No Metronome, No Metronome

[mithrigil]

.

I want to do an operatic or art-music "cover" of this song.

Just getting that out there. Maybe when this house stops being....yeah. Not a good day to be here.

So I write about the real world and real issues instead of my own.

Title: No Metronome, No Metronome
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America, England
Words:

Comments

[blacknoise]

<333 Mighty as ever.

I love your writing--you do this fandom such unbelievable justice.

[mithrigil]

:blush:

This is my America song. I blame Linden for that--but it is IN MY HEAD and the fic needed to come out of it, that's all.

[blacknoise]

*shameless plea*

Might I prevail upon you to beta something of mine in the near future?

(There are so many good America songs out there but I currently like, shameful as it may be, America's Suitehearts by Fall Out Boy.)

[mithrigil]

Sure, I'd love to beta something! I'm on AIM under this handle.

(Puel and I are almost done with our UK US UST FST, actually)

[mireyan]

How can you be so amazing? I love this one. England is absolutly amazing. and I don't why but he looks very hot, of course XD.

"I taught him his letters, I taught him his tools, I built his ambition-
and we are both fools." omg, i love this sentence.

[mithrigil]

Hee, thank you~

That sentence is one of my really manipulative tricks in this piece--it follows the scansion of one of the sections of the song, kind of a hint for what's also being said there. But yeah, an Enfield can make a man really sexy...

This is probably the most appropriate icon I have.

[byzantienne]

You got emotion and aesthetics over AIM. Let's do analytic pleasure, because damn but there's a lot of that here.

Start with rhythm and tempo (and voice; I'll get there in a minute). I can't match you on musical analysis, but I know what your metaphor set is, here, and you're being masterful with it: starting with The paper sounds like sharpening knives, sliding against itself this way-when he raps a stack’s collected edges on the table to straighten them, the sound echoes, staggered beats. Staggered beats, the world out of rhythm and out of time. Music but not music -- tempo, and acceleration, instead, and thus clocks (tick, tock), and therefore time (and timing.) Which you are also using as your primary authorial conceit; where you're being manipulative in this piece, you're being manipulative with timing and rhythm.

For instance: "“You changed war. You irrevocably changed war, the way metal did, and ships, and currency and guns,” and bunkers built of tables draped in blankets, stick-swords and washbasin helmets and hand-sewn

Re: This is probably the most appropriate icon I have.

[mithrigil]

One thematic (melodic!) line comprised of two interspersed voices--hocket. And you already know passacaglia. In Handlebars, there are two separate lines and only one of them is properly pitched, the passacaglia. The rap has complex rhythm to it but usually indeterminate or blued pitch, and as such, during the verses, any idea of melody is created from the interplay of the two separate lines. And the rap itself has two voices, one that adheres to pitch and one that wordpaints instead.

So I'm pretty much doing the same thing with these two: in terms of the musicothematic use (as opposed to the lyrics), America is the passacaglia, with his steady tapping, and England's disjointed thoughts are the two voices of the melody/rap line. The past is lyric, the present is not. So when England's voice slips into the actual patterns of the song and become aware of what's going on...yeah. Just as you described.

I really am manipulative. Horribly so, occasionally. BUT IT WORKS.

Re: This is probably the most appropriate icon I have.

[byzantienne]

I learn more music theory from you~

And I love seeing how you've used the theory to inform the pattern of the narrative. It's -- I stand in awe, every so often. I mean, I do interlocking structure, but you do interlocking structure that includes other media... *grins*

And yes, o manipulative author. Yes you are. And yes it does.

Re: This is probably the most appropriate icon I have.

[mithrigil]

I think it happens because they're not one media for me anymore, not really.

First, maybe? XDD

[kurifurinkan]

OH. MY. GOD.

When I first saw this, the 'mutual' part, I mean, I swore up and down there was porn. There wasn't porn. That was okay.

Mith, I don't know how you do it, wind tension so tight I feel stiff after reading. I just don't know, it's almost painful.

Just as decisively, England reaches beneath the table to the holster on his thigh, draws his sidearm, and places it on top of his files.

Behind his glasses, America’s eyes widen, like his mouth on an aborted word.

This killed me. Okay. As did this:you’re not going to cane me, are you? England?

Not hard. Fffff whhut. Oh god. I forgot the corporal punishment, yes. *headdesks

Re: First, maybe? XDD

[kurifurinkan]

Well it was first when I started typing okay. Also, feel free to ignore everything I said and focus on lindensphinx's comment because she basically said what I was trying to say, but with better words. DX

Re: First, maybe? XDD

[mithrigil]

Ha, yeah, it is a mutual agreement but one under duress. No porn for these two during the Cold War, heh. Or, well. Pretty much any other era of history I've written proper fic for.

And yeah, corporal punishment. That fic's drafted out in mine and Puel's heads. Kind of...dodgy in places.

Thank you so much, and for the offer as well--I'll get through it, I'm pretty sure.

Re: First, maybe? XDD

[kurifurinkan]

Ffff a no-porn agreement makes me want to ask for documents to see who authorized that XDD

And yeah, corporal punishment. That fic's drafted out in mine and Puel's heads. Kind of...dodgy in places.
*o*
...
\o/

♥

[windmilltilter]

Oh my God. Oh my God.

You referenced "Handlebars" by the Flobots for America. I think I love you.

Now all you need is "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay for England and well...

I am so full of squee right now. I'll give a more coherent review later. Just know that this fic is, like your others, wonderful. The tension is so palpable in this.

(P.S. I hope things get better for you soon.)

[mithrigil]

Yeah, this would be the song for America. England I've got several for, and Puel and I are doing a proper FST for the UST.

Thank you~!

[twistedsheets10]

...and FST for the UST. Oh yeah, baby. Do want. Unf. XD