#he plays an erhu because I say so | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gaykarstaagforever · 1 year ago

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FREE ON YOUTUBE

...YouTube, I feel like your free animated movie recommendations have declined in quality a bit since the halcyon days of Osmosis Jones.

Yes, it is a blatant Kung Fu Panda knockoff, with an American voice cast that is clearly whoever was home at 11 am the week they called.

This is bad. Like, unfinished, I think I'm missing like half the movie, they forgot to resolve the main plot and it just stops, bad. There is a scene where the only character on screen suffers an animation error, and no one fixed it. The framerate of the movie drops every time the action picks up or the camera swings around too fast. Like...you made a computer-animated movie, and you don't have the hardware or time to do...you know...computer animation? The stones on the Chinese producers of this mess.

Not everything has to be Pixar or DreamWorks. CG is hard. I get it. But you gotta work to your strengths. In this case, the computers you are using can't even render the movie properly. Like...I don't know how you get around that. That's kind of a major issue.

Technical incompetence aside, this suffers from the usual bad CG animation problems of every character looking like they come from a different artistic universe, and most of the action is generic mocaping that doesn't take into account how any real bodies shaped like these bodies would move. And there are just things they didn't bother capturing. Like none of these dough monsters ever stands up on screen.

Shot composition is a disaster. Most scenes are a mob of creatures standing in a pack in an empty space, doing exaggerated facial reactions to someone else talking. It's like bad machinima made in the Skylanders games engine, except all of the character designs are way worse.

The plot, such as they attempted it, is supposed to be about a small, incompetent warrior who looks like Jackie Chan who gets transported to the mystical realm of Merryland by a magical jade necklace his grandfather gave him. There, he transforms into an anthropomorphic panda, for reasons that are never explained. There is a prophecy that a Panda Warrior is destined to save the realm, and our guy is apparently it, except there is a flashback to like a couple of years ago when the ultimate evil took over, and...there is ANOTHER Panda Warrior who was just there and sort of stopped it? But then didn't? Who the hell was that guy?!

Also the ultimate evil is one of the two sky-whales who guard the Dragon Ball (yes, literally) just turning evil because it absorbed too much power. Why did this happen? How are you going to stop it from happening again? Then that whale turns into a nine-headed snake after an evil mouse from the real world just...is there, and merges with the Whale. After the snake is defeated the mouse just crawls out of it and runs away, and no one says a damn thing.

Our panda warrior and his 7 legendary warrior friends kung fu fight the snake at least 3 different times, and never get close to stopping it. And the panda doesn't do anything special or lead them, he is just there, and then at the very end his necklace glows and that...helps? Somehow? The true hero here is, and I'm not joking, Jimmy Ginseng, a tiny ginseng man with an erhu who shows up whenever the warriors are losing, plays the erhu, the enemy gets soothed by the song, and then Jimmy gets tired and leaves. EVERY BATTLE ends like this, including the final one.

So...?

The panda has that cool green sword in the picture. And he does have it. It is just...a sword, thst someone randomly gives him. I think he ends up dropping it and it never comes up again.

Also all the warriors are animals, except for the one who is a talking tree stump...filled with lava. And he dies at the end by setting himself and the snake on fire. Because his master, a purple fox, told him to do that to save everyone. ...Except the SNAKE SURVIVED IT, and they had to fight it again, lose, and wait for Jimmy to show up.

The bull character also sacrifices himself, TWICE, to save everyone else, and both times that doesn't work, either.

The movie ends with Merryland being restored from the devastation of the snake...BEFORE the snake is defeated. It just...gets better, after they resuce an elf girl princess who does...something...? And then the regrown flowers shoot the snake with missiles of some kind. Which ALSO fails to defeat it.

The panda doesn't go home and become human again and nothing is explained. But during the credits there is a fight scene between the little human warrior and his general, in which they get drunk and wrestle and tons of fight animations repeat in a loop for 3 minutes. Is this part of the movie? Are these outtakes? What does this have to do with anything? If this is what happens after he got home, I don't know why or what it means.

...My guess is that the first panda warrior we see was supposed to be his grandfather, as a panda? That was probably the idea? But no one ever says that. The movie doesn't remember to explain that.

This was translated from Chinese. Perhaps the translation is terrible. Or they did a massive reedit of this for the US release. That could explain some of this. ...But then why didn't they cut out the glitch scene, or some of the shots with the bad framerate? There are literal 10 second sequences in this movie where there is no dialogue or music, just a camera sleeping over a scenery to ambient nature sounds. Who reedits a movie for the foreign market and cuts out vital plot scenes, but leaves in shit like that?

...Unless all those vital plot scenes had even worse technical problems. Jesus. That's a terrifying thought.

One positive here. While nearly all of the voice work is as boring and bored as you'd expect, the immortal Tom Kenny is good, with what very little he is given to do, here. The man is a professional.

And here is the weirdest thing: Rob Schneider is really good here as the panda man and Jimmy Ginseng. Like, shockingly good. Like, this is without exaggeration the best performances of this man's miserable life. He is funny, charming, nuanced, he feels like he is reacting properly during what were probably one-sided conversations recorded on different days in different places. It is shocking how good he is in this awful, stupid movie. My only guess is that he was somehow involved in bringing this over and it was going to serve as an audition piece to get him more voice work. In which case, like, fair enough, dude. You nailed it. He is genuinely very good in this very bad movie.

What an odd artifact from 2012. What a waste of time. Why did YouTube recommend this? What do any of us gain from being shown this? I am just flabbergasted.

You're on time out with these movie suggestions, Google.

Also there is a pig who flies who looks like this:

Those aren't ears, they are just gross misshapen tendrils that bob around as she moves. It's like someone was playing with a stretch tool and then...stopped.

I was gonna end with "Now let's have Jimmy Ginseng play us out," but I can only find this one bad picture of him, and it doesn't show his erhu:

Here is some nice erhu music from someone else. Something redeeming in this godforsaken post:

youtube

#the adventures of panda warrior #the adventures of jinbao #kung fu panda ko #2012 #movie review #free on YouTube

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monosanimegenericzone · 4 months ago

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pahntom troupe but mysic

shut up its midnighr ive been up for 18 hours straight i will not spell anything correctly

what instrumenst do i think the troupe play lets find out

kortopi plays the flute. just because. i think he would be a woodwindsy guy and silver looks good on him. and if he performs imagine him in a little dress suit and a bow tie that gets covered up by his long ass hair

feitan plays violin. hes high strung so i gave him high strings.

please laugh.

in all seriousness i think hed want to connect to his birthplace at least a little bit so it would be violin or erhu. and he plays purely for fun but he is quite good

according to my old headcanon i said shal plays the cello. .... yknow what younger me you had a good point. its not very fitting with his personality but it just is one of those unexpected things he does. he just plays cello. and anyone who heard a cello before knows those things sound amazing.

phinks plays guitar. side effect from travel, he heard it a lot and found one of his own and learned just a few songs but theyre good. he cannot improv or read music but with repetition and practice hes a fast learner.

nobunaga knows shamisen or koto. cant decide which but probably shamisen. i still believe he studied with machi so he picked up on asian culture (im hard assuming kirimori valley is based on japan) and he chose to pursue music since that helps to stabilize nen. he probably forgot by now but he used to be decent

machi plays all strings. thats it. she just can. shes familiar enough with strings that she can essentially play anything she wants as long as she applies the appropriate music theory. shes goated

paku also plays the flute. maybe she even taught it to kortopi. who knows. its a personal passion she carries when she has the time and she is damn good at it. she may have even been recruited into a couple of orchestras for jobs or for fun but they never last.

chrollo has experience with wind instruments and percussion. works well with mallets for some unknown reason and has learned how to read all clefs. even altoclef. hes weird like that. with wind his favorite i would say is.... idk probably clarinet. hes a clarinet kind of guy. but he knows how to play various brass and woodwinds

and bono of course plays himself though he may have taught himself piano. opportunities to actually play piano might not be often but he'll be happy to touch some ivory every now and then.

and thats my music nerd rant/old headcanon that im refreshing.

yippee

#hxh #phantom troupe #i aint tagging all that #but its there #the music post

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guujikaroko · 6 months ago

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PLEASE go on about genshin characters and instruments and genres 🙏🙏 Totally agree with your Sumeru 4 headcanons! Like as much as I like kpop, I can’t see them being a kpop group

Ok, fine, just because you asked (<- really wanted to do that for a while anyway)!

Since there's so many characters, I'll only do some this round with a little explanation.

Lumine: she's a jazz clarinet! Clarinets have this airy, whimsical sound that just screams "Lumine" to me, but it's specifically in a jazz contest that it reminds me of her. Since I default to Traveler Lumine, I imagine her being a star in ascension in the jazz world, always busking and playing with other famous jazz musicians and befriending them.

Aether: a classical clarinet. I envision the twins mastering the same instrument but going off to build their music careers in different genres. Clarinet in classical music also has an airy quality to it (is the instrument's nature, after all), but the "mood" is noticeably different from a clarinet in jazz music.

Venti: he's pretty much the creator of Mondstadtian music, so he probably knows everything medieval under the sun. But he isn't one to stay complacent either, so along with classical harp, he'd also play the accordion, with is vital for European folk music! I'm sure he's proficient with a ton more instruments.

Diluc: classical violinist. Do you ever look at this man? His face screams "I hate Paganini for what he did to my fingers". Damn near a virtuoso too.

Zhongli: he's not an expert in Liyuese culture, he IS Liyuese culture. I can only give him the erhu. He had all the time in the world to master every piece of traditional music possible and I'm sure he'd be a living legend in the orchestras of today. That being said, he loves trying new things, so I bet he'd dabble on things like jazz erhu too.

Childe: he looks like an electric bass player to me. Now, what genre does he play in is the question... I'm staying with funk for now, but it's subject to change. He does look like he'd dance a lot while playing too.

Ei: she's been disconnected from her people for a LONG while, so I wouldn't be surprised if she only knows gagaku (traditional Japanese music). With that in mind, I'd choose the koto for her.

Itto: unemployment be damned, my boy can play some drums! It's so easy to imagine the whole Arataki gang getting ready to work on a taiko ensemble. But I think Itto would like to try some drum kit too.

Nahida: while the image of her holding a big-ass citar would be hilarious, I think she'd actually be a tabla player. You know what they say about percussion being the backbone of music; Nahida's reliable like that.

Wanderer: Mr. Kabuki over there could have played gagaku in the old days, but I actually think he was more of a singer instead. And, after the Sumeru Archon Quest, he could have picked up traditional forms of Indian singing too. In general, I'll always associate his musicality with theater.

Furina: also a singer. Originally an opera singer, grew tired and overwhelmed by her career and then retired. I think she's a jazz soloist these days, but she doesn't really make a career out of it anymore.

Neuvillette: a very talented cellist, but I think it's more of a pastime for him than an actual career. Otherwise, I can see him as a superb orchestra conductor.

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catsrophel · 6 months ago

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My general wuthering waves headcanons

a/n: I’d say there is one for every character that is playable(I rely on their voice lines and character stories) , but you can OBVIOUSLY see whos my favorite (its obviously mortefi)

Warning: spoilers for character story references, some may be ooc

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Rover, who used to have a big habit of eating anything they could find if it smelt good causing them to have a oddly good immune system, but when they figured out Abby existed and could command(?) her to wake up suddenly their insatiable hunger went away (though, rover does miss being able to eat everything but now they get fuller easily)

Rover, who enjoys spreading scary facts to kids but the kids never believe them because rover is a new comer to them and children in solaris-3 are taught to never believe strangers unless their parents trust them personally

the rest under the cut!!

HUANGLONG

Baizhi, Who is an avid enjoyer of classic jazz because it was one of the things that comforted her when she realized she was the only survivor on that fateful day, and it also helps her move on due one of her teammates back then suggesting she listen to it due to them thinking she’d enjoy it

Chixia, Who uses an absurd amount of sunscreen because when she was younger she saw a nasty sunburn on her parents and its one of the weird fears people have, so whenever she gets a HORRIBLE sunburn she genuinely starts panicking

Danjin, Who will always understand people who want revenge but aren't able to do so, when the reason they want revenge is reasonable enough, she’d be glad to get revenge for them but normally when they refuse she won't push it and just wish they get enough courage to do it themselves one day

Jianxin, Who is known as the “snow white” of huanglong with how easily she’s able to get along with the animals, even if an animal is even mean or negative she somehow finds a way to get along with them, so whenever somebody is having issues with their pets they usually ask jianxin for tips, she has no idea how she does it however,

Jinshi, who is very unaware of slang for people her age(young adult) so when changli mentions something including slang and jinshi is always like “Changli, what does [insert slang word or something]” and changli finds it SO FUNNY seeing jinshi try to figure out how to use slang properly

Jiyan, who has a super good bullshit detector, due to growing up in a medical family he can easily pick up when somebody is lying by watching their body movements, this also means he is really good at picking up when people have crushes on eachother simply by observation!

Lingyang, Who always labels his belongings with cute stickers he's been given by children, so whenever kids are allowed to see and touch lingyang’s lion dancing gear, they always get so happy when they see the stickers they gifted on them

Sanhua, Who always mumbles jinshi’s name when she sleeps due to jinshi being one of the only things sanhua is able to see properly, she always see jinshi in her dreams because she thinks jinshi is the most beautiful woman ever and jinshi is absolutely flattered by it

Taoqi, Who gets very cold easily ever since she was a young child due to her not moving as fast as other children, so overtime as she grew up into an adult she always had layers of blankets on her bed, and whenever she ever decided to bring friends along to her apartment, they’re always surprised how she hasn't suffocated in her sleep

Yangyang, Who LOVES the clarinet and erhu, despite everyone thinking she’s a good singer she actually enjoys playing instruments more, as a child growing up in a family full of musicians she was surrounded by music and despite her odd choice of instruments, she is quite a great player of both, everyone is always surprised when she talks about any instrument and how deep her knowledge goes

Yinlin, Who has a super high pain tolerance due to her experience in fighting, however she can easily get stressed and could overclock if stressed enough so the dollmaker always makes sure that Yinlin gets enough rest despite her being a fully fledged adult now

Yuanwu, Who is a very stubborn man at heart, so when clients that are just as stubborn as him visit his gym, he is always quick to snap back with a passive aggressive remark due to him knowing how stubborn people like him operate, he easily gets under their skin and is able to make them listen

(no changli cuz her and her character stories aren't out yet, and i dunt wanna look for leaks 💔)

NEW FEDERATION

Aalto, Who gets worried about kids who come to him for information but he’s always very lighthearted about it and occasionally if the kid isnt pleased he’d play a game with them where they’d have to chase him around and look for him when he becomes mist so he can tire them down to bring back to their parents safe and sound

Calcharo, Who secretly has a soft spot for young children who were put into a position they did not want to be put in (ex. Child soldier, being an orphan, etc etc,,,) because he was one of those children, despite how scary he seems he doesnt mind giving children something even if they dont want it (However his rule of thumb is, if a child is nice and seems deserving, give something to them, however if not, they get nothing)

Encore, Who deeply relates to verina due to both of them not having parents and becomes super close friends to her now, despite verina being 3 years older, they always play big sister and little sister or mom and daughter together whenever Encore and Aalto are in jinzhou

Mortefi, Who’s sleep schedule is all screwed up and getting a reasonable amount of rest is something he refuses to do even growing up, children who stay up late always see mortefi’s lab lights on from his window, and whenever chixia gets to visit with a few kids they always ask “Mr.Mortefi? Why dont you close your lights when you sleep?” and mortefi usually explains that he works all the time, Chixia sometimes scolds him for this being a normal thing for him

Verina, Who has VERY sensitive hearing and can hear even the slightest of whispers, however she cant tune things out even if she tried so its very normal for her to not be in big social areas due to how loud they usually are, she says she prefers how plants talk to eachother

—-

wuthering waves brainrot got to me...

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canmom · 10 months ago

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 049-064 (pt. 1)

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, 033-048 [all Flower posts]

Hoo boy this is a bunch of chapters. It's time for more Flower.

youtube

All together now: no, not that flower.

...yeah, I'm having to reach for flower-related videos to keep up this running gag at this point. But hey, look, hear me out here: Kanae Nozawa is really fucking good at playing the erhu. And it's called 'Flower Dance'. I think that's flowery enough.

...yeah, I will take suggestions for the next one. Send me your favourite flower-related videos. Especially if they're anime and kinda dark.

Anyway, welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, an ongoing serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Our arc titles today are The Die Falls and Cut-Out Face.

And this time around, Umineko intensifies. I won't say too much more than that above the fold this time, because we're starting to get some mysteries answered (opening more mysteries, naturally). But if you don't mind spoilers, the space elevator awaits.

So where we left off last time, Su had discovered the body of (probably) Neferuaten. It's time to get into that part of Umineko where people are dropping like flies and everyone is desperately trying to figure out who's doing it before it's their turn. However, in this case, everyone involved is a wizard, so this makes things a little more complicated.

There was one important mystery missing from my list of mysteries, incidentally - the pantry with the signs of aging and the tally marks.

Someone on the Flower discord helpfully pointed out that I'd misremembered the rule on red text. I edited the previous post, but just in case: the rule is that if you get a description of a body in red, it's definitely a dead human (and that person is definitely really dead, it's not a spare body or anything). But which dead person? There's no rule that Su correctly identifies the deceased. So while Su definitely found a body, there's no guarantee that it's Neferuaten's body. It's not even guaranteed to be a member of the known cast, since we don't know how many people were already on the island.

Indeed, in this pair of arcs, we start to see characters question the identity of a corpse. So it's definitely intended that you keep that kind of question in mind whenever Su finds a body.

To broadly outline the events in this arc (as much to keep it straight in my head as anything):

Su finds Neferatuen's body and reports it to Linos and Lilith.

They link up with the rest of Su's class and break the news. Everyone freaks out a bit.

A broadcast is made to every computer on the island in which we get an Umineko-style challenge, declaring that everyone on the island will soon be killed by 'heavenly beasts', but it is - sportingly - possible to escape the security system and get off the island. Everyone freaks out a lot.

Fang, who apparently put all of their points into 'chill', takes charge of the situation. Linos explains how the lockdown works.

Linos sends Su and a few others up to get a map. While they're up there, Su bungles her way into confessing the body that she and Kamrusepa discovered earlier. The characters start to compare notes.

Moving as a group, they all set out to shut down the lockdown at the admin centre, covered by various types of magic shield. They blunder into a trap which involved Linos's gun being rigged to fire to cause a distraction, and then Bardiya is murdered while the party is split. According to Theo, the only witness, he was attacked by something which dragged him into the window.

The party share various recriminations and perform some diagnostic magic. Theo and Linos are declared Intensely Sussy, but Fang points out a narrow possibility that an external culprit could have dunnit while Linos's shield had briefly been disabled.

Mehit flips out and grabs Linos's gun. She takes Lilith away from the group of arcanists, intending to wait out the crisis in one of the areas where the Power is suppressed.

The gang moves out. Ran challenges Linos on some of his claims about the nature of the lockdown. It turns out he's been telling some fibs.

They travel through a tunnel that runs from the womens' entrance hall into the research dome. There, they discover a big bloody hole in the ground, and also Anna and Zeno are there.

Zeno's back in girlmode and is trying to transport a bunch of boxes. It turns out their actual 'main body' is a kind of a Made in Abyss 'cartridge' situation - surgically minimised, in this case to slow down aging as much as possible, and hidden. All their bodies are (according to them!) puppet bodies. I'm behind 7 proxy bodies or whatever.

Anna, it turns out, has age regwessied! We get a flashback narrated by Ran (notably not marked reliable) in which we find out what happened during Su's amnesiac episode - more on that later, but the upshot is that Fang brought a spike of true iron that they finished on behalf of Su's grandfather, which allows the Order to operate a giant machine built by Su's grandfather to interact with entropy. The Great Work is successful, and Anna was age regwiessed down to a young adult again.

Su has started to suspect Balthazar knows something time loop shaped. She and Ran and Linos go to confront him. Bal pretty much says yes: we are in fact in a time loop, we've already had thousands of iterations, and I get to remember it, and you should remember it too Su. Every single time, everyone dies and someone makes a tally mark in the pantry, which is for some reason not getting reset. Bal intends to wait out the timeloop where he is with a magazine and won't budge. He also says this is supposed to be the last loop. Ran and Su are dismissive. We the readers know better. Although somehow I suspect this isn't the last loop.

Anna hands out tracking bands.

A flashback sequence shows what happened when Ran found out about Su's situation. More on that later.

The gang go downstairs to find the admin console. On the way down, they discover a bloody magic circle with Durvasa's name written in it.

The three present Order members (Linos, Zeno, and Anna) are able to log into the admin console. They discover that it's not a standard lockdown, but a secret time-triggered protocol installed 20 years ago, around when Su's grandfather was fiddling with the computers. This means it can't easily be reset. Also, in a couple hours the security golems will turn on. Wuh oh.

They hatch a plan B. Everyone goes upstairs to 1. get masks from the mask room to bypass the golems (idk if I mentioned the mask room, there's a mask room) and 2. hopefully rewire re-rune the inputs to the security centre to spoof its inputs and activate the exit.

In the mask room, they discover Durvasa has probably been murdered, but the corpse is too severely mutilated to permit positive identification.

All the students are given masks in order to pass as members of the order. Su anticipates that these masks are going to create a situation where it's harder to identify who's who.

I think that's all the main points. Lots of moving around.

Having done what I promised not to do and write a plot summary, let's get on to the actual substance...

Mystery solution unlocked (somewhat): who is Su?

I feel like I should have been able to predict this one, in retrospect.

In logical terms, maybe not deduce it. But with this reveal, the narrative purpose of a lot of earlier scenes falls into place.

So, Su's unnamed childhood friend - the nerdy academic one who she met on the beach and encouraged her. Well, that friend is in fact Utsushikome of Fusai, or Shiko to her friends!

Wuh? Isn't that our dear protagonist? No - the character we're calling 'Su' is the mind of the other girl, our POV in that flashback. Or maybe it's the other way round, I'm a still little unclear on which POV was which in those flashbacks. I'm fairly sure though that POV girl is Su, and the other girl is Shiko. It's confusing because multiple flashbacks are narrated in the first person - the memories of the beach probably belong to Su, while the memories of the doctor's office where she learned about ascension probably belong to Shiko.

Anyway, we're told in chapter 55 a bit more about the mechanics of how arcanists work. Basically, the Tower of Asphodel, in addition to a few hundred thousand human bodies, also has billions of backup minds in the form of 'pneuma', a semi-biological element that interacts with the higher planes and basically amounts to a soul. The pneuma encodes memories (redundantly it seems), as well as preferences and habits - it's something akin to what Seth Dickinson calls the 'inner law'. In modern times, egomancy - the kind of magic that fucks with pneuma - is highly forbidden.

When humans are born in this world (perhaps more accurately 'instantiated'), stage 1 is to block the pneuma in the clone and permit a new one to form. Unfortunately this breaks the Power.

It was found that the new generation, the children born from this process, had no capacity to use the Power. Even though it had no visible effect on consciousness or intellect, this alteration to the nature of their pneumas damaged the ability of their minds to take on an Index, meaning that using the Power was impossible. There were cases where this didn't happen - where the 'trauma' healed just so - but they were one in a million. So rare as to be useless.

So, to set someone up as an arcanist, you download one of these backed up pneumas from the Tower, and install it over the existing pneuma. But the downloaded pneuma is deliberately weakened so that usually the downloaded personality dissolves quickly and reverts back to the identity of the person who became an arcanist. This process is apparently destructive to the backed up pneuma in the Tower.

So when Lilith said that all arcanists are murderers, what she means is that in a 'proper' initiation, you devour the soul of someone from a dead universe in order to steal their admin password.

In Shiko's case, something different happened. Instead of downloading the soul of someone from a dead universe, she's got the soul of a regular living girl from her own universe.

Here's how Su recalls the situation:

"One day, I got a letter. It offered me a whole bunch of stuff... My own house, shares in a bunch of local businesses that'd get me a stream of luxury credit.. If I agreed to go along with something for a couple weeks. That was what it said-- A couple of weeks." Under the table, I was having trouble keeping my legs still. "I thought it was some strange prank at first, but when we met, they seemed really serious. They said it would be best if it was someone who knew her." "Knew who?" "Oh..." I shifted reluctantly in my seat, my voice getting even quieter. "U-Utsushikome, I mean. I'd known her when we were kids... But we hadn't spoken in years." I cleared my throat. I felt so anxious about what was happening that I was shivering. "Anyway. They told me that her grandfather was dying, and there was something he'd been trying to do for years and years, but it was too late for it t-to work out. But they wanted to-- I dunno, do the next best thing, give him some peace--"

So, agents of Shiko's grandfather - who was evidently up to his fucking follicles in conspiracies - approached the girl we're now calling Su (her original name is not given, for reasons we'll see), operating under false pretenses. It's not clear how much they told her, just that it would involve Shiko. She agreed. They extracted the soul from her body and implanted it in Shiko at Shiko's induction. It seems likely that Shiko's grandfather intended to do this with his own soul, but could not for some reason? Why they did this with some random girl remains unknown. It's also not clear why Su of all people should have chmod +x for the Power.

Su was presumably supposed to dissolve back into Shiko's identity, but probably because the induction was far from normal, she retained her previous identity and Shiko was the one suppressed. Su did her best to try and figure out how to pretend to be Shiko, but Ran - not yet an arcanist herself - noticed her sudden personality change and confronted her. Su came clean, and Ran was all 'kill yourself, bitch' over it.

Seriously she does not let up. Here's some quotes:

This time, she did glance at me, a scowl forming on her face. "Don't try to act compassionate, you perverted fucking body-snatcher. You're not my friend." (...) She grunted. "Just be late next time. I don't want you messing with how she looks on your own impulse." (...) It was strange, us investigating it together like this. Even though I went along with it, acted repentantly, and had explained to her that the way things were weren't exactly my fault - that I'd been deceived at the premise of what I'd agreed to do - she wasn't willing to afford me much charity, but in a way, that was comforting. She was like a beacon of sharp reality in the dreamlike, dissociated existence I was now living.

And so on. Even when Su reveals that her original body is now months dead, and there is no body to go back to, Ran will not cut her a break:

"...this isn't you getting cold feet about trying to save her, is it?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. "Because you can't--" (...) Ran must have realized the absurdity of the statement, because a few moments later she spoke up again-- Disgust having crept back into her tone, even if that hint of conflict still remained. "Don't act sorry for yourself," she said. "It's your own fault for going along with something so perverse for your own gain. Blame her grandfather for being such a fucking lunatic, if you want, but don't act like a victim. No one gives a shit about you."

People in the comments start pulling out the word 'abuser' over this kind of thing and yeah, *sucks in air through teeth* they're not wrong. No wonder Su has such a complex nowadays.

It's notable how much Su's fantastical scenario here has in common with the experience of plurality/DID. Certain friends who are plural talk about how they may be able to recall alters' memories, but with difficulty, and it feels like they belong to someone else. And of course there's the process of forming new alters. Manifesting suddenly in a body full of memories of another person seems like a pretty distressing experience all told, but it's also something that the other people you're sharing with can make easier.

I talked a bit more about this in the Baru article on brains, so I won't reprise it all here. Broadly speaking, if someone is plural, their mind supports different 'alters', which are states of being which typically express distinct senses of identity, access to memory, preferences, stream of consciousness etc. Whether you think of them as distinct 'people' or distinct states of 'one person' seems like a matter of philosophical speculation, but 'co-consciousness' of alters is not an unusual thing, and sometimes I've witnessed externalised disagreements between alters. Since we don't have any ability to prove the existence of other minds in general, the only surefire way to know what it's like to be plural is to be plural already. Unfortunately the main way to inculcate plurality seems to be 'go through severe child abuse', so it's not easy to find out. But maybe tulpamancy is real?

Su's situation is not so different from the recent recurring 'lesbians and imperialism' subgenre device of having someone's mind inserted into a protagonist's body through some kind of scifi means. In modern 'plural system' terms, the word used is 'introject': in brief, an alter derived from another person, who often (but not always) understands themselves to be that person even in another body.

The big difference for Su of course is that the other alter she'd hypothetically be sharing this body with has just disappeared. Su can't talk to Shiko, Shiko's gone. It's not actually uncommon for alters to disappear like that, I've known people who very rapidly generate and discard identities in an intense traumatic situation, but the timeline doesn't really fit that here, and it's pretty much nonexistent I think for all alters but one to disappear and leave someone a singleton again.

I admit I'm not familiar with all the modern taxonomy of what psychiatry terms 'dissociative disorders', so perhaps there are other related categories, that are closer to Su's situation. Of course, even ignoring all the flaws and limitations of the DSM approach, this is a sci-fantasy world in which souls are real and manifest in a specific organ (ironic given how I declared they definitely aren't real and 'the body is all that is' in the first post on this book), so different rules apply!

What's not clear to me at this point is whether Samium the egomancer is going to be capable of restoring Shiko's soul in any meaningful way. It seems like when you shove two pneumas into a body, only one survives.

Anyway, as for Ran, she's clearly backed off on the 'perverted fucking body-snatcher' talk, having spent many years building up a friendship with Su and losing sight of her original zeal to save Shiko. Despite this, she really hasn't owned up to the fact that she's a big part of the reason Su is so determined to do a special magic suicide.

We could only suppose that if Shiko was brought back at this point, she would be in the exact same situation Su was - suddenly inhabiting a body filled with memories that are not her own, surrounded by people she does not know, and forced to carry on pretending to be the previous occupant. None of Su's present classmates know Shiko. Shiko's context was the school, and that is now in the distant past.

Su, however, is carrying The Mega Traumas and has spent however many years defining her life's purpose as dying to bring back Shiko. She has fully internalised the idea that she's a monster and doesn't deserve to live, that it's somehow her moral responsibility for the twisted experiment that Su's grandfather performed on these two girls.

At this point, the 'healthiest' outcomes are one of two things. Maybe Samium the egomancer could reactivate Shiko's identity, but without destroying Su, and Su/Shiko can share the body. Being plural doesn't seem to be so bad. (I admit I don't know what it's like, but if there's anything I've observed from knowing people who are plural, it's that once that cat's out of the bag and you recognise that you're plural, you can't really just try and suppress it. Trying to just will yourself into not switching is going to fuck you up much worse than coming to terms with it and developing ways to interact comfortably and share embodiment with your new headmate. Apparently 'integration' or fusion of alters is possible, and was traditionally pursued by therapists, but if it's rushed it just breaks down. And that would be disagreed with by the modern plural identity movement.)

On the other hand, it seems fairly plausible that it won't be possible to bring back Shiko. In this case, both Su and Ran need to finally grieve their friend who was effectively murdered at a young age by Su's grandfather, and move on. Easier said than done, of course. And they're definitely not going to get there if they can't have a very honest discussion about it. Which doesn't seem very likely with all these distracting murders.

Anyway, that resolves a few of my list of mysteries...

what skulduggery happened with Su’s ascension that made it go so badly wrong?: Shiki had the soul of her childhood friend, now known as 'Su', instead of some rando from the Tower of Asphodel. why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can’t assimilate?: she was not yet an arcanist and did not know about what initiation entails. she sees Su as culpable, even though Su was deceived. Su is a stranger and she will happily let a stranger die to save Shiki, and rationalises this. what did Su’s grandfather have to do with it?: agents claiming to work on behalf of Shiki's grandfather deceived Su. it seems it was too late to do it with his own mind.

it also opens some brand new mysteries.

why did Shiki's grandfather carry out this sadistic experiment? how is this the 'next-best thing'? is it just to prove the body-hopping technology works?

did Shiki's grandfather and co. anticipate that Shiki's mind would be overwritten by Su, or did they expect Su to be killed, the same as minds from Asphodel?

who are the agents who carried out this weird plot? do they have any relation to the current murder spree?

can the mind of Shiki really be retrieved?

Now I've gone through all the ins and outs of it - this plot is really cool and spicy. So much drama to be had. Now I understand the point of those flashback scenes to Su's childhood, and it fits so neatly that I wonder how I couldn't see it before. Not enough imagination! But if this is the wavelength the story is operating on, I should try and imagine similar payoffs for the other mysteries...

Anyway, now that we've established that body transfers are possible, we might wonder if anyone else had one done.

Let me wrap up this section by saying... body-snatcher is a very specific term! It tickles me to think that Ran might have seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The time loop

This was described at the outset as a 'control' scenario, but we have several apparent divergences. And supposedly thousands of iterations of this experiment have already run with slightly different outcomes.

Su's memory is slightly leaking info from the other loops, but for the most part she remains immersed in the scenario. Balthazar, meanwhile, obviously has history with Su from previous runs. This explains Su's inexplicable feelings of animosity towards him, his knowledge of the name 'Shiki', and many of his remarks.

As mentioned up above, the pantry is somehow not getting rolled back after each loop. This explains why it's so old. I had previously been assuming it was some kind of 'hyperbolic time chamber' type scenario, and the tally marks were the time that someone was stuck in the pantry, but this is way more interesting and cool.

We have our equivalent of On the ninth twilight, the witch revives, and none shall be left alive. from Balthazar:

"When I said this is a closed circle, I meant it in every sense," he explained. "In absolutely every instance, for every marking made on that wall... By the time this is over, there isn't a single person here left alive."

Presumably either Balthazar or Su is the mark-maker, and they always end up dead after making this mark. I assume they usually mark the wall fairly early in the loop in order to make sure they don't die too soon before making it!

This actually means I think we have a fairly good suspect for the "who knocked out Yantho" case. If Balthazar came here to mark the wall (although why bother, if it's the final run), and Yantho was about to see him, maybe he'd have panicked and knocked Yantho out? I don't think that would extend as far as killing the cook and faking her suicide though!

Anyway, Balthazar claims this is the final run. One commenter had a little hissy fit about this not fitting the standard time loop story mold, but I'm more inclined to wait and see. Admittedly, I have the unfair knowledge, compared to when this chapter came out, that the story is hundreds of chapters long and still going strong, and given the murders are now going at a rapid pace, I feel like we'll surely see at least one more loop. Hard to say though. Just because it's inspired by Umineko doesn't mean it's got the same structure.

Anyway, let's revisit the very first chapter given what we now know...

They were also a woman, though you wouldn't have been able to tell. Everything beneath the head-area was buried under black fabric, without so much as an inch of flesh visible, and their face was covered with a expressionless, androgynous porcelain mask. Otherwise, the outfit evoked something like a funeral gown, with only subtle frills around the cuffs and hem of the skirt.

We can now recognise this is probably the outfit of a member of the Order, back when they hid their identities. The mask sounds similar to how Neferuaten's mask is described in chapter 31:

It took me a moment to realize which mask she was pointing out, since it was so unremarkable. It was little more than an oval of silver, with holes cut for the two eyes and mouth, and a little dent to accommodate the nose.

Though Nef's mask is described as silver, not porcelain.

We can also get to hear Su's victory condition.

"Understand this: Your role in the scenario has been elevated from that of bystander to that of the heroine, and your victory condition is thus," she continued. "You must ascertain the identity of your opponent, the cause of the bloodshed to follow, and prevent it before it comes to pass. In order to accomplish this goal, you must pay close heed to all which transpires, and use deduction, alongside your skills and past experience of the events to follow. Do you understand your role?" (...) "Should you deviate from your role, the scenario will be compromised, and a grave outcome is forewritten. But should you succeed, then you shall open the path to a brighter future." She paused for a moment. "That is all. Should we begin?"

It's not at all clear why this should be the final loop, given that Su seems nowhere near close to 'winning' at this point. It's hard to know whether 'the scenario will be compromised' applies beyond a single loop though.

Two more mysteries to put on the list: who is Su's interlocutor here? And what was Su's request?

One thing I noticed, incidentally, is that chapter 000 was written some time after chapter 1, released 27 July 2020 - the timestamp places it in between chapters 020 (24 July) and 021 (6 August). I don't think this means anything - the intended version of the story is clearly now the one with the prologue attached - but it's an interesting example of how a serial novel can evolve with time.

Anyway, if the time loop is a challenge for Su to solve, it raises the obvious question of why Balthazar gets to remember the loop. (There's also incidentally a thing where most of the students' clocks are mysteriously stopped, with the exception of Ophelia's and Ran's.)

Anyway, Su (like us) has to solve whodunnit and whydunnit. Though howdunnit is probably also relevant.

I'm going to wildly speculate that Su's identity stuff is somehow connected to the timeloop scenario, just because narrative efficiency. Here are some possibilities to consider:

the woman in the mask is Shiko

the woman in the mask is Su. the POV of the first chapter is that of Shiko, and her request is that a scenario could be created where Su has to take on the scenario.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiko. she was not overwritten, but evicted into a different body again.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiki, from Tsukihime.

Ran's chapters and the Great Work

Ran recounts some of the stuff that happened while Su was out of it. This is later shown to be a diegetic conversation.

These chapters are super cool and intriguing. That said, while it starts out fairly believable - Ran's summaries with her voice - there is something a bit weird about how Ran can quote long conversations verbatim. Admittedly, if Su is telling the story, she is also able to remember everything in incredible detail. But Su has been established to have something like an eidetic memory, at least as far as figures are concerned, so I can sorta handwave that part.

Though that said, it's just a minor stylistic quibble. Putting it in Ran's mouth is an interesting device. Ran's inner voice is quite sarcastic, way more so than Su, who is honestly painfully sincere?

More importantly, these chapters are not marked with a first purple letter to confirm they are reliable. This is a narrative that Ran is telling Su. We can probably assume the broad details are accurate-ish, but it's entirely possible that Ran is lying or omitting things according to the rules of the game.

Anyway, the students are all taken down to a huge chamber underneath the Everblossom that's full of fractal cables and complicated magic runes that use a city's worth of eris to interface with the Ironworker entropy machine. So far it lets them essentially perfectly recover information from the past, allowing them to do stuff like de-age Anna.

It's a little bit handwavey how it all works. Anna's memories appear to be intact, so her entire body can't have been rolled back. We could raise all sorts of questions about motion and the interface between brain and body but it's a nitpicking.

What we know is that after Fang brings out a piece of iron and it's integrated into the machine... Anna goes offscreen with the other members of the Order, and then comes back appearing much younger, and they claim the machine worked as intended. Not much time to celebrate though because shortly after, the murders start.

There remains the possibility that the younger individual we're being told is Anna is... not Anna, but someone else acting as her (perhaps even Neferatuen). Though why the Order would deceive the students in such a way I couldn't guess, so it's a pretty dubious theory.

The murders

The murder of Bardiya is fairly extensively discussed by the characters. The two scenarios raised are: Theo attacked Bardiya, then lied about it, or, an unknown party ducked in while the shield was lowered very briefly, then attacked Bardiya through the window.

Given the specifity of the window stuff, I'm inclined to believe the second story. Theo definitely has something going on with him (he's been super cagey about some personal business), but he doesn't have a murderer vibe, unless he's an improbably good actor. The capabilities of the adversary remain unclear.

It's also possible that the death somehow involved an adverse interaction with Linos's shield. This possibility was raised by a commentator.

...actually, fine, let me go into Linos's shield.

Linos's shield (or the inevitable nitpicking)

The main group of characters rely on Linos's high level casting of a shielding spell called energy-nullifying-projecting. This takes incoming energy and redirects it back out. We get more details later:

"The base component terminates all motion in anything that comes into contact with it and essentially acts as a brick wall on top of blocking incoming incantations, while the additional one conjures an electromagnetic repelling force, physically damaging any matter that tries to pass through it."

"Wait, uh, I'm kind of confused," Ptolema said, scratching her head. "If it works like that, wouldn't just moving it around damage stuff? Like, when you expanded it to cover the kitchen, shouldn't it have smashed the wall to bits?" "Mm, well, the energy nullification doesn't actually apply when I move the barrier, so as long as everything I'm expanding it through is motionless already, then it'll just pass through harmlessly. I do have to disable the repulsive component for those times, though--- There's an element of the incantation to give me dynamic control over it."

My nitpicks are two: firstly, Ran mentioned special relativity applies to this universe in an earlier chapter. 'Motionless' is relative, and in Newtonian physics and relativity, you don't have a 'preferred' reference frame in which things can be 'absolutely' at rest. So I wonder how the spell is able to distinguish between 'thing moving towards Linos' (block) vs 'Linos moving towards thing' (don't block).

My second nitpick is thermal motion. Even a solid object is constantly full of random lattice vibrations corresponding to temperature. Negating all motion that touches the barrier would amount to flash-freezing anything that comes into contact. Though perhaps you can 'code' it to identify macro-scale objects in motion and block them.

Neither of these are like important.

Anyway here's how Bardiya's death is described by Theo...

"I... Bardiya was right up near the window at the far side of the room, when I turned. I only saw him clearly for a moment before the lamp fell over... But the window was open, and he was staring out of-- No, rather, it almost looked like he was being pulled by something. One of his arms reached out to try and grab hold of something, but there was nothing." He shook his head. "When the light was gone, I tried to call out, but I couldn't hear a sound from my own mouth... Or from anywhere at all. And then, I... I..." He ran his hands urgently through his hair, as if trying to wipe something off them, and gasped urgently. Mehit, who was sitting next to him, stared wide-eyed. "I couldn't see well, but it looked like something was... Was feeding on him," he went on. "He kept being pulled out through the window over and over again, and every time, there was more and more blood when he pulled back. I could even feel some of it splatter on my face, see the light reflecting off the puddle... And more than anything, I could smell it. It was like a butcher's shop, but sickly sweet." He shuddered. "E-Eventually, whatever it was let him go, and he slumped down. I'd been too shocked to move up until that point, but realized I needed to help him, so... I tried to step forward. I still couldn't hear my own voice, so I tried to turn his body around. That's when I... That close, I could see..."

Getting pulled out of the window by an unseen force and torn to bits definitely sounds kinda like getting caught in a repulsive barrier, right? Then again, there's no reason Bard would stick his hand out the window unless forced.

It's a shame, I liked Bardiya. Had a good head on his shoulders. But hey, I guess that's the point! You always kill the fan appeal character first for maximum tragedy points. (By the same token, I expect Ezekiel will last a long time.)

Durvasa we have less information to go on, since the corpse was arranged decoratively post killing. As we've observed, it might not even be Durvasa.

I'm too tired now to try to solve this one, but I might do a followup, to comment on any other stuff that stands out, later.

Great story, anyway. I'm so intrigued by all that's going on. I accidentally posted this instead of sending it to drafts, so I'm gonna unprivate it now, see you next time for more on these chapters or maybe just advancing straight to the next batch!

Thanks for reading my liveblog! And if you read this Lurina, great work, this book kicks ass, so many intriguing ideas and moving parts, I have no idea how you keep track of it all lol.

Umineko liveblog to pick up after sleep hopefully. We'll see though.

#the flower that bloomed nowhere #tftbn liveblog #fiction #sff #novels

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achoshistor · 6 months ago

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[HSR] comments on music structure

i think i lied when i said i was becoming normal. i think its funny how even with the zelda brainrot i know i have like 2-3 people reading it but i feel like no one gaf about these posts LMFAO. i dont think im gonna transcribe anything out yet bc im really lazy

anyways im sure this is all because hsr has maybe 2-3 people that do the music so obviously its gonna sound kind of similar but the one hallmark i keep noticing is this really idk bright/deep (its so embarrassing but i've only studied western classical theory and forgot half of it) bass reminiscent of a lot of older splatoon music (this one has it playing what i hear as the real main melody) which add another layer of harmony to the songs tbh. u can hear it at about 1 min in jing yuan's theme and maybe at about 0:55 in the 2.3 trailer and again its used in fu xuan's theme at maybe 0:55 again which lowkey sounded like " i took a pill in ibiza to me" ngl... (more on this one later); but tbh you really only hear this instrument w/ character themes (esp luofu) which honestly shows characterization thru the music ...(sam feels like an exception bc his theme is very bass driven after all despite not being from any of the xianzhou ships)

the next type of thing they tend to use in music a lot is really driven bass guitar lines... e.g. in bootleg's theme . this follows a pattern where at around 1:15 youll hear a bass melody then around 1:27 youll hear an almost imitation of the melofy which goes thru + builds up back into the main theme where he starts talking again. the concert commercial thingy does something similar but with the melody this time w/ the transition from guitar into a pretty much repetition with various insturments regarding each character (erhu for jingliu, ?? for argenti, then sax for that twink (more on him later)). space comedy does this too with the main melody we hear for herta/belobog then into luofu (i dunno the next thing about chinese theory so i cant really say much there)

anyways back to fu xuan... her theme is one of many orchestrated themes but it mixes it with that edm or whatever element but it still has those orchestral qualites of a really idk harmonic timbre. sparkle, black swan, also do this (more on the dance theme in another post i feel like that one needs more) but onto firefly and aventurine. firefly is actually what inspired this post bc at 0:12 or so that note is the exact same as aventurine's theme opens with. firefly's theme does the same as fu xuan's where it mixes traditional with electronic but with western instruments this time. i think aventurine really belongs with the upper category if not for the orchestral hits going on in the back and the call and response everywhere in his piece which give it direction because otherwise it feels like its going no where; but like before it uses imitation and repetition of past melodies with different instruments to create direction in the piece tbh

ok. maintenance ends soon trust. hopefully by next post i have more knowledge and my nail grows out bc its BROKEN and i cant play any string instruments. gootbye

#honkai star rail #hsr aventurine #yapping #hsr boothill #please #i dunno what to tag this #music #hsr music #i love you march 7th

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navysealt4t · 8 months ago

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totk might have my FAVORITE ost i've ever played. like it is so GOOD and DIVERSE in tone, and it actually uses instruments to create thematic moments its actually GENIUS musically. it does one of my favorite things an ost can do and assign roles to instruments. and then have those instruments duet when imprortant things happen. i can say i might be wrong about some of this cuz i havent had time to listen to cutscenes in full without overlapping dialogue of pointcrow, so take this all with a grain of salt LOL

i really really like their usages of saxaphones esp to represent what ive been calling like human resistance?? its representative of a lot of stuff within the modern era that link exists in, and ties very directly into link himself which is very interesting when u consider that saxes are kind of an odd instrumentation to use in a full orchestra game like totk. theyre used in a full ensemble setting, even outside of solos and features, which is interesting because saxes are NOT typically used in full string orchestras. they might appear for a solo or feature, but never tend to stick around for the full thing. which i think is so interesting. and very much a thematic thing for link like he is inherently unique. i lost whatever train of thought i was having here actually. sorrgyyyy. but saxes are very much representative of humanity (hylianity??? idk) and it's sort of … "indomnitable spirit?" i guess? that's a heavy thought ive sort of had. sax quartets also tend to be used in like?? moments of collaboration for link and companionship :3 which is hella cool.

theres also the voices, which tend to represent like zonai stuff and ganon, weirdly enough. i think theyre more of a symbol of the past. i also really enjoy the dissonant tones used, i think its a genuine concept of just how music was in hryule's past, and it sounds weird to the listener because its not modern music, further emphasizing just how strange the whole situation is

another thing that i find pretty cool and what i was MOST excited about in totk was their usage of the erhu, a chinese string instrument that you hear a lot in moments with the dragons and i JUST LOVE THAT because higher quality erhu's will be carved with dragon's heads at the tip :3 just a silly coincidence probably but i like it. its safe to say erhus represent dragons and the act of draconification itself but methinks we can go a bit wider and say that it represents sacredness in hyrule itself. holy or not. i think it's because of the pure and resounding tone of the instrument. the erhu is also a two stringed instrument, which further pushes the "two dragons"/orobourous narrative that totk has going on. ok thats my rant i had to get the demons out of me before i died

GODDDDDDDDD SHAKING THIS YES YES GES !!!! GID i love the weird lil voices that r like. a symbol of the past. THE VOICES R SO LOUD WHEN LINK IS DESCENDING DOWN TO FACE THE DEMON KINGS ARMY ITS SO COOL. GAH I LOVE THE MUSIC SO MUCHH. THERE SO MANY LITTLE THEMES AND MOTIFS ITS AMAZING

#YES SYES THIS IS SO COOL #asks #beloveds <3 #music man!

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cakechako · 2 years ago

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Nai’s Theme is also the Plant’s Song

This has probably been said before and seem very obvious but I gotta brain dump this all. I’ve been listening to the Tristamp OST intently for a while and I think that the melody that we hear in “MILLIONS KNIVES” and throughout other songs in the OST like “Duet”, “Epilogue”, etc is actually more than just Nai’s or the twin’s song. I think it’s the song of the plants as well. Yes we can hear it when we first see him in his flashback playing the earliest forms of that melody when playing the piano with Vash then later again when the twins reunite when older/as teens.

It makes sense that we first hear the melody when both the twins are children and were closer to each other then as well as regarded themselves more like plants. Then when they’re older, Vash unlocks his plant powers and Nai proposes his plan of liberating their plant sisters and destroying humanity to him, which he subsequently rejects. The sad violin rendition of the plant theme can be heard after this rejection, symbolizing Vash rejecting his plant half in favor of humanity and in contrast highlighting Nai’s very plant leaning allegiances. (We can also hear the same violin rendition again when Nai dies possibly symbolizing Vash’s more plant like half dying as well 🥲).

What’s more is that you can hear the same melody in other songs that don’t just concern Nai and his longing to reconnect with Vash but you can hear it in songs like “Last Run”, “Drain Gate”, and “Drain Arm” where it also centers around Vash, particularly when he’s accessing his gate by reconnecting with his plant side.

In the last episode, we also see Vash at the piano playing the same tune. A melody that he would always hum as a child because it brought him comfort and the one he played at that moment in search of that familiar tune and feeling or just the memory of himself, the plants, and his brother.

The most convincing evidence to this is the song named “Plant Song on Erhu” solidifying the point that it’s the melody of all the plants.

Now as for the lyrics we hear in the vocal version of “MILLIONS KNIVES” when they say “Can we be the same way together” and “I still care for you”, I cannot tell if these are words that reflect how just Nai feels, both him and Vash or is it the wish of all the plants to return to harmony.

So in conclusion, we hear the same melody throughout a large portion of Tristamp’s OST when it concerns the plants. This includes Nai, Vash, and the rest of their plant sisters.

On a side note, a reasoning as to why the plant theme is more recognizable or associated as Nai’s song is probably due to a couple other theories that have been floating the fandom. The first being that Nai is possibly more plant-like in comparison to Vash. The second theory is that Nai can hear his sister’s when they’re in pain as seen in the episodes whereas Vash can feel their presence. It is not known if the twins share these abilities with each other or if it is one-side. It is also not known if Vash can only feel their presence and not their pain/emotions. There is not a lot of strong evidence to support this but it leads many people to believe that this is why Nai is largely more sympathetic to his plant sisters because he can hear their suffering while Vash does not.

Of course in the end, all these theories are fun to think about but I think Vash’s own plant abilities, his connection to and care for sisters, and his very existence is proof enough that he is just as plant as his brother.

#ive been thinking about this for days and i just had to word vomit it all out #i very dearly love all the songs mentioned because of the beautiful melody that I hear throughout #i guess you can say i really fixated on it and all of trigun lol #trigun #trigun stampede #vash #vash the stampede #trigun vash #millions knives #trigun knives #trigun nai #knives #hundred doorknobs #knobs

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theuntamedaus · 2 years ago

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Hi hello I am once again back on my bullshit™.

I have had an idea for what I will call Music Band AU. I do not have a plot (yet), my brain isyelling "Scott Pilgrim" likeits life depended on it, but I do NOT want that, I have something a bit different in mind.

So.

I have, as clear as day, the Lans as being classical musicians/traditional musicians and also composers. They play traditional chinese instruments like the xiao, the erhu, the qin, etc along with some western musical instruments like the clarinet, the piano, the strings. I do not have any idea who plays what, I will figure it out later.

Nie Mingjue is the owner of an indie music studio and he publishes mostly metal kind of genre.

He is also the owner of a Nightwish-like Metal band whose vocalist Meng Yao abandoned everything to follow his father Jin Guangshan's Big Brands Studio.

Something he will eventually regret, but ATM we are not there yet.

Anyway.

Enter the Jiangs - beloved and beloathed. JFM and YZY are one of those who are like "yeahmy child is so gifted and talented, let's ruin their life forever by forcing them in the music industry". You know. Like Michael Jackson's parents, or Britney Spears' parents, that turned out oh-so-well.

In fact.

Yanli is a beloved pop idol à la Blackpink and Jiang Cheng is trying but his voice is not made for pop - he does try pop-punk but yet again, too rough, or high, or low, and he's never good enough, for JFM's standards.

And also there is "adopted son" Wei Ying who is doing just GREAT and BRILLIANT job at being the pop idol whom Lan Wangji, dragged out of his shell by Nie Huaisang, bc LXC and NMJ are besties, is absolutely head over heels, so what use is JC in JFM's eyes?

Needless to say, there is a lot bickering, fighting, yelling.

*uh, I have just had a flashback to my experience, no I will not elaborate*

Anyway. And it's after the last sunday lunch gone wrong that JC just leaves before even touching his food and goes in the city. He is thinking a lot, maybe he is thinking of leaving the family, the business, or maybe he wants to start his own label, how much it would cost anyway?

And he finds himself looking at some microphones in a music shop - unaffiliated with the Lans, the owner is probably Mr. Yao or Mr. Ouyang.

THe owner is like, I can see you are pointing big puppy eyes at those mics, do you want to try them?

And JC, full of the whole "you are a failure,you will never be enough" says "Sure, I can try..."

And he sings like a rock kind of song, and y'all know that I am a Jiang "Angel Voice" Cheng truther.

NMJ happens to be in the shop because he needs a new amplificator or something and hears JC.

And he is in awe.

Who is this amazing singer and why has he not heard about him ever. That's the one I want for my band, he is perfect. And he introduces himself and JC is like "you liked that?!"

"Why yes it was perfect, come to my studio, meet my band give it a try".

And it takes a bit of convincing, Huaisang chips in, but JC discovers that his voice is perfect for Metal and joins NMJ's band.

Are his parents happy? Nope and they voice their disappointment, which just prompts JC to just pack his things and go.

Yanli and Wei Ying try their best to mellow things, they don't want JC to go, but JC is fed up.

He goes to NMJ's studio, explains the situation and NMJ and NMJ is like "New Family Member Acquired".

You can read this as MingCheng if you wish, I kind of like the paiting, but only if it's @felinesomnambulist or @bloody-bee-tea (sorry for the tags, you both do write amazing MingCheng fics).

I will probably come back on this because I am enjoying the idea, but I will elaborate once I have kicked my brain around a little.

#the untamed #modern au #music bands au #jiang yanli #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wangxian #mingcheng

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kukuandkookie · 2 years ago

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I was going to reblog from OP with a joke in the tags like “Is this considered blasphemous? Because I wouldn’t be against more of this 😂” but to answer these questions:

They actually removed the strings to make it more like an erhu, which does only have two strings! But I’m sure it’s confusing for anyone who’s never seen one before ahaha. 😆

Basically, the erhu is a traditional Chinese instrument, and yeah, you kind of hold it up like a cello.

It’s actually a really cool instrument and looks like this:

One of its most famous pieces is “Horse Racing,” which the man in the Douyin video from OP is playing. This is because the erhu is known for its ability to mimic the sound of a horse neighing.

You can actually watch a performance featuring these sorts of horse sounds here:

youtube

And as a fun one, here’s a comparison of the erhu’s ability to mimic horses versus the cello’s ability to do the same: 😂

Oh, and I went through my “traditional Chinese instruments” tag, and OP has already posted a Douyin featuring “Horse Racing” and the erhu before (it even features a violin, this time played as it is meant to be played 🤣)!:

Here’s some even more “Horse Racing” covers, including an attempt by the famous violin YouTube channel, TwoSet:

youtube

Beyond “Horse Racing,” the erhu is also known for having a sort of morose, sorrowful sound, so even though “Horse Racing” is very energetic, a lot of the other erhu songs you can find feel sad, yet are just as beautiful.

I love this one:

youtube

Oh, and there’s this man named Elliott Tordo who is very popular on YouTube for his erhu covers! My favourite is his cover of the popular song “Big Fish” by the amazing singer, Zhou Shen (from the heart-wrenching animated film, Big Fish and Begonia. It’s still my favourite song of Zhou Shen’s to this day, and I’ve linked it too in case you’re curious about his singing! He’s even done live versions of it like this one here).

As for Elliott, he’s probably most famous for his anime covers, such as Inuyasha’s theme song in erhu style. But yeah, here’s a sample of his work, using his cover of “Big Fish” as an example:

youtube

So there we go! That’s a taste of what the erhu is! Like all traditional Chinese instruments (whether it’s the erhu, the guqin, the guzheng, the pipa, the dizi, the xiao, the yueqin, and so on and so forth), they’re all lovely instruments. They’re somewhat underrated internationally, mostly just in the sense they’re lesser known, so there’s a lot to explore out there!

I hope that helps answer anyone’s confusion. ^^

Playing 赛马 ("Horse Racing") on a violin as if it's an 二胡/erhu.

#Youtube #kuku rambles #douyin #erhu #traditional chinese instruments

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monosanimegenericzone · 3 months ago

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Hunter x Hunter: delusions all the delusions

bono learning that feitan wants to learn how to play the chinese erhu and teaching him how to play Venus, Bringer of Peace. its not a very erhu type song, but it is one that bono loves. and when feitan asks why bono just gives him this little smile and says venus is the goddess of love. and that's the only answer he gets.

i take it back im listening to Venus as i write this and honestly the motif wouldn't be that bad on erhu.

bono infodumping on fei about the beliefs of his homeland. idk how much of it is beliefs because i fully believe the gyodondons had access to nen- maybe bono knows about a few really powerful conjured spirits that are close to legend in his village.

feitan who's got a little bit of an artist's bone in him sketches them out as bono talks and then checks if he's drawing them right. bono is so happy, giving him feedback and feitan is just vibing, having fun drawing weird little creatures.

feitan teaches bono how to use a sword because bono is curious how it's different from a spear. and feitan is having a time correcting bono's grip- mm hand holding- and then scolding him for using it like a foil not a katana.

like bono will be stabbing with it when he should be slashing and feitan can easily just bat the sword away and then bat bono in the face or the hand like "stop jabbing. It's not a spear. It's a sword."

also on the rare occurance they hold hands feitan likes to hook his fingers in bono's palm hole. it's so weird to feel a human hand that has such a feature so he thinks it's special.

it's only rare because bono almost always wears gloves so on the off days that feitan sees him with the gloves off he'll just sidle up next to him and grab.

mmmm hand holding.....

post pain packer feitan, hurt as shit, bono uses his bandages to wrap him up and carry him back to base. feitan, if he's conscious, asks if he did a good job and bono give him a lil forehead kiss and aweaweawea

im unbelievably delusional and my cult grows by the day.

#hxh #bonofei #husbandages

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lee-luca · 6 years ago

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Mo Dao Zu Shi: Every Lan plays an instrument. No exceptions.

In which JingYi has yet another (unexpected) talent and could probably found his own school of cultivation with it.

I like the idea of JingYi playing the dizi as much as the next person, but...if Wei Ying can cultivate by whistling, surely JingYi can do something with his voice... It would explain why JingYi is so loud--he's actually training his voice (with the grudging approval of LQR lol)

#Mo Dao Zu Shi #MDZS #Lan JingYi #(minor)#ZhuiYi #2019 #digital #comic #jingyi probably has the strongest singing voice in all of gusu #because he already exercises his voice (yells) so much on a daily basis #if mxtx won't give him an instrument i will #the chinese fandom commonly has him playing the erhu #which i think would be nice but probably too troublesome for ljy #or the suona #which i understand because it's noisy like ljy #but i really doubt lqr would allow that lmao #PaintTool SAI #my art #fanart

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pbaintthetb · 4 years ago

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quick fic

wrote this because i need to write but lack motivation, and I’m not posting it because it’s not neatly wrapped up but anyway

“I’m here to see the Sect Leader,” Xichen tells the Nie disciples who greet him at the gates. He’s greeted with a nod and a fond eye roll, his presence here is not unfamiliar, frequently coming to drag poor little A-Sang out of trouble.

(How much of that had always been a lie? How much had these disciples known it was a lie. Is it all an act? All of them?)

“He’ll meet you in his office,” one of the disciples tells him pleasantly, “Feel free to wait for him there.” In the corner of his eye he can notices a flurry of green, but he nods and walks the familiar path.

A-Sang, A-Yao. It’s too late for Da-ge, Mingjue is gone, and it’s like a gaping hole in his chest, but maybe he can stop the rest of the tragic story playing itself out again. Stop Huaisang from ruining himself.

“Er-ge?” Huaisang says warily as he enters the office to find Xichen standing there. His fan is up over his mouth and his eyes are wide, but this is just how Huaisang had looked in the temple, and it sends eerie chills down Xichen’s spine.

His silly, foolish, lazy, idle little brother is none of those things. At least not anymore, but maybe Xichen can restore it. Now that he’s looking for it, now that he knows it’s there, he can see it in Huaisang’s eyes. A certain sharpness, warily tracking him.

Or maybe Xichen’s imagining it, so desperate for it to be there, for there to be a sign of everything Huaisang was and will be (won’t be, Xichen will fix it) again. But if even A-Yao had never noticed...

There is no point in wasting more time, so he swallows everything down and lays his cards out on the table. Mingjue had always valued forthrightness and honesty and had tried to instill those in Huaisang. Huaisang had hated Jin Guangyao because he had lied. Honestly should work, it has to.

“I know what you’re planning, A-Sang,” Xichen says, doesn’t whisper it, says it bravely and solidly so his confidence doesn’t abandon him. He needs to do this properly, needs to save as much of his brothers as he can. He can’t watch themselves tear themselves apart once more.

“Planning?” Huaisang says after a short pause, “I don’t know what you’re talking about? I really don’t know. I promise Er-ge! What do you mean?”

It was one thing to listen to Huaisang’s frantic denials and confusion when he had thought it real. It had been almost endearing, if sometimes a little worrying or irritating. Now, when he knows it has so much falseness in it, it sends a trickle of ice down his spine. He resists the urge to shudder, but maybe not enough because Huaisang’s eyes go wider still.

Xichen reminds himself that his sword is at his hip and his erhu hangs on his other side. Then he mentally prods himself, because why does his brain think he’d need protection from Huaisang? No matter what, Huaisang, his da-ge’s didi, would never hurt him. And, not to be rude, but Huaisang never had a particualry strong core.

He shakes himself to get over the silliness and takes the plunge.

“I know about Da-ge and what you’re planning with A-Yao. How you want to destroy him, make sure he could never come back and-” He doesn’t finish his thought before Huaisang interjects.

“Er-ge? Are you okay, what about Da-ge? I don’t know what you mean?”

“No, Huaisang.” He blocks off once more, he won’t play this game now. He fell for it before, in the temple, and A-Yao had died. He had done unforgivable things, but he hasn’t necessarily done them all yet this time. Maybe he can be saved, and he didn’t deserve to die.

“I have,” he pauses, “certain knowledge, Huaisang. I have seen, some things.” He swallows, and sees Huaisang watching him like a hawk over his fan, but his brow furrowed to keep up the illusion of confusion. A-Yao had said he’d never see through Huaisang’s mask, but Huaisang is still early in his game, and Xichen knows, he thinks he might now.

“San-ge led to Da-ge’s death.” Xichen tells the other man, as though Huaisang doesn’t already know. “And I know you want to destroy him for it.”

There is no response, just the feeling that every inch of him is being measured and none of it is being deemed good enough.

“But why would San-ge hurt Da-ge?” Huaisang asks him eventually, voice trembling- and was Xichen too early? Has he ruined everything? Would Huaisang never have come for A-Yao? Or maybe this is right, and they can talk it over, and get justice together and without utterly destroying A-Yao in the process.

“Their relationship was very strained by the end,” Xichen acknowledges heavily. It didn’t make it right, but it made it make sense in hindsight. “I think San-ge...” he trails off, unsure how to continue. He shakes his head, this isn’t the point anyway.

“I know what you’re going to do, Huaisang. I’ve seen it. You’re going to trick him, and trap him and kill him. But you’re smart- no, I’ve seen that too. If we work together we could help him.” He swallows, “please, A-Sang.”

There’s an odd laugh.

“The way you talk, Er-ge. You make it sound as if you’re from the future,” Huaisang chuckles lightly again, and it is an absurd thought.

Xichen nods.

“Oh,” Huaisang tells him, ugly and flat, fan snapping shut to reveal a very displeased expression. “So tell me, Zewu-jun, did it hurt, what I did to him?”

Xichen gapes, he hadn’t expected this, at least not this fast.

“I’m not an idiot-” Xichen knows that now, “And I’m guessing, despite everything. Despite probably knowing more than me about what that bastard had done, you’ve still come to me first? He murdered my brother, and you’ve come to me to tell me to stop?!” Huaisang’s voice is full of venom, but no louder than a hiss.

The smaller man stands up loudly and clumsily, knee banging into a desk as he does so.

“Leave, Xichen,” Huaisang tells him, full of anger and rage. Xichen doesn’t know how it went so wrong so fast. “I thought you just didn’t know, and that was damning- but this?” Huaisang spits, such an unrefined action for such a carefully composed and elegant man.

“Huaisang,” Xichen says a little warningly himself, “I don’t think you want to challenge me either. A-Yao needs to be brought to justice, but you want isn’t justice. It’s barely revenge- it’s blood thirsty vengeance and I cannot condone it.”

He thins his lips, deciding whether to say his next sentence as Huaisang glowers at him, knuckles whitening around his fan. He needs to save as much of A-Yao as he can, it’s clear Huaisang is mostly gone, but maybe saving A-Yao will help save A-Sang.

“You don’t want the Lan as an enemy, Huaisang. My reputation is far better than yours, I could say all kind of things and they wouldn’t be lies. Please, leave him alone, let me deal with him.” It only feels a little wrong on his tongue, Xichen can live with it.

He’s met with a spluttering laugh from Huaisang, but his eyes are so very firm and steady and hard. Huaisang really is like Mingjue, but not in sharing honesty.

“If you tell anybody about this, about the Headshaker plotting, Zewu-jun, you think anyone will believe you? The only person who would is Jin Guangyao, and then you’ve signed my death warrant as well. Do you want this on your conscience? Can you live with the deaths of both my and Da-ge on your head?

Xichen steps back, his mind screaming at him, and Huaisang takes that as an opportunity to move around his desk and slither up to his side.

“Come back to me with his head, or don’t come back at all, Er-ge.” Huaisang strides back to his desk. “After all, I think we’ve established that I really don’t need you. Maybe I’ll drip all kinds of poison about you into people’s ears. I’m a terrible gossip, and just really don’t know how to hold my drink after all. Someone really ought to stop Sect Leader Nie from spending so much time in Taverns.”

Xichen suddenly has the nasty feeling that he’s walked into a snake’s den. That he really, should never have come.

“But that won’t be you,” Huaisang continues, “Seeing that you don’t like me anymore? Or do you? In which case then I’m still so useless, and not scheming.” Huasiang throws him a clearly false beam, and Xichen just wants out.

“Nice talking with you, Er-ge, now I’m fed up of watching you squirm.”

Xichen leaves as quickly as he can, not taking his eyes of Huaisang, who locks eye contact the whole time Xichen backs out of the door. He doesn’t even try to lay on a threat or impress for Huaisang not to go after A-Yao once more. He’s said all he can say to Huaisang. Now he’s stuck here, in the past with the sick feeling he’s made everything worse.

“The Sect Leader’s a real character, isn’t he?” one of the Nie disciples on the door comments with a slight laugh as Xichen focuses on not looking like he’s stumbling out. “Can really drive you up the wall.”

Xichen looks at him, and can see nothing but friendliness and banter.

“Well-meaning, but dumb,” the woman on the other side comments. The two disciples laugh together again.

“don’t worry, Zewu-jun, I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.” They snort.

Xichen looks at them both, tries to see if it’s a facade, if it’s real or-

He draws himself up, “You should show your Sect Leader some more respect,” he intones seriously. “The-”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Xichen is interrupted, “We respect Sect Leader Nie. He at least knows when he’s got an enemy in front of him. He’s not totally useless.”

Xichen swallows. He’s not quite sure how. But the only thing he’s certain of is that he’s made everything worse. So much worse.

#fic #not gonna post this on ao3 #like 50 minutes?#i was bored #don't really know what this is and it doesn't end lmao #also yeah #lxc time travel back dunno why #but i liked the idea of nhs droppign facade and also time travelling lxc fucig everything up more llol #mdzs #lan xichen #nie huaisang

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