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don't mind the badly written thingy I'm too lazy to fix it

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hellloooo lightbulb nation

youtube link: https://youtu.be/ISTAY-sIm6Q?si=rdPoupsLsvG-kW1h

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I've listened to Burn Pygmalion like five times already (anyone who thinks they're a bigger fan than me is wrong), and I'm now trying to figure out all the psychological intricacies and themes in the lyrics. I noticed that everything is WAY more obscure and complex than anything in the previous albums, and I'm a lot lost. Could you pwease (uWu) tell me which songs are part of, or directly reference, the Jeanine & Sylvia storyline, and explain the themes a little? It would be a big help.

Thank you!! Okay this might be kind of a long winded response but here goes…

So every song actually references the Jeanine & Sylvia storyline! The only songs that aren’t from the characters’ perspective & are instead told by a narrator are Community Gardens, which more sets the tone rather than provides exposition, Pygmalion, which is more a cautionary tale than a plot point, and Admire the Architecture, which literally just describes what’s going on.

Most of the album is told from Jeanine’s perspective. She is together with Sylvia for the entire album until Admire the Architecture, which is the point where Sylvia leaves to film a movie & asks Jeanine to basically house-sit. From here, Jeanine’s doubts about the relationship, her self-worth, and her paranoia about Sylvia’s character & intent pretty much immediately spiral out of control. She tries repeatedly to ground herself by thinking about her love for Sylvia, but her absence increasingly stokes her fear & loneliness.

At this point I’m kind of hesitant to dictate how the plot “really” unfolds, because this album isn’t so much a concrete story as it is about a bunch of weird, bad, lingering emotional issues I struggle with. Some people think this album is a rallying cry against abusers, and they’re right! A lot of my songs are about being emotionally abused in the past. Some people think it’s a love story, and they’re also right (personally this is what I intended). From my perspective, the album is about someone who’s been horribly burned (ha) in a past relationship, and is trying to have healthy emotions in a new relationship but really struggles. She’s madly in love with Sylvia and would do anything for her, but every character flaw she has sends Jeanine into a panic, because “oh no, what if it’s happening again?” It can be really hard to have that kind of emotional baggage and not regard every hurtful thing that happens in a relationship as a threat, but people do inevitably sometimes hurt each other because no one is perfect. It can be challenging to put things in perspective, at least for me it can be challenging.

Again, I don’t want to take the “anger at abusers” element away from other people because that IS a vital element in the story - it’s just that from my perspective, Sylvia isn’t the abuser. The songs on side B are the “ugly doubts that won’t leave (Jeanine) alone”. “Wrath of the Termite King” is sung from Sylvia’s perspective, when she learns about Jeanine’s history & hurries back from shooting to be with her. “No Leverage / No Pleasure” is sung by Jeanine, who has a meltdown about how afraid she is that she feels unable to love someone normally, and how frightened she is by the lack of control she has (re: developing romantic feelings). “Crushed Out on Soda Beach” is Jeanine making the decision to relinquish the “control” she has over her emotions, which is really just fear & self-isolation, so that she can try to love Sylvia in a healthy way. “Bets Against the Void” is about Jeanine taking things one day at a time, knowing that she might get hurt again but at least for today, she feels good.

From my perspective, Jeanine is also dangerously close to letting her fears about the situation affect her treatment of Sylvia. She feels like lashing out, ghosting her, and her fear of being used leads to a desire to control every single aspect of the relationship so that she can feel safe. Once they reunite, she “remembers” who Sylvia is and how she really feels about her, and she comes to the conclusion that these responses aren’t healthy and she needs to find a way to cope with them on her own, with Sylvia’s support.

I hope this explanation doesn’t put people off - if someone is treating you badly you SHOULD be angry, you SHOULD shut them out, and you don’t have to be nice about it or forgiving towards them. I’ve expressed this anger in my past albums, but for this one I feel like what I’m struggling more with now is forming new trust bonds. The fear is so real, and it really does spiral out of control when the other person isn’t there, and your anxiety is free to tell you all kinds of horrible things about how any love another person shows toward you has to be a trap, or a way to use you. And all of that can vanish as soon as you’re able to spend time with that person. You have to be careful with letting your fears run wild, and thats what this story means to me. It’s really hard and scary and that’s what I wanted to write about!

Anyways I hope this was an okay explanation, I might have forgotten some stuff but at the end of the day I want other people to have their own thoughts and feelings about it anyway. Like I said it’s really just a bunch of feelings I have that I tied together loosely into a story. If anyone has more questions about it I’d be happy to talk about it! Thanks again for listening!

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You promised me you would never be my torturer.

Characters are from survive object poll island!!!!!!!!! Here’s the blog voting for this challenge starts very soon

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this is a little silly

i got the CD version of april fools and did not know this existed!!!

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Burn Pygmalion (I am a True Sylvia truther)

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yeah I'm a total the scarypilled jokehead . I'm basically going pygmalionmode and I'm giving aprilfoolscore vibes

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Like half the doodles based off burn pygmalion a better guide to love

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they make you feel like a running gag

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Sure! This was probably one of my favorite scenes in the episode, mostly because I worked on it from square one. I not only did the audio - but the storyboard and animation as well!

For the TV announcer, we asked our very own @justin-chapmanswers​ to do the expressive voice! The only line that we specifically wrote for was “They’re really going for it!” The rest was his fantastic improv, which I loved and wanted to include so much of, but we had very limited time in this scene, so I only could include what I felt worked. My favorite lines are “Aha, maybe they didn’t consider… TRYING HARDER?” and “I hate my job folks!”

This audio was mostly meant to be vague and slightly unheard since the focus of the scene was on Cobs and MP4 - so the TV was mostly just for ambiance. That being said, there is sort of a story to follow, albeit super fast. We can thank Justin for that again!

My favorite little not very secret detail that I did for the TV show is that the audio actually corresponds to what happens to MePhone4 in this scene! When Cobs says “trash”, the audience gasps. When he rejects sitting with MePhone4, they groan. And when MePhone4 makes a jab at Cobs at the end, they laugh!

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Nazis backing Nazis. What a shock.