) Nationwide 504 Sit-in (Wikipedia article) began, to protest the fact that three presidents in a row had been stalling for four years to implement Disability Civil Rights legislation. Disability advocates staged sit-ins in Federal Buildings for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle, San Fransisco, and Washington D.C..

The sit-in in Washington D.C. lasted 28 hours. The Sit-in in San Fransisco lasted 25 Days, and remains the longest occupation of a Federal Government building in U.S. History (It was epic). The civil rights group The Black Panthers also helped with logistical support.

The police tried to force the people inside to leave by cutting phone lines, forgetting that there were people who knew American Sign Language both inside the building, and outside, in the crowd, and they relayed messages back and forth through the windows (excuse me while I take a Cackle break).

Finally: Disabled people are human beings, and deserve all the human rights as everyone else. But a lot of people in authority, look at our lives from the outside, decide that we already have a low-quality of life (without actually asking us), and deciding that it wouldn't be so bad if we died. You know, at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in this country, it was a fairly common policy that if hospitals ran low on ventilators, they'd just take them from disabled people who needed to use them every day? Remember that?

That's why we have to get loud.

[ohgaylor]

In 2006, the year Taylor Swift released her first single, a closeted country singer named Chely Wright, then 35, held a 9-millimeter pistol to her mouth. Queer identity was still taboo enough in mainstream America that speaking about her love for another woman would have spelled the end of a country music career. But in suppressing her identity, Ms. Wright had risked her life.

In 2010, she came out to the public, releasing a confessional memoir, “Like Me,” in which she wrote that country music was characterized by culturally enforced closeting, where queer stars would be seen as unworthy of investment unless they lied about their lives. “Country music,” she wrote, “is like the military — don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The culture in which Ms. Wright picked up that gun — the same one in which Ms. Swift first became a star — was stunningly different from today’s. It’s dizzying to think about the strides that have been made in Americans’ acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community over the past decade: marriage equality, queer themes dominating teen entertainment, anti-discrimination laws in housing and, for now, in the workplace. But in recent years, a steady drip of now-out stars — Cara Delevingne, Colton Haynes, Elliot Page, Kristen Stewart, Raven-Symoné and Sam Smith among them — have disclosed that they had been encouraged to suppress their queerness in order to market projects or remain bankable.

The culture of country music hasn’t changed so much that homophobia is gone. Just this past summer, Adam Mac, an openly gay country artist, was shamed out of playing at a festival in his hometown because of his sexual orientation. In September, the singer Maren Morris stepped away from country music; she said she did so in part because of the industry’s lingering anti-queerness. If country music hasn’t changed enough, what’s to say that the larger entertainment industry — and, by extension, our broader culture — has?

Periodically, I return to a video, recorded by a shaky hand more than a decade ago, of Ms. Wright answering questions at a Borders bookstore about her coming out. She likens closeted stardom to a blender, an “insane” and “inhumane” heteronormative machine in which queer artists are chewed to bits.

“It’s going to keep going,” Ms. Wright says, “until someone who has something to lose stands up and just says ‘I’m gay.’ Somebody big.” She continues: “We need our heroes.”

What if someone had already tried, at least once, to change the culture by becoming such a hero? What if, because our culture had yet to come to terms with homophobia, it wasn’t ready for her?

What if that hero’s name was Taylor Alison Swift?

In the world of Taylor Swift, the start of a new “era” means the release of new art (an album and the paratexts — music videos, promotional ephemera, narratives — that supplement it) and a wholesale remaking of the aesthetics that will accompany its promotion, release and memorializing. In recent years, Ms. Swift has dominated pop culture to such a degree that these transformations often end up altering American culture in the process.

In 2019, she was set to release a new album, “Lover,” the first since she left Big Machine Records, her old Nashville-based label, which she has since said limited her creative freedom. The aesthetic of what would be known as the “Lover Era” emerged as rainbows, butterflies and pastel shades of blue, purple and pink, colors that subtly evoke the bisexual pride flag.

On April 26, Lesbian Visibility Day, Ms. Swift released the album’s lead single, “ME!,” in which she sings about self-love and self-acceptance. She co-directed a campy music video to accompany it, which she would later describe as depicting “everything that makes me, me.” It features Ms. Swift dancing at a pride parade, dripping in rainbow paint and turning down a man’s marriage proposal in exchange for a … pussy cat.

At the end of June, the L.G.B.T.Q. community would celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. On June 14, Ms. Swift released the video for her attempt at a pride anthem, “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she and an army of queer celebrities from across generations — the “Queer Eye” hosts, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Porter, Hayley Kiyoko, to name a few — resist homophobia by living openly. Ms. Swift sings that outrage against queer visibility is a waste of time and energy: “Why are you mad, when you could be GLAAD?”

The video ends with a plea: “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.” Many, in the press and otherwise, saw the video as, at best, a misguided attempt at allyship and, at worst, a straight woman co-opting queer aesthetics and narratives to promote a commercial product.

Then, Ms. Swift performed “Shake It Off” as a surprise for patrons at the Stonewall Inn. Rumors — that were, perhaps, little more than fantasies — swirled in the queerer corners of her fandom, stoked by a suggestive post by the fashion designer Christian Siriano. Would Ms. Swift attend New York City’s WorldPride march on June 30? Would she wear a dress spun from a rainbow? Would she give a speech? If she did, what would she declare about herself?

The Sunday of the march, those fantasies stopped. She announced that the music executive Scooter Braun, who she described as an “incessant, manipulative” bully, had purchased her masters, the lucrative original recordings of her work.

Ms. Swift’s “Lover” was the first record that she created with nearly unchecked creative freedom. Lacking her old label’s constraints, she specifically chose to feature activism for and the aesthetics of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in her confessional, self-expressive art. Even before the sale of her masters, she appeared to be stepping into a new identity — not just an aesthetic — that was distinct from that associated with her past six albums.

When looking back on the artifacts of the months before that album’s release, any close reader of Ms. Swift has a choice. We can consider the album’s aesthetics and activism as performative allyship, as they were largely considered to be at the time. Or we can ask a question, knowing full well that we may never learn the answer: What if the “Lover Era” was merely Ms. Swift’s attempt to douse her work — and herself — in rainbows, as so many baby queers feel compelled to do as they come out to the world?

There’s no way of knowing what could have happened if Ms. Swift’s masters hadn’t been sold. All we know is what happened next. In early August, Ms. Swift posted a rainbow-glazed photo of a series of friendship bracelets, one of which says “PROUD” with beads in the color of the bisexual pride flag. Queer people recognize that this word, deployed this way, typically means that someone is proud of their own identity. But the public did not widely view this as Ms. Swift’s coming out.

Then, Vogue released an interview with Ms. Swift that had been conducted in early June. When discussing her motivations for releasing “You Need to Calm Down,” Ms. Swift said, “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male.” She continued: “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.” That statement suggests that Ms. Swift did not, in early June, consider herself part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community; it does not illuminate whether that is because she was a straight, cis ally or because she was stuck in the shadowy, solitary recesses of the closet.

On Aug. 22, Ms. Swift publicly committed herself to the as-of-then-unproven project of rerecording and rereleasing her first six albums. The next day, she finally released “Lover,” which raises more questions than it answers. Why does she have to keep secrets just to keep her muse, as all her fans still sing-scream on “Cruel Summer”? About what are the “hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you,” in her chronicle of self-doubt, “The Archer,” if not her identity? And what could the album’s closing words, which come at the conclusion of “Daylight,” a song about stepping out of a 20-year darkness and choosing to “let it go,” possibly signal?

I want to be defined by the things that I love,

Not the things I hate,

Not the things that I’m afraid of, I’m afraid of,

Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night,

I just think that,

You are what you love.

The first time I viewed “Lover” through the prism of queerness, I felt delirious, almost insane. I kept wondering whether what I was perceiving in her work was truly there or if it was merely a mirage, born of earnest projection.

My longtime reading of Ms. Swift’s celebrity — like that of a majority of her fan base — had been stuck in the lingering assumptions left by a period that began more than a decade and a half ago, when a girl with an overexaggerated twang, Shirley Temple curls and Georgia stars in her eyes became famous. Then, she presented as all that was to be expected of a young starlet: attractive yet virginal, knowing yet naïve, not talented enough to be formidable, not commanding enough to be threatening, confessional, eager to please. Her songs earnestly depicted the fantasies of a girl raised in a traditional culture: high school crushes and backwoods drives, princelings and wedding rings, declarations of love that climax only in a kiss — ideally in the pouring rain.

When Ms. Swift was trying to sell albums in that late-2000s media environment, her songwriting didn’t match the image of a sex object, the usual role reserved for female celebrities in our culture. Instead, the story the public told about her was that she laundered her affection to a litter of promising grown men, in exchange for songwriting inspiration. A young Ms. Swift contributed to this narrative by hiding easy-to-decode clues in liner notes that suggested a certain someone was her songs’ inspiration (“SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM,” “ADAM,” “TAY”) or calling out an ex-boyfriend on the “Ellen” show and “Saturday Night Live.” Despite the expansive storytelling in Ms. Swift’s early records, her public image often cast a man’s interest as her greatest ambition.

As Ms. Swift’s career progressed, she began to remake that image: changing her style and presentation, leaving country music for pop and moving from Nashville to New York. By 2019, her celebrity no longer reflected traditional culture; it had instead become a girlboss-y mirror for another dominant culture — that of white, cosmopolitan, neoliberal America.

But in every incarnation, the public has largely seen those songs — especially those for which she doesn’t directly state her inspiration — as cantos about her most recent heterosexual love, whether that idea is substantiated by evidence or not. A large portion of her base still relishes debating what might have happened with the gentleman caller who supposedly inspired her latest album. Feverish discussions of her escapades with the latest yassified London Boy or mustachioed Mr. Americana fuel the tabloid press — and, embarrassingly, much of traditional media — that courts fan engagement by relentlessly, unquestioningly chronicling Ms. Swift’s love life.

Even in 2023, public discussion about the romantic entanglements of Ms. Swift, 34, presumes that the right man will “finally” mean the end of her persistent husbandlessness and childlessness. Whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s extracurricular activities involving a certain football star (romance for the ages? strategic brand partnership? performance art for entertainment’s sake?), the public’s obsession with the relationship has been attention-grabbing, if not lucrative, for all parties, while reinforcing a story that America has long loved to tell about Ms. Swift, and by extension, itself.

Because Ms. Swift hasn’t undeniably subverted our culture’s traditional expectations, she has managed, in an increasingly fractured cultural environment, to simultaneously capture two dominant cultures — traditional and cosmopolitan. To maintain the stranglehold she has on pop culture, Ms. Swift must continue to tell a story that those audiences expect to consume; she falls in love with a man or she gets revenge. As a result, her confessional songs languish in a place of presumed stasis; even as their meaning has grown deeper and their craft more intricate, a substantial portion of her audience’s understanding of them remains wedded to the same old narratives.

But if interpretations of Ms. Swift’s art often languish in stasis, so do the millions upon millions of people who love to play with the dollhouse she has constructed for them. Her dominance in pop culture and the success of her business have given her the rare ability to influence not only her industry but also the worldview of a substantial portion of America. How might her industry, our culture and we, ourselves, change if we made space for Ms. Swift to burn that dollhouse to the ground?

Anyone considering the whole of Ms. Swift’s artistry — the way that her brilliantly calculated celebrity mixes with her soul-baring art — can find discrepancies between the story that underpins her celebrity and the one captured by her songs. One such gap can be found in her “Lover” era. Others appear alongside “dropped hairpins,” or the covert ways someone can signal queer identity to those in the know while leaving others comfortable in their ignorance. Ms. Swift dropped hairpins before “Lover” and has continued to do so since.

Sometimes, Ms. Swift communicates through explicit sartorial choices — hair the colors of the bisexual pride flag or a recurring motif of rainbow dresses. She frequently depicts herself as trapped in glass closets or, well, in regular closets. She drops hairpins on tour as well, paying tribute to the Serpentine Dance of the lesbian artist Loie Fuller during the Reputation Tour or referencing “The Ladder,” one of the earliest lesbian publications in the United States, in her Eras Tour visuals.

During the Eras Tour, Ms. Swift traps her past selves — including those from her “Lover” era — in glass closets.

Dropped hairpins also appear in Ms. Swift’s songwriting. Sometimes, the description of a muse — the subject of her song, or to whom she sings — seems to fit only a woman, as it does in “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” “Maroon” or “Hits Different.” Sometimes she suggests a female muse through unfulfilled rhyme schemes, as she does in “The Very First Night,” when she sings “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture / they don’t know how much I miss you” (“her,” instead of that pesky little “you,” would rhyme). Her songwriting also noticeably alludes to poets whose muses the historical record incorrectly cast as men — Emily Dickinson chief among them — as if to suggest the same fate awaits her art. Stunningly, she even explicitly refers to dropping hairpins, not once, but twice, on two separate albums.

In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance. Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift’s artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us. They also suggest that her art may be far more complex than the eclipsing nature of her celebrity may allow, even now.

Since at least her “Lover” era, Ms. Swift has explicitly encouraged her fans to read into the coded messages (which she calls “Easter eggs”) she leaves in music videos, social media posts and interviews with traditional media outlets, but a majority of those fans largely ignore or discount the dropped hairpins that might hint at queer identity. For them, acknowledging even the possibility that Ms. Swift could be queer would irrevocably alter the way they connect with her celebrity, the true product they’re consuming.

There is such public devotion to the traditional narrative Ms. Swift embodies because American culture enshrines male power. In her sweeping essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” the lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich identified the way that male power cramps, hinders or devalues women’s creativity. All of the sexist undertones with which Ms. Swift’s work can be discussed (often, even, by fans) flow from compulsory heterosexuality, or the way patriarchy draws power from the presumption that women naturally desire men. She must write about men she surely loves or be unbankable; she must marry and bear children or remain a child herself; she must look like, in her words, a “sexy baby” or be undesirable, “a monster on the hill.”

A woman who loves women is most certainly a monster to a society that prizes male power. She can fulfill none of the functions that a traditional culture imagines — wife, mother, maid, mistress, whore — so she has few places in the historical record. The Sapphic possibility of her work is ignored, censored or lost to time. If there is queerness earnestly implied in Ms. Swift’s work, then it’s no wonder that it, like that of so many other artists before her, is so often rendered invisible in the public imagination.

While Ms. Swift’s songs, largely written from her own perspective, cannot always conform to the idea of a woman our culture expects, her celebrity can. That separation, between Swift the songwriter and Swift the star, allows Ms. Swift to press against the golden birdcage in which she has found herself. She can write about women’s complexity in her confessional songs, but if ever she chooses not to publicly comply with the dominant culture’s fantasy, she will remain uncategorizable, and therefore, unsellable.

Her star — as bright as it is now — would surely dim.

Whether she is conscious of it or not, Ms. Swift signals to queer people — in the language we use to communicate with one another — that she has some affinity for queer identity. There are some queer people who would say that through this sort of signaling, she has already come out, at least to us. But what about coming out in a language the rest of the public will understand?

The difference between any person coming out and a celebrity doing so is the difference between a toy mallet and a sledgehammer. It’s reasonable for celebrities to be reticent; by coming out, they potentially invite death threats, a dogged tabloid press that will track their lovers instead of their beards, the excavation of their past lives, a torrent of public criticism and the implosion of their careers. In a culture of compulsory heterosexuality, to stop lying — by omission or otherwise — is to risk everything.

American culture still expects that stars are cis and straight until they confess themselves guilty. So, when our culture imagines a celebrity’s coming out, it expects an Ellen-style announcement that will submerge the past life in phoenix fire and rebirth the celebrity in a new image. In an ideal culture, wearing a bracelet that says “PROUD,” waving a pride flag onstage, placing a rainbow in album artwork or suggestively answering fan questions on Instagram would be enough. But our current reality expects a supernova.

Because of that expectation, stars end up trapped behind glass, which is reinforced by the tabloid press’s subtle social control. That press shapes the public’s expectations of others’ identities, even when those identities are chasms away from reality. Celebrities who master this press environment — Ms. Swift included — can bolster their business, but in doing so, they reinforce a heteronormative culture that obsesses over pregnancy, women’s bodies and their relationships with men.

That environment is at odds with the American movement for L.G.B.T.Q. equality, which still has fights to win — most pressingly, enshrining trans rights and squashing nonsensical culture wars. But lately I’ve heard many of my young queer contemporaries — and the occasional star — wonder whether the movement has come far enough to dispense with the often messy, often uncomfortable process of coming out, over and over again.

That questioning speaks to an earnest conundrum that queer people confront regularly: Do we live in this world, or the world to which we ought to aspire?

Living in aspiration means ignoring the convention of coming out in favor of just … existing. This is easier for those who can pass as cis and straight if need be, those who are so wealthy or white that the burden of hiding falls to others and those who live in accepting urban enclaves. This is a queer life without friction; coming out in a way straight people can see is no longer a prerequisite for acceptance, fulfillment and equality.

This aspiration is tremendous, but in our current culture, it is available only to a privileged few. Should such an inequality of access to aspiration become the accepted state of affairs, it would leave those who can’t hide to face society’s cruelest actors without the backing of a vocal, activated community. So every queer person who takes issue with the idea that we must come out ought to ask a simple question — what do we owe one another?

If coming out is primarily supposed to be an act of self-actualization, to form our own identities, then we owe one another nothing. This posture recognizes that the act of coming out implicitly reinforces straight and cis identities as default, which is not worth the rewards of outness.

But if coming out is supposed to be a radical act of resistance that seeks to change the way our society imagines people to be, then undeniable visibility is essential to make space for those without power. In this posture, queer people who can live in aspiration owe those who cannot a real world in which our expansive views of love and gender aren’t merely tolerated but celebrated. We have no choice but to actively, vocally press against the world we’re in, until no one is stuck in it.

And so just for a little while longer, we need our heroes.

But if queer people spend all of our time holding out for a guiding light, we might forgo a more pressing question that if answered, just might inch all of us a bit closer to aspiration. The next time heroes appear, are we ready to receive them?

It takes neither a genius nor a radical to see queerness implied by Ms. Swift’s work. But figuring out how to talk about it before the star labels herself is another matter. Right now, those who do so must inject our perceptions with caveats and doubt or pretend we cannot see it (a lie!) — implicitly acquiescing to convention’s constraints in the name of solidarity.

Lying is familiar to queer people; we teach ourselves to do it from an early age, shrouding our identities from others, and ourselves. It’s not without good reason. To maintain the safety (and sometimes the comfort) of the closet, we lie to others, and, most crucially, we allow others to believe lies about us, seeing us as something other than ourselves. Lying is doubly familiar to those of us who are women. To reduce friction, so many of us still shrink life to its barest version in the name of honor or safety, rendering our lives incomplete, our minds lobotomized and our identities unexplored.

By maintaining a culture of lying about what we, uniquely, have the knowledge and experience to see, we commit ourselves to a vow of silence. That vow may protect someone’s safety, but when it is applied to works of culture, it stymies our ability to receive art that has the potential to change or disrupt us. As those with queer identity amass the power of commonplaceness, it’s worth questioning whether the purpose of one of the last great taboos that constrains us befits its cost.

In every case, is the best form of solidarity still silence?

I know that discussing the potential of a star’s queerness before a formal declaration of identity feels, to some, too salacious and gossip-fueled to be worthy of discussion. They might point to the viciousness of the discourse around “queerbaiting” (in which I have participated); to the harm caused by the tabloid press’s dalliances with outing; and, most crucially, to the real material sacrifices that queer stars make to come out, again and again, as reasons to stay silent.

I share many of these reservations. But the stories that dominate our collective imagination shape what our culture permits artists and their audiences to say and be. Every time an artist signals queerness and that transmission falls on deaf ears, that signal dies. Recognizing the possibility of queerness — while being conscious of the difference between possibility and certainty — keeps that signal alive.

So, whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s sexual orientation or gender identity (something that is knowable, perhaps, only to her) or the exact identity of her muses (something better left a mystery), choosing to acknowledge the Sapphic possibility of her work has the potential to cut an audience that is too often constrained by history, expectation and capital loose from the burdens of our culture.

To start, consider what Ms. Swift wrote in the liner notes of her 2017 album, “reputation”: “When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test.”

Listen to her. At the very least, resist the urge to assume that when Ms. Swift calls the object of her affection “you” in a song, she’s talking about a man with whom she’s been photographed. Just that simple choice opens up a world of Swiftian wordplay. She often plays with pronouns, trading “you” and “him” so that only someone looking for a distinction between two characters might find one. Turns of phrase often contain double or even triple meanings. Her work is a feast laid specifically for the close listener.

Choosing to read closely can also train the mind to resist the image of an unmarried woman that compulsory heterosexuality expects. And even if it is only her audience who points at rainbows, reading Ms. Swift’s work as queer is still worthwhile, for it undermines the assumption that queer identity impedes pop superstardom, paving the way for an out artist to have the success Ms. Swift has.

After all, would it truly be better to wait to talk about any of this for 50, 60, 70 years, until Ms. Swift whispers her life story to a biographer? Or for a century or more, when Ms. Swift’s grandniece donates her diaries to some academic library, for scholars to pore over? To ensure that mea culpas come only when Ms. Swift’s bones have turned to dust and fragments of her songs float away on memory’s summer breeze?

I think not. And so, I must say, as loudly as I can, “I can see you,” even if I risk foolishness for doing so.

I remember the first time I knew I had seen Taylor Alison Swift break free from the trap of stardom. I wasn’t sitting in a crowded stadium in the pouring rain or cuddled up in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn. I was watching a grainy, crackling livestream of the Eras Tour, captured on a fan’s phone.

It’s late at night, the beginning of her acoustic set of surprise songs, this time performed in a yellow dress. She begins playing “Hits Different.” It’s a new song, full of puns, double entendres and wordplay, that toys with the glittering identities in which Ms. Swift indulges.

She’s rushing, as if stopping, even for a second, will cause her to lose her nerve. She stumbles at the bridge, pauses and starts again; the queen of bridges will not mess this up, not tonight.

There it is, at the bridge’s end: “Bet I could still melt your world; argumentative, antithetical dream girl.” An undeniable declaration of love to a woman. As soon as those words leave her lips, she lets out a whoop, pacing around the stage with a grin that cannot be contained.

For a moment, Ms. Swift was out of the woods she had created for herself as a teenager, floating above the trees. The future was within reach; she would, and will, soon take back the rest of her words, her reputation, her name. Maybe the world would see her, maybe it wouldn’t.

But on that stage, she found herself. I was there. Through a fuzzy fancam, I saw it.

And somehow, that was everything.

[aromanticbuck]

(rough) Tommy Kinard Timeline*

*based on math that Kit and I have done, and other logic regarding... events

1979 - Tommy is born

1997 - (age 18) Tommy enlists in the military

1997-2001 - (age 18-22) standard contract with the army

2001-2003 - (age 22-24) continued time in the army due to events that happened in 2001

2004 - (age 25) finishes firefighter academy

2004-2005 - (age 25-26) probationary year with the 118

2006 - (age 27) Chimney joins 118

2009 - (age 30) Hen joins 118

2014 - (age 35) Bobby joins 118

2017 - (age 38) Tommy leaves 118, Buck joins 118

April 2019 - (age 40) Chimney calls him to do the flyover

2020 - (age 41) Chimney still chats with him, is mentioned to still be in contact

2024 - (age 45) steals a helicopter to help the 118 save Bobby and Athena

[throwbackgaylor]

april 26, 2019 | five years ago today

taylor released the music video for ‘ME!’

the clock behind brendon urie was set to 8:30pm

taylor often uses the numbers 8 and 3 together as a reference to karlie kloss’s birthday, august 3rd

[ltwilliammowett]

She is a bit shy in door 8 today, but a very pretty French girl - L'Hermione

Départ de La frégate Hermione Lafayette du port de Brest, Fort du Dellec, 2019

More about her here:

Hermione is the name of the French frigate with which the Marquis de La Fayette returned to Boston in 1780 to support the American colonists in their fight for independence. The ship was completed in 1779 in the naval arsenal of Rochefort in a construction period of just eleven months, based on plans by Henri Chevillard and identical in construction to three other ships (la Courageuse, la Concorde, la Fée). These new light frigates were characterised by their manoeuvrability and speed. The Hermione was equipped with 26 cannons that could fire projectiles weighing 12 French pounds "poid de marc" (489.5 g). This is where the name "twelve-gun frigate" comes from. She also carried six or eight six-pounder guns. The empty weight was 1166 tonnes, the hull length 44.2 m, the overall length 65 m, the width 11.55 m and the depth 5.78 m. A sail area of more than 1500 m² was spread over three masts.

She experienced several battles and when the First Coalition War broke out on 20 April 1792, the Hermione returned to active service under Captain Martin. From 7 May 1793, she escorted convoys between Bayonne and Brest. In September 1793, she was tasked with escorting a convoy between the Loire estuary and the streets of Brest. On 20 September 1793, she ran aground off Le Croisic. The Hermione had a serious leak in the hull and could not be refloated in the receding tide. The crew threw 12 cannons and anchors overboard to stabilise the ship. The rising sea lifted the Hermione for a while, but she was so damaged that she could no longer pump water and sank to the bottom, where her hull began to disintegrate. At 1000 hours the next morning, Martin evacuated his crew in several fishing boats that had come to the rescue, salvaging as much equipment as possible, and was the last to leave the frigate.

The court martial that followed the wreck found the frigate's pilot, Guillaume Guillemin du Conquet, responsible for the frigate's loss; its commander, Captain Martin, was honourably acquitted.

A replica of the frigate has been under construction in a dry dock at the former Rochefort naval arsenal since 1997. As the original construction plans had been burnt for safety reasons, new plans had to be drawn up. The plans of a sister ship from the British Naval Museum, the Concorde, served as a model. The reconstruction of the Hermione was financed in part by the proceeds from the survey, grants from the French government and the EU as well as donations.

After its completion, the Hermione was launched in 2014. She left her building dock in early September 2014 for initial sea trials off the French Atlantic coast and sailed to North America in 2015, where she stayed for four months before sailing back. From 2 February 2018, the Hermione undertook a second major sea voyage from Rochefort to the Mediterranean via Tangier, Sète, Marseille and Toulon.

[mermaidinthecity]

April 26, 2019

[rammingthestein]

🔥 ON THIS DAY🔥

26 APRIL 2019

The music video for Radio is released. Lyrically, the song addresses the cultural situation of the German Democratic Republic, where listening to Western radio stations and their music was illegal.

People would use their radios to pick up stations on the western side of the border, which was often their only connection to the rest of the world, in secret.

The video opens with a radio announcement (absent in the album version) that says "Achtung, Achtung. Hier ist Berlin Königs Wusterhausen und der Deutsche Kurzwellensender. Wir senden Tanzmusik", which translates as "Attention, Attention. This is Berlin Königs Wusterhausen and the German shortwave transmitter. We're broadcasting dance music". Königs Wusterhausen is the site where the first German radio transmitter was built in 1920. In 1933, it was seized by the Nazis to broadcast propaganda. After the Reunification of Germany, it became a museum.