Apparently There’s A Rumor Going Around (started By Patrick A. Himself) NYU That Taylor Dumped Toe

✨ Again and again, maybe 10 more times, we made a promise, what will come next? Will you be here when the time comes? We will see.

This ask was sent on Monday shortly after Karlie revealed her pregnancy. I had already posted several asks in response to her reveal when this came into my inbox. It felt a bit myserious then, and even more so now.

Thoughts ... I have been discussing it with a mutual and we are stuck.

Is HEEL maybe in there to refer to Matty?

Here are several messages in my inbox with different 🎃 theories. Some were sent after only a message or two. We are up to 8 messages now:

🎃 I cannot share my role in this chess game, but friends have friends of friends. I, for one, love my friends and their friends. I wonder if you know any of them? In magic, there is sleight of hand. Redirection of the eye. None of my messages have been about a rumored new boy toy. He is not the pivot. He is not the brake. He is not the parachute. Behind every public figure, every business transaction that makes up its image, there is a human heart that beats red and hot and furious. Sometimes those emotions don’t line up with what is so easily seen. It takes a lifetime to master the art of biting your tongue until it bleeds, all while feeding the world a blinding smile. That is the story these messages portray. The messy story. The metaphorical story. The true, but oh-so shrouded story. The story of the person behind the curtain. And the person that person loves fiercely. Think of these messages as smoke signals. I may not be around this blog for long, but I have my reasons for painting the pictures I do while I am here. In time, all the pieces fall right into place. A Jack-O-Lantern by any other name is still a Jack-O-Lantern. Speaking of, I love Halloween, don’t you? I’m already counting the days until October. 🎃

🎃 Imagine this. A diamond heist. Dressed in your wife’s black leather and the mask of an illusionist, you’ve impeccably plotted your way into the museum. Somersaulting past ancient artifacts, stopping only to admire a statue or two. On silent feet, you arrive at the display you’ve come for. Encased in glass, there lies a mirror. The reflection inside is rightly yours, and yet you’ve had to immorally earn your chance to claim it, to have and to hold it. Your team works quickly and quietly. You’ve made it unscathed. Almost. Mere feet away from the light of freedom, someone you recognize steps from the shadows, and cruelly removes your mask, revealing your true identity before you intended. Threatening to reveal it to a wider audience before you intended. For all that you are a mastermind, it seems you are not unoutsmartable. And yet you cannot bring yourself to give the mirror back. Your getaway bike begins to leave without you, sparks flying as the tires try and fail to slow down for you. You have frozen in this moment of indecision. But your hesitation was a decision all its own. This person may try to beat you to the punch by revealing your true face to the world. Or perhaps your best laid plans will still fall into place like dominos after all. However, that’s a risk you no longer have the luxury of taking. And so, it’s a good thing you always keep a pack of matches on you. 🎃

so, this is gonna be their thing? 👀

Supporting her wife 😍...

folklore is the pivot point between Taylor Swift the pop star and Taylor Swift the legend. Before folklore her career had been in an objective "decline", much in line with consumption changes in the industry, with her seeing slowly diminishing success with each successive single and album she'd released after 1989, and that trend halted and reversed with folklore. US pop radio was increasingly reluctant to engage with her singles unless they were perfectly suited to the zeitgeist of the time, like Delicate was in 2018. Her streaming numbers were not terrible, but she was consistently getting out-streamed by the top new names in the industry, much of which was due to her catalogue being absent from platforms which put her on the backfoot. If she had been following a normal pop star path, then that would've been fine and it would've the beginning of her fade from the A-list. Instead, she took a hard left turn and put out folklore. It did unexpectedly massive numbers (including setting the record for the most streamed female album in the first 24 hours, which she broke two more times after that), sure, but what made folklore different was the entire narrative surrounding it. Taylor was no longer just a 'pop star', she was an indie rocker, and for the first time in a very long time, she was at the center of the celebrity discussion because of her music, and not just as a very famous person taking swings at Kanye or jet-setting with Tom. The pitchfork-indie rock dad demographic, who are the ones in the position of deciding which music is legitimate art and not just "pop music" fawned over folklore, and shifted the narrative from 'Taylor makes pop songs' to 'Taylor makes good songs' in communities that would've never seen the light otherwise. Folklore gave Taylor a massive career-jolting shock, and it set her on the path she's currently following.

In the years since, Taylor has clawed her way back to the very very top of the music industry, and with each release she widens the gap between her and everyone below her. Yes, evermore and Fearless TV didn't have the most stellar numbers, they did continue to develop her career arc in an incredibly positive way. Evermore proved to everyone with a toe in the industry that folklore wasn't a fluke, that she was capable of making "artful" music that would satisfy both pretentious indie rockers and her own fans at the same time. Fearless TV proved that Scooter had royally fucked up in his calculus when buying Big Machine, and that Scott Borchetta had royally fucked up when he assumed Taylor's career had peaked and he'd made all the money there was. It proved to executives that the re-recording project could be a success and that she could convince people to seek out the new versions, which is something we take for granted now (just look at the daily streams of each original album versus its re-recording), but was not a guarantee back then. Plus, it was Fearless TV that really lit the match and set the fire under her back catalogue, and got tens of thousands of people who probably had never listened to the original Fearless to go back and listen to her other albums from that era. The numbers weren't huge then, but that was when casual fans and locals started to re-evaluate the depths of her back catalogue. Obviously, Red TV was another step in her career progression, where she proved that a re-recording could be more than just new versions of songs for people to stream in place of the originals. She turned Red TV into a full-fledged era with videos and talk shows, and that a re-recording was able to spawn a ten minute #1 hit that wasn't just driven by fan consumption. Red TV did also act as a catalyst for her massive catalogue growth, but it wasn't the start of it. Finally, Midnights and the Eras Tour have been the true peak of Taylor's career. She's outstreaming the next 4 most popular female acts on Spotify combined. She got an album debut so ludicrously large that it exceeded even the most optimistic of predictions by a significant degree. She was even able to repair her relationship with US radio and turned Anti-Hero into her biggest and most successful song on the Hot 100 since Shake It Off. Taylor can play the pop star game and get the pop star hits and have the pop star tour, but Taylor writes lyrics that appeal to indie rock dads, wields significant power on the indie/alt music charts, and is playing stadiums with crowds so big they're more in line the biggest rocker performances ever than they are with any other pop girl stadium tour. Taylor has moved so far beyond the pop star that she was at the start of the Lover era, thanks to the pivot that happened with folklore. She can be the pop star on the micro-scale, which is seen in how well Midnights is holding up as a current pop album, but she can also be the music legend on the macro-scale, as is seen by the 14 million+ people in line for her concert presale or the immense, immense popularity of her back catalogue that complements the demand for her new music. There's a reason people have started calling this SwiftMania 😉

The way she’s once again including herself in the lgbtq community. She’s literally a friend of dorothy (x)

🎃 Imagine this. It is 3 am and Halloween is over. Costumes have been taken off and packed away in boxes, perhaps to be taken out again next year if they haven't been outgrown. Empty candy bowls sit on entryway tables. Toilet paper hangs strung across wilted lawns and barren tree branches. Sheep have removed their wolf’s clothing with relief. Masqueraders with masks removed, mermaids who have traded tails for sweatpants. A woman walks down the center of an empty suburban street, shaking from the cold. She peers around with wilde, curious eyes as if she's seeing the world for the first time. She is drenched in salt water, as if she had just crawled from the ocean. She wears an odd combination of tattered clothing - remnants of a fantastical gown and a comfortable sweatshirt - that doesn't quite make sense. There is something very odd about her. Nevertheless, she simply walks down the street. Finally, she reaches a house that looks like all the others. But it is not like the others. Because it is hers. There are figures in the window, anxiously awaiting her return home. With a warm smile cracking the shell-shocked exterior of her face, she ascends the porch stairs. There is a Jack-O-Lantern perched by the front door. There is a tealight candle at its center, the dancing glow casting shadows from deep within the carved, jagged-toothed smile. And as she watches, the flame🕯️ finally🕯️flickers🌬️OUT 🎃

The 🎃 "business" references and brushing off MH as nothing significant, makes me think TS had a deal with MH before kissgate and he is making her make good on it now. I don't know much about him but if he is as awful as everyone is describing, this would be a dickhead move that aligns with his reputation. He is certainly getting a lot of publicity out of this . Maybe this has already been discussed but it's just a thought...

Taylor singing Dress to Karlie