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I haven't had the chance to make much rainbow art lately but this is my favorite rainbow piece I ever made. Rainbow draggo says happy Pride <3

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sand tiger sharks as nostalgic plushies + yummy treats! 🍮🥐🍨 join my kofi anytime in may, get this as a sticker sheet in june!

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Details under the cut for the amazingly kind @sleepiestoken

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getting murdered but i can’t even afford the name brand stuff so im getting snawed in half and scrabbed to death and shit

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So I've been playing around with audios and I just can't get over how good Ves' voice and ii's drums sound isolated! Truly the soul and the beating heart! 🥹❤️

(The end is actually insane!)

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How I painted Space Void with moon eyes~ I have a huge backlog of painting videos to share, but they take so long to edit down from hours to a minute 😭I wish I had discovered the timelapse hack for Paint Tool SAI sooner, sigh...

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Shot right in between your eyes

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Hey so if anyone’s going to the merch pop-up in Sydney…

Should I make some bracelets? If I made bracelets would people take any? Is that something I should do?

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3(ish) days until eia 🩷

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Taking this from Reddit. Amazon Music added [explicit] to Even in Arcadia.

The song that is responsible for this is: Past Self

hmm..."my fucking form is but a wreck beneath them" and also "let's fuck her up" are the most swearing we ever got...now I'm thinking. More bad f* words?! Or well....mental health stuff?!

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ohh yeah im a real piece of shit 👍 job please

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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.

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So take aim

At me for once

Annual post has been done, hope you like sadness 😌(same)

This has been sitting in my wips folder for a long fucking time, finally had enough energy to finish it :3

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Having an absolutely shit week life goin down the toilet type thang and I wanted to buy some alcohol after work and the fucking cashier is like. You're underage. Showed him I was in my work uniform, which is at a fucking correctional centre where you can't bring id because it's a security risk, and my staff badge, and was like dude. You can't be underage working in a prison. Refused me service. Absolute icing on the shit cake 💩 🎂

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OPEN WIDE EVERYONE HERE HE ISSSS