Lostko - Tumblr Posts
In the world where I have lost my beloved, what color will flowers bloom in?
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WHY DOES NO ONE IN THE SH FANDOM TALK ABOUT LOST?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9cAmdWI10c&list=PL7T-HA-IgKUmhSk05v9F4-vwJrFRt9_yt THIS IS SOME GOOD SHIT
YA’LL NEED MORE LOST IN YOUR LIFE LET ME TELL YOU.
I KNOW THE COVER’S NOT EXCITING BUT LETS JUST TALK ABOUT THIS.
First of all this is some classic Sound Horizon right here. I’m talking about DARK ASS SUBJECT MATTER, I’m talking about KICK-ASS MUSIC AND TONAL DISSONANCE, I’m talking about VAGUE AS FUCK FRAME NARRATIVES, I’m talking about MEMORABLE AND POIGNANT VIGNETTES, I am talking about PEOPLE FUCKING DYING, and I am, of course, talking about some MOTHERFUCKING MICHELE MALEBRANCHE
But in all seriousness, people write off Lost as just being confusing and not having much of a story, but let me tell you I think Lost is one of my GOD DAMN FAVORITE STORIES IN THE SOUND HORIZON UNIVERSE. It’s up there with Chronicle 2nd and Marchen.
The story is, essentially, a series of stories about people experiencing loss being analyzed by a number of objective observers, as well as 2 biased entities, Lostko and the The Eternal Boy (as depicted on the cover). Symbolism of the water of memories aside, the idea is that Lostko, when people are at their lowest point, begs for them keep on searching to find new things to replace what they lost, while The Eternal Boy tries to convince them to give up and fade away.
What’s awesome about the vignettes these characters watch is how they manage to not double dip at all: every song seems to cover widely different themes within the topic of Loss. Let’s go over them, shall we?
WHITE ILLUSION (Shiro no Genai) (Track 2)
“I see green cow”
We don’t talk about White Illusion.
THE DAY I SHOT MY LOVER TO DEATH (Koibito wo Uchiotoshita Hi) (Track 3)
“The cold flames springing from my silver bow freezes the entire night sky above. Bravely and with and azure poem of our farewell, I shoot you to death my love…”
AIGHT SO THIS SONG IS FANTASTIC. It’s this upbeat pop song with the greatest synthetic trumpet part you’ll hear in your goddamn LIFE. However, the subject of the song is REALLY FUCKING SAD. So you got this boy who protects this girl from a beast, but he gets hurt in the process and cursed so that one day, he will become a beast too. Before he does, he begs his lover, the girl he saved on that day, to shoot him down with a bow and arrow. He wants to die by her hands if he is doomed to die.
The girl, torn apart by grief, asks “In a world without my lover, what color flowers will bloom?” And with that, she shoots her self down with her own bow and arrow.
Their very meeting doomed them to one day lose each other. But, doesn’t every meeting inevitably result in loss? When that day comes, what is one to do?
Oh, don’t worry, shit gets even crazier. But for now, a little break.
SARABANTE THE MAGICIAN (Mahoutsukai Sarabanto) (Track 4)
“And then, the man made his wish…”
This is like, the only happy story in the god damn album. You’ve got this magician who lost his lover to death. Doesn’t say much more about him
A suspicious man wants to get his hands on a magical lamp that can grant him wishes, but he knows anyone who tries to get the lamp is doomed to die. He meets a young traveler, and he makes a deal. He pretends to have a bad leg that prevents him from entering the cave with the lamp. He agrees to tell the man the whereabouts of the lamp if he saves one wish for the old man.
The two head out to the cave. However, the cave collapses on the traveler. He, in the middle of the darkness, hears a voice, saying that he can’t come here yet, he still has things to do. Instead of looking to the past, he should focus on what’s in front of him.
He wakes up in the desert in front of a beautiful girl. She was trapped in the lamp for committing a great sin, and for releasing her she promises to grant him any 3 wishes. However, once the third wish is granted, she will disappear back into the lamp.
“The man makes his wish”.
The story closes with the traveler leaving town, with one extra camel in tow, the girl from the lamp riding the second one.
You know, now that I’m writing this, I realize it never really specified whether it was the old man or the young traveler who was the magician who had lost his lover.
THE GAME INSIDE THE CAGE (Ori no Naka no Yuugi) (Track 5)
“Remember, remember, until you forget. You’re not allowed to leave until you’ve lost it”
SO LEMME TELL YOU BOUT A GIRL NAMED MICHELE MALEBRANCHE. This girl. this GURL. Best character ever. She appears in so many of Sound Horizon’s musicals, and in this story we learn about one of her many exploits.
A woman sings about a man cornering Michele and then choking her to death. He hides her body, but something that sounds like a gunshot is heard, and the whole thing loops. She’s alive again. He loves her more than anything, and he can’t bear the idea of her living away from him, so he desperately tries kill her over and over again… for the rest of his life. It’s also in this that Michele drops a recurring phrase… “You’re not allowed to leave until you’ve lost it”… a phrase that is later repeated by The Eternal Boy. Repeatedly.
In the end, it wasn’t Michele in the cage. It was the man.
THE LOST POEM (Ushinawareshi Uta) (Track 7)
“Good or bad, feelings are flowers to be nurtured”
Okay, so this song is written in a fucking CONLANG. A FUCKING MADE UP LANGUAGE. Here’s the first verse.
Ay faw styul-li, ay fawnt layx. Fo lof ti hayn, za tu fayn di el-mows. Kuz el fi nos, styul-li er-ayz. No wez wi, en fi lo stul-li.
It’s not even a series of random syllables. There is grammar and I think some latin roots to it. What the fuck.
The song is an excerpt from a lost poem, from a land and time that historians are unable to discern. It talks about how a single lie spread into a great conflict that destroyed her whole country overnight. It talks about hearts that trust one another, the opposite of the hearts that bred the conflict. It describes them as things we can’t afford to forget.
THE CRIMSON FLOWER (Hiiro no Hana) (Track 8)
“Here I am to trample on… myself”
A great war is being waged in a forest, and the nature is destroyed by the battle. In an act of revenge, a girl who serves the forest ties up and kills a number of soldiers.
In his final moments, he reflects on his actions and the irony of it all. How he lives his life, protecting the things he cares about by taking away things that other people care about. And here’s this girl, who is about to do the same to him. He describes himself as a flower, stained with blood.
CRADLE (Yurikago) (Track 9)
“If the boy and girl would even call that lost, then the blue sky of that day would expand without end, till it covered all”
A woman is walking through her town on the cape, chatting with her friends and carrying her child in her arms. She thinks everything is wonderful. But no one wants to break the news to her, either out of pity or of fear of her mental condition, the sad truth.
The baby she carried in her arms had died a long time ago, and now was nothing but a skeleton.
NOW LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE MEANING OF ALL THIS SHIT CAUSE IT’S SOME PREETY GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL STUFF.
The musical ends with a monologue from The Eternal Boy. He is in all of us, and trying to hide the darkness inside of us only makes it grow deeper. People are doomed to wander between loss and oblivion. It is best if we just disappear. This is the message he gives to us listeners
But throughout the play, in every song, Lostko repeats these words: “Are you forgetting something?” There is a topic of forgetting and of memories, and here’s what I personally think it means: When we lose something, it consumes our life. We forget there is anything for us but the despair of loss. This is why we give up in the face of it. These songs are about people facing the worst of loss. However, we forget that there is something else. We can keep on flowing, and even if we meet loss again, there is always something after it. As the lost poem says, the fact that there are hearts out there filled with trust, that there is good in the world, is something we can’t afford to forget.
Lostko, in every song, when she asks them if they forgot anything, she asks them if they’ve forgotten all the good in the world that goes with the bad. That’s why she asks them keep going. Even if they’ll face loss again and again and again, they always have to keep on flowing.
It’s such a beautiful fucking message I love it.