#also yeah im with you on the abstraction thing

[professor-doc-emeritus]

incredibly surprised to learn linkara has a tumblr blog, not at all surprised to learn he doesn't understand even rudimentery abstraction in art

i feel like linkara having a tumblr is among the least surprising things about that man

[katabay]

ANDREY STAMATIN

Keep a close eye on Peter. You'd become desperate and turn into a villain without him.

I spend a lot of time thinking about daniil and peter, but something just clicked into place for me with andrey. so!

I am. currently untangling this thread of thoughts about the stamatin twins and daniil and this kind of. triangle that's happening. a three fold bullet for sure, the kind of recognition-awareness-understanding where three people become one, but to step back from that. when daniil and andrey talk, there's a specific shape of peter that stands in his conversational absence. so: triangle formation. it's opposite-adjacent-complementary to daniil and peter's conversations. it all goes back to that first conversation you have with andrey. it's giving knife. love it!

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[echoesofadream]

Actually what do I study if I am kind of a little bit a stem-girlie but also really definitely not. And I like psychology, religion, languages and linguistics, cultural anthropology/ethnography. Like maths (algebraic, bad at numbers), abhor statistics, like physics (but really bad at a lot of it), dislike chemistry, is okay with biology but not extremely passionate about it quite lukewarm really though medicine is my favorite aspect of it and i kind of like it. Well?

[pulchrasilva]

Sigh I need to rant about certain people and how there is a background noise of discomfort with every interaction after particular incidents that made me go "bitch you live like this???" but all my typical vent spaces are ones where they might see it and the only ones that they wouldn't see it in are like discord channels that are not for this topic of vent or friends who would be uncomfortable with the topic etc like,,, what do I even do? Stew in it?

[petewentzssilkpress]

#

[triglycercule]

swapinverse posting again tell me why crash is like. a rebound for error after he totally fucked things up for swap in askerror. why am i writing these guys in vice.ser's lore to have error compare crash to swap ALL THE TIME and say he's lowkeyBETTER than the dumb berry,,,,, bro,,,,,, swap come get your mans the error version of cross is STEALING HIM. oh shit wait you're in the omega timeline living your best life while your ex friend is sulking over his guilt my bad king keep grinding ‼️

even in another multiverse cross remains the most perfect shippable man im afraid. i already got lowkey crink in this what's next crerror??? i havent made the muse twins meet crash yet but if they did it would be cream and crossmare (but better because melpomene's not a total cunt compared to nightmare)

[junglemindless]

okay, so. i have loved pjo since i was 12 and this can definitely be explained also by the fact percy is so freaking hot. this days i was thinking about our boy and just have to share some of the stuff i thought about him in all this years. here we go with some headcanons of bf percy and percy in general;;

• i have a thing for silver chain necklaces. you know, one of this things every hot guy has? yeah. percy does wears one. his mother give it to him probably. and he never takes it off. it reflects the sun when he's surfing, stands out on his tanned skin, touches your face when he's on top of you kissing you or whatever else

• percy IS an nba obsessed. he will invite you to watch the games with him and will give you his personal opinion about the players, the moves, even the uniforms if you want to know.

• he secretly is zodiac guy. like, in front of his friends or any public conversation he will deny it. but if you're into it, and just says something like "our zodiact signs are compatible!" he'll be happy about it and feel like he's part of something magical, you know? like he's known all along that you're supposed to be together.

• talking about interests: he definitely will listen with heart eyes whatever you talk about. books? shows? basketball or another sport? celebrities drama? taylor swift folklore's love triangle? he's here for it. laying on his bed with you sitting by his side telling him about it, and he's just staring at your beautiful eyes and playing with your hair

• he also love movies. he has an letterboxd account which he is religiously active on. also, he give extra stars to the movies you watch togheter just because he is on a good mood.

• btw, when he's calling you to watch a movie, it is to watch a movie. boy take the movies thing really serious.

• he will be watching barbie AND oppenheimer. and he will take you to both.

• percy can't sleep without being tangled with you. he's an huge touchy guy, bear hugs, forehead kisses, hands on your waist, head laying down on your chest. he just loves the feeling of your body with him

• bro is an biology princess. is the only thing he really found interesting. he loves nature, the sea, the animals.... everybody knows he's going to do marine biology. he's not an working-on-office-all-day type of person so 99% of chance of him working saving marine animals on an research group.

• his instagram profile would totally be about animals he saved. him just doing ✌️🤘👉👍with some type of turtle or an aquarium of clown fishes

• you gave him different marine stuffed animals and he keeps it on his shelf, right on the side of a picture of you and him on a beach day.

• as soon as he gets money, he will take you to a summer on greece.

• he is so fucking loyal. he CAN'T like anyone else. he just thinks about you. in a way that is almoust obsessive.

• also, kind jealous. okay, im trying to be nice with him, he's very very jealousy guy. not because he doesn't trust you or your love for him, but because he doesn't trust other people. at least, thats what he says everytime he sees this one friend of yours

• percy is a tattoo guy. he will have symbols, greek words, abstract stuff, strong animals.... and your initials on his chest once he knows for sure you're here to stay.

• i saw that jeremy allen white keeps a letter of his wife with him to read when he's missing home and i just can't get it out of my mind. percy will totaly take a small peace of paper with something you wrote to him when he's traveling to research or smth and read it before going to sleep 😫😫😫

humm alright. i think that's it for today. i love percy he's so fucking sweet. also, english is not my first language and i had never write for tumblr before soooooo sorry for anything.

hope you enjoyed and stuff 💪

HEY! we have a part. 2 :)

[featherymainffins]

Ok, ok, so I'm just spitballing here so this will not be organised at all nor will it make sense because I'm just trying to think. Ok so. There are several ways one can look at and interpret Slay The Princess. Ideally, I should consider all of them when thinking about this AU. However I cannot deny I'm a bigger fan of Doylist perspectives and that's how i interpret Slay The Princess as a whole. The problem is that this AU specifically is much more Watsonian oriented by nature, which is not what I like at all. But listen. I am sure we can make this work and make it make sense both in a Watsonian interpretation of STP and the Doylist interpretation of STP. Or like, one interpretation for each of those I guess. Since I'm sure that there is more than one Doylist interpretation.

Right, uh, Doylist interpretation. The way I interpret STP is that it represents a relationship that is either falling apart or has recently fallen apart and you as a person are not the person you used to be when you were in the relationship but what remains of your old you is hellbent on not trying to understand what happened and why, it just wants it to be over and forgotten and dead. It wants to kill the memory of loss and frames it as a monster. The Princess or the Shifting Mound in this interpretation is not a real tangible person, or like...she IS, but you almost always interact with your memories of her. The you that you are now is supposed to be strong, strong enough to kill and forget. But there are many parts of you just as there are many parts of her. But you don't see that. The woman you loved, who is she? You're a complex person. A collective made out of small voices. She seems simple. The you who isn't you anymore wants her to be simple. The her you meet is always just a fragment, and only when meeting the shifting mound for the first time you realise that there is more to her. The ideal with no personality is the same woman you have hurt senselessly is the same woman who has hurt you is the same woman you felt broken and weak around is the same woman destroyed by you et cetera et cetera. Only when you understand each and every perspective do you create an image of her, in her complexity and contradicting parts and perspectives. Only then you may finally understand her and your feelings concerning her and what happened in your relationship, and only then you accept change. Apart from it being about change vs stagnation and acceptance vs denial, it's also about understanding vs forgetting. It's about a black and white view of people vs confronting all a person is. About seeing oneself as both the killer and the prey vs seeing oneself as the special hero.

The Watsonian interpretation is, well, it is what happens. Which makes it much easier to pick the basic elements present, but they're all very literal. Change vs stagnation, growth vs loss. Also ego vs superego...actually weirdly enough I guess more like me-self vs superego.

I forgot where i was going with this I'm going to sleep.

The idea of an STP AU where you slay/save The Narrator is this. I can't explain it but it's just this. "What does that mean?" you ask? No idea.

[ruthytwoshakes]

Bunch of two fort ladies hell yeah B)

headcannons of inconsistent length below the cut

Zhanna: reeeeeeoow!!! She’s so gorgoryse . gay as hell about all these women tbh. Yeah I just gave her body hair and thicker eyebrows because it’s cool as fuck. And a bear claw scar from when she tried to take home a baby bear when she was little. I think she really likes bears and wants one as a pet. Maybe the bear and soldier’s raccoons would get along aww <33

Admin: yipppeee evil old lady!!!!! . Gave her acne scars , think she would pick her face when she was younger and the scars never faded. shes so pretty heruhghhsg. She smokes these fucked up super long cigarettes idk. I like her wonky nose, maybe she got into a fight or something and broke it.

Scouts Ma: oh man I have so many ideas for her hehehhe. Okay so her name is Jenny, shes Puerto Rican, moved to Boston when she was a young adult, and she’s around the same height as sniper. She’s green because she’s both the scouts mother, and I didn’t want her to be purple like Pauling and Admin I wanted her to be her own person. Her heart locket contains a bunch of pictures of her boys that all cartoonishly fold out to the floor when she opens it up.

She’s bi and poly, and currently dating both the spies because I think it’s funny. I can’t decide if both the spies would also be dating each other or would hate each other, maybe it depends on the time of day. Oh also she used to be an assassin! Maybe that’s why she had to move because she got found out at her old hometown. Anybody who got too rough with her boys were never seen again, only reason the scouts made it out alive lol.

She’s only recently gotten back together with the spies, had a falling out with Red before she knew she was pregnant, but he wanted to reconnect with her after finding out Red scout was his kid. Blu and her were friends for a really long time, she was the surrogate mother to Blu scout, but they fell out of contact when Blu spy had to take scout and disappear due to some espionage work gone wrong. When both the Blus join the team, the red scout recognized them and Blu spy eventually reconnected with Jen through that.

All of her kids are out of the house and she’s retired, so she has a lot of free time. She hosts foreign exchange students and fosters baby animals. She does a lot of traveling and shopping, she also likes knife and axe throwing, while doing some abstract sculpting on the side.

Maggie:

I love Maggie she’s so interesting,, I really like the panels where she’s laughing with saxton on the plane. Oh yeah gave her a mustache cus she’s Australian!, don’t be shy give the pretty lady a mustache she deserves it. That line on her lip was from this one girl I had a crush on back in high school, she said that she was bullied for it. don’t think I’ve ever seen it on another person since. She was one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. I hope she’s doing alright. She was a really good friend, real wonderful person.

Merasmus:

hi Merasmus how r u. oh yeah I’m trying out some other designs for her because I’m working on a little animated series about her and a magic spell she fucks up. I want her to be Sumerian because Sumer is so interesting!! I’ve been learning about the art from it in class, check out the Sumerian virtue status or the Epic of Gilgamesh they’re some of my favorite bits of history we’ve learned so far. Oh yeah also I think when she takes off that weird cap thing she has the longest most beautiful curly hair that goes down to her ankles because I love those kind of visual gags hehe. Also yeah she has piercings idk why I did that. I think she’s kinda blind and she uses her skull to see with her magic or whatever. I love her facial expressions in the comics,, have you guys seen the cunty Merasmus poster i love the cunty Merasmus poster

Miss Pauling:

MISS PAULFIJF LETS FUCMIGN GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s got sideburns because im a dyke bleh blehhhh . hshe look at her big ass glasses I’m in love. Oh yeah I gave her lots of moles! And changed up her sleeve colors. Too tired to write much more lol

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

every single time i try to speculate on what jax’s “big bad secret” is going to be revealed as later in the story i get stuck. repeatedly.

like okay. if you haven’t noticed, goose has been foreshadowing this like a lot. the little detail of jax having keys that can open any door that seems a LITTLE too specific for it to just be a one-off thing. the clear implication that jax’s room is supposed to hold a secret of some kind (cough the pins). on her list of content warnings for tadc she literally put “jax” as one of the warnings. (presumably as a half joke but she’s very monotone so im not really sure.) apparently he “likes a lot of things he’s not willing to admit”, which is ominous as hell?? his dynamic with pomni is MESSY now apparently.

so my guess is that he’s going to do something absolutely, completely unforgivable in the future. or something really bad happens related to him or something idk. SOMETHING related to him contains dark themes, but the more i think about how the environment of the digital circus works, the more confusing it gets.

like. okay well he can’t exactly kill any of his castmates so that’s sort of out of the question. can he make someone abstract? possibly. maybe that’s what happened to queenie… but i think the rest of the cast would be WAY more unforgiving/cold to him if that actually happened. so probably not. i think with what we know now, maybe he could realistically set caine off so badly that it results in like… super dire consequences. like maybe the world starts glitching out and makes someone abstract bc of it or something. eyedeekay!

it’s also difficult too bc there’s so much we still don’t really know about the circus. like before episode 3 we had absolutely no idea that caine’s emotional state affected the “structural integrity” of the circus i guess.

also… and i know people are gonna disagree with me on this… i do not think we know enough about jax to have an “in character” image of him in our heads. like yeah his surface level traits are there but we really don’t know a lot about him. like at all. i think the closest we’ve ever been shown to “the real jax” (excluding the crumbs that goose has given us) are those scenes in episode 1 where he breaks character a little bit and looks super tired as if he’s putting up a facade. which i DO think he is, it’s just that his motivations are super important too and we’re completely unaware of what he’s actually planning on doing later on….

also extra note before i finish my silly rant. goose said on twitter that she saw a piece of fanart for tadc that mirrors something that happens later on in the story and ive seen quite a few pieces on the tumblr front page for the #tadc hashtag that depict jax abstracting …so. idk if its gonna happen though teehee. okay bye guys.

[sleepanonymous]

im trying to get into sleeptoken - one of my friends is dragging me into it and i love it - can you just give me like a huge timeline and lore overlook? im looking around your feed, and im SO confused but also SO intrigued !! would love to hear from you :)

Hi! New fans always make me so happy! I’m glad you’ve been shown Sleep Token and you like what you’ve heard so far! I always recommend this video and this article regarding Sleep Token lore, but… yeah, I will take a stab at a complete timeline for you. I’ll be honest: I never was very into the lore of “Sleep” as much as I was curious about the band itself (which is typically why I recommend the two above sources for lore purposes). I know that much of the lore is from fans’ deep analyses of Sleep Token’s lyrics and not anything official from the band or Vessel. Almost everything is fan-made, so there are a lot of differing opinions—anything official or stated by Vessel and the band in interviews I included. If anyone is interested in my take on the lore, I might make a separate post about that.

This ended up becoming a massive post. Take what you think is massive and then double or even triple it. Fun fact: I aggressively fact-checked this and actually learned some new things about the band myself. I have marked any unverifiable statements and opinions in this post with an asterisk. Due to the band’s secrecy, the sentences with an asterisk are either heavily opinion-based or my best guess at what might have happened during a specific time period. Take them with a grain of salt.

Anyway! I have a problem; below the cut, I am making it everybody else’s problem.

In September of 2016, a video was posted to YouTube. The video was a black-and-white depiction, through short clips and flashing images, of what appeared to be a lone masked man, Vessel, performing a ritual by candlelight. The music over the video, a hauntingly beautiful mixture of indie pop and prog metal, was met with heavy praise from commenters. The description had three links to a new band’s social media and a Bandcamp account. Below the links was the following description:

Sleep Token are a masked, anonymous collective of musicians; united by their worship of an ancient deity crudely dubbed “Sleep”, since no modern tongue can properly express it’s name. This being once held great power, bestowing ancient civilisations with the gift of dreams, and the curse of nightmares. Even today, though faded from prominence, ‘Sleep’ yet lurks in the subconscious minds of man, woman, and child alike. Fragments of beauty, horror, anguish, pain, happiness, joy, anger, disgust, and fear coalesce to create expansive, emotionally textured music that simultaneously embodies the darkest, and the brightest abstract thoughts. He has seen them. He has felt them. He is everywhere. Sleep Token, led by the perpetually tormented, supremely talented Vessel, creates music that brings to the fore our most submerged thoughts and feelings, coaxing them from the desolate, terrifying caves of our subconscious mind.

The band officially formed in April 2016 (The YouTube channel, for reference, was created on April 14, 2016), but things had already been in the works for nearly a year before the uploaded Thread the Needle music video. In July 2015, Vessel came into contact with a talent scout/independent project manager by the name of Tom (I won’t provide his full name since Googling him brings up biased, embellished, and most likely false information about the band and its members).* In 2015, Vessel was already a skilled, trained, and experienced musician with the ability to play several instruments, including the piano, guitar, and bass, and the knowledge to compose and produce his own music. That being the case, Tom introduced Vessel to a drummer, dubbed II, as well as a skilled producer by the name of George Lever.*

On November 10, 2016, a second video was posted to Sleep Token’s YouTube channel, a music video for the masked collective’s second release, Fields of Elation. Much like Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation was met with enthusiasm and praise by Sleep Token’s growing fanbase.

Finally, on December 2, 2016, Sleep Token independently released their first EP, aptly titled “One”, on their Bandcamp page. The EP included Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation, and a new song: When the Bough Breaks. Accompanying the three songs, the band also included piano renditions of all three songs, performed solely by Vessel.

On the last day of February 2017, Sleep Token posted another video to their YouTube channel, a sombre piano cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya. Following the release of “One” and the cover of Hey Ya, Tom, now acting as Sleep Token’s manager, got the band signed to a label called Basick Records.* By May 2017, the band had another three-song EP, dubbed “Two”, already written and set to release that summer. This was announced via the release of Sleep Token’s third music video, Calcutta. By this time, Sleep Token’s manager had gotten a stand-in bassist and guitarist, dubbed III and IV, respectively, for the band’s first live Ritual. This was mentioned at the end of Sleep Token’s first-ever published interview with Louder. You can read it and the accompanying short article here.

On June 17, 2017, less than one month after the release of the Calcutta music video, Sleep Token took the stage for their first Ritual at The Black Heart in London. The band played seven songs live, including the three songs from “One”, Calcutta, two unreleased songs, Nazareth and Jericho from their upcoming EP “Two”, and their cover of Hey Ya. Very little is known about this Ritual. Most online sources seem to not know of its existence at all. The only concrete facts known about Ritual I are that doors opened at 7 pm, it was 18+, and tickets were £8.00 each. It is unclear how many people attended the Ritual; no footage or pictures have surfaced from that evening.

Sleep Token’s second and third rituals were performed in London in October and November 2017. The band opened for Motorpsycho and Perturbator, respectively. Because they were openers, any visual or audio documentation is nearly non-existent, but the band did appear in a few online articles reviewing the concerts.

In this article, author Roger Trenwith wrote the following about Sleep Token’s Ritual II:

“The support act Sleep Token was an odd mix of metal and pure pop, played by a band in horror masks and cloaks. Musically they were somewhat formulaic, in the tried and trusted quiet-loud-quiet-F’KIN LOUD nature of most of the songs, and accompanying theatrics by rote. When they diverted from the formula, they showed some promise, mostly down to the singer, whose extraordinary range made them just about bearable.”

Ritual III was met with similar criticism. This article, written by a much more helpful and open-minded Chris Keith-Wright, stated the following*:

“Remarkably, by the time Sleep Token take to the stage to start the evening off, there’s a very respectable amount of people front and centre to check them out. Perhaps this is due to the up-swell of media attention on the band since their signing to Basick Records and the release of their second EP, cleverly titled Two, that landed this summer. [...] The conceit surrounding the group is that the band are representatives of an ancient deity known only as “Sleep”, and that their frontman is an appointed-one dubbed ‘Vessel’. Whatever one makes of that, the fact is that Sleep Token’s Vessel has a most extraordinary set of pipes. [...] With a lighting show in time with their music and Vessel’s strong, soulful melodic voice featuring some impressive falsetto, they quickly engaged the audience. With the amount of vocal harmonies and extra musical depth that came over the sound system, I have to admit that it felt throughout their set that they were missing a band member, someone who could control and wield the keyboards, samples and electronics in a live setting. Donned with the obligatory cloaks the band produce a strong performance with their points of difference, clearly thought out prior to their live debut only a few weeks before. Their odd masks obscure their faces and during the quiet, vocal-led passages the guitar and bass players stood stock still. It’s simple, understated, but effective, producing quite the spectacle. Sleep Token’s transition between soulful, repetitive vocal melodies and brutal Meshuggah-esque riffery, and after a few songs this formula felt well-trodden. This is unfortunate as on record these transitions between the two disparate styles are far better executed – live there was far too much juxtaposition. Despite this, I and the majority of the growing crowd were transfixed by their performance.”

In March 2018, Sleep Token opened for two Holding Absence/Loathe shows, two bands with which Vessel would later collaborate. By April 2018, Sleep Token had parted ways with their manager and the Basick Records label.* It is unclear if both of these departures were related or amicable. As a once again independent artist, Sleep Token released the single, Jaws, on June 3, 2018, using footage filmed for their Nazareth music video that their previous label did not utilise. Through the spring and summer of 2018, Sleep Token performed their rituals at UK music festivals, further growing their fanbase.

In August of 2018, Vessel gave his second interview to Kerrang! UK. Interestingly, the article refers to the frontman not as Vessel but simply as Him. The main focus is on Sleep Token’s music and the single Jaws, released two months prior. A transcribed version of the article can be found in my Google Drive

Following these successful rituals and the Jaws interview, the band released another single, The Way That You Were, on October 8, 2018, along with its music video on YouTube.

This release preceded the last Ritual the band would perform that year. On October 11, 2018, Ritual XI was held at St Pancras Old Church in London, dubbed the band’s Inaugural Headline Ritual. It’s rumoured that all 120 tickets to the Ritual sold out in seconds. The band performed ten songs in total, including the live debut of the song Blood Sport. It is also worth noting that this is the first ritual Sleep Token performed with an opener being a band called Exploring Birdsong, which would become a staple opener for later ritual dates. Several members of Exploring Birdsong would also later become touring members of Sleep Token as the Choir.

At an unknown date in 2019, Sleep Token signed with a new label, Spinefarm Records. Together, the band and label began releasing music from Sleep Token’s first full-length album, “Sundowning.” Starting with The Night Does Not Belong to God on June 20, 2019, the band methodically released a new song bi-weekly at sundown BST until the record’s full release on November 21, 2019.

Interestingly, Sleep Token’s biography on Spinefarm differs from what the band had previously had in the description of their first two music videos. It is as follows:

Beneath the Sleep Token banner, lies the unique, broad-based vision of one individual – anonymous, silent, masked, armed with a staggering vocal range, a deft touch on the keyboards, plus a live approach that is never less than fully engaged.

While all factual statements to Vessel’s capabilities and talents, it appears that the band and their new label had retconned the lore surrounding them, granting the creation credits solely to Vessel himself. This is further evident by the Kerrang! Interview Vessel had previously given, which was removed from the internet, as well as the band’s Facebook page getting scrubbed of all posts prior to April 2019. Replacing them is a video of Vessel sitting at a piano and removing his mask, reminiscent of what would later happen at The Room Below Ritual in 2022.

Sleep Token would return to the stage on July 2, 2019. During this Ritual, Sleep Token opened for Amaranth and headliner Babymetal. This Ritual is notable because two key stage members, the guitarist IV and the Keyboardist, were replaced. The new guitarist took on the same moniker of IV, and the Keyboardist was replaced with three women from Exploring Birdsong, forming the Choir (or, as fans have dubbed them, the Vesselettes). The Choir was not yet a ritual staple, and there were several festivals and rituals where they did not accompany the band on stage, such as Sleep Token’s first US tour from November 7 to December 15, supporting Issues on the Beautiful Oblivion tour. The replacement for IV, however, did accompany Sleep Token on this tour.

With the release of “Sundowning,” Sleep Token once again gave an interview to Kerrang! UK to accompany an article reviewing the album. The article can be found online here, but no longer has the accompanying interview section. A photo of the original magazine review + interview, and a transcription can be found in my Google Drive.

Returning to the UK, Sleep Token performed several more rituals in late January 2020. Due to COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns, they did not conduct another ritual that year. Nearly one year after the release of Sundowning, the band released a deluxe version, including new covers of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Billie Eilish’s When The Party’s Over, a piano version of Blood Sport, and a new original song titled Shelter.

Sleep Token would not perform another Ritual until the Download Pilot festival on June 18, 2021. Despite being Sleep Token’s first Ritual in over a year, this festival also had IV replaced again by another guitarist donning the same moniker. The Choir also returned to the stage with Sleep Token, completing the lineup that we know today. This festival was the same day that Sleep Token dropped their new single from their upcoming second album, Alkaline, along with a music video on YouTube.

Another reason the Download Pilot ritual was significant is that it was the first time a spoken message had been given to the attendees of a Sleep Token ritual, not by a band member but by a prerecorded, AI-generated voice. The following text was the message:

Let’s not deceive ourselves There is a reason we are here It follows us wherever we go We were in love We are in love It is what floats above us as we try to sleep It is what stands beside us as we gaze into nothingness It is drowning us It is eating us alive A million outstretched arms in complete darkness They will reach forever Remind me We’re both dying to find out what happens when we die We’re both scared of being We’re both stolen pieces of each other We’re both exploring our own frontiers of grief We’re both just strangers We’re both just particles We’re both so lost in what it means to be lost We’re both a house that remained unoccupied for too long Let’s not deceive ourselves.

Sleep Token released another music video for their upcoming album’s second single, The Love You Want, on August 6, 2021. Sleep Token played the same spoken message before taking the stage at the 2021 Heavy Music Awards on September 2, 2021. On stage, they performed several staple songs from “Sundowning” along with new singles Alkaline and The Love You Want, with the latter including the same dancers from the music video.

Two weeks later, on September 17, 2021, Sleep Token released their third and final single from their upcoming album, Fall For Me. Unlike the previous music videos for the band, this video focused on a single man, whom keen-eyed fans had identified as Vessel, though he was maskless, paintless, and in street clothing. Over the video, words will flash across the screen. When strung together, they give the following message:

The truth is I am due a harsh lesson In truth itself and how bitter it can be  Will you teach me? The truth is, I am ugly, I am inadequate, I am lost, I am no god The truth is, I want to want to live And so do you I just can’t do this any longer I am afraid Are you afraid? I want to understand what it is to let go So for now let me serve as a living drama of your pain If we are to be submerged let us be submerged  Together

One week later, On September 24, 2021, Sleep Token released their second full-length album with Spinefarm Records, titled “This Place Will Become Your Tomb.” This album was the first to find a spot on the UK music charts, reaching #39 for UK Albums.

That following November, Sleep Token had their first multi-date headline tour supporting their second album. They toured with another of their staple openers, AA Williams, and played eight rituals in total throughout the UK.

On November 26, 2021, an instrumental version of “This Place Will Become Your Tomb” was released, stripping all songs of Vessel’s vocals, except for Missing Limbs, which was not included. Surprising fans, just over one month later, on January 2, 2022, Sleep Token released a cover of Loathe’s song Is It Really You? The cover is listed as a collaboration between both bands but is simply (though still beautiful and enrapturing) Vessel singing alongside a piano rendition of the original song.* A year later later, the vocalist of Holding Absence, Lucas Woodland, would also announce that his band had collaborated with Vessel on an unreleased song on his Twitter.

This unofficial announcement accompanies another that was made in March of 2019 by Lucas, who stated in an interview that Vessel assisted Holding Absence with playing the piano in the song Purge.

On March 30, 2022, Sleep Token released an instrumental version of their first album, Sundowning. Nearly a month later, on April 29, 2022, Sleep Token, or rather Vessel and the Choir, performed an intimate ritual at the Lafayette in London. The Ritual was dubbed “From the Room Below.” This performance is one of the most significant rituals for two reasons. Vessel sang and played guitar for the first several songs, then removed his mask and played the rest of the set while sitting at a piano with his back to the audience. The second reason is that Vessel, once again, played an AI-generated message to the crowd of 600 people while he openly sobbed on the piano bench. His full message to the audience was this:

We are here to silently connect. To project ourselves onto one another. We are here to remember. We are here to forget. We are here to worship. Some time ago, I was given a message. It was a message that originated from one of you. Someone possessed by a strong desire to tell me something. The message read very simply: You saved me. I have thought about this message a great deal since. It left me with a feeling that I have somehow been mistaken for someone else. I did not save anyone. I do not believe I have the capacity to save anyone. All I have ever given anyone was a small window into the emotional waiting room of my mind. I do so whilst doing everything in my power to minimise my own vulnerability. In this way, I am selfish. I chose not to give what others can, and yet I am the benefactor of this thankful praise. I experience a great deal of pain in my life. However, I do not believe I have suffered as you have suffered. Perhaps that is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered. I would also like to take this chance to tell you something. To love oneself is not the easy task we are sometimes told it is. We are all limited by something. We are all guilty of something. My own path towards a place of greater self-acceptance is paved with the art that I create. It is a path that I continue to stumble down at the expense of everything else. I am nothing without this music. I am nothing without this mask. So, in this sense, the message I received was true, but only in an inverse sense. The truth is I did not save anybody. You saved me.

After this first Ritual of 2022, Sleep Token had a busy year of touring, performing rituals in the UK, for the first time in Australia, and returning to the United States. In all, fifty-four rituals were performed, making 2022 Sleep Token’s busiest year— until 2023.

On January 4, 2023, Sleep Token dropped a new YouTube video, a visualiser for a new song, Chokehold, from their upcoming third studio album, “Take Me Back to Eden.” One day later, on January 5, Sleep Token posted another visualiser to YouTube, this time for the song The Summoning. This song is specifically responsible for Sleep Token’s sudden skyrocketing into the spotlight of modern music. To date (late November 2023), the visualiser has over 13 million views on YouTube, and the song has over 80 million streams on Spotify.

Around the same time as Chokehold and The Summoning were released, Sleep Token also added new merchandise to their store. Among the new “Take Me Back to Eden” themed shirts and pullovers was a crewneck sweater with a poem written in runes. The poem read as follows:

I am hunting something, and in turn, that same thing is hunting me. The beholder, the void beyond. I am the line between. I am the teeth of God.

Sleep Token released six singles for their third studio album: Granite on January 19, Aqua Regia on January 20, Vore on February 15, and DYWTYLM on April 19. “Take Me Back to Eden” was released on May 19. Dubbed the end to a trilogy, Sleep Token’s third album reached a peak point of #3 for UK Albums and #16 for the US Billboard 200. With this success, Sleep Token and Vessel were featured on several magazine covers, but the accompanying articles lacked an interview by the band or their servants.

Sleep Token spent the time between single releases touring Europe, the UK, and Australia. In September of 2023, the band returned to the US, for the first time with the Choir, for a headline tour, using AA Williams as their opener. At every date on this headline tour, a series of interludes were played between songs. All four interludes are below.

Interlude I Mask: They think you fake it Vessel: What do you mean? Mask: When you cry on stage, they don’t think it’s real. Vessel: That’s a reasonable assumption. Mask: Do you fake it? Vessel: No, I don’t. But it is something I do consistently, so if I was a member of the audience, I would probably assume that it wasn’t real. Mask: Do you ever see them crying? Vessel: No, I can only ever see them smiling. That’s good. I want them to smile. Mask: Do you think they want you to cry? Do you think they like it? Vessel: Not as such; I think they just want to know that I am feeling something, feeling what they are feeling, perhaps. Mask: Do you think that this amount of crying is healthy for you? Vessel: I don’t know. But at least I feel something; if I don’t feel anything, then why would I even do this?

Interlude II Mask: Why am I here? What is my purpose in all of this? Vessel: Your purpose is twofold. You protect me from them, and you also protect them from me. Mask: How is it that I serve to protect anyone from anything? That makes no sense. Vessel: In order for all of this to work, there has to be a certain boundary in place. They need to be able to project themselves onto this without anyone else’s identity getting in the way. In turn, I need to be able to show my true self to them in a way that does not compromise their ability to connect. Mask: So that’s what I am? A boundary?  Vessel: Yes. Mask: I don’t believe you. I believe there is more to it than that. I believe you are afraid of something.  Vessel: We are all afraid of something, are we not?  Mask: What is it you are so afraid they will see? Vessel: That I am exactly like everyone else.

Interlude III Mask: Are you afraid of me? Vessel: Sometimes. Mask: Why? Vessel: I think I am afraid of becoming you. Mask: What does that even mean? Vessel: My life is becoming gradually consumed by you. Before long, all that I am will be contained within you. Then, one day, when I no longer wish to wear you, there will be nothing else left. Mask: It seems you have forgotten who you are. Before you had me, you were nothing. All of this artifice, all this pathetic conjecture about your identity, it is nothing but a manifestation of how short-sighted and solipsistic you have become. I lifted you from misery and obscurity. You would be better to become me. You are nothing without me. You always were nothing without me.

Interlude IV Vessel: You. Are. Wrong. In the end, my fractured sense of self was only another piece of fuel for the fire that burns in the eyes of these people before us. They, too, are pained. They, too, do not know who they truly are. They are each stood alone on a stage of their own. And yet, they are here. United by that sense of never truly belonging. They see something beyond their own bleak horizons. And they reach for it. Together. So let us join now. To reflect their joy and to serve as a conduit for their anguish. To swallow their fear.

Though only one month remains in 2023, Sleep Token still has a set of rituals to complete in Germany, as well as their largest venue as a headliner: OVO Wembley Arena, with a staggering 12,500 capacity—tickets sold out in ten minutes when they went on sale earlier this year in June. With the band’s continuous and foreboding statement of “nothing lasts forever,” many fans worried that this would be the last we ever saw of Sleep Token, with everything starting from “One” and culminating to a peak with “Take Me Back to Eden,” only to evaporate into nothing come the new year. Fortunately, several 2024 tour dates have already been announced for Sleep Token, including a tour in Australia where the band will be supporting Bring Me the Horizon and a festival date for the USA in April. Though all we can do is speculate what may come next for Sleep Token, one thing is for certain: This is only the beginning for our favourite band.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Reader taking care of Jax, Kinger, and Ragatha when they're sick

well.. as sick as you can get when you're in the digital world LMAO i think im going to write this and try something for a new fandom to introduce to this blog then write another thing then eeerrrrm i think i might take a break and draw since ive got a few ideas i wanna scribble down before i forget and/or lose this tiny spark of motivation eheheheh

RAGATHA:

originally i was going to say that ragatha is stubborn when shes sick... as in she wants to do what she needs to do for the day, if there is any obligation for her... but also at the same time, i dont think ragatha would be like that out of fear of getting someone else sick... maybe theres some denial in the beginning before succumbing when her symptoms get worse ? very easy to care for when sick, though i dont think she would let you hang around her for long to try to keep you from getting sick too.. i think as soon as shes feeling better/beating her symptoms she tries to check on you to make sure you didnt catch whatever she had.. and if you did... well i guess thats another post for another day. not very needy or whiny when sick, at most she might ask for something to keep her occupied if shes not sleeping the entire time

JAX:

the opposite of ragatha, hes going to be annoying about it but its hard to tell if hes genuinely just that whiney or if hes playing it up to keep your attention.. i can see both honestly. will never say it (because it might make you stop!) but he loves watching you fret over him (well he wont say it because he doesnt want to admit that he likes the extra care and attention). though i do still think that he would be stubborn, trying to keep up with his antics even though he should be in bed. so youre going to be working hard to keep him in his room... actually getting him to rest is an entirely different beast. truly, the biggest test in your relationship with this bunny is when hes sick

KINGER:

i think hes the type to over react when hes (or when anyone for that matter) is sick... though i think the bulk of that is due to his mental state currently in the circus... if this were before that or when he was more new to it, he'd be pretty normal about it... but then again how often do you get sick in the circus? i mean yeah sure you're showing your normal flu symptoms but theres also glitching thats far too similar to abstracting... can you really blame him for being scared? definitely worries about the smallest things and symptoms when hes sick, so youre probably going to have to sit by him and keep him calm. urge him to rest, exchange stories, ect ect. do i think he would become stressed enough to actually abstract right there? probably not, but its still distressing nonetheless... actually i think he might calm down and listen to you if he sees YOU becoming distressed.. doesnt want to make you feel bad, he pulls through for you

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

no ok @funonion001 you've made me So fucking unwell over this it needs its own post

bc i also used to be like "ah, the neighborhood's a panopticon and Home is the 'warden'" but recent updates & general things ive read changed my outlook entirely. cause like... if Home (the town) was a panopticon, then Home (the house) should be at the 'head' of it all, where they can view everything. but Home can't view everything directly - half the buildings are behind it.

however. i don't think the panopticon thing is entirely wrong, either. there's some truth in it? i'm pretty sure that the neighborhood is Home. it's like Home is the brain/eyes/heart, and everything else are nerve endings. there's this one piece of livestream trivia that i think of, in relation to Housewarming: "...everyone believes their houses are alive in their own special way". what if this is kind of literal? all of the buildings are extensions of Home, or Home is just the core of it all. one big living, breathing neighborhood. Home might not be able to see it all, but he might be able to feel it

and then yeah from the more abstract side of things - your phrasing of "all the other houses circle home" made me put my head in my hands. because there Are a lot of conclusions/interpretations of all of that. also that sentence makes me picture a pack of wolves circling in on a kill, which is. hng.

Home is caged in. Home is surrounded. Home is always being watched. Home is never not alone. everything leads back Home. Home is holding it all together.

and like... it reminds me of Clown once mentioning (loosely, im going off of memory here whose reliability is tenuous on a good day) that part of WH's story relates to the autistic experience / when does a home become a house / will your neighbors treat you differently once they see the authentic you. and that, at least to me and one of my experiences, relates to a feeling of being watched/judged every time i leave my house. or even when i'm by an open window - everywhere i can be Seen, it feels like everyone is keeping one eye on me. existing in public spaces feels like a performance. i'm hyper aware of every single movement i make and it makes me feel so inauthentic and fake and alien and its So So stressful/uncomfortable.

so that pov + Home (and by extension, Wally since they're kinda one in the same) = well! all of the above! can Wally ever relax outside of Home's four walls? they're all looking at him. the entire neighborhood surrounds him - he can't go anywhere without running into them (the buildings and the neighbors). there's no escaping their watch and/or judgement. it's as if Wally and Home are under constant surveillance, or at least it feels like it - which is half the problem. or it's the entire problem? the fear of possibility, not reality.

and then for a different (but also connected for obvi reasons) interpretation - Home and Wally are alone. they are Singular in the neighborhood. everyone else is next to each other, even the stores are paired. but Home stands alone in the middle of it all. which directly relates to Wally and Home being aware - and also together in whatever state the neighborhood is in at the time of the whrp's creation. in a town of neighbors, Home & Wally have none. and that can connect them being at the center of it all, holding their world together - or breaking it apart

also: on the neighborhood map, the path only ends at Home. it's a loop except for the bit leading up to Home's doorstep. where Howdy's Place & Eddie's Post Office are the path widens into one huge circle with no end. Walk the circuit, end up at Home. walk the entire perimeter, and you go nowhere. there isn't a path out, the path doesn't end at any of the buildings except Home. there's something in that, i think.

there's more in my brain but i can't quite reach it...

[anittam]

ToT Theory: We Already Passed The Prologue, We Just Didn't Realized It

Hi, nerds! I been on a break from playing tears of themis, bc for a while it stopped being a game I enjoy playing and started feeling more and more like a chore, but recently I started playing again, so I think I will start posting again, so yeah.

Yesterday when I got home from work, instead of my brain helping me relax, it kept bombarded me with abstract and useless concepts, preventing me from sleeping, and just like that, this theory was born.

Warning: Crack theory (I meant it), and spoilers.

I have no clue of how long you been playing tot, but let me tell you something, early game tot fandom were fighting for the lives, because of the game's prologue, that shit was crypted (I not sure if I used this right) as fuck, for no good reason. Trust me when I say, people were losing iq points trying to get some sense out of this.

So many theories were made, some saying that vyn was the villian, rosa was a traitor or amnesiac, stuff like that, but what most theories had in common was that the prologue happend somewhere in the future of the game, that eventually we would do a full circle and go back to the begining of the game.

So here is my sleep deprivation theory on this subject, the prologue happended somewhere between the blossom chapter 4 and the first year anniversary.

Hear me out, at this point of the game I fully I believe that the dream sequence was really a dream, and not a trance vision. Rosa, our sweet sweet Rosa, just received love confessions from her four good male friends, and she doesnt know what to do, she is overthinking and overanalyzing trying to decide who she should chose, because she likes all four of them in a romantic way. She is thinking about it so much that she even started dreaming about it.

In the dream sequence, she sees the boys, Luke, Artem and Marius, and its connection with them, being represented by 3 objects.

If you paid attention to the blossom chapters, you would realize that thoses objects where thing that represents Rosa getting closer to them, by the way, all of those objects where introduce in the first blossom chapter (I think is because the writes just had a general ideia of the way the story would go so they just putted there in the beginning so they wouldnt have to think to much about them). The 3 objects were, luke's box, which is a central point to his personal story, a painting Marius gifted Rosa, and a bouquet Artem sended to Rosa (I know the flower is not the same, but the change is to represent Rosa's feelings at that moment).

These 3 things, although important in helping Rosa and the ones she loved build a strong relationship, it also brings her sorrow because of her indecision. Because she cant possibly love four people at the same time, thats insane, and cruel on them.

But anyway, after that she sees herself in vyn's office, and he say some weird shit, which phrase referring to one of the boys.

Luke: he talks about the chest of memories, rosa spent 8 years think about luke, what she did wrong, why he abandoned her, just for him to throw some bullshit excuse at her, in luke's first bithday card, Rosa say that she hated luke, but she cant stop loving him. But since he came back, she started to learn more and more about him, and his new life, and she is not exactly thrilled. When it come to she and Luke, there are trust issues, that are very hard to overlook, but they learn to work it out.

Marius: he talks how Rosa pretends to be okay and she is not, and that my friends is a recurring theme in their relationship. And not only her, but Marius is the same, they are constantly trying to not let the other know whats going on, they put on this facade of "im fine, dont worry" which just let the other more concerned. They have communication problems, but as the story they learn to be more open, and properly communicate their needs and concerns.

Artem: this part is the most used in "Rosa is a traitor" theories, because vyn talks about standing by your convictions but betraying your heart. And seeds of this happening was already presented in cannon storyline and in the Artem's personal story, in chapter 3 of the cannon story, Rosa strongly believes that the law is wrong, because if mother killed to save their child, they shouldnt be punished. And Artem's blossom chapter 2, Rosa wants to go against her clients wishes and push her to put her husband to trail for domestic abuse. In both scenerios, Rosa show herself to be a very closed mind person, and if she thinks somethinf is right, she would stand by it to the very end, what ends up causing friction between her and Artem. But in the end she give up her ideials, to do the "right thing", and that is her greatest conviction, doing what is right, she doesnt always agree, and sometimes she gets hurt in the process, but she done right nonetheless. Alternatively, it could also mean, think she has to choose one boy, even if she likes all four.

And after that she start feeling overwhelmed, she is in pain, and vyn makes her go to sleep again.

Now, what about vyn? What is his part in all of this? Since they barely touched on the hypnosis subject on the game, we could link this to one other moment in the game, in vyn's blossom chapter 4, Rosa witness vyn hypnotizing a pacient to help her realize that the one she loved was only using her, which left an impact on Rosa. Maybe her subconscious thought that such practice would help her decided which boy she should choose, but that didnt help her, just left her more confused.

And then she woke up. Without having her response, and still not knowing who to pick.

And this is my theory.

[bittersweetbonbon]

rushed thesis on a sburbian reading of on guard 43/admonition

okay. so. my theorem is that each of the seven "main characters" of on guard 43 can be mapped to a homestuck aspect, and ill describe (messily) the reasons why below. im not gonna go over all of them, since i only have a decent grasp on a few on them, so if anyone wants to chime in with their thoughts, PLEASE feel free!

placeholder mcdoctorate? time player. 100%. he is doing time player shit all fucking day. its weird and abstracted time player shit, but that's because the foundation isn't playing by sburb rules. anyways, the REISNO cannon is literally a time travel device, just like dave's turntables and aradia's quartz music boxes. he has to kill alternate versions of his friends, and time players are heavily associated with death. the REISNO cannon created a doomed timeline that was brought to end by outside forces. he's even in contact with versions of himself from the future. he's a goddamn sburb time player, i swear to fucking fuck. if it wasn't intentional on the author's part, then hussian brain programming must be installed very, very deep indeed.

lillian lillihammer? mind player. shes very concerned with her self, and meddles with other people's states of mind (thats what memetics are for, after all) as well as her own. her eidetic memory? memories are how the brain creates the mind. hers can't be tampered with that easily, even with timeline shifts. mind player trait. also, she ran off while transitioning so nobody she knew would perceive her transition, which feels very mind player to me for reasons i can't articulate since i'm very tired while writing this.

doctor william wallace wettle? light player. either fully inverted light player, or just a class that starts with an absolute fuckton of negative aspect relation. light isn't just about information, it's about luck, and wettle is incredibly lacking in both departments, to an absolute comical degree. he even degrades the luck of those around him! and while some people would argue "oh thats just void aspect-" i have to disagree. void is about concealment of information, not just a lacking of it, and also void has nothing to do with luckiness whatsoever? and also....

harold blank? void player. i think. this one im not too sure on, actually, but for one, i couldnt resist the pun of blank void, but also, it seems to me that wettle and blank are both inverted of their aspects. wettle is incredibly unlucky, and blank's informational exposition is scattered throughout various tales - always just enough information to provide context, but nothing more. honestly, it might be that they're absorbing each other's aspects, in some fucked up way, or something. anyways, his whole deal of pouring over the past to find things that might happen in the future reads as void to me, and also as seer class. determining what isn't yet from what already is or isn't and then using that to prevent (or void out) an event entirely.

karen elstrom? heart player. an inversion of the mind aspect, karen is both incredibly gullible and difficult to influence. she can't see the trees for the forest, so to speak. honestly she seems concerned with how people view her, but in the opposite way to lillian. she wants people to dislike her, to hate her, as it makes her job of managing the relationships of others easier. and the heart aspect is all about relationships. better to take herself out of the equation, or keep herself as a static variable, right?

anyways, yeah, that's my rushed and honestly incomplete thesis on what aspects the on guard 43 characters would be. hope you enjoyed!!

[lehhoh7822]

personal theory on how the wttt verse works in terms of states

hi gang

cw: i do mention some policy/politics as a referential thing because this is a satirical series about american politics so these issues appear within the series.

welcome to the table. gotta love it. so

i think states represent

their people

their policy

their environment

(there's more focus on the first two definitely however the last one is also relevant. i also like mentioning this because it allows for good fic content, frankly.)

and then the relevancy of this changes depending on whats going on. when a state reflects one of these very strongly and cannot represent another, then you get manifestations of that. alternatively, enough division within the state and you get things like new jersey (watch his intro episode) and texas (cmon gang we all know im talking about austin). you can also see regional differences if they're stark enough (nocal and socal).

because texas is, within canon, implied to have did and non healthy multiplicity ("i feel like i saw this on Moonknight"), my next point is that depending on how geniunely major a difference is and how poorly one of the things is being represented by the state, the more intrusive whatever is going on becomes. so while most of the gang is generally..... kind of... fine... texas, as a state that is a swing state but still making big discriminatory policy represents the policy well, and the rights and needs of the people less so, meaning that instead of the mostly functional/positive multiplicity seen throughout the series starts becoming less functional altogether.

the government also represents people, policy and a little bit of environment. it/he also represents the system and its needs/wants; such as explicitly benefitting from the industrial military complex over in america, or with the democratic party utilising big issues as part of a campaign (re, overturning roe v wade).

states also probably have some kind of magic to them; they're manifestations who are older than the states as they are part of the US, and we know that loui definitely got something going on there. mother nature tries to get florida and when she misses, both texas and louisiana are soaked from afar, again, representing environment, but also magic is an abstract property which is perfectly realistic in thsi universe. the government does the statehouse; which is a house which externally appears to be normal and holds over 50 rooms and somehow was not destroyed already. this is all to say, the idea of states being able to manifest shit is not beyond canon. go nuts. show nuts, even

yeah lol anyone got any agreeeing/disagreeing opinions