Perpetual Song (draft)

draft about a magical piano player saving children from the military.

vod links 1, 2, 3.

i’ve been replaying eternal sonata, and i’ve only done one session of it, and that was on wednesday, and i’ve just been screaming at it all week. and i have to decided that i need to write a better narrative that incorporates anti capitalism, ableism, mental illness, physical disability, a magic system based on light and darkness, chopin, and george sand (or at least characters inspired by chopin and george sand).

oh and also at least one character needs to use a cane cuz one of my friends has been getting bullied at work for using one and he’s a badass and cherished. and i want him to see someone like himself being badass and cherished <3.

shout out to that friend. you know who you are ❤

okay whatever i’ll look at that later

anyway the flower crown emotes look adorable! everyone should try the modify an emote, flower crown on at least one emote. they look so cute. i want them forever XD

should i do some character shit first??? eh we can wing it, i guess

this concept is probably better suited for a novel but i don’t want to write a novel, so maybe we can avoid that fate. hopefully.

maybe we can get it down to a novella, that would be fantastic

at least get some goddamn pronouns

my god i’m glad they made him into standard anime pretty older guy cuz my god chopin looks ugly

LOOK AT THAT HAIR

george sand looks gorgeous (and also kinda like the standard anime pretty feminine guy, SO MY PLANS FOR GENDER FUCKERY ARE VALID) also george sand wore pants and smoked cigars in public, so they were already valid. but it’s nice to have visual confirmation that my artistic liberties were correct.

okay George Glass | Aurora Dawn

i just wanna change all the names cuz i know i don’t care enough about history to write a history textbook or anything like that. so might as well just keep to the fictional aspects and not have people >:U cuz i ruined their history fave or whatever. I have Thoughts about historical fiction as a genre that basically amount I Don’t Care For It. like most shit in the historical fiction genre that i’ve seen disneyfies the hell out of its history in order to make it a good, mass-pleasing story (and admittedly, i don’t engage much with the genre, so i’m sure the indie scene is much better). like i have ambitions for these characters that using a direct historical connection might distract people, so we might as well just drop / change the names and go from there. keep what we want, drop what we don’t! and everybody’s happy.

George Sand notes

• French novelist, memoirist, and journalist.
• one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era.
• more renowned than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s
• raised for much of her childhood by her grandmother
• wore men’s clothing without a permit, justifying them as being less expensive and far sturdier than the typical dress of a noblewoman
• scandalous was Sand’s smoking tobacco in public
• Victor Hugo commented “George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother.” <- okay the nonbinary of the week is to become someone that people say that about. not that i feel super connected to womanhood at all (except by entrapment). “it is no one else’s place to decide whether i am their sister or their brother or their sibling. only mine.”

Chopin notes

• All of Chopin’s compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces
• technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument
• for their nuance and sensitivity
• Chopin was of slight build, and even in early childhood was prone to illnesses.
• too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists
• never felt fully comfortable speaking French [i mean, fair. i took french for three years in high school and it was fine. i took latin in high school too, and was right before my third french class, so i was pronouncing all the latin letters as if they were french XD for a couple classes, anyway. then i learned to switch better. then i took german in college and super vibed with that! but then i couldn’t take my next german class until a year later and bombed the final XD but i still i got a B or something in the class somehow.]
• preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends [aw that’s cute!]
• his powers of concentration were failing and his inspiration was beset by anguish, both emotional and intellectual.
• indifferent to Sand’s radical political pursuits [tale as old as fucking time]
• weighing under 99 pounds
• Solange’s husband Clésinger made Chopin’s death mask and a cast of his left hand
• As requested by Chopin, Ludwika took his heart (which had been removed by his doctor Jean Cruveilhier and preserved in alcohol in a vase) back to Poland in 1850
• put the mazurka on the European musical map
• never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number [oh that’s why all the music in eternal sonata had mechanical names!!]
• Funeral March, the third movement of his Sonata No. 2 (Op. 35), the one case where he did give a title, was written before the rest of the sonata, but no specific event or death is known to have inspired it.
• Many of the Chopin nocturnes have middle sections marked by agitated expression (and often making very difficult demands on the performer), which heightens their dramatic character.
• Chopin’s études are largely in straightforward ternary form. He used them to teach his own technique of piano playing
• nothing equals the lightness, the sweetness with which the composer preludes on the piano; moreover nothing may be compared to his works full of originality, distinction and grace
• His style was based extensively on his use of a very independent finger technique. In his Projet de méthode he wrote: “Everything is a matter of knowing good fingering … we need no less to use the rest of the hand, the wrist, the forearm and the upper arm.” He further stated: “One needs only to study a certain position of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful quality of sound, to know how to play short notes and long notes, and [to attain] unlimited dexterity.” The consequences of this approach to technique in Chopin’s music include the frequent use of the entire range of the keyboard, passages in double octaves and other chord groupings, swiftly repeated notes, the use of grace notes, and the use of contrasting rhythms (four against three, for example) between the hands.
• he was concerned with expressive phrasing, rhythmic consistency and sensitive colouring
• What in the hands of others was elegant embellishment, in his hands became a colourful wreath of flowers
• frequently played with rubato, “the practice in performance of disregarding strict time, ‘robbing’ some note-values for expressive effect”
• His most severe criticism was ‘He – or she – does not know how to join two notes together.’
• “non plus ultra” (“nothing better”)
• described the sound of Chopin’s Pleyel as being “the marriage of crystal and water”
• Chopin mentioned his pianos in his letters: “I have a large drawing-room with three pianos, a Pleyel, a Broadwood and an Erard.” [this dude loves pianos so much, he should’ve married one XD i mean ultimately, good for him. i’m sure there are plenty of piano players out there who would love to be able to afford both the money and space for three pianos.]
• Chopin’s works are cannon buried in flowers! [oh yeah there’s also lots of flowers everywhere in eternal sonata too. at least in the beginning.]

alrighty i think we’ve mined all i want from the wikis.

kinda, wanna build chopin [idk what his name’s gonna be yet] and george glass in hero forge but i also wanna finish this villager first… cuz i know i’ll forget otherwise >:U

damn over 800 words, huh? fuck me i guess.

---

His lungs and his feet ganged up on him.  With a gritted grumble, he sat down on a nearby stone.  His body was failing him on a day he―or more accurately, other people. he himself would be fine if he didn’t succeed in his and George Glass’s mission―needed its full strength.

[“We can rest a bit, you know,”]

[“Let’s rest]

“They’re not taking the kids anywhere today,” George Glass stated matter-of-factly as he leaned against a tree with one foot braced against it, [trousered] leg bent.  [The looseness of his vested shoulders in addition to the rest of his posture affected the.]  [His arms.]  [He reached effortlessly into the.]  Effortlessly, he plucked a green apple from the fluffy boughs of his chosen perch.  [Aloof yet attentive.]  He grabbed another one and tossed it to Quarter.

[quarter is literally all i thought about when the wiki said chopin means “quart”.]

Quarter ate a bite of it, contrasting George Glass turning his once plump fruit into a mere corpse.  When the howling of Quarter’s lungs became a mere hissing, he grabbed his cane again and stood up.

“I will not have the children suffer the hands of their captors a moment longer,” Quarter said. “I cannot rest away weak lungs.”

“Better than having weak morals. [,” George Glass said. “] None of the ableds were willing to help,” and George Glass said that venomously.  Quarter had no doubt that George Glass’s next piece of literature would contain a curse upon all the abled townspeople. [, “were willing to help.”]

[“Because it wasn’t their children who were taken,” Quarter said.]

Quarter closed his eyes for a moment.  But he kept walking.  Controlling his breathing did more harm than good now, but he could still close his eyes.  Close his eyes to a world so vile, it didn’t even respond to the plight of children.

A lot of it was fear.  Terror, frankly.  Soldiers had guns.  Villagers had hunting knives and bows.

Except the children.  Well, likely not all of them.  But at least one.  They’d been out in the flower fields dancing together as the moonblooms opened up and glittered in the night.  George Glass and Quarter were on their way to their usual tree that overlooked the nearby city when they felt heat at their backs.  They turned around.

Someone had summoned a [ring of fire] bonfire.  They hadn’t made it out of fuel and flame, they’d willed it into existence.  Someone could use magic.  [The children, all too young to.]

George Glass had rushed over to try to figure out who it was.  But he was already too late.  Gunfire exploded in the night.  The children screamed as they were grabbed one by one.  Smaller ones two at a time.

The magician ended up being [Ellana, the baker’s daughter.]

[gonna hold on to the name Ellana for now…]

The magician ended up being Hazel, the baker’s son, a young man who was still a child yet.  Ellana, Hazel’s tiny sister, was also there that night.  All of the village’s children were there that night.

A week passed, and still nobody said a word. Not even to cry.  None except George Glass.

“You think they’ll stop at taking our children?” he said in the square. “You said they’d stop at taking our medicine, our horses, our food!  They won’t stop taking until there’s nothing left to take! When we’re all dead and every last moonbloom is burned.” Lastly, he added with a sneer, “No more competition for their corn.”

“And what do you expect us to do about it?” the blacksmith asked. “March over and demand our children back?”

“I was planning on taking them back, actually,” said George Glass.

The townspeople turned away from the square.  And so did George Glass, with Quarter following resolutely behind.  [But he went in the direction of the fort.  Quarter followed him.]

They were headed to Fort Tyran.

[alright we’ve been going for two hours + i have work tomorrow, so i’m gonna end this here after this villager. fucking be done already please. i will get the stream doc up tonight. thanks for coming out, everyone ❤ let’s find someone to raid!]