#emily alone

[juniper-jam]

So light comes from a time already gone

If I could see the future I would lay down

Eat a tangerine and make a cup of tea

Watch it all happen the same way

Watch it all happen slow

I could have the reasons why

But it wouldn't make anything right

Do you really want to know the thing

You spend your life trying to find

[sinceileftyoublog]

Florist (self-titled) Album Review

(Double Double Whammy)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The idea of a person who has faced heartbreak or grief retreating to solitude to create art is oft-romanticized, perhaps to a fault. Emily Sprague has certainly created masterful albums by herself, whether the ambient music released under her own name or Emily Alone, a solo album released under the Florist moniker following her mother’s death and a move out west. But in June 2019, Sprague moved back to New York and rented a house in the Hudson Valley with the band’s original lineup: Jonnie Baker, Rick Spataro, and Felix Walworth. They’d spontaneously record their instruments beside their surrounding natural woods during a hot and rainy summer, the first time they’d ever recorded this way, for this long. The result is Florist’s latest self-titled record, a reinvention of sorts, and one that perhaps shows Sprague and the music listening public that great art can come out of reflecting on troubling times with a loving community by your side, too.

Florist is a stunning capture of Sprague processing weighty concepts in real-time, undoubtedly affected by her mother’s passing, but within the existential crises any of us have, from growing older or even awestruck at the wonder of the natural world. The songs generally alternate between instrumental and lyrical; they’re diaristic in nature, sporting titles like “June 9th Nighttime”, “Red Bird Pt 2 (Morning”), and “Jonnie on the Porch”. Fleeting moments feel like the cosmos, 2-minute interludes like they last a lifetime. 6-minute stories fly by. Sprague’s gentle voice blends with layers of acoustic guitar, muffled horns, pattering drums, sprinkling electronics, and samples of nature. Proof of life is musical, like the pulsating of chirping crickets on “June 9th Nighttime” that’s naturally rhythmic. Attempting to identify the source of different sounds, as a listener, directly mirrors the experience of being in nature, seeing if you can spot a rare bird or hear the sound of a wolf or something that could kill you.

As much as Florist has a clear beginning and end in terms of Sprague’s evolving attitude towards the journey of life and what we know about it, it’s by no means a linear record. Even the instrumentals, whether sampled or played, often loop before they go in one way or another, like the repeated guitar plucking of “Red Bird Pt 2 (Morning)”, one of a few songs to explicitly mention Sprague’s mother. “There is a winter morning you didn’t know me yet,” she sings, mixing up tenses, perfectly and plainspokenly capturing the feeling of thinking about a loved one and what their life was like before you entered it. She ends the song with an audio capture of speaking to her bandmates, speaking, “That’s it.” The take is over, but the song, immaculately written and played, feels like a disordered outpour of emotions and thoughts. Many of the album’s ambient motifs, like all three harmonic, crackling parts of “Bells”, seem like they were taken from the same recording when you listen to them from above, but they’re chopped and spliced throughout the album like a fractal, messing with your own perception.

Throughout the album, Sprague disconnects from herself, imagining her own death, or aliens examining her body, and it’s powerful in context of looking back at times with her mother. On the casually jaunty “Spring in Hours”, she sings, “I think it's the long walk to the next part of your life / Will you hold me until no more?” Her past self is unable to see a future without her mother; as such, she asks for “more” before reflecting on what she already has. “River’s Bed” is a devastating folk strummer--“It’s always the darkest things I keep inside my thoughts,” Sprague sings, continuing, “You must be a lucky one to fall into stars, after all.” Toms and bass enter in conjunction with the final line of the chorus, the lowest register sounding like the literal weight of a thudding, lifeless body.

Ultimately, Sprague finds peace in documenting what she can and can’t control, contrasting “Home is a garden that I can keep alive” with “Home is a garden that can’t keep me alive” on “Dandelion”, repeating, “You’re not what I have but what I love” on “Sci-fi Silence”. But it’s “Feathers” that’s the album’s climax. If on “Dandelion” Sprague asks why she can’t see abstract concepts like life and death in the physical realm, on “Feathers”, she plainly states concepts acting as if they’re tangible beings, bordering on a surreal perception of the world--“The mystery of dreams and existence floating in the cross breeze,” or “Love and friendship running through the garden”--and they come across as more truthful than any platitudes or aphorisms she could have included. A line like, “Sometimes I think I have too many pasts” is not an admittance in the belief of multiverses, but a reminder to--dare I say it--live in the moment. Florist closes with the instrumental “Jonnie on the Porch”, presumably Baker, not Sprague, combining saxophone and samples. You can imagine him there, surrounded by living things, practicing the band’s newfound mantra: “Listening to the sounds of life around us pass / Careful not to tread on anything needing rest.”

[tamatosss]

I’m bored and I forget how to draw everyone so it’s time for a candidate redraw (plus some bonus NPCs that I’m very fond of design-wise / as characters)!!!

My main goal for these was to make everyone much more lively and expressive. I think I succeeded! I love how Shane, Emily, Qi, and Razz came out

Forgive me for any anatomy errors. I struggled a lot with the poses

Keep reading to see all of them on one page and the original drawings

Them but on one canvas

And… my beloved originals from many many months ago :) remember them?

The links for my full originals of the bachelors are here and the bachelorettes here!

[msbethgreene]

[anna-scribbles]

do you think émilie agreste knew, on the day she became too weak to leave that house, that she never would again

[gameplaydaily]

[CHOOSE CHARACTER]

ALONE IN THE DARK (2024) dev. Pieces Interactive

[wistfulwatcher]

7.04 Painless | 5.02 Haunted

[acecroft]

ALONE IN THE DARK (2024) dev. Pieces Interactive

[figsandphiltatos]

the raw power of gorgug and kristen synchronized second hand embarrassment is unspeakable

[islandoforder]

Jumping on the Porter-hating train to say, Brennan initiated the "roll perception" check against Porter and Zara (but mainly Porter) which resulted in the 'there's a little bit of a vibe' comment, BUT! every teacher who has flirted with Fig so far has turned out to be the bad guy (for obvious reasons), and Zara even references this as a reason she's not going to flirt back ("this isn't freshman year with kalvaxus" or something), whereas Porter made that flirty/creepy comment about 'we're happy to share you'.

I might just be reading too much into this but I'm still holding out for a revelation

okay don't get me wrong, i do not want to be in a position where i'm defending porter, but i definitely read that as there's a bit of a vibe between porter and zara (which i personally do not vibe with) and the perception was meant to be like oooh are porter and zara flirty?? i think zara was more being like okay fig you can't ask your teachers if they're flirting, that's inappropriate, and i think porter saying 'we're happy to share you' was meant to be like ayyyy i get to work more with zara, happy to have an excuse to hang out with her, not like flirty towards fig in any way. like i hate the guy don't get me wrong, but if this was the subtext of that scene i def missed it haha

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

The Princess Bride script // Kate DiCamillo // @francesderwent one of the best minds of our age

[ftlolbit]

doodles 4 a self indulgent au i have on the back burner of my head. afton kids die and go to far far past but alive uhhh cassidy and charlie come with but as ghosts still

tumblr fuckinf up my quality again … does anyone know how to fix it. close ups under cut

b t w william can’t see charlie or cassidy. afton kids can see both of them. henry can see charlie and is SO fucking freaked out

[zimmbzon]

Things that happened in ONE episode of Fanatasy High (s1e7):

- Captain Bill Seacaster got the bad kids drunk and high, them made them skip school so Brennan/Bill could meta teach the players about DnD party strategy

- “Lunch Lad” - Emily

- Fig and the Sexy rat

- “It’s like Michael Cera talking to Michael Cera” - Ally

-“Are you my freakin’ dad?” - Gorgug to the grave keeper (is this the first “are you my dad?)

- The “I used a corn to masterbate the other night” inspiring speech

- “We’re thinking about starting a streetwear company and we’re wanting like real people to model for it” - Ally

And finally: “Jazzy Jeff” apropos of ???? - Ally

[vampirehayfever]

there's something about how fig would much rather let all her friends get the spotlight and glory from her actions that really gets to me. she is so incredibly selfless and i almost feel like that's some emily influence and i really love it. no matter what her characters want to not only understand others on a deep level but also make sure they are able to shine even if it's at her expense.

[heatherfield]

For hope is the thing with feathers—and sometimes that just poops all over your soul, and your family just gangs up on you and they start asking you questions, like, "Why don't you want to come downstairs?"

Emily Dickinson's Guide to Spending the Holidays Alone (2013) [x]

Bonus:

[gameofthronedd]

In love with the way the Green actors talk about their characters and give so much depth to them. Honestly get them in the writer's room fr the canon they have in their heads deserves to be heard.