#song will REGULARLY change !!

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

A totally random compilation

("Knockout" can mean an extremely attractive person for those who don't get it)

(Honestly, just pretend I uploaded the entire segment the following screencap is from):

(For context, in the segment where the screenshot below is from, Nickelwise is trying to scare Dot by using her vanity against her, claiming that "cuteness fades"):

(Like with The Cutening, pretend I uploaded this entire segment):

(She literally says "Alright Dot, kill her with cuteness" here):

(And this is a direct reference to the Animaniacs Sega Genesis game where she uses her cuteness/heart projectiles as an attack):

[activatebutterflyshield]

More of me running my mouth about music as inspiration except this time its just Dear Wormwood

Prelude. Prelude. PRELUDE. This is probably just a music nerd thing but its so perfect. Despite my horrible understanding of music theory, a prelude is usually the first piece of music that is meant to represent the succeeding and usually longer movements in a single work, but they could also stand alone. The Prelude to Dear Wormwood works as both. It starts out quiet before building up with just absolutely amazing wordless vocals and its just so great folks. Its a summary of the whole album in a minute and nine seconds its amazing folks

Okay Bitter Water. The first time I heard this one I thought oh, its a metaphor for alcoholism. Yes, it can be a metaphor for alcoholism, but it is also so much more. In the broader context of Dear Wormwood its an acknowledgement of how bad a relationship is and that the singer, the victim, feels like they can never escape it, but it can be so much more folks. It can be a about a love lost, with the one who lost the love pining and wasting away without their soulmate. Said soulmate could be a part of the griever themself. It can be so much. Its also a banger but thats a given for the whole album. “terrible fire of old regret is honey on my tongue” is also eternally amazing this whole thing is poetry mates

There Beneath. Calm and flowy and existential kind of but I make a lot of things existential and where were we? But also the line “I saw the morning lead a cavalcade” is bloody amazing. Its such a great and poetic way to describe the breaking dawn, the rising sun, the beginning of a new day and so many other things mates its amazing. Like a veteran adventurer recalling the times when their friends got them out of hard scrapes or something idk

In the Blue Hours of the Morning. It’s a nice waypoint, a chance to catch your breath before the next song which I will go off about but this bit is really just like its title. The time before the cavalcade, when theres still enough light to see by yet its so calm and still and not quite awake yet

Exeunt, which is. It is. Well, exactly what it says on the tin, an exeunt, which is a stage direction for when an actor goes off stage, but its also the most poetry ever. Everyone loves “Fluttering your lashes like ashes and ember” and rightfully so but everything in that song is so bloody strong. “Crocodile eyes I have seen how you hunger”???? “No I cannot trust what you say when youre grieving”????? Like its such a powerful song with all the musicians going ham on the everything and then the lyrics and then the context? Its great its just great

Caesar. A calm follow-up to the headbanger that is Exeunt, but its no less amazing. Im just drowning in symbolism for this one mates. Not only is the morning back and breaking over a palisade but also historical references!?! The backlogs of random anecdotes and stories are tickled awake by the “Look to the sky where the sign will be shown” bit so much like it aint even funny. Its a reference to Constantine the Great, who saw the symbol of the Chi Rho and went on to become roman emperor with it painted on his shields and its so much potential in just three stanzas

This Will End. Fellows this one just hurts. Its so bloody sad and yet such a strangely jaunty tune like the singer has just accepted their sad life and Im always like no! It can get better! You just gotta try a bit! Mates! Im bleeding out!

Pale White Horse. Ohhhhhhhhhh I can get so deep about Pale White Horse but so much of it is about WWI and the Spanish Flu Epidemic and other stuff I do not care to dredge from the depths of my historical brain fluids but its so great as a thing about war and trauma and abuse and so much other stuff just like recognizing someone doing something terrible and that can be either interpreted as oh thats conformation that they were always terrible or oh goodness thats not possible why no why are you like this you are not like this right and there’s no in between. And both hurt!

Where Is Your Rider. Enough metaphors to fill a graveyard (hey Crane Wives fans. Hey. Did you get it? Eh? Idk I thought it was funny) and then some but also oooooh the lines just go so hard sometimes. “But these bones never rested while living / So how can they stand to languish in repose”???????? Like mate youre dead but youre still going to push on and keep on fighting mates it hurts it hurts too much there are too many characters and situations and just stray thoughts I can peg to these two lines alone help

Soldier, Poet, King. Need I say more? Yes, I need to say more. Everyone above and below knows how bloody legendary this song is but take this as a sign to listen to it again. Its just that good. Someone once tired and broken who has found support and is coming back to finish the job they couldnt finish on their own is just oooooooooooooogh mates. Also funny ha ha DND party. Two sides of the same polyhedral dice. Probably a d100 with all the nonsense I can drag out of it at this point.

Dear Wormwood. The album namer. UGH I cannot get enough of this one. Just some of the lines in this one mates. “And in my hour of weakness / You were there to see me fail”???????? “I know who I am now / I know who I wanna be / I wanna be more than / That devil inside of me”??????????????????? Its just so perfect and so amazing and it gives you a warn hug and it punches you in the gut and it helps you up and gives you hot tea and the works mates its just so great

Danse Macabre. One last instrumental. A Danse Macabre was usually a piece of art with people dancing next to skeletons, representing the inevitability of death and the equality in the grave and so many other sad and mopey things but also its just such a fun jig. It really does feel like a bunch of spooky scary skeletons jamming on their graves. And that’s a one liner I never thought Id need to write.

Thus Always to Tyrants. Bloody hell this is the perfect ending song. The singer immediately starting off with “Let me die, let me drown, leave my bones in the ground”, proclaiming themselves free of the worries and pains they started the album with, singing as the blazing sun rises that yes, they are, if not happy now, then at least better now, and that anyone who threatens that will face the new and improved them is just ooooooogh. Mates. If theres one song you need to listen to if you somehow made it to the end of this thingie without also being obsessed with the Oh Hellos, its Thus Always to Tyrants. But please listen to the whole of Dear Wormwood first. It makes the impact so much better.

[starbuck]

what are those things on ur banner :o

They’re plums!

I’ve had plums as my banner for over two years now and I change the pictures out seasonally (though I’ve had this one up since spring because I really like the colors… winter plums coming soon, though).

I like plums to eat, but they’re my banner photo because, over the summer of 2022, I was obsessed with the song Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums by The Mountain Goats. I still think it’s a great song and, at this point, I can’t imagine my banner as anything BUT plums, so they’re here to stay!

Thank you for asking!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

among the boundless billions zaniness like laugh track as it definitely has that moment of expressing "rolling my eyes as The Left makes a kerfuffle of Acting like they have a stance as a veneer over the true belief that [xyz] is cool & chill actually" like what, approximate 0.000% chance wendy isn't, as usual, given the Objective Stance of "yeah yeah ohh we are cancelling involved parties talking about how we Don't watch this But. we all love this damn epic movie & already have it memorized so shut the fuck up, kids today" like. don't wanna really delve into how much billions thinks taylor or anyone is "really" trans / nonbinary like not too much benefit of the doubt in this material including what does provide info abt that specifically

& the general like [head in hands. what do you think any of this could possibly be about (you're the one that made your show at all about Power)] of "yes, it's bad/wrong to be someone that someone has done something to / victim of something" like that to be anti misogyny All Women Must Be Epic Winners b/c there's something to be proved: that they don't Deserve to be victims (of misogyny), not taken as a Given. while when we see some epic winner men stepping on other men (who need not all be guaranteed Winners so as to say misogyny is wrong), that's often Good, well beyond any assumption that various forms of basic disrespect / violation / patterns of emergent/entrenched power difference as Bad (for being things done to people, not for there being people they're being done to), & generally billions has to take an extra step when ppl get shitted on & tell us the Specific Cases when it was undeserved actually & someone was being mean to a specific person who didn't deserve that. & the specific cases when hey guess it wasn't that bad(tm) or when hey It's Okay that you're someone something was done to, in this case. & tell us what we were supposed to know all along like when someone who something was being done to (wrong Of Them, whether b/c they inherently deserve it no matter what, &/or b/c they failed to be someone who could make it Impossible to do anything to them, which, how do you do that besides being The Authority / Superior yourself, exactly? nonrhetorically? what if the in group vs out group / fascism / authoritarianism protected Me?) was actually being treated Too Well b/c ah well the abuse meant you were getting any attention, maybe it meant you were claimed as any superior's property, maybe it meant you weren't Already disposed of, as all Losers were in the end, You're Welcome.

obviously referring to winston where it's spelled out all the abuse towards him was deserved, & More than he deserved in the case of rian having more access & taking advantage of that, all for billions' enjoying its own sendoff there of, again, maximizing violation & violence short of [real violence is physical & leaves bruises / draws blood / Literally kills] which would be distasteful in general But doesn't it make wags look like the winner & winston the loser is that the former's completely unrelated completely impersonal ego blow gets way amplified taken out on winston, the most vulnerable recurring character when spyros as [first & ultimate Everyone Hates Him role] is more entrenched in there & billions still magnanimously pities tuk, as it does winston too, just not quite as much. again that like completely surface level realized power fantasy of forcing the mirror up to the Inferior so they're like nooo my inferiorityyyy & in doing so like, the projection in that lmao, we get it re: the valuing of & need(tm) for such Power Tripping & Reaffirming My Superiority & My Ego Restored; Everyone Claps like good god. & then for all ben & tuk are the slightly softer Two Too Nice Boys duo to the rian & winston quant duo, also like too nice i guess but not as much, ben is in charge of tuk but Any instance of rian being in charge of winston outstrips them in that "yay interpersonal abuse" dynamic, like then in the end billions may be like "yeah it's possible to be mean to them unlike how being mean to winston is actually Nice b/c he deserves everything he gets, we only vicariously enjoy it vs Feeling Bad for tuk & ben sometimes (still magnanimously & it's Not That Bad / just goofin)" like ben & tuk still Fail by not being people it's impossible to do anything to. & not Exceptions who anyone is really being Too Mean to. like if they were women, in which case, no problem surely with a "positive" kind of victim blaming where there is something Inherent that Will be victimized so hey how about to cancel that out there's this special Paternal Protection you Need always, Or Else? :) but instead they are men who are asian & is ben gay & w/tuk & winston nobody mentions glasses or fatness but billions doesn't really do much or very in depth textual mentioning of Anything, even w/nonzero mention that there may be gender & race in this world. a gay man, once. no disability. we just Know who are the inferiors who deserve it when they're treated inferiorly, or if they don't, they start deserving it when they fail to stop/avoid it, but if you start mentioning the factors behind who we all totally agree is inferior like whoa nobody was Saying any of that? being the real agent of oppression on the basis of the factors only You spelled out, much? nonbinary? i never say anything about the Gender Binary when i'm subscribing to it, sounds like You've created & enforced it. obfuscation & deflection onto [so Just Normal nobody has to label, explain, or argue it] couldn't serve a purpose & protect the existing power differences as they are. maybe You're the problem? perhaps you brought it upon yourself & now you're causing too much trouble standing up for yourself while everyone else's criticism is laser focused on you as the prior & continuing negative actions done to you are taken as a given / unquestioned / covertly protected to overtly encouraged?

anyway so wild if the Completely Normal(tm) Victim Blaming is uncritically recreated & oft embraced for "if you're watching this & don't wish you were axe / find him appealing" [billions as a sequence of vicarious power trips] purposes in this series....but a bit wild considering like this is your multiseason show that wasn't just purporting to be those power trips for [enough demographic & apparently specific personal tastes overlap w/creators] & was at all purporting to question the matters of power at play in the material, or yknow, at least to not be completely superficial material while said material is textually & thematically all about power difference being leveraged, how, the consequences, & so on. thus i will have to intermittently talk about it forever like this like lord unbelievable. & the funny little & sometimes less funny less little characters it has trapped in there so that those of us who were never meant to be in the audience can be cursed with this knowledge. like i have some feedback. "imagine not victim blaming" & "imagine adjusting your perspective can go beyond superficial layers added to politely defer to some other ppl while they're present but really like cmon do they deserve that. am i not just saying what we're allll thinking"

[isekyaaa]

when you say you like robot characters, what's the range? like, do you like 100% robot characters or humans that replace parts to become humans (cyborg) or humans that transfer their consciousness into a robot or...? 👀👀 -- @milkstore

(tbh idk the whole range of robot characters. it feels like the possibilities are endless. if this is an ask too difficult to answer feel free to just ignore it lol)

When I say “robot characters,” I mean 100% robots. Cyborgs or robots that have some kind of human component like a transferred consciousness is a no for me. There’s just something fascinating about a being that, by all normal means, should not have the capacity for love somehow learn to love and love deeply? Thats soooo good.

I always always love the concept of love. Love is like a drip of water. In the moment, it does nothing, but over time, it can carve canyons. This concept is one thing that I adore seeing utilized in robot stories. Like the love of a creator or the love of a child and it just… creating color and warmth within a web of ones and zeroes.

I think it’s even more interesting for cases like Svarog. He is very cold and logical. He will only do things if they follow the laws of his logic. These rules are so strong that he won’t hesitate turn down Clara’s requests, even when faced with her tears. And yet… and yet… there still is love. He still readily and willingly protects this little girl. Svarog isn’t a human wearing a metal exterior. He is still a undeniably a robot. And yet he still loves.

[rillette]

I listened to your Hal playlist all the time for a while last year and I think it permanently altered my music taste because it hasn't been the same since, so like... Idk thanks, I guess

Teehee, the power of 70s/80s dad music and barbie girl by aqua <3

[llitchilitchi]

15 and 23?

15 :A song that is a cover by another artist

does this count?

23: A song that you think everybody should listen to

Dusk at the Market, though the entire Oblivion soundtrack is gorgeous

[tendebill]

MY AUTISTIC ASS CANNOT COPE WITH THIS. WHY DOES MY ORDINARY LIFE BY THE LIVING TOMBSTONE ON SPOTIFY SOUND WEIRD ALL OF A SUDDEN AND WHEN WILL I RECIEVE FINANCIAL COMPENSATION FOR THE PSYCHIC DAMAGE I GOT FROM THIS CHANGE

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 209

Adjective: Voracious

Noun: Churchyard

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Voracious: wanting or devouring great quantities of food; having a very eager approach to an activity

Churchyard: an enclosed area surrounding a church, especially as used for burials

[jeanmoreaux]

hear me out; where did you get the code for that corner drop-down on your blog?

i got is from one of this posts, but idk if the code is still up tbh. there are some other posts with code for updates tabs i reblogged a couple of years ago you can check out here. hope this helps!

[ailinu]

aw man, nothing makes you want to have a casually-playable instrument on hand like hearing someone else with one, huh

[macroglossus]

That hozier song is nfwmb

absolutely in shambles because i looked it up on youtube and it turns out the version i had in mind was the pitched up version that i listened to at least a thousand times on repeat in jr yr of high school. id come home from school and sit in my room in the dark and loop it over and over and over and over and over. and i know what hozier sounds like and i know this is a hozier song and i know he doesnt sound like that but for some reason i just, you know, canonized it. that was the Right Version. and i did not think about it further until i looked it up, i looked up the song, and i thought to myself in full earnestness, "this is wrong. someone pitched this song down. why would they do that?"

anyway. here's the link . still fucks

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

[osmanthusoolong]

Being deliberately vague here, but: it’s not uncommon that I (trans, tme, perisex), am assumed to be tma by medical professionals for a few reasons (if you know me well enough, you know those, if you don’t, too bad). It happens semi-regularly enough that it’s a thing I have internal scripts for (“for _, yeah the surgery was _” “oh I see”) and after that, we can get to whatever the topic is about. Until we do that little song and dance, there’s a change visible like a sudden barometric drop for a minute. Smiles vanish, not so subtle staring at various parts, a little more suspicious about whatever my complaint is.

The difference, crucially, is that it fucking stops immediately after the quick explanation and the smile returns and I’m a person again. It’s chilling, terrifying and a precarious feeling, but it’s also a temporary one with a clear out. And there’s people who act like being unable to escape that pressure drop is totally the same as being mistakenly experiencing it for 30 seconds. Or that it’s limited to occasional interpersonal unpleasantness and not like, an entire system being set up against you if one is part of the group you’re occasionally briefly mistaken for.

[autumnrory]

why do swifties have to be like "just to be clear i'm joking!!!" like why can't you be disappointed in a decision taylor makes without it being a big deal

[david-watts]

favorite song atm?

it's probably catch me now I'm falling by the kinks but the live version recorded in 1979 off of one for the road. the live version just has that edge to it. probably should mention open my eyes by nazz, itchycoo park by the small faces, I'm just a singer (in a rock and roll band) by the moody blues and the everpresent early morning wake up call by flash and the pan are songs I've been listening to a lot, but wouldn't consider my outright favourite