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letteredlettered · 10 months ago

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Since people expressed interest in the comments about the music I used to write my current fic, I wanted to share some of what I explored to write it. I don't think that you need to know this canon or have read this fic to read this post, though I do spend a bit of time talking about how canon influenced the choices I made. Anyone who has been following this fic knows that it was supposed to be porn, and largely, it really still is for the most part a fic about sex. But I did do a lot of research on music with which I'm frankly not very familiar, and the process was really rewarding.

The fic is Time Signature, if you're interested. This post has a lot about music, electronic music, Chinese music, and music theory, as well as some links to music that interests me and inspired portions of the fic. I don't expect anyone to read anything this long, but it was nice to write it.

Canon. One of my favorite things about both book and drama canon is how in synch WWX/LWJ are cultivation-wise. It’s not just that they can predict the talisman the other will use or the seal the other will cast; they also have the same hunches solving mysteries, the same instincts protecting others, the same ideas about where to go. When writing an AU, it’s important to me to show that synchronization (beyond physical attraction and sex), mostly because I think it’s hot.

In canon, however, WWX revolutionizes cultivation, inventing a whole new method when no one ever thought that possible. I also think this is hot. I also think it’s hot if LWJ thinks it’s hot. Look, canonically, LWJ disapproves of demonic cultivation because it will injure WWX’s spirit and body, but imo there is a reason LWJ is so into WWX, and it’s not just because WWX bugs him. It’s not even just because WWX is really cute and happy and exuberant and everything that’s the opposite of his upbringing. I also like to think that it’s because WWX is a fucking genius, and LWJ doesn't mind the idea of upending tradition and the entire cultivation world as much as it really seems at first that he would; he just struggles with anything that could hurt WWX. So anyway, WWX being revolutionary, in basically a technological sense, is important to me.

Wangxian both play music canonically. LWJ’s playing is noted to be particularly powerful, and WWX’s chosen music is at least one part of his revolutionary cultivation method. Additionally, the song LWJ writes for them is an important plot point. It makes sense that in a modern AU, music is a point of connection, so that is what I chose for their careers.

The final point about canon I want to make in connection to the music for this fic is that this is a Chinese canon with Chinese characters set in China. I don’t think it’s wrong to write AUs set in the west. I have done so, and I think there is value in examining a Chinese canon that has become very popular in the west through the lens of the Chinese diaspora. But I also think that there is a lot of value in a western person such as myself trying to learn and understand the cultural context for a canon that I really like, even if I sometimes get it wrong.

I had decided to set this fic in China because I thought the setting would not strongly feature, which would give me an easy “in” to write something set in a place I don’t know much about. Directly after choosing the setting I chose their careers, which made me realize I needed to do a lot more research—both about the careers but also about the setting--than a fic that was supposed to be mainly porn should have really required.

Music genre choice. Lots of AUs I’ve read have Wangxian’s mutual interest be that they both play western classical instruments. This baffles me, but it’s what I’ve seen, so I loosely started there—ie, I spent some time thinking about what would be revolutionary in western instrumental music, which entailed doing some research on contemporary classical music. There are obviously pioneers in any music genre, folks doing new things, but it turned out I just did not know enough about this genre to really understand what would be truly avant-garde.

I took a step back and thought about the instrumental music I have personally heard that feels really new and different, and Philip Glass was the first thing that came to mind. I first heard of Philip Glass when I saw The Hours, for which he wrote the soundtrack. I still think that soundtrack is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard, and I did use it as inspiration for music in this fic, particularly LWJ’s. More on that later.

Philip Glass is great, but for all his eastern minimalist influences, he is a strong figure in the western paradigm. I did some research on Chinese contemporary instrumental music, but most of what I found had a really western flavor. I think there are two reasons for this—one is that I am in the west searching for articles in English; for all that we like to imagine the internet is universal, search algorithms and search history is actually making it far harder than it used to be to find material with which you are completely unfamiliar. Secondly, western music did in fact have a notable impact on Chinese music, which is fine, it’s still Chinese, but I worried about everything I wrote just sounding like it was about western classical, which is a concern of mine I’ll address more later.

Since I wasn’t finding what I wanted, particularly for WWX, in the “art music” (aka, lowercase “c” classical music, which Wikipedia says is also known as “cultivated music, serious music, or canonical music”—ie, instrumental music with strings, winds, percussion) scene, I realized I needed to examine the other contemporary music, by which I mean everything else. Since I am most familiar with rock, Radiohead immediately came to mind, but Radiohead is a band, and there are lyrics. Though the lyrics are not where the meaning of Radiohead songs lie (the vocals are treated as largely instrumental), if there were lyrics, I’d need to write about them, and I didn’t want to. More importantly, Radiohead is singular in what they do, which makes them difficult to categorize, and this makes them difficult to describe textually. You can say that Radiohead revolutionized rock, or even reinvented it, but that is not really addressing how fundamentally avant-gardeRadiohead is. Describing how revolutionary Radiohead is on paper really is just saying “but they’re different!” over and over again.

What I needed for WWX was a music genre that was revolutionary, an entire school of music that felt cutting edge and frankly, unfamiliar, and for that, I realized I needed my brother.

Some stories about my family. My brother is a music artist who creates electronic music. If you want to understand why it took me this long to get to my brother in this thought process, you should understand a few things about him. First, I love him a lot, but we’re not very close. Second, my brother is probably the quietest person I know—like, idk, LWJ levels of non-talking. Last, I do not understand my brother’s music. I’ve tried! I listened to it a lot! But when I didn’t understand, I asked questions, and my brother cannot explain any of it. He’s an expressive guy! Just not verbally, and as a very verbal person, I have a tough time when people cannot use their words. Like, even asking him what type of music he plays, he’ll say something like, “It’s complicated.” (This is a lie. He’ll look at me and say, “Type?” And I’ll try to explain what I mean. And he’ll say, “I don’t know.” And if I said, “Okay, but if you had to label it?” He’d laugh and say, “Why?” And if I said, “So I can better understand your music,” he’d think for a long time, then look very frustrated, and laugh, and say, “I don’t know?” I think we’ve literally had this exact conversation).

Anyway, possibly through one of these type of exchanges, where I’m grilling him like a school marm and he’s acting like I’m making him take a standardized test he hates (I’m his little sister. Would it be easier to subject him to these horrors if he was my little brother?), I learned that one of my brother’s influences is Aphex Twin. My brother loves Aphex Twin. I . . . don’t. I’ve listened to a lot of him (in order to understand my brother better); I do not like it, and I do not understand it. My brother talks about Aphex Twin like he’s a genius (if and when my brother talks at all). Now, my brother is a very smart guy; it’s not that I didn’t believe him when he said Aphex Twin was a genius, but he also gets . . . swept up by things, and as previously discussed, he doesn’t talk a lot, so I didn’t really understand what my brother meant by this. It took hearing about Aphex Twin randomly, in a couple other places, for me to realize Aphex Twin is a Big Deal. When I looked up Aphex Twin at some point in order to better understand the music my brother makes, I found that Aphex Twin is considered by many to be a genius and also a pioneer. Apologies to all of you who already knew that about Aphex Twin.

Sidenote, my brother’s wife is also a musician, though not professionally. She could have been, considering that she was ranked as one of the top flute players in Texas, and Texas is fucking huge. But no, professionally, my sister-in-law is in cognitive science and linguistics, which you may remember was the career LWJ had in Say More (my fiancée is also a linguist. I also know a few other linguists. My life is convenient for my Wangxian AUs, I gotta say). I mention my sister-in-law because my sister-in-law has enough musical acuity to also recognize that both my brother and Aphex Twin are geniuses, which really helped me to understand that even though I’m not really into this music at all, it really is a Big Deal.

So, I researched Aphex Twin and also went to my brother’s website for his music to find out what the hell this type of music is called, and it turns out there’s not a good name. IDM, which stands for intelligent dance music, is a label Aphex Twin himself famously does not like, and my brother labeled his own music as “acid, techno, house, electro.” Wikipedia said that Aphex Twin is known for techno, ambient, and jungle.

Anyway, into this confusing morass of electronic revolutionary music is where I decided to plunk Wei Ying.

Electronic music. Note for this section that I know nothing about electronic music. I’m writing this post partly to document the journey of discovery I went on to write this porn. I’m not really trying to educate anyone so much as I’m trying to provide insight as to what I researched for this fic and what the references are, in case the fic interested you.

When you really get down to it, music made with electronics has as many genres and styes as music made with more traditional instruments, and the labels are just as confusing (see this Wikipedia list of electronic music genres). For instance, “electronica” just means music made with electronics to some people, but to others it’s more specific. You’ve also got a bunch of other terms: ambient, EDM, techno, house, IDM.

This is all based on what I learned from Wikipedia, but here are some loose definitions as I understand them: There’s ambient, which is really made for background listening, and then there’s EDM (electronic dance music), which is made for active listening—ie, dancing. Within EDM you have lots of genres, such as techno; techno is usually characterized by a specific tempo and repeating structure, and house, which . . . is also characterized by a specific tempo and repeating structure, but the tempo is different. From what I can gather, house is also a bigger tent than techno; ie, many different genres and styles can be house, but techno is more often just techno. (Note that part of the reason all of this terminology has so much overlap is that it originated in different places; techno was invented in Berlin, house in Chicago.) Meanwhile, the list of genres of house is so big that it also has its own Wikipedia page, which is almost as large as the list of electronic music genres.

Note that there is such a thing as “house ambient”, which explodes the entire concept of ambient vs EDM. To aid in that explosion, IDM is described on Wikipedia as including styles such as ambient techo, and “is regarded as better suited to home listening rather than dancing.” What stands out about IDM, and the reason it is featured in the fic, is that it’s known for being experimental. (I’ll add that it emerged in the 90s, which isn’t great for my fic. Whatever WWX is doing, he is on the edge, and 90s music already old to him, even if he’s Aphex Twin’s biggest fan! But alas, my research could not tell me what is happening right now, because you really have to be involved in The Scene to understand what’s new. By the time it’s documented, it’s already really a little old.)

If you are researching electronic music and how it is revolutionary, you’re probably going to get into its evolution and history, since this is a new style of music. And if you are looking into the origins of this kind of music, you’re going to find Brian Eno. And if you’re looking into Brian Eno, you’re going to find minimalism.

Minimalism. Brian Eno is an extremely famous dude. I’d probably heard of him before, but I am very good with big concepts and pretty bad with details, so because I didn’t know anything about the bigger concepts behind ambient/electronic music/minimalism, I never paid attention. Now I’m hearing about him literally everywhere, which is funny, since it’s not like he’s new news. Ezra Klein was literally waxing poetic about Music for Airports just a month ago.

Eno is famous for his pioneering work in ambient music and electronic music, and, as one might expect, electronic ambient. Eno was always doing experimental, avant-garde stuff, and early on he embraced a minimal style. He later coined the term “ambient music.”

What’s interesting about this is that around the same time as Eno was doing this in later 1960s/early 1970s, a new kind of art music was being born in classical circles. This is the capital “M” Minimal music, for which—you guessed it—Philip Glass is really famous. And when you look at Philip Glass’s influences, he was deeply influenced by the minimalism of eastern music, especially Indian and Tibetan music. I couldn’t really find anything saying that Brian Eno was directly influenced by traditional eastern music, but Eno is definitely a fan of Glass and vice versa; they really build on each other.

This ended up just being a very cool intersection for the fic that I didn’t plan. I didn’t end up using it very much, but I must say I was stupidly pleased that the kind of music I was looking into for both of these characters has such deep roots in eastern music traditions. So now let’s talk a little bit about eastern music, specifically Chinese music, since that’s where this fic is based.

Chinese music. I did read a bit about Chinese music for this fic, and I have to say that I still don’t know a lot about it. As stated above, I’m in the west, using my western search techniques, looking for primarily articles in English (though I get Google to translate some things). I also just have a western understanding of music and music history, and it turns out, surprise, different cultures are different, and my entire paradigm for understanding music does not really apply to music from other cultures.

I, and many of us, want music to be a universal language, something that can move through all barriers and touch us in our souls. And it is! I have listened to and loved music not from my culture! But thinking of music as something intrinsically universal and therefore immediately moving to everyone really collapses the rich history of musical tradition all cultures have. Music really is like a language, in that it is built on the culture that creates it; it has its own internal logic; it has style and meaning that depend on the history of that tradition and the understanding of its audience. The brief reading I’m going to do to write some porn will not give me to understand the deep and rich tradition of Chinese music, but also, frankly, even if I turned all my efforts and career to learning and understanding this right now, I still would not have the best comprehension. I don’t even comprehend western music, and I grew up with it. So, forgive me for the paucity of my understanding and knowledge, and please correct me if I make mistakes.

When I think about Chinese music that I know about, I think of two things: modern and traditional. The modern stuff I’m thinking of is stuff like C-pop, but also the things you might hear on the soundtrack for a drama or movie. To me, none of this music sounds that different than western pop or western soundtracks. There are a few reasons for this: one, there are tons of Chinese music that is not reaching me. Two, maybe I just think it doesn’t sound that different because I can only really process what I recognize. Three, in a similar vein, maybe I’m thinking “that sounds like what I know” when really what I know sounds like what I’m hearing. Globalization is definitely doing things to music; if you’re telling me that Asian pop is not influencing western pop right now, I’m going to think you’re crazy, considering the influence and popularity Asian pop has in the US and Europe right now. And four, western music did have an impact on Chinese music, so there’s that.

Obviously, the music genre I chose for Wei Ying falls into the modern sphere, and I certainly looked into the techno/EDM/IDM/electronic/ambient/house scene in China. Articles I found stated it took a little longer for EDM to pick up steam in China, but now it’s definitely going strong. There are some great electronic music festivals, EDM clubs, underground EDM scenes, and EDM music artists (composers and DJs!) in China. Researching these artists was pretty difficult, especially because I wanted Wangxian’s musical discussions to be highly technical, and for highly technical discussions about EDM you are wandering into some very niche spaces. I’m sure such spaces about EDM in China exist, but they’re most likely to be in Chinese.

As I’ve said, globalization is a factor when it comes to cultural difference in music, and I’d add here that because this genre of music is so new, globalization has even more influence, from what I can tell. That said, I do not want to diminish how much influence very specific locations have to do with this type of music. EDM is very tied to clubs (because of the dancing) and performance (because of deejaying, and also because of things like live coding/algorave), which is probably why we get so many granular genres of house—Chicago house is different from Detroit, just for example. Regardless, I stuck with researching a lot of western artists for both the music and musical discussions in the fic, mostly because the music is supposed to be so new and avant-garde that is should not be something overly familiar to the reader, even if they’re steeped in electronic music genres.

Then there’s traditional music.

Traditional music. Traditional music obviously had a huge influence on Chinese modern music. The influence of traditional eastern music on modern eastern music, as well as traditional eastern music itself, is what really influenced a lot of western minimalism of the 1960s and 70s (and onward). To be clear, not all “eastern” traditional music is the same. It’s just as richly diverse regionally as traditional western music, if not more so, given “the east” is fucking huge—though I will say that a lot of people think of western music as pretty monolithic, because folk is characterized as a separate tradition than classical. When you consider ancient western folk, there’s a shit ton of it, and it’s quite diverse. There is also folk music in eastern music traditions, and this is different than music that would have been played in courts and palaces, so there’s really a ton going on.

Traditional music is what people think of when they think of eastern music being “weird,” which is something I really hate. Look, I love being weird; I think weird is cool; it’s great. But weird means unusual, and traditional music is very usual; people who say that just mean it’s unusual for them, and they should think about their words. What they’re trying to say is that traditional eastern music will sound very different for many western listeners, even though, again, we like to think of music as so universal, actually!, because it’s based on math, actually!, and math is so universal!!! The truth is that math is patterns, and patterns are things that your brain recognizes when there are familiar elements, and when there are unfamiliar elements your brain has trouble recognizing the pattern. So, again, music is a way to communicate across all kinds of boundaries, but it is not a universal translator. (But it does make you wonder . . . if Lan Zhan played Inquiry, could Aeneas answer???)

Regarding the unfamiliar math, what we’re talking about is scales. I think most people know this part. Eastern scales are based on math, just like western scales, but the frequencies are divided up differently. Among other things, traditional Chinese music did not use equal temperament, which means depending on what note you start with, the intervals for all the notes on the scale were be different. A way of thinking about this, at least as I understand it, is that a piano is even tempered. All the notes are always the same whether you’re playing in C major or B flat, because you have no control over the frequency produced when you press the key. But if you’re using just intonation—say you’re using an instrument with just a few strings—you’re adjusting the frequency of the note to match your scale. It requires extremely precise hearing and playing ability.

Notation for traditional Chinese music was really different than how I as a westerner understand it. For one thing, it didn’t include rhythm, and for another, it represented more a framework for improvisation than every single precise note. (See Gongche notation, Wikipedia.)

Authorship was also thought of pretty differently. When I googled “great Chinese composers,” the only results I was getting were twentieth century. There are some great ancient Chinese composers, but I had to do a lot of digging to find them, and trying to find someone like the Chinese equivalent of Beethoven is just the wrong approach. When you get right down to it, this really seems to be about the fundamental difference between western individualism vs eastern collectivism and community-based thinking. The individual artist is not the hero of the story. That said, the tradition of the music is very heroic. For instance, the notation allows such variation that the same piece can really build and grow through different artists, much like a story through oral tradition. Additionally, for an artist in an ensemble piece to stand out would really be quite rude; the point is not the individual talent of the musicians but the fundamental beauty of the piece. (This was a particularly hard thing to research, and I mostly found out what I laid out above from various folks answering questions in forums. The best one I found is here.)

Another thing is that harmony, as we think of it, was just not really a thing in traditional Chinese music. The focus was on a melody, which is where minimalism comes in. I’d add here that the “as we think of it” is pretty important, because the western paradigm, including western music language, is not super great at really capturing the nuance of Chinese music. I am terrible at tracking my sources when I research stuff for fic, so I was trying to find some of them now, and I came across this article, which examines the harmony that did exist, but how different it is from what we think of when we think of western harmony.

Despite the reading I did on this subject, very little about Chinese traditional music made it into the fic. I do have Lan Zhan reading a book on traditional music that he hates. This isn’t based on a book I found, but rather to show that Lan Zhan isn’t really into the idea of musical “purity,” that is, ideas of what you should and shouldn’t do with music. That said, I’m not really aware of what strictures around traditional Chinese music are like, or what the Chinese thought is on that. I am aware of how deeply restrictive western thought is regarding music theory, and that’s really where that part of the fic was coming from.

I’d originally had Lan Zhan reading a book on western music theory and very deeply hating it, but I also felt like having him read a book on western theory could reinforce the idea that he’s working within a western paradigm, when really the whole point is that this Lan Zhan very intentionally uses traditional music values. Due to his inspiration from Wei Ying, he’s breaking the norms of how that music works, but he's not necessarily making it western; he’s making it avant-garde. Basically, my inspiration was a Chinese Philip Glass, but I didn’t want to say that because as mentioned above, Glass is still western, no matter his influences. That said, Wei Ying does compare Lan Zhan to Philip Glass and also Tan Dun, who you might recognize as the guy who did the soundtrack for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, among many other very famous projects.

Tan Dun has in fact been called the Chinese Philip Glass, which is probably not very respectful to Tan Dun, who is himself an incredible (and experimental!) composer. I should note, however, that Tan Dun is Chinese American—he was born in China, but got a degree at Columbia and has lived in New York since. Also, he is particularly famous for marrying Eastern traditionalism with western style, and that really wasn’t what I wanted for Lan Zhan. I didn’t want Lan Zhan to be incredible because he was using western traditions, though he is familiar with them and can make very talented use of them. A lot of very famous Chinese modern composer are famous for that, and that music is still very Chinese. That said, I felt that if I made that Lan Zhan’s style, it would feel like I was saying Lan Zhan’s music is special because it’s western, and that was something I really wasn’t keen on.

In the end, I possibly did the fic and traditional Chinese music a disservice by having Lan Zhan read his book and hate on it. One of the whole reasons western music theory sucks is it can be pretty racist, and that’s what I was trying to avoid, but by conflating my rage at western music theory with eastern, I didn’t really help things much. But anyway, since I’ve now mentioned it, let’s just take a slight detour to talk about what I mean by racist music theory.

Western music theory racism. There’s a scene in the movie Tár that really solidified my feelings on the subject. In it, a student who identifies as BIPOC and pangender, says they don’t really have much use for Bach because of Bach’s misogynist history. The extremely famous director, Tár, played by Cate Blanchett, lambasts the student for “cancelling” Bach because of Bach’s personal life. The student goes on to say that they really just don’t have much interest in cis male white composers, and Tár continues to lambast the student for considering things like gender and race in conjunction with the art.

My understanding of this scene was that it was demonstrating that Tár is a jerk, so full of herself that she can’t listen to other voices, and so steeped in her 18th century western ideas of genius that she’s literally silencing the music voices she’s supposed to support. That was not most people’s reading of the scene, and in retrospect, possibly not the intention of the film. It seems rather telling that not a lot is known about Bach’s misogyny or lack thereof; there are plenty of other “great” western composers that are known to be worse in terms of misogyny and abuse, and yet the film did not make this scene about them. In retrospect, maybe that scene wanted to paint this student as kind of ignorant for cancelling Bach, and Tár really puts them in their place when she describes how art is more important than the artist.

Fuck that. I certainly believe that art is more important than the artist. JK Rowling sucks; that doesn’t mean I will stop loving HP fic and the part it’s played in my life. But the ugliness of the scene is that it hinges on importance of Bach, and look here, shocker, Bach is not essential, just as JKR is not essential if you decide you don’t ever want to familiarize yourself with the literature of TERFs. Even if you want to be a musician and create or conduct music, Bach is just not essential.

He’s pretty important if you want to be a western music historian, true, but when we talk about music there are many, many music traditions that are incredibly worthwhile and important that not only weren’t created by cis white men, but also weren’t ever derived or influenced by cis white men. If you think that you need Bach to know and love and create and perform and conduct music, it’s because you’re operating in a single paradigm that has become yes, universally known, but also for that reason oppressive and imperialist. I am not saying western classical music is bad because it’s imperialist, just to be clear. Bach’s great! Hate ‘im, but I do love me some Beethoven and he was also very cis and male and white and also a complete douche! What I’m saying is that forcing this music tradition on others is deeply imperialist, and it happens all the time.

Anyway, this is really a tangent, because despite my very good intentions to write about Chinese music, as I have stated, almost everything I used for reference was western, even a lot of the stuff I listened to. Maybe I just wanted to acknowledge that that’s a little racist, even though I tried not to be. Maybe I also wanted to hate on Tár and leave you with this interesting video about white supremacy in music theory.

References. Finally, we’ve reached the part I had originally intended to post, which is why I started writing this. Below are the essays and articles I used to write this fic. They were used in three ways: 1) to describe the music (though I also listened to things, see next section), 2) to inform Lan Zhan’s critiques and Wei Ying’s ideas—though I read a lot of essays to do that, just a crazy amount considering how little of the fic is actually about that, and 3) to describe the reading material Wei Ying and Lan Zhan exchange.

Music Beyond Airports – Appraising Ambient Music

This is a series of essays largely focused around Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, though there’s a lot of other stuff as well. I didn’t read everything in here, but the collection is absolutely fascinating. “Ambient House: “Little Fluffy Clouds” And The Sampler As Time Machine” is one of the “articles” Wei Ying sends Lan Zhan; meanwhile, the collection as whole is what Lan Zhan sends Wei Ying when he says he’s been reading about ambient house. Additionally, “Adaptive Game Scoring With Ambient Music” really influenced Lan Zhan’s commentary about arpeggiation, the first time he comments on Wei Ying’s music.

Counterpoint - Tracking in the Music of Aphex Twin

I have some embarrassment about this, given that the article is about counterpoint, and as I have discussed above, eastern traditional music doesn’t really employ that in the way westerners think about it. However, it’s also pretty backwards to restrict Wei Ying to traditional eastern music, as modern Chinese music includes plenty of counterpoint, and part of the point of the fic is that Wei Ying is doing entirely new things that haven’t been done before. Well. They’ve been done by Aphex Twin, as described in this piece, which also describes the first piece that Wei Ying plays for Lan Zhan in the fic, in the car. I did lift the phrase “pedagogy of counterpoint,” and could not decide whether it was long enough or significant enough to credit in the fic.

Unequal Temperament: A Review of Aphex Twin’s SYRO

I can’t remember what I used this article for. It’s an interesting read.

Reverb Machine (the entire website)

This is the site I kept returning to over and over and over again. Most of the articles about electronic really focus on either the equipment used or chords. In the fic, Lan Zhan isn’t supposed to know much about equipment or how any of it is used, because he does not do electronic music. Also, I didn’t really want to talk much about chord progressions, because those discussions are steeped in western music theory, and I wanted it to be possible for Wei Ying to be using the kind of scales traditional Chinese music used, even if a lot of modern Chinese music does use an even-tempered 12-tone scale. However, this site has a lot, and I ended up returning to it again and again so Wei Ying could say an offhand thing about reverb, and to describe certain things.

Notably, Wei Ying’s track, sex.mp3 is loosely based around Trent Reznor’s and Atticus Ross’s soundtrack to The Social Network. I haven’t even talked about Trent Reznor, but he was also someone I considered deeply when I started thinking about making Wei Ying do electronic music. In case you don’t know, Reznor was the artist behind Nine Inch Nails, but in later years he moved on to more experimental things, including movie soundtracks. Side note, movie soundtracks and video games is where a lot of these experimental artists doing either minimalism, ambient, or electronica, or a combination of all three end up, and I ended up reading a lot about video game music.

But anyway, when I saw the Social Network, I came out of it 1) admiring Aaron Sorkin and wishing I didn’t admire Aaron Sorkin because he’s kind of a douche, 2) shipping Mark and Eduardo way too much for my comfort, 3) going HOLY SHIT THAT SOUNDTRACK. Turns out I was not alone in finding that soundtrack totally different and new compared to anything I have ever heard, because as it turns out, it really was—wait for it—revolutionary. I understand that I have now said that about Glass, Eno, Radiohead, and Aphex Twin, but hey, people are doing things in music. Like I get that pop and hiphop artists are revolutionizing their genres all the time, but also it is possible for music as we know it to be redefined, and it’s not just the weird shit you hear that sounds like noise (there is a place for the weird shit that sounds like noise, and Brian Eno is closer to it than any of the above mentioned; I am not dissing weird shit that sounds like noise, because it is part of how we get where we are going).

Anyway, I used this website’s essay about The Social Network’s piece, “In Motion” to describe some of the music and inform some commentary on it.

“East Meets West: A Musical Analysis of Chinese Sights and Sounds, by Yuankai BaoSounds, by Yuankai Bao” by Jiazi Shi

This was the only essay I found that really had the extremely niche technical jargon that I really wanted for the fic that was also about Chinese music. You’ll note that it’s about a Chinese composer who is, again, famous for marrying eastern and western tradition, but this was what I could find in English, and I searched a lot. You’ll note that Lan Zhan’s very specific comment about the key change is something very directly inspired by this grad school dissertation. You’ll also note that this is where I found “Flowing Stream,” including a description of the song and the lyrics.

Music. A lot of fics like this one will link you to a specific piece that the character is playing. I could not do that, because the music in my fic is very intentionally made up. As I have been saying, the whole point is that Wei Ying is pushing the boundaries, inventing music that does not exist. So is Lan Zhan, by the end. I listened to music to inspire the descriptions, but it is not what they are playing, and almost none of it is Chinese. I’d be very interested in finding some Chinese music that is working on some of the principles of minimalism and electronic that these pieces employ.

Aphex Twin – Stone In Focus

Now you’ve come to the climax—this is really the story of how I learned to love Aphex Twin. This piece makes me cry. It’s what I used to describe the piece that has the remix of Lan Zhan’s guqin piece from 12 years ago. Obviously, the guqin piece mentioned in the fic is the canonical piece, Wangxian, but I find Wangian in the drama cheesier than I want it to be, and this Aphex Twin piece doesn’t have the Wangxian part. It’s just the sad longing part before Wangxian enters, but you’ll also notice that there are no flutes! Again, this is not the piece Wei Ying wrote; it’s just what I used for the description.

I didn’t link to the YouTube video I was watching, because the video was a collection and this didn’t come on until after minute thirteen. But that video just has this very sad tunnel that looks like maybe it’s for a train, and the rain is falling, and that makes me cry as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHl4NVytGpo&t=1074s

Book featuring Ndidi O - Hold On, I'm Coming

Wait, you’re saying, this is not electronic/house/ambient at all; this is just a trick to get me to watch one of your favorite wangxian vids! You’re right! But frankly, I was not focused on the genre when describing the music; I was focused on getting the feel of it that I wanted. The opening sequence to this was what I used to describe the track they make love to. (Lan Zhan starts making out with him and kind of slowly humping him to the track with the wangxian remix, but then Lan Zhan demands he plays something else, and this is what I listened to to get the feel for it.)

This pieces is a cover, and frankly, I can’t find out much about it. But just thinking about it turns me on and makes me cry and makes me feel so much, I can’t do it too often.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – “In Motion,” from soundtrack to The Social Network

As noted above, this piece inspired sex.mp3, but I will say that the article I linked above about this piece, as well as the memory of the soundtrack itself, inspired descriptions more than listening to the piece itself. In the fic, sex.mp3 is initially described as “violent.” This was because I didn’t know if the track would play a big part in the fic, and then when it did, I really had to change to both to fit the meaning and the flavor I wanted; it became “anxiety inducing,” and that’s when it became “In Motion.” “In Motion,” however, is kind of too bright and peppy to really be sex.mp3, though I will say I was trying to listen to it just to write this section of the post, and I had to turn it off. It makes me SO anxious.

Philip Glass – soundtrack to The Hours

I’m linking the whole soundtrack, because in the fic Lan Zhan writes several related pieces, which is what this soundtrack is. I can’t even recommend one piece on this soundtrack, because it’s the thing as a whole that really makes you cry, and I can’t say I listened to a specific part of it to describe Lan Zhan’s music, because I know it so well that I only have to listen to a small piece to get all of it.

Flowing Water, played by Chen Leiji

The part this played in the fic is obvious. I listened to at least five versions of Flowing Stream/Flowing Water, and this is the one that I like the best. However, like all the renditions I listened to, the piece eventually becomes pretty complex and different than I wanted for Lan Zhan. In fact, what the narration describes as “showing off technique” is what I found in all recordings of this piece. I guess if you’re going to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on YouTube you’re going to do something impressive with it, but I will say this piece is still very close to what I wanted.

I will also say that when I searched for this piece, as well as several other traditional songs, the search results had a lost of stuff that said you can listen to these pieces for tranquility and calm and meditation. I suggest listening to this one as extremely passionate and longing, and you’re going to get a lot more from it. If you resign it to the background, yeah, it’s kind of nice. If you let each note really speak to you, you’re going to really ache in a beautiful way.

Brian Eno – Ambient 1, Music for Airports

After hearing so much about Eno and Music for Airports, I was a little afraid I wouldn’t like it. After all, this isn’t really my genre, and witness how long it took me to find something I liked by Aphex Twin. However, I really needed some inspiration for the piece Wei Ying composes after Lan Zhan breaks them up, so I started listening to it.

The opening to this album is not the heartbreaking thing that the fic describes. It in fact does break my heart, but that is because there is something so sweet about it, lonely and sweet, but also perfectly fine being by itself. This piece is like a child alone in a room, figuring out blocks. This piece is like a cat on a piano, content with its nonsense noise. This piece is what it’s like to be alone and to be fine with that, to love from afar and be fine with that. It still brings me to tears, listening to it.

Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place

Apparently I did not succeed in writing all the music without Radiohead. I will say it happened because I happened to be watching a TV show that just happened to use this song right when I needed something powerful. I was already thinking about them, because my BFF was listening to a podcast about In Rainbows, which explains the children shouting “Yay!” in 15 Step. I really wanted something other than rain to get sampled in Wei Ying’s music, and my brother has specifically used his children talking or his babies crying as samples. Once Lan Zhan knows about A-Yuan, I wanted to use that idea, so I listened to 15 Step again, which is far too peppy for what I needed. But then Everything In Its Right Place came on, and it’s actually way too melancholy for what I needed, but that doesn’t really matter; I just needed to get a few notes described, so this is what I used for inspiration for what Wei Ying plays Lan Zhan after he admits to being in love with him. I will just say that re-listening to this song really does remind me of just how much Kid A means to me, but also how much it means to, like, music. There was really nothing like it at the time.

I will end this post by saying that I am not, in fact, a "music" person. So many people need and rely on music to get them through tough times. I mostly don't care about it. I don't have a Spotify account, and I can't imagine taking the time to really curate playlists.

But one thing I can say about me and my tastes is that I'm interested in learning. I want to try new things and hear things that I haven't heard before. To be a little self-aggrandizing, I think that that's a good thing. I think it makes me a better person to work on listening to things that I'm a little unfamiliar with and learn what's great about them. I think I got to do that quite a bit writing this, even though in the end I used a lot of pieces I was familiar with to do the actual writing. I hope that maybe someone reads this and decides to listen to something new, just like I did.

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beevean · 7 months ago

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Shanoa and Joachim for the character bingo?

Shanoa:

You are mean to her! Shanoa is more than a pretty face and cool powers! 😭

She's gorgeous and brave and raised to self-sacrifice, and her story is interesting and so so depressing and cruel, I want to explore her upbringing in Ecclesia more, and honestly I think it's worth going for the quests in Wygol Village not just for the prizes, but because it's just... nice, you know? These people trust Shanoa, and want to see her smile, and give her the chance to draw, and don't judge her for her lack of emotions and memories, and I love to imagine that they welcomed her with open arms by the end of the game.

Joachim:

Bingo!

I'll never get over my belief that Joachim was meant to play a much more substantial role in the story, because you don't design this character:

and give him a compelling backstory, a cool ass super power, the chance to be playable in an alt. mode, and no less than two remixes of his theme that shares the same leitmotif as Walter and Mathias... only for him to be a random boss on the same level as a Golem. Granted, I think he's meant to be beaten last due to the importance of his cutscene and his level being by far the hardest, but still!

Anyway he's prime for headcanons for this reason lol. Sadly we only see him in extreme circumstances, so we don't know if he's usually so violent and haughty or if it's the result of imprisonment... personally I like to imagine him as a very, very angry teen, who wants power but doesn't know what to do with it because what he actually wants is freedom but he's too proud to admit it.

I also appreciate how most of his design was recycled for Hector, so that it would not go to waste :P

#castlevania #akumajou dracula #shanoa #joachim armster

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kalolasfantasyworld · 5 months ago

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It has been 84 years since I've read a PH chapter... And more chapters have been posted so I'm even further behind... 😭/lh+j

But I'm back with chapter 5! LET'S GO!

I already like the chapter and the conversation Helena has with Solid and Nebra. Helena is on her guard with them quickly but then she finds a passing mention of Acier is able to soften Nebra and Solid's nasty exteriors. Acier being the "weakness" for all the Silvas gives me life. Because not matter how involved/aware they are of the truth of the matter, Acier is the connecting thread for the Silva siblings.

(Tangent: Nozel knows everything and fears losing Noelle like he lost his mom. Nebra and Solid spent time with Acier and losing her warmth in their life without knowing the truth made them turn outso sour. And then there's Noelle with no knowledge of Acier at all, regarding her life or death, so she's just trying to grasp at what others say about her. It's honestly so tragic how all the siblings are affected because of their varying levels of knowledge of who Acier was and what happened to her.)

Anyways, while learning that Acier even connects the Drazels as a whole and Helena specifically to Clover, it doesn't automatically make Solid and Nebra friendly. It just makes them... reconsider.

Too bad Nozel wasn't there and Helena's opinion of him is still in the pits. Oof.

Then through Vanessa and Finral, Helena gets some insight onto what's going on with our main heroes.

“Misunderstandings can lead to major problems. Besides it’s nice to get along with people you live with.”

Considering the vague hints and warnings you've mentioned about the future of the story, Lola, I can only suspect that what Finral said here will be an ongoing theme in this story. It'll probably relate to Helena learning about the Silvas and also Noelle reconciling with her siblings.

(Also I do have to ask if this meeting is happening before or after the Dungeon Exploration arc because until then, Asta only has one of the anti-magic swords. I know you stated that the start of PH is around episode 5 but I'm unsure of how much time has elapsed since then. So just like... maybe I forgot between chapters 4 and 5 but has there been enough passage of time for the Dungeon arc to happen and Asta to get his second sword?)

Her main goal was to heal people, not hurt them, even less so kill. She knew that there definitely were situations, which would require sacrifices, and she could not be able to handle them.

(puts "Helena will have to kill someone" on my bingo card) Don't worry about that./j

Also, you were not kidding about not needing any Black Clover knowledge going in as you do a pretty good job of summarizing the system of the Magic Knights. Meanwhile, I'm guilty of "yeah, I just throw fanfiction at people and hope they know the source material."

Helena softening up with Solid and Nebra is nice, even seeing her play into their ego a little is kinda cute. I don't know about others but I like Solid and Nebra being a little prideful since it contrasts with Noelle and Nozel's poor self images and, if used right, can be comedic. It also shows her ability to converse and socialize in a civil manner, fitting of her upbringing.

And with Nozel, it seems he and Helena are at an impasse akjndfiashruit!

KShfioaurt! Even with Solid and Nebra opening up a little, Solid is still his tricky self. Way to put your guest in a position that paints her intentions as a challenge rather than mere participation.

Fight scene! Fight scene!

It's neat that Helena is able to hold her own despite training more for self-defense than true combat. And I do like how she ultimately doesn't win because of her hesitation to hurt. It's a good character beat.

And that cliff hanger. Uh oh...

84 years were worth the wait to get your comment ^^

Acier really is that "olive branch" that Helena and the Silvas have. Something connecting them and a soft spot for the siblings. I don't really see them getting along quickly any other way.

Yup I agree with what you said about the varying levels of knowledge.

And yeah Nozel and Helena... still don't get along.

Yup Finral and Vanessa will be giving us details through out most of the fic ^^ They're just spilling all the tea. And yes that sentence is important. I'm once again impressed with how you caught that.

I admit I wasn't exactly specific whether the dungeon arc happened or not. It wasn't specified how much time passed in BC as well. However since after the dungeon Asta and Noelle are called to Julius and then the attack happens, this is earlier. Probably around the time that Asta and Noelle's first mission with Magna happens.

😁 I'm saying once again how much I love the details that you're pointing to.

Thank you I did my best with explaining ^^ that friend of mine who reads my drafts actually read the first few chapters of PH before watching BC and she said she understood everything and then it made sense.

Solid and Nebra are so much fun to play around with. I always knew I wanted to develop them, but while writing that chapter I felt their character arcs for this story forming much more clearly.

Helena's able to hold her own, because as a princess it's expected of her to not suck completely... but yeah she's not good. She hasn't practiced and relies on her mana a lot, like your typical Clover Noble when it comes to fighting.

Yes the fact that she hesitates...

Hah I like cliffhangers you'll see ^^

Thank you so much for your comment Erika 💕

#Erika's thoughtful remarks ⭐️#paper hearts #asks

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llycaons · 2 years ago

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going off that point, man this isn't going to be very comprehensible and feel free to disagree but here goes

the interesting thing about the juniors being buddies and JL refusing zidian and lsz not reacting to the reveal about his heritage with anger (for what he'd lost) but gratitude and joy (for what he'd regained) is that it's not...overly moralized? it's one of the more refreshing and authentic parts of the show (and I AM talking strictly show universe here)

instead of having a hackneyed blanket statement of "REVENGE IS WRONG ALWAYS" or "DON"T STOOP TO THEIR LEVEL" or demonizing people who do go after justified revenge, we just see how these two kids eventually want to get along and whose actions are a natural reflections of their characters and upbringing. jl and lsz aren't especially on the moral high ground for refusing/giving up on revenge, but the fact that they do gives them peace of mind and it allows them connections with people they cherish and than they otherwise would have gotten. and wwx isn't demonized for his (quite vicious) revenge either, it was a little horrifying but moreso for how he did it than that he did it at all. nhs seems to be a bit of a morally gray character, I can't quite decide how I think the show wanted his actions to be read. and jgy and xy's pursuits of revenge were most notable for how extreme and out of proportion they are - xxc himself allowed that xy was entitled to his anger towards the man who destroyed his finger as a child.

like...the fact that jl and lsz being more interested in their own lives and refusing symbols of violence as a choice isn't shoved in our faces and it's more presented as a natural result of the differences between the juniors and their seniors' generation is really nice. it's a rather minor facet of the story compared to wwx's journey, but I think the fact that it's relatively understated actually helps the narrative sink in better because it's actually woven into the story and has clear outcomes for characters the audience can follow...show and not tell etc. anyway I think it's an unusual exploration of revenge

#does this make sense. god damn ive twitsed my brain up in knots #and yeah. jl has the right to be upset with wwx even postcanon. he certainly is torn in the book #and lsz has EVERY right to be grieved and upset that his entire family was murdered #and he didn;t know anything about it until now #so in that sense his response is a little strange #and it does frustrate me we don't get more of him being confliected #but my god I hate the message of 'revenge always bad! violence bad! don't stoop to their level!"#oh and I didn't even touch on the cycles of abuse but I don't think I can say anything of value on it anyway #and obviously this isn's an american show but the current discourse of ~violence is always bad~ and shit is so infuriating and it is #EVER-present. so yeah a little violence is okay!#cql txp

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butwhatifidothis · 4 years ago

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For a change of pace I’m going to actually say something nice about a character, and that’s Claude (under the cut cuz it got a bit long and I remember!! that’s a fucking thing you can do lmaooo).

Like, there’s honestly a lot to this character that I find very striking and sadly gets overlooked in favor of either making him a complete joke or a complete/near complete sociopath. I like that Claude initially believes himself to be this beacon of hope to this silly land of Fodlan because of his view as an outsider... and then realizing and acknowledging he’s not, that while an outsider’s perspective takes away the bias of growing up steeped in certain ways it also leaves holes that he just can’t catch without someone showing him due to his ignorance of said culture. He thinks he has Cyril and Rhea pinned down to rights because of course he would, why wouldn’t he... and then he actually talks to them and is shown wrong, and he listens! With Cyril he likes being shown the truth even if it means it puts him and his previous beliefs in a nonperfect light! With Rhea he doesn’t just reject her words even though they blow a giant hole in what he thought of her for the vast majority of the game!

And the way his trust issues are handled, while I do think could have been dealt with better had the route focused on his character more, I still absolutely love it. It’s so subtle but consistent throughout pre ts/post ts VW, how often he “makes sure” the Golden Deer are by his side, how he always has to find the “right time” to reveal his plans to them because he genuinely thinks they won’t trust or believe in him, how he genuinely thought that Hilda and Judith would abandon him if things got too dangerous for them personally (in AM for Judith, Hilda for both CF and AM), how you never really get Claude’s full story anywhere even in the end or the S support (almost like that’s a big source of trauma for him and he’s a secretive guy because of that trauma that doesn’t magically stop being a thing because you wanna kiss him! Congrats IntSys for once you managed to get something kinda right!), how even something like you calling him a stalwart ally is responded with a wink and a deflection saying that you’re just flattering him (because you can’t actually believe he’s a good ally too, right?), but then you see him actually trust someone and oh. Oh man. The difference is night and day. How he pleads with Dimitri to stop fighting and join forces in both AM and VW despite Dimitri being off the fucking walls at the time, how he honestly believed that Dimitri would not only recover from his madness but still come to his aid in AM, hell even in CF he honestly believes that there’s no way Byleth would kill him despite them deliberately forcing the Alliance into the war by invading them, shown by his shock and hurt if you actually do - Claude puts his trust in few people but when he does he does and that’s honestly so indicative of how drastic his trust issues affect him.

You see that growth more blatantly in his supports as well - compare how worriedly Claude deflects Hilda’s observation about his knowledge of how Almyrans see the Gonerils pre ts to him inviting her to meet his parents post ts. Similar with Leonie, how he offers to take her to his homeland, something pre ts Claude would never dream of.

And then there’s his empathy and compassion! Like often he’s very careless when it comes to trying to discover the truth yes, but when he sees there’s a line he’s going to cross if he does? He steps back, always. His supports with Marianne show this amazingly, with him thoughtlessly stepping on her insecurities, trying to apologize and make her feel better but failing, and then ending with him opening up to her about his own life - something he very, very rarely does - to make her feel less alone with her struggles. His ones with Flayn even say straight up that he dislike forcing secrets out of people, and when he says he’ll give up trying to get Flayn to talk herself... he does. Legitimately. Afterwards he just spitballs theories to her. Even when he sees he’s hitting close to home when he correctly guesses Flayn and Seteth’s relationship he doesn’t push farther than that despite the huge implications of what that means. And this “I don’t like to force secrets out of people” line is backed up by you losing support points with him if you try to dig at Flayn after Remire.

And we know that Claude doesn’t immediately think of the commonfolk in his dream via his supports with Cyril, but damn, when they’re in front of him, when they’re directly in his care? Claude arguably goes the farthest of the three lords to portect them. Mr. “Tactical Retreat” suddenly puts himself in direct danger by painting himself as a prime target for the Empire to attack in AM and CF. He involves none of the other houses and tell his men to retreat should things get dangerous for them (as shown in explore dialogue with CF!Lysithea and what he says if Judith and Hilda die in AM/CF in their respective maps). He calls in the Almyran army in CF and on the Kingdom army in AM - forces with trained soldiers ready to fight, not civilians desperate to live. And speaking of civilians, he evacuates all of Derdriu’s civilians and closes down entry into Derdriu. Even with him planning on retreating himself should things go badly that takes some nards to go through with given how easily things can go badly for him should just about anything go awry; he goes the distance for those under his care.

And also how readily he offers his support and understanding to the more emotionally abused characters. Look at his talk with Dimitri during Golden Deer’s Plea, back at his supports with Marianne, how he sympathizes with Rhea - someone he actively disliked/distrusted for most of the game - once he hears her story.

And yo, man, his backstory? Imma be real, very rarely do I get invested in “racism bad” storylines because so often they fall into “white man bad POC good” black-and-white (lol) mentality, but this? I actually felt this. So rarely is a mixed race person’s perspective shown in regards to racism since it’s more complicated than “whitey bad POC good”. No, both have people in them that are raised with beliefs that breed racism. They’re not evil people, they’re a result of the culture that raised them, and that raised those that raised them, and so on and so forth. He gets that his dream is unrealistic and that it’d take a very, very long time to implement even if it did happen and even then would face extreme backlash from people from both sides, but he believes in this dream. It’s what lets him face on Edelgard in CF despite the insignificant chance he has of winning if he does so, what pushed him to go beyond his familiar home of Almyra into the completely unknown Fodlan, what drives him to aim for Almyra’s throne despite his position as the youngest prince (aka his weak connection compared to his half-brothers).

And like, Claude shares with Rhea in that IntSys dropped the ball on their characters anyway, despite how much thought was put into them. Rhea is stripped of damn near any agency in post ts, non-CF routes and Claude has noticeably less direct attention given to his upbringing compared to Edelgard and Dimitri (and small things like no appearance from either of his parents’, no child portrait, stuff like that). This is most likely due to their routes basically being copy-pastes of each other so it had to be compatible with both characters so both characters had to suffer for it. But like, for what we got? I still love it.

#Claude #claude von reigen #Claude (fire emblem)#gonna actually tag him since it's positive #more stuff I couldn't fit in the post itself:#i personally acknowledge Dimitri and Rhea to be better written characters than Claude but just something about him had me connect to him mor #though I still do love Dimitri and Rhea don't get me wrong lol #And furthermore on the point with Claude and Rhea #he almost sounds like he doesn't want to get to truth from Rhea when she's at her deathbed #and only does so because the truth NEEDS to be known by someone and only Rhea has that truth #shown by how his first words to her when they meet for the last time is him apologizing #and interestingly Rhea says that she's happy to see the ''two'' of them #them being Claude and Byleth #just find it interesting how she says that specifically #like you'd think she'd be wary if anything towards Claude given his outburst the last time they talked privately #but by the last talk it looks like things like... actually improved between the two of them?#like not sure if ''respect'' is the right word but there's noticeably less tension in the air #and in fact there's that lessened tension in all the moments after Claude initially yells at her and she reveals some of the truth #and also you gain support points with Claude if you say you should let Rhea rest after rescuing her #which despite him saying ''Sadly I agree'' tells a lot about him cuz IntSys could have just made THAT the option you gain nothing with #or just have it join the endless dialogue branches that have both/all options do nothing to support points #if it really meant nothing kwim #loooon ass tag list but had a bit to say that I couldn't fit lmaooo

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jj-lynn21 · 4 years ago

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Stellan interview

"Stellan Skarsgard Is Finally Seizing the Spotlight"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stellan-skarsgard-is-finally-seizing-the-spotlight

With roles in “Dune,” the Star Wars series “Andor,” and “Hope,” the character actor par excellence has never been more popular. He talks to Marlow Stern about his stellar career.

Few if any actors have built a resume as impressive as that of Stellan Skarsgård.

After achieving teen-idol status in his native Sweden—even releasing a pop single—due to the TV series Bombi Bitt, Skarsgård transitioned to film acting. It was in the mid-’90s, with roles as a sadistic oil rig worker in Breaking the Waves, a fiery abolitionist in Amistad, and a haughty mathematician in Good Will Hunting, that the towering, stone-faced Swede would cross over into America, and establish himself as one of the finest character actors alive.

He’s since maintained a healthy diet of what he calls “experimental films,” including a total of six with Danish auteur Lars von Trier, and Hollywood studio fare, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean and Mamma Mia! films, the Thor and Avengers superhero extravaganzas, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Cinderella. And right now, at the age of 69, Skarsgård is at his most prolific. There was his Golden Globe-winning turn in HBO’s Chernobyl, the upcoming villain in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, and a main role in the Disney+ Star Wars series Andor, which he’s filming right now in London. Oh, and he’s fathered eight children, including the actors Alexander, Gustaf, Bill, Sam, and Valter.

“There’s no competition, really,” the elder Skarsgård tells me of his talented brood. “There’s some joking competition at the dinner table, but I know they’re better than me, so I’ve given up.”

Skarsgård’s latest is the Norwegian drama Hope. Directed by Maria Sødahl, the wife of his frequent collaborator Hans Petter Moland, it is a heartrending autobiographical film about a long-married couple, Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) and her theater-director husband Tomas (Skarsgård), whose atrophying bond is put to the test when Anja develops terminal brain cancer. As they fight for Anja’s survival, the two reevaluate how their relationship went off-course, and why they fell in love in the first place. (The U.S. remake rights were quickly snapped up by Nicole Kidman and Amazon Studios.)

Anne Frank’s Stepsister: How Trump Reminds Me of HitlerNEVER AGAINMarlow Stern

In a wide-ranging conversation, Skarsgård opened up to The Daily Beast about his many great films, the controversy surrounding pal Lars von Trier, being a nudist, and much more.

How have you been passing the time during the pandemic?

In different ways. The first half of the year I was at our summer house on an island outside of Stockholm, and all my kids—who were also actors, most of them, and they weren’t working either—were all out there in two houses eating dinners together, having a good time, and seeing the spring inch-by-inch, everything grew, which you never get time to do otherwise. But this job I’m doing here now [in London], I was supposed to fly back and forth from Stockholm because I’m shooting this Star Wars series called Andor, and it would have been very convenient because it’s only a two-hour flight, but because of the quarantine I’ve been stuck here. For more than a month I’ve been alone in a hotel room staring into the wall.

Speaking of the Skarsgård household, I read a quote from your son Alexander who said that when he was a teenager, “Dad was always walking around [without clothes] with a glass of red wine in his hand.” Was that your vibe during the pandemic?

Not this time! Is it the wine that worries you? [Laughs]

Did the stress of the pandemic make you feel less… free?

No, I’m still taking off my clothes when I get home very often—and my kids also, some of them do. It’s not a big thing. We’re Swedes! And we have no God that says we can’t show our body parts.

What about it do you just find so liberating? I don’t go the full monty but when I go home, I do tend to take off my pants and let loose a little bit, because it is constricting.

If it’s warm enough you don’t need clothes, right? Unless you’re ashamed of your body—or taught to be ashamed of certain body parts. For me, it’s all upbringing. It’s cultural. Some cultures don’t care about what part of the body you show, and some cultures are very precious, and some cultures the women can’t show their faces.

I’m curious what life was like in the Skarsgård household, because you’ve helped produce so many talented kids. Alexander described it as “bohemian,” similar to what you described during the pandemic, filled with dinner parties and a free-flowing atmosphere.

It’s always been a very open house, and the kids’ friends, it’s been easier to sometimes be in our house than their houses—especially during puberty, when conflicts arise—because we’re very relaxed and non-judgmental in our family. It’s really, truly pleasant. And my kids are more like pals to me. There’s no hierarchical relationship at all. It’s very nice. We just have fun!

It’s a very talented—and frankly, attractive—family. How did this happen?

How did I make kids that look so good? [Laughs]

Is that something you’re particularly proud of?

[Laughs] Well, the looks I don’t care so much about, but I’ve had two beautiful wives—and very smart wives—and that’s helped a lot. I’m not going to take much credit for anything. But what I’m proud of is, when I hear from other people in the business about Gustaf or Sam or Bill or Valter or Alexander, I hear that somebody worked with them and they were really nice on the set and totally cool with everybody, and how no matter what menial job anyone had on the set they were nice to them, then I’m proud. If they win awards it’s secondary to that, because that is a lottery anyway. Awards are sort of like reality shows.

They really are a popularity contest. Let’s talk about Hope. It could have very well been called Grief.

I thought it sounded bland to begin with, but in fact the film is about hope—and about love. It’s not a normal cancer film where it’s all about beating the cancer or fighting against it, but it’s about someone who gets a death sentence in a family situation with a lot of kids, like I have, and everything that was petrified in the relationship floats up again. It’s about how they rejuvenate their relationship, and through those horrible circumstances, find love again.

There’s one very powerful scene in the film that really encapsulates many elements and themes that it explores, and it’s the sex scene between you and your wife. It manages to capture the joy of reconnecting as well as the grief you’re experiencing.

I think it’s a great scene, because it starts beautifully—very gently—and it looks like it’s going to be really nice for both of them, and then her anxiety sets in, and things start to bad. And it does go bad pretty fast.

On another level, I’m an American and we don’t see sex very often in movies. And when we do, we don’t see it in the service of such complicated emotions.

With sex in film, it’s difficult, because sex is something that feels fantastic when you do it, and it looks ridiculous when you watch. Those humping movements like a dog? It’s not sexy at all! So, you can’t do a sex scene that looks like it feels, so they always have to be about something else. The sex scenes I had with Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, it was about her curiosity, because she discovered her first penis, she discovered sexuality, and it was totally about the relationship. The sex was just there. And in this film, the scene is not really about sex but about something else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sex scene that looks like it feels, and that can convey that beautiful thing that sex can be.

Really, in America, we get almost no sex scenes in movies. And it’s 2021.

It’s very strange. It’s not as bad as during the Hays Code, when you couldn’t let the lips meet for more than one second.

You just had a train going into a tunnel.

[Laughs] Yes, that very subtle image. But in America, you have a strong, strong tradition of bigotry or fear of sexuality. Only two years ago, in nine states in America, it was still illegal to have sex outside of marriage, and my American friends have told me that when they were growing up, it was even regulated how they could have sex—you couldn’t have oral sex or anal sex—so it is so ingrained in American culture that people’s sexuality is not a private thing, but something that everybody should interfere with.

Hope is also an exploration of mortality. Is that something you think about often?

I’ve never been that interested in it. I’ve always been aware of it. It’s the only thing you know in life—you’re gonna fucking die. But already many years ago, I thought I’d had such a fantastic life that it would only be fair that I died, because I’ve already lived more than most people. So, I don’t feel any injustice in death. And I’m not afraid of death because I’m not religious, so I don’t have to worry about whether I’m going to end up in hell or heaven. But I have small children still, my youngest is 8, and I’m no spring chicken anymore, so I think about how I should stick around for at least another ten years until everything is set.

I read that you’d studied a bunch of religions in the wake of 9/11 and reached the conclusion that it was all sort of bunk.

I grew up with total freedom of religion—my parents weren’t religious, though my grandmother was very religious. It was taught to me without judgment, and it was a very tolerant upbringing I had. But I hadn’t read the Bible. And after 9/11, when I saw George W. Bush standing in front of TV cameras and claiming that God had put him there, I thought maybe it was time to read what they actually believed in. So, I read the Quran and I read the Bible. There are some fantastic stories—as fiction, it’s sometimes brilliant and sometimes boring—but the God in both the Quran and the Bible, there’s only one reason to really worship them, and that is fear. It’s a power that says, “If you don’t worship, you’re going to die—and not only die, but burn in eternity.” It’s a bit autocratic and dictatorial, I would say. It’s very hard for me to worship something under threat.

And if God put George W. Bush in the White House, then God has a very cruel sense of humor.

[Laughs] Yeah, he does. And the latest president said the same thing.

But he doesn’t believe in God. He only believes in himself.

Yeah. I think that if he had more appreciation from the liberals in America, he would have just as well gone populist-liberal.

I think so too. You know, I read that your Dogville co-star Nicole Kidman already picked up the remake rights to Hope for Amazon.

She’s picked up the remake rights, yeah.

Both you and your son Alexander have shared some pretty intense scenes with Nicole. There’s that dramatic scene in Big Little Lies where Nicole hits your son in the dick, and it almost seemed to me like payback for what you put her through in Dogville.

[Laughs] Yeah, I’ve done two films with her and Alexander just finished doing The Northman with her. But she’s lovely. I really like her. She’s so cool.

At least it was a prosthetic and not Alexander’s real thing.

Yeah… coward! [Laughs]

I gotta say, between Chernobyl, Hope, Dune, a Star Wars series, and even a Simpsons cameo as yourself, how does it feel to be at your most prolific at 69?

I’m just working! I’m doing my job and having fun doing it. I’ve been lucky and a lot of good projects have emerged. It goes up and down, you know, throughout life. And I don’t think I could have a better life than I’ve had. I don’t have any regrets. And I don’t have to be the star or be in something very successful, I just have to have fun.

Nice. Do you feel you’re underrated? I think you’re someone who’s so consistently great in everything that it can almost be taken for granted how great you are. I know you won a Golden Globe recently, and that was long overdue, even if it’s mostly bullshit.

I don’t know! I can tell you: it’s much better to be underrated than overrated. So, I’m very comfortable if I am underrated. But I’m a Swede with an accent—or most of the time I have an accent—and for being a Swede with an accent, I have been extremely successful internationally, so I can’t complain. When it comes to the big studio movies, and I’ve been in four or five gigantic franchises that have paid a lot of bills for me, their concerns are financial, and I’m not a ticket-seller. I’m a solid fucking actor, and I’d rather be an actor than a star.

It gives you the mobility.

Exactly. The freedom I have. I can easily do small, experimental films and strange stuff—films that could ruin another actor’s career—so I’m in a good position.

I wanted to ask you about Breaking the Waves, because it’s the 25th anniversary this year and I consider it a masterful film. And it was Emily Watson’s first film, which is just extraordinary. How did you two establish such strong chemistry?

She’s British, which means she comes from a rather prudish society too, and to take on a role with an obscure Danish director—who wasn’t that famous at the time—and to take on a role with such explicit sex and nudity took enormous courage, but she was fantastic. My job was to love her, and that felt easy, but I think that she felt loved, and I think that she felt secure, which is essential for being able to do anything courageous. But she’s such a brilliant, talented, wonderful woman. I finally got to work with her again in Chernobyl. I mean, you just have to look at her and everything comes.

There’s this longstanding debate over whether Breaking the Waves is misogynistic or not, and I personally find it to be a misreading of the film. I’ve always thought of it as a biblical allegory of sorts about a desperate woman navigating a deeply sexist world.

Absolutely. Lars doesn’t have that in him. Those fantastic female roles that he has written, if you want to defend women in film, you’ve really got to take care of him because he writes the best roles for them. Those roles are very much him, and he definitely doesn’t have a negative attitude toward women. He loves them. There’s a plague of labeling people—not for what they’re really saying, but for what they appear to say. He was stamped as a misogynist and then he made a bad joke about Hitler at Cannes, and everyone stamped him as a Nazi, which is the furthest thing from what he is.

Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves

You stamp people as a “racist,” a “fascist,” a “communist,” I mean this fucking stamping is as smart as QAnon. It’s frightening. The fantastic thing about mankind is that we’re not one thing. We’re all capable of the most brutal and horrible crimes and we’re all capable of love. We do good things and we do bad things. There are nuances. The way of seeing people as “good” or “bad” guys is forcing something upon humanity that is really dangerous, because when you say someone is the “bad” guy then you’re saying you are the “good” guy, and it’s forcing you to not look at your own flaws.

I’m a huge fan of Lars’ films but I think one thing that’s really colored people’s opinion of him are the allegations that Bjork made against him on Dancer in the Dark. You didn’t have the biggest role in that film, but is it something you witnessed?

I’ve never seen him do anything like that. It’s not him. And if you talk to any of the other women who have worked with him over and over again, you will not get those kinds of accusations. But the Bjork and Lars conflict was enormous during the shoot, and it had very little to do with #MeToo. Lars, like all directors, in the end is a control freak, and Bjork has controlled everything in her career—from the music, to the costumes, to the way she sounds—and if two control freaks try to make a film, there will be conflicts. I got phone calls from Lars during the shoot where he was in tears. She left the set several times, and it had nothing to do with sexuality. She tore up her clothes. They had a very difficult relationship. But you’ve gotta pick your toxic males. You can’t put a “toxic male” label on everybody, otherwise it will be watered down, that label.

I’m so excited for Dune. What can you tell me about it? Denis Villeneuve said that your Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is different from the comics or the David Lynch film in that he’s not as much of a caricature but a calmer, more sinister presence.

The thing about it, and why I’m looking forward to this film as well, is because it’s Denis Villeneuve. Whatever he does, he creates an atmosphere that is dense, that you can touch, and you’re just sucked into it. You’re never bored—even if he does long, slow takes. The atmosphere builds up, and you’re in his universe. I think it will be the same with this one. He’s lovely to work with, and a beautiful man. I did eight or ten days on the movie, so my character doesn’t show up for too much, but his presence will be felt. He’s such a frightening presence where even if he doesn’t say anything, I think you’ll be afraid of him. And I’m extremely fat. I had eight hours in the makeup chair every day. And in some scenes, I look very tall because I levitate. You’re going to have a lot of fun with it.

The whole HBO Max day-and-date thing is weird, and I hope as many people as possible get to see the film on the big screen.

Oh, definitely. I think they made a deal with AT&T—which owns Time Warner, which owns HBO, which owns my phone—that they cut a four-week deal where it’ll be just for the theaters, but I’m not sure. That could change.

I also feel culturally obligated to ask you about Andor, the upcoming Star Wars series you’re in. What’s that about, and who do you play in it?

As you know, they’ll shoot me if I say anything! I can’t even get a proper script. It’s printed on red paper so I can’t make any copies of it, it’s ridiculous! Of course I’ve seen all the Star Wars films, because I’ve had children in the ‘80s, and the ‘90s, and the 2000s, and the 2010s. I’ve had children in five decades, which means you’ve seen all the Star Wars films—and seen all the toys as well. But when I saw Rogue One, it had much more atmosphere and seemed a little more mature—and that was Tony Gilroy, who’s the showrunner on this one. So, hopefully this one will be a little more than little plastic people falling over.

Was a part of the motivation to do Andor to look really cool to your kids?

I do think like that sometimes! I’ll go and do a children’s movie for that reason. But also, I’m not the most mature person myself, so who doesn’t want to go and fly a spaceship?

Plus, now you can give your kids action figures of yourself and say, “Play with me.”

Fuck yeah. Go play with dad. Don’t disturb him! Go play with him! [Laughs]

I’m not the most mature person myself, so who doesn’t want to go and fly a spaceship?

OK, this is kind of a silly question, but do you have a favorite movie death of yours? My favorite has to be in Deep Blue Sea, because in that one you get your arm ripped off by a shark, and then the shark uses your body as a battering ram to destroy this underwater facility.

I would say that is probably, in terms of inventiveness, my favorite one too. It was Renny Harlin. Yeah. I like it! Fortunately, I didn’t have to spend that much time on that stretcher—it was a doll. But it looked really cool! And the sharks weren’t CGI back then. It was mechanical sharks, and they were pretty dangerous. The little boy in me was very excited.

Another movie of yours that I love, for entirely different reasons than some of these other ones we’ve discussed, is Mamma Mia! Is it basically a vacation filming these? I imagine the cast parties are a lot of fun, because it seems like you all are having a ball.

Well, it is. I’m not a singer and I’m not a dancer so I was scared stiff, but the only way to make it work—because it’s not much of a story—is that we had fun doing it, because that joy is contagious to the audience. And we really had fun. It was very relaxed in Greece there on the beaches, and the parties we had there were very good too. It was a nice bunch of people to hang with.

When the cast of Mamma Mia! goes wild in Greece, who is the one that parties the hardest? Who’s the VIP?

It depends what you mean by partying! I usually get pretty drunk. Down there, Colin [Firth] and I were pretty good at it. And at those parties, we also had 50 dancers in their twenties, and they had much more stamina.

I have to ask: Will the gang get back together for a third one?

I don’t know! It took 10 years between number one and number two, so if it takes another ten years, I don’t know. Some of us may just be there in urns, with our ashes!

You released a pop single in the ‘60s, right?

Yes. When I was 16, I became extremely famous in Sweden. We had one TV channel back then and I did this TV series, and it was like being a rock star. But it meant also that all kinds of shady people thought they could make money off me. So, this guy calls me from Stockholm and says, “Stellan, can you sing?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Well, try it!” And then I hear this guitar on the other end of the line, I go, “Ahh!” and then he goes, “Perfect! Come over to Stockholm.” I went to this very shady studio in the suburbs and we recorded it, and then the guy who was running the project said, “I listened to the tape now, and I think it’s better if I sing and you speak on the record.” So, I don’t sing on the record. But there were very cruel headlines in Sweden. One paper had a headline that read, “Stellan Skarsgård, who we loved on this TV series, we don’t like anymore.”

That’s so mean! In addition to Breaking the Waves, another film that really raised your profile in the United States was Good Will Hunting—which holds up remarkably well. Some of my favorite scenes in that film are the ones where you and Robin Williams are jousting. And I know he’s a wild card, so what was it like shooting those?

He really is a wild card because anything can come out of him, and he can say anything and do anything, and he has this urge to do it because he has these three parallel brains that are constantly working on finding something funny or interesting. Sometimes, even when we would do ten takes and everybody would be happy with them, he’d say, “I have to get something out of my body,” so we would do one extra for that. You didn’t know what you’d experience when the camera would start rolling—you just had to dance with it. And it was fantastic. He was such a lovely man and had no ego. He was just a volcano of creativity and ideas.

Do you ever think about your legacy? You not only have a bunch of talented children but also have amassed such a strong body of work.

The thing is with legacy: you won’t be able to enjoy it, so just forget it. No, I don’t. And it doesn’t matter. If you’re extremely successful, it takes a decade and you’re gone from people’s minds. You can only hope that your children remember you for a couple of years, at least!

Well, they’ll have the Star Wars toys, at least.

They’ll have the toys! That’s right. [Laughs]

#stellan skarsgard

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nexyra · 3 years ago

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James Ironwood, for character ask? 👀

Aaaa thank you so much for the ask ♡ More rambling incoming !! Sorry for the wait btw, I've been both pretty busy and tired ;;

If you hate James Ironwood and don't wanna hear one good thing about him tap out now please ღ

My fav ship(s) for the character

I am not a super big shipper when it comes to James, but there are still some I like more than others soo here goes :

I think Ironwitch is a pretty good one. It's not necessarily a ship I'd search content for but I think these two would work well together ! Glynda is stern and honest and a no-nonsense kind of woman. She has the strenght to stand up to James when he slips or gets too stubborn when faced with the high stakes. At the same time, we've been shown that she cares for him and she knows he's only trying to do what's best for people. She has faith in him but also the ability to stand at his side as an equal. She seems to be the more steadfast of Ozpin's circle : loyal, you know you can trust her, and she will not crumble. This is the kind of personnality that I think James both admire and feel safe with. And the other way around, I think James is a good match for Glynda too. On a day to day basis, he's serious enough to not annoy here, but he's also a softie in some aspects and that's a nice combination to smooth out Glynda's edges.

Ironqrow is a completely different dynamic. The "we're annoying each other" dynamic is not one I'm particularly interested in usually xD But these two certainly had strong & interesting moments so it's a pretty valid ship !! Despite how they might butt heads because of the difference in their upbringing they (prior to V8) clearly trusted each other with their life. Even if Qrow jokes about shooting himself if he had to be one of James' man, when everything goes to shit there is no doubt in his mind that James wasn't responsible. Similarly, while James talks of shooting Qrow for his misbehaviour, when push comes to shove and we meet a tired Ironwood, run ragged by the pressure he's under... the only thing he does is hug him and reiterates how glad he is to see him. So again, they clearly have a lot of faith and trust in the other, and that's solid ground for a relationship.

My least favorite ship(s) for the character

Same spiel as always, shipping kids and adults is a big no from me; so any ships between Ironwood and RWBYJNOR can qualify here. That said, among the less uncomfortable ones, here are those I don't really like

This one is again because I love their relationship but platonically only, I'm talking of Winter Soldier. The reading I like best is not that Ironwood is Winter's Jacques 2.0, nor that he groomed her; but that he was an important father figure in her life. Protective and caring, who tried to help her escape with what he knew. I don't see James recruiting Winter as a way to gain a strong ally. But rather that Winter wanted to detach herself from her family name, and make something worthwhile of herself all on her own. And that the military is what Ironwood knows and understand, so naturally it's a career he'd see as a good path. Just like Winter then proposed it to Weiss. I like to think they care about each other a LOT and they're their own tight family in between the lines, even if professionalism might throw a wrench into it. For short I love them together but not romantically please =)

I don't know if there's a ship name for this, but Salem x James Ironwood would be a big nope from me too... In general, let's just assume I ship Salem with nobody because abuse.

My fav & least fav platonic relationship(s) for the character

Fav platonic relationship would be (have been because we dont talk about V8?) with Winter. Fooor the reasons I've explained above I suppose x) I (again) love the trust they had in one another and the quiet support.

There was also his relationship with Oscar that I really liked during V7, although it has been soured a bit by the (valid) reading from some people that Ironwood sought out Ozpin a lot through Oscar, and given his identity issues it is not ground for a greatly healthy relationship. Their interactions were still very intersting though ♡ I consider Oscar to be the kid who went at trying to appease James' fear or make him reconsider his decisions the best way. There was true understanding and hope for a working relationship here. I do feel that Oscar put in more work than James however (emotionally) and I wish there had been pay-back instead of a gunshot.

For my least fav relationship ? Probably Robyn or Watts ? Robyn was always very antagonistic toward Ironwood since their priorities are so different. And I overall just don't really like her after V7 so there are very few relationships with her I'm interested in (the exception is her ship with Fiona I think it's cute). Meanwhile, Watts is just a petty asshole hell bent on ruining Ironwood because he didn't pick his project. I'm not very interested in hate relationships, and since theirs wasn't deeply explored anyway, it's even more the case here. Their fight was great though, one of my favorite RWBY fights !

My favorite thing about the character

Well this was completely proven wrong by V8 buuut as of V7 I liked that he was a deconstruction of the military general (dictator) trope. Sooo you can guess how i feel about V8 X) In general among RWBY, several of my fav are fav BECAUSE they look like one trope but also have key differences that from the get go make the character stray away from said trope. For example I'm not a fan of the princess tsundere archetype at all, but I loooved Weiss in V1 BECAUSE she was extra-willing to listen and change her mind, and you could very easily tell that it was her upbringing speaking more than herself in most occasions.

Similarly, I wasn't a big fan of Ironwood before V7. I didn't hate him you know and he wasn't lower than most characters in my Tier list but I also didn't particularly care. But you know what ? I've aaaalways had a really soft spot for the "angsty angry traumatized teen". And RWBY made the mistake of extending that soft spot to "tired adults trying their best" (only to repeatedly beat them up/make them villains after making me care about them but what can you do uh)

Soo in general, I loved that Ironwood was trying so hard. I loved that he was tired and in over his head but learning and listening and trying to do good and be better despite his fears. I liked that he told his entourage about Salem and was loyal. I liked that he cared about helping the people above his own image and the way people perceived him. I liked that you could tell this was a terrible situation all around, and his decisions WERE questionnable but we could SEE that he meant WELL and was genuinely trying so hard despite how scared and tired he was.

My biggest criticism for the character

Well this won't be a surprise but in general I just wished he had stayed a morally grey character we were allowed to feel for instead of a cartoon black villain. I didn't need James to be THE Hero or anything like this despite some accusations levelled at those who like him. Him becoming one of RWBY's antagonist is honestly fine by me ! It is interesting. But I'd have preferred they kept him ambiguous and trying in his own way. (And smart because V8 Ironwood was dumb af)

I can be a tad overprotective of his character since he's just... so despised, so I think that I have inadvertently distanced myself from any of his flaws... somehow like "people are already yelling all of them so I don't need to add to this shit show" you know ? skjfkd But I KNOW he has them and it would still have been good to develop his flaws, just... not like that

But yea I'd have liked it if V8 Ironwood DID diverge from RWBYJNORQ and became an antagonist but not an iredeemable villain. LIKE,, we redeemed Hazel and Emerald and IRONWOOD is where the writers draw the line by saying "nope this one is rotten" ?? What ?

When was their writing at the peak according to me (ex : best season)

V7 definitely ! Ironwood carried V7 so hard haha. His character was fleshed out and given nuance and made to struggle and evolve and I loved him in that volume.

A song I think fits them & why

Hunger • Monsters & Men Human • Rag'n'Bone Man Way down we go • Kaleo Beekeeper • Keaton Henson Thistle and weeds • Mumford and Sons Castle of Glass • Linkin Park It's all so incredibly loud • Glass Animals

A headcanon to make up about them

His metal parts impact his metabolism so Ironwood is terrible at holding his alcohool and very little manages to knock him out. He's a workaholic. His low tolerence for alcohool is a great tool whn friends need to put him to sleep.

His joints crack and hurt in the cold, his metal parts as well and they are an hassle in the sand. James like to keep his room temperature warmer than the average atlasian because of this, otherwise he has to spend 30 min every morning simply unwiding muscles to move around efficiently.

He's not a good singer but has a nice low voice for telling stories. If he had kids, he'd probably avoid lullabies but compensate with bedtimes stories.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

As always, I'm kind of reflecting along the way as I write this, and one thing I'm thinking right now is... Doesn't it take away from the atlas arc message ITSELF to just pile up so many "standard bad guy" stuff on Ironwood ? Like, I wanna ask... why do we hate him ? Is he an antagonist because he lets fear get the best of him ? Because he's a classist who doesn't care about Mantle like some fans argue ? Because he's too stubborn and wants to be THE hero ? Because he doesn't listen to others ? Because he abandonned Mantle ? Because he kills peopke left and right ? Because he wanted to bomb a city ? I think you might see where I'm going with this : his status as villain is kind of messy. V8 just kept piling-up flaws and villainous actions onto Ironwood with no concern for whether this was a lenght he would go to (using the certainty that he would go to any lenghts to enact his plans), ,or whether these were one of the initial flaws/failings that led to his "fall" as an antagonist. What lesson is Ironwood supposed to learn ? Personally the very first time I yelled at my screen "No ! Why would the writers choose that ?" is when Ironwood shot Oscar. When answering criticism against medias, many people tend to look at it only through the lense of "well it makes sense in universe" or as if there were no other ways for the story to devolve. But at the end of the way, everything in a story is a choice from the writer even if it is influenced by the characters' personnalities. If I took the scene where Ironwood shoots Oscar, someone might tell me "he's crippled by his PTSD, he COULD do this." Maybe, that's a reading I can somewhat understand at least. But the writers have the power to NOT put his character in such a position. When I saw the wreck that was V7 finale, I ranted to my bestfriend about it and at no point did i say "why did Ironwood do that", I said "why did the writers make him shoot Oscar, the only point narratively would be to make irredeemable" Aaaand that's what they went for and I obviously didn't care for it. So if I had to rewrite it; I would have kept Ironwood's "mistakes" more focused. If he's wrong because he wants to abandon Mantle, because he's (understandably) scared and doesn't want to take risks; then stay focused on that. It's what makes RWBY leave, and out of all his V8 actions that's really the only thing RWBY needed to tell the whole world he wasn't an ally anymore apparently. - Don't make him shoot Oscar point blank, instead Oscar can simply fall because he flinches away from Ironwood's outburst; and a distraught/guilty Ironwood can decide that he doesn't have the time or capacity to help because of the tense situation. (Killing and not saving someone don't hold the same moral weight at all). - Don't make him kill people left and right or bomb cities, maintain the flaw of Ironwood struggling with his PTSD and his fear and not being able to take risks. - Don't paint him as a black villain, and eventually write V8 in such a way that RWBYJNORQ show taking risks might lead to a bigger victory, which was the volume's theme anyway. For example, following Oscar's destruction of the whale, a growth can occur that would bring back together the two anti-Salem factions : Oscar's risk put Atlas out of harm's way, which leads to Ironwood seeing that maybe there WAS a way to save Mantle as well as Atlas despite Salem's presence and he might have jumped the gun too quickly because of his fears. I'm not sure, I haven't thought about this extensively honestly but I hope you see what I mean. I think it would have been more focused & more in-character to focus Ironwood's failings on his fear; and the fact that he cares for the people and the greater good sometimes at the cost of the individuals. The idea that by sacrificing individuals too much you forget the people you're fighting for in the first place, could have been interesting to dig deeper into. Keep to the idea that Ironwood is somewhat disensitized to the individuals suffering for the sake of the greater good, instead of making him just

callous & uncaring.

My guess for their MBTI/Enneagram

I think pre-V8 Ironwood was an unconventionnal ENFJ. Aka, the type of character no one would type ENFJ because they go by stereotypes and Fe stereotypes are just enneagram 2 everywhere (aka nice, kind, helpful) whereas Ironwood has an enneagram tritype very common among xxTJs so that's what he looks/behaves like, but the way he thinks (what's best for the people, ethical values derived from an Atlasian upbringing) align more with Fe cognitively I think I'm going with ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4

Starting from V8 though, Ironwood veered clearly into ENTJ territory (types aren't supposed to change but I wouldn't say RWBY is the most consistent media when it comes to characters' personnalities)

One aspect that I think would be nice to delve deeper into ?

I understand why they didn't care to, but it'd have been interesting to get a few backstory hints for Ironwood. How did he lose half his body ? How did Oz recruit him ? Or some pieces about his upbringing ?

#rwby #james ironwood #james ironwood canoncrit #rwby thoughts #rwby rewrite #rwde #ask me stuff #enneagram #mbti #v7 spoilers #v8 spoilers #pro james ironwood

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star-killer-md · 4 years ago

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Oh my gawddddd that answer about settling down with Kylo has actually murdered me. I love one (1) complicated man. Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about various fandom tropes that surround Kylo. Are there any that you really like? Or that frustrate you? I have definitely perceived an expectation that he "should be" a certain way, and if he's not then that's "wrong". I'm of the opinion that as long as the writing's good, there's plenty of room for interpretation. What do you think?

Oooo very good questions here. Thank you so much @han-not-solo !! I’m gonna split this up into sections cause I have a lot of opinions that have changed the more I’ve read and the more practice I’ve gotten writing.

Dislikes:

As far as Kylo tropes I personally don’t like, the only thing I can really think of is when people use the name ‘Ben’ as like the end all be all of ‘knowing’ Kylo. Essentially, when Ben becomes his true name and it’s written as the deepest level of trust between a character and Kylo when you’re allowed to call him that--especially when he asks you to call him that.

I can see the literary appeal of it, and before I ever really got into exploring Kylo’s past, it didn’t bug me as much. Like, yes it’s a powerful thing to have a character be ‘the-only-one-who-can-call-me-that,’ but I just don’t feel like that works for Kylo anymore.

Ben Solo is not someone Kylo Ren was ever happy being. His upbringing, I think was very painful and traumatic, hence why he spent literally the rest of his life trying to escape it. His struggle with trying to ‘let the past die’ is rooted in how failed and unwanted he felt as a child by both his parents and his uncle. I enjoy exploring the way that has shaped him, and how truly impossible it is for him to completely detach himself from what happened, but I can’t see him ever wanting to go back to that. Or ever wanting to be called by a name that only reminds him of a person he’s ashamed of.

Ben was weak and lost and so utterly alone, but Kylo Ren is who he’s reinvented himself to be and, while I don’t think he’s ever truly proud of what he’s become, it’s lightyears better than being some confused and lonely kid.

Ultimately, it really depends on the fic and the way Kylo is characterized. I like the use of ‘Ben’ as a way to expand on Kylo as a person, but farther than that is just not my thing.

Likes:

This is more of a fic trope I think than something specifically related to Kylo, but I see it a lot in writing of him and I really like it. I think the first Kylo/reader thing I ever read was Warmth by alyeskagrace on AO3 way back in 2016 and I absolutely fell in love with the idea of Force bonds. Like soulmate au but Star Wars and the concept of it was so interesting and fit Kylo so well. Now I have no idea who started it and if I should be giving credit please let me know, but I’ve been obsessed with that ever since.

Kylo is such a hard character to capture in a romantic sense. Because, truly, he isn’t soft and he isn’t that nice and he’s a horrible communicator. And of course all of that is a byproduct of the way he was raised and what he’s been through. Ultimately, Kylo Ren is the kind of character that is very hard to have fall in love with anyone convincingly. He’s spent so much of his life shutting out things like that, distractions from his destiny or power, and he’s so closed off from everyone.

That’s part of his appeal, I think, the inaccessible man who doesn’t love anything, anything but you. Even if he can never say it out loud.

So, the idea of him being so thoroughly connected with all his self and sins laid bare to another human person is just such an incredible way to break past the wall that is Kylo™. I will live and die by the idea of Kylo being terrified of that kind of total intimacy, but longing for it still like its the water to his dry, cracked earth.

In Conclusion:

I think anyone can write Kylo in anyway as long as they can find a way to do it well and stay true to his character. Which is something I still struggle with constantly. But I love him with my whole heart and so I’m gonna keep doing it.

If justification for why he would do something exists or the author is talented enough to create it for me, honestly I’m down.

#kylo ren x reader #my opinions™#sorry this got ramble-y I don't get asked for my Kylo thoughts all that often #thank you so much though!!#I always wonder what people think of the way I write Kylo #anyway here it is #kylo ren imagines #kylo ren characterization #dr. b talks #han-not-solo #dr. b answers #s #I feel like every writer has their own personal Kylo #Like living in their head #And he has completely different motivations and traits #but each one is so good because of the variety we get #truly authors bless us

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tomsandal · 3 years ago

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The one where Tom went "can I just make stuff up?" and didn't wait for an answer

a/n: incredibly terrible title brought to you by you yes you who couldn't give me better one heart

characters: červená kapota, tom sandál

warnings: teensy weensy cosmic horror/death depiction at the start (because i am a moron and a fool and forgot what genre im writing), alcohol mention

words: 1,8k

To truly start at the story’s beginning, we’ll need to go many pages back in history books.

It was millennia ago, when something very strange took place and changed the world from how it was known.

It so happened that, for some mysterious reason, a meteorite crashed down on earth and landed in a crater in some frankly unnoteworthy forest.

This incident did not go without notice of course, and not too long after it had fallen were there already parties of plenty that were eager to find out what strangeness took place the night before. Many ventured into the forest, allured by the mystery or driven by their responsibility to protect their village, but not a single one of those brave souls has ever made the journey back. And so the number of volunteers and explorers thinned over time, for the prospect of being lost to those woods without a seeming trace was enough to ward off even the bravest of the brave.

However all those who did go, did not disappear in an equal way.

Some of those who ventured started to feel effects of a mysterious force soon after the start of their journey. Those ones met their end lying down on the forest floor, feverish and plagued by visions indescribable. No man’s willpower to follow common sense and go back home could win over the pull of the compelling presence.

But some of them pulled through. The strongest and greatest of them all did get to see what their end goal was this whole time.

There in the clearing lay the mystery. Patches of brilliant blue were shining among the dark stone, twinkling not unlike the stars that hung above them.

And standing there, in this crushing magical presence, humans did what humans tend to do and moved to touch the shiny stone.

It was no easy feat, bracing against the sheer force of the meteorite this close to the source of all this madness, but some of them managed to do so.

Finally, with their goal at their literal fingertips, they laid their hands at the glittering surface. And their hands melted right off.

The lucky ones died from the immediate shock from the pain. The rest bled out among the grass, suffocating in the stone’s heavy aura.

And some of them leaned even closer... for the call had won over.

For some time has the stone been left undisturbed, lying unmoved while its surroundings changed as the years went by. No wise enough soul dared to enter the haunted forest. And so the years passed in hundreds and the celestial body had started to merge with the surrounding environment. Many years has it been since then, when it was finally fully covered and sunken deep into the ground and its power dimmed to a hum.

If you were to walk by that place at that moment, you wouldn't think there to be anything out of the ordinary. And so didn't the people that had settled there.

Who might know why they chose this secluded woodland place for their settlement but they did and surprisingly prospered without any casualties.

The stone's powers have dulled over the centuries but they were still there nonetheless, even if only in a shadow of its former self, and the construction and disturbance of the ground was bound to wake it up.

And so the energy started seeping out, warping the unaware residence in the process. With each generation grew the changes more profound, until the place was almost unrecognizable. Plants grew wild and high, displaying colours very uncommon to vegetation anywhere, the roaming animals wouldn't be recognized even by the highest of scholars, trees grew twisted with leaves of gold and humans were born with features never seen before. Their hair was bright and shining in arrays of blues, purples and greens, just like the lights in the sky that could be seen from time to time. But since no negative effect seemed to take place, this magical village of star-touched people lived in-

“Star-touched...really.”

“Yes and no interruptions please.”

-lived in peace. But time was not kind to them.

The year was 1610, the witchcraft craze was at its peak and it didn’t take long until the hunt was brought to them as well. Their clearly otherworldly appearance couldn't be excused and many fell on the trials, under the hands of men driven by fear and hatred. The rest left their homeland, which ended promptly burned to the ground. From then on, they lived as hermits far, far from the human eye.

They lay in hiding for long, until their time has finally come, when people started walking among themselves with wild bright coloured hair and-

“wait, wait what about the magical wolves”

“That is tied to my own personal upbringing and no, was not in fact universal for everyone, stop messing up the timeline”

“oh I am messing up the timeline and not you making something different every ti-”

“As i was saying-” “and when do the glow squids come in” “My glow squid ancestry is clearly the reason for my eyes not the hair ”

“yes, of course, the eyes that are obviously not coloured contacts”

“Keep that tone to yourself and shush.”

///

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, sat two peculiar people.

Kapota sighed and let her friend-but not friend-associate from work-but not wanting to kill each other right now-buddy ramble on as she took a sip from her glass. She had ordered something called the Hanky Panky Cocktail Supreme and deemed it as decent enough, if a bit overpriced for a glorified gin and fernet.

Still, she would rather be holding a pint of good old fashioned beer, but finding a place around these parts with a half decent beer is near impossible. She will not be drinking that dishwater no thank you.

Good thing that she’s a skilled fancy drinker. A life skill which she picked up from her business bar outings, such as now, which maybe wasn't actually the most objective of examples since most of those were with Tom.

Not that the aforementioned was any help in the drink picking department, that maniac of a man just sashays to the bar and orders a literal colour and when no further explanation is given the bemused barkeep has to pick themselves from their array of colourful drinks.

Seems that they picked well today, because the current “pink” already sat empty before Tom.

She continued to mull over this and that, all the while enjoying the bar’s comfortable atmosphere, when something caught her attention.

“wait wait roll that back”

“Why, could it be that you weren’t paying attention?”

“Yes I was, but what were you saying about pointed ears?”

“Oh, just that the star-touched had pointy ears alongside the wild hair.”

“well, please do pray tell me Sandál dearest how could it be that your ears are rounded”

“As I said, a long time ago in the times most desperate, riddled with fear, pain and terror, food was scarce and from the terrible hunger they gnawed on their ears until they were completely rounded and from then on this feature was lost to them.”

“ok see now i know you're just making fun of me because thats just from that dumb movie you like”

“should have been listening.

Honestly why do i even bother, I am so generously sharing the long lost history of my kind and yet this audience is so ungrateful”

“noo i like your lore, don’t worry it's much more entertaining than ‘I went to the aisle 12 in Kaufland and picked the gaudiest shade of purple they had’”

Tom just grumbled to that and moved to take a demonstrative swig of his drink, but then he realized he didn't have any left anymore so he instead picked up the little paper umbrella and pointed it accusatively at Kapota.

“Never, have I been more disrespected, as I am right now.” He complained, while accentuating every word with a swish of the tiny umbrella.

“It's nothing personal pal, but you can’t exactly expect people to believe you with a name like yours.”

“Oh that's rich coming from you!”

“I'll let you know that the Kapota name is very ancient and regal, thank you very much. Passed down only by the generations of the clan McKap”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s true look it up”

“Not happening, if i did that you would just laugh at me that i fell for it.”

“Well in that case I guess you’ll never know”

“oh shut up!”

“you shut up!”

…

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, bickered two peculiar people.

///

All in all Tom would consider this a successful night. He left the bar on his own two feet, had all his belongings still with him, including both of his important trademark sandals still on, and head somewhat clear.

About ten minutes back, they had been politely ushered out of the bar, because it was apparently closing. The shiny sign with the numbers 24 and 7 would beg to differ but sure.

Yeah, ‘always open’ my arse, people can't even trust bars these days.

He wasn’t really upset though, couldn’t blame the poor bloke either, because anyone who had to listen to their nonsense for the past -who knows how long- had all the right to kick them out. It didn’t matter anyway, tonight really was quite nice.

So now they were just lounging together on the sidewalk, enjoying the chilly air.

A lone car sped by somewhere in the distance.

Tom gently thunked his head on the wall behind him and let out a content sigh, next to him Kapota finally broke the silence.

“So...who’s the designated driver, hahh”

A good question indeed, since neither of them even closely qualify to anything akin to sober. Not that it would have changed much, given the fact that Tom does not in fact have a driving licence anyway. His most beloved, bless their heart, is incredibly awesome and does have one of those and drives him around in times of need. This would seem like a time of need and it wouldn't even be the first time Kap would hitch a ride with them, but this hour, other than time of need, is also time commonly known as ‘very late’.

“I guess I can try to give Tobi a call, but I dunno it's pretty late...”

“Nah, let ‘em sleep”

“So whats the battle plan Kaptn’? ”

“Where's the uhhh friggin closest bus stop.”

“Few damn blocks away at least that's for sure”

“Awesome... lets go its field trip time”

And so they went onto the grand adventure of getting safely home.

Some would deem it highly unwise to blunder around dark alleyways in the middle of the night, but honestly, unfortunate are those street rats who shall foolheartedly decide to pick those two fools as their next victims.

#2.5 bc #is the fic introduvtion at the start necessary? no but I wanted to make it pretty n cool ykno :)#idk that were the only one here #pretty for *us*#červená kapota #tom sandál #2.5 bc but with more words #thats the tag for fics now yes #kinda wanna write again but dont know what

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dangermousie · 5 years ago

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I just loved this shot. I actually notice how often he is below her image (or her real self) looking up, which is such a key to the dynamic. It’s especially interesting because normally he is head and shoulders taller than she is so it has more of an effect.

The thing I loved throughout the ep was that even as he couldn’t remember her outside her comic role, he was confused and bothered by her and just as the first time, she was the key to his self-awareness, she is the key this time as well - he became self-aware so far on this go around precisely because she was around, making him feel what his character is not supposed to feel, waking him up. He may be the only one able to change the story, but she is the only one who can wake him up so he’d do so. Talk about entwined. (Also, her little sad smile as she wants him not to remember her - my heart.)

Has anyone else been feeling that Haru has slowly been replacing Kyung within the narrative as well - it’s another example of story being bent due to the sheer force of will of the characters and trying to right itself somehow. Here, the classmates expect Kyung and get Haru, Haru now has girls swooning over him, he even throws the ball like Kyung.

The real Haru is beginning to leach through more and more as the episode progresses - even when he doesn’t remember her, opening bottles for her is far cry from “don’t touch my shirt when you talk” Haru of his first moments past mind wipe.

OK, it’s official - Squid Fairy knows the madam somehow; I wonder if she was in the past comic.

This bit, with the smirk, gave me chills. Ju Da is becoming self-aware and she is nowhere near as maudlin nice as her fictional counterpart. I love it.

Also, she clearly likes Do Hwa in the shadows - look at her watching him practice or sadly staring at his picture on her phone. I actually like what EY is trying to say here, same as with Haru v Kyung - outside of a dramatic fictional set-up, why would any sane woman prefer a jerk to someone who treats you very well and is overall a wonderfully nice person?

Guess who else is self-aware! Kyung’s brother. I love the concept of pretty much everyone becoming self-aware eventually and the world descending into chaos.

This was kind of insane. He doesn’t like her with Kyung though on a conscious level that makes no sense for the character - you can see the programming and the real basically fight each other (and so he grabs Kyung’s hand as if he’s jealous of Kyung as some sort of a weird programming compromise.)

Oh, Do Hwa. He is literally the nicest character in this drama - he cares for Dan Oh and Haru, he loves Ju Da expecting nothing in return, he even loves his oblivious programmed friend Nam Joo. He is a lesson in how to be selfless - but then so are Dan Oh and Haru as well - they put the happiness of the person they care about higher than their own. Meanwhile Kyung watches like an alien from another planet.

Yeah, you know that selfless gene? Kyung has whatever the opposite is. The scene where he had Haru bring flowers for him to give to Dan Oh - brutal. And some sort of perverse revenge for what - Dan Oh acting the way the author wanted her when she didn’t have control? Dan Oh not enlightening him (which why and how could she.) Awake Kyung is still a terrible person, even if more lowkey realistic one. It’s pretty clear he cares for Dan Oh insofar as he’s able to care for anyone, but he is incapable of a healthy, functional relationship or attitude. PS He’s also not that bright - doing all of that would make Haru self-aware faster.

Even memoryless, personality-changed Haru keeps this basic tenet of him because it’s at his core.

Haru mark 2 yells! And is emotional.He is much less quiet than his Haru mark 1 counterpart; probably because Haru mark 1 was almost mute and shellshocked by his experience and this one is not. I also love that he is confused and it bugs bugs bugs him to see Dan Oh treat him as a stranger and he has no idea why. And yes, he is self-aware now, in some record speed! Oh, and back to his staring up at her.

Oooof. This hit hard. It’s such an exploration of free will and reality and I cannot even imagine what a mind trip it would be to not even know if your basic memories, your basic sense of self and world is real - that even off stage you are made by memories and experiences that were not only controlled by another but that may not have existed at all. Real Kyung is still not fully so and can never be so because his personality has been shaped by events that never even happened, since I am sure there was no childhood portion in the manga. Does Do Hwa like Ju Da in the shadows because his character was made to like her on stage in the story and the feelings carry over and are a basic part of his personality now, even in reality?

This! This! Shivers. It reminds me of concepts like “how do I know this world is real and I am not just imagining it in my head; there is no way to prove it.” Or “how do we know the past actually happened and it’s not just a memory our brain made up and the whole world is just this moment; just in your head.” And, as I mentioned to @theseasasleep, while the drama didn’t intend it, it made me think of predestination in Calvinism and how that concept always freaked me out - most other religions or branches of them allow the concept of free will and your ultimate fate changing depending on what you do, but Calvinism is like the world of EY - everything is predestined and predetermined - your character and ultimate fate and so what you do doesn’t really matter. I always wondered how the followers did not descend into nihilism and chaos (yes, good earthly fortune was supposed to be a sign of God’s grace but it wasn’t really necessary; and in its extreme, you could murder five people every day and still go to heaven since it was predetermined before you were born.) And in another thought about how much free will people have - people in RL have choices but so many of their choices and their reactions to choices are predetermined for them - by their circumstances, their upbringing, their very DNA. It’s more free will than in EY, but how much more?

Final thought - EY is so smart and so good and gave me so much pleasure that I honestly don’t care if it sticks the landing; which is the same I felt with W and Queen In Hyun’s Man (I thought the latter stuck it perfectly, the former wobbled though I liked it anyway, in part because I just wanted Dong Chul to be happy after his hell of a life, and in part because I thought the concept was that once you became fully actualized and escaped authorial control, you were a real person and so moved to the real world.)

#kdrama #extraordinary you #meta meta meta

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chercher0w0 · 4 years ago

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A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer Cover art by Jeanette Levy

Why I read this I do still want to read all the Beauty and the Beast retellings I come across.

Rating: 4.5/5

This book made me care about the supporting characters and the kingdom as much as the romance between the main characters. Wasn’t even planning on reading this but finished it in a night because I couldn’t put it down.

I don’t really like reading synopses so I didn’t realize that the girl would be from the present time, complete with handphone which she brings along to the fantasy world, which was an interesting dynamic.

Spoilers behind the cut.

This will probably be quite rambly and just me talking about what I loved but I really didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Perhaps seeing a few glimpses of negative reviews put me off, though that didn’t hinder my enjoyment of ACOTAR. Perhaps DNF-ing “Of Curses and Kisses” put me into a bit of a slump but anyway.

I initially rated this 4/5, though I think mostly because it wasn’t really overtly romantic, though that’s actually a compliment for how the characters developed over the course of the story. One of the challenges of a BATB retelling is making the romance realistic, without veering into Stockholm Syndrome, because the catalyst for the protagonists meeting is usually some sort of kidnapping. At the end of this book, I felt it was still kind of ambiguous whether Harper really fell in love with Rhen, or the curse was broken because the enchantress was killed. Probably.

Rhen Yes, Prince hot. But also I really found his personality interesting. After so many failed attempts, he’s jaded. And also because of his upbringing, he’s naturally a calculating person, always thinking several steps ahead. Great for leading a kingdom, not so good for getting a complete stranger to fall in love with you because there’s no formula or strategy for “true love”. Although he is jealous of Grey and Harper’s friendship, he isn’t overtly possessive or petty like Tamlin in ACOTAR, which is nice. Also... he started of as a seemingly dumb arrogant Prince who loses his family due to tragedy and after 5 years (in the real world) finally realizes he actually does care for his kingdom and has the gravitas to lead his people and give them hope, no matter how impossible the situation seems. I CANNOT UNSEE THE SHADES OF OLIVER QUEEN THE MORE I THINK ABOUT IT.

Harper I really enjoyed her character. I’ll be honest and say that until reviews pointed out that instead of Belle’s bookishness making her the outsider, the fact that she was disabled was what made her one, I... actually thought it was because she was poor, and on the brink of resorting to crime. I liked how even though she is a very independent person and attempts to stand up for herself against Rhen and Grey, she also has realistic flaws. Like not being able to understand the etiquettes of the fantasy world, being from the modern era, and unable to see how some of her decisions and actions might have long term political consequences since she’s acting as Rhen’s princess in a sort of medieval societal structure.

Grey I loved how Grey slowly became more friendly as he lets his guard down around Harper. It really reminded me of Lucien and Feyre in ACOTAR. Actually, the idea of the “beauty” falling in love with the person who brings her into the magical world instead of the usually cold and closed-off prince is an interesting concept, but I digress. Despite what Rhen seems to think, I read Grey and Harper’s relationship more as brother and sister. Especially once we learn that Grey was the eldest of 9 siblings. In fact, as I continued to read about Grey’s loyalty towards Rhen even after so many years, I was hoping it would be revealed that the reason he stayed and believed in Rhen for so long was that he was secretly in love with the prince. But, I guess not. I am very interested in how the plot twist revealed at the end will play out.

The Romance Since this is a BATB retelling, obviously the “beauty” and the “beast” were going to end up together. Honestly, it could have ended with more of a platonic love and I would have been satisfied, with maybe a more romance lean in the sequels. Because, as the book does point out, it’s hard to force true love, especially when there’s the pressure of wanting to lift the curse out of guilt and responsibility towards his kingdom on Prince Rhen’s side, and Harper’s distrust of him and his calculating, jaded nature as well as her constant worry for her family back home. It’s a lot to expect from a slightly less than 3 month deadline. It was a nice change that instead of falling in love with the beast, or true love anyway as the curse dictates, Harper falls in love with the kingdom and the people in it first, and does genuinely want to lift the curse to save all of them. Sadly, it’s not the sort of thing that can be forced. It was also really interesting when she actually figures out by herself, fairly early on, what the curse entails, though there was not reference to her having read Beauty and the Beast or any other type of fairy tale. Wouldn’t have fit the tone of the scene, of course, but it’s an amusing thought since she would probably have heard those as a kid in the present day.

I’m really excited to read the sequel. I want to see what happens with the war against the rival country. And how the plot twist revealed at the end will play out. Is the enchantress really dead? Also exploring more of the ramifications between travelling between the fantasy world and the modern world, since at the end even her brother and his boyfriend are trapped together with Harper in Emberfall.

Re-readability Definitely

#A Curse so Dark and Lonely #brigid kemmerer #beauty and the beast #book review #CherCher reviews books

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komatsunana · 5 years ago

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Pt 2 of Martina and my conversation on Ren Honjo and other related topics

In order to save everyone’s dashboards, I’m making another post lol. This is a continuation of this conversation between @placebogirl7 and my conversation.

Hehe, well even if we don’t like Takumi personally, he’s still an interesting character to explore! I definetly don’t disagree with you though - it’s probably a happier environment if a band is more like a family under Papa Yasu rather than an army of soldiers to General Takumi. I think the problem is Takumi is too OP!! He doesn’t listen anyone else because at the end... He’s right and always fives steps ahead of everyone - ally and enemy alike. Well until he isn’t, at the end when Ren dies. Nothing prepared him for it and even though he tries to regain control of the situation... Nothing can bring Ren back. He isn’t all-powerful.

Nah, no worries you haven’t expressed yourself wrong! I’m just incredibly pendantic, lol. But I totally get what you mean - I might have a different PoV but I don’t think you’re wrong at all to see Ren as being hypocritic for saying he didn’t care what and for who he played for, when he clearly wanted to be playing for Trapnest. It’s even likely he doesn’t see how that’s contrary.

Perhaps the problem is that Ren doesn’t realize family doesn’t *have* to be a nuclear family with a father, mother, and biological children. He didn’t know Blast was his family already, that if he’d just accepted Yasu’s adoptive parents to help him they’d have been his family too... and that’s why he left, because he believed in Takumi’s vision and Nana was denying him asking her to be the mother to his children. When you didn’t grow up in a family, it could be hard to notice when you finally get one if it doesn’t look like the ones you see in movies.

I can’t take a photo with my phone atm, but Ren says something like “I just got her to tell me by pretending I understood her decision. I would’ve been able to take a break next week, she didn’t need to do this.” Tbh I never wanted to be THAT weeb who learned Japanese just to read manga but... Nothing makes me want to learn Japanese more than that I want to read NANA in the original language! I think Shojo Beat did a good job of translating the series, and injected a lot of fun into the way the characters talk, but it really isn’t possible to completely translate one language into another without losing something.

Oh yeah, none of that was to say that Yasu, Ren, or even Shin are unimportant to Blast... But Nana wasn’t planning on continuing Blast in Tokyo until Nobu moved there. Those two ARE Blast. A band that doesn’t have both of them is not Blast, it’s a band by another name.

Oooh, yeah Takumi says something about it here:

He doesn’t straight out say that he wants to manage Reira’s solo career, but the implication is there when you take into account that Trapnest was created for her and his masterplan for her.

And nah, you aren’t wrong!! We just have different opinions and that’s cool. Tbh, I think art like NANA is subjective and I don’t think either of us are right or wrong. Unless it’s something textual or an actual theory for something that is textual, everything is just up to us to have our own opinions and ideas. I also think I don’t have too much about hypocrisy unless it’s harming someone (Example: ”Get a job you homeless bum!!!! Anyway off to church now”) so we’re gonna feel more upset about different things. That’s all.

Oh sorry, I didn’t say that clearly... What I mean is that Ren realizes after betraying Blast that he betrayed them and feel bad about betraying them. Now that Ren is part of Trapnest, he doesn’t want to betray another band - not even to help the band that he once betrayed.

Oh yeah, I definitely agree that in that fight about Nana asking Ren to sub for Shin both of them said some things to apologize for. And that Nana didn’t feel as close to Shin as she did to Yasu and Nobu (though I do think the little we see of their relationship is very interesting!) With your views on why Nana always saw Shin as a stand-in for Ren, do you think her views on Shin changed when he made that promise again to surpass Ren upon getting out of jail? Just curious! I also agree that the Nana and Takumi parallels are real, though I think how they fight their battles are very different.

Hm, I don’t think only unhappy people take drugs though that’s often the reason people in poverty might. Also, if I can remember right, I think Ren really only starts taking drugs when his relationship with Nana begins again so I think that’s part of it. Not that Nana is making him unhappy, but he feels... idk unfulfilled maybe? I’m not sure, but I also see your point!

(Woo~ both of are the same as Miu lol)

Anyway, I think Nana’s reasons for not wanting children aren’t just her lack of confidence and it’s a very complex reason, tied into her traumatic upbringing and her desires to be free on stage, and her lack of maternal instinct and probably even more. But I still agree she could change her mind, though I think there were other reasons for Nana to ask that of her gyno: to pick up her birth control, because Ren wanted children and she didn’t, maybe her own ideas of being a mother someday, and also... maybe a little bit about her own mom, who had to have lacked some maternal instinct to abandon Nana like she did. Of course none of what we’re talking about takes into account the popular fan theory that Satsuki could biologically be Nana and Ren’s.

I think Ren understood Nana better before their first break up, but it is possible that Ren never understood Nana’s trauma completely. After all, from Ren’s pov... he was abandoned as a baby and never had a family ever. At least Nana had her grandma. And even though as readers we know that’s wrong, but I could see Ren thinking that. Maybe.

Oooh, well I do think there is a difference between the dreams you have at night and the dreams you have for your life... But wow!! That Italian translation really brings on some different meanings, I think it sounds very beautiful when put like that. Now I want to learn every language and read NANA in every language OTL

Oh man, the hard hitting question!!! What was Ren’s plan!!! I don’t know!!!!! Lol. I mean I have my ideas and I do think that Ren’s gift to Nana will be the only way we’ll ever know the answer possibly... I have 3 different theories.

That Ren would break up with Nana to continue playing for Trapnest and ask her if she would still come live with him when they were both old in the warehouse. I actually think that one is the least likely.

That Ren would give Nana the choice once again and tell her that he was going to stay with Trapnest and that she would have to live with it or break up because they would both be unhappy if not. This might lead into option 1, asking if they could retire to the warehouse one day, if she said no and they broke up but unlikely. I think in the case of Ren putting the choice in Nana’s hands it’s one or the other: they reconcile and stay together or stay apart forever.

Ren dedicates himself to staying with Nana, even if it means never getting back with Trapnest again. He’ll be Satsuki’s favorite uncle and fight uncle Nobu to teach her guitar and support his wife with her musical career. He’ll be what he always wanted Nana to be for him, waiting for her to come home. He does not re-join Blast, though he might do something else musically. Maybe teach! I think he’d be the BEST music teacher.

Of course this is Yazawa and I fully expect whatever she had planned to be unexpected and yet completely in character and believable. I do fully believe that Ren had made his decision and he was committed to it on the drive and that he was completely happy with it. What about you?

I think it is inevitable that big fandoms will have some ugliness and shipping wars and things like that - it’s one of the few benefits to a small fandom is that everyone knows each other so we all better be nice. It still sucks to see though.

(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

#nana #honjo ren #ichinose takumi #osaki nana #ai yazawa #i scream #my nana feels #long post #placebogirl7

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thespaceace124 · 4 years ago

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Tv shows I watched this year, my favorite character from each, and why I like each character.

Since my past few posts about Fandom/TV shows have been kinda negative/ criticism, to end off the year, I wanted to make a few posts about things that I like in media. So today we’ll be taking a look at all the shows I watched/finished this year and my favorite characters from each.

Space Force: Captain Angela Ali. Its been a hot minute since I watched Space force, but iirc she’s just… done like 99% of the time with all of her superiors, but in the ten episodes we get, we see some fun little character moments from her. Like in the war games episode where she has to grapple with being an amazing book student, but has a hard time applying some of the stuff she learned at the military academy in a “combat” situation and has to sort of learn and take the lead from one of her “underlings” who is better in that sort of situation. Also, the bonding moments she has with Chan, like when they’re on the road trip, and when she asks him for help learning some science stuff so she can be more useful on missions and stuff. (again, its been a while since I’ve watched this one so my memory of it is a little foggy)

Stargate SG-1: Colonel Jack O’Neill. I like the tope he falls into of the very surface level sort of gruff military man, doesn’t like talking about his feelings, makes smart ass remarks, asks people who talk to much to get to the point, he’s a very fun character, and adds a lot of fun lightheartedness to the show and is generally enjoyable to have on screen. Also tends to get the most character development, at least regarding his past and sort of why the way that he is. (I would say Teal’c gets the second most), also the reason I got into stargate, as my dad showed me a compilation of him being a smart ass and I was like “oh ho ho, I gotta see more of this guy”

Doctor Who (specifically seasons 11 and 12): The Doctor. I like this version of the Doctor, I like that she a little more lighthearted chaotic as opposed to the previous Doctor, who I would describe as dark chaotic, (at least in s11) and just very fun to be around and watch on screen. Also, I think that the rest of the fam is a little bit underdeveloped? Like, we got a lot of fun stuff for Ryan and Graham in the premier with them being a part of a family unit and then at the end of the season we got a nice little scene of them bonding and Ryan calling him grandad and then in s12 there’s like none of that??? And with Yaz we get that she’s kinda got the usual female companion backstory (not a big fan of her job, not happy living with her family, wants *More* out of life) and then we learn that she got bullied as a kid, and at one point she tried to run away, but a kindhearted cop and her sister??? Managed to keep her in Sheffield. So, I feel a little bit like the doctor is my favorite as a default just because we already know the doctors story, so we’ve just pasted a new personality onto a familiar character.

Deep Space Nine (started 2019): Major Kira Nerys. Straight up the reason this character is my favorite is because my dad said I remind him of her and that makes me feel nice. Also, Nana Visitor is very pretty. Also I like that she takes 0 shit from anyone, including Sisko, but we also get to see her learn and grow from “I will always voice my disagreement no matter what” to “There is a time and a place to object” and also a little bit of learning that sometimes you have to work with people who’ve hurt you and sometimes that sucks. Anyway, she’s a grade A badass and I love her.

Voyager (started 2019): Captain Kathryn Janeway. Like my reasons for Kira, I think Janeway is a badass, and that Kate Mulgrew is very pretty. But also, I think Janeway is a badass in a different way than Kira is, simply because their characters are in very different situations. But I think Janeway is portrayed to be handling things extremely well, and doing what needs be done, obviously that wasn’t super looked at as they did want to keep the tone of voyager relatively light, but anyway, I like Janeway because she’s someone to look up to, to want to incorporate traits of into your own behavior.

Picard: Rafaella “Raffi” Musiker. I like Raffi because she is one of the most consistent characters in Picard. See imo Picard suffers from having too much on its plate, and also it drops/ abandons too many characters. With a show that has only 10 episodes, especially in a first season, you can’t do that. So, with Raffi being in the majority of the episodes, with consistent characterization that makes sense, and working as someone who can actually keep Picard in check? That’s the best character in the show. Also, I think of actors not seen in Star Trek before, she’s one of the better ones and that makes her better.

Lower Decks: Ensign Beckett Mariner. I love a chaotic smartass. Also, for as much as I love LD being a relatively slice of life comedy, I love that Mariner got a ton of characterization in the last few episodes, especially exploring her relationship with her mom, and people who knew her at the academy. She’s super fun, I love how she’s almost always dunking on Boimler, but also really cares for him and doesn’t want to see him hurt. Again, she’s just super fun to see on screen, I love that she doesn’t really like authority figures, and is content to figure herself out while being a relatively low-ranking officer. I like Mariner because she is both sure of herself, but not totally sure what she wants to do with her career, which is something that Star Trek has never explored before, and I think its super interesting.

Discovery: Commander Michael Burnham. I think a trend with a lot of the characters on this list is that I personally find them cool and/or pretty, and once again that also applies to Michael here, but also, I like her because Michael as a concept is fascinating. Like the idea of being a child who goes through a trauma and then is immediately whisked away to a place where she can’t actually process it? And then as a result grows up emotionally constipated and only in her 30s, is sort of finally able to shed that and actually learn how to be healthy with her emotions? Absolutely fascinating, I love that. I also love that we can kind of see that her upbringing and the suppression of emotions as a child still effects the choices that she’s made to this day. Its super cool, and I think one of the best parts of discovery.

Ratched: Nurse Mildred Ratched. I don’t have anything really important to say here, I just tend to like the main characters of tv shows because by default they get the most development/ back story or whatever, and honestly this is one of those shows that I enjoyed enough to watch all ten episodes, and then never picked it up again, so. Ehhh

Dexter: Dexter Morgan. I like Dexter Morgan because he’s a man who has always been told he doesn’t have emotions, but as the show goes on you can totally see that he does have emotions, he just doesn’t know how to handle them, and that they don’t present themselves in the same way that “normal” people’s do. Like, I fully believe that Dexter did actually love Rita, Harry jr., Deb, and Hannah. But I also believe he didn’t fully know how to cope with those emotions, because instead of getting his son help Harry Morgan decided to turn his son into a killing machine, which was a Choice.

Hannibal: Will Graham. I liked watching him kinda fall into Hannibal’s co-dependency trap. Character regression baybee. But like, that’s what happens, I’m pretty sure at one point they both admit that they aren’t healthy for each other, but they also cant live w/o each other. Which is not a dynamic I personally had seen delved into in media before I watched this show. I just think he’s neat.

ATLA: Toph Beifong. I like Toph because I think she provides a nice foil to Aang, whilst also not going too far into the opposite direction. She’s decisive, she knows for the most part what she wants from this adventure, and mostly how to go about getting it, while also discovering a new family along the way. I also just like the way that she can and will throw a boulder at you if she thinks you deserve it.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Sabrina Spellman. Again, sort of falling into the “I tend to like the main character by default folder” It’s also been a hot minute since I watched this show, so I’m just gonna say that I like Sabrina because she is always the one getting her own self into trouble by being Different. And while I’m not saying that it is always good to conform and do what is expected of you, all of the issues in the show are caused by Sabrina (for the most part). Season one is all about shit falling apart if she doesn’t sign the book, season two is her shaking things up at the witch academy and also not wanting to be the princess of hell (understandable, but again, still her fault) and the whole plot of season 3 is the fallout of her imprisoning the devil and then also being too cocky with the guy made of clay. She’s far too cocky, and I think that’s super funny in regards to how it gets her into situations she’s not really prepared for.

The Coroner (BBC): Beth Kennedy. I watched this show with my stepmom, and in this show, Beth tends to be the one who lightens the mood a lot, so she’s my favorite character b/c of that.

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