#songs i will always return to

[rystiel]

i keep seeing people say the doctor shouldn’t have feelings for rogue because he’s married to river…? river song… who has also married multiple people… one of the most polyamorous characters in the show…?

[ronanlynchbf]

[jonsawilldanceanon]

Lack of Morals ~ Lack of Vows

[cecoeur]

How do you sleep at night? No one to hide behind Betrayed every alibi you had You had every chance to make amends instead you got drunk on bitterness And you still claim that you're innocent, it's sad

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Omg I loved your herald viktor epic line idea I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. If u have time and energy id love to read it sooo much ❤️❤️

Since the Ithica Saga dropped last night my brain has not known a single moment of peace. "Would You Fall in Love with Me Again" is just so insanely perfect for a Machine Herald Viktor x Reader AU it makes me physically ill. Like, seriously:

I am not the man you fell in love with

I am not the man you once adored

//

Would you fall in love with me again

If you knew all I've done?

The things I cannot change

Would you love me all the same?

//

Would you fall in love with me again

If you knew all I've done?

The things I can't undo

I'm not the man you knew

Viktor is so Odysseus coded it is PAINFUL. The pain of sacrificing so much of himself to survive. The regret of everyone he's had to leave behind, to betray. The ghosts of his legacy haunting his mind. All for his goal, the one thing he knows he's meant to do with every fiber of his being. Nothing, neither magic nor gods, will stop him from fulfilling that dream. He will not be the same once all has passed, and he will never regain all that he's lost. Can the person who loved him the most as he was before still love this version of him?

And the reader's answer...

I will fall in love with you

Over and over again

I don't care how, where, or when

No matter how long it's been

You're mine

Because what you loved about him is deeper than any of the ways he's changed. It's something at his core, in his soul, in the light of his eyes, no matter how tired they may seem now. It's your first kiss, it's the sound of his voice in your ear, it's the curve of his lips when he smirks, it's the way he looks at you like he falls in love all over again every day you're with him. Time may pass, and the world may change, but not this. Never this.

He is yours just as you are his, and that is the one thing that will never change.

[melit0n]

"Let the tides carry you back to me." has always been among one of my favourite lines in Telomeres, and so, having listened to it again recently, a little idea popped into my head. Let me explain:

While ocean tides/currents is a very common metaphor, there's an underlying meaning to it. The ocean is a beautiful, but somewhat cruel place: tides can leave you stranded on a sandbank, or sweap you away before you even know it.

To put it in short, no object or creature that goes into the ocean comes out the same. For the tides to carry something back to you, something you've lost, it will be and always will be changed: eroded.

The cliffside will fall, the cave will crumble, etc etc.

With this in mind, we're yet again greeted with another example of Vessel asking for something he can't truly have. The person he wants will not be the same as they were before; they "collapse" into him, breaking apart, but still, to him, it's "the start of something."

His memory is warped, they are warped, and it'll stay that way.

However, what I would like to add is that, in DYWTYLM, it's theorised that instead of Vessel speaking to a second person, he's instead talking to himself.

Of course, this makes the song itself much more emotional (to me). Finding love for yourself is one of the hardest things you can do, but it has to be done to find love in others.

With that idea (stay with me here), the lyrics "Do you roll with the waves? Or do you duck into deep blue safety?" match up (generally) with Telomeres, which is mostly interpretated as being towards someone else.

So, what if some lines in Telemores are directed to himself as well?

Keep in mind, the tides don't just erode and carry objects (sediment), they also reflect. The Atlantic is one big mirror, and Vessel is staring into it's "deep blue safety" wondering what, or, rather, who, he was before he was Vessel.

Overall, the album name, "This Place Will Become Your Tomb", either being directed at Vessel or Vessel to Sleep (and being a Halo quote lmao), is more metaphorical than literal.

Who he was before Vessel sits in that coffin, not his physical body.

[tending-the-hearth]

darry curtis moodboard + playlist paul revere // i'm still standing // marjorie // no way out // runs in the family // oh, what a beautiful mornin' // two // ain't it fun // under pressure // i bet my life // throwing in the towel // stand by my // in the ghetto // born to be wild // hey jude // i bet on losing dogs //thnks fr th mmrs // move along // the last night // what was i made for? // i can't help but wonder // my days // you're on your own, kid // wake me up when september ends // some nights // dead mom // santa fe // good riddance (time of your life) // i lived // i'm still here // from now on // castle on the hill // secrets // hold back the river // viva la vida // you'll be in my heart // waiting for superman // she used to be mine // he lives in you (reprise) // the last goodbye

[clumsycapitolunicorn]

"Then... Then I also like it."

[fromtheseventhhell]

I don't think anyone who believes Arya is focused on revenge has ever actually read her chapters, it's just been one long game of telephone where people repeat a take they heard so they can pretend they know what they're talking about

[kirby-the-gorb]

[thewhizzyhead]

been checking out the lion king mufasa thing and like I am so fucking frustrated that it opted for photorealism because the people are clamoring for the music here which BTW is really damn good like lin killed it again so like it had all the potential to be another Disney renaissance-esque film IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE BLAND VISUALS LIKE THIS FRUSTRATES ME

[mybodyfails]

my home won't ever be a place | for @strayklds

[this-is-their-song]

Until Olympius Returns by The Mountain Goats

is Phoenix Wright’s song

“Make friends with the new guys / Be nice to your neighbor / Profess keen interest in the welfare of the state / Taste everything they feed you / Say it tastes real great / Spit it down your sleeve / Every time you get the chance / This is just a brief improvisation in the dance”

Why is this their song?

An explanation of Until Olympius Returns from the song writer:

“So the deal with Olympius is, like, they’re […] tearing down all these Pagan monuments right, they’re now building Christian stuff, right? And— and these pagans are being constricted to do this, right? But their position is that like ‘When Olympius gets back, we’re gonna take this stuff down’ […] They’re pretending to be company men.”

-John Darnielle, Until Olympius Returns (The Jordan Lake Sessions Volume 4)

[ariiiiih]

About <辜(Gu/Guilty)> (a TGCF AD song)

The last two versions of 辜 are really great, so I wanna share some thoughts and provide some supplementary materials.

The first one in episode 17 is a ballad version. As Xintong (新桐, TGCF AD’s music monitor) said in her webio, “[it’s] to unfold and highlight He Xuan’s mood from his perspective.”

This version is sorrowful but soft, and the lalala childish humming at the end, which sounds like a nursery rhyme, gives this song a sense of purity and innocence. In the blackwater arc, which consists of horror, anger, hatred, and despair, this feeling never appeared. Then, why use this song, this feeling to express HX?

The song was like out of the story, just like the feelings that HX never directly expressed. Actually, the warmest and touching scene in this story, from the RoEW to the end of revenge, was told in the first extra of TGCF----HX’s family, who gave XL a bowl of Yuanxiao and wished he would reunite with his family:

“Do you not have the money?�� the owner asked. Still stricken, Xie Lian couldn’t reply, but the owner simply said, “Forget it. I’ll give it to you for free, considering how tragic you look. I'll be packing up once you’re done, so hurry home. Today is Yuanxiao, the day for family reunions!” …

The little girl was biting on her spoon with her head tilted. “When is gege coming home? I wanna wait until he’s back before digging in.” “He’s so late,” the owner chimed in. “Coming home so late on Yuanxiao; how outrageous!” “He’s working hard. He’Il be home soon,” the old woman chided. “Don’t scold him when he comes back. Miao-er! Miao-er, stop working. I feel awful always needing you to help out. Come here, and let’s eat together.” “Not at all!” the young woman replied. She cleaned the last table before sitting down with them to share yuanxiao. They seemed to be waiting for another member of the family to join them, and the four of them chatted and laughed all the while.

And the tragedy of this family in TGCF AD, when HX’s sister said “Gege, let's be brother and sister in the next life” and when his father told him “Son, father’s going with your mother,” was heartbreaking.

So, this ballad version of 辜, from He Xuan’s perspective, was like He Xuan remembering his family, his life, and all the happiness and suffers in it; it was like He Xuan looking back to the path that he had walked so far over hundreds of years and the three lifetimes of man, god, and ghost; and lamenting the people who had been involved in this fate-switching incident, the lives of those who had died innocently and tragically. Humming is a primitive expression of feelings, compassionate and pure like a god, while the mourning for those low-level, insignificant mortals shows the idea that gods should not love only abstract humans, but real people.

As an avenger, it's easy to think of HX's anger and hatred. But when they are stripped away, we can find that deep in his heart, the feeling and reason of his revenge that we easily overlook, is the pure love between him and his family, the warmest and the most joyful past. This love may seem ordinary, less splendor than other ghost kings’ beliefs or the relationship with Shi brothers, but it is this love that supported him to resolutely carry out an extremely long and lonely revenge that no one has ever done. Even though he would never rest and would suffer forever and he knew it, some people were worth doing that for.

That’s why I like this version. It reminded me of “true voyage is return”. The character of He Xuan is very complex but easily flattened and stereotyped because his inner self and his inward exploration are hidden, and this song shows the neglected side of He Xuan, a more human and even divine side.

The last version in episode 18 is an omniscient perspective (I haven’t seen the translation yet, so I tried to do it by myself, sorry if it sounds weird in English).

运数又何为 命中误

What fate has done,

A mistake in life.

似这般无妄劫 怎可渡

Like this undeserved trial,

How can it be passed?

一个是琳琅材 一个是凡间骨

One is a precious jade,

The other an ordinary bone.

偏谁得奇缘 放醉入仙府

Yet, who is destined

To stumble into the immortal realm.

做仙的眼无珠 做鬼的有恨难诉

The god has eyes but blind,

The ghost harbors hatred but hard to tell.

骨肉终消散 尝尽悲与苦

Flesh and blood dissipated,

Sorrow and Pain tasted.

这欠命的已还命 赎命的却无人赎

The one who owed a life has paid,

The one who atoned remains unredeemed.

问去去来来谁赢输

Ask who wins and who loses.

叹尘归尘来土归土

Sign, as ashes return to ashes,

And dust to dust.

This song has the style of Dream of the Red Chamber (the greatest classical novel in Chinese literature). Here are the songs in this novel, where you could find some similarities.

Vain Longing: One is an immortal flower of fairyland, The other fair flawless jade, And were it not predestined, Why should they meet again in this existence? Yet, if predestined, Why does their love come to nothing? One sighs to no purpose, The other yearns in vain, One is the moon reflected in the water, The other but a flower in the mirror. How many tears can well from her eyes? Can they flow on from autumn till winter, From spring till summer?

The Birds into the Wood have Flown: The office jack’s career is blighted, The rich man’s fortune now all vanished, The kind with life have been requited, The cruel exemplarily punished; The one who owed a life is dead, The tears one owed have all been shed. Wrongs suffered have the wrongs done expiated; The couplings and the sundering were fated. Untimely death sin in some past life shows, But only luck a blest old age bestows. The disillusioned to their convents fly, The still deluded miserably die. Like birds who, having fed, to the woods repair, They leave the landscape desolate and bare.

Also, in the Bloody Fire Social of AD, the first time we heard Scholar He (*in ancient China we called a scholar ‘Sheng’, that’s where He Sheng came, not He Xuan’s another name), the verse that artist sang also shared a similarity with a song from Dream of the Red Chamber.

(Bloody Fire Social):

世人皆说贺生好

All men long to be He Sheng

功名利禄少不了

With riches and rank that all aspire;

如今贺家在何方？

The kind family of He, where are they now?

荒冢一堆草没了

Their graves are a mass of briars.

All Good Things Must End (first part): All men long to be immortals Yet to riches and rank each aspires; The great ones of old, where are they now? Their graves are a mass of briars.

An interesting coincidence is that “All Good Things Must End” is the opening verse of Dream of the Red Chamber, while “The Birds into the Wood have Flown” is the closing verse of Dream of the Red Chamber. And the two similar songs in the blackwater arc are told from He Sheng's life to the end of He Xuan's revenge, which I personally like as a literary homage.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[purgatorygrl]

It doesn't happen to you that you are so calm in your day doing things and suddenly your brain simply "ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores, porque cantando se alegran, cielito lindo los corazones" 🩷