#life is not a song (musings)

[jessmalia]

Cassandra and But Daddy I Love Him being two sides of the same coin

[a-design1]

Happy first month to the album that i'll cherish for the rest of my life!!

I can´t stop thinking about it so here is a David Carson inspired poster for Dog Years.

@tiredandlonelymuse

(Photo by: Danica Robinson)

[sinligh]

You seek approval,

my subconscious implemented in my dreams. you build up illusions of yourself

and like a bridge thread of a spider web you give them to others

silky, sticky yet somehow,

you’re smooth enough to lure them to wrap you in all that you desire,

even if it’s their own pleasure.

you’re not stuck you’re waiting, for an ending or a beginning

an unsolicited death, an indefinite life

you fear your own madness but the edge of it is what you live for.

you wait, and wait and wait for love to visit the fragile home you made for yourself in this temporary world

but it’s not what you want, is it ?

because the moment it knocks on your door you rush to the arms of another,

paranoia or melancholy? It doesn’t matter.

you writhe and hiss until you shed a skin of a past life that you held on

For acceptance alone, if nothing else…

what is it that you truly desire?

•••

• Quotes: Susan Sontag/ Edgar Allan Poe/ Emily Dickinson/ Halsey/ Sylvia Plath/ Christa Wolf.

• Original context: Sinligh

• Art reference:

1. Art by Edward Burne-Jones. 2. Art from Sedmikrasky (Daisies). 3. Dave McKean, "Sandman" graphic novel. 4. Art by Roberto Ferri. 5. Painting by William Oxer. 6. Craww's "Woven".

[words-at-night]

[expectiations]

I still find it funny that people call eleven a "deadbeat husband" and their marriage "toxic" but twelve is the "perfect husband" and their marriage "wedded bliss" all because of the few moments we'd seen between 11 and River were them being "toxic". yes of course! let's ignore how the minisodes show how that description isn't true and even how little moments in the episodes themselves – "what? that's it?" (why haven't you kissed me goodbye? are you being sly on purpose so I'd kiss you first?) and "they wouldn't bury my wife out here" and the music room is the heart of the home and it's not a ghost story, it's a love story – show 11 cared and put in the work and yes, they're going to have disagreements like the ones in TATM because duh who doesn't but it does not mean it is the entirety of their relationship but people have taken it and made it the entirety of their relationship.

[longlivethewildernessyet]

Endure vs. End, Go vs. Take

“Just let me go”: the cycle must end.

“Or take me with you”: the house must endure.

In The Apparition, Vessel gives the person he’s singing to a choice; to let him go, or to take him with them. Despite his love, despite the history between him and the person he is addressing, he asks for them to put an end to the turmoil of their interactions. He wants the uncertainty, the back-and-forth, the dream-like haziness of a precarious relationship to just be gone; he wants an answer. He wants to know where he stands. But, by the end of the song, he does not have the answer— he is “empty,” left with his “loaded dreams,” i.e., something unreal that is still heavy with substance.

In the SMHTDF teaser, he gives us, the audience, a choice: swords, or feather— “the house must endure,” or “the cycle must end.” Instead of asking the person he loves for an answer, he is now turning the question to everyone else. What should he do? Fight for the relationship, or fly free? From this angle, the relationship— though tentative and unstable— is something worth fighting for. However, it is still weighing on Vessel’s heart.

I believe that “let me go” and “the cycle must end” are linked. Before, Vessel was pleading to be let go, to be released from the back-and-forth, neither-here-nor-there relationship that he has been locked in for so long. Now, the pleading is over. There is only a statement: “the cycle must end.” The back and forth must end. The cycle of yes-no, dream-real, here-there has run its course. The feather can be seen as a symbol of freedom, ascendence, and the divine. It is time for a breakthrough, for Vessel’s ascension— but at the cost of what? Love, perhaps. A person, maybe. Familiarity found in the persistence of their relationship.

Similarly, “take me with you,” is linked to “the house must endure.” Vessel pleads, just as he pleads to be released, for his addressee to take him with them. To put an end to the uncertainty and to welcome him into their realm, their arms, their side. He wants their relationship to be solidified. He wants their love to be real. But, just as with being let go, being taken also has a cost. Two swords crossed can symbolise unity, the joining of two people or two families. However, this amalgamation can also lead to a loss of freedom, of personhood, of distinction.

Over and over again, Vessel is presented with two choices. Both with their own costs and their own prizes.

To be consumed.

To ascend.

Now, he presents that choice to us.

[velartis]

Mostly, I want to be kind.

Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems.

[bellia-25]

Another Trust Life comic/doodle based on a conversation in the server about "I won't say I'm in love" from Hercules. The idea would not leave my head. I had to draw it.

[fountainpenguin]

People have been asking me for the link to Joel's Neck Kisses playlist since I off-handed mentioned it in some tags- it was something I'd seen someone else post about, but wasn't sure I'd find again.

I don't actually know how to use Spotify and wasn't going to bother looking for it because of that, but I decided to go searching today... Anyway, the whiplash is cracking me up:

Please tell me "Artist" is just what Spotify calls people who organize music in playlists, because if I'm about to find out that Joel wrote an actual song about Neck Kisses, I will simply be SO flummoxed.

Upon investigation, it looks like he's on here because he sang "Reel Love" in the Empires SMP Musical. Why did he come up when I searched neck kisses tho... Joel...

I did find it! Here it is: "Oh no, tumblr found my neck kisses playlist" - organized by joel.beanss

Etho in that one clip roleplaying that he was swooning as Joel got close to him, but he should "cover up his neck" before Joel kisses him, and then narrating that Joel's hand was "slowly reaching into his hair" while Joel just giggled and sputtered and yelled about how he doesn't kiss people's necks, you will always be famous to me.

I'm glad you're having fun being silly with your friends, nerds <3

Disclaimer: I have not listened to these songs and I assume some are not for all ages. I'm putting this in the tags for sharing and personal blog organizing purposes, but listen at your own discretion!

[gingermintpepper]

I spent something like six and a half hours in the hospital today so day 6 of my challenge is being further postponed but, in the lieu of not doing any drawing, I did end up rereading Ovid's Metamorphoses in between waiting and I just wanted to offer some of my favourite underrated bits.

Cadmus and Harmonia's twin transformations into snakes is so gentle? Cadmus goes first, transformed mid plea for his wife to caress him one last time before his face is completely covered in scales, then he rests gently between her boobs and wraps around her neck and shoulders like a big snake gorget. Harmonia follows him shortly and the two snakes intertwine with each other before gently slithering off into the bushes and I love that actually mwah mwah mwah (I also appreciate the sweet irony of Cadmus who slew a snake for his glory becoming a snake, toothless and gentle in the last of his days)

Everything about Perseus was hilarious. Like, I'm sorry - I've never done a lot of reading into Perseus but I did always remember the banquet massacre and the Andromeda rescuing and like, bro I know it's not meant to be funny but Perseus is funny. I think it's his politeness honestly? He goes up to Atlas and is like "hello kind sir, may I please stay a night in your lands? I've travelled an awful long way and I am weary and hungry. If you only accept noble guests, rest assured, I am of noblest birth and have completed the noblest of deeds. 🥺" and Atlas takes one look at him, has a That's So Raven vision about the one time Themis gave him a prophecy about a son of Jove stealing his apples and then told Perseus to kick rocks. So Perseus, like the well adjusted and noble individual that he is, turns Atlas into a mountain with Medusa's head. This is how a great many of Perseus' stories unfold. It is actually hysterical.

I am going to give a special shoutout to Athis and Lycabas who were two young lovers in attendance at Perseus and Andromeda's blood wedding. Athis died first - a skilled archer who never got to shoot and was burnt and bludgeoned across the face with a wedding brazier. When Lycabas saw that his dear friend's beauty was ruined, he picked up the fight against Perseus himself in Athis' name and was slashed to strips by Perseus' sword. Lycabas managed to drag himself over to Athis in his last moments and died beside him, so I thought that was a particularly touching bit of beauty in the otherwise extremely tragic blood wedding.

No one can ever make me feel bad for Niobe. In a lot of the Greek accounts I've read and heard, because they tend to be much shorter or references in a wider narrative, it's hard to really grasp how insanely disrespectful she was to Leto (not that her boasting she should be the goddess of motherhood to the actual goddess of motherhood isn't worthy of death and destruction enough) but Ovid really did go the extra mile to dig it home how far down her throat this lady put her foot because even at her sons' seven way funeral she did not stop boasting about how she was still glorious. I did find it interesting that the seemingly innocuous detail of Apollo killing off the boys first and then Artemis killing the girls was kept cross-culturally, I assume it's because boys were more auspicious than girls in both cultures.

The detail of Athena bonking Arachne constantly with a wooden box and her being transformed into a spider because she begged to not be bonked to death. Also very interestingly, in Ovid's account, it's not a clear victory for Athena against Arachne - she gets flustered at the depictions of her relatives' affairs and rips the tapestry up - the judges didn't actually get a chance to opine. This is in contrast to the contest the Muses sang about where their representative Calliope unilaterally won against the daughters of Pierus.

The account of Apollo and Marsyas was much shorter than I remember it being. I recall it being touted as one of the more vicious and visceral tales in Metamorphoses' collection but it included neither the details of Marsyas' contest against Apollo, nor Apollo's feelings (or even any dialogue from him!) throughout his peeling of Marsyas' skin. Instead it is wholly focused on Marsyas - on describing the physical gore of his exposed veins and contracting muscles and the grief of the rustic crowd as they mourned his loss - which is curious indeed since the entire theme of the poems of Book 6 is divine punishment and it is otherwise filled with rather full accounts of these contests and insults.

Byblis and Caunus made me want to reread Euripedes' Hippolytus for the twelve thousandth time. Caunus made the right call of course but I also very much hoped he would have a huge big speech about incest being bad instead of just smacking the messenger.

And lastly, for now, Jove's speech as Hercules lay burning atop his death pyre where he addresses the host of his gods and goes "Man, wasn't Hercules a great guy? Look, there goes all his mortal attributes burning away in the fire, now he is all my son and surely we are all in agreement that any divine son of mine deserves a place on Olympus :)" was very endearing. I always feel quite bad for Deianira because she truly didn't mean any harm by her gift and I've always wished for an account of Heracles/Hercules' death from her perspective. There could scarcely be a thing more awful, especially given how long and drawn out and incredibly painful Hercules' death was.

Lowkey, I want to take a day and compare Ovid and Euripedes' Medeas. They're both very different women and they both handle their situations very differently. Partially for my own vindication - I adore Medea and Jason equally and since popular fiction cannot speak about Medea without flattening her or making Jason completely monstrous, this is just one of those things I'll have to do myself sometime.

[gulliesforever]

so i found this song on @mr-whitebullet's playlist and it's haunted me ever since because 1) it's the sweetest thing i've ever heard and 2) it makes me cry. (3 is that he has impeccable music taste). also you know. it's them.

but anyways.

i wonder why jake loves LA...

[words-at-night]

[expectiations]

When talking about Amy and Rory as a unit, I call them "the elder Ponds". Because they are. It doesn't matter that River and the Doctor are older than them. They have had to mitigate rows between their own daughter and son-in-law. That immediately makes them the elder Ponds.

When talking about the Ponds, River is always included in it. Because River is a Pond first and foremost. Unfortunately we don't even have a proper Pond Fam pic because of what series 7–[gunshot]

[alabasterpickles]

Hi! I loved the chapter of your Hades and Persephone fic so much!! Can't wait for more. I was wondering if you had any voices in mind for what your Persephone sounds like? :)

Thank you so much!! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Chapter two is on its way, and it’s a bit longer but I think you guys are going to like this one, too!

I have actually been giving this a LOT of thought! Especially since Hades has such an iconic voice actor; I wanted someone with an excellent singing voice but could hold her own conversationally with him as a character, as well. Originally, I debated using Cher as Persephone’s voiceclaim, but as she became more refined/developed I actually think Lady Gaga might be a better fit. Her style in the new Mayhem Album specifically! Also?? She seems so sweet and genuine and surprisingly down-to-earth in interviews! She’s perfect.

Just imagine all of the dramatic musical numbers!!😂

[velartis]

Still Life with Flowers in a Glass, Jan Brueghel (I), c. 1602

[apollos-boyfriend]

YUNO RABBIT HOLE I USED TO PRAY!!!!!! I USED TO PRAY!!!!!!

dear god if you’re out there please please please give us fuuta sad girl sex next it would be so fucking funny