#i'd go into detail about the reactions to the new ii as well but i don't want to spoil until it's officially released!

[smile-files]

do you trust her

[bijoumikhawal]

Planning a Mallory Grace cosplay: The Ironwood Tree Dress, but more medivaler

This came about for two reasons: one, recently I've been making fabric flower corsages, mostly to wear on my head, and two, I was reminded of the imagery of green clad young women from medieval times.

If you know Mallory, you probably know this image. We have a few more useful images as well, but we won't be sticking to them; they'll just be inspiration.

From there four images we get the details that

the dress is mostly white with deep green accents

it has the princess cuffs over the back of the hands on the under sleeves

the over sleeves are angel sleeves

Mallory's hair is in a little ribbon cage with two silver flower pins

there may be a subtle flower brocade on the skirt

The skirt has two tiers of bottom ruffles and a border above them with three stripes

There appears to be a white underdress peaking out of the sleeves and skirt

I loved this dress design as a kid, but I think the bodice is actually rather unflattering. It reminds me of some armor breast plates, which is cool, but doing what's basically a paned sleeve as a bodice... makes me think of a pumpkin. This artistic difference led to me sketching a new design

This design is a houppelande underneath a boat necked cotehardie/kirtle with a shortened hem. I did another pass on the cotehardie design (see the left). I'm going to do the embroidery with silver clon cord and beetlewings I already have from another project. The neck is going to be cut even lower, and I'll make a lattice pattern out of ribbons or fabric strips over a sheer fabric to stabilize it. The embroidery isn't period, but it covering the bodice is inspired by some miniatures depicting that composition.

I also needed to scrap the ruffle on the houppelande- the fabric I wanted to use is an old dark green Ralph Lauren flat sheet with a rose jacquard pattern, and I don't have enough of it for a houppelande already. My solution to this is that I'll be color blocking the houppelande, and making up the difference with a complementary green fabric. The houppelande will be working with the circle theory.

I planned to use silver curtains I already had for the overdress, but it has this evil rubber backing fused on so it won't behave for this. I'll be in the hunt for an appropriate silvery fabric.

The original dress has no clear and specific historical source imo, other than it does resemble a boat necked cotehardie a bit. The hair, however, is clearly a coazzone. The most well known depictions of this are from 1490s Italy. However, in Spain it was worn at least between the 1360s and the 1530s. There are multiple theories about what exactly these were, including a veil that's been wrapped around a braid or ponytail with ribbons. I'd probably make a "fixed" version, so I wouldn't have to re-wrap the ribbons every time.

However, the cotehardies and houppelandes i was looking at were moreso mid to late 1300s. While the coazzone does fit that time in Spain, it has a late "feel". So I kind of want to make a bycocket in addition to a coazzone and flower corsages, to give me options for headgear. The bycocket is also called the "Robin Hood" hat, and it was worn by people hunting, traveling, hawking, etc. It seems to me like it functioned to protect the eyes and direct rain away from the face. I think it fits because the dwarves had a sword in with Mallory, which to me indicates some respect for her running about as a fencer. Additionally, one analysis of women depicted as wearing this hat by R. L. Pisetzky (Storia del Costume in Italia, vol. II, 1964-69) referred to it as a "rude oddity", "masculine/ambiguous", and that women wearing it had a "diabolic essence". The place I found it said this was too harsh, but I find it funny and it reminds me of the reaction the Pooka had to Mallory.

I may make a foam sword for photos/if I ever wear this to a con, but it's not pressing to me right now (this project will probably take awhile). I do want to make this as wearable as possible so various elements can be worn on their own or in combination with other things, which is why I didn't plan to make a single dress that just looks like two layered on top of each other, and why the over dress with be silver and not white (also I hate sewing white fabrics).

[chibimyumi]

Hey there! hope you're doing well! So I've seen a few takes from people saying that Seb lacks character developement and I wanted to ask your opinion on this? I feel like some people just want him to have some kind of "redemption arc" which sounds weird to me because by now I'd guess people would understand his character and motivations?

Dear Anon,

I am doing great, thank you very much. I hope you too ^^

Sorry for the late reply! It was not for lack of interest because yours is a very interesting question to ask. Indeed, for any other character I would say that for a main character he lacks character development. However, with Sebastian Michaelis specifically I would disagree, because there are multiple factors that dramatically change matters for him. The most important one being Sebas’ age.

Four Years vs Centuries?

Sebas is a supernatural entity that has been around and for centuries if not millennia. We know next to nothing about this demon’s past, but one of the few things we do know is that he has been around and seen quite a lot of the world thanks to his old age.

The older one is, the more fixed their personality is, meaning the less malleable it becomes. Of course nobody is too old to grow or change, but it will ultimately require more time or effort to change such a person.

In our current story Sebas has been around for barely 4 years, which to him must be an equivalent of a few hours in human life. Let’s say you are 20 years old with a certain set of beliefs, principles, personality traits, etc. Now imagine going somewhere you probably have been to before for one hour, and that in that one hour you suddenly change entirely. Not impossible, but quite unlikely.

What must happen before a person would change in such a relative short time must be the occurrence of something either exceptionally shocking, or exceptionally inspiring. In Sebas’ case, at least one did happen, namely the former.

Exceptionally Shocking

As discussed in some detail in this post, the exceptionally shocking did in fact happen to Sebas in his current contract. Canonically Sebas said that he never fought reapers before he fought Grell, and therefore we also know that Undertaker is the second reaper he ever fought seriously. Judging from Sebas’ casual and confident reaction when Grell first invited him for a fight, we know Sebas never had any reason before that time to fear for his life. I mean, look at this confident bitch (Ô_ó)p.

Even after Sebas got really hurt by Grell, he still managed to say something as cocky as: “I have never fought [a reaper] before, so I cannot tell [whether I can beat one]. But if my master tells me to win, I shall.” That is certainly NOT the same Sebas as the one we know now.

After the Campania brawl, we see very clearly how Sebas’ attitude and confidence changed entirely, exactly because for the first time ever he experienced something exceptionally shocking; his life and death was outside his own control. The English translations I have seen are not bad, but they miss a bit of the nuance in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version when Sebas says that even a demon like him cannot withstand a blow from the death scythe, there was some eye-opening realisation in his tone. He learned something new there.

And indeed, most tellingly even at the mere mention of the Undertaker or the prospect of having to run into him again, even Sebas swallows his pride in front of his master, and admits he’d really rather not.

Much later in chapter 85 when they were investigating the mourning lockets, master and servant have a moment of silence thinking about the Undertaker. While to O!Ciel the important memory is Undertaker’s “it is my treasure,” Sebas thinks about the very first thing Undertaker said to him upon deciding to let him live: “I knew you would succeed at protecting the Earl.”

As explained in this post, Sebas has come to project condescension onto Undertaker. Sebas suspects Undertaker is looking down on him, and understandably so because he has no reason to believe otherwise. “I knew you would [...]” is a phrase that reflects control in Undertaker’s hands, and Sebas really hates that. For once Sebas is the prey, and somebody else the predator.

Now here is the character development; Sebas went from over confident and cocky to a demon with PTSD.

(Exceptionally) Inspiring

Though less explicit and game-changing, I would argue that something inspiring also occurred in Sebas’ short time on Earth this time: his master. In this post I compared O!Ciel to a piece of unprocessed raw meat to Sebas, as opposed to other past masters probably being a microwave-meal equivalent. O!Ciel is young and started without power, so to Sebas one he started to see the potential of a fully self-customisable meal, he really started to feel the excitement.

Though, however excited, it would only be a small blip on Sebastian’s radar. In the same post just mentioned, I also discussed how it is very unlikely that eating O!Ciel will change Sebas’ view on humankind because it would need to alter someone’s view shaped through thousands of years.

In this same sense I also argue that though Sebas did change over the course of 4 years in the human world, he wouldn’t change dramatically. His experience in the past four years must be like one grain of sand on a banked scale.

Sebas and Redemption?

My short answer would just be: “Kuroshitsuji ain’t some religiously-laden morale story wherein even a demon must be redeemed,” but that would not be fair (and too short for my M.O.)

It’s an unpopular opinion, but a good character arc or story does not require a redemption arc to work. It just needs to work for any reason. A redemption arc in a character is not like meringue is essential in a macaron. It’s more like chocolate on bread. It can be very nice if it suits well, but please don’t put any chocolate on a salad sandwich please.

For Sebas, I would say that a redemption arc would be the chocolate on a salad sandwich. As discussed above, Sebas is VERY OLD. If he were to be “redeemed” because of 4 years, it’d be like redeeming a lifetime sinner in one hour of repentance. Imagine redeeming Hitler after he saved one puppy or said “I’m really sorry”. Yeah, no.

Besides, this then also begs the question: “does Sebastian need to be redeemed in the first place?” As discussed extensively in this post, most of Sebas’ “evils” are done under someone else’s bidding. And otherwise, because he is not human the way he is “evil” is only because he doesn’t care about human lives; much in the same way most humans don’t care about insects. “AAH a mosquito that might make me itch for a bit! SLAP IT DED!!!” Or if we step on ants while we walk, “oh well, too bad”. That’s Sebas with humans. Do most humans consider humans who eat meat or slap insects “evil that need redemption”? No.

So for Sebas’ or demon standards, he is probably not even that bad. He just wants his food and payment for his hard work.

I hope this had been interesting!

Related posts:

What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? Philosophy

If humans are insects, then what to Sebas are “humans”?

O!Ciel being a game-changing meal?

PTSD Sebas I

PTSD Sebas II

[n5md]

Cloudwalker

In our newly relaunched "Learn more about..." interviews, we switch up the continuity slightly and focus on just one release: Gimmik's Cloudwalker. Martin kindly agreed to answer a few questions to kick off what we'll refer to as v2 of the "Learn More About..." blog.

While Entre Les Chambres was the actual return of Gimmik to the public eye, Cloudwalker is more of a return to form. It is undeniably Gimmik; however, Cloudwalker treads some new ground for you. Can you shed some light on how the creative process changed from Entre Les Chambres / Deux Nouvelles and how those two albums might have influenced Cloudwalker?

Very well observed - they did influence Cloudwalker! Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were both produced under technically limited circumstances. On top of that, I thought that no one will ever hear this material. Luckily it was not the case, and I got the chance to become a member of the n5MD family. When you produce with the idea that the material will never get released, it gives you a lot of room and space. You are not concerned about expectations. The music can flow and evolve freely. The calm nature of those albums helped that process. It was research where I experienced myself more as a witness than a composer. For me, that is a new approach. This approach was still the same when I produced Cloudwalker. That is the reason why the tracks are so diverse. Short Wave Memories and In My Family do not have anything in common, but that is the way they evolved, without me constructing anything. The most significant difference is that Cloudwalker was produced in a proper studio environment. Plus, I took a step into eurorack, which brings a very unpredictable element. And yes, that is Mutable Elements "Rings'' what you hear on In My Family. I was working on a self-generative patch with "Marbles'' when all of a sudden, the melody appeared...

I think you sent me In My Family shortly after you finished it, and it was one of the darkest days of the early pandemic; where our local government-issued curfews and such. It was the track that I needed at that moment; it brightened my day. It's very cool that the melody was a generative experiment gone right. I seem to remember you have quite a bit of the Mutable Instruments modules. Modular, to me, seems like a bit of a wormhole of experimentation. So, how do you stay focused when experimenting with new sounds and textures to bring, say, one of your Modular Nature tracks, which you have on your Youtube channel, to life.

Working with a modular system is entirely different. My approach is always a question. What will happen if I connect this with that and modulate with this? Then you start patching, and the results are entirely different from what I expected - a lot more exciting and better! In the beginning, I thought modular was about rebuilding synth voices. So I started emulating the signal-flow path of a 101 for a start. I missed the whole point of modular... A system has a life of its own and takes you to completely different places, and sometimes I do not even understand the results. (-: But that is not important. The decision to work with modular is to avoid walking down paths I have taken too many times when composing. What keeps you focused is your ear. The trick is to learn when to stop. In the beginning, I lost a lot of great patches when the result was already at 90%. When trying to reach 100%, my tweaks destroyed that patch's beauty, and I never found a way back to 90%. That happened a lot of times in the beginning. A modular system really helps to learn when to let go… (laughing). I chose Mutable Instruments because those modules are very focused on musical and harmonic results.

So, going back to Cloudwalker, how did it feel getting back to basics as far as Gimmik goes. People may not know that Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were made for very personal listening. Care to shed a little light on those two, and more importantly, what made you want to go past those themes and bring Gimmik full circle for Cloudwalker?

Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were NOT a conscious decision. Those were a necessity! The title Entre Les Chambres means "between two rooms", the space that is between two rooms. That is nowhere! It mirrors how I felt at that moment. There were many significant changes in my life, luckily nothing concerning my family, but still major changes. In order to cope with it all, I started making ambient tracks. It was the only thing that helped me to cope and focus again. The tracks happened by themselves. Listening to them and working on those albums was a calming experience. When they were finished, I played them to Chris, and he convinced me that he liked them. That led to the decision to make those first tapes. Later I sent them to you. Your reaction was very motivating because the music got released. With that motivation and getting back into a studio environment, the Cloudwalker tracks just poured out of me very quickly - it felt terrific to go back to the studio. My family gave me the time to work in my studio, and you and Chris gave very motivating feedback! From my perspective, this makes Cloudwalker my most important album so far, and I am very thankful for this chance! Another key element is that you gave me total freedom regarding artwork, choosing tracks, and their order. Just great!

Well, I knew going in that you know what you are doing. So I shouldn't have needed to step in and manage such details. For release prep, I'm available to take care of the details that an artist doesn't have access to or the working knowledge. You and Chris ran Toytronics, and you are a graphic artist as well, so I knew that you know the drill. If something was glaring or didn't work under the n5 stylistic umbrella, it is my job to say something, but I was pretty confident that wouldn't happen. I also know that after you completed the tracks, you took a great deal of time to get them to flow perfectly and also fit on four LP sides—your care in craft shows, and it's been great to work with you.

You brought up Chris, and there is an Abfahrt Hinwl remix on Cloudwalker, so; I'm going to ask. Are we going to hear some new Abfahrt Hinwl soon?

Thank you, as I said, that means a lot to me. And I still think that it is a fortunate situation. The AH RMX of Sailing Everest on Cloudwalker was just me, to be honest. That is why I used an abbreviation - AH. It is more a hint. It has a lot of the Abfahrt Hinwil ingredients. We tried to revive the project and realized that working over a distance via the internet does not work for either of us. The key of Abfahrt Hinwil was that we worked in the same room, at the same time, with the same equipment - listening to what the other one does - giving an immediate reaction. The most important point is communication, which has to happen immediately - you need to respond straight away, not with a delay. Today we find ourselves in two different life situations. We both would like to continue. After an online experiment, we realized it would be only possible when we visit each other and then work in the same studio. That is not possible at the moment, and Covid plays a significant role in that.

Ah, I see; Abfahrt Hinwil was you and Chris basically feeding off one another; also, there are cheques and balances, which is great to have. I completely understand why it would not be feasible to do it from a distance effectively. So, I'd like to pivot to these little builds I see on your Instagram. You recently sent me a pic of a peculiar little box that looks to be a synth. Assuming this is something you built (loving the stickering, by the way). What is this, and does it appear on Cloudwalker?

(laughing) That is a drone box handmade by a guy in Russia. Six oscillators, each one with a kill switch. Three standard range oscillators and 3 Sub. A very rough-sounding machine, great for drones. The filter sounds very nasty, just great. There is a little bit in the track Cloudwalker itself but washed out by Big Sky. The downside is that there is no midi, trigger gate, or voltage control. It is more of an experiment tool. The important parts of the track Cloudwalker have Mutable Instruments: Plaits and Tides 1, using the Sheep mode. Both outputs went into Warps, modulated by Stages. The little melody was played live on the Yamaha DX Reface, going into the Big Sky. It was all recorded live onto tape to 4 tracks to a Tascam 234. Then it was mixed the classic way, patchbay, fx, analog mixer main out to digital. 75% of the album was recorded to a Sound Devices MixPre-3 II.

It sounds like your Big Sky gets some action! Strymon makes some exceptional pedals. It seems like you can almost entirely make music out of the box if you needed to, which is excellent. So one last question: When we collaborated on the Cloudwalker one sheet text, you added something about the production tools "representing technology from 1958 to 2019," and I asked if 1958 was a type-o that needed to be corrected to 1985 when it was not. When people read that, I think they will be very curious as to what technology you utilized from that far back…

Yes, it is a great pedal, I love the sound and the fact that you get nice results very quickly.

1958- (laughing) There is an on oscilloscope from Russia, which can be seen in some of the videos on HIDDEN REALITY, and 2 vintage function generators. I got those old function generators from a close friend, he is an electronic engineer and professor for physics at a university. They got rid of all their old equipment, and he asked if I wanted to have something. He could not throw those old machines away, so he rescued them to his cellar. He changed the connections for me, so I can use them with the modular environment, using my standard patch cables. I used them a lot as modulation sources, as they can modulate extremely slow (like MI tides). But I have to admit that I got them for their looks in the first place…(laughing) - Those machines look like the machinery you see in Qs research center in old James Bond movies...

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Learn even more about Gimmik

[the-busy-ghost]

☕️ It seems like so many shows fumble the ball, but I'd love to hear about a portrayal of Scottish history in period drama that you thought did a good job?

Thank you for asking! I don’t watch that many tbh and so far I’ve never really found one that was really good. I said the other day that Outlander probably can’t be said to be all bad- but I really haven’t watched it, it’s more that it doesn’t at first sight look completely unrecognisable as the eighteenth century (also the soundtrack is dope).

There is also actually very little content about medieval and early modern Scotland to go on. We don’t even have that many televised documentaries to watch (I may be remembering incorrectly but I think it’s something like two in the last twenty years- one of which was appalling). 

Which leaves by process of elimination, ‘Outlaw King’. The plot is not hugely accurate, there wasn’t enough Gaelic in it, and the whole depiction of Edward II was... not that good (I mean it wasn’t as bad as Braveheart but that’s such a low bar). The accents were a bit dodgy. There were also some annoying plotholes and in general it would probably have been much better as a tv series. On the other hand it was somewhat recognisable as fictional representation of fourteenth century Scotland, there wasn’t quite so much silly costuming and nor was the political situation reduced to ‘The Clans Are Fighting’. The Comyns got a bad rap but that’s about par for the course in popular Scottish history.

It was also a genuinely beautifully shot film and actually shot in Scotland for once- and some of the CGI was actually worth it for once, even if not 100% accurate (Stirling Castle, god what a great moment- and it even felt suitably dreich for Stirling. And Berwick was interesting too). One of the things too many people don’t have an appreciation for when it comes to Scotland is the variety of its landscape and the cultural and regional differences. 

Characters who cracked jokes were actually quite funny and not just drunk stereotypes! And attention to detail was good (if sometimes a bit gross- James Douglas’ “Farmers’ Hanky” for example). 

I think there was only one made-up character? I’m not sure I didn’t count- but it was a kid who served to drive home an emotional point about war so I suppose I’ll let it slide, even if Drew is not at all a believable name.

The obligatory sex scene could have been much worse. Also if there has to be a romantic plot at least the two leads felt like they had some chemistry. 

I felt what really sold it for me was that if you watch carefully there are little asides and hints towards characters who don’t have important roles in the movie, but whose own interesting careers can be followed in the historical record. I think that is important because what’s often forgotten about the Wars of Independence is that it was so much bigger than one or two men, it’s not Bruce and Wallace alone against the world. Hundreds of people had their own complex reactions to the conflict and even though the film obviously didn’t have time to show all that on screen, it really gave a nod to some of these characters that showed that the creators had at least tried to build the world (even if some other characters were less well-researched).

From a general medieval point of view it’s not terrible either actually- at least the costumes are more colourful and the religious bits are not all one sided. The sheer level of violence is A Lot to take in, but tbh it can’t really be called gratuitous given how bloody the year 1306-7 was. But no gratuitous sexual violence on screen- even if some is implied.

I would say it was a half-decent historical film, with its fair share of inaccuracies. It’s no Lion in Winter in terms of Pure Class either, but it can still be an enjoyable film for someone who loves studying mediaeval Scotland to watch- and it’s even enjoyable to pick inaccuracies out! So often with Scotland there’s not even much point picking out the inaccuracies, because it’s all so inaccurate it’s practically fantasy. It’s a bit of a luxury with Outlaw King to actually be able to point out where it’s inaccurate for once, rather than just making incoherent whining noises. 

Also if someone knew nothing about Scottish history, it does not have very many hugely misleading stereotypes that would hinder them in finding out anything more (except maybe the portrayal of Edward II).

And I’m not sure it would be everyone’s cup of tea but (aside from a few rather sickening scenes that I will only watch once, even though I know the history) I sort of enjoyed the film. I had issues with a lot of it but I can admit that I genuinely adored the colours, the dry humour, the tiny details and the attention to landscape, buildings, and weather. 

Sorry I ranted a bit, I just have a complex emotional relationship to this film and that’s a new experience for me when it comes to Scottish historical media! I do think, to answer your question in short, it did a reasonably OK job, not sure about plain ‘good’. I just reacted to it with such relief my judgement may be clouded.

Thank you so much for asking!

Edit: Oh I forgot- funny thing is that Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in itself, isn’t that terrible either. The plot’s all wrong, as are the character’s title, but (perhaps because it was written in the sixteenth century) the usual stereotypes are not present in the script and the people in the play are about as human as in any other Shakespeare tragedy. The problem comes more with how most people decide to stage Macbeth rather than the play itself. The same could be said of Douglas’ scenes in Henry IV Part 1 (honestly what were the Hollow Crown thinking with that costuming?). So it’s not a period drama per se but when on screen the reason Macbeth adaptations are bad (in terms of portrayal of Scottish history) is because of the preconceived notions of the modern directors and not because of Shakespeare. But if I talk about Shakespeare too much I’d have to bring up historical novels which can sometimes do a better job too.