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pridepages · 2 years

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Power Play: The Unbroken

I just finished CL Clark’s The Unbroken. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

Let’s get it out there: this book was not my cup of LGBTea. CL Clark’s high fantasy The Unbroken initially drew me in because of its premise: an evil Empire, an oppressed people in rebellion, a young soldier who finds herself changing sides, a romance between the soldier and the crown princess.

It sounds like the perfect formula. But what we end up getting is an extensive discourse on military strategy and fictional politics. Think Game of Thrones, but there aren’t any dragons. Worse still, the gestures in the direction of a sapphic romance are about as compelling as sawdust. In the end, I had to accept that this wasn’t actually a queer book. Rather, the novel is about the evils of colonialism featuring some queer characters.

The story revolves around Touraine, a soldier who was abducted as a child from her home country of Qazal. She was then pressed into service as a soldier for the empire of Balladaire, which had previously conquered Qazal. As the narrative begins, Touraine returns to Qazal for the first time as an adult. She comes as part of the regiments accompanying Balladaire’s Crown Princess, Luca Ancier. Princess Luca has been sent to Qazal by the regent, her Uncle Nicolas. Luca fears that her uncle is unlikely to surrender the throne at all. Luca wishes to strengthen her claim by showing that she can regain control of Qazal by putting down the rebellion. Rather than send in the soldiers for a bloody repression, Luca’s initial plan is to forge a tacit alliance with the rebels. To do so, she enlists Touraine’s help as a go-between.

Clark would have us believe that Touraine and Luca begin to fall in love over the course of this mission. But there’s a flaw in this plan. Luca is, objectively, terrible. She is the face of an oppressive regime. Yet, when the rebels refuse to just go along and get along, Luca actually says with a straight face: “If they wanted allies, they would behave better.”

Luca tries to keep insisting that there can be a peaceful end to the tensions between Balladaire and Qazal. “If you want to end the bloodshed, you tell the rebels to stand down and be patient...The words rang true, but just to a point, and only from one point of view.” Condemning direct action can be a tool toward further oppression. By vilifying the people who refuse to go quietly, oppressors can coddle society with little conciliatory gestures while at the the same time they stymie efforts at real, systemic change.

Besides, for all her grand words and ideals, Luca always makes sure Balladaire comes first. “I won’t abandon my people, Touraine. But I also don’t want to come to them empty handed.” Luca says, which forces Touraine to draw some obvious conclusions: “So you’d steal from someone else, just to give to Balladaire...She could see the shape of empire in Luca’s words.”

This is the nature of empire: conquerers are the ultimate entitled. They take and take while insisting that there is a possibility of a friendship with their conquered. But at the foundation of friendship is equality. There cannot possibly be equality between one party that lives with its boot on the other’s neck. Which is exactly what Touraine finally realizes as she begins to shift her alliance from Balladaire to the Qazali rebels: “Our friends?...what have you done for them except finally treat them like humans? ...Is everything yours for the taking? Do you care about anyone but yourself?”

Luca keeps trying to cloak her appalling selfishness in necessity. “I am my throne. You stupid, stupid woman.” Luca rants. “I was born to this, raised for it, and I have fought for it this year harder than I have ever fought for anything. There is more at stake here than who I want to fuck, and I have made sacrifices because of that.” But at no time do we actually see her fight. We see her sneak and scrape and coddle the colonizer nobility while double dealing with rebels NOT because she genuinely wants the Qazali to be better off, but only because they have access to a resource she wants: magic.

At one point, Luca is asked the question outright: “If you were queen and had all the power of the realm to do what you will, would you leave Qazal? ...If she was unwilling to leave, there would be no peace short of physically crushing the rebellion. Otherwise...everyone else would fight Balladaire, fight her until they had what they wanted or died for it.”

Luca only ever considers success as a world in which the empire maintains its status quo. Touraine is dead right when she accuses Luca: “You can’t be yourself unless you have a leash in your hand, and there’s always got to be someone attached to it.”

For Luca, people are literally game pieces. She only ever talks strategy, and the reader is meant to be convinced that she just...gives up at the end of the novel? Agrees after a demonstration of magic that it’s time to retreat? It doesn’t really make sense. Neither does the love story because how could Touraine, who is starting to realize just how much she’s been robbed of: a country, a family, even her proper name (Hanan), could somehow overlook all that and feel romantic desire for her even though for 99% of the book Luca shows no sign of changing.

Clark has written a very necessary critique of European colonial attitudes. Her Balladaire clearly has been influenced by France, possibly Belgium, and how these countries treated African people. In Hanan Touraine, a study has been made of what happens to the lost ones: the people uprooted from their culture, raised in another, and then finding themselves alien to--and rejected by--both. And there is a legitimate call for books that feature queer people without their queerness necessarily being the focus of the book. I think the real difficulty here is in connecting with most of the characters. While Hanan Touraine is heartbreakingly, fully realized as a displaced person, she is the only character that has emotional depths. Most of the supporting cast barely gets more that surface development. And Luca in her stubborn singleminded goal to uphold the status quo is unbearable. I would actually have preferred to have access only to the Touraine side of the story and get rid of the Luca side completely.

But, in the end, I’m not sorry I read the book. Supporting our queer siblings is vital, especially when they want to speak to an intersectional experience. Luca’s queer experience as a white woman of privilege, as a conqueror, may not be easy, but it still doesn’t look anything like the challenges Hanan Touraine faces as a queer woman of color, enslaved, alienated, and fighting for her right to survive. Power is not a game we play. Power is in structures that we can choose to maintain or join in the fight to learn and unmake.

#lgbt reads #queer lit #cl clark #the unbroken #sapphic #wlw

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zeldahime · 4 years

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Prompt (list linked in a reblog): You live across from me in our apartments and we smile when we see each other but we don’t really know each other and oh you’re the stripper at my friend’s stag do/hen night fuck this is really uncomfortable

Sapphic!XiYao, 1900 words.

***

Lan Xichen's across-the-hall neighbor, a small, delicate girl named Meng Yao, left her apartment for work at the same time Xichen arrived home most days; her days off were Tuesday and Wednesday, and Xichen's were Saturday and Sunday, but they still managed to see each other nearly every day.

They saw each other and talked often, little tidbits of their lives, but they'd never truly spoken.

Meng Yao knew, for example, nearly every detail of Xichen's sister's love drama, that she was getting married in two weeks, that her and her fiancée's bachelorette parties were being organized so that each bride could have a party they actually enjoyed. Meng Yao did not know, for example, that Xichen was being teased by her sister's fiancée for her own inability to ask her cute neighbor out on a date.

As Xichen left her apartment on Saturday night, ready for a night on the town with Wei Wuxian and company, Meng Yao was locking her own door, in her regular commuting wear.

("You wear jeans to work?" Xichen had once asked her, curious.

"Oh, I change when I get there. Dancing in these would be so impractical." Her laughter was beautiful.)

As Meng Yao had turned around, she looked ready to say something, lips slightly parted. Whatever words she had been about to say stayed hidden behind them, however, as she slowly gave Xichen a once-over and, finally, looked up at her through her eyelashes and smiled. Lan Xichen had never worn anything less casual than a full suit in front of Meng Yao before; standing before her in a tank top that said "...so we're getting DRUNK" and light wash jeans felt almost more revealing than if she were standing in the hall naked.

"It must be your sister's bachelorette party tonight?" she asked, and Xichen blushed to the tips of her ears.

"Her fiancée's," she managed to say in a conversational tone of voice. "Wangji's was last night. We just had dinner, but a-Sang organized a-Xian's, and I am given to understand it will be considerably more exciting."

"I hope you have fun," Meng Yao said with another dimpled smile. Before Xichen could gather her thoughts enough to answer, Meng Yao was already gone, her wave of black silk hair flowing behind her.

***

At first, Lan Xichen thought that Wei Wuxian's solution to the problem of her and Wangji having all the same friends was perfectly fine. One bachelorette party for Wangji on Friday, which would be planned by Lan Xichen; another for Wei Wuxian on Saturday, which would be planned by Nie Huaisang.

Wangji's bachelorette party had gone swimmingly; a nice dinner, with wine for the guests and sparkling cider for the family, understated and quiet and over by eight.

Wei Wuxian's was also going well, if her and Huaisang's smiling faces were anything to judge by. Lan Xichen sipped her virgin margarita and smiled, watching her soon-to-be sister go from a sober friendliness to unmitigated, unguarded, freely-given affection as she cultivated her happiness at her upcoming wedding into a golden glow of love, pulling everyone around her into her orbit. Even Mingjue-jie and Jiang Wanyin, whose perpetual scowls were being ground down into fond smiles, were not immune.

They were entering their fourth club of the night when Huaisang, flushed pink, announced that the party had officially begun, and drug them into what had been listed on the itinerary as "dancing ;)".

There was, indeed, dancing. They were not the ones dancing.

"Wow, SangSang, do you think I could do that?" Wei Wuxian slurred out, attempting a high-kick as the girl on stage began what looked to Xichen like a arabesque penché, before wrapping her working leg around the pole and lifting the rest of her body into the air. Wei Wuxian stumbled into Jiang Wanyin, who rolled their eyes as they caught her.

Lan Xichen did not hear what a-Sang thought, but she was reasonably sure that Wei Wuxian could not, in fact, do that.

They were herded by an enthusiastic Huaisang and a member of the staff into "the bachelorette suite," which Xichen was reasonably sure by the expression on the face of the.... maître'd? was actually more commonly reserved for groups of cisgender straight men than groups of queers with four genders between them.

The decorations in the room were clearly chosen by Huaisang, consistent with the rest of the night's theming: black and scarlet and gold, with penis-shaped balloons even though neither of the brides had those, and a banner hung behind the stage with "Last Fling Before The Ring" printed in the same cursive font as their matching shirts.

A maypole with white and gold ribbons stood alone on the stage as they sat in the chairs, arranged in a U, with Wei Wuxian at the center and a-Sang and Jiang Wanyin on either side of her. Mingjue-jie and Jiang Yanli sat on either side of their siblings. Xichen thought that sitting between Mingjue, who was clearly confused, and Wen Ning, who looked as awkward as Xichen felt, would be the best way to hopefully avoid the largest part of the attention.

As the music began, their dancer walked out onto the stage, wearing a long, sleek silk robe with a flower motif, her hair held in place above her head with a matching lobster clip. She approached the center of the stage, face pointed down, and body held still.

The music began, and four counts in, she snapped her head up, and began to move.

Meng Yao.

With a snap and a flourish, her robe fell to the floor and heat rose in Xichen's face at her neighbor in skin-tight leather, twirling one of the maypole ribbons around her finger. Xichen definitely should not be seeing this. If Meng Yao wanted her to know that she worked in such a place, she would have told her. But to get up and leave in the middle of a performance, especially in such a small audience, would be the height of rudeness. If someone she knew left while she was performing a recital, it would shake her.

So she stayed and tried not to be aroused as Meng Yao drew the ribbons off the pole, delivering the first to Wei Wuxian with a teasing kiss on the cheek, to the rest of them -- finally, to her, with the barest touch of her fingers against Xichen's jaw, tilting her face up as though for a kiss and then pulling away, leaving a trail of electricity in her wake. Xichen crossed her legs and recited all 3000 rules of the Lan Academy for Girls, the periodic table of elements, all mutliples of 12. She was, unfortunately, completely unsuccessful in thinking of anything distracting once Meng Yao began to dance on the now-ribbonless maypole. Which, in retrospect, was clearly not a maypole at all.

Very fortunately for Xichen's sanity, even while drunk Wei Wuxian had no desire to do anything that might in her mind count as cheating on Wangji, and she finally connected the dots.

"SangSang," she whispered very loudly, "this is a strip club, isn't it? We should go home, SangSang-- a-Cheng! Hi! We should go home before Lan Zhan catches us, a-Cheng, we're breaking the rules and I care about this rule, a-Cheng."

Jiang Yanli, bless her heart, was on her feet and helping her giggling sister out of the club immediately, and gradually everyone else cleared out as well, until it Xichen was the only one left. She wasn't sure her legs would work when she stood up.

"I'm sorry about.... this." Xichen said to Meng Yao, as she sat primly on the edge of the stage. "I understand tipping is customary but I'm not sure...."

"Usually small bills as I dance," Meng Yao said quietly. "Don't worry about it, SangSang will make sure I get what I would have earned. We have a standing deal."

"Ah."

Awkward silence settled over them as they continued to sit in a room filled with dick-balloons.

"I am a dancer," Meng Yao said suddenly. "I didn't lie to you. I did ballet until I was 16, and I still --"

"This is dancing," Xichen said. She met Meng Yao's eyes, disregarding the blush she felt renewing itself under her skin. "Just because it isn't ballet doesn't mean it's somehow not dance." Meng Yao's eyes went wide, almost perfectly round, before she looks at the ground again.

"Would you like to see? Your friends had me for the next hour and a half, and I don't need to go out on the floor tonight. With events like this we get the rest of the night off."

Xichen nodded. "If you want to show me. I'd like that."

Meng Yao smiled slowly, and put her discarded robe on one of the chairs. She didn't turn the music back on. Instead, she stood on the stage, counted to eight, and simply moved.

She went slowly, her mastery of every muscle in her body evident as she held positions that should overbalance her, sensuously tracing over every curve and line with a delicate hand. She bent her body in ways that Xichen didn't know were possible, with the grace of an angel and a sweetly seductive smile on her face. She spun herself around the pole using only one hand to support herself.

Xichen's legs were crossed very tightly at the ankle as she reminded herself to appreciate the dance's artistic merit. It was not difficult to do so -- it was a beautiful and physically demanding thing, executed with technical precision. It was also extraordinarily sexy. Which, she supposed, added to its merit further.

Then, coming off the pole, Meng Yao smirked, and Lan Xichen's breath caught in her throat as she curtseyed, skin shiny with sweat and hair slightly mussed in its clip. As Xichen sat stunned, Meng Yao's smirk faded, and she suddenly grabbed her robe and hurriedly put it on, reaching for the door.

"Well, I hope that was a good demonstration, Lan Xichen," Meng Yao said. "I suppose I'll see you... eventually. At home."

"Wait," Xichen said, before Meng Yao could leave without somehow knowing that this didn't have to change anything, didn't have to cast them back into strangers. "I'm going to call a rideshare. You take the bus home, don't you? You can ride with me. We're going to the same place."

Meng Yao's hand paused over the doorknob. "I still have to change back into street clothes."

It wasn't a no.

"I'll wait," Xichen promised. "I'll wait for you to be ready."

They traveled in electric silence. Lan Xichen's throat was dry, and she understood now why people called this feeling "thirst," and her crush on Meng Yao seemed so heavy in the air between them that it truly was a wonder she had agreed. When they reached their apartments, Xichen could barely stand to say goodbye.

So, when she opened her mouth, goodbye was not what came out, but "Would you like some tea?"

Meng Yao smiled one of her fragile, genuine smiles and said yes.

#xiyao #lan xichen #meng yao #jin guangyao #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #cql #63zun #my writing #one shot

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bisluthq · 4 years

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hi I was wondering what your favourite sapphic songs of Taylor's are? cause kaylors make such a big deal of the 'male perspective' in songs like our song, love story, mine. and I agree that wanting to experience that is gay in itself. but those songs just feel so straight country love songs that I really cannot see them as sapphic, particularly given that she also sings from the 'female perspective' to the man. so I wondered which songs feel most sapphic to you?

Ohh boy yeah the male perspective (except Betty where it’s gay in concept and feels very like when 15 year old me was obsessed with Blue Mountain State lmao) never screams gay to me. Let’s do a roundup of sapphic lyrics and themes.

In Teardrops on My Guitar, Taylor says: “Drew walks by me... Can he tell that I can't breathe? And there he goes, so perfectly... The kind of flawless I wish I could be.” Now the whole song’s unseen pining is pretty gay to me. Like I say, there are unrequited straight songs but it’s very like... “why aren’t you understanding that I’m right here? How can you be so blind?” In Teardrops Taylor seems very aware that this person (well boy in the song) won’t ever notice her.

And sure we could say “well she has poor self-confidence” but then there’s that line in the bit I chose: “The kind of flawless I wish I could be” - why is she comparing herself to a boy? Do I want to be you or do I want to fuck you is such a big mood for queer women especially young queer women. I dunno, like my first few late elementary/early middle school crushes (and my first few crushes were on girls) were very like: “Do I want to be her? Do I want to be her best friend? Or do I want her to hold my hand? And why does her holding my hand make my heart beat faster and seem to have no effect on her?” There’s a definite way queer women compare ourselves to the object of our affections that straight women don’t seem to do that makes “my crush is the kind of flawless I wish I could be” feel extremely sapphic to me.

Oh bonus one from Teardrops: “The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star / He's the song in the car I keep singing. Don't know why I do” - why doesn’t she know? Like what’s confusing about this situation? She likes this dude why is it such a big fucking deal that she does? And again why does she want to be like him?

Anyway yeah that whole song.

Also Invisible is gay af. Like if you reverse the pronouns it’s the universal queer woman’s story of being in love with your friend. And this bitch is into some dude who isn’t anywhere near good enough for her and your affections are invisible but if she only knew - and she won’t - the two of you could have something beautiful together.

Stay Beautiful also reads gay but apparently she wrote it in the fourth grade so maybe her vocab was just bad idk.

On that album, Tied Together with a Smile and I’m Only Me When I’m With You are formally, officially, according to Tay’s explanations about her female friends btw. If you listen to those two songs and then the first two I listed they’re... not that fucking different lmao. It’s that same idea of “you get me and I just want you to be happy”. It’s all just... gay...

Fearless is probably one of the least gay albums overall IMO (tho I’m open to people making stuff gay) but it does give us the title track which is very fucking gay lol so it makes up for the number of straight sounding songs on here. First there’s this bit:

We're drivin' down the road

I wonder if you know

I'm tryin' so hard not to get caught up now

But you're just so cool

Run your hands through your hair

Absent-mindedly makin' me want you

Man “I wonder if you know” is exactly that feeling I was describing like, I wonder if you realize this is more than friendship? I wonder if you know that I want you. And the “you’re just so cool” isn’t as explicitly “I want to be you” but it’s also got some of that shared energy. This person is so cool that them running their hand absent-mindedly through their hair is making her feel some type of way and yet she’s not sure if the person knows that. Now why wouldn’t this extremely cool guy know that the girl he’s giving a lift to is possibly interested?

Then there’s this bit:

My hands shake

I'm not usually this way

But you pull me in and I'm a little more brave

It's the first kiss,

It's flawless,

Really something,

It's fearless.

Why does this first kiss require so much bravery? It’s not her first ever because “I’m not usually this way” implies she has been in a similar position before. And then:

And I don't know why but with you I'd dance in a storm in my best dress

Fearless

“I don’t know why” - well because you like this person! Girl, you’re into them. Oh, you’re not sure why because it’s a girl? Also lbr discussing clothes with your crush/partner is a very gay girl thing so just that addition of “my best dress” in the context of the rest of this incredibly gay song is... gay...

Oh and a bonus point:

'Cause I don't know how it gets better than this

You take my hand and drag me head first

Fearless

Making that big a deal of handholding and saying it requires bravery is, you guessed it, gay af.

Untouchable also delivers some gems: “Untouchable like a distant diamond sky / I'm reaching out and I just can't tell you why / I'm caught up in you” - I mean this is that whole vague confused forbidden vibes I spoke about before and the “And when you're close I feel like coming undone”. For me, it’s the fact that this person’s mere presence is enough to make her undone and she’s begging for a “taste of Heaven” feels... gay...

Jump Then Fall is also pretty damn gay to me. It’s got that dangerous “this could be dangerous” thing going on (“I had time to think it all over and all I can say is come closer”) but it’s also positive and... she’s saying jump and I’ll catch you which... like I get that it could be metaphorical but generally with het couples the dude would do the catching. Like if it was just that it’d not be that gay but again, the whole thing... is...

Whoa, oh, I need you baby

Don't be afraid, please,

Jump then fall

Jump then fall into me

Baby, I'm never gonna leave you

Say that you wanna be with me too

'Cause I'mma stay through it all

So jump then fall

Jump then fall, baby,

Jump then fall into me, into me

Like why are they both so scared? Why is she convincing herself and this person? What’s the danger? Is it just meant to be a “loss of virginity” song?

Then there’s the catching bit I mentioned:

The bottom's gonna drop out from under our feet

I'll catch you, I'll catch you

When people say things that bring you to your knees

I'll catch you

Idk man. It’s gay.

By the way for two unrequited songs that fundamentally feel straight to me, look at The Other Side of the Door and You Belong With Me. I’m not saying you can’t have queer readings. But both of them have that “blame” angle to the guy’s lack of interest or inability to requite her feelings. Like she’s saying “I won’t tell you what I want or that I want you but you should figure it out ya big dummy!” which is inherently different to that “I know this is completely pointless and I’m barking up the wrong tree” energy of the other songs I mentioned. “I’m worried you’ll hurt me” songs are also different to “if you stand close to me I’ll completely fall apart but I can’t let you see” of... like... Untouchable.

Hey Stephen has the “I can't help it if you look like an angel” line but it’s generally straight for me because:

Hey, Stephen,

I could give you fifty reasons

Why I should be the one you choose.

All those other girls—

Well, they're beautiful,

But would they write a song for you?

Do you see what I mean it’s like “I know you might not want me but you should” and that’s not a sapphic vibe. Like that’s to me what makes her gay sounding songs so much gayer like they capture a very specific feeling - being confused on if you want to be her, be her friend or fuck her dumb ass.

On Speak Now Taylor adds another type of gayness into her repertoire. She does the “I’m singing about a guy but it’s all about a girl” thing in Better Than Revenge. Now I know she has been called out a lot for this and she herself has now said obvi girls don’t steal your boyfriend BUT that’s not the part I find interesting. It’s shit like: “She thinks I'm psycho 'cause I like to rhyme her name with things” - like girl, that is psycho. Being obsessed with the fact that she is wearing vintage dresses is weird. And Taylor does this in the title track with her lengthy descriptions of the bridge compared to ZERO description of the guy. Not even “looking so handsome” - like there’s nothing. But the bride is “floating down the aisle like a pageant queen”.

Idk this is only three albums and only like my favorite gay bits and I already have so many and I haven’t even gotten to Treacherous 😭 I think I should make a hashtag for this and carry on later.

The point is, for me, it’s not about her singing a back and forth with a guy and a girl. It’s capturing supremely sapphic wlw feelings that I’ve never seen a straight female songwriter or musician convey, even where I’ve loved their music and felt it strongly resonated with me for other reasons.

#sapphic themes in tay’s music #early gaylor vibes

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mercuryonparklane · 4 years

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An attempt at objectivity on the topic of Tayliz/a summary: Part 2

(Kind of...)

I’ve been busy with irl stuff the last week, so I haven’t been posting much lately. I finally have a day where I have nothing else to do and I’ve been considering making a post about where I currently stand on Tayliz/Gaylor in general for a while, so I thought now would be a good time to do that.

Disclaimer: I don’t know any of these people personally and this is all my own interpretation of publicly available information. I apologize for the length of this post...

I’ve been a Taylor fan since 2006 and a Gaylor since at least early 2009 when I was posting fanfics on LiveJournal (I stopped writing rpf a long time ago, btw). I’ve been in and out of the Gaylor fandom since then. I’ve created and deleted multiple blogs/accounts in the past 12+ years. I was mostly active between 2009 and 2015, but I did a lot of lurking during that time and only engaged when I felt I had something to contribute. 2015/2016 was a crazy time and I was going through some of my own stuff, so I stopped following Gaylor as closely for a while. I listened to reputation and Lover, I read the Gaylor theories, made a couple comments, and moved along. When folklore was released it drew me back in.

I created this blog in September 2020, before I even had an inkling that Liz might be more than just another name that has been thrown into the potential exes list, along with Claire C. and Kellie (I don’t believe either of those two had anything beyond friendship with Taylor). I had never looked into it too much because it seemed like there was not as much information as there was for the main 3 (Emily, Dianna, and Karlie). Now, after researching Tayliz for 5 months, I believe there is at least as much, if not more, to go on as there is for the main 3.

As for Taymily, I believe that, at the very least, Taylor had a massive crush on Emily. I don’t like to get too in-depth about that because there is a very suspect age gap. I’m not saying that those things don’t happen, but I will reiterate my statement from an earlier post that I am not comfortable essentially accusing someone of committing a crime when all that can be deciphered is that Taylor seemed to really care about her. I do think there are multiple songs about Emily.

I also believe that Taylor did date Dianna and possibly had some kind of relationship with Karlie. I think both of these possible relationships are long over at this point. Taylor may have been looking back on those relationships (along with others) in her last few albums.

I still personally think it is possible that Taylor is a lesbian, but there are reasons to think she might be bi and I understand why people think that she is. I don’t really talk about the guys Taylor may have dated, but I will say that, to me, all of the boyfriends she had after high school seem like beards. I could be wrong, of course. There are way too many signs that she is queer for me to not think that she is at least bi.

There have always been sapphic themes in Taylor’s music, even in early songs like “Me And Britney” and “Angelina”. Her entire discography is littered with sapphic themes. In recent years, she has seemed to hint at being some form of queer in other ways as well. This has all been examined by others, so I won’t get into that in this post.

Anyway, on to Tayliz…

There is some compelling “circumstantial evidence” suggesting that there may have been something beyond friendship between Tayliz (a lot of this was covered in my first post and all of the information has been mentioned at some point on my blog):

They met multiple times between December 2006 and February 2009, when Liz first performed with Taylor, but it is hard to tell how well they knew each other at that time. Based on the information available, I actually think they might have even been close, or at least friendly, before Liz was hired, but I could be wrong.

The “official” story is that Liz met Taylor at a meet and greet in December 2006 and again in July 2007. She asked if she could sing for Taylor and Taylor gave her advice, including suggesting that she enter a talent contest and that she should move to Nashville. Some accounts say that Liz sang for Taylor in her dressing room, but I have never found a source for this part of the story.

Taylor wrote the following sentence about Liz in her blog on February 5, 2008, after performing on the competition show that Liz was a contestant on: “It sounds strange, but there was always something different about her that stuck out in my mind”. That is super suspect to me...

Taylor was the only musician to perform on the show, btw (although they did have the touring cast of HSM on the next week). Taylor allegedly said, during the interview portion of her appearance, that she knew Liz and that Liz had gone to “all” of her shows and meet and greets… whatever that means.

According to Liz, she moved to Nashville in June 2008 and sometime within the next 6 months she received a call to audition as a backup singer, but did not know for which artist she was auditioning. I feel like it would be an incredible coincidence that Taylor suggested she move to Nashville two years earlier, they met multiple times after that, and randomly Liz got a call to audition for Taylor without knowing it was for her within 6 months of moving there. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too skeptical, but it seems almost more of a reach to say that Taylor didn’t somehow have a hand in her getting that audition.

Liz already seemed very comfortable around Taylor in that picture with George Strait taken on the day of her first show with the band in February 2009.

At the one-off shows after Liz joined the band, there was a little skit between Taylor, Liz, and Grant during YBWM, where Grant played the love interest and Liz played the “Cheer Captain”. There was even a talking bit. During the Australia one-off shows, there was a talking bit before F&A where Taylor introduced Liz and they had a little conversation that ended similarly to the one Taylor has with the interviewer during the Fearless Tour. After this, they rarely interacted on stage.

Taylor seemed to allow Liz’s input during the auditions for the Fearless Tour dancers, two months after she joined the band, and Taylor ended up hiring two of her friends.

Liz went with Taylor to visit Abigail at her university in Kansas two months after joining the band.

Taylor took Liz with her to see Britney Spears’ Circus Tour show in Chicago right after the Kansas trip.

Taylor said in an interview for Oprah’s website, released in May 2009, that Australia and Lawrence, KS were her two favorite places to visit, which just so happen to be two of the places she had recently been with Liz.

The fact that they shared a hotel room in London a few months after Liz joined the band. Caitlin, who had been in the band for a while at that point, and her mom were both there for that trip. Maybe Taylor was just happy to be able to hang out with another woman around her age. It seems strange, but it could be a completely platonic situation.

Taylor and the band, including Liz, recorded a cover of “American Girl” by Tom Petty (one of Liz’s favorite artists) in front of the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon in May 2009. The secret message for “Sparks Fly” is “Portland, Oregon” and she mentions the Rose Garden in “The Lucky One”.

Taylor mentions going to dinner with Liz, seemingly just the two of them, in her vlog from May 29, 2009, which was around Liz’s birthday (May 27).

The amount of Liz content in the vlogs. Plus, the choice to put the line “I like where you sleep, when you sleep next to me” right before showing Liz sleeping on a couch (this was the trip where they shared a hotel room, which does make that fact more suspect, imo) and including the song “She (For Liz)” in another vlog, in which she dedicates a whole section to Liz’s habit of falling asleep “All. The. Time.”

In fact, in both of those vlogs, which were posted a year apart from each other (May 2009 and April 2010), Taylor wears a black dot shirt, in clips that include only her and Liz, that is similar to the one she wore in the IKYWT mv.

Honestly, just go watch the video she made for Emily and then watch the vlogs after Liz joined the band… I just get a similar vibe in the clips she chose to include of both women.

They went to a Paramore concert together the weekend before Taylor hosted SNL in November 2009. At the concert, they were filmed by other attendees dancing next to each other on the balcony. One of the songs they were filmed dancing to is “That’s What You Get” and Taylor asked Hayley to perform that song with her (and the band, including Liz) at one of the Nashville shows on the SN Tour in 2011. In November 2019, Liz released her own song called “That’s What You Get” that sounds like it could be the opposite side of the relationship much of Red is about (and a couple other Taylor songs from other albums).

In Taylor’s Glamour interview published on 10/5/2010, she mentions that she designed the two guest rooms at her Nashville condo with Caitlin and Liz in mind.

After tweeting about attending the Katy P. concert in Dublin with Taylor (and Grant and Caitlin) someone asked Liz what her favorite KP song was and she responded “Thinking Of You”. This is suspect because at the time Liz did have a bf, but she may have just liked the song and didn’t necessarily relate to it personally.

There are tweets from people who are either not really well-known or aren’t in the industry at all that mention Taylor and Liz hanging out outside of touring. They are mentioned together in quite a few tweets actually. They seemed to have a good number of mutual friends during that time (spring/summer 2009-fall 2012). After Liz left the band, Taylor stopped hanging out with most of those people, while Liz continues to maintain some of those friendships to this day. This could be explained by the fact that Taylor began spending less time in Nashville.

One such friend is the photographer who Taylor hired for Red. She is actually a longtime friend of Liz. Supposedly she took some photos of Liz that Taylor saw and Taylor hired her after that. There are some pictures from Taylor’s Red photoshoot that are similar to Liz’s photos.

There are rumors that Liz was fired, but the “official” story is that she left to pursue her own music.

Liz did not wish Taylor a happy birthday on twitter in 2012, which she had done in previous years. She did not tweet @ or mention Taylor for almost a year. Taylor didn’t respond to any of her tweets or mention her until October 2014.

Some of the songs Liz released in late 2012/early 2013 have similar lyrics/themes to Taylor’s music and may be about Taylor.

The lyric video for Liz’s song STFU&HM includes polaroid pictures with the song’s lyrics written on them and neon signs, which is basically the 1989 aesthetic. The actual mv has some potential parallels to the IKYWT mv. (side note: Liz specified in an interview that the kind of “sour candy” she is singing about in the song is Watermelon Sour Patch, which Taylor mentioned in the June 2008 issue of Teen Vogue was something that she “couldn’t live without”)

The love interest wears a key necklace in the STFU&HM mv and Taylor wears one in the IKYWT mv.

The bridge of IKYWT is very similar to lyrics from a song by Patty Griffin called “Nobody’s Crying”. Liz once said that Patty is her favorite singer (this was when she was still in Taylor’s band) and has mentioned her and that particular song multiple times over the years. Side note: Taylor mentioned last year that another one of Patty’s songs was the inspiration for “betty”.

Liz played the other woman in the mv for TSOU and in the photoshoot for SN. At the end of the mv for her song “H8U”, Liz interrupts her love interest’s wedding and kisses his tall, blonde, curly haired bride.

This one could be a crazy coincidence, but Liz recorded the backing vocals on a song called “Dear John” that was written by the backup dancer who came out to Taylor during the Fearless Tour. Btw, by no means am I saying DJ is about Liz because that would make zero sense.

Liz’s birthday is on one of the board games in the “Lover” mv that reference “Cruel Summer”. Most people think CS is about Karlie and that makes sense, but it also seems to reference “Love Story”, which was potentially written sometime around when Taylor performed on the show Liz was a contestant on. I don’t know if LS is about Liz and I am not trying to claim that, but it is interesting. Even if it’s not, they performed that song together a lot and Liz helped out with the onstage costume change during that song. CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie. Or it could just be about Karlie and the date in the “Lover” mv has nothing to do with Liz’s birthday.

In “the 1” and “dorothea”, Taylor potentially references Liz’s song “Never Know” and by reference, I mean that she essentially uses the exact same lyrics: “I guess you never know, you never know” = “I guess you never know, never know” and “I guess I’ll never know” = literally just the same line. Not to mention in “dorothea” Taylor also sings “Do you ever stop and think about me?” and in NK Liz sings “I wonder if you think about me” right before the line “I guess I’ll never know”. I am not saying that either of those songs are about Liz, but it is interesting, especially since Liz tweeted about “the 1”, which was the thing that really sent me on my deep dive into Tayliz.

The “cardigan” looks like the cardigan she wears in the first vlog she included Liz in. It could be nothing, but it is interesting because I have a theory that Liz is the first woman she had a “relationship” with and that “cardigan” is about Liz, Dianna, Karlie, and possibly some other women she might have dated/been with.

These are just some of the highlights and are more focused on the facts as opposed to some of my more tinfoil hat, fun, crack theory stuff or just some of the things that are loosely related to Liz or might involve a little (or a lot of) reaching to connect them to her.

Everything I have mentioned could just be a series of strange coincidences, even though there appears to be quite a few of them. Whether anything ever happened between them or it was just one of those intense, romantic friendships that some women tend to have, I don’t really know. Based on what I have seen, I tend to think there was something going on there beyond friendship, but possibly it was never anything official.

Liz seemed to have a boyfriend most of the time that Tayliz were working together/hanging out, which is one of the main things that makes me question my own theory. Of course, it is always possible that she had something with Taylor, while she also had a boyfriend. There are many reasons for that (poly, closeted, etc.), so that does not exclude the idea that she may have actually been involved with two people at one time and one of those people could have been Taylor.

If they were together in some capacity, while Liz also had a boyfriend, it could explain the messy relationship that Taylor seemed to write about during that time. I think it is possible that Emily was just a crush and Liz was her first actual experience with another woman where the feelings were reciprocated to some degree. OR they could have just been really good friends and I am utterly, completely wrong.

Maybe Taylor is just a straight girl, who doesn’t realize that she’s been sending signals that she is queer for years. Whenever that thought crosses my mind, I think about all of the things she has said and done that imply she may not be straight and I just can’t help thinking that it is intentional. I don’t think she is queerbaiting or unintentionally signaling that she might be queer. I think she is queer and has dropped multiple hints to suggest that over the years.

Anyway… Liz has a bf right now and seems to be in a good place, so let’s let her be, please. I hope we get some more new music from her soon.

As far as researching Tayliz goes, I’ll probably keep looking into it when I have time, but at this point I think I have seen pretty much all there is to see (of the content available online currently). I’ll be waiting for the songs from Taylor’s “vault” to drop to see if there are any potential connections there (at least in the “vault” songs for Fearless, Speak Now, and Red).

In conclusion (TL;DR)...

My personal opinion is that there is enough “circumstantial evidence” to include Liz on the list of Taylor potential exes. For me the Gaylor timeline looks something like this:

(Fair Warning: this is all total speculation based on song lyrics and other information that is publicly available)

Summer 2006-December 2007: Taylor develops a crush on Emily. Emily possibly finds out somehow and it doesn’t go over well (OR it does). She is fired from the band AND maybe she is paid off to pursue other interests…

2008/2009- Spring (Summer? Fall?) 2012: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Liz, while Liz also dates men. The relationship may have even started developing as early as the first time they supposedly met back in December 2006, but Taylor definitely was feeling something by the time she posted that blog in February 2008. It’s complicated and non-exclusive. Maybe Taylor wanted more of a commitment and maybe there were promises made that things could/would change, but they never did. By the time she started hanging out with Dianna she was ready to move on. So, she ended things in March/April… but still met up with Liz a couple times after (possibly as friends).

Taylor may have also dated Julianne H. at some point in 2008/2009.

Spring 2012-Fall 2013 (?): Taylor has an on/off relationship with Dianna that may have ended, in part, due to interference from Taylor’s team. Maybe it is the one relationship with a woman that could have actually developed into something more concrete, but maybe that also scared Taylor a bit.

Winter 2013/Early 2014-Fall 2016: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Karlie, while Karlie is also involved with Josh (hence my comment about how CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie because they may have been similar circumstances, where sometimes they were single and other times they had a serious bf).

Fall 2016-Present: There are at least a couple potential girlfriends within this timeframe. I lean towards Tily being a thing from at least fall 2016-Summer 2019. I am open to Zaylor and I do find it interesting, but I’m not as sold on that one. I personally do not think Taylor is with Joe nor do I think that Joe is WB.

The straight explanation could be that Taylor gets into really, intensely close friendships with other women and eventually they grow apart and move on with their lives.

The funny thing is that I remember Taylor once saying something about how after a breakup, she completely cuts that person off. That fits with her relationships (whatever the nature) with Liz, Dianna, and Karlie. With each of these women, Taylor shared a friend group with them, but Taylor seemed most interested in them. She has had a few friendly/cordial interactions with them, but she seems to have completely separated her life from them after their “friendships” ended. In fact, she moved to entirely different cities on opposite sides of the country (and in one case a different country, with a whole ocean in between) after she stopped hanging out with them.

That’s where I stand and it’s not really much different from where I was back in October when I posted my first summary on Tayliz.

Although, I do have more information now than I did then that leads me to think something was going on. 70% of the time I am convinced they had a relationship beyond friendship and 30% of the time I think they were only ever friends. 99.9% of the time I think I am a clown.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am inclined to believe that Tayliz is more likely to have had some sort of relationship than Taymily and is slightly less likely to have happened than Swiftgron and Kaylor. Other Gaylors might think they were only coworkers or friends. I’m not out to convince anyone. I am just presenting the information I have found and I don’t mind a friendly discussion/debate if anyone wants to talk about it.

#tayliz #random tayliz thoughts #random gaylor thoughts

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