the way the soundtrack of Malevolent started entirely in the minor key and has now, bit by bit, gentled it's way into now being in the major key, even while in Hell, is such masterful storytelling I need to eat carpet
[VD: A recording of Spotify playing Faroe's Song for the first 30 seconds, and then transitioning smoothly into Faroe's Light. Faroe's Song is an eerie, melancholy piano piece in the minor key. Faroe's Light has similar pacing and note structure, but is softer, more hopeful, and in the major key. End ID.]
ALSO THE SONGS BLEND TOGETHER NOBODY TALK TO ME......
no matter how vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
A quick collab with the incomparable @rosesofenvy to celebrate the end of Malevolent Series 1 and to hold hands with all the patrons who come together as a community every week to be a part of our favorite story.
I got some extra thoughts under the cut.
***
I've been thinking about the stars.
A bunch of folks were chatting the other day about Solitude, as one does, about how absolutely insane it makes us all and the fact that it's specifically mentioned in the story that Moll starting a fire for Mat means that he can no longer see the stars. And I didn't realizing until that moment how many times that's been brought up in this show. Firelight making it difficult to see the stars is a theme that's repeated multiple times, like in Part 45, before Malam shows up John remarks that "the firelight hides the small amount of light in the sky" and in Part 51, they couldn't see the stars until after Lillith destroyed their fire.
And it's been pretty well communicated that light —whether it's fire or starlight— represents hope in this story.
Firelight specifically I think is the hope and the warmth found in people, in community, in personal connection. We're told that Faroe is with Arthur in every fire, and that children are hope. The lighter is how Noel recognized Arthur. Even Marie finds hope and comfort in the sunlight that her son was so fond of, and then Frederick himself finds renewed hope from the lighter in the Dark World when Arthur and John show up in his life.
We're told that fire is a fleeting comfort, a brief but powerful blaze. It's a gift of warmth and connection. It's beautiful but it doesn't last.
Starlight is something else entirely. Starlight is also a fire, one that is much more distant, colder and more detached, but it is also more eternal. It's enduring. It's almost a fire's opposite — where fire you can feel intensely but doesn't last, the stars are a constant even if you can't always experience them.
And in a very "can't see the forest for the trees" type of way, being so focused on the intensity of what's right in front of you can blind you to the reality of what's always there — the brief vs the beyond.
And if fire is the fleeting gift of personal connection, I think we are the stars.
I think we are the representation of a hope that feels distant, that you can't always see or feel, but that is always with you. Constant but unknowable.
We have followed Arthur and John to hell and back. We have been a guiding light and an unknown source of hope and help to them for 6 years. 299 chapters. We've debated and celebrated and mourned and decided and every step of the way we've held hope in our hearts for these characters.
After chapter 299 dropped, a friend with her big beautiful brain shared this mental image of the voters represented as sort of ghostly little humanoid spirits standing around Arthur and Kayne, ready to catch Arthur when he lets go and falls, the group around them growing with each new vote that gets cast, and I cannot get that image out of my head. It's so fucking beautiful, a whole community coming together to project as much love and hope at them as possible, like, yeah, I think that's us. I think they can see us. I think we're surrounding them, our love and our light reaching them from a couple thousand light years away through a patreon poll and a discord server. We're holding secret knowledge and knowing nothing for certain, making choices and holding hands around our guys, looking on with love and adoration, slow blinking at one another in congress to determine the fate of our favorite ones.
That's what it feels like to be a voter in this beautiful collaborative adventure Harlan is inviting us on. It feels like the stars.
2"x2" Semi-Glossy Stickers of transcribed Malevolent Podcast Music.
The Wager (blood) B-Grade have inconsistent transparency with the bloo
I made a variety of malevolent sheet music stickers for the conference and ended up with some extras! All the music is accurately transcribed and was painstakingly recreated in Canva. Eventually I will be adding more designs but for now you can have your very own sheet music sticker of The Wager, The Wager (bloody), Noel's Theme, Bittersweet City, Faroe's Song, or Faroe's Light. Bundle options also available!
i cant stop thinking about faroe having difficulty in learning faroe's lullaby in Coda...... and pt58 Lillith telling arthur to write something for Faroe,
to write something simple enough for a child to play........there are no minor keys in the heart of a child....
Just listened to Faroe's Light (apparently Spotify has been gatekeeping this from me for 2 whole days, how dare it??) and suddenly my heart aches with pain from an episode I haven't even experienced yet....
Just when I think Faroe's haunted the narrative enough already, I'm always proven so incredibly wrong. Can't wait for this song to hit me like a truck in the next episode in whatever emotionally devastating scene Harlan plans on playing it in.
