#ron listens to tma

[languor-em]

Jonathan "I could do drugs 😠" Sims

[poltergeist-coffee]

Tubbo is a force to be reckoned with

If he got kidnapped he really would do live while he's kidnapped

Kidnapping vlog

The pactoiles brainrot is real(feel free to scream about them)

Insane duo mermaid au you say? 👀

Mermaids are one of the things that the brainrot never truly leave me, it aways come back every once in a while for whatever the reason is

But yeah, the world should stop being afraid of us, like, what could we possibly do?

There's nothing to be afraid:)

Very random, but people started calling Philza and Cellbit the archivists and I get so many the Magnus archives vibes from it

And I know very little about TMA but I like the vibes

Talking about Philza...

GIVE HIS WINGS BACK YOU FUDGES

About the dead federation workers thing

I'm very... Divided(I hope that's make sense on English) about it, like, if qcellbit really did it I think some people would react in a similar way they did to qbbh about Ron(how is that guy btw? I haven't heard about him anymore) and... Y'know, he changed from the guy he used be and such

But at the same time I'm like "FINALLY", because, yeah fudge the federation:D

I dunno, perhaps if he really did it he could convince people it's just the federation trying to frame him y'know

But just time will tell

And you can probably tell to wich side I'm more inclined to

I crave the chaos

(Also I saw someone say "F bit, now it's just Cell")

Pac would swim his way outta this island if he wasn't scared of water too

At the same time I don't think the federation are above killing their workers to frame him

He's one of the most anti-federation people on that island and he got a very dubious past, sure he changed, but at the same time it would make the others wondee if he would do it, he hates the federation and after everything they've done to him, his family and the others Islanders, he would have a reason to do it

So yeah, both options are equally possible to me

"he's just like fr"

-Cellbit's discord about Cellbit probably

The devil work fast but Cellbit's discord work faster

I have found the headcanon of Cellbit's discord being some sort of entity or god(s) or something and nobody will it off me

Its just so cool

This reminds me I've said that I would make designs for the qsmp goddess and still haven't done it

I never have ideas to draw except when I do(at 3am)

How do you imagine them tho?

I could talk about it probably but it would definitely be really long because I can't write something short to save my life

Maybe on another ask:)

- 🍽️

tbh a kidnapping vlog from q!tubbo would be very very funny MKNSJHCKJA what can the federation do?? they already put him in prison?? double prison??? i think the federation really want tubbo of the island but have no way of doing it yet lol

insaneduo mermaid au are so silly… i love them so much

i tried to get into the magnus archives once but i got distracted and then never retuned to listening to it TT it looks so cool i want to get into it, especially the avatars/entities (?) like the web, the lonely, etc etc. i think you could so easily make a qsmp au with it but i’m not in it so i can’t be the one to do it TT

i heard that jaiden asked the uh federation/mods about her wings so maybe that’s how they can get them like out of canon kekw i know cc!philza would just not ask for his wings back tho JUST TO KILL US WITH ANGST!! HE KILLED NEARLY ALL HIS FANS SAYING HE KEEPS HIS BACKPACK ON BECAUSE ITS LIKE HAVING THE WEIGHT OF HIS WINGS BACK HE WILL KILL US AGAIN!! the crows are miserable

i don’t know what to think about the dead federation workers… maybe cellbit just confused what halloween decorations are and killed a man to decorate spawn with u-u i support him to do that halloween is my favorite holiday. i think with how his character is rn it wouldn’t really make sense for him to kill a worker all of a sudden? BUT if it is actually him who did it then i will support his crimes. i’ll defend him in qsmp court

CELLBITS DISCORD BEING A GOD/DEITY ENTITIY IS SUCH A COOL IDEA HOLY SHIIIIIT O-o maybe cellbit is a follower of this god because they really love puzzles/is all about mystery, that’s why they always make themselves known when there are enigmas on the server (like with q!bagi and solving it with her) (maybe the god feeds on mystery and knowledge? owo) it’s funny to think that tubbo always calls out to this god too, asking if he’s doing good and asking them for answers kamknfkns the deity is a little fond of q!tubbo because he’s silly.

ID LOVE TO HEAR YOUR IDEAS FOR GODDESS DESIGNS!! the only real idea i have is for mumza. she’s super purple and wears a huge hat like a qphilza with a veil so it hides her face. i think she might have some sort of galaxy aesthetic too because it’s pretty and she deserves that <33 she always has crows surrounding her too. I’ve seen a lot of cute designs for Mine and i think she’s be very pink like her irl lol. i think she should also get wings uwu

[gerrydelano]

it’s time for an actual, legitimate, in-depth discussion about sea shanties, and some corresponding meta about the tundra!

this covers what shanties actually are, what they are not, and why peter lukas wouldn’t be caught dead listening to or participating in one (nevermind allowing his crew to so much as consider them an option.)

i think a lot of people forget what sea shanties actually ARE, tbh! and i won’t say that it annoys me to see people using it wrong, but i always do itch to explain when i see it because it’s just so cool. my time has come.

more specifically, this post is going to talk about:

01. what a shanty actually is, versus other types of sea songs 02. the way they are composed (lyrically, etc.) 03. the practical function they served 04. types of shanties (with examples!) 05. the SOCIAL function they served (genuinely emotional) 06. Peter Lukas Hates Shanties And Everything They Stand For (actual meta discussion about the tundra)

i numbered them so you can skip to the peter part if you don’t care about the Really Specific history of maritime music & don’t want to leaf through examples! 

EDIT: i put the videos used here on a playlist by request, too! i’m adding additional ones that i find/love at the end of it, too. other playlist recs here!

OKAY! here goes. about 3.2k words of pure autism. BOY oh BOY.

01. "shanty” is not just a blanket term for maritime music of any kind! those are actually just called sea songs as a broad umbrella term and there are all sorts of them that were sang for leisure! particularly:

forebitters or fo'c's'le songs - a recreational sea song typically sang at rest, during fair weather, before sleep. 

forebitters refers to singing in fine weather, gathered near large posts on the foredeck, literally called fore bitts. so these would be outside!

fo’c’s’le means “forecastle,” which is the sailors’ sleeping quarters, so those are the bedtime songs™

these could have ranged from any number of popular songs to ballads on any subject, as long as they’re not on watch.

speaking of, ballads are narrative songs that tell stories! often when they would sing about women, missing home, etc. could have been about any subject, but always telling a story specifically.

so basically, forebitters and fo’c’s’le songs are leisure songs, and the distinction between them lies in the setting and circumstance by which they’re sung.

but a shanty (or chantey, chanty, etc.) is specifically what you would call a Call-And-Response Work Song! they’re intended to boost morale and keep sailors in time and in good spirits while performing hard physical labor.

they actually have a specific function and composition, and social purpose which sets them apart from other maritime music! it’s actually seriously awesome!

02. so, the way they worked is that they alternated between:

a solo part sang by a shantyman (just a regular old sailor, usually self-appointed, who had a booming voice, notable lyrical wit, who would come up with his part of the words on the spot holy SHIT.)

and the simplistic refrains, intended to be repeated at a shouting bellow by the whole crew

that’s the “call and response” part of it, which in and of itself sets a rhythm and a tone. the shantyman calls out over the tandem silence of everyone waiting for their cue to respond, for the collective moment, for the rush of being a part of something bigger. swell of waves. the signal to heave or haul.

g-d it’s so beautiful like literally just typing this fills my chest with a very deep love for the way that human beings connect and communicate.

(which is a huge part of why peter lukas would literally never enjoy a shanty. but i’ll get there.)

the tempo usually followed either a 6/8 or a 9/8 time signature, and the basic beat/simplistic refrain would be set before the shantyman gets to work with his improvised lyrics i am still not over that. the simplistic chorus works out for the crew because largely they are VERY busy with the whole Hard Labor thing, so their part of it is less the Lyrics and more the OOMPH, the bellow sound, the moment. 

some of the examples i list in part 4 will include demonstrative videos showing how they work in accordance to the tasks they’re used for! exciting!

03. the “work song” part of it is the most important! a shanty is a WORK SONG, not a leisure song like a forebitter or a ballad.

functionally, shanties literally served the purpose of synchronizing the whole crew’s movements and pacing repetitive tasks like weighing anchor and setting sail. they boosted morale, they kept everyone in time, and were specifically suited to particular tasks on the ship.

there was typically no musical accompaniment to a proper shanty (such as with a fiddle or a concertina) because these songs were performed while everyone’s hands were occupied. it’s all voices. the drum is in your heart, in your footsteps, in the motion of machinery, in the rock of the boat.

so if you’re thinking of a song that a bunch of guys sing while swinging around pints of beer and laughing about pretty girls they miss from back home, you’re thinking of a different subset of drinking songs!

(and if you’re thinking about bloodwater ballad, which i’ve had referred to as a “slow shanty” in the tags, that’s definitely just what it says on the box - a ballad. a murder ballad, specifically, because the story being told has a particular theme. but it’s a ballad nonetheless! DEFINITELY not a shanty, as COOL as that’d have been. please forgive my geekery i’m not mad about the mislableing i just LOVE to talk about the distinctions!)

multiple voices or maritime themes don’t necessarily denote a shanty! there are so many types of sea songs that could cover those, and you’ve definitely heard more of those than you have heard actual shanties.

04. broadly speaking, you can categorize shanties in two easy ways: 

shanties related to hauling actions (pulling)

shanties related to heaving actions (pushing)

there were 6 basic hauling shanty types (this is where i go nuts):

long-drag: also called a halyard shanty! usually sang when hoisting topsails and yards. they tend to contain TWO Pulls per chorus, to a beat such as ”Way, ay, Blow the man down!”

EXAMPLE: hurrah for the blackball line

^ this is actually a video where a guy is EXPLAINING how the shanty works in time with the action, and they demonstrate!

short-drag: sung for short hauling jobs requiring a few bursts of great force, such as changing direction of sails. characterized by one strong pull, timed on the last syllable of the refrain.

EXAMPLE: haul away joe

VERY quick and snappy overall

sweating-up: also called a “swaying off chant” and classed as “sing-outs,” they’re sand for brief hauling tasks like for a few sharp pulls on a halyard to tighten the sail. comparable to short-drags.

EXAMPLE: roll the woodpile down

this is actually my favorite one on this example list so far, i forgot to say so, but the dreadnoughts? good band if you want more of this.

hand over hand:  used for lighter hauling tasks, like setting staysails and jibs, or just hauling in the slack of a rope. the corresponding action is tugging alternately with each hand, on each beat.

EXAMPLE: hellie hellie shumra

honestly just any chant with this particular tempo!

bunt:  used for "bousing up" (i.e. hauling) the tightly bunched bundle of a sail that would need to be gathered up and fastened to the yard when furling. there are only a few of these!

EXAMPLE: paddy doyle’s boots

johnny bowker is also cited, which is also a short-drag used for sweating up, too! here’s the one used in assassin’s creed, and here’s one where a guy is demonstrating the pull timing.

stamp and go: also called a “runaway” or “walk away” shanty, these had longer choruses and were actually more similar to heaving shanties! because the work that went along with these was continuous in nature.  

EXAMPLE: drunken sailor

you ALL have heard this one before, i can GUARANTEE. fun fact, it was one of the ONLY shanties allowed in the royal navy.

and 3 heaving shanty types:

capstan: that big winch wheel thing, you know? like everyone gets a wooden bar and walks forward to push it? it was a continuous action so they had longer solo verses and a “grand chorus” in addition to the call and response pattern.

EXAMPLE: santiana

(i love the longest johns they’re SO much fun. i’ll link another of theirs later when i talk about my favorite heaving shanty.)

EXAMPLE 2: roll the old chariot along

literally just fucking adore this one okay please take it

windlass: so, when raising anchor! operated by the see-saw like action of pumping hand brakes.

EXAMPLE: heave away, my johnny

and here is another live demonstration of how it works in accordance with the windlass, using cheer up, my lively lads!

pump: that’s right! PUMP SHANTY! you all know that song! (i did a meta here about why it’s not. actually an accurate pump shanty but HEY!) historically, these were sang when alleviating leakage in the holds.

EXAMPLE: fire down below

an ABSOLUTE favorite for sure

EXAMPLE 2: leave her, johnny, leave her was specifically sang during the last round of pumping the ship dry once it was tied up in port, before the crew was set to leave the ship! kind of a goodbye ritual! i have a lot of feelings about this one, alright! fuck!

seriously also take this version of leave her johnny sung by a bunch of dudes sitting around a table it’s so organic and their harmonies are killing me it’s SO emotional to me for some reason FUCK.

there were other miscellaneous ones, as well! like:

deep-water shanties: sang when holystoning the deck, or in ritual fashion when celebrating finalky getting paid after the first month’s work was done because they’d burned through their advance pay (by throwing a stuffed horse overboard? wack.)

EXAMPLE: poor old man

yes. the assassin’s creed ones are good. that’s the one they’d use when the horse ritual went down. the more you know.

“men are weird. especially when you put them on a boat for months. they come up with some Shit.”

EDIT: explanation of the horse ritual!

coastwise/longshore shanties: cargo ship/fishing/whaleboating shanties! used when loading and unloading heavy timber, pulling in nets, etc. the musical forms of these differ from the deep-water shanties, namely in that the workers "pull" in between rather than concurrently with certain words of the songs.

EXAMPLE: help me to raise ‘em

this is a demonstration video of the same song done by fishermen in virginia! because that’s right! this tradition exists in places other than europe! the southern US, the caribbean, alaska for the salmon run, etc. and still used in the modern day!

in terms of where you can find more of these: the dreadnoughts, the jolly rogers, and the longest johns are best sources i’ve found so far for clear modern recordings of classic shanties! i love the dreadnoughts’ covers of eliza lee and old maui, fuck.

EDIT: the storm weather shanty choir, too! lots of modernized covers, but VERY enjoyable. check out their renditions of rio grande and a drop of nelson’s blood. 

also, this isn’t quite a shanty, but rye whiskey by the pirate charles is one of the most gorgeous songs i’ve ever heard. the lyrics are INTENSE, definitely give this a shot if you can.

my personal favorite shanty is still RANDY DANDY O, which is a capstan/pump shanty! it’s SO much fun and very influential, total classic. PLEASE listen to that video i just linked there if NONE of the others, it’s like. genuinely really special to me and activates my autism full blast jkdsjfhs. the AC version is also INCREDIBLE.

like fun fact, as i was trying to pick which version to link, i found this one and was actually just. grinning, flapping, rocking, and laughing about it because it just! gets in my chest! the WHOOPING and the RHYTHM it just! this gets inside my heart, dude, that’s what shanties are supposed to do.

which brings me to the most important part of this meta!

05. there is a SOCIAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL component to a shanty that is DEEPLY important (especially in the context of the tundra)

shanties alleviated boredom, reduced the psychological burden of hard labor, and built and strengthened camaraderie!

the point was to keep people together, both physically so work can be done efficiently and socially so that the crew didn’t lose their spirit or drive. they’re not just a song that happens to be sung by many voices; they’re meant to be give and take. call and response. someone to call to; someone to call for you. the very nature of a shanty is a dialogue. you cannot sing a shanty alone.

even just sitting and listening to them on fucking youtube can fill a person with so much feeling and a weird yearning for that kind of togetherness and that open space being filled with voices so many voices all coming together, imagine what it must be like to actually be a part of it in real life! in real time!

even outside of the context of sea shanties specifically, there is a POWER that comes with singing with a chorus at all. there’s a LOVE and EXHILARATION that comes with hearing that many people singing together, with being one of the people singing. 

combine that feeling with the way your blood would be pumping with all that hard work, with the weird broad sweeping intimacy of knowing the people all around you are feeling all the same aches and pains and have the same rope burn calloused hands and the same salt soaked shirts and pinching boots and you’re still singing together through how thirsty you all are and later that night you’re all going to be feeling the same bone deep weariness, the same yearning for sleep, the same human experience.

a sea shanty isn’t just any maritime song. it meant something. it embodied something. and i really don’t think peter lukas would like it very much.

06. there is actually no WAY peter lukas Enjoys sea shanties, or allowed them to be sang on his ship. hell, dumbass rich boy growing up with isolation and money would have no NEED to understand the culture of hard labor. he owns a boat, sure! he ain’t worked a day in his damn life. he wouldn’t even have gone yachting because that implies his family would encourage fun and leisure, which they don’t even! it’s all detrimental solitude and rejection of things people do to feel connected.

peter’s understanding of the need for human connection is based in specifically how to destroy it.

the very nature of a shanty is togetherness and teamwork. it’s the Direct Opposition to Loneliness. they’re supposed to fill your chest with this kind of adrenaline and make you feel surrounded and in step with other people and honestly that’d just give the dude hives.

the boat itself isn’t actually even a real cargo ship. the containments are empty! they’re not actually doing meaningful work of any kind that would require the backbeat of a shanty to carry them through it.

the tundra is JUST a cover for finding and sacrificing people in need of work like this - work that is lonely before and after you get on the boat.

ordinarily, to get jobs like this, you’d wander around in search of a vacancy and sign on for one voyage, and when you hit port? you leave! and don’t typically stay in contact with the people you worked with the whole time you were there! and then you find another boat, and start the process over again.

this cover specifically targets people who are already port hopping and presumably don’t have much that’ll call them back home anywhere. people who are already traveling alone, who aren’t anchored to land. who are already lonely.

it’s not forever work, usually. the more stationary crew on the tundra are not normal sailors, they don’t do normal work, they are kept there for other reasons — presumably the money, at first, but more likely the fear for their lives.

algie’s tags on this post just reminded me of this, and while she’s completely right about peter not knowing/liking/willingly listening to shanties, i have to disagree a bit about his crew ever using them if only because of some technicalities and distinctions between sea songs & their functions.

shanties as a whole became somewhat obsolete as technological advances were made to larger sailing vessels and whatnot over time. pretty sure the tundra is a modernized cargo ship, likely steam, and so there is far less of even a NEED for the TYPE of work tasks that would typically be performed with a shanty at the backbone.

but beyond that, the crew of the tundra is painfully quiet, avoidant of one another, won’t even look each other in the eyes. they don’t even speak the same languages; people who Couldn’t communicate smoothly even if they Wanted to are now forced to feel even more isolated because of that lack of common threading, and understanding.

the job of a port hopping sailor is lonely when you’re hopping between ports. in the in-between. when you’re actually on the ship, though? on a normal ship, there’d be conversation. games. friendships, however fleeting. song. there’d be at least something to make the work bearable before you set off alone again, if you decide not to stay.

on the tundra, the entire point of their business there and their jobs is to somehow work alone doing a job that has always been better done with a hundred parts combined into one thriving collection of human beings relying on each other, moving in sync with each other, communicating with each other.

it’s actually, like. genuinely heartbreaking to think about this? yeah, we associate the ocean with Loneliness for good, obvious reasons but sailors? as a profession? as a type of person? on a big ship, part of a crew? are not meant to be quiet when they’re actually on the job. they are not meant to be solitary. are not meant not to speak.

this is obviously said to be the atmosphere when they’re waiting on a sacrifice to be chosen and made, they’re trying to Behave and Not get chosen. that takes up a majority of their time working there, and is presumably the long-term vibe.

and then, even as the atmosphere is said to change AFTER a sacrifice (“After that night, the atmosphere on board changed. People talked, and you’d occasionally hear actual laughter on board. Games were played, people drank, and there was this sense of relief to it all.” - MAG 33) the laughter is still only occasional. they’re still in that environment, still in the Know about how you Need to behave to survive. still scared of talking about it. still scared.

so if they DID sing, i think it’d be more likely to be fo’c’s’le songs! as mentioned before. those are sang at rest, in celebration, for leisure, in the sleeping quarters. in private, somewhat. it’s much safer, just slightly less obtrusive and symbolic, much more likely given the TONE (if they’re relieved and glad They didn’t get chosen to be eaten by the Lonely) and also just? generally more applicable to the setting. it’s a broader selection of potential #tunes. drinking songs, maybe! but drinking songs aren’t shanties.

they wouldn’t be allowed to sing a sea shanty even if it were applicable to their physical job. by this point i have to wonder if they would have ever even in a position to learn the words to any even before coming aboard the tundra, if only because of how much this particular tool has fallen out of usage in the modern maritime scene. it’s not like they’d get the chance to take part in it here.

they just stand for too much. they embody the human spirit of collaboration and togetherness too much. they represent too much that opposes what peter wants to foster here. they’re too powerful as a very human ritual, however simple it may sound just as a word. shanty. chanty. chorus. crew.

there was never room on the tundra for a shantyman.

but consider — shanties as a way to leave the lonely. 

you start singing a shanty to yourself, and from the distance, other voices join in.

a response to your call. 

the fog clears.

[haunthouse]

welcome to a meta that, in retrospect, seems glaringly obvious, but that has hit me like a freight train this morning. we’re talking about the lonely as a ghost story.

ghosts as an entity are inherently about disconnect. but kaylee, i hear you say, ghosts are dead people, wouldn’t that make them in the end’s domain? but when it comes down to it, death is a good framing device for ghosts (and yeah, it’s necessary to make ghosts), but people don’t tell ghost stories just because they’re afraid of death. ghost stories are told because ghosts are irrevocably disconnected from the living in a way that terrifies us — sometimes they’re intentionally scary, knocking shit around or yelling boo!, but a lot of the time they’re just... there. and that’s the terrifying part. something that’s there and shouldn’t be; something that can’t interact with the world around it and is completely, utterly, terrifyingly alone.

ghost stories are about isolation, about being a person without any of the framework that being a person requires, without society or connection or love. being unseen and unheard and unknown to all around you — and trying so hard to reverse all those un-words, to be seen, heard, known. that’s exactly the domain of the lonely!

and onto the meat of this meta: all nine lonely-centric statements (and the journey of one martin blackwood) through the lens of ghost stories.

(spoilers for mag170 at the end, but each episode section is clearly marked, so feel free to skip it if you haven’t gotten that far yet!)

MAG013: ALONE

the first lonely statement we get (and also the first in-person statement! which is such a good inversion of the lonely being about lack of connection! jon doesn’t do a great job of comforting naomi, but he does stay with her as she gives the statement when she asks!! that’s beside the point but it is something i really love), and right off the bat, the ghost vibes are off the charts.

truly i am feeling absolutely idiotic for not really thinking about the ghosts-lonely connection before now because this statement? peak ghost story.

naomi’s fiance dies. naomi has several near-death experiences (crashes her car, then is hit by another car and winds up in the hospital), which is also a staple in a lot of ghost stories; nearly dying is set up as a way to get the living closer to the realm of ghosts, able to interact with them more clearly. it was a dark and foggy night in a graveyard, and standing at evan’s (open, empty) grave, naomi hears his disembodied voice leading her home.

when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night. but when they’re told by someone close to the now-ghost, they’re love stories. it’s my grandmother hearing her father’s breathing one last time after his death, giving her a chance to say goodbye. it’s a familiar and loving presence, comforting you. that’s what naomi’s story is — the ghost of evan showing his love for her one final time.

MAG033: BOATSWAIN’S CALL

so, ships are meant to be places of community, right? ron @gerrydelano​ has a really good post about this regarding shanties. but ghost ships are an established trope of ghost stories: the inversion of what a ship should be, lacking all life and community, silently traversing the waters on its own.

the tundra is a ghost ship. it’s quiet (”very quiet... it was like they were doing everything in their power not to think about each other”) — the people there move around one another as if none of them are there, all so taken by the lonely. their cargo containers are empty. all they’re transporting on that ship is the ghosts of those aboard.

this episode falls into the trope of ghosts want the living to join them — though there’s still a mourning atmosphere when sean kelly is taken fully by the lonely, that final bit of life on the ship extinguished. (”no one said a word, but i could have sworn a few of my shipmates were crying.”)

MAG048: LOST IN THE CROWD

this one’s one of my favorites! andrea nunis’ statement deals with different kinds of loneliness — she begins it with explaining that she prefers to travel alone, but later, that loneliness is something terrifying. she’s in a crowd of unrecognizable people, unable to fit herself into the world she’s seeing — she’s completely separate from the rest of the world. she’s a ghost. 

“it wasn’t italian being spoken ... or any other language i recognized. the more i listened, the more i realized it wasn’t a language. there were no words, it was just noise.” “their faces were a blur, each and every one of them.” and, the crowning point: “i tried to talk to them or to shout, to scream at them, but there was no reaction.”

by being taken in by the lonely, andrea’s been turned into a ghost. she cannot interact with or even recognize her environment, and that’s the real horror — it isn’t just being alone, it’s being surrounded by something that should be familiar; a crowd is something she’s been in a thousand times, as someone who travels a lot, and people are the most familiar thing in the world, like looking in a mirror! but it isn’t. everything is strange and she is outside of it all and that’s what a ghost is.

and her connection to her mother is what pulls her out. people have talked at length about how love is the antidote to the lonely so i won’t go on too long about that, but the connection between that & ghosts’ relationships to the living often being what keeps them around is sure something.

also, after getting out of the lonely andrea says “i made sure i was always in sight of at least one other person” — and there’s something to be said there about needing to be seen to be real. 

chiara @red-reys​ brought up this feuerbach quote which fits very well: “that which i alone perceive i doubt; only that which the other also perceives is certain.” being the only one to perceive something (for example, a ghost), or the only one who is utterly unperceived, is a very lonely thing — it isolates you entirely from those who do not perceive it. being perceived, or having someone else see what you see, can give you an anchor.

wow i’m sure that won’t come back later!

also, far be it from me to talk about this statement without mentioning gerry keay. because it means something that he’s the one to give andrea the tools she needs to pull herself out of the lonely. gerry is someone completely lacking in human connection, who is literally haunted by the ghost of his mother and later is seen as a ghost himself. gerry doesn’t have friends; he tells jon “i always wanted my friends to call me gerry,” but in a tone that makes it clear he didn’t have anyone who could’ve. and of course he didn’t. a life so entwined with the entities and cut so short, a life so ruled by the cruelty of others that he certainly did not want to rope anyone else into. 

though gerry’s never directly stated to be affected by the lonely, he’s certainly lowercase-L lonely at the very least, and he’s certainly got enough experience with ghosts to understand the lonely. 

gerry is the trope of the helpful spirit. he’s the ghost who’ll give you directions on a deserted road and disappear when you turn around. he gives jon the information he needs to understand the entities, he gives andrea the information she needs to not become a ghost.

MAG057: PERSONAL SPACE

alright so this one is, admittedly, more cosmic horror than anything else, but if y’all’ve seen any of my comics you probably know i’m very passionate about space ghosts & haunted spaceships. and as such, i’m extremely interested in how the daedalus mission echoes ghost stories.

carter chilcott’s story pretty directly acts as a ghost story — unable to communicate with the others on the ship even when he tries, unable to interact with the world to the point of looking out the window at one point to find the world entirely missing. this is all stuff i’ve said already about the other statements, so i’m glossing past it, because what interests me more is the daedalus as malicious architecture.

because the daedalus was created specifically for this union between vast, lonely, and dark (all of which i think have significant ghostly tie-ins). everything about how the ship itself and the mission came to be is a mystery, even to those involved — manuela says “i don’t know how he convinced the lukases and fairchilds to help finance the project,” “i don’t know if they were working on rituals of their own,” “exactly how the launch was arranged, i couldn’t tell you.” 

a piece of the traditional haunted house is a sort of timelessness, and mystery inherent in its building. hill house in shirley jackson’s haunting of hill house “seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders... it was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a place fit for people or for love or for hope.” the oldest house in the game control is malicious architecture at its finest, and it’s called the oldest house. it predates people. it exists as a giant piece of brutalist architecture smack dab in the middle of new york, but no one knows why or how it came to be. as a real-world example: the winchester mystery house is wrapped up in mythos about its creation. was sarah winchester just a lonely old woman with a hobby for architectural design, or did she create endlessly spiraling staircases and doorways with a steep drop into the yard to keep ghosts away? who knows! we sure do like to speculate, though.

yes, i’ve talked about this in tma metas before. highly recommend jacob geller’s control, anatomy, and the legacy of the haunted house for more of this content.

even manuela dominguez, the only person on the daedalus mission who actually knew what she was doing and wasn’t just there to be a victim of entities they did not understand, does not know how the mission came to be. 

and the entire purpose of this spacecraft is to be malicious to its inhabitants! the very architecture is meant to make the people within into perfect snacks for their respective entities! the station is cramped (”so cramped that i could only fully stretch out in the section used to exercise,” says jan kilbride), but when the vast takes hold it’s suddenly endless — “a hollow pretense of a shell that did nothing to separate me from the void.” (cue me shouting about how much trust we put in the places we live, and whether or not that trust is warranted, how easily it can be turned against us!)

a few other bits of this statement that really echo ghost stories: “twice i was woken up by the sound of the door opening, only to find it as tight as it had ever been. throughout the daytime i would occasionally hear footsteps, which shouldn’t even have been possible in zero gravity.” and then the empty, ghostly spacesuit that floats past chilcott’s window — there are so many stories about disembodied wedding dresses or mourningwear walking the halls silently, so why not a spacesuit?

i started this section saying this statement was more cosmic horror than ghost story but i’m finishing it by saying this is actually one of the clearest representations of haunted architecture in the whole podcast. (other examples off the top of my head include upon the stair & a cosy cabin, the latter of which i actually already wrote a meta about.)

MAG092: NOTHING BESIDE REMAINS

the moment i started thinking about the lonely-ghosts connection i remembered this episode, because it’s so clear. complete disconnect, existing entirely alone in a shadow of the world you once knew, unable to interact with the living in any way.

very small bit but. “as the cab pulled away, it seemed to have no driver that i could discern” vs the theme of ghost carriages in older ghost stories. i am looking directly at it.

barnabas bennett can “almost think i hear the mocking joy of my friends, but there is nobody here.” he can see evidence that life continues around him, unseen — “i know that what is done by those i cannot see might be felt here — i have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before.” just as a ghost is unseen to the living, the reverse is true: bennett can see others having an impact on the world in small ways, and his letter is found by jonah, but he can’t really affect the world in any real way.

MAG108: MONOLOGUE

this one is so exciting to me because theater ghosts are a huge trope in ghost stories! theater people are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet! especially regarding ghosts having an impact on their shows — there’s the superstition regarding The Scottish Play™, the tradition of leaving a ghost light on onstage to appease the spirits. there’s that time all the kids in my production of brigadoon when i was in middle school circled around the makeup mirrors to play bloody mary and got thoroughly chewed out by the adults in the cast. theater’s full’a ghosts!

(i think it’s something about the intense amounts of history behind it — and how, in playing a part that a thousand people have played before, you’re echoing their exact words, becoming a repetition of those long gone. and on a stage, blinding lights in your face washing out any view of the audience — you could, technically, leave the stage and interact with the people down there, but it seems pretty entirely impossible when you’re up there. you’re being perceived but can’t see in return. you’re essentially a ghost putting on a show for the living on a loop.)

the statement-giver for this one, adonis biros, echoes a lot of those sentiments, actually. “your words heard by no one — and in that no one, an entire universe.” “have you ever had stage lights in your eyes? ...you can look out into the audience and see nothing at all. just you.”

i said before that “when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night.” the disconnect between the anonymous audience and the singular actor onstage makes the distance here extreme — so this is the sort of ghost story that’s unquestionably a horror story, focusing on the most chilling aspects of ghosts. their inhumanity, their anonymity. the theater masks adonis sees in the audience are “empty. it was a hollow shape of a man that had no life, no presence to it.” even adonis himself says he “had no doubt that what i had seen was some sort of specter or omen.”

he sees a “masked mockery of a human figure” in a window while walking at night. ghosts looking through windows is enough of a trope that once, when i went on a ghost tour in williamsburg, at least half the stories were about people seeing ghostly faces in windows, and i completely freaked out when i saw someone moving around in one of the houses before realizing, oh, some of them are still actually occupied.

this one’s undoubtably a collaboration between stranger and lonely, but i think that intersection’s one of the best for ghost stories — something not-quite-human-anymore, if it ever was, haunting you.

MAG150: CUL-DE-SAC

a lot of the bare bones of this statement are things i’ve already covered, so i’m not gonna go too in-depth on it. herman gorgoli’s statement is about disconnect (from alberto, and then from the rest of humanity), about isolation, about houses-gone-wrong (his and alberto’s house in cheadle, which he views by the end as a place imprisoning him, and the titular cul-de-sac).

we’ve seen the malicious architecture trope in the form of the daedalus already, but this time it’s on earth. it’s something that should, by all rights, be familiar. the houses in the suburbs are all the same, but it’s at least a sameness you know. but they’re all bereft of any irregularities, ghostly echoes of what a house should be.”there were no lights on in any of the houses.” he even finds a dead body in one of the houses — but the woman who’s body he finds is not the one haunting them.

it’s herman haunting the neighborhood, until his love for alberto brings him out. herman making his way through houses he cannot interact with in any meaningful way, whos details he cannot interpret. “how many corpses lay waiting behind the placid facade of this endless false suburbia?” he wonders, and i have to imagine he’s also wondering if he’s already joined their ranks, if he’s the haunting in a haunted house.

and connection brings him back and the houses are no longer empty, no longer waiting for a ghost to take resident in their hallways.

MAG159: THE LAST   (& martin’s journey in season four, generally)

we’ve all analyzed 159 within an inch of its life but i’m here to do it again, with the context of martin’s whole journey into the lonely. because the lonely turns people into ghosts. the lonely takes away humanity and life and leaves a hollow echo in its wake.

literally the powers lonely avatars have involve turning invisible. what else is often associated with invisibility? ghosts. checkmate. i’m running out of steam a bit but i swear these are good points i’m making. trust me.

what makes ghost stories so good is that even if the narrator is not a ghost themselves, just experiencing a ghost puts them at a fundamental disconnect from society. it’s something disbelieved by so many people. (there’s parallels to be made with mental illness here, but i... don’t really feel like making them right now. they’re definitely there, as is the very potent lonely-depression connection that made ep170 hit so hard for so many of us.) in hill house, the more eleanor is wrapped up in the goings-on of the house, the less she’s able to relate to the other people there. the closer martin becomes to the lonely, the less he’s able to talk to the people around him — he’s told not to talk to them by lukas, but he’s also just... unable to relate. their experiences are different than his, at this point.

nicole @brunetteauthorette99​ said something really good in our conversation about this, about ghosts “being stuck in... spaces that have moved on without them, reenacting their defining moments in life over and over again without the possibility of change.”

martin is stuck in the institute. he probably has an apartment, but we don’t see it, and i can’t imagine he as he is by season four has put much effort into decorating it or making it feel like a home. every place is impersonal — somewhere he exists without really living.

and the institute moves on without him. jon goes into the coffin and martin doesn’t know until he’s already in there. and martin can impact his environment only in small ways — leaving tape recorders on the coffin in an attempt to anchor jon home, leaving the tape of jon’s victim for melanie, basira, and daisy to find. he will not or cannot speak to or touch other living beings, just move objects around in a desperate attempt to get a message across, a ouija board of tapes and post-it notes. his moment of rejecting the lonely’s plans in 158 is dropping the knife peter has given him — another expression more through his interactions with his environment than any human connection.

martin says the lonely always had him, and with how much his story revolves around people who may as well be ghosts, that’s true. his father disappeared and left only the image martin had of him in his mind, only the echo he himself provided in the mirror, the ghost of someone who hurt him overlaid on his own reflection. his mother was only present so far as she could be malicious, disapproving; a vengeful ghost, taking out the revenging instinct she had for martin’s father on martin. and then everyone else martin cares about dies — sasha’s gone and not!sasha acts as her malicious echo for a while; tim dies; jon dies. and yeah, he comes back — but he’s different. a ghost of sorts. martin’s already pretty ghostly by then, too.

so martin is, essentially, a ghost throughout season four, and probably beforehand, as well. jon literally! asks martin! if he is a ghost! in season one! which brings us to 159: “are you real?” martin asks the first living person he’s really talked to in who-knows-how-long. because martin doesn’t feel real, so how could anyone else be? “nothing hurts here” may be a contradiction of the literal experience of ghosts we see in tma (gerry saying “it hurts, being like this”), but is a very real perception of ghosts in ghost mythology as beings beyond pain, beyond the suffering of being alive. sometimes they exist to cause others that suffering they can no longer feel, but a lot of the time, they’re just melancholy, having forgotten what it’s like to be a person or hanging on just enough to yearn to return to that feeling of life.

“i’m the reason he... i did this to him as much as you,” jon says. in ghost terms: martin died for him. of course his connection to jon, then, would be the only thing able to bring him back.

mag159 is an orpheus/eurydice story — people have made posts about that before, i’m sure, and i have too, how jon and martin invert the orpheus archetype by being saved rather than damned by the act of sight. and it feels obvious to state it, but for clarity: eurydice dies. orpheus, alive, tries to save eurydice from the underworld, where she is a spirit, a ghost, an echo of herself.

MAG170: RECOLLECTION   —   (SPOILER WARNING!)

this episode is the reason i’m making this post, but i may as well copy-and-paste the entire transcript for this section, because there is truly not a single part of it that doesn’t resonate as a ghost story. 

the lonely house as a malicious location. the chairs are all uncomfortable, the house is large enough that just by wandering it (as a ghost might) martin grows tired enough to sit in them regardless. the decorations are wrong — all the rooms are the same and martin doesn’t like it, said he doesn’t know “why i’d decorate my house like this.”

it isn’t a small house. there’s a reason a lot of ghost stories take place in twisting mansions where you can never quite find your way back to where you started. ghost stories thrive on that isolation, that loneliness — if you see a ghost while you’re alone, are you sure you’ll be believed? doesn’t that just isolate you further? architecture can twist around those within it until they’re trapped, doomed to haunt it themselves. “it's such a - such a big house, my house, there must be other people!” martin says. 

but the only others in the house are ghosts like martin. 

“hundreds, thousands of lost souls, wandering the halls. hollow memories, with eyes full of tears. i’ve seen them. they’re all trying to remember.” 

“i found someone else, wandering around. they were all thin and gray. faded. like they’d been here for ages.”

the ghosts cannot remember their names, why they are there, whether or not it is their house they exist in. they’ve become near-inseparable from the fog around them and the architecture that holds them hostage.

and the house itself, it takes all of that, and its quirks — the size, the chairs, the decorations, all of which martin openly does not like — are all made from the people haunting it. the house is wrong because the people within it can no longer change it. martin’s comment on the decorations sticks with me because it’s such a simple example of this: presumably, he could affect the house in some way in the past, but he no longer can, and he’s stuck with the results of his past mistakes, echoing over and over from room to room. the impacts remain even when the people have faded so far as to be practically nonexistent.

and once again: love is what makes him remember, over and over. he remembers jon, and then the lonely steals that memory — but the remembering is what’s important, because the act of loving anchors martin, and it helps him remember who he is, repeating his name over and over.

ghosts lack identity. whether it’s because they’ve been forgotten by all who knew them in life, whether it’s because it’s too painful to hold onto that when they can no longer do anything with it — we assign names to ghost stories, connect them to the living, but there’s always a disconnect there.

and that’s what helps jon find him, helps martin keep himself from fading out again. and even jon says “you were faint” upon finding martin. martin was a ghost haunting that house.

but not anymore.

the lonely is a ghost story. the lonely is about people who’ve become unmoored from human connection and their own identities, who haunt places, or who’ve been lured into places that are hauntings in and of themselves and have no choice but to take up residence as ghosts within those walls.

and ghost stories, often, are love stories. love keeps us tethered to life, and love is what saves people from the lonely, over and over again.

[notcrowfacts]

I Rate The TTRPG Shows I’ve Watched

Critical Role (53/114 cr1 & 97/99 cr2)

8/10

The og show. I love cr so very much. The pcs are always so wonderful and the crew plays them so convincingly. I wish I could DM like Matt Mercer my god. Genuinely such an entertaining show with a lovely cast. Also Laura Bailey exists so

-2 points for 4 hour episodes. -1 point for being PURE dnd with less overarching narrative. +1 point for a podcast option

Dimension 20 (all caught up on every season)

9.5/10

I’m gonna fight Brennan Lee Mulligan in a Denny’s parking lot. FUCK. This show is so good, it’s had me go from bawling my eyes out one second to hysterically laughing the next. The role-playing is excellent, the episodes are a more manageable length (1-2hours), and Brennan is also such an excellent DM. The cast is great, Ally, Lou, and Zac are so fucking funny, Emily is chaos in human form, Siobhan could murder me and I’d thank her, Murph SAYS he’s a good lawful boy but I see him play he can’t fool me.

-1 point for emotional damages. -.5 points for not being able to talk abt it with my friends bc you have to pay for dropout. +1 point for free trials and the amount of free content on YouTube.

NADDPod (100/100 main campaign 7/16 Trinyvale)

12/10

Genuinely I think this is my favorite dnd podcast. It’s truly so good. Murph is an excellent DM, his NPCs are amazing, his narrative is beautiful, it’s impossible not to fall in love with this campaign. It’s so funny while still having an ongoing theme of love, forgiveness, and mercy and it just makes you feel better after listening. The cast is also wonderful. Emily Axford exists and my heart goes 🥰🥰🥰. Jake is so funny and his portrayal of Hardwon was so GOOD. Caldwell is amazing and it’s real nice to see him get more comfortable dming trinyvale and see him live out his anime boy dreams through Beverly.

-3 points for dragon pussy. +5 points for moonshine cybin existing

The Adventure Zone (12/16 graduation caught up on everything else)

7.5/10

This and critical role seems to be everyone’s baby’s first dnd podcast. Balance was what got my into ttrpg shows in the first place so TAZ will always have a special place in my heart. That being said, I’ve sort of lost interest in graduation, Travis is a wonderful dm don’t get me wrong but I’m just not ~into~ it anymore. Still, Balance and Amnesty are wonderful, I adore those campaigns and I hope Graduation will grow on me too. I’m not giving up on this podcast yet!!

-5 points for Garfield related crimes. +1 point for the PCs. +1 point for Clint

Rusty Quill Gaming (all caught up)

9/10

Fuck me guys. This podcast has really done me a new one recently. The story is really wonderful, the PCs have my whole heart, and the cast is just really really great. There have been such wonderful portrayals of mental health struggles, the loss of a loved one, and just being real people who are complicated and trying their best. And STILL the podcast is really really funny!! They also do a bunch of specials using other systems (they do a bunch by Grant Howitt with Grant Howitt!). It’s just a good time all around. Rusty Quill is also the company that makes TMA so if you’re into horror you’d probably like it? Idk I don’t do spooks.

-3 points for Ben Meredith and his Grizzop related crimes -1 point for Pathfinder and it’s stupid rules -2 points for all the TMA crossovers +2 points because Alex is a monster (but we respect his craft) +3 points for Sasha, Azu, and Cel

Dungeons and Daddies (14/35)

8/10

I’m only partway through but I’m loving this show so far!! The cast is so funny and the premise in general is fucking genius. I can’t wait to see how these characters grow and become actually good fathers (god Ron and Henry are s o c l o s e). I’m in love with their kids and wives (blows a kiss to Samantha and Mercedes). I’m just super pumped to keep listening.

-3 points for child murder. -1 point for poor parenting. +2 points for Beth May

[odd-kid-42]

for the fic ask! 12, 13, 14, 28!!

Cool! I haven't done one of these before. Thank you for the ask! This got long, geesh.

12. favorite character to write this year

Ron and Willy, in different ways. With Ron, there is a development from "Kill Your Father Energy Drink" where I am enjoying the character and testing out writing short prompts on him, to "Alternative Worlds", which is honestly one large thesis on Ron and Willy's relationship.

With Willy, I was spoilered (because I tend to look into a show before putting energy into listening/watching lol) that he was the villian, so I enjoyed his general presence before ep 29 blew my socks off. Still, I was interested in him without fully getting him, and I wanted to get him. The first DnDads fic I published was on Stud & Willy from ATMoD because there was a delay between listening to the first ep and hearing the second and third back-to-back, so I genuinely thought Stud would use the “I have a kid at home” reasoning to snap out of insanity and live. But he didn’t, and I really enjoyed the ending while also feeling like “huh... Stud’s dream was the focus, not his kid”. And with that, I felt like “oh, I get Willy now”, and it progressed into me having Thoughts (tm) on the Stamplers tending to dreams > kids while also enjoying canonically how Willy tries so hard to be the villain to his own detriment. Combined with that sense that all of the events could have been prevented had Stud just stayed and gotten the typical “my adoptive kid is prone to violence and thinks toxic masculinity is going to be his brand, what do?” advice.

Kid Glenn was surprisingly my favorite character to write in "Day at the Park", and that enjoyment is translating over into writing “Teen” Glenn in “Alternate World”.

tldr; So, Ron and Willy, and Glenn is starting to grow on me.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

Most of the time I am walking somewhere and thinking about whatever WIP I have going on and get ideas from that to work on during the weekend, but when I am trying to crank out a chapter, I have a song on repeat that fits the tone to focus. Albums are if I am just starting and haven’t hit the writing jag of time blending together. The Antler’s “Hospice” is a go-to for heavy mood when I need to focus (fairly depressing album about unhealthy relationship), but I had a phase of getting into Idles’ “Joy as an Act of Resistance” and “Brutalism” as background for more action/upbeat things which is British leftist punk.

Since I like talking about “Alternate Worlds” and haven’t hit the point of sharing the playlist yet, Ron’s end section on chapter two and some of three was Flora Cash’s “You’re Somebody Else” on repeat as I typed; Henry’s chapter 4 was Current Joy’s “Alabama”; Darryl’s chapter 5 was The Dead South’s “In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company” and shifted into Idles’s “The Beachland Ballroom” (some cw religious trauma in songs) because it released and it got stuck in my head. Glenn’s chapter 7 was Godspeed! You Black Emperor’s “Storm” on repeat with some other songs.

14. fic you didn't expect to write

I didn’t think “Day at the Park” would be so long?? It started as a ‘haha what if Henry wasn’t lying when he said he was a wild child’ that then turned into ‘okay, so they’ll play tag, Willy as the scary OP character who tries to interrupt in parallel to canon will happen, fic ends’ turned into ‘actually Frank takes them to ice cream and it ends there’ turned into ‘okay, so Frank calls their moms and fic ends?’ turned into ‘okay, okay. Christine collects Glenn, Willy has an adult to direct his anger at, and Henry is happy despite his father; now can I end it? Okay? Everyone’s relatively happy? Yes.’ I don’t regret writing all of the details. Part of my summer just consisted of finishing it up.

28. longest fic read this year

Around spring of this year, I was listening to The Magnus Archive as they were approaching their finale and, as you do, was reading TMA fanfic on the bus ride to and from work. We should ride this wave to shore (163,580 words) was definitely one of my favorites, and also props to the author for writing a Mechanics album-adjacent/musical play for it? And the length for a group chat fic? And no one died? Dedication. Skill. Finess.

Thank you for tagging me!

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

it’s taken me a while but here we are!! listened to bloodwater ballad [TUMBLR | SOUNDCLOUD] by @gerrydelano so I’m gonna dive (ha, dive, get it?) into some analysis even tho I haven’t taken a proper English class since AP English Lit in high school and the god complex it gave me has never left (RIP to everyone else, but I’m different). But I do have a degree in Psychology and am a Researcher, so I know how to dissect things (this is probably why the god complex never left lmao)

disclaimer: I have only listened to TMA through one (1), read it ONE time, so if you read something that seems wrong it probably is because my memory is not The Best (the seasons are 40 eps long and 30 mins each, Jonny why) and I’m probably straight-up not remembering or misremembering some aspect or detail about either a character and/or their relationship

(and before you say it, i absolutely CANNOT just go relisten to an ep out of order. my nd brain Will Not Let Me until i have listened thru all 4 seasons, In Order, several times)

ALSO: i speak very definitively here, but it doesn’t mean i’m right abt my analysis

bold and italics are lyrics, regular font is analysis. if there’s a more accessible way to format this, lmk!

analysis under cut

honesty that's what she gave to me mary didn’t hide who she was; eric knew exactly what he was getting himself into

into the water i bleed into the sea sea motif/metaphor to describe how eric viewed his relationship with mary

truthfully even when she lied through her teeth it only meant she trusted me to lay at her feet rationalization from eric: he knows she’s lying, and she probably knows he knows. but she also knows that he won’t do anything about it

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i sink more of the sea metaphor in pieces in ribbons in tatters i'm thrown into the dark of the drink ribbons and tatters: reminiscent/hint of mary needing a piece of his skint to keep his ghost in the leitner

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i go blow the man down, he's a jewel for your crown (blow me down) and no one will ever know ”jewel for your crown”: suggestive of how mary used eric like an object. jewel and crown suggests that he was useful to her in an important way, tho, still an object ”no one will ever know”: suggestive that no one else, looking in on their relationship, would even see it for what it truly was, nor would they ever expect mary to throw him away so casually like she did

war, you see is somewhere you go just to bleed the end of a book you can’t read (books you cannot read) a legacy’s greed “book you can’t read”: suggestive of mary’s relationship with leitners ”a legacy’s greed”: commentary of leitner; bc this is eric telling his story tho, this could also be about how mary pulled eric into her plots regarding leitners, and then gerry

distantly, familiar hope came to me that even with blood in our teeth my son stayed asleep ”even with blood in our teeth”: eric knows what role he had to play in all this and is not absolving himself of blame ”my son stayed asleep”: often sleeping can be used as a metaphor for ignorance. in this case, eric is hoping that, despite what gerry’s mother is and what eric has been complicit in, will not affect his son i think it’s interesting to note here that the backup voices cut out for “my son stayed asleep” (put a pin in it)

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, i gave to my wife as the captain, the whip, and the brine, the shark lurking under the waves more of the sea metaphor; also a metaphor for how complicit eric was to mary’s will i think it’s super interesting that she’s the captain, whip, brine, and shark in this metaphor. all things that can hurt eric, as the ship. suggests that mary is in complete control of eric (as the captain). also adds to the notion that eric knew exactly who mary was and still loved her anyway (”i gave”).

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, she cracks the mast of my spine, spills my blood as her wine (lightning strikes and) i really like this line bc it makes me think of the marriage lines in corpse bride: “your cup will never empty, for i will be your wine.” and i love that it’s turned on its head here. cuts a flag from the skin off my back (takes all the skin off my back) a direct callback to the fact that mary has to take strips of eric’s skin to keep his ghost in the leitner book, while also staying with the metaphor that eric is a ship out at sea

way, ay, i wanted to say though blinded i still saw the light at the end of the hall, in a crib with his eyes almost grayer than mine in the night direct callback to eric blinding himself, twice! also represents how much he loves his son: “light of my life” is a common saying and gerry was that for eric

i gave up the sight of his face for his life and i would have lost more for the same i'd cut out my heart to save his from her bite and i almost don't know who to blame again, direct callback to him blinding himself so he could escape the institute a demonstration of how much love he holds for his son, willing to give up more and more of himself if it meant keeping his son safe heart motif! both for eric and gerry i really like the last line here bc he’s saying he doesn’t know who to blame for his blindness (aka cutting out his heart): himself or mary. bc, as i’ve stated before, eric knows who mary is. and he still loves her. still had a child with her. i also think it’s foreshadowing. and the reason i say this is bc, in the end, eric was unable to save gerry from mary. this song is representative of his statement to gertrude, so at this point, he’s a ghost. tho he may not know exactly what mary has done, he knows who she is enough to know that after he died, mary would raise gerry in her likeness, with her ideals

is it a murder if i made my bed by her side when i knew what she was? and here we have eric, most nearly explicitly, stating that he knew mary’s true colors. and loved her anyway. perhaps i'm complicit; i fell asleep first in the bloodcutting comfort of jaws this also solidifies his stance that he should shoulder some of the blame for allowing himself to love her when he knew what a truly terrible and deadly (literally) person she was ”bloodcutting comfort of jaws” is also really nice alliteration

forgive me, forgive me, i did try to swim with my hands and feet bound to my heart heart motif! okay so this one has so many layers for me: so, for all intents and purposes here, eric has effectively cut out his heart, which his hands and feet are bound to, and is now in the jaws of a shark (mary), who is dragging him down to kill him. he tried to save his son by getting away from the institute by blinding himself but it didn’t work weighted and anchored with love for my son who by birthright deserves more than scars legit, this confused me for a bit bc i always saw “with my hands and feet bound to my heart” as the anchor that pulled him down, as you’d weigh someone down with big rocks if you wanted them to drown. however, in the context of tma, i realized anchor could also mean the way martin is jon’s anchor. eric’s love for gerry was his reason--the person who he kept fighting for as best he could

additional note: these 4 verses are all sung without backup voices. i think it’s interesting that the lyrics/verses that revolve around wanting to save his son, and that are about his son, are sung with his singular voice. i wish i could articulate more what that means, but despite my best efforts, i’m not musically inclined even tho i’ll kinda be talking abt music composition for firesorrow girl lmao. link at the end

my eulogy the carpet red under my feet like standing on top of the sea (standing on the sea) the frenzy beneath don’t ask me why but i really like how this last part of the song starts with “my eulogy” bc you can tell the song is coming to a close now by that lyric. what’s really nice is i can “picture” eric closing his statement with gertrude with the request that she finds his son more sea and shark metaphors

infamy how do you remember me? that fool just so desperate to leave that he couldn't see? i also really loved these lines bc eric most likely knows how gertrude thought of him, and can probably sense how she feels of him now, after his story then i love how “couldn’t see” has a double-meaning here: 1) of course, he blinded himself but, 2) that he was also metaphorically blind to what kind of consequences his actions had, both on him and his son

oh, heave-ho a dead man has only one tale listen,,, i know i keep saying this, but i love how ron turns turn-of-phrases on their heads. bc “dead men tell no tales” right? eric has one tale, tho: his statement bc he’s a ghost who’s been bound this book and kept, for all intents and purpose, alive i knew she had hunger for blood in the water and that means it was no betrayal again, confirmation that eric knows that he has to shoulder some of the blame for the consequences of knowing who mary was (this bloodthirsty shark) and still loving her anyway

oh, heave-ho though, i have one request of you now if my son can be found and his own hands unbound (find my son) cut the rope - don't you dare let him drown (don’t you dare be the reason he drowns) so a throwback to “hands and feet bound to my heart” tho perhaps gerry’s heart isn’t what’s dragging him down, necessarily bc he was raised by mary, he didn’t have a choice. the moment he was born, he was tied to her. and the moment mary killed eric, there was no chance he could get away and then, of course, the gut-puncher: “don’t you dare let him drown”/“don’t your dare be the reason he drowns” are especially poignant, given gertrude uses gerry much in the same way mary did. gerry becomes bound to a different entity and is used for gertrude’s gain. so he drowns anyway.

--

alkjdlf i hope this is semi-coherent. i tried to do it more “professionally”--i even thought abt breaking it up and putting it back together, out of order, to address all the themes and motifs all in one spot--but then decided what would be best for my brain, was to listen to the song and just add my thoughts in as they came, stream of consciousness style *finger guns*

firesorrow girl analysis | meme i made for these analyses bc it’s funny and i wanted to share

[cary-atherton-art]

daaaaang, first Ron Koza stops watching CR, now you! ah well. what are you into these days, besides TMA? love your art regardless of fandom!

podcasts, mainly! i know most people know me for tma stuff but i also listen to stellar firma, the bright sessions, kane & feels, the penumbra (both second citadel and juno steel), also occasionally startripper

[lucifer-kane]

The listeners have to know! What TMA fear is Luca?

:00 MAN. Of all my ocs...... I never thought of one for Luca. Hm.

I don’t think what I wrote really makes him apart of the Vast, I think this was more of me getting things out. 

Really though, this one is hard, because it’s almost a perfect tie between The Lonely and The Vast. With the time he spent in the void, he was oh so lonely, even with the moments he had with Jack. But I think Vast might work better, because that is exactly what the Void is. It is Vast, neverending, and terrifying. Luca used to be fine with stuff like that. Wide open spaces? Open water? He didn’t like it but he wasn’t afraid. 

Not like he is anymore. He’s terrified of the wide open water of the lake, he doesn’t realize this until he’s actually out on it, a nice little fishing trip with Ron, it’s not until he’s back on land, Ron rubbing his back as he gets sick on the bank, that he realized he panicked in the boat, and that this was horrifying for him. 

But it fits him so well, yeah? He falls into that fear easily, when he got to King Falls, those first months? He was locked up in his own house and didn’t know why, but the new walls, an apartment filled with comforting things, it made him feel better. Outside? No thank you. 

So now, he’s still afraid of that openness, the farm is easy on him though, with animals everywhere, even on the vast terrain that is the land they have. That helps a bit. Ron’s bulk, Sammy’s comforting glances, Jack’s clinginess (that he also has towards Jack).

The little things help, but he’ll feed the fear every once in a while. 

[languor-em]

Jon: Pets a cat during a statement

Me:

[languor-em]

Me: *Becomes and Avatar of the Buried*

Also me: *Just starts dumping obscene amounts of dirt on people*

[languor-em]

MAG 80 TOOK ME BY THE FUCKING BALLS WHAT THE FUCK

[languor-em]

drawing clowns and listening to MAG 54

I love the supplementals at the end of episodes in season two,,, Jon is just losing his shit and it kind of cracks me up

[languor-em]

I wish to one day have the same energy as the guy in MAG 100 who just,,, walked out of the spiral??? Because he was late for dinner??? Oh my fucking god???

[languor-em]

I wish to one day have the same energy as the guy in MAG 100 who just,,, walked out of the spiral??? Because he was late for dinner??? Oh my fucking god???

[gerrydelano]

Would you be willing to recommend some songs you like?

OOF! this happens to be the magic password for the Empty Ron’s Brain Entirely Of Every Song He’s Ever Heard function in the database of my brain, but i’ll do my best!

anything by autoheart like literally anything there’s not a single song of theirs i don’t like, i don’t think. 

here’s an incomplete list of autoheart songs for tma characters it’s incomplete bc they have So many but i haven’t edited it fully.

two current most played are tucson and robbing banks, but i have too many faves to list i literally love ALL their songs.

overall FAVORITE band top rec never fails to make me bop and so so happysad. autoheart man take me home.

okay non autoheart:

LP is VERY good. faves include lost on you (live version BEST), no witness, muddy waters, tightrope, your town, and up against me

san fermin! songs i dig most are jackrabbit, asleep on the train, cairo, august, bride, open, no promises, and emily

make it easy on you by aron wright is killing me currently

state hospital by frightened rabbit

no one does it better, this is the first thing, and stay with me by you me at six

find a way by safetysuit

let me in by snowmine

ribs by the crane wives

dear fellow traveller by sea wolf (this one means a lot to me)

just listen to ren’s playlists everything on the jontim one is especially good tsp playlists by viv and parker (you don’t have to like tsp they’re just. good tunes and also easier for me to link than individual songs)

okay this is like, im starting to work myself up HAHA i have like 3.3k songs on my itunes i’m an animal and my brain just goes EMPTY when i get asked this i’m so sorry!!!! i hope you find something you like in there!