#utter ramblings

[average-hyperfixator]

Hey I know I talk abt Faith a lot and it's literally in my bio and Gary is literally my pfp and garyjohn art is the banner for my page and I have "Gary Love You" as the display portion of my name and one of my top posts is faith related and I literally have a garyjohn fanfic and i'm writing a IHNMAIMS x Faith combo au but

can you guys tell Faith is my favorite thing ever

do I need to talk about it more

CAN I talk about it more? Will the people allow my yapping?

please guys I need to know if it's obvious that this game has taken over my life and it is the reason I breathe

on that note if anyone wants to send in asks abt Faith to hear me yap feel free. If you want to know more lore about the protagonist in IHNFAIME (IHNMAIMS x Faith au) check out the @priest-ted askblog (I am begging for asks)

tldr; send me asks abt faith please please please

[chin-chillax]

Sometimes the very idea of stories fills me with despair. Not even in entertainment can we find joy in peace. No, the characters must suffer. There must be conflict. There must be problems.

Maybe part of my mental illness and cherophobia stems from a lack of imagination for stories with no conflict. I can’t imagine them, and when I do try to imagine, I’m bored out of my my mind at the prospect.

How can fiction be a source for good, when all fiction shows conflict? And the more intense the conflict, the more popular the fiction seems to be.

[chin-chillax]

The concept of “you vote on what there should be more of in the world by spending time and/or money” is really ruining me.

I want to read more books. I don’t read books. I am voting with my time for there to be more tumblr comments instead.

I hate software companies that don’t have a 100% remote workforce. It’s nigh unethical to not have a remote workforce. How can I do a better job not giving money or time to bad companies?

[odeqaard]

#LUCAMARC: chemtrails over the country club.

[yoinkschief]

please don't look at me this is the first time I've been self indulgent about Sonic since I was a kid this is making me flustered hrhghhh Amy Rose nothing could ever make me hate you

[notnickel]

thanks. i guess...?

[chronicowboy]

god no but the blind faith in eddie's expression when buck comes out of chris' room kills me. it's buck. he's the guy who likes to fix things. but more than that he's christopher's buck. he's his kid's safe space when eddie can't be that for him. he's his confidant. he's his best friend and maybe a little more. he's eddie's last hope and you can see in his eyes that he never really considered the possibility that buck could fail here. you can literally see his reality crumbling on his face when buck comes out of christopher's room utterly defeated and shakes his head. and then you watch it dawn on him, the guilt take over as he realises he's fucked up so badly that even buck can't fix it.

[blueberry-bubbles130]

I know Bully doesn’t have the most accurate adherence to reality. But I just know that the school’s budget was fucked at the end of the game.

I was watching a video of Miss Danvers’s pa announcements, so I can write her character better. She says the school doesn’t have the budget to treat all the students who have pneumonia. So the budget is already shit. I can just imagine Crabblesnitch and the faculty having a meeting discussing the budget and what needs to be done for the new school year.

I think the list would like a little like this:

Hire a new gym teacher who isn’t a pedophile

Hire a new maths teacher who isn’t a dick and doesn’t take bribes

Try and appease the prep’s parents if they have any issues

Probably hire an additional cook (also just clean up the kitchens in general)

Fix up the gym and buy new gym equipment

Fix the girls dorms

Fix the library and buy new books

Just buy new chairs and tables all together

Check what the fuck is going on with Dr Slawter

Check whatever the hell was going on the at the observatory and if the nerds truly did build a spud canon

Stop the nerds from building weaponry

Then maybe fix up the observatory

Fix the bell tower

Get new scaffolding for the bell tower

Make sure students cannot climb the scaffolding and get onto the roof (also make sure students cannot fall from said scaffolding)

Fix the skylight in Dr Crabblesnitch’s study

Check if the hobo is still on school grounds

Also with how big the riot was and involved a bunch of rich students, whose parents were making contributions to the school, like Derby’s father. Imagine a superintendent showing up being like: “What do you mean the students built a flow blown spud canon?” “What is wrong with the school secretary?” “How on Earth did a student take over the school, lock the gates and orchestrate a riot, including tying up and holding the principal hostage?!” “Why were two students fighting on the roof?!”

[grey-and-lavender]

I have my proposal defense tomorrow. This deck is 50 slides. Good lord who let me do this.

[longlivethewildernessyet]

It is very interesting to me that Even in Arcadia's (the title track and the album, I think) flower seems to be Blackthorn.

Blackthorn has a long, long history in folklore, often associated with witchcraft and magic. It's known as "Mother of the Woods," or "Dark Crone of the Woods," apparently, and was said to have been used for wands and staffs. In the tale of Sleeping Beauty, it's Blackthorn that the prince must fight through. It's also one of those flowers that poets describe their loves like; eyes as dark as a sloe, skin as pale as the flower.

I can see the immediate connection to Sleep Token with magic. Sleep Token's stringent lore seems to often imply a level of magical interference. It would make sense, also, with the teasers put out featuring knights and fantastical creatures, that there would also be witches. It's all looking very Arthurian. I wonder if Morgan le Fay will make an appearance. The love poetry and romantic fairy tales also make sense. Vessel's lyrics are often romantic in nature, even if that romance is tainted by toxicity and pain. He often draws on similar metaphors to old love poetry, too. Dark eyes, red lips, promises of bodily devotion and dedication. Also; "Mother of the Woods," God Mother? Stringent connection, but it's there.

Blackthorn often flowers during cold weather, a phenomenon that occurs after a "false spring," i.e., when winter seems to end but restarts a short time later. This period of cold weather has been called "Black Thorn Winter" by locals.

So whilst it's not unheard of for flowers to bud in cold weather, it's certainly not usual until spring really gets going. Blackthorn, to me, represents survival; it represents enduring winter, literal and proverbial. Vessel's moving from one season to another with Even In Arcadia. Winter to Spring. Blackthorn, with its false springs and Black Thorn Winters and stalwart endurance, is a flower that takes us from winter to spring. Even In Arcadia is following this very same transition.

Its wood is hardy and tough, and grows fast. Its a survivor of a plant and is often used for hedgerows— you cannot drive anywhere in England without seeing it somewhere on the motorway or in a country lane. Its fruit, the sloe, is said to be good for cleansing the blood. The pulp of the fruit's flesh can apparently stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth and your lips together (according to William Cobbett of 150 years ago)! It can also be used to make tonics for digestion and rheumatism.

Again, themes of survival and endurance. It's a very versatile wood, with plenty of uses besides looking absolutely gorgeous (no bias here). With EIA, we're seeing a Vessel who wants to survive, to endure, to emerge, to push past the Winters and False Springs to finally grow into Spring itself. The stark contrast between the hardy, tough purple-black bark and the delicate, snowy white flowers, especially in early spring when there's no leaves budding, also seems to feed into Sleep Token's themes of contrasting pairings. White roses, black doves, anyone? But, I think with EIA and the whole divide between HV and FH, we're actually being steered in the direction of not seeing these contrasted pairs as in competition but in symbiosis. Without the wood, there would be no flower, without the flower, there would be no wood, despite their apparent differences. Sloes being used to cleanse the blood is an interesting one. Sleep Token often references blood as a holy force, as food, as a sexual symbol, as a symbol of pain and torment and trauma. So, cleansing the blood could represent cleaning away (Infinite Baths) the past, the hurt, in order to start again (fruit giving way to rot to make way for new flowers again the following year). Its properties as a healing plant also point to concepts regarding new growth and healing from past illnesses and wounds.

My flower language book provides the following meanings for blackthorn: crone, stabilises emotions, stimulating, hope, joy, dark arts.

Hope and joy!!! Hope and joy everyone!!! I really think (and this is only a theory, a big big "if," so to speak) that EIA is going to be about enduring hardship and finding hope and joy despite the pain, despite past hurt. The final song is Infinite Baths, mysterious as the title is, it's blatantly also about cleansing, starting anew. Blackthorn is a spring flower— it heralds the season of growth and newness.

Bonus:

The hawthorn, which flowers after its leaves have budded (opposite to a blackthorn, which flowers then buds leaves) has a scent that is the exact same chemical as the one released first when animal tissue decays— trimethylamine. I found that out on a guided tree walk, and my first thought was "Vessel would so use that in a song."

The use of natural imagery in EIA's artwork really emphasises the idea of cycles that we're seeing over and over. Nature is inherently cyclical, and we see it in flowering plants the most. Flower, leaf, fruit, rot. Flower, leaf, fruit, rot. Over and over until the plant dies. And it's not negative, it's sustainable. Regenerative. It's growth.

Even in Arcadia may be an album of growth. Of regeneration after the rot.

[steelthroat]

Did a lil soundop sketch that i am not going to finish today because i was getting desperate.

Yes I gave up when it came to drawing the hands no excuses here goodnight pooks

[phinnking]

was violently struck by creative inspiration last night after being assigned Rowan as the chnt character i am the most like, so i ended up working on this for about 5 hours straight

(timelapse below cut)

[post-it-notes7]

Is Dark also prone to fainting or is that simply just a Meta Knight thing?

DMK has been miraculously lucky when it comes to remaining conscious.

But recently Mir Falspar... Not so much.

[lychniis]

idk why but the thought of childe's love language being bringing home tiny trinkets of the people he beat the shit out of or flat out murdered is both amusing and horrifying.

[phantom-fleetways]

Thinking about that time Tails turned off Kitsunami's pack and Kit fainted on the spot about it.

Like... What was all of that about Starline??? Why did you hook up the pack to his spine like that. It would have to be connected to the spine if turning it off caused him to just straight up faint. (Although it's not hard to believe this alone thanks to Imposter Syndrome and how it's gotta be connected to his nervous system if he controls the hydro-coils with his mind like he clearly does.)

Starline... Why did you hook him up like this?!

No wonder that electroshock with his spurr in IS hurt him!

Yeah I bet that hurt Kit. That was a direct line of pure electricity straight through all of his nerves! Honestly just makes the scene when they take down metal and work together in it, all the more sweet??

SHE CARES ABOUT DRIPPY ENOUGH TO CHECK ON HIM AFTER ELECTROCUTING HIM.

Honestly... I think the pack being wired into Kit is just proof enough that the two Deepily impressive while also being very broken in every possible way. Like... Starline didn't account for Surge's electricity powers because of their healing factor when wiring that pack straight into his spine!! Who doesn't think about these things??? No wonder Kit passes out when it gets turned off! I don't think it's even supposed to be turned off and Starline never thought through the possibility of it being turned off! (Which begs the question... Why is there an off button??????)

[saixria]

I’m not usually opposed to hcs but this “Ares used dark quick thought to help Odysseus in 600 strike” and other divine intervention theories are getting OUT OF HAND ITS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE (TLDR at the end)

To start, Vengeance saga hit as hard as it did because Odysseus is all alone. Just listen to the intro of dangerous, the pause where the crew should’ve sung in response like in Full Speed Ahead. Because of all the choices he’s made, he’s fully alone now, and this is the first time he’s ever had to fight without his crew. Charybdis being a mortal facing up against a huge unsurvivable monster AND WINNING is what makes it so POWERFUL, and same goes with GITW/ 600 Strike. It’s the most impactful as a 1v1, Odysseus facing the cause of all his grief throughout the musical, he himself delivering every blow onto Poseidon on behalf of his dead crew. It’s CATHARTIC for him, and for us as the audience, because it’s a perfect ending to what Poseidon started in Ruthlessness when he taught Odysseus to be ruthless.

Dark Quick Thought also just kinda. Cheapens his character development. Dark quick thought inherently causes rage according to Jorge, basically making them more ruthless. If we relegate the reason Odysseus was so enraged and ruthless in straight up torturing Poseidon to Ares’ Dark Quick Thought, that just makes all the build up of Odysseus learning to use ruthlessness and to be a monster worthless. Dark QT isn’t why he’s acting so cold and ruthless; it’s all that he’s endured, forcing him to transform into a monster that disregards all morals just to get home, just to survive. It was Odysseus’ own decision to become a monster, like he literally said “I’m gonna use ruthlessness” in the song Dangerous, not because of any Dark QT influence. The fact that all his rage is coming only from himself, from his grief and exhaustion, and not Dark QT makes this moment all the more haunting.

The fact that this is the climax of his transformation is, and I’m not joking when I say this, illustrated by the line “next to my wife”. The whole musical “sleeplessness” (lol) has always been an indicator of guilt. E.g. “until it is said I cannot rest” “I no longer dream only nightmares of those who died” “I could sleep at night” etc. Even in LiP he was still haunted by guilt, since he’s trapped in Ogygia it feels like all he’s sacrificed has been completely worthless — he killed his whole crew for nothing. His response to Poseidon asking him how he’d sleep at night was “next to my wife”, showing he’s truly “thrown his guilt away” all to get home to see his wife — the only thing he cares about now.

Last thing, the gods just don’t like directly interfering in each others business. Hermes gave Odysseus a windbag and advice but that was it, hes still on his own at the end of the day. There’s a reason for why Athena didn’t ask Zeus to tell Poseidon to chill, why Hermes didn’t directly beat Zeus up for Odysseus. That helps make God Games MORE IMPACTFUL, because here are the gods, stubborn and set in their ways against directly helping mortals, and here’s Athena going through the trouble to request divine intervention ANYWAY, all for her friend. It makes no sense for any other god to randomly come and help Odysseus when they don’t even know the man.

I have no problem with people having fun imagining what would happen if the gods had helped Odysseus fight Poseidon, I’m just really frustrated bc I see so many people say this is “what actually happened” or “what should’ve happened” instead of being a fun hypothetical. There is no proof at all that any other gods came to help Odysseus in 600 Strike; the red eyes in the animatic is literally just symbolic and acts as contrast to Poseidon’s blue glowing gills on his shirt during the darkened torture scene.

TLDR: Direct divine intervention in 600 strike makes Odysseus’ isolation less impactful, cheapens his transformation into a ruthless monster and is just not realistic for the gods to do since they don’t interfere with each others business much.