#so the audio is quite important but then also the setting

[mihai-florescu]

This really was our yumenosaki academy♡

[reasonsforhope]

A reef that has been degraded—whether by coral bleaching or disease—can’t support the same diversity of species and has a much quieter, less rich soundscape.

But new research from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows that sound could potentially be a vital tool in the effort to restore coral reefs.

A healthy coral reef is noisy, full of the croaks, purrs, and grunts of various fishes and the crackling of snapping shrimp. Scientists believe that coral larvae use this symphony of sounds to help them determine where they should live and grow.

So, replaying healthy reef sounds can encourage new life in damaged or degraded reefs.

In a paper published last week in Royal Society Open Science, the Woods Hole researchers showed that broadcasting the soundscape of a healthy reef caused coral larvae to settle at significantly higher rates—up to seven times more often.

“What we’re showing is that you can actively induce coral settlement by playing sounds,” said Nadège Aoki, a doctoral candidate at WHOI and first author on the paper.

“You can go to a reef that is degraded in some way and add in the sounds of biological activity from a healthy reef, potentially helping this really important step in the coral life cycle.”

Corals are immobile as adults, so the larval stage is their only opportunity to select a good habitat. They swim or drift with the currents, seeking the right conditions to settle out of the water column and affix themselves to the seabed. Previous research has shown that chemical and light cues can influence that decision, but Aoki and her colleagues demonstrate that the soundscape also plays a major role in where corals settle.

The researchers ran the same experiment twice in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2022. They collected larvae from Porites astreoides, a hardy species commonly known as mustard hill coral thanks to its lumpy shape and yellow color and distributed them in cups at three reefs along the southern coast of St. John. One of those reefs, Tektite, is relatively healthy. The other two, Cocoloba and Salt Pond, are more degraded with sparse coral cover and fewer fish.

At Salt Pond, Aoki and her colleagues installed an underwater speaker system and placed cups of larvae at distances of one, five, 10, and 30 meters from the speakers. They broadcast healthy reef sounds – recorded at Tektite in 2013 – for three nights. They set up similar installations at the other two reefs but didn’t play any sounds.

When they collected the cups, the researchers found that significantly more coral larvae had settled in the cups at Salt Pond than the other two reefs. On average, coral larvae settled at rates 1.7 times (and up to 7x) higher with the enriched sound environment.

The highest settlement rates were at five meters from the speakers, but even the cups placed 30 meters away had more larvae settling to the bottom than at Cocoloba and Tektite.

“The fact that settlement is consistently decreasing with distance from the speaker, when all else is kept constant, is particularly important because it shows that these changes are due to the added sound and not other factors,” said Aran Mooney, a marine biologist at WHOI and lead author on the paper.

“This gives us a new tool in the toolbox for potentially rebuilding a reef.”

Adding the audio is a process that would be relatively simple to implement, too.

“Replicating an acoustic environment is actually quite easy compared to replicating the reef chemical and microbial cues which also play a role in where corals choose to settle,” said Amy Apprill, a microbial ecologist at WHOI and a co-author on the paper.

“It appears to be one of the most scalable tools that can be applied to rebuild reefs, so we’re really excited about that potential.”"

-via Good News Network, March 17, 2024

[voidpumpkin]

A Guide For New Users Fleeing From Twitter, From A User Who Needed One When They First Started:

Hi to everyone fleeing from twitter, Elon Musk is shit and he already has had an actively harmful effect on the site, one that will only get worse. So, welcome to Tumblr, it can be kind of intimidating, given its reputation and how many different features there are, I was certainly confused and intimidated when I first logged on and as I'm active on both I sympathise with y’all, so here’s a guide to anyone new:

Put your hashtags in the hashtag section. This is the only way they’ll actually have any sort of effect, or appear when you search for something. Don’t post them on the post itself.

There is a character limit for hashtags and a quite high hashtag limit. Go wild. Writing entire speeches is common. 

Don’t tag lots of unrelated stuff to your posts, that’ll get you reported for Spam and just hated in general

Don’t censor words, users are fine with swearing, doing so especially with triggering content makes it hard for people to limit their exposure to said triggering content.

There’s no such thing as ratioing.

We don’t have quote retweeting, every reblog, comment, etc counts to op’s post. They can see it all, and will be notified depending on their notification settings.

Change your icon, people will think you’re a bot if you use the default.

Give yourself a bio, it’ll make you look like a person.

Follow people and tags, that’s the only way you’re gonna see the content you wanna see. The foryoupage isn’t to be trusted.

Actually reblog stuff, liking has no effect, reblogging is the only important thing here as there is no like based algorithm. Doing so will also make you appear human.

You can hide your likes and who you’re following. Doing so is not frowned upon in the slightest.

You can block tags, similarly to muting words on twitter.

You can have multiple blogs tied to one account. 

You can customise your blog, go wild.

There is no word limit, you can write as you want. But if it gets too long make use of the keep reading feature, (the three dots beside the add gif feature)

There is an image limit of thirty, up from the former ten, though for some they may be stuck at only using ten, tumblr is kinda inconsistent. If you want to add more you’ll have to reblog your own post. 

There is no reblogging limit when it comes to a post, though there is a daily posting limit, go wild, only your followers will be upset.

You can have videos, gifs and pictures in the same post.

You can just post audio.

Adult content is still banned, but actual moderation and enforcement is spotty, especially if it’s written. 

Spam liking and reblogging isn’t a thing. Go wild.

You have an ask box that people can submit stuff to. You can respond or just delete the post. You can remove anon capability from it (which will get rid of most of the hate), or outright bar it.

You can’t private your account but you can restrict commenting and reblogging. Edit: I’ve been informed that you can in fact make your blog password protected, it’s just that it’s a rarely done thing and not widely known.

Block whoever and whenever, it’s not a big deal. Though if someone you’ve blocked has reblogged and added to a post and someone you follow reblogs that, their commentary will still be included in the post you see.

We don’t have muting, only blocking.

Yes, direct messaging is a thing (it’s the little smiley face)

The only way to promote your is through ‘tumblr blaze’, you pay a certain amount of money and your post will be promoted, but not targeted, so no invasions of privacy. You are subject to the employee’s whims on whether or not it gets promoted and unfortunately hate speech has been allowed.

Tumblr has tendency to hide/consume comments, posts and asks, don’t be surprised if they go missing.

Tumblr searching a blog relies on tags, words in the post and the users name, keep that in mind.

Posts will remain after you delete your account or the original post if they have been reblogged.

Years old posts are still circulating and that is considered normal.

You can queue up posts to be released when you’re not using your account. Or you can just post whenever you’re active. Go wild.

Wizards exist and are very popular on this site. Accept it.

There are posts with no notes that will never gain any more than a sing note for your like. Accept it.

There are posts will no op. Accept it.

Trans and autistic people dominate this site.

Don’t get pissy when someone tags a post ‘tw (insert slur)’, or any trigger warning for that matter, most are just being considerate of their followers who may be triggered by such content.

Twitter discourse is regularly mocked, it’s not gonna fly here.

No, we don’t call each other oomfs, or anything like that. We just have mutuals.

Tumblr in general lacks a lot colloquialisms that began on twitter.

We do have ‘blorbo’ ‘poor little meow meow’ etc.

Trying to go viral or trying to corporate is frowned upon.

Tumblr has a tendency to blacklist things tagged like ‘crowdfunding’ so bring that kind of logic you use for twitter posts over to tumblr.

We don’t have twitter circles, co-posting, etc.

Tumblr is surprisingly good at recommending blogs.

There are no verified accounts, and your follower count isn't visible. This is a good thing, trying to change it will get you laughed at.

People are going to just make up stuff, don’t believe everything you see and if it’s a claim about someone, investigate it rather than just believe it.

You can edit your posts after you’ve posted them, but the versions reblogged before said changes will still circulate. This editing of the original has been used as a spruce of comedy

If your worried about people seeing your potentially triggering, or even graphic content and they haven’t blocked the tags you’ve used you can use the keeping reading feature to put the content under the cut and post a warning at the top.

And this is quite important:

Stay anonymous and have fun. There isn’t an expectation to constantly expose inner details of your life, you aren’t expected to use your real face, your real name, age, etc. You’re not even expected to be truthful here. Exist however you wanna exist and have fun, that should be the point of social media. 

Also keep in mind that tumblr has its own distinct culture that is going to take some getting used to. As well as a history any user who’s been here a while will at least somewhat understand.

Also I'll be editing the post with additional info and corrections provided to me.

[bbonnenuit]

The Smiths.

notes: chrollo is yandere, although the fic is lighthearted. the biggest warning is the fact that chrollo looks like he'd listen to the smiths /j, another bigger warning is that reader is an avid the smiths hater. im not tho, all for fun. female reader.

 “Daydreaming again, I see?”

   It would be a lie to say that Chrollo’s voice isn’t at the slightest bit pleasant to hear. It’s soft and smooth, but accompanied with a confident low timbre that you think might be the source of it’s charm. 

   You often wish you both don’t share a language to speak over, so whatever he speaks would be foreign yet pleasant gibberish in your ears. And maybe you’d be able to close your eyes and sleep. You’d be able to treat him as the background noise of some radio host talking about something as mundane as today’s newest dramas. 

  You don’t find the need to chase the impossible ideal this time. One doesn’t need to be a linguist expert in order to know no malice or warning is present in his voice, though one might need a bachelor’s degree and over four decades of experience in psychology to know he truly means nothing behind his calm demeanor. 

   You sign yourself to a fate you’re unsure of, and though it’s foolish, there’s nothing you can do anyway. You’re stuck with him, in a moving four-wheeled compartment, that’s also stuck in traffic. 

   “The music’s good.” Is all you say, and he hums in understanding. 

     Silence falls over the two of you again.

   You almost brought back the colorful reverie you were in before he decided to interject, until he reached for his phone to change the music. Oh, bluetooth, the convenient technology you are. His phone is located on the right of his steering wheel, far away from your reach. If he had reached for the audio system you would’ve been (maybe) able to slap his hand away. 

   “Hm, I’d rather you pay attention to me.” The lilt in his voice is unmistakable. And you almost gag, was that an attempt in flirting? Blegh.  

   “I’ll just stare at the cars,” Headlights and astigmatism can make a good duo, you remind yourself. 

   Chrollo hums again, You can almost laugh, so being stuck in your own daydreams and practically doing nothing is unacceptable, but staring at cars is alright? 

  You stare at a car, observing the way the light that emits from it’s headlights become blurry in your sights, they almost take shape of stars in your opinion. 

   So you set your sights on a particularly small black car in front of you, must be a Toyota or Avanza or something. You can’t tell, it’s got four wheels and headlights, so it’s a car. You could care less about what it is. That is why you weren’t all so interested when Chrollo took you a look into his….Rolls… Rolls what? Oh, right, Rolls Royce. It’s a fancy one, you can tell. He was exuding quite an air of importance when he was leading you towards the high-end vehicle located in the restaurant’s parking lot, there were some on-lookers around that spot that expressed interest at the car. It means something when even people of the middle-upper class are showing interest.

   Whatever ego that had probably swelled within Chrollo must’ve popped like a balloon, or so you hope, because you did nothing more than give him a thumbs up before letting yourself in the passenger’s seat. You also didn’t miss the way he was preparing to tell you about the car’s compartments and specialties that made it cost years of labor. Ah, you’re certain he didn’t gain this vehicle from labor, though. 

   Fancy car or not, everyone’s equally stuck in this traffic. 

   Fancy car or not, doesn’t determine that the song played inside the compartment is free from your judgment or not.

   “What song is this? You ask, although you know the answer. You somehow need an assurance that he is lucid. 

   “Please, please, please, by The Smiths.” He says, pleasant with his song of choice. 

   What an ironic song and artist of choice. 

    It’s harder to hide in a cackle than a scowl, you’d almost forgotten. Any voice you let out threatens to come out as sharp laughter and any breathe you intake threatens to become a wheeze. You could hardly contain yourself. 

   “Oh…” Is all you say before pausing, afraid anything else you will say will turn into a rowdy session of laughter. Unsure if you should speak further or not. But the inquisitive look he offers you somehow serves as a push rather than something that usually wants you to further seal your lips shut in fear you would say the wrong thing and earn his silent ire. It’s far, far harder to hide a cackle than a scowl, but months of training yourself to hide certain expressions whenever Chrollo is around has paid off. “What about Frank Sinatra?” 

 Chrollo smiles. Is he delighted that you find interest in one of his favorite artists? Though he’s never said it outloud, every long night drive has its silence filled with at least one Frank Sinatra song. 

   “Would you rather I change the song, dear?” He offers. And you would say yes, but this is one of the rare, rare moments where you are given the opportunity to take a jab at him. Although it’s nothing as deadly as anything a leader of the Phantom Troupe has faced, you won’t kill him or even hurt him for very long. But you are willing to do anything, at this point. 

   You feign the most pleasant voice you can muster, “Hm… That’s not really what I meant. I just didn’t think you’d listen to The Smiths.” 

   He lets out a small laugh, “Really? I have always listened to older songs around you, I suppose. I wouldn't say I like it… Hm, but it’s an interesting band.”

   So he does like it! 

   “Why do you think so?” You inquire further before adding, “Do you like this song a lot?”

   “Are you intending to interview me, (Name)?” Chrollo cocks his eyebrow, but it is only meant to tease you. 

  “Must’ve picked it up from someone.” A relentless pursuit, you press on further, “Okay though, but answer my question.” 

   Silence falls over him, as if he were in his own state of thinking so deeply, but you know it’s mainly a pretense. Whatever he wishes to say after, you know it must’ve been something he had thought of before. In any other situation, this silence often serves as to let a dreadful situation simmer in your mind.  But this time… Ah, you’re quite unsure. 

  Chrollo finally speaks,  “I’ll answer you of course.” The smile he gives you is anything but nice when you are very much aware of the condemnation those same lips bring you, “On the condition you’d kiss me after.”

  “Okay.” To his surprise, you agreed rather quickly. If that’s the sacrifice you need to make, then so be it. A kiss to soothe his soon-to-be sour, scorned face!

  He is satisfied, you can tell. He puts his elbow against the steering wheel, resting his face against his palm. “I don’t know why you’re suddenly interested, whatever designs you have in your head… Hm, I’ll know of it soon.” 

   No one fucking asked damn. You internally deadpanned, impatience is gnawing at your throat. He reminds you of how you’d write your essays when you have to reach a certain minimum word count by relentlessly dragging around a topic and beating around a bush so much that you end up writing a novel rather than an assignment. Ah… To make him anything alike to you doesn’t sound very right. Whatever, you digress. 

   Chrollo finally, finally starts. And you’re excited, elated, jovial- ah every synonym of the word happiness comes into mind. You can put any thesaurus at shame by now. “I remember the first time we met, you called me something of a hopeless romantic. At that time, I had only laughed because I found the sentiment rather off. Such nonsense. Me? An idealist of love? Love has always been a tool for me. You could only dream.”

   You cut to the chase,“Mhm, although you’ve found a contradiction because you actually enjoy those sappy songs right? Okay, what’s next?” 

   “You know me very well (You smile, excited). But that's not all (you frown, deflated).” Sweet, saccharine drips off of his voice. “I’ve never paid attention to such things, not for myself at least. I don’t ‘relate’ to those kinds of songs. But ever since I met you, it felt as if the world had shifted for me.” 

  He doesn’t stop, and for once you are glad he isn't, “My world has shifted and taken a hole in itself, one that has been carved into the shape of you.” 

  It is interesting how he is able to muse so freely about you, in front of you. Where is the shame and decorum?

   “And I do quite like this song, in all honesty.” His gaze meets yours, and grey eyes bore into your soul. “It really does remind me of the one I love so dearly.” 

   Please, please, please, let me get what I want… Those lyrics loop in your head over and over again. You should be sick with the abundance of affection he has for you that makes you seethe. And you would claw at the leather seats, avert your gaze, and try to block him out as much as you can. But tonight, you feel fucking amazing. 

  You can barely handle it. 

   “Dude, come on,” Your voice is off by an octave and you swear you can burst. Chrollo on the other hand finds satisfaction melting off of his face over the term being used to refer to him, outright calling him a bastard or a monster might be better. You make it a mental note to call him ‘dude’ more. “The Smiths is for losers.” 

   …

   “Pardon?’ 

   “The Smiths is for losers.” You repeat yourself before adding, “It’s for guys who can’t get any, for guys who waddle in sadness for something they can’t get, guys who are always up their own ass. Condescending guys who are secretly insecure, manipulative guys, guys who play guitar and get sad then do weed…” You are kind enough to give a long-winded further explanation.  Chrollo does not share the same sentiment. 

  Chrollo’s countenance seems unchanging at first, but it is not a waste, for you saw a split second of confusion, then something of offense written on his face before it smoothes out into the uncannily still expression he always wears. His lips open, then close, as if he’s mulling over an answer.

   “Are you insinuating I am that type of person, dearest?’ 

   "I mean if the shoe fits...? Well, what do you think?"

    He sighs like it’s obvious,  “That you made the wrong accusation over baseless data.” 

    “I’m not accusing you of anything!” You hold your hands up in mock defense, “Just telling you something everyone kind of agrees on. Things don’t have to be written in numbers or books… Sometimes it’s just a consensus. Everyone and their mom agrees on it."

   You are relentless tonight, so you continue again though Chrollo prompts nothing from your newfound talkative nature tonight, something you’re sure he would actually love in a different situation. 

   “These are the kind of guys girls avoid you know? People call it something of a warning. Like, ‘avoid guys who listen to The Smiths’.  I don’t mean to generalize or anything, but guys who listen to songs like that don’t end up to be very well in the head. And I also don’t mean to believe rumors but… Well…” You cough awkwardly, but it’s meant to deliver an unspoken message you know will only further test his ire. But you think you have had enough fun for tonight, you don’t wish to turn the night sour for you after all.

   …Or so you thought. 

   “So I’m just trying to say that you should treat me a little better, you know what I mean? I’m putting up with a lot” Everything you say here are meant to be a 50% insult, 30% jab, and 20% jokes. But the last thing you said, you can’t lie and say that you hope he’d take further thought on that. You yearn to hopefully be able to get out of the hotel room that serves as your grandiose cage more, and when you do, you aren’t being watched by an unknown amount of eyes that you know trail on to you by the shadows. That is all you wish for, really. That is to say, you can only wonder what his standards are for ‘treating you better’. 

   Ah, the smile he has on his face is different from before. This one is a sign that your fun is coming to a quick halt. 

   “So that’s what you’re getting at? Resourceful little minx you are.” 

   Why is he sounding so delighted over your insults, is he a masochist? Is he stupid? It’s your turn to cock your eyebrow. 

  “Have you enticed me in this long-winded conversation simply because you wanted to be treated a little better? And the way you had agreed so quickly to that kiss… " He puts a hand to his chest, a mockery of an apology. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to be so blind to your need for affection. You've gone through lengths to communicate your need, I'm very grateful."

  You let out a humorless laugh, “Pardon?” He is just truly-! Argh, whatever! “Did you not hear anything else I said?” You make sure to enunciate your words properly, afraid he might have some sort of hearing problems, well he does and you’re certain it has a name. What was it again? Oh right, an unfortunate combination of delusion and selective hearing… 

  “I know you tend to turn a little childish when you can’t get what you want. That’s not a quality many men like either. So, be a little kinder to me, won’t you?” 

  “Women don’t usually like mass murderers either. Anyone in their right mind, actually.”

   He hums, “That orange container of pills by your nightstand says otherwise. Not the best defense, try again?” 

   “You'd have some too, you just don't have any because you don't go to therapy."

   “Hm, keeping up that attitude won’t make me kiss you any sooner.” 

   “Then I’ll gladly keep this attitude!” 

   Unfortunately you don’t. You’re angry enough to have the energy to spew a million insults at lightspeed against him, but too angry to form a coherent thought that you’re certain would give him a decent jab. And to be frank, you’re rather spent. When you (reluctantly) asked Chrollo what time it was, thankfully he gave you a proper response. A quick tap of his phone showed that it was two and a half hours above your usual bedtime. The clothes you have aren’t the most comfortable either, while it’s not short they certainly expose areas where the wind would have too much fun dancing over. 

   Traffic is clearing as you can see the hotel you are both staying in come into view. You relax at the sight. You can almost feel the warm bath you will be soaking yourself in, what scent will you choose tonight? Rosemary, lavender… Ah, you can smell them already. You prompt to close your eyes for a moment of rest, but you find yourself sleeping on the rest of the way back.

   You feel fingers combing your locks stirring you awake, they’re Chrollo’s, obviously. Although you are half conscious, you recognize that scent of sandalwood and amber anywhere, as much as you’re ashamed to admit it. 

  “Do you want me to carry you?” Chrollo asks, and you murmur something in between a noise of annoyance and a ‘no’. He chuckles at this sight. “Alright then.” 

   He gives a soft peck on your lips, it’s warm. You almost lean in when the warmth of his lips leave yours, this half-conscious state gives him a moment of your vulnerability he has set his eyes on,  the one he relentlessly pursues after so much. But you know that even when he has a grasp at your vulnerability, it won’t stop him from digging for more. Greedy, ruthless man that he is, he will never stop. 

  “You are absolutely precious, you know that? Even if your mouth tends to run without care” Is that condescension or admiration in his voice? Pity, you can’t tell in the state you are in. You’re drunk from the lack of sleep and the future victory you have in mind. 

  “Before I answer that…” Your voice is barely above a whisper, Chrollo merrily leans in closer to hear you. Your lips ghost by the shell of his ear… 

  …

  “Name five songs from The Smiths. Are you like an actual fan or is it just FOMO?” 

   He just sighs. 

header from https://id.pinterest.com/pin/334040497376021340/

[inthelittlewood]

Awesome Decked Out Stream btw! Congrats on the first win!

Also; Sorry if you’ve answered this question before but what piece of equipment do you use to supplement your microphone to do all the cool voice modulations? On stream you were talking to Rendog about it and I swore you called it a “gargexalar” which absolutely can’t be right but I struggle phonetically! I also recall you spoke of it on the Imp and Skizz Podcast, but I couldn’t grasp the name there either. Would love to know how to get a cool mic set up for personal voice work and it sound like you know/have some good advice! :D

It's called a GoXLR, it's from a company called TC Helicon who seem to have abandoned the product earlier this year by laying off all but a few staff, so just be mindful of that if you purchase one. It's works just fine but any major errors or windows updates in the future I guess could have the potential to ruin things (although due to its popularity there's already a third party software etc made by the community)

I'm still wanting to move to a Rode Procaster Duo but currently it doesn't have and won't let you control virtual audio channels with its faders (which is important for me as I split game, music, chat and myself on to seperate tracks) - they have said they're looking to implement this feature in a future firmware update but there's no ETA given yet.

So the GoXLR is great but I worry about it's future, where as the Rode isn't quite suited to my needs yet but once it is I'll likely switch as they're a long established audio company with no signs of discontinuing support

The other little device I've mentioned before is the Tube MPC which is a handy compressor / limiter for boost audio without making it distorted (I admittedly haven't used in a while since I finally found some nice settings for the GoXLR that give the same results)

Hope that's helpful 👍

(also ty for the Decked Out love)

[pleasantlyinsincere]

John and Julian (and Cyn) through the '70s

Last edited on 8 October 2023. All edits listed at the end. Text in between [ ] are my thoughts.

Since John and Yoko had moved into Tittenhurst in August '69 Julian often spend weekends with them there.

"And then I'd live for the weekends I spent with my dad and his new love Yoko at Ascot. My feeling toward their relationship was helped by the way I was treated. I was given incredibly expansive toys to play with and there was always something happening." Julian, 1982

Cynthia describes that she was relieved that Julian got on reasonably well with Yoko, but she was concerned by some of the more bizarre stories of what was going on at Tittenhurst park.

"One of the hardest aspects of letting Julian visit John was accepting that Yoko would presumably look after him when he was there. I didn't know what he would make of her cool manner. But in fact he seemed fine with it, and perhaps it was better for him to have a rather distant step-mother than one who was all over him. He never told me that she was unkind in any way, which was a relief. After that first weekend Peter rang regularly to arrange visits for Julian. Much to my amusement Julian had started to call Yoko Hokey-Cokey." Cynthia Lennon: John, p.314

Photos of Julian at Tittenhurst in 31 January 1970. [John and Yoko only returned from Denmark January 27th, so Julian came to see them the first weekend back.]

Rest of the timeline including pics, quotes and audio behind the cut because it got ridiculously long.

23 February 1970

An article is published in the Evening Post talking about Julian and Kyoko. It mentions that in 1969 there were four months that father and son didn't get to see each other and also spent Christmas apart.

Some quotes from John:

"Julian, last time I saw him, was a bit too protected, like all kids are. It took him two weeks to unwind, when he was last with us." "I'm not a daddy with a set of bricks to play with. When I'm with the kids, they just come along with me and be with me, whatever I'm doing." Link to article

March 1970

Over the New Year John and Yoko had spent some weeks in Denmark with Tony Cox, his new partner and Kyoko. That arrangement had worked quite well and it seems it motivated John and Yoko to try to get closer with Cynthia and Roberto also. It seems in the end not much came of these good intentions.

Up until now, when Julian came to spend the weekend at Tittenhurst Park, it was Les Anthony who shuttled him back and forth between his parents. However, shortly after their return from Denmark, John and Yoko made a conscious effort to spend time with Julian, Cynthia and her fiancé Roberto Bassanini. John later remarked: "All five of us ate together and we saw to it that the children see us all together. Maybe six of us will go on vacation with Kyoko. Julian, Cyn and Roberto, so that everyone feels secure. That's very important. In order to have peace, it's necessary to start inside the family." Lennonology, source L'Express [3/23/70]

Instead John and Yoko left for LA 23 April 1970 to undergo Primal Scream therapy with Janov. They stayed for almost five months in the US and returned to England 15 September 1970.

June 7th, 1970

While John and Yoko are in LA doing their therapy with Janov. One of the topics discussed was John's troubled relationship with his son.

The meeting, which Vivian Janov describes as 'a very strong emotional day for him,' had taken place in April, and John was making an effort to maintain communication with his son. From Los Angeles, John posted a card to Julian today: 'I'm sorry I haven't called or written much. I've been a little sick. We miss you a lot, and send you our love... won't be long till I see you'. Lennonology

After the return from the US in September Julian continued to regularly visit Tittenhurst. During those visits he usually played a lot with Les Anthonys four stepchildren, who at the time were also living on the estate.

"Once Dad had a little white shed built on an island in the middle of a lake on the grounds of the house. He had bought these little white amphi-cars that sped across the lake. The three of us all dressed in white to spend the day there. Crazy, but wonderful."Julian, 1982

In this interview Julian describes going over to Tittenhurst just to be an idiot with his dad but also how scary the big house and his bedroom situation could be to him at night.

[The floorplan of Tittenhurst (LINK) actually shows Julian's room just across the hallway from John and Yoko's room but half a stairway down. There's not really a closer bedroom and he may have been put there, so that he has his own bathroom. It being so far away, small (somewhere he or Cynthia call the room a closet) and scary are after all the memories from a child's point of view.]

For the most part the visitation arrangements seemed to have continued in 1971. In the summer, when John and Yoko were filming for the imagine documentary, Julian can be seen roaming the property with his friends.

Saturday, July 17th, 1971 With the cameras rolling, John and Yoko roamed the Tittenhurst Park grounds in a golf cart with Jill Johnston. As promised, Blue Pools delivered the new lake house, and the Lennons spotted location. More footage was taken of the house under construction, the Lennons and Johnston rowing on the lake, and Julian and the neighbor children reading excerpts from Grapefruit on camera and running amok in the fields. Lennonology

Lennonology

Julian Lennon: Tittenhurst was this enormous palace-like place with 99 acres, golf-cart buggies, a lake, a little island in the middle of the lake. It was like a house of fun. It was wonderful. I loved the place.

LINK to a longer version of the quote but in German. Not adding much just both John and Julian sharing a mutual love for Dr. Pepper at the time, playing the mellotron and the children daring each other to enter a 'haunted' building on the property.

It's also at Tittenhurst that Julian meets May Pang, who had started working for John and Yoko as an assistant through ABKCO in NY and had come to England as a messenger to bring film rolls.

"There were a lot of great moments at Tittenhurst that I do fondly remember, you know, giggling and laughing with Dad. And, as they say, shooting the shit. But it was difficult to know, you think, 'OK, well, is this going to stay? Is this what it's going to be, now? Can I count on this? Can I be here next weekend or the weekend after? Is that going to happen?' That was one of the, obviously, the hardest pill to swallow, was the constant change. You know, you thought things were going to settle down, but they just never quite did." Julian, 2018

"I lived an ideal life between then [Cyn and Roberto] and John and Yoko, but it all ended when Cynthia's marriage broke up and Dad and Yoko moved to the States." Julian, 1982

The big cut happens when on August 12th 1971 John and Yoko leave for NY and take up residence in the St. Regis Hotel.

At first their plan was to search for Kyoko, so that she too could come for visits at Tittenhurst like Julian. In September John and Yoko appeared on the Dick Cavett show and briefly talked about their wish that both their children could be with them.

Maybe a Christmas present:

Christie's auction

[In her Lost Weekend doc, May talks about Julian calling and Yoko not allowing her to put the call through to John. She says at that point they hadn't spoken for a couple of years. Then a few weeks later she is in the audience for George Harrison's appearance on Dick Cavett. The show is aired in November '71, so if there is anything to her anecdote she may mean they hadn't seen each other for two months instead of two years.]

26 May '72

"Lennon admits that he is scared to say too much publicly about the case, because it was the initial publicity that had spurred Cox to vanish. He talks about how hard it is for Ono to see pictures of her daughter: I have to hide them. Asked about his own son, Julian, he says: I don't have that 'where the hell is he?' bit. But he reveals that when they were in England, and Julian visited them every weekend, it was difficult for Ono to be with him when her own daughter wasn't there: It was killing her." source

28 May '72

Cynthia quoted in a Sunday paper: "John hasn't seen Julian since he went to America. It is rather a long time. He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now. He does write to Julian, just normal letters, asking how he is getting on at school and things like that. And he sends him presents. He sent him a toy truck at Christmas. I don't keep in touch with John anymore. It's purely through Julian that we keep in contact. Julian loves his father. He follows his career in the newspapers. He goes to a private boys' school where people don't bother who he is. He went to a state school but he had problems there."

14 June '72

Cyn's complaints are repeated in the LA times, where it said that John hadn't seen Julian in eight months. "He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now."

On 22 September '73 John and May leave for LA and only a few days later on 2 October '73 it is reported in the newspaper that Cyn separated from Roberto Bassanini.

Cynthia gave some interviews on her recent separation and the fact that she and Julian moved back to Hoylake, where Julian goes to private school.

"Unhappily Julian misses his father, which is only natural. We only hear from John at Christmas and when the birthdays come around." 7 October '73, Sunday Mirror

"Julian is always asking after him but of course John is in America now. It's been hard for him not seeing John for several years. This sort of thing is naturally upsetting for a child." 7 October '73, Sunday People

According to May's book, while John had broken up with her, she went to the Dakota to be with Yoko. Yoko there told her that she had decided it was time for Julian to come for a visit and May should at least reunite with John for that period to help him with it. May agreed to go back to John for two weeks, but it ends up being more like a year.

Christmas gift '73

To Julian from Daddy Christmas 1973

[Julian has sold an NFT of the black guitar. LINK ]

Shortly after Christmas '73 Julian and Cyn travel to LA to spend his school holidays with his father. They stay at least until the Happy Days taping they visit together on 5 February '74.

During the over a month long visit May writes, that they went to Disneyland three times and had brunch together the first morning. Meanwhile John is still having some wild times. Since Julian is staying with Cynthia, he goes out with May. The Kotex incident and nearly killing Jesse Ed Davis happen at the same time of this visit. May also places Cynthia asking John to have another child together during this trip.

As the visit ends May makes John promise to call Julian regularly.

"It is the right thing to do. I promise you, Fung Yee." He was silent for a while, then John said suddenly, "I really would like to keep in touch with me son." May Pang, Loving John p.168

Julian too, took a lot of positive out of the meetings around this time.

"Mum and I flew out to the States and stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. At least Mum did, I spend every minute of every day with my Dad and Yoko. " Julian, 1982

In later recollections Julian correctly puts the first visit in the time-frame that John was with May.

“Dad and I got on a great deal better than,” recalls Julian. “We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang: Loving John. About this visit and how it was set up.

In April 74 Julian sends a Thank you tape to John and Yoko for his birthday gift. Even though John is with May at this time, the present it seems was sent from the married couple.

The present in question according to Julian was a guitar, decorated with a mirror, writing and other stuff:

John writes to Cyn 22 June '74 a typed letter asking about Julian's holiday plans. Interestingly as the return address he gives the Dakota. He wants to send May to bring Julian.

19/20-25 July 1974 Instead of being collected by May, Julian sails with Elton John, Tony King, and Cyn per boat from Southampton to New York.

[In her book Cynthia wrongly remembers this as her first visit with John in the US. She also claims this visit was completely her initiative, which as proven by the letter wasn't the case. The whole anecdote is interesting however because she says that it was never the plan to stay with Julian, John and May but stay in NY with Jenny Boyd. Jenny apparently wasn't told about that plan, because in the end she wasn't there to home Cynthia. (May on the other hand remembers that Cynthia was staying with friends but they left without her and she was lonely, so she ended up coming with them.) In the end (and to John probably rightly or wrongly suspiciously) what was planned as just a trip for Julian with his dad turned into Cynthia coming along most of the time.]

Cynthia'a account about how this meeting was set-up and why she was with them during the trip.

Tony King in The Tastemaker simply writes: “John Lennon wanted to see his son, so I took Julian and John’s ex-wife Cynthia along with me.”

August 6th '74

John, May, Cyn and Julian return to LA for John to record Goodnight Vienna with Ringo.

In the summer while working on Walls and Bridges Julian visits the studio. He records Ya Ya with his dad.

Little interview bit with Julian about being in the studio.

August 19th, 1974

John and May take a trip to Denver. Instead of coming with them Julian stays with Cyn in LA.

When the whole vacation is coming to a close, it is decided that Julian should come for another visit for Christmas. John is clear that he wants him to come alone.

Both May Pang and Cynthia wrote about this visit in their memoirs. [Cynthia is clearly mixing up and merging the first and second trip together in her recollection of it.]

Cynthia's account.

May's account.

December 19th, 1974

Julian, accompanied by Apple staffer Steve Brendell, arrived in NY on this day for Christmas with John and May. Mimi was also invited but declined to come.

While they were in NY Yoko also came by because she wanted to greet Julian.

John, May and Julian flew to Florida on December 22. Lennon said he accepted Levy's Florida invitation "because I was so worn out anyway" from back-to-back studio projects "that I didn't know what to do with my son Julian." John figured that at Disney World, "I could sort of sit in a room or something and Julian could play with Morris's kid." John's quotes are from his trial testimony Big Seven Music Corp, 75Civ, 1116; In Stan Soocher Baby You're a Rich Man, Suing the Beatles for Fun and Money

Until 29 December they spent time in Palm Beach and later returned to Orlando (Disney World).

During this visit, Julian was helpful in influencing John and George making up and the thus the dissolution agreement of the Beatles coming along.

Julian remembers his Christmas visit with John and May fondly: “My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear - they were the happiest time I can remember with them.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang in Loving John on this visit.

Cynthia writes about this visit in her book.

Video from May Pang's Lost Weekend documentary. [She says Long Island but I guess it's Palm Beach.]

In early February 1975 John moves back into the Dakota and resumes his marriage with Yoko.

John gives an interview to SPIN magazine in early spring 1975. In it he is asked about his private life, his recent return to Yoko, what his relationship with May is like now, and also about Julian:

How about you as a father? How old is your son [Julian] now? He is 11 now. All I know is that you took him to Disneyworld … right? Yeah, that was hell. Disneyland was better, the first time, in L.A., I took him there. Because I went with a gang, and there were a few of us who were flying a little. But Disneyworld — I was there on the most crowded day of the year, around Christmas or something. Seeing him is good. What we do is irrelevant. I went through a period of, “What are we gonna do?” and all that crap. It doesn’t really matter. As long as he’s around. Cause I don’t see him that often. How is it for an 11-year-old boy to have John Lennon as a father? It must be hell. Does he talk about that to you? No, because he is a Beatle fan. I mean, what do you expect?? I think he likes Paul better than me … I have the funny feeling he wishes Paul was his dad. But unfortunately he got me … It must be hard to be son of anybody. He is a bright kid and he’s into music. I didn’t encourage him, but he’s already got a band in school. But they sing rock’n’roll songs, ’cause their teacher is my age. So he teaches them “Long Tall Sally” and a couple of Beatles numbers. He likes Barry White and he likes Gilbert O’ Sullivan. He likes Queen, though I haven’t heard them yet. He turns me on to music. I call him and he says, “Have you heard Queen?” and I say “No, what is it?” I’ve heard of them. I’ve seen the guy … the one who looks like Hitler playing a piano … Sparks? I’ve seen Sparks on American TV. So I call him and say, “Have you seen Sparks? Hitler on the piano?” and he says, “No. They are alright. But have you seen Queen?” and I say “What’s Queen?” and then he tells me. His age group is hipper to music … at 11 I was aware of music, but not too much.

Link to the SPIN interview

March 11th 1975

John is interviewed by Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test. He sends greetings to Julian, Mimi and the rest of his family in England.

30 July 1975

About Julian ... I'm lucky if I see/hear from him myself. She allowed him over here twice last year ... but insisted on coming herself! You can imagine how thrilling that was ... she thought she could walk back in coz I wasn't with yoko!! Now we're back together again she stops him phoning me ... which he did a lot last year ... once a week. He's a bright little boy ... a bit 'sneaky' like his dad ... but he's gonna need that to survive his mother! Our relationship is pretty good --- he knows where I am and what my life is like ... he thinks of me a litlle too much in terms of 'money' etc ... which is what cyn and her mother (so called) have taught him (by example). He will run right to me when he's older ... we all run somewhere ... so I can wait. I got him well hooked on America ... which isan extraordinary place to say the least ... more on that in other letters perhaps. Oh yes the baby is due in November! Conceived feb 6. I tried to send Julia to see julian ... she was given the cold shoulder. When I get to England I'll show you them both. I would love to see yours. Letter to Leila, John Lennon Letters edited by Hunter Davies

After only five months being back with Yoko, communication with Julian has become more sporadic again. To his cousin Leila John complains that it's Cynthia keeping Julian from calling and about her tagging along the previous year. He also claims that he sent Julia to check in on Julian.

Julia Baird in a '83 interview confirms John's claim to Leila, that he hadn't heard from Julian and sent his little sister to check up on him.

"He kept asking in letters and on the phone, 'Please will you go and see Julian? Will you go and see Julian? Will you go see and see Julian? I haven't heard from Julian. His mother's got a cob on. Can you please go and see what's going on?' [...] Anyway eventually Aaron persuaded me that I should go. He was the one that when we got another letter asking, 'Have you been to see Julian yet?', he said, 'Look, he's never asked you to do anything. I think you should go.' [...] We went and John had given us the address, I didn't know where it was. And she seemed very embarrassed to see me. In fact so much so, that I backed off. I just said, 'Is Julian there, please? I'd like to see him.' And she said, 'No, he's gone out.' And I just said, 'Well goodbye, then.' It was very odd, very bizarre."

In her memoir Cyn doesn't mention John sending family to check on them but has an opposing recollection of who was unreachable:

"Initially he did: he phoned Julian as before, every few weeks. But the calls became less frequent, and all too often when Julian tried to phone John he couldn't get through. Yoko, or one of their employees, would tell him that John was sleeping or busy. Discouraged, Julian would wait weeks before trying again. " Cynthia Lennon, John p. 346

1 May '76

Cyn marries John Twist. John and Yoko send a telegram: "Congratulations, good luck, God bless the three of you, John and Yoko.”

According to Cynthia a few weeks later John calls her to invite Julian over for a visit during the school holidays to meet his brother. Yoko and John take the children for a holiday to Long Island. Cynthia also writes that Julian was mugged during his stay in NY, when John told him to go out by himself to buy a harmonica he wanted.

Photos of Julian with John and Yoko in summer 1976.

The only other person I have read mention the '76 visit is John Green in Dakota Days.

As the apartment at the Dakota grew more crowded, John retreated to the quieter and more spacious southern shore of Long Island. He took Sean with him and brought Julian over from Britain. Yoko kept him posted with a barrage of phone calls. "How goes the war, Charles?" he chimed into the receiver. "No casualties so far. How goes the peace?" "Great. It's absolutely beautiful. I've got a bit of sea and a bit of green and my sons, and even once in a while I even have my wife. You should come out here and get some of this. It's delightful." Dakota Days, p.97

[Aside from Cynthia's and Green's brief mentions of the trip, there is very little information on this NY visit. Even Robert Rosen, who supposedly read John's diaries multiple times, has nothing to say about this or the '77 visits. He even claims repeatedly that Julian and John first reunited in 1979 and hadn't seen each other for four years at that point.]

One of Julian's memories that most likely fits this visit:

Julian first played piano when he was thirteen, visiting his father and Yoko in Montauk, Long Island, after Sean, his half brother, was born. Their next-door neighbor had a piano, and Julian and his father went there one day. Lennon played a couple of tunes, then Julian asked, "Can I have a go?" Julian to Rolling Stone, 1985

Another one that Julian doesn't connect to a date but he remembers the new situation after his little brother was born:

[Yoko] was very loving towards me, even after their son Sean was born. Right at the beginning I felt a few pangs. They were there with their own son. Where did I fit in? But every time I went over Dad would lay on amazing treats, and Yoko was always loving towards me." Julian, 1982

In the same interview Julian also tells the story of his dad offering him a joint when he was about 12, so that might have also been the '76 visit, or the '74/'75 Christmas visit.

Cynthia claims she had trouble getting the money she was supposed to use for Julian's school. She asked John to split the trust fund, so that she can withdraw money from it easier. John agreed.

Cynthia publishes the letter in her book John and calls it "cautious, polite and to the point":

"I explained that, as he and Yoko were out of the country, it was impossibly difficult for me to get at Julian's money: 'Nothing can proceed without your signature - it means I'm forever overdrawn at the bank and have to wait on the convenience of your lawyers ... I want the best for Julian, and his standard of life shouldn't suffer because of lack of good management on your part, which has been happening since the fund was set up ... The money, instead of having doubled through good investment, is dwindling through lack of interest on your part ... It's just so important that this whole arrangement is sorted out without animosity or aggravation ... The way things are going Julian's financial prospects when he is 25 will be virtually nil and he is going to want to know why... It is one thing fighting for your rights but totally ridiculous fighting against your own son's interests, which is what seems to be happening.' "

[She says she ends the letter with thanking them for arranging the Concorde flight for Julian last summer. However according to wiki Concorde didn't fly to NYC until November 1977. (That years Christmas John and Yoko do indeed book a Concorde flight for Julian.) So I suspect that her supposed letter is specifically written for her book and not an actual document as the presentation suggests.]

In mid-October Cynthia gives an interview to Woman magazine that also got picked up in multiple newspapers. In it she talks about their relationship splitting after their first LSD trip, John getting upset with Julian when he couldn't eat with a knife, alleges that she was being followed by a private detective in Italy,...

A report on the article in the Burton Daily Mail from 19 October '76 also quotes Cynthia as saying:

"Since then their relationship has been beautiful," she says. "They talk a lot on the phone, there've been other visits and he's going again this year. I believe now that John is completely off all drugs, has been off them for years, otherwise I'd never let Julian go."

[He's going again this year indicates that there was another visit planned in 1976. If that happened or fell through, I haven't found anything about that.]

October 25th, 76

John sends Julian a postcard from Singapore. “What happened to ya?”

Even though the previous few months there was a visit and positive communication about the finances, Cynthia's decision to publicly complain in the papers angered John. He responded on November 26th 1976 with an open letter in the Daily Mail.

"Lennon tells first wife: Stop blaming Yoko," it read: "As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of LSD or Yoko Ono. Your memory is impaired to say the least. Your version of our first LSD trips is rather vague. You seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether. You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko Ono, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence. During that visit you didn't allow me to be alone with him for one moment. You even asked me to remarry you and give you another child 'for Julian's sake.' I politely told you no and that anyway I was still in love with Yoko. Finally, I don't blame you for wanting to get away from your Beatle past, but if you are serious about it you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers. We did have some good years so dwell on them for a change."

Cynthia answers to the press after this, saying she doesn't want them to throw mud at each other and repeated "All I want to do is forget the Beatles and enjoy my present life". Still, only a few months later in 1977 she starts to write A Twist of Lennon (allegedly gleefully on a typewriter Yoko had gifted Julian). In her later memoir John she writes she was persuaded to do it by her husband John Twist who believed it would make their fortune.

Julian is sent to boarding school for that time. [In her book John Cynthia explicitly remembers that she moved to Ireland to write. However newspaper reports from the time suggest that the move happened later. So, probably Julian wasn't boarding at this time but those months in '78.]

At the same time communication between John and Julian was happening regularly and according to his diaries he got excited by the idea of buying Julian a keyboard.

July 14th, 1977

December 25th 1977

Julian comes by Concorde to stay at the Dakota during his school holidays.

[At the time of Julian's visit John and Yoko were still helped by the FBI to deal with the kidnapping threat and extortion attempt that had been going on for weeks and scared them badly. Also, Tony Cox had made contact by phone and agreed that Kyoko could visit for these holidays but then disappeared again and John would never hear again from Kyoko. I don't know if Julian was told any of this but I assume it probably was one of the more tense christmases.]

Going by Giuliano because neither Cynthia nor Robert Rosen mention this trip by Julian at all, John was very excited about Julian coming getting up early and baking bread for him. Julian gets close to Nishi and thereby brings forth John's competitive streak. John tries out the parental philosophy of wanting to spend time with Julian instead of giving him material goods, Julian goes 'oh, really' and John caves in. When he leaves John draws a portrait of Julian. Source

[Since Robert Rosen, who also read the diaries, doesn't even know about the '76 or '77 visits (and Giuliano too thinks they saw each other last at Disney World), they may not be the source for the above. I thought it might have been from Dakota Days but it's not. John Green mentions the '77 Christmas visit but says the family were going to Florida to meet Julian there because of the security threats. I think Green is confusing this and a later visit, so I will insert his account of what John told him on returning there.]

Julian stays most of January. Goes to see the musical The Magic Show with Yoko and the band Riff-Raff with John. 

In February of 1978 Cynthia and her husband sell their house and move away from Ruthin to Eire to avoid a 'wealth tax'. They leave Julian to be a boarder at his school. Cynthia and John Twist return in December, probably because they missed Julian.

April 1978

[It's not actually dated aside from being from 1978, I just assume the guitar was Julian's birthday gift.]

GIBSON Les Paul 25/50 guitar

"Dad gave me this special order rare model - it was always exciting to receive something like this from my dad. When I visited Dad we would sit down together and he would teach me a few chords and help me improve my technique." Julian in Beatles Memorabilia. The Julian Lennon Collection.

May 19th 1978

A conversation with Cyn and excerpts from her memoir A Twist of Lennon are published in News of the World.

John, Yoko and Sean are in Japan for their summer vacation. Through his London lawyers John tries to stop the publication of Cynthia's book as a serial in the News Of The World.

Tuesday, June 13th, 1978 Having been telephoned in Japan with the details of Cynthia's memoir excerpt in News Of The World, John instructed his solicitors to issue a High Court injunction in an effort to prevent the publication of a planned second installment. Frere Cholmeley & Co., Lennon's attorney in London, described the piece as 'a salacious and gribby little article,' although it was qualified with the statement: 'He does not deny that he held parties or took drugs, but he deplores the publication of intimate details of his married life.' Friday, June 16th, 1978 In the case of Lennon v. News Group Newspapers Ltd and Twist, Lord Denning rejected John's application for an injunction in London's High Court today, permitting the publication of more excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon. For his par, Denning was not impresses with John's argument that the article's publication was a breach of confidence of the marriage: 'I cannot see that either of these two parties have had much regard for the sanctity of marriage ... It seems to me as plain as can be that the relationship of these parties has ceases to be their own private affair. They themselves have put it into the public domain.' Sunday, June 18th, 1978 Having successfully defended the right to publish excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon, today's edition of News Of The World featured part two of their series: 'How Yoko stole my husband.' " Lennonology

When the book actually was released feelings turned out to be much softer than expected. Cyn ends her first memoir with the words :

I still feel very proud of the Beatles and their accomplishments. My life during that period was an education, an education I wouldn't have missed. It has left me feeling enriched, not embittered, enlightened not blinded. All I can think to conclude my story is to say, 'Thanks for the memories, and in the words of the I CHING, no blame.'"

After finishing reading his ex-wife's book, according to Robert Rosen, John was relieved and enjoyed the nostalgia. He said a prayer for Cyn: "Dear God, please show her The Way. Thank You. Thank You."

Postcard to Julian:

[I can't make out the date on the card. Julian's Beatles memorabilia book says it's from '71 but that's obviously wrong with Sean being included and Julian's Ruthin address on it. John makes the reference to being a farmer. They bought their farm in February 1978, so I put it that year. May be wrong though.]

March 21st 1979

Julian is supposed to join John, Sean and Yoko's visiting nieces in Palm Beach.

[John taking a photo of Julian in '79]

There are multiple, very different accounts for this visit, that includes Julian's 16th birthday celebration.

John bought Julian a motorcycle for his birthday.

At one point they went to Disney World, (which none of the accounts of the trip even mention), where this photo of Julian and Yoko's nieces was taken:

Accounts from:

Robert Rosen [Rosen writes that Dan Richter's children came for a visit. Correction: I said before that that because Dan wrote in his book that he never saw John again after 1974, it seemes unlikely to me that his kids would be sent out to John and Yoko five years later. However Dan Richter does confirm that in his interview on the Podcast Glass Onion: On John Lennon episode 16:

"My kids would go down, they had a place down in Palm Beach or whatever it was down in Florida. And they were there at Christmas and bring Julian and they would fly my kids down to play with Julian. And everybody, the sense we got was they were happy!"

This visit doesn't happen over Christmas but it sounds like he is talking about more than one occasion that happened and probably Christmas is one example. Could also mean that Rosen is mixing up the occasion for that anecdote.]

Cynthia Lennon

Fred Seaman

Geoffrey Giuliano

John Green [Green puts this actually to the '77 holiday visit, where he wrongly writes they went to Florida. I think (if his stories are to be believed at all) he confuses John's anger and disappointment upon return with this visit of Julian's. It also fits with being in Florida.]

[I recommend to read all of them. Lots of drama. I may one day make a comparison post between all the account because they are fascinatingly different.]

April 9th 1979

John writes to Mimi saying Julian would be welcome to live with them if he so chose but there had been no arrangements made.

Q: Did you ever plan to go and live with him [John] in New York? Julian: "When I was in my early teens we'd spoken on the phone about the possibility of me going to college over there. I think it was wishful thinking on both our parts because I felt uncomfortable about the situation and I believe he did, too." Hello! Magazine, 1995

April 25th 1979, Postcard to Julian from NY:

Julian declines to join his dad, Yoko and Sean for their family's yearly vacation in Japan.

[July 1979 In the context of getting one of his guitars Julian said that John bought him a Sony Walkman as a gift when they were brand-new. He puts around '73-'74. However according to wikipedia the Sony Walkman was first sold in July '79, so that present would have been sent to Julian around this time, maybe directly from Japan.]

December 1979

On 3rd-4th December there is a two part feature in the Daily Mail called "The Sons of the Beatles" on Julian and Zak.

"When I'm in New York, we go out quite a lot together round some of the art galleries, or to his house at Long Island. When we stay in we have musical jam sessions together singing out latest songs to each other. I still listen to Beatles music. Although I quite like some of my father's solo albums, I much prefer what he did with the Beatles." (quoted from Lennonology p. 508)

Also that month:

"More disturbing to John were the ongoing trials with Julian. The sullen teen continued to vex his father with his on-again, off-again plans to visit over Christmas. At first Julian said maybe, as long as they didn't go to Florida. Then it was a flat no, using school exams and a new girlfriend as an excuse. At the last minute he called saying he would come to New York only if he could bring a friend, but Yoko turned him down. As usual John didn't challenge her. Julian retaliated by sending his father a tabloid article about rock stars' sons, which focused on both him and Ringo's son Zak Starkey, and went into detail about the trials of being the offspring of a Beatle." Lennon in America by Giuliano p. 218

On the other hand John Green does write that Julian spent Christmas '79 with John, Yoko and Sean. He even says that Julian stayed until February. ("John stayed in the Palm Beach house until February, luxuriating in the sun and sea, forging new ties with Julian and delighting in rediscoveries of himself." p.229) [This can't be true however because John was definitely in NY for Christmas and New Years. John and Yoko did buy a house in Palm Beach late January however and were spotted there a few times in February. I can't find a mention of Julian being spotted with them, so it may or may not have happened. I do think between the two of them Giuliano's account is probably more accurate. The Daily Mail article he mentions of Zak and Julian had come out on 3 or 4 December, so that is also believable that it had come up in pre-christmas discussions. But of course it's possible that a visit happened anyway.]

1980

Julian called in February 1980 to set up another meeting with his dad. This time John denied him, surprisingly because he was worried about Julian's schooling. Through Cynthia he had learned that Julian was failing his O-levels, had started smoking, staying out at night drinking, had gotten in trouble with the police for setting up fires and racing through town on a dirt bike. "John just prayed that Julian didn't hurt himself." There is also continued conflict over money. John felt that Julian every time they spoke asked him for more money. "And though John continued to feel guilty about having abandoned Julian and Cynthia, he'd be damned if he was going to be like every other rich asshole father who'd abandoned his family and then used money as a poor substitute for love and companionship." source

In March 'A Twist of Lennon' gets its paperback release and new reviews are printed in the press.

Summer 1980

When John sat for a portrait painting with Sean for the artist Nancy Gosnell, he wondered if she could also do one of him and Julian from a photograph. He wanted to give him a father and son portrait for his birthday, according to Fred Seaman.

September 1980

PLAYBOY: "Your son, Julian, from your first marriage must be in his teens. Have you seen him over the years?" LENNON: "Well, Cyn got possession, or whatever you call it. I got rights to see him on his holidays and all that business, and at least there's an open line still going. It's not the best relationship between father and son, but it is there. He's 17 now. Julian and I will have a relationship in the future. Over the years, he's been able to see through the Beatle image and to see through the image that his mother will have given him, subconsciously or consciously. He's interested in girls and autobikes now. I'm just sort of a figure in the sky, but he's obliged to communicate with me, even when he probably doesn't want to." PLAYBOY: "You're being very honest about your feelings toward him to the point of saying that Sean is your first child. Are you concerned about hurting him?" LENNON: "I'm not going to lie to Julian. Ninety percent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, were born out of a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night, and there was no intent to have children. So 90 percent of us... that includes everybody... were accidents. I don't know anybody who was a planned child. All of us were Saturday-night specials. Julian is in the majority, along with me and everybody else. Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me and he always will."

Playboy: I was under the impression that you still weren't seeing Julian much. Lennon: Well, no, he's comin' here over shortly now. I see him whenever he get's off school. Playboy: Has it been hard for him to be John Lennon's kid? Lennon: Yeah, he has his own... Everybody has a cross to bear, and Julian has that cross, and he'll deal with it. He's a clever boy, and as he gets older we can communicate and he'll understand.

[I wasn't sure what upcoming visit John is referring to since I couldn't find one mentioned anywhere. However there is an article in the Daily Mirror from 8 October 1980 including interview passages with Cynthia that mentions Julian currently being in New York. So without any photographic evidence, he isn't in any of the birthday photos, or anecdotes about it, there still might be the possibility that there was a (pre-)birthday visit from Julian to John and Sean in 1980. Julian himself hasn't been completely consistent on when he last saw his Dad. He has said that his '79 birthday visit was their last meeting (which I think is most likely correct), but he also claimed that he was flying out regularly.]

"According to Cynthia, Julian, now 18, plays guitar better than his father. He has left school and is off to New York to stay with his famous dad." Link to the article

In an interview with Jonathan Cott on 5 December John reflects more on the troubles of being a Beatle's son and on how mistakes in his decision for Julian's schooling changed his outlook on his plans for Sean. [Julian had been going to private school since at least 1973.]

"[...] because he can't possibly be an average child, being the son of famous parents. I tried that game with my son Julian, sending him to a comprehensive working-class school, mixing with the people, but the people spat and shit on him, because he was famous, as people are wont to do. So his mother had to finally turn around and tell me to piss off: 'I'm sending him to a private school, the kid is suffering here.' "

Cynthia writes that by the end of 1980 Julian felt a breakthrough in his and his father's relationship. John played Julian songs from his new album over the phone, asking his opinions. source

Julian himself reflects on his and his dad's relationship by the time of his death like this:

"I know that dad's presence will be around for a long time. He was always joking, always sounded happy, which made me think more of him as a friend than a dad. My earliest memory of my father was when I was about three and he sang happy birthday to me. We were living at Weybridge, Surrey, and dad threw a birthday party for me and brought in a long cake shaped like a train and festooned with candles." Sunday Mirror, 5 April 1981

As early as 1982 negative feelings would influence Julian's memory, saying he didn't get to see his father for five years, that he only heard on Birthdays and Christmas from him or that after the first US visit it was again years before he got to go another time, when it was merely months.

"The Beatles sang 'All You Need Is Love' - and that is all I wanted from Dad. It is difficult to explain why I should feel so strongly, when we shared so little. Never once in all the years he lived in America did he even think about coming to see me. Apart from rare visits, I lived from birthdays to Christmas just to hear from him." Julian, 1982

[Those false memories/presentations may have been the result of his beginning break from Yoko around that time and the conflicts about money, or maybe his memories just adapted to the way it was talked about in his family.]

"It was more of one man to another than the usual father and son relationship, because he had been away from me a lot, and he said he realized that. I was just getting through to him and growing up myself and growing out of the silly giggling I did as a young teenager that really annoyed him, when Dad was killed." Julian quoted in Ray Coleman's John bio, pp.620

"Dad was such an influence in my life, it must have been hard on Mum. She'd do her best with presents at birthdays and Christmas, but I always waited for that special present that was bigger than anything else - from him. Yet he never sent anything spontaneously. He'd phone up and ask what I wanted, and it would arrive. I don't think he was trying to buy me in any way. It was just a chance for him to do something for me. He knew I wanted to be a musician and kept telling me to take a long time to get it right. He removed a lot of the stress I suppose other kids might feel. I didn't do very well at school. I don't think I'm dense, but I suppose I'm a bit lazy. There's only one thing I want - to know for sure that Dad loved me as much as I loved him. Or maybe to have him back." Julian, 1982

Edits: 29 April - December 1974 John trial quote added; September 1980 Playboy interview quote added 6 May - added Julian quote about relationship to his father by the time of his death 7 May - added Old Grey Whistle Test clip March 11th 1975 18 May - added info about 3-4 December '79 Daily Mail feature on Julian and Zak, added all the info I could find on any visits in John Green's Dakota Days and multiple notes on to those mentions. 20 May - added Cyn's quote for 28 May 1972. 23 June - added the Tittenhurst floorplan and the link to an extended quote from Julian about being there in German 8 July - added quote from 5 Dec 1980 to Jonathan Cott 20 July - added Julia Baird audio on trying to see Julian for John 1975 22 July - added info on a possible 1980 visit, 1973 interviews, 1976 info, 1980's quote 30 July - Spin interview '75 added, Cynthia quote from Burton Daily Mail '76 added 1 August - added bits from Julian's 1982 article throughout, transcribed some of the jpg quotes, so that I may add more photos, some photos added 4 August - correction in my comments about the likelihood of Dan Richter's children being with them in 1979 19 August - Box of Smile 8 October - Added some postcards, the guitars, reset some photographs because of the picture limit 12 November - Added the video clip from May Pang's doc

[legobiwan]

34. “ Are you testing me? “

With Dimentio and Mr.L

Not 100% happy with this one, but I'm trying to bang these out!

Also, what it tense consistency, I never knew her hahahahaha

I do so love Dimentio, though.

SPM, takes place pre-Whoa Zone.

~~~~~~~~

He needs to know who he’s working with. 

He needs to know what he’s working against. 

The enemy is the hero, at least on paper. The one in red and his band of misfit friends, more story than person, a man tireless in his quest to collect the so-called Pure Hearts and forestall a future already foretold in the Dark Prognosticus.

He’d meet them soon enough.

~~~~~

Perfect worlds. That was the prize for serving the Count’s destructive whims.

Quite the incentive. Who wouldn’t want a reality to shape for themselves, to create an existence tailor-made for one’s own hopes, wants, and dreams?

The thing was, L thought, securing an instrument panel cover with a hard twist of his wrench. 

The thing was, deals too good to be true were usually too good for a reason. (He knew this from experience. What experience exactly, he couldn’t quite articulate, the majority of his memories still floating around his brain like soggy cereal bits, misshapen and bloated past all recognition).

Perfect worlds didn’t manifest from nothing.

It was a law. The first law, in fact.

He must have missed something in translation. Again. This whole dimension, it seemed, communicated in metaphor, in meanings and symbolism that everyone could parse but him. 

And maybe Bleck’s “perfect worlds” were just that. An ideal to strive after, a motivation, an existence excised of bad actors who threatened the fabrics of reality.

Or maybe he had landed himself in a cult.

It didn’t matter. Not really. There was a job to do, and he would do it. 

He pulled on one of two large red levers, initiating a set of thrusters on their lowest setting. The reaction time was good, better than good.

But it wasn’t enough. 

He might have to switch to a hypergolic bipropellant. It would be longer-lasting and eliminate the need for an ignition source. But it also would eat through its storage container faster, would heighten the risk of an all-systems implosion, if the engagement got protracted out in the field.

L wasn’t planning on letting the “hero” last more than five minutes forget fifty.

It would be fine.

There had to be more to Bleck’s offer. The stick to the carrot he hung over all their heads. People didn’t just hand out perfect realities, metaphorical or not. Same as they wouldn’t give away a bridge or even a mansion without some reason.

The real question was where the other shoe was hiding. 

And when it was going to drop.

~~~~~~

He decides to start with O’Chunks. 

In truth, he tried to start with Nastasia, but had received a stony refusal in response to the lightest of entreaties. Unsurprising, but a disappointment. She, along with the other one, had the most to plumb, to pick apart and piece back together. 

Despite this, he had been able to gather some tidbits here and there. How her methods of persuasion were more about rearranging the furniture of the mind, of optimizing rather than overwriting. (After all, why should you keep the pans in the lower cupboard, if someone taller did the lion's share of the cooking?)

Maybe that wasn't the best explanation.

He thinks of the other analogy he had concocted, that of an audio engineer standing over a mixing board, Nastasia looming over some piece of equipment with large headphones over her perfectly coiffed hair. Lower inhibition. Fade memory. Add distortion to schemas.

The important thing was that it wasn't magic. Not really. Nastasia's brainwashing abilities, as the others so gleefully called it, was just another path for science to manifest, an evolutionary quirk of biology that allowed someone to tamper with neurology from across a crowded room. 

Odd, yes, but ultimately understandable. Something he could wrap his head around and fit into the neat schematics he had started to draw out for this world.

~~~~~

L was a curious man. He knew that much about himself. 

He wasn’t curious enough to approach the Count.

~~~~~

Of all of them, O’Chunks had provided the least amount of useful information. A typical enforcer-type, his preternatural levels of strength combined with a literal combustion engine of a stomach, the latter of which probably merited some form of investigation, if not for the fact its byproduct was a vile organic concoction that treaded just above the definition of “biological weapon.”

His arms, however, were a point of interest. Not for the heavy-packed layers of muscle (anyone could cultivate that, with enough work and steroids), but rather the way his upper limbs lacked visible continuity, flesh presenting in accordion-like chunks that stretched from bulky shoulders to large, gloved hands.

“There are weapons,” O’Chunks had said in his usual grumbling lilt, gazing at some distant point on the violent black-and-violet horizon. “That can deal far worse damage than etching a wee pretty picture on your skin.”

L would like to see those weapons some day, but he doesn’t push for more information. He still needs these people on his side. 

For now.

~~~~~

Unlike O’Chunks and Nastasia, Mimi is more than happy to show off her shapeshifting abilities, morphing between bodies like a caffeine-poisoned chameleon. It’s weird to be faced with himself. Not the flat, mirror image he's already familiar with, but a true three-dimensional replication, one that breathes and moves just as he would - or at least as he thinks he would. 

He (the other he that’s him and damn if that’s not confusing as all get-out) looks tired, dark circles digging under bright, intelligent blue eyes. If Mimi’s copy is accurate, it means he hasn’t shaved in a few days, although he has no recollection of that amount of time passing. L rubs at his mouth. The bit of stubble forming around his chin and cheeks does nothing to add years to his youthful appearance. He wonders if a mask might help to obscure his age, or at least minimize the fatigue that seems baked into his features. 

If nothing else, he could look menacing, less mad scientist and more like those bad guys in movies set in the Old West. (The Old West of what, he asks himself, shaking the thought away). 

He asks if she can shift into someone else based on a description or a drawing. Mimi shrugs, flitting through a series of outfits before landing on a bright fuchsia dress with ruby-red bowties on either shoulder. “Maybe,” she says, rearranging her two green pigtails, tying them off with matching ribbons. “But I’ve never really tried. I think I'd have to see the person for a proper shift. And you know, I don’t get their abilities or anything, just the looks.” She gives a high, piercing laugh. “Could you imagine? That’d be so gross.”

So gross and so powerful. But she’s right. If Mimi had been able to inherit the abilities of the people she shifted into, she would be the one calling the shots right now, not Count Bleck. L takes a moment to be grateful for that fact. As surly and unapproachable as the Count is, he seems to know what he is doing, even if L is certain he hasn’t shared even half of his plan with his subordinates. A world, or part of a world, ruled by Bleck might not be so bad, at least in comparison to Mimi, who would probably try to bury continents in glitter only to demand an army of hot boyfriends on day two.

L shrugs off visions of muscled, tight-shirted men carrying Mimi on a palanquin through a rainbow-colored apocalypse. He considers asking her to shift into the hero, the man in red he knows she’s already faced, and that he’ll be facing (and beating) soon. 

Something stops him.

He tells himself he doesn’t want to ruin the surprise. 

~~~~~

“But what if you were stripped of your magic? If you had to rely on physical combat alone?”

Dimentio’s mask splits into an uneven smile. 

“Are you testing me, my cantankerous friend?”

He's put off this conversation for days. 

A good scientist explores all avenues, he had told himself, building up the resolve to go through with his plan.

It was an essential step. Was maybe the keystone to understanding what was going on around him. 

Unfortunately, it meant being one-on-one with a man (if he was a man at all) who more often than not regarded L like he was a prime cut of meat about to be served on a cheap plastic lunch tray.

It was unnerving. 

And completely bewildering.

Obviously, I’m testing you, asshole, L frowns, throwing his arms across his chest. “Let’s just say as a hypothetical that some day," a day which I hope will never come, "we have to combine forces. I want to know what I’m getting into.”

Dimentio crosses his legs, allowing himself to float upwards. 

“Combine forces?” The jester takes his chin in his hand, rictus etched into his dual-colored mask. “What a delightful turn of phrase! Such a sculptor of language you are, Mr. L.”

L rolls his eyes with a violent moan. This was why he hated conversations with the jester.

“Just answer the question, Dimentio! If your magic gets taken out by this so-called hero, am I going to be on my own here?” 

So far, all he had been able to glean from his annoying co-worker was that he had terrible suggestions for robotic weaponry (magic missiles? really?) and an aversion to standing on the ground so severe that - if it had been anyone else but Dimentio - he might have called it a phobia. 

He breaks every law of physics with a smile and snap of his fingers. 

The others, he could figure out, could create some kind of link to reality that matched with his understanding of how the universe worked, of the rules and laws that governed the physical realm. Sure, maybe it all sat on the far boundaries of what was possible, but the fact remained that it was possible, that he could justify the existence of this reality and these people within it by expanding his understanding by a few hundred-thousand square meters.

Dimentio existed wholly outside his paradigm.

“If my magic is taken out,” Dimentio echoes, biting on the tip of a gloved finger in an obviously affected pose. “What a catastrophe that would be! Like an asteroid whose path is fixed on a four-footed, doomed civilization.”

“What are you talking about, Dimentio?”

In one smooth movement, the jester comes to land near his feet, the bells dangling from his motley headdress giving a dull tinkle as he curls his hand around L’s shoulder.

“For my magic to be nullified,” Dimentio whispers, the words shimmering with a dangerous edge, “it would require quite the cataclysmic event.”

L wills himself to not pull away from Dimentio’s creeping grasp. “What kind of cataclysmic event?”

The jester stares at him, his mask devoid of any writ emotion, yellow and black twin crescents peering into him with an unquestionable, nearly palpable intensity. A moment later, his sharp fingers dig even further into L’s shoulder, voice lowering to the edge of audibility. “You know what they say about curiosity, Mr. L.”

“Yeah, I do,” L growls, ripping himself from Dimentio’s claw-like grasp. “It killed the cat. But what they don’t like to tell you is that satisfaction brought it back.”

“Oh, Mr. L!” Dimentio cackles, a loud, jagged sound like two knives being dragged over a ceramic plate.  The jester makes a backwards somersault in the air before wiping an invisible tear from his yellowed eye. “You truly are the right man for this job. Fortune has smiled wide upon us with your arrival.”

L tugs at his shirt, trying to wipe away for cloying feeling of Dimentio's touch. This conversation is going nowhere. He should have known the creepy jester was just going to waste his time. L ignores the still-giggling figure, heading towards the door. “Next time you don’t have your magic, don’t come running to me for help.”

“Au contraire, my friend," Dimentio sits up, eyes bright. "I imagine if I don’t have my magic, you would be the first I would call on for help.”

L pauses, his hand hovering above an geometric-engraved ebony doorknob.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The only response he receives is a wide grin.

“What are you, Dimentio?” L asks after a moment, the question bubbling past his lips in a low, urgent hiss.

Dimentio floats towards him, head tilted. “The better question is what are you, my dear? And what will you become when satisfaction brings you back?”

“I…” L stutters, edging towards the door, hands groping for the knob. Abstract images fly across the canvas of his mind, too fast grab onto, a whirlwind of muted tones and undefinable emotion.

“Mr. L!” a high voice commands from the other side of the room. L gasps, peering around Dimentio's looming form, his heart beating a trail up his throat. It's Nastasia. Clipboard in hand, her pen tapping an impatient rhythm, the Count's second-in-command frowning at the scene laid out before her. 

“It’s time, Mr. L,” she says simply.

Dimentio floats to the side, allowing L a path of egress. “Do enjoy your little reunion, Mr. L," he says, words soft enough only he and L can hear. "I hope it may prove fruitful. And do give the hero my most sincere regards.”

L shivers, slipping past the jester, giving one more look over his shoulder as Dimentio reclines, hands joined together behind his head, one leg crossed over the other like he's enjoying a day at the beach. 

It's nothing. He’ll unravel Dimentio’s game later on, will get to the bottom of Bleck's true intentions, will piece together this world and his place in it.

But for now, he has a hero to destroy.

[vaguely-concerned]

I’m on a Star Wars books roll so here we go with my — unhinged thanks for asking! — thoughts on Dooku: Jedi Lost, specifically the audio play. Short version: I fucking loved this one! For maximum emotional devastation, pair with Master and Apprentice and Padawan the way my stupid ass did and then be sad about it forever I guess that's what I’m going to have to do.

 Long (LONG oopsie) version:

- So. First of all, let’s get the most important thing out of the way on this here old man yaoi website. We all agree dooku and sifo dyas explored each other’s bodies right. Or at least definitely would have if not for the laws of this order etc., potentially. That’s not just me. Good. Thank you. We can now move on 

- Secondly. Well. Guess I’m just going to be inconsolable about Sifo-Dyas forever now. I miss the days in which he was just a throwaway line in AotC spawned by a random misspelling to me, rather than an eternal raw aching wound in my heart

- poor poor ventress just reading through all the proof that dooku absolutely does have it in him to be a good dad I mean master and just — idk got tired of that and went the force lightning route with her. I love the move of having her dead master hang out with her all that time as well (having her slip up and refer to ‘us’ did something to me, god this is so sad. Is he actually there in spirit or is it just her grief dreaming him up because dooku is awful and cold as a cliff  wall and she needs some kind of attachment figure even if she’ll have to reinvent him herself, rebuild him word for word, gesture by gesture. Pain. sorry about your terrible track record with father figures asajj) 

- Lene: (About Averross): He hasn’t changed. 

Dooku: (In the warmest fondest voice you ever heard) And I hope he never does

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF? MUST I SET MYSELF ON FIRE TO ESCAPE THE PAIN???

Another strong showing for Rael in general, btw. He’s so warm and charming as a presence even though he’s also a little chaos gremlin. (He’s quite similar to how Sifo-Dyas was when he was young in some ways, I can definitely start to see what Dooku responds warmly to in terms of character traits.) 

- the fact that good ol’ sheev showed an interest in rael, dooku and anakin… interesting huh! He’s just got a soft spot for the disaster lineage I suppose, maybe there’s an element there of luring yoda’s most direct lineage into the dirt with him without yoda even noticing for the longest time. Also cackling at the idea that he looked at qui-gon ‘too fucking stubborn and insufferable to fall to the dark side out of sheer spite’ jinn and went ‘...not that one tho’ fhdskjfa. And obi-wan is more like ‘that one blorbo all my little guys seem wild about but I just don’t get it guys’ 

IF rael’s refusal to join dooku at the end of ‘master and apprentice’ is the last word (which I am not convinced of ;___; be safe cowboy jedi we never see in mainline canon so far), then he’s the only one who has dodged palpatine’s attentions. Wonderful if true love that for him

ALSO rael is one of the few people we know to be on (or at least to consider himself on despite what palps might think lol) first name basis with palpatine. Hilarious. I concur with dooku never change rael 

- Sifo-Dyas: That’s insane. 

Dooku, deadpan: Yes.

Sifo-Dyas: The worst plan I’ve ever heard.

Dooku, somehow even more deadpan: Most probably. 

Sifo-Dyas: I’m in. 

Crying… weeping and dying………… what if someone could have helped sifo with his unfortunate prophecy propensity and they hadn’t drifted apart. Clone Wars averted methinks if dooku still ended up leaving the order he would have been too busy having tender gay sex with the love of his life (and only person who can call him out on his shit and have him actually listen) to be a war criminal (I am being extremely facetious of course this is very much a ‘time traveler killing baby hitler’ situation where the underlying forces causing this point in history are way too powerful to avert the catastrophe in one move. but at least palps would probably have had to pick someone else to wreck the galaxy through and sifo-dyas would be kissed & held instead of going slowly mad. A net plus some (I, me) would say) 

- I just wanted to applaud both the writing and the voice acting for the characterization of Dooku in this, from his young self trying so hard to be haughty and self-possessed but also being like, y’know, twelve and a dweeb and easy for Sifo-Dyas to pull into trouble, to the dry wit and warmth he shows with Rael and Qui-Gon or his sister later. It took me a little while to get into the voice acting specifically (the actor makes no attempt at going the full Christopher Lee, which in hindsight was probably wise), but now I love it. It gets a bit goofy in places but you know what, I am a long time lover of audio plays, that’s part of the charm 

- “Master, have I done something wrong?”

My heart is clenching… do you think… that master yoda’s deal with leaving his student to try fucking everything to have some kind of relationship with him until he just breaks down in tears of despair… is the kind of thing that maybe started a little bit of a generational trauma cartwheel through the ages. The point that bb!dooku is arrogant isn’t without merit and he strikes out incredibly ungracefully about it (in fact I would be a lot more worried than yoda seems to be that he decides to try to kill a tree about it, ‘I felt like destroying something beautiful’-style)  but I just don’t think a… fourteen year old? A teen anyway, Is going to learn what you think he learns from this. I simply don’t believe that silent treatmenting kids will teach them emotional intelligence I guess especially if they already struggle with that naturally lol 

(It is exactly the same mistake (in my opinion) that Qui-Gon makes with Obi-Wan, too, just leaving the kid completely alone and forcing them to come to you every which way for comfort or guidance instead of meeting them or reaching out to them. Especially once you see that really Dooku’s prime emotion/big core wound right from the beginning is loneliness. And that doesn’t only come from a feeling of superiority (which to be sure is also a big factor), because he has no idea where he comes from until he meets his sister. I don’t think the jedi as a whole were unsalvageable by any stretch of the imagination, but Yoda specifically… you are on such very thin ice with me at this point you little green fuck. You’re very funny and moving in yoda dark rendezvous and that’s all that’s keeping you in my somewhat good graces.)

- Okay, coming back a bit later I think I’ve found the right words to say this. more precisely dooku has two big issues which you can later see haunting all the way down his lineage — loneliness and control. (and not incidentally the intersecting elements of the two haha.) We see from his relationship to sifo-dyas that he’s not incapable of having close mutual relationships with an equal, but that kind of crashed and burned for reasons neither of them could really help and after that it seems quite telling that he has the easiest time with deeper connection in a teacher-student sort of form. I think his affection is unconditional and real, but you can’t get away from the fact that he also has the most control in that relationship structure by default, he gets to dictate what form it takes to a big extent. He doesn’t trust other people — the underlying idea ‘Only I can do this’ that eventually leads him down the Separatist path is there the whole way. It speaks both to a sense of superiority and an utter lack of faith that other people can or will help him. And then that echoes down through the master-padawan line: 

Qui-Gon with his self-righteousness and utter refusal to compromise leaving him isolated among the jedi (only he is right. Yeah the Force told him so. Don’t worry I’ve got a permit *insert parks and rec I can do whatever I want meme here*), Obi-Wan with his anxiety and perfectionism and incredible sense of shame and responsibility that he should be able to carry the whole world on his shoulders alone and beating himself up for failing, all feeding into not knowing what to do with Anakin and his complete lack of control of himself and his desperation to gain and maintain connection and love (which earns him the title of ‘Dooku’s least favorite family member’ fhdsa his immediate disdain for him is so funny and so in character. Repress and go slowly mad like a normal person anakin the way you’re carrying on is just undignified and that is much worse than being evil)… 

- Rael gently telling Dooku to take on another padawan soon… so sweet, so sad, local cowboy jedi looking out for his dad. Also highlights something about Dooku I think is true: that he does much better and seems to have an easier time holding to the light when he’s responsible for someone else. Again, I do feel like Dooku’s core problem is loneliness, but it seems like raising kids is the one point where that relaxes somewhat. Maybe if Sifo-Dyas had stayed in a better mental place and they kept in touch it could have been different.

- Lene Kostana is SUCH a character! Charismatic and deeply fucked up, when it’s revealed how her and Sifo-Dyas’ relationship remains long after his padawan stage is done I felt a little bit sick, to my surprise. Because that could just be kindness on her part, of course, it’s good that he has someone he trusts to look after him when he can’t himself, but also there’s something… queasy about the way it keeps him continually young, in a way. (Notably he still calls her ‘master’ even as an adult, when they’re working together. Not uncommon in Star Wars, of course, but together with everything else going on vibes-wise… hm.) The inherent unreliable narration of this story really worked for me in this regard especially — do we know that young Dooku was entirely wrong when he sensed the dark side in her? She certainly is willing to go to lengths that are… worrying! in her fascination with sith shit, she tempted children into a dangerous place they didn’t understand and couldn’t know the consequences of and she continually puts sifo-dyas in situations that are implied to be a risk to worsening his condition. Run of the mill incredibly irresponsible at best, sincerely sinister at worst. Did she choose Sifo over Dooku because he’s more vulnerable and shapeable? There is an undercurrent of something icky and emotionally incest-y going on with how she relates to Dooku and Sifo-Dyas in general (right down to the ‘NO, no one can know about this’ intensity after the… evil moss cave. I can’t believe I’m this emotional about a book with an evil moss cave). I don’t think she’s a proper sith in any way and I also believe there is real affection there on all sides, but idk something about the whole thing makes me deeply uneasy. Yoda where the fuck are you your son is out there with his irresponsible mom again they’re looking for dirty needles in haystacks and they’re not even wearing any gloves

- dooku telling sifo-dyas he can come back to haunt him if he likes as a joke… well well well I’m sure that doesn’t ring with some dramatic irony at some point down the line lmao

- honestly looking back at master and apprentice after reading jedi lost makes qui-gon's apparent lack of reaction to dooku leaving seem — let's call it highly suspect haha. rael asks him if he's spoken to dooku after and qui-gon is like 'no. why would I. it's literally fine. anyway this topic is done now'. (and rael seems to just go ‘*older brotherly knowing* uh-huh’) meanwhile he's thinking about dooku *all the time* trying to figure out his role as master to obi-wan, thinking about being a padawan himself, the parts of his life he shared with both dooku and rael. The jedi doth protest too much methinks  

ALSO how much of qui-gon thinking the council was too lenient with rael after he had to kill his padawan is about that actual situation, and how much is a ‘our family still likes my older brother more than me even though he Fucked Up so bad and breaks just as many rules as I do’ sort of deal mixed with his own neuroses about how he’s failing obi-wan (to which rael’s situation symbolizes the worst possible outcome, i.e. the kid dies and it’s basically your fault). Many thoughts. 

- moment of silence for jenza of house serenno. Girl your only sin was being surrounded by asshole male family members and I’m so sorry I think you did all you could with what you had to work with here.

Not… entirely sure how dooku’s claim to the title supersedes hers — is he a year older than her? (she’s eleven when they first meet, he might be twelve or older at that point I don’t remember haha) Does she just give up her place in the inheritance order? Are primogeniture and male heir preference factors in Serenno inheritance law? Not the most important thing honestly it works anyway thematically but could have been clarified quickly!

- interesting to see that the council’s restrictive policy against engaging with prophecies had a surprisingly big impact on how things went down. Kostana has a lot of responsibility in Sifo’s fate for insisting he keep it secret, but there is genuine fear for what might become of him if the rest of the order finds out he’s got 24/7 futurevision hovering over him threateningly… listen it’s not like the poor guy can help getting the future constantly pumped into his brain at nightmare resolutions, I think maybe if there had been more willingness to at least engage curiously with the concept of prophecy and how it works, even if you don’t put your faith in the particulars of what the prophecies say, this wouldn’t have had to be such a shitty isolated secretive life for him. hearing him slowly fall apart over the years considering how bright and lovely he started out... oof is all I can say 

- when dooku was a good jedi he was such a good jedi!!! The scene where they’re saving the kids from the collapsing hospital, every time he teaches his students anything…the impulse of someone has to do something about this! that made him so good at saving lives turning dark with the tarnish of frustration and rage over the years… nooooooooo problematic grandpa why did it have to be like this :(

- …do you think infant jedi can sense what’s going on around them in the Force. Because it makes a very sad kind of sense if dooku on some level remembers bodily or in the Force that he was not only abandoned but rejected in disgust as one of the first things he discovered in the world. Oh boy. With all the ways attachment relationships can go wonky in the first few years in real life I don’t even want to consider how much more wrong it can go when the baby is fucking psychic lol

- vaguely related: the way dooku seems to find the very idea of being truly reliant on anyone, emotionally or otherwise, personally offensive, terrifying and humiliating lol. Yoda saves him from being crushed by rubble and he is outraged because that means he can’t save himself (and his newfound sister) without anyone’s help like he thought for one glorious moment he could. The fantasy of perfect emotional self-sufficiency, doing away with all the messiness and risk of interpersonal relationships and cutting off the possibility of really being abandoned again. It’ll get ya every time. This is also a thing you see reflected in his lineage — they’re all quite inward-turning that way until you get to anakin, to different extents and with varying presentations but it is there I think. Qui-Gon turns to the Force, Obi-Wan to perfectionism and shame and rumination, Rael to the bottle and depression and hedonistic apathy, but they all struggle hugely with letting anyone in to help them. Dooku’s line are all much more comfortable being the helpers rather than the helpees, as it were.  

- “Thank you for everything, Lene. Tell Rael and Qui-Gon — tell them… tell them the Force will be with them, always”

Emotional terrorism against me specifically and personally. You asshole you just excused yourself from the non-attachment rules there’s literally nothing in the world except you to stop you from reaching out and telling your children you love them yOURSELF why are you like this

- the recurring theme of dooku seeing something beautiful (the tree in the temple, the tirra’taka as a child and an adult) and ending up lashing out to destroy it… but the tree was old and mighty and he was young and new and couldn’t truly harm it, so he was saved from his own impulsivity. And then when he sees the tirra’taka as an adult he loves it immediately. And in the end he still mangles and destroys it. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He woke it up and hurt it just by existing as a child and then he had to kill it as a mercy because he was too powerful at that point for anything to buffer his mistakes. The parallel with the bird he loved that he also couldn’t protect. He starts out with an aching loneliness somewhere at the core of him through no real fault of his own but by the end it is entirely his own fault that it’s worse, because he starts wrecking everything he loves in an almost absent-minded but definitely intentional way, like it’s a nightmare he’s listening to through the door as it happens in the next room over. He really IS the ‘I just felt like destroying something beautiful’ central of the jedi.

at the end qui-gon is dead and through dooku’s own influence, however indirectly. Rael has had to turn away from him. Sifo-Dyas is dead on Dooku’s own orders and so is his sister, he might as well have done it with his own hands. (though I think it’s very interesting that in each case he didn’t do it with his own hands, he consistently uses a middleman.) He lives within the coldness of his sterile empty castle and horrifically mistreats the one person he might have found something like connection with the way he did with his students before (Ventress), deliberately trapping her in a similar state of utter desolate isolation and telling her, essentially, ‘We’re like this as people and nothing can be done to change it. We can’t escape, we’re already doomed, stop trying, it’s too late. You are just like me (and if you aren't already I'll make you like me)’. And that’s the closest thing he gets to love anymore. When he accused Ky of using her ‘as a salve for his own loneliness’ and you’re like well well well mr projection man how’s that working out for you. He is completely, shatteringly alone and he is so entirely as a consequence of his own actions and he's too far gone to understand or care. I’m howling you useless fucking FOOL dooku  

- dooku 🤝 john gaius

“Hm. I have observed that there are in fact many flaws in our society and the government is deeply corrupt. So if I kill a few billion people here and there in order to fix it, is that not basically okay when you really think about it” 

Dooku making salient points about the political and ethical failures of the Republic and then, just when you think he’s onto something, he goes and makes The wildest fucking decisions about what to do about it. Sure. dark magic and genocide are probably the only ways out of this you’re so right bro. If we make enough minuses to add together surely we’ll end up in plus sooner or later

- *head in my hands once more* I can’t believe I am genuinely emotionally invested in someone called Count Dooku with the looks of a knockoff dracula and ultimate moral character to match right now this is terrible. hey. hey dooks. what you have to go and fuck everything up so bad for huh I’m so incredibly sad now

there is something to be said about how getting to see glimpses of what dooku looked like in the light makes it so much more heartwrenching that he never came back. he could have, a thousand times. and every time he chose not to.

[accio-victuuri]

Song Shuai, the actor of "Huang Congyun" in WoF was a guest on a podcast and mentioned Wang Yibo:

👩: Most of them are with Wang Yang laoshi and Wang Yibo? Well, it’s just you. From Song Shuai’s point of view, how did you start as a newcomer at the beginning and then gradually get harmonious with everyone?

SS: I was actually quite nervous at the time, but I first got acquainted with Yibo when we were reading the script together. When we were reading the script, I felt like he wasn’t that difficult to get along with. He also seemed to be like all of us. We are all the same and he is very professional and very hard-working. The biggest feeling he gave me is that people who are better than you work harder than you.

👩: Then where is his effort specifically reflected?

SS: He has also done a lot of work for his role, including what I said just now. His lines are very well prepared. He will even prepare the lines for his co-actor’s scenes. because he has a lot of martial arts moves, he will specially learn those martial arts moves.

👩: So you two were the one who broke the ice

SS: When it comes to breaking the ice, I think it’s because after getting to know Wang Yang laoshi, the three of us feel more like children, like little boys. Wang Yang laoshi is like that kind of child, one big boy leading the others. It feels so good to play with little boys.

👩: What will you play then?

SS: We often talk about some American or foreign dramas, and then when we have nothing to do on the set, we imitate. I remember there seems to be one of the clips where the three of us imitate the cowboy together. What the three of us do the most is talk about some dramas. Then we talked about which part of the body we have been training recently and we all like fitness.

👩: You three, so after filming the scene in the Central Bank, for example, when filming other scenes, can you be a little more indulgent?

SS: When it comes to eating, we basically never indulge.

👩: Is it only the chubby guy Wang Shanbin who can do it?

SS: And especially Wang Yang laoshi and Yibo, they both attach great importance to body management. I think they are very harsh on themselves.

video/audio source

[shredsandpatches]

The Devil Has All the Best Tunes: Ranking the Mephistopheles Arias

Since getting myself properly acquainted with Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, I've been thinking about how much the character of Mephistopheles brings out the best in opera composers, although that's only fitting, since he also did for Goethe. And the idea of this listicle suggested itself to me pretty quickly as something to think about while I was having a slow day at work on Friday. Thus! My completely idiosyncratic ranking of the eight arias sung by Mephistopheles over the three classic Faust operas:

La Damnation de Faust (1846), Hector Berlioz

Faust (1859, later revised), Charles Gounod

Mefistofele (1868/75), Arrigo Boito

All three operas are considered in their best-known forms—like, I know there's a recent recording of the 1859 version of Faust but I haven't heard it and it doesn't even have "Le veau d'or." I'm also not rating the specific performances I used for the audio/video illustrations—all of these are of course extremely well-represented in recordings and have many, many, many versions on Youtube (the playlist I made while prepping this post has like 56 and it's only a small fraction of them all). I just picked ones that a) I like and b) allowed me to use eight different singers for the eight arias.

Finally, in case you're wondering: all of these are actually fantastic. There's only one that I don't absolutely love and I still really like it. This is just a straight-up array of bangers from beginning to end.

Behind the cut: the bangers. Join us, won't you?

8. "Vous qui faites l'endormie" (Gounod) (Text/translation)

So, here's the one I just like instead of being generally feral about. If this is your last-place entry in a ranking of arias you're doing fine. And it's basically right from Goethe! But while the evil laughter is fun, the melody just doesn't stick with me, and while comparisons are odious (pfft, right, I love comparisons) I think Berlioz did a much better job with this text.

That said, one way to make me love it is to have Bryn Terfel sing it while pawing at a strung-out (in-universe!) Roberto Alagna. What can I say, I'm a slut for Faustopheles content. (And I do love me some Bryn Terfel)

7. "Une puce gentille" (Berlioz) (Text)

We now arrive, basically immediately, at the portion of the list where I unqualifiedly adore everything on it even without the benefit of particularly gay stagings. In general I feel that my rankings here don't quite reflect how much I love La Damnation de Faust (although longtime readers of this blog will have noticed), but I think the strength of the piece is not as much in the arias (although I love the arias) but in the duet and ensemble scenes. In any case this is a delightful number (again, directly from Goethe, also set to music by Beethoven and, later, Mussorgsky) which is also not even the strongest bass aria in the scene. I think we can all agree Brander comes out on top in the Auerbachs Keller bass throwdown, right?

As far as video choices go I always have mixed feelings at best about fully staged versions of La Damnation to begin with—performing it with onstage action belies the extent to which the most important action is psychological, and conversely there are some truly epic moments that are almost impossible to stage in a way that does justice to the music. That said: here's Ruggero Raimondi camping it up.

6. "Devant la maison" (Berlioz) (Text)

Up above I mentioned that Berlioz does a better job with Mephistopheles' serenade than Gounod does—this is just a fun, snarky little trifle with a mock hurdy-gurdy accompaniment* and a collective evil laugh for the chorus. What's not to love?

Berlioz wrote some alternative readings into the Damnation score so that the role of Mephistopheles could be played either by a true bass or a baritone. I prefer the former (as do I think most contemporary conductors, as I haven't seen many other recordings that cast a baritone**) but Jules Bastin's lighter timbre suits the intricacy of this melody and his suavity contrasts well with the rough edges of the chorus.

*The libretto specifies that the singer of Mephistopheles should pantomime playing one, although this seems not to have been followed by most performers. **There is one with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Mephistopheles and Placido Domingo as Faust and, bafflingly, it sucks. Go figure.

5. "Ave Signor" (Boito) (Text)

We aren't even quite into the top half of the list yet (I know! Like I said: THEY ARE ALL SO GOOD) and we're already getting to the real heavy hitters. This aria wins the special recognition for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Cuntiness. Like, sure, you're leading your best demonic life, why NOT have a casual chat with the old man (il vecchio, lol) upstairs, pout about how humans suck so much it's no fun to even tempt them these days, and then make a little bet about that weirdo Faust, all to a jaunty little flute accompaniment? Magnificent. *chef's kiss*

Erwin Schrott never fails to bring the sass and that suits this aria perfectly. The leather jacket is an excellent touch as well. I want one. (I actually own a giant leather jacket but the collar doesn't do that. I want one where the collar does that)

4. "Voici des roses" (Berlioz) (Text)

Okay, I'm gonna let you all in on a little secret which is that STRICTLY SPEAKING, from a musical standpoint, I probably should switch around this aria and the previous. But this one gets a generous helping of sentimental favorite points for two reasons:

a) I am, as discussed, a slut for Faustopheles content and this is the single most homoerotic Mephistopheles aria in the operatic Faust corpus. He calls Faust "beloved" (bien-aimé) and sings about how he's going to be covered with "crimson kisses" and it's amazing. And very, very gay.

b) I've been onstage while John Relyea sang this and I was part of the ensuing chorus, an extended, complex seduction/dream sequence which I am pretty sure took up about half the rehearsal period all on its own. When Mephistopheles sings his recitative at the very end of it ("c'est bien, c'est bien, jeunes esprits, je suis content de vous") it always made me so happy because yeah, we EARNED THAT. But the moment before the chorus section, hearing such a commanding singer perform such a beautiful and sexy aria and then coming into that and not breaking the mood—God, it was just pure fucking magic.

So here, of course, is John Relyea singing it. Not the production I was in, for the record. I probably don't need to clarify that I have never been in the chorus at the Met. (The video cuts off before the chorus anyway but does include "Une puce gentille" and the following recitatives, and I'm not sure YouTube lets you timestamp your links anymore so if you want to skip to "Voici des roses," start around 3:15. Or you could also listen to "Une puce gentille" again because John Relyea just crushes this role)

3. "Ecco il mondo" (Boito) (Text)

Of the three great Faust operas, Mefistofele has its finger most firmly on the pulse of the sheer chaos muppet energy exuded by its title character. This aria reprises some of the motifs introduced in "Ave, Signor" (the jaunty flute line contrasting with the grandiose intervals of the vocal line) and revolves around some really fun stagecraft. In performance, during this aria Mephistopheles displays and then smashes a model of the world—the original libretto calls for a glass globe, while the most iconic modern production uses an ordinary latex balloon. Sometimes you'll see grouchy opera purists grumble online about the latter, and they are silly: it's a perfect reflection of Mephistopheles' disdain for the "filthy and mad" (sozza e matta) human race—and his perhaps more complex feelings about one particular representative thereof. I haven't seen enough versions of this opera to cite any performances where the second half of the aria is addressed directly to Faust, but there's some pretty fabulous potential there.

Going old school for the recording here, with Cesare Siepi. Found this one in a blog post that was mostly devoted to pearl-clutching about the Carsen/Levine staging (in its most recent revival) and the sight of Christian Van Horn in tights: the reviewer found Van Horn to be a second-rate version of Siepi (on vocal grounds, not shirtlessness grounds). Harsh, man, and I'm not even that into Christian Van Horn, at least not in this role. But this is a great recording all on its own. I'm not sure why they put Emil Jannings on the cover though.

2. "Le veau d'or" (Gounod) (Text/translation)

What can I say? This one needs no introduction, really. It's one of the great operatic bangers of all time (and one of the most persistent earworms). It was in Hannibal (I think)! Its reputation precedes it and the only reason it's in second place here is because there's one more aria that's even more awesome.

I've always loved the way Rene Pape sings this—obviously you could eat the vocals with a spoon and his physicality lends a sort of Orson Welles-y* gangster energy to the role, but also there's something about his approach to it that gives you the sense that, as @skeleton-richard once put it, "he's been both the calf and the idiots in the mud." I also love that he gets to do a little dance in this version. LET MEPHISTOPHELES TWERK.

*And wouldn't late-period Welles have been PERFECT as Goethe!Mephistopheles? I weep for the lost opportunity.

1. "Son lo spirito che nega" (Boito) (Text)

And here we are. This aria is just an absolute masterpiece, the greatest of a truly impressive array of bangers. It just captures everything we love about the character of Mephistopheles: the chaos and terrifying cynicism, the subterranean low notes, the compelling derision and mockery. The whistling! How can you not love it? The whole thing just makes my toes curl. It really sums up why this opera should be better known and loved, because fuck. Brain chemistry forcibly altered.

AND SPEAKING OF TOE CURLING. For this bravura composition, a bravura performance by the great Samuel Ramey. He absolutely owns this role and that's perhaps nowhere most evident than right here. Even if he doesn't do his own whistling.

[bhaalble]

Its not world-ending shit but I am. Slightly 😬 at the amount of retroactive tinkering going on with BG3. Fanservice can be a bit of a slippery slope in my experience. Its not that I think any of the specific changes made are bad in and of themselves. There are many I like quite a bit, equippable Orin armor, the epilogue, setting His Majesty officially as a hairless cat. There's also a bit of a Schrodingers bug situation imo. Are the new Lae'zel dismissal lines "new" or were they just not triggering because of a bug? Did they redub Astarion saying "this is important devil", or is was the wrong audio file always being pulled from?

But I think at a certain point: you made the product you made. Outside of basic playability fixes I think its fine to let the criticisms stand on their own, let players take the lead on mods, and save something for the definitive edition this game is almost certainly getting in a few years time. I also think creating an environment where people firmly believe they can invoke changes on the source material by just getting enough people to @ the studio on twitter is an environment that opens up both your staff and your fan to harassment. Interpretation is already a bit of a bloodsport in fandom. The goal for many people is to have the read or the headcanon that becomes popular enough it "might as well" be canon, meaning you can weaponize it against other people with divergent reads. This becomes about ten times worse if your headcanon has a shot at becoming ACTUAL canon. The worst thing you can do in that scenario is give people someone to tattle to, because the stakes of the game will then become "the CREATORS like MY idea best which means you should stop having your own". We're already seeing it happen with the voice actors, with Neil being treated like word of god on basically any given Astarion argument. Imagine how much worse this gets when it slips into the actual played experience of the game. You'll functionally be creating distinct generations of players, each with a different experience of the game depending on WHEN they played. At which point: who gets to be More Canon?

Again I don't want to sound like I'm doomsaying "they made the alien a little less rude so artistic integrity is basically DEAD". Entirely possible this is the full extent of it, in which case all these changes functionally just become Odd Trivia points for the future. I guess just consider this Ex-Homestuck trauma speaking. Having an extremely fandom facing dev team can be an incredibly double-edged sword

[tuktukpodfics]

Hi! I'm thinking about making a podfic of one of my favorite fics and I wanted to ask for a couple of tips because I adore your podfics and I have run into a couple problems very early on.

how do you do deeper voices? my voice is fairly high (I'm a soprano that can occasionally deep down into lower alto) and most of the voices in the fic are male. I also always sound about twelve in recordings lol

how do you make distinct voices? again, I have a lot of different voices (probably 5-7 that talk the most, with many many other reoccurring characters).

pacing of reading. I tend to speak/read very quick and in my practice recordings, it sounds like I'm talking much faster than I felt I was. any tips on that?

what recording programs are best? currently I'm using voice memos on my phone. which. is clearly not going to give me the best sound, regardless of the app I use, but I don't have many options.

I am living in a dorm right now and live in fear of my suite mates hearing me (my roommate not quite as much as she likes to dub and does a lot in our room--though she does it in mandarin so I cant understand it). not to mention background noise of doors opening and whatnot. if you have any tips on that as well, that would be great!

I love your podfic, you put so much soul into them, and I hope that I could do that too!

Hello fellow podfic-er! I’m so excited for you to make a podfic!

The nice thing about podfics is that I usually don’t have to create characters from scratch, they already exist in the TV show. If I’m struggling with a character, I just rewatch some clips of them talking and imitate it!

Deep voices: I, too, have a high, childish voice and struggle with deep, Manly Men. I guess the main tip I have is to...give up. What I mean is focus less on pitch and more on tone. If you speak too low, it’ll be less expressive and will probably hurt your throat. It can work for minor, 2D characters, but don’t do it for main characters that have a wide range of emotions (you may notice that my Mighty Oaks Fire Sage Zuko voice swings higher when he’s emotional oops). Instead, use your normal pitch, and make a character sound adult by using an authoritative tone. Another thing I do is play up the childish and feminine voices. We might not be able to make the adults sound adult, but we can make the kids sound extra kiddish by comparison.

Distinct voices: I’m a tactile learner, so for me, it’s all about the physicality. Every time I do Azula’s voice, I make a pinched face like I’m eating a lemon. When I record Ozai, I sneer. For Sokka, I jut out my chin and flail my arms. It looks silly, but no one is around to see. There’s lots of YouTube tutorials about how to make different voices by varying speed and tone and nasal quality, but I get kinda lost in the sauce with those theory lessons. The only way I can really get myself to do different voices is if I’m working off of a reference. I just watch videos of other cartoons and live actors and then copy them.

Pacing: Pacing is hard. I especially struggle with the editing and often end up cutting things wonkily. Audiobooks tend to be slow because you’re less likely to get tongue tied that way. If I have a big hunk of text that I find myself racing through, I slow myself down with physicality again. I’ll lean in on important words or mime out the actions. For example, on the line, “Zuko turns, grabs the bar at the side of the ship, and throws himself back over,” I'll turn my body on the word “turn,” grab an imaginary bar on the word “grab” and then lurch forward on the word “throw.” Adding in movement can bring variation to those big blocks of text.

What recording programs are best: I don’t know! I use Audacity because it’s free. Adobe Audition is great too, but it’s expensive. I am very lazy with the podfics. I don’t have a professional set-up. Basically, I make a comfortable nest of pillows in bed or my closet, use an iPhone VoiceMemos app to record straight into the phone mic, send the audio file to my computer, convert the audio to a WAV file, put it in Audacity, add a Noise Reduction effect, and then cut it down. Once I’m done editing it, I export the Audacity file as an mp3, upload it to archive.org and Spotify, and then embed those links into Ao3. Feel free to DM me if you have other tech questions. I am not particularly savvy, but we can Google it together? If any voice actors on Tumblr have professional advice, please chime in.

Silence and privacy: Background noise is a big headache for me too. I live in a noisy area with lots of planes and a squeaky elevator. I usually record now in my closet surrounded by pillows and blankets, so it’s fairly soundproof. If there’s a noise, I usually wait for the sound to stop, record the line again, then edit out the mistake in post. At the end of the day, though, sounds will slip in. It’s just a podfic; we’re doing this for fun not professionally, so it doesn’t need to be polished. I think most listeners’ attitudes is that something is better than nothing. If you’re in a school dorm, there might be music practice rooms, a radio recording booth, or empty classrooms you can use instead.

Storage: Something I didn’t realize going in was how much storage the audio clips take up. Make sure you save and delete projects as you go. One time I finished editing an Audacity project, but it wouldn’t let me save it because I ran out of storage and I had to start over.

I’m so glad you like the podfics I’ve done and that it could help inspire you to make one too! I started making podfics because I fell in love with @pixieinthesky’s fantastic Salvage podfic (it's an absolute gem). Keep the chain going!

Have fun!

[fitzrove]

I noticed your tags on the "bad localisation"-post and now I must know the lore... the Finnish translator of Elisabeth didn't speak German???

Hehe, I'm glad you asked!!

Mind you, this production happened when I was a small child, so all I have is second-hand knowledge from the internet (and an audio recording). Also, I may have exaggerated for comedic effect in my original tags lol, I don't know if he genuinely didn't speak it. However...

The guy who translated the Finnish Elisabeth was a very famous (prolific, if nothing else) theatre director and musical translator, starting his career in the late 60s already with a wildly popular production of Hair. Elisabeth seems to be among the only German-language shows he ever worked on - most of it was translations from English and French. ngl I also sort of hate his musical translations from English LMAO - because of how prolific he was, they still haunt the Finnish musical scene today... One big one he did is Cabaret back in the 90s, and a theatre that put a big fancy production on in 2020 actually redid all of the songs and only kept his dialogue because the translation was so clunky lmao. But I once went to the library to dig up his original lyrics to the title song and omg they suck, I wrote better ones in two minutes because I needed a Finnish version quickly ahshshsh. So already, it's a bit of a bad sign - this man is not a translator by profession or training, he's a director who started out doing it for practical purposes, and has a pretty broad set of languages he works in.

But then again - maybe it wouldn't have been a problem, especially since he had such extensive experience. In fact, Elisabeth was the last translation he ever did before passing away rather shortly after (of old age), so maybe I shouldn't be too harsh on him... However, the fact remains that the translation, just as lyrics, is pretty terrible and nonsensical sjjsjsjd.

My initial comment was actually largely inspired by this blog post by someone who actually saw the prod live (from onenightintheatre on blogspot), quote:

It sounded like the translator hadn't really understood German, because many lines sounded like someone had taken a dictionary, looked up the most important words of the sentence and then written a whole new sentence(-ish) based on those words. An example that remained etched in my mind: ("Eine Kaiserin muss glänzen"; Finnish, the Finnish translation in English, and the original German text) Countess Esterházy: Suunne aukaiskaa! ("Open your mouth!") (Öffnen Sie den Mund!) Sophie: Keltaiset ei olla saa! ("[Teeth] may not be yellow!") (Die sind zu gelb, das darf nicht sein!) Elisabeth: Tammalla saa! ("Mare's [teeth] may!") (Bin ich ein Pferd?) So... Instead of asking why they're treating her like a horse, Elisabeth thinks she is a horse and can therefore have yellow teeth? Oddly, "Bellaria" was significantly better translated than rest of the musical and actually sounded beautiful and made sense. There were also factual errors, like Rudolf complaining to Elisabeth that he must get married, when at that point of the story he had, in fact, been married for several years. The translator passed away half a year after the derniere, though, so maybe he wasn't at his best anymore when he did the translation.

As for me, I don't know the Finnish translation by heart, but some of my favourite songs (well, mostly Schatten 2) which I do know by heart also had the ball dropped on them... in that song, Rudolf complains that the court is wasting money on parties (woah good job working in the "dancing around the golden calf" metaphor, I'm sure the original author didn't mean it metaphorically to go with the pied piper thing, he meant literal dancing - though I guess this is accidentally accurate to irl rudolf and his ranty pamphlet on the idle nobility xD) and it's just quite clunky and repetitive overall without getting the main point across too well. Which is such a pity! I mean, translations are hard, but Kunze's work has since been translated into Finnish well, with the references and thematic messages intact, it's not impossible. So in a way, I think this one is a case of someone well-established in the industry getting the job because he happened to be there and have an extensive track record, not because he actually had the skills to make the best possible translation...

Ahsdhsfhfs so yeah. There's no proof that he didn't speak German, but it's my personal theory. Also, according to a few sources, Kunze himself hated this translation......

[iohourtime]

Ryosuke Yamada: SIDE B - Change

anan 2347

(There is some paraphrasing of the original article. Please let me know if there are any errors.)

Note: This is part 2 of a 2 part interview. You can read “Side A - Expression” here.

Yamada Ryosuke has been involved in various forms of expression, but there is one thing that he has cherished above all. That's the job of an actor. When he participated in his first drama “Tantei Gakuen Q” at the age of 13, he discovered the enjoyment and had been passionate [about acting] since then.

“I simply like this genre of work and this feeling of love has never changed since my first drama. With respect to acting, I have to become someone I haven’t seen or know before, and to do that, I have to think hard about who this person is and why he feels this way. However, the time [thinking about these things] is fun. The feeling is like when I just made a new friend and it is really nice to spend time with that person. I’d wonder about the kind of person he is, and the more I find out, the more interested I am. I think [the process of discovering a new character] is close to that. If this character is a historical figure, I can do research into the history and background of the person; if this character is fictional, I can make it up using my imagination.”

What comes to mind is a character in the movie "Moeyo Ken" released two years ago - Okita Souji, a genius swordsman of the Shinsengumi who is said to have died at the young age of 27. While there is a strong impression of him as someone with a tragic fate, but as played by Yamada san, who smiled innocently as he committed brutal murder without hesitation, his innocence was more intense than his fragility and was realistically portrayed.

“That movie was special. I think a big factor was that I was staying in Kyoto during the filming, so I was able to immerse myself in the real thing the whole time. When I went back to Tokyo, I was only doing group activities or recording variety shows, so there was little time to return to reality, and I felt that my sensibilities were gradually sharpened. I got so caught up in the role that it became normal for me not to drink or eat anything during that time, and I got sick... It was something I have never experienced on set before.”

The reason why he was so absorbed in his acting work was because he had tasted moments that shook him just by thinking about them.

“Just like with today’s shoot and when I was on set, there were moments when the actors, the camera operators, the lighting team, the audio team… and everyone involved were completely engaged as they worked together. It was the best feeling when I encountered these [moments] and I feel like I'm desperately trying to relive these moments again."

Because he valued his acting career, I wanted to ask him about his position as an idol. Perhaps because of this title, there are times when his acting is viewed with prejudice.

“I think it's more because I'm a Johnny's rather than being an idol, but I accept that as my destiny. There are hindrances with being a Johnny's, but on the other hand, there are things I can do because I'm a Johnny's and I think that's a huge benefit. If I don't want others to complain about me, I can only silence the discourse with my abilities. In fact, some of my senpais have done exactly that. On the contrary, it is only due to my own lack of ability that I can not do it. The idea is rather simple."

In the midst of such a conversation, he casually said, "Being an idol may be your vocation."

“Since I don’t know much about the world outside of [the entertainment industry], I won't be able to use [my skills] out there (laughs). However, since I've been an idol for a long time, I'm good at presenting what is needed [of me] in an instant. Although I also have a clear idea of what to do. However, what is asked of me is not always the same, so it is important to keep track of [the requests] and that is quite difficult. If I don't study how to present myself properly, I might not be able to do it. I've been conscious of that since I was small, so I'm good at it."

For example, during a live performance, your image is projected on the large screen at the venue.

“Basically, there are about 15 to 20 cameras installed at a live venue and the “switcher” decides when to cut one camera feed and switch to another. The other day, the switcher praised me, saying, "It's amazing that no matter what situation, no matter where the camera is faced, Yamada kun can find and look at it 100% of the time." I haven't been very conscious of this up till then, but if he said so, it must be true. Nowadays, cameras have a light that turns on when it is live, so the moment it lights up, I can find it in about a second no matter how large the venue. I want everyone at the venue to enjoy the show equally, whether they are sitting in the front row in the arena section or at the stands at the back of the dome. When [the camera] happens [to face me], I can interact through it so it can be seen by a lot of people, and I think that will be fair to everyone who has come [to the concert]. So when I think about that (including the technique), I feel that [being an idol] is my vocation."

However, he has been active since his early teens and there were times when he resisted being an idol.

“But it's work. It's amazing to know that there are people who are happy because of our hard work, right? I've thought about quitting several times in the past, but I still haven't quit, so I guess that's what I want to do after all."

He is the type who obsessively pursues things that he likes from the start. Gaming is something that exemplifies this. Among the games he’s enthusiastic about is "Apex Legends" and he reached the highest rank of Predator in February this year. Only the top 750 players in the world can attain the Predator rank. [T/N: Ignoring the 14+ hours of live streaming when he got the predator rank, he also just streamed for 9+ hours in the morning I wrote this part. Obsessive sounds apt.😅]

"Simply speaking, I find gaming fun. Especially when I’m playing with the pros, my motivation shoots up and I feel like I need to get better and I want to get better. After all, I want to do well. I want to be good at acting, I want to be good at dancing, and I want to be good at singing. Once I'm hooked, I want to taste and see the same thing all the time, so I keep doing the same things and that's not a problem. In my mind, rather than hard work, I feel like this is what happens when I pursue what I want to do.”

He started a gaming channel on YouTube called “Leo’s Playground” (Leoの游び場) two years ago, which is now a popular channel with about 860,000 subscribers. [T/N: I just checked and it’s now at 924,000 subscribers.]

“Regarding this, I am just really enjoying myself. I’m not conscious of being watched, it’s like I’m revealing my private life (laughs); it is really just a hobby. There are people who enjoy watching it, new fans are also increasing, and that’s a plus for both myself and the group, so I'm really grateful for this era. For me, I’m glad I can show my kouhai’s that there are other paths like this."

Yamada san said that since last year, there has been a big change in his approach to work. He used to think more about the group than anyone else and take the lead, but he said he's become more focused on himself.

“There was a time last year when I felt a little out of sorts. I cannot say more about that but after going through that, I thought I should take better care of myself.”

And at this time, he is turning 30.

“You may look at me like this (laughs), but isn't 30 years old a proper adult? It's the age when I have to look at myself and think about how to live. Up to now, I have been thinking about how to give back to the group through my solo activities. As a result, I have chosen not to do some jobs or things. But from this point on, I don't think I’ll make it too complicated and simply go “I’ll do it because I want to do it” or “I won’t do it because I don’t want to do it”. I think I should prioritize myself more. Of course I'll continue to do activities for the group and the fans, but it has always been a 70/30 split, where 30 were things I did for myself, so I'll try to reverse the ratio. I don't know if this choice will turn out to be good or bad, but I'm going to give it a try anyway." [T/N: About damn time.]

[jojoqin]

Why the remake cabin kicks the OG’s ass -an analysis 🔎

Basically it has to do with a lot of elements. Sound, cinematic framing, how well written the entire segment is in general. All that sweet jazz. Also sorry in advance, I had to gifmaker some shitty gifs because I needed examples 😭💀

So I read up on a lot of filmmaking for this post about what makes a good set piece. At the start, the game already sets it up by subconsciously familiarizing the player with the cabin; making it one of the first areas we pass by. There’s something about how you see it in its position; in between the trees, sort of in the same center as the bridge, very by itself. Clearly it’s important. Later, the Saddler mindfuck scene at the church actually shows us why the villagers are on the chase. And it's all tied to how well realized the cult theme is in the entire story. It puts a slightly more sinister spin on the villagers' motivation compared to the og where it sometimes feels like they're purely used as obstacles.

And yes there’s actually PAYOFF this time. No more "vamanos" and the villagers just leave. Or for Luis to ask "so what now?". This time the villagers' condition gets woven into new exposition and a new goal; the Plaga ordeal inside the characters. And the end scene defines Luis role. A great set piece should have a well written purpose to advance the plot forward. And we actually experience first hand the whole hive mind thing instead of getting a 5 min Saddler monologue about it.

Talking about the technical stuff in scenes too. Like listen to the music and audio during the run up towards and after Luis closes the door, the music become this muffled droning as soon as the door is shut. It indicates that you've entered a different space that's more confined and sheltered from the outside w/o immediately breaking the ambient tension. Not necessarily an upgrade from the og but in the og, the escalating music stops because the payoff is seeing Luis. Whilst the remake still likes to remind you that you're still in a weird situation.

I also talked before how the camera loves to follow characters. In this shot you follow Leon forward and then you’re backing up behind Luis in this continuous camera movement. And see how tight the camera sticks behind Leon’s shoulder? He takes up like 75% of the frame at one point, with the camera subtly zooming in even though Luis is the focus. There’s a visceral feel in the confrontation, how its putting pressure on Luis just by how the scene is directed.

And the sound during that is like auditory storytelling. I know my audio doesn’t quite do it justice because it’s been compressed to shit so y’all might want to seek out the actual scene. But when Luis hits the wall here, the strings fade out and the sound of the rain is brought forward. Audio-wise, it’s like it’s bringing our focus to the presence of Luis and Ashley. It's also just ASMR af.

Another example of the fluid camera transition from earlier is when Ashley hides. The camera leads away from her and it follows that same “leading away” movement when it transition cuts to the window with Leon going into frame. Like look how seamless it tells action w/o having to do a lot of harsh cuts unlike the gif of the og below. The remake tends to show multiple activities either within the same shot or following a visual style so that it's easy to digest.

And holy shit, the way the music just disappears when our dudes take position here is so FUCKING GOOD. Because all you hear is the echo of the cult chanting and the ASMR patter of rain. I think of the silence as equivalent to taking a deep breath. And it’s funny because the sound effect when the scene transitions to the player is just this very intense and layered sound of exhaling. The way the camera also pulls back in the cutscene so that there’s no break from scene to gameplay just makes it so immersive.

Also those two shots we get from Leon and Luis’ perspectives before the gameplay is kinda interesting too. Very “Main Character POV” angle because the camera is positioned at the guys’ eye level, as if we the audience are directly in front of them. At that moment we sort of take the place of the characters as the player. The “it’s game time” line is so hype because it actually does feel like it’s being said to us.

I think the writing for the fight itself is way better than in the og. There's a real rhythm to how the conflict happens; a somewhat story structure. The setup, the moment things go to shit, the resolution. The setup happens in the cutscenes and as you're battling the early wave of villagers. The Plaga baddies I see as the first climax, because they only start conveniently popping up around the time you're scrambling to get the new boards. You get them up and there's your sort of downtime, the 'falling action' before things ramp up again.

There’s a clear transition to "the moment things go to shit" phase; it's all the elements working together in the entire segment. You get a visual cue which is the ladder, an auditory cue of the noise upstairs, and then you get the in-game cue from Luis. And the musical cue is particularly what the remake does best. Like often when it wants to change up the pace during a certain part, they'll simplify the track but make it a bit deeper to build up this new adrenaline.

And every big set piece needs constrasty elements to show different perspectives. I believe just the simple imagery of seeing the mob outside as you're constantly having to kick the ladder is so effective because it shows scale. It makes us actually feel that the problem is as big as it is. It's a smart show of perspective especially after starting the fight in a confined area. This part of it was kind of weird in the og. Even though there's a mob, you could always stare out some window and it'll just be a void there (probably due to the graphical limitations).

But before you even trigger the Bull Head dude's cutscene, like again, you already hear an auditory cue of him. Also his addition makes the scene a true "everything is going to shit" moment. You kinda need that enemy as a standout variety. Like the og is iconic but it's very straightforward with the ambience and the enemy encounter. In the remake, everything is an escalating bombardment to the senses. Especially on the first playthrough, at this point you're on your last leg, no heal, no shotgun/rifle ammo left, the cult chanting is overwhelmingly loud now. It's funny but also apt that when Ashley saves the guys, she's enveloped in this holy light. Even the camera angle that's positioned lower looking up visually puts her in a higher position than the audience.

[yujeong]

Analyzing the music of KPTS: The table scene in episode 4

Hello there! So, I was watching the latest episode of My Stand-In and I had the pleasant surprise of hearing a very familiar piece of music by the end of it:

Most people probably won't recognize it, but it was used in KinnPorsche The Series as well, specifically at the infamous table scene in episode 4. Even more specifically, during the moment that Vegas asks Porsche to become his bodyguard and Kinn gets upset with him. It starts when Vegas says "So I have time... to look around" and ends when Tankhun hits him with the tray.

Now, the use of music in TV shows and movies is a very big passion of mine and I've always wanted to analyze it, as posted here. Well, even though I said it's impossible, I'll try it, because it's both a fascinating choice for the scene on its own and with the modifications BOC did. (I added the audio here to make it easier for you to understand what I'll be talking about - I'll be mentioning the seconds in the piece as reference)

Let's begin with the name: Hostile Encounter I don't think I need to explain much. We're watching Kinn and Vegas' "hostile encounter", aka them being bitter bitches to each other. It's great though, because it gives us a lot of context about the rivalry between the main and minor family. So, Vegas talks about how he has time to look around and I love that the music starts playing not when Vegas says the line, but when the camera shows Kinn's face as he's looking at Porsche and then at Vegas in disbelief:

Now here, BOC made the first modification on the piece: the first 10 seconds are playing on a loop, as Vegas gives Porsche some food and Kinn mentions how his bodyguards can take care of themselves. It helps to build up the tension between Vegas and Kinn and it lasts long enough to compliment the dialogue, which isn't yet quite as heavy or charged as later on.

After that, we get the first change in the score and it begins here:

Seconds 10-20 are when Vegas "apologizes" for forgetting how the main family treat their bodyguards in comparison to the minor family. It's the first sentence that truly hits, with an impact big enough to be felt by everyone on the table, bodyguards included. We also get Kinn's reaction:

The violin that's added to the tune helps make the statements feel more impactful. It works wonders for the tension they want to build. Seconds 20-29 are heard when Vegas addresses Porsche, starting the conversation about his bodyguard quitting:

Another layer added to the piece, another layer added to Vegas' behavior. Important note here is how the music becomes louder and the tune is higher than before. It's not low anymore, shimmering beneath the surface and setting the tone. It's loud, it's clear, it pierces through the listeners' ears, it becomes a presence. It honestly feels a little like an alarm - a danger signal - going off. It should be. Vegas is directly antagonizing Kinn. Speaking of which, as you've probably noticed, every escalation of the OST so far is triggered by Vegas' words. He's the one escalating the situation, but it's done slowly and methodically and the music compliments that. It makes it real to the viewer. Which is why the next change to the music happening by Kinn is so important:

Seconds 30-49 play from the moment Kinn interrupts Vegas' question to when he finishes talking - explaining how Tankhun won't let Vegas have Porsche. It's abrupt, it's loud, it's erratic - just like Kinn's reaction in that moment. Also, the tune that was playing when Vegas asked Porsche the question is still playing in the background. Kinn is rattled by Vegas and the music shows that as well. Vegas, however, expected this and the OST supports it. Seconds 49-1:07 are when Vegas smiles at Kinn and tells him to talk to Tankhun for him. It stops here:

The loud instruments stopped playing. Funnily enough, here BOC made the second modification: if you hear both versions, you'll realize there're other organs playing in the original piece, while in the show, there're only the guitar riffs, with a few other faint sounds being heard as well. It's a great one imo, because 1. It brings the point across that Vegas is a scheming bastard who remains in control of himself and the situation and 2. It holds the tension the scene built in place. It seems like a chess game of sorts - each player moving the pieces of the board in a way to win the game. But Vegas stops holding back:

Seconds 1:08-1:17 is when the music changes one last time. BOC did modifications here too, especially by adding the seconds 1:36-1:37 in the end before Tankhun hits Vegas' head. Beautifully executed. In my opinion, this moment is when Vegas truly escalates for the first time, even though it's done indirectly. Not in a subtle way, because Vegas isn't subtle, but by not directly stating what he means. It's enough to shake Kinn though, and God knows what he'd have said if Tankhun didn't interrupt them. Perhaps for the better of everyone present lol. I think I said all I had to say for this scene and the music used. All in all, I want to kiss the person who was responsible for the show's score in the mouth ❤️