#but it is what it is i am absolutely better off it just suuuuuucks!

[deoidesign]

Random update sorry everything is taking so long. I've paused Patreon and I'm working on various things, but some people have started to express concern for my safety/living status so just letting you know I am alive!

[francesderwent]

reputation - first impressions review

…ready for it? weirdly I’m super into it???? the pre-chorus is good, the chorus is outstandingly good, and it builds perfectly!  but mainly I love it because it’s like a dark version of Enchanted or Everything Has Changed, and I love Taylor’s “dark” songs (Haunted, I Know Places, etc), and her love-at-first-sight songs are my favorite of her “light” songs!!! so the fact that this is about that unshakeable certainty that something is going to materialize, but with the feeling added of standing on a precipice…or maybe you are the precipice, or he is??  or both? it’s perfect.  wait I’ve got it, it’s like Enchanted and I Knew You Were Trouble COMBINED, and as such it is brilliant.

End Game   the lyrics in Taylor’s verse are fun, and I love Ed, but the song is yawn. also it gets stuck in my head any time someone mentions the avengers movie, which is constantly, and that’s definitely making me resentful.

I Did Something Bad this song makes me wanna dance slutty, and I love it.  the production is exactly what it should be, the verses, the pre-chorus, and the chorus are all perfect, and her voice sounds amazing.  plus thelonelybrilliance said I was this song back in the day and so I am legally obligated to adore it. catch me singing this every time I pre-meditatedly break my school’s dress code.  go ahead and liGHT ME UP

Don’t Blame Me I don’t hate it, but the rhythm is kind of boring?  also it sounds like a Hozier song for some reason and that’s not an overlap I was expecting or which I know what to do with.

Delicate I love the content of the song – she’s really captured something about the beautiful gossamer-fragile early stages of a relationship – but I don’t love the production of it, I liked the acoustic performance at the Time 100 thing so much better.  and especially I think I’m biased against it because I hate the thumbnail on the video.  Taylor’s feet don’t point or turn out properly in the split, and it deeply bothers the former dancer in me.  I DO really like the bridge on this song, which I think may be the only song on the album whose bridge is absolutely transcendent in that classic Taylor way.

Look What You Made Me Do the most frustrating song ever, spiritual successor to “Bad Blood” which greatly surpasses it in every possible underwhelming way.  starts amazingly strong with the creepy fairytale instrumental, the verses are solid and Taylor’s voice sounds glorious in them, the pre-chorus GOES OFF, and then the chorus suuuuuucks.  I feel like she should have switched the bridge and the chorus somehow??  the sing-songy “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me” has the same vibe as the weird chanty chorus, but without, y’know, being super annoying and dull.

So It Goes… the rhythm in the chorus is, again, unfortunately, kind of boring. it doesn’t really get good until the last thirty seconds when the different vocalizing all overlaps and she switches into her higher register, but it does get really good for those last thirty seconds, like, I get chills kind of good. it does make me wanna listen to the True Blood theme song, which is the same vibe but southern gothic.

Gorgeous I have never been more devastatingly called out by a line than I was by “you should take it as a compliment that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk”, except that I literally do that constantly, while sober. and also except for the fact of “you should take it as a compliment that I’m talking to everyone here but you”, which called me out Even Worse.

Getaway Car this is the most Taylor Swift song on this album in that it creates a whole story within a self-enclosed universe, which somehow, by virtue of being self-enclosed, becomes open to everyone’s identifying with it.  it’s a brilliant metaphor, and the bridge is killer.

King of My Heart if I don’t have this song play as I enter my wedding reception, it’ll be because my future husband asked me not to, very persuasively.  ALL AT ONCE THIS IS ENOUGH

Dancing with Our Hands Tied I really thought “I loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us” was just one of those things that tumblr says, probably from a fanfiction or riverdale or something, but it’s from this song. huh.  it really is the OTP song, I can think of like five couples off the top of my head that it applies to.

Dress I was listening to the album while making dinner and had to skip this song partway through because it was going to scandalize my roommates, and so I listened to it on the metro instead, and it’s shockingly incredibly sweet????  the whole thing is about how much she has let this man into her heart, how much she’s let him become a part of her identity, all the way down, so that even her dress – something that we all associate with Taylor being Taylor – is actually about him.  at the same time, I feel like this song retroactively validates my being uncomfortable with the breathy vocalizing in Wildest Dreams.

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things now this is Taylor Swift spite.  juuust harsh enough, capable of laughing at itself, and fun.  kudos to Taylor for rhyming “mama” and “drama”. masterful.

Call It What You Want this song sounds like Ed Sheeran??????? the syncopation?? is classic Ed Sheeran and I love how much he’s influenced her style!!!!! FRIENDSHIP *ahem* anyway, the bridge is real good.

New Year’s Day I listened to this song months ago, actually, and I am completely emotionally overwhelmed by this being the closing song on the album.  “Clean” and “Begin Again” are both about moving on, leaving behind the one thing that defined that phase of life for you.  “Long Live” is about something that she can trust to be with her through changing phases, but specifically something non-romantic.  Fearless literally ends with a song called “Change”.  but with New Year’s Day, it’s not about an ending, it’s about the determination that even if we don’t know where we’re going next, it’s going to be together, because I’m going to stay.  this era doesn’t end with “well, I made some memories, found some moments to hold onto, but something else is coming around the bend”.  it ends with I will hold onto you.  in the midst of everything, where you’d least expect it, the thing she gets to take away with her at the end of the day is a love she can count on.    

[dignifiedrice]

Do you hold the same sense of entitlement in Ireland yank, where you try to tell them who they can and can't let into their country?

Did ... did I just get called a Yankee? This is hilarious! Friend, I am about as Texan as they can get, my dad’s mestizo family has been living there for GENERATIONS, so if you want to insult me, please call me a ‘Tejana.’ There you go. Better, more accurate insult for next time. 

Secondly, this ask is so badly written, I’m not actually sure what you’re trying to say? I did live in Ireland for a while, but I’m back in Scotland now. So, um. I guess while I was living there, I felt that they should ... hold decent immigration standards like every other country should? Like, let in refugees and obey EU law and all that? And I still think that now, so. I didn’t have any trouble getting into Ireland, ‘cause I’m married to an EU citizen. My biggest personal beef with immigration in Ireland was that the paperwork took so long to go through. They should have better funding. 

What I THINK your poorly written, anonymous ask is ACTUALLY saying is that you take issue with how mouthy I’ve been about immigration as it applies to the UK. That’s what I’ve been harping on about. 

In which case, yes I think that as a wife of a Scot, who’s lived in Scotland for years, and has paid taxes and heavily subsidized the education system by dropping a cool thirteen thousand pounds on a degree, who has volunteered, who has completely integrated myself into the community, I am entitled to live here. 

And I am living here. 

So suuuuuuck on that. :D 

And hey, it’s true that I have been treated with kid gloves compared to most immigrants, ‘cause I’m from America, and I speak perfect English, and I’m white-looking, able-bodied, and have no kids yet. I absolutely have privilege. 

It’s bullshit. 

The UK is run by a racist, and its immigration laws are racist. I think it’s stupid that an English language test is required (where’s the Cymraeg language test, or the Gàidhlig test, amiright?), I think it’s stupid that they require the British spouse to earn a certain amount of money to get a spouse visa, and I think the discrimination against people from war-torn countries is ridiculously unethical. 

But I don’t think you really care about all that. People like you never do. So I will sum up my feelings thusly: 

Immigrants rule. 

Bigots drool. 

Immigrant love 4 lyfe. 

Immigrants run the world. 

Now I’m going to have a shower, and take my immigrant ass to bed to have raunchy sex with my Scottish husband. Oooh, I’m going to feel so ENTITLED. OOOH, IT’S GOING TO BE SO GOOD. We will make love to M.I.A.’s hit single ‘Borders’, and as I orgasm, the song will switch to The Guess Who’s ‘American Woman.’ Afterwards, I will wipe the sweat from my ass with a newspaper clipping of Theresa May’s face. The used condom will be cleaned up with a UKIP pamphlet. 

Here I go. I hope your night is as fun as mine, pal. 

P.S. I’m turning my anon function off so have fun not being able to respond! Unless you dare to speak to me un-anonymously, but your kind never does, so, uh. This has been fun. ;)