#also the classic “this title must NOT be phrased as a question!!”

[dravidious]

I really do appreciate the idea behind DeArrow but I really wish it had a block button because some of these people should not be writing titles. Like,

Is it really that bad to phrase a title as a question?

Putting more details in the title doesn't actually improve it

Jesus fucking christ your hyper-descriptive title doesn't even FIT!!

[tmamcufnafandutareonmymind]

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE THEORY

I THINK I KNOW WHO THE OPERA WOMAN IS!!!!!!!!

so if you haven't listened to mama, or if you haven't seen the trailer titled "opera" then i suggest going and doing that first, because these will be the center of my theory, however i am going to paste images of what im talking about here, so you can get away without it.

the facts

now mama by my chem is about a soldier with a strained relationship with his mother and trying to apologize before he dies, we can glean this from these particular lines

and of course the mother feels the same way

and this line is specifically delivered with a classical singing style, you know what's a classical singing style

opera.

and this woman

looked like she was going to sing opera to the men in front of her, and her mouth made the movement, but instead we hear a distorted semi terrifying scream instead.

we also know that this city got destroyed in a war, but the question is a war with who?

now i specifically want to draw attention to the phrase "starved to death in a land of plenty"

in the words of MoonBoots4600 on reddit "Its actually a direct copy of a banner carried in the 1931 Unemployed March when families were dying despite being in the "land of the free""

(original banner)

the new tour trailer have imagery reminiscent of fascism, if this fascist government was limiting people rights, and causing the death and starvation of civilians, there would be an uprising? would there not. so i prepouse this.

the theory

i believe that the mother of the narrator in mama is actually the opera woman. the opera woman works for the government, and the son is apart of the rebellion. when the son dies this affect the rebellion strongly, and the mother must report this to the men seen in the video. the screaming is a metaphor for her grief as she tell the government what has happened, despite her neutral expression, she is angered for her son has died.

(i normally don't ask for reblogs but on this i am begging, i need people to see this and give me some second opinions. please reblog)

[eightmandibles]

Mawaru Penguindrum Phrases Breakdown

I've written a big long post breaking down some of the repeated phrases of the show Mawaru Penguindrum because rewatching it a year ago gave me brainrot. Hope those who r interested enjoy.

Alright this has been occupying my brain for so long it should've started paying rent so I've decided to finally write it all up. Some of these are my own thoughts, but a lot of these are pieces of interpretations that are floating out there on the web. I just didn’t find any one place that compiles them all and puts them together.

Mawaru Penguindrum is the first Ikuhara show I ever watched and something about it really changed my brain forever even though I didn’t really understand what I was watching the first time through (because I was in middle school). I love its surreality and the density of its visual metaphors that all feed into each other has me like an insane person complete with a red string conspiracy board (that will be a section later). It’s show that challenges the viewers to piece together concepts and leaves questions for them to answer on their own, some intended and some probably not as much. I admire the ambition and the commitment to exist in a space that's between trite judgements of black and white, good and evil, and to trust the viewer to really engage with the work.

In this blog post I’m going to break down some of the major catchphrases of the show because they exemplify how the visual/thematic density rewards viewers who spend the time to really engage with the material. It also personally fascinates me as someone who enjoys these puzzle box-type themes and narratives that have the answers staring you right in the face from the beginning, but you just didn’t have the tools to understand what you were being cryptically told.

MAWARU PENGUINDRUM

We gotta start from the beginning and break down the title first of course.

MAWARU: spinning, turning, rotating - which brings themes like revolution and cycles to mind

It’s probably also nod to Revolutionary Girl Utena (though both shows share a lot of themes in examining and trying to challenge or examine societal norms, structures, and cycles).

PENGUINDRUM:

First layer of understanding: the physical diary that the Kanba and Shoma must find (actually it’d be more accurate the say the first layer is just being like “this is a nonsense word” but I digress)

Let’s do another layer of breakdowns -

PENGUIN: Flightless birds that belong neither to the land or the sea - chosen to represent the idea of the “unchosen.” Those in Antarctica need to rely on their community to survive in their harsh environment, huddling and rotating (mawaru…) to keep everyone warm.

There’s a common rumor out there that Ikuhara said penguins were also chosen because it sounds like “pingguo” which is apple in Chinese. Honestly I believe it because he seems to be the kind of person to say stuff like that, but also I’ve never found a source on this.

DRUM: An instrument that keeps a steady beat…like a heartbeat…badum tss. The apple in the show always being red reinforces this association.

Second layer of understanding: When the diary is lost, what the “penguindrum” is exactly becomes more nebulous and we start operating in a metaphor-as-reality world. In terms of visual representation in the show, the “penguindrum” is the “apple” the siblings have been sharing among themselves.

The Penguindrum being represented by an apple means there’s a lot of associations tied into its image. In the show, apples are a visual metaphor for being "chosen". Classically, apples are also the fruit of original sin (like fate…not to jump ahead but remember this for later) - which ties into the concept of “punishment” that Himari's fate is framed as.

Because of the breakdown from earlier (and also all the chest puncturing imagery in the show lol), we can also understand the Penguindrum to be associated with the heart - often in turn associated with love, which is a very loaded concept to dig through, especially as presented in the show (romantic, platonic, and/or familial connections; sacrifice, community, etc.)

Taking these all together, a third layer of interpretation is that Mawaru Penguindrum refers to the cycle (Mawaru) of sharing bonds/fate/connection/love (Penguindrum) between the show’s characters.

SURVIVAL STRATEGY

This phrase is what signals the Princess of the Crystal's presence and initiates the transformation sequence that takes the brothers into a surreal world.

The common reading of this is again the reference of penguins needing to huddle together to survive the cold of Antarctica. They rotate who bears the cold wind of the outside circle in order for the whole flock to survive. Basically, we need the help and support of each other to survive the cold winds of an uncaring society.

While thinking on this phrase, I was struck by how every character’s drive in the show can be explained as “survival strategies” they learned as children. Perhaps it’s a bit of a stretch to apply it in the way this phrase is used in psychology, but I do think it at least refers to the ideology characters take on as children due to their traumatic childhood events or from flawed role models.

Ringo’s “survival strategy” is the most explicitly stated in the show: in episode 6, she believes her parents are on the verge of divorce because she is not Momoka - therefore to keep her family together she resolves to become Momoka. 

The origin of Kanba and Himari’s core approaches to life appear in the flashbacks of episodes 5 and 9 respectively. The Takakura parents each protect the two adopted children from injury by glass, a nod to their original unchosen fate. In doing so, they’re set up as the direct masculine and feminine role models that the two children learn from and model themselves on. I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that the lessons they internalize are strictly “wrong,” because I don’t think Penguindrum is interested in discussing characters like that, but they definitely are flawed.

Shoma deals with guilt from his family’s “sin” and grapples with the idea of taking responsibility for his parents’ actions.

Tabuki and Yuri still believe themselves to be “unloved children” and that’s why they keep pursuing Momoka or seeking revenge for her. They struggle to believe there’s a place in the world for them without their savior there.

Masako is a pretty clear one as well - she internalizes her grandfather’s habits and beliefs in order to try and fit in, even if it never earned her any respect in his eyes.

The childhood of the characters in the show informed how they viewed the society they grew up in, and what they needed to do or become in order to survive.

YOU WHO WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING, FIND THE PENGUINDRUM

Honestly I’m obsessed with the phrases that first sound like absolute nonsense, but cool absolute nonsense. This is the phrase that made me want to write this blog post in the first place.

The phrase is the call-to-action by the mysterious Princess of the Crystal. On first viewing, we can interpret so little of this sentence it’s really just a tool to sound cool and give us a snapshot of the Princess of the Crystal’s personality - haughty, cryptic, and generally unhelpful. It gives Kanba and Shoma a goal, even though neither us nor them understand what the hell it is.

YOU WHO WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING

As the show goes on, the themes and concepts around being a chosen or unchosen child arise. Those who are unchosen and unloved go to the Child Broiler to be turned into glass. This is semi-metaphorical and semi-literal (diegetic might be an appropriate word in a weird way) - metaphorically it can be interpreted as becoming a forgettable, blandly molded member of society, though being processed is acknowledged more like death in the show. In some ways that’s still accurate.

Each of the siblings started without an apple, literally-metaphorically starving of love and unchosen - originally they were fated to never amount to anything.

FIND THE PENGUINDRUM

Obviously this initially refers to the diary in the show, but as we broke down earlier PENGUINDRUM eventually takes on a more loaded meaning akin to love, bond, and connection.

So over the course of watching the show, the phrase transforms from a one-sided order and condemnation to a call to action. Put all together with a little more elaboration: You who were unchosen and unloved from the beginning, in order to survive in this harsh world you must find love and connection with people to share your life with, through good and bad.

I COME FROM THE DESTINATION OF YOUR FATE

Time to bust out the conspiracy red string board, literally-metaphorically.

The Red Line is the literal, metaphorical, and thematic spine of the show. There are two big starting categories for viewing The Red Line in the show, which then mix together to create new meanings as the show references it through imagery and dialogue.

First up, the Red Line refers to an actual train line that the entire show takes place upon, the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi line. The entire show is structured around the train line which starts with the Ogikubo Station and ends at Ikebukuro, with important locations being linked with the actual train stops. It was one of the train lines attacked in real life as part of the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 which the Pingu group’s terrorist attack in the show is a very transparent reference to. This single point in time in 1995 is the origin of almost everything in Mawaru Penguindrum, and in fact almost half the cast is born on the exact day the Pingu group attacks, just to emphasize how closely their fates are tied to the attack.

Second, the Red Line can be seen as a representation of fate, as in the red string of fate. Fate and destiny are concepts brought up over and over again, with Shoma and Ringo having their own monologues about it in the first two episodes (and Kanba having his much later). The visualization of the red string of fate can also be seen in the ending animations.

Somewhere in between is the Red Line as the metaphor of a train to visualize fate. Fate is something that can’t be changed - just like how trains run on fixed tracks with fixed destinations. Of course this is challenged in the show - Momoka even uses the metaphor of changing train tracks to explain her ability.

Now, fate has its own set of associations, such as: destiny, love, connection, bond (hmm familiar), as well as superstitions like fated meetings, fated demises, divine determination.

These can start branching off into concepts like blessings, sins, retribution, and karma (cue the Fate monologues again). And now we start getting back into the idea of cycles: downward spirals of getting what one deserves for their actions, passing on one’s sins to those after you - or virtuous cycles of doing good deeds and passing love and care forward.

Often in discussions of fate, familiar questions arise. Does the beginning determine the end? Is the end fated from the beginning? And so the Red Line becomes the Red Circle, another visual device seen throughout the show. It’s all over the motion graphics of the show and appears around the train stations as well as around ‘95’, referencing the originating incident of it all - the beginning of the Takakura family that determined their end.

What I love about this use of the Red Line is that however you progress your understanding of the its importance to the show, it all helps you further understand any concept Mawaru Penguindrum is discussing. This coherence and repetition of visual metaphors is what allows the show to feel more texturally and thematically cohesive even when it starts getting loose in a plot sense.

(Going back to the initial phrase, I COME FROM THE DESTINATION OF YOUR FATE is said by the Princess of the Crystal in her introduction monologue. It likely lampshades the predetermined ending that the Takakura brothers are so desperately trying to avoid. But also, there is a much funnier, much more literal interpretation I enjoy - Ikebukuro, the last stop on the train line, is where the aquarium the siblings visit is. It’s also where the brothers bought the novelty penguin hat for Himari. So the Princess of the Crystal literally came from the destination (last stop) of your fate (the red line)!)

LET’S SHARE THE FRUIT OF FATE

This turns out to be the secret key phrase needed to activate the diary in order to change the tracks of fate, which Ringo uses at the end of the show in order to prevent another train attack from succeeding.

It’s probably not too hard to piece together what the fruit of fate is after all of this. In a sense, this phrase is just a repeat of Mawaru Penguindrum, just as an actual sentence with a bit more coherence.

I’ll bear your burdens and you’ll bear mine, and in doing so, let us forever be connected.

Wow, finally expunged these thoughts from my brain. Maybe somewhere in me there's still something left for a discussion on how the show uses repeated imagery and visual metaphor to communicate information and associations to the viewer that are vital to actually understanding what's going on because it's a narrative that half exists a non-literal thematic space but for now:

Thanks for reading!

[1001albumsrated]

#10: Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners (1957)

Genre(s): Jazz, Hard Bop

"A singular voice" is one of the most over-abused phrases in music writing, with music critics mostly throwing it around when they either can't find anything more specific to say about an artist or want to take a positive stance on something they don't really like. Often what they really mean by "singular" is "weird", or maybe just plain "bad". Thelonious Monk, however, truly is a singular voice. No one plays like him, and no one writes like him. His compositions were dense and challenge harmonic sensibilities, while also being highly musical and highly memorable (in fact, he's written an enormous number of songs that became jazz standards, and is the second-most-recorded jazz composer of all time, behind the legendary Duke Ellington in 1st). His playstyle is full of erratic, lilting rhythms and leftfield harmonic and melodic choices. And yet, it's highly listenable. No one would ever accuse Monk of being free jazz, or even particularly out. He's just Monk, in a way that no one ever was before and no one ever will be after.

I think the real question here isn't whether a Monk album should be included in 1001 Albums, but *which* Monk album should be included. I can't be too mad at Brilliant Corners as a selection: 4/5 tracks are originals, and all 4 of those would become staples of his shows and albums (and all but Bemsha Swing were first recorded on Brilliant Corners). That being said, none of the tracks on Brilliant Corners are my favorite version of any given tune. The album is stitched together from multiple sessions with different bands, all of whom notoriously struggled to play the tunes (the title track in particular was so tough that they eventually gave up and did a supertake cut together from 4 hours of failed takes). I think stronger, more lively performances can be found on many of Monk's later recordings from the 60s (Live in Tokyo is a personal favorite, albeit hard to find). But, Brilliant Corners is still a great listen, and I think it makes sense to pick from the perspective that it's the origin of a number of classic Monk originals.

So MUST you hear Brilliant Corners before you die? Absolutely. My only complaint is that you could easily include a couple other Monk albums in the list, and probably should, both on account of the high aesthetic value of the recordings and on account of his enormous contributions to the greater jazz songbook. But if you have to pick just one, this is a reasonable one to pick.

For the nerds: I listened to his in hi-res on Qobuz. I was surprised to see that I don't own a copy of it. I've got a whole lot of Monk, but I guess I've never ran across this one in the right place at the right time. I'll grab it one of these days.

Also, if you're wondering why we just bounced from '58 in the last post back to '57, I believe the authors are sequencing by recording date rather than release date.

Next up: Palo Congo, by Sabú Martínez (or, as credited on the album, simply Sabú). This is the first album on the list to completely blindside me, so tune in for the first true first reaction of the series!

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[oldguy56-world]

All You Need is Love

Ah, Valentine’s Day and love is in the air. (Based on the temperature during our walk this morning love is cold. Very cold) This is the perfect day to look at the Beatle’s classic song but it does raise two questions. 

1) How do you define love?

2) Is it all you really need?

I will begin with a story of a friend who was in search of the perfect woman. How did he define perfect? He wanted to find a woman who was born on February 14th, and ask her out for her birthday. Then after dating for a couple of years he would propose saying the perfect date to get married would be...February 14th. He felt this would be romantic. What he really had in mind was having all the important dates (Birthday, first date, anniversary and of course Valentine’s Day) all coincide. It would be a trifecta plus one. (Fourfecta?) This would eliminate having to remember a bunch of dates and also he would only have to buy one gift. Needless to say none of this worked in his favor. He forgets everything and laments what could have been.

Back to the theme of this blog. Is love all you really need. Let’s explore.

1) Early cavemen and women were loving it up big time but after they started dropping like wooly mammoth turds they realized they needed food. 

2) Now they had food and love, and that was all they needed, until winter came and cavemen began getting frostbite in a delicate place and that wasn’t good. Voila, the loincloth was invented and all was good for a while.

3) The elements kept acting up so they sought shelter. They moved into caves. Do you know who loves caves? Bears. This living arrangement did not go well so they moved out.

4) They still needed to stay warm. Luckily for them Grok the Slow was struck by lightning and burst into flames. Some noticed the warming effect the flames produced. Others observed that Grok suddenly smelled very tasty. This was the invention of the phrase ‘two birds with one stone’ as cavemen now had fire and the discovery of bbq’d meat. This was the start of a millennia long love affair between man and his meat. (This somehow sounds wrong but I hate deleting things when I am on a roll)

5) BBQ became a staple of living but something was missing. It took several thousand years before someone in Europe discovered how tasty hops could be and now people had something to wash down the bbq.

So now we have established we need more than love but what is love? The word is used a lot. People love their cell phones. They love shopping. They love that new song Adele just put out. To me Love, true love, is something that is reciprocated.

- Your grill will never love you. Get over it.

- Your iPhone will never love you even though you get messages from people claiming that they do. Just send money or respond to their texts.

- Does your dog really love you or is it just the fact you feed him and pick up his poop that keeps him pretending.

- You love Adele’s latest song, but didn’t you love her last one as well? That is fickle you two-timing b#%$*@.

There should be an asterisk behind this Beatle’s title. All you need is love except to eat, breathe, and stay warm.  Have those three then you can love away.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Love must go both ways to be everlasting love. Many songs are about how someone loves someone else. While that is only halfway there it is still a start. Find the right person to complete the equation. I did. 

[minjungfmd]

famed base magazine / interview

question and answers  warnings / none

1. what one word or phrase would you use to describe your 2021?

“van gogh-esque.”

2. how have you and your group grown this year?

“we’ve scaled back on our promotions, but not entirely as fans predict. three to two doesn’t make that much of a difference, you see. we’re seven years in, and well beyond our rookie years — we’re veterans of some sorts or at least that’s how our juniors have addressed us. we’re mature doing bubble gum pink, showing age really doesn’t have that many limitations. suppose another year in the books would also make us closer, wouldn’t it?”

3. what has been your must-have fashion item recently?

“my must have fashion item... i’d say, my dior saddle bag. but that’s kind of too many times said and done. so, i’ll have to go with my vegan biker shorts. biker shorts have been coming around in circles lately, but the vegan leather is becoming a new trend — add in the change of blacks to browns, and you’ll have yourself a stunning fall. stray away from the black and white coloration and add some muted colors, that’s my big advice.”

4. how would you describe the concept of your solo pictorial and how you came up with it? what were your thoughts about it and during it?

“there’s a night crawler in everyone, i’d like to say. usually, people assume the night is when the real self comes out — i took a twist, and said the night is when the persona comes out. it’s a mixture of parts evil, parts coy. the coloration is reminiscent of japan’s city pop — hence why we traveled out to tokyo to do the shoot. i’ve been a fan of city pop, not so much the vibrant pinks and purples. but even if that trend has past, there’s always a resurgence waiting in the future. similarly, the persona changes from time to time, hence how the inspiration spawned. it was fun to visit japan again, and play into the tunes of city pop — that’s a concept equinox hasn’t done, and it was fun for me to live out the fantasies pretending like it was a teaser for something in the future.”

5. talk about your exclusive x base stage performance.

“it was fun — that’s the day time, when the true persona does come out. i got to bring along friends who aren’t that well known, but talented. jam and have fun as if it weren’t a job, but more so just a group of friends seeing each other for the first time in a long time. i got to bring elements that were important to me from my artwork, to my dingy guitar, and my pretty pug pickle. i’d say, it’s true to me, and where i felt like home.”

6. what are you most interested in these days?

“these days — i’m less about art, less sketching less painting. i blame time constraints, but also a new fascination in learning the guitar, and writing more songs. i don’t know why, but the thing about inspiration is that you have to seize it when you can or else it’ll dwindle at your fingertips — so, i’d say make the most out of it, and i have no regrets.”

7. what is something you want to do in the future?

“i’ll be corny. i want to fly to space via space x — maybe someday, space x will sponsor me.”

8. if you could describe yourself as a color, what would it be?

“i say it all the time — gray. but if i’m supposed to become a bit more creative, and love colors, i’d say an olive green. i like the muted earthy tones that doesn’t scream a field of flowers — there’s something mysterious about it, but almost an eerie gentleness. i think that’s why olive green is magical.”

9. what is your favorite concept equinox has done?

“is it vain of me to say psycho? it’s the first title track that i’ve partaken in — the eerie concept there with the classical victorian gothic themes are something we haven’t touched on. the song itself, in my opinion, is a taste of art that evokes a chilling feeling despite how many times you listen to it. it’s timeless, and i’ll make my cake and eat it too.”

10. how does it feel for the public have seen you evolve over the years?

“weird — nobody expects to stand under a microscope as they go through puberty. neither do you expect anyone to remember the embarrassing moments you’ve done in years past. it’s humbling, it’s awkward. it’s irony like the truman show —  still, i can’t change the past and i’m glad that i’m still evolving. so, keep on watching me now.”

[ivy-kissobryos]

Charon, the Lord of Death

According to Britannica:

In Etruscan mythology [Charon] was known as Charun and appeared as a death demon, armed with a hammer. Eventually he came to be regarded as the image of death and of the world below. As such he survives in Charos, or Charontas, the angel of death in modern Greek folklore.

This is further explored in Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion: a study in survivals by John Cuthbert Lawson. According to Lawson:

There is no ancient deity whose name is so frequently on the lips of the modern peasant as that of Charon. About Charos the peasants will always, according to my experience, converse freely. Neither superstitious awe nor fear of ridicule imposes any restraint. They feel perhaps that the existence of Charos is one of the stern facts which men must face; and even the more educated classes retain sometimes, I think, an instinctive fear of making light of his name, lest he should assert his reality. For Charos is Death. He is not now, what classical literature would have him to be, merely the ferryman of the Styx. He is the god of death and of the lower world.

Lawson then goes on to describe how the importance of Charos has been elevated, for ‘Hades is no longer a person but a place, the realm over which Charos rules’. The author then goes into details surrounding Charos’ family.

On his physical depiction:

Sometimes he is depicted as an old man, tall and spare, white of hair and harsh of feature; but more often he is a lusty warrior, with locks of raven-black or gleaming gold [...] ‘his glance is as lightning and his face as fire, his shoulders are like twin mountains and his head like a tower’. His raiment is usually black as befits the lord of death, but anon it is depicted bright as his sunlit hair, for though he brings death he is a god and glorious.

On his functions, Lawson states:

His functions are clearly defined. He visits this upper world to carry off those whose allotted time has run, and guards them in the lower world as in a prison whose keys they vainly essay to steal and to escape therefrom. But the spirit in which he performs those duties varies according as he is conceived to be a free agent responsible to none or merely a minister of the supreme God. Which of these is the true conception is a question to which the common-folk as a whole have given no final answer; and the character of Charos consequently depends upon the view locally preferred.

The depiction of Charos has also been influenced by Christianity.

Those who regard him as simply the servant and messenger of God, find no difficulty in accommodating him to his Christian surroundings; for, as I have said, the peasant does not distinguish between the Christian and the pagan elements in his faith which together make his polytheism so luxuriant. We have already seen Charos' name with the prefix of ‘saint’; and though this Christian title is not often accorded him, yet his name appears commonly on tomb-stones in Christian churchyards. At Leonidi, on the east coast of the Peloponnese, I noted the couplet: 'Me too Charos pitied not but took, even me the fondly-cherished flower of my home.'

So too in popular story and song he is represented as working in concord with the Angels and Archangels, to whom sometimes falls the task of carrying children to his realm-. Indeed one of the archangels, Michael, who as we saw above has ousted Hermes, the escorter of souls, and assumed his functions, is charged with exactly the same duties as Charos in the conveyance of men's souls to the nether world, so that in popular parlance the phrases ‘he is wrestling with Charos’ and 'he is struggling with an angel' are both alike used of a man in his death-agony.

The author goes on to describe how the Christianized conception of Charon has made him appear kinder, as evidenced by many folk tales where it is shown that:

‘The duties imposed upon him by the will of God are sometimes repugnant to him, and he would willingly spare those whom he is sent to slay’

Some folk tales are then described. Also:

‘Sometimes then the doomed man will seek to tempt Charos with meat and drink, that he may grant a few hours' delay, but against offers of hospitality he is obdurate. Or again his victim refuses to yield to death 'without weakness or sickness' and challenges him to a trial of athletic skill, in wrestling or leaping, whereon each shall stake his own soul. And to this Charos sometimes gives consent, for he knows that he will.

In contrast...

The other and more pagan conception of Charos excludes all traits of kindness and mercy; and men do not stint the expression of their hatred of him. He is 'black,' 'bitter,' 'hateful’. He is the merciless potentate of the nether world, independent of the God of heaven, equally powerful in his own domain, but more terrible, more inexorable: for his work is death and his abode is Hades. Thence he issues forth at will, as a hunter to the chase. ‘Against the wounds that Charos deals herbs avail not, physicians give no cure, nor saints protection’ [...] But most commonly he is the warrior preeminent in all manner of prowess—archer, wrestler, horseman.

Charos is sometimes depicted to be collecting souls to adorn his kingdom. Examples being:

[...] he gathers children from the earth to be the flowers of it and young men to be its tall slim cypresses; more rarely he is a vintager, and tramples men in his vat that their blood may be his red wine, or again he carries a sickle and reaps a human harvest.

It became evident that ‘Charos of modern Greece would seem to have little in common with the Charon of ancient Greece’. Fauriel believes that ‘the usual tendencies of tradition have been reversed, in that it is the name that has survived, while the attributes have been changed’. However, Lawson disagrees. He states that:

I suspect that in ancient times the literary presentation of Charon was far more circumscribed than the popular, and that out of a profusion of imaginative portraitures as varied as those seen in the folk-songs of to-day one aspect of Charon became accepted among educated men as the correct and fashionable presentment. Hades was, in literature, the despot of the lower world, and for Charon no place could be found save that of ferryman. But this, I think, was only one out of the many guises in which the ancient Charon was figured by popular imagination; for at the present day the remnants of such a conception are small, in spite of the fact that there has remained a custom which should have kept it alive—the custom of putting a coin in the mouth of the dead.

In Alcestis, a play written by Euripides, Death seemed to have taken on the role of Charon, to the point where ‘the copyist of one of the extant manuscripts of the Alcestis was so impressed with the likeness of Death to Charon as he knew him, that he altered the name of the dramatis persona accordingly’. The conception of Charon as a Lord of Death occurs even further back than that though.

On the Etruscan Charun:

Hesychius states that the title [greek word] was shared by two gods, Charon and Uranus. Charon therefore, as son of Acmon and brother of Uranus, is earlier by two long generations of gods than Zeus himself, and belongs to the old Pelasgian order of deities. Was Charon then the god of death among the old Pelasgian population of Greece, before ever the name of Hades or Pluto had been invented or imported? Yes, if the corroboration from another Pelasgian source, the Etruscans, is to count for anything. On an Etruscan monument figures the god of death with the inscription 'Charun'; and the same person is frequently depicted on urns, sarcophagi, and vases [...] In appearance he is most often an old bearded man (though a more youthful type is also known) bearing an axe or mallet, and more rarely a sword as well, wherewith he pursues men and slays them. In effect the Etruscan Charun closely corresponds with the modern Greek Charos in functions as well as in name.

In classical times the primitive conception of Charon was in abeyance. Hades had assumed the reins of government in the nether world; and a literary legend, which confined Charon to the work of ferryman, had gained vogue and supplanted or rather temporarily suppressed the older conception. But this version, it appears, never gained complete mastery of the popular imagination, and to the common-folk of Greece from the Pelasgian era down to this day Charon has ever been more warrior than ferryman, and his equipment an axe or sword or bow rather than a pair of sculls. More is to be learnt of the real Charon of antiquity from modern folk-lore than from all the allusions of classical literature.

[passionate-reply]

Great Albums is back! This week, we’ll take a look at one of the greatest electronic albums of all time, Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine, and try to avoid getting sued by Ralf Huetter! Full transcript for the video can be found below the break. Enjoy!

Growing up, my main genre of choice was 80s synth-pop, and while the deep influence of Kraftwerk is as significant there as it is everywhere else in electronic music, I was one of those people who initially saw them as somewhat "intimidating." Today, moreso than ever, Kraftwerk are held up as one of those more high-brow or cerebral groups with a philosophy that transcends mere pop or dance music, which makes them seem respectable, a kind of “model minority” in the world of music outside rock. While I don’t buy into the judgmental quality of that sort of praise, which damns so many of Kraftwerk’s greatest fans and imitators, I did get the sense, as a child, that these hoity-toity Germans, working with primitive equipment way back in the 1970s, might not be what I was looking for in a new favourite band. That was before I heard The Man-Machine.

While it’s certainly true that Kraftwerk were a highly experimental band in their own time, they’re one of those acts whose ideas have deeply permeated contemporary music, to the point where their actual work is extremely approachable and listenable to today’s ears. Of all the fairly early electronic acts, who started making this kind of music before it began to become mainstream in the late 70s, Kraftwerk are almost certainly the ones people nowadays listen to for pleasure the most, and that’s no accident. While their earlier albums like Trans-Europe Express took more overt inspiration from classical music, The Man-Machine was their first great foray into the arena of pop, which I think is key to why it resonates with people. For evidence of that, look no further than the biggest mainstream hit of Kraftwerk’s career, “The Model.”

I think it’s easy to see why “The Model'' became a hit single. Sure, it may not have the most traditional pop song structure, let alone instrumentation, but unlike a lot of what Kraftwerk had done before, it’s got a lot of lyrics and a real sense of narrative. Plus, that narrative we get is about a person and not a machine--a good-looking person, in whom the narrator is sexually interested. It’s the perfect pop material. Of course, I would be remiss to mention that “The Model” didn’t achieve all of its success until the single was re-released in many markets in 1981, and in those few years, the idea of “synth-pop” advanced significantly in the charts and popular consciousness. By the time “The Model” was a hit, Kraftwerk admirers were already taking over: look no further than Gary Numan’s "Cars” or OMD’s "Enola Gay,” two synth-pop classics that, it must be said, are still about vehicles!

That aside, though, not everything on The Man-Machine sounds like “The Model”--in fact, it’s surrounded by tracks that have much more in common with Kraftwerk’s earlier LPs. Literally surrounded, in the track listing. I think that adds to this album’s appeal as an ideal entry point into their catalogue: it has some things that sound familiar, while also preparing you for what else you’ll encounter if you choose to probe deeper into the band. The Man-Machine has the least homogeneous profile of any Kraftwerk album. While most of their other classic albums are highly cohesive “song cycles” that almost blend into one long song when you listen to them in full, The Man-Machine doesn’t really have those repeated melodies and motifs that tie its tracks together. While many people, especially fans of psychedelic and progressive rock, really like those cohesive albums, I think this change is a welcome one. It gives the individual tracks a bit more room to breathe and express distinctive identities, and makes the album feel a bit more pop, even if the material itself isn’t always all that poppy. *The Man-Machine* actually only has six individual tracks; they range in length from the three-minute pop stylings of “The Model” to the urban sprawl of “Neon Lights,” which luxuriates in an almost nine-minute runtime.

Given that the average track length is around six minutes, I’m almost tempted to think of The Man-Machine as six tiny Kraftwerk albums, or at least, musical ideas that could have been expanded into full LPs in another universe. “Neon Lights” and “Spacelab” feel dreamy and easy-going, with floating melodies that draw from the “cosmic music” scene, one of the many emergent styles that began as something uniquely German and spread throughout the world--in this case, becoming an important forerunner to ambient electronic music through acts like Tangerine Dream. Meanwhile, the hard, tick-tocking rhythms of “Metropolis” and the title track point to the newfound focus on rhythm and the so-called motorik beat that made the music of Neu! so compelling.

The Man-Machine can serve not only as an introduction to Kraftwerk, but also as a sort of crash course in this entire period of electronic music, showcasing some of the most distinctive and influential features of the German scene, as well as the shape of synth-pop to come. It’s a complex and busy historical moment with huge ramifications for almost all of subsequent electronic music, and The Man-Machine really creates a microcosm of that whole environment. There’s also the fact that each side of the record has one track from each of my three broad groups, like an expertly-designed sushi platter or charcuterie board for us to sample from, and they both follow the same formula: a pop appetizer, a cosmic *entree,* and motorik for dessert.

*The Man-Machine* also has what is almost certainly the most iconic cover of any of Kraftwerk’s LPs. This is how lots of us still picture them in our minds, and it’s inspired tons of parodies and riffs over the years. I think all of that acclaim is deserved! Emil Schult’s graphic design for the album was heavily inspired by avant-garde Soviet artists of the 10s and 20s, chiefly El Lissitzky. These visual artists used their art to express their hope for a new world, defined by the promise of technology, and their literally revolutionary philosophy--so what could be a better match for Kraftwerk’s electronic revolution in music? Lissitzky used bright, primary colours, straight lines, and geometric shapes to convey the “built environment” of modern cities and man-made architecture, and you’ve got all the same sentiment on display here. The use of strong diagonals really draws the eye and lends this image a lot of continued visual interest. It’s also worth noting the extent to which Kraftwerk’s aesthetics inspired later electronic acts almost as powerfully as their sound. When you picture an electronic band, and get a mental image of stiff and stone-faced musicians behind synthesisers wearing shirts and ties, you can certainly thank Kraftwerk for that, as well.

I also love the title of The Man-Machine! The relationship between people and technology is one of, if not the, most central themes in Kraftwerk’s entire discography, which is full of references to anthropomorphic machines as well as mechanically-mediated humans. The particular choice of the phrase “man-machine,” as opposed to words like “android,” has a fun vintage flair to it, which matches the use of early 20th Century visual art quite nicely.

As might be expected from the album’s stylistic diversity, *The Man-Machine* would prove to be something of a transition point in Kraftwerk’s career. Their 1981 follow-up, Computer World, would return to the song cycle format, but with increasing emphasis on ideas from the pop sphere, championed by percussionist Karl Bartos. By the time of the last classic-lineup Kraftwerk LP, 1986’s Electric Cafe, they had not only amped up the pop, but also incorporated influence from the electronic dance music of the time. Ultimately, Bartos would leave the group, chiefly due to discontent with his treatment by founding members Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, and their persistent lack of musical productivity.

On a somewhat lighter note, my personal favourite track on this album is its opener, “The Robots.” Per my typology from earlier, I classified this as a pop-oriented song, and it certainly is an approachable one that’s proven to be quite popular. But it’s got just enough more experimental touches to keep things quite interesting. From an ominous, dissonant intro, a slightly more pop form, hinting at a verse/chorus structure, soon emerges and contrasts. I love the groove of the rhythm and percussion here, as well as the very heavy vocoder, rich in texture and certainly a Kraftwerk staple.

While the lyrics can be read as sort of light and silly, I like to think that the robots in question might also be dangerous. The track “Metropolis” seems to reference the seminal 1927 silent film of the same name, which is famous for its portrayal of an evil, mechanical doppelganger. Likewise, the choice to translate the lyrics of the song’s interlude into Russian is likely inspired by another great work of art from this era: the stage play R.U.R.--Rossum’s Universal Robots. Written by Karel Čapek in 1922, it’s the progenitor of the “robot revolution” trope in science fiction, the source of the word “robot” for autonomous machines in almost every human language, and one of the first entries in the illustrious career of an author who helped make Czech a true literary language. While the titular robots take time to assure us that they’re programmed to do what we humans want, should we really trust them...?

[enkelimagnus]

Literature

Bucky Barnes Gen, 1756 words, rated T for Hydra shit

Jewish Bucky Barnes, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Episode 3 Power Broker

Sam falls asleep on the plane over to Madripoor and leaves Bucky and Zemo alone. They actually talk to each other. I would say it's nice.

TW: brief allusion to past rape, internalized homophobia, brief mention of the holocaust

Read on AO3

Part 20 of Making a Home - the Jewish Bucky series

--------------

It’s an eleven hour flight from Berlin to Madripoor, even with Zemo’s private jet. Once drinks have been served, food has been eaten and threats have been made, they all find themselves settling.

Sam has dozed off on a seat, seemingly exhausted. After all, they’ve already travelled the eight hours from the states, and the day has been stressful at best. At least, Sam trusts him enough to fall asleep while Bucky watches Zemo. He wasn’t expecting that. Or perhaps his human physiology is betraying him.

Bucky needs less sleep than a normal human on regular days, and he also can survive much longer sleep deprived. He’s well aware of the limitations of his body. Hydra tested them thoroughly and multiple times. Zemo would know as well, that Bucky might look tired but it doesn’t diminish his abilities as much as it seems.

The man in question is at his seat with his book, though he’s regularly looking up through the windows of the plane or around the cabin. There’s something quiet and wistful about the way he stares at a spot where the carpeting is not perfectly set against the wall to the bathroom.

The silence is good, especially after earlier, where Sam and Zemo somehow managed to gang up on him about Marvin Gaye of all people.

It’s not that Bucky doesn’t like Marvin Gaye. He just doesn’t like much music. He’s sort of lost the taste for it. His brain is usually unable to perceive it as anything but unnecessary noise that keeps him from being completely aware of his surroundings. And at least 40s music doesn’t have death and rape associated to it.

And he doesn’t need to know what Steve thought of it, whether Steve loved it or not. He’s not Steve. Steve journeyed light into the 21st century. Everything was something new to learn and experience, it was exciting and bright. Bucky is travelling with baggage. And he has memories attached to songs and tastes and sensations and events.

Bucky simply can’t use the notebook the way Steve did.

Sometimes, he wonders if Sam forgets Bucky wasn’t simply on ice for 80 years. The issue with him is that he lived through most of it, and it was all torture.

Or maybe not all . He woke up craving Karpov’s kasha the other week, and it makes no sense. He only tasted it during one specific time of his life, when Karpov and him got stuck in a safehouse in the snow, with no way to reach the outside world, for two weeks. The Soldier’s rations and formulas ran out long before they were able to leave. Karpov was too smart to let him starve, and perhaps that time alone with the Soldier, away from the world, with no way to freeze him or unplug him had made him see he was still a man. The kasha was warm, and thick, and sweet and sometimes, Bucky remembers that feeling and craves it.

The danger with people like him, America’s Super Soldiers, is that we put them on pedestals.

Zemo’s right.

In all honesty, Bucky believes he’s forgotten who Steve really was.

Memories become blurry when they age and no matter how desperate Bucky is to crystalize them, to remember them, to be sure of what he lived, all he manages to do is to frame faded photographs and fill in the blanks himself.

Steve and him didn’t have time. He found him after two years of searching, only for Bucky to be back on ice within two weeks. After that, Steve visited a few times during his recovery, when he introduced him to the goats he’d named after the sisters he finally remembered. And then, there was the War, and the Snap and once Bucky was back to life, Steve was shattered. And two weeks later, he was gone.

They didn’t have time to learn each other again. Bucky doesn’t know who Steve is anymore, half of his memories feel tainted by Smithsonian explanations, and he hates it so fucking much.

He hates that he can’t remember right, he hates that Steve’s slipping away from him every second of every day, that all that is left is the fucking shield and Captain America. That Steve’s legacy doesn’t seem to run deeper than that, else Bucky would have less of a single-minded focus on that fucking piece of useless fucking metal.

It’s only been three months. Why does Steve feel like he’s been gone for a lifetime?

Bucky breathes out a shuddering breath.

When his eyes focus again, Zemo is staring at him.

The book is open on his lap. Bucky can read the title. Same Sex Fantasies in Heterosexuals. Fucking hell. He doesn’t need that right now. At all.

“You’re a different man than the one I remember,” Zemo says quietly after a moment. His voice is soft, just slightly above a whisper. He knows Bucky has sharp ears. He knows he doesn’t need to wake Sam up.

Bucky dignifies that with a huff and looks away for a moment. Zemo’s eyes don’t leave him. He can feel them on him, on his face, on his throat, on his hands, on his body. They make him itch. They make him want to punch him for looking at him like that.

Like what?

You know exactly like what.

When Bucky looks back, Zemo’s indeed still watching him.

“You’re old now,” Bucky says eventually, in a vague answer to what Zemo said earlier.

“Eight years have passed, James. You cannot blame a normal man for something he has no control over.”

Eight years. So Bucky was right. Zemo wasn’t dusted. He stayed in that solitary confinement cell for eight years as the world moved on around him, as the world fought and lost half of its people.

Had he wished to be one of the ones that were snapped out of existence? Probably. After all, every second Zemo breathes and exists is a second more he wasn’t supposed to have. He tried to kill himself in Siberia, once his mission was over.

“Do you ever read normal stuff?” Bucky asks, a bite in his words.

Zemo raises an eyebrow, head tilting slightly to the side. His eyes are still glued to Bucky’s face. He still wants to punch him.

“I would need you to define ‘normal stuff’ to answer this question.” There is a hint of mirth in those brown eyes though. He knows exactly what Bucky means.

Bucky huffs and rolls his eyes. “Machiavelli, fucking… whatever this shit is,” he makes a motion of his chin towards the book. It’s in German, something about boundaries in relationships. Hilarious, really. It’s not like Zemo has anyone to set boundaries with. Unless those eight years of solitary have somehow driven a rift between Zemo and his own dick. “That’s not normal stuff. Novels, popular stuff…”

“I wonder,” Zemo starts. “Have you any recommendations for titles of ‘popular stuff’ for me?”

Everything Bucky can think of is old. He’d told himself he’d look into acquiring books but… he hadn’t had the time or the energy.

“I see your taste in literature has elected to stay with your taste in music, then.”

Fucking ass. Bucky closes his eyes and sighs so heavily he’s pretty sure Sam’s going to wake up.

“To answer your question, James,” Zemo starts, conversationally, as if they aren’t enemies, as if they are just old friends, so old they have become strangers. “I do read normal stuff.” The phrasing is foreign in his mouth, in that accented voice of his. “I’ve read all the classics, and children’s literature. Eight years are long. I practiced my Russian with translations of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings at first.”

Bucky hums, looking up at him for a moment. “I noticed your pronunciation had changed,” he says quietly. “Did you read it to yourself out loud? Pretended someone was telling you a story?”

It’s cheap. They’re both aware of how lonely the past eight years must have been. It’s cheap, and it’s low-hanging and Bucky almost feels guilty.

Zemo’s small smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Have you read Jules Verne?” Bucky asks, trying to erase his taunt with some more literary conversation. “Was obsessed with his work as a kid. Kinda like Tolkien, but even better because it was… full of invention, not of magic.”

There’s a floating moment, a few seconds of Zemo just watching him with that slight sadness in his eyes before it is washed away and replaced by a hum.

“I’ve read those books, yes. In the original French,” Zemo points out and Bucky is almost grateful for the boasting. “You should seek a new translation, if you’re not adept at the original language. The one I assume you read was a descendant of 1870 translations, riddled with errors and political censorship. They fixed that in the 60s. You’ll like the new ones better.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I’ll take that under consideration, I guess.” He’s so sure he’ll like it.

“And if you find yourself in the north of France one of these days, you should stop by this little city called Amiens,” Zemo continues. “A fine place, old and new, in the way only Europe can be. Jules Verne died there. The city’s positively themed after the man and his work. You can even visit his house.”

Visiting a dead man’s last residence? “That’s kinda morbid,” he mutters and Zemo has a small chuckle.

“People visit Anne Frank’s house as if the walls aren’t hollowed with fear,” he points out. “Dying makes one the public’s intimate friend. You know that better than anyone else.” He gives Bucky a sidelong glance. They both know he’s talking about Steve, and the documentaries and exhibits and think-pieces.

Bucky nods quietly and looks back through the window. The sun is painted indigo and pink. It’s beautiful. He’s forgotten the sunset could be this beautiful.

When he looks at Zemo again, he notices the exhaustion written all over his face, in the small wrinkles and under eye bags and the way his eyes won’t settle on anything for too long, desperate to stay awake.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” Bucky says after a moment. “We need you.”

Zemo chuckles tiredly, a soft and muted sound. “If that is the one thing that is keeping me alive… I believe I shall keep myself useful, then.” It’s almost sarcastic. A man living on borrowed time, wishing desperately he could be executed.

“You do that.”

[tatyana-dreaming]

Newsies asks! Santa Fe (prologue), That's Rich, & The World Will Know? Please and thank you!

thank you so much @tortoisesshells​ !! I also just realized I never responded to your music asks because they got lost in the void (okay that’s not giving my clumsy thumbs enough credit) so I’ll just tag them on at the end :)

2. Santa Fe (prologue) - Where’s a place you’ve always dreamed of going?

Gaaspéésiiiiie! Mon amiiiii! (that’s me trying to sing Gaspé - aka Gaspésie - Québec, Canada, to “Santa Fe”)  :)  I’m obsessed with Québec and the North Atlantic coast as a whole.

5. That’s Rich - If you had the money what’s one flamboyant, expensive you would treat yourself to?

OperaOperaOperaOpera! Well, live theatre/music/dance/etc in general. I would shower money on the arts. One day I hope to treat myself to a Music-cation in Vienna and just.... drown in live (particularly classical) music for awhile.

7. The World Will Know - What is one topic you are passionate for, something you could tell the world about?

My CV says “environmental science/sociology,” my résumé says teaching, health education, and meditation instruction, and my tumblr says, once again “Operaoperaopera” sooo clearly I’m not really that coherent. I think though, my main message to folks these days would be: be vigilant against internalized forms of oppression (although I want to credit that  phrase to Audre Lorde). So much of our thinking/judgements/self-judgjements are unnecessary, mean, not even true, and... literally there to serve capitalism/oppression/keep you small. Some of your thoughts aren’t even yours!! Stuff like that. It’s helped me, at least, with all my anxiety, to realize a lot of the time, those ideas and thoughts and judgements just aren’t the Truth, and to question where they are coming from. Can I also mention this is a very sociological approach to life/your inner life too? :D I love sociology and I will say it every chance I get

**********music asks (sorry they are super late :D but thank you so much, I loved these)********

5:A song that needs to be played LOUD

Due to my living situation I... can’t remember the last song I played out loud, so when that changes, ALL my music will be played loud (not too loud, don’t wanna be that neighborTM) but I particularly LOVE latin beat - salsa, forró, cumbia, etc. I REALLY miss dancing them. One of my absolute favs is the Buena Vista Social Club’s “De Camino A La Vereda.” ahhhhhhh!! this also has a distinctive summer-nostalgia feel to me for some inexplicable reason.

21:A favorite song with a person’s name in the title I thought this was going to be so difficult, but honestly I was shocked how many songs are just people’s names :’D I can’t believe I haven’t put any opera bops in my music ask responses yet so I’m going to have to go with - completely unironically, as it is - “Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-Papagena!” from Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (THAT’S 6 “pa”-s, I HAD TO COUNT hehe) anyways I’m sorry that song is just. I mean. I won’t apologize actually. How do you listen to this without giggling or smiling or both (and hopefully singing along) :)

That’s kind of a humorous response but when I want to be serious, I would say hands down, “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. And in case I haven’t mentioned how I often listen to “Skazhi, Kotoraya Tatyana” from Eugene Onegin on loop for.... hours sometimes when I’m working (yes I’m weird).... oh my godddddddd.... thank you Tchaikovsky

26:A song that makes you want to fall in love

This was actually such a difficult question. I don’t think I’ve ever framed a song or the act of listening to music in this particular way! (I’m very bitter/have trouble believing in love haha although I thrive off of opera and musical theatre based upon the experience, apparently!!! haha). Definitely some of the most romantic songs in my opinion are “If I Loved You” (Rogers and Hammerstein) and “New Music / Sarah Brown Eyes” (Ragtime: Lynn & Flaherty). But honestly Tchaikovsky’s “Pas de Deux” from the Nutcracker just.... *clutches chest* I think I’ll go with that. I LOVE how sad/bittersweet it is... Bittersweetness, sorrow even,  is the height of “love” to me (not even just romantic love), I probably rather unhealthily “love” the idea of love as something that is wonderful and beautiful but then ends too soon/is sad (hence bittersweet), rather than something that turns sour or contemptuous or (gasp) boring (uh oh my Onegin is showing) .... must be my practical pessimistic self choosing to stay in my la la world of idealism ;”D  (oh gosh I think I’ve gone too deep) (anyways that Pas de Deux makes me WANT that sorrow if you get what I mean???) <3

[lunelantern]

"I HAVE NO REASON TO LOVE HER OR BE LOVED BY HER"

Let's unravel the symbolism behind Sasuke's seemingly brusque words.

Because EVERY. SINGLE. ONE of Uchiha Sasuke's words are overflowing with underlying meaning and the symbolism behind turns him into one of the most spectacular fiction characters in modern literature, in my humble personal opinion, in terms of construction, inner coordinates, skeleton and philosophy.

Particularly, when his character's evolution embroiders tantalizingly into sakura's canvas of innocence and soul-healing love ❤️❤️❤️♥️💖💕💜

If we abide to the post-modernist literary criticism, we can refer to this terse assertion from Sasuke in the specter of deconstruction and hermeneutics as methodology of interpretation of the manga.

Namely, we shall try to look for the underlying message of the manga in the context as the intrinsec values of Sasuke's words must be referred to as deeper and transcending the message of the author himself.

 I'm considering hermeneutics specifically because it is widely used for the interpretation of biblical texts/writings of wisdom and Sasuke's construction is abounding in such symbolism.

 The problem here lies in mainly two colliding manga ideologies in the brusque change between Sasuke and Kakashi, namely the nihilism/negativism vs humanism/idealism.

 Kakashi's seemingly retort to Sasuke 'you don't need a reason to love someone, you only need a reason to hate someone' creates an anachronism and a hypothetical fallacy in his logic. As a consequence, he once again fails to stop Sasuke from his resolve.

 Kakashi aligns to the Manga's fundamental humanist view as Kishimoto provides the reserves with his own subjective answer to acquire universal peace and ceas conflict: love as mutual understanding.

 Kishimoto annexes 'love' with an intrinsec value that's self-sufficient for quenching conflict. That's the foundation of humanism, the confidence in the good nature of a sentient being.

 Only... He's not necessary correct. He fails to grasp Sasuke's character and delve deeper into his own life principles. As the main antagonist opposing to the hero's messianic humanist role in taking the reins to universal peace, Sasuke as an Uchiha is the manga conceptualized version of the negativism as depicted and analyzd in the classic philosophy tomes of the great philosophers - Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel with deep roots into Machiavelli's 'Prince'.

 Short note, if you are interested in dechipering the character of Uchiha Itachi, then start with Machiavelli. Itachi is the embodiment of the Prince imagined by machiavelli. I'm giving these cites  for emphasize: "It is better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both" - - itachi telling his kid brother that it doesn't matter if Sasuke hates him because they have each other like brothers.

 " it is not titled that honor men but men that honor titles" - - it's not the one who becomes Hokage that it's acknowledged but thr one who is acknowledge by everyone becomes Hokage as he tells Naruto: " sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are - - itachi's retorts to his fellow Uchiha who questioned him for shisui'death that 'all of you without measuring your own ability had no idea of mine";. I think they are self-explanatory for they are almost perfect quotes from Itachi's iconic phrases.

So back to Sasuke, he is basically the perfect depiction of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy which strips the Life of any intrinsec purpose, admittedly attributing 'pein' to life, birth, death itself. This is the Uchiha's infamous  'curse', the biblical curse of knowledge. They are the philosophers of the manga, the great thinkers, the nihilist the ones who question the Life Script.

 Uchiha don't get obsequious towards the Life Script. They are thr ones who ask questions, they don't settle for 'that's how it is' absurdity. They use critical thinking, ration, philosophy, psychology to debunk the mysteries of life and that's why they symbolically 'fell from grace.' Uchiha fell from Paradise metaphorically because they questioned the laws of universe. Naruto and his devotees accept love as having intrinsec omnipotent power.

 Uchiha don't. They are rational, pragmatic, intellectual, philosophers, sophists, great thinkers - - see Sasuke's 'revolution' mentality.

 Sasuke challenges Naruto's 'status quo' as preserving democracy as ensuring universal peace.

 Conversely, let's consider the syntax of his statement. What Sasuke really means by stating that ' I have no REASON to love her' doesn't refer to a justification for love as a feeling itself (a feeling equipped with gratifying powers of being sufficient and inclusive) as 'motive'. Sasuke doesn't deny it, it isn't a contradiction, a negative rejection of her feelings. 'reason' in sausl as care refers to his cognitive process, his ability to JUDGE, to ration, to think critically, to distill and not simply pander to what society considers as being self-sufficient. Sasuke doesn't see love as am intrinsec value to happiness and fulfillment. He doesn't accept the humanist/positivism  MENTALITY, and not the 'motive' itself.

 Sasuke isn't an untutored need in the arts of love. He isn't stupid nor naive. Of course that he doesn't look for a justification for Sakura's feelings nor his very own. He tries to ration logically because this is his manga role - the thinker. He challenges a mentality and not a simple remark.

 Sasuke cannot reasonably comprehend Sakura's ardent devotion. Why would someone so ardently succumb into the den of the devil itself for a decadent criminal with a radical negativist vision who won't reciprocate? He doesn't fathom her masochism, the coherence and rational expansion for her attitude.

 Also, Sasuke doesn't accept the ubiquitous and amorphous dissonance of 'love' as ubiquiptusly omnipotent and soothing.

 Kakashi alludes that life consists of perpetual happiness as innate to every sentient being, that happiness comes for free and passively, that's the gift of life itself. Sasuke on the other hand is the echo of negativism - - pein is the sole governor of life and one must seek happiness proactively.

 Tl:dR: 'REASON' here doesn't refer to a motive as justification for love as a feeling. It reflects Sasuke's role in the manga as a great thinker, a philosopher, a man ebbed with a rational mind, critical thinking who doesn't pander to society's norms. He doesn't accept love as a self-sufficient explanation for Sakura's irrational devotion.

 Sasuke reflects the negativism of Arthur Schopenhauer's/Kant'a philosophy while Kakashi/Sakura/Naruto are the humanists with a positive worldview who deem love as universally present in any sentient being as intrinsec to the very existence of every sentient being.

 Also Kakashi's verbose assertion denotes a fallacy in his logic. Kakashi implies that 'hate' is the opposite of 'love' ans Sasuke depicts this erroneous surmise thus he cannot be swayed by Kakashi's lapses and flaws in logic.

 Let's consider the two symbols in Naruto manga, darkness and light, Naruto and Sasuke, negativism and humanism. Darkness is not the opposite of light, but the ABSENCE of it. The opposite of matter is not the anti-matter but the absence of it. Thus hate isn't the opposite of love. Using the laws of phisycs and metaphysics, the opposite of love shall be the ABSENCE of it.

 Thus once again, just like the first time when his words of wisdom failed to reach to Sasuke's heart and quell his thirst for revenge, Kakashi failed to stop Sasuke because he didn't comprehend his character as the deep rational thinker, the man who doesn't obediently follow the Life Script, the man who asks questions and wants rational answers - admittedly he never did.

 Ultimately, it boils down to the two antithesis that fundamentally cement the  grandiose skeleton of this manga: nihilism/existentialism versus idealists/utopic.

[musicollage]

Arve Henriksen. Towards Language, 2017. Rune Grammofon. ( Guitars, Electronics – Eivind Aarset )  ~ [  Album Review |      1) Pitchfork  +  2) All About Jazz  +    3) Headphone Commute   ]

1) Arve Henriksen makes jazz for people who like ambient music. This might sound like an unintentional insult—the Norwegian trumpeter is well trained and celebrated in jazz circles, and he often performs among Scandinavia’s most prominent younger players, such as Christian Wallumrød—but it’s also hard to deny. Towards Language, Henriksen’s ninth album under his own name, begins with a slumbrous murmur of bass and an unfurling trumpet theme, and this mesmeric register never wavers throughout the album. The melancholy saunter of Henriksen’s lines is isolated and sculpted by glimmering, whirring atmospheres full of emptiness and portent. Testing different ways to contrast eloquent material and enigmatic medium, the record plays like some lost collaboration between Wynton Marsalis and Brian Eno circa Ambient 4: On Land.

Henriksen’s long association with free-improv supergroup Supersilent and its influential label, Rune Grammofon, were his gateways to esteem in circles beyond jazz. But he has earned his wider attention with a trumpet tone so communicative it’s almost psychic, which he has described as being modeled on the breathy, insinuating timbre of a wooden flute. *Towards Language *would be the perfect album title imaginable for Henriksen if he hadn’t already made one called Chiaroscuro. Sometimes augmented by his ethereal vocalizations, his instrument always seems on the verge of speaking, writing a smoky legato calligraphy on the air. If the language is obscure, the emotions are instantly legible—romantic seclusion, piercing beauty, and a steadfast determination.

Henriksen is joined by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, two old friends who’ve appeared on some of his greatest albums (Chiaroscuro, Cartography, Places of Worship), as well as the ECM-affiliated jazz guitarist Eivind Aarset. Together they gin up brooding, minimalist chamber music in which the simplest melodies whisper of unfathomable depths of feeling. The outstanding “Groundswell” is a dusky jungle seething with hidden birds and snakes, slow trap claps, and lapping waves of mysterious tonality, before Henriksen fills it up with his leafy curlicues and looping vines. “Demarcation Line” is a showpiece for his signature physics, how he swoons from interval to interval and bends pitches so sweetly it almost cuts.

*Towards Language *is also infused with a deep sense of history, like an excavation standing open in layers. It’s both personal—the atmosphere of “Hibernal” is tuned by a rusty harbor-bell clank, a device heard as far back as 2007’s Strjon, which suits Henriksen’s noir-ish style so well—and cultural. Album closer “Paridae,” turns a traditional song in the Kven language of Henriksen’s ancestral northern Norway (sung by Anna Maria Friman of Trio Mediaeval) into a waterfall leading to another world. Henriksen creates the feeling of an opaque jazz album you can walk right into, all timbre and feel instead of time and modality, the edges and angles sublimated into aching curves. You don’t need to be able to identify a head melody or count off arcane rhythms, but only to know the way you feel when you see fog slowly seeping through a valley, or smoke curling off a cigarette in the lonesome glow of a streetlight.

2) Following hot on the heels of Rimur (ECM, 2017), Towards Language is Arve Henriksen's second album of 2017 and brings his tally of releases to ten in the past five years. One of the more remarkable things about Henriksen is that even though the quantity of releases increases, their quality remains as high as ever. All of the hallmarks that make his music distinctive are still in place, as good as ever—the haunting melodies, soaring falsetto vocals and exquisitely beautiful trumpet. His sound is as individual as a fingerprint, the true mark of a great player.

Studio-recorded over two days in August 2016, Towards Language consists of nine tracks, of which the longest runs for just seven-and-a-half minutes. Such concentrated, economical music has typified Henriksen's output on such classic albums as Places of Worship (Rune Grammofon, 2013) and Chiaroscuro (Rune Grammofon, 2004). Henriksen has always stressed the importance of his collaborators in the creative process and, as on those two albums, here he is again joined by the team of Jan Bang and Erik Honoré of Punkt, the presence of whom is practically a guarantee of success. As before, the pair display their knack of constructing uncluttered environments that perfectly frame Henriksen and allow him to be heard to best advantage. Guitarist and electronicist Eivind Aarset is also present on every track and was involved in writing each one; he adds subtle shading without in any way deflecting the limelight from Henriksen.

Anna Maria Friman of Trio Mediaeval (with whom Henriksen recorded Rimur) sings on the album's closing track, "Paridae," a traditional "kven" or ancient Nordic song, her voice and Henriksen's trumpet combining in a perfect blend. On other tracks, it is left to his own voice and trumpet to conjure up an ambiguous mix of emotions that include melancholy and wistfulness. The end result is yet another stunningly beautiful set from Henriksen.

3) So here is how it goes… In terms of extended control of a single solo instrument, we’ve got Nils Frahm on the piano, Hildur Guðnadóttir on the cello, Mario Batkovic on the accordion, Andrea Belfi on the drums, and Arve Henriksen on the trumpet. [Please don’t all at once jump on me and point out other artists that I’ve missed or misplaced – this was more of a compliment and recognition of the above, versus an offensive statement to the ones I have omitted. Deal?] If you’ve been following these pages, and listening to the music contributing towards the evolution of this Norwegian trumpet player, then, at least you should agree, that, when it comes to breathy brass works, where the instrument completely merges with the voice, Henrikson is unlike any other.

I last visited with Henrikson’s music, released once again by Rune Grammofon, back in 2014, with Places Of Worship which derived its inspiration from the literal places of worship, sharing ten tone poems set around holy places. On his ninth album, Towards Language, we find this “major representative of a golden generation of Norwegian jazz musicians” supported by his longtime collaborators, Jan Bang and Erik Erik Honoré, as well as the “ECM-associated guitarist extraordinaire“, Eivind Aarset, exploring the language of music through the partnership with others. Improvised music, and in particular jazz music, has always established its own set of musical words, phrases, and sentences, exchanging ideas between each performer through predefined queues. A great example of that, of course, is none other than Miles Davis, who often recorded his sessions (like the Bitches Brew in 1969) without much advance notice or direction to the musicians.

“To express something on your own can be quite challenging at times.” says Henrikson, “I have for years been in creative collaborations with musicians and producers that have encouraged and inspired me. With this help and inspiration to discover new sounds and music, I have struggled and made my way to gradually be able to create some sort of language and a way of telling stories with my trumpet and singing. They have all coloured and gradually transformed me through different artistic timezones that I have passed through. All the information, concerts, discussions and impressions have had a significant impact on the process of gradually coming closer towards the core of communication through music.”

It’s fair to admit that I fail to recognize whether or not some of the music on Towards Language is improvisational or not, but what I can clearly hear is a conversation between the instruments sharing the same story. This conversation, of course, can not happen without a predefined lingo, without question and answer, without the space set to say something and, in turn, the space left to listen. It’s probable, that as an active listener, conveyed through this musical account, I, too, become part of the language, interpreting tales, narration, and chronicles, as they fit into my own sound-colored world, where certain notes trigger a feeling, a memory, or a response deeply buried inside my own psyche. For this to succeed, the artist’s ability to properly communicate must be splendid. And as a listener, I’m part of the music, of course, because, without language, the message is lost.

[aion-rsa]

How the Cyberpunk 2077 Soundtrack Found Its Dystopian Sound in a Soviet-Era Synthesizer

https://ift.tt/2Knk6oM

CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is arguably the the biggest video game release of 2020, transporting players to a gritty sci-fi world full of bio-augmented criminals and lowlives. True to its name, the game explores some pretty deep concepts about cyberspace and what life might be like in a futuristic transhuman society where technological advancements have turned us less human and more machine. So it’s no surprise that the game’s score often sounds like something recovered from the year 2077 and brought back to our time. At its very best, the soundtrack elevates this grim dystopia.

In the wake of Cyberpunk 2077‘s massive launch, Den of Geek spoke with the trio of composers behind the game’s score: Marcin Przybylowicz (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), P.T. Adamczyk (Gwent: The Witcher Card Game), and Paul Leonard-Morgan (Dredd). The three composers discussed the soundtrack’s conception and revealed the unconventional methods they used to create the score’s unique, ominous sound.

The Cyberpunk 2077 Original Score, which contains two discs-worth of the game’s enormous pool of music, is available now to buy and stream. As players have discovered in the week since the game’s launch, the score isn’t exactly the pulsating, adrenaline-fueled synth barrage some might be expecting from a cyberpunk title. It’s largely ambient, with ominous layers of otherworldly bass bellows, tribal beats that sound both futuristic and primal, and melancholic wades through placid synth soundscapes. There are definitely bangers on the tracklist, but what stands out is that many of the pieces almost feel introspective. 

“You’re dealing with a complex story, and there’s [a vast] number of characters in Cyberpunk,” Adamczyk explains. “Finding a theme or an idea or a motif and being confident in it…that’s really difficult because there are so many different things happening in the story, and you could score it a thousand different ways. And they all would be good enough. But the question remains, ‘What is the essence?’”

Przybylowicz was the first of the three composers to start work on the score for Cyberpunk 2077 very early in the game’s production. In laying the foundations for what the game’s music would sound like (the elusive “essence” Adamczyk speaks of), he set out to create something unique, though he was also committed to honoring the source material that the game is steeped in.

“We were trying to find out how our take on Cyberpunk would differ from other bits of culture,” says Marcin of the initial creative process. “We must never forget that our game is not a game that is simply set in a yberpunk universe. Our game is Cyberpunk 2077, which means that it’s based on a very well described and very lore-heavy, already existing universe, Cyberpunk 2020 by Mike Pondsmith. So that means there is a ton of source material, tons of creative work that has already been done before. So we needed to reach out to these books and see if we could pinpoint anything that would remain useful for us after we move the events from 2020 to 2077. Then we started to formulate how that would translate to the game’s sonic palette.”

The original tabletop game paints a picture of an alternate future in which corruption reigns and oppressive megacorporations wage war on each other, as the denizens of gang-infested, urban sprawls like Night City struggle to survive on the streets. Humans and machines intertwine via cybernetic enhancements, and this unholy merging of flesh and technology is represented vividly in the game’s score, which often employs the use of synth that sounds both metallic and organic.

The majority of electronic music is created from a widely-available database of preset sounds built into a computer or synth. To create Cyberpunk 2077’s unique sonic identity, the composers eschewed convention and took a more experimental approach, using a slew of odd machines to create bespoke sounds that give the score its ethereal edge.

“What we’ve done is ridiculous,” Leonard-Morgan explains. “It hasn’t been done before. We’ve composed with virtually no software at all. It’s all external gear. So it’s all weird and wacky synthesizers, all weird modular synths, always stuff which you then had to record the audio and process that around. You can never recreate the sounds again.”

The trio used rare, long out-of-production machines, took their already unique built-in sounds, and manipulated them further to compose the game’s music. The result is a tapestry of interconnected compositions that have a dark, Frankenstein’s-monster bizarreness to them, and one of the most prominent and peculiar synths you’ll hear in the mix has a curious background of its own.

“P.T. and I own our own Soviet-made Polivokses. Mine’s from 1982,” Przybylowicz says. “My Polivoks still has a price tag: 800 Rubles, which is, I think by today’s standards, 10 bucks. It’s a duophonic synthesizer similar to the Moog Sub 37, which is a very famous duophonic unit. I heard a story that during the Cold War, blueprints [of the Moog Sub 37] were stolen by Soviet agents in order to obtain something that they could copy [to build their own synthesizer]. Supposedly they were trying to make an exact copy, but you know, something always goes wrong on the production lines–they ended up with a machine that is truly, remarkably ugly-sounding. Yet still sounds like nothing else.”

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Another strange machine in the trio’s fleet of synths is the Folktek Mescaline, an infernal-looking mess of jet-black panels, spiraling bronze detailing, and a scattered arrangement of inputs, knobs, buttons, and switches. It looks so intimidating and unapproachable that it’s no wonder the trio harnessed its power in their compositions.

“All three of us own Folktek Mescalines,” Przybylowicz says. “It’s a small modular system that allows you to basically do anything. It doesn’t come with a very good manual. It doesn’t feature keyboards. It doesn’t feature any self-explanatory indications of what’s doing what. So it’s all based on experimentation.”

Adamczyk elaborates, “You can’t really decide, ‘I’m just going to play an A minor chord’ on a Mescaline. Getting an A minor chord is a real pain in the ass because you have to pretty much tune the machine to that specific chord. You have to try to find your way with these instruments and try to somehow find a musical way of using them. Half of the time, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

The game boasts around eight hours of music that, amazingly, is virtually all in the key of A minor to allow the different compositions to flow seamlessly in and out of each other as the player transitions between different encounters and scenarios.

“Games are like living organisms,” Przybylowicz explains. “It’s dependent on the player’s actions, even if we’re talking about the most linear scripted games. Ours obviously is nothing like that. It’s a full-fledged, open-world RPG with multiple branching lines in the narrative arc. So obviously it’s even more difficult [to compose for], but I think in a sense it’s almost liberating to work on a thing that changes so many times during even a single playthrough, you know?”

Cyberpunk 2077 had fans practically salivating in the days leading to its release date. It’s not only the next chapter of a long-beloved sci-fi franchise, but CD Projekt RED’s follow-up to the all-time classic The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is, to put it mildly, a tough act to follow. The composers feel the magnitude of the moment, though they remain unshakable, confident in the work they’ve put forward.

“Working on a game of such a big scale, ambition and quality and fan base…I think it naturally adds to the pressure,” says Przybylowicz. “So the bigger the hype gets, the bigger the expectations are getting, and the bigger the pressure gets. I think it’s at least in some parts a natural process of this profession, when you get to work on a project of this reputation.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“It doesn’t matter for me whether it’s a one million dollar film, a hundred million dollar film, a billion-dollar game, or whatever,” Leonard-Morgan adds. “The point is it’s all about the creative process. That’s the part that I really, really enjoy. And I think as soon as you start letting external forces come into your head, that’s where I start to kind of…Self-doubt is the wrong phrase. But you start second-guessing, and second guessing is just the worst thing you can do as a composer.”

You can listen to the score below:

Cyberpunk 2077 is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Google Stadia.

The post How the Cyberpunk 2077 Soundtrack Found Its Dystopian Sound in a Soviet-Era Synthesizer appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3an3h8A

[bloody-wonder]

Do u have any stories centred around revenge that youd reccomend?

yes actually

one of my favorite books is a german play called the visit. it’s about an old rich lady who returns to her home town to settle some scores with the citizens of this town in general as well as with one specific jerk. in german the play’s title actually is “the visit of the old lady” - the old lady being both the main character of the story and a metaphor for merciless justice. i love this book very much bcs unlike most revenge stories that focus more on the vengeful main character and aim at getting across the moral about how revenge won’t make you happy, this one focuses more on the culprits and the question of whether they deserve what they got. it’s succinct, scathing and socio-critical. it has also been adapted into a musical i love to bits which is probably irrelevant for you unless you speak german but if you want you can watch the trailer to get the general feel of the story and of how Dramatic and Awesome the main character claire is.

another favorite book is gentlemen & players by joanne harris. it’s a double pov dark academia-esque mystery thriller that takes place at an elite school for boys. one pov is an old teacher who has been working there for many years, the other one is a young new teacher who wants to raze this establishment to the ground and salt the earth. who is this person? why such a vendetta? i read this book not long after the secret history which is a hard act to follow but i wasn’t disappointed in the least. in fact, it has probably the best plot twist i’ve ever seen. i think it deserves more attention so pick it up and buddy read it with me.

the lies of locke lamora has a very intricate plot with a shit ton of subplots but one of them (which grows to be the main plot towards the end of the book) is about revenge. it’s set in the city inspired by renaissance venice and it’s about a lovable rascal called locke lamora and his crew of thieves who get involved in a gang war. multiple instances of revenge happen, calling for more revenge in turn and thus fueling a never-ending cycle of revenge. you know how gang wars are. also it has a trope where antagonists have to work together against a common enemy. all in all, it’s a very fun book and one of the few i read this year that i actually rated five stars. the audiobook narrator is a genius so i recommend listening to that.

the count of monte cristo is probably the most famous book about revenge but it’s a typical classic in that it has more than 1k pages and so it’s probably for a limited readership of people with enough patience for some usual 19th century phrase-mongering. i enjoyed this book very much when i was 15 or so but now i doubt that my attention span could handle it. the plot centers around a man who is wrongly imprisoned for 14 years and whose life goal then becomes to take the most elaborate revenge on the three dudes who were responsible (one of whom was his best friend).

the merchant of venice is another one that needs no introduction i think. it’s one of my favorite shakespeare plays exactly bcs it centers around revenge, however i must admit that i first liked it only after watching a german musical based on it which seems to be the trend with me haha. anyway, in the play you aren’t supposed to root for shylock bcs his demands are a bit extreme but also bcs of antisemitism, but the musical makes him the main character instead of an anti-hero. the ending is still largely the same, but bcs this version of the story is about shylock the aftertaste it leaves is all the more sour. also they made antonio gay for bassanio which has no bearing on the plot whatsoever but also is what shakespeare whould’ve wanted.

le roi s'amuse is (once again) a play about an old ugly court jester whose beloved daughter the king falls in love with and kidnaps, which makes the jester crave revenge but what can he, a mere servant, do against The King? the play is one of victor hugo’s lesser known works but it has been adapted into a famous opera - giuseppe verdi’s rigoletto.

depending on how you look at it, arthur miller’s the crucible is also about revenge - of a specific unhinged woman against a specific man but also of many disenfranchised young women against the patriarchal status-quo. the play wants you to root for john proctor which is alright but if you try rooting for abigail and her gal pals you get a different but very thrilling kind of fun. 

in a similar vein, gone girl is about a woman’s revenge against a man who wronged her but the story isn’t black and white and you get to choose who you think is the actual victim and who deserves punishment. i’d say it’s a modern classic by now and for good reasons bcs amy dunne stands in the proud tradition of such unhinged vengeful morally grey female icons as clytemnestra and medea.

so this list consists mostly of classics bcs they’re kinda my speciality but i hope you can still find something of interest. if you know some good contemporary books that center around revenge, i’d be grateful for the recs :)

[thehumanobservation]

Seems like Humans are the problem

T.S. Eliot loves to talk about huminites alienation.

Let us be honest with ourselves; we have all felt that moment where we just feel like we are the only ones in this universe.

However, T.S. Eliot loves the concept of alienation and the sense of being alone that, when reading through his selected poem of the anthology, I could not help but think and feel like being alone. J. Alfred Prufrock, A Games of Chess and Burnt Norton all highlight a sense of isolation in a world that is grandeur and alive.

Reading Eliot's poems during 2020 is haunting as the recent global pandemic event has put all of us under lockdown. We suddenly felt alienated because we have all lost our lives basic need, which is human contact, only to replace it with technology.

The theme of alienation is very dominant in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, where the speaker J. Alfred Prufrock highlights society's alienating people, whether that be due to differences, education and appearance; society will permanently alienate someone for their differences. It then leads the person to question themselves, just like how Prufrock questions his ability to talk to this woman he feels passionate about but yet repeats himself, "Do I dare? and Do I dare?".

The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock eerily reflects in the society we all live in, especially in a digital world where now days having a brand to your name is a verification of who you are. Although the poem's era is in the 1920s, the concept of societal alienation is fundamental as representing who you are determines everything from social status, wealth, and how you are seen in society. However, as we live in a digital age, that has changed everything because of social media and the easy projection of brands and virtual connection. It put us in a position to lead lifestyles that could be fabricated and very isolated.

Yes, I know we all keep hearing how social media is bad for us and how it has damaged our society but let us not forget they are hard facts and evidence out there if why such point even exists. Eliot's point, as I said, is very haunting because, in his view, modernism shows a “disintegration of life and mental stability” and as we are keeping hearing, that is how social media is damaging our society.

With T.S. Eliot other poems, A Game of Chess and Burton Norton, similar themes are discussed about alienation and modernism problems.

A Game of Chess explores humanity's disconnection by having a dark undertone of how we live in a modern world. First of all, this poem's setting is ambiguous, but it is lavish as “the chair she sat in, like a burnished thorn.” So, is the woman in this poem a queen? We will never know because does the woman know herself if she is the queen. The line “withered stumps of time” shows how humans are disconnected. We use a medieval concept of kings and queens and apply it to our everyday lives where everyone wants to be treated like they part of the royal society, which alienates us from reality.  

Similarly, Burnt Norton explores alienation themes by using phrases like “Internal darkness, deprivation and destruction of all properties” Eliot again show how the modern world is doomed. The difference with this poem is the use of past, present and future all coexist and how humans have repeated the sins of the past, bringing it to the present and will continue it to the future (“on its metalled ways of time past and time future”). Relate this to A Game of Chess, and you can see why the use of iambic pentameter starts to lose its rhythm because as time progresses, the structure changes, making it unstable.  

What does the future mean for humans and technology? Krapp’s Last Tape has one perspective

You must have read this title and must have thought, “hmm, what does the future mean for humans and technology?” Humans and technology have had a harmonious relationship throughout the ages where technology has benefitted our species is progressing throughout the world.

However, Krapp's Last tape would say otherwise. It depicts a decrepit old Krapp at his “den” with a “tape recorder, microphone and a number of cardboard boxes containing reels of recorded tapes.”  That does sound very bleak, but it is meant to sound like that because it shows the over-reliance on technology as we progress more into the future. Technology has been used for good like prosthesis, telecommunications, television, the internet, and other things. However, it does raise a question of how much of ourselves are we going to give to technology? Are we willing to let technology replace us? These sort of questions we have to ask ourselves as the future nears.

The tape recorder in Krapp’s Last Tape may seem like an ordinary device at first. Still, it symbolises a much deeper meaning as Beckett points out in the ending stage direction, “Krapp motionless before him. The tape runs on in silence”. The tape is personified; it symbolises a grandeur “being” of immortality, whereas Krapp is just a fragile old man running on his last leg until he is nothing but bones.

Every year there is a new release of technologies that changes everything. Apple, for example, changes the technological landscape with its latest iPhone, iPad and MacBook every year. Thus, it puts this pressure on everyone to buy the newest product because it is so cutting edge even though it is only a slight improvement from the previous model. As humans, we are like guinea pigs to experiment. Look at the other technologies we have, Amazon Alexa, to remind us of appointments, dates, or even just to have a chat.

Now the tape recorder that Krapp has is just a device that stores audio recordings; it may seem harmless and beneficial but look at it this way. Krapp has a collection of his audio recording that he needs to clinch to his memories. It is for him to relive the past, and that is the troubling thing because, as humans, we are wired and programmed to relive memories through a mental image. If we remove that via an audio recording and even pictures, we release our mind's valuable asset.

It is daunting that we live in an age where we are comfortable with having our data like shopping, searches or what we even ordered on Uber Eats sorted and shared across the digital world; it makes me wonder about our privacy and how much is it valued?  It does question that social media has made it easy for us to share our pictures and have them stored there forever for everyone to see and yet to be analysed beyond its initial reason.

Nevertheless, technology will forever shape our future for good or bad reasons, but our ambition will determine our morality and our existence in that future. What will that future look like when we rely on Artificial Intelligence to meet our human needs? If science fiction has told us anything is those good intentions can be lead us astray.

 Do we have a God complex? Or are we just morally driven to a path of ill ambition?

Have you just sat there and thought, “I wonder what it will be like to create a new being?”.  If you have not, then you are not as crazy as Victor Frankenstein. If you have, then you might be as mad as Frankenstein but not as quiet.

Mary Shelly classic Frankenstein is widely known throughout pop culture and the world to the point where every monster and science fiction tale will have an underlying message and recreation of a human creating a grotesque creature. Still, it is not hard to see why it has been recreated so many times.

Human morality is often debated a lot, especially within the scientific community, because how far are we willing to play God? What is God? Moreover, who is ready to stop us? These sorts of questions are constantly asked within our species as we continue to evolve.

“whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery.” What does this mean to you? To Victor, it is an idea that your parents essentially play God from the moment you are born. Like God, the concept of nurture, care, and help you direct to your future, whether happy or sad, is your parents who do it.

It may seem a little far-fetched, but there is a point to this as when we have children, we want the best for them, like how God does the best for us; however, most of us believe

God is sin-free; he can do no wrong as God is above all beings, so whom do we blame for all the trouble we suffer. We condemn the devil.

So, who are we to even think this? After all, we as species are relatively new, only being 250,000 years old,but the advances we have made are astronomical; from creating languages to art and making substantial scientific discoveries, we have evolved quicker than other species lived. Nevertheless, the one thing we have not been able to do is to create a sentient being.

Has that ever stopped us? No, it never has because our race is built on the fundamentals of finding a purpose within this universe. We always ask ourselves the question of are we alone in this universe? If not, then what other beings are out there and are they more advance than us?

What Frankenstein teaches us that we are scared to be alone, so to eradicate that loneliness, we fantasies and makeup beings that will perfect us. However, in some cases, perfection is also our monster, like Victor’s monster, which leads to neglection, alienation, and judgment.  

Let us be honest; humans do not have an outstanding record of celebrating differences. Our history book is full of events that show us how we despise differences, like slavery and the abomination against Black people, the Jewish Holocaust, Islamophobia. Moments we question humanity, and yet in all of these events, the superior majority is always against the minorities and in my view, that is a God complex.

The idea of humans creating a new life that is intelligent and sentient juxtaposes us. They could be a very high possibility that society will reject a new species that we have created because it is not human. If we cannot accept the differences within our race, how will we accept a new race? We will just reject it like the monster or, even worse, kill it, but even then, we are ideally and morally happy to do that and given our track record with animal extinction.

However, on the other hand, we live in a time where acceptance is becoming more and more viable, especially with everyone difference, so unlike rejecting the monster, we come and love it, but that does bring a problem of how accepting are we willing to be? We are human, after all, and we do not operate in a black and white world; our nature and intention will always put us in this grey area, and that is the area were we initially show our true morality and ambitions.

As technology advances and genetic engineering becomes a reality, we have to think about our intentions and our willingness to act like God when it comes to a new life. Are we ready to use gene therapy to eradicate diseases before birth, and if so, what impact will that have on the human race and its longevity? As Robert Sparrow points out, “Just because we have the capabilities to perform enhancements, it does not mean we need to perform it.”

Charles Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities is very much a reality

Charles Dickens is famously renowned for speaking out against a society catered towards the rich and leaves its poor in debt. After all, his famous books Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol show the people's inequality during Victorian England, but those books were optimistic; they had a happy ending.

On the hand, a Tale of Two Cities does not have a happy undertone, and in my opinion, it does show the grim reality of how we have created a world that favours the few and neglects the people.

Look at the mills that have survived; mills symbolise a strong workforce, productivity, capitalism a well-established economy. They also represent class distinction, poor working condition, and fear. It clearly says in the book, “samples of people who had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mills”. Less fortunate people had to experience, and no matter if this was in England and France, the message was the same, humans are expendable, and the poorer you are, the less value you will have to your name. Sadly, that is true to this day, where wealth inequality just grows further.

Let me just throw some numbers out there for you. In England, at the end of the 2020 financial year, the wealth inequality grew to a point where the income of the top 20% grew six times more than the most deficient 20%, and the top 10% had an income stream that was 50% greater than the poorest 10%.

That is shocking, but what is more surprising is that this all happened during a global pandemic that resulted in many people losing their jobs. This is to be expected because of how our society has been structured, and figures like Dickens challenged this economic structure, so are we and will continue to do so.

Dickens novel also points out the force of the people as they make the majority of the nation is solid and to be frightened about as “urging one another, and themselves to madness, with the wildest cries and action.”

Events throughout 2020, like the Black Lives Matter to the Indian Farmer protest, is a perfect illustration of movements reforming and challenging society. Dickens' novel mirrors this that no matter where in time and what era, society will always be dysfunctional due to the few exploiting the rest.