Harp the Wigglytuff @wigglytuffitout@computerfairi.es

@pettancow my only regret with my mooncat is that she has the mouth type where it takes effort to see her fangs 8( ULTIMATE SADNESS.

and yay suncats chuggin' respect women juice!!! mine is a bit more traditional but he's also "sometimes, fantasy is about being able to slay dragons... and sometimes, fantasy is about a perfectly healthy loving polyamorous triad Just Happening without any drama or fuss" so come on down to the ki tribe, they'll feed you a casserole and help you emotionally process

@pettancow mooncat! :> tho i do also have a suncat nunh alt LOL, who is probably one of the people in eorzea most likely to chug two cans of Respect Women Juice and crush the cans on his forehead while whooping loudly, because that's how you start an entirely new tribe when you're like 22

@Elizabeth now that is a QUALITY CATGIRL

because this is by far the best sexy krampus card (yes there are more apparently it was like a fad for naughty postcards in the 60s and 70s in germany) and i am DESPERATE to know what the hell it says and what scenario is going on here

also dad bod krampus and i'm here for that for sure

@Elizabeth THANK YOU!!! catgirls... are Good

@dmh@loves.pizza cruelty is when i linked brazillian pizzas at her

@dmh@loves.pizza i don't even have to click the link, i can smell the mommy blogger from here. smells like 15 paragraphs of aggressive forced cheer that probably allows one to make some solid suppositions about the failing happiness of said mommy blogger's marriage

so naturally after seeing this, i immediately went to post that image to an italian friend so she can scream at what has been done to pizza here

@dmh@loves.pizza those are absolutely goddamn terrible. i love them

anyway, it crimmas, and y'all know what that means: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFpctGEGSjM IN THE NAME OF OUR LADY OF DOMESTIC HISTORY RUTH GOODMAN AMEN!!!!

so the songs that follow in this tradition end up a bit edgier by default, and it may be why the ones that still stick around seem so drastically out of place. they are the outliers when there has been enormous pressure to make christmas a holiday light, bright, clean, and only full of good feelings - instead of recognizing the christian holiday comes with a recognition of immense sacrifice.

i also don't consider it a coincidence that a lot of these songs that seem more violent or macabre or sad have stuck around as 'peasant songs', or traditional country folk tunes. trying to make the message more upper-class is i think a similar sort of pressure to only sing about stuff that's nice and sweet and pleasant.

however as much as i think these carols are much more meaningful, they're also less universal, being explicitly christian, and they're a LOT less easy to market.

a recognition of the grisly and macabre nature of christmas celebrations is not good business when you are trying to get everyone to accept a present-giving happy feast day.

i don't think it's exactly a coincidence either that many other hymns are explicitly political, like the canticle of the turning - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXyGh1MW2OM which tldrs to "hey rich people, GOD IS COMING YOU'RE ABOUT TO GET FUCKED AHAHAHAHA"

when you're looking at this time of year specifically through a christian lens and christian only lens, there are a lot more songs about bringing out the tragedy and sorrow - and in things like the coventry carol that are about herod's massacre of the innocents. there's more discussion of the grisly reality of saying "hooray, a kid was born! ....SO HE CAN GO DIE FOR ALL OF OUR SAKES, MISERABLE, IN PAIN, SLOWLY SUFFERING. yay."

tbh i think it's something to do, especially in a minor key and traditional tunes, about how why your typical medieval peasant was far more tuned in to christmas as a tragic event as well as a happy one - yeah, yay christ is born, but yay christ is born cos HE'S GONNA DIE AT THE END OF THIS

compare how cheerful the wexford carol is vs. how downright dirgelike coventry carol

@Dayglochainsaw tldr, it's inspired by/a memorial to this one badass little celloist who played in sarajevo while it was being bombed, to show that the spark of humanity was still alive even as everything was going to hell around him. "The orchestra represents one side, the rock band the other, and single cello represents that single individual, that spark of hope." as per the Trans Siberian Orchestra's version of the song.

@Dayglochainsaw i have no idea why the original song goes so hard, but i DO know why at least one version of it goes off so fuckin hard, and it's because the TSO version is related to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Eve/Sarajevo_12/24

it's time... for christmas. and by that i mean listening to all the #candlenights episodes of #mbmbam