Puppies_On_Acid's Gentlemen's Roulette! Epilogue

[The Walrus]

Ahh. Nils Frahm is Keep. Good stuff.

[Evermind]

Words in the Water is Parama's. Wasn't going to spoil this, but after he said it's mine I decided to do it.

[Crow]

well hmm i think tomi's entire EP is full actually, based on the track lengths of those songs
forgot that the thy light song was 13 mins and the october falls collectively is like 15 too, there's maybe room for one shorter song there but maybe not
kingcrow could be ev's? i did the math on his and with the songs guessed he has about 5 mins left in there & seems like something he'd send
i say this but then all the songs i sent add up to over 40 mins in total, i just did a lot of crossfades mostly involving thrice tbh, almost all the ambience had to get overlapped with other tracks :V

let's see.
rishloo is TAC?
tyr is almost certainly katt's based on the cheese theme
maybe wuthering heights and lorenguard too
affinity i think is tac's too

[The Walrus]

tyr is almost certainly katt's based on the cheese theme
maybe wuthering heights and lorenguard too

Confirmed - there's still one left for my EP after those, though.

[Crow]

I mean, amon amarth then?
i figured that was too growly for your EP (it's on TAC's if not yours since he's the one fogey who's okay-ish with growls) but in terms of titles it fits
i'll also say that my EP is still missing a few tracks but you could prob figure that out by adding up the times

[The Walrus]

[Train of Naught]

Can't it be tomislav's?

Also Amon Amarth is more on the mythical and Scandinavian folk side of things which may be something Katt enjoys more with his growls than some crazy German extreme metal band like Der Weg Einer Freiheit or some shit

Also think Rishloo has to be home's, but I'm too lazy to add up EP times so I'm also not sure if that's possible.

Yes Stomp That Goomba is mine but it's not the last track, unless you mean as in my EP is complete now, then you'd be right

[Crow]

yeah that's what i meant by "the last track"
y'all should fill in my EP some more so i can post it we're doing a full up EP sharing party in here bois

[Train of Naught]

Black Peaks
Exotic Animal Petting Zoo (this band is awesomer than you made them out to be in my roulette btw)
Amendfoil
Memes in the Water

All yours, anything still missing?

[Train of Naught]

Mine is complete and here's the link (only Spotify hehehe sorry too many EP rounds to keep doing crossfades and shit these days): https://open.spotify.com/user/lvialviaquez/playlist/3FocOqv0jD3rAXFSfDRvi2?si=pl-ZYz53Rt6hbCdAeqMPfw

[Crow]

yup that's all of it 
also the EAPZ album i have is like 50% excellent stuff 50% kinda bland mathcore-y stuff i forgot about
seeds is actually the best song though. you rated that too low

i think this is the link to the latest version but here we go

[Train of Naught]

Their 2 best songs are actually on the album with the ugly cover of a mouth with some kind of branch looking shit coming out of it (Apis Bull and You Make Wonderful Pictures), but that album you send songs off seems like the better album overall.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

EP Titles
Parama: Remnants of Our History Left to Rot in the Scars of War
 Aenaon - Oneirodynia
 Cryptodira - Constituted I Constitutum
 Cryptodira - Constituted II Constituens
 Black Peaks - Saviour
 Exotic Animal Petting Zoo - These People Refuse to Believe That the Lake is Bottomless
 Thrice - Words in the Water
 Amendfoil - Silver Linings

TAC: dEsPairavarium
 Rishloo - Landmines
 Iris Divine - In the Wake of Martyrs
 Tribulation - Lacrimosa
 Affinity - Reanimation
 Thoughts Factory - The Mire

Jingle: The Cycle of Life
 The Paralydium Project - Bringer of Life
 Kingcrow - A New Life
 Primal Fear - Born with a Broken Heart
 Primal Fear - When Death Comes Knocking
 Lords of Black - Ghost of You
 Illusion Suite - A Ghost from the Past

Evermind: The Path That Ends in the Clearing
 Absolute Priority - Fear of the Night
 Thrice - Daedalus
 Mark Knopfler - Dream of the Drowned Submariner
 While Heaven Wept - The Furthest Shore

Home: Party Sleepy People!
 Olafur Arnalds - Sudden Throw
 Olafur Arnalds - Brim
 Low Roar - Tonight Tonight Tonight
 Sleep Party People - Dissensions
 Nils Frahm - Keep
 Sleep Party People - Change in Time
 Nils Frahm - Unter
 Shels - The Conference of the Birds

Train of Naught: Ladies and Gentlemen, Train of Naught is Floating In His Happy Space
 Bear Ghost - Funkle Phil
 Moron Police - Stomp That Goomba
 The Family Crest - Love Dont Go
 The Reign of Kindo - Romancing a Stranger
 The Family Crest - Howl
 Bear Ghost - Starkiller
 Closure in Moscow - Seeds of Gold
 Closure in Moscow - Happy Days
 
KTLX: Legends of A Shattered World EP
 Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God
 Lorenguard - The Prince and the Pariah
 Tyr - Rainbow Warrior
 Wuthering Heights - The Mad Sailor
 Falconer - Tower of the Queen
 Stratovarius - Father Time
 Power Quest - Children of the Dream

Tomislav: Crush My Soul
 October Falls - I
 October Falls - Viima
 Totalselfhatred - Enlightenment
 Thy Light - and I Finally Reach My End

[Crow]

Their 2 best songs are actually on the album with the ugly cover of a mouth with some kind of branch looking shit coming out of it (Apis Bull and You Make Wonderful Pictures), but that album you send songs off seems like the better album overall.

i've spun this one several times & probably would've bought it in the past if i could find any place to buy it for a reasonable price but i don't really find it as interesting

anyways

guessing A New Life is on jingle's and Tribulation is on TAC's, that should be about it

Party Sleepy People?

train put up his song names so:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Train of Naught is Floating In His Happy Space
Funkle Phil
Howl
Happy Days

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Updated the above post.

I have a feeling these EP's will take me a while to fully digest. Although I do have an early favorite. Don't expect results until next Sunday at the very earliest. Because of my work schedule next week I won't get much listening in Monday through Wednesday. I'm also hoping Soupy sends his in at some point. We can have a bonus Hangmanenen round for his if he does 

[Crow]

yeah take your time with the EP round, you're listening to about 50 songs as is even before soupy sends his stuff 

[Crow]

my review of train's EP: happy music isn't really my thing for extended periods of time but i mean i didn't dislike any of these songs either. both closure in moscow songs were probably the best two here tho. would probably not get instantly eliminated out of 10

[Elite]

This hangmanen was solved ridiculously quickly, wow!

[TAC]

Mine is complete and here's the link (only Spotify hehehe sorry too many EP rounds to keep doing crossfades and shit these days): https://open.spotify.com/user/lvialviaquez/playlist/3FocOqv0jD3rAXFSfDRvi2?si=pl-ZYz53Rt6hbCdAeqMPfw

That's um..interesting.

[Crow]

post links to your eps so I can make fun of them, cowards

I mean I already know like half of tomi and home's but whatever

[Evermind]

Sure thing, here you go. With the whole writeup too. I've nothing to be ashamed of!

This is not the actual writeup for my EP. This is a foreword.

First of all, I feel I must apologize to you as a player to a roulette host. I must admit I kind of half-assedly (that’s probably not a word) participated in your roulette. I chose the songs I liked or loved, alright, but between my job, my D&D campaign I’m running and therefore having to prepare material every week, my personal life (which, apparently, comes after the job and the D&D thing), most of my submissions were an afterthought (which is reflected on the scoreboard, I suppose). I barely did any write-ups, too. I’d like to apologize for that. I think it’s a common courtesy for the player to show interest, and I suppose there wasn’t a lot of that shown on my part.

Because of that, when I realized I’m going to actually make it to the EP round, I realized that, while I slacked during the rest of the roulette, I need to, for a lack of better word (I used all of them in the actual EP writeup), get my shit together for this one round and actually show you that I was interested in your roulette, I was passionate in choosing my songs. Regardless of what you think of my EP contents—some songs may be up your alley, some songs might be not even close—I’m hoping that after this message, and after reading my writeup, you’ll be assured that I cared about your roulette. Or, well, at least for this round. But if I didn’t give a shit at all, I wouldn’t be bothered with the EP either, so there’s that.

I don’t want to put the musical details in my actual writeup, so I’ll just say that I tried to go with “short epic opener – a slower song that builds up towards the emotional climax – a beautiful and tearjerking ballad – an all-out epic closer”. With the writeup, I tried to explain a bit on the title and EP’s theme, and then went into a storytelling mode—because (gosh, this is going to sound as pretentious as I imagined it all along) my EP, as every good piece of art, is telling a story. What you take out from the story, well, that's up to you.

I apologize for any mistakes I've made in the writeup in advance—English isn't my native language, so I'm sure there are some mistakes, both in grammar and punctuation, and I might've used wrong words for some of the expressions.

The last and fair warning: when I decided I would go full-pretentious-mode for this writeup, I decided I would go down with it to the bone, no half-measures. What follows below is the result.

Anyway, now that I’m done with the foreword, here’s the actual writeup. It begins beneath the line.


As a person, I’m highly influenced by the things I’m currently watching or reading (and also by the things I’ve read and watched in the past); and as I’ve made known in General Discussion subforum, I’m reading The Dark Tower series by Stephen King now. Well, strictly speaking, I just finished the fourth book, Wizard and Glass, and now I’m taking a short break from the series, but you probably get the meaning. It's no coincidence that my EP title is one of the figures of speech from those series.

The theme of ‘The Path That Ends in the Clearing’ is death, but more importantly, the journey that came before it. The Clearing is the place at which everyone arrives in the end of their lives, however different their Path might be in life. But regardless of what actions a person took on their Path, it ends in the Clearing all the same. A serial killer, who ended many innocent people’s Paths, or a heroic figure, who struggled to save the world from damnation and reached the end of his Path in pursuit of his glorious quest, they may both meet at the Clearing… and no one knows what’s there. And people who came to the end of their respective Paths… they’re not there to tell anymore.

So hit the “Play” button and see with your own eyes…

The Path That Ends in the Clearing (2018)

1. Absolute Priority – Fear of the Night [00:00 - 07:21]
2. Thrice – Daedalus [07:21 - 13:20]
3. Mark Knopfler – Dream of the Drowned Submariner [13:20 - 18:12]
4. While Heaven Wept – The Furthest Shore [18:12 - 34:03]

Total length: 34:03

Download link

“You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“Go now. Our journey is done. And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.”

― Stephen King, The Dark Tower   

”Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”

― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

As the first acoustic arpeggios begin to worm their way into your mind, you begin to get lost in the music, and suddenly your vision warps. What you see before your eyes is… a corridor of some sort. Two men in jailer uniforms are walking towards the far end of it, their faces serious, their jaws set.

Your vision speeds on towards the turn the jailers are walking to. You make the turn, fly ahead, passing a few intersections before finally reaching a prison cell. The only window in the cell is dark. A man in his forties sits there, back to the wall, blankly staring at the bars. Suddenly his facial expression changes into a wild, feral, bloodcurdling grin, but as you drift closer, you see the blank, emotionless face of a man who lost his hope in the world. His lower lip twitches, as if fighting the expression that threatens to overrule his calm composure. Then he looks right at you, and with a nauseating swirl, you feel you’re being drawn inside his head.

The barren landscape arises before you, the gray cracked earth with fires dying out around you. Flakes of ash fall from the sky. There are no living creatures around, and the sky is hopeless gray with no hints of sun or moon anywhere. And both in the earth and the skies, there are two vast unseen forces fighting each other. You can feel a wave of sanity and rational thoughts invading your mind at the same time as the immense rush of madness—the desire to maim, to kill, to torture, to see the fresh, beautiful crimson blood spurting out of the human body and exult in a warm feeling of it—is trying to sweep both you and the sane presence away. You feel its violent nature and manage to withstand it, as does the rational part of this sick, withering mind—for now, for this moment. You sense that this conflict has been happening for a while now, for a few years, perhaps, and with mixed results.

You hear voices now, coming from everywhere, overlapping, trying to drown each other out, urging to murder, to confess everything, to lick the blood from the victim’s throat, to finally end this misery, to fight this insanity with all they’ve (you’ve?) got. As this furious, chaotic battle rages on, you’re drawn back into the corridor, seeing tears flowing down the struggling face of the prisoner.

His eyes focus on something behind you. You turn around and see two jailers coming down the corridor towards this cell. You glance at the window and see the first hints of dawn creeping through the glass, softening the dark, stone cell with almost an ethereal light. Yet the most striking are the prisoner’s eyes—there is stark fear in them now, as palpable as the first rays of sun on this fine morning.

You stand there and watch a convicted serial killer—responsible for at least seventeen deaths, nine children among them, and, potentially, thirty-two unaccounted persons in the last six months—being dragged towards the gallows (or, to be precise, an electric chair or a hot-shot, if you will, as they use these in this particular world). You watch him walking the last steps on his Path, and soon he will reach its end in the Clearing.


The cell and the corridor fade away, and you see only darkness before you.


Your vision slowly comes back. You find yourself looking at a beautiful, serene village, set at the base of the hill, from a distance. The trees are all green with leaves, and people are lazily walking the streets in the heat, for it is the middle of summer. You look around and see the sea surrounding the island you’re on, murmuring its quiet greetings with the minuscule waves created by a soft wind blowing west. The sun is blazing overhead. The hill you’re standing on turns into a slope as it descends to the village. Looking the opposite way, you see that it ends abruptly, becoming a steep cliff hanging over the welcoming sea. Standing on the edge of the cliff, there are two people, one tall, one is a boy in his adolescent years. There’s a thing that immediately draws your attention—they both have feathered wings attached to their backs.

The tall one places his hand lovingly over the boy’s shoulders and quietly speaks to him, but as the wind blows west, it brings you the words on a gentle breeze:

‘Oh, son, please keep a steady wing. You know you’re the only one that means anything to me, right? Steer clear of the sun, or you’ll find yourself in the sea.’

The boy nods enthusiastically.

‘Well, off we leap, then!’

The man takes the boy by the hand as they both leap down from the cliff, and for a moment you’re sure they would fall and break their bones on the coastal reefs beneath. Yet their wings carry them safely into the freedom of the open air, and as both father and son let out their excited, exultant cries, you’re swept away along with them into the open skies, the kingdom without frontiers and mercy.

The island is away at this point, a distant point at the horizon, and endless plains of sea and sky are stretching beneath and above the three of you. The father stops to determine the direction in which the mainland lies, while the son, excited beyond belief, living the best moments in his life, feeling overwhelmed with a sudden freedom and all-powerful new, amazing ability the wings—meticulously made by his father over the years—granted him, rises up towards the sun, the warnings all forgotten in the spur of this spectacular moment.

The father, jerked out of his train of thought, notices this and begins to fly after the boy, shouting warnings and begging him to turn back. The sun turns its merciless gaze on both of them, and as the older man is unable to reach any further without damaging his wings, his look of awe and pride for both his fearless son and his invention—which miraculously worked and allowed them to flee their island—is replaced by sheer dismay and desperation. You both are unable to turn away from the small, lonely figure flying towards the sun, wings splitting at the seams, feathers burning, wax at the melting point, flying up, up, reaching the highest point of his arc… and then beginning to tumble down, down, towards the welcoming blackness of the vast sea all around him, losing control, spinning, turning, falling, screaming in unison with his father, who is pleading to the gods, eyes widening in disbelief and denial, watching the boy, the jewel of his life, the most sacred person of his life, the treasure of his life, plummeting down to be swallowed by the ever-hungry and ruthless sea. As the boy reaches the Clearing at the end of his Path, you can still hear the father’s ragged screams, and you follow Icarus to the depth of the seas…


…until complete darkness engulfs you.


At first, you don’t see anything, but as your eyes begin to adapt, you realize you must be deep underwater. Perhaps you’re still following the boy who dared to fly too close to the sun and burned his wings? But no, you see the grains of sand at bottom of the sea, the shells and other sea creatures either scattering over the sand or darting in all directions. And there is something else… a huge, long black mass just at the brink of your vision.

As you’re approaching it—the ragged screams still echoing in your head—you begin to recognize the shape of metal in front of you as a submarine. It’s lying at the bottom of this (sea? ocean?), broken, forgotten and abandoned, with no signs of life coming from it, except for the little fishes scurrying around the impressive metal construction. As you swim into its confines, bypassing doors and metal walls, you find the drowned bodies of people inside—this was not some decommissioned vessel, apparently—all bloated and staring sightlessly at the indifferent ceiling. You know exactly where to swim to find the master’s cabin, and there is it, with a pressurized door swung open on its hinges, full of salt water, as is the rest of this miserable vessel. There is a dead man inside, probably in his thirties, strapped to the chair with his own belt, eyes closed, a peaceful expression on his face. This peculiar expression puzzles you, but before you can do anything but wonder about it, you’re drawn inside his head with another nauseating swirl.

This difference between the view you’re experiencing now and the one in the madman’s head couldn’t be more striking. This time, instead of barren, ashen landscape, you see the endless, rolling fields of green grass under the benevolent spring sun, vibrant and full of life and vitality. The submariner you’ve found drowned in the chair is standing tall in the grass, dressed in a rancher’s clothes, his eyes sparkling with kindness, the broad smile lighting up his weathered face. The girl is running towards him, not older than six, her arms outstretched in the anticipation of a hug, matching the smile on the man’s face with her own fierce grin, her hair fluttering and streaming in the mild spring winds. She is running, running, finally reaching him, and he hugs her and lifts her up in the air, spinning her around, and their mingled laughter of joy resounds all over the field, and there is no person or force in the world who can ever tear these two apart… or so the captain dreamed as the water began to fill his own cabin on Relentless, the vessel he’s been guiding for eight years before she finally met her demise. You realize that he walked the end of his Path and stepped into the Clearing with his last fond thoughts and wishes of safety to his one and only beloved daughter.


Then you feel being pulled upward, but before you manage to see anything, the darkness once again descends upon you.


Your visions comes up even as you’re hovering above the raging sea in a storm, huge waves churning and travelling past you wherever the relentless wind guides them. Lightning flashes in the deadly gray skies, and the deafening thunderclaps follow soon after. Each lightning illuminates the foaming sea, and after a particularly bright flash you notice a small vessel fighting against these enormous waves, intent on surviving the storm, trying to move against the wind despite the raging storm. 

As your vision swims closer to the vessel, you see that it’s a simple boat with two oars. A gaunt man with gray streaks in his long hair stays straight-backed in the boat, holding a staff in one hand, the other outstretched towards the upcoming waves, muttering words under his breath. The oars lay abandoned in their locks. You see the waves coming apart when they reach the small boat, reacting to the incantations this man is weaving as his vessel slowly but surely progressing to the south-west. This struggle against the forces of nature continues for a while, and you watch the lines of exhaustion show on the wizard’s face, as his shoulders gradually sag; but the storm keeps hitting, and it looks like the winds are getting more vicious, waves growing bigger and bigger. As the last sliver of hope leaves the mysterious man in the middle of the storm, you see a dark shape of land on the horizon… and then another gigantic wave swallows the vessel and the man in it.

The storm passes, the sea stills, and the sun begins to shine tentatively, finishing its arc in the west… and as you travel to that distant shape of land you noticed earlier, you see the broken body of a man who succumbed to the Sea of Sorrow before your eyes, now washed ashore. Waves are lapping at it as its glassy, lifeless eyes are seeing the sun set for the last time. Somehow you are able to feel his thoughts brushing your consciousness, and you feel him finally being content after suffering during these long years on his quest for farthest shore. Knowing that he faced impossible odds and almost overcame them; knowing that others will come in his place, trying to succeed where he failed; knowing that he died fighting for a worthy cause; knowing that he walked his Path and was true, and knowing—deep down inside, in his very soul—that he has nothing to fear in the Clearing.

As your vision fades, you begin to hear the notes of a guitar solo playing in your world, and you also hear three voices, one female, two male, overlapping and speaking simultaneously in your mind. You’re unable to follow everything they say, but you manage to make out some phrases from the rising noise.

‘Nothing is immortal.’

‘Life before death.’

‘You will not live forever.’

‘Nor will any man nor any thing.’

‘Journey before destination.'

‘Go now. Our journey is done.’

‘But only to us is it given to know that we must die.’

As the other voices cease speaking, you hear the last sentence in full clarity, ringing out in your mind as a clear brass bell.

‘And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.’

[jingle.boy]

I've nothing to be ashamed of!

Wanna bet?

[Evermind]

I've nothing to be ashamed of!

Wanna bet?

Regarding this writeup and my EP, sure; regarding my whole life, that's a big nope, thank you.

[The Walrus]

I've nothing to be ashamed of!

Wanna bet?

After reading (skimming) Ev's post and seeing this I about choked on my water. 

[TAC]

post links to your eps so I can make fun of them, cowards

https://open.spotify.com/user/tacdtf/playlist/5Lfk2rT06nu3rRPIuoujMA?si=s5BESoBDQR-pg-TuZlnzJA

[jingle.boy]

I've nothing to be ashamed of!

Wanna bet?

Regarding this writeup and my EP, sure; regarding my whole life, that's a big nope, thank you.

Well duh... I'm not that much of a douche to suggest you should be ashamed of your whole life.  TAC on the other hand ...   

jk, pal... you know the ones we tease the most are the ones we love the most - IN THE MANLIEST / NON-HOMO WAY POSSIBLE!

Here's a link that has mine, KTLX's, TAC's and Ev's - less what I can't get on Spotify Canada (Kingcrow, Wuthering Heights, Knopfler)

https://open.spotify.com/user/jingle-boy/playlist/7w6VjonXXe0xF1aJGhaZHR?si=qzAYuSAXTe-0YypROMO1Bw

Sorry to the rest, but I'm about 97.7% confident that I wouldn't last 35 seconds with any of those playlists.

[The Walrus]

It seems to me that Wuthering Heights isn't on Spotify and Father Time - one of Strato's most legendary, popular songs - is inexplicably unavailable on Spotify (in the US) except for live versions. (The randomness, and frequency of removal/addition of their catalog on Spotify, is baffling, and incredibly frustrating)

I better place higher than jingle. 

[Evermind]

You actually may like most of mine (except Knopfler's probably too boring for you—it's a beautiful ballad though—and I guess don't really bother with Thrice). So, like, half of mine. Really curious about your thoughts on While Heaven Wept track.

I've nothing to be ashamed of!

Wanna bet?

After reading (skimming) Ev's post and seeing this I about choked on my water. 

My writeup ended up being exactly as cheesy as I intended, so I say job well done here. And I suppose I'm not afraid or ashamed to look and act foolish around my friends, and that's what I consider most of the DTF crowd in GMD these days.

[The Walrus]

No judgment from me, I thought it was hilariously cheesy (as intended) and shows off your writing skills.

[Crow]

The last three tracks on my EP are probably fogey-safe but yeah the first half is pretty heavy 

I'll read evermind's wall of cheese when I'm home but dang man :B

[home]

post links to your eps so I can make fun of them, cowards

I mean I already know like half of tomi and home's but whatever

Yeah I think you've heared all the songs already 

https://open.spotify.com/user/21gddiuemsv5ning7hpny2crq/playlist/2fWNjt8xEfblHMvNDj8c1O?si=patEwK8jQlOSGR9UozSOWA

[TAC]

Pup, any thoughts on the EP's?

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Pup, any thoughts on the EP's?

I should have some snippets up either tomorrow or Friday evening. I haven't had much time to listen to them the last 3 days because of my work schedule.

[Crow]

is soupy like

okay?

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

is soupy like

okay?

I don't know  I still haven't heard from him. I hope he's OK.