#i remember once back in 2015 thus girl in a chat questioned everyone if they liked girls or boys +

[saebaragi]

"so you're going to die alone?" I mean, unless you're planning some collective suicide or something, aren't we all?

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

there were a lot of references in the new video, did you catch them all? let’s take a look.

1. nils sjoberg

remember that time she wrote a song with calvin harris but used a different name? this is that name, on one of the gravestones. after releasing that she had actually written the summer hit “this is what you came for,” calvin harris, among others, threw a fit on twitter - even though it had been agreed that if calvin and taylor broke up, she could express that she had written the song.

2. the out of the woods dress

this blue dress probably looks familiar! it’s the same one she wore in the out of the woods music video, the last music video of the 1989 era. this poses the same frantic question, are we out of the woods yet? as this grave-digging taylor suggests, not yet.

3. here lies 2014 met gala taylor

at first glance, it just looks like the taylor from before laying there, but after pausing it and going back, one realizes that isn’t zombie taylor, rather 2014 met gala taylor. 2014 would have been the start of the 1989 era, and the out of the woods video was the end of it, thus: by the end of 1989 era, she was ready to “bury” it.

4. the dollar bill

if you look just next to taylor’s shoulder, you can see a good ole george washington. one single dollar bill. is this a reference to taylor’s sexual assault trial recently, and the one dollar she won then? most likely, because if you go to other shots of her in the tub that aren’t directly above her, the dollar bill isn’t there, meaning it was edited in later, which would explain how it got there so late in the game. it stands for the simple victories everyone else gets to celebrate, while she does the same things and gets flack for it.

5. et tu brute

a famous line from shakespeare’s julius caeser, “et tu, brute” means “and you, brute?” right as marcus brutus lands the fatal blow in julius caeser’s, his once-friend’s back. this is a metaphor for all the people that taylor thought she could trust, before they turned around and trashed her name.

6. the tea

probably pretty simple to grasp - the tea is hot. alternatively, she, the snake in the video, gets to serve the tea this time around, or, she gets to lay down her side of the story.

7. car crash + paparazzi

did you see what happened here, at face value? taylor was in an expensive vehicle that got in a head-on crash, but everyone just stood back and took pictures, instead of rushing over to help. is this a reference to all the times that everyone stood back, took pictures, and laughed at her when she was beaten down? yes.

8. the grammy

the grammy blends in with the gold of the car and her outfit, so it’s pretty easy to miss, but there it is, in her hand, even though the car crashed. perhaps the future is being predicted?

9. the birdcage + leg tattoo

look closely at taylor’s leg, and you can see what looks to be a snake tattooed there. not to mention, here she is entertaining in a birdcage, which is guarded. she’s trying to have fun in this prison, biting her tongue, being the girl everyone wants, but she longs to be let free.

10. robbing a bank/stream co., blind for love

besides getting major harley quinn vibes, what else do we notice here? taylor swift robbing a vault, which says “stream company.” remember that time that taylor wrote an open letter to apple music and called her money hungry, even though she was taking her music off to benefit poorer artists? yes, we do. this is what she’s referencing here. also, her shirt says “blind for love” which makes sense, because she frequently refers to herself as a hopeless romantic, someone who opens theirselves up for love, even if it means getting hurt.

11. the squad

without explaining anything else, this scene can be described as a crowd of blank faced people, staring at taylor swift, who stands upon a stage looking menacing, and impressing one message upon the crowd: u, squad. it’s reminiscent of all the times people said taylor swift was over, because her friends, fans, or sales were fake or temporary. this is like a visual representation of the comments people made about taylor forcing people to do things for her to create the image she desired.

12. fake friends

and here we have the mannequins of the girls from the prior scene, chopped up. this one is pretty straight forward, these “friends” that taylor thought she had sometimes turned out to be more fickle and “fake” than she thought. also, can we talk about how taylor’s red boots are reminiscent of kinky boots? because yes.

13. the dancers, i heart ts

before taylor enters the room, the dancers are goofing around, but the second she comes in, the jump to attention, and rip off their jackets to reveal shirts that say “i heart ts.” it’s a throwback to when tom hiddleston wore a shirt with the same message on the fourth of july in 2016, and everyone said that she had forced him to wear it. it’s the same thing as before with the squad - the world decided that she had forced all these people to love her, not that they actually did.

14. the fight for glory

every time you pause this video, you come across a different taylor. squirrel pajamas wanegbt taylor, 2015 bbma’s taylor, 2014 acm’s taylor, wanegbt red tour taylor, 2016 new years rockin’ eve taylor, sparkly guitar fearless tour taylor, bleachella taylor, ballerina shake it off taylor, 2016 vma’s taylor... the list goes on and on. here, you can see them all fighting and clawing, trying to stand on top. it reminds me of “i don’t like your kingdom keys, they once belonged to me,” and the parallels between long live and new romantics in that line alone. all those times, she thought she’d made it to a point in her career where she could be respected as much as other artists in her tier, only to harshly realize she was going to get her name ran through the mud for doing the same thing as everyone else. the fight for glory is steep, and unfair.

15. junior jewels

looks familiar right? not quite! it is the same theme of the shirt, but look closely at the signatures - they’re signatures of actual people this time around. names like ed, selena, este, lena, blake, and ryan, among others, can be seen on her shirt, representing the true friends that stuck with her through her reputation being bashed.

16. “SHUT UP!”

here, all the different versions of taylor are repeating things that the media or other celebrities had said about her, until finally 2009 vma’s taylor repeated the same thing that 2017 taylor said in an instagram post - “i’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative.” the entire time, you can hear camera shutters going off and people chatting, presumably the rest of the world watching as she got torn apart. when vma’s taylor makes this final statement, all the other taylor’s, as well as what sounds to be an entire off-screen crowd, yell “SHUT UP” before the screen goes black. this is a powerful image, and it’s supposed to be. all the times she suffered, and people told her that she was overreacting, faking it, or doing it for publicity. if you feel remorse for seeing young taylor getting yelled at, or sorrow for the taylors falling when she said “because she’s dead,” you’re doing it right. 

nothing in this video was an accident.

if you’re angry at taylor for this video exposing things you said about her, or you’re repeating any of the words the versions of herself said at the end, you’re proving her point. her reputation was destroyed because people made a sport of making fun of her. and now, as taylor said, there will be no explanation, just reputation. 

[depressing-darkness]

Heartbreak (pt.3)

So if you’ve stuck around thus far, you deserve to know how it ended. So far you probably haven’t come across much of anything particularly heartbreaking. Some people may say I was too young and that there’s a lot more of the world I had yet to see and that it wasn’t real love. But it was real for me. The first part was how I met Felicia, the second about my time with her. This one is about how it all went to hell. 0 to 100 real quick.

The 3 days after the date went by really quickly. Part of it was because I spent those 3 days hunting for a tie that matched with a picture of the arm of Felicia’s green dress. She wouldn’t show me the whole dress because she wanted it to be a surprise but all I knew was that it was basil green. For some godforsaken reason however, I couldn’t find that shade of green anywhere. I roamed malls for 3 days straight. On the last day, I had to choose this 250 bucks tie from M&S that I only wore once - at that dance with Felicia. My roommate still teases me about buying such an expensive tie for one day. Of course he doesn’t understand how much that day meant to me. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell anyone. I bought her a white rose corsage because it was her favourite and a red teddy bear that was holding a heart that said I love you lots. I told my roommate I was holding them for someone else. I ended up cutting out the heart from the teddy’s hands because I didn’t want her to think that I was under the impression that she would definitely say yes to being my girlfriend. But then I later ended up telling her about the heart, and she wanted it regardless. So I ended up giving it to her separately.

Finally, the day I had been waiting for almost 3 months finally came. I went and got a haircut. In those days, I didn’t keep any facial hair, so I trimmed off my beard as well. Wore my suit and tie. Practiced smiling in the mirror a million times until I felt like I had it down. I picked up the corsage and teddy and had my roommate drop me because he wasn’t going to the party. Since he was dropping me, I obviously wasn’t picking her up, so we planned to meet outside but I was really late, so she went on in and I came much later.

The first time I saw her, my knees went weak. She was looking gorgeous in that dress. I would describe the way she looked but I wouldn’t do her justice. The way the light glinted off her highlight. The way her dress sparkled as if it were covered in stars. The way her smile hit me the same way it did on the first day I met her. All I could think in that moment was “wow”. I’m not one who’s easily speechless, but at that time, I was. I was so nervous that I couldn’t even tie on the corsage properly, she had to tie it for herself. I handed her the bag with the teddy bear, but initially she just kept it down and started talking to Nancy and other people. I became a bit childish and asked to at least have a look in the bag. I feel like I was being childish because I shouldn’t have needed her to open it up in front of everyone. She knew what was in it. She’d see it at her own pace. But I still made her open it and pull it out in front of everyone. She liked it though, so that was what mattered in the end. The moment we got everything down, the teddy, the heart and the corsage, photo session began. First we took pictures with Nancy and her boyfriend Augustus. Then we headed over to the photo booth where all the other couples and people were taking photos. While we waited in line, all our friends would come meet us. Finally we took the pictures. It was a set of 4 pictures, in different poses and she kept that picture with her because we’d get the digital version in a few days anyway. As we entered we were handed slips to vote for the homecoming king, queen, best dressed, etc so after we took our photos, we sat down and started filling them out,

It was quite clear from the start that we wouldn’t get the dance floor. The ‘cool kids’ of our year were hogging it. We tried getting into the dancing group a couple of times, but couldn’t get past the thick fence of sweaty human bodies surrounding the dance floor. So instead we decided to raid the food, talk and take more pictures. Neither of us were ‘party people’ so we ended up sitting outside, talking to Nancy and Augustus and other friends. Nancy and Felicia would often disappear to have their girl gossips. We went back in for the announcements of the homecoming king and homecoming queen. Surprisingly, the homecoming King was my best friend Patrick. He’d always been the popular, friendly and social person that I wasn’t. He could gel with anyone. After the announcements, I went back out feigning a headache as was my custom when I couldn’t handle a party while Felicia was busy gossiping with Nancy. About 10 minutes later, Isaac came and told me Felicia was looking for me so I went back into the party.

An hour or two later, there was a slow couple’s dance. Obviously I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to dance with Felicia and so I dragged her onto the dance floor. And here I did the second thing that would I would end up regretting forever. Now see, most people were doing the basic slow prom dance where the girl had her hands around the guy’s neck, the guy around the girl’s waist and slow grooving to the beat of the song. But because Felicia and I were both super awkward, we were dancing in the traditional dance, Yule Ball style: one hand on the waist/shoulder, the hand holding the partner’s. At first the difference in dancing styles didn’t bother me. But the more I looked around, the more I felt like I wanted to try dancing like that, with my arms around her and hers around me. But when I voiced my suggestion to her, she shot me down instantly, saying that things were fine the way they were. I tried pushing her a bit; something I rarely, if ever, do. And to that end, I said “C'mon Felicia, everyone is doing it, we’re the only odd ones out.” She refused to budge, and by the time we had the conversation, the songs were over.

Soon after the dance, Felicia and I went out into the open pool area of the hotel where the homecoming had been organised. We spent nearly an hour walking around the pool, talking about Felicia, her friend who was leaving, her problems at home, etc. By the time we were done, my shirt was drenched in my sweat, so we went back to the lobby outside the ballroom, where Nancy and Augustus were sitting and talking along with some friends. We stayed there for the rest  of the night, taking more pictures, until we each went home. By the end I felt bad for pushing her earlier but didn’t mention it to her there. She went home at 1 am with Nancy. I’d asked her to message once she got home. I waited for another hour and then took a cab home as well. The moment I got home, I messaged Felicia to check if she got home, but she didn’t reply so I assumed she had fallen asleep. I began talking to Nancy and I found out that Felicia and her friend had just dropped Nancy home a while ago and so it would be a while before Felicia would get home.

So in the mean time I proceeded to talk to Nancy who’d been helping me out with the whole Felicia situation since day one. Nancy would be the person who’d gauge and analyse Felicia’s reaction to me and then relay that information to me, telling me what to stop or do so that I don’t end up losing Felicia. According to Nancy that night, Felicia did feel a bit uncomfortable with the pushing. I resolved to apologise for it the moment I could so i waited for Felicia to get home and message me but I fell asleep waiting. Somehow I woke up 3 hours later and saw that Felicia had messaged an hour after I last remembered being awake. I immediately replied to her. She was up for some reason, talking to her roommate. Within two minutes of the conversation, I apologised for the forcing, attributing it to how I just used to get overexcited around her. Instead, she was the one comforting me, telling me that it was alright and that she did have fun at homecoming and that her reluctance at the party was simply because she’s not used to it all - the flowers, the teddy bear, etc. Soon after, we both went to sleep and that was the end of the day I’d been looking forward to for more than 2 months.

The next day, the 15th of June, I woke up with this horrible pit in my stomach. Stronger than I’d ever had or have had since. It was strong enough to make me gag. My head started reeling. My first thought was that something was wrong with Felicia. Ever since I’d told Felicia about my feelings, I’d have a sort of instinctual feeling when something was wrong with her, if she’s upset or something of that sort, and 4 out of 5 times it would be accurate. So I messaged Felicia, trying to talk to her just to get an idea if everything was alright. But there was no reply. The bad feeling was too strong, so I went back to sleep. I woke up two hours later and there was still no reply from Felicia. This time I straight up asked if everything was alright and went back to sleep because the feeling hadn’t gone. I woke up three hours later, at 2 p.m. I checked my phone the moment my eyes opened. She finally replied “Yepss”. My bad feeling hadn’t gone away, so I messaged Nancy hey to talk to her, but all I got was “I’ll ttyl ok?” and then she vanished. At this point, I believed that something was probably wrong with Nancy and that I should just wait until later to get to know what’s wrong. Meanwhile I tried to start up the conversation with Felicia. I was having lunch while chatting. This is how our conversation went:

“Boo what’s 2+2?” “Fishh” “What about 3+3?” “I need to talk to you” “Why? What happened? Alright Skype? Or shall I just call you on mobile?”

I never got a reply to those questions. Because at 14:24 on 15th June 2015, exactly 2 years ago from the time I post this, came a barrage of messages that I will never forget throughout my life. They talked about how Felicia wasn’t ready for a relationship and how she couldn’t see me as a boyfriend. They spoke about how she could only see me as a friend or even a close friend but not a boyfriend. She ended it with “You can hate me. I don’t blame you”. Hate her? Can you really hate someone who loved so much? I told her I didn’t hate her and that I understood her decision and respected. But internally, my brain had stopped. I stopped eating, I couldn’t have anymore. All I could think about was that this was why I had that horrible feeling all morning. It wasn’t Felicia or Nancy. It was me. I couldn’t bear it. I stayed awake for half an hour after that, but then I couldn’t bear being awake, thinking any longer. So I went back to sleep and woke up straight at night once my roommate was back. I tried talking to her in the evening, she told me she was with Nancy. I spoke to her for another couple of minutes and went back to sleep the moment she took longer than 5 minutes to reply.

The next day, I woke up early, still feeling horrible. I sent her a voice note, telling her how I was sorry for everything, sorry for pushing her, sorry for ever thinking that someone like her could like someone like me, sorry for making things awkward and everything. When she heard it, she said that I had no reason to apologise for. She told me to “Leave it. It’s over”. We continued to make small talk until the next day until she travelled to visit her family in her hometown for the next two months.  After that, I tried keeping contact but it was of no use. She would barely reply to me. A couple of days after she went, I was still in the habit of using the nickname I had for her so I used it in the convo, but she told me to stop because it felt awkward. We began talking even less after.

That summer became the worst summer of my life. To cope and check  up on Felicia, I would continue talking to Nancy. Nancy confessed that the reason she said “ttyl” on the 15th was because she was with Felicia at that same moment, and Felicia had already decided to break up with me. Turns out Felicia got news from her hometown that her ex, the one that I got her to start talking to, was a changed man and that the reason she had broken up with him was all a misunderstanding and this is what Felicia and Nancy were discussing at homecoming. And the next day, the day Felicia broke up with me, Nancy and Felicia were discussing what to do because all of a sudden, Felicia’s priorities had changed. She wanted to fix things with her ex, but she wasn’t sure whether she would get back together with him and she wasn’t sure what she should do about me. She told Nancy about how me putting my head on her shoulder during the movie bothered her. About how my pushing her to dance with me with her arms around just because other people were doing it, made it seem like I cared about what other people thought and that’s why I was pushing her for it. Nancy, knowing my side of the story as well, told Felicia the same thing that every normal person would say in such a situation. She told Felicia that if she’s not sure about me, to dump me, rather than string me along for another 2 months and end up making the break up worse or even having to cheat on me. And in the spur of that moment, Felicia broke up with me.

The rest of the summer was awful as well. I was in so much emotional and physical pain that it manifested itself in a physical chest ache on left side. I remember wondering if I’m going to die of broken heart syndrome. I ended up going to the doctor. They ran ECG tests on me, blood tests, everything, even they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. How could they? When the cause was emotional and not physical. I used to spend the nights praying to God to let me get her back in my life. That was the extent of my desperation. I could no longer listen to the songs that I used to listen to while thinking about her, least of all Night Changes. Anytime that song, or any of those other songs would play on the radio or my phone, I would just change it. I had gone for a trip to the US that summer with my family. I used to spend most of the rides in cars and buses just, in a cliche manner, looking through the window and thinking about Felicia. The summer was just awful for me.

My self esteem hit rock bottom. I began believing that I wasn’t worth dating. That the person I am, the way I looked, everything could only be seen as a friend and nothing else. And finally, when the results for our finals came, I found out that Felicia hadn’t done very well, and I began blaming myself for that as well. That if I hadn’t constantly messaged her, kept her up at night, she would have studied better.

Soon the summer ended and we started university again. But it was different this time. Now I used to look for her in crowds. In free periods I used to quietly try and find her and see if she’s free. I tried talking to her again, but this time she flat out told me she didn’t want to talk to me because it would make her feel bad about the way things happened between us. I used to try everything to get things back to the way they were but no avail. But I had Nancy with me. Nancy helped me fix things with Felicia, in a sort of making up for breaking us apart in the first place. With time we became a group. My feelings for Felicia hadn’t gone away, I even asked her out a few times as a joke just to see if she would say yes, but she shot me down every single time laughing. We became good friends again.

Since  2015, I’ve only had one relationship that lasted for a month. I’d gotten back together with Fabia, but this time I ended it because we had a few minor fights and she suggested we take a break for a few days but the moment I thought about ‘waiting for the girl’ my heart started pounding and I found it difficult to breathe. I couldn’t go on a break, so I suggested we break up, and we did.Nancy is now my best friend. Despite my reservedness, she is the person who knows me better than anyone else. She tries to get me out of my shell and bring up my self esteem. Felicia and I are still good friends. She’s been dating a guy she met last summer. She’s been dating him since March this year. Every time I think about it, I feel a tinge of pain in the chest again, and then it’s gone. Felicia is living her life, I’m trying to live mine,

That experience changed me. My depression is still there. My self esteem hasn’t ever been the same. I’ve become more reserved than ever. “Damaged” I call myself. I’ve become much more social. Talking to more people. Never trusting as much as that first time. I’ve become insecure and paranoid about being replaced, more than ever. I’ve put on a fake persona. Just so that people like me. I’ve become so immersed in that persona that I can’t remember what I’m actually like.The person that I actually am doesn’t exist anymore. Even now the memory of that time haunts me. Even as I write this, my hands are shaking, my head is pounding, my heart is racing, tears are forming and my asthmatic lungs feel as if I just ran a race. Some people may say I was too young and that it wasn’t real. But it was real. For me.