#take this qs you will

[ferretanon]

Late.

Oh also a doll close-up because I liked it

He looks like an icecream sammich 😋

[bee-sidebranch]

Three Stars Above Clouds, Attack NO. 19, Artfight 2024

@delta-orionis the Stargazerrr

So you have observed the Stars as well?"

"Yes, when the Lights in the City gave me a chance at least, my Recordings are a shadow of what you have preserved!"

"That's always been a problem, my city would shut them off during certain hours of the night so i could observe without the light pollution"

"That's rather considerate! Though it makes sense with your additional tasks"

"..."

"Say, what do you feel when you look at them?"

"Hm, curiosity i suppose? i've always loved catalouging constellations and dissecting the phenomena that occasionally occured above me! It's simply fascinating, the scale of it all"

"Hmm... i agree, it made me feel less alone i think"

[mercyisms]

hello anon and apologies for promptly dropping off of the face of the earth after promising to reply to this. in the interest of trying to be useful, i'm going to dash something off-the-cuff, but i hope it helps! i think this idea is already routinely demonstrable in the text, but tamsyn muir was also kind enough to explicitly spell some of this out in this lovely interview: "That said, the God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to." one of the ways this is dramatized in the text is, y'know, john shoving some of the earth's soul into a barbie. pygmalion the earth into perhaps the most iconic form of white femininity. it's a move that may be complicated by details such as a) john's indigeneity and b) the queerness implicated in john preferring barbie to any of his more 'masculine' toys, but there's a lot to interrogate here on how john's proximity to systemic oppression (across various lines) is retained and the ways in which they're replicated despite his intentions, or the ways they come through even when certain axes of oppression (gender, race) operate differently in the nine houses than on contemporary earth, or what john prioritizes above altering these systems. so on one hand, thinking about john's affinity to tall blondes might lead you there. however, because the 6ft tall blonde is not just alecto but is, in fact, an enduring role, now you can open up some more questions. for me, these questions might look like: what is the relationship between this role and john and john's empire?

the 6 ft tall blonde is always john's bodyguard. that's another key point of comparison. we may consider: when the bodyguard is alecto, she is stylized as a (to really simplify it) romantic counterpart in some ways; she is a caretaker (i'm quite sure there's a line in ntn about how john is unable to sleep unless alecto strokes the bridge of his nose or similar; possibly the only one granted access into the fact that john is afraid); she, based on what we have to go off of, trusting of and ultimately deferential to john's judgment prior to entombment. she is also stylized as a highly, and traditionally, feminine person (see: barbie), though alecto is repulsed by and in conflict with her body and gender presentation. and then you might consider augustine. at the urging of his lyctors, john entombs alecto. john identifies augustine as one of the lyctors most repulsed by and mistrusting of alecto. in her vacancy, the lyctors come into their roles as the emperor's fingers, and augustine, first saint, takes up a particularly key role. we might also note that augustine is staked out by the text as deeply gender ambiguous (g1deon and mercy, among others, are gendered without hesitation. the narration questions augustine's gender), but frequently pivots on misogyny. certainly, he accuses mercymorn of trying to become A.L. bodyguard 2.0 but in a way that a) suggests she is failing and b) while mercymorn and M-- both function as guardians and protecting figures to John, both come to the table with a different texture. augustine (exchanging 'your mom' jokes, etc., with john pre- dios apate minor) and A-- (thinking especially of how john remembers only A-- calling his new eyes 'cool') is also fulfilling a role for john that his other (remaining) lyctors are not. humanizing confidante, perhaps. he is not only a thousand year old friend but a caretaker for a slightly more fallible and human john. augustine also reaches a point where he can no longer support john. where john-as-emperor and the goals and demands of his empire diverge from what augustine sees as morally defensible. and so he's replaced. augustine and john wrestle. they reach an equal impasse. and ianthe -- rather than save her mentor and overthrow god -- chooses to sacrifice augustine and take up his place. of course, kiriona is also present and given some nicer titles, but by the end of nona (see: the tower besties little fight before the tomb is opened) we understand gideon is being used by john, while ianthe is the bodyguard proper, choosing what information to feed back to john (NO new updates on his duplicitous sluts, thanks!) and working very hard to keep john separate from alecto, in order to keep mr. gaius in a state that benefits ianthe and ianthe's goals. ianthe also has some wild and fucky (complimentary) gender shit that may also be fun to track. also, notably, ianthe is not of particular interest to john, who vastly prefers harrowhark. the strain of desire is possibly broken. so we don't just have, you know, a very fun enduring bit of the 6 ft blonde bodyguard, but we also have an interesting progression. we can see how this role evolves. john shaped alecto in one way, and had to set her aside. augustine allowed himself to be shaped by and used by john, up until a point. ianthe is the consequences of john's empires and the decisions or neglect that coalesced into the nine houses' politics and hierarchies, but we've reached a point where john is now (wittingly and unwittingly) in conflict with these hierarchies. the 6 ft tall blonde is not only a signal that certain hierarchies, roles, and systems persist in john's empire, but i think you could compellingly map out ianthe is the logical conclusion of said systems & that provides a really interesting context to read her actions & plots, both in conversation with alecto (and her shifting position) and augustine, but also with john. (and the 'rebrand' john is engaging in during nona, as he moves away from the neo-roman lyctors to tower princes & a flirtation with greater indigenous stylings, ex. 'kiriona' over 'gideon'.) anyway! i hope some of this helped. i know i'm not necessarily spelling out the entirety of my personal reading here, but i hope i've laid out some of the pertinent points of analyses and also some of the 'work' (points of comparison or characterization, etc.) that i think is happening wrt to our tall, tall blondes.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

hello; i just wanted to say i respect you immensely for the resources you publish on a daily basis. i'm sure you have your own motivations for doing so, but if it ever becomes hard for you to manage, please take some time to care for yourself and your health. you are far more important than i feel you give yourself credit for.

You are so sweet, dear Anon. No worries, though! About +90% of my posts on this blog are now queued. It seems like I'm always on here, but I'm not. Usually you can tell I'm here when I answer replies on posts, or messages like this. But sometimes these are queued too. Or is it.

[not-that-debonair]

Kicking off the new year with another aro songs uquiz:

Enjoy!!

[cicadaghost]

ERROR: INDEX_ID_OUT_OF_BOUNDS x43484950

INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL. TARGET ACQUIRED.

[mrs-mikko-rantanen]

I'm not sure how he does it, but within 2 days of me being upset about my complete and total lack of a love life and how sad I am about not having kids, my dad makes an off-handed comment about wanting grandkids.

[achilleasfury]

Qinyao👀

they're everything to me, sorry I dont make the rules

(theyre also aesthetically pleasing but i forgor to cross it whoops)

[cryptidfuckery]

Listen on one hand yeah, it can get annoying to have people learn you're a hairdresser and immediately start asking hair questions depending on how often it happens

On the other hand. When I see someone complaining about their hair and I know the fix, trying not to give unsolicited advice is like having to hang on to a stop sign to keep my great dane from dragging me down the street to jump on some random person who does NOT know me. Or the dog

[cemeterym]

even the accessibility person at my school said my doctor's full of shit

[vide0n4sty]

Is it "fuck demons, fuck ghosts" because they're too freaky or do you find them boring? And do you count the Cenobites as demons or more as they describe themselves, explorers in the realms of experience?

they're BORINGGGGGUH

i can't STAND anything to do with demons, because it's just like. this quick explanation for shitty behaviour, you know? like i can believe that people are shitty enough to do massive acts of violence on their own, that's what's freaky to me. i don't need a fucking DEMON to be responsible for it all. it's just so LAZY!! like give me something compelling!

ghosts is like. okay, they're fine, cus that's still humans at the end of the day, but i also just don't believe a ghost would do that! i like ghosts in the haunt the narrative sense, not like. extension of my issues with demons. then it's just tired and boring NEXT!!

i like hellraiser because it's a freaky fetish movie, and i just ignore the fact that they're demons. and like in the OG movie, the humans are the ones who are fucked up, the cenobites are just like "damn this guy is fucked, let's take him to hell for being so fucked"

i like horror with realism to it, and if it's like. an entity fucking with the narrative, make it unknowable like in videodrome. and even with demons, do a TWIN PEAKS! the demon is "the evil that men do", is it the demon fucking shit up, or was it the evil that we're all capable of?

make it INTERESTING!!!

[touchlikethesun]

also had lunch with the bestie today and we did some hq favs questions (even tho... we could have probably answered every q for the other alr) just for fun and bc we're seeing the movie tomorrow (!!!!!) and when we got to the favourite setter question she was all like "it's akaashi for you isn't it" and i was literally nodding and about to agree before i was overcome with horror because has akaashi somehow managed to dethrone kags????? has akaashi usurped my literal son?????

it sent me into a mini crisis in public ngl because... that's my child and my darling i've never pitted them against each other before and now here i was having to pick a fav - literally impossible impossible

in the end i decided kags is still my favourite setter bc in terms of ability and technique, kageyama tobio is unparalleled. but i made that decision purely based on ability and game performance not on anything else i could never truly choose between them never ever

[randomuzerthelozer]

Do you ever make a full on essay post about something happening that proves a point you had, but then you realise you miss read the post you got the orignal info from and basically your full entire point falls apart(EVEN THOGUHT YOU CAN CLEALRY TELL YOUR ON THE RIGHT TRACK)

(IF YOU WANT TO SEE MY POINTS INA SAMLLER WAY GO INTO THE TAGS I WENT INSANE BRO)

[theloveinc]

I think that it is brave of you to get a diagnosis and accept it. You are doing a great job in helping future you live a happier life! Keep up the great work!

not diagnosed yet as my regular doctor is on vacation / my official assessment isn’t for a few weeks and could end up revealing something else, but this is a very kind reminder and thing to say, to me and anyone else who needs it… thank you so much!!💕❣️💕

[tatteredgod]

not me having procrastinated this v important job app on this job i kinda want til the last day to submit and its already after 5pm!! and i spent 3 hrs slowly updating my cv :))) i have barely touched the job app itself

[jamestaylorswift]

NEED you to elaborate on the Thing please

Yes! The Thing!! If you have thoughts about The Thing, anon, I’d love to hear them.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what to properly call The Thing other than like…at times a cross between and at times just a drone and an ostinato and just background voicings? And mix in the functional opposite of pedaling? A more technical name, if it exists, is escaping me and a few google searches have not helped me figure out if such a term was ever in my brain. I will continue to call it The Thing until I figure it out.

The best way I can illustrate The Thing is *puts on my tiktoker voice* okay so you know the thing where a song is in (let’s say) the key of G and then there’s just this one synth that’s playing G constantly and oh look here it’s in another song too, just this one instrument playing the root, oh and in this song it’s doing a little boop boop boop but it’s still just a (let’s say) G major triad, oh and here we have it in THIS song too, you can hear the melody changing and the chords changing kind of around it but it’s jUst the ROOT rIGht There and it never stops and it never changes and oh my god watch out it’s even in this song because you see while these notes are being arpeggiated they’re just the notes of the first chord and the chord being arpeggiated doesn’t change even though there is a chord progression to different chords do you see what I’m saying??? guys I think this means something

Before I go on I should emphasize that Jack Antonoff is neither the only nor first artist to use The Thing or write songs that sound like This (“This,” of course, being the technical term for songs employing The Thing). I don’t think he or The Thing are “the problem” with (popular) music. It’s not like this is even a particularly new development in his music—I’d argue that it appeared at least 4-5 years ago if not earlier. And it’s hard for me to tell the extent to which The Thing is contributing to the rise in Jack Antonoff haterism of the past half decade. The reason I bring it up is that being cognizant of The Thing is different than being floored by its absolute overuse/oversaturation/overreliance (take your pick and then soften it a little) on the Bleachers self titled album. The latter I was last month. The Thing is not bad, it just is. That’s all.

Honestly one of the reasons I was so surprised when hearing Bleachers is that it really cemented how important understanding the context of The Thing is for identifying The Thing itself. I almost think it’s more obvious that Jack is using The Thing when the part that’s playing it is not as front-and-center. If said part is front-and-center then it’s given extreme musical importance. However, the Thing is important as an additive feature, and it’s rarely the main idea. Textural complexity is often subtle and so is The Thing. Similarly, The Thing is useful rhythmically when it’s repetitive and harmonically when it’s static. It’s the marriage of these three features that identify The Thing and that give The Thing value.

Here is an “annotated bibliography,” if you will, of examples of recent Jack Antonoff songs that employ The Thing. Note that this is a biased sample from songs I know/like/listen to enough to have them paged into my memory for constructing this argument. I did not do a comprehensive deep dive of Jack’s recent projects to come up with this list. Don’t take this as a timeline of The Thing’s existence. Also, this is highly subjective and there can be overlap between these categories. IMO they all kind of count as The Thing but I’m breaking it up for the purpose of illustration. You know how it is...

The “obvious use of The Thing” category:

“I Am Right On Time” (Bleachers) - good example of many The Thing and The Thing-adjacent parts! The gist of the song is a medium-high tempo song that steadily builds up. Part of the way Jack achieves this is by having a single electric guitar strum the same chord on 2 and 4 to create a backbeat. There’s also the ostinato (staccato synth rhythm on beats 2, 3, and 4) and single note (also just a single synth) that you can hear in the first and second verses and then continuing as the song builds to the end. All are very clearly establishing the key of the song and remaining at that center while the melody and chords change.

“Self Respect” (Bleachers) - in this category because of the large number of The Thing things. At very least, I’m counting the arpeggiated chord and the syncopated piano rhythm as appearances of The Thing. This song has the same ethos of “I Am Right On Time,” excitement built as the song becomes more musically busy. The Thing helps in that endeavor by contributing thickness, again mostly texturally and rhythmically, to the song.

“Me Before You” (Bleachers) - most notable instance of The Thing/its beginning in this song is that syncopated synth rhythm that starts at the beginning of the first verse and plays throughout the rest of the majority of the song. I put this song in this category, as opposed to the third, because I think this is a good example of the most basic/simple form of The Thing. At its core, The Thing is just playing around with how much of the root can be folded in to a song without crossing the threshold of making it sound “boring” or static or like something you’ve heard before. This part is just playing the same rhythm on one note. Because there’s not as much dynamic excitement/variation in this song, The Thing does less legwork than in other songs. But you can see how this could be the logical beginning for overreliance on The Thing.

“Isimo” (Bleachers) - Same explanation as above. The hemiola rhythm is just played over and over on the root. To me this part seems to be working pretty equally for rhythm, harmony, and texture.

The “eh, you could argue either way” category:

“Alma Mater” (Bleachers) - In the last minute or so there’s a lilting sax part that’s mostly there for textural/rhythmic purposes. Nonetheless, I think it’s a little ditty in the spirit of The Thing.

“Tiny Moves” (Bleachers) - This one is tricky and, in my opinion, easier to argue against. The main synth part (quarter notes of the 2-3 notes clustered around the root) is particularly salient as not clearly The Thing but clearly Thing-adjacent. The part is rhythmic, of course, but also plays a fairly important harmonic part in establishing the key center and keeping it relevant at all times. It has enough slight variation to make the song fun in a quirky way.

“The 1975” (The 1975) - Included because it’s very similar in spirit to “Tiny Moves.” Again, the quasi-randomness in this song makes it interesting and effective. Whether you like it or not, it is, at the very least, Thing-adjacent.

“91” (Bleachers) - The Point of this song is that repeated cello ostinato. Of course it doesn’t move. That’s The Point. That’s…The Thing, if you will.

“Question…?” (Taylor Swift) - Syn-co. Pa-ted. Synth-sound. Same-notes. The-Thing. Or-not. It-could. Just-be. The-synth. That-comps. The-chords. Your-choice.

The “The Thing, but more so its ontological beginning” category:

“Free” (Florence + The Machine) - all I can say is: B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B (break for the bridge and Florence’s ethereal vocals) B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B

“Looking For Somebody (To Love)” (The 1975) - all I can say is: A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A (break for the bridge - at this point I should acknowledge that it’s not like this the whole time and, yes, the bass very much matters and there is a “stronger/more obvious” chord progression in this song than “Free”) A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

“Anti-Hero” (Taylor Swift) - all I can say is: E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E (okay you get the picture, also in this song there is a bit more variation from seminal The Thing because other synth parts are loudly playing other notes in the chord progression)

“The Archer” (Taylor Swift) - good song! Don’t you love how much C there is? Don’t you?! But that’s what helps make it work so well, in case that wasn’t clear. Oh there’s some variation too. But… C *hold for 3 minutes*

“mirrorball” (Taylor Swift) - another good example of the beginning of The Thing. The reason this song feels so “hazy” is that one of the guitars is just constantly playing the root chord, and any dissonance these chords’ individual notes’ dissonance have with other chords’ notes starts to melt away as you just get more entrenched in the first mode. (That is, it’s literally just vibes.) You can draw a very clear through-line between this sound and the next 3 years of Jack’s work.

IMO the reason The Thing is is not a vocally disliked part Jack Antonoff’s production style or music is that it’s hard to get your generic-enjoyer-of-western-pop-music to truly dislike songs that are so very drenched in “the ionian mode” or “the key” or whatever you want sum it up as. (Myself included—I hate neither Jack’s music nor The Thing.) If you’re playing a pop song only in the key of G then the more G you add, usually the better. The more D you add, often the better. The more B you add, yeah, sometimes-to-often the better. We—our ears and brains—have been trained to love and crave a certain amount that sameness, that root-iness, “the 1” (iykyk 🤪). Artists can, should, do evolve—and Jack has...and still, I don’t see people naming The Thing as what they hate about his music. Until twitter randos’ criticism becomes just slightly more targeted/technical I’m inclined to believe it is truly just nebulous haterism instead of, for example, constructive feedback about his style. I digress.

(If you’re wondering, my hypothesis for The Thing’s rise in prevalence over the last few years is to attribute it to the coincidental rise of whisper-y girl bedroom pop plus a subconscious sonic backlash to the pop music that dominated the late 2010s, specifically 2017-2018. In fairness, I don’t listen to a lot of either of those things so I don’t have good evidence off the top of my head for this theory. But, like, I’m sure Ed Sheeran has used The Thing too. Just a hypothesis, ya know.)

Here’s a far more fascinating line of inquiry that I’m trying to explore (still not sure what my answer is though): Can The Thing’s relevance, of course related to its artistic usefulness/ubiquity but also specifically Jack’s prominence in pop music, potentially be understood through the lens of an aesthetic?

To argue that The Thing has aesthetic value would be to argue that its virtues of textural, rhythmic, and harmonic complexity are more highly prized than the music produced avoiding/excluding that. Do we truly value the sensory experiences of being bathed in a singular note, a singular chord? Do we like that more than when we feel pulled in a strong current of a harmonic cadence? It’s clear we like The Thing because we’re nowhere close to, for instance, rioting at its very appearance like crowds did when they heard the dissonance of Shostakovich’s “The Rite of Spring.” But how much do we really love The Thing? Do we value it only because it’s highly available—Jack Antonoff still being a preeminent purveyor of pop music—and because we perceive few ways to escape his sonic influence? How much do we account for the fact that he did not invent The Thing? If we truly do love The Thing, when did this came about, originally and recently? Why would we truly love The Thing?

A final digression: I do think the shift towards use of The Thing this should be a credit to Jack. Over the last half decade, Jack has shown more restraint from a textural and dynamic point of view and been able to exercise that restraint to create warmer and more complex soundscapes. That kind of restraint helps “the softs seem softer and the louds seem louder.” It’s given us fan favorite songs like “august.” Whether this shift towards textural complexity more fully proxying for dynamic complexity is truly at the expense of, for example, more interesting harmonic complexity—well, maybe. The Thing need not imply such a zero sum game, though perhaps the data is skewed in favor of that conclusion right now. However, credit for artistic growth does not mean that growth should stop. It’s important to try out new ideas. Would the audience truly being sick of The Thing be a catalyst for another shift in Jack’s style? Only time will tell.

I’m not trying to turn this post into a referendum on whether Jack Antonoff’s music is good. The reason I point out The Thing as part of the current period of Jack’s style/work is that it is quite different than what he initially gained prominence for. Whether this shift means "good" or "bad" resulting music is purely opinion (mine is in favor of "good"). But above all I think we should value when artists change because they find something new exciting and fruitful.

If you asked someone, gun to their head, to describe Jack Antonoff’s “sound,” I’m not sure they would mention The Thing. He got famous for stuff like big drums, 80s synths, huge chord progressions for epic songs. He loves the 1-4-6-4 so much, is what I’d say if I had this gun to my head. His earlier work is very “I am going to make it obvious which chords you’re hearing, and when I pair that with some epic drums it’s going to sound cool.” Now, the chord changes are more “implied” (termed loosely). The tradeoffs he’s explored is that the more The Thing he uses, the more significant the choice of the degree to which to fill out the chord progression; the more the literal volume of the lowest bass notes matter; the more selective, sometimes, he has to be with adding percussion. Encountering and grappling with these tradeoffs is not bad. Jack Antonoff has made different music because he’s explored these tradeoffs. I, for one, find it funny that people say in the last decade he hasn’t grown or changed at all as an artist.