most-like-a-marshfire

[most-like-a-marshfire]

Something to ponder about having just watched the Borg Queen brain-nap Jurati - what would you do in Jurati's place?

I'm having an enormous amount of fun imagining the Borg Queen arrive in my brain and being taken aback by the happy chaos around her.

Like: there is a room that plays an endless loop of German Volksmusik (which is very horrid but it's so memorable that it lives rent-free in my head).

And then you have, like, sinkholes where you go ploop, because while I have an astounding memory for a number of things, my brain is also a sieve, like I once celebrated my birthday with a friend whose birthday falls on the same day and then asked my friend, two weeks later, when her birthday was again and she refused to answer and I dramatically exclaimed that she was keeping this secret knowledge from me to wound me. (She and some other friends decided I must have obviously been possessed by a demon two weeks prior).

Now there is of course also a dark side to Borg possession, what secrets might I be hiding. Thing is, I don't really, one can just ask, I'm an open book.

I would, however, be interested in some Borg enhancements, if the Queen then tries to take over I can still lock her in the German Volksmusik room and see how long she can take it.

If this were a fanfiction, this would definitely be a crack!fic but you know why not.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

Opera - Musical Theatre - Pop

Realised that I wasn’t very specific in my “how singing works” post.

The mechanics I described apply to all kinds of genres, however what I said about resonance spaces and where to project which sounds is specifically classical singing.

My knowledge of musical theatre and pop singing is limited but as far as I can tell the area where classical singing, singing in musical theatre and pop singing diverge is when it comes to sound projection and how you mix the different colours of your voice.

Every person has a certain range within which they can produce sounds. Within this range there are certain sub-ranges that automatically resonate with some particular resonance spaces: deep sounds resonate in the chest area, high sounds in the head. All this is entirely independent from if you are a trained singer or not, it’s just nature.

We call those sounds where your voice transitions from chest to head voice a “break in the register” (”Registerbruch” in German). It’s usually one particular note where your voice suddenly changes gear like a car and from then on has a completely different quality of sound. Again, everyone has this; usually a person has about two of those breaks in their voice.

Very crudely put the difference between classical singing, singing in musical theatre and pop singing is what you do with these different qualities of sound - the chest voice sounds fuller and darker, the head voice lighter and brighter - and how you deal with the breaks in the register.

- in classical music, you continually mix your voice. The aim is to still have some aspects of your head voice when you sing deep chest voice notes and still have some aspects of your chest voice when you sing in the higher registers. The final aim is that the breaks in register become unnoticeable because you have one smooth spectrum of sound.

- in musical theatre (and now this is just my observation), it feels like you take the head voice and spread it everywhere, also in your chest voice register. However you don’t take the chest voice back up, so musical theatre singing sounds very bright, and sometimes preppy but it does not sound full in the way that classical singing does.

- pop music does exactly the opposite and drags the chest voice up to the higher register - this is then called belting. It’s very strenous to do which is also why you see veins bulging when people belt full throttle. This is also the reason why in pop music, you very often have a wide range of chest voice and then suddenly, in a small part of your high register, you get the head voice only and it really is a perceptible break in colour; it’s especially striking with men - this is the moment when we speak of falsetto.

Since I was trained classically, I am of coursed biased and prefer the mixing everything technique, and I also feel that it’s easier for me to move to pop music or to musical theatre because I see myself as kind of in the middle of these two.

However - no matter what you specialise in: this will train your voice to sound a certain way, and the muscles in your voice apparatus will adjust accordingly. It is possible to re-train and change genre but it is difficult.

Tale of a Lady and a Dame - Lady Gaga and Dame Julie Andrews

A really nice example of this is Lady Gaga’s tribute to Julie Andrews where Gaga re-trained her voice to sound more musical-theatre-y for this particular occasion; she did a great job, however if you compare her to the original, you can see that she does not entirely manage to keep the belting out and her heights are not as focussed and crystal-clear as they should be (tbf Julie Andrews has an unusually clear and bell-like voice).

vs.

At the end of the day, all these different styles of singing are totally valid - even if there is some rivalry between the genres. 

The classical singers are often pretty sure that their technique is superior - in all fairness, classical singers retain the quality of their voices for much longer than any pop star (who often have a very short shelf life), or musical theatre star; I was once in a performance of the Magic Flute and Sarastro was around 80 I think. But then again classical singing can also sound really sculpted and articificial; to some extent it is a matter of taste which style of singing one prefers listening to; and a question of where the strengths of your voice lie as regards which style of singing suits you best.

All these explanations are by no means exhaustive, by the way, I’ve purposefully left out overtone singing, jazz singing and singing in metal because I know far too little about it. (And I am sure there are other distinctive genres which I have now forgotten to mention.)

[most-like-a-marshfire]

So another thing I've been thinking about while browsing randomly through fanfics (but this is also something I notice when reading published novels): it really isn't that well-known how singing works, is it?

I find this lack of accessible information a shame.

So let's talk a bit about singing.

In the world of classical music, a singer is usually seen as a bit of a dunce who knows nothing about musical theory and whose singing parts are so undemanding that any instrument could sight-play it, i.e. see the sheet music and correctly play the tune although you are seeing it for the first time. This is what my violin teacher used to say anyways and she is right but she is also wrong.

Singing is both terribly intellectual and terribly unintellectual at the same time. Let me explain.

When I was a kid - before puberty that is - I could sing whatever music was in my head. I was a bit unusual in that but generally kids can sing really naturally, without having to learn complicated techniques, and they'll be fine. The biggest hurdle is that they have to internally hear what they will be singing. But then your voice does it right automatically; I mean pretty much.

I used to be in a children's choir where we had a fantastic choir teacher who had the ability to train kids to develop a sense for the melody they were hearing and make them realise what it was they had to sing. My position on this is that the main hurdle for children really is music perception; training the voice, yes, that too, but more in the sense of - you'll be a better runner if you go running regularly.

In that sense singing is really unintellectual because the melodies we sing - even if you do sing second voice - are not that difficult. Compared to violin playing in the orchestra, choir singing is really chill.

However -

Puberty hits and everything goes to shit.

Puberty hits boys much harder than girls, but even girls have a voice break and their voices work very differently afterwards. This is the point where you really have to learn how to sing - and this is where the intellectual part comes in.

Singing is shit because you can't see your instrument - and let me tell you, your instrument is moody af. Violin players like to joke about the brass players because brass instruments are so sensitive to colder temperatures that you might start playing flat in the middle of a piece and then need to do some jedi-ninja shit with your mouth to make your instrument go a tad higher.

Singing is so much worse. (And I love it very much but it is the worst.)

People assume they know how singing works, right, you breathe in, you breathe out and make a sound with your vocal cords, like speaking but a bit different, and if you want to sing loud you open your mouth really wide...

No no. I mean to an extent yes but mostly no.

The first thing is proper breathing and this needs to be trained. Classical singers are particularly pernickety about this because we don't use microphones and need to be loud without blowing our voices out, so breathing is very important.

Apart from our lungs, the most important thing for breathing is the diaphragm.

(image taken from here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Respiratory_system.svg)

The diaphragm is like an elastic membrane muscle (not a medical professional :) ) that helps create a vacuum in our body that then helps suck in air - this is us breathing in. Breathing out, too, is controlled by the diaphragm - you can try this out yourself: if you breathe out with a hiss, you can controll if it is a short intense hiss, or a longer, softer one.

The first thing singers learn is how to feel the diaphragm, we usually do this by either lying on the floor and doing breathing exercises, like producing short huffs; we mostly produce consonants like t, p (plosives) because then you can feel short jolts in the middle of your body (this is your diaphraghm yey); you can also place your hand on your belly, then you will feel it even more pronounced. You can also feel your diaphragm when you are laughing (or chuckling); when you laugh so hard it hurts, that is your diaphragm.

And then we do all kinds of stuff with the diaphragm, the goal is the most efficient use of air, and also how to breathe without tensing up. Generally, you should always stand straight, feet as wide apart as your shoulders and your ribcage should feel wide because the more open you are, the more air can "fall in" (This is what we call it in German, sorry if it sounds weird.)

Then comes your larynx and your vocal cords, as with breathing, if you tense up and your larynx rises up instead of staying low, this will be painful for your voice after a while (and also it is ineffective).

(image taken from here: https://www.informedhealth.org/how-does-the-larynx-work.html)

The vocal cords are really only important in the sense that you need to learn to channel the right amount of air through them. Too much air makes the sound go all breathy, not enough air and too much pressure will give the sound a sharpness and it will also start hurting after a while. Usually people who use too much air pressure also lift their larynx, both of which is bad so don't do it. I can't actually tell you how one determines if you use the right amount of air, I can only tell you that I know how to and that we work with LOTS of imagery in a singing lesson - I will say more about this in a bit.

Finally comes your resonance space (we call it "Resonanzraum") - most people will probably immediately think of the mouth - yes, that's sort of true - but the ones you are really interested in are the one in your chest area, and your entire head - and by that I mean the various cavities that we have in our head, basically everywhere where you can get sinusitis - your nose, your forehead, the area around your cheeks.

(look at their faces, without hearing them, you can already tell they are classical singers; screenshot of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZL5AxmK_A) 

One of the things I really enjoy about having been trained is that you learn to do stuff that people will disbelieve is even possible.

Remember what I said about - it's not true that you have to open your mouth widely to be loud? It gets even better. You don't even need to change the opening of your mouth to produce different vowels. Your tongue does everything for you - I can sing an entire song for you while holding something with my teeth. The tongue does the basis and the rest is all projecting the sound to the right cavities. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my a-vowels were pronounced to be shit by my singing teacher - but it was not like: ah, you are so incompetent but rather: ah, your nose is simply not pronounced enough, no proper space for the a's!

This is a very, very rough outline of what goes into singing - and as I said before: you can't see any of it. And you usually don't consciously feel any of these things happening either.

And this is where it gets really intellectual and the point where I would say: singing is so demanding to get right, you other instrument players have no idea.

Learning singing is like a double-edged sword (and now here comes the reason why we work a lot with imagery): one of the worst things for a singer to be is to tense or too self-conscious. It'll make you clam right up, it will lead to you overusing your voice, it will make the sound off and your voice hurt within a very short amount of time. But the problem is obviously: you have to be really self-conscious in order to feel all this weird stuff your body is supposed to be doing.

So singing teachers work with imagery - and try to make you feel loose and relaxed and unselfconscious while getting you to activate all the right muscles and project to all the right spaces. I am honestly in awe of the creative competency of singing teachers in this area.

You can imagine it like this: you're standing in a room, feet as wide apart as your shoulders, you have just let your breath fall in, your ribs are wide, your eyes are twinkling because you are trying to activate the mask (the mask is the resonance space around the cheeks, super standard and very important), and then at the same time you have to imagine that you are a lion who is at the same time an elephant, who is wearing a hoodie whose hood you are casually flipping on your head. And this is still fairly simple.

(image taken from here: https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/flehmender-loewe-karl-heinz-weiss/35170352)

If you have read this far and want to suffer through some more random info :) - I can actually explain what that particular imagery was for, it had to do with getting the vowels in the right resonance spaces.

I don't actually know why but pretending to be a roaring lion who is wrinkling his nose is actually really useful to get a good feel for where the a-vowel should go. Check out Diana Damrau as Queen of the Night, that is a classic lion face. The roaring lion really helps with the focus while the elephant and its trunk are helpful to become more aware of your nose (so roaring lion is more advanced and elephant trunks is for idiots like me who have trouble feeling their nose), the hoodie thing goes in a similar direction as the elephant trunk.

(Now, who is the lion and who is Diana Damrau? ; image taken from here: https://diana-damrau.com/de/photos/opera/screen-shot-2017-11-08-at-16-33-32/)

And this was just the imageries - specifically for me - to produce the vowel a. We are not even talking about staccato, or runs, or high vs low notes. Those would be additional elements.

Now, one needs to say that I'm a very brain-based type of singer, in German we say "verkopft", by which I mean that I am someone who wants to cognitively understand the mechanics of what it is that I am supposed to do, and I'm also quite happy to juggle imagery while figuring out what reactions my body has to them - but a lot of singers are more instinct-based and also work more with feeling than with "thinking".

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Singing is not just invisible but it's also really susceptible to emotions. One thing that really stuck with me was when I once read about Maria Callas, one of the great great sopranos, and how her career was over when she lost faith in herself. This is not a joke even though it might sound a bit strange.

The shitty thing about singing is that our instrument is not fixed, ready-made and there but it is organic, it is subject to the same fluctuations as the rest of our body. Some singers sing really well in the mornings, for others the voice only "wakes up" in the course of the day. Most, I would say, sing better when they are happy because our bodies (overally) are less tense when we are happy. Tell that to a pianist or violinist: oh, I'm sorry, you were feeling the wrong emotion or were not thinking of the right kind of lion and now you suddenly have a different variation of your instrument.

One of the lovely things is that reading this explanation also makes people (me at least) feel incredibly self-conscious, so for the next time that I sing, I will pack all of this technique stuff in my technique compartment and plaster huge amounts of blind self-confidence and weird images on top of it.

All righty, the real reason why I am writing all this is that I feel quite allergic about how singing is sometimes described as: oh person xyz is told by their teacher (or love interest) to feel free or be themselves, and then suddenly the sound transforms and everything is as it should be. This is NOT how it works. Confidence is helpful, but blind confidence and emotion channeling without awareness of the proper technique are harmful.

(Or also the idea that someone has lost their speaking voice and now cannot sing. Not so, if trained properly, you will still be able to sing, speaking is much more strenous, I've had this situation myself and also know of professional singers who'd tell you this. Motherland Fort Salem gets this a little wrong; although to be fair, the witches don't really train singing)

Certainly, singing is more personal and intimate than playing any other instrument; because the instrument is YOU, but "proper" singing (by which I mean singing that doesn't harm your voice in the short and long run) is at the same time very technical and very loose and uninhibited (no tensing up, not physically or mentally).

I occasionally wish that this idea of singing as an actual instrument was more present in stories or that authors were more aware of it because singing is so much more than just expressing your soul because you have the right kind of feelings.

Singing is the most direct expression of self-love that there is because you need to feel and respect your body and then you create beauty within and with it and the sound both tells a story about how you are feeling at the moment (or the persona you are telling your brain to adopt) but also if you've been in the sun, if the air in the room is too humid or too dry, it tells you if you are alive and fit and air is rushing through you, filling your body with energy and life that you then share with the world by taking part in the aetherial beauty that is music.

(© iStock/Margarita Balashova)

[most-like-a-marshfire]

can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually quite like that Alder is now a part of the mycelium (future developments to be seen).

actually a thing I’ve thought about commenting on: that MFS has some conflicting elements and Alder is in many ways at the center of those contradictions.

The military lives from hierarchy, obedience and physical dominance and aggression (which is why the Tarim don’t like it), and Alder is an embodiment of this. But Alder (infertile Alder one must say) also calls her soldiers “daughters” or “sisters”. And the mycelium that Alder created sounds a little bit like every feminist’s dream, by which I mean: you have an interconnected network which relies on bonds and symbiosis, basically Octavia Butler’s list of what is sexy:

(picture taken from here: https://twitter.com/LAReviewofBooks/status/805094451475611648)

The same goes for the way witches’ workings function - witches can perform workings on their own but even then the sounds they produce are layered and of a kind that you can only get with two or three others (I’m saying this as a viewer looking at the canon from outside); never mind that a unit is composed of three witches who complement each other.

And witches are not only connected to other witches but they also - in particular Alder - have an intimate connection with nature (which, again, the idea of mother and mother earth and creation is super 1970s feminism, I wonder if Eliot picked it up there).

I’ve been thinking for some time now that Alder really shouldn’t be part of the military and that I would prefer the unit not to be part either. I mean the military is NOT good for Alder’s health or any witch’s probably, it perverts what it means to be a witch in order to fulfill a contract where men promise not to kill witches in exchange for this distortion what witches are actually founded on. In reality, of course, the witch ethos simply does not mesh with the ethos of the military.

So in a sense, Alder really goes back to her roots and to the roots of what it means to be a witch and I am honestly positively surprised that they allow Alder to have what on the surface might seem like a humbling but in fact is a re-connecting with true purpose, nurture and strength.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

Final speculation about the Tally-Alder situation

After having written what turned out to be - as I realised writing it - pretty dark scenarios where neither Tally nor Alder really get a good outcome, here is how I think this might have worked better:

Tally goes to Alder, all youth and righteous indignation, and Alder realises the risk inherent in having someone so young glance at shocking snippets from your own life. Alder also realises that Tally is an idealist, passionate about justice and emotionally invested in making the world a better place - and also that Tally knows very little about the ways of the world.

So Alder makes Tally feel seen (and loved, depending on if Alder wants to indulge herself and/or manipulate Tally; because, truly, the age and power difference makes love between those two very complicated and Tally might not see this but Alder certainly does). Alder takes the time to meet with Tally regularly and makes Tally promise her that if she has disturbing dreams, she will come to Alder immediately. This is a little inconvenient for Alder but preferable to having a very emotional, insecure cadet running around on base searching for affirmation and answers in other places.

Depending on Alder's mood, she might throw in a little manipulation, how much she cares for Tally and that making the world a better place starts with conversations and speaking and listening to one another (this might just be my view, I wholly agree with the latter part and disagree with the first because I believe that if Alder really cared for Tally she would never say so to Tally in a moment where Tally is insecure and hurting. Because if you get to someone on that level, you can probably ask them to do awful things afterwards. So as I said, depends on how morally strict Alder is with herself, although note that this version of her would not put Tally in any uncompromising situations, she is simply to old for this stuff (emotionally), what does she profit from the emotional dependency and suffering of others).

Tally feels great relief, like a big weight lifted off her shoulders and she visits Alder regularly. They disagree about Alder's actions and decisions, they disagree about what counts as moral behaviour - after all, Alder is really old and her view of the world was forged at a time very different from Tally's.

But Alder gives this context, too:

"Tally, do you know what the procedure would be when a general abdicates? Who becomes the new general - would you approve of anyone but me, or only of some particular people? Do you believe that I am the only problem or do you believe that subordinates who allow a general to do anything are also part of the problem? If someone else but me was the general, what is there to stop them from being like me or worse than me?

What do you know about the history of the military and how we are entangled with politicians? What do you know about the dynamics between the military and the Spree and the dodgers?

There is a complex history and there are complex reasons for why we are currently at this point, if you want to make the world better, you need to understand it first."

Tally feels impatience nipping at her heels but Alder has met her with openness, honesty and acknowledged her as someone she takes seriously, so she calms her fire and starts doing actual research.

She still ends up disagreeing with Alder a lot of the time but is pained to admit that often it ends in: we have very similar aims but disagree in how to get there; and: I cannot bring myself to open rebellion against you, my mind does not strongly enough disagree with my heart.

And so both Alder and Tally profit from the situation:

For the first time in decades, Alder takes the time to interact with someone who really thinks she messes things up and tries to make her reasoning clear and observes which arguments convince Tally and which don't. This gives her a better feel of the general atmosphere among her soldiers and helps her consolidate her power (as well as be a little less absolutist). Without Tally's bond with her, the dreams and Alder's care for Tally as well as her interest in defusing the situation as peacefully as possible, this scenario would never have happened.

And Tally gets private lessons from someone with hundreds of years of experience, and if anyone is jealous of this preferential treatment, they are less so when they hear Tally wake up screaming from nightmares and when they see Tally bowed over another huge tome of the history of US jurisprudence in the 1800s and ask her: what are you doing, do I even want to know? - and Tally answers, completely exhausted: General Alder said if I wanted to criticise the Camarilla conflicts in 1877, I would need to brush up on my legal knowledge - and her fellow cadets are mostly terrified, but some are curious history nerds and so, by accident, Tally starts an "Alder's history club" where she (by necessity) and other cadets (by choice) learn about arcane tribes and strange jungles, and society rules in 17th century France.

Tally, who dislikes fighting anyways, ends up continuing the Alder's history club after graduation and later, teaches it at War College because it seems to her that a lot of misunderstandings and bad decision-making from cadets and generals alike could be averted with some understanding of history, how exchanges between different generations work, and some critical thinking skills.

As to Alder's and Tally's relationship, I will lay a veil over this but suffice it to say - All is well.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

A couple of speculations and what-ifs around Tally Craven, Thinker Extraordinaire - Part 2

By the end of season 1, Tally Craven has a very complicated relationship with General Alder: Alder had her and her team mates execute a truck full of civilians, suffice it to say that Tally is NOT happy about this. And then the fight against the Camarilla happens and Tally sacrifices herself to save Alder's life, enmeshing herself with Alder's mind and soul, which, to say the least, is not the most objective viewpoint to land in.

In season 2, Tally is de-biddied but the connection prevails - and this is where my speculations start.

(I will split this up in two posts because otherwise this is too long to easily read. This is part 2, here is part 1: https://most-like-a-marshfire.tumblr.com/post/660181544438218752/a-couple-of-speculations-and-what-ifs-around-tally)

Scenario 1:

The reason why Tally is so distraught about killing the civilians is because she is deeply empathetic and could feel the civilians' terror and pain when they were killed. (This is not my idea but comes from the fanfiction “Lie Still on Nettles” by Anonymous (https://archiveofourown.org/works/33398428) and made me think: yes, makes perfect sense, so what if..)

When Tally was a biddy, she was privy to General Alder's surface intentions and emotions (as well as getting a fair dollop of caring for her and investment in her welfare); however Tally was not privy to General Alder's secrets or memories. I think this is actually canon because otherwise de-biddied Tally wouldn't be so surprised and shocked by the memory dreams.

So when Tally dreams of Alder's memory for the first time, it almost makes her go up the wall. It is one thing sharing the emotions of strangers who fear for their lives but it quite another to feel the trauma of someone you know, someone you still feel close to. Tally wants it to stop and wants it to stop now. The dreams are so vivid, Alder's feelings still so familiar to Tally that she has trouble separating where she ends and Alder begins. Is it her hate, determination and terror or Alder's? If she dreams dreams like this every night, will there even be anything of Tally left?

Quite apart from the fact that Tally is considerate, she is the peacemaker, she respects other people's feelings and boundaries, wants them to feel safe and appreciated.

And now, Tally's choice depends on how much she trusts that General Alder will not harm her.

Scenario 1.2 - the thing with integrity

Tally Craven goes to General Alder and says:

Last night, I relived one of your memories, a fight with the Camarilla, I saw, smelt and felt what you saw, smelt and felt. I care for you but even if I didn't I wouldn't want this, this is not right. This is your privacy, your sanctity and I am sorry for invading it. I do not want to. I will not tell anyone about this since this is your sacred place, not mine, I have no business seeing this. What shall I do?

Alder is shocked at this revelation and perplexed at the strange priorities of Tally Craven. Tally has experienced one of her traumatising memories and is now giving a speech on the rights of mental privacy. The cadet is serious, Alder can see it in her eyes, but she also FEELS that Tally is serious, that respecting Sarah Alder's - and anyone's for that matter - privacy is of utmost importance to her.

Normally, Alder would panic if anyone saw a glimpse of things she does not want anyone to see but in this case... Alder scrutinises Tally, the affection evident in the cadet's gaze, the righteousness and conviction burning through their link like a bonfire.

Tally will not betray her, regardless of if she approves of Alder's past or no, Tally believes in standing up straight, being truthful and considerate because she believes everyone deserves this consideration.

Tally is sweet, the General thinks, but underneath this sweetness is a steely commitment, not unlike the steel that drives the General, a desire to serve and protect that - even though the General's motivations have experienced wear and tear and are tinged with cynicism, suffering and anger - is at the core of what Sarah Alder believes herself.

Alder feels softer towards Tally Craven than she should, it irks her to not have this fully under control, but in this moment she is filled with respect and deep fondness; there is no need to scramble away from the temptation of Tally Craven, Tally is young but she is solid, Alder wants to trust her instinctively but now she knows that she can.

And so Alder decides not to dampen the cadet with chemicals, or try to control or get rid of her. They might have to consult with Izadora at some point but first Alder feels secure enough about this to be intrigued. Why is there a lingering bond between her and the cadet, are there some undiscovered secrets of the mysterious biddy working that Alder was subjected to but never knew much of herself?

And, more selfishly and Alder barely admits this to herself, what would be the harm of sharing something with someone so bright, so close to the ideals that she once held; she does still hold them of course, but her optimism and hope have been bleached out by the centuries. What if, Alder allows a whisper of this thought, Tally is a gift, a warmth she has not felt for too long, a warmth that will reach her through her thick hide of age and experience? Tally would have touched Alder regardless, Alder is open towards the cadet in a way that only a biddy-like bond permits, but now Alder knows that she might perhaps have been touched by Tally Craven without this bond, too.

So General Alder makes Tally an offer: Tally can discuss her dreams with Alder if she wants to, and Alder will take on some of the pain in Tally's heart, ease her distress with the touch of her hand. It is selfish and unwise but Alder wants this and Tally looks at Alder carefully and offers; because, truly, this is an offer that Tally makes, Alder rather asks for it.

And so General Alder and Tally meet every two days, every day if the dreams are particularly distressing and Alder explains the context for what Tally has seen and Tally listens and mulls over it.

Alder is refreshed by Tally's genuineness and clear-sighted empathy, she finds she actually WANTS Tally to be well and Tally...

Well, Tally is a slightly different question. She was truthful when she promised Alder that she cared for her privacy; however Tally Craven has more than just one priority and she finds it increasingly difficult to decide which principle to put first. Alder has committed many wrongs and Tally becomes more and more aware of this with every passing week. There is compromise and necessity in her actions, Tally sees this and understands this but there are also no records of Alder's activities and the more Tally sees, the more she thinks: dangerous, dangerous, this person is truly dangerous and I'm sharing tea with her every other evening. There seem to be no checks and balances to Alder; Alder is trapped herself, and torn between her hopes for the well-being of witches and the constraints men have laid on her; but there is also no one to tell Alder no. No General, you do not see everything, you do not know everything, if you truly want to help make a better world you CANNOT do this alone and force everyone to follow your tune (rather literally, Tally thinks, amused and angry).

For someone who speaks of sisterhood, for someone who is the origin of the powerful mycelium under Fort Salem - a network of connections between witches lost to tragedy -, Sarah Alder has a very limited understanding of cooperation.

Tally realises this and addresses it. Sarah does not understand.

-Why would I consult with civilians or young witches, cadet? They do not see the bigger picture or the tides of time.

- What about your allies or the President?

- You have seen my memories, why do you ask this? There is always strife, no matter the century; allies come and go, presidents are caught up in election promises and silly squabbles with their political opponents. Politics is more about posturing and negotiating to the death, why should I be interested in its perspective?

Alder is frowning at her wily cadet. What exactly is her problem?

- How can you serve the people if you will not listen to them?

Thunder descends on Alder's brow, this is one step to far:

- Careful cadet, you are treading on very thin ice here. You know what I stand for and I know you understand it, we shall not discuss this again.

Tally is more torn than ever. While she might love the General, admire her even, she loves decency more, she wants people to be free and safe and it seems like the General is not actually interested in making that happen. Sarah Alder has lived for so long that everyone else is uninformed and naive by comparison but Sarah Alder has forgotten that she wants to fight for these same people and making them happy is not a question of if Sarah Alder believes they should be. She wants me as someone who makes her feel good, Tally realises with a sting in her heart. She does not want me as an equal but unfortunately, Tally lets out a bitter chuckle, I believe that I am worthy and important and I believe everyone else is, too. Sarah Alder is a lonely God but Tally Craven is all community, all warmth.

So Tally re-prioritises. She tells Raelle everything, Raelle with the mycelium connection, Raelle who tells Tally that the mycelium is centuries old and contains countless souls and information. Tally might not be able to leak Alder's secrets, she knows Alder and the military apparatus well enough to know that this would lead to a very ugly end. But she can use the web - a true witches' internet, Tally grins -, make sure that there is a documentation of the lives, deeds and misdeeds of Sarah Alder, an insurance if you will for the moment that Tally Craven will have to defy General Alder and hope to the Goddess that Sarah Alder loves her enough not to harm her.

For now, Tally sits in Alder's office and offers sympathy, understanding and love (for how could she not) but she is divided, truly; she is dreaming and suffering and sharing and lying because she believes this will help someone at some point, little does Tally care for the price she is paying.

Alder was right about one thing, after all. There is true light in Tally Craven.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

A couple of speculations and what-ifs around Tally Craven, Thinker Extraordinaire - Part 1

By the end of season 1, Tally Craven has a very complicated relationship with General Alder: Alder had her and her team mates execute a truck full of civilians, suffice it to say that Tally is NOT happy about this. And then the fight against the Camarilla happens and Tally sacrifices herself to save Alder's life, enmeshing herself with Alder's mind and soul, which, to say the least, is not the most objective viewpoint to land in.

In season 2, Tally is de-biddied but the connection prevails - and this is where my speculations start.

(I will split this up in two posts because otherwise this is too long to easily read.)

Scenario 1:

The reason why Tally is so distraught about killing the civilians is because she is deeply empathetic and could feel the civilians' terror and pain when they were killed. (This is not my idea but comes from the fanfiction “Lie Still on Nettles” by Anonymous (https://archiveofourown.org/works/33398428) and made me think: yes, makes perfect sense, so what if..)

When Tally was a biddy, she was privy to General Alder's surface intentions and emotions (as well as getting a fair dollop of caring for her and investment in her welfare); however Tally was not privy to General Alder's secrets or memories. I think this is actually canon because otherwise de-biddied Tally wouldn't be so surprised and shocked by the memory dreams.

So when Tally dreams of Alder's memory for the first time, it almost makes her go up the wall. It is one thing sharing the emotions of strangers who fear for their lives but quite another to feel the trauma of someone you know, someone you still feel close to. Tally wants it to stop and wants it to stop now. The dreams are so vivid, Alder's feelings still so familiar to Tally that she has trouble separating where she ends and Alder begins. Is it her hate, determination and terror or Alder's? If she dreams dreams like this every night, will there even be anything of Tally left?

Quite apart from the fact that Tally is considerate, she is the peacemaker, she respects other people's feelings and boundaries, wants them to feel safe and appreciated.

And now, Tally's choice depends on how much she trusts that General Alder will not harm her.

Scenario 1.1 - wherein Alder has aims and nothing will stand in the way

From her time as a biddy, Tally is aware that Alder has a relentless streak. It is possible that Alder was not always like this but she has certainly become it over the centuries of fighting, persevering and suffering. Alder thinks long-game because the short-game doesn't really apply to her anymore - her pain and age is distributed among the biddies, so she doesn't feel the full brunt of her own emotions; and Alder has been doing this for a long time and wonders if there are situations left where she doesn't feel like: "oh no, not this again". Alder is bound by the Salem Accords and insofar as she has any particular drive left it is the pursuit of her aim: with any means necessary ensure that what she thinks the welfare of witches can look like in the best scenario she can envision (given all the crap) is safe.

Alder and Tally are connected and Tally's pain will reverberate with Alder but if Alder is truly without scruple, then this will hardly matter.

So Tally goes to General Alder and reveals that she dreams of Alder's memories. Alder is intrigued for a moment - this has not happened before, how nice - and then, she is horrified. This is a leak of classified information, so classified in fact that this information only lives in Alder's brain (because for some reason, the military has not kept proper documentations on its own actions. (In real life, there is of course hush-ups but I think we would be surprised how much failings actually do get documented, the question is really more: who takes the trouble of reading through it and are there any actions taken in response)).

So this young cadet stands in front of General Alder, eyes all open and trusting, and Alder knows immediately that she has to squash this access as soon as humanly possible, with all means necessary. Tally Craven is a soft, naive idealist, and - quite apart from the fact that no one should see Alder's secrets - she is the last person Alder would want to have knowledge about her past and the conflicts in it.

Alder calls Izadora and discusses possible medication that will disrupt Tally's somnial wanderings. Tally is fully on board with trying to shield herself from Alder's memories, so she goes along with all the treatments. None of them work.

Alder thinks, how regretful, she loves Tally, she does; she just loves the fate of the witches in the world more. So Alder sends Tally and her unit out against Nicte Batan, well aware that Nicte has noticed the link between Tally and Alder, well aware that Nicte has a fixation on Alder and that Nicte will want to kill Tally in her obsession and jealousy.

Nicte kills Tally Craven, and Alder feels deep pain in her chest and in her stomach. She mourns Tally Craven openly - why wouldn't she: Tally is a former biddy, everyone knows that Alder has been very concerned about Tally's welfare - just as Alder is concerned about all witches' welfare, she might be the head of the military but she is a general of protection, mother and sister of the soldiers she commands.

And so the reign of Alder continues. All secrets keep.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

A little disappointed that Eliot introduced this really cool idea of Alder and Tally having an emotional and cognitive bond that persists even after Tally is de-biddied... and then nothing is done with it really.

The bond was my main reason for sticking with season 2 because I was curious how that would turn out. So many possibilities.

Like: how much of Alder's knowledge can Tally access, can she control gaining access (with lucid dreaming/meditation for example, letting her call up those memories she really wants to see) because she is a thinker?

I know exactly what I would have done in Tally's place: treated Alder like a huge library with confidential information. Apparently Alder does not notice the breach, so.. Tally wants truth? Well she should actively look for it. She would probably find out how complicated and fucked up the military (and life) is.

Honestly if someone is 300 years old and in the military, there will be a LOT of shit, misdeeds, whatnot. And Alder will have the experience to make all the shit go away, she will have done so many times before if she is still on top now - which leads me to:

Alder should have totally memory-wiped Tally as soon as soon as she knew Tally was dreaming about Alder's Nicte-history. Or she should have emotionally manipulated Tally or threatened her where it hurts. Then Tally's defiance would have actually been an act of valour.

My main complaint is really that Tally could have stumbled over an old buried diary she perceived with her Thinking skills and read about Nicte there. This would have led to the exact same outcome in 2x09. In terms of the plot her being biddied and de-biddied was really fairly irrelevant except for the emotional fragility scene in 2x01. (You can absolutely fantasize about Alder in 2x08 for whatever reason. Doesn't Tally have a bit of an authority and military kink anyways?)

Alder saying: "it [the feelings of loss over the severed bond] will pass" - and us of course hoping that it would be complicated and gradual - was entirely accurate, it was pretty much gone after a night?

A more emotionally compromised Tally would have told Alder immediately about her nightmare and the centipede injury - that was even that very same night - and Tally's just like, yeah, not great but whatever. And then the dreams are only adressed with Alder when she dreams of Nicte?

A lot of the fanfiction out there deals with this much more thoroughly.

I love a lot of the ideas in MFS but man they are sometimes not fleshed out in the way they deserve. I absolutely partially blame the restrictions of the TV format, who knows how different (i.e. much longer and detailed) Eliot's book series would have been.

That the concepts and ideas are really strong is evident what with this great fandom that even has its own Research Institute :)

[most-like-a-marshfire]

Another thing I've been thinking about - or how singing is accidentally really spiritual and how this might work in Motherland Fort Salem.

So in my last post I talked about face shapes.

Another thing that really influences the colour of the sounds one can produce, as well as the intensity, is age. And this makes me a little excited in relation to MFS because Alder has the power to vary her age.

Disclaimer: you might have already noticed in my previous post that the perspective that I'm using in regards to singing is a classical one. That's what I was trained in and I think that there are a lot of merits to looking at singing from that vantage point. I would argue that classical singing is at the same time the most technically challenging kind of singing - it has to be; classical singing is supposed to reliably fill concert halls just with your voice without ruining your health after a week, no microphones - and the way of singing where you need to understand your voice so well that you can then, using this knowledge, protect it better from overuse.

Also - and this is the way it was for me but I think this happens generally in the classical approach - classical singing allows you to go to your lesson and then you and your teacher try to figure out what your voice is like exactly, what your weaknesses and strengths are and then how to allow all your different potential to shine. We think a lot about face shapes, voice projection and breath support - and age.

The colour of your voice changes naturally as you age, and I'm not speaking of the voice change in puberty, I'm speaking of the maturation of your voice in your 40s.

For sopranos in the classical world (I'm a soprano so this is what I know) this change is quite important, very, very generally one can say:

- children: naturally have a lot of higher frequencies in their voices, they can be very light and aethereal and bright. They usually don't have a lot of natural vibrato, so their sound is slimmer, sometimes flute-like. I'm thinking of a young Jean-Baptiste Maunier:

He starts singing at around 1.25.

-young sopranos (ca. 14/5 to 35) - (usually) lyrical sopranos: retain much of the brightness and lightness of the child voice but - see voice change - they have a lot more natural vibrato and their voice is a little darker than a child's voice. A really nice example of the kind of sound I'm talking about here is this recording by Lucia Popp:

She sounds like a bell, it's quite extraordinary.

- older sopranos (ca. from late 30s on) - lyrical sopranos can become dramatic sopranos: some lyrical sopranos gain sufficient dark colours and weight in their voice to be able to sing what is called "dramatic repertoire", i.e. pieces that we usually associate with 'operatic divas'. These older sopranos are able to sing pieces that require both more vibrato as well as more volume and fullness of sound - you can't sing Wagner satisfactorily, you might not even make it through his operas, if you are not a dramatic soprano. Funnily enough, the recording by Lucia Popp that I've just mentioned is actually a miscasting - the Queen of the Night is a dramatic soprano, her arias are intense, passionate and somewhat violent, you need a dramatic soprano for this. (Lucia Popp's recording is very beautiful but aesthetically, and for this role in the opera, it's not right).

A fitting Queen of the Night would be someone like Diana Damrau:

Now what has that got to do with Motherland Fort Salem.

The witches are not classically trained (and frankly, the workings don't make sense mechanically, sound production does not work the way it's envisioned there) but that aside they do use their voices and the development I've described for classical singers happens to everyone - if you sing or not, classical singers are just really attuned to noticing and using this changing of the voice.

Age-wise, Alder would be in the age bracket for a dramatic soprano; which is interesting to me because Alder is depicted as being able to wield powerful, momentous kinds of magic; and in the classical singing world this power to raise a storm and make the sea boil is very much dramatic soprano. Not saying that a lyrical soprano couldn't do it but it wouldn't have the same energy and power.

I think this might be quite a nice counterweight to 'witches must be young and sexy' (which we thankfully don't have in MFS). If it's about singing and power, the middle-aged witches are MOST definitely the most powerful hands down. They'll need to have taken care of their voices in their youths and trained properly but if they have; well, dramatic sopranos are terrifying.

So, if this was applied to MFS the shape of the face would not be the only thing the trainees would be paying attention to. They would also be very invested in taking care of themselves and in making the best out of their already existing vocal talent. To be fair, having only dramatic soprano types would be a little boring (I'm actually more of a sucker for warm, lyrical sopranos), but then again, I suppose workings don't actually have to only be about war, violence and destruction (and sorry dramatic sopranos but this is you).

Also (caution: bad joke): you do need to be a certain age to fully understand the weight of your actions (hence, for weightier actions, older age and weightier voice is more effective). To wreak destruction, you must understand it. This is the burden, pain, and wisdom of age. (Cue Alder being really powerful, no surprise.)

If I were Alder, I would let my age vary depending on what kind of working she has to perform - for all the powerful, aggressive stuff, her age is perfect. But for more subtle workings, or more serene and peaceful workings, her voice would sound better younger. And now isn't it interesting that Khalida, head of the Tarim, a pacifist witch clan, seems really old but is in a child's body with a child's voice.

I like to imagine two things:

- child Alder - because sometimes you need other kinds of workings, too - walking around Fort Salem, her biddies in tow, and giving dubiously looking recruits or recruits who dare squat down and ask her if she is lost an absolute death glare.

- and child Alder and her biddies standing in a field, under a sky full of stars and singing long lost seeds of her family. And any nosy recruits who whisper: what is she doing there? - are shushed. "She is capturing the light of the stars, ephemeral and bright."

[most-like-a-marshfire]

So when I was younger, I used to take singing lessons and one of the many things I took away is how relatively unimportant the vocal cords are for sound.

Sure, 'no vocal cords, no sound'; but the same goes for 'no diaphragm, no sound'; and really when you talk about sound manipulation it has very little to do with your vocal cords, but rather with the cavities in your face and if you know how to project sound there.

You can perhaps compare this to a violin: the vocal cords are the strings and your face (your head to be precise, as well as your chest) is the body of the instrument.

My singing teacher used to shout at me: "No, no, these vowels sound just awful when you do them, do these other vowels again, they sound much better, your face has the perfect space for them." (Namely: broad faces: i, e, closed o and u; and longer faces with sharper noses: a, open o and ä. This does not mean someone with a broad face can't sing good a vowels, just means they will find it more difficult to find a good projection space for it)

With this in mind I am watching Motherland Fort Salem and having a blast.

As far as I can tell, witches' workings are basically overtone singing plus some additional vocals layered on top of it.

When Penelope Silver has to "find her (witch) voice" and struggles to do overtone singing because she is used to 'regular singing', you find me shouting at my screen: "You need to project the sound to the right spaces to get the overtones, and place your tongue correctly, it has nothing to do with your emotions! Project, project!"

And then of course I also start wondering about the different kinds of workings witches can do. It's about different types of sounds, right, for different kinds of purposes?

Which makes me wonder if you could tell the type of witch (blaster, fixer, knower, necro) someone is going to be by the shape of their face. There should be a correlation between aptitude for certain workings and the face, there is in singing after all.

So now I'm imagining young recruits entering Fort Salem and everyone checking them out: oh, round face, another fixer! I don't see a blaster face, seems like we'll be low on blasters again this year (etc. etc.)

This would also link up nicely with the fact that abilities run in families, see the Bellweathers and their weather workings. Physiology is passed on to a certain extent after all, so the type of instrument (face shape) might be partially hereditary. Another reason to be very interested in with whom you handfast.

[most-like-a-marshfire]

Thoughts on His Dark Materials and heroes

Heroic qualities are in large part determined by what the surroundings of the heroic character demand. If we assume that there is a dragon who terrorises villages, then a hero should be capable of fighting it - physical strength becomes a heroic quality (and then the logic goes that on average men are stronger than women and therefore only men can be heroes in such a story).

The world of His Dark Materials has various facets and therefore demands various different traits from someone who wants to perform heroic actions.

On the one hand, the hero needs an independence of mind and a certain extent of non-conformity. - Lyra’s world is ruled by theocrats who want to regulate what is researched, thought, and believed - which is portrayed as the subjugation of people by an evil religious organisation, these are the hero’s opponents (the dragons of the story so to speak). To counteract this, one must have the courage to question established dogma and be willing to break rules and disobey authority figures. In Lyra’s world, since the church is male-dominated, these authority figures are usually men. - This requirement is even explicitly stated in the prophecy which accords Lyra her status as the “chosen one” (as “Eve”): 

There is a curious prophecy about this child: she is destined to bring about the end of destiny. But she must do so without knowing what she is doing, as if it were her nature and not her destiny to do it. If she's told what she must do, it will all fail; death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life..."

On the other hand, since the church persecutes those who do not conform, a hero needs a taste for adventure, for having to escape and deal with new and unfamiliar surroundings. The persecution of Lyra is especially happening in the third book, but it is also more symbolically true of the Gobblers and Mrs Coulter trying to catch Lyra. Lyra is not specifically targeted by the Gobblers for her individual personality but as a child just on the cusp of puberty and with rebellious sexual potential, she is a thorn in the eye of the church, which rounds these children up to stamp out any sense of adolescent mischief they might be soon making. (One tendency in the book is quite peculiar: the church’s interest in thought control is only ever discussed in relation to sex and sexuality; however, the fact that it is almost impossible for women to rise in their ranks shows, that there is also other gate-keeping taking place).

On a more global and less personal scale (interestingly enough Lyra fulfills the requirements on the personal scale, whereas Will, as we will see, fulfills more the criteria on the global scale), a heroic character needs to be able to fix the world: 1. they need the ability to close the windows that the subtle knife has cut; only the wielder of the subtle knife is capable of this 2. the souls of the dead need to be liberated from the world of the dead. This can only be brought about by cutting a window with the knife to another world. 2.1. for this to work, the harpies must be pacified and negotiated with first. A true story is needed for this. 3. not exactly chronical order but a hero must be able to save their friends. While Lyra is portrayed as “betraying” Roger and only freeing him to get him killed (imo Lord Asriel killed him and is therefore responsible), Will manages to save Lyra from Mrs Coulter. 

To wrap this up:

In terms of the overall story where all the universes are affected, only the ability to wield the knife is able to save both the living and the dead. One could start with talking about how the knife is phallic, but I think it suffices to say that Lyra’s ability to be slippery and adaptive (female-coded abilities) is far outranked by Will’s ability to impose his will on the world with the knife (rather literally) (male-coded abilities).

And interestingly enough - and this is what I would say is the best argument as to why Lyra stops being a hero when she is forced to be more feminine - softer, more submissive, more reliant on Will’s opinion and decisions - is that nothing is more important to the world of His Dark Materials than thinking for oneself and acting according to one’s own counsel. (It’s even stated in the bloody prophecy).

Lyra is not the wielder of the knife, therefore she cannot be the main heroic character in SK and AS. However, her ability to adapt and outwit her opponents could still hold her stead. But she loses these abilities because she gives over both the freedom to use the alethiometer and her own judgement and decision-making to Will - and is happy in doing so by the end of the trilogy.

By the end of the third novel, Lyra is back in Oxford where she will become a happy member of society (the church-ruled, oppressive society from the first novel), a lady like she was always expected to be.

All this does not make Lyra a immoral or bad character; however, she is a hero no longer.