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magpie-maple · 2 months

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Tribe Banner concept art:

Folks seemed to enjoy my WOF WIPS, so here’s more concept art for y’all! My favorite thing about WOF is the potential for world building. I thought it’d be cool to see a tribe emblem represented on a banner/flag of sorts:

Read below for some of the thought process / headcannons behind the design choices: 👇

Skywing Banner:

Skywings pride themselves on 3 things; treasure, fire, & their enormous, soaring wingspan which steals the sky.

As such, portrayed on the banner, the fabric (often made with dyed cow or goat leathers) resembles draped dragon wings. Two Skywings embrace a goblet, which is spewing golden fire.

The banner is often held aloft with iron or gold poles, signifying to other tribes their wealth and pride.

Mudwing banner:

These banners are fashioned with leather hides from cow or crocodile skin, held aloft with bamboo, and painted with a Talon-print & Reed crest.

The talonprint symbolizes community and the strength of Mudwing sibling bonds. The reed border unifies all Mudwings regardless of their relationship to home; the swamp. Bigwings are often seen carrying these into battle, signifing their status and making it easier for a sib to locate them in the flurry of a fight.

Sandwing Banner:

Sandwing flags are made with camel skins and dyed cactus leather.

A crest shows a Sandwing coiled around a beaming sun, a reminder that despite the revered 3 moons, Sandwings are born to thrive in sunlight.

The fabric is cut in a way to mimic the swooping dunes of Sandwing territory. And the poles of the flags are equally intricate, with scorpion tails and golden ropes which frame the banner.

These flags make prominent appearances in parades, festivals, and markets, and even miniature version are often displayed in homes or as tapestries/carpets.

Seawing banner:

These banners are often seen displayed in royal quarters or councils, or above land to mark territory.

A nautilus shell crest on front echoes the swirl-pattern associated with royal Seawings: The banner’s borders resemble waves and a dragon swimming beneath their surface.

These are crafted with rich materials, strung with seashells, pearls, silver dollars, and deep oceanic color fabric. There is severe penalty for Seawings found plucking treasure from the banners, as they are a direct symbol of royalty.

Nightwing Banner:

These banners emphasize the Nightwings’ relationship to the moon, their source of power and praise. The material, a contrast of white stitching against purple velvet showcases moonlight and night, black scales against stars, magic and mystery.

They are seen decorated with 3 moons at the top and a centered dragon reaching up into the night sky.

These banners were often used during the war as secret code by spies to deliver to other tribes. Prophecy scrolls often came attached, delivering cryptic messages or secrets in the night. These banners all helped add to the secrecy of the Dragonet Prophecy, and kept tribes on their toes around Nightwings.

Rainwing banner:

Rainwing banners are not used for battle purposes like other tribes, most are mere decoration, location indicators, and have no unified design.

However, It is said back when Rainwings left the rainforest to trade pre-war, this particular banner design was often raised above Rainwing merchant tables, and showcases the coiled tail of a Rainwing with leaves, vines, and other sights from the rainforest adorning a bamboo pole. Bright color combinations accentuated the flag to entice curious customers.

Now, only one tattered version of the original Rainwing banner remains, displayed proudly in Queen Glory’s quarters, a reminder that building the Rainwings’ community is their most important goal.

Icewing Banner:

These banners reflect the same standards Icewings hold themselves to.

Like a visual of the rankings themselves, each banner is cut perfectly from an Icewing’s trained, serrated claws to resemble icicles, and crafted with fine blue stitching.

Flags are often held aloft with perfectly polished narwhal horn or bone, and can be inlaid with sapphires or diamond.

Icewing soldiers are often gifted these during ceremonies, and perform training exercises with the flags to test their stance/attentiveness. The crest showcases the swift sharpness of ice through a flying dragon, and a snowflake toward the bottom reminding Icewings that even minuscule snowflakes, small things, should be perfect in form.

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magpie-maple · 3 months

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Hi guys this is like the complete opposite of what I usually post but i really just need to do a (not so) little rant about Eat Your Friends (Jhariah & Pinkshift)

The lyrics and the fact that these are two entirely separate bands coming together to make this song are not lost on me, but apparently people think this song is about……. Cannibalism???????????? Like actually just straight up romanticizing cannibalism???? Because they take the title and some of the lyrics at face value, which is insane especially considering that it has been explicitly stated what the general concept this song represents is.

Currently, Jhariah is working on new music, so this may be an outdated explanation depending on what they decide to do with their singles & eps (and whether they combine them all onto one collective album in the future, especially with the fact that Pin-Eye and Collarbone have released recently and The Tooth Pact tour begins soon)

Anyways, this is about Eat Your Friends and not Pin-Eye, though I’m sure I’m going to have to talk about that too when people inevitably misconstrue the meaning behind that song as well lmfao (if people convolute RISK then it’s over i have to delete social media for good)

The song has been said to represent industry-created creative competitiveness and how it warps your perception of yourself, your colleagues, and others around you. It’s also VERY important to understand that these bands are comprised of POC, and it is incredibly difficult for POC to make headway in industries that are systemically set up against them, ESPECIALLY music and ESPECIALLY rock and alternative scenes. It’s also important that I clarify none of these lyrics have officially stated explanations just yet, and any highlighted text you see in the screenshots are people trying to speculate what they mean. I also will not be talking about the music video just yet. We can begin to analyze the song when the intro begins:

I really doubt that the red beretta in question is literal but also i think it’s interesting that red berettas are handguns specifically. I don’t think this is just fodder for the energy of the song, i really think it’s supposed to represent.. SOMETHING. The phrasing makes it sound vague and dubious; either the ‘character’ is idealizing offing themselves or a different person (or both, which is not a new concept with some of Jhariah’s music—see here: ‘whose eye is it anyway???’), but I feel like we should really talk about the third and fourth lines because they offer more substance, but I think that there is something to be said for the line “the beretta fires fast and won’t make you feel any better”

“You better hurry up or your friends will be fed instead uh” implies that the character is missing out on something, or is about to, and that their friends will end up gaining something that the character would have, had they not been doing, you know, whatever it is they were doing.

“Instead of breaking bread, you should kick em’ before they get up” is a very easy line to analyze—instead of acting diplomatic and celebratory, it’s suggested that the character thinks their best option is to kick their friends/colleagues when they’re already down to ensure that the character alone receives whatever benefit that their friends would have as mentioned in the line prior. The addition of breaking bread is interesting and why I think that the victim(s??) in this line is specifically the character’s friends/colleagues. Breaking bread quite literally represents becoming joint in spirit with others breaking the bread. Usually this is related to Jesus Christ in evangelical contexts, and there might be something there to talk about in correlation to the song’s theme, but I really don’t want to pull Christianity into it when it really has nothing to do with the song overall lmao.

The way these lines are laid out really displays that even though the character says that these people are their friends, they view them as competition that impedes on them and that they need to be snuffed out or put in their place. It also showcases the theme of envy very early on, and it’s necessary to say that this song already sounds conventionally angry, lyrics aside.

Let’s move onto the next section!

“Frivolous and bitter” is VERY interesting because we don’t know whether this is about the effort and desperation towards ‘making it’, OR if this is about something more personal. It’s interesting that whatever this is, is viewed as JUST bitter and not bittersweet, but as we look at the next line; “diminishing sense of who I am” we can understand that this thing is chipping away at the character’s very personage and sense of self. This is something that happens very very VERY often with people in creative fields, because it already feels Sisyphusian to try and thrive as a creative.

When we look at the lines below; “it’s a habit I wish I could kick or do I get a little thrill in the feeling of being set on fire?” We have a lot to address!! The character expresses that this experience isn’t something fulfilling, at least, not enough to actively feel enriched by, and I don’t think it’s necessarily about creating itself, and instead more about the way that creating has so many obstacles to overcome in the process just for the efforts to fall flat. Which is to say, I believe the beginning half of the lines ties into the lines prior, where the character talks about how the experience is sort of all-consuming in a negative way. I don’t want to talk about the second half because I’m not entirely confident in the way I can phrase it, but we can see that it “begs for more” and that either the effort the creator puts into it isn’t enough or that the fruits of their labor isn’t enough (either not enough to satiate them or not enough to keep them afloat, or both! It could be both for either!). The repetition makes the delivery sound fervent and desperate.

NOTE: in this section, standard text is sang by Jhariah, italicized text is sang by Ashrita Kumar (the frontman of Pinkshift), and boldened text is sang by both of them.

“It’s just me” and “it’s just you” being sang by two individuals makes the lines feel more like a conversation, and the phrasing itself expresses a familiarity between the two ‘characters’. Also, Ashrita’s first line in the chorus is put in parentheses and in the song it sounds like it’s more in the background. This as far as audio and text goes, makes it sound like Jhariah’s character is already successfully attempting at eclipsing Ashrita’s.

Next up, the most on-the-nose lines in the song!

“If not for this jealousy, I might feel better” is sang by both frontmen of their respective bands, which displays that this is a mutual feeling. Both parties are jealous, both parties have a skewed perception of the other, and both parties are left unsatisfied. The fact that this is a mirrored sentiment will remain present throughout the rest of the song from here, so be aware!

“I keep putting everyone else on pedestals” shows that both Jhariah’s and Ashrita’s characters see others in their field (more than likely, each other) as grandiose figures that need to be toppled by themselves, hence the line “just to burn them down”. I also think the former line talks about the coexistence of jealousy and anger as well as idealization and hate, and how they (Jhariah and Ashrita) also destroyed whatever prior characterization they held of these people in response.

NOTE: this section is sang by Ashrita Kumar!

“Menace of an illness” I believe is addressing that the secondary party understands that they pose a perceived threat to the other.

“I’m looking just to see who I am” is interesting with the context that both bands hold! Jhariah and Pinkshift produce a LOT of music about perception of the self and finding it, and truly I’m unsure what concept would even best apply to this line. Either that Ashrita’s character is searching for how others perceive her in Jhariah’s character’s image of her, OR that she herself just generally doesn’t have a set image of herself, which would also apply to the type of music that both bands make!

The line “you’re nothing more than you’ll ever be in this circumstance” is VERY dubious as far as direction and meaning goes. I’m unsure whether this is directed towards herself (caused by the implied lack of self-image in the line “I’m looking just to see who I am”), towards Jhariah’s character, or both, but for sake of digestibility I’ll say that this is towards Jhariah’s character. This is super interesting regardless of just who it’s directed to, because the circumstance in question is a feverish social climb that involves tearing the other down and/or idealizing their fall from grace. The sentiment, as addressed before, is mutual, and it is now clear that beyond a shadow of a doubt, both parties have a lesser image of the other in light of the jealousy they feel for the other, which is caused less by the other’s success and more so because of the self-perceived LACK of their own success. The reality is, both parties are struggling because the wall separating them from struggling and creative success is near-insurmountable—it’s rigged against them to pit them against each other. It’s cutthroat. It’s MEANT to be that way.

“You are the pedal to metal, this is your only chance” is way more self-explanatory than the last line lmao. This line expresses that YOU (intent of direction unclear once again, still don’t know if this is about Ashrita’s character or Jhariah’s or BOTH, AGAIN…..) are responsible for pushing for that acceleration (pedal to metal is a common phrase but for those who don’t know what it like. Actually means beyond common usage providing a sense of contextual clarity, pedal to the metal is a phrase synonymous with pressing down on the accelerator of a car. It’s not always literal, but it’s supposed to express that it’s usually a last-ditch effort to catch up and/or finish something). The second half of the line is.. really nihilistic! It’s, again, unclear whether this is to one individual, but I believe it to be a general statement for both Ashrita and Jhariah—that this (killing the competition. So, each other, basically.) is the only chance both of them have at success.

The next couple of lines are standard fare for dropping an act, so we can move on to one of the most interesting parts of the song. For this part, I WILL be bringing up the cinematography of the MV.

NOTE: as said before, standard text is Jhariah, italicized text is Ashrita Kumar, and boldened text is both.

The MV is actually very good context for the song as a whole—showing concert footage of Ashrita and Jhariah performing the song and “fighting each other” for the microphone, which, I know they did it for the sake of what the song means, but it really does showcase the desperation for the spotlight in this song. The main part of the MV I want to talk about is the rope scene. Throughout the music video, clips of the band members for both bands are spliced together, the main ones being concert footage and then themed footage of the band members “fighting” in a forest. The rope scene is shown after Ashrita and Jhariah break away from the fight and run out of the clearing into the same general area except spaced out, but the effort is futile because their respective band mates catch up to them. Jhariah and Ashrita are cornered back-to-back to each other by their band mates and the band members collectively take strands of rope and begin stringing up the frontmen while they sing in time to the song.

This shows that now, this isn’t even an isolated feeling to just Jhariah and Ashrita, and the lyrics are indicative they regardless of this fact, they are STILL fighting. The biggest part we need to talk about is the last couple of lines.

“Overgrown invasive weeds, unearth the roots and kill the seeds” is using the fact that the only way to get rid of weeds (which will kill other plants if left to their own devices—which in itself is a metaphor for the cutthroat nature of industry and the perception of the other group. Really reads as a “if it’s not them, it’s me” sort of rationalization) as a metaphor for having to stop the success of the others at the expense of themselves.

“Laid to rest” is interesting, because the phrase is only ever used for death, and generally for those who died peacefully and lived a fulfilled life, but I don’t think it’s a literal sense of killing at all. Killing a career, killing a passion, killing the competition? Those are more viable answers to what this line means.

“So eat your friends, they’ll understand cause they would too” is NOT fucking cannibalization you guys come the fuck on. Jhariah and Ashrita did not curate a whole song and music video about the themes they’re exploring just for you to sit and call it a cannibalism song. ‘Eating your friends’ is evidently tied to the idea and general concept of killing the competition yourself and that “they’ll understand cause they would too” BECAUSE THE CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE IT SO THEY WOULD DO THE SAME TO ‘YOU’. ‘YOU’ ARE COMPETITION IN THE SAME WAY ‘THEY’ ARE TO ‘YOU’. BOTH PARTIES ARE PSEUDO-OBSTACLES TO EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF WARPED PERCEPTION.

Anyways the rest of the song repeats the chorus and intro’s lines in a more desperate way before the song pulls to a sharp halt.

I analyze all this because there are genuinely people talking about how “omg eat your friends is about cannibalism!!!” Which completely undermines the effort that Jhariah and Pinkshift made with this song and literally one proves the point of the concept that this song makes. Sorry for how long this is (genuinely took three hours to write) but I love Jhariah’s music so much and I can’t believe media illiterate people are already getting their hands on his music.

#back from the grave to reblog this #god I love Jhariah #and song analysis #I’m a sucker for literature and this is literature of literature #song analysis #Jhariah

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