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tarisilmarwen · 1 year ago

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Rebels Rewatch: "Twilight of the Apprentice"

The shadow of Malachor looms in the very highly-anticipated Season 2 finale.

Right, so, technically I've already liveblogged this before and you can go here for some of my more, ah, realtime reactions.

(Spoiler alert: There was a LOT of screaming.)

So for this and other episodes that I've already reacted to before I'm mostly going to be focusing more on commentary and meta observations and also my favorite bits and moments, music and animation, that kind of stuff.

Let's dive in!

Ooh right off the bat we have the more serious version of the "Shenanigans" cue.

I know this exchange here between Ahsoka and Rex is a callback to when they first met. So a heart stab for TCW fans.

One thing I notice about Malachor right away is how dead it looks, even from space. Just a featureless plain gray marble.

We get down to the surface and it's even eerier. In the middle of a giant crater there's this wide, unnaturally glasslike smooth plain, only broken up by weird towering stone monoliths.

Malachor's whole aesthetic leans very heavily into the idea and theme of descending into the Underworld, into a place of darkness and shadows where the light can't reach. Somewhere underground, somewhere full of devils and demons lurking in wait, with many hidden traps and temptations to stumble over.

Like the one Ezra triggers by touching the monolith lol.

This really isn't a survivable fall but whatever.

The Sith Temple is actually kind of beautiful in a stark, harsh, Gothic kind of way.

This whole environment is really excellently creepy and ethereal. The ceiling above recalls a night sky, the holes like pinprick stars casting beams of light down. The palate is almost colorless, mostly grays and blacks with some splashes of red and white. The lighting is muted and dim, heavy contrast with the shadows. The music relies on dissonant chords. The sound effects are full of watery rumbles, voices whisper quietly that apparently only Ezra can hear.

Oh and there's the scorched ground and statues of people frozen in distress, like the casts at Pompeii.

"To defeat your enemy, you have to understand them." A sentiment echoed and repeated later by both Maul and Thrawn, and inspired by the writings of Sun Tzu in his Art of War. You have to figure your enemy out, learn how they operate and what motivates them, in order to beat them. "Knowledge" is another word they keep using this episode, our heroes need to seek knowledge about the Sith in order to figure out how to defeat them.

I'm still not quite sure what knowledge they were actually able to gain during this trip. Certainly the Force did basically slap the truth of Vader's identity in Ahsoka's face, to get her to confront it and break through her denial. There's maybe a lesson to be learned about not seeking quick, easy solutions to one's problems, which wouldn't fully sink in until "Twin Suns". (Ezra's obsession with finding "the key to destroy the Sith" can be traced straight back to the Malachor plot thread.) There's definitely a cautionary tale and warning about the nature of the Dark Side, that Ezra completely ignores due to his guilt and shame and self-blame.

On the surface level, technically, the mission does accomplish what it set out to do. All the Inquisitors we know about wind up dead, Vader no longer has any interest in harassing them, they keep the base safe. But boy the cost of it all.

It's probably really fitting that the finale takes place here on Malachor, a dead world with nothing left but stone remains and a creepy Eldritch Sith Temple housing a superweapon that must have killed everyone and everything on the surface, in the vein of The Deplorable Word or a nuclear bomb metaphor. The victory is hollow and meaningless, because there is no one left alive to appreciate it. Likewise our heroes' "victory" is pyrrhic and empty, they kill the Inquisitors but take more and heavier losses in return.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We haven't even met Eighth yet.

Hi Eighth!

He's not really developed or explored at all and is really just a generic episode-specific antagonist and ancillary to Seventh and Fifth, but he serves his narrative purpose in splitting the party.

Kanan's worried shout for Ezra after he falls. <3

Ezra looking very nervous here, don't blame him.

HI MAUL!

Oh man, the pre-finale trailers spoiled Maul's appearance and fandom was bonkers about it. (The pre-finale anticipation and hype was crazy man, so much over-analyzing and hypothesizing. There was a Bingo Card we could fill out with our theories. This one was mine.) Not a small amount of people were speculating about the possibility of Maul corrupting and/or abducting Ezra at Malachor.

I was one of them. Obviously. Still a smidge bummed it didn't come to pass, just imagine how devastating that would have been on top of everything else.

Anyway, Maul pretends to be frail and weak and old and harmless like some kind of sick parody of the scene in ESB when Yoda's introduced to Luke.

The appropriate reaction to creepy old men lurking in the shadows lol.

Maul plays on Ezra's compassion at first, and then tempts him with what they came for, "knowledge". Ezra keeps a guard up, but cautiously allows Maul to lead him. I think he's figuring he's going to play this by ear like he did back in "Brothers of the Broken Horn", so he's not giving out his name or really trusting Maul yet. That would come later.

Lol, Maul has met Jabba, he knows full well Ezra's playing him.

There's some excellent tense music for the chase with Eighth Brother but I'm not going to really talk about those segments much since, frankly, all the interesting stuff is happening in the Maul and Ezra scenes.

They're in the roots of the Temple now, very Mines of Moria-esque vibe down here with the columns.

Maul still trying to break Ezra's guard down, playing himself up as an enemy of the Inquisitors and the Sith (even though for all intents and purposes Maul still is a Sith) and I love how awkward things get when Ezra asks him if he was a Jedi, he's all like, "ERRRRRRMMMM."

Talking about his Tragic Backstory though unlocks Ezra's empathy and Ezra lets slip his own grievances with the Empire that Maul immediately tries to manipulate to his advantage, sensing Ezra's anger about it.

Boy if I had a nickel for every time my favorite shows explored the "creepy older villain forcibly trying to make a younger hero their apprentice" plotline...

(I would actually have three nickels now because the Big Hero 6 cartoon also decided to do that plot YOU GUYS GOTTA FIGURE OUT SOMETIME THAT THIS PREMISE IS BASICALLY CATNIP FOR ME.)

Anyway, at this point I think Maul's mostly just using Ezra as a means to an end, he's not planning to kidnap him yet, just needs him for the doors. It's really interesting that whereas the Jedi Temple on Lothal emphasized the individual journey and separated the master and padawan, the Sith Temple forces them into kind of a codependent symbiosis--if one betrays the other like Sith are wont to do, the prize is lost and both of them die--making them have to use teamwork and a certain level of trust.

Chopper stealing Eighth's TIE to use against him is pretty awesome, admittedly.

Maul gives Ezra an abridged lesson in Sith/Dark Side philosophy: Channel your passions--your fear, anger, hate, any strong emotions etc.--through the Force for a lot of quick easy power. Ezra expresses misgivings but attempts it and this time does not immediately pass out, though he's clearly tired by the end of it.

Oh man the sound design here.

Also love that annoyed look Maul gives when Ezra complains about their progress. XD

"Yeah I'm killing you after this, I don't have to deal with this shit."

Watching the expressions on Maul's face is a trip, you can see the subtle little flashes of conniving and triumph.

Aaaaaand every time Maul puts his hands on Ezra I still feel an immediate uncomfortable protective rage. You leave him alone you cockroach. >:(

Enjoy the last vestiges of Ezra's innocence folks, this episode is what shatters that to pieces.

Always loved this sequence, it feels very evocative of the Cave of Wonders segment of Aladdin and also several scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

SO much symbolism with the precipices and pits here.

Love this music cue too.

I already noted in a different post way back when that something subtle I love is how Maul's Force Grip catch around Ezra is clearly much rougher than how Kanan has caught him. Ezra's tiny panicked glances down are great too.

So riiiiiiiiiight about here is when I think Maul decided he was going to keep Ezra, you can see in his expression the mean satisfaction when he grabs the holocron, like he's gotten what he wanted. Ezra gets a prolonged moment of regretting all of his life's decisions before Maul finally decides to haul him up.

Look I know fandom makes fun of the helicopter sabers but I never minded them so this is my only comment about them.

Gah, Ezra's innocent little uncertain expressions here always hurt me.

You know, given the added context of TCW Seaason 7, along with the fact that they had already clearly integrated the unfinished arcs into the background continuity while writing Rebels, AHSOKA YOU SHOULD HAVE REALLY WARNED THEM ABOUT MAUL.

Cool shot is cool.

I haven't talked about the music much because it doesn't really stand out until the climax but it's appropriately menacing and dramatic and ominous, as it should be.

Sam Whitwer's vocal progression through the episode is also amazing, along with the slow shedding of his hood it's like Maul is revitalizing himself, reinvigorated, reclaiming his strength and purpose.

He found something (Ezra) to hang his legacy on and seized it. Or tried to.

Ezra sounds just a bit desperate to convince Kanan, this is likely a product of the straining tensions between them. Maul, meanwhile, takes full advantage of Ahsoka and Kanan's uncertainty to suggest using the holocron to activate the obelisk, not telling them of course that it will turn on the Sith superweapon. Which he's counting on to kill Vader and the Inquisitors.

Ezra's theme in cello bass here, as Kanan decides to trust Ezra.

Almost forgot about Seventh's ID-9 Seekers, didn't we?

Love Kanan's protective bitchiness towards Maul this whole episode. The conflict between him and Ezra is just a little bit contrived, Kanan's been harder on Ezra recently yes, but it also feels a smidge rushed. Then again Ezra's been fixating on trying to solve the fundamental problem of the Inquisitors possibly as a way to assuage his grief over losing his parents, like Anakin he thinks if he can maybe just get enough power he can prevent it from happening again, so he's letting his impulsiveness reign in the quest to find "the key to destroying the Sith" and it's making him have a repeat of "Vision of Hope" where he trusts the wrong person.

Ezra's bright little, "Trust me." here hurts so much because Kanan does trust Ezra, that's the only reason why he decided they would stay and then it all goes HORRIBLY WRONG *SOBS*.

This is a nice sentiment and all Ahsoka, and it shows how much faith you have in Ezra's goodness and Kanan's ability as a teacher BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD HAVE WARNED THEM.

Ezra's out of sight for like a minute and Maul's already picking at his insecurities and need for validation and trying to get him to murderize Seventh.

The momentary pride we feel that Ezra can't bring himself to strike in anger and hate vanishes when Maul tests the veeeeeery limits of the Y7 rating.

Ooof.

I hate this man I hate this man I hate this man I hate him so much. He snarls at Ezra for hesitating, berates his merciful Jedi instincts, and then picks up with that soft manipulative fake concerned tone again. He always uses this tone when he's trying to manipulate Ezra, we'll be watching for it next season, trust me.

Hhggnnl Maul glancing up and seeing the shadow passing over the gaps in the ceiling, he knows Vader's on his way. And he's definitely already made the decision that he's taking Ezra.

Love this brief triumphant cue here, for a moment it looks like they've won.

The matching "Oh crap" expressions on Kanan and Ahsoka's faces when Maul says, "You mean... my apprentice?" they are just a hair too late to prevent disaster.

Yeah so this moment pretty much traumatized fandom. For months.

DUEL OF THE FATES BABY!

And a very unhinged Maul getting a little too excited about using the Sith superweapon to kill everyone.

The presence in the holocron is likely a trace of the Sith Lord who created the superweapon, Darth Tanis.

Sound design appreciation moment, just LISTEN to it.

"The power will be mine! Ezra will be mine!" Very hinged. Much sane. If you had waited maybe five minutes, Maul, and resisted the urge to murder everyone you could have actually had what you wanted! But such is the nature of the Dark Side, the quick and easy way offers fast solutions but hollow ones, in the grasping for what you want it slips through your fingers.

ALL MAUL HAD TO DO WAS NOT TRY TO MURDER KANAN AND AHSOKA AND EZRA PROBABLY WOULD HAVE GONE WITH HIM. At the very least Kanan might have tentatively let Maul hang around. This is the tragedy of Maul's life, he is the king of self-sabotage.

[Insert ramble about the symbolism of Kanan taking up a Temple Guardian mask and how that relates to his role as Ezra's protector.]

I don't remember I think there was maybe one or two people who complained that Kanan shouldn't be able to beat Maul here, but for the most part fandom was agreed that this was awesome.

:(((

Please do note: Maul just kind of... assumed Ezra would use the Sith superweapon when he learned what it was. Ezra's too pure for that, alas.

WELL THAT'S NOT ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.

Ezra sassing Vader like Kanan sassed the Grand Inquisitor back in "Call To Action" lol.

And there goes Ezra's blaster-saber. :(

I've been a very good girl conserving my limited photos so now you get a lot of Ezra's terrified face.

The Ahsoka-Vader confrontation is pretty much perfect, even for someone who never really watched TCW and doesn't really have the same level of investment as a long time fan would have. Even without the context the emotions and drama come across well.

Ezra veeeeeeerrrrrrrry slowly and carefully trying to scoot away from Vader always makes me giggle.

Vader threatening to torture the information out of Ezra if Ahsoka won't give up any remaining Jedi she knows about. :(((

:((((((((

Still love how TCW recontextualized Ahsoka's angry, "I am no Jedi!" by reframing it as, "I can't be a Jedi anymore, you took that away from me, you killed the Order I loved and wanted to return to!"

I think I heard someone trying to describe Vader here as, "Picture an upright locomotive with a lightsaber." and that's apt, Vader is so heavy and powerful with every movement and swing. This is Vader in his prime, unleashed, against an opponent he won't hold back on and it is glorious.

Chopper guiding Kanan by the hand. :(((

Ezra's horrified realization. :(((((

Small note: Ezra's been nursing his right wrist this whole time, possibly sprained or burned a bit when Vader destroyed his saber. Also a nice parallel to ESB and Luke.

Ahsoka does her best but you can tell she's tiring here.

Some gorgeous animation as the Temple begins to seal back up.

How annoyed do you think Vader must have been to have a blind half-trained ex-Padawan and a scrawny 16-year-old kid managing to fight his Force Pull on the holocron?

Ahsoka swoops in for a Big Damn Heroes moment and breaks open his mask. You're welcome for the nightmares, kids.

Hello so many parallels to Luke and Return of the Jedi.

:(((((

Very effective bringing the orchestra full to the fore with almost no other sound or dialogue here. This whole sequence is brutally powerful.

Kanan and Hera's heartbreaking reunion. The sorrow on Rex's face, feeding into Ezra's clear guilt. Maul surviving to menace us another day. Vader limping off, out of the wreckage of the Temple. Tracking the convor as it flies towards the vague form of Ahsoka descending further into the Temple. The cut to the Ghost with everyone's silent worry and sorry. And closing on Ezra's murderous Kubrick Stare as he gets the holocron to open.

This finale is on people's favorite episode lists for a reason, lol. It's so dramatic and game-changing and tightly-written, leaves us perfectly fuming in anticipation for more.

You know how shows promise that, "Nothing will be the same anymore." in taglines to trick you into watching for the Next Big Twist? Rebels actually delivers on that promise.

It's an amazing ride.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Two is stronger than Season One in a lot of aspects. The animation is even prettier with the added budget, the stories remain well-balanced and woven together even with the added breathing room of twenty-two episodes to Season One's fifteen. The show takes advantage of that extra room to build up the finale, especially in the last few episodes, to very good effect. The expanded scope means we're facing bigger and greater threats, and also widening our cast, and yet none of the guest stars overshadow or overpower our mains, who are given plenty of chances to develop and shine.

Aside from one minor misstep in "Blood Sisters", this season is solid through and through.

Onwards to Season Three!

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #space dad and his precious pumpkin child #rebels rewatch #liveblog #spoilers #cute boys in peril

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fiddler-sticks · 1 year ago

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Ninjago seasons and specials ranked by how good the music is (with commentary)

Just a comment before we start: This does not include Weekend Whips or any other intros. Just the score that plays under episodes and credits music

21. Skybound

There's just barely any music for this season due to budget cuts or something of the like, and what music that is there I'm just not super enthused about or I forgot about

20. Crystalized

While there's a good amount of music for this season, I didn't find it super special or appealing, and it was just kind of meh like the season itself

19. Legacy of the Green Ninja

I hate to put this here, but something's gotta go here so it might as well be S2. The music was pretty great and there's a LOT of it, plus it's available to the public on an album, but really the only tracks from this season that stick out to me are Day Jobs and The Final Battle

18. Rebooted

Again, don't dislike the music, but something's gotta take these spots and I can't even recall any pieces from this season except for X-1 Joyride and Built to Protect

17. The Island

The score for this season is miles better than the plot and execution, but there's not a lot of it. There was like, one piece I could find on youtube. It was great though! Really fit the island vibe

16. Fire Chapter

It was pretty hard to decide whether The Island or Fire Chapter went here, but eventually I decided on Fire Chapter just because it had more tracks, plus the ongoing and reused Serpentine theme. None of the tracks really stood out to me, but I loved that they reused the Serpentine theme from the first few seasons for Aspheera and her minions

15. Seabound

This one is here for a combination of reasons from The Island and Fire Chapter. It has a lot of music, plus it fits the ocean theme super well. None of the tracks stood out to me except for the one reused one from Wu's Teas when they're all walking out in their diving gear though, so that's why it's this low

14. Hunted

I absolutely love the plot of this season and the hunter's theme, but the only thing that really stood out to me as 'Wow, this is amazing was Dragon Hunt'. It's also super all over because of the whole realms thing, which obviously doesn't make for a very consistent soundtrack. The Resistance Never Quits is a great track, too

13. March of the Oni

Now we start moving into the great seasons. 13th place might seem low, but considering how flipping amazing the other soundtracks are I think this is well-placed. It's diverse, but all fits together and the two moods are nicely separated, unlike whatever was happening in Hunted. I really like the nice, flowy, and clean tracks when we're around the ninja, and the choppy, dissonant music with the whispers and uncommon time signatures for the Oni never fails to give me good chills

12. Hands of Time

I'm gonna be honest with you and say that I was going to put this one a LOT lower, but then I decided to give it a relisten, and DANG. I can't believe I forgot how much of a BANGER this soundtrack is! Especially the ongoing theme. I think I forgot just because the plot of the season is so forgettable, but the music definitely goes hard

11. Rise of the Snakes

I think this is probably the most expected ranking on this list. The soundtrack is great, but it's not amazing. It's really hit-and-miss, honestly. You have bangers like Falcon Chase, Taking the Bait, Weapons Take Flight, and Race to Ouroboros, but the rest of it is kind of bland and forgettable in my opinion

10. The Lego Ninjago Movie

It seems like no one talks about the score for TLNM when we should absolutely be talking about it! It's great! You should really go listen to it. The percussive flute tracks by Greg Pattillo are especially good. Pieces like Sibling Rivalry, The Rise of Kitty Kitty, and Wise Master Wu are also super great!

9. Sons of Garmadon

I honestly can't remember why I put this so high, but I trust more-awake-Fiddler's judgment. It's got a great score, it's just that not a lot of it is super memorable for me. The very beginning of the season (the first bit of Sons of Garmadon Heist) gets stuck in my head all the time though

8. Pilots

Even though there are only 3-4 tracks in both episodes (depending on whether or not you count the Overture), all of them are amazing. Attack of the Skeleton Army, Discovering Spinjitzu / Dragon Ride, and especially Training Course all go hard, and I love that the very first taste of Ninjago we ever got had such great music. Like, be honest. Do you think that Ninjago would've taken off if it had some crap MIDI, mass-produced music in the background? I personally don't think so. We owe a lot to Vincent & Kramer for the Ninjago we know today

7. Day of the Departed

Considering that this special has like, only one track, this is pretty fuckin' high for just one piece of music among whole seasons worth of music. I cry pretty much every time I hear Maybe I'm Departed, and it hits so much harder after Kirby Morrow's passing. Also, little self-promo here, if you haven't listened to my version of Maybe I'm Departed yet, what are you doing?

6. Prime Empire

Prime Empire's music is just fucking sick. It goes so hard and perfectly fits with the cyberpunk/video game vibes of the season. It's so diverse, too, with tracks from Scott's Stowaway Part 2, to Stayin' Aflight, to Fourth Mile Marker, to the Noir Whip. I'd say one of my favorite parts in the entire thing is when a West Side Story reference appears in the soundtrack of Confidential when two or three of the goons are snapping like the Jets lol. My favorite track in Prime Empire would have to be Fourth Mile Marker, just because it's so beautiful, and the melody also reminds me a lot of the theme from Schindler's List, which is just a beautiful theme

5. Dragons Rising

DR is all the way up here despite being so new because the music is already so iconic in my eyes. I haven't even really paid attention to the 'remixes' of old pieces yet, I'm just in love with the original music. It's so unique, and you really can't mistake it for any other season. I especially love the credits from The Merge Part 1, and Tradition of the Ninja

4. Master of the Mountain

I originally had this at #3, but I made a last-minute decision to bump it down one. Not because of anything about it though. It's fuckin' epic. I love the ongoing theme, and in the suite, I absolutely love at the very beginning the few notes played by handbells. Also in the suite, from about 5:49 to the end is the most epic, magical, grandiose thing I've ever heard in my life and you need to go listen to it right this second. Exit tumblr, listen to it, then come back for the top 3. I'll be here when you get back. And one more thing I love about the score is that it's constantly in different and weird times, and cuts out beats when you're least expecting it. Also, I know I said I wouldn't bring Whips into this, but I absolutely love that the beginning is in 6/8. First whip not in 4/4 let's gooooooooo

3. Ice Chapter

Honestly, I was super torn about whether I should put this one at #4 or #3, but in the end, I chose this spot for a number of reasons. The whole thing just gives off winter vibes, I absolutely love the folk aspect of it for the Formlings theme, the Ice Emperor theme is so freaking dark and scary, and there are so many bangers! Namely Akita Finds Her Animal Form and Twice As Stubborn

2. Possession

If you know me, this might come as a surprise seeing as how much I love this season and its music, but it's actually second place for me. It is home to my favorite piece from Ninjago ever, though, which is Ghost Story. I've probably made dozens of posts about the geniusness of Morro's theme and music when he's around and talked about, so I won't go into great detail about that. Just know that the well-known bit features the tritone (often called the devil's interval) played on a fiddle and/or viola (the fiddle was considered the devil's instrument back in ye olden days). Anyway, I highly recommend that you go listen to Ghost Story because it's just a wonderful piece that beautifully tells Morro's story through music

1. Tournament of Elements

I always go back and forth on whether ToE or Possession is my favorite season, but there was no doubt in my mind that ToE is my favorite from a musical standpoint. It's so diverse, yet fits together so nicely. The music features a lot of traditional drums and chanting, really fitting the whole island/fight club/cult theme. The season also has a bunch of bangers, spanning from Gauntlet of Humility, to Thinking About Yourself, Rooftop Ruffhouse, And That's The Kink, I Am the Titanium Ninja, Lloyd's Flashbacks, and who could forget Sneaking Around, the credits music for a bunch of episodes in a lot of other seasons

So, do you agree with my ranking? Feel free to reblog with thoughts or your own rankings!

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chorusfm · 2 months ago

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Sego

A couple of weeks ago I was able to connect with rock band, Sego, to discuss their latest music video for “Malibu Mary.” In this interview I also asked the band about their overall creative process for writing their material, as well as what fans can expect from the band on their recently announced LP called TANDANG. TANDANG will be released on streaming services on November 12th, but you can pre-save it here. Can you describe your creative process for “MALIBU MARY”? It started as an innocuous piano part that I recorded into my Akai reel-to-reel tape machine and then chopped up to create a staggered sample sequence to lay over a simple beat—a mostly creative exercise. I initially shelved it, thinking it might be a bit too hip-hop for Sego, but I couldn’t help revisiting it. This was probably the most aggressive vocal process I’ve used on one of our songs. I ended up whispering the chorus melody in a lower register, pitching it up, formant-shifting it down, and dousing it with delays—for those who care about vocal production. Eventually, we took it into the studio with Nate Pyfer (producer) and Finn Bjarnson (mixer), where we explored more of the textural elements of synth and guitar that brought the song to its final, moody resting place. Despite its initial waywardness, I’m glad we chased this outlier because it ended up coalescing into one of my favorites on the new album. How does this new music compare to your previous work? What’s different or similar? I think our previous work skews, both musically and lyrically, more pointed, direct, and angular. It had this directness, like we were trying to say something specific and maybe even mean it. The new album, TANDANG, and song, “MALIBU MARY,” feel more removed, more distant, like there’s a layer of gauze over everything. We never really plan or conceive how it will turn out. The tunes end up more or less reflecting whatever place or headspace we were in when they were conceived. So, I suppose this time, we were hanging out in a more distant, nostalgic, synth-soaked zone. Go figure. What kind of visual style or aesthetic did you aim for in the video? Are there any specific influences or inspirations? The song itself has this lush, almost overproduced quality, but it’s grounded by a simple, slightly off-kilter, dissonant piano part—a sort of built-in self-critique. When working with our friend/director, Julian Acosta, we decided to try to reflect those poles visually. But, as is often the case, things went sideways as soon as we started shooting. We started with these super-polished, commercial-esque shots in Roman Coppola’s office, but then we began splicing them with raw phone footage and camcorder BTS stuff we were capturing on the fly, ostensibly for our own behind-the-scenes use. What we ended up with is kind of a video about making a video, complete with meta references to the editing process and the inevitable second-guessing. So, you could interpret it as a commentary on the song’s internal conflict between beauty and self-dismissal—or you could see it as evidence of our collective inability to maintain a straight face or consistent narrative for more than a few minutes. Which, honestly, might be the truer takeaway. You can decide. --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/features/interviews/sego/

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abyssonance · 3 years ago

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Obligatory tag dump

#Abyssal Speech;IC #Out of Mirrors;OOC #Fourth Wall Broke;Crack #Puzzle Pieces;Headcanons #Dark Watchers;Dash Commentary #Some Offerings;Memes #Dissonant Whispers;Aesthetics #Preservation Wards;Saved #Beyond the Planes;Crossover #Chants Departed;Music

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ryttu3k · 2 years ago

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Thoughts on His Dark Materials s3.03 and 3.04, The Intention Craft and Lyra And Her Death! Spoilers for the rest of The Amber Spyglass.

BITCH I CRIED. A LOT. I mean I 100% knew I was going to, but holy shit pain. Every time Pan sort of reached towards the boat, at one point nearly wobbling off the dock... Lyra screaming... the conversation they had beforehand, both clearly scared out of their minds... ow ;_;

Related: World of the Dead looked oppressive as hell. The yellow-tinted light was super eerie, the mechanical way everyone acted, the fact that there's bureaucracy even after you die. Lyra's Death wasn't as I expected (wasn't he male, originally?) but still very cool. Dissonant serenity, I think the phrase is.

Mrs Coulter was goddamn incredible in these two episodes. She's still ridiculously charismatic even when literally on trial, she's playing the Magisterium, they're playing her right back, and honestly her genuine terror at the end of episode 4 was just... kind of horrifying to see. God it's going to be interesting as hell to watch the rest of her arc!

Enjoyed the reforging scene, Will focusing on what's important and just... going to Lyra. Oh sweetheart ;_; It does take away from Iorek's actual... skill, though, and how intricate the scene is in the book. He's not just A Big Bear In Armour, he's an expert metalworker! There's a fun note in the subreddit, at least, about how the CGI team heard 'polar bear performing advanced metallurgy' and just noped out, which. Honestly valid. I'm not sure how you would make that scene look good, haha.

And Lyra and Iorek's reunion was adorable, and I love how Pan just instantly switched back to Arctic fox form. Gotta match the big friend! Do kind of wish we had heard more on why the bears were moving, alas. The ramifications of Asriel's actions and all.

Speaking of which: Asriel you scary mofo. tfw Mrs Coulter appears to have more morals (and parental instincts).

A cute moment - after Lyra and Will's argument, Lyra apologises (at Pan's prompting). Will sort of... brushes it off. Lyra instantly says, "Fine, then I'm not sorry." Will's lips twitch in a smile just for a moment.

We finally saw a Mulefa!! No diamond-shaped physiology, but I can understand why they didn't want to go with that. Very interested to see how they handle the budding communication with Mary, the wheelpods, all of that.

There's some interesting commentary going around about Lyra's selfishness in her decision to go to the Land of the Dead - that she's risking everyone, her own soul included, in wanting to go just to... say sorry? To not accept Roger's death and move on? (Some people are saying it seems a lot more callous coming from a sixteen-year-old instead of a twelve-year-old too, which, okay, valid.) And I don't... really see that as an issue. Lyra is flawed! She can be downright unlikeable sometimes! She's combative, rude, and stubborn, and yeah, she is selfish!

This is a good thing, in terms of writing. Characters are allowed to have flaws. Lyra is a flawed character, who wants to absolve her own guilt in her involvement in Roger's death. She's not acting because of a prophecy that she'll end Death, she does that more or less by accident, and she does that by acting in accordance to her whims. I feel it's very much in line with how the prophecy is phrased, first by Serafina then later by Dr Lanselius:

"There is a curious prophecy about this child: she is destined to bring about the end of destiny. But she must do so without knowing what she is doing, as if it were her nature and not her destiny to do it."

Later:

"The witches have talked about this child for centuries past. Because they live so close to the place where the veil between the worlds is thin, they hear immortal whispers from time to time, in the voices of those beings who pass between the worlds. And they have spoken of a child such as this, who has a great destiny that can only be fulfilled elsewhere - not in this world, but far beyond. Without this child, we shall all die. So the witches say. But she must fulfil this destiny in ignorance of what she is doing, because only in her ignorance can we be saved."

Emphasis mine. She can't know she's meant to do all these higher-level prophesised destiny shit or it'll fail. Lyra can't be tempted by Mary knowing that she's being tempted. She can't go to the Land of the Dead with the intention of ending destiny, she has to go on her own, because of her own intentions, or the prophecy doesn't work.

So, yeah. Lyra is selfish. But she has to be - if she knew what she was meant to be doing on a worldswide scale, it wouldn't work in the first place. She has to be a little girl who wants to say goodbye and to apologise to the boy she thinks she killed, acting on her own desires, or the whole story falls apart. She can’t fulfill a destiny to end destiny on purpose.

Anyway. Flawed protagonists, man <3

#his dark materials #hdm spoilers

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princessofgayskull · 5 years ago

Text

our secret moments in your crowded room // pt. 2

a catradora drabble (companion piece to this) featuring Melog

summary: Catra doesn’t want to go back to sleeping alone, and her new room in the Bright Moon Castle is too big not to be lonely

The first night Catra sleeps alone, she doesn’t sleep at all.

She doesn’t understand how anyone expects her to, either. The night that followed Horde Prime’s defeat, the first time the moons rise on a planet that finally peace, is total and complete chaos. It’s the feel of magic settling in the air, it’s clones who don’t know who they are or what to do expect stand around everywhere, it’s the victory cry of Etherians echoing across the horizon, Catra’s voice joining them for the first time.

It was also too unfeasible to go all the way back to Bright Moon and make it there in time for anyone to get any actual sleep. Not that anyone gets much rest back at camp either, but at least those shelters were already made. The night was equal parts celebration and retribution. For the first time in years, Catra falls asleep on Adora’s shoulder with Melog sprawled over both their laps. For the first time in years, Catra wakes to find Adora still there with.

But going to Bright Moon is unavoidable. It’s unavoidable because it’s Etheria’s center, it’s where the diplomacy flows out and into the rest of the system, it’s where the new beginning actually begins and Glimmer has this idea in her head that Catra should be there and should be a part of it. What, like she’s gonna go back to the Fright Zone? There was nothing left for her there.

Everything important in Catra’s life is heading towards Bright Moon for the next phase, and they want Catra to come with them. Adora wants Catra to come with them. And when Adora tells her that when they’re breaking down camp, her hands on Catra’s shoulders and that soft look in her eyes, that instinctual urge to run away disintegrates into nothing.

She just doesn’t expect her first night in Bright Moon to be spent staring up at a ceiling so far up in a room enveloped in the night’s darkness and the paralyzing sound of her own loneliness. Melog sleeps across her chest, a white noise machine of warmth, keeping her grounded in this reality of this room that has its own gravity. Catra can’t find it in her to close her eyes as she lays across what’s more of a pillow plush than an actual bed.

The only reason Catra’s in here is because Glimmer gifted her the room out of legitimate kindness. As it turns out, Adora got one of her own when she left Catra- sorry, defected from the Horde- because people here were actually treated like people and regardless of what Catra had done in the past, she fell into that category now. She was one of them now. It didn’t make her a princess or queen by the longest shot, but around here that counted for something.

“Pretty sweet accommodations, huh?” Glimmer had thrown her words from Horde’s Prime back at her, holding back no amusement when she had shown Catra around the room, teleporting in a craze from one piece of fancy furniture to the next.

All of the moments that Catra had spent overwhelmed and so, so out of her depth since walking into Glimmer’s palace were coming crashing down on her now and she could barely breathe under the weight of it all. Figuring all her snarky commentary about the way Royals lived was enough, Catra didn’t bother voicing her discomfort. Deep down, she hoped that the way Melog wrapped themselves between her legs and curled their tail up her thigh clued Adora- or anyone really- into how much she wanted to be whisked away from this.

Why hadn’t Adora just asked Catra to stay in her room? Catra would’ve been more than okay with that.

Running her claws down her face, Catra groaned. It had been stupid to think that those sleepovers Glimmer gushed about when it was just the two of them on Horde Prime’s ship would last forever now that she was a part of the gang. Not as stupid as thinking Adora would be up for some sort of cohabitating, shared sleeping arrangements with her when they’d been sworn enemies less than a month ago.

“I need to give Adora space. She’s her own person, she can make her own decisions.” Catra tells herself, trying to take a deep breath like Perfuma had taught her. “And I’ll fall asleep eventually. I don’t need her around to do that.”

This statement prompts Melog to lift their head, ethereal blue eyes wide and shining with packed judgement.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Catra hisses at her animal/alien companion. The dissonant purr of Melog’s reply fills the empty space around them.

“You didn’t ask Adora if she wanted to sleep alone. You can ask her if she wants to sleep together, and if she says she wants space, then you know,” Melog’s purr ends and Catra rolls her eyes before throwing her head back on her pillow.

“How does that help me now? Adora’s probably asleep already. Last thing I wanna do is wake her up and get punched in the nose. Again.”

Melog, keeping their eyes on Catra, withholds their reply. Not backing down form the staring contest the alien cat has incited, she glares at her companion. Which is useless knowing how she’s practically see through to this creature- wait, she stops herself, blinking. See through.

Catra has the beginnings of an idea. A creepy idea, so she doesn’t bother trying to think it through, rather pushes Melog of her legs and trips off the giant pink pillow puff that’s her bed so she can act before she uses her bravery.

A purr makes Catra’s ear perk up, “Really? Are you sure this is a good idea?

“Hey!” Catra sent a flat look in Melog’s direction. They’re shielding her legs and making her think twice. “Laying next to that cot Adora has cloaked isn’t great but it’s better than being in here alone!” Alone with the images that haunt her, the images she’s sees when she lets her eyes close: Shadow Weaver taking her mask off before ceasing to exist, the violent green waters of Prime’s baptismal font, Adora unconscious in her arms as the world ends around them. With shaking hands she asks, “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Melog runs through her legs, rubbing her calf with their phasing mane. Catra’s companion heads for the door.

Sneaking past the Queen’s Guard is child’s play. Melog has her back, keeping the both of them cloaked, as Catra sneaks around in her Horde issued bra and sleeping shorts. Maybe one day she and Adora will get around to finding clothing that can withstand the strain of battle that doesn’t carry the Horde’s symbol, but Catra doubts a shopping list is high on anyone’s priority list right now.

It’s not like any of the guards that stand at fourteen feet intervals- Catra notices- are on high alert, or would rat her out for being out past curfew. Because there’s no curfew here and that’s not their job. But Catra breathes a little easier knowing she can’t be seen. Maybe it’s because they can’t ask questions if they can’t see her, can’t make her rethink her strange stalker like actions. Maybe it’s because wearing their clothes, Catra hasn’t exactly shaken off the rust of growing up in the Fright Zone.

Melog keeps her out of sight as they walk past Bow’s room, sending her a look when they hear his snores seeping out from under the door frame. Catra shrugs.

With no guards around, Melog starts up again, “Why did they put Adora’s room so far from yours?” which Catra knows is probably code for, “how much longer do I have to keep this up?”

“You big baby,” Catra runs her hand over Melog’s tail, “And I dunno, how I am supposed to know the inner workings of Sparkles’ mind? I’m like, the first person new here that hasn’t been a prisoner.”

Her claws trail the wall and she keeps up with Melog’s steps.

The fact that the room Glimmer put her in was where they’d been “keeping” Scorpia didn’t go over Catra’s head. Yeah, she and Scorpia are on better terms these days, but remembering how Scorpia left her for the Rebellion still brings a sting to Catra’s throat. Remembering that it was her own fault is like the punch in the gut she didn’t ask for, but probably deserv- WHACK!

“Ow!” Beyond the pain resonating in Catra’s forehead, she can hear Adora cry out.

“Adora?!” Melog’s cloaking falls and Catra is standing in front of her, well, sort of girlfriend, wincing and holding her forehead there in her gray tank top and shorts.

“Catra?!” Adora yells with the same tone when she realizes what the invisible force she butted heads with actually is. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” replies Catra.

Adora takes a guarded stance and Melog looks between the two of them before her shoulders fall, “I- I couldn’t sleep. I thought, um, that I could come see you? I mean, I did think you were going to be asleep and I thought I could just stay there with you-” as she speaks, a sort of softness overcomes Catra. How had she managed to survive on the other edge of Adora’s sword? No wonder her destiny as a Force Captain was doomed from the start, that her anger sputtered and left her burned out. Catra had so much love for this woman. It was always going to win out at the end of the day. “-is that creepy? I know, it’s creepy but I just really wanted to see you-”

Catra grabs Adora’s hand and looks her in the eye. “Do you wanna come lay down? With- with me?”

“Mmhmm,” nods Adora. She intertwines their fingers together, and when Catra starts to pull her back up the hallway, she follows without hesitation.

Since they’re going back the way they came, past Bow and Glimmer’s rooms, Catra’s hand finds Melog’s forehead and the cloaking flows through their bodies. Catra and Adora don’t make any noise, don’t make any stops, beyond the looks Catra throws her over her shoulder. Right before they reach the door to Catra’s room, Adora squeezes Catra’s hand.

“Hey,” her voice is barely above a whisper, “why were you out of bed?”

“No reason.” Catra turn her face away, hoping that the cover of the dark will hide her growing blush. She curls her tail around her waist and keeps it there to keep it from betraying her.

“Oh my gosh, Catra- were you coming to see me?” Adora throws her hands onto Catra’s shoulders, a playful instinct that Catra can’t fight the subconscious need to return.

Melog’s cloaking falls.

Grabbing Adora’s fingers, Catra pulls her sort of girlfriend to her front before grabbing her wrists and pinning her to the wall. Their noses touching, Catra lets herself smile, “Okay, maybe I was. You’re not the only person who doesn’t want to sleep alone.”

“Is it also cause you like me?” teases Adora.

Even in the dark Adora’s the most beautiful thing Catra’s ever seen; blonde hair unrestrained and kissing her defined shoulder, standing up against the wall in her pajamas, she’s all Catra’s ever wanted.

“You idiot,” Catra kisses her lips, “it’s actually because I love you.”

Catra wakes to a warmth against her back. A chest rising and falling, a hand lain across the crook of her elbow. Opening her eyes, she sees that it’s not only light out, but that the dawn has come and gone, turned in midmorning without their permission. There’s no way she and Adora haven’t slept in way past the time the promised to be up and ready to take on the challenges that awaited them in peacetime.

“Adora,” she mutters, rolling over and buries her face in the space between Adora’s shoulder and head, “you’re hogging the blanket.”

Adora doesn’t open her eyes as her grip on Catra’s waist tightens, “‘S’not fair. You have Melog.”

Running her hand down the side of her animal companion, Catra lets out of a breath. She’s sandwiched in between Melog and Adora’s warmth, the little spoon wrapped in Adora’s calm embrace. There’s nothing Catra would change about this. This is the way she’d keep things forever if it were up to her.

“We have to get up soon,” Catra tries, yawning and stretching her arms out.

Her girlfriend’s hands come down over hers, “Don’t want to.”

“Adora-”

“I want to stay with you, Catra,” her sleepy voice reverberates over Catra’s ears and they flatten under her chin. Tail winding around Adora’s waist, she pulls her closer and sighs.

“What if Rainbow and Sparkles come looking for us?”

Adora, eyes still closed, lets out a happy sigh. “Let them.”

It goes without saying that Catra never has to sleep alone again.

reblogs > likes!

#catradora #she ra and the princesses of power #spop #catra x adora #catra #adora #spop spoilers #my writing #she ra #this is going on ao3 with the first part!#reblogs > likes

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saiwola · 9 months ago

Text

"... Mommy?"

"... Okay 1. Never call me that again. Ever."

"And 2. No. You're too rich to be a sugar baby. I think. If anyone, Leon's the sugar baby."

".... What...?"

#{dissonant whispers} commentary #Cardan IC #Aletris IC #Leandre IC #Leon: I don't want that?

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justthehiddleswrites · 4 years ago

Text

Career Change | Adam x OFC (Charlie Bock) | Chapter 2

Pairing: Adam x OFC (Charlie Bock)

Summary: It has been three months since Adam rescued Charlie. Simone thinks it is time for Charlie to get back to some normalcy. Adam resist the change and Charlie has to break out the legal pad again.

Warnings: Eventual Smut, Fluff, Humor, mentions of past trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Panic Attacks

Three Weeks Later

Charlie stared over at Adam from her perch on the couch and wonder if a #2 pencil had a sufficient amount of wood to kill a vampire or would the graphite core counteract that. Her nails dug into the wood as yet another moody rock song came on over the speakers.

“What do you think of this one, darling?” Adam inquired, either oblivious or indifferent to Charlie’s murderous intentions.

“It’s fine.” She commented quickly before returning her attention to her handwritten notes from class and her textbook.

Adam’s shoulders slumped. “Just fine?”

“Yup.” She popped the “p”, typing some notes on her laptop.

“Anything else?” Adam grew irritated. Charlie gave more detailed insights to his compositions when he plays them for her.

“Nope.” She didn’t even look up this time. The dissonant tones of Adam’s composition grated on her nerves and set her teeth on edge right now.

“Do you think it could use bass or maybe a different instrument?” Adam paced in thought. “Some drums… That’s it! Drums!” Adam snapped his fingers and headed towards his drum set in the corner. Charlie’s eyes widened as Adam spun a drumstick between his fingers and he sat down.

“You are not seriously going to do that now?” Charlie glared at him from over the high back of the sofa.

“Why not?” Adam drummed out a quick rhythm.

“I am trying to study. I have my first test tomorrow.” Charlie hissed. “Can’t this wait, darling, until I’m done?” Or when I am not here, Charlie thought to herself.

Adam made studying unbearable. If it wasn’t him playing music, it was him using various techniques to remove Charlie’s clothes and fuck her against whatever piece of furniture she happened to be sitting on. She started staying later at her school to complete her work either in the library or a nearby coffee shop. Her absence did not go unnoticed on those days, when Adam either brooded in bed or attacked her at the door.

“Inspiration does not work on schedule, Charlie.”

“Fine.” She packed up her books and laptop and headed into the spare bedroom as Adam put on his headphones and drummed out whatever melody was stuck in his brain.

“Tell me about the episode in the school hallway.”

Charlie took a deep breath. “So I was walking along when my friend came around behind me and hugged me. I didn’t know he broke his arm a few days ago ice skating and his cast came across my neck and I panicked.” She didn’t sob, but Simone could see the tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s okay to cry, Charlie. You are not even six months out from all this. You thought of Jason.”

Charlie nodded and allowed a couple of big tears to drop onto her jeans. “Yes.”

“How did you react?”

“I dropped my coffee and knees buckled.”

“Did you run away?”

“Not this time.”

“Good.”

“But I cried. People stared.”

“It’s okay, Charlie. They weren’t judging you. Did you talk to your friend?”

“Yes.” Charlie sniffled. “I told him I didn’t like being hugged from behind.”

“Did you tell him why?”

“Not yet.”

“That’s fine. We don’t have to tell people everything. Did your friend take it well?”

“He did. And he apologized and bought me a fresh coffee.”

“Excellent.”

“Why do I not panic when Adam hugs me?” Charlie questioned, her emotions leveling out.

“That’s an excellent question. Why do you think you don’t panic when Adam hugs you from behind?”

Charlie chewed on her lip as she thought about it.

“Well, I’m at home.”

“Anything else?”

“I recognize it’s him behind me.”

“How?”

Charlie closed her eyes and thought back. “I can hear his dressing gown swish and I smell him.”

“That’s right. Which is why we are working on situational awareness so you can tell when something is a threat or not?” Simone added and Charlie smiled. “How is Adam taking to all this?”

Charlie huffed, running her fingers through her hair, twirling the ends.

“Charlie, what’s wrong?” Simone asked.

“Nothing. It’s fine.” Charlie pushed her hair back and settled herself.

“Charlie, what’s the rule?”

“No use of ‘fine’ or ‘okay’ when asked a question. Sorry.”

Simone let the apology slide. “Let’s try again… What’s wrong?”

“Adam is driving me crazy!” Charlie groaned. “He won’t leave me alone.”

“He’s used to have you to himself and not sharing you with the world, Charlie. Vampires don’t take change well. Particularly an obstinate vampire like Adam.”

“How do I get him to understand this is important to me?”

“What makes you think he doesn’t already know?”

“He seems to be sabotaging my study attempts.”

“And how is he doing that?”

“Playing his music, pulling out his drums, asking nonstop questions, sex. Take your pick.”

“Sex?” Simone raised an eyebrow.

“All the time. Are vampires part rabbit? I need to know.”

“No. But I can say certain appetites increase significantly once a vampire turns.”

Charlie rolled her eyes, and Simone suppressed a chuckle. “And I got involved with a sex fiend from a former life.”

“He is a musician. You knew this. And I haven’t heard you complain about your sex life before.” Simone countered.

“I am not complaining.” Charlie blushed. “I just… I need to get the work done and do well. This is important to me.”

“I know this is going to sound like a radical idea but have you tried talking to him?”

“Yes.” Charlie replied in a small voice.

“Charlie, have you really tried?”

“Not really.”

“Sit him down in a neutral place. I would suggest the kitchen. And explain why this is important and how his behavior is hindering you. Set some ground rules. You like rules.”

Charlie nodded. “I do.”

“Can you sit down with him this week and set up some ground rules for this time that you are in this course?”

“I can.”

Simone smiled. “Good luck.”

Charlie hoped her pleading with Adam would stop the teasing and distractions. She was wrong. If anything, her apparent disinterest in having sex whenever and wherever with Adam only seemed to stoke his libido. A few days later, Adam wandered into the kitchen after waking up to find Charlie sitting at the table.

“Please sit down, Adam.” Charlie gestured to the seat across from her.

Adam narrowed his eyes as he moved to the chair. As he spun the chair around to straddle it backwards, he spied the legal pad underneath Charlie’s neatly folded hands.

“No.” He started to stand up.

“Sit down, Adam.” Charlie hissed through gritted teeth. Her eyes flashed at him with such intensity Adam stopped midway before spinning the chair back the right way and flopping back down and rolling his eyes.

“We need some rules.” Charlie clicked her pen.

“No.” Adam repeated. “We don’t.”

Charlie exhaled in exasperation. “Let me rephrase. We will have some rules because I can’t continue on like this. I can’t get any studying done and I refuse to fail this course because you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“I have self-control.” Adam lied.

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him. “I think the record is clear on your self- control. Shall I go into detail?”

Adam squirmed under his glare. “No.” he resigned. “Do I get any say in these rules?”

“Yes, but they have to work for me too. This is important to me, Adam and I want to do well. Do you understand?”

Adam glanced over the table at Charlie. He realized he was sabotaging her efforts and he couldn’t even tell you why. He gave a distracted nod.

“I need to hear the words Adam.” He overheard the tapping of her finger on the table.

“Yes.” he groaned.

Charlie smiled and danced in her seat. She clicked her pen a few more times and started writing.

“Hey!” he complained. “I didn’t agree to anything yet!” He crossed his arms.

Charlie smirked. “We can negotiate.”

She slid the paper over. Adam read 1. No fucking.

“Absolutely not!!” Adam shoved the legal pad. “That rule never works!”

Charlie giggled. “I was only joking. Like I need to tempt fate a second time.”

“I don’t know about that.” He shot a lurid glare across the table. “Seems to have worked out in your favor.”

Charlie smirked, ripping the page off and crumpling it into a ball. She tossed it into the trashcan in one shot. She chewed on the pen cap for a moment before scribbling. Adam leaned over to spy but Charlie wrapped her arm around the pad.

“No peeking. I don’t want any commentary.”

Adam huffed back in the chair.

Charlie smiled in satisfaction as she stopped writing. “There. Look.”

Adam glanced over the rules, his lips pursed.

RULES APPLY FOR TIME WHEN CHARLIE IS ACTIVELY STUDYING ONLY!!

1. No touching Charlie unless she has explicitly asked you to do so. This means no massages or foot rubs or teasing.

2. Adam is not allowed to use his body as a distraction. This is including but not limited to:

- Adam walking around in tight pants.

- Adam walking around naked.

- Adam touching his body in a manner that is distracting (before you ask, yes I mean that).

3. Adam may not use his voice as a weapon. No whispering in Charlie’s ear. No dirty talking.

He realized it was for the best but damn if it would not be hard to adhere to Charlie’s rules.

“What am I supposed to do with myself?” Adam asked.

“Read a book. Compose. Play music. I am sure you can find a way to occupy yourself.”

“They appear to be reasonable.” he grumbled. “But I don’t like it.”

“Sign please.” Charlie hummed. Adam rolled his eyes before affixing his serial killer worthy signature to the page, sliding it back at Charlie. She signed in big loopy cursive and ripped the page off the pad.

“Where are you going with that?” Adam asked as Charlie rummaged through a drawer, holding the paper in her mouth.

“Putting it somewhere where you can see it.” Charlie pulled out a Boston magnet and slapped the paper onto the old fridge. “As a reminder.”

Adam rose and wrapped his arms around her waist to stare at the rules over her shoulder. His nose nuzzled into her curls, inhaling the scent of bay rum. “I would think you don’t trust me.”

Charlie spun around to wrap her arms around his neck. “Who broke the rules the first time?”

Adam nipped at her lower lip. “Who wrote shitty rules with loopholes?” His hands wandered down to cup her ass.

“No comment.” She kissed him.

“Do you need to study right now?”

“No. I’m caught up for the time being.”

“Good.” Adam lifted her up and sat her down on the counter. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her pajama bottoms and yanked them to the floor.

“Adam…” Charlie warned as he undid his robe, stepping between her knees.

“Not breaking the rules.” Adam hissed into her ear. “Can’t believe I am saying this. Again.”

“You love it.” Charlie dragged her fingers along his shaft.

“Fuck.” Adam sucked hard onto Charlie’s neck as he scooted her to the edge of the counter. He buried himself inside of her in one stroke.

Charlie’s nails dug into his shoulders. Adam chuckled and hooked her legs around his waist.

“Hold on, my love.” he warned with a smirk before snapping against her.

Adam twisted his hips as he rutted against her. He grunted with each thrusts.

“Adam, please…” Charlie breathed. “I’m close.”

“Then come, my love. Soak me.”

Charlie’s head fell back against the cabinet as her orgasm washed over her. She hooked around Adam’s thighs and pulled him as close as she could.

“That’s it my love.” Adam purred, thrusting twice more, before spilling into Charlie.

Adam pressed his forehead against Charlie’s. Her chest heaving as his breath blew her curls around.

“That was…” Charlie stuttered over the words.

“… what you will be missing while studying.” He kissed her nose before easing her back to the ground and walking away with a devious smile.

Three Weeks Later

Charlie chewed on the end of her pencil, rewriting her notes for the third time. She flipped through her textbook for something. Adam flopped down on the couch.

“Yes?” Charlie asked, sensing Adam’s poor mood from the other side of the couch. She didn’t even bother looking up from her book.

“How long are you going to be studying?”

“My midterm is on Monday.”

Adam groaned. “You have been studying for three days straight.”

“And your point is?” Adam reached out for her ankle which Charlie tucked underneath her. She jabbed her pencil in the general direction of the kitchen. “Rules.”

“Fuck the rules.” Adam whispered.

“What did you say?” Charlie glared over at him.

“I said fuck the rules, Charlie. I need you. Do you know how hard it is to see you sitting there in that fucking sweater?” Charlie glanced down at her purple sweater with the deep vee. “I swear you are doing it on purpose.”

“I am not. Now if you don’t mind, I am memorizing the names and locations of all the veins in the arm.”

“I know a lot about the veins in the arm.” Adam’s hand crawled towards her again.

“I’ll stick with my textbook thank you very much. Please find some other way to occupy yourself.”

Adam grumbled as he settled back against the high back of the green velveteen sofa. He glanced over at Charlie who leaned over to write in her notebook, giving him the perfect view down her sweater. His cock twitched. Without thought, he undid his pants, allowing it to pop free. With a languid motion, he stroked himself, imaging all the deliciously depraved things he wished Charlie was doing to him.

Adam’s soft grunt from the other side of the sofa pulled Charlie’s focus away. She spied as Adam sat there, mouth half open fisting his cock.

“What the fuck are you doing? That is breaking Rule #3!” she exclaimed.

“I am imagining you straddling my hips. The cock buried deep inside you. Your delicious cunt gripping against me. Your tits bouncing in my face as you ride me.” Adam’s voice deep like the rich tone of a cello or upright bass.

Charlie’s skin tingled, and her nipples hardened at Adam’s words.

“It’s too bad you are studying. Because if you weren’t, I would fuck you over the arm of this sofa, until you begged for me to let you cum, my love.”

“Well I guess, I could…” She set down her computer and crawled towards Adam when she caught herself. “NO! Stop that Adam, you’re breaking the rules.”

“No. the rules are stupid, Charlie. Just take a break.”

Charlie grabbed her notes, laptop, and textbook and headed towards the interior stairs.

“Where are you going?” Adam questioned, when he noticed Charlie storming off.

“Upstairs. I still have my futon up there.”

“But you belong here with me.” Adam moved with unnatural speed to cut her off. “Just take a break.” He reached for her but Charlie ducked away.

“No, Adam. This is important to me and it should be important to you.” Her lip wavered. “But you can’t even follow three simple rules for me. I’m going upstairs. And if you follow me, I am ripping the blackout curtains down.”

Adam stood there, staring at her speechless.

“Move, Adam.” She demanded, cooly.

He stepped aside. “Charlie, I’m—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Adam. Don’t wait up for me.”

She let the door click behind her before walking up the stairs. Adam leaned against the door, feeling like a right ass.

Adam paced the length of the apartment. He didn’t expect Charlie to react with such anger. So cold. He had seen her mad before but not like this. Not shut down. No tears, no yelling. He realized that for the second time in their short but intense relationship he had truly fucked up.

He ripped the rules off the fridge and pressed it into a tight ball. Adam tossed the ball towards the garbage can, missing it. With a huff, he stomped to the trashcan to throw it away. His eyes caught a stack of baking sheets Charlie bought a week ago but still need to put away.

“Scathingly brilliant idea, Adam.” he commented to himself, using a phrase he picked up from Charlie.

“Adam was right.” Charlie muttered as she shifted in a vain effort to find a comfortable spot on her old futon.

She hated to admit in this moment that Adam’s antique couch downstairs was far more comfortable than her secondhand futon. But she refused to admit defeat.

“Come on, Charlie. Just a few more hours and then you knock off for the night.” She steeled herself to push through this last bit. The reward of the cool sheets of their bed downstairs spurred her to return to her notes.

About an hour later, Charlie sniffed the air. Something acrid filled the air, like burnt toast or a wood fireplace running. She chalked it up a neighbor having a late winter or early spring fire.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPP! The smoke detectors in the entire apartment went off. Charlie threw her notes off her lap and bolted down the stairs to the basement apartment.

“Adam! Are you…” She turned to find Adam hovering over the stove in the kitchen fanning a blackened cookie sheet. Black acrid smoke pouring off the sheet and some coming off the stove itself. “… okay?”

“Yes.” Adam grumbled.

Charlie chuckled a bit at the absurdity of Adam standing there, wearing her Wonder Woman apron, waving a kitchen towel over something that was now reduced to ash.

“What were you doing?” Charlie’s lips twitching at the corners.

“Baking cookies.”

“Those were cookies?” She gestured at the tiny hockey pucks on the cookie sheet.

“Yes.”

“Why would you be baking cookies? You don’t eat—Oh!” Charlie walked over by Adam and laced her fingers with his, staring at her ruined cookies. “Those were for me, weren’t they?”

“Yes. As an apology.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry for acting like a jackass. It is important to me you succeed. I am not good at sharing you.”

“I know. This is only temporary, Adam. I am halfway through.” She squeezed back.

“Are you still mad at me?” He turned to face you.

“Yes, but the cookies helped. How in the hell did you burn them so bad?”

“Forgot to set the timer and then dozed off on the sofa.”

Charlie nodded. “That will do it. Now…” She wrapped her arms. “… since you have disrupted my studying without breaking the rules—”

“Sorry about that.”

“I was wrapping soon, anyway. Now what was this about me riding you?” She raised an eyebrow.

Adam’s eyes widened. “I don’t want to take—”

“Take me to bed, Adam.” She whispered in his ear.

“Are you sure? You can come back downstairs. I will go into the other room.” Adam pecked her lips. “I love you and I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“I love you too. And sometimes distractions are a good thing. Clears the mind. Now are you going to take me to bed or not?”

“Well, if you insist.” Adam grabbed Charlie at the waist and heaved her onto his shoulder.

“Adam! Put me down!!”

“No.” he chuckled. “You’re mine. And I have plans.”

“Do I get to know these plans?” Charlie huffed, resigning herself to being carried to the bedroom over Adam’s shoulder.

“I started with removing all your clothes and I will go from there.”

“I like the sound of that.” Charlie giggled as Adam dropped her onto the bed. Adam crawled up onto the bed next to her.

The Next Week

Charlie bounded into the bedroom after class that day and pounced onto Adam’s chest. His face obscured by a pillow.

“Adam…” She nibbled that spot on his neck behind his ear. “… wake up. I have something to show you.”

Adam groaned and peeked at Charlie from underneath the pillow. “What?”

Charlie shoved a piece of paper into his face. “I got an A on my midterm!” she squealed. “Only three people in the entire class got an A.”

Adam removed the pillow from his face and smiled at Charlie, who was beaming up at him. “Congratulations, darling. You worked hard for that.” He kissed her nose. “I’m proud of it.”

“Thank you, Adam. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Adam’s hands slid down to cup Charlie’s ass. “I think your hard work deserves a reward.”

“More cookies?” Charlie giggled. A week later and the house still smelled of burnt cookies.

“No.” Adam rolled his eyes. “But it definitely involves eating.”

“Go on.” Charlie teased, wiggling on top of him.

#adam #adam fanfic #adam fanfiction #adam angst #adam fluff #adam smut #only lovers left alive #only lovers left alive fanfiction #adam x ofc #the reluctants

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roseategales · 5 years ago

Text

100(ISH) WORDS A DAY CHALLENGE: NOVEMBER 2019 — DAY ELEVEN TO TWENTY-FOUR: WHISPER, BITTERSWEET.

rating: explicit. | categories: smut, modern au. | pairing: solavellan. | content warnings: mentions of alcohol. | word count: 2.2k.

author’s notes: idk what i’m doing. is that new tho? this wasn’t supposed to be uhhhh this long or take up two weeks afashfgsas oh well. i may actually end up using this an outline and turn it into a three chapter fic somewhere down the line, with more detail. i have Ideas.

The main venue for tonight’s date is provided courtesy of Josephine.

Spare tickets for a new musical at one of Grande Royeaux’s theatres were given to her by an acquaintance hoping for good graces, and, as she had prior engagements, she passed them to Eludysia to do with as she pleases. It’s another modern retelling of Andraste’s rebellion against Tevinter, focused on her early life and the beginnings of the war she fought. The mythos is thoroughly known throughout Thedas of course. A centerpiece of faith and nations, it’s the subject of innumerable non-fiction and fictionalised works of controversy, so Eludysia had little inclination in carving out time to see it. But it has been weeks since she and Solas last had a night out together, and critics and audiences have raised this one to acclaim; thus, she has persuaded him and they are meeting tonight.

She wears a dress that flows to floor-length, with an asymmetrical neckline and a slit along her left leg, the shade of myrtle leaves. Her hair is bound into a simple side-braid, her makeup done with a subtle hand. Her heels and matching clutch-purse are an off-white colour. The overall effect is one that satisfies—and, she anticipates, is prepared well for the evening.

The show is at eight. In midnight black suit and tie, he picks her up at exactly six. It gives them enough time to have dinner and conversation at a restaurant nearby the theatre. They talk about the usual things: the current affairs of the city, her cases and their successes, his classes and the books he’s read, the new discoveries of the lost Elvhen empire. He tells her she looks beautiful. She jokes that he should wear a suit more often. His hand brushes her palm and she holds it. Their reconnection is natural. Smooth as the dark red wine which fills their glasses and they raise a toast to.

They arrive at the theatre on time to be seated. An usher escorts them to a private box for two, at the side of the stage. Soon, the seats below them are filled, to the very last one. And then the lights fade out. Applause follows. The play begins.

For the next half hour, they relive the times of old through the music of their own day. The tragedy of the story should be dissonant with the vibrancy of the beat, but the presented narrative is instead enriched. It’s something to be appreciated.

By Eludysia’s asking, Solas gives commentary on the historical inaccuracies and creative liberties taken. She’d be lying if she said she doesn’t prefer the deep baritone of his voice to the cast’s, talented though they are. In exchange, he asks for her thoughts. Their seats are side by side, close enough they are still be audible to each other over the orchestra. It’s close enough for their knees to touch, and for their hands to find each other’s after each applause break.

After half an hour, Solas’ hand doesn’t return to Eludysia’s. It drifts.

At first, his placement of it is innocuous—right above where her knee meets his. But then, his fingers trail a line. His touch whisper light, they wander up and up, across the skin bared by the opening of her dress’ slit, up toward her thigh. And he shifts the fabric.

Her breath hitches, of its own accord.

Solas hasn’t even begun.

She glances from the stage—where Andraste’s actress is delivering a conflicted soliloquy on her marriage to Maferath—to where his fingertips trace the curve of her thigh, back and forth. As if awaiting a decision. “Solas… What are you doing?” She asks, like she is unaware of his intent. Like she has to read his expression to glean it.

“I’m observing the show, vhenan,” he says, as if it’s obvious. He toys with her hem, but tenderness rests on his features. “Is there a problem?”

He’s offering an out. Affirming what she wants. One word from her, and he would stop. He wouldn’t question her. If she expressed any discomfort, he would let her push him away to undo it. The night could pass by without incident, and he’d bring her back to her apartment.

His concern cuts at her heart. She loves him. She does.

But the desire for this is mutual. She craves for it as much as he. So, “not at all,” she says, with a sweetened smile.

A smirk lurks at the corner of Solas’ mouth. His ivory hand dips beneath green.

He has knowledge on just how to unravel her seams, in both contexts of speech and touch. That may be the most dangerous part. She adjusts herself to help him push aside the fabric of her underwear, and his fingers are expert; he skims her inner thigh, teases at her folds, strokes slow circles around her clit, effortless. He does it all without looking directly at her, his attention still seemingly on the reenactment of the politics of the Alamarri border to an outsider’s eye. But while she tries to steady her gaze on the same, she grows wet and wanting. Her posture slackens to allow him better access. He slides a finger inside her, two, and she has to bite her lower lip to cage her gasps and moans as her hips seek and seek more and more of him.

He summons a tension Eludysia is driven to chase. She bucks forward, and he evades. She quickens her pace, and he delays his. The discordance of their rhythm is deliberate. It turns her frustrated and impelled to grasp for the cuff of his sleeve to synchronise their movements.

It’s a mistake. He withdraws.

She has to clamp her hand over mouth, muffling a scream of his name.

Distantly, as her head rests on the seat, she realises he’s remarking on the musical.

“…how vital Shartan’s role was in the rebellion. It is refreshing to see it recognised,” breaks through the drumming of the music—through her wild, erratic pulse—Solas’ tone somehow casually academic. He looks at her, wearing a spurious innocence, expectant. “Don’t you think so?”

Breathless, she laughs.

“I think…” What does she think? The only roles she cares about now are the ones she and Solas play. She is feverish, restless. The set of the theatre is reduced to a two-dimensional backdrop, fallen away and out of focus. The script’s pages are lost. She resolves to rewrite. “I think you’re enjoying this too much.”

Solas follows. “I always enjoy giving you what you want, vhenan,” he says, placing a soft kiss behind her ear. “In due time.”

He returns a long, slender finger to hover and drag along her sex. She writhes. The high ceiling is less dizzying to stare at than the stage lights and her mind.

For a fraction of a second, Eludysia weighs a plea on her tongue. Solas might relent. It’d be easy and she’d be satiated. But it occurs to her that if he keeps her on a precipice, there is a chance he will not. And she is rarely one who begs for leniency. If it’s a struggle he hopes for, it’s a struggle he will get. “How long?” she asks, for she has knowledge on Solas too.

He chuckles, shakes his head at her. Rubs patterns on her thigh to soothe. “Be patient.”

“No, no, I meant—” She wets her lips and considers him, and her laugh is of daring impulse. “—how long, do you suppose, until I can touch you the way you’re touching me now?” She ventures and leans toward him, cloying, promising. “How long until your cock will be stroked by my hands, my—”

His thumb presses her clit. Her legs squeeze and her hand flies to her mouth.

“Lest you forget,” Solas warns, the storm-grey of his eyes darkening. He parts her legs; fully revealing the left and more. The way her skirt drapes over her now is almost precarious. “I still have an advantage.”

A whimper escapes her, unhidden. She grips at the edge of her seat to rein herself. “You said you enjoy giving me what I want.”

“Unless what you want is to incite me any more than you have. That will not end well.”

She doesn’t give up. “Why? Will you bend me over and fuck me—”

“Eludysia!”

The thrust of his fingers is as sudden as his hiss. Thought is abandoned and she jolts and buries her face into his shoulder. He moves faster and deeper this time, a furor, that spurs her on and on and on until she is trembling around and beside him, smothering her keens and sobs as pressure builds, pushes her to the edge. She maintains her grip on the seat, knuckles whitening. Her hips press against him, her legs squeeze to snatch him there. Her insides are molten and the sought for high nears—

And Solas retreats again.

Strings of Elven curses tumble from her lips onto his sleeve.

Regretful, Solas calms her. His breathing is irregular, as is hers. The hand working her goes back to gently caressing her thigh, the other cradles the back of her head. He kisses the top of her hair, mumbling an apology, and ascertains if she’s all right. She collects what she has of her strength to nod and articulate an apology as well, in spite of her wound up state, and encircles his arm with hers to reassure.

There’s a sliver of Eludysia still conscious of their surroundings, the possible consequences of their actions; muted in the obscene but present. Applause is heard, a break before the next song. What would happen, if someone were to sight how she and Solas hold each other? She is ragged, covered in a sheen of sweat and her skirt askew. He is stiff and strained, fingers glistening from her slick. The balcony’s marble enclosure hides their misdemeanor, but not their unbelonging embrace.

She draws back, glances at the silhouette of the audience, then at him. “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?” It’s a genuine question, apart from tricks and tactics. Absurdity underlines their situation like crimson ink. A portrayal of a battleground is just downstairs, and here they are, irreverent, above, with one of their own. All it would take is a slip of her voice, or for someone to look up, or for intermission to arrive. And yet, they go on.

“I calculate my risks,” Solas says, pausing his ministrations to pull at her skirt’s fabric so she is less exposed. He regards her appearance, her visage. “Not unlike you.”

Eludysia can’t help but smirk. “Referring to the dress, or?”

“You had your suspicions on how I’d respond if you chose it, didn’t you?” he sighs and stills, the statement coarsened. “Like you how you had suspicions on how I’d attempt to silence you if you stirred my fantasies.”

“Well,” she says, eyes bright as the purest emeralds, “I enjoy giving you what you like, too.”

“The games we play should frighten us,” he observes, his mouth forming a grim line.

“They would—if we weren’t aware of what we were getting ourselves into.”

“We aren’t always.”

“We’ll work on that,” she promises, and tugs on his arm. Her body is still as sensitive as a livewire, but her words are tender. Earnest.

Solas hums, and he allows himself a smile and the approval. The hand in Eludysia’s hair moves to tip her chin up, closer. “Perhaps you’ll stay quiet, then?”

It’s her turn, now, to shake her head at him. “One day, ma’lath,” she says, with a lilting affection, “you will tire of your need for restraint.”

“Ma vhenan,” he chokes, the endearment a bittersweet sound. Behind his lust, his delectation, his solicitude, is an unnameable despair. He sets it before her and indulges, “that day came when I fell in love with you.”

And so he kisses her roughly. A lash of hunger upon her, his mouth and nipping teeth inflict silken heat, his fingers finding her sex to delve in once more, so she gasps and his tongue can steal its way to entangle with hers. He conducts a new, headier rhythm, strikes in and out in concert with her need, how her hips rise and buck and pursue. He takes her moans, he takes her breath. Her nerves sing, burn, pulse. She becomes lightheaded and begins to seize as he finally, finally delivers unto her a delirium. She pushes away for air, but he keeps a vice-like grasp by the nape of her neck so their lips and her cresting cry remain sealed and secret.

There is a beautiful irony in the paradoxical act; what is meant to restrain is itself a surrender. What should conflict is inseparable. Where does one end and the other emerge?

As Solas releases Eludysia and rights her, she lets her head lay on his shoulder. He doesn’t protest. Oxygen floods her lungs, and in the equilibrium of weightlessness and the sense of gravity, a line from the Chant of Light rings crystalline: —a vision of all worlds, waking and slumbering / spirit and mortal to me appeared.

They don’t wait for intermission. He takes her home. Her dress is ripped, discarded on his bedroom floor with the rest of their clothes. She makes good on her word, strokes him with her hands, her mouth. He then has his way with her; marks her skin like she could eternally be his own. Like they’ll be all right. And together, they relish in their sounds and avowals of love saturating the room through and through.

He doesn’t know Eludysia wakes in the middle of the night to wonder at the profoundness of him and his confession, as she’d done months ago when he came to her door.

#da fic #da:i fanfic #dragon age fic #dragon age inquisition #dragon age inquisition fic #the solavellan archive #solavellan fanfic #solavellan fic #mine.#dragon age.#100 words a day : november 2019.#solas.#inquisitor : eludysia lavellan.#ship : solas & lavellan. in another world.#god this was a lot #i do want to turn it into a full fledged fic one day tho #it'll be fun #probably #my fics.

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years ago

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Bismuth

Steven Universe is a show about solving problems with healthy communication instead of violence. It’s also a show so centered around fighting that our main characters have signature weapons that act as literal extensions of themselves.

Not every episode has an action sequence, and not every action sequence is a fight, but this series is no stranger to glamorizing combat. For all its talk about how true strength means more than physical might, the use of physical might to hurt others isn’t always frowned upon, even by our peaceful hero. To compensate for this dissonance, fights that would normally leave fatal wounds instead end in a process so harmless that they called it “poofing.”

Our ninety-eighth episode begins not with a title card, but a dramatic-looking scene that’s soon revealed to have no stakes, capped with Steven bemoaning that “dying a bunch in video games is emotionally exhausting.” The temporary nature of death is ingrained in his life—his very existence involved his mother not quite dying, but becoming half of him—and while the show at this point has acknowledged that violence can scar the body and soul, the only permanent consequences we’ve seen precede Steven’s existence. Shattering, the Cluster, and Corruption are ancient history, and were actions taken by the villains our heroes rebelled against. We’ve never had to deal with the moral implications of ending a life, and because this is a kid’s show there’s a chance we never would have, because the game isn’t quite as fun once permanent consequences are in play.

After a comedic foray into Lion’s mane, Steven pops a mysterious bubble we saw all the way back in Lion 3, flies back into his room, and shouts that he’s made a horrible mistake. And after the initial reaction from the other Crystal Gems, we linger in the room to get one last message from his television screen before he jumps back in:

Game Over.

“We are the Crystal Gems!”

I love everything about the title reveal of this episode. I love that we have to wait for it, so we’re forced to pay extra attention when it arrives. I love the not-quite-still shot of our two leads sizing each other up as the name of our episode and new character slowly fades in. And I love the chill but chilling music that sets the stage for the life-changing story ahead of our hero.

Aivi and Surasshu give characters distinct instrumentation, Peter and the Wolf style, but folks like Rose, Greg, Connie, Lapis, Peridot, and even Lion also have distinct motifs (sometimes a few, in the case of Rose and Lapis) using these instruments. The four main Crystal Gems are unique in that they’re defined mainly by their sound: Garnet is the bass holding everything together, Amethyst is the drumkit keeping up the tempo, Pearl is the piano accompanying others, and Steven subs out a traditional main instrument for chiptunes (many people have pointed this out, but I think this video does the best job of exploring it). Garnet as a concept eventually gets a motif that largely appears when fusion is involved, but the principle of associating these four main characters primarily through instruments holds true throughout the series.

Bismuth is a Crystal Gem, too. And whether it’s intentional or not, I love that this is shown by her lack of a distinct theme song, leaving her represented by her instrument in the same way as our big four. And the instrument we get for a heavy metal stuck in the past is a reverse electric guitar.

On the subject of sound, we just started and I've already waited too long to talk about Uzo Aduba. Bismuth is beautifully animated and has a stunning design, and the extra large crew for this two-parter did wonders on her facial expressions and body language to breathe life into the character, but all of it would've fallen short without a magnificent voice actor tying it together. This is a complicated and ambiguous figure, who laughs hard and burns hot but knows how to keep quiet, and Aduba hits every emotional beat with ease.

Aduba is especially talented in humanizing Bismuth’s rage, balancing loud shouts with twinges of sadness and jolly war stories with drops of venom. Her monologue in the Forge is one of many examples of Aduba’s greatness: after building up fervent momentum as she works with burning lava, she lowers her voice to a triumphant but menacing whisper when revealing that she chose to create weaponry. Aduba made a splash by finding a real person in a character reduced to the nickname “Crazy Eyes” on Orange is the New Black, and while Bismuth might not be as extreme of a role, she’s made great by an actress who refuses to dumb down angry women.

Bismuth is a zealot, but why wouldn’t she be? She faced the same oppression that drove the other Crystal Gems to rebel, and is mentally right in the thick of it while Garnet and Pearl have had thousands of years to move on. The leader that inspired and encouraged her to build weapons not only refused to use the Breaking Point, but fought her, bubbled her, and lied about it. We see it in Bismuth’s face the moment Rose is first mentioned around her, and even though this could be read as concern over her leader’s whereabouts, our knowledge that Rose’s version of events clashes with Bismuth’s hiding place sets off early warning bells.

Bismuth’s wordplay here is perfect for a character who often means multiple things at once: “Rose really is something else” works as a commentary on how strange Rose was, as a reference to her physically becoming something else, and as another hint of Bismuth’s true feelings about her leader’s betrayal. Her clever use of language soon becomes ingrained as a character trait: we obviously get the triple pun on her name (not three puns, but the same pun three times), but I’m a bigger sucker for the phrase “upper crust” playing off her disdain of Gem elites with geological terminology. It’s great to see such cleverness when characters with massive frames and aggressive attitudes are so rarely graced with wit.

Bismuth is angry, but she’s more than her anger. It’s balanced by (and caused by) her huge heart. She gets along famously with Garnet and Pearl, and cares deeply for her fallen friends, but she’s just as warm with Amethyst and Steven. An underrated element of Bismuth is that it doesn’t forget that Amethyst is in the middle of a major arc: even though she’s not the focus of the episode, she’s still reeling from her fight with Jasper and is uncomfortable around another huge interloper in her life, this time someone whose existence furthers the notion that Amethyst isn’t a “proper” Crystal Gem. So Amethyst is awkward at first, then sows seeds of suspicion when Steven is entranced. It speaks well of Bismuth that she treats Amethyst as an equal worthy of respect without question, and Amethyst soon comes around when Bismuth praises and upgrades her whip. This giant-sized episode is the clear product of long-term planning and collaboration, but it still remembers to tell a quick Amethyst story to keep us invested in her ongoing development.

But it’s Bismuth’s relationship with Steven that makes up the bulk of the plot, and as dumb as it might sound, the character she reminds me of most is Tim Curry’s version of Long John Silver from legitimate classic film Muppet Treasure Island; yes, Long John Silver in general works for this analogy, but Tim Curry is the definitive version, fight me. Bismuth isn’t as treacherous as old Long John, but they share the tightrope act of being at odds with young protagonists that they earnestly like. There’s nothing fake about their moments of bonding and pseudo-parental advice, and while both are angling to convert a child hero to a questionable cause, it’s done in part to maintain a friendly relationship. Again, Silver is more of an outright villain—his lust for gold lacks the nuance of Bismuth’s well-intentioned justification of extreme violence—but these are gregarious antagonists that our heroes build meaningful connections with, and ultimately learn lasting lessons from.

Steven is all in on Bismuth’s ardor at first, grinning with shared passion after she rallies the team to keep fighting Homeworld. He’s a little less on board upon seeing Amethyst’s weapon upgrade, and his unease grows during the sparring session, but for all her intensity, Bismuth is fine with him not wanting to fight. She welcomes his own “rituals” with glee, and even though our first look at this sees her spiking a birdie into the sand so hard that the beach explodes, the montage otherwise shows her fitting right in. Even the foreshadowing of Bismuth’s views on weapon lethality during Lonely Blade is lighthearted, with the bonus of showing us how far Pearl has come in regards to fiction since Steven the Sword Fighter.

It all comes together in a poignant discussion about Rose. This is the last time she’s ever spoken of in a purely positive light before the story of her shattering Pink Diamond comes out; not every conversation about her is negative after this reveal, it’s never quite the same. We focus on Rose as a champion of differences: this is the Rose who said a servile pearl could be a warrior, who accepted a new fusion when nobody else would, who told a runty amethyst she was perfect the way she was. Bismuth is telling us what we already know, but personalizes it, showing how inspired she was by it, and Steven reacts to this umpteenth version of the Rose Was Great speech by admitting his fears of not measuring up for the second episode in a row.

Bismuth’s response sums up the entire lesson of Steven’s original series arc, and it’s such a moving affirmation when paired with Change Your Mind:

“You are different. That’s what’s so exciting. You don’t have to be like Rose Quartz, you can be someone even better. You can be you.”

The tragedy is that this hopeful message is undercut by Bismuth’s idea that a “better” Steven is one who uses deadly force. And the speech as a whole is further marred by a subtle hint of Rose’s mendacity: Bismuth mentions that she was “just another quartz soldier, made right here in the dirt,” but even before the Pink Diamond reveal, we already know Rose is from Homeworld from earlier episodes like Rose’s Scabbard. Retrospect enhances the sensation, tinging the uplifting speech with the kind of gray that we’re going to see a lot more of in the future.

There’s an awful inevitability to the ensuing fight as our heroes descend into the Forge, coming right of the heels of Bismuth telling Steven they need an alternative to fighting fair. Steven repeats his progression of reactions towards Bismuth all at once: first confused, then super excited, then gradually realizing something isn’t sitting right. But this time we can’t end with a day at the beach.

(The mood is ruined a little by the adorable commercial transition, and the summarization of the scene upon cutting back from commercials in a way this eleven minute show has never dealt with, but fortunately the bulk of the scene goes uninterrupted.)

Steven obviously isn’t going to use the Breaking Point, and we get a prolonged shot of them standing at odds in mirrored positions from their title card encounter before Bismuth’s hand tightens into a fist. To her, this isn’t a fight with Steven, but a continuation of her fight with Rose, and her anger at her deception is fueled further by the not unreasonable assumption that Rose is still lying as Steven. In Bismuth’s mind she isn’t attacking a child, but a veteran warrior who for some reason took the form of a small human, so she goes all-out.

Steven has been called “Rose” plenty of times by Jasper, and this will continue in our very next episodes, but it’s gotta sting harder when the person doing it just told him that Steven was enough. And the fight itself is no joke, which is a relief after the brawl in Steven vs. Amethyst was all joke. The hits land just as hard, and we get the same awesome choreography showcasing Steven’s floaty powers and spiky bubble in action, but Bismuth isn’t kidding and Steven is on the ropes. His sandal melting away is as graphic as we’re gonna get, but it’s still a great sign of what will happen to him if he falls. His shoelessness also allows for a neat reversal of Bismuth closing her fist to begin the fight: after limping on the other foot to avoid the heat, the first we see of him after the second bubble of the episode pops is a close-up of his bare foot steaming on the ground. He’s forced to hurt both himself and Bismuth to end the fight.

We’re on the cusp of learning the “truth” about Pink Diamond, but the beginning of Rose’s souring portrayal is right here. If you squint hard enough, Rose’s actions in the past could have been justified by her not wanting to shatter anybody, and by Bismuth being an extremist who left her with no choice. But as she stands impaled by the sword she once forged, Bismuth’s rage can no longer hide her grief. Even if Rose was right, and that’s hardly a sure thing, it’s twisted and terrible that she never told the other Crystal Gems the truth. It doesn’t matter that we eventually learn that this was a lot more complicated than it seemed because Rose was Pink Diamond, because in the moment, the person who just tried to kill Steven is saying that Steven’s mother did an awful thing, and despite everything the show has told us until this moment, she’s making a good point. Steven has no time to dwell on it before the other shoe drops (hopefully not into more lava), but it’s telling that Bismuth only acknowledges Steven as himself again when he says he’ll be honest.

When Bismuth gave Steven his pep talk in the living room, the audience didn’t know her full story, but she did, so she still loved Rose despite everything. She was hurt by her, and was willing to fight her, but she looked up to her leader despite it all. So it’s a real turn when she uses same language that encouraged Steven moments ago to make a new point: he could be better than her because of his potential to be spectacular, but also because she set the bar low by doing horrible things. Bismuth is all about that wordplay.

I’ve got a lot to say about my problems with Bismuth’s story after Bismuth (or rather the lack of one) that I’m including in my giant-sized features section below, because a giant-sized episode merits giant-sized features. But within the episode itself, I think silence after the fight is the right choice. Steven has been in danger before, but this is the hardest a person has ever tried to kill him, and it was one of his friends. A new friend, but a friend.

Bismuth marks the beginning of the end of this era of the show, an era when Steven’s series-long arc to fulfill his mother’s legacy was relatively straightforward. In yet another example of Bismuth’s wordplay, his life story swivels around a Breaking Point. The core of Steven Universe may not change in the way it does in Bubble Buddies and Mirror Gem and Catch and Release, but the core of Steven Universe is forever affected. His imminent guilt complex begins with stabbing Bismuth, and despite the hardships to come, he becomes a better person for surviving it.

But at least he doesn’t shatter her. That would really do a number on the guy. Can’t imagine how guilty he’d be if he one day did shatter an imposing zealot from the Gem War days with a history of confusing him for Rose Quartz...

Future Vision!

This is normally a section that lists small bits Fragments of foreshadowing, but because Bismuth is a double episode with tremendous impact on the shape of things to come in ways I already talked about in the review proper, I want to use this space to talk about the elegance of Steven Universe’s structure. I’ve referred to the fifty-odd episode chunks that make up the story on numerous occasions, but I think it’s about time I buck up and call them Acts.

Act I of Steven Universe is the first season, Act II is the second and third season, and Act III is the fourth and fifth season (with the movie and Steven Universe Future as epilogues), and I think viewing the series through this lens really makes the structure shine. There are many examples of repeating themes and moments that this interpretation makes clear, and as an example, I want to talk about how a recurring phrase signifies a turning point towards the endgame of each act.

In Act I, the slow-burning mystery of where the Gems came from begins at the midpoint, Mirror Gem, and escalates in Warp Tour with the introduction of Peridot. But we’re still doing regular episodes throughout, because Steven’s life is bigger than his past and there’s no pressing need to address his alien heritage when it isn’t directly affecting his life. It’s not until Marble Madness when this story ramps up, with Peridot's discovery of our heroes hurtling us towards a finale that sees Steven come into his own to defend his friends against old foes from beyond the stars who thought them long dead. The turning point is marked by Pearl taking a stand to proudly declare:

“We are the Crystal Gems! We're still alive, and we're still the guardians of this planet and all its living creatures!”

Jumping to Act III, the slow-burning mystery of what Rose did to Pink Diamond is actually solved with some time to spare. Things seem to be wrapping up at Garnet’s wedding in Reunited, especially because we’ve reached the same episode count of the other two acts. But then Blue and Yellow Diamond crash the party, bringing together the entire main cast in opposition. As in Act I, this shifts us onto the path towards the finale, this time one that sees Steven bringing the Diamonds together to heal the damage they did on Earth. This turning point was a bit less subtle:

“This is our home! Our planet! Our friends and family! We are the Crystal Gems!”

Act II is more stable than I or III, chronicling the period after Steven becomes a competent Crystal Gem but before everything is turned upside-down. He has adventures befitting his role and helps his friends and family as he grows more comfortable with his mother’s legacy, but unbeknownst to him, it’s the calm before the storm. Through it all, that legacy and that group are the bedrock of Steven’s life, and Bismuth begins to unravel his sense of security, leading to a finale that destroys our hero’s comfort zone. The turning point comes as Bismuth shatters not an elite Gem, but the fake image of one, and roars a battle cry that shows that there are some missing pages in the story of Steven’s happy family:

“Listen up, you Homeworld upper crusts...”

“We are the Crystal Gems!”

If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have inconsistencies…

Likewise, this is normally a section that lists plot elements that don’t add up, and I can’t imagine reviewing Bismuth with addressing Bismuth’s treatment as the show continues. There aren’t many other places to write about it until Made of Honor, as the most notable element of this discussion is her absence, but it’s a flaw beyond this episode itself, so it’s going here.

First, I understand from a storytelling perspective why Bismuth is bubbled again. She’s a major new element that couldn’t realistically be sent to the barn like Peridot and Lapis, and is so at odds with our heroes that it would mess with the direction of the series. In particular, the reveal that Rose shattered Pink Diamond would go from being a story about Steven coping to a story about Steven and Bismuth coping, because Rose shattering someone goes against the whole reason she fought Bismuth in the first place. The simplest solution to not having Bismuth dominate the upcoming story is putting her away until the plot demands. And we do eventually get some lip service to why she was bubbled again for so long: she did, after all, try to shatter Steven with the Breaking Point at the end of their fight. She seems cool with it, and it’s not as if she was suffering in there, popping back out as if no time had passed and integrating well with the team afterwards.

But it is baffling that there isn’t any conversation about trying to talk with her instead of keeping her locked away. We don’t need a proper trial, but the idea that this team wouldn’t allow Bismuth to make her case and wouldn’t try to help her work towards a mutual understanding is not only cruel, but cruel in a way that makes no sense for these characters. I’ve called the underuse of Malachite the show’s greatest blunder, and I stand by it because Bismuth’s treatment is much more than a “whoops.” Communication is everything to this series, and the idea that Bismuth was too dangerous to be reasoned with is, to me, Steven Universe’s greatest sin.

Garnet and Pearl in particular never mention any alternatives, or even bring her up to a meaningful degree. This is supposed to be one of their best friends. And after we learn about Pink Diamond’s shattering, it’s bewildering that Steven doesn’t consider the Bismuth of it all outside of her factoring into his guilt complex in Mindful Education and a brief mention in Storm in the Room. On both an emotional and logical level there’s no reason to not include her more in Act III. Like, let’s say in the worst case scenario she’s freed and furiously attacks Steven: he already defended himself by himself against her, in a lava-filled arena where she had a huge advantage, so obviously with the other Gems he’d be safe. And let’s say Steven is traumatized by nearly getting killed. Understandable. Even if Pearl also nearly got him killed a few times, it was never with murderous intent. Except that if that’s the rationale, I feel like Bismuth deserves to have that explained by him at some point during her imprisonment. He could tell the Gems, he could confide in Connie, whatever, this is something that needs to be said out loud. If we’re going to have her locked away indefinitely, there needs to be more than stone cold silence about why the Crystal Gems came to such an extreme solution, seemingly without a second thought. There was more discussion about the ethics of bubbling Peridot than Bismuth, and Peridot was a full-blown opponent at the time. There was more discussion about the ethics of rehabilitating the Centipeetle, a being corrupted into what seemed to be an unthinking monster, than a fully sentient ally who did a bad thing.

I’m not gonna knock this episode down any pegs for this in my rankings, because it’s not really the fault of this episode. Yes, it could have included Steven’s conversation with the other Gems, but this story was already full to the gills and there was plenty of time in future episodes, particularly episodes after the shattering story comes to light, to address it. Bismuth works fine on its own, but demanded further stories that it never got. Made of Honor does a decent job of bringing Bismuth back, but that’s after over fifty episodes of a misguided but heroic and loyal friend being imprisoned without any attempt at mediation.

I get that it would’ve been a lot of work, and that the bubble method was more convenient. But making a character this great only to treat her this way is a disservice to both Bismuth and the Crystal Gems as a whole.

(Also, less importantly, this episode was marketed as 100 thanks to the inclusion of a few combined shorts as numbered episodes. But yeah this was totally episodes 98 and 99.)

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

I ended on a bummer note there, but like I said, Bismuth by itself shouldn’t be held culpable for not having a Too Short to Ride or Alone at Sea for Bismuth down the line. It still doesn’t make my top fifteen, but it does make my top twenty, which matters because the list is expanding next time to account for our actual hundredth episode.

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Bismuth

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#bismuth #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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ironwoman359 · 6 years ago

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⭐️?

In general, one of my favorite things to do when writing is have a line of description or dialogue from the beginning of the story callback to something at the end.

Some examples of times I’ve done this are:

In I’ll Protect You:

During the first action scene: “Okay, okay,” he [Roman] conceded, between gasps for breath. “Maybe it wasn’t the…best strategic move. But I had to protect you.” Virgil’s expression softened for a moment, then they both ducked again as yet another missile from Bowceit’s airship narrowly missed the huddled pair.

After the last action scene: “Okay,” Virgil said, smirking. “Maybe it wasn’t the best strategic move. Roman made an offended sound, and Virgil laughed again, but he suddenly took both of Roman’s hands in his, staring into his eyes. “But…I had to protect you,” he whispered, and Roman’s heart became, if possible, even fuller.

In A Sanders Carol:

Chapter 3: “You’re my best friend, Lo-Lo,” Patton whispered as he engulfed Logan in a tight hug. “That’s all the present I need.”

Chapter 9: “You’re my best friend, Lo-Lo,” Patton whispered as warmth spread throughout Logan’s whole being. “That’s all the present I need.”

In Broken Wings:

Opening lines: Virgil hates his wings. He lies motionless in the bathroom. The cold from the floor seeps into his skin and the heat from his left wing throbs painfully with his heartbeat. The two sensations compete for dominance in his brain and he groans, his already splitting headache made worse by the dissonance.

Closing lines: Virgil hates his wings. But he loves his family, fiercely, fervently loves them, and even better is they return his love, with just as much vim and vigor and vicious self abandon. And slowly, ever so slowly, Virgil starts to think that he might deserve their love.

It’s just a mechanic I’m very fond of, I think it’s a great way to tie the whole story together and remind the reader of where we came from, and how the characters have changed as the context of the lines changes.

Ask me for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines.

#asks and answers #my writing #directors commentary

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firejugglinghobo · 6 years ago

Text

‘Whisper Its Story’ Soundtrack Commentary

“A Stranger in the Night” - Main Titles, Marco Beltrami I felt that piano was the perfect way to introduce the rainy night that Meggie always remembers. The slight apprehension of the piece gives us an immediate connection to Meggie, while the melancholy shows us a glimpse of the tragedy that has already taken place when she joins the story. The harmonica in the end gives us a twang of Dustfinger’s theme as he is recognized and invited inside.

“Going South” - Rocket Launch, Bear McCreary I had originally chosen this piece as the theme for “Going Farther South,” but kept coming back to placing it here instead. There is slight apprehension in the piece, but its instrumentation is homey and hopeful enough to allow Meggie to drift off to sleep in her familiar van with her father, as if they really are only going to see an eccentric aunt about some books. At this point, the only magic in the story is the scenery. The mood shifts at the end of the drive when they arrive at Elinor’s austere old house.

“A House Full of Books” - We Shall Go to War, Lorne Balfe and Rupert Gregson-Williams This is Meggie’s first introduction to Elinor, who is typified by staccato and pizzicato strings. Although her perception of her aunt changes drastically during the course of the book, her first impression is of austerity and severity. Something dangerous is lurking on the shelves, and there are a great deal many more rules in this house than at home. Dustfinger joins her in her conspiracy to get ahold of the book, as can be noticed in the dissonance toward the end of the piece.

“Fire and Stars” - The Longing, Patty Gurdy This piece is part diegetic or source music from Dustfinger’s tape player on Elinor’s back lawn and part score depicting his fire show, which is wild and foreign-feeling to Meggie. I chose to keep Dustfinger’s instrumentation dissonant throughout the soundtrack to emphasize the ways he does not belong in this world, and to tie him back to a place where these kinds of instruments and harmonies are more at home.

“The Lion’s Den” - Streets of New York, Rupert Gregson-Williams The instrumentation in this piece is mostly Dustfinger’s, with fiddles, banjo, and percussive instruments taking the forefront. The bass undertones warn Meggie of the dangers that Dustfinger is describing in Capricorn’s village and hint that maybe he himself is not to be trusted.

“A Coward” - The Aerie, Andrew Lloyd-Webber This is a purely romantic theme for the book. In this scene of Dustfinger’s infatuation with and yet fear of it, its power over all of the characters is typified.

“Going Farther South” - Now We Are Free, Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt, and 2CELLOS This is a piece for packing up and driving south to rescue Mo. I have chosen the cello for Mo’s instrument first and foremost because of its beautiful singing voice, especially known for its similarity to the human voice. This song is full of sadness and hope, as Meggie misses her father but believes she can get him back with the help of her new friends.

“Capricorn’s Village” - The Punisher Main Titles, Tyler Bates I made a somewhat unconventional choice to use mostly modern rock instruments when dealing with Capricorn and his minions. I wanted to make a start separation between the instrumentation used for them and the protagonists, specifically Dustfinger. The modern instruments allow me to give them a more gang-y feeling and exemplify the ways Capricorn has embraced this world for all of the outlets it gives for his darkness.

“A Mission Accomplished” - A New Chapter, Lorne Balfe and Rupert Gregson-Williams The repeated descending line in this piece depicts the sinking feeling Elinor and Meggie experience when they realize they have been betrayed, while soaring, dissonant strings may represent Dustfinger’s guilt.

“Once Upon a Time” - Coming Home, Jeff Russo This piece has an ethereal, misty feeling to it, as a story of long ago is told. Triumphant, foreboding, and melancholy chords mix as the magic of Mo’s voice brings some uninvited guests into his living room.

“The Betrayer Betrayed” - The Starkiller, John Williams I considered going for an epic suite for this scene, but decided on a more emotional moment as Capricorn’s brutality is displayed for the first time against primarily Dustfinger and secondarily Mo. The books burning are beautiful, but they are absolutely devastating.

“Treasure Island” - The Prince of Persia, Harry Gregson-Williams No Inkheart soundtrack could be complete without a nod to the Middle East in Farid’s arrival. This piece, however, can be a companion piece to the entire scene of Mo’s reading. Strings and choir paint pictures of the island cave treasure in the air just as well as Mo’s voice does, and after a momentary pause, he delves into The Thousand and One Nights and pulls Farid, who is distinguished from the other elements of the story by a solo pipe, out of his book to be examined and led off in the final third of the piece. This is the first time Meggie has heard her father read aloud, and the first glimpse Farid gets of a brand new world.

“Gloomy Prospects” - Critical Article, Lorne Balfe and Rupert Gregson-Williams This is 100% a sneak song. Dustfinger breaks the gang out and everybody goes tip-toeing out of the village. Just when we think they’re safe, they’re spotted and must make a break for it by car!

“Basta” - Panic at the Bistro, Ludwig Goransson More musical telegraphing than an actual, this piece sounds like an erratic heartbeat and a struggle that could easily go either way, as every character is thrust into the fray in a fight for their lives.

“Fenoglio” - Crates of Books, David Arnold and Michael Price Enter Fenoglio, the lovable if a bit bumbling author of Inkheart. His voice can be heard inside the house, and Meggie’s nervousness builds until he opens the door and reveals that he is quite a kindly old man, and not the intimidating figure Dustfinger’s fears may have led her to imagine. There is a grandchild in the cupboard and cake on the table and the old writer can barely believe the story Meggie and Mo tell him.

“Shivers Down the Spine and a Foreboding” - The Impossible Planet, Murray Gold This is an other place where I considered a more epic theme but chose to go subtler. Instead of feeling Dustfinger’s fear here, we experience an outside pity for him. He feels betrayed and homesick, despite the revelation of what might happen should he ever go home. This piece most belongs at the end of the chapter.

“Going Home” - Dance of the Knights, Sergei Prokofiev In a macabre, grotesque mockery, Elinor arrives home to find a red rooster hanging in her library and a pile of ash in her back lawn. As the reader has begun to understand a bit more about Elinor, we realize that she is best identified with classical music.

“Capricorn’s Maid” - Martha’s Theme, Murray Gold I was very intentional to use female vocals for Resa, as her defining feature in Inkheart is voicelessness. Nevertheless, she gives herself a voice through her kindness and tenacity to reach out and communicate. The vocals are threaded with cello, as a subtle hint of her identity and a reminder that she is searching for Mo as much as he is searching for her.

“Capricorn’s Secrets” - Window Deduction, David Arnold and Michael Price Fenoglio in Capricorn’s church is the most unlikely of combinations. He is of course enchanted with the way his characters have sprung off the page as he and Meggie are led through the village. There is a slight thrill of foreboding when Capricorn himself appears, but Fenoglio couldn’t possibly be actually afraid of his own creation, and gushes despite the threats.

“A Quiet Voice” - Sprouting Potatoes, Harry Gregson-Williams As Meggie becomes more certain of her Silvertongue powers, I chose to have this piece start off with piano, which has linked us to Meggie and the feeling of night since the beginning, and blend into cello, a reminder of Mo and a sign of her growing to become more like him. There is nighttime magic afoot.

“The Punishment for Traitors” - Burning the Past, Harry Gregson-Williams (Yes, another Gregson-Williams, I’m sorry. I have a problem...) In this chapter, Meggie looks up to see Dustfinger slowly emerge from the dark, hanging in a net from the ceiling of the church. He is represented by the mournful violin, and is replaced by a high choir as Meggie looks past him and sees her mother for the first time.

“The Black Horse of the Night” - Annie, I’m Scared, Ludwig Goransson This chapter is another story of the past, and this time a ghost story. Long, low, breathy chords punctuated by woodwinds send shivers down the spine as Fenoglio remembers the Shadow. We can almost feel him coming out of the book with a sudden swell at the end.

“A Dark Place” - The Trial of Loki, Brian Tyler Dustfinger begins this scene as he is lowered from the net and led to the crypt with Resa, with low strings representing fear, evil, and darkness. Toward the end, there are hints of a choir and even some cello as he tries to avoid Resa’s questions and turns to her for comfort.

“Woken in the Dead of Night” - It is Time, Patrick Doyle Piano and cello weave in and out through this piece as Meggie tests her Silvertongue powers and changes a story for the first time. She sends the little soldier back into his own story, having changed the ending to a happy one.

“The Magpie” - His Name is Napoleon Solo, Daniel Pemberton Mortola is a character from Inkheart whose reaction to this world is somewhere between Dustfinger’s and Capricorn’s. She doesn’t try to get home while her son is alive and in power, but when her reason to stay is gone, her main goal is to return home. Likewise, the instrumentation in this piece is a cross between old, dissonant sounds and modern rock instruments. The music keeps a rigid tempo, but limps slightly within it, just like Mortola. She is commanding and terrifying in her subservience to her son.

“Basta’s Pride and Dustfinger’s Cunning” - Meet Oswald Kapelput, David Russo In this piece, Dustfinger’s twangy instrumentation plays lightly and tauntingly over increasingly erratic low strings and brass for Basta as predator becomes prey and tension builds. In the end, everyone is on edge. Dustfinger escapes with his own life before Basta’s voice has the chance to catch him, leaving his friends behind.

“No Luck for Elinor” - Danse macabre, Camille Saint-Saëns Again, the macabre infiltrates Elinor’s attempts at normalcy. She is still represented by staccato and pizzicato strings, but her character has become more fleshed out with real emotion that we feel for her failed attempts to reconnect with a world where she feels safe. Elinor is most at home in classical music settings not only because of her slightly pretentious taste and somewhat haughty demeanor, but because she is the character who most longs for the established safety of this world, although she would have told you otherwise herself.

“A Fragile Little Thing” - Science the S*** Out of This, Harry Gregson-Williams Dustfinger arrives out of breath at Basta’s house, where he is greeted by Basta’s low strings and the fairy that Meggie brought off the pages of Peter Pan. He is not safe here, and is plagued by guilt for leaving Meggie and Resa behind and fear of what will happen to them.

“Fire” - Mana One, Harry Gregson-Williams (I literally can’t help myself.) Farid’s solo pipe weaves in and out among the guitars and synths of the Black Jackets. This is a high-intensity piece, but not an action drama, as things work out exactly according to plan for the pair of arsonists, despite their worries.

“The Shadow” - Mombasa, Hans Zimmer and 2CELLOS The finale is all Meggie’s nerves. You can feel her hands shaking in this piece as she fumbles for the sheet of paper. Mo’s crocodile tick-tick-tick signal plays directly into the rhythmic thrust of the piece. Her heart beats more and more erratically as the Shadow actually listens to her words and comes out of the book to turn on his master. Of course, this had to be played on cello, as the representation of the power of the voice of a Silvertongue.

“A Deserted Village” - A World on Fire, John Paesano With her task complete, Meggie is back in her own role as a young girl, the nighttime protagonist represented by the piano. The ashes of the Shadow seem to drift away on the wind just as the memory of all the evil of the now-deserted village fades. Well, almost all, as Basta grabs Resa in a last-ditch attempt to escape with his life, and leaves to haunt the fears of the protagonists until the next book.

“Homesickness” - The Aerie, Andrew Lloyd-Webber The theme for the book is back, in a mirror image callback to “Coward” at the beginning of the story. Dustfinger, now aware of the ending to his own story, sneaks in and sneaks the book from its sleeping guardian. He is no longer haunted by what it may contain and takes it, on the other side of many betrayals, determined that he will get home somehow, even without the help of Silvertongue.

“Going Home” - New Guinea Match, Lorne Balfe and Rupert Gregson-Williams The mist clears on the foreboding of this story, as Meggie and her family gather up the creatures and bring them home to Elinor’s house, now a much less terrifying and austere sight and much more homey and comfortable. There are pieces to pick up and a life of love and daily adventure to live.

#inkheart #inkworld #soundtrack #fanmix #soundtrack commentary #harry gregson-williams #rupert gregson-williams #<- my heroes you guys

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caveatauditor · 6 years ago

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Best albums of 2018

A marvelous year! Just because Drake albums are long and boring doesn’t mean the album is dead, you know.

1. Bali Baby, Baylor Swift

This 8-song EP, a fusion of SoundCloud rap, emo confessional, and glitzy synthpop, rocks harder and weirder than anything I heard all year. The spiky synthesizers, bent guitars, drum crunches, scratchy screeches, Bali’s garbled wails, and plastic bubblegum surface combine several modes of abrasion, as the Atlanta rapper hides a harrowing breakup saga beneath bucketloads of noise and the crackling electricity sets her bleeding heart ablaze. “Candy” and “Electrical” are neon new wave ballads distorted into fragility through harshness. Whenever she gets a handle on something, the beat goes squelch and sends her reeling. Oh, to be loud, obnoxious, and heartbroken. She’s been putting out fire with gasoline.

2. Ariana Grande, Sweetener

“Snuggle jams,” tweeted Austin Brown. We all needed snuggles this year! Although “Thank U, Next” and Thank U, Next have somewhat eclipsed the confectionary sugarbomb Instagram’s newly crowned Most Followed Woman released six months earlier, said sugarbomb continues to sparkle. Tired of flaunting her multioctave voice, Ariana leans into her breathy lower register and discovers her capacity for play. Tired of secondhand funk pastiche, Pharrell invents a sunny electrobouncy sound that abounds with pattering percussion, thwocks, squiggles, splashes of electronic color. Contextualized by the devastating, mournful grace of “Breathin” and “No Tears Left to Cry”, her joy feels urgent, beautiful, earned. Behold an album of exquisitely honeyed lightness. I love Sweetener because it’s the musical equivalent of booping someone on the nose.

3. BTS, Love Yourself: Tear

Because they both flatter and subvert even the most boring aspects of contemporary American pop, they broke through in America where countless Korean stars couldn’t, although that didn’t stop BoA and Girls Generation from trying. (I hope we haven’t forgotten BoA’s excellent self-titled English-language album, which includes the funniest Britney impersonations ever recorded.) Slow, moody, blank--these adjectives don’t quite describe BTS, thankfully, but they have reclaimed a rather empty pop style as a site for cognitively dissonant structural innovations, and thus offer hope that said pop style needn’t be so empty. Dense and streamlined simultaneously, stuffing all sorts of wacky noises into what Anglophone hitmakers have defined as a spare, echoey sonic template, these tracks are hard to wrap your ear around at first, but what noises! I could listen to the plinky little drumclicks in “Anpanman” forever.

4. Jonghyun, Poet Artist

“Take the Dive” and “Only One You Need” should play like standard romantic invitations and instead break a cold sweat in sheer terror. On “Hashtag” he’s content to whisper as long as the electric piano matches the beat in his head. “I’m So Curious” coaxes him into a sublimely cozy erotic space. The lightest and most delicate of pop-R&B exercises, shivering beneath an immaculately chilly surface, Jonghyun’s second and final album is beautiful and makes me sad. Rest in peace.

5. J Balvin, Vibras

The year’s solidest and bounciest Latin trap album is more sweetly melodic than the genre’s norm, but also harsher, which is disorienting. These beats, assembling lumbering, mechanical tanks out of looped vocal samples, clinky xylophones, keyboard scramble, and Balvin’s dreamy drone, are impossible to play in the background; I’ve tried. Maybe those blessed souls who can multitask with music on would feel differently, but every time I play this album I get sucked in, paralyzed by the chopped-up airhorns in “Ambiente”, the guitar strummed through a wind tunnel in “Brillo” (a duet with Rosalia!), the drums beeping in “Ahora”, the angel of death moaning inarticulately throughout “Cuando Tu Quieras”. If I also don’t understand how the hell clubgoers can dance to this music, please understand my bewilderment as admiration.

6. Playboi Carti, Die Lit

The debut was sufficiently spare to retain a semblance of pop functionality; this one’s a shoegaze record, the sound of rap abstracted into a gorgeous blur. The average Carti song is a single giant, repeated, woozy keyboard hook, glitching and jittering around the edges, a transmission from the hazy corner of the subconscious where bliss keels over into numbness and the senses conflate. The rapping is minimal; he chooses his sounds phonetically, not semantically, and gladly disappears beneath the relentless aqueous whoosh. Lyrics, guest features, tempo changes, coherent thoughts--if these things exist, they get swept up too. After years of hearing people moan on the radio about washing pain away with stimulants and such, here’s what it means to be insensate. Although the album wanders a little toward the end, who cares when it’s all one hypnotic song?

7. US Girls, In a Poem Unlimited

The music on this remarkable art-pop document assembles a creepy rubberoid disco groove from shards of glass, sleek rhythm guitar, controlled blasts of distortion, sordid saxophone; Meghan Remy treats white funk as industrial noise. The lyrics compile situation after situation in which women are abused, including a song where St. Peter rapes the narrator before letting her into heaven. Is this what “dialectic” means?

8. Haru Nemuri, Harutosyura

So raucous in the way it arranges sugary keyboard splashes, so catchy in the way it explodes with carefully timed bursts of electric noise, Haru Nemuri’s debut confounds categories. The Japanese noise-pop eccentric crams all the sounds she loves--raw guitars, bubbly synthesizers, anguished screams, conspicuous digital edits--into a glitchy hall of mirrors. For fans of certain video game soundtracks and experimental classical compositions, this is the music you’ve been imagining your whole life; for ordinary pop fans it’s merely the wackiest of syntheses. Either way, Harutosyura is gloriously loud, burning with a fierce rock grandiosity that’s unexpected, hence awesome. When “Harutosyura” gets artificially sped up into a chipmunked vacuum, pauses a moment, and comes back rocking harder than ever, she spirals ever closer to infinite refraction.

9. Erin Lee, Love Song

This strange album comprises ten instrumental pieces for unaccompanied acoustic guitar, plucking out pastoral melodies with a vaguely Mediterranean flavor, like music that might appear in a historical romantic drama featuring sailors, grapes, wine, and such. One could reasonably dismiss this music, but I can’t stop playing it--as with film scores and Snail’s House albums, there are certain qualities that make an instrumental melody intrinsically sentimental, and I’d love to know what they are. In the calmly strummed “My Hometown Harbor”, the sun sets over the water, the boats dock, shouts ring out from the pub several blocks down, and there’s danger in the air.

10. Ashley Monroe, Sparrow

“I’m good at leaving,” Ashley Monroe once sang, and these restless songs about departure and existential longing translate the impulse behind Joni Mitchell’s Hejira into country music, where it belongs. Country is the ideal genre for confessions of solitude and rootlessness because it’s supposed to imply rootedness, tradition, community; the juxtaposition conveys a sense of profound rupture. Monroe’s velvet moan and Dave Cobb’s theatrical string arrangements are exemplary bedmates. Hidden beneath a soft, warm glow lies the year’s loneliest album.

11. Gazelle Twin, Pastoral

When I first heard this crunchy slab of avant-dance music, the shrieks and chalkboard scratches and keyboards used as percussive elements jarred; it took several listens to notice that some of the scratches are digitally altered harpsichords, that flutes and sleigh bells adorn the otherwise turbulent tracks, and that Elizabeth Bernholz’s artificially growled lyrics repurpose quotes from Blake and English folk songs into angry social commentary. The segue between “Dance of the Peddlers” and “Hobby Horse” still terrifies me. If the idea of an ironic, politically-minded fusion of electronic dissonance, English folk, and classical music sounds mannered and absurd, you’re not wrong, but that idea’s musical realization is a whirlwind of rage and menace.

12. Amnesia Scanner, Another Life

This Finnish, Berlin-based pair of electronica producers have scored gallery openings and reportedly have many thoughts about technology and modern life, so I don’t doubt they have their avant-credentials in order. What I’m certain of is that these are the funniest EDM squelches I’ve heard in ages--distorted drops, vocoded shrieks, percussive jackhammers, digitally mediated farts and belches, not to mention outrageously catchy hooks. If the hyperactive musical splatter is intended to convey the sensory overload of our modern dystopian age, it also satisfies my own longing for music that bristles with noises, kitsch, stimulus.

13. Ski Mask the Slump God, Stokeley

In 2009, the Albuquerque emo-rap group Brokencyde combined maximalist crunk with bloodcurdling screamo choruses, and were widely panned as a record low point in pop music history. “Even if I caught Prince Harry and Gary Glitter adorned in Nazi regalia defecating through my grandmother’s letterbox I would still consider making them listen to this album too severe a punishment,” claimed one NME review. A decade later, the same exact music is now considered the surreal, groundbreaking, SoundCloud-warped future. Be careful who you mock, lest their ghost come back to haunt you.

14. Rosalia, El Mal Querer

Rosalia’s flamenco-R&B uses cool, exact technological control, sparse electrobeats and syncopated handclaps, to modulate a ferocious natural force, i.e. her singing. A modern adaptation of the anonymous 13th-century novel Flamenca, El Mal Querer is a wild exercise in vocal melodrama, especially because she’s always messing with her voice electronically. Layering her sighs over each other in the endless echo chamber that is “Pienso En Tu Mira”, looping a single note into an isolated stutter in “De Aqui No Sales”, showing off her melisma in “Reniego”, she understands how expression must be filtered through media and is inevitably distorted.

15. Noname, Room 25

The Chicago rapper’s fluttery jazz beats, wispy strings, woodwinds, and hushed rhymes are so calm and thoughtful the music sounds more like slam poetry with accompaniment than any conventional style of rap. By describing love, sadness, police violence, and the banality of daily life in the same cautiously awestruck tone, she depicts an internal resilience that comes into being through the act of aspiration. I love how slight this album is--her modest quietude is a splash of cold water in the face.

16. Sunmi, Warning

The former Wonder Girl refashions herself as a defiant siren-heroine, insisting “Get away out of my face” over electrobeats that crest and surge with military efficiency. Although the singles from this 7-song EP got the attention, her most exquisitely sheathed stiletto is “Curve”, whose bent jazz piano complements a chorus of staccato whispers that should sound inviting and instead exude menace.

17. Hailu Mergia, Lala Belu

After several reissues of his ‘80s music by Awesome Tapes From Africa, here’s the Ethiopian jazz keyboardist’s first album in forever, looking back on a genre of retro-futurist cocktail music whose benevolent visions of a utopian clubland didn’t come to pass, for how could they, but are ready to be reclaimed. Over relaxed drum shuffles, friendly plinky piano, billowing organ, Mergia coaxes weird noises from skewed, accordionesque synthesizers and dreams about parties where such music could play.

18. Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi, Lost Lost Dust Dream

The next time you hear someone complain about SoundCloud rap, please direct them to this eerie, plaintive, whispered exercise in polished incongruence. “I’m Dreaming” captures the moment when you’re still asleep but trying to wake up, straining to clear the clouds from your brain.

19. Camp Cope, How to Socialise and Make Friends

With hundreds of lo-fi Bandcamp mixtapes bouncing around out there, I can’t explain why one guitar band moves me rather than another, but there’s an emotional rawness to this album that rivets. Partially it’s the rhythm guitar sound, which skips along with syncopated flatness and resilience. Partially it’s the sharpness of Georgia Maq’s voice, and the way she uses drawn-out vowels to focus and redirect her sustained roars. Partially it’s the songwriting, which finds an antidote to the world’s grossness in friendship, community, quiet moments of kindness. If you’re exhausted and fed up after a lifetime of taking shit, venting your feelings to the simple clunk of loud guitar music is a pleasure precisely because it’s simple and clunky. “Get it all out/put it in a song,” she insists, endorsing and providing a cathartic fury.

20. Bhad Bhabie, 15

Danielle Bregoli’s ebullient chirps are joyfully defiant only insofar as defiance is a front for insecurity. Aggressive trap beats turned covertly melancholy long ago, but in this context the sadness is unmistakable. Everyone is a public figure in the age of social media, so her anxiety over existing in the public sphere is at once quotidian and heightened. This album is scarier than anyone expected.

#favorite albums #best of 2018 #bali baby #ariana grande #bts

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