#which implies that romantic love is some kind of different entity entirely and takes its own time to grow
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btw this is kinda random but like i've been using ace as a label for a minute now (at least, on here lol) but i am like now to the point where im not sure if im also aro or not. i've narrowed the ace label down to what im fairly certain is grey-ace but like. im in a position that im sure many have found themselves in before where i cannot meaningfully distinguish between romantic and platonic love and thus can't figure it out. which means that if nothing else, i believe in aros' beliefs, but like does not get me any closer to self-identification lmfao
the good news is that it doesn't rly matter so i don't need to make a decision at all (and if i do i can always change it later), but i can't help but think about it fairly often tbh
#ik most of you reading this post are probably on the level when it comes to understanding amatonormativity#but like here's a hypothetical scenario i keep getting stuck on: say you have a friend who you regularly say 'i love you' to and mean it#then say you start dating this friend#i think generally speaking the etiquette is that you can't start saying i love you again until you've been together long enough#which implies that romantic love is some kind of different entity entirely and takes its own time to grow#separate from the platonic love that was already there#im not sure if i need to explain why that is extremely confusing#like.... and how exactly do you make that call? when is the turning point? you already loved them......#the whole concept of romance has a tendency of falling apart under scrutiny like that#and that makes me feel like aromanticism is a possibility#but that doesn't mean i wouldn't still want a 'romantic' (whatever that means) relationship in life#and so you can see how im still kinda puzzling it all out#if u read all of this ramble i love u <3 (romantically or platonically? who knows?)#bri babbles
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Ooh, I'd love to hear about Strange Horticulture or the White Road!
Strange Horticulture is a video game. It’s quirky and chill and atmospheric. You run a plant shop, receive mail, find cryptic notes in your desk from the previous owner, and make concoctions from your plants to sell to customers. Periodically you get to travel and source new plants for your shop. It rains often. It feels very Victorian. You can water and rearrange your potted plants. You have a cat.
I’m aware that by making Harry a plant shop owner, I’m pulling him pretty far from his canon blueprint. That’s more the kind of thing Neville would do. But I think I can make it work. I love the idea of how much Lily could have influenced Harry with her Potions expertise. I easily imagine little Harry tagging along with his mother when she set off into the woods to find mushrooms and sap and plants, etc, and help her chop and brew. The fact that you do get to make potions fits in nicely.
It's been a while since I’ve played the game so I’m stretching my memory, but the protagonist has memory problems that seem to hint toward something big and dramatic and there is a cult in the town that is trying to resurrect some kind of demon and you’re kinda in the middle of it.
ALSO, I recently read (and bounced off of cuz I wasn’t enjoying it) Into the Woods by Tana French. In that story when the main character was a child, he and his friends were in the woods and were attacked. The two friends are never found again and the survivor has lost all memories of the event. That was a very compelling idea to me and it’s something I’m mulling about in regards to this story, especially if I decide to lean into the memory loss/amnesia that is implied in the game. But I also may not do any of that. Or I may go down an entirely different road.
I don’t have a whole lot of ideas yet for this one, so I’ll just list some of the big ones down below.
Instead of a cat, Harry has Hedwig.
Snape will be a friend to Harry. I’m leaning more towards making him the same age as Harry, but we’ll see. I think he could still have a crush on Lily but in a childhood/innocent kind of way that would make Harry often say, “EW. GROSS!” We’ll see. This might change.
Tom will obviously be involved in the cult and trying to utilize Harry for his own gains, but I’m not all that sure what that’s going to be yet. I kinda like the idea of him playing Harry – being a charming, handsome, helpful member of the community who is there to welcome the newest addition to the village and get into bed with him as soon as possible while also unleashing a hellish demon.
When Harry gets particularly stressed, he waters his plants and between this cult and rumors of a demon creature terrorizing the countryside and the romantic drama that I imagine Tom might cause, and the possibility of old memories returning of his two childhood friends getting eaten by said demon, Harry’s gonna be watering his plants a LOT. I have such a vision of him in one of these nervous/frantic states and he grabs the watering can and starts pouring it over some poor plant and Tom saying, “Don’t you think that’s enough?” And Harry notices what he’s doing and the poor plant’s practically drowning, flailing its tendrils, and he replies, “It can take it.”
>>>
The White Road is a short story by Kelly Link. It follows a group of traveling performers in a post-apocalyptic setting. The story is very loose and doesn’t explain a whole bunch which means there’s a lot of room for interpretation. In the story, these strange entities walk the White Road. The White Road is always there, always following, always in the corner of your eye. At night, the creatures that walk the road seek others out and if there isn’t a dead body around, they kill everyone, so if night rolls around and you don’t have a dead body, someone pretends to be dead and everyone else pretends to be mourning them. The traveling group goes from town to town, performing and delivering mail.
Now let’s talk about Harry. Harry will be a member of the group, along with Snape and Tom. (I’m not sure yet who else will be part of the caravan.) Whenever the caravan comes to a town, it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal because they have a doctor (Snape) and they have Harry who can see and communicate with the dead. People will flock to him to seek closure and the caravan is extremely protective of Harry because he (along with Snape) turn out the crowds more so than their renditions of Much Ado About Nothing.
Tom is the interesting one in this. With his personality, you’d think he’d be the guy in charge, but I’m not sure if that’s what I *want* to do. I do think of him as the protector of the group. The one who doesn’t mind taking care of threats and problems with violence and he’s killed quite the number of people. Harry’s going to be a later addition to the caravan and Tom is fascinated and scared of him for what he can do. He’s never really thought about the people he’s killed and the idea that they might be (and some of them are) following him and talking shit about him unnerves him. He’s also extremely attracted to Harry and will be pretty irritated when Harry refuses his advances every time. He will be EXTREMELY irritated when, for example, he learns that instead of sleeping with him – the most handsome bloke for miles – Harry decides to sleep with Snape. It’s gonna be that kind of dynamic, where everyone in the caravan knows everyone’s business and everybody’s hooking up with everybody else.
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Mouth Dreams analysis
MOUTH DREAMS
I dont even need to introduce to you the marvelous mash up works of neil cicierega’s mouth trilogy (now quadrilogy i guess). We all know them, we all love them and we all have our own interpretations of what they mean. For some merely musical shitposting, for others clever experimentation laden with phrases, leivmotifs and themes repeating here and there, and for many a deep and rich bounty of lore, hidden messages, subtextual stories and underlying narratives implied across multiple variations of all star, hidden in the meta data and uncovered only after doing spectrographic analysis on the soundwaves of the songs after being played at x0.000003 times the speed. It is usually understood that all the albums together form a unique and rich tapestry, a coherent whole that can be understood in its totality. Im not here to do that.
I came up with my own interpretation of what Mouth Dreams can be read as, independent from the other albums. Think of it as me presenting this entry as the soundtrack of a musical with its own self contained story. It is the interpretation that i chose to go by and i hope its understood the brilliance of these albums lies on how weird and vague and open ended they are such that any number of different readings can be extracted from them. So lets see the one i extracted, without further ado, lets begin.
Yahoo
It is an out of context, in media res, start for the whole story. We hear a voice, echoing in the void, yelling at the top of its lungs, reaching desperately for human conection. One form of looking at this song is that the voice only receives an empty response from its own echoes, but i dont take it like that. The song is too sublime and too beautiful for these, the notes soaring too high, the desperate plead is being answered. Someone is listening to the plead and answering right back, harmonizing.
This whole album is in a way that howl, reaching to others, and we the audience are answering back, listening. But also on another level, this whole album is the protagonist telling the tragic story of his own life to some sympathetic figure who wants to help, perhaps a therapist, perhaps a friend, perhaps a partner, we’ll see. And as the yelling subsides the story starts proper.
Mouth dreams (intro)
We are being slowly taken into the story, entering the psyche of the main character, entering their subconscious, their dreams, their memories and therefore, their past. We’ll see what life they led and how they ended up where they are now and we start right at his infancy with….
Spongerock
Spongebob is a great indicator that we are seeing this person’s early childhood. They seem to be a rambunctious and energetic child. Cheerful and enthusiastic, yet there seems to be some underlying aggression there. The music is a bit to strong, and in comes freddy mercury berating the poor kid “you’ve got mud on your face, you big disgrace”. Who is this entity being so hostile to a poor kid? What lies beneath that image of a happy kid? We are about to see on the next song.
Just a baby
This is where trouble starts. We are treated to a dramatic song about a poor young baby who seems to be having a pretty sad life. Justin bieber, former teen idol, keeps lamenting about the poor baby being stuck in baby jail. This song is very much about loss of innocence. A shadowy figure of the mother is introduced who tells the protagonist to be a good boy. And almost at the end of the song we get a suggestion of what’s so wrong on this poor kid’s life. His mother apparently “shot a man in reno”. We dont know if this is a literal thing the mother did or if this is a metaphor for the mother doing something horrible, commiting some crime, harming someone in some way. While its not clarified we see strong hints of what the mother could have done in the next song
Superkiller
As we worry what may be so wrong with this kid’s mother we come across the title for this song, ominous. Now in the original Psycho killer the killer was clearly the singer, but in here the song is twisted and turned a bit, recontextualized by the beats of “cant touch this”. It seems like this time is the singer the one who doesnt want to be touched by some nefarious figure (the mother? Is the mother a psycho killer?) maybe the kid saw the mother killing people “i dont like people when they’re on fire”. whatever the case might be the kid is clearly strung up and under a lot of stress and we are introduced to the first hint of the insomnia that will plague this persons life who cant sleep because “my bed’s on fire”. The horrible situation in which this kid is living is taking a severe toll on their mental health. How is he going to cope with this?
Get happy
I think everyone can agree that “come on get happy” is incredibly unnerving when mindlessly repeated over and over. A first read might suggest the kid is forced to put on a happy face, to pretend that there is nothing wrong going on with their life. But as the song progresses it could also be interpreted as the kid being tempted to find refuge from the horror by unsavory methods “get happy” as in acquire happiness of a forced and artificial kind, perhaps drugs. But also “we’ll make you happy”. The kid is not running into a rabbit hole on their own, they are being invited. Its possible that the kid is being seduced by a bad crowd to move into seedy circles as an escape from their life.
Ribs
In here we see the kid, probably a young teenager by this point as suggested by the use of marylin manson in this song, falling deep into debauchery. The specific kind is not needed to know, it could be drugs, it could be sexual experimentation, it could be criminality. Point is this is unhealthy and dangerous and depraved, emphasized by the title of the song “ribs” as a reference to the rumor that marilyn manson removed two of his ribs in order to perform autofellatio. Whatever the case it clearly works, the song is actually a great bop, energetic and upbeat, the kid is content with the situation, at least for a while…
My mouth
This song is the coming down from the high. In here we see at full blast how the life of depravity on the one side and their situation at home on the other have turned the character into a hardcore insomniac, their health is severy compromised “My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed
Dried up and bulging out my skull”. Another way to read this song is as we momentarily cutting back to the present. After all, what we have been seeing until now has been dreams/memories and this is a short look at the wreck that the person is as a grown up, stirring awake from their memories and trying desperately to forget or to go back to sleep where they can have a reprieve. As evidenced by the next song
Aerolong
I dont wanna miss a thing is completely turned on its head. As the lyrics clearly demonstrate is the protagonist who cant go to sleep being chased by their memories, specifically the memories of their mother “I don't miss you, babe, and I do want to miss a thing”. As the person is tossing and turning on their bed, unable to sleep they talk about how they dont miss their mother at all and they want to “miss” her as in they want to forget her.
Sleepin’
The character is constantly speaking about how they are “sleeping with their clothes on” this is due to them falling asleep during their everyday life because of their lack of sleep every night, this person is barely functional, their sleep schedule is broken. Also since this song is about the character actually sleeping it also works as a bridge back into their dreams and so into their past.
Aammoorree
Is another vignette about the character sinking into disreputable states in order to escape their shitty situation as a teenager, this time very specifically about being completely drunk and perhaps experiencing romance for the first time. The character is probably at a club or a party, drunkenly hitting on someone, though chances are without much success as the song becomes increasingly more incoherent and we go into a full black out. This gets bad enough that the person finally has to take a look and….
Where is my mom
….stop. It is highly suggestive that in the album the “stop” is part of this song rather than the last one. The person is not only stopping their current alcoholic binge. They are stopping the entire situation and taking a good look at their life, finally confronting face to face what is happening and why it is so wrong. Now “stacy’s mom” was always kind of an inappropriate song due to it being about a child having a crush on their friend’s mom, as sung by an adult. But as it is recontextualized by the instruments of “where is my mind” it takes on a much darker tone. The romantic words are still there but now with a sinister bent. This time the main character asks their friend if they can go and take refuge at their house and when they ask if the mom is going to be there they sound more scared than eager, specially suggested by the way he seems to be stammering the word “pool”, they are nervous and terrified. They also talk about stacy’s mom as “all they want and been waiting for so long”, probably because all they want is a normal, loving mother. Presumably this song is about the main character finally talking about what is going on at his house with a friend, confessing and that confession gives way to realization
Fredhammer
Then realization gives way to anger. During this whole song we see the teenage character finally grasping how fucked up the whole situation is and he gets progressively more worked up with each successive aggravation “Why did it take so long? Why (hoo!), did I wait so long, huh?
Why??? To figure it out, but I did it (huh?)”. From this we transition to the kid actually confronting their mom face to face. The line “So you can take that cookie And stick it up your (yeah!)” can be read as the mother trying to pretend there is nothing wrong or pacifying the kid with empty gestures of motherhood, by making cookies and the kid spitting that back into their face. The kid gets more and more worked up through the song as we seamlessly transition to the next one.
Limp Wicket
This song is pure incoherent chaos but something very important can be rescued out of the chaos. This song uses the lyrics from the “ewok celebration” which is presumably the song the ewoks sing in return of the jedi after the empire was defeated. So in a way is the kid celebrating that he finally confronted their mother and presumably defeated her. This is emphazised by the recurrence of the lyrics ““So you can take that cookie”. Is not specified how the mother is defeated, maybe social services or the police get involved, maybe the kid runs away, either way this song is triumphant. The evil entity that stole his childhood and innocence has been defeated.
Cannibals
This song is slightly different from the rest. It works as a form of victory lap after the defeat of the mother figure, but also as an intermission since it lies smack dab in the middle of the album, and finally as a transitionary song from childhood to adulthood. Is a time skip, we get to see the person grow up in fast forward as the THX song hits its crescendo. This song also makes it perfectly clear that, even though she was left behind, the mental scars that the mother left are still there and still fresh and still very much stopping them from sleeping “She drives me crazy
And I can't help myself”.
The outsiders
This works as a way to recontextualize us in the life of the character as an adult. Our so called “feature presentation”. It is not altogether clear who these people being introduced are. They could be the people who came to mean something in this persons life as they grew up after trauma, probably multiple foster homes, social workers, friends, bosses, co workers, etc. the fact that they are being enumerated dissapasionatly could indicate how most of his social relationships were basically a meaningless blur for him who grew up socially distant due to trauma. It could also represent the multiple roles that our character was forced to take as they grew up and the multiple things that went through his mind or meant something. There is clearly some desperate attempts to recapture their lost childhood as figures such as “inspector gadget” or “the ninja turtles part three” are named. The song is a fast montage of views and places. That prepares us for the next song.
Johnny
We finally zoom in and take a good look at our main character as an adult. A sad, pathetic figure, hurt and lonely, possibly not very well liked and certainly not respected as we hear boos all around. Despite all this the character is clearly committing themselves to be a good person, to not hurt others like he was hurt and specifically to not commit the same crimes that their mother commited.
Closerflies & Nightmovin
These two songs might as well work as a single piece since they are both more or less about the same thing. We reiterate how this person has been turned into an insomniac due to the trauma that they experienced as a child “When I'm far too tired to fall asleep”. They are delirious and barely coherent, possibly hallucinating as they think about their life in bed. This is clearly hell on earth and it seems like its just never going to stop “Can't wake up in a sweat
'Cause it ain't over yet” but, with neil’s classic sense of humor, the song immediately ends.
Now that could just be for the sake of irony but there is also another level in which it could be read. This suffering stops because something suddenly changes in this person’s life. What could that be?
Whitehouse
“I fell in love with a girl”
As the lyrics say, the main character met someone special and they are deeply in love. But also, because of the past that weighs heavily on him, he is very trepidatious about wether to go on with the relationship or not. He knows he is damaged goods and he doesnt want to drag her down as well, these fears make it so he never fully opens up to her about his issues “She turns and says, "Are you alright?" I said, "I must be fine because my heart's still beating."
Wah
The use of “war” by edwin starr is a clever reference about how everything is fair in love and war. Now this song is an important departure since it is sung from the point of view of the girl our main character fell in love with. She is a feisty woman who is very clearly trying to establish the terms of the relationship and demanding her partner to open up which the main character, due to his insecurities, takes as a declaration of war and which he deflects by playing dumb, hence the repeated use of the silly “WAH” by wario.
Pee Wee Inc
The emotional distance from the man is putting a strain in the relationship, so what once was supposed to “feel good” is now this melancholic and unbearable situation. Is no mistake that the song sampled here is “the breakfast machine” from pee wee’s big adventure. After all a neglected partner can feel like a breakfast machine, an object that is there just to make your breakfast. On top of this you can see that the insomnia hasnt gone away “My dreams, they got a kissing 'cause I don't get to sleep, no”. In a lot of ways the girlfriend is feeling used as just a relief from the man’s suffering but not as someone who is being truly loved.
1000 spoons
We go back to the woman’s perspective. At first it just seems like a simple melancholic situation where she is sad the relationship is not working, but then we see the woman have a full mental breakdown as the song changes and becomes much more deranged and we get to see what is really happening. The man ran away on their wedding day. This is represented by the lyrics “is like rain on your wedding day” because it means the wedding has been ruined. She is heartbroken by this.
Mouth dreams (extro)
Appropriately as the previous song talked about a wedding being ruined by “rain” this song begins with the sound of rain. This is the big emotional climax of the story, the music at its most dramatic. Now i will admit, even for me this is a stretch, im willing to concede most of what i am about to say is essentially built out of whole cloth and me wanting to fit a neat full narrative into this album where there is none, but hey, what is art for?
Essentially the man is about to commit suicide, possibly by jumping off a bridge in the rain as suggested by the song being sampled “drowning”. The fact that this song is named after the album is a way to signify how everything that we have just seen weighs heavily on the man’s heart, his whole life, his memories, his trauma, and he is finally ready to end it all. He jumps.
But at the last second his wife jumps after him and drags him to the shore, the last we see is her trying to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation, as indicated by the song,”love me mouth to mouth now…” he is unconscious and presumably finally sleeping peacefully (maybe dead?) “...cover me with dreams, yeah”.
It might look like he will not survive, as implied by the sinister version of all star encroaching over the song. But as it looks like all hope is lost he finally WAKES UP.
In a way this song is also when we finally catch up with the start of the album where we saw the man desperately hollering for human contact and merely echos responding, except now someone finally answered, and he is finally ready to open up and share his story.
Brithoven
Even though this song is sung by a single person i choose to take it as a dialog between the couple, both of them sharing their regrets about their relationship with each other, her recriminating the fact that she couldnt have known what he was going through “oh baby bay, how was i supposed to know, that something wasnt right here” and him finally admitting that he needs help “My loneliness is killing me”.
Finally they both agree to try it again and give their relationship a second chance “hit me baby one more time”
Ain’t
Part of me is conflicted about this song, i kind of want to disregard it, mainly because i think its kind of a weird way to end an album and also because i just dont feel is a very good mashup really. The lyrics dont mix that well with the song, they are paced in an inconsistent way and overall feel like they never truly click. On top of that it just doesnt fit at all with the narrative that i have been building during this analysis.
There is talk about alcoholism and parent abandoment, this time by the father, a figure that was never mentioned during the album. The last line says “say it aint so” which doesnt particularly seem to reflect on any of the themes i’ve been building upon. Ultimately i think i will just leave it besides and be content that i managed to fit almost all of the album into one story, this process was never meant to be a perfect dissection of the carefully planned story that neil deliberately crafted but rather me having fun seeing pictures in a rorshach test.
So anyway that was Mouth dreams, let me know what you thought.
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I was looking through the information I was granted to utilize this blog and I found something that I belive I should share, it is a summery written explaining the eternals in more detail then I covered
Now mind you I did not write this and so can't vouch for its accuracy, in fact it seems to be rather explicitly biased aginst me but it should serve well enough as a base of information on what exactly i am I will provide my own commentary within it
I will add my commentary in this color as to make it clear what is original and what are my additions
The Eternals
General information
The eternals travel the multiverse, when they reach a world they manifest bodies and are born naturally to some family within the world, they grow they live and then they die before moving on to the next world, most manifestations will never know of their extra dimensional history
When manifesting, the personality and traits of each individual eternal can vary a bit depending on which one it is, in rare circumstances they can be quite drastically different from any other version of themselves. this is somewhat missleading it implies more flexibility then we are capable of, all manifestations will show characteristics contained within the possibility space of our essence
It is possible, though rare for an eternal to manifest as an inanimate object, in these cases the manifestation will have powers and abilities representative of their eternal’s personality, the manifestation may or maynot have sentiance depending on the circumstances
It is possible, though rare for 2 or more eternals to manifest into a single body, this new manifestation will have some combination of the traits and personalities of the component parts. Again not inaccurate but still misleading, fusions manifestations will exist within the combined possibility space of their component essences.
even more rare is for a single eternal to manifest more than 1 body within a world, when this happens each individual manifestation will act as an entirely independent entity, the manifestations will not be identical to each other each showing their own unique interpretation of their eternal. I take umbrage with the use of "eternal" when what she is actualy referring to is our essence, eternal referers to the totality of our existence and the manifestations are a part of that while the essence refers to the abstract aspects of our existence.
Every manifestation can summon any object that their eternal has manifested as in a past life with all the powers they possessed, each eternal also has a unique power that is all their own which their manifestations have access to, both of these powers only work if the manifestation in question remembers the truth of their existence, given that this is rather rare, most of the manifestations will not have access to these powers.
Specific eternals
Title: The first
Common object manifestation: blood drinker blade, a living sword which feeds on the users blood to fuel its power
Unique power: martial prowess, she will always be the most skillful fighter in the world, if she encounters a better fighter, then her skill will instantly increase to become better then them
Common name: Maria
Common appearance: a woman with long black hair and many scars
The first is incredibly kind and caring, she is always the first to help, but she’s not naive, she is used to pain and mistrust but she doesnt let it consume her. Her desire to help everyone leads to her putting herself into danger more than is healthy (hence the scars), she has a strong friendship with the forgotten and an intense rivalry with the aware. She remembers their origin roughly 10% of the time. This is infuriating the first is not some noble hero, shes a self-righteous arrogant prick, her "friendship" with the forgotten has nothing to do with him and is entirely built on trying to anger me.
Title: the inhuman
Common object manifestation: Yamyaywan, a spear that generates lightning
Unique power: expedient healing, he is capable of fully regrowing a limb over the course of a month
Common names: Yamyaywan (in fantasy settings) jeff gorge chad or some other generic mans name (in non fantasy settings, he's not vary creative)
Common appearance: some non human entity typically some kind of werewolf
The inhuman is pretty simple, eat, sleep, fuck, repeat, thats not to say hes violent or even a bad guy, hes actually quite sweet and friendly when he wants to be. fiercely loyal to those of his pack and honest to a fault, but he is not a complex man, his motives are all base and predictable, he enjoys indulging in lifes simple pleasures. He holds great respect for the first, and despises the aware for her deceptive nature. He remembers their origin roughly 1-2% of the time
Tittle: the lovers
Common object manifestation: unbreakable shackles capable of binding and holding nearly anything
Unique power: shared everything, they can transfer wounds, damage, heat, cold, physical and mental attributes, powers, magical effects, pretty much anything back and forth between each other
Common names: Mikol and Kiloka (though this varies greatly)
Common appearance: two people
The lovers are as the title suggests, in love, or perhaps it's more accurate to say they are the embodiment of the concept of romantic love as seen by whoever is writing for them, the concept of sexuality is irrelevant to them as they will always fall for eachother and only each other. Their really isn't much else to say, these two are the most variable of all the eternals even their genders aren't consistent, sometimes they’re male, sometimes female, sometimes nonbinary, sometimes theyre the same gender, sometimes different, sometimes theyre of a species where the concept of gender straight up doesnt apply. They will only ever remember their origin in those rare times when all the manifestations remember. I really don't have much to say on the inhuman or the lovers, they tend to keep to themselves and I am content in leaving them be, it is worth noteing however that "rare times when all manifestations remember" does not refer to a random event where everyone happens to remember based on their individual odds but rather worlds in which we collectively agree to all manifest with awareness, functionally this means they have a 0% chances of remembering and so will only remember when probability is not a factor
Tittle: the aware
Common object manifestation: she has no object manifestations as she refuses to be anything other than a human
Unique power: pocket dimension, she has an extra dimensional space where she can store and remove anything non-living, the space has infinite size, while anything is within this space it will be locked in time at the very moment of its entering preventing any kind of decay or change, she can store things of any size, though larger object take more time to add and remove and she must maintain contact with the object for the entirety of its transfer, she always has perfect knowledge of what is within her space
Common name: none, i never gave her a name and she refuses to take one, denying any that others give her, because of this some who know her call her Nameless
Common appearance: a generic looking woman, she tends to make herself fairly unassuming (whatever that might mean for the world she's born into)
The aware is the most dangerous of all the eternals, she has a very wide skill base, you would be hard pressed to find any skill she isn't at least competent at, jack of all trades does not however imply master of none and she has three specialties in particular, you would be hard pressed to find anyone better than her when it comes to military tactics, economics, and above all engineering, she loves take apart technology and magical devices and putting them back together to form entirely new and even more powerful creations. Her collection however is limited in its uses, each relying on the magic or physics of its respective world and thus will only work 1 or 2 times before ceasing to function entirely, however her collection is so massive that she is not likely to run out any time soon. Because of this fights with the aware are less about skill and more about psychology and economics, you have to convince her that what she would get for winning isn't worth what winning would cost her
Everything after this point in this entry is, to one degree or another, inaccurate, unfortunately because the nature of our deal i do not have the capability to delete or edit it in any meaningful way, instead i will ask that you ignore it and simply move on to the next entry
She does not believe that other people exist, she views everyone outside of herself as philosophical zombies, empty husks that simply go through the motions without having any sort of internal lives, this leads her to be selfish and callous, she feels no remorse killing entire worlds as she does not believe the people she is killing have any kind of sentiance
She is a manipulator to her core, knowing exactly what to say to get inside of people's heads, she avoids violence and seduction whenever possible seeing them as base and beneath her, however she also has a grand temper when she doesn't get her way, and has been known to kill people out of sheer spite.
She is lonely, her view of other people has led her to a sort of self imposed isolation, the only person she truly cares for is the forgotten, she emotionally and psychologically abused him but she does love him in her own twisted way
She hates the first with a fiery passion, both because she knows that she is my favorite and hopes that hurting her will in some way hurt me, and because the first helped the forgotten break free of her abuse and leave her.
She wants nothing more then to break into the real world so she can kill me, short of that she hopes to break free of my mind, and enter the collective unconscious by being known by other people in the real world
She wields a very special sword named ashbreaker, it is an anti magic sword that she stole recovered from the tomb of a great hero, the sword is only slightly stronger than the average anti magic weapon, however it has infinite power in that it will never run out of its ability regardless of the world it is in, because of this it can dispel most anything so long as it maintains contact for long enough, the aware has over time began to see this sword as a part of her identity, if she knew i had the audacity to name another sword ashbreaker she would be furious beyond belief. This one actualy is accurate, and she is right i am furious
The aware is ALWAYS aware of their origin without exception
Title: the forgotten
Common object manifestation: a dragon mask, the left eye is broken off the mask, the right eye is covered, this mask grants truesight in that it will see through any illusion.
Unique power: magical savant, the forgotten will have any and all prerequisites to develop all types of magic of whatever world he is in, additional he learns and masters magic far more quickly than normal, he is capable of going from knowing nothing about a magical system to being the best in the world at that system in around 10 years assuming he has access to the knowledge and time to study it
Common name: Caliph
Common appearance: a very scrawny very pale man with black hair, if he remember their extradimentinal origin he will have a large burn scar across his left eye perfectly matching the shape of the break in his mask
The forgotten is rather timid in nature, he avoids speaking as much as possible, he's kind and compassionate but also prone to paranoia caution instilled in him by Nameless, he has severe self worth issues and generally a poor view of who he is as a person
He's very intelligent and quick to propose solutions to problems, more than anything he wants everyone to be happy
Though he now acknowledges that Nameless abused him he still loves her and thinks fondly on the better times in their relationship, it can be a challenge sometimes to remember all the ways she broke his will and made him feel worthless in an effort to keep him with her, she never hit him, others sometimes but never him. More blatant lies
The forgotten remembers their origin roughly half of the time
Title: the puppet
Common object manifestation: a puppet
Unique power: connection to the real world
Common name: N/A
Common appearance: N/A
The puppet is an empty vessel whose sole purpose is to act as a conduite to the real world, depending on the nature world this could be as an author insert or as a conduite for a player, manifesting as a fusion with the puppet does not change the nature of the eternal that manifests with them, instead it merely grants them the same connection the puppet has.
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TRC Translation notes Volume 18 (Chapters 133 - 140)
Even more incredible translation notes from the wonderful @giniroangou? I got you covered!
Highlights include: acid punk chapter cover mysteries finally solved, soul/body separation foreshadowing, oaths!, Lantis and co. actually becoming competent, character motivations making sense, intentional ambiguities, fun chess vibes, and Sakura’s heart breaking in slow motion.
Chapter 133
Cover page - Per the art book commentary, the panels in this picture were intended to be things the characters either threw away or decided they no longer want.
p.8 - The word “kokoro” comes back here, this time translated as “mind.” The description of Sakura’s body as a “vessel” is from the original text. There’s definitely been a theme of the mind/heart/soul being a separate (though not necessarily unconnected) entity from the body running through both the plotline and the language the characters use.
p.10 - As in previous scenes, the original text preserves the distinction between the two Syaorans by only placing Lava Lamp’s name in quotation marks.
p.14-15 - There were no exclamation points in these lines originally, which I feel implies more of a defeated tone.
p.19 - Yuuko’s line here isn’t necessarily about creation, though it could be interpreted that way. In the original text it’s, “For the sake of two futures.”
p.20 - Yuuko says that it is both the price Lava Lamp and the others paid, as well as their hearts (“kokoro” again) that will ensure Watanuki doesn’t vanish.
p.24 - The wording in the translation was a little confusing, but I think the concept got across. Just in case, Yuuko explains here that worlds are able to endure precisely because everything maintains a balance. If a world loses that balance, it will fall apart.
Chapter 134
p.35 - Sakura’s lines have been mistranslated here. She’s asking if Fai is hiding what he really wants to do because she said she was going to go. Essentially she’s worried that Fai is prioritizing her desires over his own, that he would have made a different choice without her influence.
p.36 - The original nuance is a little different in a couple of Fai’s lines. He says to Sakura, “I’m a wizard who can’t even heal your wounds, but will you allow me to stay with you?” As a side note: the English “wizard” is the actual word Fai uses to refer to himself - it’s written in katakana as the reading above the kanji for “majutsushi”/“mage.” (I feel like this has come up before, but… it’s been a while.)
p.37 - Just to clarify how this line appears in Japanese, “My only Princess” is written in kanji in a much more formal manner than Fai would normally use (我が唯一の姫君) with the reading above in katakana as “Vi la princia” (ヴイ・ラ・プリンシア). Additionally, the entire phrase is in quotation marks, enhancing the impression that it is an established oath of some sort.
p.38 - Kurogane could be referring to one thing or to multiple things that have changed - the word in Japanese is non-specific.
p.39 - I’m not sure why there’s a “But” in front of Kurogane’s line in this translation, since this follows directly off of his line from the previous page. It should be more along the lines of, “I guess it’s okay to make more than one promise.”
Chapter 135
p.51 - Sakura’s thank you feels super extreme in the official translation, but originally all she said here was, “Thank you.”
p.53 - The promise Fuuma mentions is presented in contrast/in addition to the jobs he does for Yuuko - after describing his payment process to her he says, “Well, I made another promise too, though.”
I interpreted Fuuma’s last line here not as a reference to the needs of the group, but to the fact that they’re probably going to have a hard time getting Sakura’s feather back from Seishirou.
p.62 - Yuuko says she’s going to purify the egg before she passes it on.
p.65 - Yuuko isn’t talking about a single unchanging feeling here, but saying that people’s true feelings cannot be changed.
Chapter 136
p.74-76 - Fun fact: The “READY…. GO!!” on these pages was originally written in English.
p.79 - Eagle remarks that BOTH Sakura and her pieces are incredible. The word for piece is written with the kanji used for shougi and chess pieces and the like (駒) but the reading is given in katakana as the English word “piece” (ピース).
p.81 - The point Geo’s making here should be that all three “pieces” DON’T seem to be amateurs.
p.82 - After pointing out Fai’s defensive technique, I’m fairly certain Lantis is saying that it seems unlikely Fai has always fought in that style.
P.84 - Lantis doesn’t describe them as “useful,” but as “masters” (of fighting).
Chapter 137
p.97 - The translation covers this up a bit, but Fai’s first line here is expositional - he’s just saying that they know there’s a feather in this world, not really asking about it. He is also still referring to Syaoran as “Syaoran-kun,” they just missed the honorific in the English version.
p.110 - I just want to drop another quick reminder here about Lava Lamp’s speech style, because the translation doesn’t do it justice at all. What’s been translated as “You too. Please get some sleep yourself,” was not actually a polite request. Lava Lamp refers to Kurogane directly as “you” (“anata”) and ends his sentence in a casual imperative (“yasundekure”). Despite the father/son vibe in the preceding scene, he speaks to Kurogane as an equal.
p.111 - Once again, there are quotation marks around Kurogane’s name when Fai says it, so it’s even more in-your-face in the Japanese version than the italics of the official translation.
Chapter 138
p.115 - Fai’s line is a bit less clear-cut in the original text. This is another case where there are no pronouns used, so from the line itself you can’t tell whether he’s speaking for himself alone or not and you also can’t tell whether he’s vowing to keep the whole group from getting hurt vs, say, just Sakura. However you choose to take this line is up to the context of the scene and how you view Fai as a character in this moment.
p.116 - Clow doesn’t ask if Sakura is looking at the ruins - she offers that information herself.
p.117 - Sakura’s description of the ruins is a little different in her original line - she says that there may be precious items from the country’s past buried there. (The word she uses for what might be buried is “mono,” which could be either singular or plural, but plural seems the most logical in this situation.)
p.118 - The word that’s been translated as “that special someone” is “daisuki na hito” in Japanese, which can mean, “The person you love,” but also alternatively, “Someone you love.” It doesn’t necessarily imply a romantic partner.
p.121 - A couple little tweaks here: The word “eye” has quotation marks around it in the original text. It could potentially be plural or singular, but given the context and the quotes singular seems more appropriate. Clow doesn’t specifically say anything about a message, just an inability to reach (so this could refer to a message, but also to feelings, to someone reaching out for something, etc.) He speaks only of a desire to protect, rather than a need or the actual act occurring: “But even so, you want to protect (insert missing pronoun here).” Basically, Japanese is the ideal language for a scene like this, because its ambiguity gives many of these lines a versatility they don’t have in English and allows them to apply to multiple situations at once, as you discussed in your liveblog.
p.123 - Again, the implication that protection is an obligation wasn’t in the original text. Lava Lamp is stating what it is he’d decided: To protect no matter what.
p.124 - Another punctuation tonal shift here: instead of “Sakura!” this was originally “.... Sakura.”
p.127 - Fai’s original line is a bit less flippant than the translated version, just, “Those look like they’d be painful if you hit them.”
Chapter 139
p.141 - “Becoming lost” is one way to translate this line, but it might be more natural to say that Sakura is hesitating or wavering.
Chapter 140
p.161 - Just for fun: the original text on this page is kind of wild aesthetically. “Checkmate” is written in katakana, what’s been translated as “black team” is just the word “black” written in kanji with katakana above it giving the reading as “black” in English, and then “WIN!” entirely in English.
p.162 - Fai’s lines on this page are spoken with more certainty - he’s not supposing, just stating facts. He describes Lava Lamp’s experiences as, “He’s lived through the same days as Syaoran-kun.”
p.169 - Significantly (maybe?) there shouldn’t be any quotation marks when Mokona says “Syaoran” here. It feels less alienating this way.
p.170 - Kurogane actually asks if Mokona is planning to drink the whole thing, bottle and all. I-is she trying to send it to Yuuko?
p.171 - Sakura’s line here isn’t, “I know!” but “.... I know.” (Once again, I’m not mentioning nearly all of these punctuation differences, but when they seem to drastically change the tone I can’t help pointing them out.)
p.172 - A couple of Sakura’s lines were changed in the translation. She originally says that even if Lava Lamp served as Syaoran’s basis, she knows that “just like those we’ve met in various worlds up until now, his appearance is the same but he’s a different person.”
p.173-174 - Since this was apparently confusing (and partially mistranslated) Sakura says here that each time she sees similarities between Lava Lamp and Syaoran (and there are many) she can’t handle it. Each time she notices these things she can’t help lamenting that the person in front of her isn’t her Syaoran.
#I'm having such a wild time with all these#it's amazing#Giniroangou#who is the actual best#Liveblogging the Reservoir Chronicle#Tsubasa#vol 133#vol 134#vol 135#vol 136#vol 137#vol 138#vol 139#vol 140
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428 - Chunsoft’s Sound Novel Perfected
428: Shibuya Scramble is an unequivocal, truly Japanese game, and one that nobody ever thought would come out in English--and the doubters were sort of right. The title was a Japan exclusive for many years since its original Wii release in 2008 but after a decade of being out of reach for the English market this cryptically Japanese exclusive was somehow able to be cracked and come September of 2018 made the journey to North American and European markets on PC through Steam and both physically and digitally on the Sony PS4. Honestly I still can’t believe it and I own the darn game! The journey to getting this game out is surely an interesting one, as localization director David Kracker recounted on the Playstation blog that he had to fight hard to get the game pushed forward for a worldwide release outside of Japan, but ultimately was able to do so by showing that appeal for niche games such as these have been increasing steadily since its original Wii release.
For many people 428: Shibuya Scramble will be their first experience with a Chunsoft sound novel--especially since the localized Kamaitachi no Yoru (Banshee’s Last Cry) is downright almost impossible to play now. Last blog post I discussed in detail what the heck a sound novel even is, and went through a brief history of the visual novel market in general covering where Chunsoft falls in and how much they contributed to the genre. So because of that I won’t go into too much heavy details on sound novels today, but the short and simple answer I gave in my previous entry is that a sound novel is two things. The first of which was a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly (mostly on the Super Famicom and Sega Saturn) and has since fallen out of use in favor of adopting visual novel. The second of which is the more complicated answer that sound novels are both the aforementioned term that was used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels and also a certain style of visual novels that would follow years later by other companies that were heavily inspired by the early works of Chunsoft often aping their presentation and narrative style, with 07Expansion’s Higurashi - When They Cry being one of the most popular examples.
If all that sounds like a bit much, or is just all greek to you, don’t worry--all you have to really take away from my rambling is that the Chunsoft seal of quality with 428 really means something, especially to fans of visual novels. You see, 428: Shibuya Scramble is actually a spiritual successor of sorts to Chunsoft’s earlier Machi sound novel released in 1998 on the Sega Saturn and later Sony Playstation. Machi was a highly well regarded game for its time that was a big hit both critically and with gamers, but despite its constant praise still sold poorly. Over the years people started to discover the game through its solid word of mouth and old fans and new fans alike were always clamoring for a sequel. After many years of begging Chunsoft finally delivered just that, and this is where 428: Shibuya Scramble comes in. By no means a direct sequel (so don’t worry you definitely DO NOT need to play Machi to understand the story) 428 is set in the same city of Machi (aka both take place in the same fictional version of Shibuya), and super fans will be able to spot some references and cameos from Machi sneaking in.
428: Shibuya Scramble is essentially a dream game to many hardcore fans in Japan that waited anxiously for a return to form from Chunsoft. When it came out the game even famously got a perfect score of 40 in the well known Famitsu gaming magazine--and this was back when you could still count perfect scores they gave out on your fingers, only 8 games prior made that list; nowadays the magazine is known for being far more forgiving with its reviews. So basically, what I am getting at is this is yet another game that was pretty huge back in Japan but sorely skipped over worldwide.
You may be thinking to yourself then, that’s all well and good, but what about the game itself? Well let me get into that. 428: Shibuya Scramble is as its name implies, a game about Shibuya, while you do take control of characters in the game, at large the characters themselves all feel like a part of the city. Shibuya is a living, breathing entity in 428, and you really get to explore the entire city from multiple perspectives in this one long, crazy day. Shibuya’s story is your story. There are multiple characters you get to play as and each one has their own unique, individual story to tell, but each story is interwoven into the others and they begin to overlap in creative and fun ways. This is where a large part of the game play comes from; finding out how decisions you made with one character affects the fate of another character.
Say for example if you are being chased in one character’s story and decide to run into a busy city street to escape your pursuers thus causing a traffic accident, in another story the character you are playing now is stuck in said traffic accident and cannot progress their story leading to a bad end. Everything you decide to do with one character not only affects that character’s fate but may even affect the entire city’s at large and change the outcome for every other character you play as too. Finding out how to best affect the story by jumping around the multiple characters and getting everything to play out just right is a lot of fun and no surprise was also a major feature in Machi prior.
There are a bevy of characters to interact with in Shibuya but the multiple residents in this major Japanese metropolis you take direct control of are Shinya Kano, a rookie detective trying to make his way in the force and crack a kidnapping case, Achi Endo, an ex-gang leader with a heart of gold trying to make Shibuya a better place, Minoru Minorikawa, an investigative journalist on a mission to save a life, Kenji Osawa, a brooding genius that just wants to be left alone but is trapped inside a corporate scandal that goes beyond anyone’s imagination, and Tama, a poor soul trapped in a big furry cat mascot costume that just wants to be free from the hell that is a terrible part time job. Each character has their own unique flavor they bring to the table and their own individual plots range from comedic to serious, romantic to frightening, and everything else in-between. Kano’s scenario is a pretty straightforward crime drama, while Osawa’s plays like a physiological thriller where you don’t know who to trust, meanwhile Tama and Minorikawa’s scenarios will have you on the floor laughing at the insane hijinks they manage to get into somehow, and Achi is kicking ass beating up thugs and saving a lost girl.
428 manages to combine all these different kinds of smaller stories into one large story seamlessly and it’s an incredible experience jumping between all these fun characters and seeing how they eventually interact with each other as the plot progresses. It’s hard for me to even pick a favorite character in the game as all of them are so well written, and so different from one each other. If I had to pick though, I would say Osawa is probably the protagonist I relate to the most and a lot of his big story moments left me teary eyed and really moved on a truly genuine personal level (I don’t think I’m a genius like him though).
I can praise 428 to the high heavens, and really a large part of me writing about it today is to do just that, but there is an elephant in the room I probably should address at some point. Something truly horrendous, something that prevents the game from ever being a true masterpiece, something that scares everyone away, the horror of … real life actors! Yeah, as I am sure it’s obvious by this point 428 uses real life actors and was actually filmed on location in the city of Shibuya. A lot of people are put off by this and honestly that kind of bums me out that so many are so unwilling to even try different things.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, my own personal opinion is that I freaking love the way 428 looks. I’m someone that quite enjoys campy FMV video games; stuff like Night Trap or any Tex Murphy adventure game is solidly right up my alley. I also enjoy unique mixtures of real life and animation, so I love rotoscoping a whole lot--I’m always ecstatic when I find a cool movie or animated series that is rotoscoped, and that’s a large draw to me for games that use it such as Hotel Dusk. So no, I really think 428 is a beautiful game visually that was made by real pros who had to use guerrilla film making in order to bring their vision to life because of laws that prevent filming on location in Shibuya. What the team was able to do here, while also hiding it from “the man” is incredible work!
Contextly Chunsoft’s sound novels opted to not use the now established format that predominantly is how visual novel look. Originally with Otogirisō this was because visual novels were still in their infancy and the now ubiquitous presentation where sprites are shown in front of background art had not yet taken off. Nobody really knew what visual novels at the time should look like. Otogirisō is actually commonly attributed as one of the earliest examples where a visual novel had background art to begin with and wasn't just mostly text or sprites presented over a black void. Chunsoft kept their games pretty consistent visually from that point, and characters were often not seen on screen, usually just presented through the use of silhouette if needed. This really helped the “novel” aspect of their visual novels, since you had to imagine the characters’ appearances mostly through the narrative descriptions about them just like in literature.
Over time this changed with the advent of CD hardware which meant the use of still image photography and Full-Motion-Video could really take off, and Machi ran with this new hardware looking much like how 428 does. You can say these games really have a more broad appeal to them too as they are not just “anime” games but games anyone can enjoy just like a good book. This while true in Japan does get a bit tricky for a localized title as a majority of the actors are Japanese which is off putting to a general public not used to watching Japanese cinema or TV dramas. For better or worse 428 is an unequivocal Japanese game, but I really implore anyone who is even the tiniest bit interested to try it out for themselves (especially since there is a free demo) and stay open minded about the game, because if you do, you will find one of the best written, and best localized games in a generation.
428: Shibuya Scramble's predecessor; Machi on the Sega Saturn
428 didn't get a very fair shot when it came out in the English market. The month of September was jam packed with both Triple-A titles such as Marvel’s Spider-man and niche titles that could not be missed such as Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. The release date really was setting the game up to go against some huge competitors and with its enigmatic overly Japanese sensibilities 428 lacked much of the charisma to fight them. I followed the localization process very closely and this was a game I dreamt I could play for many years, but even I had to pass up grabbing the game on its release date and waited about a month or so until I managed to pick up my own copy as I had poured all my attention into Dragon Quest XI at that time which as bad as I feel for 428 I still don’t regret. By the time I wrote my annual favorite games of the year list I had to exempt 428 from it even, only writing a brief honorable mention as I knew I would love it but hadn't actually gotten to play it yet. The end of the year was far too packed with excellent titles vying for my and everyone else’s attention and what a shame, as 428 is now easily neck-and-neck with my then favorite game of the year Dragon Quest XI.
The truth is it will be very unlikely we will ever see a game like 428: Shibuya Scramble come out in English again. This was a very unlikely localization to happen in the first place, and a very risky one, but it sadly was not a runaway success. Anyone interested in the history of visual novels, sound novels, or seeing one of Chunsoft’s greatest titles definitely shouldn't pass this game up though. And anyone willing, I really recommend 428: Shibuya Scramble hard. If you love good storytelling in gaming, there isn't any better than what’s here. The story in 428 is so heart felt, and uplifting that I found myself crying a lot during my playthrough. I laughed, I cried, I found tons of inspiration for my own writing, 428 truly is a game that changes you. I think those are far too rare nowadays. This is a game that should be in any niche gamer’s PS4 or Steam collection.
#428#428 Shibuya Scramble#Chunsoft#Spike Chunsoft#Sound Novel#video games#Visual Novel#Visual Novels#VN
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the permanent shivers down your spine,
a look at an underrated classic.
There is no right configuration of words that can express the weight of a song like ‘Shivers,’ although I set out to persuade you into believing this is a masterpiece I really cannot do such a thing if you do not believe from the first few seconds that it is. If it does not create a dwelling within you upon its start, this may prove a fruitless venture. At the risk of sounding exclusionary, some art is made to matter only to a set few. It is because of this that I will not try to force your head under water to understand how it feels to drown. All I can do is paint you a picture of the bottom of the ocean to explain the way the current feels.
Shivers, in short, is a approximation of everything one should aspire to conquer in an artistic career. The biggest horror of humankind is to be forgotten. The thought which wracks at the collective soul of mankind is to be a stranger to the history books, the common goal of creators and the everyday man alike is to be eternal. Every name which leaves our lips in a list of legends is a name which carries with it some kind of resounding cultural wealth. Every song you hear repeatedly on the radio leaves something within you every time it is played, no matter the love or hate you may feel for it, you will remember it, and you will continue to hear it. These songs, often albatrosses to the musicians associated with it, stab their flag into the world to shine for the rest of time. This is the common denominator in all of history. A need to be remembered. It’s at this point that you’re probably realising you have either never heard this song or at least hadn’t heard it until you were much older than you were when you first became aware of music. The specific memory of this song is lost to most, but to me what matters is not the the song itself as a singular entity, but instead its power as an encapsulating phenomena. It is the wide plains within the song, the feelings this song conjures up that are universal and eternal to the human condition.
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Shockingly, the song’s origins do not lie in the winding milky way, orchestrated by some celestial fiend looking to stir the whole of the earth. Instead it has its roots inside a sixteen year old’s harsh cynicism, remarking one day in 1977 that the infatuation of teenage love is beyond childish. The chronically sarcastic Rowland S. Howard was then fronting Melbourne band The Young Charlatans with fellow bandmate, Ollie Olsen. I would be remiss to imply that Howard was unaware of his destiny to become a towering figure in rock, it is evident in early video recordings seen in the 2011 documentary, Autoluminescent that Howard has always carried himself with the unmistakable power of an established rock’n’roll star. This trait carries on into the original 1978 recording of “Shivers” with the Young Charlatans where Howard scowls over rough instrumentals about a ‘love’ which sees none other than herself, making hollow statements about the fragility of his heart and the poker face he holds to mask the non-substantial pain he feels for the woman at hand. In this version we can clearly make out the jaded tone of the song and understand it more as a vision of dead, perhaps never lifeless desire, mistaken as heartbreak by an idle teenager. This idea is resoundingly lost in the more popularised version of the song, recorded just a year later with bad-seed-to-be Nick Cave on lead vocals, backed by another Melbourne band which Howard joined forces with just a few months after the original recording of ‘Shivers.’
Despite the sarcastic intent by the ghostly Howard, the version recorded by the Boys Next Door in 1979 has cast a romantic shadow over the work. The blasé attitude of the first cut is thrown aside entirely for a more genuine, harrowing ballad echoing the likes of Roxy Music. The song created here is one of true heartbreak and disbelief with the cruelty of humanity’s heart. The track is introduced by a stinging guitar and tumbling drums, expanding a wide open space within your mind shrouded in cigarette smoke from which arises the devastated Cave, who’s shaking vocals shoot a hole straight through your rib cage leaving you fatally wounded. This is a boy torn to pieces by vicious indifference, shot down from Cupid’s grasps by the worst feeling known to his teenage heart: unrequited love. Cave’s dominating voice are rivaled only by the staggering presence of Howard’s signature weeping guitar, piercing the lush, heavy song with razor blade precision, as is custom for Howard’s style - which seems to aim to kill more than it aims to please. There is no better adversary to Cave’s crooning than Howard’s sting, the two of which do not meet harmoniously until the chorus, which delivers a gutteral kick to the chest sending you spiraling through the darkest of emotions back to your most sorrowful nights. One cannot help but imagine a pouring champagne bottle hurtling through a dusty velvet clad and lonely lounge when embarking upon the expanse of this track. It solidifies for the listener a dark and terrorising thought of love into a barbed wire wrapped sacred heart bleeding crimson.
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Though the premise of the song is essentially warped, the ability to create an entirely new entity out of unchanged source material proves the unstoppable malleability of the lyrics themselves. The most remarkable thing about this song is it’s unbelievable capacity for interpretation, artists have twisted and turned the music and melodies of this song into innumerable different sensations, all having only one thing in common - the undeniable genius of the lyrical framework. Seldom ever are the words altered, they stay put like the metal frame of a skyscraper unable to move, it is simply the world around them which changes. The distinct adaptability of the track is what digs its nails into the field of unforgettable classics, for the best of things that we can make are those which can mean platitudes to hundreds of different people. It is this kaleidoscope of expression that renders it deserving of its place in music history, for there are very few things which can mean so much without ever changing, and continue to do so for every listener and artist who decide to take it on. I had mentioned the sheer scope of the song at the beginning of this article, touching upon the plains that rest within this track. Though one may find it useless to be remembered for something that your face is not directly associated with, I find the opposite far more poetic and substantial. What it is that Howard has managed to do here is to strip this monolith of an art piece from all it’s corporal ties, allowing it to become a free form, endlessly traveling thing which falls into the possession of a select few to be toyed with and thought of before escaping back into the ether to be discovered once more.
#LM#i rewrote it its better now it explains shit better thanks#please tell me this is good its the only good thing iv ever written
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