#its a lot more just. invented stuff but i imagine it still has roots in whats in ph and its a lot of fun to just screw around with it

[waywardsalt]

Oooohoho I see the Bellum-as-anxiety metaphor now, thank you for explaining!

Your take on the more psychological(?) aspect of Bellumbeck is cool, I like thinking about what kinds of things (or aspects) of Linebeck Bellumbeck is perhaps a sort of physical representation of.

Bellumbeck being Bellum giving Linebeck a fucked sort of way to be what he might want is so... I don't know for sure when that clicked for me, or if it was something I initially created as a headcanon before realizing it fit with canon, but it's WONDERFUL.

Bellumbeck essentially being the worst parts of Linebeck set loose is so good.

Linebeck and Bellum do not interact beyond that final boss fight but it's so fun to think about them having parallels for somehow being connected or whatever despite having minimal canonical interaction. They both seem very desperate to survive and get what they want and care little about the other people they encounter along the way unless they really need to rely on them for something.

Bellumbeck is fun and I think can be viewed and interpreted in so many cool ways and it’s just neat to see other angles and concepts around it and to see what can be tied together.

does anyone want to talk about phantom hourglass. or linebeck stuff. id gladly talk with someone about ph. or other stuff

[stovepiperat]

terror camp ‘22 day 2: an informal reclist

Well, it’s been like a month (stuff came up) but Terror Camp was still SOME GOOD SHIT and honestly I’m not even a little bit done thinking about it yet. Here’s part two of: two (variably) related recs (that weren’t previously mentioned in the server, to the best of my knowledge!) for every TC22 panel. Just because! (Part one is here, if you missed it.) Please click through to AO3 to see full individual taglists, warnings etc. and please let me know if I need to fix anything, as always!

(You can still get in contact with the mods at terror.camp to get access to recordings and Discord! While it’s now closed to participation for another year, it’s still a good place to find all the resources discussed.)

Imagining the Northwest Passage

This panel posited that perception is an important aspect of imperial control of a thing. This post, while vaguely themed, is about one million percent less serious than any of the legitimately thrilling and insightful academic & theory work floated at camp, so, with my jester’s apologies, here is the connection I draw: two works about the power of naming a thing, one of which also involves a penguin. I won’t say which.

awaken ancient feelings by wildcard_47 (Fitzier, 11k)

animal spirits by attheborder (Crozier & Jopson, 5k)

Interesting and Pathetic Relics: The Franklin Expedition and British Museums

Something Rich and Strange by hangingfire (Goodsir-centric, 18k)

I am a simple man. I see the phrase “garden of forking paths” and I go so apeshit. (Is every museum not in its way that sort of garden?) Anyway, even if you do not share that inclination, this fic is both interesting and pathetic (in the root sense of being rich with pathos) and reflects on museums and evidences.

Blood on the Concrete by pointyshades (Hickeytozer, 22k)

What’s a museum but a heist waiting to happen? (Heck, a colonizers’ museum swollen with stolen artifacts, as so many of the British ones are, is a heist that already happened!)

“This is what you tell them”: Presenting what remains of the Franklin Expedition

cutting steps in the roof of the world

by

TheGoodDoctor

 (Fitzier, 4.5k)

Post-canon, on legacy, and self-determination with the devastating handicap and antagonism of Britishness. So sweet, excellent Sophia, which seemed apropos to me.

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/unwellnessweek

Because this is my made-up reclist and I can do what I want, I’m going to rec the whole of Unwellness Week, a super fun fest that produced a lot of thought-provoking and terrific fic. We’re literally presenting what remains of the Franklin Expedition, every day, mostly on Twitter, in ever more inventive manners!

The Summer of Doug: Douglas Mawson, the Construction of Society, and the Most Underrated Antarctic Expedition Ever!

Since this one’s a little harder to directly seek in Terror fic, I have honored Mertz and Ninnis’s choice of reading material with loose inspiration. (Hey, I said that it was all very loosely related. This is still true.)

contact light by threelions (Fitzier, 3k)

The Hound of the Baskervilles is, I agree, a capital novel, masterfully unfolding a character-driven and atmospherically spooky mystery. This fic is also those, and it’s sci-fi, and epistolary with an artfully crafted Crozier voice.

stiff by TomBowline (Goodsir/Hickey, 3k)

Vanity Fair is a colorful satire of Victorian social roles and the ways in which they get their hooks in each other, with a side of unromantic romance and deconstructing the artistic convention of the hero-protagonist. Just like this fic, which has the excellent logline “lonely rich spinster/handsome scheming servant but they’re both huge bitches.” Is this an admission that Hickey is like Becky Sharp, to me? Maybe a little bit.

(Bonus: I would be remiss not to link the one work in the Mertz/Ninnis tag for Their panel, so let the reclist be not technically a Terror reclist for a moment:

come rain or come shine by saltstreets (Mertz/Ninnis, 2k)

Mertz and Ninnis do not make it to those holidays. Read it and weep. Do I say that too often? Well, make the fandom stop writing such considerately heart-wrenching fics.)

Let’s Talk about Grief, Baby – The Terror, Tragic Fandom, and Anticipatory Mourning in the Age of Climate Grief

Fun fact: I live captioned this one, which is hard to do when you’re dry sobbing a little bit like everyone else attending the talk! I think I already plugged the recordings in this post but I’m going to do that again. Anyway, have some fics about trying to mourn something of terrifying scale! Trying to sleep against the howling of a ghost inhumanly old, and unable to take the final step and completely die! (They both happened to be modern horror series crossovers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

C L O S E by Mothfinder_General (SCP Foundation crossover, Little, 4k) experience, and its decay by attheborder (TMA crossover, Fitzier, 4k)

Next Door to the Promised Land: The Franklin Expedition and National Belonging from Richler to Rogers

I’ve already recced a lot, obliquely or not, about British nationalism, so let’s interpret this theme a little differently and have some tunes. 

Terror & Erebus: This 2006 ambient album themed after the Franklin Expedition is also available to listen on Spotify, and it’s great music to write fic and coldly morb to. Also, consider this post yet another appeal to AMC or whoever is stopping DK from doing it to RELEASE THE TERROR (2018) SCORE, PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU, I’LL PAY MONEY! IF YOU MADE A VINYL, I’D BUY A VINYL EVEN THOUGH I DON’T HAVE A RECORD PLAYER! PLEASE!

CHANGGWI: A great song by Ahn Ye-Eun and a chillingly atmospheric vid to go with it from polarsirens. Also, I mean, it’s about Britishness red in tooth and claw!

[pluviophile-bookworm]

HSMTMTS 2x10: New and a bit alarming... ok, very alarming

I don't even know at this point if I'm more nervous or excited for this episode. I've done my waiting and, well, whatever lies ahead, good or bad, or a little bit of both, I just can't wait anymore, even though I haven't been so scared to press play since... well, since last week. Guess I should just go for it, then:

Ooh, shady Seb doing the recap! We love to see it. Like, seriously, I'm anxious about the Seblos fight, but shady Seb is kind of my new favourite Seb.

I just... Ashlyn's acting is top tier. Emotional connection to the material? Superb! Chemistry with her co-lead... well, he'd have to be co-leading for any chemistry to be possible. I love Ricky, and I feel for him with all he's been through, but he's just not lead material right now. And it shows. Especially next to Ashlyn, who is killing it!

Miss Jenn is on the verge of a bloody mental breakdown and I just... wish I could do something to make things better. She reminds me of my mum when a deadline approaches for her to submit an article, and I just feel for her right now. Gosh, I'm feeling for everybody today. My empathy seems to be at its peak and I might just burst from all these emotions this episode is making me feel even before the 5-minute mark.

Ok, but Miss Jenn being stressed means Carlos is stressed for two, which means... this is a really bad time for him and Seb to have personal problems. My heart just can't handle it.

Wow... I never thought I'd see the day! The two leads are actually talking to each other! This is a mid-July miracle!

Why does everyone keep pretending their HSM was good? It was a flaming hot mess! A child could see that.

Miss Jenn needs a lot of work on her 'gracious face'. I, like Carlos, have quite some notes. Only mine aren't exactly, how do you say... verbally formulated quite yet.

Did Carlos just refer to Miss Jenn as 'mother'? Because yes.

I've been in a couple of local theatre productions in my day, but none of them had actual physical sets — we relied on the audience's imagination quite a lot — so I wouldn't know what a good set is made of... but even I can tell that plywood and Elmer's glue = not good.

Kourtney is a multi-tasking icon and we love her. I feel like I don't say this enough, but she deserves all the love.

Ooh, shady Seb is... well, shady! 'Quit school and get a job at the pizza shop?' — I mean, you don't see Reddy or Kourtney (or Howie, for that matter) quitting school in order to work at the Slices! Those kids juggle it all and, as someone who's never had to balance school and a job all at once, they have my deepest admiration.

Still, I think they should have thought about 'inventing' something re: transformation earlier than this point. The personal drama has taken up too much of their time.

Why does everyone keep inviting people over to Ashlyn's? I mean, it's not like I've ever heard her complain, but the girl needs some rest! And her house is not a public space.

Oh, so they're making this into a contest? I mean, I have never been a fan of competition, but to each their own. And Redlyn are hosting! This is going to be so beautiful! (You know, unless the boys try to sleep — see my post from yesterday about Reddy's background noise machine)

'I'm not worried. But North High should be!' Ooh, I love this look on Ashlyn! See, there's a lead to take notes from! And Ricky should be the first to do so. Take notes about what a lead acts like, I mean.

Oooooh, Big Red claps back! We love to see it. Although, you know, it stems from the fact that he's nervous about coming up with a solution to the transformation problem. 'I get bossy around the power tools' — Yes, sweetie, and I love that look on you. Maybe you should be around power tools more often, if that helps.

Ughhh, look what the cat brought in! Lily (I wish I knew her last name so I could refer to her by it exclusively, but we'll have to make do). I hate that girl. She reminds me quite exactly of the girl who bullied me in seventh grade to the point where I wished I'd die before having to deal with her at school again. She and Lily both bring out my aggressive side, and I hate that about them.

Ricky — 'so good at being a leading man'? I don't know what Lily is playing at here, but Ricky has not shown himself to be a very good leading man this season. He has the potential to be, but he has not fulfilled it by this point. Sure, he supports his friends and they support him, but that's basic decency. Not yet good leadership. No hate on Ricky, just the truth.

'I vaguely remember him' — please tell me this is setup for Ricky leading Lily on and then slamming the door in her face with the truth. The way I see it, he's been given a chance here. A chance to be the supportive, protective best friend Big Red deserves. I just... have a lot of ideas about this and I don't want it to end badly instead.

'I'm just not well-liked here, and I don't know what to do' — well, of course you aren't well-liked, you little— (ok, ok, calm down, breathe, 10, 9, 8...) whatever. I mean, she hasn't even considered basic decency, as it seems. Must be a new concept to her.

'Don't start with me, Carlos!' Wow. As much as I hate it that my two faves' only interaction in so long is so hostile, I kind of like this side of Big Red. I wonder what other sides of himself he's been hiding.

Listen, I don't like Seb being patronised and babied, but... 'Chip, this is your mother speaking: go call your mother!' made me laugh so hard. They're leaning into the on-stage family dynamic and I live for it.

EJ's idea of using old skateboards for the spinning contraption is... a brilliant callback to the fact that Ricky and Big Red were first characterised as skateboarders... you know, before diving headfirst into the theatre thing. And it feels like it might actually work.

Miss Jenn's excitement at seeing Mr Mazzara ('Benjamin!!!') is perhaps only topped by the fact that he was halfway home, got a text from her and instantly went back to the school. I mean, these two have something that's really big.

Miss Jenn referring to the kids as 'my children', combined with Carlos calling her 'mother' earlier just warms my heart so much! Those guys really are family. I live for it.

Ok, but... as clear as it is that the Wildcats are very far behind NH in terms of budget, rehearsal time and who knows what else, I hate seeing Miss Jenn resigned to them losing. I want to see her have faith in them, talk about how they will win, and, in her own words, 'trust the process'. I mean, I guess it's good that, as a teacher, she wants to prepare her kids for a possible defeat (and I mean really possible if they don't step up their game immediately, especially some of them * cough* Ricky *cough *), but a team that goes out to the field expecting to lose has a very minimal chance of winning.

Despite everything I've been saying again and again about Nini lately, the fact that she just delivered a very different 'No, Seb' has just redeemed her. See, this one wasn't dismissive or patronising — this was like, 'no, Seb, don't put yourself down' and I love that spin on the catchphrase I'd grown to hate. See, many things can be redeemed. And some simply cannot. * cough* Devil's spawn Lily *cough *. Also, Seb being self-conscious about the fact that Carlos 'doesn't have many options' at East Hight is the perfect setup for In a Heartbeat — meaning they will either have a chance to talk about their issue, or they have a telepathic connection, in which case, what kind of soulmate stuff is that?

'You're my sister; he's my cousin' — yeah, Ash, putting it like that makes it sound a lot weirder than it should, but I do get what you're trying to say. This is not a drill! Ashlyn is a Portwell shipper (heck, maybe even the captain of that ship) — but I feel like we already knew that.

'Why'd I never hear about this?' — and there it goes. Within the same scene, Nini was redeemed and then made aggravating again. What does she care if Gina thought Ricky sent her chocolates? He didn't. Because he and Gina can't be anything but very good friends. And I feel like good friends is what Gina needs. Maybe that's why I wanted EJ to be that for her initially (or it was because I'm aroace and don't tend to notice romantic attraction between fictional characters — or real people for that matter — unless it's explicitly stated to be there). But I've been on board of the majestic S.S. Portwell for a few weeks now and it's finally about to set sail.

Yeah, Nini, get a root beer, calm the heck down and get over it!

'Your other clockwise!' — Why does this even need to be said? How many 'clockwise's are there? I absolutely understand why Big Red gets the way he gets around power tools. I'd be on edge too, if the people I was trying to work with didn't know what way clockwise is. Still, I feel like by the time I'm 30, nobody younger than me would have a reason to know what way clockwise is, and I don't know if I feel bad or neutral about it.

Oh, so there's no telepathy involved in Seblos' problem resolution — it's been Redlyn's good communication all along. I might have known.

Ooh, Portwell is being discussed on both sides! PORTWELL NATION HOW WE FEELING

Nini? Why is everything about Nini? There's no way everything is about Nini. In all seriousness, though, EJ's worries about letting the next girl go seem valid in regards to Gina, given that she explicitly stated (though not within earshot of EJ or anyone who could have tipped him off) that she needs someone who will show up and stay. But they'll figure it out. They'll find a way. I know it. They will, or I will riot, and I know I won't be alone in that.

Ooh, Howie is giving Kourtney the original blueprints! Looks like Reddy isn't the only one who has a spy on the inside.

Ahhh, Ricky! Not 'Let You Go' again. I haven't cried to it in three days and I was not ready to break that streak. But... wait, this is where Carlos approaches Ricky to ask him for help with writing a song for Seb, isn't it? I am definitely ready for this.

Oh, is it... is it Ricky who suggests Carlos write a song for Seb? Now that is what a good leading man looks like.

'I'm adjusting to being called bro' — me too, Carlito, me too. But... this scene must have been so emotional for Josh, given that he hadn't come out yet. I remember him crying during The Climb and... all I'm saying is I want Ricky to come out at some point, too.

Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh... they were just talking about love languages and that's when Carlos shows up? Cinematic. Wait, there's Portwell too? This is what dreams are made of.

My oh my oh my! Risotto! For real this time. I might have just teared up. (Full disclosure: I did.) I've only had Portwell for about three weeks, but if anything happens to them, I will... you know how the meme goes. [side note: Wait, when I said 'for real this time', I was not expecting EJ would say it, much less word for word. Am I... writing this show now? It's usually my dad who predicts people's lines in TV shows]

'Not that I know of'... excuse me while I hyperventilate! These two are literal soulmates. They might share a brain, too, for all that I know. Portwell nation you ok guys?

I love that Ricky helped Carlos out with this song and is supporting him through it, but... I just might have preferred for him not to be there. I kind of need Seblos to have this moment to themselves. But, you know, with the way they feel about each other it might as well be like they're alone in the universe, let alone the room.

Ok, but Frankie's voice... brings out feelings in me that I didn't know I was capable of. Make of that what you will. Also, I'm not sobbing my eyes out, you are.

Ahhh Reddy my sunshine my sweet boy I love you but why did you have to cut Seblos' moment short? They were going to kiss, I know it. Oh well, they probably will, later on. Off-screen probably, but who cares? Not everything is for us to see. At least Carlos and Ricky had a moment there... Carlos calling Ricky 'bro' made me more emotional than I expected. It's like Miss Jenn says in s1: 'They're best bros, and that's a sacred thing... for reasons I will never understand'.

Ricky's acting sounds like a cat about to spit up a hairball, and it's so funny... in a scene that is supposed to be arguably the most dramatic of the entire play, that is not a good thing.

Oh my, oh my... you did not! You did not just end the episode with Ricky taking a fall from who knows how high. I was not ready. This episode was entirely too much for me. I will need 10 to 15 business days to recover from this, and we all know there aren't that many. But in the meantime you'll find me obsessively listening to In a Heartbeat for hours on end. Seriously, this episode is too much.

[lofi-tophat]

Let’s talk about the 70s punk scene and HWS England

I sometimes feel that the fandom doesn’t give England’s love for punk/rock music much justice. Some authors usually write about this human AU in which Arthur wants to be a rockstar and some others plainly avoid the topic whatsoever. Which is a pity because I actually believe the whole character has a deep punk reference, specially regarding appearence (might expand on this in another post but basically, for me, England seems like some random bushy browed anime 70s punk guy who suddenly has to put on a suit and attend world meetings, which is both fascinating and hilarious).

So I thought maybe we could dive a bit into very general punk history and then I’d like to share with you some hc regarding England’s involvement with punk culture in general (if you just want to read the hcs just scroll down to the last paragraph with the bullet ponts).

My experience in punk stuff is actually that I’m kind of a metalhead lol. Metalheads and punks had and probably still have a deeply-rooted rivalry. However, punk influenced metal a lot, and metal also influenced punk. So I stumbled upon many punk facts while browsing about my favorite metal bands. 

Take this as historical hetalia... but counterculture historical hetalia :D (which is something we need more in the fandom, btw, I know military history is cool but its also cool how humans expressed themselves through art, fashion and music when they felt the pressure of authority and the frustration of society).

Historical context

Let’s return a bit in time and remember the 60s. The 60s were this blessed time in which people tried to defeat the establishment with peace and love. The hippie movement is from this decade and it influenced a lot on how people thought and behaved. In terms of counterculture, I must say this is a fascinating time in history (I recently discovered psychodelic science and its so incredible what was being talked back then).

Anyways, although a lot of young people were into this discourse of love and peace, some weren’t really that happy about it. In Europe, the post-war situation was sad and a lot of young people either were jobless or had the shittiest jobs you could imagine. Politics were also depressing. This was the origin not only for punk but also for other genres of heavy music, such as metal: People who didn’t want to be all happy and peaceful and had the need to express their frustration and anger, shouting about how society was fucked up. They needed an outlet.

Origins of punk

The origins of punk music are actually not quite clear. In fact, the US and the UK both claim that punk music was born in their country. Funnily enough, my country also claims to be the origin of punk (I’ll leave this mini-doc for you. Sadly, I don’t think this is a correct claim, mainly because their music was in spanish and I doubt that major punk bands took them as reference. Its a cool band tho).

I have to side with americans on this: The arguments for the american origins of punk are quite solid. The Ramones were the first actual punk band out there. They were active since 1974. Their music had all the elements of punk and, chronologically, they were the first ones performing this type of sound.

However, they didn’t have the aesthetic. That actually was a british invention. American punk had still leather jackets, jeans and sneakers. British punk? Well, remember all those ripped pants and shirts you commonly associate with punk? Yes, those were the Sex Pistols all along. They were the ones introducing the attitude and the style. The Pistols had some insane performances and a huge shock-value that can’t be found in early american punk. So you can safely say that your image of what a punk is is based mainly on the Pistols (also, for singing anti-authoritarian lyrics, they actually were managed by some dude who had a fashion shop. So yeah...).

Punk attitude or philosophy or whatever

The reason why I addressed the rockstar thing at the start of the post is because I find it curious. Punk is characterized by the whole Do It Yourself attitude and breaking with the establishment. Anarchism in punk is scandalizing people since there is no authority whatsoever. There wasn’t really any deep philosophy behind all of this, nor any political movement. Punk has nothing to do with a formal anarchist philosophy (which actually exists and has nothing to do with disorder). However, punk is characterized by the anti-establihsment lyrics. Remember, this is all about scandalizing people (which sometimes took great lengths). Presentations from british punk bands were also quite wild those days. They involved a lot of insults, spitting and, of course, pogo.

So, it is obvious that there is this deep concern about turning into a sellout, a pretty common fear in any underground scene. Authenticity was encouraged. Aspiring rockstars really didn’t have much mercy in the community so to speak, at least in this specific period. 

I would also like to add how punk had other aspects beside the music. For example, fanzines were pretty popular in the punk scene in the 70s and a great way to engage with what was going on with bands and music. I remember also this interview of this band in which they remembered how a very high guy decided to recite his poem while the band was playing. So, yeah, literature, illustration, fashion and other stuff were involved in the punk scene too.

British punk was also characterized by a very nihilistic attitude and a total disregard for previous influences. 1977, a song by The Clash, stated:

No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones!

Now, for the important stuff: The music. Punk music is all about being simple. Punk musicians aren’t really known for their virtuosity in their instruments, something that actually inspired musicians from a lot of heavy bands later. In fact, the famous Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols never could learn how to play the bass. So the band disconnected his instrument from the amplifier and he only had to pretend to play. The guy actually tried to learn how to play bass but music wasn’t exactly his talent. He had tons of punk attitude though, and that was the reason why his band didn’t kick him out. 

Vocals are usually shouted, the rythm is fast and the riffs are quite simple. In fact, there is this famous publication on a 1976 british fanzine that stated:

This is a chord

This is another

This is a third

Now form a band

HWS England and the 70s punk scene and onwards 

Thanks to his immortality, it is obvious that England had to experience the 70s in all their glory (what a lucky bastard). Was he there? Hell yes. As I explained before in some of my hc posts, nations represent the population more than their Government, so I really believe that England felt the frustration from that post-wwii decade and he probably also felt pissed about this. Working for the Government must have felt really frustrating during those years. 

In the past, he probably would have tried to take his ship and sail the seas or whatever, but that was not possible in the modern era. I guess that’s how he discovered punk. 

Now, rock existed in England before punk. I mean, the Beatles, duh. So Arthur wouldn’t have been completely ignorant about rock music in general. Contrary to popular belief I don’t imagine him being that much of a beatlemaniac though. Sure he likes them, but the music didn’t resonated with him as much. But boy, that first time he heard the Pink Fairies in 1971 (Yes, this was an actual band, a proto-punk band)? Yeah, he could relate more to that.

More detailed stuff here:

Pubs were crucial for the development of punk music. They were these spaces in which bands could play, a venue to discover new music. Yes, Arthur must have been a regular in a lot of these pubs.

Fanzines probably fascinated Arthur as an outlet for his own writings and silly drawings. He probably created a cringey pseudonym and collaborated with a lot of them. 

Its canon that England likes to critic american movies, and, taking from there, I think he’s the type of guy that has an opinion for everything. So I can imagine him also writing about what bands he enjoyed and what bands sucked.

Yeah, I can also see him being drunk and just reciting a poem while some rock band played behind.

With some ability, and a lil bit of tricks, Arthur could escape normal Government activities and perform with punk bands at nights. People were so into the music that he had no problem passing by.

Some cover art in CDs show Enlgland with a guitar and a bass (yes, not many people remember the bass cover art). So he probably plays both guitar and bass. He also probably plays the drums. Of course, he’s no virtuoso and he only knows the most basic stuff in those three instruments. I can see him being into songwriting tho.

Music equipment:

Guitar: Definetely a Telecaster

Bass: Fender P-bass and I can also see him having a Rickenbacker 4001

All these instruments are full with stickers. Punk instruments look really cool btw. (I wish my bass could look like those I see in certain punk bands)

England’s probably the kind of guy that doesn’t cut his strings at the head of his guitar.

He can actually play guitar/bass and sing at the same time.

England plays bass with a pick (what an asshole, we bassists know picks are not allowed)

Contrary to popular belief, I can see England appreciating good rock music from other countries and supporting them. He probably insists that punk music was born in the UK though.

1977: The Queen was going to celebrate her silver jubilee. And England had no problem with this. He really had none... but he HAD to be in that boat trip with the Sex Pistols. There’s no way he was going to miss that. He later had to explain his abscence that day to his Government officials (Btw, my hc for England’s relationship with his monarchy is “It’s complicated”. I can explain this later. Just remember that he was really pissed those days)

I can see Arthur in general being really involved with the scene. A lot of the stuff they were making actually matches with his canon interests and even personality. So he probably enjoyed those days and felt quite at home. I can even say that, for a long time, he hadn’t felt that kind of connection with his own people.

Although I can see England being attracted by the nihilism in the scene, I think his romanticism protects him from embracing it fully.

England had to live a double-life during this era. Not that it was new for him.

Arthur was pierced several times by some random, drunk teenagers. He doesn’t remember who tho. He was also drunk. Obviously his piercings close really fast, unless he has a permanent jewel in there.

I can actually see England expanding his music taste. Although punk is in his heart, it wouldn’t be strange for me that he’s overall a rock nerd and enjoys other genres, specially those with fast drum beats and heavy riffs. So I can see him having some metal favorites too, having a certain taste for prog rock and even digging into hardcore.

I’m still unsure if England would have been a massive Pistols fan as fanfics usually portray him. I mean, maybe? I would say he is definetely into acts such as the Pink Fairies (I mean, c’mon, its perfect). The Clash and the Damned probably also have a place in his heart.

After the punk scene dried out (the 80s weren’t that great for punk music although it was the birth of even heavier forms of music based on punk), England also was eager about the new genres flourishing during these times based on punk. Acts like folk punk might have had an appeal for him. He’s also fond of the punk-ish bands from the 90s like Green Day.

“Punk will never die!” shouted England while stage diving in some random small concert. He likes to support new bands these days.

The most fascinating thing, maybe in a more poetic sense, is that England’s immortality probably also helps him to keep up a punk spirit as much as his nationhood allows him, instead of aging poorly and angry like a lot of punk musicians... I mean, he aged poorly, but for other reasons lmao.

[livvywrites]

What kind of magic systems does the world of Metanoia have?

an excellent question!!! forgive me while i ramble a bit (or a lot!)

—

so first, a little on where magic comes from, & how it’s used. (& i do apologize if this is something you’ve read before!)

eldora’s creation myth says that the planet grew from a seed—or, rather, that a seed was planted in the ether, and from that seed grew the World Tree, embodied by the nymph, Vitala, the goddess of Life. in her roots nestled the core of the world, and over these roots which grew the surface—forest, desert, swamp, ocean.

the core of the world is Eldora’s heart, and the heart is the source of all magic.

the magic of it travels up, through rock, caves, dirt, & soil to emerge at points known as wellsprings. these are treated as sacred places, often with temples built near them to whichever god it seems to represent in its manifestation. wellspring spots are varied. there are large crystals, pulsing with ethereal light; lush gardens with glowing flowers that bloom nowhere else, and all year round; standing stones that seem to hum, electricity snapping in the air; etc.

the spot of the World Tree is the most powerful wellspring.

there are also places where magic returns to the core, & is filtered back down to be cleansed, revitalized. these places are also called wellsprings, and are considered just as sacred—though people do not often set up near them, as these are “dead zones”, where magic can be used by few. they are still visited by pilgrims, or by those hoping to slow the effects of magical illnesses, curses, etc.

as such, magic flows through the very air of eldora. it’s in the soil; the plants; the animals; the food… and the people. everyone can use magic on eldora, though most are limited to what they can pull from the air. this is usually small quick spells.

enchantments, which are a stable of eldoran life, and often have functions similar to electricity for us, also run off of this power. (and too many enchantments, or too powerful of one, can cause the same effect as a reverse wellspring—creating a dead zone through which magic is hard to use).

there are also people who are born with their own internal supply of mana. no one is really sure why this is (including me), only that it can happen randomly—and is more likely to happen if one or both parents do have mana. these people are usually referred to as “mages” in general terms—though others pick up classes/jobs that have different titles.

these people are still able to cast in a dead zone, & can fuel an enchantment with their own internal power, though this can be draining, fast. they can also cast more powerful spells.

(this is getting long so! under the cut it goes)

—

now a look at spells! i’m still working on exactly how this works. some stuff i have pinned down, but.

so, first. casting spells. there are three main things that go into casting one—intelligence, willpower, and mana. intelligence has to do with how well you understand the spell—it’s components, what it does, what it means to cast it. willpower is a measure of intent, how determined you are to cast the spell. it is also a measure of how well you understand yourself and your capabilities. mana is the well of magic you have to draw upon. this well can fluctuate in childhood, but by adulthood (whatever that means for a particular race) it will have evened out.

intelligence & willpower can be increased. mana can’t be—unless you’re a Slaeyr, and that comes with a steep price.

spells are made up of runes. runes… i think of them a bit like coding. it’s a language, of sorts, with a specific syntax that wouldn’t necessarily make sense to hold a conversation in. it informs the magic of what to do with it.

of course, mages can cast spells without knowing runes—by focusing their intent and shaping the spell from that. but runes provide a… shape. a structure. something for the mind to focus on & thus better will the spell into existence.

there is no particular runic alphabet. runes are single symbols that mean entire words, which can be strung into sentences (or code lines*, to continue the above analogy) to create spells. sentences can grow fairly long for more complicated and varied spells. most spells hinge off of at least one rune, and complex spells can contain many. usually, spells contain anywhere from 3-7 runes.

enchantments always contain at least five runes, but often more, as an “anchored” spell needs more guidance.

mages do not have to speak the names of runes out loud to cast the spell—only to remember them, imagine the shape of them. some, however, do find that speaking the names aloud helps, and so they do. (in complex spells, though, this can get tedious, so some mages will invent a verbal shorthand.)

—

from here… um. i feel like i should know what to talk about next, but!! i don’t? like i’m sure there’s different schools of thought as to how magic should be cast between different associations, but… ah. i don’t know what those are.

i guess i can talk about the different like… jobs / specialties in magic users? tho i also feel like this has gotten fairly long!!

anyway. thank you very much for letting ramble at you, anon!!! i hope you enjoyed :D

*disclaimer: all i really know about coding is like… basic css & html. you know, the stuff to edit already in use tumblr themes? xD i keep meaning to pick more up but. you know. so i really can’t take the analogy too far.

[masterhandss]

(I am sorry for adding another, but this one is a bit less specific) thanks to the Otome game’s artwork for the pirates and clear imagery of Silva’s flintlock pistol. Guns exist, gunpowder exists. That is chaos waiting to happen. What do you think could happen with that new bit of info for the crew, especially in terms of Geordo’s fire magic. Or just general h/c and potential drama.

It’s okay, thank you for all your asks! I have a lot of asks and questions to answer and I’m trying to get through all of them (really slowly), but i’m really happy to see yours and everyone’s ideas and headcanons!

thanks to the Otome game’s artwork for the pirates and clear imagery of Silva’s flintlock pistol. Guns exist, gunpowder exists. That is chaos waiting to happen 

I’ve seen a few people talk about the implications and world building that comes with the knowledge that guns exist. I’m pretty interested in it and its one of the reasons why i’m excited for the nintendo switch game!

My personal interpretation of this information is that, yeah guns and gunpowder do exist, but its only currently exclusive to one country. Quid, from what I translated, is the country of engineering. I’m not the smartest potato of the bunch but I know that probably doesn’t really say anything about the country’s weaponry, but i’m assuming that Quid is the most technologically advanced country.

I’m more of just accepting and assuming the fact that only Quid (and by extension, the Weiss Pirates who I assume are from Quid) have guns because yknow, each country is known for something. Sorcier has Magic, Lousabre has high crime rates, Etran has trading, Xiarmah has eastern culture and etc. In order to have Quid stand out as well, it’s gonna need something of its own so advanced technology and weaponry sounds good to me.

I know realistically it doesn’t make any sense, because that would mean Quid has the military prowess to take over any country they want, because they have guns and maybe even other forms of firearms, but there are lots of series where each country/region/island has different extreme levels of weaponry but can exist just fine (like Granblue Fantasy and Fire Emblem Heroes. For the latter example, FEH just introduced a new arc where a country with advanced tech and guns have just been introduced the other day, so Book V of feh may have influenced this interpretation). Some countries still use swords and magic, and some countries have guns and robots but can coexist just fine (don’t ask me how gsjdgf).

In addition to this, I’m gonna assume that guns have only recently been invented and is either still in its production/experimentation stage and the Weiss Pirates stole guns from a cargo, or they are just about to be shipped out and introduced to other countries before the Weiss Pirates stole guns from a cargo. I don’t like the idea that the Weiss Pirates themselves invented guns because that would make them too much for a powerful threat, and I don’t think the writers of the hamefura game would bother to write them as that much of a big threat. 

I guess unlike most, I’m not the type the analyze historical periods and world building implications of stuff like this, but I tried ahahaha. 

I guess I just know so much fantasy series where swords, magic and guns (and even robots) can coexist, that the idea that we have some in hamefura doesn’t even surprise me at all.

What do you think could happen with that new bit of info for the crew, especially in terms of Geordo’s fire magic   

If the otome game is gonna seriously address the implications of Quid having advanced form of weaponry, then damn we might get a short arc of them trying to stop a possible war ahahaha. Hamefura’s magic is very weak (I can make a long ass essay just complaining about the existing magic system based on what we know from the series so far) so I’m not really sure what to think of Geordo’s magic when compared to guns and other forms of firearms. There’s a lot of debates between “technology vs magic” and the winner of that usually depends on who is asking. 

On the scale of power, I think Geordo probably has no match against a gun or a make-shift bomb/bazooka. Magic activates really slowly in Hamefura so Geordo’s strength (or at least the levels I’m personally imagining) isn’t really much in battle even if it is. I mean we know he can burn a man alive as he implied in LN8 and that would give magic the advantage in terms of power (magic can possibly be equal when it comes to area damage than a bomb/bazooka but that only depending on the magical output), but again he really lacks in terms of speed. Unless Fire Magic has a spell where they can make fire balls rain from the sky? Fire magic seems like it only manifest through the hands so I’m just imaging Geordo with flamethrower hands.

I might not be giving Magic a fair fight here because I may or may not be exaggerating in my head how weak magic is in hamefura. I’d love to revisit this question again when we get more insight about how magic works in the series, like whenever Vol. 10 rolls around.

I’d love to see the crew’s reaction to seeing a gun for the first time. A “what the hell is that?” line from either Alan or Keith would make me a happy champ kshdfdsf. Plus points if Katarina immediately identifies it as a gun before anyone else in the ship are even told what the weapon is. 

I’d be really sad if the upcoming otome game doesn’t touch up on the guns though. Somehow I feel like the artists/writers didn’t think too much of it and just added guns to complete the full pirate aesthetic. 

Or just general h/c and potential drama.

Going back to where I said “I wouldn’t like it if the Weiss Pirates invented guns themselves”, there’s also the possibility that guns are treated in the same way as they are in “Dragalia Lost”. Since we know in hamefura there was a Golden Age of Magic in the past, where magic is so common that even Dark Magic is normal to see, then maybe there was also a point where technology was also advance before their ancestors decided to abandon it in order to maintain their roots with nature and magic. 

This is just a random idea of mine, but it would be cool if Katarina and Silva can bond over the existence of his guns. Silva seems like he might be a “robin hood” kind of character to me. Katarina will obviously freak about guns at first, but she would chill with it when she finds out that the Weiss Pirates aren’t bad people. Unlike others, she isn’t as afraid because she used to live in a world where guns are more common (though that doesn’t mean she isn’t afraid of guns). Maybe Silva’s pistol is a gift from a family member or from his ancestors, and when he realizes that Katarina isn’t freaking too much about the gun, he can give its backstory. I don’t know, something like “this gun only shoots down evil! This bullet kills so that the people/public can live another day!” or something like that. 

There’s most likely not gonna be a plot like this in the nintendo switch game but hey, it works if they want to treat the gun like an artifact rather than a new invention. 

I don’t know if I gave a satisfactory answer here, but I tried gasjhgsj I’m writing this late at night so I might rewrite this if I can think of anything better to say in the morning :DD I’m not a smart bean either so I’m so sorry if my answers sound so dumb gfsjhgf

Thank you for the ask!

[tanoraqui]

grooooan I’ve been very writer’s block-y recently; pls enjoy this 2am-written peek at like...3 chapters forward in Iron, Blood and Grave Dirt. See, I DO have a plan for this fic! 

-

This is a story about soup.

(Let’s pretend that this is what Wei Sizhui has been thinking, for the last several days. It’s probably close enough.)

Soup is, by rough definition, individual solid food items mixed together in a liquid base, and somehow cooked. There’s a lot of disagreements about the nuances, but we can all agree on a common-sense definition of soup, right?

(Wrong, but the internet hasn’t been invented yet in the year Fantasy!Ambiguously-Ancient China, so, yes. Yes we can.)

By a certain measure of metaphor, a family is - no, start the other way around. By a certain measure of symbolism, soup is family. That is, in Wei Sizhui’s experience, soup - good soup, really really good soup with pork ribs and lotus roots - is something his uncle makes when Jin Ling is sick, or that one time he broke his arm falling off the docks, or usually just on Aunt Yanli’s birthday, for which Jin Ling is always in Lotus Pier, no matter how much bickering has to be done with LanlingJIn first. The Good Soup has never been made for Wei Sizhui, but in fairness, he’s never gotten sick, because - he’s been praised - his golden core developed so exceptionally early. (This, like many things in Wei Sizhui’s life, is something the will be addressed later. For the first time, later is coming very soon.)

Wei Sizhui has never felt much of the loss, because he did have the honor of staying int he kitchen and helping his uncle make the Soup. Very much his uncle, not his sect leader - it wasn’t Sect Leader Jiang who swore so profusely while fiddling with the heat on the stove, nor who showed Wei Sizhui - Wei Yuan, the first time - how to hold a knife to shave a lotus root, or cut the meat without losing any of the rich juice. It might’ve been Sandu Shengshou, just a little, but it was mostly just Wei Sizhui’s shushu. And then they’d bring the soup to wherever Jin Ling was pouting in bed, and then they’d eat it. If it was Aunt Yanli’s birthday, they might eat out on the pier instead, or by the Clarity Bell Pavilion. 

Because family, in turn, was like soup. You took some solid, individual things, that maybe weren’t even that good on their own, or they were bitter or twisted or cut to pieces, and you put them in a pot and warmed them up and they became...good. Sometimes it was very fine, all sorts of healthy herbs or richest meats at a grand banquet, but sometimes it was just...

A soup could be a single gnarled, curmudgeonly lotus root and a too-spicy chili pepper mixed together in a smooth, sweet lotus-flavored broth. You could add some expensive oil of peony and a little curmudgeonly peony root, and a necromantically charged potato, and...

Well, maybe not all at once. But once the peony oil burned off and the lotus broth all ran out, spilled over bloody soil, you could still hold it together with a watery broth, and maybe a few dashes of tall white leeks.

Another variant of the metaphor: dozens, hundreds of souls slain by a single beast accumulating in a single blade shoved into the monster’s side, dark iron already charged with resentful energy from its wielder’s hand. There for centuries, to stew - to soup? - in the broth of their collective resentful energy, individualities fading, melting, into one not-quiet-consciousness that burns (like hot soup!) with rage, resentment, and the need for the control so sorely lost with death. Or imagine it on an even grander scale: hundreds, thousands of lives lost is grand and terrible battle, left to rot on a n empty hill - turning it into close to a mountain, with thier volume. More and more corpses added over the centuries, discarded and forgotten, solid corpses and individual vengeful souls bleeding together into something even grander and more terrible than the first fires that bore them...

And sometimes (to switch tracks with all the grace of a drumseller’s cart hitting a rut), when a very angry sword of death and a very, very vengeful mountain of even more death love each other very much, or at least are brought into proximity by a...shall we say “donor”? By a willing donor of the raw stuff of life...(blood! I mean blood! Get your mind out of the gutter!)

...Anyway. These are things Wei Sizhui could, hypothetically, be thinking, as he lies on the bare stone of the cave at the top, the center, of the Burial Mounds, and feels like he could probably sink into the hard stone if he wished. Maybe even if he didn’t wish. It feels like an embrace, around the deity-binding ropes tying his hands and feet together, and he can’t quite resist the urge to press into it. Not as a blanket, though, or bed - the sense of it is vast and cold and as dark and deep as...nothing he’s ever felt before, but it makes him think of the bottom of a lake. Maybe the bottom of an ocean? But if the ocean was electrifying. He feels better than he did in Yi City. More awake. More aware. Fluttering on the surface are hundreds of little corpses, which aren’t part of it, and within it are thousands of drips and drags of others - corpses but also ghosts, ghouls, petty yaos. Really a ton of crows. Which all very much are part of it, like individual waves in the water. And, of course, there are the intruders, all the bright golden cores around him - so many trembling with fear or the effort of inedia or simple weakness, ready to be snapped up...and another, on the outskirts - 

“Sizhui?” One of the little- Jin Ling. Jin Ling pokes him in the shoulder, once and then again, hard. “Wei Yuan, you’re being weird again.”

“Oh- sorry.” Wei Sizhui sits up (forces himself to sit up). Lan Jingyi, too, is looking at him with worry, not remotely concealed behind Lan quietude.

“Sorry,” he repeats. “I’m just...” He lowers his voice, so no one else will hear but the three of them. “Hanguang-jun is coming, and- my father, and Wen Ning.”

The epithet still feels strange on his tongue, but it’s undeniable, especially in this place. 

“Really?” says Lan Jingyi, and sits back in relief that’s a little too loud. “Oh, thank goodness. We’re saved!”

“You’re sure?” Jin Ling asks, more anxious. “You can really tell, with your...” He gestures vaguely at all of Wei Sizhui.

Wei Sizhui shouldn’t be able to. They’re far too far away, much farther than he can usually sense dead things, much less living things - even living things as spiritually powerful as Hanguang-jun, or as as demonically powerful as the Yiling Patriarch. Or dead things as demonically powerful as the Ghost General. But his palms rest flat on the stone floor and the currents of the dark ocean carry him outwards, beckon him to stay and fill him with such strength that he idly wonders if he could break the deity-binding ropes. But...

“I’m sure,” he says. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

[raeseddon]

Why Being The Parent of a Disabled Child isn’t an Identity: A Discussion

( Trigger warning for mention of abusive relationships )

A note to all the parents of disabled or neurodivergent kids, from an Adult disabled child.

For the sake of you, your child, and your relationship with that child: Having a disabled child is not an identity.

[[readmore]]

I know it can feel like it, because it's all media and society focuses on when they see you out and about with your child. Pretty much all protrayals of parents in media who find out they have a disabled child cease to be people-- they are henceforth Parents of a Child With [Insert Disability/Neurodivergence Here.] And it's deceptive because at first, finding supoprt communities of other parents with the same problems feels like Mana From Heaven. But please, watch how other parents in your support communities change as their children grow, especially when the disability/neurodivergence is managed to a point where the child can join "normal" society. If you see a parent panicking, or freaking out in a way that seems over the top, (especially when reports of how the kid is doing are positive) be careful. You might be watching the beginning spiral of a parent who no longer knows how to be anything but a caregiver. And that parent needs help.

Also, if you start to feel the urge to panic, or worry, or start inventing senarios were you are back to being a carer after your Adult disabled child leaves the proverbial roost, find someone, preferably a professional, to speak to. Because the alternative is that you become someone who infantilzes your Adult disabled child in order to hold on to a piece of your identity that--in a perfect world-- would never have rooted itself in you the way it has.

I should say something about my own experiences just so you don't think I'm talking out of my ass-- at six or eight months old my parents noticed I was only reaching for things with one arm. They took me to a neurologist who diagnosed me right-hemipsheratic cerebral palsy. As soon as I was old enough, I was in physical therapy. At five years old, I had my first ever seizure, at which point I was diagnosed with epilepsy, which has a high co-morbidity rate with CP. I came from a pretty traditional middle class (back when there really was a middle class) family where my father worked full time and my mom worked seasonally as a tax-preparer. My mom was the one who took up the bulk of the responsibility as carer, making sure I got to OT/PT, speech therapy, the works. I had no idea how much of her personal identity she put into her role as carer until the marriage disolved and her various issues lead to me spending more and more time with dad, intitially as a survival strategy (emotionally/mentally speaking) and then because I enjoyed his company, even if it meant getting to know him as a person at an age where most kids rely on dads for driving lessons and other... dad stuff. It wasn't always easy, but again, it was a survival strategy first and foremost.

It became apparent very quickly that not only did mom think I was "picking sides" but that she was furious with me because I didn't understand all of her (very real and unfortunatelt necessary) personal sacrifices so that I had the physical quality of life that I did. I was too young and hormonal at the time to realize that she A) should have never have had to make those sacrifices, and B) the blow they dealt to her personal identity would leave lasting and horrific scars on both of us.

Because when society looks at a parent of a child with disabilities, and a disabled child, they don't see two distinct people: they see a Walking Disability, and a Selfless Marytr, who willingly gave up every part of themselves to give that Walking Disability a "chance" at a "normal life."

I've known and talked to a ton of disabled adults and their parents over the years, and there are a few things that run like a universal thread throughout:

Just because a truly loving parent would choose a million times to give their entire life and identity up to care for the child, doesn't mean they want to, or should have to. If I could go back in time and provide my mother with a way to take some of the burden off of herself so that she could continue to grow along with me as a person, I would. Whether it would mean making it so that dad didn't have to work as much so that they could actually split the emotional and physical load, or some other way, I'd do it in a heartbeat. We, as a society need to stop looking at parents who are forced to subvert everything about themselves: their interests, their hobbies, their education, and their growth as a person, so that their disabled children have a fair shot, as aspirational. Parents are people, and they deserve the social support to continue being people, despite also having disabled children.

The inability of parents and carers to divorce themselves from their roles as carers damages the child's self esteem and overall ability to imagine a future of even limited independence. Speaking from both personal experience and having a disabled and neurodivergent friend group who have all admited to similar experiences. I was able to move away from living with my mom at nineteen, almost right after I graduated high school, to living with dad who was much more willing to encourage any form of independence he could. The encouragement wasn't always realistic in some ways, but when it worked, it worked, and I clung to that independence literally as long as a physically could.

If a marriage was rocky or straight up unhealthy before the birth of the disabled child 'staying together for the kid(s)' always makes things worse. There are the one in a few billion times when having the child actually forced the parents to work their shit out, but most of the time, it's a recipie for decades of misery and emotional (and physical) trauma for everyone involved. This is especially true if a degree of independence is acheived by the child that means they can live away from home. Once the child is gone, everything about the marriage/relationship that didn't work comes rushing back--and unfortunately, by then, the parents are so used to being miserable together, that being miserable apart is even more terrifying. As someone who came to realize as an adult that long before my parents divorced, the cracks were there and there were "near misses" it makes me wish they'd divorced when I was much younger. Of course, the reality is that parents who have disabled children are more likely to stay in unhappy at least or absusive at worst relationships because without shared income, caring for the disabled child would be impossible. It's a no-win situation.

Finally, circling back to my first point: Even when abuse isn't present and the marriage is healthy, the most well meaning parent may find themselves infantilizing their Adult child because once that child is gone, they will have lost a major pillar of their identity. There are times this comes close to feeling like a universal experience, it's so common. "Cutting the apron strings" can be scary even when both parents know its for the best, but the problems usually start with making harmless comments about how they'll "always be there" for the child, and if left unchecked the comments could become passive aggressive, and finally downright attempts to guilt the Adult child into staying.

This is why it's so, so important to observe your own behavior, as well as the behavior of other parents in support communities, and keep an eye on the ones who try to inject anxiety into the experiences and milestones that edge your Adult child towards the best degree of independence they can acheive. A lot of the time it'll lead with "Well aren't you worried that [insert bad experience here] will happen?" Which is why it's vital to be able to tell when an anxiety is your own or when it's someone elses. A good way to do this is to just have regular, open communication with your kid. Express your worries, talk them out, and allow your kid to make assurances, even if it's in the form of "I have a friend group/support network that I can go to before I will need to go back to you with a problem." Make it clear in the support communities that these communications are happening with your kid, and if people still try to drag you into worrying that whatever reassurances that have been given "won't be enough"... flag that person as someone who is probably having a problem with the idea of their kid acheiving independence. Every parent starts at a different place when it comes to the idea of a disabled or neurodivergent kid acheiving some form of independence, but there are ways to avoid almost all of the major issues that end up poisoning the relationships between parents and their adult disabled kids.

[imdoingthismspaintadventure]

In which I nerd out about PS and portal windows.

THE GREEN TEXT WAS ATTRACTIVE. NOW VIEW THE RED TEXT AGAIN.

Oh god we’re going back to TG again.

John is 1000% done with all these huge logs.

TG: when the film crew zooms where the presidents at TG: im like if that dudes black ill eat my hat TG: turns out he is, so we're all "damn, director's got gumption" TG: like we'll all flip our shit he aint shining shoes or somethin TG: its called freemancipation. if its not pres-election its god-ascension TG: in bruce almighty. whoops, different bruce from the one i just mentioned EB: aaaaaarrrgh!

Oh my fucking god TG was still going on and on with his reality-shattering godraps. That is amazing.

He is creating the perfect pop culture amalgam in there, too! I said it before but TG, you are a treasure.

TG: cant explain to me why this aint condescension to think ill shit a brick TG: not even he can convey the intention with his quickspun wit TG: rather defray all this tension, sit on his lap while he whittles a splint TG: and some guy eyes what he does and patronizes: i guess negrocity's the mother of invention

I’m having an astral journey reading this.

TG, what in the actual fuck are you talking about??

You are the god of rambling I swear

EB: stop rapping for a second you horse's ass! EB: i have something important to talk about. TG: whats up EB: rose is in trouble and she needs help. i was going to connect to her with sburb but i lost my copy! TG: ok

Horse’s ass is a good insult.

Yeah I guess TG now has to bail her out after the car fuckup

EB: also she lost battery power. if she can get back up and running, she'll need someone with the game to get her out of there before her house burns down. EB: so i think you should use your copy of the game to help her! TG: my copy? TG: thats going to be tough

Oh no what will the shenanigans be this time.

EB: why? TG: i lost it TG: its a stupid story and id rather not talk about it TG: shit be embarrassing yo

Oh fucking hell.

Why are all the copies of this game getting lost so easily??? Take care of your videogames!!

What did you do to lose it, now I’m scared of whatever bullshit sequence of events transpired

EB: i thought you said you had two? TG: well yeah TG: one is my brothers copy EB: ok, well get his then! TG: alright TG: but hes not gonna be happy about that

Is this going to be like a Dad situation where there is an interactive boss? That was really great so I hope it is!

EB: whatever. EB: also you might want to read rose's walkthrough to get up to speed on this. TG: oh man EB: what? TG: nothing really TG: look all im saying is the girl tends to lay it on kinda thick you know? EB: /ROLLS EYES

Embrace the purple prose TG! Let it envelop you in its glorious overwritten radiance!

Ooh we’re back with the purple lady herself!

She needs to find an alternative energy source asap, to help John and be able to stay communicated, before she burns to death!

Your LAPTOP is out of BATTERY POWER. There's only one thing left to do. Time to make your way to that BACKUP GENERATOR.

Yup, figured it would end up being relevant.

Rose: Knit laptop cozy to shield your laptop from the rain.

...really?

Time managment is not really your strong point it seems.

Oh you already had one made!!

The heart octopus is just the best.

I remember her inventory system to be an unholy nightmare.

That would be such a waste of time! Besides, you already knitted one a while ago. You retrieve it from your KNITTING BAG and apply it to your LAPTOP. You captchalogue the LAPTOP PLUS COZY.

Cozy laptop is cozy!

Rose: Equip grimoire to strife specibus.

Ooh.

That could either result in getting arcane eldritch powers that man was not meant to know... or just a book to bludgeon people to death with.

Both seem worth it.

NOPE

I change my mind this just screams death.

That would be incredibly ill-advised! There are some dark forces you just don't want to mess around with. You understand this better than most. You put the book down.

I like the fact that Rose has an object with such dark and terrible powers even the inventory system  and the narrator are advising us to put it as far away as possible from anything resembling a weapon slot.

Was I correct in the eldritch powers thing??

Rose: Recaptchalogue your items!

Oh hello again you terrible, terrible captchalogue system.

You grab the KNITTING BAG and the GRIMOIRE, in that order. It's always a logistical puzzle with your TREE MODUS. The tree AUTO-BALANCES, leaving the KNITTING BAG accesible in the ROOT CARD.

Imagine having one of this in a real videogame.

Seems the kind of move Yoko Taro would do.

................That rithym minigame

Rose: Allocate knitting needles to strife specibus.

Eesh, that seems like a very nasty weapon by necessity.

You feel a lot more comfortable with this as a weapon. You're so handy with those needles, you feel like you could probably use them to filet a sword fish.

Damn, Rose could be fucking deadly with those.

Say goodbye to all the tender spots of flesh in your body.

John has it lucky with his captchalogue thing.

You lose the ROOT CARD in the process, severing the tree. Hey, careful with all that stuff!

Yeah let’s not break the laptop. Or the Necronomicon, Or both.

Rose: Knit plush cuddle-cthulhu to soothe nerves.

Greatest idea so far.

...it’s the actual necronomicon isn’t it.

That would also be a preposterous waste of time!!! Besides, you're quite sure you've never heard of this creature called "Cthulhu" before. There are however many other specimens of the ZOOLOGICALLY DUBIOUS you're familiar with. Such as...

Or this universe’s version of it at least.

Rose: Consult the grimoire.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S FLUTHLU!! WITH A BUNCH OF HORRIFYING BEASTS AROUND IT.

IN THE IMAGINARY CITY STREETS

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN, LAST TIME I SAW YOU, YOU GOT STABBED BY A VERY CHARISMATIC DETECTIVE AND BEHEADED BY A WINDOW PORTAL.

IN CASE YOU COULDN’T TELL, I REALLY APPRECIATE THE REFERENCE.

FLUTHLU, FOUL PATRICIAN OF MISERY. To hear his mammoth belly gurgle is to know the Epoch of Joy has come to an abrupt end

:D

Oh god, we get to see even greater elder gods now!!

Nrub’yiglith.... is that a reference to Shrub-Niggurath? Seems the most likely one to me.

And NRUB'YIGLITH, SHAMEBEAST KING OF GROTESQUERY, WRITHE-LORD OF THE MOIST BEYONDHOOD. Hearing his melodious chirps and tongue-clicks causes one's bones to explode.

WRITHE-LORD OF THE MOIST BEYONDHOOD!!

These descriptions are fucking amazing.

Oglogoth....Ok, this is definitely Azathoth, the daemon sultan.

Nice!

And of course there's OGLOGOTH, THE DEEP ONE. Whenever he grinds his teeth, all the children of a random galaxy somewhere will frown continuously for a nine thousand year span.

These fucking descriptions.... Holy shit give me 500 of these.

He is the first and smallest of the SMALLER GODS, appointed in servitude of a vile, unfathomable pantheon of MIDDLING GODS which caters to the whims of the NOBLE CIRCLE OF HORRORTERRORS, an omniscient, omnipotent order of the elite few, forever cloaked in the darkness of the FURTHEST RING.

What the fuck???

So in the homestuck universe, Azathoth is just a scrub! There are a whole three tiers above him in power!

The noble circle of horrorterrors, cloaked in the darkness of the furthest ring...

Someone should make a story with all this lore, or use it in a DnD campaign. Some of this is legitimately really good.

OH MY GOD

THE WINDOW PORTALS. THEY ARE OUTLINED HERE AS WELL.

And then there's this strange page containing some rather mysterious notes on summoning procedures. You've never been quite sure what these diagrams are getting at.

.....of course they are the summoning rituals!!

They lead to the imaginary city and if you cut their power while you are outside an eldritch being appears!!

Flutulhu was summoned after a city-wide blackout, so I wonder what would be needed for oglogoth... I was going to say a planet-wide blackout, but the imaginary city is.....all that exists over there, alongside the four realms and the cathedral/brothel/sun and moon/GPI, and all the other cosmology.

Maybe if you were outside a window during the last supermassive black hole?? That is probably the most pitch black you could ever get while in the imaginary world....

[theworldbrewery]

Hot Takes: Elves

“When an elven soul returns to Arvandor, it is adopted by the other gods of the Seldarine and given respite from the world for a time, during which it is left alone to ponder its creator’s disappointment.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p 36

I have three sourcebooks in front of me, and all of them are trash.

Elf lore has gotten more fucked up with every new release, and WotC seem to just be digging themselves deeper.

The drow and Lolth

Narrow depictions of ethereal beauty

Relationships with other races, especially orcs

At the root of this is the rather uncomfortable blend of religious themes and racial predestination found in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.

Disclaimer: I don’t want to suggest that all the official elf lore is bad. I want to suggest that all the official race lore is bad, actually.

Let’s dig in. Scroll to the bottom of the post if you wanna skip all the bad stuff WotC already wrote about elves.

“[The drow] are infamous for their cruelty, evilness, and desire to dominate.”  -Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, p. 107

“To most, [drow] are a race of demon-worshipping marauders [...] emerging only on the blackest nights to pillage and slaughter the surface dwellers they despise.” -Player’s Handbook, p. 24

“The surface elves’ attitude toward murder [...] is carried to the extreme by the drow, who have elevated the assassination of both enemies and friends to an art and who consider killing to be just another tool for resolving disputes and clearing the way for social advancement.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p. 40-41

So all this is bad. We’re gonna throw all this out in a hot sec, but I’m quickly going to discuss why the lore looks like this in case someone is unfamiliar with it:

basically, the creator of All Elves, Corellon, had a descendant goddess named Lolth, who apparently claimed that elves could attain superiority over other races, had a major falling-out with Corellon, and her followers went with her into exile and became the drow. Also in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, the elves were revealed to be trapped in a cycle of reincarnation where they spent an undetermined period of time dead, alone, and left to contemplate how disappointed Corellon was in them for agreeing with Lolth even a little bit. For some reason, this reincarnation cycle is presented as a good thing... somehow. (this is why elves have a blase reaction to murder, since the deceased will just be reborn later, and why the drow seem to be just fine with killing recklessly.)

This all could be just fine! Except drow are conspicuously the darkest-skinned subrace of elves, and also the one most aligned with a ‘matriarchal’ society. It’s worth pointing out that Corellon is a nonbinary god, but also that the elves “viewed Corellon as their father, the one who had sired them, and Lolth as their mother, the one who set them on the path to their destiny” (p. 36 of MToF). So not only is Corellon being forced into a cisnormative creator narrative, but the comparative “woman” power is being characterized with cruelty and violence. So there’s a lot going on with ‘innate’ savagery and race.

So we’re just gonna throw all that out, because it sucks. It’s got signficant racist implications of inherent violence in racial groups. Sure, WotC tries to retcon it from an in-born racial trait to a cultural one, but it still preys on the concepts of racial essentialism, whether biological or cultural, and fuck that noise. 

“Usually, true elves were a naturally slender and athletic race. Elves had a similar range of complexions to humans, with wood elves typically coppery or pale skinned and wild elves having darker pigmentation.”

“[Elves] live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires [...] Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world.” -Player’s Handbook, p. 21

Moving on from the drow, official lore gives the impression of elves as a whole as graceful, thin, and more ‘white.’ The quote above from the Forgotten Realms wiki (which is often used for lore reference) asserts that “wild” elves have “darker pigmentation”--a frankly horrifying example of the same problem with the drow characterization equating savagery, or lack of civilization, with dark skin colors. It’s... bad. It looks bad and it is bad.

Furthermore, the ‘good’ elves (and this itself has to be interrogated) are “naturally slender and athletic,” and constantly being characterized as beautiful. We’re equating elves with thinness and apparent youthfulness--you’ll never hear about the beauty of gnomes, for example, who are just as long-lived but who continue to age at a human-ish rate (making them extremely old-looking by the end of their lifespan). Looking young, thin, and athletic combined with the goodness, grace, and artistic nature of elves creates 1) a very human-esque image of beauty that elves almost surely shouldn’t possess, and 2) a serious problem of describing most elves as “good and beautiful” and drow as “evil”. 

“Although they can be haughty, elves are generally gracious even to those who fall short of their high expectations—which is most non-elves.”

“Most of the gods accepted Corellon’s mutability and passionate behavior, but these traits infuriated Gruumsh, the greatest of the orc gods.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p. 35

The PHB has a subsection on elven attitudes toward other races, specifically dwarves, halflings, and humans. This subsection is comprised of backhanded compliments: dwarves are stupid and clumsy but brave and good craftworkers, humans go much too fast but they’re good at accomplishing stuff, etc. In MToF, we see the “elven perspective” that if elves are reincarnated souls of their ancestor elves, then half-elves are a reincarnated but weak elf, a human soul in an elf-ish body, or a “true elf” trapped in a half-body until freed by death, all basically bummers. And don’t get me started on orcs, where their god was the cause of the bloodshed that created the first elves. 

In the official lore, elves look down on everyone, all the time, for just about any reason. And those reasons almost always fall into (you guessed it!) racial stereotyping!! 

There’s no discernible reason for elves to be as “haughty” as they are. Apparently they’re just so perfect that it’s impossible to live up to their expectations. I guess.

And that’s not even getting into the concept of eternally punishing all elves for apparently disagreeing with Corellon, all of one (1) single time. It’s... horrific. Reading up on the reincarnation cycle has only convinced me that it’s designed as a unique torture where elves have to spend their childhood totally aware of how they betrayed their primary deity in a past life, then when they “sleep” or trance out they also relive those memories, and then forget them just in time to die and be forced to spend up to millennia pondering how Corellon is upset with them. And that’s the elves who get reincarnated! The drow live shorter lives, and will never reach the apparent paradise of Arvandor. They just go to some other afterlife plane, presumably the one reigned over by an evil spider goddess.

Like. That’s so awful and grimdark, and steps all over the “elves are descended from the fey” thing, but more than that?

It’s horribly unimaginative. It’s just so boring in comparison to all the potential an elf society contains. (not to mention it’s wayyyy too focused on the cosmic side of things rather than a societal view.)

Reimagining Elves

yeah, so, given that we’re scrapping... pretty much all the elf lore.... I’d be remiss in not providing some cooler, more inventive options. As always, you can always choose to craft your own, but here are some ideas to get the gears turning.

Racial interactions: Elves live in close communities composed of one’s extended family, and place a lot of emphasis on family ties and the political relationships between elf families. These family communities tend toward conservatism, with the elders of the family deciding things like marriages, suitable careers, etc. 

Marrying outside the complicated political machinations of elven culture is verboten, so having half-elf children is especially off-limits. Or leave that whole hangup in the lorebooks entirely! Maybe having loads of half-elf children, especially by multiple humans, is super popular because then you can get your political influence into many different places! Who knows! 

But also, any culture that doesn’t lean into this community structure is seen as totally incomprehensible and not worth bothering with. Too many failed marriages with orcs who don’t understand things like “individual property rights”.

Aesthetics: Elves tend to do artsy stuff, but their definition of “art” is... unusual, for most other races. They carve large boulders in the woods and just... leave them there for travelers to find, or manipulate the growth of vines to take shapes like one of an elf drawing a bow, or weave a glimmering silver net of fine thread and hang it from the trees like a dew-speckled spiderweb. They’re reclusive, living in artists enclaves. 

They might dress in loud colors, play screamo music because it’s “expressive”, and paint their faces with blocky shapes because it’s “an avant-garde reflection of the soul.” Go wild. 

Elves can be chubby, elves can be fat, elves can be buff, elves can be light and dark-skinned, elves can glow in the dark, elves can be disabled, elves can be chronically ill (actually, imagine elves with disabilities or illness creating the most pretentious medical aids or training like. a direwolf as a service animal. cause they’re that extra.), elves can be tall or short or whatever. just make sure they have pointy ears (unless...)

Subrace differences, gender: different elf communities have very different views on gender; none of which are “there are two immutable genders/sexes.” for instance, high elves might have a rigid 2-gender system, but it mostly relies on sets of stereotypes and social roles that adolescent elves have to choose as they mature, and then they’re ‘locked in’ for the rest of their life, and they’re seriously looked down on for violating those rules one gender is not valued over another, but they’re rigid systems. 

wood elves may have a ‘what’s a gender’ approach instead, but then any elf who comes up with a gender identity for themself is suspected of wanting to be like those snobbish high elves or something. 

The drow are inclined to have lots of genders, but there’s a clear hierarchy that places “femininity” (by an elf definition) above other gender presentations in emulation of their goddess, Lolth. 

Subrace differences, food: Elves divide themselves by how they cultivate their food. Wood elves cultivate “wild” foods by feeding meat and dairy-producing animals and taking care of naturally occurring plants, and harvesting from the technically-untamed world when they need supplies. 

High Elves have gardens and livestock pens, which are typically exquisitely maintained, but they don’t eat meat; all animals are strictly for dairy and textiles. 

Drow have a collectivist system of crop production, which involves sustainable growing practices on the lands they own aboveground and harvesting at night. They keep animals to eat weeds, bees to pollinate and for honey, and spiders that catch pest insects that would damage the crops.

Religion/Ancestry: some elves believe their elf gods shaped them from the fey, some believe they were descended from the fey and the gods adopted them, and others insist that evolution is fake and the gods created them from whole cloth and the fey thing is just a coincidence.

Weapons: Elves train with weapons because it is: an artform (weapon dancing), a skill competition, an environmental necessity (either for hunting or for battle), or what have you.

The drow, as a whole: you get to choose one. Either the drow are evil, or the drow are dark-skinned, or neither of those are true (on like, a subrace level. individual drow can be whatever). Anyway. If the drow aren’t evil (the better option anyway), they weren’t exiled to the Underdark. Obviously. but a significant portion of the elven population is descended from winter eladrin/the Unseelie Court, and as a result they are allergic to sunlight to varying degrees, so they’ve made a home underground. They worship the spider goddess because she taught them to weave clothing from the web of giant spiders that live in the Underdark. Let Lolth be the goddess of practical craftwork, rather than art for art’s sake, a goddess of knowledge and advancement instead of murder and savagery.

Obviously you can use any and all of these in your own campaign. If you don’t use them, have fun making up your own lore that is clearly superior to existing WotC elf lore!

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Dr. Stone

Sometimes I wonder if I’m turning into an anime hipster. When you’ve seen as much of the medium as I have, you start seeing all the patterns and tropes that most of the popular stuff employs, and the same things that once amazed you now come off as commonplace and trite. More and more I find myself enjoying the shows that slip a little under the radar, while the big seasonal fare everyone flocks to has a bigger chance of leaving me cold. Maybe I’m growing jaded and cynical, maybe this just hasn’t been a particularly good year for anime (certainly this fall season has been a flop and a half), or maybe I just need to catch up on all the shows that everyone’s been banging on about from 2019. Hell, I haven’t even watched Demon Slayer, Kaguya-Sama or Vinland Saga yet, it’s definitely far too soon to write the entirety of popular anime off. So if I’m not as over the moon for Dr. Stone as everyone else seems to be, perhaps it’s because I know anime’s capable of far more impressive, imaginative, important accomplishments than a mostly competent adaptation of a goofy shonen property. But as I’m so often fond of saying, sometimes just being good enough can be, well, good enough, And whatever else one might say about Dr. Stone, it is, at the very least, good enough.

Dr. Stone’s biggest strength is easily the uniqueness of its premise, and the way it uses that premise to tell a kind of story you don’t see that often. A mysterious event causes the entire human race to become petrified into stone statues all at once, and as years pass, nature reclaims the entirely of human civilization. By the time the first petrified human is revived, it’s four thousand years later and the world has been reduced back to its natural, prehistoric state. Thankfully, this first revival is Senku Ishigami, a teenage super-genius who’s so absurdly smart he was able to keep exact track of how long he’d been petrified by counting the seconds he was locked in that stone cocoon. Human civilization may have fallen, but every incredible thing we’ve accomplished throughout six thousand years of recorded history is still there in Senku’s head. And after reviving a couple of his classmates to ally with, Senku sets out on a mission to restore all the petrified people and rebuild the entirely of human civilization from the ground up, using nothing but his extensive knowledge of all things Science(tm). Can he and his friends fast-track their way through millennia of societal evolution while staying alive in an untamed, hostile new world?

So essentially, Dr. Stone is a survivalist Bill Nye shonen adventure where the appeal comes not from power levels and flashy fights, but from watching this smart-ass Mensa wannabee Macguyver his way through countless technological breakthroughs, using the natural ingredients of the world itself to build a smorgasboard of inventions from the ground up. That’s a really creative idea for a long-running story, and this show makes full use of how fucking cool basic engineering and chemistry can be. We take a lot for granted in today’s modern world, and it’s only when everything is stripped back to its roots like this that you really come to appreciate how goddamn cool it was that humanity was able to figure out all these crazy applications for nature’s basic resources. Over the course of these episodes, we get to see how everything from soap to pulley systems to medicine to fancy food to freaking record players gets made, and the logic behind their construction is all sound enough that you can really believe Senku could pull this off. There’s a real giddiness to this show’s creative spirit, reminiscent of a kid breaking out the chemistry kit and figuring out what wild creations they can pull off with the limited tools at their disposal.

And through rebuilding all these scientific breakthroughs, Dr. Stone makes you truly appreciate how incredible the things we take for granted truly are. There’s a character with poor eyesight who Senku ends up recreating glasses for, and as someone who’s been wearing glasses for over a decade, I was shocked by how emotional I got when she puts the glasses on and sees clearly for the first time in her life. I’ve barely thought about the importance of glasses in my life at all, but that one moment truly made me appreciate how much better my life has been with the ability to see clearly. There’s a genuine power to science and progress, a power to improve lives, deepen our appreciation of the world around us, and make us better, more thoughtful people in the process. And Senku’s journey to restore all the progress civilization’s made in the past few millennia helps you appreciate just how impactful all our commonplace inventions really are. A single light bulb illuminating the jungle makes you realize how incredible it is that we have reliable light sources at our disposal that we can control with the press of a button. A silly little ramen stand makes you appreciate how cool it is that we made fine cuisine out of the basic necessity of food. If there’s one thing I really appreciate Dr. Stone for, it’s for helping me better appreciate how goddamn good we have it in today’s world, and how we still have the potential to make it even better by carrying on the march of scientific progress.

So if I have so much praise for Dr. Stone’s central conceit and its execution, then why am I otherwise so ambivalent about the show at large? Well, it’s kind of a combination of factors, but it mostly all boils down to the fact that as good as this show’s scientific storytelling is, it’s trapped in a show that tends to feel highly pedestrian and shallow otherwise. The background art and music are both very pretty and sell the beauty and wonder of this future prehistoric world, but the actual animation is incredibly stiff, relying on punchy facial expressions and impact frames to cover for how little motion there actually is. Unfortunately, the moment-to-moment pacing is pretty draggy on top of that, with jokes that grate on for too long and punchlines that follow too slowly on top of their setup, so the admittedly creative facial expressions can only do so much. On top of that, pretty much all the vocal performances are turned up to 11, and a good chunk of the characters can be seriously grating as a result. The whole affair’s trying so had to be waaaaaacky and silly that it far too often tips over into obnoxiousness, to the point where you just want everyone to shut up, stop sucking on so much helium, and take a deep breath before getting back to business at a more measured timbre. Thankfully, Senku himself manages to be funny in his exaggerated mannerisms and speech more often than the vast majority of the cast, in no small part thanks to Yuusuke Kobayashi’s vocal performance grounding him in just the right balance of slimeball preening, flamboyant posturing, and actual gravitas. Considering Kobayashi brought very similar energy to Re:Zero’s Natsuki Subaru, with similarly winning results, this was pretty much a perfect casting choice. It’s just a shame that few of the other voice actors are able to strike a similarly effective balance.

I guess my overall point is, Dr. Stone is a very good concept with a very good execution of that concept, but it’s hindered by the juvenile, unfocused slurry of show surrounding it. And I’m at the point of my anime-watching habits where I pay as much attention to the craft of the show itself as the story that show exists to facilitate. Maybe if I was younger, Dr. Stone’s expertly crafted central thesis would have been enough to get me just as hyped for it as everyone else seems to be. As is, though, while I’m definitely frustrated by how much better this show could have been, that central thesis still really damn works, and that’s enough to make it worth a recommendation regardless. We could use more shonen that eschew the classic battle formula in favor of more experimental story frameworks like this one. Not every show that can make the invention of glasses feel as genuinely meaningful as Deku smacking down bad guys with finger-snapping effort. So for all its faults, there’s still enough of value to Dr. Stone for me to award it a score of:

6/10

And with that, we’re almost done with the leftovers of the summer season! I’ve just got one more summer short reflection to get to, and, well, let’s just say I’m going to be... far less forgiving on that one. Until next time!

[theloniousbach]

Into the New Year for Jazz

I have submitted the following to a dear friend who runs the jazz show on Toledo Public Radio for inclusion on the website.  

INTO 2020 WITH JAZZ SPECTRUM

Even as I gladly accept these invitations to sum up the year or, even this time, the decade, I don’t quite do as I’m told and so don’t color between the lines I’ve been given.  Sorry.

Like you, our listeners, I rely on Jazz Spectrum to introduce me to current developments and to fill in gaps between 1982, say, and 2015 when, alas, jazz wasn’t my primary listening.  It is again in no small measure due to this show that I am back in this wonderful game.  I am developing enough current knowledge to be on the lookout for current players (let’s start with the members of Artemis who do fascinating work individually and collectively--more shortly) and trends, but I’m not auditioning dozens of recordings every week, putting together a four hour show, and doing all the work that makes the show such a resource.

So I don’t have a best of 2019 or best of the 2010s to offer.  But, I do have some thoughts..  So, bear with me, or don’t and go re/read our host’s more fine grained observations.

In thinking about the impact on hip hop on this music, I offhandedly texted my old friend that jazz has always been fusion music.  I didn’t happen to have a teenager bring home the latest incarnation of African American popular music, rhythm, and rebellion, so I’m learning about it indirectly when I see Terence Blanchard, Robert Glaspar, and Stefon Harris.  Brilliant players all of them with crack bands and a deep grounding in the wider tradition from which they can bring the new energy into the music.  Today I prefer pianos to guitars and acoustic instruments to electric ones, with little affinity for vocoders, looping, and effects.  The beats are infectious and jazz drummers are amazing for their huge ears and magical abilities to move the beat around, using the timbres of the drums to comment on everything the rest of the band is doing.  As an example I was just able to watch Nate Smith+Kinfolk via live streaming from our local club.  He was a dynamo with as much energy and power as the rest of the band--solid and smooth as they are--combined.

Hip hop has to be part of what propels this rhythmic invention.  If my kid perversely stuck with our traditional English and Celtic folk music, then, that I don’t get hip hop from him is my problem, not jazz’s. I embraced my generation’s fusions--rock, funk--and went back to Latin, Afro Cuban, rhythm and blues, show tunes, Third Stream, gospel, blues, and ragtime and saw them come into jazz.  So I’m prepared intellectually at least to welcome these latest developments.  These fusions have made and remade jazz, so yes it’s always been fusion music.

But let me borrow an idea from my quarter century looking at evolutionary biologist Edgar Anderson who worked at the Missouri Botanical Garden from 1922-1969.  His signature idea was that repeated backcrossing is as important a source of genetic variation as mutations and thus gives natural selection something to work on.  To apply it to jazz, it was jazz before and after Dizzy Gillespie started playing with Chano Pozo, but now we have Cuban and Latin and African rhythms in everyone’s musical DNA.  All sorts of tunes from all sorts of players now can just naturally take on a Latin feel.  It’s part of jazz that then continues to listen with its big big ears.

What has always excited me are these hybridizations and that is what will continue to invigorate the music into the 2020s.Kodri Gopalnath who died this October was not a jazz musician, but he brought the saxophone to Carnatic (Indian) classical music.  Rudresh Mahanthappa studied with him and brought that tradition into his playing.  It’s there now all the time whether in his reimagining of Charlie Parker on his 2015 album “Bird Calls” or with Rez Abassi in the Indo-Pak Coalition or his own “just jazz” gigs.  This quote from his Wikipedia article captures this idea of introgressive hybridization:  “In a 2011 interview with Westword newspaper about the resulting album, Samdhi, Mahanthappa said, "my idea was to take whatever I learned—take that knowledge—and really put in a setting that has nothing to do with Indian classical music.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudresh_Mahanthappa

Since some of Miles Davis’s 1970s work incorporated sitars and tablas and remembering John Coltrane’s “India,” this music has been in the mix for decades.  It prompted a “Miles from India” two-CD set from 2008.  I try to keep an eye on Mahanthappa, Abassi (recording 1970s fusion tunes acoustically is damned clever), and especially Vijay Iyer to watch how jazz varies and is enriched.  I saw Iyer with his trio in 2016 catching extended hypnotic improvisations, one phased into “Epistrophy” before churning on.  He has recorded in lots of other settings, including duos with Wadada Leo Smith and Craig Taborn and with a sextet.  It is important music.

That’s one hybridization that backcrosses into jazz.  Another is with Middle Eastern, including Israeli, music.Abdul Al-Malik recorded on oud as well as bass in the late 1950s and early 1960s and Anour Brahem played oud with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette on “Blue Maqams” in 2017.  Those are first generation crosses.  It’s when someone like Omer Avital plays jazz informed by his Israeli upbringing that the introgression happens, when there are new scales, new rhythms to incorporate.  Avital’s own albums and with the OAM trio (including a set with the intriguing tenor Mark Turner) are favorites.  I also owe Jazz Spectrum an exposure to the Chicago trumpeter Amir ElSaffar and his Two Rivers Project which explores his Iraqi roots in a jazz context.

Anat Cohen is an exuberant player, exuding joy at what she and her bands do.  She has played with her brothers, Avishai and Yuval, with lots of Israeli in the mix, but she has Brazilian and Edith Piaf too.  She is in the multinational band Artemis: two Canadians--leader Renee Rosnes and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, Chilean Melissa Aldana on tenor, bassist Noriko Ueda from Japan, and the lone American, and the amazing drummer Alison Miller.  Their debut album, probably with Cecile McLorin Salvant, will be a highlight of the coming year as their run here in St. Louis this October was.

I am particularly astounded by what drummers are doing these days.  Of course, there are sources--Max Roach, Jack DeJohnette’s insistent but subtle cymbals--and Art Blakely and Elvin Jones were not simply powerful engines driving the band.  But Miller is a fine example of, call it, “melodic drumming” where each drum/brush stroke is perfectly placed on the drum head, cymbal, even rim or side of the drum, to deliver not just a beat but a harmonic/melodic comment on the rest of the band.  There are so so many players and they make just about every show I see special.  Witnessing the magic in the making is why live performance is so much richer than recordings.

But to return to hybridizations, starting at least with Mid East ones, let me focus on London as a key world center for this music.  Precisely as the still Metropolitan center of a thankfully fading empire (Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for), it is a hybrid zone.  Yazz Ahmed is a Bahrani-Brit whose trumpet playing is enriched as she explores her Arab heritage.  She does exciting stuff and has followed up “La Saboteuse” with “Polyhymnia” this year.  Shabaka Hutchings has Barbadian heritage and brings that to his tenor and several key projects in the London scene.  I’m drawn to the intensity of Sons of Kemet where he solos over Theon Cross’s tuba and two drummers, but Hutchings also works with The Comet Is Coming and The Ancestors.  I’m a sucker for low brass, so I keep an eye on Cross too and he has his own FYAH released and is in the SEED Ensemble.

That London is a major jazz center is a development worth monitoring.  I think it speaks to the vibrancy of this music and the role of these hybridizations in keeping it so exciting.

I am eager for the 2020s.

[lairofsentinel]

that bi post is interesting- i guess i have a third pov tho. ive seen some people use bi in a "new" way, to mean stuff like "attracted to women and nb people", "to men and nb people" or "attracted to several genders but not necessarily all" and so on, but also to mean, yeah, pan. and ngl thats cool. i think bi's pretty much a neat catchall for multisexuals of all kind, a bit like how queer is a catchall for anyone not cis or straight, and historically bi even used to group ace people too.

i reread your tags three times and actually it seems that we agree- i guess im just tempted to say that while everyone agrees on the meaning of pan, some people however use it differently to reflect their experience better. but unlike most people i dont view it as a bad thing but way more as something great because people can talk about their experience without feeling bound by, well, limits and definitions and blah i guess ? and as a trans person i find this great and important, not transphobic

Hello there,

thank you for sharing your pov.

I mean, the “new” way sure has a lot to do with “in which country you live”. Here, where I live, people is not using bi-pan in any new different way. But I've seen/read certain strange uses online. [the funniest use and also the only one that annoyed me was, time ago, when some weird straight people started to say: “I'm bisexual, but I only like men/women”.... like... what? How that bisexuality works? XD, but anyway, I'm nobody to go as a gender/sexuality police. Pft, I can't even speak English properly in a discussion. xD]. Also, years ago, some weird people started to say that pansexuality included trans people, while bisexuality no, so they kind of enforced the concept that “bisexuality ” had a transphobic root in its own... which is stupid, since statistics shows that trans people has quite more chances to be in a relationship with a bi/pan partner than a gay/hetero one... so.... soooooo......really crazy the way people spread misinformation. 

The meaning of the tags... well... it's long: I can't be anything else but chill about the enormous amount of words that LGBT community has crafted along these last years, because sure, we all want to have the exact right word for us, to condense all our complexity in a single word XD. But let's be honest, no way that would happen, ever. So, until people “discovered” [or more like accepted] that gender and sexuality are a spectrum and are more complex than 3 or 4 words, we developed a lot of words along the way, and made use of the same word with several different uses, making of this world a more complex one [because we are never satisfied with our own :P]. And I'm not even counting on the fact of those “re-appropriated” words that were a slur previously, back in time, such as queer. Those words are a whole lot of mess. 

Two simple examples:

A friend of mine at work is a bisexual woman [happily married with her wife

Another case: I, for example, feel super weird with labels. I'm nb, I give a fuck to any word of any gender. But I live in a Spanish speaking country and.... the HELL with the strongly gendered languages... I keep jumping from masculine to feminine or using the “new” neutral forms with -e [that all puritans hate and fight me for that]. But still yet, I keep using the word gay [in English, because at least it's more neutral than any other], because for the world, I'm a gender that can't be hidden once I speak [you know, damn voice] and I kind of be attracted to people of the “same” gender that everyone attaches to me [I said it in that way, because I'm more like a demy-gay, but forget to use demisexual here, nobody knows shit XD]. So... the obvious, shortest way, and efficient way to get rid of that problem every time I have to deal with that [aka, some person asks me with a reasonable argument that doesnt make me to toss them away], it's the word gay. But again, not even that means what it usually means, in my case. But again, imagine explaining all this shit, all the time, every time someone asks me with good reasons?. No way, I'll get bored of all that jabber.

So, these 2 single examples are to explain that... well, LGBT identity words, today, are a mess. Especially if you start adding those trans-masculine and trans-feminine and a lot of extra adjectives.... to me it's more confusing to understand what that person truly is, but what it's clear with that is that such person has a complex identity that wants to be acknowledged. So, if I know this, and if it's relevant for some valid [aka non-creepy] reason, I would ask to understand exactly the shade they mean, so I can acknowledge them properly. Because every gender and sexuality is a mess by its own. We will never get one single word that can embrace it wholly. I know some lucky people got it, they are gay, and cis, or trans and hetero and they are super fine with that...and I'm happy for them, they don't need extra explanations for describe their genders and sexualities xD.

That's why my tags were like that. Pansexuality appeared some decades ago [it's a super young word], specially in countries that are not USA [which it is the country that everything usually revolts around, here in tumblr]. Pan is a super new word, that mostly young people would be more inclined to use. It's more meaningful for young people [maybe. This is not a must. More like an average estimation.]

It's like queer. The oldest LGBT people, with USA-background, will probably hate it to use it. They attached to that word a slur shade that pierced their lives, it's too harmful even to use as a re-appropriated word. Yet, young people love it. Specially people without usa-background. Some of them can't even fathom the hard history meaning behind it.  

Well, queer word, outside the history, is a whole mess in its own XD. What does a person mean when they say that they are queer? Are they gay? Are they trans? Are they nb? . Nobody knows. And it's ok, the clear meaning in that word is “look, I'm not cis and/or hetero”. And that's the way it works. I like to use it sometimes too, now that it has been popularised in the South hemisphere thanks to the influences of Butler. 

So, yeah, we agreed, anon. XDI tried to say the same as you in my messy tags. I wrote that because sometimes I find such a nerdrage about the **chastity** or the **purity** of languages with this mess of words, or the annoyance of people that don't know the 52 labels at our disposal to describe the LGBT experience. And I simply say that it's okay not to know all of that, and not to force or stress into picking one, because most probably, you will not get it completely explained in one single word, since words, despite being 52, are limited, and sexuality and gender is a whole mess with flavours, colours and shits, that—even worse—may change with time xD.

So... the most mature attitude I think someone can take about this mess is to relax about those labels, pick the ones they think fits better for them, and understand that everyone has their own gender/sexuality, and that label may not suffice, so, when it's relevant, it's ALWAYS important to speak honestly. Yeah, all this textwall could never enter into the tags. xD.

[johnnymundano]

Sorority Row (2009)

Directed by Stewart Hendler

Written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger

Based on The House on Sorority Row by Mark Rosman

Music by Lucian Piane

Country: United States

Language: English

Running Time: 101 minutes

CAST

Briana Evigan as Cassidy Tappan

Leah Pipes as Jessica Pierson

Rumer Willis as Ellie Morris

Jamie Chung as Claire Wen

Margo Harshman as Charlene "Chugs" Bradley

Julian Morris as Andy Richards

Audrina Patridge as Megan Blaire

Caroline D'Amore as Maggie Blaire

Carrie Fisher as Mrs. Crenshaw

Matt O'Leary as Garrett Bradley

Matt Lanter as Kyle Tyson

Maxx Hennard as Mickey

Rick Applegate as Senator Tyson

Ken Bolden as Dr. Rosenburg

Nicole Moore as Joanna

Deja Kreutzberg as Riley

Natalia Dove as Bucky

Debra Gordon as Mrs. Tappan

Sorority Row is a decently entertaining 2009 re-imagining of the 1983 non-classic slasher flick The House on Sorority Row. My suspicion is there must have been some kind of creative drought in Hollywood prior to 2009, as that year also saw the re-imagining of the 1981 non-classic slasher flick My Bloody Valentine, with both following hot on the heels of the 2008 re-imagining of the 1980 non-classic slasher flick Prom Night. Maybe it was just a knock-on effect of the 2007 writers’ strike over digital content compensation; a dearth of original scripts leading to money and talent being chucked at cobwebby, low risk properties. I don’t know, maybe it just affected TV, but it’s always fun to remind people that strikes can work, and you don’t just have to put up with shit. Whatever, in Sorority Row we have an old-school slasher movie reunion.

Sorority Row is fine as a glossy polish job on an old-school slasher flick, maybe a little better than fine, since it is well acted by a capable cast and has some vivid kills. I don’t really set the bar too high for slasher flicks and Sorority Row clears it easily; I laughed, I winced, I rolled my eyes, I did all three at once and scared the cat; job done. Not being American though, Sorority Row works as both an old-school slasher flick and an alternate reality movie. For overseas viewers Sorority Row is set in a strangely clean world where everyone is rich and their children are all gorgeous sociopaths. Someone like Paul Verhoeven could push this stuff into a dark satire, no problem. But, alas, Paul Verhoeven never graced a slasher flick with his presence, so here we get Stewart Hendler. Mr Hendler's main interest in Sorority Row is not social commentary but having his camera sway boozily about like a creepy middle aged guy leering his way through sexy teen parties of unbridled animalistic hedonism. These (very long) party scenes of boorish keg chugging and hot tub rutting to the blaring beat of unmemorable toons, are not really my idea of a good time, basically, but the horrible inhabitants of Sorority Row sure like ‘em.

In fact so much into partying are the girls of the Theta Pi sorority that I’m not sure what any of them are studying; maybe Advanced Bitchery and Post-Modern Vajazzling? Anyway, whatever they were studying (Applied Self-Involvement?) tonight’s the night our eye-catching yet soulless ghouls graduate so it’s pa-art-ay tah-haym! Woop! Woop! That’s the sound of your self-respect throwing up in a rosebush. But (dun-dun-DUNNNN!) tonight might also be the last night of their lives. No, not because they might choke on their own vomit or fall coked-up-face-first through a glass table, but because a maniac wants them dead! Actually I imagine a lot of people want this bunch of plasticised horrors dead, but someone is actually acting on this desire, with a “pimped up” tire iron no less. Can they find out who, before the next class reunion has to be held in an urn?

Sorority Row is an old-school slasher movie so, no, no, they can’t. What happens, because it is an old-school  slasher movie, is most of the high maintenance cast run about purposelessly, squabbling and doing stupid things until they die in inventive ways and the killer basically just reveals themselves because, well,  it’s that time in the old-school slasher movie when the killer reveals themselves. Good luck to anyone who still thinks there are going to be fogeyish things like “clues”. It is possible to  guess the killer in an old-school slasher flick because it’s usually the person the movie can’t stop telling you it isn’t. Even so, it’s still only a guess. When it comes to old-school slasher movies even Sherlock Holmes might as well just fire a harpoon gun at a list of character names.

Luckily, although the who is in doubt, they don’t have to find out why they are being killed since that’s obvious even to this bunch of ambulatory moral vacuums. Sorority Row is a retread of an old-school slasher movie so obviously it all starts with a prank. In the normal world a prank is writing “wanker” on someone’s forehead while they are asleep, or putting cellophane over the hole in the toilet seat. In the old-school slasher movie universe a prank involves giving your mate roofies and having her boyfriend snog her until she brings up fake puke and pretends to pass out. Then you bundle her, your mates and the scared boyfriend into your car that cost more than my house, and drive off pretending to look for a hospital, but instead going to a disused mine out of range of a mobile signal, where you declare your friend dead. This isn’t convoluted or hilariously prank-tastic enough for the unlovely ladies of Theta Pi, so they push it a bit further and it all goes horribly, fatally wrong. When the dust settles the girls are bound by a terrible secret and estranged from one of their number, who is slightly less awful than the others (you are supposed to root for this one). Now the past has come back to kill them and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets a flare gun in the face.

I’m guessing the characters (except Carrie Fisher’s pretty great, pretty funny, House Mother) are so godawful only so that we can get off on their sadistic deaths. This strikes me as being less than healthy. But then the Surgeon General has yet to endorse any old-school slasher flick for its beneficial medicinal properties. Let’s just call it cathartic, that usually works. As nasty as Sorority Row is, luckily for it there is a strong undercurrent of humour; so we can pretend it’s all just good clean fun.  And so like many old-school slasher flicks it is indeed nasty unclean fun; it’s just not very scary. In fact the scariest part is provided by Rumer Willis, who is in it as the mousy one, but it doesn’t occur in the movie; when you look at Sorority Row’s “trivia” section on the streaming service, it tells you Rumer had a poster of her future father-in-law, Ashton Kutcher, on her wall before he married her mum. Ugh! You don’t have to have been to college to think even Freud might throw up at that.

[trainthief]

Hey I was wondering if you'd ever consider doing like a top 20 fav classical music albums or composers list or something. Obviously if that just sounds stressful disregard this but I know you are like, into classical music & I grew up with my parents playing it & recently got, like, into the classical station but aside from like 3 artists I like I don't know where to start & I like your blog and would be interested in hearing about like, your taste

Sorry for responding to this so late, I’ve had a real week and I wanted to make sure I had time to put some thought into answering this ask. I’d definitely love to help, I always like recc’ing classical stuff to people! The idea of 20 absolute all time favorites is a difficult one for me because I love so much stuff and it’s really difficult to compare like… Caroline Shaw’s modern experimental chorale stuff to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Anyway, instead I will give you some full length pieces in different styles that I think are great for new listeners, and explain a little about what each one is doing and what I love about it, and some more pieces I recommend if you enjoy what you’re hearing. Hopefully that will help! 

In no particular order: 

Appalachian Spring by Copland: Let’s just get this one out of the way up front. If you’ve been following me for any amount of time at all, you know I’m deeply in love with Copland. He essentially invented the American compositional style by adding jazz elements to the established practices, which caused an absolute uproar at the beginning of his career as people then considered it an unholy mix of high and low culture. He doubled down on this concept when he wrote “Fanfare For The Common Man” which essentially stands as a celebration of the working class and those who couldn’t afford to see the symphony anyway. He was, I should also note, both gay and Jewish. A real icon. Anyhow, although I love so much of his work and could go on forever, I consider listening to Appalachian Spring in its entirety a spiritual experience, no exaggeration. Take it on a hike, listen to it while you look at the trees and think about whatever crosses your mind, and by the time the Coda hits you… well I personally can’t tell you what experience to have, but I feel for a second like I can see and be seen. Anyway, aside from that, just good music, very pretty. If you’d like similar music that incorporated jazz effectively into classical work, I’d of course recommend another favorite of mine: Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. 

Russian Easter Festival by Rimsky-Korsakov: As a general rule of thumb, Russian composers are ALWAYS good for some drama. This piece in particular is great because it’s not only fanfare and excitement, there’s a touch of pastoral calmness that I really love (more on that as a concept later) at the beginning, but we still get plenty of wildness. There’s a frantic octave part the violins play around minute 5 that always makes me want to scream. If you like this, I’d also recommend checking out Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. The man knows how to write sexy. 

Romance in D by Berkey: I recommend this partially because it’s a lesser known and very beautiful piece, and also because it’s a good lead-in to a whole subset of classical called Furniture Music. Essentially called that - originally by the composer Satie - because it’s nice to put on in the background. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun to listen to, and from a compositional and performance standpoint it can still be very impressive. But it’s just good and calming and you could certainly sip tea to it in the restaurant area of a ritzy 1920’s hotel while you read a novel and ignore your rich husband asking if you’d like any marmalade. A good example of the same effect is the soundtrack to Phantom Thread. It’s also good for studying. If you like that conceptually, I’ve got a whole playlist here. 

Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky: A really excellent intro to classical and one of my favorite works, AND like the last one, also a lead-in to an informal format. Pictures was written with the idea that each song was a separate painting that the listener could imagine they were looking at in a museum. For that reason, each one has a different style and personality, and feels very descriptive and exciting. A collection of small related pieces is called a suite, but I haven’t yet been able to find a technical name for that specific kind of storytelling structure within a suite. It’s not uncommon though, and in that same vein I’d also recommend The Planets by Holst (about the planets, as you might assume), and Carnival of the Animals by Saint Saens (about… yeah you get it). 

Spem in Alium by Tallis: We’re taking a wild left turn now and veering into the Christian choral tradition dating back to the 1500s. Like anyone else who isn’t even a Christian, there’s a few things about Catholicism that I’m obsessed with. Namely the hymns and the stained glass. Focusing only on the hymns, Tallis is one of the best examples of polyphonic hymnal work. Polyphonic, essentially, means that the different voices in the piece are moving around each other and will frequently change their notes in a way that will compliment - but is not necessarily in line with - the direction of the piece as a whole. It makes more sense if you just listen. The style, however, was developed in an attempt to capture the idea of the stars and planets circling each other in their own independent orbits, because at the time people had just started to turn their gaze to the sky for answers about their own lives. Aside from that very cool background, I just find the really human side of the choir format in particular paired with the elevation of music being this untouchable but powerful thing paired with the holiness of the concept paired with how awesome the acoustics of a chapel can be…. It’s just a lot. If you like this I’d also recommend Miserere Mei by Allegri, Ave Maris Stella by Dufay, and O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen 

Peter Grimes by Britten: Classical music is so rooted in every musical tradition, and visa versa, that it’s almost impossible to separate it conceptually from a lot of genres. Technically, “classical” refers to a period of time more than it does a genre anyway, but let’s not get pretentious about it. While we’re pushing the boundaries of what can and can’t be included in this list, let’s talk Opera, and specifically Peter Grimes. When asked to describe it, Britten said it was “a subject very close to my heart—the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual.” More specifically the struggle was an allegory for gay oppression, and ironically Britten wrote the lead role with his lifelong partner Peter Pears - an opera singer - in mind. To give a taste without giving too much away, the Prologue establishes that Grimes, a fisherman, is being questioned over the death of his apprentice. The townspeople are all convinced before the questioning even begins that he must have done it, but the coroner decides the death was accidental. Grimes is let free and advised not to get another apprentice, but he of course ignores this…. If the vocal side of opera doesn’t do it for you, there are 4 Sea Interludes from this work that are really great independently. If you want even more opera with even more drama, I’d recommend looking at Tosca or Turandot both by Pucccini. If you think classic opera is too high brow and you want something a little sillier, try Mozart’s Magic Flute. If you want something more new age and weird, try listening to Two Boys by Muhly or selections from Einstein on the Beach by Glass (but probably not all 5 hours, Knee Play 5 and Spaceship would be my top 2). 

Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” by Beethoven: I mentioned earlier when describing the Russian Easter Festival that I love a piece with pastoral calmness. Getting back to that point, I haven’t ever seen one word that’s commonly used to describe this particular sense in a piece, but I personally call it a Pastoral after Beethoven’s 6th. In general, the symphony is one of my favorites as a composer and listener, especially given that it’s really just about taking a walk in nature which is one of only 3 themes music should have anyway in my opinion. A good amount of my music is written with this feeling in mind. Aside from all that context, the first movement in particular is very nice, passionate but not sensational, and is just about being excited to be outside. Nothing wrong with that. This subset of music is probably the most informal of all the ones I’ve listed so far, but if you’d like more “Pastorals,” or pieces that have a nice calm passion to them, I’d also highly recommend Enigma Variations: Nimrod by Elgar, Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis by Vaughan Williams, Once Upon A Time In America by Morricone, Musica Celestis by Kernis, and of course again Appalachian Spring by Copland. (I would also be legally sent to jail if I didn’t mention that while we’re on the subject of Beethoven, his 9th Symphony is generally considered one of the greatest achievements in classical music). 

Rite of Spring by Stravinsky: A lot of these pieces have been good jumping off points into different musical concepts, but with this one I’m sticking my description to the initial piece itself. I got the chance to email with a composer I admire and he at one point described composition not in the sense of writing something “smart”, but in writing something “detailed”. The Rite of Spring is a really great example of detailed composition. It’s extremely experimental with its time changes - essentially the way that you should be counting your notes as a musician constantly changes and always into a pattern that’s difficult to keep track of - and also with its chord structure. The music itself can be jarring and odd to listen to but the composition wasn’t random and when studied shows an obsessive elbows-deep involvement in the work that I really admire. It might not surprise you to hear, however, that at the initial performance the audience was so furious that the lighting technician had to continually flash the lights to confuse them, out of fear of a riot. If you’d like something a bit more fun to listen to by the same composer, however, Firebird is a good one. And if you’d like another great piece that was completely booed off the stage at its premier, I’d recommend Grand Pianola by Adams. 

Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev: While we’re in the general vicinity of ballet, I should get into that deeper. Ballets can have some of the most fun music to listen to because the timing is required to be so much more specific. Romeo and Juliet is a lot of fun, particularly the “Montagues and Capulets” and “Masks” sections. Another great ballet is, of course, The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. I’d also recommend Don Quixote by Minkus, and Rodeo by Copland…. I know I know 

Violin Concerto in D by Tchaikovsky: I said Russians bring the drama, and it’s doubly so when it’s a gay Russian. This piece is a classic example of the solo concerto format, which is a staple of classical as a whole. The setup is a single player on whatever instrument the piece is written for accompanied by an orchestra, and is usually a showcase of technical skill by the soloist. This one in particular is basically THE turning point in a violinist’s studies and just about every violinist learns it as soon as they’re capable of taking it on. Personally I still vividly remember when my teacher finally gave it to me, it’s a very specific sense of accomplishment. Similar examples of the solo concerto format on different instruments would be Piano Concerto in F by Rachmaninoff, and Oboe Concerto in C by Mozart, both of which I absolutely love. 

The Revd Mustard His Installation Prelude by Muhly: I’ve gone on forever so I’m trying to be quick. Nico Muhly is one of my favorite modern composers and Revd Mustard combines his classic ecstatic and constantly moving style with an organ, which I’m a sucker for. Contemporary classical in his style can be difficult to listen to because it’s gotten very experimental and as a result, very complicated. But if you don’t go into it with the expectation that you’re going to hear a structured and logical Mozart-like piece and you instead surrender your opinion until the whole thing has come together for you, it can be really interesting at the very least. As a side note, Nico has collaborated with Sufjan, Bjork, Jonsi, Teitur…. lots of people. You’ve certainly heard him before even if you didn’t know it. For more classical from the last few decades I’d recommend Partita for 8 Singers by Shaw, Tissue No. 7 by Glass, Different Trains by Reich, the Red Violin Concerto by Corigliano (especially because I just saw it live a few days ago and am still reeling), Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Part. Each of which is vastly different, stylistically speaking, but all of which I really love. And for more organ listen to one of my favorite pieces of all time, Symphony 3 by Saint Saens. 

Ok, you know what? I’m cutting myself off because I’ve gone on forever. If you haven’t been put off of asking me questions entirely by now, please feel free if you want even more recommendations in a specific style, or want to know more about something you enjoy. Clearly I love talking about this. Hope that helped!

[zyzzyva1936-blog-blog]

“Lemma the Librarian - Beast of the (Morning) Wood”

Published: February 13, 2016

http://www.mcstories.com/LemmaTheLibrarian/index.html

A little bit of bookkeeping first: this story opens with “In the end we decided to just put that nasty business in Kymri behind us and head for the next book...”. There is a story there*, but it works perfectly well as a noodle incident, so I’m not going to linger. On to the Lovecraft!

This story, I think, crosses the line into straight-up parody. The fact that Gwenneg is the nicest, most benevolent Old One cultist you could ever imagine! (The bit where he reenters the story kindly helping out an injured old man is what put him over the edge for me, although his inability to say the word “sex” despite running an orgiastic cult is also pretty great**.) The consenting sacrificial victim demanding that she be unnecessarily chained to the altar to be ravaged! Rothek-Zarduk, the black beast of the woods with a thousand young perpetually spurting penises! Iason, attempting to cut his own junk off to save the world!

It’s a hilarious story, is my point. For all that “the sun blazed a brilliant purple in a black sky full of gleaming, fat, jewel-colored stars” - which is a pretty great line - and the fact that the village is, in theory, sliding into a chaos dimension where it will be horrifyingly unmade, there’s never any real sense of danger. It’s just too silly to really carry that over.

Which, strangely enough, is vitally important for the sake of advancing the overall arc. Lemma’s conscience and willingness to endure dangers to help others continues to grow, of course, but this is also the one where Lemma and Iason Do It for the first time. If they’d done it without any kind of weird-ass mind control, it’d be anticlimactic and not really fit with the themes of the story; if they’d done it under the influence, it’d be creepy and kinda unpleasant for a romantic couple we’re presumably rooting for. But by having them agree do do it, Lemma get all cock-crazy in the process, and the whole thing be wrapped up in jokes, in a parody so silly as to be impossible to take seriously, we’re over the hump without any real moral qualm at all. It’s a fine needle to thread but @midorikonton carries it off well.

*“Harping on About It”, available on Smashwords and @midorikonton​‘s Patreon. Support your local porn merchants!

**I 100% believe that his acolytes get up to some crazy orgy shit in the woods, and he has not so much as touched any of them. Which is not usual cult-leader behaviour, but it’s a parody and it’s much funnier this way. “Please, master, take us! Take us violently!” “But then who would chant the important ancient chants?” “...Fine. We’ll just be over here, fucking, if you need us. (Jerk.)”

When The Fuck Are We? 🤷

Not as much to say about this one*. We’re in Thumbria, “the northernmost of the Seven Kingdoms”, ie Northumbria, the northernmost of the Heptarchy kingdoms. Name’s a little more mangled than usual, probably because unlike Kyrno, etc, it’s an English name, and unlike Mercia it’s still somewhat in use. The people here mostly seem to have Celtic names again, although they’re also super-rural, so that works in either the “ancient Celtic Britons” or “unassimilated Celtic subjects of Angles” cases. The villagers seem pretty unconcerned about a cultists stealing their daughters off to his weird religion, and once they run out of other options turn to his religion without much qualm. As mentioned before, that kind of casual syncretism is much more of a preclassic thing than a dark ages thing. Chalk one up for the Bronze Age Collapse.

Gods are, of course, period: gods are in pretty much every culture and time. “Demons” are a bit more Christian-tinged (the demons we see later in the series are probably the most explicitly Christian thing in the whole series) but the idea of powerful, malevolent spirits to go with the beneficent ones that get worship are also pretty widespread and thus also period. Great Old Ones... are not. They’re an invention of Lovecraft (and even more, his followers and pastichers) in the 20th C. The closest ancient religions have would probably be the spirits of Chaos destroyed by creator gods at the beginning of various mythologies - Tiamat defeated by Marduk** is the most famous, probably, but lots of others have something similar. But Tiamat is just a big ol’ chaos dragon, not a threat to the structure of the universe itself, and - crucially - is dead. Generally speaking, chaos in ancient myth is something that has been defeated, not something that needs to be kept at bay. Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror springs from very modern concerns; it’s nihilistic and hopeless and very anti-humanocentric, which is a fundamentally alien view to any of the cultures we’ve been talking about in the historical sections.

On the other hand, Lovecraft has soaked into modern fantasy pretty deeply, if only in the cliched monsters with “eyes on tentacles and tentacles with mouths on the end and eyes that were also mouths” sense, and without that we’d miss out on “we’d all go insane, dissolve, and die, though the order in which those would happen was up for grabs.” So I think it’s worth it in this case.

*Ironically, I could probably ramble for a long time about bardic culture for “Harping on About It”. Frustratingly for my timeline-establishing efforts, there’s also a character that runs around screaming “we’re in the sixth century! We’re in the sixth century!” But I committed to only writing about the publicly available stuff.

**Which, according to the author’s note, is part of the etymology for “Rothek-Zarduk”, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around. Although Marduk’s role in that myth is of the conqueror of primordial chaos, rather than its embodiment.

~ Next time: Lemma gets mindfucked, as usual, but so does the reader, hoo boy. I am driven entirely mad, and talk about Thomas the Tank Engine.