i would love to hear about the song choices for the immortal!zoey playlist, im still listening through it (its Really good so far) but im always fascinated by how people choose songs for things like this. ive tried to make character playlists before but i always get distracted LMAO. (off topic but id Also be interested in hearing about the choices that went into the heloise-verse playlist cause that one is also Really good)
YES I WOULD LOVE TO!!!!!!!!!! this too so long partially because i ramble and partially because my internet went out AGAIN and there was no world where i typed anything out on my phone BAHAHA
9/10 times when i add a song to a playlist, i'm looking at the lyrics! the sound of the song / vibes of it are also important, like i very rarely will add a song that is a complete 180 from the rest of the playlist unless it either: 1. has INSANE lyrics that i can't ignore, 2. fits a specific scene Too Well, or 3. is later on in the story where it makes sense for the vibe switch to happen
i also have synesthesia BAHAHA though to be fair a lot of the time that doesn't influence my decision to add songs onto character / series playlists, but it does help sometimes with like...instrumentals! songs with lyrics are easy enough to work out, instrumentals are a little harder and i'm a little more specific with them
"exeunt" by cadence floria is a good example of this! i will do my absolute best to not sound insane when i say that it like....it tastes like Early Summer and Late Spring and Cool Air and Honey and Grass and Outside. it's all very light and feels like march and new beginnings and reunions and it's just very....light. uplifting. hopeful. everything in the immortal!zoey series is meant to have a kind of hope to it, and "exeunt" fit PERFECTLY into that with rumi's pov and how her + mira remember zoey first; it's just very bright and sincere and it feels exactly like what i wanted that scene to feel like BAHAHA
the immortal!zoey playlist is pretty short so far because i'm being very particular about the lyrics; most of the songs have allusions to past lives / being born again / waiting! the only one that really does NOT fit any of my categories is "punkrocker" by the teddybears and that's. okay hear me out BAHGSDSHDG
"punkrocker" was a song i looped while writing living proof and it just. more or less became the Official Immortal!Zoey song in my head. i think it's probably a synesthesia thing. anyways it makes me VISCERALLY UPSET
i literally cannot even describe to you how badly this song kills me every single time i listen to it BAHAHA it like. it GETS to me man. and IT'S PUNKROCKER BY THE TEDDYBEARS!!! RIDICULOUS.
to be it's very reminiscent of The Waiting. i think the best comparison would be to like...imagine The Waiting in the universe as a montage or a movie and That's the song that's playing during it, during the farmer's market, during the trips to the river, during zoey being social and navigating the world, finding peaches, etc. it does not make a lot of sense but man that song makes me so sad
ANYWAYS! most of the songs like i said are lyrics! the first four are from the october song prompt series of course, so they're all Specifically tied to the songs i stole their titles from BAHAHA
"living proof" by gregory alan isakov was picked for these lyrics:
"oh, darlin', pardon me / but do i look familiar?" was the #1 cause that i picked "living proof" to be the beginning of the immortal!zoey series!! the question of "do i look familiar?" to rumi and mira...sickening. miserable. the suffering never ends
"when we were just larkspur and leaves / we were strung through the tether" is ANOTHER really good line there, kind of nodding back to their souls and how they're like...separate from their bodies, how they can find each other in every life. peaches is also an allusion of that! when i say every life i mean. Every Life. mira makes a joke about them being in love / her stealing zoey's first kiss when they were AMOEBA which isn't true but. if it Was. that would in fact be happening
i already talked about "exeunt", so we'll move onto "super natural" by turnover!:
"i could try, but i can't explain how i do, i just know it / something supernatural" THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF SUPER NATURAL!!! i mean we start the fic immediately with mira literally remembering but like. she Can't explain how she knows any of this at first, she just Knows. while "super natural" obviously was picked for the Fic Super Natural, it also just fits generally for mira and rumi! like...they can't explain what they know or how they know it, they can't explain why they know zoey, they just Do
also the "i don't know how, but i can say that i found my religion / when nothing was ahead of us, that week in california" is a fun nod to canon kpdh zoey BAHAHA it just felt fun to include given how zoey is in fact from california in canon
okay this one is. Rough. "the universe" also by gregory alan isakov!:
important to note that "the universe" here is zoey :)
"the universe, she's wounded" direct reference to zoey and the hollow in her chest + the pain from The Waiting
"i sat her down like i always did / and tried to calm her down" a reference to rumi and mira immediately consoling zoey during the events of The Universe, specifically after she starts to age. it's ALSO a good reference to all the voice memos / videos / letters they make for her in between forevers
"she's still got infinity ahead of her / she's still got you and me" man. infinity is an obvious enough nod to zoey being immortal, to having a never-ending amount of Forevers. "she's still got you and me" referring to rumi and mira, because no matter how long zoey has to wait, she will Always, Always have them again
"she's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful" just felt. idk it felt So Right for immortal!zoey, especially since this song is from the pov of rumi and mira; of course the universe is beautiful, of course they would say that about her. "everybody says" is another good allusion to the multiple lives rumi and mira live — "everybody" in the sense of All The Versions of rumi and mira
"the universe, she's dancing now" is just a fun, softer allusion to zoey with rumi and mira during their Forevers spent together; they dance and sing and Live together
"they got stars doing cartwheels, all the nebulas on the tune" THIS is a reference to mira and rumi! mira being the stars given how she's a dancer, rumi being the nebulas given how she's a singer :)
OKAY AND I WILL TRY TO STOP RAMBLING AS MUCH SO. WE'RE SPEEDRUNNING SOME OF MY FAVOURITE SONGS ON THE PLAYLIST BAHAHAHA
"leopold street" by the paper kites:
this song is TERRIBLE for immortal!zoey given. you know. LITERALLY EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. but this is my favourite part of the song
"you grew old so much faster than i could / and i knew you would go" this is just. come on man.
"laid to rest on a sunday afternoon / and you left me alone / how do i live, what do i give now? with my sweet love gone, with my sweet love gone" that "how do i live?" is VERY fitting, especially for pre-the universe zoey, who always loses herself and after rumi and mira pass
"avalanche" by walk the moon:
fun fact this song came on like 5 times over a week and each time i went "this is HORRIBLE for immortal!zoey" until i finally caved and made a playlist. so thank you "avalanche" BAHAHAHA
"eighteen thousand-year-old soul" literally just zoey BAHAHA and also mira and rumi! like they are OLDD!!!
"in the day she waits" nod to The Waiting
"you got a look in your eyes / i knew you in a past life" most obvious reason why i put it on the immortal!zoey playlist BAHAHA very common theme with the songs on here is that they usually refer to "past lives" or immortality in some way or another!
"one glance and the avalanche drops / one look and my heartbeat stops" a nod to Living Proof where both rumi and mira are completely starstruck when they see zoey for the first time!
"i don't want to wait 'til the next life" :(
"sometimes the past echoes in the future / started long before we were born" SUPER fun nod to the beginning of this cycle with the universe! "sometimes the past echoes in the future" ESPECIALLY is very fun to me
"universe won't wait for you" VERY VERY fun for immortal!zoey who always describes what she did as "breaking apart the universe" .... the universe won't wait for you, so you have to do it yourself
OKAY MOVING ON!
i'm gonna skip past a ton of songs just because this is insanely long i'm so sorry we'd be here for ten billion years if i went over everything so.
"day glo" by brazos!:
"day glo" is ESPECIALLY notable to me because this is a song that is Exclusively from rumi and mira's pov!
"my friends on the edge of the old graveyard" referencing to zoey, the "old graveyard" is both a graveyard of memories that only she holds for however many years, plus the genuine, actual graves of rumi and mira. they're not buried in the same place every time, but they have far, far too many graves
"i make my death come slowly" nod to rumi and mira specifically fighting the universe first; they make their Eventual death come slowly, the death where they stop "coming back", which doesn't even really happen, they just start to come back in other universes BAHAHA
"and i don't mind dyin' when i make love to her" dude. DUDE. there's always been talk about zoey, about The Waiting, but rumi and mira DIE. every single time they come back, they go through dying. Every Single Time. they never once have complained about this, they stop being afraid of it. it's not so much that they know they're going to come back that makes them unafraid; they're unafraid because they know they're coming back to zoey
it is always worth it in the end. they would die a million times just so they could be with zoey for even a fraction of that time. they don't mind it at all so long as they get to be with her. loving zoey, being loved by her, makes it all worth it
"the distance between us stays close, but not close / far, but not too far away" is a good nod to the fact that, even when they're separated, they're kind of always together. rumi and mira's souls don't go anywhere outside of the universe, they are Still There. they just have to wait until they get a chance to be Physical again
and even then, zoey has THOUSANDS of hours worth of letters and videos and voice memos from them. there is always a distance there during The Waiting, but they're still close (not close enough) even when they're far (not too far)
OKAY OKAY SPEEDRUN FOR HELOISE-VERSE:
heloise-verse's playlist is specifically organised into sections! all the songs under "heloise" by carry hatchet apply to Heloise, the fic! the same goes for Every carry hatchet song! so anything under "this is how you lose your best friend" applies to the same fic, same for TINS, on the mend, mother / mother, and crooked knife!
most of the songs on heloise-verse are very soft and calm, a lot of the lyrics refer to love, knowing someone, losing someone, uncertainty. in heloise's section especially, most of the songs there refer how to rumi feels about herself
"always like this" by bombay bicycle club is a good example!
"oh, she can wait for what i can give / she knows what i am, but she won't believe me" A DEMON!!!!! the "she knows what i am" is ALSO in reference to rumi believing she's unlovable, "she won't believe me" refers to how mira and zoey are always so patient and kind to her
"no, no, no, i'm not whole / you waste it all" another really good nod to rumi's self-hatred and insecurities, how she fully believes that she Can't be loved and how anyone who tries is wasting their time because She Is Not Whole, she is not the kind of person who gets to be loved
"and try to look proud, but you're not in the slightest" celine reference :( they have such a complex and difficult relationship, which i'm sure is obvious given how many times heloise!rumi mentions how celine almost broke her nose and how she Wishes that happened
anyways.
"stars" by sleepy soul is another good song that paints a clear picture of how heloise!rumi views herself:
"often, it feels no one really gets me / yeah, i'm almost irrelevant" this is just how rumi feels for almost All of heloise; she's not lovable, no one can understand Her, she's not nearly as important as mira and zoey, or even celine or jinu
"but i hope with time / we can break the filters down of the utmost relevance" and yet, despite that, she has always been hopeful that someone Could understand her
"you can take a break from, from what you're hiding / your light is more than your glow" and this refers to the end of heloise! this is from mira and zoey's perspective, where rumi can Take A Break. she doesn't have to hide. she is more than her usefulness, which is a lesson she still has to learn
okay i think. i think i will be done. mostly because heloise-verse has 56 songs and we've already been here for literally forever i am SO sorry BAHDFGSHGF i REALLY like talking about this!!! as we ALL can tell i'm sure. thank you SO much for asking this was genuinely so fun for me and i am So Sorry it is like 10k words long BAHDGSHGDF