#but the naming convention and culture and everything i fuck with

[mestos]

i hate how cool rava surnames sound (with the elemental lore thing) but ig snow crystal guardians arent bad either.....

initially noi was supposed to be ukina qufiswesfv bc he became a gunbreaker at some point (which is still true now) but it doesnt make sense bc why even. so he shares the same as his papa, reoul and ukina foixewesfv

my oc viper (who i made an entire year before DT even decided to drop the viper class trailer, GO FIGURE)'s real name is Yzera Sjadarwesfv. my anden (custom delivery guy) knock off is Nase Copihwesfv if I were following the naming conventions properly

i do have a rava bunny tho and his name is Valentine. his birth name wouldve been Faana Djt-Marouc though which i think is so spicy

[ozzgin]

Yandere! CEO Headcanons

Just a little idea I had some time ago of a rather bizarre dynamic: a CEO with no time to spare, introduced to a young student his wife befriended. Perhaps he does have a moment, after all. (I need to dump my preference for a cultured older man somewhere)

Content: female reader, age gap, older yandere, NSFW, dating the wife is optional

[Original works masterlist]

Yandere! CEO who is in his mid 40s and terribly invested in his job. So much, that he and his wife agreed on an open relationship many years ago and barely interact anymore. Not a gloomy business by any means: she gets to meet new people and he can enjoy his work and hobbies in peace and without guilt.

Yandere! CEO who doesn't think much of it when his wife brings home a young student she befriended at a convention. He nods dismissively, returning to his papers and phone calls. At dinner, he just hums in acknowledgement and fiddles with the cutlery while the woman talks about you excitedly. "You know, (Y/N) reminds me a little of you." Nonsense.

Yandere! CEO with whom you scarcely interact: he's a borderline workaholic, and your relationship is cordial at best. That is until you're asked by the wife to retrieve some important documents from their ridiculously luxurious apartment. You quietly tiptoe past the office, but can't help glancing at the imposing library, stacked with books. The man's sudden arrival startles and you begin to mumble apologies, but he seems more interested in your curiosity than anything else.

Yandere! CEO who can't believe you both like the same authors. He discreetly removes the folder from your hands, tasking one of the assistants to deliver it to his wife instead. There are more important matters at hand. Have you had your coffee yet? Oh, you must stay longer. What's the hurry?

Yandere! CEO who has become awfully perceptive whenever your name is mentioned in conversations, innocently probing for more details. Naturally, he wouldn't mind meeting you again, but it's not...a need, per se. He was just pleasantly surprised to find someone he could so easily engage in conversation with. Hell, you're old enough to be his daughter. Don't be ridiculous, he'll scold himself sternly whenever his mind wanders too far.

Yandere! CEO who begins to feel like each encounter is a flirty tease. Is it just wishful thinking, or are you becoming cheekier by day? The way you bat your eyelashes, the way you cast your eyes down whenever he looks at you. The next time you're alone in the apartment, he's too far gone in his delusions to act rationally. How unusual for him to act so nonchalant. Unbuttoning your shirt with haste, trailing your neck with hot kisses, lifting your leg and pressing you against the wall. He never considered himself the type to fuck a much younger woman out of raw lust.

Yandere! CEO who loves taking you on dates despite his busy schedule. Art museums, theatres, the Opera. He is eager to introduce you to his interests and will answer any question or curiosity you have. Who would've thought everything is better in two? Of course, there could be other factors involved. Like the added bonus of watching you squirm in your seat and biting your lips to be quiet while he fingers you at the peak of Act 3. Then smirking to himself when everyone stands up for applause, and you have to rearrange your dress to hide the wet mess underneath.

Yandere! CEO who worries about you when he's on work trips, so he tasks his right-hand man to look after you and keep you company. If you ever get lonely, you can rely on his assistant to take care of all your needs. Now, he's not one to share, despite his marital arrangement. As bizarre as it sounds, he just sees the employee as a mere toy, an idle occupation who can temporarily entertain you in his absence. What he does perceive as a threat is swiftly taken care of. It's enough for you to mention another student flirted with you, and you'll never see that person again. You have to understand that he doesn't play around with his assets. One he has something, he holds onto it with ironclad strength. And he's never been more desperate to keep something in his possession.

Yandere! CEO who makes sure to remind you why dating him is your best (and only) choice. You would've wasted your time with boys your age. He can offer you the world and more, all you need to do is ask for it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Clownfall: Endgame

I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.

Previous Reading

Important Terminology - Required Reading

What is a Whip?

How do Whips work?

Shadow Cabinet

Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet

What do we need to call an early General Election?

The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading

Character-based prequel

The Premiership of Liz Truss

The Next Steps - Suggested Reading

The post-Truss contenders

Bye Matt

BoJo Resigns as MP

Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!

Clownfall: Endgame

Wednesday

So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.

But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".

And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".

Imagine how well all that went down.

Thursday

You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.

“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.

-AlJazeera

And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.

"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.

They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.

Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.

"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.

Saturday

Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:

Well. They tried.

BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!

Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.

???!??!?

PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.

Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.

Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.

So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.

"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.

But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.

Here's the planned route by the organisers:

Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.

And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:

Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.

(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)

Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.

Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA.  Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)

Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial.  Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off.  But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.

His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.

So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...

There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.

Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023

New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:

One.  The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.

It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another.  For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either.  The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.

But here's the thing!

Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella.  Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.

Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it.  Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.

Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run...  But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.

Two.  We’ll get inflation figures.  The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this.  Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.

Three.  Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday.  It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).

But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories.  A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war.  A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches.  So what do they do?  Abstain?  Claim they had a prior commitment??  We might see more resignations, basically.  Big day for Starmer.

So! With all that in mind...

Monday

8.43am

Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?

Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.

But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!

He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day.  Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.

Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:

u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?

Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.

8.56am

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.

9.00am

Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.

*sus*

9.09am

Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.

*sus*

9.42am

The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election.  Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”

Good job! They're having such a good few days.

Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems.  In which Ed Davey served for three years.

Hmm.

9.43am 

James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:

This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.

But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -

10.03am

FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY

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

And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!

(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)

Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”  It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.

Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.

(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month.  Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)

Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.

BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.

So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??

Yes, turns out.

Don't be alarmed by that, though:

But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...

10.13am

The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.

For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.

10.18am

Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment.  Here’s my favourite:

10.48am

David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.

10.52am

Health secretary Will Quince quits.  He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-

11.04am

Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.

...

...

...

Time for a

✨Conspiracy Theory✨

Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.

It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face.  But here’s another theory.

MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.

So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.

If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?

11.05am

11.12am

Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.

So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:

“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*

11.50am

Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.

12.13pm

A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.

“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”

... Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!

Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.

12.43pm

ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state.  The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”

I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist

12.47pm

Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!

*choirs of heavenly angels sing*

You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.

A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign.  They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.

My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.

12.52pm

Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years

trololol

1.15pm

Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.

1.37pm

Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.

Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.

2.04pm

Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary.  This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors

2.15pm

Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.

A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate).  So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.

This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.

That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.

2.24pm

Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay

2.37pm

Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

2.42pm

Science minister George Freeman resigns.

3.18pm

YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?

Good decision: 24%

Bad decision: 38%

Don't know: 38%

So that's going well

3.24pm

Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.

John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.

3.39pm

With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons.  The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:

“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*

The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”

4.21pm

Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.

5.16pm

Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning!  Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!

It means we’re denied insight into their differences.  But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.

6.03pm

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.

It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:

My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."

Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.

6.05pm

Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister.  Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.

This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party.  Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).

In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.

6.15pm

Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.”  So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity

6.27pm

Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:

“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”

(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)

6.31pm

Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.

9.43pm

Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine.  This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants.  Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak.  Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way

10.03pm

And then - PLOT TWIST!!!

According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY. 

Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday.  It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.

Well well.

11.05pm

And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming!  Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.

The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.

No one tell them

[evilminji]

Actually? WOULD Earth be the ones to petition Oa?

They are interstellar Space Interpol. You don't usually call them on different parts of your OWN settlements or systems. You call them in when someone is breaking THE Laws. Not necessarily YOUR laws, though obviously by breaking THE laws they clearly ARE. But THE Big Laws(tm).

Like Geneva Convention for Space type laws.

You have discovered Planet or King X is committing WAR CRIMES. Call Oa. Tax fraud? That's an inter-personal planet side issue they can't help you with. Pointing Nukes at your nursery settlement and threatening to blow up the infants there unless you give them sex-slaves?

Knock-knock! Taste HARD Light Constructs!

But if so? Then how would the situation get so out of hand on Earth? With the G.I.W.? Simple. Tell me, Mr. President, what do you know of the current day to day life of villagers in rural Siberia?

That they exist? Could you even NAME their village, if I referenced specific individuals? Likely not. And no one would realistically expect you too.

There are countless planets out there! With Leaders busy with local industrial conferences and infrastructure bills. Farming regulations. Talks with that planet a few stars over. Very busy. What do THEY know of Earth? Why would they NEED too?

But! As we know, Ectoplasm is EVERYWHERE. Not just earth. And? Thin spots are not just an Earth-centric phenomenon. Other planets most CERTAINLY would have them too. And depending on the species? The culture? To quote the wise sage Bill Wurtz "you can make a religion out of this!"

After all, chosen few, returned from death... glowing and more powerful then before? Immortal? It's a pretty reasonable conclusion to come too. They are clearly Gods Touched. Some sacred task they must complete.

It would likely even shape the ghosts of the region themselves. After all, they TOO, would believe they were chosen for some Important Religious Task. Be it study or collecting rocks. To what end? Unknown. Who are they to question The Gods?

But! Oh happy day! The old tyrant is no more! A chosen Hero! They go to greet him! Honor him, as you do. Traditional gifts and ballads. Maybe some sacred rocks. A fancy hat. But? Oh? The Champion is wounded! Gasp! Still? But the fight with Pariah happened-

And then they are given Grave Warning(tm). Don't go to Earth. Heretics attacking people. KILLING souls! Trying to KILL the king of all the Infinite! He is somber because his living parents were hurt. Preventing the END OF ALL THINGS!!!??

WHAT!?

These "People In White" tried to EXPLODE the very FABRIC of all realities!? Several of them faint. Truely, these Fentons MUST be chosen by the Gods! Heros. Legends. Such bravery in the face of such HORRORS. Please, let them be brought to their Living counterparts! The hospitals are quite good!

And you know what? Fuck it. Danny will take that. Because his Mom n Dad got hurt. BAD.

They learned he was Phantom at probably the SINGLE worst time imaginable and still chose HIM. Chose THEM. The GIW were coming for him. Gonna hurt Jazz. And his parents told them, with fire and blood, it'd be a cold day in hell before they let them so much as TRY it.

They BLEW UP their own life's work. Went literally scorched earth. And now? They're not doing so good.

Because the Zone isn't made for the living. No food, no water, and no real human-safe medical supplies. They've run out. Danny will take what he can get. He'd even go to Vlad but... his Portal's gone too. And the Buzzards said he looked... spirally. Very... "suicide runs until everything BURNS".

So, yeah. No one's doing so great.

Alien planet it is.

They are greeted with fanfare and respect. The best medical teams on the PLANET. The King and his family is there, to welcome him. It's... it's beautiful. Hardly some perfect utopia, but the air is lite. Art everywhere. The stars vivid and so easy to see, at night.

The King kinda reminds him of Mr. Lancer to be honest. Balding and a bit round around the middle, stern but endlessly fair about it, wants people to do their best and succeed in life. Maybe that's why Danny finds himself opening up. Because... because here is a real, honest to God, KING king.

Somebody who was actually TRAINED to do all this King stuff.

Unlike Danny.

And Danny? He's scared. People expect him to Lead now. To know what he's doing. To somehow just... suddenly KNOW how to do all these things he's never even heard about. He only barely just died. Has BARELY been keeping everybody safe.

BARELY stopped Pariah.

He doesn't know what to do. But he pours his guts out. All the things that have bottled up. And King Not-Lancer listens. Somber and thoughtful. There is little, if anything he can TRUELY do to help. But... there ARE things he can do. Lessons on statescraft, while he's here, for one.

As for the other? Well, as King, he does have the local Lantern's Call Sign. Not to be used lightly, mind you. But what Danny describes? And from what the Sacred Ones have reported? THAT must be reported to Oa. He can show Danny how to do that.

(He does)

[The Lanterns of Earth get a VERY exciting call from Oa. Are every different shade of pissed. But? Whoops! Looks like they ACCIDENTALLY put the Watchtower into a complete Quarantine! Well, dang. Guess we're all stuck here for two weeks!

Reset it? *sound of smashing computer terminal* Yeah, don't think that's gonna work! :)

WHO WANTS TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS?? We'll start! :) Who here has heard of an organization called, and I quote, The Ghost Investigation Ward? :) ]

@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter

[xenosagaepisodeone]

I was complaining to alex about how printers have remained user unfriendly since the dawn of time for tasks beyond the most basic streamlined print/scanjobs, despite being a necessary appliance. he pointed out that printers are always going to be tricky machines because they are technically doing very difficult tasks. On the surface, I do understand; moving paper reliably is a very delicate process with many moving parts, manufacturers often stiffle innovation by viewing printers as a merely conduit for selling ink cartridges, not to mention "user friendly" touch screen software present in modern printers introduce a host of problems on their own. In accordance with my ideals however, I believe that the STE(A)M fields could combine the specialized knowledge relevant to their respective disciplines in order to create a wholly unique printer/scanner device. naturally, this would involve revolutionizing the way we think about the way we think about these machines, as well as the labor that goes into interacting with them. here's what I made alex listen to:

we need a printer you can have sex with and it will in turn use your genetic material over a short gestational period to produce it's own paper and refill it's own cartridges. the actual contents of the print would still be determined by the connected desktop, but the printer would sustain everything you need to produce the document until it was time to refill it again.

the printer serves a similar function as a watercooler in that it serves as a reprieve from labor while not actually being a reprieve from work. when you idle, sip or chat by a watercooler, you are exercising subordination to the social norms of your job vis a vis Congenial Coworker Conversation or rehydrating/taking a breather to maintain job performance (on top of ensuring you get back to your desk on time). your individual personality is digested and repurposed by the microbial culture of your workplace. Refilling the printer by extension is a display in the ability to separate intimacy with a partner from simply doing a printjob (<- colloquial name).

in the interest of alienating the process of refilling the printer further from sex, the printer will remain located in it's usual open area. the employee however will be forced to wear a uniform to indicate they are on "printer duty", and will be afforded a curtain to obscure the body from the shoulders down, encouraging socializing while emphasizing the task as something akin to conventional physical labor. the bleak harmony of the workplace evaporates any post-finish euphoria, finalizing the printjob's designation as merely another task.

once more like the watercooler, the printer will play a role in maintaining relations among coworkers. as one already tends to refer to personal possessions in human terms, the unique features of the printer coupled with it's flawless utility will only beckon employees to refer to it affectionately. "my work wife" and "my work husband" (<- a feminist spin) for the machine itself, and "my baby" for prints (as one already does with important docs). indeed, the printer is family, like all coworkers are.

"is the printer....alive?" not anymore than the lobster at the grocery store or the customer on the other end of the line at a call centre. don't think about it, you aren't being paid to.

"What if someone who is in charge of fucking the printer or watching someone fuck the printer develops a fetish for this rigidly defined process" well that means that my true plan is coming to fruition.......which is:

Are White Collar Printer Fuckers Sex Workers discourse in 2030

[damnfandomproblems]

ADDITIONALLY TO MY ASK FOR 4897

Children cant fucking consent to sex. AND THAT MEANS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT.

I know the way interaction works with fics is more iffy but it still fucking applies.

No one is talking about purity culture or "innocent kids" or that kids arent allowed to write.

Like... Imagine this. You go to a convention and there a child selling sexually explicit material (highly unlikely for a REASON) and you buy it. Well now you are in trouble for sexually exploiting a child.

Say you give a child sexually explicit material. Now you are in trouble for endangering children.

These laws exist for a reason. Not just to keep us and children safe, but to make sure there arent loopholes for predators to use to groom children. And lets face it, do you really want those laws to go away? Just so a child can post bad smut on the internet?

No i dont think you SHOULD.

Its not a question about whether its "bad" or "immoral" for a child to have an interest in sex. Its a question about how much can people take advantage of them.

A lot of children who post smut online think they are immune to grooming, which is really fucking dangerous. Children don't need to put their interest in sex on a giant billboard post on the internet. They really really REALLY DON'T. and they most certainly dont even need to be telling people they are a minor in the first place. Children have gotten way too comfortable showing their faces and alot of other personal information that can endanger them. Im an adult and even i dont put my exact age or name on my profiles.

Posting as a response to a previous problem, seemingly the same anon as the previous post.

[elizabethrobertajones]

so after taking like half a year to watch the second doctor, I burned through Pertwee Doctor in what felt like a week. I was fully ready to formally induct him to the hall of favourites somewhere around the top, pending the wikipedia search to check he such wasn't a terrible guy IRL it made it into the personal life section as per the last 2, and -

[refuses to be in a film when a producer won't hire a gay friend]

good start, good start (already liked everything else I read but this is an incredible character merit mark for a guy in the 50s)

[the doctor is literally just him being himself on camera]

Oh, so I just want him to be my friend, I see

[he said the catalyst for leaving was the death of Roger Delgado among other changes in the last year]

Wait WHAT - is that why there was no more Master later on -

[Delgado died on location filming in Turkey, his own wiki page repeats that this was why Pertwee wanted out]

NO NO NO NO NNOOOO

HOW IS THIS HUGE BIT OF DOCTOR WHO HISTORY SOMETHING I NEVER HEARD ABOUT? I GREW UP IN SCI FI CONVENTION SPACES BUT EVERYONE JUST TALKS ABOUT TOM BAKER LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED BEFORE?

WHAT THE FUCK.

I am DISTRAUGHT, the Doctor/Master stuff from the first few seasons of the 3rd Doctor was absolutely INCREDIBLE television. I'd been assuming Delgado maybe had somewhere else to be. Heartily recommend watching that entire run of the show if you don't want to start any earlier.

Well, anyway. :(

I know people don't like the weird James Bond swing it all took with him but the show had been getting more action-y anyway under the 2nd doctor and then a guy who had literally been in the inner circle with all the WWII creatives like Ian Fleming and probably helped INSPIRE James Bond gets the role, I'm feeling like we're blessed and privileged from this perspective of getting to watch it as a historical artefact. I'm assuming based on the vague things I know about the 4th Doctor, the first I'm meeting with any preconceptions, that he's obviously not capable of bringing THAT to the table because that was no ordinary skillset, Pertwee was clearly a top 0.00001% of actors and Guys Who Had Lived A Life, who happened to be doing a silly BBC sci fi show. I'm expecting it to tone back on all these things.

And then in hindsight from the Doctor Who revival era, all the nonsense he brought, aside from the Venusian Karate and flying car and a few other extreme eccentricities, end up being stuff that feels much more modern and like the kind of antics the Doctor gets involved in. Like, he took the sonic screwdriver from being a couple of times joke into a multi-tool with the first joke about it not working on wood after he uses it through many episodes to escape or explode things, all of which is so common nature to the Doctor nowadays.

He also had far more of the casual behaviours we think of as The Doctor now, especially way less circumspect name dropping of historical people and a sense of having lived all around time and space, sometimes for extensive periods of time (he clearly like. LIVED on Venus to pick up all the various throwaway jokes about Venusian culture to explain things he does lmao). Weirdly, despite knowing he was a timetraveller from the jump, the previous two doctors were quite close-lipped about who they knew and had met, and rarely namedropped.

In any case, carrying on into 4th doctor era cautiously because I am 1: sad and 2: deeply let down by my perception of Whovian culture as I've been exposed to it, which sets a ridiculously high bar for Baker as the high watermark of Who and meanwhile I have just bid farewell to watching one of the most electric actors I've ever seen in anything ever while feeling wildly upset on his behalf that there isn't a bonkers appreciative fan culture for everything he did and he's written off as one of the quirky weird early doctors you don't need to bother with.

(AND THERE WAS WRITTEN QUEER DOCTOR MOMENTS. AT LEAST 2-3 OF THEM, GENDER AND SEXUALITY-WISE. HE GOT TALKED TO IN POLARI. ON TV IN 1972. THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT.)

[canmom]

Music theory notes (for science bitches) - part 2: pentatonics and friends

or, the West ain't all that.

Hello again everyone! I'm grateful for the warm reception to the first music theory notes post (aka 'what is music? from first principles'). If you haven't read it, take a look~

In that stab at a first step towards 'what is music', I tried to distinguish between what's a relatively universal mathematical structure (nearly all musical systems have the octave) and what's an arbitrary convention. But in the end I did consciously limit myself, and make a beeline for the widely used 12TET tuning system and the diatonic scales used in Western music. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, and... 👻 it's all around us...👻

But! But but but. This is a series on music theory. Not just one music theory. The whole damn thing. I think I'm doing a huge disservice to everyone, not least me, if that's where we stop.

Today, then! For our second installation: 'Music theory notes (for science bitches)' will take a quick look through some examples that diverge from the diatonic scale: the erhu, Japanese pentatonic scales, gamelan, klezmer, and blues.

Also since the first part was quite abstract, we'll also having a go at using the tools we've built so far on a specific piece, the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura.

Sound fun? Let's fucking gooooo

The story so far

To recap: in the first post we started by saying we're gonna be looking at tonal music, which isn't the only type of music. We introduced the idea of notes and frequencies by invoking the magic name of Fourier.

We said music can be approximated (for now) as an idealised pressure wave, which we can divide into brief windows called 'notes', and these notes are usually made of a strong sine wave at the 'fundamental frequency', plus a stack of further sine waves at integer multiples of that frequency called 'overtones'.

Then, we started constructing a culturally specific but extremely widespread system of creating structure between notes, known as '12 Tone Equal Temperament' or 12TET. The main character of this story is the interval, which is the ratio between the fundamental frequencies of two notes; we talked about how small-integer ratios of frequencies tend to be especially 'consonant' or nice-sounding.

We introduced the idea of the 'octave', which is when two notes have a frequency ratio of 2. We established the convention treating notes an octave apart as deeply related, to the point that we give them the same name. We also brought in the 'fifth', the ratio of 1.5, and talked about the idea of constructing a scale using small-integer ratios.

But we argued that if you try and build everything with those small-integer ratios you can dig yourself into a hole where moving around the musical space is rife with complications.

As a solution to this, I pulled out 'equal temperament' as an approximation with a lot of mathematical simplicity. Using a special irrational ratio called the "semitone" as a building block, we could construct the Western system of scales and modes and chords and such, where

a 'scale' is kind of like a palette for a piece of music, defined by a set of frequency ratios relative to a 'root' or 'tonic' note. this can be abstract, as in 'the major scale', or concrete, as in 'C major'.

a 'mode' is a cyclic permutation of an abstract scale. although it may contain the same notes, moving them around can change the feeling a lot!

a 'chord' is playing multiple notes at the same time. 'Triad' chords can be constructed from scales. There are other types which add or remove stuff from the triads. We'll come back to this.

I also summarised how sheet music works and the rather arbitrary choices in its construction, and at the end, I very briefly talked about chord notation.

There's a lot of ways to do this...

I recently watched a video by jazz musician and music theory youtuber Adam Neely, in which he and Philip Ewell discuss how much "music theory" is treated as synonymous with a very specific music theory which Neely glosses as "the harmonic style of 18th-century European composers". He argues, pretty convincingly imo, that 'music theory' pedagogy is seriously weakened by not taking non-white/Western models, such as Indian classical music theories, as a foil - citing Anuja Kamat's channel on Indian classical music as a great example of how to do things differently. Here's her introductory playlist on Indian classical music concepts, which I will hopefully be able to lean on in future posts:

There's two big pitfalls I wanna avoid as I teach myself music theory. I like maths a lot, and if I can fit something into a mathematical structure it's much easier for me to remember it - but I gotta be really careful not to mathwash some very arbitrary conventions and present them as more universal than they are. Music involves a lot of mathematics, but you can't reduce it to maths. It's a language for expressing emotion, not a predicate to prove.

One of the big goals of this series is to get straight in my head what has a good answer to 'why this way?', and what is just 'idk it's the convention we use'. And if something is an arbitrary convention, we gotta ask, what other conventions exist? Humans are inventive little buggers after all.

I also don't want to limit my analytical toolbox to a single 'hammer' of Western music theory, and try and force everything else into that frame. The reasons I'm learning music theory are... 1. to make my playing and singing better, and be more comfortable improvising; 2. to learn to compose stuff, which is currently a great mystery. How do they do it? I do like Western classical music, but honestly? Most of the music I enjoy is actually not Western. I want to be able to approach that music on its own terms.

For example, the erhu... for erhuample???

The instrument family I'm learning, erhu/zhonghu, is remarkably versatile - there are no frets (or even a soundboard!) to guide you, which is both a challenge and a huge freedom. You can absolutely play 12TET music on it, and it has a very beautiful sound - here is an erhu harmonising with a 12TET-tuned piano to play a song from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack, originally composed by Joe Hisaishi as an orchestral piece for the usual Western instruments...

This performance already makes heavy use of a technique called (in English) 'vibrato', where you oscillate the pitch around as you play the note (which means the whole construction that 'a note has a fixed pitch defined by a ratio' is actually an abstraction - now a note's 'frequency' represents the middle point a small range of pitches!). Vibrato is very common in Western music too, though the way you do it on an erhu and the way you do it on a violin or flute are of course a little different. (We could do an aside on Fourier analysis of vibrato here but I think that's another day's subject).

But if you listen to Chinese compositions specifically for Erhu, they take advantage of the lack of fixed pitch to zip up and down like crazy. Take the popular song Horse Racing for example, composed in the 1960s, which seems to be the closest thing to the 'iconic' erhu piece...

This can be notated in 12TET sheet music. But it's also taking full advantage of some of the unique qualities of the erhu's long string and lack of frets, like its ability to glide up and down notes, playing the full range of 'in between' frequencies on one string. The sheet music I linked there also has a notation style called 简谱 jiǎnpǔ which assigns numbers to notes. It's not so very different from Western sheet music, since it's still based on the diatonic major scale, but it's adjusted relative to the scale you're currently playing instead of always using C major. Erhu music very often includes very fast trills and a really skilled erhu/zhonghu player can jump between octaves with a level of confidence I find hard to comprehend.

I could spend this whole post putting erhu videos but let me just put one of the zhonghu specifically, which is a slightly deeper instrument; in Western terms the zhonghu (tuned to G and D) is the viola to the erhu's violin (tuned to D and A)...

To a certain degree, Chinese music is relatively easy to map across to the Western 12-tone chromatic scale. For example, the 十二律 shí'èr lǜ system uses essentially the same frequency ratios as the Pythagorean system. However, Chinese music generally makes much heavier use of pentatonic scales than Western music, and does not by default use equal temperament, instead using its own system of rational frequency ratios. correction: with the advent of Chinese orchestras in the mid-20thC, it seems that Chinese instruments now usually are tuned in equal temperament.

I would like my understanding of music theory to have a 'first class' understanding of Chinese compositions like Horse Racing (and also to have a larger reference pool lmao). I'm going to be starting formal erhu lessons next month, with a curriculum mostly focused on Chinese music. If I have interesting things to report back I'll be sure to share them!

Anyway, in a similar spirit, this post we're gonna try and do a brief survey of various musical constructs relevant to e.g. Japanese music, Klezmer, Blues, Indian classical music... I have to emphasise I am not an expert in any of these systems, so I can't promise to have the most elegant form of presentation for them, just the handles I've been able to get. I will be using Western music theory terms quite a bit still, to try and draw out the parallels and connections. But I hope it's going to be interesting all the same.

Let's start with... pentatonic scales!

Pentatonic scales

In the previous post we focused most of our attention on the diatonic scale. Confusingly, a "diatonic" scale is actually a type of heptatonic scale, meaning there are 7 notes inside an octave. As we've seen, the diatonic scale is constructed on top of the 12-semitone system.

Strictly defined, a 'diatonic' scale has five intervals of two semitones and two intervals of one semitone, and the one-semitone intervals are spread out as much as possible. So 'diatonic scales' includes the major scale and all its cyclic permutations (aka 'modes'), including the natural minor scale, but not the other two minor scales we talked about last time!

However, whoever said we should pick exactly 7 notes in the octave? That's rather arbitrary, isn't it?

After all, in illustration, a more restricted palette can often lead to a much more visually striking image. The same is perhaps even more true in music!

A pentatonic scale is, as the name suggests, a scale which has five notes in an octave. Due to all that stuff we discussed with small-number ratios, the pentatonic scales we are about to discuss can generally be mapped quite easily onto the 12-tone system. There's some reason for this - 12TET is designed to closely approximate the appealing small-number frequency ratios, so if another system uses the same frequency ratios, we can probably find a subset of 12TET that's a good match.

Of course, fitting 12TET doesn't mean it matches the diatonic scale, necessarily. Still, once you're on the 12 tone system, there's enough diatonic scales out there that you can often define a pentatonic scale in terms of a delta relative to one of the diatonic scale modes. Like, 'shift this degree down, delete that degree'.

Final caveat: I'm not sure if it's strictly correct to use equal temperament in all these examples, but all the sources I find define these scales using Western music notation, so we'll have to go with that.

Sakura, sakura and the yonanuki scale

Let's start with Japanese music. Here's the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura, which is one of the most iconic pieces of Japanese music¸ especially abroad:

This uses the in scale, also known as the sakura pentatonic scale, one of a few widely used pentatonic scales in Japanese folk music, along with the yo scale, insen scale and iwato scale... according to English-language sources.

Finding the actual Japanese was a bit difficult - so far as I can tell the Japanese wiki page for Sakura, Sakura never mentions the scale named after it! - but eventually I found a page for pentatonic scales, or 五音音階 goon onkai. So we can finally determine the kanji for this scale is 陰音階 in onkai or 陰旋法 in senpou. [Amusingly, the JP wiki article on pentatonic scales actually leads with... Scottish folk songs and gamelan before it goes into Japanese music.]

However, perhaps more pertinent is this page: ヨナ抜き音階 which introduces the terms yonanuki onkai and ニロ抜き音階 nironuki onkai. This can be glossed as 'leave out the fourth (yo) and seventh (na) scale' and 'leave out the second (ni) and sixth (ro) scale', describing two procedures to construct pentatonic scales from a diatonic scale.

Let's recap major and minor. Last time we defined them using semitone intervals from a root note (the one in brackets is the next octave):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) major: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12)

From here we can construct some pentatonic scales. Firstly, here are your yonanuki scales - the ones that delete the fourth and seventh:

major: 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12)

Starting on C for the major and A for the minor (the ones with the blank key signature), this is how you notate that in Western sheet music. As you can see, we have just deleted a couple of steps.

The first one is the 'standard' major pentatonic scale in Western music theory; it's also called the ryo scale in traditional Japanese music (呂旋法 ryosenpou). The second one is a mode (cyclic permutation) of a scale called 都節音階 miyakobushi, which is apparently equivalent to the in scale.

In terms of gaps between successive notes, these go:

major: 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 - very even minor: 2, 1, 4, 1, 4 - whoah, huge intervals!

The miyakobushi scale, for comparison, goes...

miyakobushi (absolute): 0, 1, 5, 7, 8, (12) miyakobushi (deltas): 1, 4, 2, 1, 4

JP wikipedia lists two different versions of the 陰旋法 (in scale), for ascending and descending. Starting on C, one goes C, D, Eb, G, A; the other goes C, D, Eb, G, Ab. Let's convert that into my preferred semitone interval notation:

in scale (absolute, asc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, (12) in scale (relative, asc): 2, 1, 4, 2, 3 in scale (absolute, desc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12) in scale (relative, desc): 2, 1, 4, 1, 4

So we see that the 'descending form' of the in scale matches the minor yonanuki scale, and it's a mode (cyclic permutation) of the miyakobushi scale.

We've talked a great deal about the names and construction of the different type of scales, but beyond the vague gesture to the standard associations of 'major upbeat, minor sad/mysterious' I don't think we've really looked at how a scale actually affects a piece of music.

So let's have a look at the semitone intervals in Sakura, Sakura in absolute terms from to the first note...

sakura, sakura, ya yoi no so ra-a wa 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; 0, 2, 3, 2, 0, 2-0, -4

and in relative terms between successive notes:

sa ku ra, sa ku ra, ya yo i no so ra-a wa 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -2, +2, +1, -1, -2, +2, -2, -4

If you listen to Sakura, Sakura, pay attention to the end of the first line - that wa suddenly drops down a huge distance (a major second - for some reason I miscalculated this and thought it was a tritone) and that's where it feels like damn, OK, this song is really cooking! It catches you by surprise. We can identify these intervals as belonging to the in/yoyanuki minor scale, and even starting on its root note.

Although its subject matter is actually pretty positive (hey, check it out guys, the cherry blossoms are falling!), Sakura, Sakura sounds mournful and mysterious. What makes it sound 'minor'? The first phrase doesn't actually tell you what key we're in, that jump of 2 semitones could happen in major or minor. But the second phrase, introduces the pattern of going up 2, then up 1, from the root note - that's the minor scale pattern. What takes it beyond just 'we're in minor'? That surprise tritone move down. According to the rough working model that 'dissonant notes create tension, consonant notes resolve it', this creates a ton of tension. This analysis is bunk, there isn't a tritone. It's a big jump but it's not that big a jump.

How does it eventually wrap up? The final phrase of Sakura, Sakura goes...

i za ya, i za ya, mi ni yu - u ka nn 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; -5, -4, 2, 0, -4, -5 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -5, +1, +4, -2, -4, -1

Here's my attempt to try and do a very basic tonal/interval analysis. We start out this phrase with the same notes as the opening bars, but abruptly diverge in bar 3, slowing down at the same time, which provides a hint that things are about to come to a close. The move of -5 down is a perfect fourth; in contrast to the tritone major second we had before, this is considered a very consonant interval. (A perfect fourth down is also equivalent to going up a fifth and then down an octave. So we're 'ending on the fifth'.) We move up a little and down insteps of 4, 2, and 1, which are less dramatic. Then we come back down and end on the fifth. We still have those 4-steps next to 1 steps which is the big flag that says 'whoah we're in the sakura pentatonic scale', but we're bleeding off some of the tension here.

Linguistically, the song also ends on the mora ん, the only mora that is only a consonant (rather than a vowel or consonant-vowel), and that long drawn-out voiced consonant gives a feeling of gradually trailing away. So you could call it a very 'soft' ending.

Is this 'tension + resolution' model how a Japanese music theorist would analyse this song? It seems to be a reasonably effective model when applied to Japanese music by... various music theorist youtubers, but I don't really know! That's something I want to find out more about.

Something raised on the English wiki is the idea that the miyakobushi scale is divided into two groups, spanning a fourth each, which is apparently summarised by someone called Koizumi Fumio in a book written in 1974:

Each group goes up 1 (a semitone or minor second), then 4 (major third), for a total of 5 (perfect fourth). The edges of these little blocks are considered 'nucleus' notes, and they're of special importance.

Can we see this in action if we look at Sakura, Sakura? ...ehhhh. I admit, the way I think of the song is shaped by the way I play it on the zhonghu; I think of the first two two-bar phrases as the 'upper part' and the third phrase as the 'lower part', and neither lines up neatly with these little groups. Still. I suspect Koizumi Fumio, author of Nihon no ongaku, knows a little more about this than I do, so I figure it's worth a mention.

Aside: on absorbing a song

Sakura, Sakura is kinda special to me because it's like the second piece I learned to play on zhonghu (after Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star lmao). I can't play it well, but I am proud that I have learned to play it at least recognisably.

The process of learning to play it involved writing out tabs and trying out different ways of moving my hand. I transcribed Sakura Sakura down to start on F, since that way the open G string of the zhonghu could be the lowest note of the piece, and worked out a tab for it using a tab system I cooked up with my friend. Here's what it looks like. The system counts semitones up from the open string, and it uses an underline to mark the lower string.

(Also, credit where it's due - I would never have made any progress learning about music if not for my friend Maki Yamazaki, a prodigiously multitalented self-taught musician who can play dozens of instruments, and also the person who sold me her old zhonghu for dirt cheap, if you're wondering why a white British girl might be learning such an unusual instrument. You can and should check our her music here! Maki has done more than absolutely anyone to make music comprehensible to me, and a lot of this post is inspired by discussing the previous post with her.)

When you want to make a song playable on an instrument, you have to perform some interpretation. Which fingers should play which notes? When should you move your hand? How do you make sure you hit the right notes? At some point this kind of movement becomes second nature, but I'm at the stage, just like a player encountering a new genre of videogame, where I still don't have the muscle memory or habituation to how things work, and each of these little details has to be worked out one by one. But this is great, because this process makes me way more intimately familiar with the contours of the song. Trying to analyse the moves it makes like the above even more so.

More Japanese scales

So, to sum up what we've observed, the beautiful minor sounds of Sakura Sakura come from a pentatonic scale which can be constructed by taking the diatonic scale and blasting certain notes into the sea, namely the fourth and the seventh of the scale. But what about the nironuki scale? Well, this time we delete the second and the sixth. So we get, in absolute terms:

major nironuki (abs): 0, 4, 5, 7, 11, (12) major nironuki (rel): 4, 1, 2, 4, 1 minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Hold on a minute, doesn't that look rather familiar? The major nironuki scale is a permutation, though not a cyclic permutation, of the minor yonanuki scale. And the minor nironuki scale is a cyclic permutation (mode) of the major one.

Nevertheless, these scales have names and significance of their own. The major one is known as the 琉球音階 ryūkyū onkai or Okinawan scale. The minor one is what Western music would call a 'minor pentatonic scale'. It also mentions a couple of other names for it, like the 民謡音階 minyou onkai (folk scale).

We also have the yō scale, which like the in scale, comes in ascending and descending forms. You want these too? Yeah? Ok, here we go.

yō scale (asc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 10, (12) yō scale (asc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 yō scale (desc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 9, (12) yō scale (desc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3

The yō scale is what's called an anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't have semitones. (The in scale in turn is hemitonic). The ascending form is also called the 律戦法 ritsusenpou. Here's the complete table of all the variants I've found so far.

So, in summary: Japanese music uses a lot of pentatonic scales. (In a future post we can hopefully see how that applies in modern Japanese music). These pentatonic scales can be constructed by deleting two notes from the diatonic scales. In general, you land in one of two zones: the anhemitonic side, where all the intervals between successive notes, are 2 and 3, and the hemitonic side, where the intervals are spicier 1s and 4s and a lone 2. From there, you can move between other pentatonic scales by cyclic permutations and reversal.

If you analyse Japanese music from a Western lens, you might well end up interpreting it according to one of the modes of the major scale. In fact, the 8-bit music theory video I posted last time takes this approach. This isn't wrong per se, it's a viable way to getting insight into how the tune works if you want to ask the question 'how does this conjure emotions and how do I get the same effects', but it's worthwhile to know what analytical frame the composers are likely to be using.

Gamelan - when 12TET won't cut it

Gamelan is a form of Indonesian ensemble music. I do not at this time know a ton about it, but here's a performance:

However, if you're reading my blog then it's likely that if know gamelan from anywhere, it's most likely the soundtrack to Akira composed by Shōji Yamashiro.

This blends traditional gamelan instrumentation and voices with modern synths to create an incredibly bold and (for most viewers outside Indonesia!) unfamiliar sound to accompany the film's themes of psychic awakening and evolution. It was an inspired choice, adding a lot to an already great film.

'A gamelan' is the ensemble; 'gamelan' is also the style of music. There are many different types of gamelan associated with different occasions - some gamelans are only allowed to form for special ceremonies. Gamelan is also used as a soundtrack in accompaniment to other art forms, such as wayang kulit and wayang wong (respectively, shadow puppetry and dance).

Since gamelan music evidently uses quite a bit of percussion, and so far we've been focused on the type of music played on strings and wind instruments - a brief comment on the limitations of our abstractions. Many types of drums don't fit the 'tonal music' frame we've outlined so far, creating a broad frequency spectrum that's close to an enveloped burst of white noise rather than a sharply peaked fundamental + overtones. There's a ton to study in drumming, and if this series continues you bet I'll try to understand it.

But there are tonal percussion instruments, and a lot of them are to be found in gamelan, particularly in the metalophone family (e.g. the ugal or jegogan). The Western 'xylophone' and 'glockenspiel' also belong to this family. Besides metalophones, you've got bells, steel drums, tuning forks etc. Tuning a percussion instrument is a matter of adjusting the shape of the metal to adjust the resonant frequency of its normal modes. I imagine it's really fiddly.

In any case, the profile of a percussion note is quite different from the continual impulse provided by e.g. a violin bow. You get a big burst across all frequencies and then everything but the resonant mode dies out, leaving the ringing with a much simpler spectrum.

Anyway, let's get on to scales and shit. While I have the Japanese wikipedia page on pentatonic scales open, that it mentions a gamelan scale called pelog (written ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀ or ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄ in different languages) meaning 'beautiful'. Pelog is not strictly one scale, but a family of tunings which vary across Indonesia. Depending on who you ask, it might in some cases be reasonably close to a 9-tone equal temperament (9TET), which means a number of notes can't be represented in 12TET - you have that 4 12TET semitones would be equivalent to 3 9TET semitones. From this is drawn a heptatonic scale, but not one that can be mapped exactly to any 12TET heptatonic scale. Isn't that fun!

To represent scales that don't exactly fit the tuning of 12TET, there's a logarithmic unit of measure called the 'cent'. Each 12TET semitone contains 100 cents, so in terms of ratios, a cent is the the 1200th root of 2. In this system, a 9TET semitone is 133 cents. Some steps in the pelog heptatonic scale would then be two 9TET semitones, and others one 9TET semitone. However, this system of 'semitones' does not seem to be how gamelan music is actually notated - it's assumed you already have an established pelog tuning and can play within that. So it's a little difficult for me to give you a decent representation of a gamelan scale that isn't approximated by 12TET.

From the 7-tone pelog scale, whatever it happens to be where you live, you can further derive pentatonic scales. These have various names, like the pelog selisir used in the gamelan gong kebyar. I'm not going to itemise them here both because I haven't actually been able to find the basic pelog tunings (at least by their 9TET approximation).

Another scale used in gamelan is called slendro, a five tone scale of 'very roughly' equal intervals. Five is coprime with 12, so there's no straightforward mapping of any part of this scale to the 12-tone system. But more than that, fully even scales are quite rare in the places we've looked so far. (Though apparently within slendro, you can play a note that's deliberately 'out of place', called 'miring'. This transforms the mood from 'light, cheerful and busy' to one appropriate to scenes of 'homesickness, love missing, sadness, death, languishing'.)

The Western musical notation system is plainly unsuited for gamelan, and naturally it has its own system - or rather several systems. In one method, the seven tones of the pelog are numbered 1 through 7, and a subset of those numbers are used to enumerate slendro tuning. You can write it on a grid similar to a musical staff.

But we could wonder with this research - is the attempt to map pélog to 'equal temperament' an external imposition? Presented with a tuning system with seven intervals that are not consistently equal temperament, averaging them to construct an equal temperament hypothesis on that basis, and finally attempting to prove that gamelan players 'prefer' equal temperament... well, they do at least bother to ask, but I'm not entirely convinced that 9TET or 5TET is the right model. Unfortunately, most of the literature I'm able to find on gamelan music theory with a cursory search is by Western researchers.

There's a fairly long history of Western composers taking inspiration from gamelan, notably Debussy and Saty. And of course, modern Indonesian composers such as I Nyoman Windha have also been finding ways to combine gamelan with Western styles. Here's a piece composed by him (unfortunately not a splendid recording):

Klezmer - layer 'em up

If you've known me for long enough you might remember the time I had a huge Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird phase. (I still think he's great, I just did that thing where I obsessively listen to one small set of things for a period). And I'd also listen to old revolutionary songs in Yiddish all the time. Because of course I did lmao. Anyway, here's a song that combines both: Kahn's modern arrangement of Arbetlose Marsch in English and Yiddish:

That's a style of music called klezmer, developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Central/Eastern Europe starting in the late 1500s and 1600s. It's a blend of a whole bunch of different traditions, combining elements from Jewish religious music with other neighbouring folk music traditions and European music at large. When things really kicked off at the end of the 19th century, klezmer musicians were often a part of the Jewish socialist movement (and came up with some real bangers - the Tsar may have been shot by the Bolsheviks but tbh, Daloy Politsey already killed him). But equally there's a reason it sounds insanely danceable: it was very often used for dances.

The rest of the 20th century happened, but klezmer survived all the genocides and there are lots of different modern klezmer bands.

The defining characteristics of klezmer per Wikipedia are... ok, this is quite long...

Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including khazones, davenen, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[21] Among those stylistic elements that are considered typically "Jewish" in Klezmer music are those which are shared with cantorial or Hasidic vocal ornaments, including dreydlekh ("tear in the voice"; plural of dreidel)[22][23] and imitations of sighing or laughing ("laughter through tears").[24] Various Yiddish terms were used for these vocal-like ornaments such as קרעכץ (Krekhts, "groan" or "moan"), קנײטש (kneytsh, "wrinkle" or "fold"), and קװעטש (kvetsh, "pressure" or "stress").[10] Other ornaments such as trills, grace notes, appoggiaturas, glitshn (glissandos), tshoks (a kind of bent notes of cackle-like sound), flageolets (string harmonics),[22][25]pedal notes, mordents, slides and typical Klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[18]

So evidently klezmer will be relevant throughout this series, but for now, since we're trying to flesh out the picture of 'how is tuning formed', let's take a look at the notes.

So it's absolutely possible to fit klezmer into the 12TET system. But we're going to need to crack open a few new scales. Though the Wikipedia editors enumerating this list caution us: "Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (octatonic) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note pentachords, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context."

With that caution in mind, let's at least see what we're given. First of all we have the Freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh scale, one of the most common pieces, good friend of the Western phrygian but with an extra semitone. Then there's Mi Sbererakh or Av HaRachamim which is a mode of it, that's popular around Ukraine. Adonoy Molokh or Adoyshem Molokh is the major scale but you drop the seventh a semitone. Mogen Ovos is the same as the natural minor at least on the interval level.

Which means, without the jargon, here are the semitones (wow wouldn't it be nice if you had tables on here?):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) freygish: 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2 mi sberakh: 0, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 adonoy m.: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 mogen o.: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2

...that's a big block of numbers to make your eyes glaze over huh. Maybe this 'convert everything to semitone deltas' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be... or maybe what I need to do is actually visualise it somehow? Some kinda big old graph showing all the different scales we've worked out so far and how they relate to each other? ...hold your horses...

[It seems like what I've done is reinvent something called 'musical set theory', incidentally.]

OK, having enumerated these, let's return to the Wikipedian's caution. What is a pentachord? Pretty simple, it's a chord of five notes. Mind you, some people define it as five successive notes of a diatonic scale.

In klezmer, you've got a bunch of different instruments playing at once creating a really dense sound texture. Presumably one of the things you do when you play klezmer is try and get the different instruments in your ensemble to hit the different levels of that pentachord. How does that work? Well, if we consult the sources, we find this scan of a half-handwritten PDF presenting considerably more detail on the modes and how they're played. The scales above are combined with a 'motivic scheme' presenting different patterns that notes tend to follow, and a 'typical cadence'. Moreover, these modes can have 'sub-modes' which tend to follow when the main mode gets established.

To me reading this, I can kind of imagine the process of composing/improvisation within this system almost like a state machine. It's not just that you have a scale, you have a certain state you're in in the music (e.g. main mode or sub-mode), and a set of transitional moves you can potentially make for the next segment. That's probably too rigid a model though. There's also a more specific aspect discussed in the book that a klezmer musician needs to know how to move between their repertoire of klezmer pieces - what pieces can sensibly follow from what.

Ultimately, I don't want to give you a long list of stuff to memorise. (Sure, if you want to play klezmer, you probably need to get familiar with how to use these modes, but that's between you and your klezmer group). Rather I want to make sure we don't have any illusion that the Western church modes are the only correct way to compose music.

Blues - can anyone agree?

Blues is a style of music developed by Black musicians in the American south in the late 1800s, directly or indirectly massively influential on just about every genre to follow, but especially jazz. It's got a very characteristic style defined by among other elements use of 'blue notes' that don't fit the standard diatonic scale. According to various theorists, you can add the blue notes to a scale to construct something called the 'blues scale'. According to certain other theorists, this exercise is futile, and Blues techniques can't be reduced to a scale.

So for the last part of today's whirlwind tour of scales, let's take a brief look at the blues...

There are a few different blues scales. The most popular definition seems to be a hexatonic scale. We'll start with the minor pentatonic scale, or in Japanese, the minor nironuki scale - which is to say we take the minor diatonic scale and delete positions 2 and 6. That gives:

minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Now we need to add a new note, the 'flat fifth degree' of the original scale. In other words, 6 semitones above the root - the dreaded tritone!

hexatonic blues (abs): 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, (12) hexatonic blues (rel): 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2

Easy enough right? Listen to that, it does sound kinda blues-y. But hold your horses! Moments after defining this scale, we read...

A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard.[5] However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale.

So, if you want to play blues, it's not enough to mechanically play a specific scale in 12TET. You also gotta break the palette a little bit.

There's also a 'major blues' heptatonic scale which goes 0, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, according to one guy called Dan Greenblatt.

But that's not the only attempt to enumerate the 'blues scale'. Other authors will give you slightly longer scales. For example, if you ask Smallwood:

heptatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, (12) heptatonic blues (rel): 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2

which isn't quite a mode of any of those klezmer scales we saw previously, but nearly!

If you ask Benward and Saker, meanwhile, a Blues scale could actually be nonatonic scale, where you add flattened versions of a couple of notes to the major scale.

nonatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3/4, 5, 7, 9, 10/11, (12)

There's also an idea that you should play notes in between the semitones, i.e. quarter tones, which would be a freq ratio of the 24th root of 2 if you're keeping score at home.

The upshot of all this is probably that going too far formalise the blues is probably not in the spirit of the blues, but if you want to go in a blues-y direction it will probably mean insert an extra, flattened version of a note to one of your scales. Muck around and see what works, I guess!

Of course, there's a lot more to Blues than just tweaking a scale. For example, 'twelve bar blues' is a specific formalised chord progression that is especially universal in Jazz. What it means for chords to 'progress' is a whole subject, and I think that's the next thing I'll try to understand for post 3. Hopefully we'll be furnished with a slightly broader model of how music works as we go there though.

To wrap up, here's the spreadsheet showing all the 12TET scales encountered so far in this series in a visual way. There's obviously plenty more out there, but this is not ultimately a series about scales. It's all well and good to have a list of what exists, but it's pointless if we don't know how to use it.

Phew

Mind you even with all this, we haven't covered at all some of the most complex systems of tonal music - I've only made the vaguest gesture towards Indian classical music, Chinese music, Jazz... That's way beyond me at the moment. But maybe not forever.

Next up: I'm going to try and finally wrap my head around chords and make sense of what it means for them to 'progress', have 'movement' etc. And maybe render a bit more concrete the vague stuff I said about 'tension' and 'resolution'.

(Also: I definitely know I have friends on here who are very widely knowledgeable about music theory. If I've made any major mistakes, please let me know! At some point I hope to republish this series with nicer formatting on canmom.art, and it would be great to fix the bugs by then!)

[anotherghoul666]

Okay so the thought:

Alkaline is about Sleep.

In the song, Vessel sings about how the subject of the song has changed him (this one's pretty obvious, Vessel was presumably just A Normal Dude before Sleep came to him and chose him), how the subject is undefinable (like how it's been said that Sleep is a very reductive name for what the deity is), and there's also how the song discusses the subject in contrasting terms, like how Sleep gives humans both dreams but also nightmares.

It's less a theory and more just like jumbled thoughts, but a lot of their songs too can easily be read as either love songs or songs about Vessel and his relationship with Sleep.

And we are back with another “AnotherGhoul goes fucking overboard about Sleep Token” essay once again!!! Under the cut: pronoun use in songs, the heteronormativity of the music industry, and a full lyric analysis and break down of the song “Distraction”!

I agree 100% with your “Alkaline is about Sleep” theory. In fact, I personally interpret a lot of Sleep Token's songs as being about Sleep, or about Vessel's relationship with Sleep, or their history through the years. Probably more songs than people would think. It's just my opinion of course, I don't know the guys, I don't know everything, people are gonna have wildly different interpretations of their lyrics I'm sure. There's a lot of "Vessel talks about an real life abusive relationship he's been through / someone he pined for" floating around and that's completely valid! Interpretations are just that, they are subjective to our own lenses and biases and they are wholly personal. I tend to have a big bias of religious trauma, the damages of out of control zealotry and religious mania, and I read Sleep Token's lyrics through that lens. I don't disagree with the abusive relationship interpretation for instance, I just see it as an abusive relationship with your god / your church, while people see it as an abusive relationship with a woman / partner. Both are totally valid.

And when I say most, if not all, Sleep Token songs could be about Sleep, yes I mean even the ones that use she/her pronouns for the subject. In fact, the use of she/her pronouns seems very on purpose to me.

Clearly the band knows how to play the pronouns game in terms of lyrics. Because in interviews and official texts, they do refer to Sleep using he/him pronouns. But I also believe they know how to play the commercial game so damn well (I'd be SHOCKED if Sleep Token was any of these musicians' first band, especially Vessel and II. There is no fucking way you have this level of skill raw on a first project. And I'm not saying this because of technical skill; you can develop excellent technical skill just practicing at home, without any live music experience. I say that because of how confidently Vessel displays voice faults and cracks and the raw jagged edges of his vulnerability; because of how confidently II shits on conventional drumming conventions and techniques for the benefit of his organic flow. Imo, and I say that as a drummer, confidence to mess up and fail while keeping completely in style? You can't get that from playing for yourself alone. Anyway, I digress.)

My point was about commercial sales of music and maintaining the "sellability" of a band. I believe the team at Sleep Token are aware of how male-coded Vessel's voice is, how he'll automatically be assumed to be a man, and thus he'll also be assumed to be straight. So for the intensity and the visceral nature of the lyrics to land with the wider audience, using he/him as pronouns to sing your undying love to and desperation for when you're a male-coded singer? Unfortunately still not possible in today's culture, at least without turning the entire focus of the band into who is Vessel, is he gay, and who is he singing about. Since it's extremely obvious Vessel and the numbers do not want the band to be about them in any way, as stated by their efforts to maintain perfect anonymity and also how they flat out said it in interviews, it would be counterproductive for their mission to have all of the listeners’ attention on Vessel as a man and on his possible relationships. Plus, they also need to make sure their music is commercially viable and reaches the widest numbers possible, because the more numbers, the more worshipers for Sleep. While a male-coded vocalist using he/him pronouns in those heavily romantic / co-dependent lyrics would make them a sensation in the greater LBGTQ+ community, the sad truth is it would alienate a non-negligible portion of the white-cis-straight-men that unfortunately make up most of the fan base for genres like metal, rock, prog, etc, AKA very male dominated genres.

All of that to say: Sleep is She in some songs, Sleep is You in some songs, and there's even an argument to be made for Sleep being I in some songs too. Sleep is the omnipresent prism from which to evaluate and interpret Sleep Token's lyrics.

Which leads me to! Another interesting example of this “Sleep is She” theory. Distraction.

Distraction is the 8th track in Sleep Token’s 2nd full length album, and 4th release overall, This Place Will Be Your Tomb in 2021. This places the lyrics fairly far in Sleep Token’s journey. I view it as a sort of “here we go again, getting even further into the cult than we anticipated” type of song. So I do view it heavily through the religious / devotional lens, and that leads to a good example of Sleep being spoken about with she/her pronouns.

Oh, and I know I can tell I'm falling further again But I won't turn away, it's far too late for me

I assume, given song writing being credited to Vessel and II, that the I in these lyrics represents Vessel himself and/or the numbers / vessels as a whole entity. I will use the term Vessel from now on but if you want to read it as “the whole band” it will be coherent too. Vessel’s indoctrination to Sleep is getting stronger and stronger. It’s now been five years since the beginning of the band (and presumably Sleep’s visit to his dreams). His life likely has completely changed in those five years, and it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. He’s falling further into the rapture of Sleep, into his worship, into this cult of his, giving the deity more and more space in his life. He can’t stop it or back away either. Not anymore. Not after he’s made his whole life revolve around this band and their god. He’s gone too far. A sort of sunk cost fallacy he’s trapped himself into: can’t back out when you’ve been this transformed by a deity, when you’ been this engulfed and consumed by feelings and emotions for your new god. That’s why people stay in abusive relationships for decades (another nod to the “Vessel is in a metaphorical abusive relationship with Sleep” thing I have firm belief in). That’s why people stay in churches or organized religions or cults for their entire lives. It’s so much harder to disentangle yourself and back out from something if you’ve not been in long. The longer you’re in, the more you’ll feel it’s too late to save yourself.

'Cause I am broken into fractions

Now, the fans of the “the she/her pronouns songs are about a woman in Vessel’s life” interpretation will probably take this like as meaning Vessel’s heartbroken. He’s into pieces after this relationship fell apart or got hurtful. Which, valid interpretation, as I said. But. I also see this as religious and related to Sleep. A core tactic that is used in organized religions and cults is thought reform. To super simplify a complex process performed over months to years of a person’s life, to reform someone, essentially, is to break what the person was initially, and rebuild it as the religion / cult wants. Reform. Re-form. New form, new shape. Reformation, to be reshaped and assume a new form as intended. Sleep breaks the human and reshapes it into the vessel that he needs. This echoes the “Vessel was just a normal dude before Sleep chose him” thought from the initial ask. Vessel has been broken down into fractions over the last five years. Potentially physically, transformed into a non-human creature as the fandom likes to riff on. But at the very least mentally. He is little percentages of himself reassembles and put in new sequences, fractions to make bigger, new equations he can’t even begin to understand. He is numbers to the mathematician that is Sleep. Moving parts, broken pieces to move around at will, tools. Vessel is a tool for Sleep. Sleep holds his pieces together. If he moves away from Sleep, what’s left? Pieces, fractions, not a human. He will never be able to go back to who he was before Sleep. Without Sleep he’s a pile of jumbled numbers without meaning. Then, because I am in deep deep love with Lovecraftian horror, and I see Sleep as a cosmic horror / eldritch old god type of creature, I also have to mention the mind breaks. In Lovecraft, when a human lays eyes on an Old One, or obtains knowledge of these cosmic deity’s existence, it shatters their minds. It’s something that happens in almost every eldritch creature encounter, or when forbidden knowledge is attained, because the human mind, the brain, is too feeble to understand and contain such knowledge. The human mind doesn’t know what to do when faced with something so unfathomable, so unnamable, so truly profoundly insane, as an eldritch god, so the mind breaks. Shatters. Becomes pieces. Fractions. When Vessel saw Sleep in his dreams the first time, his mind probably broke. Which is partly why he’s so unhinged and feral on some of his lyrics. Human morality and what is “normal” doesn’t have a hold on him anymore. His mind is unchained, yes, but shattered.

Oh, and I am driven to distraction

I especially love the word play in this line, because with the way Vessel accentuates and pronounces “distraction”, it sounds like “destruction” too. Distraction, because Sleep has taken and will take, foreseeably forever, the entirety of Vessel’s brain space. He is distracted from normal life, normal human responsibilities. Distracted from the mundane. Because what could be more important than the deity you’ve dedicated yourself to. Everything pales next to Sleep’s will, his strength, his mission. Vessel’s mission. Of course he’s distracted from everything else. He hasn’t been able to concentrate on “normal” life since Sleep appeared to him. Destruction echoes what I’ve touched on before. Whoever Vessel was before Sleep has been destroyed. There are some parts left, but they’re jumbled and glued together wrong. They’re Other. He was destroyed and rebuilt by Sleep. I just really enjoy how this lines plays on both fronts, a seemingly innocent one, and a much deeper, darked permeation of Sleep in Vessel’s core.

Which finally leads to the she/her pronouns lines: Oh, and I swear she is not like any other, no Something much more than I could ask for (It's too late for me)

That’s Sleep he’s talking about. Like the original ask said about Alkaline. This is about Sleep. Sleep is not like any other. Not like any other god or deity Vessel might have encountered in his human life before. To worship Sleep is unlike anything he’s been taught or potentially forced to worship before, in his youth, etc. Sleep is a whole different breed of god. Of creature. Of living being. And Sleep is too much. Maybe he was too much from the get-go, as I touched upon before with the Lovecraftian mind break theory. Maybe he became too much as Vessel got closer. Maybe he demanded too much and pushed Vessel part his limits. Whatever ways it manifested, it’s clear Sleep is Too Much for a human to handle or comprehend, so for to be chosen by him, to bear his scepter, to wield his words, to lead a now world-wide church in Worship, that has so be so incredibly heavy to bear. No wonder Vessel says it was more than he asked for.

And then the lyrics repeat safe for this one line that differs once: Oh, and I am driven to distraction With each and every interaction (it's too late for me)

Which still hints at the same idea, that every time he interacts with Sleep, he falls further and further in. He becomes less and less human. He breaks a little more every time.

Tl;dr the “she” in this song is so clearly Sleep in my opinion, the walls are lined with religious/cult and devotional references.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Ideology in anarchism

Anarchism is a vibrant and complex tradition. At their most joyful, anarchist currents support common notions such as mutual aid, autonomy, direct action, and solidarity while refusing ideological closures. At the same time however, anarchists have always grappled with ideology. The early twentieth-century anarchist feminist Emma Goldman shared this experience in her autobiography:

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.[146]

Since Goldman wrote about this a century ago, this kind of policing has continued, but in new and different ways. While Maoism and Leninism were ascendant in radical politics, it took the form of maintaining an explicit party line. With the decline of these ideologies, rigid radicalism has shape-shifted into new forms. One of the ideological tendencies animating anarchist and anti-authoritarian spaces is what amory starr calls “grumpywarriorcool.” Rather than the militant conformity of Marxist-Leninism, grumpywarriorcool manifests as an ideology of individualistic anti-conformity and anti-vanguardism. starr gives a polemical example of the “manarchist” whose “freedom” to do whatever he wants ends up reinforcing individualism, whiteness, and patriarchy:

“i’m going to stink, i’m going in there even though i’m contagious, i’m going to bring my barking dog, i have the right to do whatever the fuck i want and people just have to deal with it and i’m going to call this “cultural diversity” … meanwhile other folks around are feeling like another white guy is doing whatever the fuck he wants.[147]

She suggests that privileging individual freedom is ideological because it tends to force out potentials for connection, curiosity, and a sense of collective responsibility. In starr’s analysis, there are some continuities between grumpywarriorcool and earlier ideological forms; norms of fearlessness, self-sacrifice, and bravery, she argues, can end up eliminating space to express hesitation or fear. These intimate reflections can be transformative, but they remain hidden because it is too difficult to voice them in a climate where fearlessness is the ideal. Similarly, starr names “smart radicalism” as a fundamental premise of white, anti-authoritarian organizing of grumpywarriorcool: a commitment to radical principles and theories, a “correct” interpretation of them, and the assumption that this correctness will avoid mistakes. Forced out by these tendencies are friendliness, comfort, generosity, and curiosity.[148] Outsiders are viewed with cool suspicion.

These stories are not meant as a criticism of anarchism (or Marxism) as a whole; we are trying to locate ideological tendencies within these complex and varied traditions. At its best, anarchism has enabled the refusal of fixed ideologies in favor of experimentation, openness, autonomy, and a proliferation of different struggles and forms of life. As scott crow writes,

An abundance of literature has been written about anarchism over the last hundred years. How is it organized? What could it look like? What are examples of it in practice? There are also complex critiques and analyses of it, but, for me, anarchism is just a point of reference, a descriptive word to get one’s bearings for starting conversations that move to action. It describes an opening up of possibilities for changing ourselves and our communities. It describes a set of guiding principles and ideas, serious and playful at once, not a rigid ideology.[149]

We think this conception of anarchism—as a point of reference and an evolving set of questions—can help ward off the crystallization of fixed ideology. crow further suggests that anarchism is animated by a trust in people’s ability to solve their own problems and take collective responsibility, rather than a prescription for how they should do it. This is the kind of anarchism we are after: a non-ideological sensibility that nurtures trust in people’s capacity to care for each other and to be responsive, inventive, and militant.

[cyberpunk-20xx]

about masc!V's VA

cw for general spoilers and mentions of typical-canon violence

I always find it strange that people find masc!V's VA emotionless, or even annoying or plain bad. I'm not gonna say anything about fem!V's VA because I don't pay attention at all to it cus if I do it gives me dysphoria.

I don't, on the other end, find it that strange that most people I've seen with this opinion are in fact cis men.

To me masc!V's VA is actually super emotional, but not in the conventional likeable, heroic way. Jaded and reserved at the same time. I like the VA a lot for doing what I consider great work at presenting us a character who has lived from 2050 to 2077 in a deeply fucked up world where hope is so sparse. A world that we have no idea how fucked up is, even reading about the ttrpg because to me Cyberpunk Red is much less fucked up even if it is already a dystopia.

Just as a reminder, in CP77's NC society:

Amputation without actual health concern is highly encouraged all for the sake of pure performance. And nothing else. Your physical body is socially just disposable. The only way to keep up with the world that keeps eating itself is just to upgrade, and if you don't have the money for it? Fuck you, fuck your ideals, fuck your dreams.

You get suicide baited on the regular by the fucking street advertisements.

Violence against marginalised people is at an all-time all. Sex workers have it even worse than in the real world and that's saying something on how women and queer people are treated in general.

Acid rain is normal.

The majority of the animal population is extinct in the whole world. The cattle industry has collapsed and unless you're Kerry Eurodyne levels of rich, meat is either made of worms or insects and it's not even something hidden or taboo. In fact, it's shown explicitly in ads. Real vegetables and organic food in general is scarce as well. We might, irl 2023, start to be desensitized about it because we're on the brink of the ultraliberal hell that the game is portraying, but human's civilisation started with agriculture, and cattle culture was a big fucking part of that, regardless of one's ethics and morals about meat consumption (do not clown about veganism on this post, people are allowed to value animal life regardless of this video game blurb). In various quests, namely Panam's and River's, we can see firsthand how the collapse of that industry has rotten individuals and left the land in ruins.

Even a mondial star like Kerry or a fixer queen like Rogue are just, in the end, the bitches of the corps they sold out to, and unable to fight back. In fact, they've both given up entirely until V comes crashing into their life, with Johnny in tow. The fandom paints them as charismatic individuals but I really just think that's the rose-tinted glasses effect of us knowing what they used to be, when they tried, and them just being... Pretty conventionally attractive, quippy and sarcastic. But really even those two people who we are presented with as Succesful Individuals TM just... Man they just fucking suck, okay? They're miserable, they don't like themselves, they don't like who they are anymore, they don't have any speck of joy left in their lives, they're both estranged from their kids, alone, and just going on because death is scary. They're so human. They're at the top of the world and in the end they're still nothing in the face of it. Love them both so much but they're heartbreaking.

V always starts the game after having lost everything. Any other fucker in their place would have most likely finished just like a certain Heywood kid with spikey brunette hair. V is an exceptional individual for even having a chance at a second life.

V pretty much has brain cancer and is promised a painful, slow agonising death unless they basically kill themselves, and the less painful way to go is to gobble down medication but then that means giving the body up to Johnny. Johnny's first interaction with them is: violent physical assault and suicide baiting. It's hell. V is in hell. It could not be me if I were honest, I would not bother fighting it and I would not only alt+F4 from life, I would do as Johnny wishes at this point and erase us both at once.

V's so traumatized that when they lose Jackie, they're still able to function, but not enough to see a blatant trap coming. And when they have to carry Evelyn's corpse out of that tub, they don't have a breakdown, they just tank it. Which is not badass by the way, if you frame this as anything positive you need therapy yourself tbh boo you deserve better.

V's also a cold blooded murderer very easily if you want to take that path, and I'd even argue that the game makes it very hard for them to not be a killer honestly. Even the "non-lethal" optic mod doesn't work that well past a certain point. I've yet to try my hand at a pacifist run.

If you want V to be a good person, a hopeful person, someone who does not sound deeply suicidal and terribly fucked up, someone who's not used to death and treason as their daily lot, someone who's going to make you feel good about yourself when interacting with the world... I don't think you understood the game you were buying, nor that you were paying much attention while you were playing.

I'll be the first to admit have my own biases and gripes with the game's bleak looks on life, at its pretense at being "cyberpunk" when it truly only has the "cyber" part down, but at the same time I gotta give it to it, it's cohesive within its own universe and tone. V's canon, vanilla character makes perfect sense in the settings we are presented with. Masc!V's VA just does a good job of translating that.

But I guess that's not all of it, the difference between my interpretation and the one I made this post about makes sense because it is true that masc!V's VA does not act like the normal hero archetype at all, but like an anti-hero, except without the whole "charismatic leader" bullshit tone and bravado, unlike… Well, Johnny himself.

Masc!V's voice is not only not the voice of a good guy, it also fails to be the voice of a leader, of someone who's got it all figured out, of, well, the alpha male. It commits the crime of not being Good and not being Manly, at once! It even dares to be human and vulnerable at times! No wonder it gets haters lmao.

And the people I see bashing on masc!V's VA are always fucking kissing Johnny's ass for being who he is in the flashbacks, in the legends and at the beginning of the game. And that, to me, is pretty self-explanatory why I cannot relate with their opinion on masc!V's VA.

[polyhexian]

Hunter is this generation's Dave Strider, thoughts?

Bro and Belos, shittiest guardian, STRIFE!

You're underestimating the sheer power Dave strider held over every millennial in 2011. If you were alive and on the internet in 2011 you fucking knew who Dave fucking strider was. You didn't even have to have ever heard the word Homestuck but you'd seen that little gay bastard somewhere. I went to a Homestuck panel at an anime convention one and it was so large they held it at a park down the street instead of the convention center. I had to sit on the literal ground in my little nepeta cosplay. Conventions literally banned Homestuck cosplays because people were ruining convention centers with grey paint and hosts were getting pissed off. A woman tried to dye her skin grey with alcohol and sharpies and had to go to the hospital. I had literal custom software on my computer just to tell me when there was an upd8 so I could drop everything to read it. I had shimejis running around. The baby Daves. THE BABY DAVES. "Let me tell you about homestuck" is a haunting meme that endures to this day. Homestuck was a curse upon this world, one that I thoroughly enjoyed in taking part in placing and Dave strider along with vriska were the most powerful nuclear bombs within it. Literally "don't ask a trans man why his name is Dave" is a meme for a reason. A dude made his life off of producing Dirk strider sunglasses. Dave strider changed not only people's individual lives but youth culture as a whole. There was no goddamn escaping Dave strider. There was no hiding. No freedom. In exile you would encounter a lone Dave somewhere. If you had a Dave obsession as a teenager you will never escape Dave. He's on your secret kin list forever. You will never be free of his influence. I love hunter but there is no character in anything that exists right now that even comes close to comparing to Dave Strider

[darlin-djarin]

so din becomes a cop at the end 😐 he starts working for the new republic. he… truly would NOT do that but. the writers did that. they made him a fucking cop.

honestly if people genuinely enjoyed the season, i’m happy for them. i’m not going to shame someone for enjoying something, but i wish there was a safe place to properly express my frustration at it without people coming out to defend the horrible writing and characterization. like god forbid that i ACTUALLY have opinions… damn.

making din a landowning cop was just so wrong. like i’m glad he got to settle down with grogu and thank god there’s no dinbo- but the finale felt so. sad. like it just wasn’t as amazing as it could’ve been. sure there were cool moments, but how the writers progressed the plot was anticlimactic and it was just so disappointing. i had so many high hopes for this season and the writers went fuck all and decided to make this season just as marketable as possible. istg we’re gonna start seeing ig-12 and grogu toys with stupid “yes” and “no” buttons. that’s DISGUSTING. and then they brought back ig-11 in the finale. like was his sacrifice NOTHING to you? was his death not enough for you guys to respect him? just because he’s a droid does not mean you can just fuck around with his corpse and bring him back. it’s always “respect the dead” until it’s a droid. blah blah “droids aren’t real people” it’s still borderline if not outright racism.

moff dying was sad. he kinda just stood there as fire exploded around him. i think there could’ve been better ways for him to go. the way he died in the finale left a LOT of opportunities for him to come back (like anakin after mustafar). him crushing the darksaber was also anticlimactic. it happened in half a second. as much as i’m glad the saber is gone, i think we could’ve explored SO much more with it’s lore and it’s force sensitivity or we could’ve seen it used better in action before it had to go.

also what the fuck was that “i’m going to deal with them myself” and then he WAITS and doesn’t appear until AFTER din destroys all his clones and fucks everything up. WHAT WAS HE DOING?? was he just standing there behind the door practicing his big villain monologue? that was stupid.

good for the armorer and bo-katan for their forge ceremony, that was really nice :) also koska fighting was super badass i actually loved the choreography. axe woves my MAN you were cool.

what i didn’t understand was what the hell happened to the sickly people that the armorer brought back up to the fleet. did they just. forget? what happened to them?

there was a scene with plant life growing on mandalore after the purge and it was fucking awful. it was supposed to be all “hopeful” and “meaningful” and they said “they just needed room to grow :)” like BITCH was satine NOTHING TO YOU? you don’t even have to like satine to know that it was utter bullshit and that satine would’ve JUMPED at the opportunity to help grow gardens of indigenous plant life. not just that- but the whole season REFUSED to bring up satine’s name at all. like NOTHING. truly NOTHING. just to erase bo-katan’s horrible past and to make her seemingly all innocent and the one who was being manipulated the whole time. i LOVED bo-katan in the clone wars because she was a horrible person. it made her INTERESTING. but this season just erased that to make her “honorable” and deserving to rule. good for her i guess 😐.

was paz’s death NOTHING to you as well? not even a fucking mention- not even a “your father would’ve been proud” to ragnar. did they never retrieve the body since the base blew up? and also din beating those red dudes with grogu in comparison to paz fighting by himself was so frustrating. paz deserved better.

the whole fandom is being so fucking annoying over “din grogu ahhhhh!!!!” like just CALM down and LISTEN. there are MANY naming conventions in the world. in my culture, incorporating your fathers name into your name is COMMON and completely normal. din’s first name is probably still din, not djarin. it’s not that deep, it’s probably just how their culture refers to clan/apprentices etc. for the love of god it’s not that deep. think outside of your own way of life for a moment. it’s fucking star wars.

i have so many opinions about this season and it’s hard to just put it all out at once. i truly TRULY don’t want to be a hater, but i just can’t help but express my frustration at the writing. i’m glad that SOME people enjoyed it, but i definitely didn’t.

[incarnateirony]

Hey. I've noticed, even doing what I can to cull out tumblr's porn bot problem, that I've gained a few hundred followers in the last month or so. I see a lot of fresh likes, but very little conversation. So while this post is to invite that, I want to break down what's really going on here in the current fandom malarky.

The long-skewed conversation in this fandom has kind of presented an image that I bite. But for what it's worth, I bite assholes, which is why I'm doing everything I can to paywall and ask screen them away so I can zen.

I cuss a lot. But like, this fandom gotta understand. While the majority are from a very privileged and "refined" culture bubble, and the upper class came to rule the dialogue via convention paypasses to content and the illusion of access, not everyone comes from that shit.

just like the show is telling you from deep in the soul of New Orleans, like I warned you, nobody has to take your shit either. If I want to dip my hair in holy water and camp the vampires to death so help me god I will. I literally told you this a year ago, that you weren't ready for this shit. That it would be in your face, breakdancing, loud as shit, and not giving two fucks about your civility culture.

Now those old paypasses are dated and they're literally watching what republicans would scream as The Great Replacement happening at conventions, like I also warned, while we shake our mardis gras gay asses in your face, also just like I warned.

And now the open homophobic comments come flying out of hookerwitch, and a bunch of concern trolls are trying to pearl clutch that we aren't Model Minorities and Model Gays that fit THEIR view of how we should behave. No, eat shit. This is stonewall, and I don't want anyone to forget who in SPN fandom threw the first brick, and half the wall shortly after.

So now they're hate stalking and literally devoting a majority of their lives and energy to try to break past my walls and bother me, and I don't think they're understanding their own emotional investment here. They spend hours or days master planning to break into my server just to hear about me complaining about how gassy I am, or send one shit anon they thought about how to phrase for hours to try to troll, and most of it just gets screened, so they get angrier, and the hate capping and accusation throwing and pearl clutching to muddy up the dialogue begins, but we put a pin in the big racist and homophobic shit showing its face from the same recurring names. whether that be 2po, hookerwitch, whomever. Doesn't matter. Same ciswhitehetpatriarchy bullshit different day.

I cuss. I cuss about a lot. I am very enthusiastic about cheeseburgers and will say I will break a fuckers arm for a texas toms cheeseburger, and people have the context to get what I'm saying, and the culture and tone I'm speaking it in, rather than bad faith trolls. But those same bad faith trolls tried to hurt people I care about, so when they hear a real counter-threat to their threats, they hyperfixate on it, as they have, because they're scared.

They're scared because they realized they're running into my people in every greet, in every hall, in every op line. Sometimes literally. And they don't know until it's too late, and it's a different person every time, and they're realizing outside of the social club they sold themselves as small, elite and privileged that they lived in like a bubble, the convention space isn't their own any more than the show they're realizing they lost, and frankly, who they lost to, and how.

So my no bullshit attitude on concern trolls needn't scare away comments and additions from new blogs. You see my reblog ironworked and mattzerella and geeky panic additions a lot, and it's not bc we have some. Secret Connection or whatever. It's that they get it. And they have good content that always improves my content.

So whether that be adding your voice to posts (some have expressed being shy due to 2po/scripthunt/crowded table's doxxing patterns, I get that), or joining the server--remember, the Clubhouse section is free and still a lot of content. Any hour of any day you can check the Events calendar and find at least a radio event if not a group watch, a stream, a movie, a meta discussion section, a day you can take over the radio yourself, whatever. There's a lot of room.

If you follow me because you recognize the difference of someone that's very war torn as a fandom vet that has reached his end goal and is over totalitarian bullshit flying around passing itself as discussion, when it's just the noise of a cause that already lost and is getting cleaned out--by all means. Add.

The server says there's an illusion of me as some rabid dog, when I'm just really FUCKING excited about barbeque, don't let anyone tell me how I should FUCKING talk or live, and do not let anyone fucking TOUCH anyone I FUCKING care about. And they realized their time is ticking on literally everything and for the first time in their lives, they're genuinely afraid, and good.

But if you aren't that kind of problem person? Come on in. The server will probably feel like home. Or add to my posts or DM me on tumblr, though I WILL ignore and block any blatant sock accounts for the same reason as everything else.

But if you're here, slowly finding peace with the show, and looking for a garden to enjoy it in, come on in to POLOL, or message me. I'm really just a teddy bear deep down. Thing is papa bear will rip an asshole's ass apart if he fucks around in his turf or with the baby bears he already didn't cull himself in his land. But if you ain't one of those people? I just wanna cuddle and simp and talk about Supernatural and jung.

If that sounds like you, reach out some way or another.

[selchwife]

also interesting for me to think about how pfeil is perceived in the first as well as in general, bc pfeil is uncomfortable with admiration and attention from People As A Group for many reasons (feelings of alienation & objectification chief among them), and one is like.

fundamentally he loses all trust in Public Opinion during the bloody banquet. not only was he framed for the murder of someone he considered something of a friend, but people were quick to buy it. like in my mind because pfeil was such a naive sweet kid and bc life is complicated, it’d be easy to think his whole heroics thing was too good to be true, and i think more than that people tend to WANT that to be the case — they often mistrust famous people as sort of a displaced mistrust of authority, bc they can’t break with societal authority without reworking a lot of assumptions about life, but it’s comparatively easy to judge some celebrity for getting involved in a scandal. so people believed pfeil had done it, and many people’s good opinion of pfeil was completely destroyed by it and never totally recovered despite his innocence, and if nanamo hadn’t turned out to be fucking alive all along i’m sure some people would still be blaming him.

so pfeil experiences that rejection and the lesson he takes from it is that “The Public” will raise you up when you’re useful, but is just as desperate to tear you down the moment it suits them. so his trust in public admiration is pretty much permanently lost, and he doesn’t seek attention precisely because he knows it’s a double-edged sword. i think at the point in shb where that shit with other people becoming warriors of light happens, he’s pretty well convinced that it’s going to be a second bloody banquet and that everyone will turn on him. and of course they don’t, but it’s reasonable for him to be afraid of, because a public has already completely turned on him at the drop of a hat before, and because he was young and because he had built so much of his identity on the role he had been cast in prior to that downfall it was very traumatizing.

i think that’s definitely like. The idea that people in the first already see him as like, fitting the heroic archetype in how he appears would make him very uncomfortable, because he does not want their attention or trust that he will be able to keep their positive opinion, AND because his appearance and manner and everything is in part an explicit rejection of his former Hero Role. it’s not a rejection of like, what he sees as his actual duty, so much as it is a rejection of the idea of what a socially acceptable hero ought to be, because pfeil realizes that in a corrupt society praise is cheap and easily rescinded the moment you step out of line even if you step out of line to do the right thing. and he’d rather just have everyone think negatively of him and do what’s right without regard for social convention than try to abide by unjust standards in the name of “chivalry” or whatever to earn praise from cruel and unjust people who would be more than happy to take it back as it suits them. so suddenly finding himself conforming to the standards he rejected because of cultural differences would be a bit unnerving for him.

[papihomo]

I fucking wish I never has to write this, I wish that I never had to even feel this way to begin with but I know for a fact that I will NEVER be the same.

My name's Lucifer, I also go by Emmanuel, and I go by any & all pronouns.

I am 16 years old, and at the risk of sounding over the top, honestly, I dont even care anymore at this point. Everything feels like a never ending nightmare since October.

I am a Rwby & Madoka fan. These shows were responsible for helping me find my voice, to break away from cycles of abuse and become the strong individual I am today.

The reason why I bring this up, is how I specifically as a Jew, who has friends in Israel, Lebanon & Palestine WHO JUST WANT TO FUCKING LIVE has been alienated, pushed aside and harassed in the very communities that I took refuge in.

This is a problem.

I remember the myriad of "friends" I had, who showered me with love and affection that all meant nothing in the end

I exactly remember back when I asked them what their thoughts on me cosplaying Cinder Fall would be around mid-October, and I had hoped that they would be who they were before.

But all I got, was animosity

They called me a "Satan Worshipper", "A Baby Killer", they accused me of being sensitive when I told them that what they were doing was antisemitism right after they threw the k slur at me.

Then, they blocked me, the fucking icing on the cake.

More and more friends, dropping like flies each and every day

All for a government that I have no control over.

They called themselves anti racists, and yet they called me slurs and spread blood libel about me.

How is this normal? HOW IS THIS FUCKING NORMAL!?

I had this fucking belief that without my so called friends I'd be nothing but at this point whats there to lose?

As one of my friends fled to a shelter and I lost sleep for him in fears that he might die, they, my so called "mutuals" cheered for his demise because he was Israeli, and then they cheered for mine.

I was later accused of double loyalty, of being a spy, a spy when I am just a mere student who cannot even drive yet let alone doesnt even have a credit card or bank account who wishes they didnt have to write some of their fucking experiences down on a website that used to bring them immense comfort!

This all brings me back, back to when the boys in my 8th grade class jokingly said I'd commit pearl harbor on a building downtown

When I was asked about Nanking for days

When they said the concentration camps were justified

And now that I, have gotten "worse" for converting to Judaism because now I am not just a "Evil Japanese Imperialist Sellout" but now I am also a "Cold hearted murderous child killing animal"

I am well aware that I sound already all over the place, but tell me

How does it feel after making little headcanons about characters being Jewish, posting about punching nazis, talking about J.K flopling's antisemitic blood libel game

Only to propagate these exact same things! You can criticize Israel's government without being a racist POS AND IT ISNT THAT HARD.

How does it feel after watching Kimetsu No Yaiba, listening to Vocaloid and playing Animal Crossing?

Only for you to go up to random Japanese people asking them, "What do you think about Nanking/Comfort Women?" Or "The bombs were necessary", claiming any song with Shinto or strong cultural undertones "Supporting Japanese Imperialism" and claiming that every aspect of Japanese culture is "stolen" despite that being untrue and that the reason why Japanese media is so popular is to "distract from war crimes"? You sound just like the people who stuck us in the camps after Pearl Harbor and suspected we "conspired with the government", you know that, right?

How will I ever feel going to a convention in 2024 and beyond? Will they shout at me, claiming me to be a threat? An animal? A danger to society?

How did it go from my friends going: "You look like Cinder Fall. You totally should cosplay as her" to legit spouting immature, hateful shit that would practically sound like "You disgusting putrid whore, how dare you even THINK about cosplaying such a character? She would NEVER be one of your impure, hideous, wretched, accursed kind. The fandom needs less of you, and yes my bestie is Jewish so I can call you every single slur and accuse you of blood libel too XO XO UwU Cinder can't be like you, because I said so, live laugh love bitch teehee"

Because now it feels like the place where I thought I belonged, stabbed me in the back

The people I thought I could trust turned on me as I mourned and spouted hatred my way.

I could go on and on on what else I had endured but that would leave this post longer than it was in the first place.

Think critically, love yourselves, just try and make the world less hateful instead of propagating it, and maybe you should learn that people aren't their governments.