#folklore lps

[mmemirrorball]

she will never let my evermore long pond studio sessions delusions die 🤡🧡

[zoethehead]

Working on more of the lps cast, here's the ghoul pirate himself; Davey Jones!

Next up are Lugh and Kebechet

[eulogized-elegy]

FORTNIGHT ACOUSTIC VERSION JUST DROPPED??? (more like two hours ago but-) i love love loveee when tay releases the acoustic version of songs and this one is so good!! its kinda giving lpss. posty sounds (even more) ANGELIC in this version. also the chimes are sooo pretty! i would not like to discuss the remix thank you very much :) thoughts??

[tsmerch]

folklore: the long pond studio sessions RSD Exclusive 2LP Vinyl

$40+

[heavybreathingswift]

the only red flag taylor has ever raised for me was when she said that betty took james back, like girl ARE YOU FUCKED IN THE HEAD??? PLEASE!!!

[inklessletter]

What do you listen to while you’re creating art? (Music, podcasts, etc)

Hi anon!

I tend to chose my playlist in regard of what I'm drawing. I like instrumental pieces of film soundtracks a lot. Some of my usual artist are Taylor Swift (suprise, surprise), Muse, Coldplay... I'm pretty mainstream, I'm afraid.

Sometimes I find mood playlist on Spotify and go with it.

Podcasts distract me.

[wallflowerglitter]

From my Taylor Swift vinyl collection

[loverkasp]

now WHEN is she gonna sing hoax on tour

[luwukass]

polltober day 12!!!

let me know what merch you have in the tags/comments!

check back tomorrow for results and the next poll!!!

<polltober day 11 polltober day 13>

[a-little-revolution]

How would you make dwarfism exist in fantasy without making it ableist? I was gonna have one of my characters be a witch with dwarfism so she isn’t an elf or w goblin or anything like that but I’m not sure?

Hello! For dwarfism to exist in fantasy without being ableist, a few things need to happen:

Firstly, make sure their dwarfism isn't what makes them mystical. Instead let their special powers (witchcraft in this case would be great!), culture, or world do the work. Little people were mystified by the slave trade for hundreds of years, it fuelled freak show culture and still lingers in the stigma of today.

Do not make dwarfism it's own race. You want to avoid tokenism and disabled segregation. Include your Little characters in your race of humans and humanoids (whether that be witches, pirates, centaurs, etc.).

Don't give your Little People gnome or goblin-like traits. Goblins have a rich offensive history within multiple marginalized groups, and create a grotesque depiction of LP. Gnomes follow folklore that came to be when mystifying little people in history. Not to mention, both have been overdone.

If you're going to write dwarf characters, GIVE THEM DWARFISM. Do your research - it's not enough to make your characters short, you must give them the characteristics of their dwarfism. If you're going to use the name dwarf do your research.

-Elliot (they/them)

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Library Tips For Magic Practitioners

As a Missouri librarian, I've gotten to know my library district pretty well. So here are some tips for you!

Tip 1: Dewey is your friend.

And by that I mean the Dewey Decimal System (a more in-depth list is in that link) is your friend. It breaks down as follows:

000: General Knowledge (encyclopedias, newspapers, almanacs, etc)

100: Psychology & Philosophy (feelings, logic, friendships, etc)

200: Religions & Mythology (Bible stories, Native American myths, classical mythology, etc)

300: Social Sciences & Folklore (families, career, money, government, etc)

400: Languages (English, Spanish, American Sign Language, grammar, etc)

500: Math & Science (arithmetic, animals, rocks, plants, fossils, etc)

600: Medicine & Technology (inventions, machines, farming, health, etc)

700: Arts & Recreation (crafts, painting, music, games, sports, etc)

800: Literature (poetry, plays, novels from other countries, etc)

900: Geography & History (countries, biographies, etc)

If you're looking for ghosts, divination, and witchcraft specifically, look around 133. That's where I've found most of my magic-based books to borrow. You'll also find books talking about people's near-death experiences or reincarnation around this point.

While fiction technically falls in the 800s, most libraries will have it separate from nonfiction. You may still find things like poems or memoirs in the nonfiction section. Some libraries will have the biographies separated into their own section. A few libraries (at least here in Missouri) will have state-specific sections where you can learn more about local stuff.

Tip 2: There are computers and printers to use.

If you can't research something at home for literally any reason, getting a library card will often grant you access to using the computers and printers in the library.

When using the printer, some libraries will charge based on how much ink you use, other libraries will charge based on how much paper you use, and other libraries will charge based on some other criteria.

Be aware that you lose access to these if you reach a certain level of overdue materials or money is charged to your library card until the materials are returned/paid for or the money is paid off. Luckily, librarians are here to help you and can tell you what's missing.

Tip 3: Libraries have more than books.

Seriously. The main branch of my library district has 3D printers, telescopes, gaming systems to use in-building, and more stuff that I didn't even pay attention to because I was scrambling to learn the behind-the-counter stuff. Feel free to ask us for something and we can see if it's in-county for ya!

Audiobooks are often available on CDs and in the form of Playaways, which are like MP3 players with a single book on them. You will need a wire-connected set of earbuds or a wire-connected headset and batteries. Some libraries sell earbuds, but not batteries.

Large Print books will often have their own special designation as LP, but more often they have their own shelf sections. You'll find a surprising number of Westerns there, but there are Large Print nonfiction books.

Tip 4: Requesting materials.

Not finding something you're looking for? Ask the front desk for help! In Missouri, we have the Missouri Evergreen system, which means we can borrow books from all over the state* on the topic you're looking for.

If we can't find it (or you're in a library that doesn't have such a monumental reach), then you can often fill out a book request form. We will then do our best to order the book for you - but be aware that it could take many months, and most of the time, people will cancel their order of the book well before our budget catches up or we even have time to get the book processed and integrated into the system. Patience is key when ordering a new book.

*At participating branches - not every library district in our state is part of Missouri Evergreen.

Tip 5: Self-checkout is a thing.

At least, it is here in Missouri. If you don't want to interact with the front desk, there are often self-checkout stations for books, DVDs, audiobooks, et cetera. Even my middle-of-nowhere branch has one!

Unfortunately, this won't work for other things, like updating your card once it expires or resolving monetary charges (which will both send you to the front desk).

Tip 6: Search the new shelves.

Some libraries like mine will have specially-designated "New Shelves", where you can find a lot of the most recent releases. If you're trying to find something in a particular number that you saw on the search but can't find it, it may be on the new shelf. These get cycled out whenever new books come in, which may mean that you have several months' worth of new releases to dig through.

In short, I hope this helps you in your search through the library! Best of luck to you!

~Jasper

[mmemirrorball]

burnt orange/brown dress with a braid? she is communicating to us so clearly—

evermore long pond studio sessions, coming this december 🧡😭

[aurora-daily]

Aurora: “We have this golden opportunity to truly understand each other beyond religions, cultures and how we look, but we choose to fuel our fear against each other”

An interview with AURORA for Hot Press by Riccardo Dwyer (June 24th, 2024)

There’s an ineffable air of Teutonic mysticism surrounding Aurora Aksnes – an Aurora-aura, if you will. Raised in a small municipality near Bergen, Norway, her elfish appearance, rare humour and all-round quirkiness have led some to cast the 27-year-old as a kind of Nordic folklore character turned chart clambering sensation.

Perhaps this hyperborean categorisation is deepened by her appearances on Frozen soundtracks and John Lewis Christmas ads, as well as a fan-made Wiki site which contains enough hyper-linked lore to make the creators of Skyrim blush.

It’s easy to see why Aurora’s attracted so many dedicated Warriors and Weirdos (her affectionate label for her fanbase). In addition to her one-of-a-kind comportment, she’s released three glorious, genre-meandering albums which artfully zero in on some of life’s biggest quandaries – from inner conflicts to questions about a deity.

Her fourth opus, as anyone shrewd enough to spot the mentions of ‘Blood’, ‘Skin’ and ‘Mind’ in the singles leading up to the project will know, suggests a thematic direction towards us, mere Homo Sapiens.

“With every album there’s one specific thing that really inspires and intrigues me,” Aurora acknowledges. “This time, it’s man’s relationship to man. It’s all about your relationship to your own organs, and how you listen to what they’re trying to tell you, especially the heart. I’ve been reading a lot about the history of anatomy and the abilities we give each organ, and how that varies depending on the era and country.”

The title of the LP is at once a statement and an enquiry – a cry for civility in a world seemingly devoid of compassion and a marker of the artist’s own anatomical reflections. It’s probably best to let Aurora explain all that good stuff though. So, then, What Happened To The Heart?

“That is the question,” she nods. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I’m very overwhelmed by the state of the world. We have this golden opportunity to truly understand each other beyond religions, cultures and how we look, but we choose to fuel our fear against each other. We’ve been given the chance to be connected more than ever, but we fail to connect in the right places.”

The golden opportunity for connection – the internet, and more specifically social media – is central to the rampant evaporation of love.

“When I was younger and the internet first came about, I remember trying to understand what it could mean for people,” says Aurora. “None of that happened. Porn and gaming happened instead. We haven’t really made it as far as we all might have expected.

“We see and hear each other, but we don’t feel each other with our hearts. We still let these heart-breaking things happen, we’re watching people in Palestine lose their lives for no reason. We should be on a path forward to a peaceful world, but it seems like we’re heading in the opposite direction.”

This, Aurora suggests, is a result of our human tendencies being exploited by the binary overlords.

“We talk into echo chambers in real life, because we surround ourselves with people who are similar to us, so we don’t often get challenged,” she reflects. “Then we have the internet, which is based on algorithms, so we end up in echo chambers there as well. It’s like the world doesn’t want us to learn from anyone else with a different opinion or to interact with people who oppose us, and that’s something that really scares me.”

UNITY AND LOVE

The issue of climate justice also permeates the record. The origins of What Happened To The Heart? are in fact rooted in environmentalism, after a call to change led Aurora to pose the record’s titular question.

“Indigenous leaders of the world joined together and wrote a letter, ‘We Are the Earth’, basically pleading with leaders of the mass-produced world to lead more with their hearts and less with their minds,” she explains. “The way we live is so heartless and cruel. We take whenever we can. And if we’re not forced to apologise or pay for it, we won’t.

“We will gladly let the people of the future pay for what we’re doing now. And we will gladly let someone far away pay for the clothes we wear, or the food we eat. We know that things are wrong, but we still just go along with it. That’s how the world is today. It’s a weird dynamic to live in as a human, because I don’t know what else I can say. It blows my mind to realise how deep our issues lie.”

Aurora is evidently passionate and well-informed. Does she see it as an artist’s responsibility to weigh in on issues of social justice?

“Well, scientists have tried to warn us about global warming for 50 years and nobody has listened,” she points out. “Leaders of the world don’t want to change their ways because it won’t benefit them. They want to have money now and to not have to think about the world later.

“Sadly, it’s come to the point that artists and musicians, as individuals who connect people, have to deliver the important messages. You have to reach out and appeal to the masses, and artists are the best at doing that – at engaging people and riling them up around unity and love, rather than fear and hatred.”

EIGHT BIG THEMES

She acknowledges her own role in what’s often a ‘mass-produced’ music industry.

“You can talk to companies who do things right, or to people who have a minimal carbon footprint,” she says, “but that’s not where your words are needed. It’s good when you’re part of an industry that has a lot to be better in. There’s more room for the things say to make a difference, instead of talking the same shit to people who know it already.”

What Happened To The Heart? holds up sonically too. It’s rife with romantic melodies, expansive synthscapes and arena-ready choruses, punctuated by Aurora’s distinct, soaring vocals – which have drawn comparisons to both Enya and Björk. However, Aurora finds it difficult to assess her own music.

“I don’t really see it when I’m in it,” she says. “I see it later, when I hear it. I don’t like listening to my own music. I would rather eat a baby.”

They must have some tasty infants in Norway, I laugh – the songs really do sound good.

“This album has a huge range,” she admits. “It’s been extremely fun to play around with, because I wanted it to symbolise both lyrically and sonically a process of pain – and the two paths you can choose, self-destruction or self-healing. With humans, it seems that pain often inspires more pain – hurt people hurt people.

“I see all of my music as being a really clear extension of me, and I think that’s really showing in the production. It starts really soft and spiritual, and then it ends on a really hard and human note. It’s going to be fun to sing live. I’m shitting myself with excitement.”

Using that phrase as a gauge of excitement rather than fear is indicative of Aurora’s uniqueness. She goes against the grain in most facets of her artistry, even imposing a Tarantino-style limit on her creative output. Strictly committed to releasing no more than eight albums, the decision tracks back to her early days as a musician.

“I started writing songs when I was about nine,” she says. “Songwriting was beginning to give me a new sense of meaning in life and made me feel better than anything else I had ever touched or let touch me, and I just had a moment thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s so much I could write about. What do I want to say?’

“I remember taking it really seriously and writing down a map of all the things I want to say, and there were roughly eight big themes that I wanted to approach.

“First up was The Demons. The Warrior was chapter two and then chapter three was God. Now we’re at The Human, but yeah, there’s eight things and I’ve said four of them. It’s going well so far.”

[joesalw]

i feel like an ex-mormon even talking about this but like, i kinda need to say it out loud;i started listening to her around 1989, and i liked her songs, i liked the general sense of innocent and confused teenhood that transpired from her songs, but only got really into her music with lover (didnt like reputation when it came out although years later it kinda grew on me). i was mind-blown by folklore and evermore, obsessed with her for the next couple years, and then midnights came out. i didn't NOT like it but lets just say i was disappointed, it was underwhelming and chaotic. anyway this was the period i started not giving a shit about her in general, what with the private jets (i just discovered she owns 2?????? why would you need a private jet is one question but why would you need TWO is a wholly different one) and how her persona felt so blatantly merchified more and more with each release. i felt kinda disturbed when it ended with joe, like i was scared for him, knowing her fanbase and imagining just how messy it has to be breaking up with the biggest pop star right now after you dated for six years. then, over the following year i started feeling more and more annoyed by her. her pathological need for public attention really showed when she started dating that idiotic handegg player, becoming a billionaire, times person of the year, her concert being shown in cinemas (cinemas!!! good lord please at least at the movies could you please spare me from hearing about her), and just how… shitty she was being in general. she didn't say a thing about the incoming elections (not that i care for biden but come on a word or two on the fact that trump is literally a criminal would have been the bare minimum from her) and most importantly she didn't say a word on the genocide. not even the bother to say the most generic ass take like "viOleNcE iS aLwAYs WroNg!!!!". to my knowledge, to this day she hasn't said a word about the whole situation. its like she lives in this dreamland made only of fairytales and PR stunts where everyone is her diligent servant and she always gets whatever she wants. also ttpd sucked two dicks and i can't believe there's people listening to it unironically after two songs i couldn't bear it anymore already. now i just feel kinda bad in general, recently my cousin gave me 1989 in vinyl for my birthday and i didn't know how to tell her "yeah i don't care for her that much anymore" so I just smiled and accepted it. the worst thing is it's literally the standard edition!!!! on a double LP!!!! each side is like three songs, half of it is just empty grooves. thank god i never gave her a cent personally, I only pirate cause I refuse to pay for spotify, but I still feel bad knowing I took the effort to download 300 songs of an artist and now I don't even know if ill wanna listen to any of them ever again.

!!

[etherealhoneypie]

quick ramble post about nothing anyone really cares about but me!

so a straight white dude i know irl posted on his snapchat story that buying Taylor Swift on vinyl is so ridiculous and that it’s like eating raw chicken blah blah blah. why do you care so bad about something that majority women consume? don’t buy it. no one’s making you. but of course it’s going to be advertised at record stores… she sells lots of them lol. that’s quite honestly the WORST part for me about being a vinyl collector is that i buy music that is pop and feminine and not what the record store bros want you to buy. idk if this actually makes any sense to anyone else. but i started collecting vinyl back when i was 13 and it wasn’t anything other than ‘trash’ i was clearing for family members and friends of family friends. i’d stop at every flea market and junk shop, sweating in attic rooms with no ac flipping through thousands of Englebert Humperdinck records to find one or two Steely Dan and Gordon Lightfoot LPs. yet some asshole like that will see me with Midnights or folklore and write me off as not a ‘serious’ music listener. sometimes i just want to respond to people like that and be like let’s go cmon toe to toe. because to me, even if i didn’t have a big and expansive collection, who are you to judge someone’s ‘seriousness’ over a singular artist. at the end of the day i guess what im trying to say is 1. let people enjoy things and 2. if someone tells you you’re not listening to or buying records correctly i will take my vintage victrola and smash it on their head.

[foone]

THEORY: Colin "Liar" Meloy of The Decemberists is a furry and possible Monsterfucker, who wants to drown.

Evidence abounds.

1. The Crane Wife: the whole album and 1, 2, or 3 of the songs are about story from Japanese folklore, about a man who rescues a crane, then marries a mysterious woman who shows up shortly afterwards, then WHOOPS SHENANIGANS HAPPEN, TURNS OUT SHE'S THE CRANE.

2. The Hazards of Love. The first song (past the instrumental prelude) is "so Margaret rode out into the woods, and found a wounded fawn, and then things got magically weird"

The next song is "so Margaret is pregnant now"

3. Rusalka, Rusalka.

"so there are these river mermaid girls and they're deadly but they're also so sexy and whoops I am drowned now."

4. Leslie Anne Levine

It's their first song off their first LP, and it's about a ghost who is in love with another ghost. I'm not saying ghost-love is inherently monsterfuckery, but it's not NOT monsterfuckery.

5. Down by the Water

"The lash-flashing Leda Of Pier Nineteen"

Leda was a queen of Sparta, who was seduced by Zeus, in the form of... A swan.

Our boy has a favorite species. Nothing wrong with that.

6. Yankee Bayonet

It's another ghost-love story. Here only one of them is dead, at least.

7. Margaret in Captivity

I know I've mentioned The Hazards of Love as a whole-album reference, but I just remembered that The Rake calls Margaret "my precious captive swan". WE GET IT COLIN, YOU LIKE SWANS. JUST SHOW US YOUR FURSONA ALREADY.

8. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)

William and Margaret are both dead. They're drowned, which is something of a theme. But their ghosts are in love, and marry (how does "till death do us part" work when you're already dead?). More ghost love, and in this case it's furry ghost love. Kinky.

9. Riverswim

This song references water (obviously) and drowning, and I wouldn't bring it up it except there's also the mention of a certain native American cannibalism spirit, one you should not name, and given his history with songs about monsters and spirits and animal spirits, I'm not certain he doesn't want to fuck it.

So yeah.

I'm not gonna tally up all the talk of drowning, but it is a constant theme. From "I don't mind" off their first EP back in 2001, to "Midlist Author" off their 2018 EP, drowning is never far from the mind of Colin Meloy.

You could make some joke about how it's ironic, given that he comes from the landlocked state of Montana, but we all know that's just "the popular myth". His real story is much weirder and more tragic.