#the bouncy ball thing is based on a true story that happened to someone I know at a hospital

[dumb-teambucciarati-headcanons]

Mista and Narancia’s dumbass fun times:

- whenever they see a playground they yell “swings!” And run towards the swings, even when they are on a mission.

- Narancia is a sucker for those little bouncy balls that you can get in a gum ball machine, so he always buys a few whenever he sees them and he has like a fuck ton of bouncy balls in his funky little room. One time they both decided to bring a bunch of them with them on a mission and they ended up at a fancy restaurant, and Narancia dropped the bag full of the bouncy balls and they went everywhere.

- One time they asked Bruno if he could unzip both their heads so that they could trade heads with each other for the day. It resulted in them bumping into things a lot. They broke several glass things that day (which isn’t surprising though).

- One week they both decided that it was “spirit week” for their team (although the others weren’t as into it as they were). The themes were sadness Sunday, Mista Monday, twin Tuesday, worm Wednesday, tropical Thursday, Fuck you Friday and snoop dog Saturday.

- Despite the fact that they don’t have a curfew or anything, they (and Trish) will sneak out of their windows at night and walk around town and pretend that they (who are part of the mafia) are doing something super rebellious and fun. And Mista will do a funny little “sneaky walk” right after he sneaks out of his window. Like they won’t even break into any buildings or steal any cars (which they aren’t opposed to doing). They just chill. Sometimes they’ll go stargazing. Narancia always brings snacks.

-if they are both ever sent on a shopping trip together they always push each other around in the shopping cart.

[slightlyobsessedwithstories]

Untitled Corrupted Steven Story

I swear this isn't angst. Anyways this is based of @cheeki--tails feral steven, so expect something that's actually nice.

 It's a beautiful day outside, sun's shining, blue skies are filled with a few white clouds, and a cool breeze passes by the streets of Beach City. Everything's perfectly fine and it would've been a nice uneventful day. If Steven didn't arrive.

 On a normal day, Steven being in town wouldn't be a bad thing. He'd be walking around, humming the same cheery tune while looking for people who need help. The most disrupting thing about the teen was the fact that he drives like a speed demon, making the sharpest turns possible at high speeds.

 Right now though, he's going through the Big Donuts' dumpster looking for food and Connie's running torwards him while shouting his name.

 He hears her coming, so the half-corrupted teen grabs a half-eaten donut with his mouth and scurries off with it using his six limbs.

  Connie arrives drenched in sweat, just as ex-mayor Dewey bursts open the backdoor, broom in his raised hand. 

 "Oh thank goodness, he's gone." He said while putting his fist down.

 He turns to Connie,"Can you please keep your... 'friend' from raiding the dumpster? He's been making a mess every other week."

 Connie could only say in between breaths," I'll try to, Mister Dewey."before asking if he knew where Steven would go next.

  He goes back into the store, grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and goes back outside. He gives her the bottle while pointing her to the direction of the boardwalk.

 She thanks him for the water and helps clean up the mess, then she runs torwards the boardwalk.

Connie hears the sounds of someone wailing as she gets closer. She sees a pile of feathers and ripped pieces of cloth near a slumped figure with hair shaped like curled fries.

 Oh no it's Ronaldo.

 She was about to ask someone else where Steven went, when he spotted her.

 "Connie! I'm so happy to see you, as an ex-member of the Crystal Gems, you need to heed my warning."

 "Why? What happened?", she sighed rolling her eyes and looking down at the pile of feathers.

 He didn't seem to notice her response and continued," Sneeple are real! I was right after all those years! I encountered one a few minutes ago, and it destroyed my precious Flora-Chan dakimakura that I just received-"

 "Wait, what did the 'sneeple' look like?"

  "Let me tell you, it had five short horns on its face, little but dangerous fangs, it had sharp spikes all over its body, it even had a tail!", he explained," Its disguise mustn't be working, its showing its true colors and it couldn't even remember that humans only have one pair of arms not two."

 "That was Steven!"

 "Wait, is Steven being controlled by the Sneeple to cause discord across Beach City?!"

 "Yes!",she lied" Now,where was he headed?"

  "He was headed torwards Funland, maybe it's-"

 Connie ran away before he could get another word. He started to update his blog after that conversation.

 As Connie sprints torwards Funland she sees the chaos that has unfolded. Ok, it's not that bad there's just a few broken fences, some leaf piles were destroyed, there's a popped ball on the street, and some people complaining, but other than that it was fine.

 She wonders what Steven was thinking while this was happening.

Steven's having a good day.

 He managed to escape from the house, get some food, chew on something soft, get even more food from humans throwing it at him, run around freely, munch on some crunchy stuff,chase something bouncy, got some humans to smile at him,chase something shiny and fast, and now he's at the place where he got the soft things.

 He hears a familiar voice behind him.

 It's the other nice human that visited him earlier. She's the one that let him out.

 She looks annoyed? And relieved?

 She covers her arms around me when she got close.

 "Steven! Don't run around Beach City again, please."

 I smile and rub my head on her, she giggles.

 "Now, let's go back to the beach house, okay?"

 I whine, I still need to get one last thing. I look at the place where the soft stuff was.

 "You want a plushie?" Yes! Yes! Yes! My tail is wagging so hard, yes!

  "Come on, I still need to get you to the beach house before the gems come back."

 "Steven, that's not fair. You're using literal puppy eyes on me."

 ...

 "Fine, just this once"

 She does something, and the big human is surprised and asks her to choose a prize.

 I point at the pink one, it looks soft and cuddly.

 I hold it the whole way back.

 They're both back in the beach house and Connie watches as Steven sleepily goes to his makeshift nest on his bed, that's surrounded by a hoard of pillows, stuffed animals, and snacks. He hugs the new worm plush as he sleeps.

 Steven wakes up, he's still corrupted, but he's more concerned on what he did while he was 'feral' as they described him in that state.

 He was about to ask Connie, when he coughed up a bunch of feathers.

 He doesn't want to know anymore.

[msbeccieboo]

Arrow 7x20 Brain Dump

I liked this week’s offering!! We got our little ninja Roy back!! Like last week, however, it felt out of place in the season, where was this goodness when we were still mucking about with the Dragon nonsense mid-season?? For me it was lacking in Oliver, and sorely missing Olicity scenes, given our finite time 😭, but was still a good episode overall! I liked how the team transpired to be working as a true unit, for once (only after some persuading from Oliver)! In fact, it was so hard to break up the episode this week, as it was such a team-focused story.

Episode Summary

We had some serious Agatha Christie vibes going on, the story told in a classic whodunnit style. The bulk of the plot was told through flashback *cue sepia* and was interspersed with Dinah interrogating the team one by one in real time.  The fact that the officer was killed using lead piping also tickled me a lot 😂.

The show opens with Dinah and Sergeant Bingsley arriving at a crime scene with the bodies of 2 subway guards. It then cuts to them questioning the first of ‘the suspects’, who turns out to be none other than…Oliver Queen!  Dun dun duuuuunn!!! Oliver denies killing the officers, saying that Team Arrow actually stopped a terrorist attack by Emiko and the Ninth Circle. After questioning Oliver, we realise that besides Team Arrow, there was also someone else there at the scene…ROY HARPER!!!

By flashback, we realise that the team discovered that the Ninth Circle intended on using the bioweapon we saw last week to ‘destroy the city’ or something like that (I can’t say I was 100% on the ball with the backstory this week guys 😂😂). In order to deal with this threat, they call in our favourite parkouring ninja street fighter ROY!!!!!

Source: arsenalroy

Continued below the cut

Dinah and Bingsley (ugh, I hate him) interview all of the team, including Roy, during the course of the episode as we see the story unfold. It appears as if Dinah had no involvement in the operation and is looking to put one of the team away for the murders, but in a somewhat predictable ‘twist’, it is revealed that she was there as the Black Canary for the whole thing, and so is still a suspect herself!

Source: lucyyh 💗

Back in the sepia times, we see the team, including Felicity and now also Dinah, move in to stop the threat, eventually all separating off, as we hear the guards’ defensive shots, and see all of them reacting in turn (I really liked this part…so dramatic!). We then see my sweet baby Roy, battering the guards with the lead piping in a violent rage. Oliver manages to drag him away, horrified and covered in blood, but it is too late, the guards are dead, and everyone looks to Oliver to decide what to do next.

Back at the lair, Oliver realises that Roy has pit-rage, asking him “how did you die” (that murdered me😭). Nyssa had administered the lotus elixir to cure him, but they think his previous exposure to Mirakuru somehow stopped the rage from killing him, but let the rage remain to an extent. This somewhat explained why he doesn’t go into a coma whilst marooned on Lian Yu for 20 years, with noone to kill. Oliver tells Roy, and the others, that Roy is part of the Team and they will cover for him, and thus all the interrogations etc. are explained.

At the end of the Episode, Oliver finally confronts Emiko at the Ninth Circle’s base. Emiko drops the figurative and literal bombshell on Oliver that she knowingly sent Robert off to his death, then proceeds to blow up the building they are in, leaving Oliver trapped under cement blocks and rebar ALL THE REBAR!!  THE TOMMY FEELS GUYS I CAN’T EVEN 😭😭😭

Source: olicitygifs

To be continued 😱😱😱…. 

Olicity

What even is an Olicity? We got next to nothing this week, no glorious episode 20 sexy times, no conversation, no Olicity-only scenes, no kiss, no hug😡. We got a couple of cute touchy moments but that was it. Bitter, you ask? Fuck yes, I am! Hopefully we can make up for this with some hurt/comfort next week, but anyway, let’s look at some pretty!

Source: lucyyh 💗

Source: feilcityqueen

Felicity

Felicity Megan Smoak was a dream in this episode. Start to finish. Fabulous! Would I have liked to have seen more of her? Hell to the yes, she was for sure underused in this episode, but what we did get was perfection!!! Her adorable reunion with Roy, barging past Oliver to attack hug him 😂😂

Source: feilcityqueen

Her whole babble about her emotions was hilarious; “Nerves of Steel. You know me. I’m cool.” How no one else guessed she’s pregnant I will never know, but Roy did kinda raise his eyebrows, so my head canon says he guessed, until they tell me otherwise!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Felicity dragging Dinah during her own interrogation was beautiful! From her pointed nonchalance at the entire situation, all whilst eating a sandwich and asking for cake (god I love her so much), to her constant corrections, to “Oh, you mean when Diaz kidnapped Roy to try to turn him against Oliver? You might have forgotten about that since you weren’t exactly on speaking terms with Oliver and I at the time” YAAAASSSS burn herrrrr!!!!!

Source: seeing-red-arrow

I loved that we saw her in the field again, side-by-side with her original and new team mates. I’m so pleased that even though we didn’t get a heap of Felicity, they really used her as much as the style of the episode permitted.

Bonus one-liners:

“That’s a no on the evil sister redeeming herself then”

“Roy is incredible at parkour” 

😂😂😂

Oliver

We really needed more Oliver in this episode. The storyline should be ramping up and focusing in on Oliver (and the core characters) at this point in the season, and Oliver was in the episode for no more than anyone else, really.

Source: olicitygifs

His highlights for me, beyond a doubt, were his interactions with Roy. I missed this relationship so much!! In many ways, Roy was Oliver (and Felicity’s) first child. He brought Roy into this life, he helped to guide him, to nurture his existing abilities and passed on skills that he had learned. He saved Roy from himself and The Glades, and in return Roy saved Oliver right back, giving him back a part of his humanity that Oliver had long thought lost back in the dark days of seasons 1 and 2, and literally saving him from a life sentence in S3. These men became family not through Thea, but through their bond within Team Arrow.

Oliver didn’t hesitate for a second to declare “we have to protect him”, when they found Roy killing the guards. He knew right away about the pit, defending him against Rene and Dinah when they didn’t want to cover for him at first (shocker), telling them they didn’t understand what he’d been through, that “Roy is and always will be as much a part of this team as the rest of us” and reiterating that “if someone on this team goes down, this entire team goes down.” When he speaks to Roy about what happened, Roy doesn’t initially want to ask for Oliver’s help, but Oliver simply tells him “you never have to ask me, ever”. Ugh I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!

Source: smoakmonster

Something also finally seemed to click for Oliver this week, that he could not help Emiko, that she needs taking into custody. I loved his words to Rene “at a certain point, people need to take responsibility for their actions”, YES MY LOVE!!! I can’t wait to see how he reacts to Emiko next week and in the finale, now that he realises how far gone she is, and that she effectively set him on this path 12 years ago, killing their father, and sentencing Oliver to his time on the island etc.

Source: olivergifs

Dig

Dig was criminally underused in this episode. He had barely any interactions with Roy, despite their history, his interrogation was super brief, and we barely saw him in the field. DO BETTER WRITERS! We’re running out of OTA time!!

Source: feilcityqueen

Roy

ARSENAL IS BACK BITCHES!!! I love Roy Harper. Always have, always will. Sooo glad to see him in the current timeline! He looked so happy to be back with his family too! I’m glad that they explained Thea’s absence (they called for Roy specifically) and talked about how she was doing. Oliver was honest with Roy straight-up about Emiko, and explained how he didn’t want to tell Thea about her until she was caught, as he didn’t want to hurt her by Robert’s actions again, especially now she’s free of her life in Star City.

I love, and actually screamed when Felicity acknowledged Roy’s parkour! They specifically used his bouncy-bouncy ninja skills to break into the vault. However, I will still never get enough of Roy’s unnecessary parkour haha, and we got to see a little of that during his fights, and it still made me smile!!

Roy’s reaction to his pit-rage was heart-breaking. This was worse than when he found out about killing the police officer on Mirakuru. I can see these killings (and I’m hoping maybe even Emiko, also) being what sends him to self-exile on Lian Yu, where we found him 20 years later in the flash forwards.

Dinah/Rene/Emiko (a.k.a. the annoyances)

Dinah remains fucking annoying! Even turning out to be in on the act in the end, it was so easy to buy into her trying to send down anyone and everyone on the team for this crime because she is just generally a shitty disloyal person!

Likewise with Rene. It was easy as the viewer to believe that he had ratted out Oliver again, because he’s done it before, and I have no doubt he would do it again. Neither he nor Dinah wanted to help Roy at first. That they needed reminding by Oliver about how protecting one of the team protects all of them, just reiterates how they are not true team players and why most of the fandom still doesn’t class them as real members of Team Arrow.

Regarding Emiko and Rene…Rene basically just stalked Emiko for half the season, they are not ‘close’, ugh, stop! Emiko gets bonus points for shooting Rene when he confronts her! I actually didn’t mind how they used Emiko this week, she appeared only when necessary, and moved the story on. I still can’t take her seriously as the big bad of the season, but it is what it is. Emiko will stop at nothing to take down the Queens (which at this point is quite frankly just stupid), and her latest dastardly deed is to bury Oliver under a building (from behind a protective wall, because she knows that’s the only way she would escape Oliver) to ‘kill him’ and then to destroy his reputation on the outside by outing the video footage of him covering up for Roy.

With no flash forwards this week, I just can’t help think of all the extra time we had, and that extra time was spent on Dinah and Rene *violently rolls eyes*, when we could have had more OTA & Roy (my favourite combination)! Anyway, next week looks awesome!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the gif-makers! I love you more than Roy loves excessive back flips 😉

💗💗💗

[magicianmew]

Substituting with “anything” (a quartz and rosemary-inspired rant)

Apparently this is the month of me sticking my foot in places I'll likely regret. But I feel like this really damages the learning process for a lot of witches and needs addressing. So today I'd like to talk about this thing being told to new witches way too often: that they can use "anything" as a substitution if they don't have X ingredient for, say, a spell jar or whatever.

Can I just say, as someone whose practice focuses heavily on herbal work, how crazy that makes me?

I am not saying spells are set in stone and substitutions can't be made. They totally can be.

I am not saying that this here fancy spell with all these fancy, expensive ingredients can't have a more accessible re-working done with more common ingredients. It probably can.

I am all about making spells work for less money, less time, and less privileged people. You tell me what you’ve got in your kitchen and yard, and I will help you find a way to make that into any-damn-thing you please.

I am not all about the elite-extra-special "old way" or some dead guy's mandates on how to witch.

But when I see, "just use quartz/rosemary instead" as the generic advice for EVERYTHING, no matter what the missing component in question is, it makes me crazy.

What's the purpose of using ingredient-based spells? No, not just for the aesthetic(TM). It’s to reduce the energy load on you by replacing it with stuff that ALREADY HAS a given energy, or focus.

So if you remove it and just stick a generic energy booster in there, what's going to happen?

One of two things:

1. The spell doesn't work as intended, because you took off a wheel and put a rocket where it used to be.

2. The spell does work as intended, but I'm willing to bet you feel the exact same drain you would have felt if you'd just done energy work... because that's probably what you did (and a lot of people don’t realize that isn’t supposed to happen).

So while I'm not saying that you're wrong and your spell didn't work regardless of whatever generic substitutions you made, I am going to say that if that's true, I wonder if you’re wasting a lot of materials in your practice.

The purpose of spell ingredients is to use the properties of the ingredient in order to add a specific energy to the spell, which reduces the burden on you to supply that specific energy, and to have highly consistent focus while doing so. If your spell calls for valerian, then there is something about valerian itself that is aiding the spell. You can't simply swap it with cayenne and expect to get the same results. There are definitely things you COULD swap it with because they have similar properties, but not absolutely anything.

If you can swap the valerian with literally anything and get the same results, that likely means you are not actually using the valerian to help you cast the spell. You're simply using your own energy and the herbs are set dressing.

And there's most certainly nothing wrong with being adept at pure energy work. That's a great skill to have as a witch. But it sure is a waste of herbs if you're not actually using them, eh? I mean, a lot of these herbs we use aren't cheap or readily available.

Why not just get rid of the set dressing and save yourself time and money and just do energy work? Or if you like your set dressing, use tools meant to amplify energy work, like a wand or a staff or something?

Also, I think there's a certain level of damage being done when we tell witches who are trying to learn herbal work that anything is just the same as anything else and none of it matters.

The magical uses of herbs are often tied to their mundane uses. Let's remember: cunning craft was the mother of medicine. To this very day, the magical uses of many herbs are tied to their physical affects. Even when they aren't, they're often a sort of hypersigil, and they've gained those associations through dozens or even hundreds of years of thousands or millions of people all imbuing them with the same purpose and energy. Most correspondences have a biological reasoning behind them, or have been basically sigilized by being used the same way thousands of times.

Exceptions and personal correspondences are a thing; I have a few myself. But these tend to be herbs that have been highly significant in my own life over a long period of time, and have consequently become a sort of personal sigil, as opposed to the cultural sigil of most broader correspondences. My personal correspondences tend to be things I have history with (even if it's mundane), not just literally anything. Basically, I've overridden the cultural sigilization, by writing over it with my own over time. But that’s an exception.

It makes it impossible to learn herbal work -- which is a totally different skill from energy work -- if you're proposing that none of it actually matters and it all works the same anyway. And furthermore, it's pretty discouraging if a witch tries that, and then their spell fails, which I see with some regularity.

Witches read that they can replace "anything" with quartz or rosemary, and then they come back and say their spell is doing all kinds of weird stuff it shouldn't be doing.

Well, I'm not surprised. The original ingredient was there to give the spell a specific property, and then someone told them to replace it with a neutral energy booster and not do anything to replace the loss of that specific property, or control all the unprogrammed energy.

So, the result is going to be a high-powered bouncy ball of a spell that just pings around doing random shit and putting holes in the wall. Because they didn't give it anything except energy with no focus. Because you can't just replace "anything" with quartz or rosemary.

That tripped me up for a while, as someone who relies a lot on tools. I'm an empath, and like a lot of drain-prone people, I find using ingredients helps reduce how drained I get by casting spells. Becoming adept at herbal work was really important for me to be able to cast at all with any consistency. I can DO energy work, but I don't always wanna wind up spending the next day in bed, and that's where tools help me.

It's not very helpful to just say "replace it with anything." That's not how herb magic works.

Substitution can be done in most cases. But if you're gonna remove a wheel, you need to add a different one that's compatible with the car, not just strap a rocket to the axle.

So, long story short: I really wish people would stop saying you can substitute with "anything." While I get that the intention is to try to make the craft more accessible, it just impedes people from learning how to do it with stuff that’s ACTUALLY accessible. I mean, what’s inaccessible about the stuff most people have in their kitchen? You can substitute for a lot with that!

While it is completely true that you don't need ingredients to do a spell, it is also true that if you're going to use ingredients, they matter. If they didn't matter there'd be no point to using them.

If you find that you can substitute with "anything" and get the same results no matter what, then I think I can save you some time and money: just get an energy working tool instead!

[arabian-bloodstream]

Taylor Swift - ‘folklore’ review

After Taylor dropped folklore on Thursday, I decided to write a review, tackling each song. I listened to the whole album first without lyrics and then with, and I listened to each song at least four times. I didn't read any other reviews or backstories–unless otherwise noted–because I wanted to go into this with an unbiased opinion.

My ranking chart is as follows: Masterpiece - 6 | Awesome  - 5 | Great - 4 | Good - 3 | OK - 2 | Bad - 1

the 1 - Beginning the album with this song I think was done for one reason alone and that's because of the uncharacteristic (for Taylor Swift) first line with the profanity ("I'm doing good, I'm on some new shit"). It's announcing that this is an all-grown up Taylor, world! Now, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that; the issue for me is that this song really isn't representative of folklore as a whole. It's more upbeat, less dreamy and sets us up for a different kind of listening experience than  we were going to get. Having "the 1" in the middle of the album to break up some of those slower tracks would probably have been a better idea to give a little jump in the mix.

As for the song itself, it's one of the best tracks on the album. It's a wistful take on a relationship that was a wild, wonderful ride, but it ended and she's taking the blame. There are no excuses, she admits that she has a tendency to push too much, go too far and that is what messed things up and she's still doing it. She imagines now that he has a great life, while she's all alone. The whole song keeps going back to the pensive refrain of what could have been so that bouncy up beat contrasts with the poignant lyrics. – 4

cardigan - I liked this song when I first heard it. After listening to it a few more times, I liked it a lot more. After listening to the second and third point of view of this song, "august" and "betty," I love it now.   Take the lines: "chase two girls, lose one" and "you'd be standing in my front porch light" and listen to "betty" and there are the references to that narrator wanting to show up at "Betty's" party and stand on her front porch which he finally does and the "cardigan" is mentioned. A love triangle is also clearly referenced in that song. I also just like the song itself. I think it captures the heady feel of young lovers who desperately feel that love, that betrayal, wanting to make it better.   And, yes, the bridge is gorgeous... including the "chasing shadows in a grocery line" because it brings to mind of how often people see someone who looks like someone we know in familiar places. I think it's a great line as are many lines in this song. – 4

the last great american dynasty - When I first heard this, I LOVED it. I thought it was pretty awesome.  I read it as society blaming a woman for the downfall of a man fucking  up his own life. A guy can't stop partying, and the doctor blames his wife. A woman is enjoying life, and the town blames her and casts her as a mad, bad woman. It told the story of a woman who married the last son of a rich dynasty and he died because he was a hard, partying ass. And instead of casting the blame on him for dying because of his lifestyle, the doctor, the town, the world blamed the woman. And she was all 'fuck that shit' and lived her best damn life with the money that was left to her as his wife. And in the end, we find out that it was her singing the song saying, yup, I lived my best damn life, so screw you all! You was judging, but my life was good.

I loved that message. A woman being blamed while the man ruined his own life–because, yeah, how often  does that happen?–but she decided to just let it roll off her back and live her finest life. And that beautiful, empowering message playing over this peppy beat was just delicious. I just loved it.  And then... I found out this was based on a true story, and I actually read the lyrics and realized that I had missed a key lyric. The over-the-top cool stuff that I thought was adding an almost surrealistic spin was Taylor just literally listing biographical points, and that key lyric was that it wasn't the narrator singing the song all along it was Taylor talking about how she went and bought that house and making the final verse about how the townsfolk complained because she had parties there.

Uhm, OK. Yeah. Soooo, I still like the song. It's still got a great beat; it still tells the story of a woman who was blamed for a man's foibles and decided fuck it and lived her life to the fullest, but knowing the   backstory, it's too on the nose and not really quite making that statement as fully and awesomely I originally thought. It's still a great song, though. – 4

exile - This is a beautiful song. It feels very similar to "The Last Time," a duet she did with Gary Lightbody from Red.  I personally loved that and part of the reason that I loved it is because I thought that Taylor and Lightbody sounded so good together.   Their voices just complemented each other's very well, his high voice blending beautifully with hers. It just worked. I can't say the same here. Bon Iver's voice is *so* strong and charismatic. It is nuanced and  filled with such character and life. You can feel how lived in it is and, to me, unfortunately Taylor just sounds very pale next to him. She's drowned out.

I  know that she's not the strongest singer and normally that really isn't an issue (at least not since her early albums). She's gotten much better, and I think she sounds lovely on every other track, but next to  him, her vocal weakness stands out. When it's just her singing, that first verse of hers, she sounds lovely, but then they start singing together and–ooh, it's just not that good. The lack of character and  strength to her voice is very apparent and that's all I can think of when I listen to this song. And it's a shame because it's a beautiful song. For the most part. It has the same issue that "cardigan" has in  that it just kinda doesn't seem to have an ending. Hmm. – 3

my tears ricochet - This is the best track. It's just amazing. The lyrics, the imagery, the build-up of the melody, the way she sings the words, the delivery, the bite, the softness, the back and forth that reflect the love, the pain, the pettiness, all of it is reflected in every word, every note, all of it. This song is this album's masterpiece. I just... there is   nothing about this that isn't just perfection. – 6

mirrorball - Initially, I did not like this song. I thought it was just a complete pile of piffle, pretty  words thrown together over a pretty melody and immediately forgotten once it ended. It made no sense, nothing connected to anything. A mirror ball is related to a disco, but she's on her tallest tiptoes in her highest heels. And then there are horses and a circus and a tightrope and a trapeze, and masquerades with revelers, but no one is there. And through it all she's trying to fit in, but she's also trying to show someone every version of themselves, but also keep that someone focused on her. It. made. no. sense.

However, where I had initially posted this review, a few people who did love this song broke it down and I was like 'ohhh!' and I gave the song a few more listens to and... I love it now. It is great. I love the idea of an entertainer (obviously in this case, Taylor) always striving to be the "IT" persona, trying to be  the next big thing, stay on trend, keep eyes on them, and, yes, it's delivered so prettily with such pretty words and over such a pretty melody, oh, but there's such a melancholy to it that's really lovely.  Especially when you get what it's about, which I clearly did not when I listened to it and reviewed it initially. – 5

seven - I want to like this song more than I do. I love the idea behind it. I love the first verse and the chorus, and the idea behind the second verse and a few of the lines, but I feel like this is unbaked. It   doesn't come together fully and like "cardigan" and "exile' it doesn't really have an ending, but even more so, it just stops. This one feels very unfinished. It's frustrating because I think that "seven" is a   track that I could have adored and been one of my favorites of hers, but as it stands, it just really falls short. – 2

august - Oh, this is gorgeous, just gorgeous. Another upbeat, yet wistful track. This is the second point of view number in the love triangle that we were first introduced to in "cardigan." There are no references to that song here, but the line "Remember when I pulled up/And said 'Get in the car'" will come up in "betty."  The track tells a story, obviously,  and there are specific references, but they are general enough that they just help to paint a picture. Really this song is more about building the mood of the desperation and longing and memory for and of someone that was never yours. the "other" in a triangle and it succeeds in that. – 5

this is me trying - Here's another strong one, it would have been stronger had the ending hit, but like a few other tracks on folklore,  it didn't, uhm, really have one. I'm just not happy about that. It's like they forgot that they need some kind of actual ending to quite a few of their songs. It's very weird. I know that as I get used to the songs that reaction will fade, but these first couple of times listening to them, I'm like: "Oh, it's over. OK, then. That just stopped." I was really, really enjoying this one, it's quite beautiful and then the last "At least I'm trying" happened and there was a bit of music left so I hoped it would have some build-up or something, but nope, it just faded out. So I was left unsatisfied which is really a shame because the lyrics are powerful, the vibe is evocative, the rhymes are so good in this (as they are throughout the album), her vocals are lovely, the message is a great one. Again, everything about this song is fantastic... except the lack of an actual ending. Eh, I'll get used to   it. – 4

illicit affairs - This song is brilliant, not quite as top-notch as "my tears ricochet," but lyrically it rises above. So much that I want to dissect this one a little deeper because the lyrics are so good. The specific detail in "Tell your friends you're out for a run/You'll be flushed when you return" is just amazing. It conjures up so much in two lines. She has a life, she has friends, but she's lying to them about the affair because she's ashamed but she can't stop seeing this guy. The second of the illicit, secret sex she's going to be having with this guy.

Another one: "What started in beautiful rooms/Ends with meetings in parking lots," because yeah, in the end, cheating is ugly and dirty.

The chorus makes a change-up that's awesome, and both versions are fantastic in their own right: "that's the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and longing stares/it's born from just one single glance/but it dies and it dies and it dies/a million little times."  You have the contrast between the affair being born, but then how it dies over and over and over, as it hangs on and on, which loops back to a line from the first verse: "Tell yourself you can always stop."

Now, the second chorus change plays out as: "that's the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and stolen stares/They show their truth one single time/but they lie and they lie and they lie/a billion little times."   Now, it's no longer a longing stare, but it's stolen because, the longing has been acted upon, and the contrast is between the truth and lies and we've grown from millions to billions.

Truly great songwriting in this one. Alas, I have to ding it because, *sigh* here we go again with the faded, lack of an oomph of an ending. And it really hurts on this one because this is *such* a spectacular song otherwise.  Still overall, I truly, deeply love this one. And I will get used to its ending eventually. – 5

invisible string  -So, yeah, Taylor has some great songs that are undeniably about Joe Alwyn ("Paper Rings," "Cornelia Street") this one, uhm, it's sweet.   Yeah. Let's just leave it at that. OK, fine a bit more... this is one that should have been kept in her diary. – 2

mad woman  -I like this a lot, I don't love it, but I like it enough to think it's a great song. I think it will be a grower. I think. It also might be  one that eventually just becomes something I skip. I'm not sure. I don't know. I've listened to this one about four times now. When I first  heard it and three times doing this review now and it hasn't changed the dial in either direction. So yeah... Hey, at least, I feel like it has a true ending. There's that! – 4

epiphany  - As I wrote in my into, doing the review of this album I didn't want to read any other  reviews or thoughts. I didn't want to know what Taylor had said about songs, etc. before I came up with my initial thoughts. I wanted to just have my own take on them. Well, listening to this one, starting with the soldier dying on the battlefield and the medic trying to save him, to a hospital and only able to touch patients through plastic before the reference of "twenty minutes to sleep" and the "dream of some epiphany," I saw where Taylor was going with this.

The track is equating what is going on now with this global pandemic and the service that our doctors and nurses are providing and how they are putting their lives on the line with soldiers and servicemen at war. This is a tricky thing to pull off, but I think she managed it quite well. I thought she did a beautiful job tying the two together. After listening to the song, I did  a cursory glance on the Google-machine and this was her intention so she got that across quite well, I thought, and again, beautifully so. I really loved this one.

There's an eerie, haunting quality that floats over the whole song that ties into the feeling of helplessness that anyone in the position she's singing about would be feeling... anyone trying to make sense of madness, of things that don't make sense. This is easily one of the top tracks on folklore. – 5 betty  - And so we have the last point of view, "James." I didn't initially like this one that much, but coming off of "august" and cardigan" and it finishing this story from all three sides, I love it. I like how there are three distinct styles, Betty's point of view in "cardigan" is hopeful, believing in love, knowing that James is going to come back. "august" is wistful, that narrator knowing that she never really had James more than as a summer fling. And sure enough, here in "betty," James thinks of that summer quite differently: "Like a figment  of my worst intentions/She said "James, get in, let's drive."

We also find out that the whole thing started because James saw Betty dancing with another guy, silly stupid teenagers and their drama.   There's also the juxtaposition from "cardigan" where Betty sings "When you are young, they assume you know nothing" many times while James repeats in this song, "I don't know anything." Finally, "cardigan," the first song in the trilogy ends with Betty saying she knew that James would be on her front porch, he'd come back to her and there he is, at the end of the last song in the trilogy, "betty," on her front porch.

On its own, "betty" throws in a bunch of details that just seemed random and when I first listened to it, I was like 'OK? Teenage drama, that's nice, whatever. It's a cute song, with a jaunty melody, but not very   memorable.' However, when connected with "cardigan" and "august," the details mean something. They aren't random. There's a story here. All of that is really cool and when it all came together, I loved it. – 5

peace  - Yeah, this song is bad. It's like clichés and then, ooh, I'm gonna write some lyrics in the hopes that they'll become brand new wide-spread clichés. It's a shame because melodically and vocally, the song is really pretty, but lyrically, oof, this is one of the weakest. – 1

hoax  - So this song describes a toxic relationship in sweet, sweet melodic tones and with beautiful, beautiful lyrics. God, this is so beautiful.   Fans of fictional toxic relationships who acknowledge the fictional relationship they stan now have a theme song. "Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in/Don't want no other shade of blue but you" and "My only one/My kingdom come undone/My broken drum/You have beaten my heart" ... ugh, this is painful, but so pretty! "You have beaten my   heart!" God! What a bummer, but such a beautiful, gorgeous bummer to close the album on! Seriously, I love this one so much! Taylor, you have beaten my heart! – 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So, that is the album. Overall, I loved this. There were a few songs that didn't quite work for me. One that would have been higher ranked if only Taylor's voice worked better with the featured artist ("exile" with Bon Iver). Still, the majority of songs I ranked great or better, literally 12 out of 16. Only four didn't score great or better after five six listen-throughs.

folklore is the best album I think that Taylor Swift has released since 1989. While I do think that Lover and Reputation have more worthy tracks than they get credit for, they also have more than a few duds. folklore is just lovely, taking advantage of her strong lyrical ability, her musical craftsmanship and how well she's able to tell a story through song. The biggest issue that I have with this album is how so many songs don't seem to have a real ending, they just kinda fade out, leaving them feeling a bit unfinished. That especially hurts "illicit affairs" because otherwise that song is incredible!

That said, with only just that one quibble, I think this is a strong album. I don't think this is Taylor's sound going forward and highly doubt this is what we are going to be hearing from her in the future, but a mix of this and her pop voice would be great. I mean, this type of sound with more of a pop vibe would give us songs more like the transcendent "Clean,"  which is one of her best ever. That would be a very good direction for Taylor Swift to go, in my opinion. And that is all this whole thing was... my opinion.