@pscentral​ event 26: minimalism

The Tortured Poets Department is the most Taylor Swift album she’s ever put out. It’s the culmination of everything she’s ever done. It’s the teenage petulance of debut. It’s the hope and naïveté of fearless. It’s the lack of filter of speak now. It’s the emotional rollercoaster of red. It’s the pride of 1989. It’s the angst and the rebirth of reputation. It’s the hopeless romanticism of lover. It’s the storytelling and literary allusions of folklore and evermore. It’s the dark reminiscence of midnights. Which is why I think it’s resonating more with those who have been here the whole time and can see the echoes of each era in this album.

I do think my favourite part of the tortured poet's department is how unreliable the narration is. Like it's done purposefully from the very beginning. This is not from a moment in time where the writer is making sense of things in a way that is logical or connected to reality. It is contradictory, incorporates toxic behaviours, and the actions and reactions throughout different strands are based in feelings that are not grounded or even necessarily based on reality at all.

DAYLIGHT // THE BLACK DOG

reblog to cast level 5 spell: everyone who reads this gets a full night sleep

mfs will be like “I love the night :)” and then experience unliveable mental anguish the entire time

double album truthers how does it feel to finally get your moment. congrats clowns you won

Who wants to come over and have a crush on me

The manuscript is about writing all too well ten !!! And the second to last verse is directing the video !! I want to die!! I need my therapist NOW !

DUA LIPA for Elle Magazine

oh thats hot as hell. if only sex was real

The Tortured Poets Department is a great reminder that women don't owe the world pretty. Taylor Swift doesn't owe anyone an easily digestible pretty pop album wrapped in a bow with short songs you can make TikToks to. She's allowed to present something raw, uncomfortable, and vulnerable to the world.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

“i can’t do this anymore” says a girl who is not only going to do it but do it well

“i hate it here” is peak escapism and hearing her talk about how she lives in a garden no one else has access to in her mind (unlike the rest of her life) for most of the year is sooooo. made up scenarios and imagining living in the 1800s… it’s giving the lakes except she’s alone and she can’t actually leave. so much of the album is about feeling stuck and this one is about feeling stuck in herself.

actually i think the song goes into another layer of maladaptive daydreaming. the first verse determines that she hates her current life and is scared, and the second verse determines that she’d actually hate real life in any given time period. she determines that she’d hate the 1800s because “nostalgia is a mind’s trick.” she knows reality too well, and she knows real life is always awful.

in the chorus, she explores her mind and that’s the only place she trusts. and so now she’s dreaming of a secret garden, a hidden valley on the moon, and a new planet. and this new place is not the strongest or the fittest, but the gentlest. and the bridge justifies this need to do live in her mind even more. she swears she is fine, but she gets lost on purpose. she feels fragile and she wants something, and though she knows that the way to move forward is to leave the things that break her behind, she can’t do it real life; she can only do it in her fantasy and so she loves it in her mind. she doesn’t care, she’s gonna live there for most of the year.