Original: • Children of the City ----- Patreon: / catharsisyt Follow me elsewhere: linktr.ee/CatharsisDrums ----- Drumming Music Drums Drum Drummer reacts reactor Library of Ruina OST Cassie Wei Children Of The City Limbus Company
So obviously has their own interpretation of music and lyrics. So don't take this as the definitive answer, but rather as the thoughts of someone that has a bit more context: You're half-correct in your assessment of the lyrics, but there's a more specific message being shared here. The song describes multiple mundane, ridiculous, and arduous tasks, but a few lyrics allude to the meaning of the song. "Only thing that's left is to work on following commands" "Going through the shelves, picking out my prewritten persona" "Only to figure out everything I chose was by proxy" "As my everburning will to stay afloat backfires" "I now know must be comfortable being who I considered worthless" "Follow the city's ribbon" "To a heart nobody seems to listen" This song is about Fatalism. The philosophical ideology that everything is predetermined, and thus, nothing you do matters. Some of the tasks in question stated by the song, are akin to the ultimately meaningless tasks you may do as an employee of a company or corporation. Even without you, society will continue on, unaffected. People get hired because of all kinds of stupid factors, nepotism, luck, whether they happened to say something memorable. Good employees get fired simply because of monetary reasons. Your efforts and hard work is ultimately meaningless in the face of this ever-mutating social construct. And many times, it's impossible to find someone you can specifically blame. It's the result of countless individuals making small decisions and exchanging information that culminates in a result that nobody could've foreseen. So don't care about what you do, don't care about what comes of your actions, none of it matters anyways, and your life has already been laid out for you. At least, that's what I believe this song is about. Not all of Mili's song are depressing, despite their dark word choice, but this is a very sad and defeatist song. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure it's meant to be the viewpoint of a specific Ruina character, rather than PM's or Mili's viewpoint.
Also, just a small thing. At the end of the song the "person singing the song" is told to only go home until they finish reading "e". But because "e" is irrational and have infinite decimal places, it is basically telling the person that they can never go home.
@@CatharsisYT and in game its a boss theme for a character who serves as a messenger for a cult that worships and follows tasks that are randomly generated by a machine (imagine if chatGPT was writing your daily schedule), with most of them being rather absurd or violent, the GPS-like readouts of different commands in a song is a nod to it. Also the part about "do not go home until you finish reading the value of e" literally means that recipient will never go home, since e is an irrational number and has no end, which means that as long as they keep following that command, they're prohibited from ever going back home.
Children of the city is what sold me on Mili as a music creator, its just so easy on the ears (purely going off on vibes, the depressing vocals are just a cherry on the cake, really)
Imagine thinking you managed to break free from your fate, only to find out that what you did was actually predicted and preordained. How soul crushing it must be to believe you cut your puppet strings, only to figure out that it didn't matter and all your efforts amounted to and changed nothing, and you're still stuck in that "prewritten persona".
Being constrain to a classroom, to a dead end job, given up on aspirations or feeling like you've lost any and all agency to your life. Mili's songs always have that sinking feeling when you sit and take in the lyrics, it really makes them wonderful in tone and aesthetic, especially when accompanied with such interesting instrumentals. Our boy Yan deserved better. Really good thumbnail for this one lol.
Definitely didn't yoink the thumbnail from @Gchan69 and their distorted edit of this song 👀 (sorry Gchan but also thank you for an amazing thumbnail option)
The story of Children of the City is quite difficult to explain, as it requires going pretty in-depth with a faction of mafia within The City known as The Index (Finger), part of the 5 major criminal factions known as the Hand of the Backstreets. In as short as i can, the "orders" being given out are diagetic, as part of the Index's MO is to hand out occasional "prescripts" to the people they are protecting, small orders that always ultimately benefit The Index in the end. They can range from seemingly mundane actions like "place a Unicorn plushie on a bench in the park" to random, arbitrary, and impossible actions like "see Green from a White Wall". Without going too far into the character this song is built around, they were a person that handed out these impossible-to-complete prescripts, tried to subvert the system, and got their entire worldview shattered when they realized how fruitless that effort was, and is now mindlessly droning off Prescripts across the verses of the song, realizing he's just a tool to The Index
There's another mili song related to the life in the city called Sleep Talk Metropolis. It's not related to any game, it's just mili song, but it's so good anyway. You can check it out too, even not for video
Fun fact of today's Mili song.... To be honest, I almost didn't had anything to say, AGAIN, partly because I was late af and some people beat me to saying things, and partly because of your astoundingly on point analysis of the song... Buuuuut then 8:22 happened and you suddenly gave me a venue to talk about something Mili does a lot... That is triple standing lyrics One personal meaning One general meaning One contextualized meaning I swear this was confirmed by Cassie Wei somewhere, but when she writes songs, she almost always goes the extra mile to "tell a story" that works inside AND outside the target of the song Here you clearly catched fast onto it, and people aready pointed out the Prescripts and the Index, aswell as Yan Vismok's struggle in the game But... Ultimately it is something that has always been there Between two worlds talking about essentially the entire meeting between 2 characters by order of events ("control, control, release, control, betray, control, let go, conceal, reveal, unreal, sureal...." That literally summarized the meetings and literal interactions across time of and antagonist and a protagonist of the game) but at the same time, for someone who doesn't know that detail, it works as metaphors and attitudes Iron Lotus and how the story of the characters they represent are deeply conected with "The Library", the main focus of Library of Ruina.... Yet the lyrics don't need you to know about how people who die there are literally transformed into books containing all their knowledge and skills for the Library's nourishment for it to drop the line "For whom the shelves hold on to the pages. Their pain, their joy were given value as they were rated" Those examples can only work because the writing is exceptionally well tought, anything less and as you said, it would become a case of "one, or the other" And I SWEAR TO LADY FORTUNA, Cassie Wei herself confirmed this somewhere, but I don't remember where, so, sorry, I'll just have to pull the classic: +Source? ~It's "trust me, bro :)"
The whole comment about the monotony of things is super accurate, but in-game, it's the monotony of the life in the City as a whole, that people are just "ok" with how things are. Yan, the character whom this song was made about, does EVERYTHING in his power to do ANYTHING to change the world, from throwing himself into harms way or straight up lying. He just doesn't see the point of it, especially when all it leads is to confusion and violence. "Only to figure out everything I did was by proxy." The more Yan struggled against the machine, the more that machine found a way to use it for its own goals. It's not just the "monotonous" aspects of life, but also how it's, in some cases, hopeless to try and change them. To me, "how I desperately wish to be included in the city's nights" and so on is like a silent prayer to allow oneself to be fine with being nothing at all.
I think one of the other great things about Mili songs is the double meanings in every song, and how having the context in the game gives a similar but different meaning to the song. In the case of this song, the character it is for works as a messanger for a Crime Syndicate known as the Index, who offer 'protection' to people living in the parts of The City that they control for free, so long as the people follow these messages called Prescripts. A Prescript command can be anything from "In 400 thousand meters turn right" to "Do not go Home until you finish reading the value of e" The character this song is for is making false prescripts in an attempt to rebel against the leaders of the Index, only to eventually learn that every choice and false prescript he made was predicted and included in the plan of the Prescripts,and the character eventually just gives in.
Bulbel is another Mili song i quite like. It's from ENDER LILIES, a Metroidvania that I'm fairly fond of. (In fact, a lot, if not all, of the OST was made in partnership with Mili)
I'm a covert nerd 👀 I was never good at math (more of a science guy personally) but i did well enough to survive. Remembering weird things like this is why lmao
The song feels psychedelic, like the dreamy tiredness after a long day at work. Like you're one step away from snapping, but is too tired to do even that.
the thing that I really like about Mili's songs that they nake for PM is that if even you haven't played any of the games you can still kinda understand what's the song about, but if you have played songs really unfolds a bit more
Whenever e gets brought up in math class, I feel really cool because I've memorized 63 digits of it and the teacher probably only has the first 10, tops. I learned the 63 digits by listening to this song on loop because I wanted to know how to sing it. Now, I can sing it *and* flex on my math teacher!
Another great one is And Then is Heard No More - it's very minimalistic and relies mostly on lyrics. For some reason it's not on Milli YT channel but on Project Moon's.
A nice little lyric piece I love from the song is saying the children of the city only see the stars in the reflection of the murky gutters So its these tired, hunched, head down people walking only seeing the joys in a reflection that they cant lift their head to
Might not only mean that. The concept of Stars is generally pretty important in PM games. Not only you play this fight in the "Star of the City" chapter, but in Limbus, they explain that many people gaze upon the stars, which is also Dante's main ability. Whatever that means, i can't fully understand yet.
@@Disorder2312 In the beginning, Dante speaks of engraving something to a star... revealed to be HIS star by the animal named group... and later by Faust that Dante was to Engrave an Aspect onto it... in the Mirror Dungeon hub, we "Engrave Stars" to enhance the powers of our sinners and influence probabilities and overall payout. perhaps, since he was caught right in the middle of doing it, he couldn't manifest the full extent of his "powers" when he had to hide his head. Though, that was probably all part of the contingency PlAn... I believe that, by the end of this journey, he will engrave the aspect upon the star, utilizing the golden boughs, and become the singularity for a revived L-corp.
If you like this song you should look up the song “What Robots Need” by Awawa (a band for Mili’s more experimental music). It is done in the same style.
One thing i absolutely love about the song and the reception is that it questions if free will truly does exist in the City, i´m not a fatalist but i truly felt bad for Yan :c
The number e is a mathematical constant approximately equal to 2.71828 that can be characterized in many ways. It's the base of natural logarithms. It is the limit of (1 + 1/n)n as n approaches infinity, an expression that arises in the computation of compound interest.
A little thing about the number The song says "do not go home until you finish reading the value of e", e is an infinite number so this phrase is basically saying the person, in this case Yan, is no longer going to return home. And put along with the "become part of the City's night" it becomes worse as the night in the City is heavily recommended to be avoided since this is when the Sweepers come so this phrase can be considered as him dying and becoming one of those many corpses sweepers devour and clean
I feel this song deeply, it's like "I'm tired to playing my role, my job, and I tried EVERYTHING to escape this script they give me and yet all my actions of rebellion is just a part of MY SCRIPT. Why do I keep fighting, when all I do is already written for me. I should continue being a small cog in the corporate machine until I rust and break down..."
in game its about a guy from group a group that follows the will of a higher force and they have to do it or be killed this song talks about that guy accepting that theres no escaping this and all their actions are meaningless
As usual, people can interpret these lyrics very differently. For example, when they sing about their heart, you might think they mean their emotions. But only players would know that there is actually an area in the game that is called "Heart of the City", which is related to the song.
So, fun thing about Eulers number. it is unique in the way that it is essentially it´s own derivate. The point of choosing euler over like Pi or I(roots of negtaive 1) is the derviation property, even if you change it you reach at the exact point. as far as i know Eulers number is choosen as a representation of inescapable nature of the predicament, kind of a "even if you try to change things, you will still end up where you started"
If you dont mind about what those "order" on the lyrics was especially the finding grooms one.. in the game that order came from a paper message called prescript... Its give unexpected order that you must fulfill either out of the box or literally as long as you did like the order will it... Like in the lyrics "in 90 hours spill their inside paint your room picturesque" If you do it literally... You will most likely think you need to kill him/her to use their inside to paint your room.. but the order never told you any specific hint.. so the "spill their inside" here doesnt need you to kill them technically... You can just make them vomit and use their vomit to paint your room, it still disgusting but the purpose still correct and its better than just took the order at face value.. also the other interpretation is you can just make them vomit or anything that will spill their "inside" then just paint your room without using their inside.. the order/prescript doesnt tell you specifically to use their inside as paint for your room. And the lyrics of "in 400k meters/400 km turn right" dont interpret it as straight forward for 400 km.. you can just moving in circle counterclockwise(left) for as far and as long as 400 km then turn right. Well that is the song in game interpretation.. but mili lyrics is always flexible.
You are very close with this interpretation. Spoilers. People are protected for "free" by local big syndicate in exchange for following their orders (which is payment). Orders are all kinds of fucked up from "pranks" that will almost cost someone's life to straight mass murder. It literally can be something like: stand in place with eyes closed for 10 minutes and then when you open your eyes chop right leg of first person you see. The one delivering these orders tried to temper with them and go against the flow. He would deliver orders even to high rank syndicate members. But turns out it was foreseen and syndicate members received order to follow his orders. It's kinda you are not special and don't have free will situation. I love that we still don't know who is behind all these orders and they are shrouded in mystery\conspiracy theory. They are made underground by a pendulum but what moves this pendulum is unknown. One character in game explains that city itself makes pendulum move by sending seismic vibrations (people walking, accidents, explosion, everything that happens on surface). Literally X Files and Twilight Zone vibes.
I love how you kinda guess the overall theme of the song. It''s about a character, Yan. And the pinned character guessed it well Only the irrational tasks are really to be done. Even if it leads to your death.
"irrational meaning it never ends" is somewhat misleading, it's true that writing down any irrational number in decimal will lead to an endless tail past the dot, but some rational numbers have that property too for example 1/3 never ends: 1/3=0.3333333... and it's rational (even tho it just repeats the dame digits) obviously that's not the point, but I am way too unreasonably passionate about math to let that pass
I think you're very close to the meaning of the lyric, but there are some cultural context that I'd like to add. For a lot of westerners, this song is about the monotony of the working world. But notice that the start of the song talks about childhood and school, giving out common nods to "drink milk to grow well" and standardized testing at schools. Then there are lines like "find a good wife, bonus if brunette". These have nothing to do with the workplace. For people in many Asian countries, this song isn't about the work, but about your whole LIFE and their society. Your entire life HAS to follow the plan society laid out for you. Be a good kid, a A+ student, join a top company, find a good wife and have kids. You are bound by the strict definitions of what a person should be, and are punished heavily for deviating from it. Fatalism isn't an ideology you pick for making a cool song, it's what you live through every single day for your entire life. There is no room for being "you". Go to the shelve and pick out your pre-defined society mandated persona, then live the rest of your life with it on. You are not allowed to be different. The only way to escape is to "pull the trigger with your right hand". Even your death has to conform to society's rules. In essence, there is no place for you to choose. And even if you do choose a different path, society will punish you for it, beat you down, and deny you from ever being treated like a person. In south korea, where the game was developed, this is just the reality of life, you go to a good school, join a good company (Samsung, LG, Hyundai), then work there for your entire life. If you can't manage that, you're a failure of society. This is why schools have a DISGUSTINGLY HIGH rate of suicide, because if you fail, you're dead to society, to your family, and to your friends. In the game, this is shown by the index, a group that offers you protection as long as you follow their commands. They're nonsensical, like "go to an intersection and wave 3 times" or "give your friend a cake with razors inside for their birthday". Yet, their society functions. While this may seem like a quirky philosophical villain, I believe it is also a biting commentary of east Asian cultures in which you have to follow society's command, no matter how painful or absurd, or else the enforcers will come and kill you. But often this is lost on people who don't understand the culture in places like south Korea. Anyway, sorry the long essay. Personally I just find it fascinating how different interpretations for this song can come about based on where people are from.
It wasn't lost on me, no worries. However that's the case in basically any capitalist country. Get job, get married, work till death, if not you're undesirable and a waste of space. The only difference is the scale and nature of the U.S. being less "bow down and stay quiet" than Asia overall. Nonetheless a lot of those expectation concepts are very similar in the west. Albeit here its "bonus if blonde". Classism is universal to the Almighty Dollar 🫠 Like, where they have higher suicide rates, our mass murder takes its place. The stress of younger generations is so immense that we've hit a point of pure apathy towards the future. Where it's shameful in Asia to fall short, we've just taken a turn to not giving a single shit and prefer to watch it burn instead. Effectively they're the same outcome, but one's waving a white flag and other is black.
@@CatharsisYT that is fair. I suppose it's two different sides of the same coin. People everywhere are crushed by the expectations of society, and they lash out in different ways. Variety is the spice of life after all. Like you often say, Japanese songs tend to have an upbeat rhythm even if their lyrics are dark, whereas western songs often pair dark lyrics with dark /rebellious music. Different styles, but the theme and message are similar.
@@hudrowportnof4058 yeah. I think that's one of the most interesting parts of human psychology. The nature vs. nurture concept drawn out to a continental scale is WILD
A little thing about the number The song says "do not go home until you finish reading the value of e", e is an infinite number so this phrase is basically saying the person, in this case Yan, is no longer going to return home. And put along with the "become part of the City's night" it becomes worse as the night in the City is heavily recommended to be avoided since this is when the Sweepers come so this phrase can be considered as him dying and becoming one of those many corpses sweepers devour and clean
