#Pyotr speculation

[angeryed]

Most heartwarming things about every composer ❤️

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Mendelssohn: the profound respect he had for others

The way he’s so cordial with strangers and even the people he dislikes

Man always remembers his manners and acts cordial as his family has taught him

And on occasions, his bursts of excitement to the point of switching languages highlights his joy to see who his loves

From the 1830's when he was in his 20s: “his excitement was increased so fearfully … that when the family was assembled … he began to talk incoherently in English.”

“His attachment to Mademoiselle Lind’s genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success.” About Mendelssohn’s attitude to his wife

The amount of passion letters he wrote may be destroyed, but how his wife described him spoke it all: “He was the only person who brought fulfilment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again.” ๐·°(৹˃̵﹏˂̵৹)°·๐ the feels bro

Recommended piece: Op. 34 No. 2

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Chopin: his love for family

Despite his disrespect and uncalled for criticism towards other composers, he still cares about his homeland

Even in his deathbed, he asked a soprano to sing the Polish national anthem

And he sent his siblings letters everyday when he was out of town

And through his ‘love’ letters to his friend, Tytus, you can tell he was passionate (;

“You don’t like being kissed. Please allow me to do so today. You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night.” 👀 Chopin to Tytus — his ‘best friend’

We might never know if he actually meant it or if it was social etiquette back then, but the speculation is still there

Recommended pieces: Op. 22

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Liszt: everything about him

this man truly was an underrated jewel in the classical word

He was generous to the point where he went broke from teaching music free of charge and holding charity concerts all the time

People from his and our time both misunderstand him for being a womaniser, but he was more than that

He never disrespected any female composers and even when he criticised by his contemporaries, he always kept his cool and even complimented some of them

When Chopin criticised him for playing his nocturnes the wrong anr demanded an apology, Liszt still continued to admire him

Composer chivalry fr.

Recommended pieces: Totentanz

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Tchaikovsky: his devotion and mellow kindness

He was sweet and shy. Unlike Chopin.

Having only a few close friends and a tightly-knit family, he was fiercely loyal and to whom he loved.

As a gay man in the conservative 19th century Russia, he could only seek solace with his closest friends — his sister being the closest.

When his sister passed, all he could was to dedicate the entire Nutcracker Ballet to her as a part of his self-expression died with her.

And she meant a lot to him. Not only a part of himself was buried, the fact he loved her so much despite his depression and dissatisfaction towards his life, showed how close he was to his family.

Recommended piece: Pas de Deux (it showed his lonely yearning for love in my interpretation; those whimsical melodies and how he missed both sisterly and romantic love)

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Beethoven: man pulled 2015 pranks in the 19th century

Even though he scowled and raged throughout his life, he pulled pranks and laughed when his guests fell for it

He hid behind the door and scared his guests whenever they went through it

Laughing at their annoyed faces, he continued to turn annoyance to offence when he made his friends the butt of his jokes

To further gouge tears from his grumpy little face, he made more short songs solely as jokes about them

Besides being a hopeless romantic who made Fur Elise as a way to diss Elise, he wrote lyrics, “we all agree that you are the biggest ass” when joking about his violinist friend

Beethoven was either a great or absolutely horrible friend to have

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Shostakovich: a genuinely good guy

Every lonely person’s wet dream

Showing up on time, being nice back to everyone who was nice to him alongside living life the normal way despite being a composer, he never raised any aggression tendencies like other composers (take notes Beethoven :/)

Love extended beyond family and friends. He threaded and worded his letters with kindness and manners, especially to those who asked him for advice

Even under his intense stress and anxiety during the Soviet Union’s surveillance, the man loved his family.

And that in itself was impressive.

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Author’s note: I may not have written a recommended piece for all of them because I am not well-versed in most of their pieces yet

Do tell me what composers to do. I am happy to write about them <:

Much feedback is appreciated ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

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1660 – In New Netherland Colony, J.Q. van der Linde, a married man, is tied into a sack and drowned for sodomy with an adolescent male. Three years later his widow files for bankruptcy.

1842 – Sir Arthur Sullivan was an English composer (d.1900). He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. Like the later partnership of Rodgers and Hart, the musical marriage of Gilbert and Sullivan was one of temperamental unequals – Gilbert straight and Sullivan Gay – perfectly matched in the art they jointly created.

Sullivan never married, but he had serious love affairs with several women. The first was with Rachel Scott Russell (1845–1882), the daughter of the engineer John Scott Russell.

Sullivan's longest love affair was with the American socialite Fanny Ronalds, a woman three years his senior, who had two children. He met her in Paris around 1867, and the affair began in earnest soon after she moved to London in 1871.

Some books and websites also speculate that Sullivan was homosexual or bisexual. One claim is that Sullivan had a relationship with the second son of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert Edward,the Duke of Edinburgh. It is undisputed that Sullivan and the Duke (who was married) were friends, but the only evidence cited for a sexual relationship is unspecified "Victorian cartoonists." The Gay Book of Days and The Alyson Almanac both list Sullivan as a gay composer, again not stating the source.

Sullivan’s sexuality, though widely known to his contemporaries, was practiced discreetly. He played by the rules that permitted the upper classes their “vices” so long as there was no threat of public scandal. That Sullivan, unlike his straight partner, was knighted, shows how well, and how prudently, he played the game. Hypocritical? Perhaps. But the Irish Oscar Wilde might not have died quite so young had he understood the English character as well as Sullivan.

1850 – Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator (d.1916).

Modest Ilyich was the younger brother of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law. Like many graduates of this school (including his brother) he was homosexual and lived relatively openly with the poet Aleksey Apukhtin and then with another boyfriend, Kolya Konradi. Modest became the tutor to the deaf-mute boy Nikolai ("Kolya") Hermanovich Konradi and, using a special teaching method, helped him to talk, write, and read - and they became lovers.

Tchaikovsky chose to dedicate his entire life to literature and music. He wrote plays, translated sonnets by Shakespeare into Russian and wrote librettos for operas of his brother, as well as other composers such as Eduard Nápravník, Arseny Koreshchenko, Anton Arensky and Sergei Rachmaninov. Being the nearest friend of his brother, he became his first biographer, and also the founder of Tchaikovsky's museum in Klin.

1940 – The English novelist, archeologist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin was born in Sheffield England (d.1989). Chatwin's book include the travelogue In Patagonia (1977), The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980), on the slave trade in Benin, For The Songlines, on the power of Australian aboriginal music and On the Black Hill a novel on the relationship of twin brothers in Wales.

Chatwin is admired for his spare, lapidary style and his innate story-telling abilities. However, he has also been criticised for his fictionalised anecdotes of real people, places, and events. Frequently, the people he wrote about recognised themselves and did not always appreciate his distortions of their culture and behaviour. Chatwin was philosophical about what he saw as an unavoidable dilemma, arguing that his portrayals were not intended to be faithful representations. As his biographer Nicholas Shakespeare argues: "He tells not a half truth, but a truth and a half."

Much to the surprise of many of his friends, Chatwin married Elizabeth Chanler (a descendant of John Jacob Astor) on 26 August 1965. He had met Chanler at Sotheby's, where she worked as a secretary. Chatwin was bisexual throughout his married life, a circumstance his wife knew and accepted. They had no children. After fifteen years of marriage, she asked for a separation and sold their farmhouse at Ozleworth in Gloucestershire. Toward the end of his life, they reconciled. According to Chatwin's biographer Nicholas Shakespeare, the Chatwins' marriage seems to have been celibate. He describes Chatwin as homosexual rather than bisexual.

In the late 1980s, Chatwin contracted AIDS. He was one of the first high-profile sufferers of the disease in Britain and although he hid the illness - passing off his symptoms as fungal infections or the effects of the bite of a Chinese bat, a typically exotic cover story - it was a poorly kept secret. Chatwin told different stories about how he contracted the virus, such as that he was gang-raped in Dahomey, and that he believed he caught the disease from Sam Wagstaff, the patron and lover of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

He did not respond well to AZT, and suffered increasing bouts of psychosis which included extravagant shopping trips around the auction rooms of London - many of which purchases his wife quietly returned.

With his condition deteriorating rapidly, Chatwin and his wife went to live in the South of France at the house that belonged to the mother of his one-time lover, the designer Jasper Conran. Chatwin died in Nice in 1989 at age 48. The novelist Paul Theroux, Chatwin's one-time friend and fellow-writer, later commented on the memorial service in a piece he wrote for Granta, condemning Chatwin for failing to acknowledge that the disease he was dying of was AIDS.

Lovers of the French little black moleskin journals have undoubtedly read the story of Chatwin's popularizing of the books. The story goes that when the small bookmaker in Paris was going out of business, Chatwin bought out all of their stock to use on his travels.

1944 – Today is also the birthday of gay writer and serialist Armistead Maupin. Maupin is most famous for his six book "Tales of the City" series.

Maupin's early position on a Charleston newspaper was followed with an offer of a position at the San Francisco bureau of the Associated Press in 1971. He says he had known he was gay since childhood, but didn't have sex until he was 26 and only decided to come out in 1974 when he was about 30. The same year, he began what would become the Tales of the City series as a serial in a Marin County-based newspaper, the Pacific Sun, moving to the San Francisco Chronicle after the Sun's San Francisco edition folded.His later novels include "The Night Listener" and "Maybe The Moon" and 2009's "Michael Tolliver Lives." His name, coincidentally, is an anagram of "is a man I dreamt up." It's a busy life for The Wonderful Mr. Maupin with a brand spanking new musical being prepared based on Tales of the City.

Maupin's former partner of 12 years, Terry Anderson, was once a gay rights activist (Maupin himself has done much of that sort of work), and co-authored the screenplay for The Night Listener. He lived with Anderson in San Francisco and New Zealand. Ian McKellen is a friend and Christopher Isherwood was a mentor, friend, and influence as a writer.

Maupin is married to Christopher Turner, a website producer and photographer whom he first saw on a dating website. He then "chased him down Castro Street, saying, 'Didn't I see you on Daddyhunt.com?'" Maupin and Turner were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 18, 2007, though Maupin says that they had called each other "husband" for two years prior.

1957 – Born: Alan Ball, Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, producer and occasional actor , who is best known for writing the screenplay for the Oscar- winning film "American Beauty," and for creating the Emmy and Peabody Award- winning HBO original drama series "Six Feet Under."

Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". In 2008 he made Out magazine's annual list of the 100 most impressive gay men and women. Alan Ball has, in numerous interviews, discussed his Buddhist faith and how it has influenced his film making. He lives with his partner, Peter Macdissi (who had a recurring role in Six Feet Under as Olivier) in Los Angeles.

It was not until Ball began achieving professional success that he found the courage to come out to his mother. She understood his trepidation about broaching the subject and admitted that the announcement made her uncomfortable."It took a little getting used to," she said, "but he gave me some books to read, and I understand that God made him like that."

Ball's brothers were immediately supportive when they learned of his homosexuality, but some other relatives were not accepting.

1974 – Time Magazine reports of "The New Bisexuals." The magazine says "bisexuals, like homosexuals before them, are boldly coming out of their closets, forming clubs, having parties and staking out discotheques." The article cites Kinsey and feminism as causes for the rise in visibility.

1979 – Scott Miller is an American LGBT rights activist, philanthropist and former banker. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein from 2022.

Together with his husband, Tim Gill, Miller is active in LGBT rights activism, philanthropy, and Democratic Party politics. Both are co-chairs of the Gill Foundation, one of the largest sponsors of LGBT equality causes in the United States. The foundation was instrumental in improving the reputation and visibility of LGBT people in Colorado and changing its image as a "hate state".

Gill and Miller are political allies of Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and Gill has been described as "one of the architects of the Democratic takeover of Colorado politics". Gill and Miller have donated at least $3.6 million to Democratic candidates and campaigns since 2010, and Miller has been active in groups supporting the presidential candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

On August 6, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Miller to be the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The post is traditionally given to a political appointee, often a prominent donor.

Miller married Tim Gill, the founder of Quark, in 2009, in a ceremony officiated by Governor Deval Patrick. The couple lives in Denver.

1998 – Timothy R. McVeigh was promoted to master chief petty officer, the Navy's highest enlisted rank. He was chosen from a pool of 168 candidates. The Navy had attempted to discharge him after discovering his AOL profile said he was gay. As such he became the first person to ever win a case against the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. (He is not to be confused with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber).

1992 – Tommy Dorfman is an American actor known for his role as Ryan Shaver in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why (2017).

Dorfman was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Fordham University's drama program in 2015 with a B.A. in theatre arts. After graduating, he was cast in the role of Ryan Shaver on the Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why, which premiered in 2017. Also that year, he helped design a fashion collection with ASOS, and, in October, was honored with the Rising Star Award by GLAAD.

Dorfman is openly gay. Dorfman and Peter Zurkuhlen became engaged in April 2015 and were married in Portland, Maine, on November 12, 2016.

In June 2018, Dorfman came out as non-binary.

TODAY'S GAY WISDOM

Armistead Maupin

My only regret about being Gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short. -Armistead Maupin [Editors Note: This is the quote that appeared on one of the Starbucks quote cups a few years ago that so irritated religious fundamentalists that they threatened a boycott.]***

I've always been proud of the fact that I've been openly gay longer than just about anybody writing today ... but I never intended for that declaration to mean that I was narrowing my focus in any way, or joining a niche ... now publishing has decided there's money in this, or at least a market ... now a formalised thing has sprung up which I think is extremely detrimental to anybody beginning to write today. ... It's possible to write a novel now which has gay themes, which has any truth you want to speak, that can be sold to a mainstream publisher and sold in a mainstream bookstore, so the notion of people who've narrowed their focus to only write books for a gay audience for gay people about gay people is stifling to me; in some ways, it's another form of the closet, as far as I'm concerned. I think Jerry Falwell must be very happy with those little cubby-holes at the back of book stores that say 'gay and lesbian' - it's a warning sign, they can keep their kids away from that section. I'd like people to stumble on my works in the literature section of Barnes and Noble and have their lives changed because of it.

It's complicated. I don't want to feel any less queer, but I think for us to march along in a dutiful little herd called 'gay and lesbian literature' and have little seminars that we hold together is pointless at this point, it makes no sense to me at all. ... I cringe when I get 'gay writer' each time. Why the modifier? I'm a writer. It's like calling Amy Tan a Chinese-American writer every time you mention her name, or Alice Walker a black writer. We're all discussing the human condition. Some of us have revolutionised writing by bringing in subject-matter that nobody's heard about before. But we don't want that to narrow the definition of who we are as an artist. ... I don't mind being cross-shelved. I'm very proud of being in the gay and lesbian section, but I don't want to be told that I can't sit up in the front of the book store with the straight, white writers.

[faux-ee]

A Theory about Abilities in BSD, and why Fyodor wants to rid the world of Ability users

Originally, I want to delay making this post until I finish reading irl Dostoevsky’s Demons, because I personally find a lot of parallels between BSD’s Fyodor & Nikolai and Pyotr & Stavrogin in Demons, and I truly wish to elaborate on that. However, I just finished the 2014 TV Show Demons and let’s just say I’m moved to the core and nothing except writing about BSD Fyodor could give me peace. I will still be discussing briefly the connection between BSD fyolai & Demons characters in this post, but that discussion wouldn’t be so detailed because I tragically haven’t finished the book yet. 

Sorry I’ve rambled a lot. Anyways, here we go. 

In addition to the theory that Ability symbolizes trauma response, I want to speculate that Ability also translates one’s negative perception of themself into physical existence. In fact, in irl Atsushi’s work, the Tiger is none but a representation of the self, plagued by vanity and inferiority, that a person has to fight in order to not hurt people around them. Dazai’s ability No Longer Human is portrayed in the 15 manga as a hollow, dark being that only wears his skeleton — that is what dark era Dazai see himself as: non-human, empty, a walking ghost. Sigma believes that he is used as a tool by different ppl, so his Ability was information exchange — a tool for procuring info. 

I can list out much more, but basically, I think Ability is an outward manifestation of how BSD characters pessimistically perceive themselves (that’s why Ranpo doesn’t have an ability: he’s confident and in many aspects a child having not yet lost his innocence, protected and loved by Fukuzawa and the ADA). Or rather, the sad, violent, unpredictable self other ppl told them to be. Like Kyouka, who was told that her Ability made her a natural killer. This is why Ability is a pain: it’s the dark side of oneself; it makes Ability users believe that what makes them powerful, useful to other ppl, is this Self that wallows in existential despair, in its own insufficiency, and in the guilt of causing death. 

In Dead Apple, our main characters have to fight their own Abilities to achieve growth. In the ADA, Fukuzawa’s Ability keeps all other Abilities under control, creating an ideal environment for ADA members to grow into the better version of themselves. All of these point out Abilities to be trouble rather than strength. 

And Fyodor sees that. He sees that for people, Ability represents a past and ongoing pain. No, I’m not trying to justify his cause by presenting him as an all-knowing being. I’m referring to his uncanny ability of seeing into the heart of people’s struggle — his empathy with Sigma, Goncharov, Gogol and even Karma attested to that. And he thinks the only salvation from such darkness is Death. 

We already know that Crime and Punishment doesn’t prevent Fyodor from touching ppl, which means he has no reason to hate his own ability to the point of wanting to eradicate it. It is actually just the opposite case. In Dead Apple, Fyodor declared that he himself is the embodiment of both crime and punishment, which are a pair of good friends. He has made peace with the dark version of himself, has accepted his Ability as part of the truth of what he is. Inseparable with his existence. This is why he wants to kill ability users, rather than simply writing away Ability (if that is the purpose he can come up with a convincing story on that one page he already has): his Ability is inevitably linked with his existence; therefore he thinks the only way to take away this twisted, suffering side of oneself is to end their lives. 

Now, the second question is that, are Abilities an entirely bad thing? Like everything in BSD, it isn’t a black-and-white matter. We have seen many times our Stray Dogs use their Abilities to protect themselves, and the people they care about. We have to accept that there’s a side of us that feel insecure and unhappy from things we experienced, but this is also the side that help us sympathize & establish in-depth connections with people who are also suffering (see Lucy, Atsushi and Kyouka; Akutagawa and Atsushi; even Teruko’s understanding of Fukuchi may be a result of that). 

One of Fyodor’s traits that contributed to his extremism personality is that he doesn’t, or rather refuses to, connect with people. He sees people as mindless chess pieces who live under the lies they tell themselves, easy to manipulate once you grant them the fulfillment of their desires. See? On the surface level he’s on better terms with his Ability — his dark side — than anyone else, and thats why he seems to understand the desires and conflicts in everyone he comes across. But in truth, Crime and Punishment stood with their backs to each other; what seems as reconciliation is actually Fyodor refusing to come face to face with himself. He exalts his pain. He celebrates non-existence. He attributes all his actions to the god — yet as we can see in the two-page spread before his confrontation with Ace, “if god doesn’t exist, then I am god”. He turns his back on his human self, and instead chooses to obsess with the image of a god that is actually how others perceive him to be: the bringer of fear and death, murderer of children, dangerous force of destruction. He takes it in and flips it around, worshipping his darkness, his human suffering, as a source of power. 

I’m not saying, however, that Fyodor feels any pain or guilt I have implied here. He is not taking his revenge on the world because he is pained inside, no, let’s not go into that YA dark haired emo boy stereotype. Instead, he is wreaking havoc in the world precisely because he cannot feel this pain. Next will be some spoilers on Demons: one of the main characters, Stavrogin, confessed to a priest about causing a child’s death (won’t go into the nasty details; I’m still shaking from that), and yet he didn’t do it out of guilt — he did it because he wanted to feel proud and noble again, exposing his own sin to let others punish him with their malice, since he didn’t make an effort to repent and couldn’t forgive himself. Stavrogin doesn’t want to move on and trust his own ability to become a better person; instead, he tries to set the whole world against himself, in order to keep avoiding confronting his own conscience and continue to adhere to the false belief of his righteousness. [Spoiler Ends]

This might be a little confusing, but in simpler words, it’s similar to what Fyodor is doing: he doesn’t feel guilty for killing ppl; he hardly feels anything at all. He is a psychopath beyond redemption, that is what others see him as and what he willingly believes. He is excluded from the human world, he has fused himself with his Ability, turning himself wholly into an unfeeling, murderous monster. He forces himself to believe he is doing the right thing in destroying the world because he’s a coward. (Remember that Fyodor is supposed to be a foil of Dazai, and in No Longer Human Dazai calls himself a coward who’s afraid of happiness?) If he steps back and looks at what he did, all the children he killed, he would be forced to feel guilty, which he fears; so he frees himself of his humanity as well as his conscience to avoid accounting for his own darkness. He views the rest of the world as a sin because he doesn’t want to see himself as a sinner. 

OK let’s talk a little about Gogol here then because I’m fyolai trash: “In opposition to god, you’re fighting to lose sight of yourself” what does this mean? 

This is not actually a very accurate translation. The direct translation from Japanese should be: you are fighting to oppose god and lose sight of yourself. This line also kind of implies Gogol being associated with the military, since the word used for “fighting” here is heavily implied to be war-related. [Spoiler Again] Now, in Demons there is literally a character that resembles Gogol in every way: Pyotr Stepanovich is greatly fascinated with putting on an act, is a master of faking different, often ridiculous personalities to achieve his goal, and he is raising hell all over because he wants to uproot all previously established social systems, calling for a revolution that leads people into decadence and depravation. (AND he even also places the blame of somebody’s murder on an innocent person - while Pyotr is the murderer - as part of the plan!) [Spoiler Ends] This character in Demons is abandoned by his father, so he was always plagued with the belief that he was born wrong, and when his father sought him out only to exploit him further, he lost all belief in god and believed that chaos was the only answer to his empty, unloved existence. This shall provide an answer as to why Gogol thinks human feelings is a thing he ought to transcend: for some reasons his humanity might have been exploited to put him under the control of someone else. Even the person he’s closest with, Fyodor, sees him as a chess piece and he is well aware of that. AND the most deadly thing is that he is comfortable in this relationship because he is used to not receiving anyone’s good will. 

Gogol is many things, but perhaps the one thing that draws him constantly to his demise is the fact that he is unloved. He wants to free himself from humanity for an entirely different reason: he feels the constant need to prove that it’s the world that’s wrong, that what he sees is the truth - his actions are controlled, he is trapped by human feelings that never get acknowledged or responded, and these morals/feelings give people power to walk all over him, to use him as a tool. His Ability, which connects spaces, means that his dark side is exactly this need to escape deterred by his fear of being forever trapped by his own limitations. 

If I were to put this in a more religious light, since we’re talking about god and russians here, I would quote something from Nietzsche: The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions. To want god’s love is to give yourself nonexistent sins for Him to forgive — this self-assigned sin is what controlled one’s actions, made one feel guilty. The futile outcry for love, and specifically for god’s love and forgiveness, is what makes people crazy and absurd in Nietzsche’s view. Gogol is sane, and is trying desperately to convince himself that he is so, by seeing through the lie that is called love. He denies himself faith and love in exchange for full control over himself. Why pursue something that he has only known to chain him down? Fyodor understands him, and plays along with his jokes, his games; he isn’t afraid of Fyodor’s understanding, no. He is afraid that he will grow to love his dear friend more until he is consumed by this human lie and forgets how much of a danger it is to his freedom. He trembles in his adoration of the man-god.

I have earlier put out a crack theory that Gogol is a foil of Chuuya. However, in this context, Gogol truly is similar to Chuuya seeing how they are constantly being used by other people, Gogol in a more literal sense since even his speech was pre-written; Chuuya allows himself to forgive and forget, and carry on with life focusing on the present, while Gogol becomes haunted by his hyperawareness of his situation and inability to be free. Neither of these attitudes are healthy and I say it’s no coincidence Asagiri decided to put Dazai, Fyodor, Chuuya, Nikolai and Sigma in the same arc. I look forward to everyone figuring out their problems with equally mentally ill enemies in prison. 

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: What’s your favourite piece of classical music that you discovered through a film soundtrack?

What an interesting question to which I have had to really scratch my head and think a little. The main issue is that if you are, like me, one of those kids who was exposed to classical music and some of its canon from an early age then the question becomes harder to answer. Like many other children, I was taught to play musical instruments and have music lessons from about 6 years old onwards. Films, especially the more adult themed ones with a classical score, were something you discovered much later in your teens onwards. So I’m going to cheat a bit here and there. For example I can’t include Milos Forman’s classic movie ‘Amadeus’ because I was already familiar with a range of Mozart’s repertoire before watching it.

Predictably, I’m going have to start with Walt Disney’s classic film ‘Fantasia’ (1940).  This was perhaps the first film I was truly exposed to classical music in all its glory. It was Disney’s love letter to classical music and I can still watch it with child-like wonder at the magnificent music set to an incredible animation.

I’m pretty sure that Igor Stravinsky almost certainly wasn't thinking of dinosaurs when he wrote his ballet The Rite of Spring. But Walt Disney and his talented team of animators decided to tell the story of these prehistoric creatures using the dramatic, angular sounds of Stravinsky's masterpiece. And it's become one of the most famous sequences of the 1940s film.

The score was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and was narrated by composer Deems Taylor was awesome. As magnificent was the music that Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach, selections from The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas, Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 6) by Ludwig van Beethoven, and the “Dance of the Hours” by Amilcare Ponchielli, it was the last two pieces that left a real impression. Of course I’m talking about Night On Bald Mountain by Modest Moussorgsky, coupled with ‘Ave Maria’ by Franz Schubert.

I’m also going to add Léo Delibes’ Flower Duet (from the opera Lakmé). I used to hear this ad nauseam but not in a movie. This classic piece was the chosen soundtrack for the British Airways advertisement on television and in their departure lounges and flights. The ad - updated often - has been around in one form or another but with the same soundtrack since the 1980s. It was a huge feature of my childhood in the 90s. Whenever I boarded a flight in the Far East or South Asia or the Middle East to fly back home to Britain - because we lived overseas - you would hear this as you strapped yourself in to your seats.

As for my main list (in no particular order):

Second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.7 from: The King’s Speech (2010)

The climactic scene where King George VI has to make his speech ‘unto the nations’ was made more powerful by this piece. Like King George VI and his personal battles with his voice, much speculation has taken place over what personal agony the musical piece reflects in Beethoven’s life, especially since sketches for the movement predate the symphony by several years.

One clue is that Beethoven, who conducted the premier in December of 1813 for the veterans of the Battle of Hanau, made an address to these veterans, saying: "We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us." There is every reason to believe that the deep emotion of this movement was founded on anything but what he said it was. His sentiment had existed long before 1813, as had the wars. Napoleon was being repelled, and the symphony is overall joyous.

However, Beethoven was not the kind of man to casually dismiss sacrifice, and the concert was dedicated to veterans. I believe that this movement celebrates those military veterans who made sacrifices for their nation, in much the same way King George VI was asking his subjects in Britain and the Commonwealth in the fight against evil menace of Nazism and Fascism.

Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and Requiem from: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

I hated it. I saw it as a teen and I thought something was wrong with the audio. I still hate the piece but at least I know who Ligeti is. It was way too avant garde for me back then and it remains so today. I think scratching your nails down a chalk board has more melody than a piece by Ligeti. Kubrick clearly loved his work and used it in his other films such as The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra from 2001: Space Odyssey (1968)

By contrast I loved it. Music can be the difference between a highly memorable scene and one that leaves viewers with an indifferent shrug. It’s hard to believe that this classical piece was used in the main opening scene of the film originally as a temporary place holder by Kubrick whilst he waited for the film composer, Alex North, from the full soundtrack. In the end Kubrick left Strauss in and it made all the difference.

Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-Flat from: Barry Lyndon (1975)

The Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major for piano, violin, and cello, D. 929, was one of the last compositions completed by Franz Schubert in 1827 and one of the last pieces he heard being performed before he died. The track itself has been used in countless of movies over the decades such as The Hunger, Crimson Tide, The Piano Teacher, L'Homme de sa vie, Land of the Blind, Recollections of the Yellow House, The Way He Looks, The Mechanic, Miss Julie, The Congress, and the HBO miniseries John Adams. But I first heard it on Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon and remember being captivated by the film and the music. I was a teen watching it my parents and the whole scene at the card table was beautifully directed and wonderfully lit. As I learned much later in life, Kubrick and his team invented new kind of film lens to be able to film in candlelight.

Handel's sarabande from: Barry Lyndon (1975)

The sarabande is traditionally the music written for a courtly dance in triple metre. Handel's version was composed for solo harpsichord at some point between 1703 and 1706 and first published in 1733. This classic piece is the 4th movement of the Cette pièce est le quatrième mouvement de la Suite in G minor composed for the harpsichord. Although the Sarabande was originally intended by its composer to be played solo on harpsichord, the orchestral version of the Sarabande is very well known these days thanks to the Barry Lyndon film. Moreover, the Sarabande is beloved by filmmakers and has been adapted several times for various films. It’s one of my favourite pieces and it reminds me of the English countryside for some reason rather than some formal court dance.

Domenico Cimarosa’s Concerto for Oboe in C Moll from: Though the Olive Trees (1994)

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, this little known Iranian-French film was something I stumbled upon through my Norwegian mother who loved these kind of independent films when we lived in South Asia as an antidote to all the Bollywood films we children enjoyed. Kiarostami’s film traces the trouble arising when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors on a film set - a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him - leaves the director caught in the middle. In hindsight I can now say it was a metafictional masterpiece. Kiarostami contemplates cinema and its romantic fallacies. The film is gorgeously grounded in Northern Iran’s folk traditions and with a soft focus on its shaken yet convalescent landscape. It’s a warmhearted tale that explores what happens when love goes unrequited - which was surprisingly relevant to a teen with raging hormones at the time.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis from: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

A classical musical masterpiece in a masterful cinematic movie - both epic in every sense of the word. As a former British Army combat pilot it’s the only film that made me have a smidgen of sympathy with the Royal Navy. It was one of the first films I was allowed to go and see at the cinema itself as a teen. The film is almost faultless in terms of acting, directing, cinematography, and authentic detail. It even made me go and read one or two of the books by Patrick O’Brian. How Peter Weir never won an Oscar for directing I shall never know.

Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is a 15-minute (or so) work for double string orchestra and string quartet, based on a melody by the 16th century composer Thomas Tallis. The quartet traditionally sits away from the orchestra in performance, to create an atmospheric antiphonal (alternating voices) effect. It is often known simply as the ‘Tallis Fantasia’. The tune is from a setting of Psalm 2 that Tallis wrote in 1567. It originally sets the words ‘Why fumeth in sight: The Gentils spite, In fury raging stout? Why taketh in hond: the people fond, Vayne things to bring about?’ It was in 1910 at a festival that Vaughan Williams himself conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first performance, which was followed in the same concert by Elgar conducting his own The Dream of Gerontius. Vaughan Williams, in his late 30s, was already establishing himself as a major name, but the Tallis Fantasia raised his profile even higher, not least because the concept of harking back to the 16th century was a comparatively new one.

The piece by Vaughn Williams is what has stayed with me throughout the years. In a nod to Proust, I chiefly identify the piece with reflections of my time on the battlefields of Helmand during my time in Afghanistan and especially seeing wounded friends and comrades long after we got back home from war.

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana from: Excalibur (1981)

I was already familiar with bits and pieces from Wagner’s operas - played loudly in our home by my parents - but I must admit this classic piece by Carl Orff I first heard watching John Boorman’s magical and majestical film about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. I know this piece has been used endlessly in other films and even gained fame as a men’s aftershave advertisement (so my father says) but I first heard it watching this film.

John Boorman’s 1981 fantastical retelling of Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is, to quote Nicol Williamson’s Merlin in the film, “A dream to some. A nightmare to others!” It can sometimes come across as an episodic and hammy sword and sorcery tale, but I saw it as clever and satisfying retelling of an evergreen myth. I had read read Mallory’s epic books and so my expectations were unduly high. For the most part they were met and then some. Boorman took an abstract approach that shows us Arthur’s (unnamed) Kingdom, a place out of time, in several stages of transition; from dark to golden age, via loss of innocence, and painfully bloody rebirth. Excalibur arose out of the ashes of Boorman’s earlier attempt to bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to the screen (ironically after trying to get a filmic retelling of the Merlin myth off the ground).

Excalibur is a cautionary tale. The characters are all struggling to find their place in the world, to maintain harmony with nature. Merlin says poignantly of Excalibur to Arthur, “It was forged when the world was young, and bird and beast and flower were one with man, and death was but a dream.” The film is a longing for a golden age, and the struggle to balance the warring natures of honour and goodness with human greed and jealousy. Surely the most rousing image is when Percival has returned the Grail to Arthur who, rejuvenated, also recovers Excalibur from Guinevere (now a nun, to atone for her adultery with Lancelot). She has kept it safe, knowing her once and future king would one day seek its power. Merlin is unfrozen by Arthur, and even Lancelot, a raggedy wild man driven into exile by his own shame, heeds his true king’s call. Arthur rides out with his knights and these fellow warriors through a re-blossoming countryside to do battle with Mordred for the soul of the land, to Carl Orff’s stirring music.

The name of Orff’s piece has Latin roots. 'Carmina' means 'songs', while 'Burana' is the Latinised form of Beuren, the name of the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria. So, Carmina Burana translates as Songs Of Beuren, and refers to a collection of early 13th-century songs and poems that was discovered in Beuren in 1803 - although it has since been established that the collection originated from Seckau Abbey, Austria - and is now housed in the Bavarian State Library. The songs (over 1000 of them) were written in a mix of Latin, German and medieval French by the Goliards, a band of poet-musicians comprising scholars and clerical students, who celebrated with earthy humour the joys of the tavern, nature, love and lust. Although Orff set the original texts, he chose not to use the primitive musical notation that accompanied some of the songs. The collection was first published in Germany in 1847, but it wasn’t until 1934 that Orff came across the texts; a selection had been translated into English and formed part of a publication called Wine, Women And Song. With the help of Michael Hofmann, a law student and Latin scholar, Orff chose 24 songs and set them to music in what he termed a “scenic cantata”.

It was in this form that it was first heard on June 8, 1937, in Frankfurt, under its full title Carmina Burana: Cantiones Profanae Cantoribus Et Choris Cantandae Comitantibus Instrumentis Atque Imaginibus Magicis (Songs Of Beuren: Secular Songs For Singers And Choruses To Be Sung Together With Instruments And Magic Images) Quite a mouthful! After the triumphant premiere of Carmina Burana, Orff, then 41, wrote to his publishers: “Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, published, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana my collected works begin.” However, nothing Orff subsequently wrote ever came close to approaching the popularity of Carmina Burana. Oh dear.

Richard Wagner’s Siegfried’s Funeral March (from the opera Götterdämmerung) from: Excalibur (1981)

The film almost plays like a screen Opera - it is a heightened reality, a world anew. One where sex, jealousy and pride threaten to undo the mystical balance and ties between the King and the land. A powerful aid to that feeling is the superb score which utilises music such as Siegfried’s Funeral March by Wagner, and O Fortuna, a medieval poem set to music by Carl Orff. Boorman was determined to squeeze as much of the legend into his film’s running time as possible, chopping and condensing characters, and switching acts around. He created a three-act saga - the dark ages and the birth of Arthur, a period of brutality and superstition; the rise of Camelot and its age of reason, law, and dawning of Christianity; and the final descent into chaos and wasteland, where a frail Arthur commands the Round Table knights to seek out the Grail. Arising out of this a final battle commences for the soul of the land and the people, a sense of renewal with a promise of a new age to come. Boorman called it the “past, present and future of humanity.”

Richard Wagner composed his opera Götterdämmerung between 1869 and 1874. It is the last of the four operas that make up Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle, a project that had taken him over 25 years to complete. The opera is much renowned for its orchestral sequences, and these are often performed as concert extracts. Siegfried's Funeral March is taken from Act Three after Siegfried has been murdered by Hagen. Following his murder at the hands of Hagen, the death knell of “Siegfried’s Funeral March” opens with funereal timpani as Siegfried’s body is placed on his shield and carried off by the vassals. The music vacillates from deep mourning and rage-filled outbursts to the majesty of the “Hero” motif, brought out in bold relief at the centre of the movement.The whole opera is made up of musical motives from previous operas that tell of Siegfried's background, including the Volsung theme, Siegmund and Sieglinde's theme, the Sword, Brünnhilde's love theme and the curse of the Ring. 

Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries (Die Walküre) from: Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War phantasmagoria is an epic fresco oozing with madness. It is a madness that manages to escape from the frame and infect the director and his team, turning the film into a legend. It is impossible not to talk about this film without mentioning the Dantesque shooting of the film. A typhoon that destroyed the sets, a heart attack that nearly killed Martin Sheen, a Brando who was more obese and obtuse than ever, who arrived on the set without knowing his lines, and a director at the end of his rope physically and psychologically, on the verge of divorce and suicide. Instead of taking four months to complete, the shoot lasted 15 months. The analogy with the hell of Vietnam is obvious.

The film itself is about Benjamin Willard, a special forces captain, who is given a highly perilous mission: to find and assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade who has set up his headquarters on the Cambodian border. To accomplish his mission, Willard must travel up a river in a small patrol boat with a handful of men. We follow Willard sinking into the madness and insanity of this war, personified by the character of Colonel Kurtz, an obese Buddhist, a true godfather of the Vietnamese jungle. Apocalypse Now is in fact a mirror for the spectator, it plays on our feelings about the Vietnamese conflict, and this is what sets it apart from other great war films. It is a physical and very real journey through Vietnam, but also an inner journey for its hero, Willard, a drug addict and alcoholic, which will allow Coppola to make his denunciation of the war. After watching this movie over several years I’ve come to regard Coppola’s movie as more than just a war movie but also an hallucinatory trip, as anxiety provoking as possible, about the human soul lost inside itself.

For a movie that had two of my greatest loves - combat helicopters and Wagner - the film surprisingly didn’t inform my future career path as a combat pilot for the British Army. I was too young as a teen and caught up with other feminine things girls of my age did. But watching it retrospectively I’m sure it had some unconscious influence on me. I noticed things more with each viewing such as before Jim Morrison's paradoxical and delightful prologue, it is the helicopter blades that open Apocalypse Now. The jerky noise that spatialises this mortifying horizon is a motif that will be the melodic line of the entire film. In crosshatching, it truncates reality and allows the initial confusion of a man in reverse who opens his eyes on an uncertain world. The fan in the hotel room is not the air-conditioned shelter of war. Everything, from then on, is under the sign of duality.

Then of course we have the euphoric scene but no less horrifying than the helicopter attack by Kilgore and his men to lay waste to a village so that they could surf. And all done to the terrifying bombast of Wagner’s Ride of Valkyries. It’s a demented scene but also so visually lyrical. Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries is sadistically perfect. It’s a perfect mythical metaphor of the valkyries who majestically flew in the sky and decided who died in battle from above. Of course the symbolism of Wagner - wrongly tarred with its fascist connotations - as a place holder for Western imperialism over the Vietnamese is not lost on the viewer. It’s a clever piece of juxtaposition.

Armies have of course used music in warfare for millennia. The deployment of musicians - from trumpeters to drummers - in battle was useful in instilling regimentation and rhythmic purpose for soldiers; and in days before radio, in carrying specific orders across the battlefield. As well as unifying an army - it could potentially disorient the enemy, or as Kilgore eruditely elaborates: ‘We use Wagner, it puts the shits up the slopes. My boys love it!’. So what we are seeing is an age old military tactic being given a modern twist. This has already been established by the notion of an air cavalry, trading their horses for helicopters - which gets further embodied by Kilgore’s wearing of a cowboy hat, common to the Western film genre. The symbolism of linking old and new - ancient and modern, history and the present - occurs throughout Apocalypse Now, as it does in the original novella Heart of Darkness. It indicates an uncomfortable continuum, a never ending foreboding cycle. That beneath the fragile veneer of civilisation, humanity is endlessly repeating barbarism - a cycle foreshadowed by helicopter/fan blades at the start of the film which also loops back to become the end of the film - itself a cycle that won’t end.

When I flew combat helicopters over in Afghanistan we were banned from playing music in our cockpit. It’s simply not practical because you need to be aware of all your aural cues of what the hell is going on around you as every mission is task intensive. You’re focused on a mission where the shit can hit the fan such as coming under rocket attack at any second especially if you’re on a night mission. In theory you could,  as anyone with some audio equipment and electronics knowledge could wire in a 3.5mm headphone jack and hook up your music into your own helmet. I knew some pilots who broke the ban and did this. They would get their clever avionic ground staff technician crew to put in a some sort of patch cord that could plug through to their helmet ICS - in return you get them a case of beer. I’m not telling where we got the beer from.

Other honourable mentions:

Second movement of Schumann's Piano Quintet from: Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor "Il dolce suono" from: The 5th Element (1997)

Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez from: Brassed Off (1996)

Maurice Ravel’s Trio en la mineur pour piano, violon et violoncelle, Sonata for Violin and Cello, Violin Sonata #2 in G, and Berceuse Sur le Nom De Gabriel Fauré from: Un Coeur en Hiver/A Heart in Winter (1992)

Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K. 136 from: Out of Africa (1985)

Carl Orff - Schulwerk Volume 1: Musica Poëtica - Gassenhauer from Badlands (1973)

Puccini’s O mio babbino caro (aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi)  from: A Room with a View (1985)

Verdi’s La forza del destino (the Force of Destiny) overture from: Jean de Florette (1986)

Mozart’s Letter Duet (from The Marriage of Figaro) from : The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Thanks for your question

[the-wild-card-hand]

New Muse: Nikto (Heavily Headcanon Based)

Moniker: Nikto

Real Name: Pyotr Petrov

Bio: Drafted into the Russian Army at 17 in 2011, brought into the FSB in 2016 as a Deep Cover Agent to infiltrate an Ultranationalist Group being lead by Mr. Z later discovered to be Viktor Zakahev, the son of Imran Zakahev, associate to Perseus. Pyotr was captured, tortured, his face was disfigured and in that moment of major stress was the first crack in his psyche. What happened afterwards was up to speculation but by the time anyone in the FSB caught wind and word nobody remained living and all that remained was Pyotr covered in blood muttering to himself the word 'Nikto'. His handler at the time, Kamarov witnessed this and when trying to get Petrov's attention he seemed to snap back to his old self, all be it, a more damaged look in his eye as opposed to the killer, Nikto.

Much to the chagrin of Kamarov though, Petrov soon after reinstated and brought into Spetsnaz to hunt for Chemical Weapons in Urzikstan but was caught in a firefight with Warcom Forces lead by Mara. The situation dire, Kamarov tells Nikto to do whatever it took and the twitch in his eye signaled a change back to Nikto and shortly after that Nikto stayed at the helm during the partnership with Armistice.

The partnership didn't seem to last long when Armistice soldiers began to turn on one another, leaving Nikto alone in the war-torn city. He had to fight to survive constantly and kill, and any allies he did come across he kept a scrutinizing eye on.

When Zakhaev was said to be KIA, a Ghost Ship called the Vodianoy seemed to miraculously appear off the coast of Verdansk just a few feet away from the Gulag there. When the zombies afflicted by an unknown virus thought to be from the Chemical Weapons onboard stormed the Gulag and infected the prisoners and the guards there, Nikto's job with what members of Armistice he could trust given the massive Blue on Blue Incident that transpired at Verdansk International Airport, his job switched to containment, but even so the stress started to eat at him even more leading him to become a little more feral as the monsters that actually ate people were growing in massive numbers. When word got around that a Nuke was gonna be dropped, Nikto and whoever he was with made it a priority to get the hell out of dodge. That was the last recorded battle from Nikto before he went AWOL in 2022.

Fast Forward to 2023: Nikto is spotted with 'Peacekeepers' later discovered to be Konni PMCs under the Command of Makarov. Its unclear if Nikto is still friend or foe.

[piquedpequod]

"All the Secrets and No One to Tell." A soundtrack-mix for Jim Prideaux of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Listen (YT)

Lyrics/excerpts:

“They were at Oxford together before the war.” “And stablemates in the Circus during and after. The famous Haydon-Prideaux partnership.” 1. Charade - Matt Monro Oh what a hit we made We came on next to closing Best on the bill, lovers until Love left the masquerade

Fate seemed to pull the strings I turned and you were gone While from the darkened wings That music box played on

“'Drop out,’ he said. ‘You’re a lucky man, Jim,’ he kept saying. ‘You’ve been ordered to become a lotus-eater.’ I could forget it. Right? Forget it. Just behave as if it had never happened.” He was shouting. “And that’s what I’ve been doing: obeying orders and forgetting!” 2. Eminence Front – The Who That big wheel spins, the hair thins People forget Forget they're hiding The news slows People forget Their shares crash, hopes are dashed People forget Forget they're hiding

Sometimes he thought of the wound as a memory he couldn’t keep down. He tried his damnedest to patch it over and forget but even his damnedest wasn’t always enough. 3. The Story of a Hero – Dmitri Kabalevsky

He also imagined that, like himself, Jim had had a great attachment that had failed him, and which he longed to replace. But here Bill Roach’s speculation met a dead end: he had no idea how adults loved each other. 4. Loneliness – Sergei Rachmaninov

And hearing Tom Tower strike the evening six he found himself thinking of Bill Haydon and Jim Prideaux, who must have arrived here the year that Smiley went down and were gathered up by the war; and he wondered idly how they must have looked together then, Bill the painter, polemicist, and socialite; Jim the athlete, hanging on his words. In their heyday together in the Circus, he reflected, that distinction had all but evened out… Only at the end, the old polarity asserted itself… 5. High Hopes – Pink Floyd Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times

The grass was greener The light was brighter The taste was sweeter The nights of wonder With friends surrounded

“And did you take to it, Jim, to Control’s theory? How did the idea strike you, overall?” “Damn silly. Poppycock.” “Why?” “Just damn silly,” he repeated in a tone of military stubbornness. “Think of any one of you – mole – mad!”

6. Love Is Blindness – Morten Schantz Trio

Not for the first time, Smiley had the distinct sense of stumbling not on Jim’s ignorance but on the relic of a willed determination not to remember. In the dark, Jim Prideaux’s breathing became suddenly deep and greedy. He had lifted his hands to the top of the wheel and was resting his chin on them, peering blankly at the frosted windscreen.

7. Found Song For P. – Max Richter

When finally the big session started – the one he remembered as the marathon – he had the disadvantage of feeling half defeated when he went in. “Matter of health, much as anything,” he explained, very tense now. “We could take a break if you want,” said Smiley, but where Jim was there were no breaks, and what he wanted was irrelevant.

8. Novelette – Dmitri Kabalevsky

“And no word from Bill?” he went on. “Not even a postcard.” “Bill was abroad,” said Jim shortly.

9. Why – Pyotr Tchaikovsky Why is the sun cold and dull in the sky, as if it were winter? Why – tell me quickly – did you forget me?

Only once, when Guillam forgot Smiley and out of instinct turned upon his own tracks, did he have a suspicion of a third figure walking with them: a fanged shadow thrown against the broadloom brickwork of an empty street, but when he started forward it was gone.

10. Circles from the Rue Simon-Crubellier – Max Richter

Then for a moment, one part of Smiley broke into open revolt against the other. The wave of angry doubt that had swept over him in Lacon’s garden, and that ever since had pulled against his progress like a worrying tide, drove him now onto the rocks of despair, and then to mutiny: I refuse.

11. Brain Damage / Eclipse – Pink Floyd And all that you love, and all that you hate All you distrust, all you save And all that you give and all that you deal And all that you buy, beg, borrow, or steal And all you create, and all you destroy

And all that is now, and all that is gone And all that's to come And everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

“Well, damn it, I got him back,” Haydon snapped. “Yes, that was good of you. Tell me, did Jim come to see you before he left on that Testify mission?” “Yes, he did, as a matter of fact.” …He came to warn you, Smiley thought; because he loved you… Jim was watching your back for you right till the end.

12. Comrades – Clint Mansell

Smiley shrugged it all aside, distrustful as ever of the standard shapes of human motive, and settled instead for a picture of one of those wooden Russian dolls that open up, revealing one person inside the other, and another inside him. Of all men living, only Karla had seen the last little doll inside Bill Haydon.

13. Exile - Killing Joke Outside the boundaries where all the streets are empty In such a lonely moment we reach the same conclusion Chants of cathedral choirs, stations of iron cogs grind Primeval screams we heard, release cannot be found

We that have tasted such beauties of corruption Triumphal arches raised designed to fall again My kingdom and place of exile

…in the open night under a clear sky, lit by several hand torches and stared at by several white-faced inmates of the Nursery, sat Bill Haydon on a garden bench facing the moonlit cricket field. He was wearing striped pyjamas under his overcoat; they looked more like prison clothes. His eyes were open and his head was propped unnaturally to one side, like the head of a bird when its neck has been expertly broken.

14. Like Two Strangers – Trentemøller

For the rest of that term, Jim Prideaux behaved in the eyes of Bill Roach much as his mother had behaved when his father went away… Worst of all was his staring, empty look when Roach caught him unawares, and the way he forgot things in class, even the red marks for merit: Roach had to remind him to hand them in each week.

15. Love Is Blindness – U2 Love is clockworks, and cold steel Fingers too numb to feel Squeeze the handle, blow out the candle Love is blindness, I don’t want to see Won’t you wrap the night around me?

Love is drowning in a deep well All the secrets and no one to tell

With time, Jim seemed to respond to treatment, however. His eye grew clearer and he became alert again, as the shadow of his mother’s death withdrew. By the end of the play, he was more light-hearted than Roach had ever known him.

16. Time – Hans Zimmer

“But Jim acts from instinct… he is functional… He’s my other half; between us we’d make one marvellous man, except that neither of us can sing.”

17. You Always Hurt the One You Love – Connie Francis You always hurt the one you love The one you shouldn't hurt at all You always take the sweetest rose And crush it till the petals fall

You always break the kindest heart With a hasty word you can't recall So if I broke your heart last night It's because I love you most of all

started and fin. 2012.

[xprojectrpg]

This Day in X-Project - June 10

2015: Jubilee emails Kurt wanting to spend time together. Kitty and Cecilia meet and talk about the weirdness of a second stay at Xavier's. Roxy and Xavin hang out at school and talk about summer cheerleading camp and underground battle league. Roxy posts to the Generation X comm about battle league.

2016: Laurie reflects on soap operas. Alison speculates on an adage. Sooraya announces she's becoming an American citizen and asks Angelo and Angel to join her at her naturalization ceremony. Miles asks the Gen X-kids about the ACT and a local party.

2017: Sooraya and Jean make plans for a future research project.

2018: Darcy rewards herself with a massage for finishing her first year back at school before inviting people to watch the Tony Awards with her.

2019: Kitty finds a creepy object and offers it out as a birthday gift. Molly lets everyone know that she’s decided to dye her hair brown. Clea’s looking to attend this year’s NY Comic Con and makes a post asking if anyone wants to go with her. Fear in the Dark: Tandy provides Cul with an update about what’s happened so far.

2020:

2021: Topaz finds a disoriented Jean, following a long shift at the hospital for the latter.

2022: Terry messages Angelo and Sooraya about her trip back to Ireland. Pyotr and April do some puppy training.

2023:

[rametarin]

Speculation about Pyotr.

Sooo. Semaphores. Those military flags they use to communicate across boats and stuff, largely before radios.

Did you think this symbol meant, ‘peace’? No. It meant, ‘Nuclear Disarmament.’ All along. It was the cold war mentality against nuclear bombs, as well as, nuclear power. Civilian or government run. They conflated Nuclear Disarmament to mean peace, and so it became a peace symbol.

I’m still old enough to remember stateside, the people that were 15-20 years older than I was in the 80s. People that lived through the 60s and 70s. I’m 38, so they’d be in or nearing their 60s by now.

But if you find a person that today would be called an SJW, you found a person that probably had a negative opinion about, at least, the capitalist west using nuclear power- because they deliberately would conflate nuclear weapons with nuclear power. And I remember hearing many the passioned rant about how one could not exist without the threat of weaponization of the other.

So why do I bring it up in the context of Hunter: the Parenting?

Look at Pyotr’s shirt.

It’s like when metal and goth musician aesthetic wear upside down crosses. But I don’t 100% understand what this means. Is he against nuclear disarmament? I don’t know. It’s the “peace” symbol, upside down and red. Either he’s pro-nuclear (civilian nuclear power, weapons) or pro war, and I don’t know which is intended. That may be intentional.

Well. Pyotr was embraced/died in 1985. He can’t be over 40- I’d wager he’s not even over 35. Pyotr strikes me as a vampire born in the 1950s, grew up and matured in the 60s, went through his 20s in the 70s and was 35 by 1985. Just passed the two decades of conscientous objectors, the Viet Nam war and the hippie movement.

He sounds like an American to me, but I’ve been deceived by how well Scandinavians and East Europeans can speak English before. Like, props, because some of yall consume western media like crack and I could confuse your accents for midwesterners at times- which is supposed to be the flattest, most basic kind of American English. Not drawling like the Deep Souf, not twangy like other parts of the south, not sounding like a Californian or New Englander. Just.. that sure is some American English, there.

So Pyotr could verywell be someone that learned English. Given the era it wasn’t especially common to find an American named Pyotr during the Cold War. There’s a tradition of immigrants coming here and naming their kids more anglicanized versions of the names. So, Pyotr becomes Peter.

So the big question is whether he was a native of Europe or one of its former colonies. Was Pyotr his real name, or did he name himself that?

We know by his long, greasy hair that he couldn’t have been military- at least, not at the time he died and was embraced. His shirt doesn’t seem very Hippie-like. An underwater welder with really long hair? I guess it’s possible that his employers could’ve allowed it because they just intended to kill him anyway.

Pyotr died under the water, embraced by a Nosferatu, presumably beneath the sea. Or perhaps a lake. Some body of water, somewhere. Possibly even in a sewer or sewage system? By his own superior- which raises even more questions.

What was Pyotr working on, beneath the waters? Was it related to nuclear power? Was it an above-the-board job, or a secret organization that he was employed for, being paid on the sly? We don’t know.

Initially I thought that going by the vulgar names of Shitbeard and Ape Boy, Pyotr might have decided to call himself the Russian name for, ‘faggot.’ But, after reaching out to the local Russophone I know, I can safely conclude, no, Pyotr PROBABLY did not name himself the English phoenetic of the Russian way to say and spell(anglicized) Peter. I was wrong in assuming he was over pronouncing it to muddle it between, ‘Peter’, and, ‘faggot,’ but the Russian word for faggot does sound more like the way Peter is said in English. So, this would’ve meant he either didn’t know how to properly pronounce it as a Russian would, or overpronounced it to distance himself from the term. Piotr = yes, P-Yo-Tur = no.

So then I started wondering if perhaps Pyotr might be a Russophile during the Cold War. Supposing Pyotr was English/British and not American, this might mean Pyotr was a Western Sympathizer for Socialism, Communism and the Soviet Union. One of those people in England that sided with the USSR and saw them as morally/ideologically right, no matter what they had to excuse them doing.

Also known as, a tankie.

So I’m going to guess his name is definitely not wordplay/vulgar or problematically sneaking in calling himself a faggot. Just.. if anything an anglophone with possible Russophile leanings.

Assuming Pyotr was possibly some sort of conspirator or terrorist in life, being a long haired counter-culture underwater welder, he could’ve conspired to do something constructive for some not-so-good guys. Which, wouldn’tyaknowit, would bring him smack dab into his sire’s web.

We don’t know for sure if Pyotr was embraced by a Camarillan Nosferatu or Sabbat. Were I to hazard a guess, I’d say Sabbat, but Nosferatu delve between both equally. He could just as easily have been honeypotted by a patriotic Nosferatu guarding the region wherever Pyotr and presumably his other welders got ate and turned, as he could’ve been just extorted for illegal, questionable labor underwater and then disposed of to not have to pay them.

Perhaps I’m just following trails that are not there, seeing shadows and leads that don’t exist.

Or, something very terrible is in motion and may involve nukes under the sea, in Hunter: the Parenting.

[sammi-doodles]

To be continued...in your mind...six years later... c:

[earth-electric]

Killing Eve: A Theory of Family Ties

How complex are these web of lies? That's what the show is basically a huge spider web, everyone is connected by secrets and lies but by what placements? This is a complex question in of itself, which will be answered later in the season(s). But we'll theorize on one small portion, family ties.

Villanelle may have been born into the arms of the 12,her entire life could have been in their shadow. This is not a new theory, but it's still a juicy one to consider as Dasha claims at knowing Villanelle since she was a prepubescent. Villanelle's father Anatoliy Astankov was probably apart of the 12, albeit not high up (many speculated he was or is high up but I disagree), most likely low level (as in a runner, regular crook, handler...assassin? well that's a stretch), and most likely knew Konstantin. There is a possibility that Villanelle's father saw potential in Villanelle to be an assassin or he was told she had potential. That meant being very involved in her upbringing, something Tatianna, Villanelle's mother did not like; not because she cared for her daughters future. She hated Villanelle, she felt her husband loved their daughter more than he loved her. We don't know for sure what happened to Anatoliy, Tatianna and Villanelle blame each other. Most likely got killed by the 12's assassin's, and went 'missing' or Tatianna did kill him, who knows fact is once Anatoliy was gone Tatianna dumped Villanelle.

I do believe Konstantin knew Tatianna intimately, as in had an affair with his friend/co-workers wife. I don't believe Konstantin to be Villanelle's father but Pyotr's father. One thing to consider is Carolyn's children, Geraldine being the oldest and the biological child of her husband and Kenny being the product of an affair and the child of Konstantin. Reflects Villanelle being the biological child of Anatoliy and Pyotr being the child of Konstantin and Tatianna's adultery. I'm not the only one who thought Pyotr was Kenny in a blonde wig and beard...

It does make sense, as Konstantin did 'see a photo' of Villanelle as a baby, more like he saw her with his on eyes as in he knew her family and he looked real guarded when Villanelle asked how he knew what she looked like as a baby. Also knew Tatianna was 'insane' and an unfit mother. I know this might be a lot and many have guessed that the 12 didn't know about Oksana - we don't know that, it's possible they lost track of her, child welfare lose track of a bunch of kids in the US i'm sure it's the same in Russia. The 12 most likely have a whole file of potential assassins and are monitoring from afar these children to see if they can be killers, you can't have a subject too impulsive or too hesitant.

What's the best way to train a killer? You can train them to shot and fight and manipulate, but will they be able to kill efficiently, I mean look at Nadia and Diago they were horrible. To kill, it's all psychological, trauma that life provides is the best teacher. It's a plus when a subject already has a violent instinct.

Maybe that's why Konstantin was frightened when Irina killed, he thought about what happened when Anatoliy encouraged Villanelle's violent urges and didn't want that for his daughter. To add maybe that's why Konstantin loves Villanelle so much is because she reminds him of his old friend Anatoliy, plus she has the beauty of her mother to top it all off.

Yes, another layered theory from my obsessive brain, cool beans. Also if Konstantin is revealed to actually be Villanelle's father I will flip my shit. Want more of my bullshit, go here.

[justforbooks]

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, primarily known as Maxim Gorky, was born March 28 1868. He was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Prior to his renown as an author, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913–1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905). He had associations with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.

Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist communist movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there until his death in June 1936.

With the increase of Stalinist repression and especially after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest in his house near Moscow in Gorki-10 (the name of the place is a completely different word in Russian unrelated to his surname). His long-serving secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov had been recruited by Yagoda as a paid informer. Before his death from a lingering illness in June 1936, he was visited at home by Stalin, Yagoda, and other leading communists, and by Moura Budberg, who had chosen not to return to the USSR with him but was permitted to stay for his funeral.

The sudden death of Gorky's son Maxim Peshkov in May 1934 was followed by the death of Maxim Gorky himself in June 1936 from pneumonia. Speculation has long surrounded the circumstances of his death. Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's urn during the funeral. During the Bukharin trial in 1938 (one of the three Moscow Trials), one of the charges was that Gorky was killed by Yagoda's NKVD agents.

In Soviet times, before and after his death, the complexities in Gorky's life and outlook were reduced to an iconic image (echoed in heroic pictures and statues dotting the countryside): Gorky as a great Soviet writer who emerged from the common people, a loyal friend of the Bolsheviks, and the founder of the increasingly canonical "socialist realism".

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

1835 – Camille Saint-Saëns (d.1921) was widely regarded as a virtuoso by his peers and contemporaries, and he was one of the most highly honored French artistic figures of his day. His personal life was both dramatic and glamorous, and he traveled in circles that included many of the most prominent homosexual figures of his times.

Charles Camille Saint-Saëns was born on October 9, 1835 in Paris. His father died of tuberculosis when the boy was three months old. He was subsequently raised by his mother until her death in 1888, and his great-aunt, Charlotte Masson. Saint-Saëns early demonstrated musical gifts. Madame Masson began teaching him piano before he was three years old, and he was able to play difficult pieces within a year; by the age of five he was composing songs.

He began his formal musical training in 1842 and made his debut as a concert pianist in 1846, before his eleventh birthday. After graduating from the Paris Conservatory in 1853, Saint-Saëns gained recognition among his peers as an organ virtuoso and thus won the coveted position of chief organist at the Madeleine Church in Paris, a post he held from 1858 to 1877. Simultaneously, he pursued a career as a pianist and conductor, taught at L'Ecole Niedermeyer in Paris, and composed a prodigious number of musical works of various genres.

Among Saint-Saëns's best-known compositions are his Second Piano Concerto in G minor (1868), Danse macabre (1875), the opera Samson et Dalilah (1875), and the Third Symphony in C minor with organ (1886). His body of works also includes chamber music, masses and other choral compositions, a dozen operas, a wide variety of orchestral music, numerous songs, and solo pieces for organ and piano.

His unique and now-familiar Le Carnaval des animaux (The Carnival of the Animals, 1886), for two pianos and orchestra, was intended as a private entertainment for his friends, and he forbade its public performance during his lifetime. The part of the narrator, now usually included, was added by others after his death.

During his lifetime, Saint-Saën's private life gave rise to many rumors and much speculation, and it continues to do so even now. In some ways he was a solitary, even secretive individual, prone to "disappearing" for weeks. At the same time, he was a remarkable host who entertained lavishly at his Paris home, where his performances in drag (particularly his impersonation of Marguerite, the female soprano lead in Charles Gounod's opera Faust) were well-known among his circle.

He is reputed to have danced in ballerina attire for the benefit of his fellow gay composer, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky. Although he is reputed to have stated—perhaps sardonically—that he was not a homosexual but rather a pederast, Saint-Saëns's homosexuality is now, for the most part, taken for granted.

Long a bachelor, Saint-Saëns married, at forty, a woman less than half his age. Although the marriage quickly produced two sons, it was nonetheless an unhappy one from the beginning. In 1878, both children died (from a fall from a fourth-floor window and from illness, respectively) within a six week period. His wife's purported negligence became a pretext for his deserting her, which he did in 1881. After vanishing while on vacation, he wrote advising her that he was simply no longer able to live with her, and afterwards never saw her or communicated with her again.

Thereafter the composer traveled extensively, and spent his winters in Algeria, which, while still a French colony, became a favored holiday spot for European homosexuals who enjoyed the adolescent male companionship offered there. He died of pneumonia in Algiers, at the age of 86, on December 16, 1921.

1840 – Simeon Solomon (d.1905)) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter. Solomon was born into a prominent Jewish family. Solomon was a younger brother to fellow painters Abraham Solomon (1824-1862) and Rebecca Solomon (1832-1886).

Born and educated in London, Solomon started receiving lessons in painting from his older brother around 1850. He started attending Carey's Art Academy in 1852.

As a student at the Royal Academy Schools, Solomon was introduced through Dante Gabriel Rossetti to other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, as well as the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and the painter Edward Burne-Jones in 1857. His first exhibition was at the Royal Academy in 1858. He continued to hold exhibitions of his work at the Royal Academy between 1858 and 1872. In addition to the literary paintings favoured by the Pre-Raphaelite school, Solomon's subjects often included scenes from the Hebrew Bible and genre paintings depicting Jewish life and rituals. His association with Swinburne led to his illustrating Swinburne's Lesbia Brandon in 1865.

The opening of the Dudley Gallery in London in 1865 allowed Solomon and other artists to exhibit works with more daring subjects than those accepted at the Royal Academy. During these years Solomon created such works of homoerotic content as Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytelene (1864), Love among the School Boys (1866), Eton Schoolboys (1867), The Bride and Bridegroom (1866), Sad Love (1866), Love in Autumn (1866), and two versions of Bacchus (1866 and 1867). These works envision an alternative to straitened Victorian ideals of heterosexual love and matrimony.

Eton Schoolboys 1867

During 1867, Solomon traveled to Italy as the lover of Oscar Browning, who was later to become headmaster of Eton and a don at Cambridge. The couple journeyed to Rome and Genoa again in 1870. The trip, however, ended on a regrettable note. According to written accounts of some friends, the couple left the country earlier than planned. The trip's abrupt end may have been caused by legal reasons related to their same-sex relationship. If that is true, it is no coincidence that Simeon's troubles with alcohol began around this time.

In 1873 his career was cut short when he was arrested in a public urinal at Stratford Place Mews, off Oxford Street, in London and charged with attempting to commit sodomy with a sixty-year-old stableman, George Roberts. Both men were charged with indecent exposure and the attempt to commit "buggery." They went to court thirteen days later, were judged guilty, fined one hundred pounds, and later sentenced to eighteen months in prison at hard labor. At the intervention of a wealthy cousin, Meyer Solomon, the artist's sentence was reduced to police supervision. (Roberts was not so fortunate.)

Eager to escape the shame he felt, Solomon traveled to France for a time. However, he was arrested there on March 4, 1874 for the same reasons. The French court fined him sixteen francs and sentenced him to three months in prison. The nineteen-year-old man he was with received a lesser sentence.

After these legal experiences, the artist was never the same. Most London galleries, previous patrons, and former friends, including Swinburne, shunned him. He did receive some support: some gallery owners gave him monetary advances, one former patron remained loyal, some friends assisted him, and his cousin Meyer Solomon commissioned several paintings from him. Still, the artist remained depressed and became increasingly reliant on alcohol in an attempt to numb his shame and the pain of society's rejection.

In 1884 he was admitted to the workhouse where he continued to produce work; however, his life and talent were blighted by alcoholism. Twenty years later in 1905, he died from complications brought on by his alcoholism. He was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Willesden

1993 – Rashad Jamiyl Spain, known professionally as Saucy Santana, is an American rapper. After beginning his career as a makeup artist for the hip hop duo City Girls, he started rapping in February 2019, and released his debut single "Walk Em Like A Dog" that same year. After becoming a recurring guest on the reality television franchise Love & Hip Hop: Miami, Santana gained further prominence in 2021 when his singles "Walk", and "Here We Go" spawned viral challenges on TikTok. That same year, he released the song "Material Girl", and later released the song's remix "Material Gworrllllllll!" alongside Madonna.

Santana came out as gay at age 17.

On December 11, 2019, Santana and two others were shot in a drive-by shooting in Miami. Santana, who was hospitalized for his injuries, stated that he believes the shooting was motivated by homophobia. He said of the shooting, "I got shot in the top of my shoulder, you was aiming at my face or at my head, that's an instant kill." This incident inspired him to write the song "You Can't Kill Me".

2008 – Stephan Thorne of the San Francisco Police Department is promoted to Lieutenant, making him the highest-ranking transgender law enforcement official in the country.

2011 – California Governor Jerry Brown announces the signing of the Gender Nondiscrimination Act making discrimination based on gender identity or expression in employment, education, housing, and other public settings illegal; and the Vital Statistics Modernization Act allows transgender people to obtain a court order to protect their gender.

[faux-ee]

The adaptations and fanfics often speculate abt what stavrogin told pyotr when they first met in Petersburg to get him so hooked up on the idea of revolution and raising a false prince-god but what if nikolai said nothing what if petya just took one look at him and knew what he was gonna do with his life and they operated entirely on this weird telepathy as intended by dostoevsky himself (he said in the notes for the possessed that nikolai knew abt the things petya withheld from him and petya knew that nikolai knew so he just implied everything in their weird af conversations and sought nikolai's advice on them that's fucking homosexual don't even argue with me)

[starring-movies]

Killing Eve: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Season 3, Episode 4 - Still Got It

This episode is different to all the other episodes of this season, as well as the whole series, as it is not structured chronologically, but it’s order goes through each character’s separate timeline instead.

We begin with Niko who is starting his new life in Poland, as a bread delivery man. Just like Villanelle does, it’s apparent that Niko also has a type, as when he’s in a bar he looks interestedly at a woman with the same voluminous, curly hair that Eve has.

When we get to Eve’s storyline, we see her in the Bitter Pill office. She’s getting ready for work after spending the night there, after Villanelle broke into her apartment and left the pink teddy bear with the voice recording in it.

When Eve is brushing her teeth, the camera specifically pans onto her toiletry bag as she puts her toothbrush back in it. Our attention is being drawn to this, in connection to S2E6. In S2E6 when Villanelle broke into Eve’s house to mess with her things, she brushed her teeth with Eve’s toothbrush and puts the toothbrush back into the same toiletry bag that we see Eve using in this scene; so we can see that Eve is still using the same toothbrush from that episode - Villanelle still manages to pop-up unexpectedly in Eve’s life, even though she is trying to forget about her.

When the bus birthday cake from Villanelle arrives at the Bitter Pill office, Eve knows it’s from Villanelle and she touches her neck. She touches her neck in exactly the same way as this in S2E5, when the white roses spelling Eve’s name arrives on her doorstep. Eve repeating the same action, immediately after receiving another gift from Villanelle, shows us how just like in S2E5, Eve is feeling flattered by the attention and knowing that Villanelle is thinking about and paying attention to her.

A song starts playing over this scene of Eve receiving the cake, which doesn’t look like it’s been released yet, but we can assume it’s by Unloved. The lyrics that can be heard are:

“I once had a love,

Or did Love have me?

It set me free,

It set me free”

The lyrics represent Eve’s inner turmoil in regard to her feelings for Villanelle. She can’t decide if Villanelle was once her “Love” or if Villanelle “had” her (if she only belonged to Villanelle) - she can’t decide if the feelings she had/has are her own, and what she really wants, or if she is powerless to Love’s control over her.

This struggle to determine her love and her feeling’s over Villanelle is what causes Eve to have the same reaction to the bus cake that she had with the teddy bear recording. With the recording she is angry with it at first, but then she changes her mind and holds it up to her ear to repeatedly listen to Villanelle’s voice. Similarly to the recording she feels both happy and angry when she receives the cake. She first puts her hands to her neck (which shows us she’s flattered), then proceeds to throw the cake off the building in anger, but then almost immediately after she’s let go of the cake she yelps in distress, suddenly regretting what she’s done.

Another interesting thing to note is that no-one else acknowledges or is even aware that it’s Eve’s birthday, except for Villanelle. It’s highlighting how Eve is isolated in her life and now has no-one left who knows her so well or cares about her as much, except for Villanelle.

Regarding the story that Konstantin gives in S3E8, about what happened with him and Kenny, we can see that the story doesn’t add up. The wall around the roof of the building, which Eve throws the cake from and which Kenny supposedly “got scared” and accident fell off, is way to high for this to have happened.

[Unrelated but in the same vein, is that in this scene we can see that there are two chairs on the rooftop, one of which Eve put the cake on and the other has been knocked over. We know from Bear’s video footage from S3E8, that Kenny and Konstantin seemed to be alone before Kenny died. So it looks like perhaps the two of them were sat talking on the roof (Konstantin might have been interrogation Kenny about what he knew) and then maybe Konstantin pulled Kenny off his chair and was holding him at the wall around the rooftop to threaten him and then that’s possibly when he accidentally fell off - just a speculation.]

After Jamie told Eve to stay at his house, we see Eve lying in bed holding up one of Jamie’s child’s teddy bears. She holds the bear up above her face and asks it “what do you want from me?”. Eve is clearly speaking to the bear in lieu of Villanelle, she is recreating their encounter on the bus when Villanelle was face to face with her.

When we get to Villanelle’s portion of the episode, we see her dancing in her Barcelona apartment while she’s trying to make a birthday cake for Eve. Dancing is a big theme in Season 3. We only see Villanelle dancing comfortably twice, once in this scene and the second time is in the tea dance scene from S3E8. In the dancing in this episode, Villanelle is on her own but she’s thinking about Eve and the encounter they just had on the bus. In the tea dance scene Villanelle is also dancing with Eve.

In this Season they use dancing as a symbol of happiness and comfort, and more specifically having these things with other people or another person - dancing is a two person activity, an intimate activity and also something that people aren’t willing to do if they don’t feel completely comfortable.

The previous times Villanelle tried to dance, was at her wedding with Maria in S3E1 and with her family in S3E5, people who you ordinarily should be able to feel comfortable with. So Villanelle only being able to dance when she’s either thinking about or is physically with Eve, shows how she’s never as truly comfortable or vulnerable as when she’s with Eve - also stressing the point that they’re soulmates, which is another theme in Season 3.

This is also the first time that we see Villanelle listening to music through headphones, and she continues to do this in the next episode, S3E5. As she starts to listen to music after her kiss with Eve on the bus, and when she’s making Eve’s birthday cake, we can see that it’s from Eve and the rejuvenation of their relationship that she starts to do this.

Although Villanelle has found out from Dasha that she is being given her promotion, while she is out shopping she still pauses to look longingly at two women shopping together. Even though she has everything she was always aiming to get (money, status, a nice flat, a fun job) and is going up in the world in her professional career, she still can’t help but feel that there’s something missing in her life, she still doesn’t have that “someone to watch movies with” that she told Eve she wanted in S1E8.

As Villanelle is out shopping, the song ‘Satan Is His Name’ by Holly Golightly starts to play. The lyrics are:

“Satan is a name he goes by,

He got a lotta devil in his eye,

He got a kiss of fire and it burns you well,

Breaks your heart and it hurts like”

The first two lines of the lyrics that are heard, are played when Villanelle is walking along with her shopping, giving us the impression that Villanelle is “Satan”. However, the next two lines are played as Villanelle is observing the two women in the shop; telling us that “Satan” is actually Eve, because Eve is the one who hurt and broke her heart. This makes sense as Villanelle is thinking about Eve kissing her on the bus and probably how, although it seems like Eve finally reciprocated her feelings, they haven’t spoken about it and so it hasn’t been made clear if this is the case - and so she could still be burned and hurt by Eve.

The fact that we are initially led to believe that “Satan is Villanelle, but the it turns out to be Eve, also emphasises how they’re now becoming “the same” more than they were before - they are both “Satan” because they both have the same “darkness” and “monster” within them.

In return for finding the information about her family that Villanelle asked for, Konstantin says to her, “but I need you to do something for me, something personal, off the record”. Just like in S1E1, when Villanelle repeats Konstantin saying that he can’t stay and watch a movie; and in S1E8, when she repeats what Irina says about languages - Villanelle being able to repeat these things shows us that Konstantin has repeatedly asked Villanelle to do ‘off the record’ jobs for him throughout the years, as a favour.

After Konstantin has given Villanelle the information about her family, she starts to hiccup, which continues throughout the episode. One reason for Villanelle’s hiccups could be because she was in shock, after slapping Eve in S2E8 she tells her “you were in shock. You needed a surprise, like hiccups”. So similarly, Villanelle could have been in shock from finding out her family was actually alive after thinking for her whole life that they died in a car crash.

However Villanelle’s hiccups do have a clear link to her association with family, as she first gets them when she’s with Konstantin and learns her family are alive, and also when she’s experiencing what it’s like to be a child when she’s playing and is hugged in the garden with Kruger’s wife. Villanelle also explicitly says to Pyotr in S3E5 that she came home “because I had the hiccups”.

We then see that the “off the records” job that Konstantin has asked Villanelle to carry out, is killing Bertha (Kruger’s wife) to tie up his loose ends from the money he stole from The Twelve.

Since we know that freedom is very important to Villanelle, she tells Bertha that she should be happy, saying to her “you’re free now, you can be whoever you want”; but Bertha replies by saying “I don’t want to be free, I want to be a family”. By giving Konstantin’s betting slip, and their chance of “freedom” to Eve in S3E8, it shows just how much trust Villanelle has in Eve; to be able to entrust her with the key to the thing she regards as the most important - Eve isn’t just an obsession (like Anna) for Villanelle anymore, but she’s become the only person who she knows that she can truly rely on.

Interestingly though, Villanelle does say to Bertha that it’s her husband’s death which enables her to be “free now” and she “can be whoever you want”. This brings to surface the thought that maybe Villanelle considers that freedom for herself, and being allowed to be whoever she wants, is similarly only attainable by being without Eve. Villanelle does tell Konstantin in S3E6 that she’s willing to leave with him and she’s aware that means leaving Eve behind as well. However, she seems to change her mind by S3E8 and chooses her family (Eve) over her freedom (leaving with Konstantin). Although Villanelle doesn’t understand it at the time, Bertha’s statement to Villanelle, “I don’t want to be free, I want to be a family”, becomes true for her by the end of the season.

At this point, Villanelle also still can’t understand the love that Bertha has for her husband and family, in favour of her own freedom; in the same way as she couldn’t understand why the prison mate in S1E7 would “rather die” than have her freedom; and just as the nanny from S3E3 was so willing to sacrifice her own life for a baby that wasn’t even her’s.

When Hélène goes to speak to Dasha at the swimming pool, she describes Eve as “the one who wears the...” and then Dasha finishes Hélène’s thought with “...turtleneck”. It is interesting that Eve’s turtlenecks are her defining and notable feature, as when Villanelle returns to Mother Russia, she too wears a turtleneck. If Hélène and Dasha have noticed that Eve wears turtlenecks, then Villanelle definitely has. Therefore Villanelle’s choice to wear a turtleneck, when she’s going to be reunited with her family, is like she’s taking a bit of comfort with her. She’s choosing to wear something that Eve is known for wearing so that she can feel close to Eve, and can have the comfort of her being with her when she’s going to do something that’s so important, nerve-wracking and uncertain for her.

Villanelle’s choice to wear a turtleneck is also her attempt at blending in. The turtleneck is something Eve is obviously known for wearing, and so because Eve wears them, Villanelle associates the turtleneck (like Eve) with all things normal and ordinary. However, despite her attempt, it’s clear from the rest of her outfit that she’s still far too well/over-dressed in comparison to the rest of Grizmet’s inhabitants.

When Villanelle arrives at the train platform in Mother Russia at the end of the episode, she touches her neck. This scene comes right after Niko has just been stabbed in the throat by Dasha, and so it could be to demonstrate Villanelle’s connection with Eve - in line with the ‘soulmates’ theme of Season 3 - it could be to show that Villanelle is being stopped in her tracks by feeling Eve’s grief and shock at seeing Niko being stabbed (in a similar vein as when people say that they just felt a chill, like someone was walking over their grave).

However, Villanelle touching her neck could also be a sign that her hiccups have gone, as she doesn’t get them again after this moment. It could be that by returning home to Mother Russia, Villanelle got the “surprise” that she mentioned to Eve in S2E8 that you need to get rid of the hiccups. The ambiguity of the action of Villanelle touching her neck (given that we’ve seen that she’s had hiccups throughout the episode but also that this happens right after Niko is stabbed in the neck) indicates that she touches her neck for both of these reasons, not just one or the other.

You can read my previous Killing Eve posts here:-

First Introduction to Villanelle

First Introduction to Eve

S1, E1 - Nice Face

S1, E2 - I’ll Deal With Him Later

S1, E3 - Don’t I Know You?

S1, E4 - Sorry Baby

S1, E5 - I Have a Thing about Bathrooms

S1, E6 - Take Me to the Hole!

S1, E7 - I Don’t Want to Be Free

S1, E8 - God, I’m Tired

S2, E1 - Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?

S2, E2 - Nice and Neat

S2, E3 - The Hungry Caterpillar

S2, E4 - Desperate Times

S2, E5 - Smell Ya Later

S2, E6 - I Hope You Like Missionary!

S2, E7 - Wide Awake

S2, E8 - You’re Mine

S3, E1 - Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

S3, E2 - Management Sucks

S3, E3 - Meetings Have Biscuits

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 1]

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 2]

S3, E6 - End of Game

S3, E7 - Beautiful Monster

S3, E8 - Are You Leading or Am I? [Part 1]

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[rorykillmore]

evan peters plays a variety of roles from an assassin to an ordinary civilian who gets roped into this world of intrigue until season 7 when he inexplicably plays pyotr and the entire fandom speculates whether he had plastic surgery or hes secretly an incarnation of the devil until its revealed its both

CHRIST!!!!! I CANT BREATHE

[from-princesspark]

I don’t know anything about classical music. Can you explain why the Tchaikovsky sweatshirt was an interesting choice? Is it just because he was gay?

I should preface this by saying that I don’t know all that much about classical music. I was really into ballet when I was younger and classical music and ballet tend to go hand-in-hand. Especially Tchaikovsky, so I know a little bit about him. Also, I apologize in advance because this is going to be a lengthy answer.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a well respected Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was also gay.

Yes, part of what makes Louis wearing that jumper interesting is simply that Tchaikovsky was gay. But, what makes it more interesting to me is the speculation surrounding Tchaikovsky’s sudden death.

He is said to have died of Cholera, contracted by drinking unboiled water from a restaurant, but that doesn’t exactly make sense given the circumstances. Russia was in the middle of a Cholera epidemic and there was very strict regulations in place at the time. The restaurant that he went to was very reputable and they wouldn’t have served him or anyone else water that hadn’t been boiled. And Tchaikovsky, who was of a “higher class” and said to be incredibly diligent about hygiene, would not have voluntarily chosen to drink unboiled water during a Cholera epidemic.

Speculation about the circumstances of his death surfaced almost immediately. And to this day the cause of his death remains highly contested.

Many people, allegedly including a fellow composer of whom Tchaikovsky was good friends, believed that Tchaikovsky was actually sentenced to suicide by “court of honor” or by the Tsar of Russia himself, in condemnation of his homosexuality. The Russian government as late as 2013 has tried to deny and censor the fact that Tchaikovsky was gay, censoring letters written by the composer himself and others who knew him.

So yeah, I find that choice of jumper for Louis very curious. Then again he may not know anything about Tchaikovsky or his death and just thought the jumper looked cool. I have filed this under “interesting things I will likely never get an explanation for”.