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theriu · 3 years

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The Miraculous Madrigals - Superhero AU

So I can’t be the only person thinking of a superhero AU for the cast of Encanto, can I? Well I’m gonna share my thoughts anyway before someone does, so if they draw them before me I can still say I thought of it XD

(P.S. Forgive me if any of the Spanish superhero names I come up with are grammatically incorrect, I am not a native speaker, blame Google Translate)

(P.S.S. And no I am not modeling them after Miraculous Ladybug, the name is for alliterative and thematic purposes only. Not that someone else can’t if they wanna!)

Los Madrigales Milagrosos

Alma/Abuela: Original founder and spearhead of the team, though not superpowered herself. After realizing her triplets had been blessed with amazing powers, she trained them to use those gifts for good. She’s like Nick Fury, organizing and egging people on, always thinks she knows what is best for the team/family (and often does) and isn’t afraid to be tough, but can be a bit shortsighted about relationship damage out of her greater desire (and fear of failing) to keep everyone safe and protect their home from evil.

Mirabel: Apprentice to Abuela. It took a lot of time for her to be accepted into that role due to Abuela’s aforementioned shortsightedness and prejudice about her not inheriting any powers, but after they reconciled their differences, Abuela recognized Mirabel’s leadership abilities. She gets to play Person In The Chair for the other kids’ smaller missions and Assistant PitC for bigger missions. Sometimes sneaks out in her own self-made suit to try and help, which gives everyone heart problems. She also makes and mends the crimefighting costumes and comes up with catchy catchphrases (which some of the team use and others try desperately to ignore).

Julieta: Mirabel’s mom stays at headquarters and helps run things. Her healing baked goods ability isn’t great for active combat, so she bakes supply reserves for the rest to take out with them on patrols. Depending on the complexity and intent she puts into a dish, it can heal greater wounds faster, so she’s always finding little ways to improve her craft. She and her husband Augustine and her sister’s husband Felix keep the homebase cleaned up, help monitor the cameras and scanners, and make sure their kids actually get proper schoolwork done between missions. Very calming and kind, excellent bedside manner, and is the first to put her foot down about sending the younger kids out on missions that are likely to be too dangerous for them. Doesn’t bother with a superhero name, prefers to help in the background and offer her services (and baked goods) to medical clinics around the city.

Pepa/Tempestad: Always saying she should retire soon, she has enough to deal with, but secretly likes the action and being able to keep an eye on her kids. (No one fights her on this because even if she WERENT a valuable member of the team, he worry and drama would keep headquarters perpetually flooded.) The others have to treat her carefully to help her control her moods and thus her powers, but ironically, this also means they have free license to tick her off when she needs to get a really powerful wind or storm going. She knows this and lets them and usually forgives the worst offenses. Her most powerful move is creating small tornados, which she can direct to sweep up enemies. Pepa’s volatile moods and subsequent weather bursts in and out of costume are also a major reason none of the Madrigals bothered trying to keep a secret identity.

Bruno/Visionario: Estranged from the team for a while, partly due to being misunderstood but also partly because he enjoyed messing with people using his visions and sometimes went too far. Fortunately the family has reconciled and he now uses his visions as a way to predict the worst threats the family may face on each patrol. The visions aren’t always clear ahead of time but often provide hints that prove useful in the moment. He comes on patrols with the team because his micro-visions help him predict enemy moves a few seconds to a few minutes early. Likes to use multiple costumes and pretend to be different heroes, so a lot of people are confused about exactly how many Miraculous Madrigals there actually are.

Isabela/Flor Fuerte: Original super name was Flor de Belleza from back when she was placed on a pedestal most of her life due to her beauty and practiced grace. She acted more as a public relations figurehead for the team, charming the townspeople and doing photo ops. A recent revelation about the true extent of her powers led to her becoming a much more active member, and she is much happier and more genuine for it. One of the most powerful of the MMs, she can cause plants of a vast variety to grow anywhere. Bigger and more complex plants require more power, but she can do a lot just by absolutely flooding enemies with tons of flowers. Her other favorite tricks are pollen-bomb plants and strangling fig vines (not actually strangling people come on), but really, her repetoire of plant-based attacks and defenses is so far only limited by her imagination.

Luisa/Piel de Diamante: Has the most powerful physical gift of the family. Her sheer strength is astonishing and beyond superhuman, as she also seems capable of keeping whatever she lifts in perfect balance without crumbling under its own weight, even when simply lifting a building off its foundations by one small corner. Also has incredible aim, can peg a moving jet out of the sky from a thousand feet below with one well-thrown chunk of concrete. Luisa/Diamante is the solid rock of the team (haha puns). She has a level head and is calm under pressure, and while she will take on whatever task Abuela or Mirabel ask of her without wuestion, she still has good judgment and can make difficult decisions. Unfortunately tends to take on too much responsibility and be too hard on herself, especially when they suffer a loss or a criminal escapes. The others are learning not to take her strength and helpfulnes for granted as much after she about had a nervous breakdown and broke the entire west wall of the county courthouse.

Dolores/La Oyenta: While her gift of super hearing doesn’t give her enhanced fighting skills, Dolores is very useful in finding people. Few criminals can hide from her super sensitive ears, and sometimes she can detect crimes in progress from a mile away even before theyve been noticed by technological channels. She tends to stay back with Tio Bruno, who has been teaching her martial arts tricks he uses in tandem with his visions. She may not have future sight, but Doleres’s amazing hearing allows her to react inhumanly fast to attacks, and she is nearly impossible to catch by surprise. La Oyenta also frequently works with disaster teams and the police to locate lost kids, people trapped in wreckage, and even kidnapping victims deep inside buildings.

Camilo/Muchos Hombre: Able to shapeshift into any person he has seen for himself, Camilo’s power has very versatile uses. In a straightforward fight, he can shift between shapes with great speed and precision, disorienting enemies as he changes height, weight, and muscle mass to counter different problems. In sneakier situations, many lairs have been strolled right into by someone apparently on the guard rotation. He greatly enjoys the confusion he causes and routinely pranks friend and foe alike by changing his “base” appearance and costume between mutiple looks. Sometimes he and Tio Bruno will wear each others’ (or the same) outfits, further confusing everyone on exactly how many Miraculous Madrigals there actually are.

Antonio/Animal Amigo: Having just recieved his gift of communicating with and directing animals (and being only 5 years old), Antonio isn’t allowed on patrols yet, although he does want to help. However, his connection with any animal in the area gives him an incredible source of information. Since gaining his abilities, he frequently report suspicous activity that the rodents, birds, and other wildlife share with him to Felix, Abuela, and Mirabel. On rare occasions (and only with his mother constantly guarding him in a thundercloud of fretting), he gets to go on farther-out trips into wilder areas where his gift is much more reliable than any other information-gathering tools the team possesses. Even his oldest sister’s hearing powers can only extend so far and discern so much through dense, noisy jungle; Antonio can learn about enemy movements many miles away through his animal network. And his safety is generally assured because even if he were to be separated from his family, every animal that senses his distress will rush to protect him. His trusty jaguar rarely leaves his side and generally makes any would-be attackers think twice about approaching the adorable little kid.

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Is that all of them??? Did I get them all??? OKAY COOL wow that took like two hours to text XD; THAT WAS FUN. Maybe art later??? Or maybe some talented and motivated person will draw them first, in which case I only beg you not give the ladies scanty outfits, the movie does a WONDERFUL job of authentic outfits that aren’t skimpy! And you don’t fight villains in heels dangit!!! Okay I’m ranting now, it’s 1 AM and I’m ready to call this done. THANKS FOR READING!

(P.S.S.S. If you like my nonsense ramblings, I have a bunch of random stuff over here along with a few more Encanto posts. =D Enjoy!)

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hardcorefornerds · 6 years

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My Top Albums (Not) of 2018

So this year I listened to very little ‘new’ music, in terms of releases - the prime exceptions being Robocobra Quartet’s Plays Hard To Get and Tim Hecker’s Konoyo - but I did listen to an awful lot of music that was new to me. In particular, I feel like this year unlocked classical music for me - or rather (to get the historical terminology correct) baroque music, with some earlier Renaissance polyphony and later 19th century Romanticism thrown in.

Most of this has been done through Spotify, with help from second-hand vinyl, the Irish classical music radio station Lyric FM (and in particular its Baroque-heavy late-night and early-morning shows). Although I got into the habit of using Spotify’s ‘Daily Mix’ playlists to dip in and out of different works, and occasionally to use the curated playlists to stretch my taste a little, I feel as if my listening still revolved primarily around albums.

Although I’ve made a couple of playlists this year based on Baroque/Renaissance Masses and counterposing instrumental music to Tim Hecker’s album, I wanted to put together a list of albums that a) I listened to a lot and b) were important to expanding my musical horizons this year. I think they are all quite accessible, in that they got around my difficulties in listening previously to other forms of classical music, particularly symphonies or longer choral works: these are often quite direct, even almost ‘poppy’.

1. Glenn Gould, Glenn Gould Plays Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & II, BWV 846-893

It wasn’t the first thing I listened to this year (I started off with Bach cantatas) but this was probably the most important. It’s easy to find superlatives in descriptions of Gould’s work; I won’t attempt to add any. In fact, I mostly used this as background music while working - the amount of the music, combined with its intricacy and variety while still being in the same textural register, suits a kind of easy stimulation.

(There’s also the fascinating technological history behind the title: the journey from just intonation, meantone and ‘well’ temperament to modern twelve-tone equal temperament (12TET) where musical notes become evenly separated logarithms. This Howard Goodall documentary is a very good overview; then there are questions like does Chopin sound better on a piano tuned to classical well-temperament and this in-depth demonstration marred, ironically, by low-quality VHS recording. I’m not a partisan, I just find it interesting!)

Also recommended: I haven’t listened seriously to much of Gould’s other recordings, of Bach or others, so I guess that will be a 2019 ambition - particularly the Goldberg Variations and Art of the Fugue.

2. Ensemble Zefiro, Jan Dismas Zelenka: Sei Sonata

I was already listening to Zelenka’s choral works last year, but it was this year I found this collection of six sonatas (’sonata’ is an instrumental work, ‘sounded’, as opposed to a ‘cantata’ which includes both singing and instrumentation). What I like about them is they are all primarily for woodwinds: two oboes and a bassoon, which to my mind gives them a jazzy feel - or “literally breathless counterpoint”, as this review puts it. There are quite a few different recordings, although Zelenka is only undergoing a relatively recent revival - which points to the attractions and quality of these pieces. This was the first one I heard, and for whatever reason I still prefer it the most.

Also recommended: Anything and everything else by Zelenka, particularly his Masses and The Lamentations of Jeremiah, which I discovered in 2017.

3. Alban Berg Quarttet, Beethoven: The Late String Quartets

So the Fifth Symphony is a lot of fun, but boy, these quartets... For me it started with the Grosse Fugue, and I kept going around it. The emotions, the dynamics - the Cavatina, the ‘Heilige Dankesang’ - these are the apotheoses of classical music for me so far. I think I chose the Alban Berg Quarttet by virtue of their name’s association with dissonance, and I enjoy the crunch of their performance. Like the Gould, the length of this ‘album’ - containing five quartets, Nos.12-16 - makes it good for sustained listening with enough variety.

Also recommended: (by the same group) Brahms: String Quartets

4. Jascha Heifetz, The Heifetz Collection; Vol. 17; Bach: Sonatas and Partitas

Actually, I’m not sure how to rank Beethoven’s string quartets and Bach’s pieces for solo violin. I probably like the variety of structure in the former more, but these are amazing (and often hard to believe in the performance that they are solo) with so much depth and complexity. Again, there are more recent recordings but Heifetz is very hard to best.

Also recommended: Biber: Mystery Sonatas, for the hardcore Baroque violin with extra Catholicism (they’re also known as the Rosary Sonatas, ‘Mystery’ of course here being in the religious sense) as well as the lulz at the composer’s name.

5. Dresden Kammerchor, Hans-Christian Rademann, Schütz: Italienische Madrigale

Originally a vinyl find, along with another boxset of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (which maybe deserve a space here also, if there wasn’t enough Bach already). It marked a step away for me from purely religious choral works into secular vocal polyphony (madrigals). Everything by Schütz I’ve heard is great, and handily they exist in Spotify in a series of recent recordings (if I still had a CD player to use, I’d probably buy the lot).

Also recommended: All of Schütz’s works in this collection, but especially the Kleine Geistliche Konzerte

6. Oxford Camerata, Jeremy Summerly, Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli

Just sublime polyphony. (See also Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume du Fay, Hildegarde von Bingen... the Spotify algorithm is all over this stuff)

Also recommended: His madrigals, natch.

7. Collegium Vocale Gent, Philip Herreweghe, Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Virgine

Not included in this list are Bach’s big vocal works - the Mass in B Minor, the Matthew and John Passions - which are undeniably great, but hard to listen to for too long I find. For Baroque flair and drama, I found myself turning to this (a recording that was actually released in 2018) more regularly.

Also recommended: Continuing the Italian theme, Vivaldi: Stabat Mater

8. Maîtrise des Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Christophe de Javel, Hervé Lamy, Frédéric Bourreau, Lionel Sow, Schütz: Matthäus-Passion

I’m including this recording separately because it’s quite different in tone and atmosphere to the Dresden Kammerchor recordings, which are generally with a mixed vocal choir and instrumental accompaniment, whereas this a capella, male-voiced version has a haunting intensity to it.

Also recommended: Dresden Kreutzchor, Schütz: Musicalische Exequien (see post)

9. Pablo Casals, Bach: Cello Suites

Another book (of three total) I read about Bach this year was Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites, weaving together the biography of Bach with that of Casals, a Catalan cellist who basically brought the pieces to our modern attention. There are many more recent recordings, with better sound quality and possibly more ‘authentic’ styles of interpretation, but I still find these the most expressive. Possibly its the sense of history: recorded in exile in the late 1930s, like a musical Darkness at Noon:

“Casals began recording the Cello Suites on a desperate note. With civil war raging in Spain, he couldn’t play in his homeland anymore; he refused to perform in Russia under the Bolsheviks; and he had boycotted Germany since Hitler came to power and Italy once fascism took over.”

Also recommended: Siblin recommends more recent recordings by Pieter Wispelwey and Stephen Isserlis; there’s also a viola transcription by Kim Kashkashian reviewed in Pitchfork from this year

#2018 #classical #baroque #bach #beethoven #Heinrich Schutz #zelenka

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