#guilty as sin

[clockworkbee]

Regulus Guilty as Sin Black

[a-polaroid-of-us-jpg]

1 week with the manuscript 🤍

The Tortured Poets Department

@taylorswift @taylornation

[rachgreenes]

how can i be guilty as sin?

[midnightsslut]

religion is one of the most prominent recurring themes on the album, and it has been present in some capacity for quite a few records now. taylor previously compared love to religion: her saving grace, her belief system, and a fated divine intervention (false god, cornelia street, and cruel summer are the best examples of this). ‘sacred new beginnings that became my religion’ and ‘we’d still worship this love even if it’s a false god’ are two of the defining statements about her philosophy on the lover album.

taylor doesn’t want to leave all of that behind on ttpd, at least not at the beginning. the first supernatural force she mentions is the spaceship on down bad, which she compares to a skylight of freedom in the epilogue. *something* has finally come to save her from her life of suffering. she doesn’t care if it’s a force of good at first; if anything, she’s just fine being taken away by aliens. she views this man as her destiny. it isn’t until guilty as sin? that taylor starts to ponder the moral implications of what she’s doing. is she guilty as sin for wanting to leave her previous religion and relationship behind? she comes to the conclusion that, even if she rolls the stone away and gets resurrected/redeemed, she cannot avoid the fallout. she is okay with the thought of having to wait, as long as both lovers vow to be together forever, just as she once did with someone else in false god. ‘I choose you and me religiously’ finishes the bridge of the song in a direct callback to cornelia street.

the next mention of religion has murkier imagery. she claims that she does not need the Lord’s help to save this man. she sees the halo that he has, and she can fix him herself. now that she feels free of her prior cage, she isn’t looking for divine intervention anymore. she wants control. she is their route to salvation.

when the relationship falls apart, she retreats back into the position of a believer rather than a divine figure. she compares him to a Holy Ghost who promised to save her and take her to heaven. instead, she is in hell in every sense of the word: she’s down bad and feels guilty for digging up the grave. he was a jehovah’s witness who promised that she could break free of the cage imposed by love without changing her religion altogether; she would’ve just had to switch denominations. she could still have a marriage and kids! she could still have a blue tortured poet! the man was different, but not the dreams they had together. the story of the first part of the album ends here. her faith has been broken, and she has only found any semblance of sanity by refusing to mention these belief systems altogether.

side b/the anthology blends the christian imagery of side a with goddesses, sorcerers, and prophecies. she bargains with these powers to let her have the future she wants (the prophecy). she doesn’t sound like someone believing in salvation. if anything, she feels cursed. she decides that the concept of divinely ordained timing will never work in certain relationships (‘the goddess of timing once found us beguiling / she said she was trying / peter, was she lying?’). this disdain extends onto her perception of other people’s faith (‘bet they never spared a prayer for my soul’). she does position herself as a prophet in cassandra, but even then, she admits that the role has hurt her. perhaps the pain in thank you aimee was meant to be, or perhaps she was just strong enough to build a legacy in spite of it, boulder by boulder. is she a martyr? does she want to be? or did she save herself?

the only real love song on this half of the album makes no mention of fate or any divine forces. it wasn’t meant to be. it’s not a supernatural invisible string or lightning in a bottle. she is just in love.

the album ends with the manuscript, which revisits an old story of a defining, formative heartbreak. as she sings ‘at last, she knew what the agony had been for’ while describing the legacy of her writing, she seems to revert to thinking about the purpose of trauma. the only exception is that, in this case, she is the one who found meaning in her pain by turning it into a manuscript. writing is her belief system now, and she proselytizes by telling her stories and thus giving up the manuscript.

ultimately, her belief in destiny has chewed her up and spat her out. she so desperately clung to her existing belief systems that she was fooled by a conman, which left her feeling cursed. religion is supposed to be with someone even in their darkest moments, but the album explains that taylor often felt abandoned. the only constant in her life was, well, herself. she’ll be okay, but her pen will be her saving grace.

[makethemhoesmad]

mine…

paige bueckers x reader

lol wrote this in 10 minutes

@lucespeaks this one’s for u

“hey, do you have, like, a marker or something?” what the fuck is paige on? she just fucked my brains out, and now, just as i’m falling asleep, she asks a dumb question like that. “why would you need that,” i ask, turning in her arms to look at her. “just give me a marker, please baby.” i groan, looking on my floor and seeing a red sharpie near my bed, for whatever reason. “good girl,” she mutters, pressing a kiss to my shoulder as she sinks under the blankets. i feel her cold hand moving over my bare upper thigh, then the felt tip of the pen. my stomach swoops, like it always does when she touches me like this. i hear her cap the marker, then leave a few wet kisses around it. her head surfaces the blanket, and she pulls me into her like nothing happened.

“paige, baby, what did you write?”

she grins with her eyes closed, whispering “mine,” against my neck

[tswiftupdatess]

Taylor Swift for 'THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT'

[hits-differently]

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

I know I’m slow to catch up but are we gonna talk about how Taylor told us she has all her horniest gay lyrics looked up in the rep vault?? 👀

There are more than the ones we got? More explicit than taking your dress off for your ‘best friend’ and wearing her like a necklace??? 👀😏

Oh I just know Taylor has some Fletcher/Chapell Roan level gay bangers in that vault and I’m sat for when she releases them!

Btw this is the ICDIWABH lyric video when the crowd is chanting MORE (with the rep/karma vault taylor descending in her glass box). They had the whole 3 hour show to choose from and this is the shot they’ve chosen:

[wewilldanceandsing]

[bloomingdarkgarden]

Elain wants to burn in Azriel's hellfire and Sarah, myself, and Taylor are right there with her.

[cruel-style]

My bedsheets are ablaze, I screamed his name building up like waves crashing over my grave.

[torturedbitchesdepartment]

the tortured poets department as pictures of snoopy

fortnight:

the tortured poets department:

my boy only breaks his favorite toys:

down bad:

so long, london:

but daddy i love him:

fresh out the slammer:

florida!!!:

florence is woodstock

guilty as sin?:

who's afraid of little old me?:

i can fix him (no really i can):

loml:

i can do it with a broken heart:

the smallest man who ever lived:

the alchemy:

clara bow:

[self-made-cages]

I know Carolina was written about that swamp movie but I can’t get, “Why for years they’ve said / that I was guilty as sin / and sleep in a liar’s bed,” out of my head. Feels newly relevant given the tortured poets of it all…

[midnightsslut]

why isn’t anyone talking about the albatross? you’re told to stay away from her, but she keeps haunting you. she’s the mastermind who anoints you with liquor. you can try to lock her up, but she’s the poison you picked. you cannot cage her. she is compared to the devil for being cautious. she ultimately still flies free and takes you with her to protect you. it’s like imgonnagetyouback meets cassandra, guilty as sin meets but daddy I love him, because she’s felt equally caged by love and fame.

[keepingsecretstokeepyoutk]

So guilty as sin is bananas? I’ve only listened twice, but the verses are closeted as fuck but I haven’t made sense of the chorus yet

“No such thing as bad thoughts/actions talk” is so “gay thoughts are fine you just can’t act on them”

“What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy”????????????????

Also “roll the stone away” like resurrecting her public relationship with the one and only Karlie Kloss??

“I dream of cracking locks/throwing my life to the wolves or ocean rocks” DO IT GIRL

[m0ther-of-p3arl]

holy shit yeah ok thats how you write an album

i'm in shock

this shit is fucking. it's so good. i'm