#TPWBYT

[daredevils-advocate]

[fibrefromthefilament]

Found this on fb, credit to the creator.

[floating-goblin-art]

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

This place This place This place This place

[bonncy]

"Don't wake me up".

[your-coffee-pal]

.: I just need to leave this part of me behind :.

NOT FOR SALE OR COMMERCIAL USE

Fucking loved the colourpallete for this one (i try to use it whenever i see fit). Also, SHARKIESSSS. Also also there is a good handful of references so click and zoom in 🙃

[melit0n]

A lyric that originally confused me a bit in Provider was, "your outer shell; your secret insider." At first, it seemed a bit of a backwards juxtaposition, one that didn't match up as well as others in their discography.

My first thought was that it was referring to being someone's 'protector' of sorts. Existing as a hardened exoskeleton, yet simultaneously managing to settle under the skin of the very person they're shielding. Barely even there, but making a home where it's well deserved.

Then, I remembered the chemistry motif. The "outer shell," typically refers to the last 'shell' around an atom, otherwise known as a valance shell. Basically, electrons surround a nucleus in varying levels (first shell holds two, second holds eight, the third eighteen etc.), and, the number of electrons on the furthest shell decide its chemical properties (how reactive it'll be, is it flammable etc.), and, if it'll be "acid or alkaline."

Neat little possible callback, I thought.

Furthermore, if an atom has an incomplete outer shell, it'll be unstable, but through a covalent bond (in non-metals), can be stabilized if another molecule shares it's electrons.

In short, they become equal; on stable ground with one another. To be someone's "outer shell," means to have a chemical, balanced bond with them; to keep them steady.

I think that really fits, considering the title of the song.

[junkyardstrash]

Rip iii’s long hair you will be missed

Palette inspo @ foreigner.art on ig

[thesleeptokenarchive]

On This Day: July 24 2021

Sleep Token posted to their social media accounts this photo with a one word caption.

WORSHIP.

Photographic imagery by Andy Ford [FB/X]

[mythrite]

i know they have their reasons for not playing them but

I’m not including EIA because we only had two shows so I can’t say which ones won’t be played

[kinobeans]

very excited for the album tonight, but also I just wanted to draw Vessel as a monster

[hypnotise-the-vessel]

And ANOTHER thought, I’ve often seen how people consider TPWBYT to be the album where Vessel is most lost and caught up in the throes of ‘sleep’ or this figure he is infatuated with. And I absolutely can see it. You see it with ‘hypnosis’ and with ‘the love that you want’ and ‘fall for me.’ He is desperate and longing for a place. For love. For attention. He is LITERALLY drowning in these emotions. Which I think is painful as hell, of course. But it’s so interesting. Since he references ‘in my nightmares of the ocean’ in EIA. Like??? He is scared of that time. And that past. He is traumatized by it. Holy SHIT. I know it’s small, but I just love when details like that are included and I know so many people have seen this and probably talked about it. But man, I just had to say how much I adore it.

[rigel-huba]

I didn't have time to finish the drawing in time, and for this... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TPWBYT

[sleepanonymous]

One of my bandom besties found the original TPWBYT album cover photo/art.

[floating-goblin-art]

Like lovers entwined

[bonncy]

"So flood me like Atlantic, weather me to nothing..."

[floating--goblin]

"Whites of your eyes" AKA Sleep Talking

AKA the trilogy starts with a call and ends with an answer

So by now we know that, while most songs are from Vessel's perspective, some stand out as being weirdly out of character and/or not fitting in this whole narrative the band's constructed unless they're someone else's words-- Sleep's. Some examples are Sugar, Jaws, Jericho and even Nazareth; these POV switches were a lot more prevalent in the first era, but we've seen a possible one as recently as TMBTE with Are You Really Okay?

One other notable thing about ST's catalogue is that there tend to be some running themes or phrases that are weirdly specific or otherwise unique. The one that stood out to me from the start has been "the whites of your eyes", which is used three times: in Jaws, in TNDNBTG, and then in Euclid's reprise of TNDNBTG.

Another detail is the use of darkness-- when a song mentions dark places or the night, it's generally safe to assume they're talking about a difficult period, mental strain, etc. The first album being called Sundowning makes reference to sundown syndrome, a condition which afflicts dementia patients, where they become more disoriented after sunset. Less tethered to reality, as it were.

That is likely why Sleep was given that name as well; an entity that encompasses all that lurks in the dark, one step away from death, paralysis incarnate.

Now that we got that down, back to "the whites of your eyes". Its first appearance is in Jaws, which is pretty widely accepted to be Sleep's POV, which means there's a non-zero chance the other occurrences are too. In Euclid that particular passage is backing vocals, detached from Vessel; it can be interpreted as another speaker. That leaves TNDNBTG, which means that this

Was spoken by Sleep, not Vessel as we'd thought until now. Sleep is the one begging for a little time with the object of its fixation.

It makes sense in context, given what "the night" represents-- the lowest time in Vessel's life, when he is at his worst and weakest, is the only time he's attached enough to his misery to stay trapped in it. To stay with Sleep.

The phrase also originated in military contexts, specifically ones in which ammunition was in very short supply; to avoid wasting ammo, soldiers would be commanded "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes", meaning essentially "we're low on ammo, so don't shoot your gun until you're close enough to be positive that your bullet will hit". And themes of predation and love as physical attacks are common in ST tracks--

So it has connotations of physical closeness, but specifically physical closeness so that you can accurately attack someone when you have limited opportunity to do so. Jaws and Take Aim also create a sort of dialogue, in that they both paint the other party as the hunter and the speaker as the hunted, which lines up with the TMBTE poem-- "I am hunting something, and in turn, that same thing is hunting me."

Another such dialogue exists in TNDNBTG and Higher:

Essentially Sleep saying "You're lucid enough to stay away from me until you relapse again, then you come back to this comfortable misery" and Vessel saying "You remember not to take me for granted only when I start getting better and I no longer let you consume me."

And if TNDNBTG is Sleep's perspective, it also means that Are You Really Okay? is the last time we hear Sleep speak-- at least in the trilogy-- and it stands as a look back on their shared journey and the horrors they've endured,

Accepting that the cycle they're trapped in cannot sustain Vessel anymore,

And checking in one last time before Vessel takes his leave.

Overall a fond goodbye, to which Vessel finally responds to that first summons three albums ago with

Acknowledging that his misery has consumed him for years but that he holds no grudges; that he'll give Sleep-- however many things it represents, the darkest parts of him, the stupidest things he's done, his lowest moments and what he romanticized of all of it-- the time it's claimed, but that he must move on now. To better things.