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clark-reviews · 2 years

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Album Review: 👍🏼Recommend

Lana Del Rey, Incense, The #1 Male Sex Toy in the World, and the Auto Play feature on YouTube Music?

The secret recipe for turning people into Taylor Swift fans isn't once size fits all, in fact, when it comes to the moment a talented artist grabs your attention for the first time, I think of it more like a meet cute. Cupid doesn't care who you're with either, he's sneaky like that. I had no intention of listening to "Midnights". In fact, Taylor Swift wasn't even on my Pop music radar until she infiltrated my bedroom solo act, with Lana's masterpiece, "Born To Die", as the sonic backdrop I had consented to.

As though Lana had lovingly snuck Taylor into the room and revealed her as a surprise birthday gift, "Snow On The Beach" auto played right after Lana's album ending track, "Lucky Ones". I have to admit, as though I was audibly blindfolded, when Taylor's track started, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I couldn't tell them apart! "Snow On The Beach" has Lana's red lipstick-stained cigarette butts all over it. She seamlessly weaves in and out of Taylor's (surprisingly) sultry vocal delivery, never taking control of the song. But she's there in the room, the whole time, making sure I'm still okay with this cunning sleight of hand.

My second order of business for the night was to check and see if Lana had just silently dropped an album on me without telling me first. One that included this new song. To my surprise, it's on Taylor Swift's new album!? As a man who appreciates a good musical rabbit hole, I delved further and started "Midnights" from the top. Because "What's the big idea?" and whatnot.

To be perfectly honest, I chuckled at the title of the first track "Lavender Haze". My mind immediately connected it to "Purple Rain" and well... It was a cute moment. I've since read that this album contains Easter eggs, albeit, this may not be one of them. I hit play though and I got smacked in the face with the most uncannily Dua Lipa sounding song on the whole album. This is a good thing though, we like Dua Lipa. And it's refreshing to know that Taylor might have taken some influence from her, and chose to give her a lovely nod to begin the album.

"Maroon" is an interesting track as well, because it's always the second track that sets the pace of an album, in my opinion. Just as a single note isn't a melody until there's a second note to compliment it. In music theory this is called an interval. And in this case, the previous track was in B-flat Major, and "Maroon' is in G Major. Not to get too technical, but this interval the first two tracks created is called a "minor 3rd" (m3). For reference, the first two notes of Moonlight Sonata form a minor 3rd. I already know this album is going to be a little bit sad. And boy did it deliver! Because "Anti-Hero" is in E Major, and we now have a descending diminished arpeggio taking us into the third song. Taylor is building suspence with this track order!

In most albums, you'll find that the third track is almost always a single. "Anti-Hero" comes in loud and clear. Taylor's voice is now front and center with that gorgeous verse melody. The starting lyric is "I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser" and her command of that falsetto on the word "thing" sells the lyric to me at full-price every time. What a mature delivery, to attach to such a doubtful line about oneself, but sing it so confidently. There's something special about this song. It's a song about insecurities, and I'm humbled to hear it sung so proudly. Whatever she was going through, seems now resolved. We enjoy those moments, don't we.

After "Snow On The Beach" we have a few more tracks that seem to explore even further -Taylor's latest pop sensibilities, with "Bejeweled" being the bubbliest one of all. For my personal preference, I wasn't too impressed with it. The song seems a bit crowded with too many lyrics and Taylor seems to breathe between words at odd moments. It's probably more suitable for fans of her previous bodies of work. Let's just say that if "Bejeweled" had played after "Lucky Ones", I wouldn't be writing this review, and I would have never heard one of the most hauntingly beautiful pop songs I've ever listened to, and it's been on repeat since 11:47pm last night...

*Song Spotlight*

That song is "Labyrinth", and it has the honor of a spotlight. Let's listen together.

youtube

If Labyrinth doesn't successfully heal any emotional wounds of yours, then it'll proceed to inflict one, clean it, dress it, and kiss it for you.

This song took me back to 2012. I'd met a beautiful young lady at an airport terminal in Copenhagen on my way back from visiting my mother in Norway. We had a meet cute that led to us spending the next 32 hours holding hands, loitering the airport, waiting for her to tell me to smile again and again, and wishing to never go home. As I finally boarded the flight that separated us, she kissed me on the lips for the first time since we'd met. It was at that moment that "Labyrinth" should have started playing over the loudspeakers. Because in my mind, when I think of that moment, this song belongs to it. This song gave me closure, and I'm grateful.

To close out the album, we have the cleverly celebratory lyrics of "Karma", the rich and sweet nostalgia-inducing "Sweet Nothings", and "Mastermind" could have very well been the first song on the album, because it perfectly encapsulates the lyrical pretenses of every song on this album. She's acknowledging that she's in control of every rushing memory she penned to the sheet, every winding road she willingly drove while sitting in the driver's seat.

Taylor Swift took me on a ride with this album, and I'm inspired to take her up on her next foray into the throws of adult womanhood. I have trust in her now.

#taylor swift #midnights #album review #labyrinth #Youtube

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a-mag-a-day · 1 year

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MAG 83 - hair dying session

Georgie's smelling there is more to this compulsive statement recording behavior. And is actually questioning where these statements come from and why it's super weird that Jon doesn't know

JON "I mean, I’m not, I’m not on drugs or anything." [GEORGIE LAUGHS DISBELIEVINGLY] "What? … I could be on drugs!" - Sure xD Iconic moment! Also… if Jon is addicted to statements… doesn't this mean he actually is on drugs? xDDD

So after the two wrap-up/follow-up episodes to the S2 finale we're jumping right in to introduce this season's big bag. "So when I came in one day to find that the ringmistress mannequin had been replaced, I knew instantly. It was wearing the same clothes, certainly, and was posed the same way, but I could see the difference." - Is it Nikola who's now posing for the department store?

"The raincoat mannequin had, it seemed, been… disassembled, then rebuilt into a tangled bunch of limbs and joints. The torso was upside down and the two arms jutted out from the front and back of the pelvis, bending up to hold the mannequin’s head aloft." - Who else is thinking of Silent Hill here?

"Its steps were jerky and stiff, arms snapping out and back as it moved towards me step by step." - Interesting. Something like this in visual media would always get me. Here my imagination fails me for once. I don't know, I feel like uncanny profits highly from visuals.

"have located a few stories about the death of Lana Billings, found… strangled and partially skinned in the storage of Fanton’s department store" - So is this where Nikola got some of their parts from?

"I cannot help but notice, parked just at the edge, is an off-white delivery van." - Oh wow, I totally forgot about Breekon & Hope being in this episode! So they picked up Nikola. Or maybe even delivered her in the first place?

"Hiding won’t bring any answers, and it won’t stop whatever’s going on." - I love TMA's canon reason to carry on despite the characters knowing that their lives are on the line. There is just no escape… (well, that they know of at this point)

I've seen a bunch of meta talking about his statement reading and speculating whether it's addiction to something he doesn't need or actual sustenance like food. An interesting question to be sure

#a mag a day #tma #the magnus archives #episode asks #mod ashes #tma spoilers #Mag 83 #lycanlovingvampyre

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fundielicious-simblr · 6 months

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Hey there! I’ve been a fan of the Collinses (and associates! lol) ever since you started posting. Now that I’ve begun my own blog, I have to say (with the utmost admiration and respect) I’m stunned that you’re able to manage so many damn families!

I’ve played plenty of fundie saves before, but always with a single heir per generation, which means I’m woefully inexperienced with rotational gameplay. It’s so difficult, especially when you have to juggle varying levels of fundie-ness between households, extended family relationships, constant pregnancies, timeline issues and taking posed/stages screenshots for posts on top of actual gameplay!

If you’re up for it, I would so appreciate any advice/tips/tricks you have to offer re: dealing with rotational fundie gameplay. Either way, many thanks for sticking around for so long and sharing your sims with us ☺️

Hi! I'm so happy that you enjoy the blog, honestly I've been doubting whether that many people read it anymore, I just keep posting for my own personal satisfaction. As usual I'm a rambler, so this is about to be a mini-thesis, which will be below the cut!

If there's anything that I can say to explain how I do it, it's that you should just plan. Plan, Plan, and Plan. I micromanage every little thing that happens in my sims lives, I have two saves: one for gameplay and one for taking pictures. This is so that I can be ahead in terms of the plot lines and pictures without having to rush the actual game. I've mentioned it a few times here and there, but I have this mega doc with literally everything that pertains to my sims. It's got their life stories, love stories, random facts like allergies, their birthdays, the 'outcomes' for labour and delivery which effect how many kids they have, what kind of jobs they work, etc. For planning I also have a mega note on my phone with each post and what I'll write for it, I plan what will be said and who will be included, and sometimes the outfits required for them to wear or whatever poses I'm going to need for the post. It's also where I dump future ideas that I'll eventually work into a post if I want to. Since weddings are a pillar of fundie life, I have a separate note with all things weddings, before I wedding I plan the outfits for everyone from the bride and groom and their parents to the bridal party. I assign the wedding a colour scheme and then assign different people different colours. I also plan which poses I'm going to do, which for the main couples is a lot since they have a lot of posts for their weddings. For side characters that only get one post for their weddings I'll usually do a whole photoshoot then just pick two or three pictures to post.

One thing that also helped was me putting them in categories like 'heir' 'part heir' or 'side character', that helps me prioritise whose stories to focus on and how much they'll be seen on the blog. Honestly speaking, there are some sims that I only interact with when it's time to include them in a storyline, for that I let the Neighbourhood Stories take over and check in from time to time when I need to add a kid to the family or dress them for events. Since I have two saves, what I've found myself doing is playing with the side characters in the 'picture save' so I don't lose any game time that I could be using to play with the main characters in the main save. For rotational gameplay in order to make posts, I select certain narrators and basically just rotate between them with select characters sometimes getting a post or two. For this generation I've got Adalynn, Valentina, Lana, Maggie, and Brittany as narrators (there may be more, but for now I'm sticking with these). With Lana marrying into Adalynn's family I'm experimenting with her showing us what life is like for those in Newcrest since Adalynn moved away from home when she got married. Right now I see her as an opportunity to include more side characters since she's married to the 12th child in a cohort of 13, so her experiences and interpersonal relationships will be different than the older siblings and we may see more other character involvement . Maggie and Brittany are seldom narrators, with Brittany only really showing up at Harvestfest to do her family catch up - though I'm also experimenting how to bring them into the plot a bit more because they bring the political drama.

Since pregnancy is involves the changing of time and seasons (and I play on a 4 day = 1 year system vs the game's 28 day year), I make very good use of MCCC and pause pregnancies so that I can have control of how they're documented. The way pregnancies will be documented depends on how I've labelled the characters, narrators will always have more focus on their pregnancies (even though Valentina is done having children she'll narrate the pregnancies in her family) and will share about other pregnancies in the family. Circling back round to the 2 game system, since the way I play is faster than the game's passage of time, once I'm done posing and taking screenshots in my picture save then I usually sit back and actually enjoy playing in the actual game save, where I will then rotate households depending on whatever mood I'm in.

Thank you again for being so nice! I hope this extendo reply is able to answer some of your questions, but if it doesn't then feel free to message me and I can see if I can help.

#this reply took me almost 3 days to write because i need to write an essay everytime i do something hehe #i do hope this helps #my google doc is hundreds of pages long and its in portrait mode so my laptop becomes slower than molasses when its open 😂#im also just neurotic when it comes to planning things so i thrive with a good google doc #im going on holiday and ive planned almost everything out in a shared google doc

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