#Violin Updated

[xiaq]

What was your relationship with HP in your childhood and what did it mean to you?

Warning: long answer is long.

I read the first HP book when I was 10. It felt like coming home. I was a deeply awkward, anxious kid dealing with bullying at school. I felt wrong and out of place and like everyone except for me had a manual for how they were supposed to navigate life; without the manual I was certain I would never catch up.

Books were a fucking haven. And THIS book. This book was about a kid that I empathized with so much. Except he's bullied and feels out of place because he IS out place. He's meant to be somewhere better, with people like him, who (for the most part) treat him kindly and with respect. And suddenly he's able to make friends and excel at his studies, and he settles into this fantastic world where he fits, and he's bright and likable and he has a purpose. It was just. God, it was everything I wanted for myself. AND there was magic and a train and a cool castle.

I think the first two books were already out when I started reading and I read the rest as they were released (re-reading them all multiple times in between). The friends I did manage to make also adored the books. I went from "playing Harry Potter" on the playground to writing fanfic to going to midnight book releases and meeting up with friends to see the movies as they started coming out. The final book came out shortly after I started high school, and the final movie came out when I was in college. I went to that midnight showing with a good portion of my friends and we all cried like babies at the end. Because it was over. This thing that had sustained us for so long. This thing that marked our childhoods.

You have to understand that Harry Potter-related expectation was a constant for the majority of my life. Since I was in elementary school there was always a new book to look forward to every year or so. And when the book series was completed, there was the next movie to look forward to. And then it was over (and with such an unsatisfying epilogue). That's when I really got involved in fandom (outside the fic I wrote amongst friends in a the group journal we kept and passed back and forth during studyhall, ofc). And fandom was the most accepting, glorious, place for an anxious queer kid just starting to come out of her shell as college afforded her the freedom to realize that maybe the very narrow (private Christian school k-12) concept of normalcy she'd been afforded until that point wasn't entirely accurate. And it continued to be glorious. I went to cons and got merch and put my House in my online dating profile and 3D printed custom HP cookie cutters and joked about having a HP themed wedding some day and my friends and I loved our nerdy little world that made us happy. Until Joanne ruined it.

And I'm honestly not trying to be dramatic, but when something has been so intrinsic to your life and your social circle and even, to an extent, part of your identify, it's fucking devastating when you find out the creator of that thing is a bigot and actively using her platform to target people you love. I stopped supporting her (buying books/movies/merch etc.) a couple years back, and I was content in embracing the concept of Death of the Author (or, as I've previously termed it, "we've killed the author and are now rifling through her stuff to keep the good bits and throw out the bad"). But now, in light of her continued escalations and the recent TV series announcement, and the conversations I've been having with friends (particularly Jewish and trans friends), I do mean that the very concept of Harry Potter is ruined for me. My, now decades, of nostalgia just...aren't enough to supersede what feels like an irresponsible attachment. Before, I wanted HP's social presence to live on in spite of and without JK Rowling. Now, it's becoming more and more apparent that the entertainment industry is going to squeeze as much money out of the HP world as possible which will, by extension, continue to give her a platform and money with which to actively support her shitty dogma.

So. Here I am, too sad to pick up my HP books for my annual summer re-read, or start the new fic a writer I love has just posted or open the document to work on my own HP fic. Which is not at all a condemnation of folks in fandom who ARE able to keep reading and creating and loving the world while thumbing their nose at her. I just can't right now.

So I'm stepping back and blocking the tags and ignoring the show and trying to let other worlds consume me.

Anyway. That's what it meant to me. Sorry for the tiny violin moment but your ask made me sit down and confront the fact that I'm dealing with an extremely weird sort of grief I haven't ever encountered before.

#I'll update SSS tomorrow and put it on haitus #sorry for folks following me for HP stuff #I'd love to come back some day #the tiniest of violins #jk rowling #harry potter #sigh

[bluetorchsky]

I haven’t really said much after my last personal update (I can’t really remember if I made one before), but I guess a lot has happened. I want to write my thoughts down on what my path will be going forward before I post it, but I just want to thank those who have supported me through all that I’ve gone through for the first quarter of this year. To my friends, my mutuals, and to those who have said hi to me, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have received some anons that I want to publish, plus finish those requests I’ve had since last year (I am so sorry again for the wait), so please bear with me.

Here’s a little sketch from me of the ArcCoil fam giving their thanks too. Really appreciate every one of ya.

#bluetorchsky #bluetorchsky musings #thsc accordion #thsc violin #thsc aurelia #thsc florence #oliver arc #trent coil #won’t be using the main tags for this #just a small update is all

[bilbao-song]

secret rocker santa updates (11/22/23)

i am FINALLY caught up w/ numbers again and i'm currently working on answering all of the other messages!! if you haven't received a number yet or you've sent me something i haven't responded to yet (by tomorrow-ish) please let me know :-) sorry for being so slow!!

we have six (official) days left for sign-ups!! i will ppppprobably end up leaving it open through the 29th but we'll see what happens; it kind of just depends on what else i have to do that day and how smoothly the matching part seems to be going

you will be receiving info on who you'll be santa for on november 29th or 30th — i will be contacting most of you via messages, but please remember not to publish it if i do have to send it via ask lol. also as we get closer i'll be posting and/or reblogging some tips + reminders and other things, so keep an eye out for that if you want!!

and bc i have chronic broken record disease: it's in no way a requirement but pleeeaaase consider reblogging either this post (long version) or this post (short version)!! i can't emphasize enough how helpful it is, as it's really hard to get the word out about this sort of thing otherwise (i tag all of the posts but most people don't check tags very often). thank you sooo much to everyone who has done it already :-)

➜ F.A.Q. page ➜ sign up here! (or here if you’d prefer to stay on tumblr)

#secret rocker santa #srs23 #srs updates #classic rock #70s music #60s music #80s music #dad rock #queue #and a happy hall and oates restraining order wednesday to you all. #i wont be over that for like the next year fyi #anyway #pls reblog the posts i am begging and screaming and crying and playing u a very sad song on a very tiny violin.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

?????????

#most boggling fedex status update. #i just want my violin books 😭 #why are they more than half a continent away. #em speaks

[timmie-p]

hehee hyperspecific poll smiling face emoji

#hyperspecific poll #the throat thing is super annoying and wont go away even if i drink water #i just gotta cough and choke it out #there was a period of time where it was happening almost daily but it went away and is back to occasional #also i think it happens more often when ive been practicing violin for an hour or more? #my theory is the rosin irritating my throat for that #also can someone tell me why my computer does that #is it just because its old or do i need to change some setting or delete something #when i search stuff online i feel like no one else has this problem?? #the fan just keeps going and the screen wont turn on until i force restart and let it update

[prettylittlelyres]

Ladies Don't Write Music - 15th November 2023 - update

I'm on track for NaNoWriMo because I hit 25,000 words for the month today! I'm so pleased. Attempting NaNoWriMo at all this year was a huge gamble because I haven't written over 25,000 words since February 2023, and even then I only managed just over 37k... but I've written 25k in the last two weeks and a day!

I also finished writing Chapter Twelve today, and brought it in at 5,000 words exactly. That's both immensely satisfying, and a point of pride; it's the fastest I've finished a chapter on this manuscript since I started drafting it at the end of July. The full manuscript is now just over 60,000 words long, and I want to do some more writing before I go to bed.

Below the cut: a celebratory excerpt, my NaNoWriMo 25k badge, and the cover I designed at the start of November, because I'm proud of that, too.

I clapped the right tempo, and counted Fräulein Schneider in.

She began, halting here and there, but, in general, playing very well.

“I’m not sure if you need a teacher,” I said, as she came to the end of the first page, “You sight-read just fine, and your sense of rhythm is strong.”

Fräulein Schneider beamed at me. “Thank you!” she said, “But it’s… it’s the pitch that I struggle with. Did I really…” She looked down at her hands. “Did I really play that correctly? I keep thinking I was pressing the wrong keys, but I don’t like to look at my hands when I’m sight-reading, or I lose my place in the music.”

I shook my head. “There was nothing wrong with the notes you played,” I said, “Considering it was your first time with the piece, actually, it was excellent.”

Louisa raised her eyebrows, and looked from me to the sheet music, and then back again. “That’s… That’s a surprise,” she said, “I’ve always thought I was, well… quite bad at the harpsichord. I practise, but the music never makes any more sense than it does when I start learning a piece. My last two teachers gave up on me, but I keep playing anyway because Papa and Mama said it would be a good way to entertain my husband one day.”

“Doesn’t it sound good to you, at least?” I asked, “I mean, do you like the way it sounds, even if it’s a little confusing?”

She smiled. “Yes, very much… but I worry that it doesn’t sound so good to other people. Full of wrong notes… Who would enjoy hearing a piece they recognise mangled out of shape?”

I tapped the page she had just played. “You certainly didn’t mangle this,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, covering her face with her hands, “That’s a relief!” Then her eyes widened as she dropped her hands to her lap. “Goodness me, how embarrassing it would have been if I’d played it badly in front of its composer.”

“Badly, not at all,” I assured her, sitting down next to her at the bench, “A little slowly, perhaps, but…” I played the first few bars as they should have been played. “That’s what it’s meant to sound like. And what you played was close enough. Honestly, Louisa, if you practise for even half an hour every day, I think you’ll have the first page fluent in less than a week. Your hands will learn it, even if your ears don’t.”

I decided a while ago that Johann Schneider's character would be tone-deaf, and would enjoy watching music performed for the movement. He has a younger sister and I thought it would be interesting to explore her having the same difficulties. Johann isn't a musician (yet), but Louisa plays the harpsichord and has a lot of trouble feeling confident in what she's playing because she's never sure she's got the right pitch. Luckily, her proprioception is excellent (as is Johann's, which is why he can dance so well), so she can put her fingers on the right keys without needing to see them. This is what Katharina's trying to help her see here, in this ad-hoc music lesson; she doesn't need to hear what she's playing to be able to play it well.

I'm quite enjoying playing around with parallels between Johann & Louisa Schneider and Katharina & Hans Schmidt. In both pairs of siblings, you have the older, more serious one having trouble meeting people's expectations, in contrast with the younger, more humourous one having very little trouble at all. The pairs also mirror each other in their strengths and weaknesses: Katharina and Hans have audiovisual projective synaesthesia and perfect pitch, so can hear and see the music they're making; Johann and Louisa are literally tone-deaf (Johann completely, Louisa almost completely) and music for them is a much more visual thing than it is for most people. Then there's Katharina, whose coordination is so bad it causes problems, being the opposite of Johann, whose coordination makes him an excellent dancer who then has problems because he finds constant poorly-veiled requests to dance at parties very tiring.

#writeblr #blog #violins and violets #Violins and violets series #nanowrimo #NaNoWriMo 2023 #nanowrimo update #cover design #historical fiction #excerpt #my writing #nanowrimo milestone #Katharina schmidt #hans schmidt #johann schneider #louisa schneider #characters with synaesthesia #tone-deaf characters #character foils #violins and violets book 1

[mystery-star]

Remember when I said that I was gonne create Jack Aubrey for the Sims?

Well now I have created Stephen too, made him Jack's fiancé and able to get pregnant.

I have a feeling this is gonna be VERY interesting.

#sims 4 #playing #gaming #jack aubrey #stephen maturin #shall i keep you updated? #lemme know if you wanna hear what they're up to #like today when Jack peed in the park on the playground bc he was playing the violin and forgot to use the toilet

[mrtechnodads-updates-deactived]

been dabbing in some instruments (no progress yet i haven’t had much time and is rescheduling them), id love to try out the violin they sounds so lovely 💛

x

#1st violin #mr technodad #mrtechnodad #technodad #mrtechnodad updates #mrtechnodad reddit #technoblade #r/technoblade #choir

[destrachan]

me, very unfit and prone to injury due to Problems: I have decided to become a Figure Skater

#yes this is a terrible idea but i havent broken anything so far!!! #i start Proper baby beginner lessons next week and i'm super excited #just thought I'd yell a life update into the void #tho i HAVE been doing lil workouts and stretches and stuff to prepare etc!! #also picked up violin recently and i suck but im having so much fun trying Proper Hobbies

[rraaaarrl]

its time to do my least favorite thing with my comics collection....rebagging and filing into the right box 🥺

#so boring #I AM AT LEAST A YEAR BEHIND UPDATING MY DATABASE :( #pls feel sorry for me and the tragedy of owning too many comics #so sad #world's tiniest violin plays for thee

[cerealboxlore]

#I have to remind myself to write everyday #but irl stuff keeps getting in the way #sad violin music #im subsribed to so many fics in hope they will update one day #when its been so long 😭

[phtalogreenpoison]

Things I learned at my theatre workshop:

These are my highlights of the night.

"They're not bad habits, they're habituated patterns. And they're not bad because they helped you survive until this point, and I'm so glad you're here!"

we introduced ourselves for clowning in a circle saying "Hello my name is ___ and I am very stupid." It felt like an AA meeting, but the point is that we are all people with our little ridiculousnesses in our own unique way.

you're not telling jokes, you are the joke

be kind to your body. there is a difference between challenge/discomfort and pain.

Suzuki training for theatre. is just very hard. but i love it. how to move without looking like you're moving "if you fall to the ground and get back up, make it seem invisible"

#clowning #look up tadashi suzuki if you want to know more #NOT the violin method #theatre #life update #fun #also got told “aw now THAT's an idiot” in the most complimentary way possible for clowning #for the record i was completely still and moving my hands like a cat wiggling its toes on the piano

[snoopyrps]

sent staff a polite request to use java over a month ago. feeling #defeated 😔

#i shrimply want 2 be able 2 update my muses page so i have a nice reference :\ #alexa play a song on the world's tiniest violin!

[prettylittlelyres]

Ladies Don't Write Music - 13th November 2023 - update

I've just had a look at the average writing speed NaNoWriMo has calculated for me in November (not the same as my typing speed!), relative to the amount of words I've written so far, and I'm shocked to see what that means for the amount of time I've spent working on the book in November.

I've actually timed every session so far this month, which is something I've never thought to do before. I just love how easy NaNoWriMo makes it to time your sessions. It's just over an hour per day (21,685 words at 26 per minute). I've spent just under 14 hours hours writing in November, and we aren't quite halfway through yet.

I can't tell you how pleased I am with that rate. It's also very reassuring to know that if I put my mind to it, I can do a lot with just 30 minutes of writing per day (that would get me 780 words, but with time for stretching and thinking, I'd be happy with 500).

I got 1,1717 words down before I went to sleep on Sunday night, finished Chapter 11, and started Chapter 12. I really hurried to get the words on the page, because my eyes were closing, but I'm so pleased to find it's mostly coherent. I'm not fussed about proofreading when I'm writing the first and second drafts; it just needs to be legible and sensible (but it's also allowed to be silly), so I know what I've written.

On Saturday I had two short train rides between my nearest town and the next one, a lovely bike ride, and a midday meetup with my friends after a physiotherapy appointment. I also got my bike repaired and bought a new helmet, because my previous one was too old to be safe. Did you know it's good practice to replace your cycling helmet every five years? I didn't until recently (I found out from the bike technician at the auto repair shop). I wrote 300 words on the train, and another 200 before bed, but was quite worn out after all that, so that's all I wrote that day.

Today is Monday, and I've written 1787 words. Tomorrow, I want to write to the end of Chapter 12 if I can. In the meantime, I'm rather sleepy, so here's a celebratory excerpt!

I had always found it difficult to commit a new piece to memory; the urge to add a section or change a note never really went away. If I didn’t keep an eye on myself, I could easily play the same piece a dozen different ways. Creating something new was just as fun as showing off something that already existed, and that was what made it so hard to write a piece of music and consider it finished.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Johann swaying softly in time with the music, as if he were dancing in his own head, rather than mine, for a change.

As I came to the end of the sarabande, I made the last note into a trill, and emphasised the rallentando, to finish the piece as smoothly as I could.

Johann and Louisa clapped.

“Brava!” Johann said, “What do you call that?”

“Well, it’s a sarabande, obviously,” I said, my voice trembling, “It doesn’t have a name yet. I only wrote it very recently. and I wrote it for someone.”

#writeblr #blog #nanowrimo #violins and violets #nanowrimo update #nanowrimo 2023 #katharina schmidt #johann schneider #louisa schneider #excerpt #excerpts #my writing #historical fiction #violins and violets book 1

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

Almost everyone had been walking on eggshells around Jason all week, until Tim sits down next to him in the library loudly slurping a 52oz frozen mint oreo mocha.

"Wanna go make Bruce regret all his life choices and question our mental stability?" he asks after dragging the straw back and forth through the lid so it sounds like a cello is murdering a violin in a jealous rage.

Jason considers his options for a few seconds. "Obviously."

Which is how Bruce finds the kids playing Pin The Crowbar On The Joker in the garden, while the guest of honour is wearing feathered wings and a pipe cleaner halo.

When he sees the cake that Tim had made for the occasion, he makes a mental note to update the contingency plans he has in place for when he eventually snaps and goes evil, and to volunteer for Watchtower duty next year.

#jason todd #tim drake #bruce wayne #batfamily #batfam

[youaremysunshine-court]

Packed up all my violins yesterday, getting ready for the shift

#jays musical forays #it was weirdly like exposuslre therapy #and i got to strum grandpas violin befote dad packed it up #which is like #the highest honour my dad could give anyone #i havent packed MY violin yet #like the one thats mine my full size abandoned violin #so im going to bubblewrap it today maybe? #it makes me a bit jittery still but hey i said i was gonna get back into playing and im going to #also ive misplaced my resin so im going to spend a while searching for that before i bubblewrap the case #bc the resin needs to go in the case #but yeah #these are the tiny tiny updates as i strive to actually play again