#HEATHENS

[phorever-after]

line visuals kinda giving heathens/trees livestream oh this is evil

[pantaloonwarrior]

[imagine-darksiders]

Human 1: What if we run out of food in this Tree!? What are we going to eat!?

Human 2: Let's eat each other~!!

Ulthane: No-!

Human 2: -Out!!!!!

Ulthane: NO.

[midweastindigo]

twenty one pilots | singles | 2016//2020//2024

(self-titled) (rab) (vessel) (blurryface) (trench) (sai) (clancy)

[cynicalclairvoyantcadaver]

Aight, so I was just rereading The Sword of Summer and TLT by Rick Riordan, and I came to parts where the Norse and Greek gods were called 'lowercase G gods,' while the Abrahamic gods were called, 'Capital G gods.'

And, I saw this before, but only NOW did I realised how HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE AND INCORRECT THAT WAS.

Why, you want to know?

Well.........do you realise that there are Hellenistic Pagans and Heathens (Norse Pagans) who view their gods as highly as Christians view their God and Muslims view Allah?

Like, holy shit, Rick, you did not have to downgrade them like that. There was no. effing. need for that. No need at all.

This just reeks of blatant Abrahamic superiority, which is annoying.

No, really. Let's just imagine that you have god(s) that you worship, and one day, you read a book about them and find that hey, guess what! We downgraded your gods' importance now! A religion WORSHIPPING THEM? What even IS that? Ew, no, there's no religion at all. No, these gods are one-sided DOOFUSES!

All I'm saying right now is that I can see why so many Hellenistic Pagans and Greek people hate PJO. There's nothing wrong with hating it for those reasons.

I was actually looking at and reading about Hellenistic Paganism these past few months, so.........yeah. Just think about this post for some time. And please don't think that PJO Greek gods are an accurate portrayal of the REAL Greek Gods. DON'T.

[andy-clutterbuck]

8x01 | Mercy

[skyl1nes-and-turnst1les]

Does anyone else wish the clique is going to jail jokes would come back

[mann-of-1000-thoughts]

An AMV celebrating Indie Animation. Links to all Indie Cartoons and campaigns in the video description.

[fornasedensgudar]

Sif of the harvest and home and hearth.

[xproskeith]

I got some awesome shots during Heathens at Chicago night 2! Loved that lighting scheme!

[sec0nd-breakfast]

local dumbass madly in love with Harley Quinn

[artist-issues]

That’s cool that you love Twenty One Pilots (they’re one of my favorite bands, too). Quick question: How do you feel about the song Heathens?

Love it. It’s genius. It’s so good.

Musically, what is better than the shotgun-cocking sound that the guitar makes? Or the fact that the sound of the instrument vaguely sounds like the phrase “WATCH IT” that is being repeated over and over, so it sounds like you're getting shot by the words themselves. Like the warning in the lyrics isn't fast enough to save you from the consequences of needing that warning in the first place.

I don’t care at all that it’s in/was commissioned for “Suicide Squad.” I totally think Tyler Joseph is too contemplative and analytical to just write a theme song for characters he didn’t create. Plus, he can’t keep his hands off double-and-triple meanings, even when he’s writing original songs. So all of that to say, I don’t think the song is just basically about Suicide Squad.

But let’s talk about the concept that is in the song.

Can I just break it down this way? Can I just tell you what I would do if I were asked to write a song (nobody would ask me that, because I’m not a songwriter) for a movie where comic book villains were the main characters, and I knew that the movie would be playing on “people sympathizing with characters that are evil?”

I mean, seriously, some of you have asked me questions that get me thinking about the trend of idolizing bad guys. I think I can imagine pretty accurately what my thought process would be if someone asked me to write such a song.

I would think about my worldview. I might be a little uncomfortable, first-blush, at having to write a song that makes villains sound cool. But then I’d think about it. I’d think about what I believe; my knee-jerk response would (hopefully) be "what does the Bible say about villains? Definitely that they're bad, and bad guys are bad, not good to emulate, and they lose." But then as I thought deeper than that I'd realize what more the Bible says: that I am a villain. Or I was, apart from Christ.

Nasty and wicked, psycho and outcasted. I belong locked up. Apart from Him, apart from everything good and pure. But I'm not apart from Him. I still live on this planet and not in heaven, but nos that I’m in Him, what am I supposed to do about people who are not—people who are still “villains?”

Remember who I used to be. Because if I don’t remember who I used to be, I’ll start thinking I’m better than them and judge them and we’ll always be divided. But if I remember who I used to be, that I used to be a villain, I can get in there and tell them “I’m like you but here’s what’s different; I know Christ.”

Oh but you know what? I can’t say it like that. Or if I do, I should be prepared to be mauled by the villains. Because that’s what they do.

Like it’s in a pig’s makeup to roll in the mud, it’s in a villain’s nature to be villainous—especially when they expect you to strike first. I remember that nature because I used to have it.

So I have to be careful how I say it. I have to step carefully. I have to convince them that we have things in common—so that I can springboard off of that goodwill, that common ground, and tell the villains about the way out of being villainous. So they don't maul me before I can get the words out.

I genuinely believe that that’s where my Christian worldview would lead me, when looking for a direction to approach the task of “make a song about villains” from.

…And then Tyler Joseph of twenty one pilots writes:

All my friends are heathens take it slow

wait for them to ask you who you know

Please don’t make any sudden moves

You don’t know the half of the abuse

---

We don't deal with outsiders very well

They say newcomers have a certain smell

You have trust issues, not to mention

They say they can smell your intentions

You'll never know the freak show sitting next to you

You'll have some weird people sitting next to you

You'll think "How did I get here sitting next to you?"

---

I mean the easy read is to say, "heathens literally traditionally means 'people who aren't Christians.'" But it can also just carry the connotations of "irreverent, villainous people." So what I'm saying is, he runs the gamut. He's friends with the heathens, but to call them that and to (as the singer) address someone outside that group, he has to be a bridge between the two. Someone who is with the heathens, but is also no longer a heathen himself. And he has to warn the newcomer, who is not a heathen but is about to be among them, of a couple things.

First, be careful. Be careful how you move and what you say.

Second, notice the similarities between yourself and the heathens; you have trust issues and you're trying to figure out the intentions of everyone around you but you'll never be able to do that ("you'll never know.") Just like the heathens are: "they say newcomers have a certain smell." The key to completing your goal is to accept that your similarities, and it's actually not so strange to be sitting among them.

Third, what is your goal? Tyler only gives two hints about why this person the song is "talking" to might be in among the heathens at all. The first hint is "wait for them to ask you who you know." Why'd he say that?

Well one, on the surface, it sounds like you'd need to name-drop someone intimidating to impress criminals. But that doesn't explain why you should wait for them to ask you. So now comes the non-surface read of that lyric, the one that takes into account everything else Tyler's written about and said: wait for them to ask you about why you're there. About the God who makes you different.

Careful, don't come in swinging your sword. You might lop their heads off when you meant to save them. You might provoke them when you meant to bring peace. They've been abused. You're similar but you don't trust each other, and they don't trust your intentions. You can't just sledgehammer them with religious words; they won't understand. They'll associate it with the "abuse."

There's no other plausible way to read that.

You can try to say "it's about becoming a member of the twenty one pilots fandom," okay, but Tyler doesn't think the fandom is touchy about who joins. At least, he doesn't overtly think that. Overtly, he's claimed to be proud of the opposite—he's always quoting that one reviewer who said "your fanbase is the most inclusive clique I've ever seen." He loves the inclusivity. So he wouldn't write a song about a group of heathens who are hard to get in with and be a part of if he was talking about his fans, I don't think.

Now.

Second hint about why the person the songwriter is "speaking" to is in among the heathens; because that's actually the person's rightful place. "It looks like you might be one of us."

I think this is another layer of meaning. Not just "you were once dead," meaning you can still remember who you were before Christ and use that relatability to earn trust. But also, there's something else you have in common with heathens.

And this is where I think you could draw a more meta-line from a listener to twenty one pilots' music. You could go; "I really like this music. But maybe I don't just like it because I can relate to the hope. Maybe I also like it because there's more of me that relates to the struggle than I thought."

Even doubt. I think one of the odd things about Tyler's fans after Blurryface was that they were identifying so much with the struggles and the doubts and the darkness...but in the later eras, there isn't as clear an answer to the dark parts. So you get the vibe that he's noticing that the "brokenness" of his fan base is becoming the loudest part. That even people who came for the hope are also coming for the identifying-with-the-darkness—the bad parts.

[pantaloonwarrior]

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

oh we're doing confessions? i eat pizza crust first

when i have a slice, i turn it around, and eat the untopped edge crust first, and then eat the rest of the slice after

the crust is my least favorite part (common thought) but i dont hate it so i eat it first to get rid of it (SUPER RARE THOUGHT APPARENTLY)

all my friends hate me for it

Electric chair isn't enough I need you to explode

[iconsfinder]