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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Amphibia Reviewcaps: The Dinner/Battle of the Bands “It’s You”

Hello all you happy people! And i’m almost to the finish line. 6 months (subtracting the ones where there were no new episodes) worth of weekly coverage and with next week i’ll have completed my second full season of reivews of a show as they came out, and my first full season of amphibia. If you’d like to see season 1 it’s up high on my stretch goals at 45 with reviews of Disney movies based on shows (The Proud Family, Recess and Kim Possible), Gravity Falls and more along the way if your curious. Check it out HERE. I’m also doing exclusive reviews eveyr month now with the coasional one thrown in randomly so check that out. New period starts in a week so please join before then.

So naturally with the big finale and all the tensions in amphibia close to reaching a boil next week, this week’s a bit more low key. Still not unimportant, with some massively good character work and in fact The Dinner is easily one of my faviorites of the season, but still nothing to move the plot too far forward. Just some nice character stuff to help inch us towards the climax next week. The calm before my heart is stillbeatingly ripped out of my chest. Which I will grant the show, having my heart ripped out Mola Ram style by some combination of Brenda Song and Keith David is how I wanted to go, i’m just not ready yet. So while I steel myself for the utter heartbreak of next week, I have my throughts on this weeks episodes under the cut!

The Dinner:

I did tip my hand a bit by saying this was one of my faviorties of the season.. and I stand by that. This one was excellent. It was rife with tension while still somehow being a fun breather episode before hell arrives.

As the title suggest the Plantars are having Grime and Sasha over for a fancy dinner, followed by games and such. Only Annearcy are happy about this though, Marcy still not getting quite how bad Sasha has gotten during her stay here and Anne hoping she has changed. The Plantars, Sprig in paticular, still resent them for the whole toad tower fiasco, which is fair. You don’t forget someone trying to murder you over night, let alone your whole town. Hop Pop is using Frobo as the Grill by the way which is just visually fucktacular I gotta admit. He does get some more use these episodes, being used as a Grill here and as the fog machine and Polly’ sminon next episode. Good work boy. That’s my robot frog soldier builder whatever you are.

Sasha and Grime are likewise not enthused. Sasha isn’t because her friends expect her to “Ugh” change and grow and stuff and isn’t happy about it and is confident she can return to rulling over them once her plan is done. Dude.. that’s not how a healthy throuple works. Or a healthy anything. Grime is more worried about her blowing it with her anger and control issues, but feels. this is VITAL to convincing the plantars to trust them long enough for their plan to go off. He even demands she remove her sword and all her knives... and she has a lot of them. Evne in her boot “How do you even walk?” Good question grime.

My answer?

So what follows is about 8 minutes of the most hilariously awkward dinner since that time Micheal Scott decided to have a dinner party even though his relationship was horribly crumbling, as everyone but Anne and Marcy shoves their foot in their mouth at some point or makes some sort of screw up. Oh and Polly I guess she’s more content to just watch the show. Seriously i’m not usually a fan of cringe comedy.. but the series makes it work here as our heroes attempt to interact with thier old eneimeis and vice versa.

For starters we have our guests arrvial, where Grime and Sasha both look objectively terrifying before things cool down. Then we have dinner itself where both Hop Pop and Grime prove to be the racist kind of grandpa as Grime asks what frogs they subjigated to get these turnips and Hop Pop makes an awkward lightbulb joke about Toads that Grime finds hilarious but everyone else was rightfully afraid would get the old man gutted by the other more violent old man. I imagine this happened a lot on the Lost Light once Megatron took over co captiancy. You just don’t fight a guy for a good hundered years without being nervous he’s going to blast you to fucking pieces.

Sprig dosen’t help before all this by taking a seat next to anne and marcy specifically to piss her off, and out of all of them is the most openly hostile to her. Given Anne’s his best friend and Sasha did a LOT of emotional damage to her.. yeah fair enough.

Things only esclate when it comes to frog pictionary. Suprisingly Hop Pop gets Grime’s Drawins and Sasha gets his, with both her and sprig trading escalating barbs and her barely containing her rage when Anne calls her on it since unlike her, Sprig has a reason to still be upset with her. This reaches a breaking point when Sasha attempts things, trying to desperatly win her friends back with the old times now they have their ownt imes apart.. only for Sprig to accidnetlay mock Sasha’s near sucicide,s aying she “slipped”.. granted I do think he geninely just can’t forgive her.. but it’s very clear she did not.. she let herself go to save them, and he’s just as in denial about it as Sasha and just as much a dick about it.

Sasha flips out at him, and gets penalized for talking which only pisses her off MORE and understandably so. Anne leaps to the plantar’s defense but honestly.. both sides are understandabliy angry here. The Plantars are right to still not trust her after everything especially since she hasn’t outright apologized to them and her and Grime’s general response to the incident is “One Time!”... which works for say, taking the last slice of pizza without asking or slamming their face in a car door, but not so much “Trying to murder all of you for personal and stupid reasons.”. But at the same time Sprig DID cross the line really bad when she saved his fucking life. It dosen’t automaitcally erase the bad things she did but it dosen’t give him lisence to mock her. WHile I get he’s 10 and dosen’t get it was part suicide, he still is blantaly ignoring her trying to do something selfless because he can’t admit there’s any good in Sasha. Sasha is not a GREAT person.. but there IS good in her. She just has to WANT to seek that out instead of her inherent seflishness and need for control and Anne and Marcy are absolutely right for trying to help her instead of just slamming the door in her face.

But soon eveyroen gets distracted by the cake which floods the room with molten lava. Hop Pop assumes it was some sort of trick.. but hilariously turns out no, Grime really was trying to be nice. That’s just how this works and it’s delcious once it hardens.. assuming you survivie the hornets, with fighting them being the best part of it. And yes hornets shoot out of the cake. Are you suprised at this point? They also paralize grime leaving our heroes without the one person among them who knows what their doing.

SO our heroines are forced to fight some hornets, with Sasha trying to take lead.. only for Anne to do so and succeed at it, figuring out that while weapons can’t pierce them their own stingers might and having Marcy use her crossbow to launch the stinger in grime at them, and then has Sasha distract the rest to take them out.

So our heroines reconcile with Sasha admitting she might not want to change and Anne admitting that’s okay.. she just has to accept things have changed with THEM and that her friends HAVE. And genuinely or not Sasha agrees to that, while Grime is bummed he missed the party and the lava hardens into chocolate, with eveyrone enjoying some cake and dead insects. As you do

Final Thoughts on The Dinner: As I said, this is one of the best episodes of the season> The tension is paltable, and it dosen’t fully resolve it, rightly as we still have one final season to go for that. More than that.. it’s hilarious. All the jokes land, and there were far too many to get into here.

Battle of the Bands:

Now this is a classic breather episode, our last chance to rest and get all slice of lifey before things go up in flames next week.

With the town all nervous because of Sasha and Grime’s presence, Mayor Toadstool decides to spin the wheel of fun to decide on an activity. I can’t remember if this is a new thing or not but I loves it. It lands on Battle of the Bands so the girls decide to get their old band Sasha and the Sharks back together. As for the rest of the cast, Hop Pop and Sprig join a Jug band and Grime has his own musical domination to plot out, so that just leaves us with the thropule, Poly and Frobo for an episode.

The group have fun... until Anne unveils her heartfelt song based on her time here. Well okay only Sasha isn’t having fun and quickly tries to take over, as you’d expect and Anne pushes back as you’d expect. Sasha takes her ball and goes home as.. you get it by now> The plot here is not very complex or unique.

But as with all the Sasha episodes this season including the last one, we get a deeper sense of her character. Here she outright admits she dosen’t know what to do when she’s not in control. She needs to be in charge of the situation. It also explains why unlike Marcy and Anne she didn’t change for the better: Her need for control shuts out any possiblity of self reflection and thus self improvment. Self Improvment, and I know this from experince, requires you to admit your flaws and face them. It’s something I can admit to struggling with as I fall back into old patterns often. Admitting flaws would be admitting a loss of Control and Sasha.. can’t. She honestly can’t.

Of all people i’ts TOADIE who convinces her sometimes i’ts better to let someone else take the lead and that it’s better to support the ones you love than subjugate them. Granted Toadie himself is too far in the opposite direction, but he makes a valid point.. something I never thought i’d say. Sometimes you just have to let someone do what they want.. and watching her two girlfriends perform up on stage.

I also will say I love a good talent show, battle of the bands what have you episode. One of my faviorite movies, True Stories, climaxes in one.

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And yes that was John Goodman and yes he does indeed sing...

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Seriously watch this movie. It’s fucking amazing. And yes that was the Talking Heads David Byrne, he wrote this movie and there’s two talking heads songs in it. Watch it.

Point is we get a great one, paticuarlly chuck.

He grows SINGIN tulips just a fun one.. but i’ts that finale with the girls that really makes it with Sasha realizing that them being HAPPY is better than her being in control..and they didn’t grow PAST HER or leave her behind just because they grew.. they simply should be free to be themselves. And that maybe trying to conquer a country just to do that ain’t right. IT’s really sweet

So she runs in to do the guitar solo, and its aweosme and they only don’t win because it turns out Grime is fucking MAJESTIC on a harp. But Sasha finally grows a bit admitting that having fun is what mattered...

And it’s abotu to burst as Mayor Toadstool, in a show of how far he’s come, points out Anne is leaving soon and Anne gives a heartfelt goodbye to everyone.. that said.... someone clearly has other plans.. and for once i’ts NOT Sasha.

There’s nothing but foreshadowing in that face. That’s a face that says “Uh.. about that”. And again SASHA is showing emotinal vunerablity and hapiness.. but it’s Marcy, whose pretty open emotiionally whose visably worried and clearly knows Andrias has other plans.. other plans he talked her into. Gratned he probably didn’t tell her said plans involve The Watcher with a Thousand Eyes, but she still KNOWS she’s plottingthings.. and know’s she’s about to betray the people closest to her.

Before we move on though those outfits ar esharp. Just damn. Especially Sasha’s punk look. The songs this episode are also both excellent and I had no idea Brenda Song and Anna Akana could sking like that. God damn.

So with Anne leaving for home she gets one last group photo. It’s majestic and we’re out.

Final Thoughts: This one is pretty good. Not a lot to talk about outside of Sasha but a really fun episode that both moves her foward and moves us toward the finale. ANd it’s nice to see the three just happy together... before the hell that’s about to arrive.

Next Week: War Were Declared, our heroes prepare to fight bravely against the hoard of toads... and both Sasha and Marcy come to the crossroads of destiny Tommorow ON This Blog:

So it’s up to Jean Grey and Emma Frost to go in and sort it out.. and then fight off the full might of an alien empire. No pressure.

Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure

#amphibia #the dinner #battle of the bands #anne bonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #sprig plantar #polly plantar #hopidiah plantar #frobo #grimothy #mayor toadstool #toadie #chuck #he grows tulips #true stories #before the storm

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f-117-nighthawk · 3 years

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Playlist Update? From MY Brain? More Likely Than You Think

can't remember the last time I posted these all together but I just put a few new songs in. I've been playing Arknights bc STARSET songs keep being used in the trailers, and then I was listening to Transmissions while making dinner, and uhhhhh there's two new Transmissions songs on the playlists, plus whatever else the spotify links needed to update to my ever-changing apple versions.

This is just the main playlist, because this one is now 3h 40m, and the other three playlists are about an hour each. I’ll give them their own post tomorrow. Under the cut, because it's also Write Random Snippits and Include Important Lyrics time

Dark Matter

Surprise surprise, this one’s got probably the most work done on it. A lot of that is moving things around, a few deletions, and the additions.

DM now starts with Your World Will Fail, Dark Matter, and Eater of Worlds. Turn the Lights Out still kinda applies, but I stopped vibing with it starting everything, and wasn’t really sure where else it should go so it got dropped. It’s role is sort of picked up by a UtA song later? Anyway, the opening three are still very much about not only the birth of [REDACTED], but the birth of the universe itself. And that’s why it feels better to start out with YWWF. Because it is the start.

(Your world will fail my love/It’s far beyond repair/Your world will fail my love/It is already there)

(Bring me your soul/Bring me your hate/In my name you will create/Bring me your fear/Bring me your pain/You will destroy in my name)

(Can’t imagine the violence/The rage and the love in my madness/I am the eater of worlds and I’m looking for someone to feed me)

Remnants of Stars is a hook to Filaments at this point, but stays way up here because the thing it’s about connects back up to those three ^ and is something slowly realized by the Paladins throughout the series. There’s kinda three different points that they realize something new about this (at the moment, I Am the One, Cosmic Vertigo, and Centigrade).

(Shed all you know and make way for a galaxy of light/Answers found hidden inside the smallest stone/Bringing forth a new way of life/Open your heart to the sky)

Apocalypse 1992 hasn’t changed. Still about The Fall, still the turning point for the entire damn war. Still about poor Krolia. Still the Rogue One of DM. It happens between parts of Awakenings, detailing the rise of [REDACTED] and the final hours before the destruction of everything sentient species knew beforehand.

(Fly high through apocalypse skies/Fight for the world we must save/Like tears of a unicorn lost in the rain/Chaos will triumph this day)

Apex is the final moments of Apocalypse 1992 from the Red Lion’s perspective, and connects nicely (just as in the albums lol) to the next UtA songs. Which we’ll get to in a bit.

(Brother mountain/Now we sleep/For a thousand years/I will see you again/Something is coming/Coming for me)

You Keep What You Kill covers the slow degeneration of the Empire between The Fall and the Battle of Arus. The knowledge harshly taught by the Thuanial War is forgotten under the influence of Zarkon, Haggar, and [REDACTED]. Marzin and Galraasa quickly rise the ranks as the Empire’s left and right hands, like omens of destruction before them. The four are the ‘holy half-dead,’ the ones who shape the devouring of the universe before them.

(Defying dimensions/These ruthless creatures will steal your soul/Breaking away from the chains of mortality/They won’t be taken down/Bow now to the holy half dead/The master to death mongers calls)

The Glory and the Scum is partially here bc I missed having Delain, I’ll freely admit that. (Delain split up! Like six months ago! I’m still sad!) Here, it’s (most) of the reason why Krolia isn’t around until MGHM. Think Winter Soldier-ish. It’s also from Krolia’s perspective as she’s talking to Kolivan in a conversation I implied in Shatterpoint. Perhaps it shall see the light of day.

(Look at what we've done/Take a step back/Shake your head at what we have become/We're the glory and the scum)

The Seven Sisters is about Keith, mostly, and connected to Closure via its influence on Child From the Stars (Lost in the Dark) and also to Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met. Also the thing about the Pleiades has kinda become A Thing associated with my two favorite halfbloods.

(I cast my hope upon The Pleiades/The Seven Sisters who would come for me/They’d fall to Earth to grant a child’s dream/But I’m still waiting)

Starlight is the Adashi song. Here, it’s the sad part, based around the time that the SFSS Genesis launches for Kerberos. It also is sort of about Shiro’s thoughts throughout the war as he watches ‘from distant skies’ (and influences String Theory kinda)

(At night the earth will rise/And I’ll think of you each time I watch from distant skies/Whenever stars go down and galaxies ignite/I’ll think of you each time they wash me in their light/And I’ll fall in love with you again)

Waking Dream and Abyss are Awakenings. They’re specifically the Red Lion waking up on Sendak’s ship to her new Paladin, but also sort of the rest of the Lions as they find new Paladins for the first time since The Fall (and, also, an accidental hook to the end of Filaments just by virtue of being on the same UtA album…)

(Centuries like flowing streams as years go rushing by/Waiting in the dark for afterlife)

(Open my eyes in a daze/How long has it been? Am I so out of place?/Warmth I can no longer feel/My mountain is gone, I’m surrounded by steel/The strangest of structures arises ahead/Seems to be held up by nothing/Where have I gone, do I dream?/How can the stars be all I can see?)

Who Will Save You Now is about the Paladins in First Contact. It’s the video messages they send to their families, the warning that Something Is Out Here that they need to prepare for. It’s a declaration of protection for Earth, but a recognition that the Paladins may not be able to do what they say.

(I will not take from you and you will not owe/I will protect you from the fire below/It’s not in my mind/It’s here at my side/Go tell the world that I’m still alive)

Then there’s The End of the Beginning. Which is, well, the eponymous fic. And don’t forget the String Theory connection! Fun fact: part of the last chapter leads directly into part of String Theory at the moment.

(Every night I die just a little/All this time, I’m caught in the middle/All your life, you fought with no winning/This is just the end of the beginning)

A Simple Plan is about anything but a simple plan. Lotor is making his secret bid for the construction of the Sinkline ships, but there’s one more thing he needs before it can come to fruition. Haggar has suspicions, and knows one thing that she needs to keep from both him and Voltron. Team Voltron is still struggling to fit into their new roles, especially with a Black Paladin who adamantly does not want to be Black Paladin, and is in desperate need of one thing to fix the last of the damage done during the Battle of the Sarnan Nebula.

(How long can we hold off ending?/How long can we pretend we’re ok?/No one goes on fighting it forever/I know I’m better this way)

Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met. Such a short song for such an important fic. It skips all the way over Naxzela to the Mission to the Baaria Shipyards, the first major offensive that isn’t somehow connected to canon (even if only a very very small part of it is actually at the shipyards lol). This is also the song that solidified Keith’s very queer identity in Dark Matter. And more Pleiades stuff!

(In this lonely place, bathed in silence and thoughts of you/I can’t see your face but I’m trying to envision you/So are you really out there? Are you awake with memories/Of a boy you haven’t met yet who’s wished upon the Pleiades?)

There’s another fic in here that I’m still waiting for a song to catch my ear, but it’s pretty big so I’m putting it in here. For the moment, it’s called MGHM 2.0: Electric Paladinloo. Featuring the Whispers, Voltron, and a few mullets.

And then. Hoh boy. The beast of beats. TRIALS (reimagine), Dark On Me, String Theory, and I Am the One. We’ve got [REDACTED], we’ve got [spoiler], we’ve got the first major turning point in the entire war, and the first revelation of the true nature of [REDACTED]. Hence the honor of being the separation point of my two main DM folders. TRIALS is the first part, the horrifying realization. Dark On Me and String Theory itself are from Shiro’s perspective. I Am the One is… an image song? I guess? That’s all I’ll say on that. (I would like to note that the STARSET songs bar OWtT tend to be about the Shiroganes…)

(Hear me from the bottom/Forged in regret, I'm the silversmith/Doomsday, you we had it coming/Marching the streets with an iron fist/Obey no more in silence/The steel in our hearts will be monuments/Today, they'll hear the violence/We'll rise from the dark like Lazarus)

(You're the cause/The antidote/The sinking ship that I could not let go/You led my way, then disappeared/How could you just walk away and leave me here?/Light the night up, you're my dark star/And now you're falling away)

(You don’t believe in space/You don’t believe in light/You don’t believe that anything is well beyond your might/We walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor/We’re never going anywhere we’ve never been before)

(I am the one/I am the architect to rule your fate)

House on Fire is the aftermath of String Theory, and a large vibe of We ARE Struggling Together! It’s about family, never letting go of something you care about, and the slow act of trusting.

(So I’ll just hold you like a hand grenade/You touch me like a razor blade/I wish there was some other way right now/Like a house on fire we’re up in flames/I’d burn here if that’s what it takes/To let you know I won’t let go of you)

Belgrade is The klance song! It is a) a bop b) always stuck in my head because it is That Good. The line in the chorus about ‘sweet songs of seduction’ is eternally funny to me bc a)they’re both ace and b)QPR’s don’t usually involve seduction. Belgrade also leads almost directly into…

(We pretend in the darkness/We pretend the night won’t steal our youth/Singing me the sweet songs of seduction/Let me be the fool, fool, fool/Who will live and die for you)

Here to Save You is about Sam. Mostly. It’s also about Pidge. And Zaivorge cannons.

(A slave for humankind/I made sure I would survive/To stay alive/Now it’s time to move on/When there’s nothing left to prove/I’m coming to get you)

Iron is the third Closure fic (the second is End of the Beginning, forgot to mention that. They’ve slowly moved away from actually being related to it in anything but name and general idea). It’s about Keith coming to terms with parts of himself, and learning how to use them to great effect. Also has a huge info dump about the Blade.

(You can’t live without the fire/It’s the heat that makes you strong/‘Cause you’re born to live/And fight it all the way/You can’t hide what lies inside you/It’s the only thing you know/You’re embracing that, never walk away)

The second major turning point in the war is Monarch, Birthright, and Firewall. I really recommend reading the whole lyrics for Monarch, because the entire thing is very much a Lotor song. I had a bit of trouble picking a lyric to use here. Monarch is here because Lotor is also the ‘singer’ of Birthright, and both songs are to a very specific high-level target of the Coalition. Firewall is a little different as it’s a Team Voltron song not a Lotor song, but happens because of the same thing the other two do. They’re all not exactly a direct result of Iron, but they wouldn’t happen how they do without it, and then [REDACTED] swings back into the fray and things learned in String Theory/the framing story for Through Apocalypse Skies hit in full force.

(I am not the person you remember from before/The one you patronized and stepped on, the one you hurt/And I have pulled the arrows, now my skin has become stone/No longer am I prisoner to your empty fucking words)

(The voices in my head have all begun to sing/(The voices in your head have all begun to sing)/And they sure as hell hope I am listening/(I sure as hell hope you are listening!))

(They come to your dreams with illusion/They come to bring shape to your mind/You know how to stop the intrusion/We all have to fight for our lives)

and then, The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Here Comes the Reign doesn’t come into full effect until several months after Birthright/Firewall, but starts with The Day the Earth Collapsed. It’s largely about Haggar and [REDACTED]

(You made something they can’t take away/Now bring the fire of the burning sun on everyone)

Supersonic is here… kinda as a placeholder? Things have shifted around since its original purpose, and frankly it’s here still as a framework for what I like to call The Meme Battle. It’s generally about the increase in Coalition support and general winning as they go after warlords in the aftermath of Feyiv, culminating in I Need a Hero which is, of course, The Meme Battle.

Yes, it’s the Shrek version. It’s the Meme Battle.

(Supersonic, polyphonic, this is our war/Mustering the armies, marching faster than before)

(I need a hero/I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night/He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast/And he's gotta be fresh from the fight)

But Tonight We Dance isn’t exactly a klance song, but it’s here for them. On a diplomatic mission gone wrong, the Red and Blue Paladins of Voltron uncover a literally-buried government conspiracy, a rebel cell, and nearly die. A normal days work for the two of them. But they’ve really gotta stop having relationship milestones in the middle of a warzone.

Another reason it’s here is Tonight We Dance is a very aro song to me. “A language universal, but I speak not its tongue” hits hard. I felt like I needed a bit in here to remind listeners/readers that romance isn’t a language Keith speaks. And it becomes very explicit in this fic, just like Belgrade.

(Tomorrow we might wake in servitude and silence/I will give you everything if only you would have me/Tomorrow we will sweat and toil/Our hands will quiver, caked with soil/Tomorrow we'll give it one last chance/But tonight we dance/But tonight we dance!)

But Tonight We Dance is the last of the Closure fics, which is why it’s here. Closure in general is a lot of Keith’s character development and some of the struggles he goes through to accept his place in the universe and the fact that yes, he does have people that care about him. The last fic is me shining a brighter light on Closure’s chorus and taking a ‘last goodbye’ as never needing to say it again

(I am the child from the stars/That got lost in the dark/Between heaven and hell/I am forced to live on/I am the cause when you sin/I am the demon you skin/But there is no more tears to beautify/This is my last goodbye)

Then we step back into the universe-level action with Soulbound. Revelations from String Theory and Firewall swing back in with a vengeance on a joint Whispers-Voltron mission, leaving them reeling and Krolia questioning her very identity.

(Soulbound, endlessly forever/Locked between the darkness and the light/Don’t drown in the swarming, blackened rising/Hold on to humanity and fight)

About three months after that is My Darkest Hour and Faster Than Light. Haggar realizes something and goes searching for her fifth [spoiler], sending the Blade and the rest of the Coalition scrambling. These also lead directly, and I mean directly, into…

(When the sun comes crashing down/When the world is spinning round and round/I will face what must be my darkest hour)

(Once more we’re flying fast as light/Dark matter passing in the night/Pursued by a force we can’t outrun/As we hurtle towards a dying sun/We maneuver through the remnants of a moon/On the solar winds of supernovas/There is not a place to hide, the Matriarch is close behind/It’s plain to see she’s coming for us all)

Cosmic Vertigo and Other Worlds Than These. Together they are the second of two revelations in what, exactly, is [REDACTED]

(Banish me like burned down planets/Write my fate with sparkling lies/I am the universe; you're just one sky)

(Pull the wool out from your eyes/It won’t shade your frail belief/In the end we cannot hide/There are other worlds than these)

Godhunter is Team Voltron, well, hunting for gods, even as one of them disappears.

(She’s been watching for a century/With hatred, and with scorn/If you know the hunter’s coming/Then you hide or keep on running/'Cause she’s slain the gods before)

Trophy Hunter, Ember, and Redemption are the culmination of Godhunter. I’ve been thinking of them as akin to the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2, if that gives you an idea of what the hell they run into. Also I switched which specific Redemption is on the playlist, because I was listening to Red Handed Denial again and their Redemption was vibing way more than the Hammerfall one. They link up to Godhunter and Soulbound in subject matter, and lead directly into…

(You, you won’t escape me, I’ll rise from the deep/In this final moment, no words left to say/I can’t let you be when a life fades away/You, you won’t escape me ‘cause I’ll set you free)

(Dark matter falling from the sky/Dancing flames reflecting in your eyes as you watch them burn/Watching all your riches witches burn)

(Remember me not for the mess I’ve made/But who I could have been/Finally I’m going home)

World On Fire, This is a Call, The Reckoning, The Wind That Shapes the Land, and Louder Than Words. Switched the order up a bit so it makes more sense chronologically, because the message ‘sent by forces beyond salvation’ has to get there before the reckoning can begin.

(World on fire with a smoking sun/Stops everything and everyone/Brace yourself for all will pay/Help is on the way)

(This is a call to action/This is a call to arms/All lives for one, together/There are no false alarms)

(I see your face, find peace of mind/Between the madness and the sadness and the fire burning/The end of war, the great divine/We’ll see the day of reckoning)

(Search within/Uncover the will to win/Turn against the tide that washes o'er/Find the strength to fall and rise again/Open up the gates, unleash the force/I am the wind that shapes the land/Old as time and twice as strong/Oceans arise at my command/I alone can carry on)

(We have the force to fight/We have the blinding light/A war is more than heard/Coming in louder than words)

#i am dark matter; your road to ruin #dm playlists #guess who spent two hours on this! again!#as usual!#long post #i'm teaching in the morning and it's one am #oops

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sapphequinox · 7 years

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Lunar Violet: Chapter 1

Content Warning and Foreword: Just don’t read this. Seriously. One night instead of venting into a journal nobody would ever read, I decided to channel my turmoil and restlessness into a work of fiction. The result we have here is the first chapter of a hopefully not ongoing series, which if I write another word of it will be an anthology of short stories chronicling the lives of the people that live in a small town with a population of exactly 26 people. I will repeat in clear terms that this is in no way autobiographical in any way. For realsies. Also this is my “After Hours” blog now, which means this is now the destination for everything I decide to put out on this site that I deem not suited for display on my main blog. You have been warned.

Well, I guess it started that one night. Yeah, that was about the time, I’ll start there. I found myself hunched over my desk, passively scribbling away under the soft orange lamplight. Since my chair faced out the attic window, I always had a clear view of my muse at night: the bare neighborhood streets, free from the burden of its residents. Streetlights hummed and cicadas sang, providing the soundtrack to my work.

I’m not sure why, but at approximately 10:33 that night I’d felt an incredibly strong urge to write. Just write. I hadn’t any particular ideas of what exactly I was to write, but I’d decided that I was indeed going to use a pen to create a story upon paper. And so far it was going spectacularly. I’d gotten off to a shaky beginning, testing out different ideas to see if any broad concepts could draw some inspiration out of me. A cyberpunk space romance, historical fiction comedy set in East Asia, so on and so forth. I’d eventually decided on “Effervescent Gamble: Furtive Adventures in Neo Tokyo”. I’ll be honest and tell you that I’d come up with the title before the concept, and at the moment was going through the tasking process of doing the name justice.

Upon realizing that I’d been sitting and thinking about not being able to think about anything for quite awhile now, I decided to quit writing. Again. Defeated, yet still stirring with my lust for creativity and self-expression, my next course of action was to rise out from my slumped position out of my chair, and subsequently fall face first onto my bed. As I rolled over to examine my ceiling as I often do, I was once again prompted by a sheet of paper taped up there asking a question I’d mulled over many a night: “Should I masturbate?”

I thought this through carefully, eventually coming to the logical conclusion that, since I had no desire to sleep or play video games or go find drugs, the best course of action would indeed be to masturbate. Yet the struggles of a young man such as myself are never so short lived, as I had no material with which to aid my impulses. You see, back in the early 2000’s, I did not have the infinite library of smut, filth and gratification that is instantly available to me today. The family computer was downstairs, and my mother was downstairs. You see the dilemma.

Anyways, my first course of action was to sit back up and crouch down at the bottom of my desk, sliding open the black square drawer containing my magazines and graphic novels. I pulled out all the novels that were especially more graphic than the others, and laid them out on my bed.

I picked up the leftmost one I’d put down after sliding the drawer back closed with my foot. Izuremata’s Muffin Appreciation Club. This copy actually had a signature on the inner cover from the author, which upon opening the book I rediscovered alongside the slip of paper that fluttered out of the pages. I examined the paper.

Main chick’s got huge tits, lots of sexy stuff. Got this signed by the legend himself at L.A., enjoy. ~ Dad

What the fuck. I decided to put the note back and pick up the next book. It was one of my old favorites, Danger Squid Girl 32. I flipped to the folded page and sank into the bed, sliding my sweatpants down to my ankles.

My door flung open, the knob kicking up dust and fragments of drywall as it crashed against the wall. My mom, Eliana stood in the doorway, panting.

I set down the book on my stomach. “I’m looking at porn, what do you want?”

“Keith, there’s been an accident, down the street.” She looked out the window nervously. “Your dad went out earlier, and he hasn’t come back, and…”

“If you’re scared that it’s him, just go yourself already. You’ll have more time to pay your respects that way before they drag him to the station and beat him to death.”

This visibly upset her. “Keith, that’s not how it works, and you know I don’t do well with this sort of thi…” As often happened, she wasn’t able to finish her sentence, the last few words painfully choked with pain and fear, frustrated tears building up behind her innocent amber eyes. Giving up all semblance of authority, she slowly walked over and fell onto my bed, exploding into a fit of rattling sobs.

This made me feel awkward with my Pokemon boxers bulging with the power of my raw, unbridled cock, so I stood up and pulled my pants back up to my waist before sitting back down and offering a confused, reluctant arm around her shoulder. “I’m sure dad isn’t dead, Mom.”

This did not seem to stop her incessant crying.

“Would it make you feel better if I went down the street and checked by myself?”

She collected enough of herself to tone the hysterics down to a helpless whimpering, punctuated by the occasional heavy sob, just long enough to give a simple nod and look of thanks. The facade collapsed immediately as I rose to adorn my silk, velvet bathrobe, adorned in gold on the back with the text “If You’re Reading This, Take Me Now”.

“It’s your dad, alright.” The officer took an apathetic glance at the smouldering wreckage before going back to scribbling in his notepad.

“What?!” You stare into the flames, eyes widening with confusion and disbelief. “How?! Look at it! Have you even checked?!”

He put his notepad into his pocket before turning to face me, leaning against the trunk of the police car. “I mean, I’m not about to just go in and check myself kid, fire is hot.”

“Then how can you know?”

“Keith, come on. There’s like twenty people in town, I checked and all of them are accounted for except your pops. And if we had a visitor,” he he said, pointing his pen at his badge, “I’d have noticed them.”

I cursed the abnormal population density. “I can’t believe it…” I slowly sank to the gravelly street, coming to a rest with my arms around my knees. “I knew my dad would die before I moved out of the house, but… I never thought about how I’d have to actually be there for it.”

“Let me tell you, kid, that really sucks.” He took a sip of his Red Bull and wiped his nose with the mittened hand holding it. “You’re an unlucky boy. My dad died from overdosing on tapeworm tablets while I was fucking a sixty year old prostitute in Indonesia during a college trip. I didn’t even have to deal with the guilt I would have had if cell phones had existed back then, as I would have no doubt received a text or call notifying me of my father’s death either while I was fucking her, or while I was sneaking out of the brothel.”

I ignored his words of comfort, staring deeply into the ember-lit tar of the street, blackened by the ash of the man who never taught me how to play baseball, which I used often to lie to myself that he was the sole reason I never got into sports.

The officer slowly eased off the trunk and crushed the can of Red Bull against his flat forehead, wiping the sugary nectar off his pornstache before tossing the can into the enormous fire, which persisted without anyone seemingly giving a shit. “Well, It’s getting late, it’s about time I was off.”

I finally looked up, catching his retreating gaze. “Wait, you’re leaving? You’re not going to call in anybody to put out the fire, or try and search for clues to make sure nothing weird happened?” I pointed to his coat pocket, rising to my feet. “I saw you writing in that notepad earlier, is that just for show?”

“I’m just the guy that makes sure we don’t have to get insurance involved.” With that word, he turned around and hopped into the driver’s seat before silently drifting away, out of my life forever.

I thundered up the porch steps, every essence of my being brimming with bitter, misguided determination. After flinging the heavy oak door open and storming down the entrance hallway, I turned to walk through the kitchen and sat down in the chair in front of the family computer, entering the password all in one swift motion.

Password123

Without a moment’s hesitation, I dramatically drove the cursor over the closest word processing application, double clicking and immediately doubling down over the keyboard as the document opened up, furiously drumming my sweaty fingers against the keys, the covers for some flying off in fragments as I channeled my overwhelming resentment into every word I recklessly strummed out. My hatred and remorse quickly began to weave an immense, artful tapestry of contempt for everything ever conceived or heard of. The computer began to levitate from the clock speeds of the CPU, struggling to keep up with the rapid output of pure, disgusting rage as I indented paragraph after paragraph of my deepest, darkest true emotions.

After I’d hit the 10,000 word mark after about three minutes, I minimized the window and opened up the web browser, navigating to the first hardcore porn site I could think of and smashing my head into the keyboard, and then clicking on the first thing my headbanging conjured up in the site’s search engine.

My senses were blinded by foul darkness and corruption, I channeled the dark lord himself through my numb lust as I ripped my pants off, gripping my member with the strength of a billion suns as I rubbed myself like a piston on steroids and coke to the senseless kaleidoscope of colors and moaning that my distorted state of mind perceived the smut as. Inside my brain towers collapsed, universes imploded, nebulae died. For that brief moment, I was a god. I looked over my vast domain, effortlessly comprehending and calculating every galaxy I cast my all-knowing gaze over. I witnessed civilizations rise, empires fall. I clipped my toenails and hurled them into the ether, my tremendous, ethereal biceps rippling with holy power. Distant solar systems exploded as I rubbed myself under my billowing toga, crying tears of blood and liquid gold, each droplet creating a universe as they fell to the bottom of the void.

At least, that’s what I felt like should have happened.

I solemnly trudged up the cement stairs, limply gripping the door handle as I pushed into the entrance hallway. I was going to go back up to my room to write some more, but my mother encountered me before I even made it to the staircase.

“What happened, Keithy?” She looked down at me with her innocent, hopeful eyes, soon to be weighed down by the weight of my next sentence. I could barely manage.

“Yeah it’s him. His charred corpse is probably still somewhere in the burning wreckage out there. I doubt they’re going to stomp it out anytime tonight.” Unexpectedly, I began to choke on my words as I struggled to get them out, tears welling in my eyes both from the weight of what I was saying, and the realization that I was in fact my mother’s child. Potent, fermented tears began to stream down my hot cheeks, and I backed against the front door, sliding to a sitting position as my arms went limp at my sides, allowing myself to finally dissipate my supply of all the built up tears from years of anguish and depression.

My keen mother Eliana noticed this, and walked down to the front door, crouching down to my position and ruffling my hair. “There there, Keith. It’s okay, I’m still here.”

This didn’t make me feel much better. In fact, I felt worse upon remembering that my father was actually the parent I liked more, or resented less. In a sudden burst of sad, angry and weirdly sexual passion I launched off down the hallway, pushing my mother aside as I ran up the staircase, going off to sulk and be edgy in my room as I often did. Granted, this time I had a really good reason to do so, which I often use to convince myself that I’m not a terrible person, even though deep down I know that I hated my father almost as much as my mother, and really just hated my entire fucking life in general but was too afraid of pain to just end it all and jam a kitchen knife into my fucking throat and die.

#writing #trash #lunar violet

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