I made a thing for Mother's Day, my first one besides some script I did for a quilted item tag. I think I did okay considering there were some challenges like free-hand lettering over long and short. Pattern is based off some typical MOM traditional tattoo designs.

I have 4 tattoos. All can be concealed with clothing if I feel the need. Two that I don’t necessarily regret but wish I never got… out of "style" and the script is melting. Got a navel piercing at the height of mom jeans fashion… not good lol 😂

Besides number 28 being Louis Tomlinson’s favorite number, my interpretation here assumes legit relationships of both Larry & Kaylor. Because nothing else makes this much sense to me. So, FYI if those muses aren’t your cup of teas. I fully blame this line-by-line song analysis on Taylor releasing folklore on 1D 10th anniversary.
“Forgive me, Peter, my lost fearless leader”
“my lost fearless” could refer to her second studio album. She lost that masters to Big Machine. Before she announced her re-release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Louis released his solo debut album Walls, with a song called Fearless, “Cash in your weekend treasure for a suit and tie, a second wife” seemingly referencing her Lover era (ME! mv) as well as her past relationship with Dianna Agron and her present with Karlie Kloss. “Now I’m not saying that you could’ve done better. Just remember that I, I’ve seen that fire alight.” Louis knew Taylor was planing to come out and was well on her way to execute that plan before it all went wrong. (The NYC Pride Parade) His song was encouraging her to become that fearless again. To tell her that he knew she tried. But why did Louis have to reassure Taylor? Why did Taylor feel the need to apologize to Louis?
“In closets like cedar preserved from when we were just kids.”
They were queer kids who got stuck in the closets as soon as they stepped foot onto the music industry scene. It’s not a pleasant place to be. Just listen to the anxiety in Taylor’s voice when she asked “Are we out of the woods?”
“Was it something I did?”
Who could ever forget the Haylor Winter Romance? One Direction dropped their second studio album “Take Me Home”. During that promo season, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift got papped together a lot. The fandoms were divided. Some fans still believed in Larry Stylinson and/or Swiftgron. But the tabloids insisted it gotta be Haylor. Is it Taylor’s fault that they’re still stuck in the closet today? If she hadn’t participated in handholding in Central Park/NYE kiss/Blue Dress on a Boat, would everything be different today?
“The goddess of timing once found us beguiling”
This is where the interpretation splits into two major plot lines. They were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for their music career to start like shooting stars (Louis: we were lucky once, I could be lucky again.) The things about “beguiling” is that it doesn’t only mean enchanting/charming, it has the connotation of being deceptive. The goddess of timing did not find them to be truthful.
“She said she was trying.”
Actually deity is all powerful and rarely has to try. This is such a human quality. This person is comparable to Goddess of Timing but she’s still just a person. I believe that the Goddess of Timing here is Kali. The person Taylor meant is Karlie. Kali is a Goddess from Hinduism aka the same place as the concept of karma (who is Taylor’s boyfriend when she wrote the songs. But once she put it out and performs it for the audience, she no longer thinks of the song Karma as her own. In her mind, it already belongs to the fans. And if that’s the kind of entertainment they’re expecting, she will continue to sing “Karma is the guy on the Chief coming straight home to me.” Because the Goddess already sees her as a liar, what’s differences adding one more lie is gonna make? (Did she forget about the last straw?))
“Peter, was she lying?”
Again with several meanings It’s the same question about fame (what she got with the help of fortunate timing) that Taylor has been wondering about since her first Speak Now era: Never Grow Up (Keep this line in mind, it will come into play later: It’s so much colder than I thought it would be, so I tuck myself in and turn my nightlight on. Wish I’d never grow up. (Such a Peter Pan thing to think.) Continued into RED (Lucky One: Now my name is up in the light. I wonder if I’d make it out alive) All the way to Clara Bow in the tortured poets department. It’s the question that’s been haunting her for ages. Back to Goddess Kali being Karlie. Was Karlie lying? Well, if she really is with Taylor then she’s also very deep in the closet and hiding a core truth about herself. So, yes, she was lying.
“My ribs got the feeling she did.”
This is the line that cements it for me that this Goddess must be Kali. One of the most popular form of Kali is Dakshina Kali. She is typically shown with her right foot on her consort’s chest. That consort is Shiva. It’s a show of his devotion to her. Here’s the thing, those who worship Kali are said to be able to overcome death itself. (Honey, I rose up from the death I do it all the time. Reputation is a Karlie album confirmed for a thousand times.)
And the thing about Kali is that she is not just a Goddess of Time. She is also known as Mother Goddess; Goddess of Time, Change, Creation, Power, Destruction and Death. (So the entire theme of the Tortured Poets Department)
The other form of Karlie Kali with her left feet on Shiva is much more violent. She was in uncontrollable rage. To stop her from destroying the entire universe, Shiva laid down on her warpath. When she stomped on him (probably hurting his ribs, ouch), she realized with horror that she had gone too far. (The Great War: The worst was over…I vowed, I will always be yours.)
“And I didn’t want to come down. I thought it was just goodbye for now.”
The pre-chorus subject will later change from I to We, but the theme of thinking they would have more time keeps coming back around. Taylor still wanted her name up in the light. She thought she would have more time. She thought hiding crucial part of herself was just a temporary thing.
“You said you were gonna grow up and you were gonna come find me.”
This chorus is why I think the YOU in this song is Louis/Harry. The anxiety-inducing repetition is reminiscent of Out Of The Woods aka the song I believe was written from Louis’s perspective, and also contained one of the her earliest blatantly queer-coded lyrics: The rest of the world was black and white but we were in screaming colors.
In the early One Direction days, Louis once admitted that growing old is one of his worst fears. Isn’t that the most Peter Pan thing you’ve ever heard? Taylor be like “I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending” This is one of the many reasons why I think William Bowery has never, ever, ever been Joe, but rather was actually Louis William Tomlinson. The ships passing in the night imagery is such a Louis and Harry thing and Taylor started using it heavily from 1989 onwards. Aka the album she wrote Style and invited the fella over there with a hella good hair to come shake it off. But can they really shake off the tumultuous emotions of hiding the love of your life like a skeleton in your closets? No matter how many hiding places she knew?
“Words from the mouth of babes”
Exhibit A to infinity: just look up Larry Stylinson baby boyfriends
“Promises oceans deep”
Rope & Anchor, Ship & Compass, Pirates and nautical theme couple tattoos. You name it, they got it. Louis’s Strong and Harry’s Happily lethal combo: My hand, your hand tied up like two ships. I don’t care what people say when we’re together.
“But never to keep”
The script was written and I could not change a thing. Written on these walls are the stories that I can’t explain Harry horse-noises-and-i-would-lean-towards-no Styles, Sweet Creature who? Never heard of her. Louis doesn’t-know-what-tattoo-he-got Tomlinson, but this compass is so sweet for pointing home, innit?
“Never to keep”
How many times are they going to have to deny their love? How many times do they have to parade around with someone else for the camera? How many times do they have to bring up conspiracies and how unfair it is for their loved ones? They keep doing things that practically break a promise of ALWAYS IN MY HEART. Are they doomed to never keeping their promises?
“Are you still a mind reader?”
It’s not just his Fearless song before she unlocked the vault to Fearless (Taylor’s Version), just look at the way Louis wrote lyrics that Taylor clearly had in mind: Louis in Don’t Let It Break Your Heart: I know you left a part of you in New York Taylor in Hoax: You knew I left a part of me back in New York Louis for 1D’s Love You Goodbye: Baby, go on, twist the knife Taylor in Hoax: my twisted knife, my winless fight Louis for 1D’s Midnight Memories first leaked: Diana, let me be the one to lift your heart up and save your life. I don’t think you even realize, but, baby, you’d be saving mine. Taylor in reputation’s Call It What You Want: You don’t have to save me. But would you run away with me. (And remember this line: My baby’s fly like a jet stream.)
“A natural scene stealer?”
I mean, I am very biased. But Louis has always stolen the scene. Whether it be “NO! Jimmy protested” on the staircase, Kevin the Pigeon, it said do not dial 9 so I dialed 9, or when singing/carrying 1D choruses, especially clear in What Makes You Beautiful and Story of My Life a cappella version.
In relation to Taylor, as soon as Haylor officially ended according to tabloid, Louis proceeded to get this giant Swift bird tattoo in his right arm. All his smaller bird tattoos are flying. Not this one, though. And remember the game 1D played for FOUR promo? Louis wasn’t even trying to do anything funny and the universe was like let’s make sure the pulling-words-out-of-hats game has the funniest possible outcomes. Harry: mine said Louis Tomlinson Niall: got papped snogging Zayn: Taylor Swift chaos erupts Louis: incredulous laughter Harry: seize the opportunity for the best double-meaning joke ever I mean, you could’ve told me Louis: Jesus.
Anyhow, I digress. Niall said without Louis, 1D would be the most boring band in the world.
“I’ve heard great things, Peter.”
I mean, World Tours/Festivals/Faith in the Future. Yup, great things indeed. But it also implied that they hadn’t seen each other in person for so long. (That’s why I still on the clown train that WB is Louis. They wrote together in lockdown. Nobody was out to see anybody.)
“But life was always easier on you than it was on me.”
This is where I’m extremely conflicted. I don’t think Louis had it easier than Taylor, especially given how he lost his mom and his sister. But the next line made it clear which aspect of life she was talking about.
“And sometimes it gets me, when crossing your jet stream.”
This line really takes Harry out as a contender for being Peteyou. Because he already has his own place here. He’s the your jet stream. My baby’s fly like a jet stream. Harry is Louis’s baby. It’s been well-documented in the Larry Stylinson fandom/organization/conspiracy. Call it what you want to. lol.
“We both did the best we could do underneath the same moon in different galaxies.”
Both Taylor and Harry did the best they could do under the same circumstance. From the point of view on earth, there is only one moon. It seems so big and just within reach. But when we zoom out to the level of galaxies, it’s practically impossible to pinpoint the same moon among billions of other celestial bodies. Yet, the dark night cycle for Taylor and Harry is exactly the same. They’re both stuck in the same style of closet from when they were just kids. (WomanizeSlut aka someone with many different partners, before it shifted to long-term low-key/marriage material themes. Likely due to the songs they kept writing which couldn’t possibly be about one-night stands, no matter which angle anyone look at it. The messages are loud and clear. They are in love and deeply devoted to one person only.) The difference is Taylor didn’t get to meet Karlie before the industry broke her spirit down. (Let all your damage, damage me.) But Louis and Harry have always had each other to rely on. #welivetogetherdealwithit. Harry was asked if falling in love is the best part of a relationship. Well, he said he actually believed the best part after that initial rush of infatuation is becoming a team. Harry kept singing “I’m in love with Lou and all his little things”/ “You’re still the one I run to, the one that I belong to. You’re still the one I want for life.” /“Hopelessly devoted to Lou.”
So, yeah. No wonder Taylor believed life was always easier on Louis and Harry than it was on her. Not even mentioning everything she said on The Man.
“And I didn’t wanna hang around.”
So Karlie and Harry were seen hanging out once and never again. What was that about?
“We said it was just goodbye for now.”
I think they were always planning to come out at the same time but that schedule kept getting postponed.
“You said you were gonna grow up and you were gonna come find me. Said you were gonna grow up and you were gonna come find me. Said you were gonna grow up and you were gonna come find me. Words from the mouth of babes Promises oceans deep But never to keep Never to keep”
It’s the same ol’ shit, just different days. The anxious anticipation and fear of consequences for when they finally come out feel oceans deep. They can’t get rid of it. But they still can’t commit to it 100% either. All they could do was making promises after promises with blatant Easter eggs like Harry running around with rainbow flags on stage, Louis wearing a giant golden H on his chest for his livestream during COVID-19 lockdown, Taylor’s entire Lover era. The list goes on and on.
“And I won't confess that I waited, but I let the lamp burn.”
I’m gonna let the burning of Lover house in the Eras tour speak for itself. The plan to come out was a failure time and time again.
“As the men masqueraded, I hoped you'd return.”
As she kept switching out these Kens, while stuck in the same ol’ closet, she still hoped Louis won’t give up on their plan.
Here’s Louis in Just Like You aka the song he announced on National Coming Out Day: 25 and it’s all planned.
Did that plan include dropping his album Walls with Come so far from Princess Park & For every question why, you were my because on the last day that Harry was 25 years old? Because that happened.
And here’s Taylor in Death By A Thousand Cuts: Paper cuts sting from our paper thin plans.
Did that paper thin plan include Taylor releasing ME! on Lesbian’s Visibility Day? Because that happened.
Soon we will see the reason why Taylor would be asking for forgiveness from Louis
But let’s see what she was hoping for and didn’t get.
“With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you'd learned.”
Remember Cloud lyrics from 1D written by Liam, Zayn, and Louis: Some days you’re gonna see the things that I see… Never coming back down. We’re looking down from the cloud.
And again from Louis’s Walls in We Made It: Never coming down with your hand in mine.
But the thing about that song, is Louis still had to throw in a line for his girlfriend Eleanor. Yes, Harry and Louis made it. But they’re still stuck in the closet, anyway.
“'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned”
This is when I realize that Taylor has been tracing the stepping stones, starting from most recent events and making her way back to the start in a non-linear manner. Well, she certainly did called this album a post-mortem study. But exactly whose death are we mourning in this particular song right here?
“And you said you'd come and get me, but you were twenty-five And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired Lost to the "Lost Boys" chapter of your life”
Remember Harry’s “Not That Important”? Or all the Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Baby Bear shenanigans? Louis and Harry were throwing themselves at the closet door, banging against it and making such loud noises. They wanted so badly to show the world that they’re together while still in the band. That fantasy was one hell of a drug. Especially after Zayn left and they felt like they’ve got nothing left to lose. That was, until Belfast and babygate caged them into ironclad closet. But it wasn’t only just those events and One Direction going on hiatus that ensured Louis was completely and utterly lost.
Louis was trying so hard to make everyone sees that he’s not the father. He was so, so loud about. So loud that it’s still causing troubles every time he brings up Freddie TODAY. Way too loud to ever be shut down, basically.
Louis was doing everything he could to leave the closet. But in December 2016, he lost his mom and turned twenty-five.
How could anyone expect a grieving boy to have another fight left in him?
“Forgive me, Peter, please know that I tried To hold on (Hold on) to the days (To the days) When you were mine”
Louis performed Just Hold On for the first time only days after his mom passing. In front of the person who made damn sure he couldn’t be himself under the spotlight. It’s a testament to his strength and I will never stop admiring his resilience. And although Taylor didn’t come through with their coming out plan, someone else made sure to have done the leg work.
Before her passing, Louis’s mother took the time to delete all of Freddie pictures off of her instagram, two weeks after she told Louis that she had terminal cancer. (How do I know this? Well, it’s a hindsight is 20/20 thing. When Jay did that, fans had no clue she was sick and dying. Years later, Louis talked about his mom breaking the bad news when he was at Jamie Vardy’s wedding. And that wedding happened two weeks before she removed all of Freddie pictures.)
Louis’s mom took out the rose thorns and made damn sure her baby boy could walk down their memory lane with the least pain possible. Louis had a great mom who taught him how to get through the darkest nights. Even though it’s not acknowledged so publicly, Louis has had Harry by his side all this time. I don’t think Louis ever needed an apology from Taylor just because she didn’t Speak Now in time.
“But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light.”
Still, I think Taylor still felt really, really guilty for failing to execute their coming out plan as grief-stricken Louis ran out of time. By the time her 6th album, reputation, came out with a scathing prologue letter about paternity test, it seemed he was already in too deep with the conspiracy from One Direction days to ever be rid of it. Quite literally lost to the lost boys chapter of his life.
And I’m not gonna lie, the present tense in lyrics here gives me more anxiety. Taylor already released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in which she repeated “So I tuck myself in and turn my nightlight on. Wish I’d never grow up.”
See, if we’re sticking with the story of Peter Pan, Wendy grew up and Peter Pan didn’t.
But what gives me hope, is that in this version of the story, our Peter Pan aka Louis had been through such grief that pushed him to grow up first. He’s actually the one waiting now. Taylor is catching up. Hence, the present tense about the woman who has turned out the light. Wait for the signal and I’ll meet you after dark.
Now how does the intro sequence of The Eras Tour go again?
It’s been a long time coming. It’s you and me. It’s Fearless. Big reputation. And they said Speak Now. Into folklore. My name is Taylor and I was born in 1989. Hey! evermore. Loving him was red. Meet me at midnight. Nice! Lover.
It’s you and me that’s my whole world. They whisper in the hallway she’s a bad, bad girl.
Taylor started the Eras Tour with Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince. The song I believe was written to Louis from Harry’s perspective. “You know I adore you. I’m crazier for you than I was at sixteen.” Corresponding nicely with the song 18 that Ed Sheeran wrote for One Direction. The one Louis used to sing as “I have loved him since we were eighteen.” And Harry immediately followed up by screaming “Sixteen!” at the crowd.
“You said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me Said you were gonna grow up You said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me Said you were gonna grow up”
The two sets of repeating choruses above aren’t the same as the others. Can you spot the difference from the rest?
“You said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me Said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me Said you were gonna grow up Then you were gonna come find me”
The six lines in different order with different endings. Devil’s in the details.
“Words from the mouths of babes”
This is the most surreal part for me as someone who read too much between the lines. In Louis’s own documentary All Of Those Voices, out of all the song he has written, this is the one he chose to play as an opening segment for Freddie, aka his son who is arguably the most controversial and divisive topic in his fandom: Angels Fly.
It’s the song about helping someone process grief, from someone who’s already been there before.
In hindsight, babygate was a boon of sort. A blessing in disguise, if you will. Fans were so busy tearing this paternity narrative apart. Louis was able to keep quiet about the actual tragedy he was facing. Whatever drama Louis needed to keep his name on the papers, Freddie’s family helped provide it in spade. He was allowed the private time to prepare for the inevitable. And when the news of her sickness broke, Harry was the one who got papped near the hospital that Louis’s mom was staying at. He took that publicity burden off of Louis’s shoulder. If that action did not speak of Harry’s immeasurable love for Louis, I don’t know what else will.
“Promises oceans deep”
Remember how Taylor almost had to go through the same thing Louis did? With her mom’s diagnosis? On my very first listen of Peter, I felt the same gut-punch of grief as when I heard her Soon You’ll Get Better, or Ronan, or Louis’s Two of Us. It’s the worst kind of heartbreak to recognize. And it doesn’t matter how long it’s been, that pain is edged oceans deep into your soul.
“But never to keep”
Fortunately, with time, anyone who has experienced such great loss will begin to realize that grief has ebb and flow, like ocean waves. You learned to live with the pain. You start to see silver linings. Maybe you quantify this grief with the size of the moon. So you build a galaxy around it and the eclipse doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.
TL;DR I believe Taylor is 1) apologizing to Louis for postponing their coming out plan over and over again, 2) acknowledging that the fear of consequences for coming out is nothing compared to the grief of losing your loved ones forever, and 3) confirming the plan to come out. Sure, words from the mouths of babes, promises oceans deep but never to keep. However, they’re both grownups now. So remember this:
“Wait for the signal and I’ll meet you after dark.”
And most importantly:
“The woman who sits by the window has turned out the light.”
Hello, darkness my old friend.
And would you look at that, Louis just released his LIVE album 6 days after TTPD dropped.
That’s all I have for you guys. Thank you for reading!
(ps. I am the same person as loustyleshtommo on tumblr. So if you already saw this over there, no worries! It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.)

This is a reluctant post that I don't want to make and a discussion I don't want to have. But I'd be a hypocrite to not help if I can.
First of all; just don't do it. It's not worth the risks. Secondly; your not 'hardcore' enough to deal with the pain of failure. No one is. Third; Fluromethalone.
It's been a lot of years since ink that was not properly thinned was injected into my eyeballs. I was told later that there was enough ink in my eyes to tattoo 20 people's eyeballs. I do not blame the artist, but I am miffed that other artists who knew to thin the ink kept it secret.
After a few years of living in a bottle, barely being able to open my eyes, needing sunglasses everywhere, and an average of 11 eye infections a week, I was ready to end my life.
The time had come to throw in the towel. So I started having my goodbye chats with friends but keeping the planned checkout to myself. An old girl friend reminded me that the only times I wasn't in constant agony was while taking steroids from the eye Hospital. They had insisted I wasn't to have more than a 2 month supply due to long term side effects, being guaranteed Cataracts. They where also verbally abusive so I never went back to them.
I went to a local optometrist in the regional Australian town I was staying in, and told him the pain was too much, that I was going to end it, and that I didn't want to be blackout drunk in my final months and that he was going to give me the steroids. He said he wanted to examine me first, so I sat in the chair with my chin on the rest, used my fingers to pull my eyelids open, lights in my eyes, as he looked through the telescope for about 4 seconds. He pulled away and said "Yep. Your going to kill yourself. Ok I'll give you as much as you want".
He wrote the script for 2 months and gave me his card with instructions that if my GP didn't want to give a constant supply, I was to insist the GP call him.
The next month's went as planned. I was revived and forced through the mental health system, which was its own nightmare.
I used the Fluromethalone as needed, initially 8 times a day, and in time that became 6, 4, 3, 1. Then 3 times a week, until not at all. Over the space of about a year. Each morning I would scrape blue crust from my eyes, this was the ink being pushed out. It went to green, and now it's normal.
I'm still light sensitive, to the blue spectrum specifically, but in pink shades I can manage pretty well.
So if your suffering, and I know there are people with "successful" procedures who are quietly suffering, my advice is Fluromethalone. It comes in a bottle marked FML drops, and that's never not funny.
It was a brutal few years. And I don't want to discuss it. But the pro's in the mod world don't necessarily know to give this advice. And doctors are often abusive. So it saved my life, and it might help you.
All the best.

Good day! I'm completely new to script as well as calligraphy. I recently had major surgery for cancer and been bed bound for 2weeks so far, this ofcourse made me bored and I bought a jinhao 195 fountain pen and went down the rabbit hole. My handwriting has always been very large and just plain ugly and sloppy since primary school. I'm trying to relearn a different script and hopefully improve my hand writing but I stay stuck at modern calligraphy. Please have a look at my normal handwriting and help me with advice on scripts to try.
Thank you so so much!

Hey everyone, so this is my first post in this thread.
We're Blood Culture, a UK Luxury Streetwear brand aimed directly at tattoo culture. Our focus is bold/simplicity/with emphasis on calligraphy as apposed to actually designs
I've been running this for around 2 years along side a full time job. Would love to here your thoughts, whether they're positive or negative. I'm not trying to please certain people, this is an expression of what i personally like and hoping others jump on board, which so far, has been relatively successful 🙏

Setting: A respectable music publication where important men think important thoughts

The Tortured Poets Department is a transformational, trolling, multimedia masterwork

By: Periwinkle (reliable narrator, scouts honor!)
Album rating: 5/5 stars rainbows 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
Gather 'round all ye tortured poets, dearest readers, and dollar store detectives, as we begin our review of the manuscript to the Taylor Swift Show we've all been watching for 11 seasons. A choose-your-own-adventure novel with layered interpretations that is currently spiraling through the minds of millions of people, just as it was designed.
During the TTPD rollout I couldn't help think: How could Taylor show up to the Grammys in an albatross costume and fist-bump her way to the most Album of the Year wins ever, while simultaneously solidifying her place in pop culture history as the the world's most overqualified WAG at the Super Bowl — and then dare to call herself a tortured poet?!?
And the melodramatic branding for TTPD just added to this uncanny valley. With its greyscale lingerie-and-bedsheets aesthetic and emo lyric teasers I became increasingly... worried.
https://preview.redd.it/cplvr3944pwc1.png?width=1416&format=png&auto=webp&s=d9a6547d907ef2d36ccb52a204ffb793ee87697d
So I braced for the tidal wave of cringe and went into my first listen of the album with clenched fists...but ended it with my jaw on the floor as the human embodiment of the laughing-while-crying emoji: 🤣
Because after listening to the title track — "The Tortured Poet's Department" — the thesis of the album seems to be revealed: Taylor is both a "tortured poet" and a "modern idiot." And so are we.
nofuckinbody!
Because this album is simultaneously sincerely devastating, intimately revealing, and deeply funny. Taylor takes us into a grayscale world where everything seems to be backwards, twisted, and layered. Her public persona and the IRL characters of the TSCU (Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe) swirl into unrecognizable characters within the TTPD universe with plot lines that don't exactly mirror the public story that has been drilled into our heads from the pages of People Magazine this past year.
You cannot "review" this album in a bubble of just the music itself. These 31 songs are part of a multimedia experience from a modern "poet" painting this narrative across a much larger canvas. And our chairman is a twisted troublemaker.

A rich universe within a gray world

The biggest achievement of TTPD is the depth of world-building Taylor was able to accomplish here. From a pure songwriting perspective, this album is an absolute flex.
Taylor is known for her "eras" that essentially slap heavy aesthetic branding onto a collection of songs, but this is the first time I've truly felt like an explorer getting lost deeper and deeper into the vast, interconnected universe of the album itself.
Yet, all my maps are upside down and the well-trodden metaphors of PastTaylor(s) feel like they are mostly left in the dust in favor of new ideas, which is soooo refreshing. Each song is a vignette that ranges from heartwrenching to hilarious while still feeling special, which is where I feel like Midnights fell a little short. As a fan, I enjoyed unpacking songs like "Dear Reader" and "Maroon" just as much as the next person, but those songs weren't something I'd listen to in my car everyday and just enjoy.
But with TTPD, all the wine moms casual listeners will have just as much fun screaming "But Daddy I Love Him!" with their windows rolled down just enjoying the music and thinking zero deep thoughts, just as much as I will have fun doing the exact same thing, while also trying to figure out if the lovers in this song are driving off with "screeching tires" to Florida? Or maybe Texas?
https://preview.redd.it/nw9jbs584pwc1.png?width=2152&format=png&auto=webp&s=db79dfcbca62c22f244fd25d4aa7dc1a2832909c
TTPD sends us traveling between towns and cities of various sizes. We escape to secret gardens of our minds while trapped in boring conversations, and we fall into hedge mazes in our sexual fantasies, but do we also hide there from people who would have bullied us in high school? Does that high school have a bronze statue of Aimee outside? And are those high school bros in the room with us right now playing Grand Theft Auto? Are we stifling our sighs while voices in our head are screeching like a madman? Does that madman come and crash that party screaming about their "good name?" My mind is exploding connecting the dots of a story I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of.
And after feeling so beaten-up as a gay fan this past year, being able to say that Taylor's music and storytelling beamed me up into lunar valleys feels really good. Because way up here I actually love it.

The riddling, gamified, expanded universe of TTPD

Ugh, but we have to come back down to the real world. And I hate it here.
Because it's literally impossible to separate the music from Taylor the person(a) and the "full throttle" hetero romance story arcs that were flung in our faces all year. TTPD is a fascinating case study of the authoreader and celebrity/fan relationship because we've theoretically watched Taylor write the whole thing, as evidenced by the numerous pap walks leaving studios, sometimes accompanied by a tattooed man with a giant neon sign blinking over his head: "Look at me, I'm the muse! And I'm a baaad boy. Rawr."
This reviewer thinks that the first "unlock" of fully appreciating TTPD as a multimedia album is that it seems to be full of premeditated clues and red herrings that edge on deeply unhinged performance art.
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For example, way back in 2022 in Taylor's NYU speech she randomly says, "Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release" (which doesn't even make sense?) And then on April 8, 2023 (a Saturday, not a business day) the major news that Taylor and Joe had broken up is released on National Catch and Release Day, and the news comes out at exactly 4pm PT, which is midnight in London, and also frickin' EASTER SUNDAY (yes this lunatic easter egged her own breakup) AND just so happens to also be Matty Healy's birthday. Meanwhile, on Taylor's birthday a few months earlier Matty had posted an instagram captioned "Gay Poets Society" kissing Phoebe Bridgers, who is later seen leaving a restaurant with Taylor showing off a ring on her middle finger. (That's the closest I've come to my heart exploding! 🤣)
...Ya'll, this is a group of friends and they are trolling us so hard.
And look, I'm not saying that Matty Healy is a good person, but in all of this he seems to be a good sport, I expect he will someday step out from behind the curtain and take a bow "as the tears fall in synchronicity with the score" if our narrator reveals her true hand in this man-u-script.
Normal people just don't play these types of games with "real" relationships and people they love. But in the asylum where they raised her, this type of "stunting-to-songwriting" pipeline has always been part of her life, going back to her first PR relationships as a teenager. In our time of watching Taylor grow up, all we've really seen change is various versions of how she chooses to handle the songwritemuse relationship, and with TTPD she seems to embrace the concept of exposing the wires.

Revealing the code while playing the game

While the entire fandom spent months being feral for Taylor to announce Reputation TV, Taylor pulled the ultimate bait-and-switch by instead "crashing" her own website with an error message while she was on the Grammy's red carpet that announced TTPD with a code that unscrambled to "red herring." Taylor Nation also liked tweets encouraging fans to explore the website code where fans found words in various languages that we now know to be lyrics
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So from the jump, Taylor wants her fans to connect TTPD with red herrings and codes. The album's marketing encouraged us to look for clues, hinting that things are not only backwards and scrambled, but perhaps set up to be an intentional misdirection, just like Taylor knowingly teased Reputation while setting up a red herring twist.
So with all that heavy branding, what genius puzzle has our mastermind laid out for her ravenous fan base of detectives that love to pour hours into building theories and analysis?
tHanK YoU TaYLor tHaT wAs sOoOo HaRD.
Well, as any good Swiftie knows, the OG easter eggs have always been Taylor capitalizing letters in her liner notes, so I guess that means "thanK you aIMee" = KIM? No shit Sherlock.
Well that was fun. Glad we solved The Tortured Poets Department, high fives all around.
No. Just, no. If you ignore the red herring, the lyrics say the opposite: "I changed your name and any real defining clues." So wait, KIM ≠ Kim?
Plucking this well-known TSCU character's keystone out of the TTPD universe causes the story arc to crumble and our trust in our author as a reliable narrator to splinter. If the Kim clue is a red herring, then who is the song about? And if the song is not about Kim, why is Taylor still pointing the public towards her? This clue now transforms into a way bigger question than its small riddle implies — both for the meaning of the song and the real world implications of the people publicly involved.
This is a gateway drug into the twisted universe of TTPD. Do you trust the narrator or the evidence?

"If all you want is gray for me, then it's just white noise"

For an artist that has accomplished what Taylor has in this past year, releasing something this unhinged is a victory lap in a speeding convertible with her middle finger up.
While acknowledging the campy elements and scripted characters are essential to fully enjoying this album, I do not think TTPD is a satire. Taylor is still dealing with very real themes and emotions throughout. The largest of which — in this reviewer's opinion — is gender.
This album is dripping with male pronouns (maybe more than any Taylor album ever) yet within the world of TTPD nothing appears to be as it seems at first glance. I want to know more about the poet who has been taking "Forget Him" pills since 12/13/1989. I want to learn more about this "male perspective" living in the poet's head, presented as a twin, a reflection, a separate person to reach for, trapped unmoving on empty highways.
These themes are rich for exploration, and I've never been more thankful to be part of a community of close readers and open minded thinkers as we devour and unpack this.
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I want Taylor Swift to come out (as whatever sexuality or gender identity she/they truly are) probably more than anyone, but I can't blame her for using this liminal chapter of her life — bookended by a global tour — to romp around in this creative playground she built for a little bit longer.
As a writer, I'm jealous of the scale of the worlds Taylor is able to craft and work with. As a fan, I'm excited and thankful to explore them. But as a person, I wish Taylor peace.
And so I conclude this 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈 review of The Tortured Poets Department by saying that most of all, I am indeed entertained. This album far exceeded its promises, and I'm hopeful for the first time in a long time that Taylor's black-and-white world will soon return in screaming color.