archive-of-fear

[archive-of-fear]

The Balancer's Eye (Lord Huron) The song is about being judged by an uncaring, unsympathetic cosmic force that sees everyone's crimes.

Somebody's Eyes (Footloose) Somebody's eyes are watching Somebody's eyes are seeing me loving him Somebody's waiting to take him back again Love is no disguise (oh, oh) from somebody's eyes Love is no disguise (oh, oh) from somebody's eyes

[archive-of-fear]

Exit Music (for a Film) (Radiohead) I can't fully explain it, but there's something about this song (From the "And you can laugh…" point onwards, particularly so) that just feels like… a bad ending. Like there's been a cruel plot twist that makes it so not even the villains have achieve anything, everything every single one of the characters have fought for was all in vain, everything is despair and Death itself is the only one who has the last laugh.

Polka Never Dies (The Dreadnoughts) So when your face is gone/Oh, the dance will carry on/And you'll rot down in your grave/With the souls you couldn't save/Tonight, the stage was yours/How they loved your moans and sighs/But oh, the reaper loved you more/Polka never dies.

[archive-of-fear]

Hey You (Pink Floyd) It almost feels like cheating to submit songs from The Wall for this. The whole album is an exploration of a man's self-isolation and the madness it drives him to. Hey You is a final plea for connection, and then giving up. "But it was only fantasy / The wall was too high as you can see"

Child of Summer (First Aid Kit) This song sounds like the last lament of someone becoming an avatar of the lonely. It carries the yearning feeling of someone who perhaps hasn't always wanted to be alone, but has embraced loneliness as their lot "We used to dance and laugh and sing / With no thought of ever growing older / And I never needed reassurance / From some kind of higher power / Now I find myself wandering in my lonely hours." Additionally, the fact that the beginning and ending lines are the same adds to the feeling of the song as a finality.

[archive-of-fear]

Just For Once (Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Team Starkid) ‘Just For Once’ is sung from the perspective of a suburban housewife on her 40th birthday reflecting on her isolation and her lack of involvement in her own life. “And life is fine, if only it were mine.” “Yesterday the Johnsons borrowed my tap shoes, Their eldest daughter is beginning tap, It was no bother, I never ever use them, I used to dance, I used to dance.” The lack of attention she gets is a focal point in the song, especially in the chorus. “And just for once I’d be the centre of attention, Just for once, imagine what a life could be,” She sings that a year ago she lost her hair under chemotherapy and that she enjoyed the attention people gave her for it. Her husband, Maury, prefers the neighbours’ children to their own and he is cheating on her. “39 I lose my hair under careful chemo treatment, And I was not unhappy about the attention I ensnared, Judge me!” “The pool is full, the neighbours come rushing, Maury prefers their kids.” “It fucking worked, I’m fucking here, he’s fucking her, I’m disappointed, There’s still carpet in the bathroom, And of the two of us, who’s the worse for wear? Me!” The song is from a show-within-a-show, a play called The Barbeque Monologues, for which the character Ruth Fleming runs lights. She is relentlessly bullied to the point where people tell her to die every day and not even telemarketers enjoy talking to her. Her understanding of human relationships comes primarily from porn. Her first spoken line in Nerdy Prudes Must Die is, “I just want someone to touch me!” At this point in the show, the bully, Max Jägerman, has been killed, and there is peace in the halls of Hatchetfield High. This means that Ruth gets to entertain hopes of being “in the spotlight instead of the booth” in spite of her stage fright, acne, and bad odour. Here, she performs ‘Just For Once’ while the actors are taking a break. The song is framed as a reflection of Ruth’s feelings about her current life and speculations of an unloved future: even though the bullying has stopped, it won’t take away her anxiety, her greasy skin, or her deodorant allergy. Additionally, on a meta level, ‘Just For Once’ is the only song in Nerdy Prudes Must Die performed as a solo with no backing vocals. The song is performed entirely alone.

(SPOILERS FOR NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE BELOW CUT)

Is Anyone There (Jack Stauber) The song is just 44 seconds long, take a listen to it.

After Ruth finishes singing, the vengeful ghost of Max kills her before she can raise her hopes any higher. She died alone, never truly reaping the fruits of a happy school life. She will never turn 40. Like just enough characters in Hatchetfield, Ruth died because she wanted something, and so the living in Hatchetfield are left in the place of the unnamed narrator: never daring to want something more and resigned to being a nonentity in their own lives.

[archive-of-fear]

One More Minute (Weird Al Yankovic) This doo-wop parody pastiche is very express about Al's enthusiasm about breaking things off; misanthropic to a comical degree. Peter probably plays it during the divorce proceedings.

Flowers on the Wall (The Statler Brothers) “Flowers on the Wall” is sung by a narrator responding to an ex-lover’s worries about his loneliness and isolation. The tone is rather ambiguous, and could be either a tongue-in-cheek admission of depression, or a sincere rebuffing of the mistaken sympathy of others.

[archive-of-fear]

Passive (A Perfect Circle) The narrator is interpreting their enemy's death as the ultimate passive aggressive act.

Willow Tree March (The Paper Kites) A song about the march towards inevitable death, unfettered by the legacy you leave behind. The chorus, repeated throughout the song, is "And we all still die // Yeah, we all still die // What will you leave behind? // Oh, we all still die."

[archive-of-fear]

Name: Dissected

Source: Torchwood

Category: Statement

Entity: The Stranger

Description: Statement of Martha Jones, regarding an autopsy on a corpse brought in by a former colleague

While the title and setting would suggest a more End aligned tale, this story is primarily Stranger-coded. The corpse itself is actually a shapeshifting alien, attempting (and nearly succeeding) to mimic a "normal" human corpse, even subtly changing its appearance based on what those around them have said they expect a corpse to look like (e.g. making its hair and fingernails grow longer in response to Gwen repeating the common myth that they continue to grow after death, and then retracting said features once Martha corrects her). Martha hypothesises this could be a tactic to infiltrate and eventually take over UNIT:

"Okay, let's think: you're an intelligent chameleon arriving on this planet; you know we'll detect your ship - use that. Pretend to be human - pretend to be a dead human - get yourself smuggled into an organisation adept at dealing with aliens. First, you take over the experts, and then the organisation, and then the whole system!"

However, before this revelation, a swab from the corpse's mouth registers two sets of DNA, one of them being Gwen's, making Martha become suspicious of her former colleague being a shapeshifting infiltrator. Gwen mirrors these suspicions back at her and the two of them interrogate each other, trying to prove the other is a fake, but end up realising how little they know about the other and how much they've drifted apart.

[archive-of-fear]

Name: At the Time of Writing

Artist: Midnight Oil

Category: Song

Alignment: Extinction

Description: A song about the climate crisis and the ongoing/upcoming global catastrophe it brings. The song switches between the present (We better get together or we'll end up on the roof with a shotgun / Because a chance, we've only got one) urging immediate action, and the future where it's too late to do anything (At the time of writing, we were on the brink / At the time of writing, still had time to think).

Lyrics:

There's nothing much hanging from the tree in the Garden of Eden It takes a long long time for the fruit to ripen on the vine We better get together or we'll end up on the roof with a shotgun Because a chance, we've only got one

It's never very smart to try and strip the bark from an old tree We've been digging up the dirt since the rocks of the earth were still warm Now old king coal is dying, he was never gonna last the long run You know a chance, we've only got one

At the time of writing we were in our heads At the time of writing we were good as dead At the time of writing At the time of writing we were fast asleep At the time of writing we were in too deep At the time of writing

Wait a little while your eyes, will realign into the darkness There's an ice-melt below us, bamboo curtains above Our ocean moat protects us, our friends will surely come You know a chance, we've only got one

At the time of writing we were in our heads At the time of writing we were good as dead At the time of writing At the time of writing we were fast asleep At the time of writing we were in too deep At the time of writing

They make no apologies for this, make no apologies for anything They make no apologies for this, make no apologies for everything We are not responsible for this, we're not responsible for everything We are not responsible for this, we're not responsible for everything

At the time of writing we were in our heads At the time of writing we were good as dead At the time of writing At the time of writing we were fast asleep At the time of writing we were in too deep At the time of writing At the time of writing we were on the brink At the time of writing, still had time to think At the time, at the time, at the time, at the time, at the time Right now

[archive-of-fear]

Name: Rising Seas

Artist: Midnight Oil

Category: Song

Alignment: Extinction

Description: In the words of song writer, Jim Moginie - "It’s a hypothetical reality, a glimpse into the future. The water levels have risen. The captains of industry and the rich have abandoned the ship for higher ground. The poorest countries will be the ones left at or below sea level. It’s already happening across the Pacific. Governments sacrifice lives and homes when they deliver policy for big polluters, whether they be mining companies, oil drilling, cotton farming in the desert or destruction of rainforest ecosystems."

Lyrics:

Every child put down your toys And come inside to sleep We have to look you in the eye and say we sold you cheap Let's confess we did not act With serious urgency So open up the floodgates To the rising seas

Temperature rising Climate denying Fever is gripping Nobody's listening Lustre is fading Because nobody's trading Wall Street is jumping Still the music keeps pumping

If you can't decide Between wrong and right If you can't see through All that you hold true

Queen of the firmament Lord of all beneath Masters of the universe We're all refugees And in many countries they adore celebrities Open up the floodgates To the rising seas

Dinosaur stories Reliving past glories Lusting for gold F-f-fishing for souls They said it was coming We knew it was a-coming

If you lift your game Put your toys away Well it looks like rain On that western plain

Queen of the firmament Lord of all beneath Masters of the universe We're all refugees And in many countries they adore celebrities Open up the floodgates To the rising seas To the rising seas To the rising seas

[archive-of-fear]

Name: Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik

Source: Sonic the Hedgehog

Entity: Extinction

Category: Avatar

Description: A mad scientist who is constantly trying to take over the world through various schemes. These include, but are certainly not limited to:

Trapping animals inside of robots to power them

Using said robots as a never-ending army to try and conquer the world, sometimes succeeding.

Turning people and animals into robots and enslaving them through a process called robotocization

Similar to robotocization, but on a much larger and less controlled scale: creating an artificial virus that turns all organic matter metallic, and sentient beings into mindless "zombots"

Creating a self-replicating and ever-expanding city inhabited by robots. Fuelled by artificial chaos emeralds, it was designed to grow exponentially until it covered the entire world, completely devastating the environment by strip mining every available resource in its path.

Releasing powerful destructive beings like Perfect Chaos and Iblis that nearly destroyed the entire world (the latter actually succeeding in a now aborted timeline)

Literally shattering the planet into pieces by releasing Dark Gaia

Chaining together multiple planets and forcibly extracts the energy from beings called wisps to create a mind control ray to take over the world

Releasing a being known as the Time Eater to try and reverse all of his failures, resulting in the breakdown of space and time.

And many, many more.

[archive-of-fear]

Name: Phantom Ruby

Source: Sonic the Hedgehog

Entity: Spiral

Category: Artefact

Description: A gemstone with the power to warp people's perception of reality, to the point where it can physically harm them.

"...a weapon that takes control of people's visual and depth perception to feed false information to the brain, creating a new reality for them. Like a dream so real, if you bump yourself in it, your sleeping self will bruise."

[archive-of-fear]

A new installment in my Doctors of Fear series: Eye!15 and Lonely!Ruby!

Ruby's connection to the Lonely is pretty obvious -- 73 Yards summed it up better than I ever could. She's got some abandonment issues and is terrified of driving people away, of being unloveable. She's kind of reminiscent of Martin that way.

15's connection with the Eye is a bit more tenuous, but he's had a connection to memory and knowledge for his whole run so far -- the Memory TARDIS is the most obvious example, but Church on Ruby Road has him exhibiting some Beholding tendencies as well, cold-reading the policeman and spying on Ruby before they meet properly. Hell, his surgical takedown of Joy to free her from the case's control was right out of Jonah Magnus' playbook. All done with the best intentions, of course, but so were Jon's s2 'investigations'!

[archive-of-fear]

Name: London Calling

Artist: The Clash

Category: Song

Alignment: Extinction

Lyrics:

London calling to the faraway towns Now war is declared, and battle come down London calling to the underworld Come outta the cupboard, ya boys and girls

London calling, now don't look to us Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust London calling, see we ain't got no swing Except for the ring of that truncheon thing

The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin' in Meltdown expected, the wheat is growin' thin Engines stop running, but I have no fear 'Cause London is drownin', and I live by the river

(London calling) to the imitation zone Forget it, brother, you can go it alone London calling to the zombies of death Quit holdin' out and draw another breath

London calling, and I don't wanna shout But while we were talking, I saw you noddin' out London calling, see we ain't got no Hyde 'Cept for that one with the yellowy eyes

The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin' in Engines stop running, the wheat is growin' thin A nuclear error, but I have no fear 'Cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river

The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin' in Engines stop running, the wheat is growin' thin A nuclear error, but I have no fear 'Cause London is drowning, an' I, I live by the river

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Now get this (London calling) Yes, I was there, too And ya know what they said? Well, some of it was true! (London calling) At the top of the dial And after all this, won't you give me a smile? (London calling)

I never felt so much alike, alike, alike

[archive-of-fear]

Name: The King of the Dead

Source: Doctor Who

Category: Statement

Entity: The Web

Description: Statement of Nyssa, regarding the events at the opening night of The King of the Dead

The Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan accidentally arrive in the middle of an interactive play named The Kind of the Dead. There, they find that one of the lead actors, Patrick, has ulterior plans for the grand finale, intending to unleash extra-dimensional spider-like beings to feast on the minds of the unwitting audience. However, it turns out that this plan was not entirely of Patrick's doing, with the spider-beings utilising a fragment of his late father's consciousness to manipulate Patrick into joining UNIT and stealing the necessary technology to let them pass into this dimension. So, despite its very End-coded title, The King of the Dead is very much a web-aligned story.

[archive-of-fear]

[archive-of-fear]

Name: The Others

Artist: Birds of Tokyo

Alignment: Lonely

Lyrics:

I'm losing days Living life in cinematic haze Moving through it frame by frame And I'm trying not to notice That I'm never in the moment

I'll let it pass A numbing sense Disguised by sleight of hand Better thoughts are built on air And they'll crumble if I hold them And it won't last in the moment

Wait, am I about to lose myself again In between these walls so torn and thin Everything is seen for what it is

Why don't I feel like all the others Why don't I feel like all the others Just like the broken I have suffered So why don't I feel like all the others

I don't recall What it's like to walk down vacant halls What if I could turn it off If I wake up from this coma Will I wake up in the moment

I wrestle fate Knowing life will win this great debate Chance will have the final say And I wonder for a moment Will I break down When it's over

Wait, am I about to lose myself again In between these walls so torn and thin Everything is seen for what it is

Why don't I feel like all the others Why don't I feel like all the others Just like the broken I have suffered So why don't I feel like all the others All the others All the others All the others All the others

[archive-of-fear]

Name: The Ballad of Sara Berry

Source: 35MM: A Musical Exhibition

Category: Song

Alignment: Slaughter

Lyrics:

Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! Down on your knees before the Queen Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! Down on your knees before the Queen Sara Berry was a popular b*tch. (Mm-hmm.) Hot bod, hot boy, cheer captain, plus she was rich. (Oh, yeah.) That girl had everything till hiccup and hitch: Julie Jenkins lost a leg in a wreck. (Am—pu—ta—ted!) The nominations for Prom royalty came (Uh-huh.) Our Sara's senior year, and Queen was her claim— (Uh, duh.) Till gossip stirred the student body would name Julie Jenkins, Queen of the Prom. (Pi—ty—vote!) "Sara," her father said, "Life is a Prom I know you won't disappoint me and Mom…?" You taste the silver, Sara! You taste the crown You thirst for blood from the roses in hand Whoa, you spoil for sash and scepter, music to dance As they crown you Queen of High School Land (Check Sara, choose Sara, vote for Sara Berry.) (Check Sara, choose Sara, vote for Sara Berry.) So obsessed, our Sara near lost her mind To life un-Prom-related, Sara was blind; She shoved her squad, her clique, her boyfriend behind— Still Julie had a hold on the lead. (Poor, poor, Julie...) Soon Sara's sanity was hung by a thread Her B.F.F.'s proclaimed her socially dead 'Til then, at last, her boyfriend texted and said: "I'm taking Julie to the senior Prom." (Love, love, Julie...) "Sara," her father said, "Why be so calm? There's just no future for a Princess at Prom…" You taste the silver, Sara! You taste the crown You thirst for blood from the roses in hand Whoa, you spoil for sash and scepter, music to dance As they crown you Queen of High School Land Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! Down on your knees before the Queen! Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! Down on your knees before the Queen! Some girls are rational but Sara was not She stared in mirrors thinking one single thought: (Julie) There's seven reasons this crown's not good as got— (Anne, Eunice, Raquel, Marianna) And so the night of Prom, mercy! Thus went her plot: (Patricia, Quiara) (Thus went her plot!) "P" is for Patricia drinking poisoned punch "R" is for Raquel dashed on a rock-- crunch! "O" is what Anne said when Sara bludgeoned her brains And "M" is Marianna's marinated remains But! But! "Q" is for Quiara, quiet, drowned in the pool And "U" is for Eunice's pieces spread round the school But "E's" are for the easy way in five minutes tops A one-legg'd girl can bring an "N" for end by calling the cops. (What a b*tch.) You got your silver, Sara, you got your crown You got their blood on your roses in hand Whoa, you donned the sash and scepter, doing a dance As you crowned you Queen of High School Land! Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! (God save the Queen...) Down on your knees before the Queen (God save the Queen!) Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! (The Queen of High School Land...) Down on your knees before— (Oh! The Queen of High School Land!) They wrapped your wrists in silver, they took your crown As they washed your bloody fingers and hands Into a tight straitjacket, small padded cell Screaming, "I'm the Queen of High School Land!" Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh! At least in your head, you're Queen of High School Land! (Woah-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh!) Oh pity the dead, you're Queen of High School Land!(Down on your knees before the Queen) Check Sara, choose Sara, vote for Sara Berry. Check Sara, choose Sara, vote for Sara Berry.