(this started as me appreciating tndnbtg and then became an analysis on the refrain that comes up in both tndnbtg and euclid because of course it did)
while i'm here, could we also talk about how sonically beautiful the night does not belong to god is? i've been re-listening to all of sleep token's music this past week and i am still as enchanted with tndnbtg as i was when i first heard it.
the song creates an entire sonic landscape. the beginning electric piano builds and bleeds to create the atmosphere of the song, sounding like the feeling of looking over a cliff into the inky blackness of the night sky and seeing the first few stars start to peek through. it's the moment of breathtaking wonder at the sublime, the realization that you are so small and seemingly insignificant underneath the largeness of the night sky.
the piano's repetition continues to build, marked by the addition of the bass notes to continue laying out the scenery. the high notes twinkle as if beckoning you further into the night while the low notes, sure and constant, envelop you in the certainty of the dark. it's almost foreboding in some ways with how hypnotic it sounds, like it is the sweet promises from Sleep whispered to you directly.
all of this is before vessel's voice comes over the gorgeous instrumental. his voice isn't declarative, and neither are the lyrics he sings; he's not screaming this into the blackness of space, it's almost a whisper, a caress, an invitation to the listener to put down their defences as "the night comes down like heaven." note the parallelism to euclid here with euclid taking this one step further to say "if your wings won't find you heaven, i will bring it down like an ancient bygone," an interesting turn on the passiveness of the former. in euclid, vessel speaks with absolute certainty, he will bring heaven crashing down for you, but in tndnbtg, he's only just begun his entanglement with Sleep. he hasn't yet gone on the "hero's journey" to learn how to take on an active role in his life yet.
this culminates in the refrain that grounds the whole trilogy together: "the whites of your eyes turn black in the low light. in turning divine, we tangle endlessly like lovers entwined. i know for the last time, you will not be mine. so give me the night, the night, the night."
i think it's fascinating to note that this refrain is sung in acapella for tndnbtg as if it's still a thought that vessel is having to get comfortable with. as if he needs to take as much time to breathe in between phrases, to ground himself in the reality and inevitability of this impending loss.
however in euclid, it's sung over the same piano riff that starts tndnbtg— albeit pitched up a few semitones to fit euclid's key. as if vessel were remembering the same moment from the former track and revisiting his memories. memories now changed and tinged with what he knows better. in euclid, he finds what he has always been looking for in the trilogy— transformation and the radical certainty that it brings even in the midst of grand uncertainty.
it is no coincidence that the refrain that begins the trilogy as a passive, quiet whisper on an album engulfed in darkness from the title to its cover art to the very atmosphere that it creates—sounding as if the sun had just receded over the horizon as the night begins to swallow all that we know— ends the trilogy in a higher, soaring key, which takes the familiar piano riff of tndnbtg and makes it sound as if we were looking back out over that cliff, breathless and sat in quiet contemplation, having made it just in time to watch the sunrise.
modern family is all fun and games until you get to the scenes where you burst into tears because the once-vaguely homophobic dad now refers to his son's husband as family, and also the academically gifted daughter realizes that her dorky, clumsy dad was always really proud of her and just never surprised because he just assumed she could do anything, and also the eldest daughter who eloped comes crawling back to her parents' room and whispers that she still wants her parents to be present for her wedding, and also the anxious queer lawyer character admits that he was terrified that his husband would just leave him alone with their baby daughter, and also that the once-vaguely grouchy dad looks at his stepson and tells him that what makes a family is who sticks around, not who you're blood-related to and anyways what was i saying
i can’t believe i took these photos oh my god i luckily had a great view of the entire concert and wow, again, had thee absolute time of my life. ❤️🩹 enhypen, you will always be loved by me.
And that's the last one. Admitelly Kokichi run was much shorter than Gonta one, since I already knew what to do, so not that much has happened - but I still managed to get a few neat clips!
Also that glittery pink effect in one clip was my doing, yes... but the sunrays were not. The game just decided to suddenly become Visual Novel for a second, and frame Gonta all fancy and charming-like.
(Is this meant to be Kokichi's POV? lmao. I see, I see.)
like not to be Horny On Main but for real bodies are so beautiful. the curve of the lower belly over the pelvic mound? impeccable. the smooth line along the ribs and the u-curve under the bottom rib that's made to fit an arm or hand? perfection. the landscape of backs and shoulders flexing and shifting and how they're never symmetrical but moving above and below each other? god lives there. hands. HANDS. oh my god the taper at the wrist the elegance of the shape HANDS. necks and you can see the structure of tendon and bone and throat move and interact and the rise and hollow of the throat and collar. the weight and stretch and fluid shape of breasts at any size. bodies are so fucking beautiful and people. are gorgeous.
Just feeling a little salty so I want to throw a thought out into the universe...
Has anyone ever considered that when you make your entire online personality about being anti something - by filling your blog with anti tags, or actively searching out posts/blogs to publicly berate - that you just look like a sore loser?
As much as I think Gankutsuou is an amazing Monte Cristo adaptation, I think Villefort couldve been done a lot better. I just finished reading an abridged version of the book today, and it made me really emotional how much that man actually loved his family. Yeah he didnt have the best relationship with his father, but still kept him around and made sure he was cared for when he got paralyzed. It didnt really come to my attention earlier, but at the end of the book, with all the poisoning going on, that poor man went through so much. First his father in law, then his mother in law, one of the most loyal servants, his daughter and then his son and wife.
The way he stayed with Valentine after he thought she passed, and the way he came to Heloïse as "the judge" but still wanted to come back later and give her a life with their son somewhere far away. Because he still loves her. And he knows that, though what she did was horrible, her intentions were coming from a mother wanting a good life for her son, and he respected that. But then she had killed herself when he came back, and killed Edward too. The way Villefort hoped Edward was still alive and how he held him was just so. Augh. And then going insane after all this, he just loved them so genuinely much and I wish the anime showed that side of him.