Well, a genre and a period in history. The Classical Period. The two kinda get mixed up together into one meaning. People call anything with that kind of feel "Classical."
That's what a genre is, I mean. It's a feeling, or a style of something. Usually an art, like visual arts and music.
Really old music that you can't trace back to a date, stuff that's been around since we first started making simply instruments, is called Prehistoric. Then I think the next era is Ancient, and then... Early, I think? Then the European Renaissance happened, and music really took off as a popular art form. Then the "Periods" I talked about before started to happen.
Classical music mostly centered in a continent called Europe, and especially in a country called Austria. While that era was happening, I don't think instruments like trumpets and pianos and violins had even been seen in Japan yet. But over time, the genre spread all across the world.
That's pretty magical to me. I don't know English, or any other European language, but music breaks all those barriers. It doesn't matter where you're from; humans love music everywhere. It's a language we all understand.
[ She does think it's... fascinating, but that's largely because he so clearly cares about what he's discussing. That does make it compelling: people's passions have that effect on her perceptions. ]
Well, the sort of music that was played in the royal courts was called Gagaku. I guess that'd be the closest thing we have to classical music. But like I said, we didn't have those European instruments. The most popular was the Biwa, which is a kind of lute...
[He looked over at Annie's own Lute, smirking at the coincidence.]
Then there was Min'yo, which was folk music that the common people played. Their instrument of choice was the Shamisen. It was a simpler, three-stringed guitar. A lot of those old folk songs are still known today.
Not many people play those instruments anymore, aside from folk artists and musical historians... Oh, and Geisha too.
Honestly, when I was young, I never thought much about music. I was more into sports and track team. But when I was in my sixth year of school, I heard one of my upperclassmen practicing trumpet on the roof. I got mesmerized by it. All of the sudden, I wanted to learn to play music more than anything.
So I went after it! I had to work really hard to catch up with my peers, but I was having fun too, so it wasn't so bad.
Geisha are women that train in different Japanese arts, like music and the tea ceremony, and entertain people. It's a really high class sort of thing. Nowadays, they're kind of like historians themselves. Or maybe... Living history.
If you've ever been to Ecruteak and seen the Kimono Girls-- it's a lot like that.
I was around 12. Most people start learning music way younger... Like, as soon as they can sit up straight at a piano bench.
[ Ah, entertainers. Keeping a history alive that's relevant to Japan in specific, less the world at large. Living history indeed. ]
I have. [ She says, nodding. The Kimono Girls gives her a greater context, at least. Then she tips her head to the side, looking out over the garden, only seeing him in her periphery. ] How many of those had passions initially driven by their parents, I wonder.
Plenty of them. I know a couple of guys who are real virtuosos... Ah, that means that they're incredibly skilled at their instrument-- One of them, both his parents were famous musicians, and the other, his mother taught piano out of their home. They were exposed to it from the start. It's really common for parents to pass their skills down to their children.
Sure, if it lines up that way. But in some cases, it can be a lot of pressure. Everyone's music is different, and some people can't help but compare themselves to people who they think are better at it than they are.
And there is a difference in skill there, but... At the same time, skill can only go so far, you know? There's more to music than just how well you can move your fingers or control your breathing. It's got a heart.
The same can be said for any skill, artistic or not. Or that's my opinion on it, anyway.
[ Martial arts, her father's style, has a heart too: a useless one, a painful one, but a meaningful one. It's not the skill she has in knowing how to move like that, but that it matters, deep down, who she learned from. One single point of communication between a father who sold his daughter to the War before he realised all he was giving up and had already lost in the process.
Come home alive. She wonders if he's still living, if Paradis has done anything with the Colossal Titan, what Zeke was up to, what the mess of their shitty world has become. She simply doesn't know, and she's closer to dying simply by existing unchanged and untouched and so freaking ignorant. ]
[Kazuki could feel a bit of underlying pain in Annie's expression, even if he didn't know its source. And this encounter was beginning to help him understand that there was only so much he could do about it. He set his trumpet aside for a moment to pour her another drink.]
[ She makes a small humming sort of sound in thanks when he finishes pouring her another drink, taking it and................... downing it all in one.
Elegant drinking partner she is not, but she appreciates that he's not so simple that he presses on points she can't say out loud. Even if Armin didn't try to keep her cornered, she already doesn't want to harm the lives the rest of them have built here. Even Bertolt.
If he doesn't fill the silence, she'll settle into it, saying after some time: ]
You're a good person.
[ Not special, because when she says that, it isn't flattering so much as aware of potential and the drive that changes lives, for better and worse. Changes societies, introducing that chaos the rest have to muddle through.
And there's that joke of an edge to it still, because she can remember Armin's response when she'd posited that question: Do you think I'm that good a person?
You can be a good person to me. The world is viewed through a personal lens, and always will be. Kazuki is good to her. And she suspects, from many perspectives, he is good, for varying definitions of the word. She's glad for that, she thinks. ]
[Kazuki chuckled when she downed her drink like someone with experience, and poured himself another glass as well. He just sipped at it. He didn't have experience. At all.]
[He normally wasn't a silence kind of person, but he was able to get comfortable with it after awhile. Annie's silence wasn't awkward or sad, just contemplative. It gave him the opportunity to appreciate the softer sounds of the nature that surrounded his house.]
[When she finally spoke again, he couldn't help but quirk his head at her comment. He didn't yet know the significance she placed on those words, so they sounded strange to him.]
Thank you? [It was a compliment, after all... Right?] I mean, I hope that I am. Do you not know many good people?
[ She goes quiet again, holding the empty glass in her hands, remembering. All her memories... the ones she can access, they talk about a time four years past. They're closer to the surface now than they should be, refreshed in a way that paired with the terror behind discovering her own lost time. ]
A... friend once told me that it's not a matter of good or bad people. Everyone is good or bad to someone else, in some way. He said it's a matter of someone being a good person to him, in that moment.
[ Her smile now is both bitter and wry. ]
Convenient logic, if you ask me, but compelling in its own way. Even by that measure... no. [ She says, expression going neutral, returning to how she usually faces the world. Resting neutral face, sometimes tending toward resting bitch face. ] I don't know many good people who last.
[Kazuki, again, has to give himself a moment to try and understand her words. He'd never had such a view on the world, and people. He believed there was good in everybody. That everyone was just trying their best. Truly bad people... He considered them a rarity. They existed, but he didn't know any personally.]
I guess... Whoever said that, they're not wrong. What everyone thinks is good and bad, it's different for each person.
If you really believe that, then... Why aren't people good to you?
[ For a moment, she wears the ghost of a very, very tired smile. Then she holds up her empty glass, tipping it toward him in silent entreaty while looking out over his garden. ]
Would you like to know a secret? It's not a good one. It's caustic enough to burn, and it's true.
[ He's so kind, filling her cup again. She probably... proooobably shouldn't drink it as fast as last time. She hasn't eaten enough today to offset how this might hit her system.
Ah. ]
I was born into hatred, and raised to be despised. And I've never fought against either.
[ Not in any meaningful way. Sparing lives, only certain lives, wasn't enough. Blood stained her hands, and she had put it there, one death at a time. ]
To imagine the kind of hatred someone would have to incur to make me palatable for the world... that's a truly horrible thought.
[Kazuki didn't understand. How could someone be born and raised to be hated? He had to repeat her final words in his head several times before they made any sense to him.]
[Trying to find a reply was even harder. His mouth opened to begin speaking a few times, but no sound emerged. Nothing he could think of really felt right. There was no way he could match her suffering with his own words.]
...Even if you think you're awful, I don't... I don't see how you could blame yourself for something you were forced to do.
[He has no idea what it was, but despite the chilling feeling that it would be something unfathomable to him... Kazuki saw this sad, distant girl, and as began to understand a small fraction of her suffering, he knew it was nothing she was proud of.]
[ She lolls her head back, looking up, then shifts so she looks his way. There's resignation there in her eyes, but an awareness, too, of why things are this way. People are shitty. The pressure of a society is the flow of events that moves her. This place has a whole different flow, and it's why she's here, why she fought at gyms, though none of the elite battles yet.
So it goes. So it goes. ]
Saying you just followed orders is a statement of fact, and an explanation, Kazuki. It's never an excuse. Do or die, lives are made up of choices. Sometimes nothing but shitty ones.
[ No matter what she did not want to do, she still wanted to live. She's culpable for that, and well aware of it, and not quite fully apologetic because she can't wish herself dead. ]
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forsaintcecilia
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-06 06:04 pm (UTC)Genre?
[ Lacking some context on how else that term is used... bc who knows if a term from 19th century France is or is not in AoT verse, help ]
Is there such a thing as ancient classical, or does classical keep slowly growing without aging out of the label?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-06 10:05 pm (UTC)That's what a genre is, I mean. It's a feeling, or a style of something. Usually an art, like visual arts and music.
Really old music that you can't trace back to a date, stuff that's been around since we first started making simply instruments, is called Prehistoric. Then I think the next era is Ancient, and then... Early, I think? Then the European Renaissance happened, and music really took off as a popular art form. Then the "Periods" I talked about before started to happen.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-10 07:44 am (UTC)[ If so, that's way more organised than anything on her world. ]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-12 01:17 am (UTC)That's pretty magical to me. I don't know English, or any other European language, but music breaks all those barriers. It doesn't matter where you're from; humans love music everywhere. It's a language we all understand.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 04:15 am (UTC)[ She does think it's... fascinating, but that's largely because he so clearly cares about what he's discussing. That does make it compelling: people's passions have that effect on her perceptions. ]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 03:52 pm (UTC)[He looked over at Annie's own Lute, smirking at the coincidence.]
Then there was Min'yo, which was folk music that the common people played. Their instrument of choice was the Shamisen. It was a simpler, three-stringed guitar. A lot of those old folk songs are still known today.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 06:43 pm (UTC)Were you ever interested in any of those, or just the trumpet and classical music out of Europe?
[ Assessing how people relate to foreign countries is... a habit she hasn't thought about having. ]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 06:55 pm (UTC)Honestly, when I was young, I never thought much about music. I was more into sports and track team. But when I was in my sixth year of school, I heard one of my upperclassmen practicing trumpet on the roof. I got mesmerized by it. All of the sudden, I wanted to learn to play music more than anything.
So I went after it! I had to work really hard to catch up with my peers, but I was having fun too, so it wasn't so bad.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 09:22 pm (UTC)[ Using terms she knows nothing about... but she doesn't mind. He's good at explaining when she points things out, more or less. ]
How old did that make you, if it was your sixth year in school?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-16 10:05 pm (UTC)If you've ever been to Ecruteak and seen the Kimono Girls-- it's a lot like that.
I was around 12. Most people start learning music way younger... Like, as soon as they can sit up straight at a piano bench.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-18 08:53 pm (UTC)I have. [ She says, nodding. The Kimono Girls gives her a greater context, at least. Then she tips her head to the side, looking out over the garden, only seeing him in her periphery. ] How many of those had passions initially driven by their parents, I wonder.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-18 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-18 11:25 pm (UTC)Easier to learn that way. They're as motivated for you to learn, I'd think, as you are to keep learning.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-18 11:36 pm (UTC)And there is a difference in skill there, but... At the same time, skill can only go so far, you know? There's more to music than just how well you can move your fingers or control your breathing. It's got a heart.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 05:36 pm (UTC)[ Martial arts, her father's style, has a heart too: a useless one, a painful one, but a meaningful one. It's not the skill she has in knowing how to move like that, but that it matters, deep down, who she learned from. One single point of communication between a father who sold his daughter to the War before he realised all he was giving up and had already lost in the process.
Come home alive. She wonders if he's still living, if Paradis has done anything with the Colossal Titan, what Zeke was up to, what the mess of their shitty world has become. She simply doesn't know, and she's closer to dying simply by existing unchanged and untouched and so freaking ignorant. ]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 05:53 pm (UTC)[Kazuki could feel a bit of underlying pain in Annie's expression, even if he didn't know its source. And this encounter was beginning to help him understand that there was only so much he could do about it. He set his trumpet aside for a moment to pour her another drink.]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 06:04 pm (UTC)Elegant drinking partner she is not, but she appreciates that he's not so simple that he presses on points she can't say out loud. Even if Armin didn't try to keep her cornered, she already doesn't want to harm the lives the rest of them have built here. Even Bertolt.
If he doesn't fill the silence, she'll settle into it, saying after some time: ]
You're a good person.
[ Not special, because when she says that, it isn't flattering so much as aware of potential and the drive that changes lives, for better and worse. Changes societies, introducing that chaos the rest have to muddle through.
And there's that joke of an edge to it still, because she can remember Armin's response when she'd posited that question: Do you think I'm that good a person?
You can be a good person to me. The world is viewed through a personal lens, and always will be. Kazuki is good to her. And she suspects, from many perspectives, he is good, for varying definitions of the word. She's glad for that, she thinks. ]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 08:00 pm (UTC)[He normally wasn't a silence kind of person, but he was able to get comfortable with it after awhile. Annie's silence wasn't awkward or sad, just contemplative. It gave him the opportunity to appreciate the softer sounds of the nature that surrounded his house.]
[When she finally spoke again, he couldn't help but quirk his head at her comment. He didn't yet know the significance she placed on those words, so they sounded strange to him.]
Thank you? [It was a compliment, after all... Right?] I mean, I hope that I am. Do you not know many good people?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)[ She goes quiet again, holding the empty glass in her hands, remembering. All her memories... the ones she can access, they talk about a time four years past. They're closer to the surface now than they should be, refreshed in a way that paired with the terror behind discovering her own lost time. ]
A... friend once told me that it's not a matter of good or bad people. Everyone is good or bad to someone else, in some way. He said it's a matter of someone being a good person to him, in that moment.
[ Her smile now is both bitter and wry. ]
Convenient logic, if you ask me, but compelling in its own way. Even by that measure... no. [ She says, expression going neutral, returning to how she usually faces the world. Resting neutral face, sometimes tending toward resting bitch face. ] I don't know many good people who last.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 10:00 pm (UTC)I guess... Whoever said that, they're not wrong. What everyone thinks is good and bad, it's different for each person.
If you really believe that, then... Why aren't people good to you?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 11:09 pm (UTC)[ For a moment, she wears the ghost of a very, very tired smile. Then she holds up her empty glass, tipping it toward him in silent entreaty while looking out over his garden. ]
Would you like to know a secret? It's not a good one. It's caustic enough to burn, and it's true.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 11:12 pm (UTC)If you want to tell me a secret, I can at least promise I'll keep it.
this feels hilariously overdramatic so HELLO
Date: 2019-06-19 11:41 pm (UTC)Ah. ]
I was born into hatred, and raised to be despised. And I've never fought against either.
[ Not in any meaningful way. Sparing lives, only certain lives, wasn't enough. Blood stained her hands, and she had put it there, one death at a time. ]
To imagine the kind of hatred someone would have to incur to make me palatable for the world... that's a truly horrible thought.
nah my dude I eat this shit for breakfast
Date: 2019-06-20 12:04 am (UTC)[Trying to find a reply was even harder. His mouth opened to begin speaking a few times, but no sound emerged. Nothing he could think of really felt right. There was no way he could match her suffering with his own words.]
...Even if you think you're awful, I don't... I don't see how you could blame yourself for something you were forced to do.
[He has no idea what it was, but despite the chilling feeling that it would be something unfathomable to him... Kazuki saw this sad, distant girl, and as began to understand a small fraction of her suffering, he knew it was nothing she was proud of.]
i am so glad
Date: 2019-06-20 01:26 am (UTC)So it goes. So it goes. ]
Saying you just followed orders is a statement of fact, and an explanation, Kazuki. It's never an excuse. Do or die, lives are made up of choices. Sometimes nothing but shitty ones.
[ No matter what she did not want to do, she still wanted to live. She's culpable for that, and well aware of it, and not quite fully apologetic because she can't wish herself dead. ]
(no subject)
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