He seemed to glow.

seen from Türkiye

seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Singapore
seen from China
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from Netherlands
seen from Netherlands

seen from Netherlands

seen from Netherlands

seen from China

seen from Japan

seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands

seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from China
He seemed to glow.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Kinger and Ragatha and the chasm between them as is crashes back together.
Compainon piece for chap3 of Solla Solla Solla, as promised.
gave up on this one lwky like its straight up not finished but i’m trying to cleanse myself of post long fic blues. Throws this into the great beyond. Ok goobye
(Fic here!)
you know, i was just wondering about the theme/motif of music in solla solla solla if you perhaps by any chance had anything you wanted to say about it
Oh god YES you absolute angel thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about this!
So in Solla, there is this rather quiet throughline that Kinger and Ragatha's relationship is music. They are melody and harmony. They fit together in a way the rest of the characters cannot quite understand, nor fit into because adding another tune can ruin the chord.
There is the main example of this, the little tapping pattern they've had since day one (shave and a haircut / two bits!), but the language used to describe their dynamic outside of that is often based in music too. They're a call and response, a first and second bar, proposition and resolution. There were a few times where I described their dialogue to each other as "cues," as if these exchanged words are more lyrics or notation than conversation.
If you've noticed as well, this thought is being echoed in the chapter titles! All of which are in relation to music and sound: tautophony - the repetition of a sound; monophony - a single unaccompanied melody; polyphony - multiple individual melodies in relation to each other; anthrophony - a sound generated by a human voice; cacophony - multiple clashing sounds.
I knew I wanted their relationship to feel melodic, almost intuitive, like they both know the song but one of them forgot the words. Music was the way to express this because music in real-life can bypass degenerative memory conditions like dementia. The synapses that create your music taste fire off when your listen to music you like and can actually bring people back into lucidity (temporarily) while and after listening.
And even more important than that, music cannot be described. Not like other art forms can. If someone is telling you about a song, your first instinct is to ask "how does it go?" because words do not accurately explain what music feels like when listened to. It just isn’t possible to describe a song well. You can’t replicate it without starting to sing.
Kinger and Ragatha have gradually they've lost the exact pitches they're supposed to be hitting and are just going through the motions. There is wink to this fact in chapter 5. Caine calls the group "ghost notes" as a nickname. In music, ghost notes are these guys:
They are notes that have a rhythmic value but no pitch. Notes you don't actually hear, but feel percussively, almost as reverberation. The music of this friendship has become a collection of ghost notes. They are beats without pitch. This is a centerpiece of their relationship in the prose/ subtext.
(There's an earlier draft of this where I wanted to specifically compare them to Tartini Tones, but found it was too dense of a metaphor to really work, so I'll explain it here instead. A Tartini Tone is the effect of two or more notes being played simultaneously that results in additional notes being audible as well despite it not being played. It how your headphones produce low sounds despite the speakers being technically too small to do so. I thought this was an interesting way to have Queenie and other ex-circus members reverberate in their relationship. Their two notes produces phantom notes that used to be here. But I realized it would require me to explain hertz and psychoacoustics and harmonics blahhhh blah. I ain't doing that lol)
And then there is Pomni. Who really wants to know what is happening here but cannot figure it out for the life of her. There is a moment in the fourth chapter that presents as a throwaway joke, but for this motif and her inability to crack the case, is very important. She is having a moment to reflect on how nice being able to decompress a bit and begins comparing the process to tuning an instrument before interrupting herself with: "What the fuck was she talking about? Pomni didn't know anything about music."
And this is true! Like, she very literally knows nothing on the subject. But she also knows nothing about Kinger and Ragatha. They are music, and Pomni knows nothing about that. Despite all her dots and lines, despite the itch, despite the data points and eavesdropping and detective, she does not know music. She cannot calculus her way through a sonata (though the theme of math and emotions is also related to this!!). She more than once notes Ragatha tapping Kinger’s hand but she doesn’t know it is a song, let alone know it is incomplete. Kinger has not responded to that call in a long time.
Music is fundamentally something you experience. Even if you're sight reading, it simply is not the same as hearing the piece articulated out loud. Not that she could sight read anyways.
But the point is: she was never there to hear this song. She doesn’t know how it goes and cannot know until someone sings it for her. But the person who was all melody has already forgotten. All that’s left are ghost notes and a harmony line, decontexulized.
Hi I’m an evil liar. I know I’d been saying ch6 of Solla on the 5th but I am still fine tooth combing it and am not completely confident I’ll be happy with things by then. The infinite need to edit and tweak stuff…
So! Tentatively: Solla Solla Solla ch6/ final chap on May 12th!! Apologies for the extra wait lol.
Anyways here's Solla Solla Solla chapters with Next to Normal songs because this is legit 90% of what I was listening to while writing.
Chapter 1: Tautophony - Just Another Day Chapter 2: Monophony - I've Been Chapter 3: Anthropophony - Song of Forgetting Chapter 4: Polyphony - I'm Alive / Hey #2 Chapter 5: Cacophony - Catch Me I'm Falling Chapter 6: [redacted] - You Don't Know / I Am The One / Maybe
Im halfway through solla solla solla and ive been in tears for the better part of two chapters, this fic forced me to hide in my room so my family didnt ask why i was sobbing
I left a long comment to this effect on ao3 but i couldn't tell if it actuslly went through so i felt the need to come here and tell you directly
I will mention something i didnt in that comment, which was how horrifyingly sad the fact that kinger is slowly losing himself is, he promised queenie he'd be there for her, and he's clearly trying so hard, tiny little memories slip thtough the cracks, he loves dolly so much, but every time he tries his best to hold onto her, its more like a hot knife to ragatha, to knoe she mattered once, and somewhere deep down she probably still does, but to know she'll probably never hear it strsight from him ever agsin, to know he's gonna one day find himself where queenie was, and while he goes out he'll mutter all the way that he must be forgetting someone, he's doing this for someone, and ragatha will hold his hand and pat his back and say "its ok, don't worry about it" while caine drags him into the cellar, and her heart follows him
Sorry this got very verbose, your story brings out the amateur poet in me. In short, your writing is beyond fantastic. Be proud
Oh my goodness hi hello!! First off I wanted to assure you the comment did in fact go through and had me smiling like a big dork, much like this ask :)
I am just… so wildly honoured that this has been able to connect with you. Emotionally, i mean. Hearing that very sincerely means the world to me and I am telepathically beaming you some tissues and snacks as a form of apology as well lol. My apologcheese.
But I’m so so glad you mentioned the stuff with Kinger hanging onto little scraps of something, even if he can’t quite make sense of them!! Exactly exactly yes!! He forgot the promise, he forgot who he made to, who he made it for, and what the promise was, but he knows for certain there is a reason he has to stay. It is intrinsic and inexplainable and he cant articulate it beyond a feeling but it is strong enough to cut through the blur. So he stays.
That whole.. I guess subplot? It was important to me even though I knew I never wanted to state it explicitly. That through line belongs in the subtext. So I’m like. Actually jumping for joy right that it came across!! The way it was supposed to!!! Waho!!
I didn’t ever want to state it outright, but you’re 100% correct. The love is still there but it forgot where to go. A large reason Kinger has been able to stick around so long was specifically because Ragatha being there meant he had to be there too. He can’t leave without her. Kinger knows that, subconsciously. And in letting his mind haze over in order to stay, he left her alone anyways. It is a mutually constituting cycle. His ability to physically remain present cost him his lucidity, and being around him physically without lucid thought is very likely more painful than if he was gone altogether.
This is all to say: thank you so much. I am so so so glad youre enjoying the story and truly truly appreciate the kind words and enthusiasm more than you know. This made my day. Seriously.