Anti Hero: Reclaiming The Narrative, Part 2: Harry Styles (Matilda)

https://twitter.com/isabelunraveled

Something I thought of for explaining the wlw reading of “argumentative antithetical dream girl” line to hetlors: flip it. Make it: “I could still rock your nights; argumentative antithetical dream guy.”

It still makes sense, doesn’t it? Therefore, it makes perfect sense that she could be addressing that line to a woman.

Yes, this is a great point!

also while everyone is preoccupied with other things, wanted to point out taylor is now on the record with having purchased carbon offsets for her flights for tour

put in the tags how old you were when 1989 was released in 2014 and how old you will be when 1989 tv comes out

The Tortured Poets Department - All Variants

IF this whole thing is a PR stunt it's probably to mimic the 1989 era

Eras tour thoughts, part 3: Burning the Lover house

So, after my Anti-Hero/Matilda theory, here's another brain dump of thoughts on style choices for the Eras tour, now that the first leg has officially finished and we are on the international leg of the tour. Warning, this is bit of an essay...

This part is about maybe the most glaring visual choice of the whole tour, one that pretty much every swiftie has picked up on: The burning of the Lover house. I've seen a lot of confusion in the fandom about this and some theories about how this could represent 'burning down' her old work as she releases the re-recordings or making space for new albums because the house is full if every room represents an era.

In terms of gaylor theories I've only seen one and that is THIS one by @keepingsecretstokeepyoutk (I hope you don't mind me borrowing your theory for this post). It's a brilliant theory that burning the house is another step on the road to coming out and I'd like to extend this with a few observations on my own.

Firstly, I'd agree that the midnights cover image of Taylor holding the lighter was definitely a sign that something was going to get burned before the tour even started. Even with the midnights songs themselves, if we think of it as a journey of stepping into the daylight, the songs on this album are definitely pretty gay and only one song with he/him pronouns. But back to the lover house...

True to my TRUE Lover

So the lover house to me has always represented her public relationships, it's not where her real lover lives and that is for two reasons:

The OG lover house is in a snow globe (see lover mv) so it is to be displayed/looked at but not to be actually lived in. And

Maybe most importantly, the house doesn't have a kitchen. In all of Taylor's music the centre of her domestic life/the place where her lover is, has always been the kitchen. Dancing in the refrigerator light / barefoot in the kitchen/ you're in the kitchen humming, and so many more. Not to mention that her actual love story literally started with the line 'your kitchen or mine...' So yeah, the absence of a kitchen in the lover house has always been pretty telling to me, that this is the 'love's for show' house and her true lover is somewhere else.

What happens to the house during the Eras tour?

So not surprisingly, the house first appears during the lover era set which is the opening act of the tour. Notably though, it isn't furnished and 'lived in' anymore like it was in the lover mv, it's empty and the lovers have very clearly moved out. It's also not night time anymore, it's now daytime and the sun is shining in through the windows:

The only person we see in it, is Taylor in a yellow dress in the pink bedroom where she climbs into the big mirror and disappears. The first 'burning' then occurs at the end of the set, during the transition to fearless era. The last song of the set is the Archer, during which golden arrows fly around on the stage that form a ball of light that explores into a cascade of sparkling rain that sets the house on fire.

It doesn't really burn like a normal house fire though, it just stands in the rain of sparks, looking almost peaceful and golden. So much so, that she added a massive smoke effect to drive home the message that the house really is burning. Look how much smoke there is:

So at the end of the lover era, the contents of the house and a few of the walls have burned, but the house is still pretty much intact. It can be repaired. And that's pretty spot on for the actual lover era, which was meant to be her coming out era, but ended up just being a nice gentle golden (aka pastels and rainbows) fire that left some damage to her straight image but could ultimately be repaired and the public bearding continued. Keep that in mind, because we now don't see the house again until way later in the show.

1989 - Now it really burns

During the 1989 set (which is the second to last in the show) there is a ton of fire imagery, starting with the flame in the hand and the bed on fire during Wildest dreams and then finally, during Bad Blood, the final song, we see the house again looking a bit charred. Now, this is where things get interesting. We see Taylor walking in wearing Karlie's 2014 VSFS outfit, full strut and including the flick of the cape as she sits down at the vanity. She then flicks a match at the floor and the rooms lights up in blue flames.

So despite this being Taylor, I think the outfit and the strut make it pretty clear that this is Karlie who is lighting the house on fire again. And I think now in hindsight we can safely assume that this was foreshadowing Karlie showing up and setting in motion the events that follow. Even in the last few weeks since Karlie's appearance at the LA show, the fandom has been pretty much on fire over it, no matter what side of the fence you're on. And this time it's not a gentle sparkly rain, it's a blazing inferno, blue first, then it turns orange (or whatever colour normal fire is) before the house eventually collapses in a smoking heap and is gone for good.

video credit: ryan pily on YouTube

So...are we nearing daylight?

My interpretation is, that the blue flames indicate that 1989 TV will have a significant impact on this journey, and the different cover images that we have seen so far have confirmed that for me. They are all imitations of original 1989 era polaroids, but taken outside in broad daylight with seagulls flying freely and Taylor's face smiling on full display. They are also the first re-release covers that have the album title and Taylor's Version written on them so she wants her name on these, which feels significant. Now, I don't think that this will be the 'coming out era' or anything, I still think we are 12-18 months away from the end of this whole process, but I think Karlie showing up was a big shift in the story and I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of her and a lot less of any 'boyfriends'. But let's not forget that the general swiftie fandom still have a long way to go from 'she's straight and has only ever dated men' to 'she's been madly in love with the same woman for the last 10 years'. The house finally collapsing suggest to me that we are done with the bearding narrative, and tbh Taylor seems over it. She's been the happiest ever on this tour and didn't even attempt to look sad over her supposed breakup with Joe... I'm trying to collect my thoughts on how the remaining two re-release albums will further this journey, but it's all a jumble at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if tour visuals for the Asia/Australia/Europe leg of the tour change as time goes on to reveal more as we get closer to rep and debut re-release. And personally, I think that once the tour and all re-releases are done, we will get TS11 and that will be the gayest album yet, songs with she/her pronouns and all. 🤞😉

If you've made it all the way to here - Thank you indeed, you are a star!

(pictures and gifs not mine)

The Sparkly Lavendar Purple Goo that keeps Taylor Swift alive, a hypothesis 🧐:

Alright we all picked up on the repeat visual of the sparkly purple goo that comes out of Taylor in Anti Hero as a visual representation of her queerness BUT I really watched again and I have some *thoughts* I’m gonna dump into the ether

First time we see the Goo is almost immediately, as Taylor cracks open an over easy Egg. She seems perplexed by it and a little bit disgusted—what are eggs? The beginning of all mammalian life. To me, this reads as Taylor acknowledging her queerness from birth and being confused and scared and maybe even grossed out by it at first, which given the time period she was a child is VERY on point

Next time we see it is when she’s sneaking into the party trying to be a normal human woman, and instead causes a scene that scares people to the point she gets shot with an arrow directly into her heart. She begins leaking the same purple goo that came out of the egg

She is surprised she was shot, she even takes the time to show everyone that she is bleeding out this purple sparkle goo and no one reacts to help, besides to be grossed out

Her solution isn’t to yell at or question the people who shot her, but rather to cover up her literal bleeding heart with a button

This whole scene reads to me as her becoming louder with her queerness as she aged, and it scaring the shit out of the adults/people around her. *Again, when she was young, it was not acceptable to be openly gay, it just wasn’t* They panic and maybe tell her it’s a phase, not to talk about it, and eventually over time, when it becomes apparent it’s not a phase, she is forced into closeting. Any hopes of living a life true to her gay ass purple heart is silenced by the need to win awards and make money for literally hundreds of other people (vote for me for everything so I can become famous and rich for many other people that are counting on me)

The final time we see the purple goo is after she’s been drinking more than she seems to want to, and after she’s drunk, she pukes purple goo all over the lap of Performance Taylor

She has tried her entire career to hide her true purple sparkle heart, but when her inhibitions are lowered when she drinks, it all comes pouring out of her into the lap of the sexy cool girl hetero character she’s been forced to play—ruining the mirage, the bait and switch, the performance with her super gay truth. It’s a lot, and it hurts my heart for her, what a life she’s lived

Bonus Purple Goo Point that I don’t know exactly what to do with: In The Man, her wall pee is the same sparkly purple 🧐 which was a choice and possibly ab Easter egg for Anti Hero visuals

Thanks for letting me think out loud here 💜