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canmom · 1 year ago

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Music theory notes (for science bitches) - part 2: pentatonics and friends

or, the West ain't all that.

Hello again everyone! I'm grateful for the warm reception to the first music theory notes post (aka 'what is music? from first principles'). If you haven't read it, take a look~

In that stab at a first step towards 'what is music', I tried to distinguish between what's a relatively universal mathematical structure (nearly all musical systems have the octave) and what's an arbitrary convention. But in the end I did consciously limit myself, and make a beeline for the widely used 12TET tuning system and the diatonic scales used in Western music. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, and... 👻 it's all around us...👻

But! But but but. This is a series on music theory. Not just one music theory. The whole damn thing. I think I'm doing a huge disservice to everyone, not least me, if that's where we stop.

Today, then! For our second installation: 'Music theory notes (for science bitches)' will take a quick look through some examples that diverge from the diatonic scale: the erhu, Japanese pentatonic scales, gamelan, klezmer, and blues.

Also since the first part was quite abstract, we'll also having a go at using the tools we've built so far on a specific piece, the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura.

Sound fun? Let's fucking gooooo

The story so far

To recap: in the first post we started by saying we're gonna be looking at tonal music, which isn't the only type of music. We introduced the idea of notes and frequencies by invoking the magic name of Fourier.

We said music can be approximated (for now) as an idealised pressure wave, which we can divide into brief windows called 'notes', and these notes are usually made of a strong sine wave at the 'fundamental frequency', plus a stack of further sine waves at integer multiples of that frequency called 'overtones'.

Then, we started constructing a culturally specific but extremely widespread system of creating structure between notes, known as '12 Tone Equal Temperament' or 12TET. The main character of this story is the interval, which is the ratio between the fundamental frequencies of two notes; we talked about how small-integer ratios of frequencies tend to be especially 'consonant' or nice-sounding.

We introduced the idea of the 'octave', which is when two notes have a frequency ratio of 2. We established the convention treating notes an octave apart as deeply related, to the point that we give them the same name. We also brought in the 'fifth', the ratio of 1.5, and talked about the idea of constructing a scale using small-integer ratios.

But we argued that if you try and build everything with those small-integer ratios you can dig yourself into a hole where moving around the musical space is rife with complications.

As a solution to this, I pulled out 'equal temperament' as an approximation with a lot of mathematical simplicity. Using a special irrational ratio called the "semitone" as a building block, we could construct the Western system of scales and modes and chords and such, where

a 'scale' is kind of like a palette for a piece of music, defined by a set of frequency ratios relative to a 'root' or 'tonic' note. this can be abstract, as in 'the major scale', or concrete, as in 'C major'.

a 'mode' is a cyclic permutation of an abstract scale. although it may contain the same notes, moving them around can change the feeling a lot!

a 'chord' is playing multiple notes at the same time. 'Triad' chords can be constructed from scales. There are other types which add or remove stuff from the triads. We'll come back to this.

I also summarised how sheet music works and the rather arbitrary choices in its construction, and at the end, I very briefly talked about chord notation.

There's a lot of ways to do this...

I recently watched a video by jazz musician and music theory youtuber Adam Neely, in which he and Philip Ewell discuss how much "music theory" is treated as synonymous with a very specific music theory which Neely glosses as "the harmonic style of 18th-century European composers". He argues, pretty convincingly imo, that 'music theory' pedagogy is seriously weakened by not taking non-white/Western models, such as Indian classical music theories, as a foil - citing Anuja Kamat's channel on Indian classical music as a great example of how to do things differently. Here's her introductory playlist on Indian classical music concepts, which I will hopefully be able to lean on in future posts:

There's two big pitfalls I wanna avoid as I teach myself music theory. I like maths a lot, and if I can fit something into a mathematical structure it's much easier for me to remember it - but I gotta be really careful not to mathwash some very arbitrary conventions and present them as more universal than they are. Music involves a lot of mathematics, but you can't reduce it to maths. It's a language for expressing emotion, not a predicate to prove.

One of the big goals of this series is to get straight in my head what has a good answer to 'why this way?', and what is just 'idk it's the convention we use'. And if something is an arbitrary convention, we gotta ask, what other conventions exist? Humans are inventive little buggers after all.

I also don't want to limit my analytical toolbox to a single 'hammer' of Western music theory, and try and force everything else into that frame. The reasons I'm learning music theory are... 1. to make my playing and singing better, and be more comfortable improvising; 2. to learn to compose stuff, which is currently a great mystery. How do they do it? I do like Western classical music, but honestly? Most of the music I enjoy is actually not Western. I want to be able to approach that music on its own terms.

For example, the erhu... for erhuample???

The instrument family I'm learning, erhu/zhonghu, is remarkably versatile - there are no frets (or even a soundboard!) to guide you, which is both a challenge and a huge freedom. You can absolutely play 12TET music on it, and it has a very beautiful sound - here is an erhu harmonising with a 12TET-tuned piano to play a song from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack, originally composed by Joe Hisaishi as an orchestral piece for the usual Western instruments...

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This performance already makes heavy use of a technique called (in English) 'vibrato', where you oscillate the pitch around as you play the note (which means the whole construction that 'a note has a fixed pitch defined by a ratio' is actually an abstraction - now a note's 'frequency' represents the middle point a small range of pitches!). Vibrato is very common in Western music too, though the way you do it on an erhu and the way you do it on a violin or flute are of course a little different. (We could do an aside on Fourier analysis of vibrato here but I think that's another day's subject).

But if you listen to Chinese compositions specifically for Erhu, they take advantage of the lack of fixed pitch to zip up and down like crazy. Take the popular song Horse Racing for example, composed in the 1960s, which seems to be the closest thing to the 'iconic' erhu piece...

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This can be notated in 12TET sheet music. But it's also taking full advantage of some of the unique qualities of the erhu's long string and lack of frets, like its ability to glide up and down notes, playing the full range of 'in between' frequencies on one string. The sheet music I linked there also has a notation style called 简谱 jiǎnpǔ which assigns numbers to notes. It's not so very different from Western sheet music, since it's still based on the diatonic major scale, but it's adjusted relative to the scale you're currently playing instead of always using C major. Erhu music very often includes very fast trills and a really skilled erhu/zhonghu player can jump between octaves with a level of confidence I find hard to comprehend.

I could spend this whole post putting erhu videos but let me just put one of the zhonghu specifically, which is a slightly deeper instrument; in Western terms the zhonghu (tuned to G and D) is the viola to the erhu's violin (tuned to D and A)...

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To a certain degree, Chinese music is relatively easy to map across to the Western 12-tone chromatic scale. For example, the 十二律 shí'èr lǜ system uses essentially the same frequency ratios as the Pythagorean system. However, Chinese music generally makes much heavier use of pentatonic scales than Western music, and does not by default use equal temperament, instead using its own system of rational frequency ratios. correction: with the advent of Chinese orchestras in the mid-20thC, it seems that Chinese instruments now usually are tuned in equal temperament.

I would like my understanding of music theory to have a 'first class' understanding of Chinese compositions like Horse Racing (and also to have a larger reference pool lmao). I'm going to be starting formal erhu lessons next month, with a curriculum mostly focused on Chinese music. If I have interesting things to report back I'll be sure to share them!

Anyway, in a similar spirit, this post we're gonna try and do a brief survey of various musical constructs relevant to e.g. Japanese music, Klezmer, Blues, Indian classical music... I have to emphasise I am not an expert in any of these systems, so I can't promise to have the most elegant form of presentation for them, just the handles I've been able to get. I will be using Western music theory terms quite a bit still, to try and draw out the parallels and connections. But I hope it's going to be interesting all the same.

Let's start with... pentatonic scales!

Pentatonic scales

In the previous post we focused most of our attention on the diatonic scale. Confusingly, a "diatonic" scale is actually a type of heptatonic scale, meaning there are 7 notes inside an octave. As we've seen, the diatonic scale is constructed on top of the 12-semitone system.

Strictly defined, a 'diatonic' scale has five intervals of two semitones and two intervals of one semitone, and the one-semitone intervals are spread out as much as possible. So 'diatonic scales' includes the major scale and all its cyclic permutations (aka 'modes'), including the natural minor scale, but not the other two minor scales we talked about last time!

However, whoever said we should pick exactly 7 notes in the octave? That's rather arbitrary, isn't it?

After all, in illustration, a more restricted palette can often lead to a much more visually striking image. The same is perhaps even more true in music!

A pentatonic scale is, as the name suggests, a scale which has five notes in an octave. Due to all that stuff we discussed with small-number ratios, the pentatonic scales we are about to discuss can generally be mapped quite easily onto the 12-tone system. There's some reason for this - 12TET is designed to closely approximate the appealing small-number frequency ratios, so if another system uses the same frequency ratios, we can probably find a subset of 12TET that's a good match.

Of course, fitting 12TET doesn't mean it matches the diatonic scale, necessarily. Still, once you're on the 12 tone system, there's enough diatonic scales out there that you can often define a pentatonic scale in terms of a delta relative to one of the diatonic scale modes. Like, 'shift this degree down, delete that degree'.

Final caveat: I'm not sure if it's strictly correct to use equal temperament in all these examples, but all the sources I find define these scales using Western music notation, so we'll have to go with that.

Sakura, sakura and the yonanuki scale

Let's start with Japanese music. Here's the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura, which is one of the most iconic pieces of Japanese music¸ especially abroad:

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This uses the in scale, also known as the sakura pentatonic scale, one of a few widely used pentatonic scales in Japanese folk music, along with the yo scale, insen scale and iwato scale... according to English-language sources.

Finding the actual Japanese was a bit difficult - so far as I can tell the Japanese wiki page for Sakura, Sakura never mentions the scale named after it! - but eventually I found a page for pentatonic scales, or 五音音階 goon onkai. So we can finally determine the kanji for this scale is 陰音階 in onkai or 陰旋法 in senpou. [Amusingly, the JP wiki article on pentatonic scales actually leads with... Scottish folk songs and gamelan before it goes into Japanese music.]

However, perhaps more pertinent is this page: ヨナ抜き音階 which introduces the terms yonanuki onkai and ニロ抜き音階 nironuki onkai. This can be glossed as 'leave out the fourth (yo) and seventh (na) scale' and 'leave out the second (ni) and sixth (ro) scale', describing two procedures to construct pentatonic scales from a diatonic scale.

Let's recap major and minor. Last time we defined them using semitone intervals from a root note (the one in brackets is the next octave):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) major: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12)

From here we can construct some pentatonic scales. Firstly, here are your yonanuki scales - the ones that delete the fourth and seventh:

major: 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12)

Starting on C for the major and A for the minor (the ones with the blank key signature), this is how you notate that in Western sheet music. As you can see, we have just deleted a couple of steps.

The first one is the 'standard' major pentatonic scale in Western music theory; it's also called the ryo scale in traditional Japanese music (呂旋法 ryosenpou). The second one is a mode (cyclic permutation) of a scale called 都節音階 miyakobushi, which is apparently equivalent to the in scale.

In terms of gaps between successive notes, these go:

major: 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 - very even minor: 2, 1, 4, 1, 4 - whoah, huge intervals!

The miyakobushi scale, for comparison, goes...

miyakobushi (absolute): 0, 1, 5, 7, 8, (12) miyakobushi (deltas): 1, 4, 2, 1, 4

JP wikipedia lists two different versions of the 陰旋法 (in scale), for ascending and descending. Starting on C, one goes C, D, Eb, G, A; the other goes C, D, Eb, G, Ab. Let's convert that into my preferred semitone interval notation:

in scale (absolute, asc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, (12) in scale (relative, asc): 2, 1, 4, 2, 3 in scale (absolute, desc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12) in scale (relative, desc): 2, 1, 4, 1, 4

So we see that the 'descending form' of the in scale matches the minor yonanuki scale, and it's a mode (cyclic permutation) of the miyakobushi scale.

We've talked a great deal about the names and construction of the different type of scales, but beyond the vague gesture to the standard associations of 'major upbeat, minor sad/mysterious' I don't think we've really looked at how a scale actually affects a piece of music.

So let's have a look at the semitone intervals in Sakura, Sakura in absolute terms from to the first note...

sakura, sakura, ya yoi no so ra-a wa 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; 0, 2, 3, 2, 0, 2-0, -4

and in relative terms between successive notes:

sa ku ra, sa ku ra, ya yo i no so ra-a wa 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -2, +2, +1, -1, -2, +2, -2, -4

If you listen to Sakura, Sakura, pay attention to the end of the first line - that wa suddenly drops down a huge distance (a major second - for some reason I miscalculated this and thought it was a tritone) and that's where it feels like damn, OK, this song is really cooking! It catches you by surprise. We can identify these intervals as belonging to the in/yoyanuki minor scale, and even starting on its root note.

Although its subject matter is actually pretty positive (hey, check it out guys, the cherry blossoms are falling!), Sakura, Sakura sounds mournful and mysterious. What makes it sound 'minor'? The first phrase doesn't actually tell you what key we're in, that jump of 2 semitones could happen in major or minor. But the second phrase, introduces the pattern of going up 2, then up 1, from the root note - that's the minor scale pattern. What takes it beyond just 'we're in minor'? That surprise tritone move down. According to the rough working model that 'dissonant notes create tension, consonant notes resolve it', this creates a ton of tension. This analysis is bunk, there isn't a tritone. It's a big jump but it's not that big a jump.

How does it eventually wrap up? The final phrase of Sakura, Sakura goes...

i za ya, i za ya, mi ni yu - u ka nn 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; -5, -4, 2, 0, -4, -5 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -5, +1, +4, -2, -4, -1

Here's my attempt to try and do a very basic tonal/interval analysis. We start out this phrase with the same notes as the opening bars, but abruptly diverge in bar 3, slowing down at the same time, which provides a hint that things are about to come to a close. The move of -5 down is a perfect fourth; in contrast to the tritone major second we had before, this is considered a very consonant interval. (A perfect fourth down is also equivalent to going up a fifth and then down an octave. So we're 'ending on the fifth'.) We move up a little and down insteps of 4, 2, and 1, which are less dramatic. Then we come back down and end on the fifth. We still have those 4-steps next to 1 steps which is the big flag that says 'whoah we're in the sakura pentatonic scale', but we're bleeding off some of the tension here.

Linguistically, the song also ends on the mora ん, the only mora that is only a consonant (rather than a vowel or consonant-vowel), and that long drawn-out voiced consonant gives a feeling of gradually trailing away. So you could call it a very 'soft' ending.

Is this 'tension + resolution' model how a Japanese music theorist would analyse this song? It seems to be a reasonably effective model when applied to Japanese music by... various music theorist youtubers, but I don't really know! That's something I want to find out more about.

Something raised on the English wiki is the idea that the miyakobushi scale is divided into two groups, spanning a fourth each, which is apparently summarised by someone called Koizumi Fumio in a book written in 1974:

Each group goes up 1 (a semitone or minor second), then 4 (major third), for a total of 5 (perfect fourth). The edges of these little blocks are considered 'nucleus' notes, and they're of special importance.

Can we see this in action if we look at Sakura, Sakura? ...ehhhh. I admit, the way I think of the song is shaped by the way I play it on the zhonghu; I think of the first two two-bar phrases as the 'upper part' and the third phrase as the 'lower part', and neither lines up neatly with these little groups. Still. I suspect Koizumi Fumio, author of Nihon no ongaku, knows a little more about this than I do, so I figure it's worth a mention.

Aside: on absorbing a song

Sakura, Sakura is kinda special to me because it's like the second piece I learned to play on zhonghu (after Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star lmao). I can't play it well, but I am proud that I have learned to play it at least recognisably.

The process of learning to play it involved writing out tabs and trying out different ways of moving my hand. I transcribed Sakura Sakura down to start on F, since that way the open G string of the zhonghu could be the lowest note of the piece, and worked out a tab for it using a tab system I cooked up with my friend. Here's what it looks like. The system counts semitones up from the open string, and it uses an underline to mark the lower string.

(Also, credit where it's due - I would never have made any progress learning about music if not for my friend Maki Yamazaki, a prodigiously multitalented self-taught musician who can play dozens of instruments, and also the person who sold me her old zhonghu for dirt cheap, if you're wondering why a white British girl might be learning such an unusual instrument. You can and should check our her music here! Maki has done more than absolutely anyone to make music comprehensible to me, and a lot of this post is inspired by discussing the previous post with her.)

When you want to make a song playable on an instrument, you have to perform some interpretation. Which fingers should play which notes? When should you move your hand? How do you make sure you hit the right notes? At some point this kind of movement becomes second nature, but I'm at the stage, just like a player encountering a new genre of videogame, where I still don't have the muscle memory or habituation to how things work, and each of these little details has to be worked out one by one. But this is great, because this process makes me way more intimately familiar with the contours of the song. Trying to analyse the moves it makes like the above even more so.

More Japanese scales

So, to sum up what we've observed, the beautiful minor sounds of Sakura Sakura come from a pentatonic scale which can be constructed by taking the diatonic scale and blasting certain notes into the sea, namely the fourth and the seventh of the scale. But what about the nironuki scale? Well, this time we delete the second and the sixth. So we get, in absolute terms:

major nironuki (abs): 0, 4, 5, 7, 11, (12) major nironuki (rel): 4, 1, 2, 4, 1 minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Hold on a minute, doesn't that look rather familiar? The major nironuki scale is a permutation, though not a cyclic permutation, of the minor yonanuki scale. And the minor nironuki scale is a cyclic permutation (mode) of the major one.

Nevertheless, these scales have names and significance of their own. The major one is known as the 琉球音階 ryūkyū onkai or Okinawan scale. The minor one is what Western music would call a 'minor pentatonic scale'. It also mentions a couple of other names for it, like the 民謡音階 minyou onkai (folk scale).

We also have the yō scale, which like the in scale, comes in ascending and descending forms. You want these too? Yeah? Ok, here we go.

yō scale (asc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 10, (12) yō scale (asc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 yō scale (desc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 9, (12) yō scale (desc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3

The yō scale is what's called an anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't have semitones. (The in scale in turn is hemitonic). The ascending form is also called the 律戦法 ritsusenpou. Here's the complete table of all the variants I've found so far.

So, in summary: Japanese music uses a lot of pentatonic scales. (In a future post we can hopefully see how that applies in modern Japanese music). These pentatonic scales can be constructed by deleting two notes from the diatonic scales. In general, you land in one of two zones: the anhemitonic side, where all the intervals between successive notes, are 2 and 3, and the hemitonic side, where the intervals are spicier 1s and 4s and a lone 2. From there, you can move between other pentatonic scales by cyclic permutations and reversal.

If you analyse Japanese music from a Western lens, you might well end up interpreting it according to one of the modes of the major scale. In fact, the 8-bit music theory video I posted last time takes this approach. This isn't wrong per se, it's a viable way to getting insight into how the tune works if you want to ask the question 'how does this conjure emotions and how do I get the same effects', but it's worthwhile to know what analytical frame the composers are likely to be using.

Gamelan - when 12TET won't cut it

Gamelan is a form of Indonesian ensemble music. I do not at this time know a ton about it, but here's a performance:

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However, if you're reading my blog then it's likely that if know gamelan from anywhere, it's most likely the soundtrack to Akira composed by Shōji Yamashiro.

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This blends traditional gamelan instrumentation and voices with modern synths to create an incredibly bold and (for most viewers outside Indonesia!) unfamiliar sound to accompany the film's themes of psychic awakening and evolution. It was an inspired choice, adding a lot to an already great film.

'A gamelan' is the ensemble; 'gamelan' is also the style of music. There are many different types of gamelan associated with different occasions - some gamelans are only allowed to form for special ceremonies. Gamelan is also used as a soundtrack in accompaniment to other art forms, such as wayang kulit and wayang wong (respectively, shadow puppetry and dance).

Since gamelan music evidently uses quite a bit of percussion, and so far we've been focused on the type of music played on strings and wind instruments - a brief comment on the limitations of our abstractions. Many types of drums don't fit the 'tonal music' frame we've outlined so far, creating a broad frequency spectrum that's close to an enveloped burst of white noise rather than a sharply peaked fundamental + overtones. There's a ton to study in drumming, and if this series continues you bet I'll try to understand it.

But there are tonal percussion instruments, and a lot of them are to be found in gamelan, particularly in the metalophone family (e.g. the ugal or jegogan). The Western 'xylophone' and 'glockenspiel' also belong to this family. Besides metalophones, you've got bells, steel drums, tuning forks etc. Tuning a percussion instrument is a matter of adjusting the shape of the metal to adjust the resonant frequency of its normal modes. I imagine it's really fiddly.

In any case, the profile of a percussion note is quite different from the continual impulse provided by e.g. a violin bow. You get a big burst across all frequencies and then everything but the resonant mode dies out, leaving the ringing with a much simpler spectrum.

Anyway, let's get on to scales and shit. While I have the Japanese wikipedia page on pentatonic scales open, that it mentions a gamelan scale called pelog (written ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀ or ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄ in different languages) meaning 'beautiful'. Pelog is not strictly one scale, but a family of tunings which vary across Indonesia. Depending on who you ask, it might in some cases be reasonably close to a 9-tone equal temperament (9TET), which means a number of notes can't be represented in 12TET - you have that 4 12TET semitones would be equivalent to 3 9TET semitones. From this is drawn a heptatonic scale, but not one that can be mapped exactly to any 12TET heptatonic scale. Isn't that fun!

To represent scales that don't exactly fit the tuning of 12TET, there's a logarithmic unit of measure called the 'cent'. Each 12TET semitone contains 100 cents, so in terms of ratios, a cent is the the 1200th root of 2. In this system, a 9TET semitone is 133 cents. Some steps in the pelog heptatonic scale would then be two 9TET semitones, and others one 9TET semitone. However, this system of 'semitones' does not seem to be how gamelan music is actually notated - it's assumed you already have an established pelog tuning and can play within that. So it's a little difficult for me to give you a decent representation of a gamelan scale that isn't approximated by 12TET.

From the 7-tone pelog scale, whatever it happens to be where you live, you can further derive pentatonic scales. These have various names, like the pelog selisir used in the gamelan gong kebyar. I'm not going to itemise them here both because I haven't actually been able to find the basic pelog tunings (at least by their 9TET approximation).

Another scale used in gamelan is called slendro, a five tone scale of 'very roughly' equal intervals. Five is coprime with 12, so there's no straightforward mapping of any part of this scale to the 12-tone system. But more than that, fully even scales are quite rare in the places we've looked so far. (Though apparently within slendro, you can play a note that's deliberately 'out of place', called 'miring'. This transforms the mood from 'light, cheerful and busy' to one appropriate to scenes of 'homesickness, love missing, sadness, death, languishing'.)

The Western musical notation system is plainly unsuited for gamelan, and naturally it has its own system - or rather several systems. In one method, the seven tones of the pelog are numbered 1 through 7, and a subset of those numbers are used to enumerate slendro tuning. You can write it on a grid similar to a musical staff.

But we could wonder with this research - is the attempt to map pélog to 'equal temperament' an external imposition? Presented with a tuning system with seven intervals that are not consistently equal temperament, averaging them to construct an equal temperament hypothesis on that basis, and finally attempting to prove that gamelan players 'prefer' equal temperament... well, they do at least bother to ask, but I'm not entirely convinced that 9TET or 5TET is the right model. Unfortunately, most of the literature I'm able to find on gamelan music theory with a cursory search is by Western researchers.

There's a fairly long history of Western composers taking inspiration from gamelan, notably Debussy and Saty. And of course, modern Indonesian composers such as I Nyoman Windha have also been finding ways to combine gamelan with Western styles. Here's a piece composed by him (unfortunately not a splendid recording):

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Klezmer - layer 'em up

If you've known me for long enough you might remember the time I had a huge Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird phase. (I still think he's great, I just did that thing where I obsessively listen to one small set of things for a period). And I'd also listen to old revolutionary songs in Yiddish all the time. Because of course I did lmao. Anyway, here's a song that combines both: Kahn's modern arrangement of Arbetlose Marsch in English and Yiddish:

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That's a style of music called klezmer, developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Central/Eastern Europe starting in the late 1500s and 1600s. It's a blend of a whole bunch of different traditions, combining elements from Jewish religious music with other neighbouring folk music traditions and European music at large. When things really kicked off at the end of the 19th century, klezmer musicians were often a part of the Jewish socialist movement (and came up with some real bangers - the Tsar may have been shot by the Bolsheviks but tbh, Daloy Politsey already killed him). But equally there's a reason it sounds insanely danceable: it was very often used for dances.

The rest of the 20th century happened, but klezmer survived all the genocides and there are lots of different modern klezmer bands.

The defining characteristics of klezmer per Wikipedia are... ok, this is quite long...

Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including khazones, davenen, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[21] Among those stylistic elements that are considered typically "Jewish" in Klezmer music are those which are shared with cantorial or Hasidic vocal ornaments, including dreydlekh ("tear in the voice"; plural of dreidel)[22][23] and imitations of sighing or laughing ("laughter through tears").[24] Various Yiddish terms were used for these vocal-like ornaments such as קרעכץ (Krekhts, "groan" or "moan"), קנײטש (kneytsh, "wrinkle" or "fold"), and קװעטש (kvetsh, "pressure" or "stress").[10] Other ornaments such as trills, grace notes, appoggiaturas, glitshn (glissandos), tshoks (a kind of bent notes of cackle-like sound), flageolets (string harmonics),[22][25]pedal notes, mordents, slides and typical Klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[18]

So evidently klezmer will be relevant throughout this series, but for now, since we're trying to flesh out the picture of 'how is tuning formed', let's take a look at the notes.

So it's absolutely possible to fit klezmer into the 12TET system. But we're going to need to crack open a few new scales. Though the Wikipedia editors enumerating this list caution us: "Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (octatonic) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note pentachords, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context."

With that caution in mind, let's at least see what we're given. First of all we have the Freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh scale, one of the most common pieces, good friend of the Western phrygian but with an extra semitone. Then there's Mi Sbererakh or Av HaRachamim which is a mode of it, that's popular around Ukraine. Adonoy Molokh or Adoyshem Molokh is the major scale but you drop the seventh a semitone. Mogen Ovos is the same as the natural minor at least on the interval level.

Which means, without the jargon, here are the semitones (wow wouldn't it be nice if you had tables on here?):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) freygish: 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2 mi sberakh: 0, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 adonoy m.: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 mogen o.: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2

...that's a big block of numbers to make your eyes glaze over huh. Maybe this 'convert everything to semitone deltas' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be... or maybe what I need to do is actually visualise it somehow? Some kinda big old graph showing all the different scales we've worked out so far and how they relate to each other? ...hold your horses...

[It seems like what I've done is reinvent something called 'musical set theory', incidentally.]

OK, having enumerated these, let's return to the Wikipedian's caution. What is a pentachord? Pretty simple, it's a chord of five notes. Mind you, some people define it as five successive notes of a diatonic scale.

In klezmer, you've got a bunch of different instruments playing at once creating a really dense sound texture. Presumably one of the things you do when you play klezmer is try and get the different instruments in your ensemble to hit the different levels of that pentachord. How does that work? Well, if we consult the sources, we find this scan of a half-handwritten PDF presenting considerably more detail on the modes and how they're played. The scales above are combined with a 'motivic scheme' presenting different patterns that notes tend to follow, and a 'typical cadence'. Moreover, these modes can have 'sub-modes' which tend to follow when the main mode gets established.

To me reading this, I can kind of imagine the process of composing/improvisation within this system almost like a state machine. It's not just that you have a scale, you have a certain state you're in in the music (e.g. main mode or sub-mode), and a set of transitional moves you can potentially make for the next segment. That's probably too rigid a model though. There's also a more specific aspect discussed in the book that a klezmer musician needs to know how to move between their repertoire of klezmer pieces - what pieces can sensibly follow from what.

Ultimately, I don't want to give you a long list of stuff to memorise. (Sure, if you want to play klezmer, you probably need to get familiar with how to use these modes, but that's between you and your klezmer group). Rather I want to make sure we don't have any illusion that the Western church modes are the only correct way to compose music.

Blues - can anyone agree?

Blues is a style of music developed by Black musicians in the American south in the late 1800s, directly or indirectly massively influential on just about every genre to follow, but especially jazz. It's got a very characteristic style defined by among other elements use of 'blue notes' that don't fit the standard diatonic scale. According to various theorists, you can add the blue notes to a scale to construct something called the 'blues scale'. According to certain other theorists, this exercise is futile, and Blues techniques can't be reduced to a scale.

So for the last part of today's whirlwind tour of scales, let's take a brief look at the blues...

There are a few different blues scales. The most popular definition seems to be a hexatonic scale. We'll start with the minor pentatonic scale, or in Japanese, the minor nironuki scale - which is to say we take the minor diatonic scale and delete positions 2 and 6. That gives:

minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Now we need to add a new note, the 'flat fifth degree' of the original scale. In other words, 6 semitones above the root - the dreaded tritone!

hexatonic blues (abs): 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, (12) hexatonic blues (rel): 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2

Easy enough right? Listen to that, it does sound kinda blues-y. But hold your horses! Moments after defining this scale, we read...

A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard.[5] However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale.

So, if you want to play blues, it's not enough to mechanically play a specific scale in 12TET. You also gotta break the palette a little bit.

There's also a 'major blues' heptatonic scale which goes 0, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, according to one guy called Dan Greenblatt.

But that's not the only attempt to enumerate the 'blues scale'. Other authors will give you slightly longer scales. For example, if you ask Smallwood:

heptatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, (12) heptatonic blues (rel): 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2

which isn't quite a mode of any of those klezmer scales we saw previously, but nearly!

If you ask Benward and Saker, meanwhile, a Blues scale could actually be nonatonic scale, where you add flattened versions of a couple of notes to the major scale.

nonatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3/4, 5, 7, 9, 10/11, (12)

There's also an idea that you should play notes in between the semitones, i.e. quarter tones, which would be a freq ratio of the 24th root of 2 if you're keeping score at home.

The upshot of all this is probably that going too far formalise the blues is probably not in the spirit of the blues, but if you want to go in a blues-y direction it will probably mean insert an extra, flattened version of a note to one of your scales. Muck around and see what works, I guess!

Of course, there's a lot more to Blues than just tweaking a scale. For example, 'twelve bar blues' is a specific formalised chord progression that is especially universal in Jazz. What it means for chords to 'progress' is a whole subject, and I think that's the next thing I'll try to understand for post 3. Hopefully we'll be furnished with a slightly broader model of how music works as we go there though.

To wrap up, here's the spreadsheet showing all the 12TET scales encountered so far in this series in a visual way. There's obviously plenty more out there, but this is not ultimately a series about scales. It's all well and good to have a list of what exists, but it's pointless if we don't know how to use it.

Phew

Mind you even with all this, we haven't covered at all some of the most complex systems of tonal music - I've only made the vaguest gesture towards Indian classical music, Chinese music, Jazz... That's way beyond me at the moment. But maybe not forever.

Next up: I'm going to try and finally wrap my head around chords and make sense of what it means for them to 'progress', have 'movement' etc. And maybe render a bit more concrete the vague stuff I said about 'tension' and 'resolution'.

(Also: I definitely know I have friends on here who are very widely knowledgeable about music theory. If I've made any major mistakes, please let me know! At some point I hope to republish this series with nicer formatting on canmom.art, and it would be great to fix the bugs by then!)

#Youtube #music theory #music notes #music #notes #japanese music #gamelan #chinese music #klezmer #blues #i took my new adhd meds and hyperfocused on this all day instead of working ><

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givemeanaccountalready · 11 months ago

Text

A Who-Swung-It Mystery: The Case of the Switch-Hitter (1/3)

1 / 2 / 3

Despite the humorous title, I want to be serious for a second. I am not a licensed psychologist/psychiatrist/licensed social worker/etc., and I am certainly not an expert on dissociative identity disorder (DID). My knowledge of this disorder comes from the research I have done to try and understand it. I am trying to be as respectful as possible towards the subject matter, and I sincerely apologize if I show a lack of understanding and will do my best to correct it. I want to focus on switching, since we don't really have much information on Mikoto's childhood that led to him developing this disorder and I do not want to speculate. I only say childhood and not adulthood because the literature I found suggests that it is rather rare for this already rare disorder to form past the age of ten. Mikoto could be one of those special cases, but we'll have to wait and see.

Now, before you begin violently shaking me over the length of this post, just know that I am sorry about it. I want to argue that Mikoto’s DID is a red herring. Despite his claims otherwise, John did not directly kill anyone, Mikoto did. Through the voice dramas and the music videos, we get to see both Mikoto and John's individual perspectives and personalities. From what we've seen in MeMe and Double and then heard during John Doe and Neoplasm, I think I figured out what happened the night of the murder.

Fun fact before the post cut: in Japanese, the kanji for baseball are combine the kanji for field and ball (野球) and is read as ‘Kakyu’. The number nine in Japanese is read as ‘kyu’ or ‘ku’ and our baseball-loving prisoner, Mikoto, is prisoner number nine.

Okay, now you can begin violently shaking me.

Milgram's Very Own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Subverting the Evil Alter Trope

Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a tale that lives in infamy, and here in the West, it is synonymous with dual personalities. Published in 1886, the story is meant to be an allegory regarding good and evil. Pop culture osmosis usually has it right that Dr. Jekyll accidentally created Mr. Hyde in a lab accident, but here's the thing, it's more of a happy accident than a “Well, the risk I took was calculated but man, I’m bad at math,” one. Dr. Jekyll is a respectable, older gentleman who meant to erase his "shameful urges" (the story never explains what they are exactly, just that they go against the Victorian moral code) and accidentally created Mr. Hyde. As Mr. Hyde, Jekyll is a younger, shorter man whose only identifying feature is that everyone immediately hates him. That is not a joke. People who ran into Hyde can’t really describe him other than having the gut instinct to avoid him. But more importantly, I need you to know that Dr. Jekyll had spent most of the story voluntarily transforming himself into Mr. Hyde so he could give into those shameful urges and then used his wealth as Dr. Jekyll to sweep any trouble that arose back under the rug.

Besides being physically different, the main difference between Jekyll and Hyde is that Hyde lacks Jekyll's morals and inhibitions. Jekyll delights in the freedom he can experience as Hyde, until as Hyde, he beats a man to death with a cane. A few months before the murder, Jekyll had started to realize that he did not have as much control over Hyde as he previously thought and went two months without drinking the transformation tonic. As Jekyll puts it, in a moment of weakness, (yes, it reads like an allegory about substance abuse) Jekyll takes the tonic, transforms into Hyde, and since Hyde is pissed over being locked up for so long, he exercised his frustrations on a rich man's head.

Historically, the nineteenth century is when psychologists started arguing over the existence of multiple personalities, and the public back then was as fascinated with it as it is now. And I can't believe that we're nearing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's 150th anniversary, and the evil alternate personality trope is still going strong! I swear to you, it seems like DID is only ever brought up in conjunction with stories involving a murder(s), and the resolution is always, the evil alter committed it. I only know one example (Primal Fear (1996)) where the evil alter didn't do it, but that was because of the twist ending!

Besides wanting the novelty of the core having killed someone rather than the 'evil' alter, I think it would fit in with Milgram's dedication to emphasizing that each prisoner is an individual with their good points and bad. No one is 100% good, or bad, or anything else (Jackalope is 100% chaotic neutral, but he is a mythical creature, not a human, so shh). They have dominant traits that may influence their actions, but as in reality, things aren't black and white. It would make sense for Mikoto and John to reflect this. Mikoto is not 100% good and John is not 100% evil. They both have good and bad traits.

I think that the first trial shows it much better than the second, but Mikoto's main problem is how he constantly denies that anything is troubling him. Es calls him out on it explicitly during Neoplasm. Mikoto’s response is, “Usually, if you just laugh and pretend, things work out in the end,” explaining that the pretending helps him cope. It may not be the healthiest coping mechanism, but it is what he does. The most recent example of this not actually helping anyone is during Mikoto’s 2023 birthday timeline conversation. Mikoto questions himself to see if John really does exist and then he angrily blames John, only for John to front long enough to yell that he did it to save them. John disappears and Mikoto tells himself that that was useless, and that he’s tired and should stop thinking so hard about it. John has repeated quite a few times during Neoplasm and in that timeline conversation that he did it because Mikoto couldn’t handle it. The implication is that it is referring to the stress that built up and led to the murder. I agree with John that Mikoto’s decision to continue putting his head in the sand and to bottle up all his stress would have led to a breakdown. Everyone has a limit, and it is clear that Mikoto was rapidly approaching his. I don't disagree with that at all. What I disagree with is John's claim that he is solely responsible for the murder, because his existence does not make him purely evil and Mikoto's purely good. To think so is to play right into the black-and-white dichotomy of morality and play directly into Yamanaka's hands.

Despite his more sadistic tendencies, John does have some positive traits. We know he cares deeply for Mikoto and wants to protect him, even if his actions aren't acceptable. In Neoplasm, we’ve even heard John express some pride over being a college graduate, something Mikoto has previously downplayed when asked questions by Amane. We’ve seen in timeline conversations that Mikoto is capable of expressing annoyance and exasperation (with Fuuta) as well as anger (at John in the above timeline conversation). John can be cruel and aggressive, but he is active in asserting himself. Meanwhile, Mikoto is considerate to others to the point of his own detriment and is rather passive when it comes to conflict. Just because Mikoto seems to have more desirable character traits than John doesn’t make Mikoto incapable of committing a violent act.

Now, onto the murder, what could lead to Mikoto killing somebody?

"Communism was just a red herring." - Clue (1985)

I firmly believe that John is full of shit. Despite the number of destroyed mannequins, there is only one murder victim: the blond fellow we see at the beginning of MeMe. And just like in the cult classic, Clue (1985), I think the motive was blackmail.

Remember Mikoto's glitched line from the second voice trailer? "DESTROY EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING!" I don't know if this is just an accepted fan theory or if it had been confirmed, but it is believed that the lines from the second voice trailer happen before the murder takes place. If it had taken place after the murder occurred, then everything would most likely reference the evidence of the murder. But this takes place before the murder happened. Sure, it could be John's need for one of those rage rooms, but if I'm being honest, I think it was blackmail that could have gotten Mikoto fired from his job. Despite the amount of stress his current job causes him, Mikoto has stated over and over again that he worked very hard to get into the best company in the advertising business, and in his Trial Two interrogation questions, he has stated that he will not leave his current job because he believes that his efforts will eventually be rewarded. Mikoto is fine with being uncomfortable if he believes it will lead to future benefit (AKA, no pain, no gain).

From what I understand about Japan's work culture, getting fired puts a black stain on your record and makes it extremely difficult to find a new job. Getting fired by a top-tier advertising agency isn't just losing his dream job, but possibly destroying any chance of Mikoto gaining any opportunity or prestige for the rest of his career. All his hard work will be for naught. There are plenty of real-world instances where someone lost their job or lost their college acceptance because of poor behavior on the individual's part. If the blond victim had evidence of Mikoto acting badly, regardless of whether it was Mikoto or John fronting, Mikoto's boss could fire him, ruining his chances of ever being rewarded for his hard work. People have certainly killed for less in the real world.

Personally, I lean towards the blackmail being something John did, although this comes from Mikoto's line from Undercover: "Don't lie about me / what did I do?" If Mikoto cannot remember anything from when John fronts and he is aware of his forgetful spells, then not only would Mikoto question whether the blackmail had been doctored but also he'd wonder if there is a hint of truth to it. Remember Mikoto's words to Fuuta, "You're a uni student, right? You can't act like that once you start working properly," as if the angry behavior from Fuuta is only normal until a certain age. Perhaps Mikoto took part in some bad behavior in the past. More likely than not, it’s John in the blackmail. T1Q11 answer states, "Yes, I am [someone who takes others into consideration]. I'm a working adult. Communicating makes work easier." It's almost ironic how his boss constantly texting him and inconsideration causes Mikoto problems, and because he is the new guy and subordinate, Mikoto can't exactly tell his boss to fuck off.

His T1Q10 answer better lays out his beef with Fuuta's behavior: "I don't think I've ever gotten angry before. Isn't it kind of disgraceful to get angry?" Now, Mikoto is a very go-along-to-get-along kind of guy and Fuuta is not. He could be telling the truth that he has never gone into a blind rage (that Mikoto remembers), but to say he has never felt anger is most likely a lie.

Here is how I think the murder went down. At the beginning of MeMe, we see Mikoto waiting in a dark, secluded area near the train tracks. His hair is mostly covered by the beanie and we cannot make out his expression whatsoever, so there is no clue to tell us who is fronting between Mikoto and John. Mikoto does not appear to have a bat on his person or around him, and it seems like he is holding his phone. The blond victim could have just been a stranger walking by, but I think that he was an old friend of Mikoto's from high school or college and was supposed to meet with him. As peers who are supposed to be working adults, Mikoto is under the impression that whatever this is, they can just talk it out. This is all just one big misunderstanding.

Maybe the blond victim even brought the bat for an intimidation factor. Maybe Mikoto brought it just in case. I lean towards the former because you would notice misplacing your own baseball bat (they can get really expensive) is hard to not notice, and the whole thing is easier to deny if you don't even own the murder weapon in the first place. Whatever the case, the blond reveals his blackmail and demands payment or else it's getting sent to Mikoto's boss. Mikoto sees nothing but red, screams at his old friend to destroy all of the blackmail, take the bat, and then swings. The first blow hits the victim's lower back, just like how it hit Es in Undercover, and it is enough to render the victim's legs useless, forcing him to try and crawl away rather than run. Mikoto raises the bat well over his head and brings it down again, killing the victim.

With no one around but his now deceased victim, the red haze lifts and Mikoto realizes what he just did, prompting the first trial glitched line, which is believed to take place after the murder, "My life... it wasn't supposed to be this way." The heartbreak is too much to bear. John takes over and is the one to bury the body, dispose of the evidence, and clean Mikoto up. When Mikoto wakes up the next day, he can disregard it as a bad dream: "All I did was dream / And that's what you found GUILTY?"

Pretty words, but empty ones, I know. Where's my proof? I'm glad you asked. :)

Switch-Hitting

Let's start out with the murder weapon: the baseball bat.

In baseball, a switch-hitter is someone who can bat left- and right-handed. Switch-hitters are prized by coaches, because batters have a higher chance of hitting the ball when they swing opposite of the pitcher; meaning a left-handed batter has a better chance of hitting a ball thrown by a right-handed pitcher than the right-handed batter against that same pitcher. There can be switch-pitchers (someone who can throw left- and right-handed), but because Mikoto's murder weapon seems to be the baseball bat, I'm going to focus on the way he swings the bat. As previously stated, during the third chorus of Undercover, we see Mikoto's silhouette bludgeon Es with a baseball bat.

Now, it has been a while since I've played baseball and softball, but I do still own a bat and I believe that that is a left-handed swing. A left-handed batter would have their left hand positioned above the right hand and the bat would have been held over their left shoulder. When they swing, they step in and turn towards their right to complete the swing. That is what Mikoto is doing in this picture. I tried to mimic the swing, but I am a right handed batter, so it feels awkward when I do it. Right-handed batters are more common that left-handed hitters, and in Double, we see Mikoto/John bat both ways, making him a switch-hitter. In the US, a switch-hitter has to pick one side to hit from during the time he is at bat, meaning that say he batted right, then swung and missed twice (two strikes, one more and he's out), he can’t switch to bat left. He can switch to bat left the next time he is up at bat, but he cannot switch positions once he steps up to the plate. I can’t find much on Japan’s rules about switch-hitting, but there’s a ton of articles about a high school player who kept switching positions for every pitch during the same at bat (pissing off the Americans in the comments section). Now, I can’t speak for professional baseball in Japan, but I guess switching positions during the same at bat is allowed at the level Mikoto played (high school). I do feel confident in stating that the Mikoto featured in Undercover has a left-handed swing. But Gimme, what does that have to do with switch-hitting? Switch-hitting involves batting both ways.

If you continue to closely watch the opening of MeMe, while Mikoto holds the bat in his left hand, but when he readies himself for the overhead swing, Mikoto has his right hand over his left, something a right-handed batter would do. I actually made a list of when we see Mikoto swing the bat, and it seems that when Mikoto swings the bat normally (like how he would in a game), he usually bats left-handed. I could only find one instance of Mikoto holding the bat right-handed as though he were up to bat.

Left-Handed Batting:

at 3:04 in Undercover

at 0:30 in MeMe

at 0:58 in Double

at 1:29 in Double

Right-Handed Batting:

at 1:26 in Double

Buuuut, when we see Mikoto swing the bat abnormally, he uses his right hand to guide the swing as if he were batting right-handed. His right hand is above his left (which is normal positioning for a right-handed swing) when he does the overhead swing in MeMe at 0:37, and when he swings the bat one handed during Double, it is with his right-hand.

Your dominant hand isn't what determines your batting stance. Generally, it's a good indicator, but it's not set in stone thanks to cross-handedness. Cross-handedness is when you use your dominant hand for certain activities and your non-dominant hand for others. But if it matters, Mikoto is right-handed. Most of his actions in both songs involve his right-hand. If you watch MeMe, the only time Mikoto uses his left hand is to move the camera at the beginning and end of the song, and then to pick up the Death tarot card at the very end of the song. In Double, the only time he uses his left hand is when he swings the bat. Also, his shoulder bag is on his left shoulder in both MeMe and Double, and generally, purses and shoulder bags rests on your non-dominant side to give your dominant hand easy access.

Like I said, Mikoto being right-handed doesn't necessarily translate to him batting right-handed. Now, I'm no baseball expert, but I don't think his left-handed swings are all that good. They look 'jerky' to me. We don't see Mikoto complete a right-handed swing; we only see him hold the bat as if he is waiting for a pitch and the positioning seems natural. And there is something that I want to point out. You can train yourself to become a switch-hitter. I am not kidding when I say that switch-hitters are coveted. I think it would be in-character of Mikoto to naturally bat right-handed but try to teach himself how to bat left-handed so that he can become a switch-hitter. He is someone who knows what they want and creates a ten-step plan to get it, (see his "I wanted this job so I chose this art college with this degree"). He also believes in hard work being rewarded, so if he successfully trains himself to become a switch-hitter, his coach will reward him with more playing time (in this case, move him up the batting list). Mikoto is also self-effacing, so when he puts himself down, it needs to be questioned. Are his claims about not being good at baseball an example of his low self-esteem affects his perception of himself, or was he just plain bad because he was batting from the wrong side? He could just plain suck at baseball, but his abnormal, right-handed swings are smooth and controlled. It makes me think he bats right naturally, and that his left-handed swings are him practicing to get better at switch-hitting.

Unlike Mikoto, John is not patient. He would not bother with a swing he is not comfortable with. We saw that in John Doe as they are quick to taunt Es and lash out at them and Kotoko. John did not try to retreat and figure out a strategy to best Kotoko, an experienced fighter, he just went for it. I can only assume he wised up during his fight with Kotoko and that's why she couldn't knock him out a second time. This impulsive, fiery temper reappears in Neoplasm, when John mock Es for chaining Mikoto and for the name they gave him, and then as Es stalls during John's prodding of what will happen to Mikoto, John begins shouting at Es to answer him. I would probably split the two this way: while Mikoto is proactive with his willingness to think ahead and shortchange himself for the chance of being rewarded in the future, John is reactive and his impulsiveness leads to short-term thinking that can screw over Mikoto.

Here's Mikoto in Neoplasm: "I wonder if it's like... some kind of sleepwalking...? After all, I've been losing sleep more and more often recently... Man... It's really troublesome, isn't it?...Usually, if you just laugh and pretend, things work out in the end, right? I'm pretty good at that. Making things work out to the best of my abilities." At this point, he can no longer deny that nothing is wrong, and Mikoto is now forced to seriously consider just what is going on when he has these forgetful spells and falls asleep. Something is wrong, and he is trying to follow his usual protocol of smiling and quietly figuring out how to make things turn out for the best. Except it is not working in Milgram, triggering John's appearance in Neoplasm.

John is surprised by Es's acceptance of the situation, and even says, "I'd just think it's a lie someone came up with to get away with murder." As he and Es continue to talk, John asks Es why they think he was born and confirms that his role is to protect Mikoto from harm. Es is the one to bring up the murder, and suddenly, the chatty John is giving short, vague responses, reiterating that he is the murderer, not Mikoto. Here's some of it, "Yeah, it's me. I killed them off... They annoyed me [so I killed them]... Just someone [a stranger] who was walking around nearby... Can't remember [how many I killed]." When Es demands to know how John can be so calm, John changes the subject to find out what will happen to Mikoto. When Es cannot give him a satisfactory answer, John repeats again and again that Mikoto is innocent and that he, John, is at fault, so please forgive Mikoto. I think John would admit to every wrongdoing of Mikoto's if that meant Mikoto's burden would be lifted. It's why I don't trust him. Not only is his confession too vague to be considered admissible, but as Mikoto’s protector, he also has a reason to take the fall. John is not an evil alter, but he is taking advantage of the trope to get Mikoto the Innocent verdict. An Innocent verdict, in John’s mind, will erase most of Mikoto’s current stress. It is too short term, and relies to heavily on Mikoto’s habit of denial. If Mikoto is found Innocent, there is a chance that he may continue to pull his head out of the sand to figure out what is going on so he can learn how to manage or suppress it so his everyday life won't be impacted.

Oh, and one more thing before I end this first part.

That Wasn't Mikoto at the End of Neoplasm, which is why Double differs from MeMe.

John is playing up the idea that he is an evil alter to get Mikoto out of trouble, and the weird behavior shown by 'Mikoto' at the end of Neoplasm is just John attempting to manipulate us. Do you guys remember at the end of John Doe when Mikoto is back in control and is confused and then horrified as to why he’s hurting and why Es is now covered in bruises? From what I’ve read, that confusion is a common sign of personalities having been switched, and so is the memory loss he has experienced. Now compare that to the end of Neoplasm, when John ‘leaves’ and Mikoto comes back and immediately starts guessing what kind of dog Es owns? And how weird that is because Mikoto had started the interview clearly worried over what is going on with him when he is ‘asleep’? I don’t think Mikoto actually came back. I think that that’s John taking advantage of Es being startled by the bell and pretending to be Mikoto and trying to emphasize how harmless Mikoto. Mikoto is just a little guy. How can someone so friendly be a monster?

1 / 2 / 3

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batmanshole · 11 months ago

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ylfvaaa do you have any makeup and skincare recs 😭 im trying to get into skincare but i have no idea where to start, i see a lot of people hyping up korean skincare but idk what products live up to the hype. and i need new makeup badly but im scared of ordering a primer and then it sucks yknow. you seem really knowledgeable so if you can help me out it’d be much appreciated <3

hi anon. before i get into this i love you. i love when people ask me about this kinda stuff. makes me so happy. cosmetic chemistry autism.

ALSO to get your primer thing out of the way: i dont rlly use it but ive heard good things about the ELF one and my sister swears by the NYX one and her base is rlly good. so.

also i'd look on the following websites / stores:

sephora for western brands / mainstream kbeauty yesstyle for korean and japanese stuff chic decent or individual websites for chinese beauty (i usually get mine in person tho)

under the cut cause its long af. also i linked to some products but none of this is sponsored or affiliate or anything im just linking cause i like em 👍

OK FIRST OF ALLL. starting w skincare.

i would break down your routine into three main parts: -cleansing -moisturizing / hydrating -SPF

if you wanna get fancy, you can do exfoliation between cleansing and hydrating. but you really dont have to do that if u dont want to

first: cleansing

if you wanna wear makeup you should have a good way to take it off. no. no put the makeup wipes down. they aren't efficient and u will go through SO many of them. and they're a pain and can irritate ur skin w all the wiping (trust me on this one LOL)

i would recommend using an oil based product for this!! melts ur makeup OFFFF like crazy + even if you don't use makeup it will leave ur skin super clean ^__^ ALSO you should apply this to DRY SKIN and wash it off with lukewarm water (the oil emulsifies w water and also very cold water can make it harder to remove)

if you want an oil-based makeup remover for quick removal w a cotton pad: clinique take the day off (47cad ) this one is expensive tbh and isn't as effective as the others BUT. it takes a lot less energy to use + can be done quickly. if you want a cleanser that will take off your makeup incredibly well while washing ur face: kose softymo speedy cleanser (18cad) this is my absolute FAV. i use it allll the time it works so so well and ive reccomended it to tons of ppl before and theyve all liked it. if you want a cleansing balm for heavier makeup: clean-it zero cleansing balm original (30cad) i haven't tried this one myself, but i've heard VERY good things about it.

next i would follow that up with a water based cleanser (so foaming or gel). this will help to wash away all the stuff that the oil cleanser has loosened up and will wash away leftover oil cleanser.

my FAVOURITE is the senka perfect whip cleanser (14.50cad) i adore this stuff!! ive heard some people find it very drying but i havent had that issue? idk i've also heard good things about this beauty of joseon green plum gel cleanser (14.70 cad) but i haven't used it myself. huge fan of BOJ tho!!

(this is the part where you would exfoliate if you wanted to. for a chemical exfoliant i use the giant bottle of clinique stuff my aunt got me but its not worth the price tbh. u could also try the beauty of joseon apricot peeling gel (14.70cad) IF your skin can handle it. its a physical exfoliant tho so be careful. i also enjoy the pixi glow tonic. u can get this at like shoppers or cvs or somethign idk)

second: hydrating and moisturizing

okay so. this is super important if you do a lot of makeup and thus have to wash it away thoroughly.

i start with a hydrating toner. this helps to add water to your skin and smooth it (adding water before moisturizer is a good idea bc the moisturizers will both add moisture and lock in hydration from any prev products)

i use the the I'm from rice toner (38 cad but on sale rn) which is my absolute absolute FAAAV toner. super hydrating super perfect and beautiful. stunning. (you've probably seen people talk about the cosrx snail mucin, and it is nice i will admit. but do NOT use it if you are allergic to shellfish or dust, apparently. also apply it right after your hydrating toner, it needs to be on wet skin)

then i go in with a moisturizer!! i like to use ones with niacinimide or other humectants.

my go-to is the innisfree jeuju cherry blossom dewey glow jelly (35cad) she's so important to meee <3 love her. all time fav. it is SCENTED tho, so if you don't like that, try: beauty of joseon red bean water gel (17.80cad) super lightweight and has no noticeable scent. ive heard very good things and my friend is trying it soon ^__^

finally: SPF

this is THE most important step. sunscreen. wear sunscreen.

apply your sunscreen under your makeup in the morning, and throughout the day. if you wanna reapply using a sun stick, that's great!!! but don't use a sun stick as your ONLY protection.

also i'd avoid pure mineral sunscreens unless you have a legit allergy to chemical ones. mineral sunscreens are not as good and a lot of the marketing is iffy. also they leave a white cast which is esp noticeable on darker skin. mineral + chemical ones are usually fine tho :-)

my fav sunscreen is the biore UV aqua rich watery gel / watery essence (26cad) legit the best feeling sunscreen i have EVER used. my friends who hate sunscreen like this one. there's also the beauty of joseon rice probiotic releif sun cream (24cad) which is very nice too!! not my fav but a lot of people swear by it for reapplying throughout the day, i would use the beauty of joseon matte sun stick (24cad). ive heard super good things but ihavent tried it cause im finishing my other sun stick rn lol

this is all fairly basic stuff since u said you were new to it, but i can also go thru some less necessary, more fancy products if you ever need.

as for makeup, my favourite brands are:

-flower knows -rom&nd (romand) -daisique -etude -lilybyred

and i've heard really good things about / want to try:

-colorgram -judydoll -flortte -amuse -clio -peripera -into you

ok sorry this is so long but um. lmk if you have any further questions but my arms hurt so im gonna stop typing now. MWAH love you

#skincare #ask #anon

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lucabyte · 6 months ago

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your stantler collection is really cool, i love funky little shrines to obscure characters. i always had some trouble finding arcanine and ninetales merch, since they're my favorites (always pikachus and starters and eeveelutions...) but it's nowhere near as bad as the Stantler Situation (tm)

thank you! I specifically chose stantler *because* i thought it would be harder (but not impossible) to find merch of, which is the joke to begin with. Like... I was thinking... what pokemon is early enough in the pokedex that the tail end of pokemania was *obligated* to include it.... but just is NOT an interesting enough pokemon (even in a bad way!) to like... foster any attention at all... and after looking at the gen 2 dex I settled on stantler. Brown. Normal type. Not even the best normal type odd-toed undulate of the pokedex... just so perfectly mediocre. full of missed potential. the perfect underdog.

Ninetales and Arcanine though are such good picks. There's some old japanese gen 1 era stuff i ran into that often would put all the pokemon of one type on the same like, sticker sheets and stuff... I wonder if any of those would be good to look for for those two...

My gen 1 picks are nidorino, meowth and exeggcute LMAO. So I at least get some repireve with meowth...

I get most of my stuff from just occasionally scouring 'newest' on ebay, and since I'm in europe it helps to look up the french and german names too. So that's a good tip I'd say if you're wanting to look further afield.

I've gotten one or two things from buyee since ON OCCASION it is cheaper to get things in bulk from yahoo! auctions japan even with the import fees.

As for import shops. Pokevault.com is genuinely reasonable AND gets all the cool stuff from japan. Big reccomend to them + they do give reasonably frequent discount codes if you sign up for an account?

but yeah I'm not a particularly seasoned collector but this was my lockdown hobby for a bit so I did sniff some stuff out. It also goes to show that you can never do something ironically for long before it becomes serious.

As a side note, all of my stantlers in game are named after various drinks, though with a specific 'ill advised' medicinal theme. Gin. Tonic Water. Quinine. Chloroquine. Gin & Milk. My Malaria Cure Animals.

also while i was digging for pokevaults name i found a nicer photo of the old collection pre-legends arceus before I had to rearrange my room and put my shelves elsewhere </3

#lucabytetalks #collecting advice i suppose!#my old setup was sooo nice visually but my bed was HELL!!! to get to in that room layout. this lets you see my gross textured wallpaper tho #stantler #pokemon #also rlly funny how both of my stantler shrine posts have had some fma merch just peeking in. hi guys

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anon-e-miss · 1 year ago

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Goth Thanksgiving one was a success.

Goth Chicken had a pomegranate and orange glaze with rosemary

Regular Chicken had a honey, raspberry balsamic reduction, with thyme and oil

Roasted vegetables were purple yams, Japanese sweet potato, yam, purple , white and orange carrots and beets with brown sugar, canola, raspberry reduction, cayenne and cinnamon.

Basic ass mashed potatoes

Pies are pumpkin with white chocolate skulls and peach and blueberry with cinnamon and allspice

Used my grandmother lard pie crust recipe.

Cocktail is gin, Cointreau, pomegranate, tonic and simple syrup.

Yes, your Miss can cook.

#goth thanksgiving

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talesofedo · 7 months ago

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(Hokusai - Hokusai Manga Vol. 12, Men eating Noodles)

I recently came across the paper "Ancient DNA analysis of food remains in human dental calculus from the Edo period, Japan" by Sawafuji et al. (2020).

Researchers extracted DNA from dental calculus - that's the white stuff that forms on your teeth over time (and is generally removed if you go in for cleanings) - to study what people in the mid- to late-Edo period ate. To do this, they sampled calculus from 13 bodies dating to the 18th and 19th Century: 7 women and 6 men who lived in the city of Edo.

They found that they were unable to identify any type of animal taxon in the samples, so we don't know which fish or meats, if any, were eaten by the sampled individuals. So, not helpful in that regard.

However, they were able to identify the following:

We already know (and the paper points this out as well) that the diet of Edo's townspeople primarily consisted of rice and vegetables, occasionally (or regularly, depending on your means) accompanied by various types of fish.

From the list above, we can then identify a few more of the ingredients these specific people ate: rice, as their main staple, but also soba or udon (made from wheat and barley). An assortment of different vegetables, such as carrots, chestnuts, shiso, and garlic chives. And tea, naturally.

Interestingly, the researchers also found some non-food items, specifically plant matter from the Cupressacea (cypress) family, borneol and tobacco.

Tobacco is perhaps self-explanatory: many people in Edo smoked (pipes, specifically), and it would be fair to say that this left some residue in their dental calculus.

Plant matter from the cypress family is more interesting. There are two types of trees native to Japan from that family, the Japanese cedar and the Japanese arborvitae, the kind of smallish conifer that grows all over Japan. This plant matter is most likely to get into peoples' mouths by using chopsticks and toothpicks made from those trees, but also by using the resin as a painkiller for toothaches.

And the borneol stands out because it comes from a tree called the Borneo camphor, which isn't native to Japan and also won't grow in Japan if you tried. Meaning that the borneol would have to be imported, which it had been for a few hundred years, from China.

People examined in this study most likely came into contact with borneol as a flavoring in tooth powder. Tooth powder at the time was primarily fine sand with added flavoring to, I suppose, improve the experience and set apart different "brands" sold in stores.

You can learn more about tooth powders, tooth brushes, and treating toothaches in the Edo period on the website of the Kanagawa Prefectural Dental Association (in English).

Additionally, borneol was used in many traditional kampo medicines in both Japan and China. I'm not very well versed in kampo medicines, but according to this website, it's used to aid the digestive system by stimulating the production of gastric juices, treat bronchitis, coughs and colds, relieves pain and reduces swelling, and can be taken as a tonic to promote relaxation.

#research #edo period #edo period food #edo period medicine #edo period tooth care

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gallows-into-oblivion · 1 year ago

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what the dragon age companions order at a London pub

inspired by @bogunicorn

in no particular order

Alistair drinks cask ale. He's annoying about it, too - if Doom Bar is off, he won't order anything until it's back on.

Morrigan drinks Woodford Reserve, neat. She won't drink any other whiskey. If, for some ungodly reason, the pub does not have any Woodford Reserve, she drinks cranberry juice because it looks vaguely like blood.

Cullen drinks basic lager that's essentially fermented piss. We're talking Peroni, we're talking Amstel. He's always very apologetic about his taste in beer.

Dorian drinks Bailey's, because it's sweet and milky and he likes that.

Sebastian drinks prosecco, because one of them had to, and he's a prince, ergo a fancy bitch.

Josephine drinks pornstar martinis and can drink everyone under the table.

Bull also drinks pornstar martinis and has tried (and failed) to drink Josephine under the table.

Zevran drinks gin and lemonade. Or vodka lemonade. He's not fussy.

Isabela drinks Guinness because she likes the taste, and tbh that's so valid of her.

Shale doesn't drink. She's the designated driver/person who gets everyone home.

Fenris drinks red wine because he can't seem to wrap his head around any other form of alcohol.

Aveline drinks lager shandies (a shandy is half lemonade, half beer).

Solas drinks Japanese whiskey on the rocks and acts superior to people who drink Scotch.

Vivienne drinks champagne. Not prosecco, the real thing.

Varric drinks IPAs. Usually a local one if the pub has it, but otherwise whatever's on tap. In that case, he prefers Beavertown Neck Oil.

Leliana drinks rum and coke, but never Malibu. She prefers dark rums, but if there aren't any of those on offer, she'll go for a spiced rum.

Oghren drinks cask ale, and isn't picky about which one. He's just happy to be here.

Sten drinks tap water with a single cube of ice.

Loghain drinks Hendricks and tonic. A lot of the time, the pub won't have cucumber slices for the garnish; he always complains about that.

Wynne drinks Aperol spritzes and always comments on how they "taste like summer."

Blackwall drinks alcohol free beer because he's sober but he hates feeling left out.

Merrill drinks mojitos and drinks almost everyone under the table.

Bethany Hawke drinks white wine spritzers.

Carver Hawke also drinks white wine spritzers.

Anders drinks cider and is upset if there isn't one on tap (there almost always is).

Cassandra drinks rose with ice.

Cole drinks a different thing every time. He's infinitely curious.

Sera drinks vodka soda, sometimes with lime, sometimes without.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age 2 #dragon age inquisition #dragon age companions #what the dragon age companions and advisors order at a london pub #dragon age advisors #az talks

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mila20wave · 6 days ago

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Nagano Tonic

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Simply mix one scoop of Nagano Tonic in a glass of water or into your favorite beverage every morning and enjoy.

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Picture yourself beaming with confidence, feeling comfortable in your own skin...

Imagine the sheer delight of strolling into any clothing store, effortlessly selecting stunning, tight-fitting clothes right off the rack...

#healthcare #agatha all along #health & fitness #weight loss #weight goals

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childotkw · 1 year ago

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If regulus was reincarnated into the Naruto verse, how much damage do you think he would do to the plot??

Hmm, I'd say it'd depend on which era he reincarnates in, the type of reincarnation we're talking (is he born into a ninja's body? is he in his own body? more dimension-hopping than reincarnation??) and if he keeps his magic or not? Naruto's universe has already got insane jutsu, so Regulus whipping out random spells wouldn't be completely out of place. At least at first.

He'd bamboozle most ninja though his obvious use of jutsu but no one can explain the shit he does at the same time because there's no surge of chakra to accompany any of his 'jutsu'.

Levitating shit? Surely it must be a wind jutsu of some kind but there's no breeze?

Teleporting?? Must be some variant of Tobirama's cheater jutsu (Madara's words), but it doesn't require any noticeable marker to move to?

Invading minds and skimming surface thoughts???? They're almost positive he's not a Yamanaka but blond hair is recessive so maybe one of his parents had dark hair??

Honestly, if he's in his original body, the only thing that they have over him is that he's not as physical as a ninja. He's slower, weaker, his reaction time is tiny, and his stamina is terrible compared to a ninja.

But he's not easy prey by any means.

This contradiction is interesting for whichever ninja stumbles across him because he moves like a soldier and can do things even jutsu struggle to emulate but only registers as a civilian to their senses.

For instance, let's say Regulus dies in the cave and wakes up in the forest utterly alone. He's got his wand and absolutely nothing else, but he's disorientated enough that he can't trust himself to apparate.

So he trots off, and eventually hits a tiny village - in Japan??? He thinks??? His Japanese is non-existent but he has enough strength for a translation spell that lets him communicate with a lovely elderly couple that take him in and help him recover.

His panic is slow churning but well-hidden when he eventually figures out that he is very much not where he should be. These people have no idea what England is, or what country they're in - they keep saying something like 'Land of Fire' and mention cities like 'Konoha' and Regulus is genuinely considering that this is a very vivid hallucination cooked up by his dying brain.

Still, he pushes on, recovering from his fatigue only to nearly have a heart attack when he's caught using magic to fix a broken plate. He's got one foot out the door when the old man, Aoi, just goes oh are you one of those ninja people? and Regulus is so confused that he just agrees without really understanding it.

Once he calms down enough, he slowly starts to put together the pieces and comes to the terrifying but somehow believable notion that he's in a different world.

And...well...he has no idea how to get back home. Doesn't really want to, in a way, because his life before had been dark and cruel and besides Kreacher he didn't really have anyone waiting for him. It hurts but Regulus has never been one to lie to himself.

So he lets himself mourn, spends some time coming to terms with his new reality, and then does what he always does - picks himself up and carries on.

He decides to make the most of this new place, first by repaying Aoi and his kind wife by repairing their home and (maybe) laying down some wards to keep them safe. He finds a new meaning in this simple life - helping around this little village, using magic-that-people-here-call-jutsu to help with the seasonal work, healing the sick and injured with improvised potions and tonics...

For the first time in his life, Regulus feels like he's making a positive difference. For the first time, he's using his magic to help people and he kind of loves it.

He doesn't mean to draw attention from Konoha, or to get involved in their politics. It's not his fault these annoying fucking ninja are crawling all over him like weevils, asking questions he's never going to answer. It's not his fault these assholes don't know when to take a hint, and it's not his fault that his short temper leads to him flattening some of them as a warning to stay out of his business.

Jokes on him though because that just makes these bastards more fascinated.

Regardless of the era, Regulus would completely derail things. It's just a matter of who he's unfortunately saddled with - the Founders, Kakashi's generation, or Naruto's.

Either way, he'd be beating curious ninja off with a stick.

#anonymous #HP #Naruto #regulus black #someone come save regulus from curious ninja #they all wanna know how he does jutsu without chakra #regulus just wants to live in peace but these assholes wont leave him alone

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ikonofilizm · 11 months ago

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11am japanese whisky and gin and tonic before a full breakfast. My uncle is trying to make new years a full day event

#txting

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drinkacefahz · 2 years ago

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“Dangerous drinks are fun, but you could get hurt.”

Life and Love | ABV: 33.64% | Yield: 3.30 fl oz | Whisky, Improved Whisky Cocktails, Dessert Drinks, Fandom Cocktails

Vash over the first 5 episodes of Trigun STAMPEDE, airing this season from studio Orange, goes through a lot, and I don’t think that’ll stop being the trend any time soon. You know what he deserves? A delicious, donut-themed whisky cocktail.

In a double old fashioned glass partially rimmed with red sugar crystals, add ice, then

2 fl oz or 60ml Whisky, See below

2 dashes preferred aromatic bitters

2 dashes preferred Cocoa bitters

.33 fl oz or 10ml Cacao Liqueur or Creme de Cacao

.33 fl oz or10ml Honey syrup

Stir. Serve as is or with a twist of lemon, which I decided to add a whimsical cheap bright red cherry to add to the red and dessert motifs and a sprig of mint to, a little plant-cue for our plant boy.

On selecting Whisky here: I use a local Wheat Whisky that inspired me because it specifically invoked doughtnuts on the side of the bottle. Absent this incredibly niche and limited product, my suggestions are, but not limited to:

Bourbon: Maker’s 46 or another wheater[though in the 1998 anime, Vash drinks Wild Turkey, which is a higher-rye bourbon. I leave this to your discretion. I tried it with Yellowstone bourbon, which has a fairly similar mashbill to WT. It was pretty decent!]

Other good options: an Irish whiskey with those shortbready notes, or Nikka Coffey Malt for a Japanese whisky.

Other ingredients: On Gunsmoke[or No Man’s Land] valuable ingredients like cacao would probably be preserved in alcohol, whether in bitters form or liqueur form. The lack of medical supplies also means that bitters may be used to ease minor ailments in some places, as tonic bitters were historically purported -- and marketed -- to do. In fact, even liqueurs like creme de cacao were originally produced seeking medicinal benefit! For sweetner, episode 24 of the 1998 anime shows Vash buying ‘honey donuts’, which makes sense -- they’ve got bugs for sure! ...Try not to think too hard about the state of bees in this biome while you’re drinking it...

This is a strong drink, so remember Vash’s words before S1E3 ‘Peacemaker’, and live -- and drink -- in a way that lets you value life.

“Those who make mistakes blame themselves and close their hearts. It's impossible to fix the mistake; men can't return to the past. That's why they drink. [... They do] nothing but drink, and question the glass after it's empty. "Am I wrong? Was I wrong?"’

#vash the stampede #trigun #anime cocktails #trigun stampede #improved whiskey cocktail #fandom cocktails #dessert cocktail #cocktail

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callofender · 2 years ago

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Small Talk - Favored Topics(?) of the Characters

Apparently, in addition to character Stats and Attributes (graph not made by me) there's a third "stat", that only effects.... how likely a character will join in or stop a Small Talk topic. Possibly. I'm not 100% sure, but let's use Setsu as an example:

Setsu

(Food, 0.79) "Oh yeah, I've got some rations - want some? They're military rations, so I can't promise they'll be tasty."

(Love, 0.37) "I don't have any romance stories to tell. But the feeling of wanting to open your heart to someone… I get that."

(Scary Stories, 0.3) "Ghost stories, huh? Hehe… This whole situation is basically a ghost story. Sorry, that was stupid. Forget I said it."

Their favored topic is Food, with a stat of 0.79, so they're more likely to join in if someone talks about Food. However, Love/Scary Stories are sorta low, meaning Setsu might shut those down more if they're the topic. Keep in mind though that this isn't 100% set in stone either, as these also work in tandem with the Attributes. It seems semi-accurate from my own game experiences, but I'd like to hear what others think. Full Crew under the cut:

Gina

(Food, 0.34) "Dumplings…?! Just now… Did someone say something about dumplings?"

(Scary Stories, 0.33) "A scary story… I'm afraid of… being alone, I guess."

(Love, 0.25) "Love… love. I… don't have anything to talk about…"

Gina's attributes are low across the board, but it sorta makes sense. Especially with the theme of Scary Stories and Love, where she seemingly has a hard time discussing about either. Also, somewhat unrelated, but the "Dumplings" here refer to Mitarashi Dango, at least based off the JP version of the text. Gina really loves Japanese food.

(Food, 0.83) "OMG food? I like, literally love food… I wish the Gnosia could like, just get rid of my fat… right?"

(Scary Stories, 0.08) "You know that black bottle in the cafeteria spice rack? Yeeaah, turns out it's actually like, hair tonic…?"

(Love, 0.006) "OMG you guys! Are we talking about like, love?! Um, yes please!"

Yes, SQ's "stat" for the Love topic is that low. She really loves food, but the other two topics she seems to not want to talk about. This seemed super strange to me initially, but then I remembered that SQ prefers to initiate way more than participate. I wonder if the low frequency for Scary Stories is dependent on how likely SQ would find out about the bottle (I doubt she would want to share her actual scary stories, either...) Also, SQ and Kukrushka's "stats" are the same, but you've probably noticed that Kukrushka shuts down Small Talk more, and that's due to the character attributes.

Raqio

(Love, 0.87) "The mental function of the mating instinct has long been understood. IS there something about it you don't understand?"

(Food, 0.68) "So, you're a foodie, are you? Supplements are sufficient for both essential nutrients and appetite control, aren't they?"

(Scary Stories, 0.51) "Recently, I feel as though someone is watching me in the shower. It's more creepy than scary, really."

Everyone's favorite Bird loves to talk. I wonder if Love is their preferred topic since they get to explain a topic, with Food being lower since it's implied they don't really eat food. Scary Stories makes sense to be the lowest since it's not really a "Logical" topic.

Stella

(Love, 0.85) "Yes… Everyone on this ship is so wonderful. Hehe, how embarrassing!"

(Scary Stories, 0.76) "Have you ever heard… singing on this ship? I sometimes hear it… from the empty cargo bay…"

(Food, 0.16) "Would you like me to bring some vegetables later? Hehe, I've been growing them in the lab. They're fresh!"

Shocker: D.Q.O.'s Straightest Woman Loves the Love Topic.

Jokes aside, another localization thing: I believe she says the ship is filled with wonderful men instead of saying everyone on the ship is wonderful. Food being low makes me wonder if it's either because she doesn't really eat either, or if maybe because the vegetables aren't always ready.

Shigemichi

(Food, 0.98) "Food, huh? I love me some good ol' food! Let's have LeVi order us up some munchies! I want an omelette!"

(Scary Stories, 0.59) "Ya know, recently, I have these little accidents… I think I'm done goin', but nope! It keeps tricklin' out!"

(Love, 0.29) "Ah, my stories of unrequited love… I could go on for days!"

Shigemichi has the second highest overall favored topic at 0.98, Food (though in JP, instead of an omelet, it's omurice). Love being low makes sense, since I imagine it's quite a sore spot for him. Poor Shiggy.

Chipie

(Food, 0.83) "Food, eh? Want me to whip somethin' up? I'm actually a pretty good cook."

(Scary Stories, 0.65) "Nothin' is scarier than a big mob of humans, ya know?"

(Love, 0.17) "For me, well, she's got this beautiful black hair... Haha, I guess I'll never see her again, but still..."

I love that Chipie's highest is his offer to make food, followed by his own fear of people. Wish i had a bigger brain to explain why Chipie's my second favorite character with little moments like this.

Love being lowest also makes sense, since it seems like a personal story Chipie would rather not talk about too much.

Comet

(Love, 0.87) "Huh? Whose baby would I wanna have? C'mon, I can't talk about that in front of everyone!"

(Scary Stories, 0.36) "A scary story from back home? How about the armbug? When they bite you, you grow an extra arm from that spot."

(Food, 0.02) "You know, there's no food from back home on this ship. They said all the ingredients and spices and stuff were illegal."

Man. I don't feel like talking about the highest one so I won't. Anyways, Food being her sore subject makes sense, given that she can't eat her own home cuisine. She also doesn't really talk about her home planet that much either, so I can understand why Scary Stories is kinda low.

Jonas

(Love, 0.73) "Should the opportunity present itself, I, too, may fall in love. Like, immediately…"

(Scary Stories, 0.18) "In the synthetic plant lab, I laid eyes upon it… A plant, combined with glistening, white flesh… In shape, it was almost… human…"

(Food, 0.04) "The discovery of new cuisine trumps that of a new star… I mean, you can't munch on a star, so… yeah."

Jonas Letting the Crew Members he is Down To Fuck. Honestly I'm not really that good at analyzing Jonas so I don't have much to comment about...

Kukrushka

(Food, 0.83) "(Somehow, you can picture the food Kukrushka is imagining. It's… borscht, definitely borscht.)"

(Scary Stories, 0.08) "(Kukrushka seems frightened. She seems to dislike scary stories.)"

(Love, 0.006) "(You can feel love in Kukrushka's eyes. However, you can't tell towards whom it is felt…)"

Some things never change, huh?

Otome

(Love, 0.99) "Um, we're talking about people we like? I'd… really like to see the professor who created me again…"

(Scary Stories, 0.79) "When I request food, LeVi always suggests mammal steak… That's… kind of creepy to me…"

(Food, 0.78) "Food… I really want to eat some raw fish…"

The crown for the highest preferences overall goes to Otome, who not only has a 0.99 preference for love, the other two topics are still pretty high. Otome just wants to talk to others! I do also wonder if love is so high because she misses her professor, or maybe she likes the topic in love in general?

Sha-Ming

(Love, 0.9) "Anybody wanna profess their love for me? Go for it! No, really… Anybody? I'm open to any takers…"

(Scary Stories, 0.73) "You guys ever heard of the face pox? Tiny faces, popping up all over you. It's a real thing, seriously. I got them on my belly. I'll show ya if you wanna see…"

(Food, 0.44) "Ya know, the food on this ship is like, too healthy. I wanna eat something BAD for me for once! Some chili cheese fries or something!"

Shocker: D.Q.O.'s Straightest Man Loves the Love Topic.

Another localization thing: His Scary Stories line is supposed to be him flirting, as he notes that he'll show you if you want to see it... in bed. So Scary Stories being high sorta also makes sense.

Remnan

(Food, 0.6) "The cooking plant here is just… amazing. I mean, it just spits out edible foods!"

(Scary Stories, 0.58) "People who take pleasure… in seeing others' pain… Are… are there really people like that out there? That… that scares me…!"

(Love, 0.18) "I, uh, I wonder… Love… without any dirty ulterior motives… Does it… really exist…?"

Food being Remnan's highest makes sense, considering the other two lines, but I'm sorta surprised to see his Scary Stories line be sorta high. I wonder if he wants to warn the other crew members about those sort of people existing...?

Yuriko

(Scary Stories, 0.26) "Do you know of the cursed pig-people of the Shia-Meng system? They spend their entire lives counting their own fingers…"

(Love, 0.18) "I am a miko, a shrine maiden. I have been defiled by none. However, I know more about fun and pleasure than all of you combined."

(Food, 0.14) "I wonder which of us will become tonight's dinner?"

And we finish it off with Yuriko, the only character who has Scary Stories as her preferred topic. Aside from SQ's/Kukrushka astronomically low Love/Scary Stories preference, Yuriko takes the cake for not wanting to participate in Small Talk. I do find her Scary Story line the most interesting, but only because I wonder if there's any sort of reference or maybe represents a fear of her own?

That's all i have, though people are free to reblog and add their own thoughts/opinions!

#gnosia #prin text post

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