DVD Commentary -- Language, the atmosphere
Title: Language, the atmosphere
Summary: It's not like dancing. Or gymnastics. Or like fighting, even. It's like... it's like *math*.
What actually inspired this story was the War Drums thing with Catalina watching Bruce fight that I pulled the summary from, and I thought to myself, "Hey, Slade fights like that -- because Adeline taught him to. Oooh. She trained Joey. I wonder how *Joey* fights."
Author's Notes: I was trying to write a Wilson-centric story that wouldn't scare Gloss. I think I may have succeeded.
It turns out I did succeed, which pleases me. But I'm not pressing my luck.
(Summary is from an issue in War Drums where Catalina Flores is watching Bruce fight.)
She teaches him to fight with music.
You know how a lot of stories compare fighting to dancing? It's turned into a cliche because in a lot of ways it's true -- anyone comfortable enough in their skin to dance can, with proper training, fight, and vice-versa. However, most people probably wouldn't actually think that, as a friend of mine was complaining via IM. I said, "I bet I can pull off someone comparing fighting to dancing or music or something," and she said, "I bet you can't," and --
Well.
We've figured out by now what happens when someone dares me to do something.
Joseph Wilson, after all, is a trained musician. A ballerina would compare fighting to dancing, because that dancer would see the same groups of muscles being used and note the same types of motions. A musician would see the rhythms and the tempos.
Everyone moves to a beat. Know the tempo of their motions, Joseph, she tells him quietly. Count it out.
His mother fights facile. Every strike is graceful. She breathes in the rhythm of her attacks, two-four to six-eight to three-four to four-four and done. She has won.
Most people prefer to attack in a two-beat rhythm, adding in three-four time when they feel threatened. He anticipates. He attacks in sixteenths.
Sixteenth notes are *really fast* to try to sing. We won't even talk about thirty-eighths.
The most dangerous opponents are capriccioso. He can't see what they'll do next, he can't predict them. He is bellicoso when he fights them.
Most thugs are staccato, rapid unconnected motions with no grace. No elegance or beauty.
Because, lest we forget, Joey Wilson is above all things an artist. Painter, pianist, would-be singer except for that little knife incident when he was five... honestly, what *can't* this kid do?
When he plays Bach, he closes his eyes so that he can see each note turned into a kick, a punch, the shot of a gun. Ragtime is for sparring impetuoso, the rhythm of laughter and spitting out blood.
Bach is surprisingly violent! It wasn't hard to see the notes as attacks, I'll say that.
And since Adeline trained him, you just know Joey would be doing some random thing and then BOOM SPARRING TIME. Because we always have to be focused on *everything*.
He learns how to control someone else's body by their tempo. This one can spin and kick out mezzoforte, this one move pianissimo, this one not worth controlling.
Joseph can extend his arm in a punch only so far, so he moves in -- guisto in alla breve -- to feint and then kick. Three-count, forte.
Each motion legato, lebhaft, until he breathes in four-four time and the fight is won.
Fermata.
I picked fermata for the end because Joey is probably around fourteen-fifteen here. He's been training with his mother for, oh, about the past decade. I'm not sure it's occurred to him to do anything else.
*Adeline* is the one who pushes for Jericho to join the Titans. If it hadn't been for her, he probably wouldn't have done anything about Terra, and he definitely wouldn't have stayed with them.
(Joey was trained merc. He's a nice, sweet man who likes to make people -- *make*, in some cases -- be happy and do the right thing, but before he hit the Titans he was a bounty hunter cum mercenary cum pretty-much-do-whatever-dirty-work-I'm-hired-for. Just like his father mother.)
She, in essence, is the conductor, and he'll keep holding this note until she tells him to play a different one.
-- Finis
Summary: It's not like dancing. Or gymnastics. Or like fighting, even. It's like... it's like *math*.
What actually inspired this story was the War Drums thing with Catalina watching Bruce fight that I pulled the summary from, and I thought to myself, "Hey, Slade fights like that -- because Adeline taught him to. Oooh. She trained Joey. I wonder how *Joey* fights."
Author's Notes: I was trying to write a Wilson-centric story that wouldn't scare Gloss. I think I may have succeeded.
It turns out I did succeed, which pleases me. But I'm not pressing my luck.
(Summary is from an issue in War Drums where Catalina Flores is watching Bruce fight.)
She teaches him to fight with music.
You know how a lot of stories compare fighting to dancing? It's turned into a cliche because in a lot of ways it's true -- anyone comfortable enough in their skin to dance can, with proper training, fight, and vice-versa. However, most people probably wouldn't actually think that, as a friend of mine was complaining via IM. I said, "I bet I can pull off someone comparing fighting to dancing or music or something," and she said, "I bet you can't," and --
Well.
We've figured out by now what happens when someone dares me to do something.
Joseph Wilson, after all, is a trained musician. A ballerina would compare fighting to dancing, because that dancer would see the same groups of muscles being used and note the same types of motions. A musician would see the rhythms and the tempos.
Everyone moves to a beat. Know the tempo of their motions, Joseph, she tells him quietly. Count it out.
His mother fights facile. Every strike is graceful. She breathes in the rhythm of her attacks, two-four to six-eight to three-four to four-four and done. She has won.
Most people prefer to attack in a two-beat rhythm, adding in three-four time when they feel threatened. He anticipates. He attacks in sixteenths.
Sixteenth notes are *really fast* to try to sing. We won't even talk about thirty-eighths.
The most dangerous opponents are capriccioso. He can't see what they'll do next, he can't predict them. He is bellicoso when he fights them.
Most thugs are staccato, rapid unconnected motions with no grace. No elegance or beauty.
Because, lest we forget, Joey Wilson is above all things an artist. Painter, pianist, would-be singer except for that little knife incident when he was five... honestly, what *can't* this kid do?
When he plays Bach, he closes his eyes so that he can see each note turned into a kick, a punch, the shot of a gun. Ragtime is for sparring impetuoso, the rhythm of laughter and spitting out blood.
Bach is surprisingly violent! It wasn't hard to see the notes as attacks, I'll say that.
And since Adeline trained him, you just know Joey would be doing some random thing and then BOOM SPARRING TIME. Because we always have to be focused on *everything*.
He learns how to control someone else's body by their tempo. This one can spin and kick out mezzoforte, this one move pianissimo, this one not worth controlling.
Joseph can extend his arm in a punch only so far, so he moves in -- guisto in alla breve -- to feint and then kick. Three-count, forte.
Each motion legato, lebhaft, until he breathes in four-four time and the fight is won.
Fermata.
I picked fermata for the end because Joey is probably around fourteen-fifteen here. He's been training with his mother for, oh, about the past decade. I'm not sure it's occurred to him to do anything else.
*Adeline* is the one who pushes for Jericho to join the Titans. If it hadn't been for her, he probably wouldn't have done anything about Terra, and he definitely wouldn't have stayed with them.
(Joey was trained merc. He's a nice, sweet man who likes to make people -- *make*, in some cases -- be happy and do the right thing, but before he hit the Titans he was a bounty hunter cum mercenary cum pretty-much-do-whatever-dirty-work-I'm-hired-for. Just like his father mother.)
She, in essence, is the conductor, and he'll keep holding this note until she tells him to play a different one.
-- Finis