Schoenberg's Revenge drabbles, and good news in the music world.
.
So the book that my State of Research was published in? two copies arrived for me today.
This pleases me a lot. I think I want to go to Pitt tomorrow and brag. In fact, I shall.
.
Posting those twelve-tone drabbles now, by fandom.
A Song of Ice and Fire
inversion (cersei)
There are other ways to power. Cersei simply does not take them.
She could gird herself in the armor that suits her brother and father so well, but that would be counterproductive at best and downright comical otherwise; she could take the path of that thing that dares to share a name with her, shrink into the shadows and tug the strings from there; she could do as surrogate queens past have done, grip the hilts upon the throne of swords and shirk the blades.
To do so would be to deny that which she is. Not king; queen, thwarted.
-
Battlestar Galactica 2004
transposition (leoben)
The vacuous sucking of static and dry and nothingness leaves his ears, and-yes. Oh yes, dying hurts, just like he’d expected it to, like Leoben had told himself-coming alive again hurts more, teaches more. All the coldness of space thaws instantly, leaves his skin-because it never touched this skin, never touched this body. Never even touched this brain. Only the soul remembers, only the software lives on, and in the hot gelatinous instant of that disconnect there’s something else.
He’ll have to die again to see it.
With Kara surrounding him. With Kara’s breath in his blood.
-
canon (laura)
Tory isn’t Billy. That’s the first item, the first rule. It’s like taking notes, there’s a file under the boldfaced I that starts with a capital A, and the capital A is that Tory hasn’t spent over a year as Laura’s shadow, doesn’t know the little things. Little i, how Laura takes her tea. Little ii, when not to keep silent. Little iii, when not to let the issue drop and overstep her bounds. Capital B, to Tory this is a job, not a commitment. Little i, little ii, little iii, on and on.
Laura raises the issue to Bill-not Billy-when Bill follows another one of Laura’s unvoiced rules. “She’s dangerous,” Bill says.
“That might be just what I need,” Laura contests.
-
Death Note
transposition (light)
Misa sings in the shower.
She’s not bad at it, by any definition that excludes stylistic predilection from its criteria. She’s not even inconsiderate, really, doesn’t do it when Light’s asleep or studying, and stops if he asks her to without more than a petulant whine-but after that, silence. And then, when she’s out, she’ll be mostly-silent even when she’s worshipping him, making, at most, little undignified sounds, indistinguishable from the little victories of buckling her shoes.
He deduces that he misses the invasion of his personal space. Not the physical-Misa invades that all the time. The personal.
When he was being hunted, he was never bored.
-
Final Fantasy VI
oblique motion (leo)
The more things stay the same, the more they change.
Politically, Vector prospers. It produces, and swarms with what it produces. The population stabilizes, as much as it can in a time of campaign; crafts fill the sky and the smoke of industry hides them; quality of lifestyle and education and employment improve, for all concerned. The people who enact His Imperial Majesty’s will are doing what they should, and so they continue to do it.
It is only proper, Leo thinks, that a similar state of prosperity be conferred upon the rest of the world, and herald an age of stability.
-
Ivalice
inversion (fran)
There are few Viera in Rozarria; though the land is by no stretch of the imagination barren, every means of getting there is. The voice of the Wood does not infringe upon the song of the ocean, or insult the Jagd of desert air. The drills of the Yensa Sandseas are a scourge to her, salt upon salt to the Mist-drenched earth.
It is deafness, in a sense, but voluntary deafness, against the clanging of shields and the desperate scrapes of claws upon bone. It is here that Fran first stays, for any length of time at all, when she is free.
-
tonicization (ashe)
She falls into the shorter skirts of the common with the ease of one who has longed to wear them. The demeanor she affects does not dare become crude; instead, it emphasizes her schooled propriety (which she has dispensed with to the best of her ability), a consciousness of her allure and her womanhood. She takes to high greaves-in the streets, and in times of war, the bulk of a man’s wealth is on his person-and higher collars, and square heels that raise her out of the sand she now must tread.
The more of her skin she bares, the more of her origins she hides; but her nature, too, darkens with her exposed flesh.
-
cancrizan inversion (spider)
“There is not much of me in you,” says the old Queen-with a sigh that falters through her scepter as she passes it to him. He has been king in all but name, and that name she will forfeit only when she dies-and that she dies, he is not prepared to accept.
“My Lady Mother,” says Spider, “I respectfully disagree. Despite the shade upon my skin, I am not my father’s son alone.”
“Would you cling to this, as I, until it is reduced to a crutch?”
“You do not cling to it now.”
“The thing is not its name,” she says. It is proof enough that there is something of her in him, for Spider understands.
-
deceptive cadence (sydney)
Belatedly, and passively, as the pain does to his mind what his blood does upon the floor, he marks that Samantha is watching.
Sydney considers; for how long has the shepherdess stood by, over the cast off wool that hid the wolf? Was she there, in the corps that felled John? Was it her hand on the catch of that bowgun? His recollection of those moments falters when the present overcomes him, when the under-muscle of his back is bared to the noxious, incensed air.
That his lover spelled the death of mine, Sydney thinks, would be the gods’ own irony.
-
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (and 2)
canon (gale)
“Why do these sounds not correlate with an interface?”
Roland nearly walks into the terminal. “What sounds?”
It’s a stupid question-hard enough to point out sounds as it is, but Gale cocks his head toward where a bunch of teenagers are-
“Oh,” Roland says. “That’s called music. Well, some people call it music. Most people my age would just think it's noise.”
One of Gale’s green eyebrows retreats into the shadow of his hood. “It is as if an irregular mantra was applied to an audio interface iterated at regular intervals, deriving a set of permutations from which a synaptic interest is aroused.”
“We just call it ‘rap’,” Roland says.
-
contrary motion (jenna)
Every second Thursday, tea with Madame Margot in territory as neutral as possible. This usually means not being in the complex itself. Jenna wonders what will happen when the last café closes, when there is no longer anyone who has the will to steep the earth in water and serve it-or, more importantly, the will to frequent such a place.
She expresses it, when it occurs to her; “Money won’t matter nearly as much as clout, in a few years.”
“Oh?” Madame has no eyebrows, but they seem to raise nonetheless.
“There won’t be anything to buy,” Jenna explains. “People will just take what they need.”
“How feral,” Madame says, “uncivilized.”
“I find it comforting, actually.” Jenna sets down her cup, rotates it pointedly. “But then, I am strong and canny enough to survive in such a place, without dependency on the constructions of the past. Of society.” It occurs to her: “Society’s never known what to do with me.”
There is a ring of lipstick on the curve of Madame’s cup, not that she sees it. “Whereas it has always known, even in the kingdom of beasts, respect for those who have survived against the predisposition of fate.” The blind, she does not say, and the old.
“In stories,” Jenna disagrees.
-
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
modulation (orpheus)
There’s always an even pulse in Minato’s ears. Things don’t get faster or slower until the track changes. The world passes by on its usual cluster of four-billion-man-percussion, that many heartbeats and paces and knucklecracks-but inside Minato it’s quarter-equals-X BPM or nothing at all. Up in here, Monteverdi is dead and John Cage is spinning on a rotisserie and no one’s seen a koto or a conga drum in years. No improvisation. Everything measured and micromanaged, one six four five one.
Climb the stairs and slay the shadows, one six four five one.
Put up with the teacher’s questions, one six four five one.
Tie hakama, swing shinai, one six four five one.
He doesn’t even hear the music anymore.
-
Suikoden
cancrizan (flik)
Viktor’s asleep; the sword’s apparently bored. The longer Flik watches it, the more he thinks its pommel is stargazing.
“Something on my face?” it asks.
“No, he cleaned you.” Flik leans into the tree, rearticulates his shoulders. “I’ve never asked, just assumed that you can see. Can you?”
“Not the way you can, no. I mean, I know he’s an uncouth bear because of how he feels, and I know you’re blue because of how you sound.”
“Blue’s a color, not a sound.”
“It’s still what you are. I don’t see colors, I just know they’re there.”
-
similar motion (orosi)
The spells his father casts require slower, grander motion. Orosi does not mimic it anymore. The Fire Rune laughed when he tried, made the nerves inside his hand stammer and swell and just-contradicted him.
“But fire can also be slow and grand,” Orosi said then, gritting his teeth stubbornly. “Just as earth can be fickle and quickly doused.”
The Rune keeps laughing, however else it speaks. But ever after, Orosi casts with flicks and bursts, for the Rune will not cooperate otherwise.
-
deceptive cadence (gizel)
Senate is in recess for a while, a seemingly interminable while, and Gizel returns to Stormfist. Let Sialeeds perceive this however she wants, she’s partly right if she’s calling him immature-and as long as she’s acknowledging that he’s not the only one, then let her think it. They will need some time apart before the ceremony of their formal engagement is to begin. Let absence make the heart grow fonder.
He does not write to her; words seem somehow inappropriate. She’s never been one to write back, anyway, and the river swells and recedes in silence, marking the passage of time with the level of brine on the fortress’ exterior seaside walls.
-
Tokyo Babylon / X
parallel motion (subaru)
“-Fabulous!” Hokuto leaps up out of the waiting room seat, flings her arms around him, spins on one foot in a broken arabesque that balloons her skirts and crinoline out. “Now we can match again!”
“I-er, neechan, I don’t really want to wear girl’s clothing-”
“Oh come on, not even once just for old times sake?” She nuzzles his cheek, grins; he can feel the makeup crossing over to his, making the flush across his nose look paler. “We’ve got to do it now, before you start getting taller than me. Your growth-spurt’s probably going to hit you next year or the year after and you’ll just leave me behind, a hundred and fifty five unloved centimeters while you move on and on into the hundred and eighties and we’ll have to be complementary, not matching, there’s a point where you won’t even be cute anymore and-”
“Fine,” he sighs, well, shouts a little because her embrace is getting tighter. “We’ll try and trick everyone tomorrow, all right? One last time before we move to Tokyo.”
“Victory!” she shouts, and springs into the air, still leaning on him like a dance partner.
-
oblique motion (subaru)
He-he may not look or sound like he’s been keeping track, but he is. There are little changes, shifts in the way Seishirou moves, the way he touches-the way he breathes, lips parted just under Subaru’s ear (there’s a sore muscle there, slack, bruised from the outside). If Subaru grits his teeth and shivers, Seishirou pauses, then does whatever he’d done, again and harder. If Subaru twitches, jumps, or gasps, there’s a deep bemused click in the older man’s throat (and Subaru can feel that, and it’s a thing that makes him shake). If Subaru clings, touches back, kisses back, there’s a wash of curiosity, like a driver rubbernecking (“who’s dead? who crashed? it can’t be me.”) but never crashing himself, never losing sight of the road.
But if he does nothing-if he-if he lies still, complies, shows no signs of contention or resistance at all-then Seishirou may as well not be there.
-
.
.
So the book that my State of Research was published in? two copies arrived for me today.
This pleases me a lot. I think I want to go to Pitt tomorrow and brag. In fact, I shall.
.
Posting those twelve-tone drabbles now, by fandom.
A Song of Ice and Fire
inversion (cersei)
There are other ways to power. Cersei simply does not take them.
She could gird herself in the armor that suits her brother and father so well, but that would be counterproductive at best and downright comical otherwise; she could take the path of that thing that dares to share a name with her, shrink into the shadows and tug the strings from there; she could do as surrogate queens past have done, grip the hilts upon the throne of swords and shirk the blades.
To do so would be to deny that which she is. Not king; queen, thwarted.
-
Battlestar Galactica 2004
transposition (leoben)
The vacuous sucking of static and dry and nothingness leaves his ears, and-yes. Oh yes, dying hurts, just like he’d expected it to, like Leoben had told himself-coming alive again hurts more, teaches more. All the coldness of space thaws instantly, leaves his skin-because it never touched this skin, never touched this body. Never even touched this brain. Only the soul remembers, only the software lives on, and in the hot gelatinous instant of that disconnect there’s something else.
He’ll have to die again to see it.
With Kara surrounding him. With Kara’s breath in his blood.
-
canon (laura)
Tory isn’t Billy. That’s the first item, the first rule. It’s like taking notes, there’s a file under the boldfaced I that starts with a capital A, and the capital A is that Tory hasn’t spent over a year as Laura’s shadow, doesn’t know the little things. Little i, how Laura takes her tea. Little ii, when not to keep silent. Little iii, when not to let the issue drop and overstep her bounds. Capital B, to Tory this is a job, not a commitment. Little i, little ii, little iii, on and on.
Laura raises the issue to Bill-not Billy-when Bill follows another one of Laura’s unvoiced rules. “She’s dangerous,” Bill says.
“That might be just what I need,” Laura contests.
-
Death Note
transposition (light)
Misa sings in the shower.
She’s not bad at it, by any definition that excludes stylistic predilection from its criteria. She’s not even inconsiderate, really, doesn’t do it when Light’s asleep or studying, and stops if he asks her to without more than a petulant whine-but after that, silence. And then, when she’s out, she’ll be mostly-silent even when she’s worshipping him, making, at most, little undignified sounds, indistinguishable from the little victories of buckling her shoes.
He deduces that he misses the invasion of his personal space. Not the physical-Misa invades that all the time. The personal.
When he was being hunted, he was never bored.
-
Final Fantasy VI
oblique motion (leo)
The more things stay the same, the more they change.
Politically, Vector prospers. It produces, and swarms with what it produces. The population stabilizes, as much as it can in a time of campaign; crafts fill the sky and the smoke of industry hides them; quality of lifestyle and education and employment improve, for all concerned. The people who enact His Imperial Majesty’s will are doing what they should, and so they continue to do it.
It is only proper, Leo thinks, that a similar state of prosperity be conferred upon the rest of the world, and herald an age of stability.
-
Ivalice
inversion (fran)
There are few Viera in Rozarria; though the land is by no stretch of the imagination barren, every means of getting there is. The voice of the Wood does not infringe upon the song of the ocean, or insult the Jagd of desert air. The drills of the Yensa Sandseas are a scourge to her, salt upon salt to the Mist-drenched earth.
It is deafness, in a sense, but voluntary deafness, against the clanging of shields and the desperate scrapes of claws upon bone. It is here that Fran first stays, for any length of time at all, when she is free.
-
tonicization (ashe)
She falls into the shorter skirts of the common with the ease of one who has longed to wear them. The demeanor she affects does not dare become crude; instead, it emphasizes her schooled propriety (which she has dispensed with to the best of her ability), a consciousness of her allure and her womanhood. She takes to high greaves-in the streets, and in times of war, the bulk of a man’s wealth is on his person-and higher collars, and square heels that raise her out of the sand she now must tread.
The more of her skin she bares, the more of her origins she hides; but her nature, too, darkens with her exposed flesh.
-
cancrizan inversion (spider)
“There is not much of me in you,” says the old Queen-with a sigh that falters through her scepter as she passes it to him. He has been king in all but name, and that name she will forfeit only when she dies-and that she dies, he is not prepared to accept.
“My Lady Mother,” says Spider, “I respectfully disagree. Despite the shade upon my skin, I am not my father’s son alone.”
“Would you cling to this, as I, until it is reduced to a crutch?”
“You do not cling to it now.”
“The thing is not its name,” she says. It is proof enough that there is something of her in him, for Spider understands.
-
deceptive cadence (sydney)
Belatedly, and passively, as the pain does to his mind what his blood does upon the floor, he marks that Samantha is watching.
Sydney considers; for how long has the shepherdess stood by, over the cast off wool that hid the wolf? Was she there, in the corps that felled John? Was it her hand on the catch of that bowgun? His recollection of those moments falters when the present overcomes him, when the under-muscle of his back is bared to the noxious, incensed air.
That his lover spelled the death of mine, Sydney thinks, would be the gods’ own irony.
-
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (and 2)
canon (gale)
“Why do these sounds not correlate with an interface?”
Roland nearly walks into the terminal. “What sounds?”
It’s a stupid question-hard enough to point out sounds as it is, but Gale cocks his head toward where a bunch of teenagers are-
“Oh,” Roland says. “That’s called music. Well, some people call it music. Most people my age would just think it's noise.”
One of Gale’s green eyebrows retreats into the shadow of his hood. “It is as if an irregular mantra was applied to an audio interface iterated at regular intervals, deriving a set of permutations from which a synaptic interest is aroused.”
“We just call it ‘rap’,” Roland says.
-
contrary motion (jenna)
Every second Thursday, tea with Madame Margot in territory as neutral as possible. This usually means not being in the complex itself. Jenna wonders what will happen when the last café closes, when there is no longer anyone who has the will to steep the earth in water and serve it-or, more importantly, the will to frequent such a place.
She expresses it, when it occurs to her; “Money won’t matter nearly as much as clout, in a few years.”
“Oh?” Madame has no eyebrows, but they seem to raise nonetheless.
“There won’t be anything to buy,” Jenna explains. “People will just take what they need.”
“How feral,” Madame says, “uncivilized.”
“I find it comforting, actually.” Jenna sets down her cup, rotates it pointedly. “But then, I am strong and canny enough to survive in such a place, without dependency on the constructions of the past. Of society.” It occurs to her: “Society’s never known what to do with me.”
There is a ring of lipstick on the curve of Madame’s cup, not that she sees it. “Whereas it has always known, even in the kingdom of beasts, respect for those who have survived against the predisposition of fate.” The blind, she does not say, and the old.
“In stories,” Jenna disagrees.
-
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
modulation (orpheus)
There’s always an even pulse in Minato’s ears. Things don’t get faster or slower until the track changes. The world passes by on its usual cluster of four-billion-man-percussion, that many heartbeats and paces and knucklecracks-but inside Minato it’s quarter-equals-X BPM or nothing at all. Up in here, Monteverdi is dead and John Cage is spinning on a rotisserie and no one’s seen a koto or a conga drum in years. No improvisation. Everything measured and micromanaged, one six four five one.
Climb the stairs and slay the shadows, one six four five one.
Put up with the teacher’s questions, one six four five one.
Tie hakama, swing shinai, one six four five one.
He doesn’t even hear the music anymore.
-
Suikoden
cancrizan (flik)
Viktor’s asleep; the sword’s apparently bored. The longer Flik watches it, the more he thinks its pommel is stargazing.
“Something on my face?” it asks.
“No, he cleaned you.” Flik leans into the tree, rearticulates his shoulders. “I’ve never asked, just assumed that you can see. Can you?”
“Not the way you can, no. I mean, I know he’s an uncouth bear because of how he feels, and I know you’re blue because of how you sound.”
“Blue’s a color, not a sound.”
“It’s still what you are. I don’t see colors, I just know they’re there.”
-
similar motion (orosi)
The spells his father casts require slower, grander motion. Orosi does not mimic it anymore. The Fire Rune laughed when he tried, made the nerves inside his hand stammer and swell and just-contradicted him.
“But fire can also be slow and grand,” Orosi said then, gritting his teeth stubbornly. “Just as earth can be fickle and quickly doused.”
The Rune keeps laughing, however else it speaks. But ever after, Orosi casts with flicks and bursts, for the Rune will not cooperate otherwise.
-
deceptive cadence (gizel)
Senate is in recess for a while, a seemingly interminable while, and Gizel returns to Stormfist. Let Sialeeds perceive this however she wants, she’s partly right if she’s calling him immature-and as long as she’s acknowledging that he’s not the only one, then let her think it. They will need some time apart before the ceremony of their formal engagement is to begin. Let absence make the heart grow fonder.
He does not write to her; words seem somehow inappropriate. She’s never been one to write back, anyway, and the river swells and recedes in silence, marking the passage of time with the level of brine on the fortress’ exterior seaside walls.
-
Tokyo Babylon / X
parallel motion (subaru)
“-Fabulous!” Hokuto leaps up out of the waiting room seat, flings her arms around him, spins on one foot in a broken arabesque that balloons her skirts and crinoline out. “Now we can match again!”
“I-er, neechan, I don’t really want to wear girl’s clothing-”
“Oh come on, not even once just for old times sake?” She nuzzles his cheek, grins; he can feel the makeup crossing over to his, making the flush across his nose look paler. “We’ve got to do it now, before you start getting taller than me. Your growth-spurt’s probably going to hit you next year or the year after and you’ll just leave me behind, a hundred and fifty five unloved centimeters while you move on and on into the hundred and eighties and we’ll have to be complementary, not matching, there’s a point where you won’t even be cute anymore and-”
“Fine,” he sighs, well, shouts a little because her embrace is getting tighter. “We’ll try and trick everyone tomorrow, all right? One last time before we move to Tokyo.”
“Victory!” she shouts, and springs into the air, still leaning on him like a dance partner.
-
oblique motion (subaru)
He-he may not look or sound like he’s been keeping track, but he is. There are little changes, shifts in the way Seishirou moves, the way he touches-the way he breathes, lips parted just under Subaru’s ear (there’s a sore muscle there, slack, bruised from the outside). If Subaru grits his teeth and shivers, Seishirou pauses, then does whatever he’d done, again and harder. If Subaru twitches, jumps, or gasps, there’s a deep bemused click in the older man’s throat (and Subaru can feel that, and it’s a thing that makes him shake). If Subaru clings, touches back, kisses back, there’s a wash of curiosity, like a driver rubbernecking (“who’s dead? who crashed? it can’t be me.”) but never crashing himself, never losing sight of the road.
But if he does nothing-if he-if he lies still, complies, shows no signs of contention or resistance at all-then Seishirou may as well not be there.
-
.
.