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ckret2 · 5 years ago

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would you mind explaining "Careless whisper" "I will always love you" and "Friend please"? no pressure though!

Oh god you chose two of the meme-iest songs! Both in one post! I can’t believe it!

Okay.

This took me forever to write because I wrote half of it and then got distracted for weeks and didn’t get back to it until I got a fresh ask today with some more songs and I was like, crap, I should finish this one.

So the first three paragraphs in this post still apply here, I’m not gonna copy paste them, go read those paragraphs if you haven’t yet. tl;dr i’m answering questions about why i included songs on my radiosnake spotify playlist because i like rambling for thousands of words at a time, also the playlist is based on a fic i wrote.

Feel free to keep sending me questions about more songs on the playlist. Explanations under the read more, assuming the read more works, which I make no guarantee of because this is tumblr.

Careless Whisper (Lyrics)

… except, the jazzy version.

So lemme tell you a story about how “Careless Whisper” came up and then I’ll explain why it actually belongs on the playlist.

The only way I can outline a story is by sitting down with another person and rambling the plotline at them, copy pasting it into another document, and bam that’s an outline.

Right now, in the disjointed process of outlining a sequel to Cold Day In Hell, I’m sort of chunking random ideas at a couple friends to see what sticks. One idea is that, when Alastor is drunk, he’s 90% worse at pretending he totally doesn’t care about Sir Pentious at all. If they’re ever drunk at the same social event, he will subtly (not subtly at all) follow him around all night like a puppy and hang on to his every word, automatically playing this sort of nonsense in the background.

One of my friends announced sadness that it didn’t start off with “Careless Whisper,” so I checked Postmodern Jukebox (the fastest/easiest/most common way to translate a modern song into Alastor Aesthetic) to see if they had made a jazz cover (they had), and I reassured my friend that the PMH cover definitely played every second song while drunk!Alastor was mooning over (and/or looming over) Sir Pentious.

And then I went oh goddammit the lyrics actually fit, dammit, now I’ve gotta put it on the playlist.

So I put it on the playlist.

Here’s the great thing about song lyrics. Even if everyone knows that the lyrics mean one thing, language is inherently ambiguous and you can totally just decide to read the lyrics a slightly different way if you really really want to and the exact wording doesn’t make it impossible. Everyone KNOWS that “Careless Whisper” is about cheating, but it never SAYS it’s about cheating (like, it says “cheat a friend,” but like the singer could’ve cheated their friend at cards? it doesn’t say), so you can just decide that it’s about any other kind of betrayal in a relationship! Like, say, blowing up your ally’s steampunk airship fleet. The song never says it ISN’T about a steampunk airship fleet.

So let’s just establish right now that this song is no longer about cheating. That’s out the window.

In the original song, “dancing” is probably intended as a metaphor for having sex. In THIS context, it is literally dancing. The emotional core of CDIH, the moment around which the rest of the story rotates, is the night that Alastor and Sir Pentious dance together. And although Alastor no doubt dances plenty of times after leaving Sir Pent, he’s certainly never going to dance like that again—like he’s with a lover, like he wants to be touching his dance partner, rather than either alone or while distastefully putting up with physical contact with someone who doesn’t matter to him.

The interpretation of the line “careless whispers of a good friend” that I think is probably Most Common is that a friend of the singer’s lover warned the lover that the singer is cheating on them, and the singer thinks that the fact that the lover now knows is worse than not knowing at all, because now that the lover knows they can never go back to normal, hence why the friend was being careless. Aside from any questions of, like, whether or not that’s a sound opinion at all—I’ve always interpreted that line differently. Since the singer refers to their lover as a “friend” (“should have known better than to cheat a friend”), I’ve always assumed that the singer would refer to themself as their lover’s friend, and so the “careless whispers of a good friend” were the whispers that the singer themself made that started whatever affair it is they had.

And so that assumption—that the “good friend” that said something they shouldn’t have is the singer—is the interpretation I’m carrying into the song’s inclusion in the playlist. In this case, it’s Alastor’s decision to lie to Sir Pent about how he feels about him (claiming that he never cared & that he was just screwing around with his emotions) before running off that are the “careless whispers” because, although not exactly whispery, they do have the same effect as in the song: ever since he said them, there’s been an unmendable rift between Alastor and Sir Pent (which was, like, his objective, but he’s still not happy about it)—and, more than that, it was very careless. Alastor had intended for his actions to just push Sir Pent away, not to effectively ruin Sir Pent’s ambitions to rule hell completely. But, that’s what happened. Because he didn’t think anything through. He just said and did the very first things he could think of to push Sir Pent away. Extremely careless.

And, of course, the specific version that got included was chosen because it sounds jazzy. Yay for PMJ, making all sorts of songs Alastor-ready.

I Will Always Love You (Lyrics)

… except, the super dark version.

So I figured out at some point that the easiest way I was gonna find Alastor music was through jazz-style covers of songs a la Postmodern Jukebox, 1) because PMJ has been actually mentioned as among the limited varieties of modern music that Alastor would listen to by virtue of the fact that they do covers that sound like what he used to listen to, and 2) because Puff here isn’t actually a fan of jazz and it’s a lot easier for me to slowly wade into the water via jazzy covers of songs I already know than it is for me to fling myself into the deep end like “appreciate Jelly Roll Morton! Appreciate Jelly Roll Morton NOW!!!”

(I am slowly and laboriously training myself to be a fan of jazz, because Alastor is a RADIO HOST from NEW ORLEANS in the ROARING TWENTIES AND A LITTLE BIT OF THE THIRTIES, i will NOT be writing him while in complete ignorance of a subject that probably occupied a huge portion of his life.)

So due to the fact that I was looking for PMJ-esque genre-switching covers of songs, I drifted over to other genre-switching song cover acts like Chase Holfelder to go through the songs and go “hm wonder of any of these work." This song is an exception to the genres I’m looking for for Alastor, but it still makes the list because like, the vibe is just right.

Have y'all ever actually listened to/read the lyrics to "I Will Always Love You” before? Not just the AAAND IIIIIIIII-IIII-IIIIIII WILL ALWAAAYS LOVE YOOOOO-OO-OOOU bit but the actual lyrics. They’re sad. The lyrics are “I deeply love you but if I stayed with you I would only hold you back so i’m going to leave you because it’s for the best but i’m super sad about it and i always will be.”

Now, that doesn’t 100% line up with Alastor’s situation. Because, like, obviously, he was doing the exact opposite of holding Sir Pent back when they were together, and fearing holding Sir Pent back was not the reason he left.

But it is among the reasons he avoids the hell out of him now. The primary reasons, of course, are still “being in love is scary and i do not want to do that so maybe if i avoid him i can continue pretending that i am not in love?” and “lmao he justifiably hates me now so why try"—but #3 on his list is the recognition that, since they broke up, Alastor’s actions have caused a constant cascade of events that have held Sir Pent back ever since. (And Alastor also suspects that there might actually be some kind of legitimate curse or fate or something going on here—that part of Alastor’s role in hell is playing the part of Sir Pent’s personal hellish divine punishment.) So he didn’t leave because he’s sabotaging Sir Pent’s ambitions; but he sabotaged Sir Pent’s ambitions because he left.

And therefore, as a consequence, he should stay away from Sir Pent now. He shouldn’t beg forgiveness and a second chance—because he doesn’t deserve them, and because he might make it worse.

This particular cover of the song really kicks the anguish up into high gear. The most common Whitney Houston version is like, okay she’s brokenhearted, but also somehow somewhat empowered by the brokenheartedness—like even though she’s leaving sad and bitter, in her heart she knows that the decision she’s making is for the best for her beloved, and she can draw strength from that. There is no drawing strength from the decision in the Chase Holfelder version—just using it up. It’s like he’s burning through all of his reserves of strength to push his loved one away. When Whitney hits the big note, she’s pulling power into herself to belt that out. When Chase hits the big note, he’s pouring out every last bit of power left inside his body. You can imagine Whitney walking away from this song with her head held high and her back straight but Chase is just gonna collapse to his knees with his shoulders hunched and head bowed—completely empty, a husk. That’s the vibe I want with Alastor—that every single day of his self-imposed exile he’s losing a little piece of himself, hollowing himself out. He can’t draw strength from it.

Typically, when I’m picking songs for this playlist, I don’t pay much attention to the gender of the singer (my only main priority on this playlist is that by the time it’s done I want the genders of the singers to be roughly balanced on both Sir Pent’s part and Alastor’s part), but in this case I think the fact that the singer is male contributes to it working for Alastor the way another version with a female singer wouldn’t. Not entirely sure why—maybe because, even though the voice doesn’t sound anything like his, it’s easier to actively imagine Alastor singing the song when it’s got a male voice? Maybe because, thanks to Sexism In Society, a woman saying "I’m leaving you because I’d get in the way of your dreams” more easily comes across as “Oh… I am simply not good enough for you… I’d hold you back…” while a man saying “I’m leaving you because I’d get in the way of your dreams” more easily comes across as “I wouldn’t hold you back, I’d push you down. I’m dangerous for you.” And the latter fits Alastor better.

(But hey, if any of you know of any versions of “I Will Always Love You” with a female singer that makes her sound dangerous as hell, feel free to recommend them to me. Not because I’m looking to replace the version I’ve already got but just because I’d really like to hear it.)

Currently, it’s listed as the last song on the Alastor portion of the playlist. I recently reorganized it so that the Sir Pent portions and Alastor portions each flow from the shallowest/most surface emotions down to the deeper/truer/more hidden emotions, and even before I did that reorganization, “I Will Always Love You” has been the closing song on Alastor’s side since it was added to the playlist. That feels like the right note to leave it on: after everything else has been said, once every other layer and lie has been stripped away, the deepest and truest and last thing Alastor would have to say to Sir Pent is “I hope life treats you kind and I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of” and an anguished screaming declaration of love.

Friend Please https://genius.com/Twenty-one-pilots-friend-please-lyrics

So remember when I said that language is inherently ambiguous and if you want you can totally just choose to read words differently if the wording doesn’t actually prevent that interpretation? This song is clearly about suicide. I have decided for the purposes of this playlist it is not about suicide anymore! It’s still about depression but not about suicide! When the singer was like “Please don’t take your life away from me” what he meant is “Please don’t take your life, and also, I am emphasizing that if you do so you are removing yourself from my life to try to show you how much you mean to me,” but how I have decided to interpret it for this playlist is “literally do not remove your life from my life, as in, like, don’t run away and stop talking to me.”

So. As I mentioned in my last song meta post, there’s sort of two—not genres, but like, musical aesthetics that I’m drawing from for Sir Pent: Victorian-ish/steampunk-ish sounds, and emo stuff because Vivz said that’s what he actually listens to. Twenty One Pilots fits the criteria for emo for me—idk and idc if other people consider them emo, they toured with Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco, they count as far as I’m concerned—so they’re actually among the bands I’ve been intending to specifically look at for potential Sir Pent Songs.

For the most part, they’re, like, too good at the sad millennial vibe. But that song works.

“Friend, Please” comes low on Sir Pent’s portion because it’s deep in the more genuine emotions—I’ve actually considered putting it last and may still do so, it would make a nice counterpoint to “I Will Always Love You"—actually I’m gonna go do that, gonna go shuffle the playlist, there, good—and it’s also something that he couldn’t/wouldn’t say until after he knows about Alastor’s deep thoughts. Reinterpreted so that it’s not about suicide, it becomes about a friend who’s still depressed, but the focus of the song becomes about the friend’s self-isolation—a self-isolation that’s fueled by denial and self-delusion, the friend convincing themself that they’re alone, always will be, and can’t/won’t have anyone else in their life again that they can depend upon.

Which, although he doesn’t necessarily seem to be depressed, is certainly the vibe Alastor gives off in the show—that despite his overly-friendly overly-familiar attitude, he probably keeps everyone else at a great emotional distance. In canon he might be okay with that. In fic, he’s doing that at the expense of pushing away a person he loves very much—and then pushing away anyone that could help him cope with that loss. Leaving him very alone and perpetually disguising himself as fine with that. Maybe, when he can go years without having to see Sir Pent, he can be fine with that.

But I have Big Plans for that sequel and you know item #1 on the list is "stick Alastor and Sir Pent in a position where they’ll have to cross paths all the time so that it’s like threading a giant needle with barbed wire, stabbing the needle into Alastor’s heart, and slowly dragging the barbed wire straight through.”

And after that? Living like a ghost, claiming he’s fine when he’s been completely emotionally drained, is gonna be a pretty accurate description of his mental state.

Right now, Sir Pent is in no way close enough to Alastor to know that—and in no way sympathetic enough toward him to care even if he did know. He still hates Alastor for completely ruining his life. But there’s still that part of him that used to care about Alastor and still could come to care about him again. And if that part gets revived, and if he gets close enough to Alastor to see how miserable he’s made himself by trying to push everyone away and denying that he’s pushed his own mental state into as bad a state as it’s currently in, his reaction would be “you absolute dumbass” followed by trying to shout some sense into Alastor by pointing out that every one of his problems is caused not by external factors, but by his own damn screwed-up perception of the world. Like, every one of his problems he made himself, and he can unmake them. He’s just got to uncover his eyes first.

It’s easy for fandom to just, like, characterize Sir Pent as an all-around dumbass—strategically, socially, emotionally, etc. Until and unless we see otherwise—and see it so firmly that even I can’t find ways to headcanon around it, and believe you me, I can headcanon my way around a lot of things—I choose to believe that the only areas he’s definitely a dumbass in are “understanding modern slang” and “remembering NOT to charge into battle without considering the odds the second he sees somebody he hates.” This means that I like to believe he also has a reasonable level of emotional intelligence, and a healthy level of compassion that he can deploy, when he so chooses, on someone he considers worthy of that compassion. He’s evil, yes, but self-professed evil, which means self-aware evil; which means that even though there’s gotta be something fucked up with his worldview for him to choose to be evil, it is a choice he’s making, not something he’s doing specifically because he believes it’s right/necessary. And he can turn it off when he decides he’s with someone that deserves it.

Now, is Alastor on that list? Not currently, hell no. But there’s potential for him to make it on the list—that potential for Sir Pent to care about him again, to want to see him throw off the things that he’s using to hold himself back, to want to see him become better and happier, to want him back in Sir Pent’s life—buried somewhere deep beneath Sir Pent’s burned emotions and decades of resentment.

#(i've got asks for five and a half other songs on the playlist)#(i'll get to them uhhh... soonish)#mementomori #ask #music #about my writing #(sorta?? my writing comes up)#meta #hazbin hotel #headcanons #radiosnake

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survivordivergent · 8 years ago

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EPISODE 2 - “WHO EVEN AM I”- ED

Thank the survivor gods I am on a tribe of 9 now! Whew. Four was way too small for me. I'm so glad I'm still with Melissa. Will and Eliza have both started talking to me already so there's promise there. I'm not too concerned about this reward but we'll see what happens.

Thank GOD you split up those tribes. 4 person tribes give me PTSD and this is much nicer to work with

UM BUH-BYE PEOPLE I'VE NEVER MET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE BECAUSE YOU DON'T EXIST ON YOUR FAKE ASS ACCOUNTS EVER

I've been here on this new tribe for 14 seconds and five people have said hello to me. What kind of actual game teas

So, surprise! There was a tribe swap! To be completely honest, I kind of saw it coming, since two people left the first round. I'm really glad that out of everyone on Candor, I have Jill on the Four Tribe. Peter is never here, and I wasn't comfortable with Payton because I am almost 100% it's actually Jaiden, and I want nothing to do with him. Anyway, we get to Four, and Jill and I agree to stick together. Will we hold true to that? Who knows, honestly. I really like Melissa from Abnegation. And I like Kyle and Will, both from Amity. I feel like if I talk to Jill about it, we could have a solid 5 with those I mentioned. I just don't want to come off too strong or aggressive. Now that we are on a tribe of 9 instead of 4, it gives us a bit of room to work. I'm trying really hard to balance between making myself seem like a leader and making myself irreplaceable to my tribe. Leaders are more often than not voted out right away, but if I can show that I am good enough at challenges to keep us away from tribal, I'll be someone my tribe can't afford to vote out, if that makes sense. My goal for this game, as it has been the last 5 games I've played, is to just get to jury. If I can get there, then I will feel satisfied with my gameplay. I mean, winning would be great, don't get me wrong. I've played 5 games, won 2, and still never been on a jury. I just don't want to do worse than Malaysia.. Anyway, this is already a long confessional. So I will wrap up saying that I think we will win this reward challenge. Peter being on the Six Tribe has given them a real disadvantage, because he's never around and they need him to start. Hopefully the next confessional I make will be about idol hunting!

Having a discussion with Dani about going to bars and comparing issues with bouncers to Survivor ORGs, and then this happens:

Dani: so basically, its when you know you're getting blindsided but you just accept it and try not to flip the vote to someone else!

Ed: Wouldn't know. Never been blindsided.

lmfao who even am I.

http://prntscr.com/dhldvm

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I've set up a spreadsheet that keeps all my thoughts organized and keeps all of the happenings of the game and my approach on things in one place. I don't know how long this will go on for, but I think it's nice to have handy for now.

I'd like to think Ed and I got pretty close during our Amity days and if we both end up on the same tribe together he hasn't forgotten about me. Will's cool too but he's gone MIA for a bit so I don't see myself as close to him.

I can see a divide occurring in the tribe if we happen to lose an immunity, which is why it's so important to try to connect with Otto ASAP. He's going to end up being the swing, and if that is the case, he needs to swing to my side. I'll pm him first thing tomorrow and see if I can at least start to establish a connection with him.

Until then, I gotta work on this reward so, Ciao!

Swap after the first tribal? Wtf are we, Albania? Well maybe Peter will improve a little bit and we can become close. I'm glad we didn't have to vote him off, but I don't think he's gonna be my #1 ally.

Okay honestly if we lose reward the other tribe fucking deserves it

We won reward and I'm really getting along with 4 members of my new tribe. I'm not really concerned about this immunity because I kind of want to lose to vote out Bran aka Amanda. So don't expect much from me :)

Me @ having an actual conversation discussing the strategy and plan for a challenge with my tribe:

Did I do that #immunity2k16

i think i did that

FUCK I DID THAT IM BEING VOTED OFF BYE YALL

Do I lie? Do I expose myself? Do I beg for mercy? Pray for swap? Here's to praying. And I'm still having contractions. I didn't sign up for all this at once

So. Here's the deal. I'm either going home this round or the round after next because of this, or I'm going to get really far. I have to finess this properly, and I think I can work with it if I keep my story straight. I made a commitment to changing my game this ORG and I'm going to. Fuck honesty, it's too early for that shit. Lie, lie, lie, make a good ally and hope they never find out the truth. Or tell them the truth later in the game. I think honestly I'm safe for this round? Carolanne and Peter are both suuuuuuper quiet... rip. Here's to praying! Here's another confessional for Jenn, the confessional slut.

youtube

daaaamn payton back at it again with the peter discourse

I'm hoping people aren't being snakes to me and lying to my face. I have a fear people know what I did but I'm trying to cause Inactives Discourse™ before anything else and then hopefully win immunity next time so people won't know what I've done.

Episode title: Time to die, Binches

Tribal council tonight should go as expected. Carolanne has been here the least amount of time, so off she goes. I considered making a small move and keeping her with my Abnegation idol, but I'm not about to put a random target on my back to keep some freak who'll probably just end up self voting tonight.

If I had things going my way, it would be Payton going home tonight. She's just so irritating sometimes and I know exactly who she is, and she's beginning to play super hard too soon in the game. I almost feel like she isn't the person that I think I know, because she is legit just so frustrating. Payton has all these whimsical stories to tell about herself, like how she's pregnant and other family life stories and it all sounds like the person that I truly know, but she comes off so... fake... at the same time. I'm worried.

I can't make a long confessional for this round because I procrastinated super bad so I promise to make a good one later after tribal, assuming that I'm still here :)

I'll do a bigger confessional tomorrow when I'm not sleep deprived due to the current challenge. But just to check in real quick. I formed an alliance with Kyle and Melissa. I really like them, and so far, us three are the most active on the tribe. Hopefully we can pull this challenge out and avoid tribal, but if not, I feel like I will be okay. I could just pull in Jill and Kyle can pull in the other Amity, Will, and then we have 5. But, Kyle brings up a good point about not keeping people who didnt help, which, currently, Jill and Will both fall in that category. I'm too tired to figure this out right now, but hopefully we can win this.

This is a very cute challenge.

So far I think either Ed, Lucy or Dani would be a good final 2 for me if I don't go home after this tribal tonight. Here we go :D

Logan is Payton. I know that. How? Tea time. 1. Their avatar is Erinn. NO ONE USES ERINN BUT LOGAN. 2. I know them IRL, and they openly talk about going to technical school and stuff that Logan does. 3. They talked to me about the school I "go to", Bowdoin, and many other Maine state schools which are 'close to home' (my home).

I haven't told Logan I know it's them, and I don't know if I'm going to. But I could certainly use it to my advantage, saying "I know who Payton is and how they play."

Also, I forgot all my log in info for Peter's original skype so I had to make a totally new one.

Once a flop, always a flop. Even if you have a new name and are using your friends instagram photos/name.

I'm in the Ugly Fruti alliance. I'm really in an alliance named by capitalizing on the misfortunes of others. That is a thing. That is happening. In my life. Right now. Someone PLEASE tell me I actually like these assholes in real life because they're my favorites right now.

Well.... We were down for this challenge by a lot, then my tribe FINALLY woke up and they have quicker reflexes than me, so they got us almost caught up. Then Jenna posts a task about getting an idol clue and I hop on that right quick in my host chat, but I didn't READ THE ENTIRE TASK that says if I take the clue, I lose my tribe 50 points and OF COURSE my reflexes suddenly decide to wake up for this one. UGH. Now we are 65 points behind and I'm just so mad at myself. The only good thing is that nobody knows that I got this advantage, and I don't plan on telling them. I'm really hoping that there are some big points coming up so I can try to make these 50 points up. Ugh, I actually feel really bad. But hopefully I can get the idol out of it.

I promise to back up and make a proper confessional after results are posted, but I just want to say, if anyone on Four took that last deal and gave up all of our points, I am seriously going to fight someone. I mean, I know I gave up 50 points, but first of all, we made that back up, and second, I didn't know that it would lose me points to take the clue. Dumbo me didn't read the entire post, which I know I should have, but if I had known I wouldn't have taken it.... UGH

Confessional #5 Six Day 9

I don't think I made one of these in a week??? Yikes.

So Abnegation won immunity and I was happy. I haven't gotten that close to them, I was sort of inactive, everyone was in my opinion.

We swapped afterwards, I'm on SIx tribe now. It's cool, I like the people. We work together well, but the other tribe, wooh, they're good. We lost both reward and immunity. Sad, but we'll get over it.

However, we lost immunity cause someone was selfish and got an advantage. That's scary, I don't know who or what it is. It's stupid to do, they sabotaged the tribe. This early, it's not smart.

I'm sad, Carolanne is the person leaving, hopefully. She's been really inactive, but she's someone that I feel I could personally use to help the both of us. I'll rather it be her than me, and I hope nobody's lying to me. I'm personally worried that people may believe that I got the advantage. I don't have it. I'm just trying to survive until the merge.

(worry)

Okay so far I really like Eliza. I am sure I have said this numerous times at this point. During the task challenge I got an advantage of being able to cast an extra vote. I was PUMPED about this, and after it happened and there was a score update, Eliza messaged me and asked if I got the advantage from the where's waldo challenge and i immediately told her yes. I started to hesitate and wasnt sure if this was a good or bad thing so I lied about what the advantage was. So instead of being able to cast an extra vote I told her that I got the ability to look at someone else's vote before tribal. Gotta see if she is fully trustworthy later on. But for now she is the one i trust the most until proven otherwise. A tribal council will show a lot. But i also hope to not go to one just yet

I HATE THIS. I hate having conversations with people. I try and not share too much similar information about myself that I may say on my regular skype account to anyone to make sure people don't think that Jill is me, but also I am not that creative. Then on the flip side, I don't know how creative these people are. Payton definitely had decent skills at supporting the background and really diving into the character. I cannot bring myself to do this that intensely. Every conversation I have I go through a struggle of wanting to ask questions and learn about someone but then realizing everything they are saying could just be a lie and not be real so I don't know if it is worth my time to keep up with the charade. I don't know how people catfish online for years. It must get tiring and requires a lot of effort. I would be so afraid of a plot-hole I would not be able to do it. Thank god this game is only like a month and a half

#iwillbecomesomethingelse

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