Daily Entertainment

[mamaplays2win]

Forgive me if this one has been done recently; I don't think we've had it in a while, but I might be wrong! Do you have music that you listen to while writing for specific characters? Do you have theme songs or anthems for characters or pairings or friendships? Do tell!

Alternately, tell me how your day's going/talk to me about whatever you want! I can tell already: this is going to be a long day.

ETA: I had every intention of chilling in DE all day and talking, but I forgot about the giant three-hour 50-person meeting that I am organizing/sitting in on. TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES

Comments

[aberration]

I have my first final in... close to eight hours.

... *hides under stuff*

[mamaplays2win]

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

[mamaplays2win]

I'm pretty unimaginative when it comes to this game; I tend to just listen to canon soundtracks while playing characters. walking_napalm's theme from the first Hellboy movie is a particular personal favorite for her, as are a few of the songs-with-lyrics that were featured in the two movies ("Beautiful Freak" by Eels, "Breathe In" by Paloalto, a couple others).

I like the Iron Man soundtrack for nexttimebaby and the National Treasure soundtrack for shortofcrazy (see what I mean about unimaginative?), but also some indie rock/pop for Riley. "This Modern Love" by Bloc Party was my anthem for Riley/torch_reporter, back in the day. I have a fifties jazzy collection that I like for yankeedoodle_dr and cheerychaplain, even though I think of Father M as a ragtime guy, and we hear a lot of showtune-style songs out of Hawkeye. It's more for the ambiance/mood.

fighting_mad has an entire playlist somewhere, lost to the annals of time (and to my old computer). There were some good ones, though; I think one of my favorites for her was "She's a Rebel" by Green Day; it was all too appropriate. silverpenlight and I relied pretty heavily on Regina Spektor's "Samson" for Plourr/eiattu_pride.

I play the Donnie Darko and The Fountain OSTs pretty constantly while playing joiningyousoon; something about them just really fit the canon for me.

I can't hear True Blood's and iCarly's (now there's a combination) theme songs without thinking of gross_when_i_do and mamaplays2win, respectively. I don't have much music for them beyond that; not yet.

I have zero songs for nodistresshere. Sorry, Iella. :(

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

Totally random: "Samson" always reminds me of Will/Lyra because of the line I loved you first, and in canon they have this play fight over ... who loved whom first.

Also it's one of my favorite love songs ever. ^.^

[agonistes]

*smuggest* High today is eiiiiight. I am working from hooooooome.

*revels under pile of blankets*

[wakeupnew]

I wish I could work from home. D: There are only three of us in the office (out of 20) who really can't. Stupid phones. But yay blankets!

[campkilkare]

Oh ahahahah. I use music a lot. A LOT. I tend to build stories around music, and sometimes I wonder if people pick up on it. Sometimes I try to indicate this through linktext or whitetext, but time has shown that people don't care for the first and I'm usually too lazy for the second. Icon keywords are often a giveaway, too.

It's probably the most developed/out of control for Dark Tower stuff--Susannah is usually Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, and the entire arc that brought her back was called "A Johnny Cash Christmas Carol." Rose's high school life was run by pop music, particularly what I thought of as the Sasha Fierce arc as she confronted her gayness. The DT supernatural/visions etc usually mean Vienna Teng. Calexico was Mordred's backing band. Rose's 'year abroad' in America is underwritten by Gillian Welch, although I haven't done as much with that yet. Wilco was in the background of Susannah and Eddie's near-divorce, culminating in Rose and Kaylee being attacked after a Wilco concert.

(This is partially Sweeney's bad influence, naturally, but Stephen King is a big Wilco fan himself. Them and the Jayhawks, and cramming music into fiction is one of his favorites, too. Out of the blue and into the black; it's a small town and we all support the team.

The genesis of the entire prom plot was a mental music video set to HOLLABACK GIRL, of X and Rose running amuck at prom. Rose also has her own theme song in "I'm Really Rosie" (which Steve-O used in Rose Madder, also) and if you don't know that old cartoon, you probably did not understand why the OOM of Mordred's death was called What Happened To Chicken Soup.

Developing the future Baileyverse, I leaned heavily on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to the point that I can tell you which songs relate to which characters/relationships.

A lot of the rockier Johnny Cash went into Twin Peaks stuff, via Hank Jennings. Music is, again, CANONICALLY important to superscience in the Venture-verse, and I need to do more with that. David Bowie leads the Guild of Calamitious Intent, for crissake.

[agonistes]

I am a great influence.

[sdelmonte]

My day is...long. Too much work, too much nonsense as well. Don't ask.

I tend not to really use much in the way of music - I bet I am the only person in the game whose "soundtrack" includes Mets games, football games, Knicks games, and ESPN radio. I do listen to a variety of music radio stations, and find that soundtracks are good background noise, but music isn't really key.

And since three of my pups have great scores in their canons, I think that such things defined them before I arrived.

[wakeupnew]

I occasionally write to a "soundtrack" of Red Sox or Patriots games! I totally understand on the scores point, though; I love movie scores and tend to listen to them while writing.

[camwyn]

When I write Bumblebee I put iTunes on shuffle. Then I wait. Given the nature of his communication in the movie it works disturbingly well.

For Ellen I usually look for the oldest swing-type songs on my playlist. Benny Goodman usually works pretty well. Music is pretty strongly associated with her world's fundamental nature, for me. I've constructed a mental Millicanon for her universe involving the brief rise and almost immediate fall of rock and roll as a genre during the 1950s/early 1960s. I can't look at a world where it was basically 1955 forever and think that the rock we know, with its socially unacceptable overtones of sex and danger, could ever have existed- rock is a music of change. A lot of music from our world just never existed for her. Since the divergence between the Fallout world and ours started sometime during or just after World War II, I have assumed the following:

- Elvis Presley pursued his first musical love, gospel, and died at the age of seventy revered as one of the greatest gospel singers of all time. That's a major blow to the early popularization of rock and roll right there.

- Jimi Hendrix is known to history as James Marshall Hendrix, and he pursued acoustic guitar with a passion as a young man. For many years he was the most outstanding classical guitarist of a generation. His concert at Carnegie Hall moved music critics to tears. Sometime in his forties or fifties he had a bit of a breakdown or midlife crisis, and he abandoned his classical career afterwards to pursue experimental jazz guitar. Musical history is divided on whether he was as brilliant at jazz as classical, or just an experimental weirdo.

- Speaking of guitars, Les Paul was still the acoustic genius we knew in our world, and still invented multi-track recording, but he never got involved in the development of the solid-body electric guitar- the instrument credited with making the sound of rock and roll possible. A solid-body electric guitar was developed eventually, but five or six years later in that world than in ours, and by then the societal window in which its sound could have become popular had closed.

- And finally, Bob Dylan never got into guitar, but instead took up the saxophone and became the angriest man in jazz.

[wakeupnew]

Last one cracks me up! That's so interesting.

[vivien]

It was -9 F when I waddled to the bus stop through the wintry tundra. I have on so many layers - plus my srs bzness Irish fisherman's sweater - that I can barely move. But I stayed warm! Hurrah! Or at least I didn't get overly cold.

BRRRR!

[wakeupnew]

OOG. Man, that is COLD. And I thought I was cold just walking from my front door to my car in 20-degree weather. *_*

[gorgonfondness]

I have a playlist of songs for Mia and Draco, some of which include Pansy (You are the Girl of My Dream) and Tom Felton's Kinda Hot by Draco and the Malfoys, Magic Man by Heart, Temptation by Bing Crosby, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, and Poison by Alice Cooper, which probably fits in better than it should.

Mia has learned, via in-bar music events, that she likes the Beatles and David Bowie, which I have around here somewhere to add to the list, I just haven't yet.

Today's gonna be busy. I really should be going to the post office to send my family some petit fours and I have a quiz and practical in class today, as well as finishing up my cream puff swans. I need to make some chantilly cream, which is awesome.

And I got my wish yesterday: I got to make pastry cream! It's delicious.

[spooky-lemur.livejournal.com]

I've been shamelessly using Pandora.com's database for my pup playlists and so it's hard for me to say specific groups or songs.

That being said...
Ben's (http://ever-lovin.livejournal.com/profile) station has a lot of Big Band, Swing and Surf. I keep thinking he would like Rockabilly but haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

Val's (http://val-von-doom.livejournal.com/profile) station was a lot of Ladytron, Goldfrapp and the like but lately she's been into Lily Allen, The Ting Tings, Katy Perry and Pink.

I haven't set one up for Grover (http://fleecy-seeker.livejournal.com/profile) yet but I do know it will have bands like MGMT and Muse, maybe Kings of Leon and Franz Ferdinand. He's kind of a tough call as canon only mentions Hilary Duff for music he likes or uses.

I have no clue for Artemus Gordon (http://wildwld_gadgets.livejournal.com/profile) and for Miyamoto Usagi (http://lil-bunny-ronin.livejournal.com/profile) I use soundtracks like Okami and Memoirs of a Geisha (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397535/). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckami)

[coreenfennel.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you didn't say Lady Gaga for Val. I would have had to curl in the corner and cry.

[coreenfennel.livejournal.com]

I don't have to listen to anything in particular for my pups. Uh, except maybe Elvis, because that's Edie's favorite, and she has me a little obsessed...actually, a lot. I have about 3.5 gigs of Elvis on my hard drive.

Uhhh, yeah. But..I'm a musical learner. I have to have background noise of my choosing going on in order to really concentrate on what I'm doing. My gram used to give me crap about it when I was a kid and would always do my homework with either the tv or the radio on. Meh.

But...about the second topic. I'm sleepy. I'm pretty much deciding that I'll email my paper in, rather than going to class, as it's A)really freakin' cold outside, B) I feel rotten, and the cold just makes it worse (Liz can attest to the fact that when we stepped outside last night for dinner, I couldn't breathe in the cold), and C)...I want to go back to sleep.

But hey! That means I've written seven papers since the 18th of November! Go me!

Left to do: Revise big paper, write take-home final stuff, study for finals, take finals, and turn in these stupid books. Woo!

[misslucyjane]

Music was such a big part of what defined bloody_rockgod that at one point I had a 50+-song playlist for him.

I have not gone quite so overboard for recent characters.

GreenJack is mostly Celtic-tinged music like Flogging Molly or Great Big Sea. 1941!Jack is big band and early jazz. Brian is dance and electronica. Ianto is mushy love songs (though he'll never admit it.)

[kd7sov]

It is an odd question, for me. I don't specifically listen to anything apart from in-head echoes of what was on my mp3 player on that day's commute when I'm posting.

All three of my pups have some form of metacanonical music - Frederic is, of course, from an opera, and Felix and Kain have their own particular themes in their games - but those, at least for the latter two, don't tend to stick in my head.

That said, Felix has a very unusual situation, music-wise. Some time ago he started giving me his opinion of whatever music I'm listening to. Sometimes it's along the lines of "if this was being sung in-bar, here's how I'd probably respond", sometimes it's just a "that fits" feeling... Character bleed being what it is, I sometimes try to figure out how I could get him into a situation where singing such a song would be at least somewhat appropriate. I never follow through, but sometimes even the line of thinking has unexpected backlash. For instance, I can never listen to Love is my Legs from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels without absolutely cracking up due to some very odd imagery.

I also have a bad habit of considering milliplots based on whatever musical I've just been introduced to. As these invariably involve significant OOCness, I try not to post to the back room at all for a while after a new musical.

[austen.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it is about Christina Hendricks' face and the band Jet, but I listen to them pretty much on repeat whenever I write Saffron. (Similarly, Joan comes to mind whenever the song "She's a Genius" comes on, but usually, for her, I end up putting on the older stuff - Annette Hanshaw, Sinatra, or even just some simple jazz.)

Apart from them, I have a Supernatural playlist of classic rock tunes (Foreigner, AC/DC, etc.) that gets turned on when I'm writing for Ellen. I also have a spy playlist of Bond theme songs and instrumentals that I often listen to while writing 99. And thanks to my flist, I was able to download some music from Pushing Daisies that works marvelously for getting into Chuck's headvoice.

Mostly, the rest of them just get shuffle turned on - though, for some reason, John Mayer's Battle Studies has been instrumental (no pun intended) for me any time I thread Kate Beckett and Jack Bauer.

[aberration]

Okay, now that I've had more than three hours of sleep... I'm still only going to do Elle, because I should be cleaning up and going over practice exams right now. OH WELL.

I still have my playlist for Elle here, though it could probably do with some updating. Of my characters, she's definitely the one I've most often kind of connected to any music, and have ever had any kind of inclination to listen to music for while writing her. It's not necessary, but it can be nice. On that playlist, my favorites are probably still "Witchy Woman" by The Eagles, and "Chinese Burn" by Curve.

When getting her through her AU s3 plot, however, I've just been listening to Elbow's "Grounds for Divorce" over, and over, and over. Especially when writing the Elle-Sylar OOMs. I actually had a playlist for that, but it was really just supposed to be songs to get me in that kind of mood generally ("Violet" by Hole; "Where Is My Mind" by Pixies; Shirley Manson's "Samson & Delilah" - things like that), but it really came down to "Grounds for Divorce" over and over. Which I suppose makes sense! Er.

Oh, and varadia suggested "Up The Wolves" by The Mountain Goats for Elle and X once, and I approved her suggestion. :D!


Mrmph now time for more studying mrmph...

[mamaplays2win]

OMG "Up the Wolves" is such a great idea for them!!

[skygiants]

I really enjoy making soundtracks for my characters (Jamie, Princess Tutu), but I don't . . . actually use them while I'm writing. *sheepish* I just have my music on random almost all the time!

The one exception is that sometimes when I'm writing Princess Tutu OOMs I will go back and put on the Tutu soundtrack, which is all classical ballet music.

[ceitfianna]

I have a presentation to work on that's having a dress rehearsal at 4 and final on Thursday. I need to somehow put together a draft of a paper though I can't find the assignment so I have to get that and its been cold here. The past couple of days we've had flurries, nothing's stuck but lots of flurries.

In terms of music, I used to listen to music more when RPing so I have this huge playlist that's Will stuff but honestly I don't so much anymore. I love listening to music but there isn't so much the connection to one pup or another with it.

Edit: I'm doing something rather odd, to time my part of the presentation, I'm using The Mummer's Dance by Loreena McKeenitt since its just around 4 minutes. It works and I can listen to pretty music as I figure out what I'm saying.

[minkhollow]

Angel came with a soundtrack, not that that stopped me from making like three others. XD The big constant, when it comes to Angel: The Remedy by Jason Mraz. Because... yeeeeeeeeeah.

I also made a Sneakers soundtrack, a while back. Carl's song, such as it was, was We Gotta Get You a Woman (and when we're through with you, we'll get me one too), and Cosmo... has several. In short I will never listen to Imagine the same way again. Not on the soundtrack but still work for Cos: Alice's Restaurant, if we're talking pre-canon, and Tables and Chairs for the end of the film ('cause listen, after the fall, there'll be no more countries, no currencies at all...).

Larry doesn't really have a soundtrack, though I quoted a couple songs on icons of his that suit (Jethro Tull's Skating Away, for great OMGWTFMUSEUM, and Train's I'm About to Come Alive). And when I finally get around to typing up his bridging-canon-gap OOM, I'm posting it with lyrics from Dr. Horrible, because it so fits (then I win, then I get everything I ever--).

Moist is shaping up to have an accidental Barenaked Ladies soundtrack, so far; I decided a while back that his OOMs all get linked with lyrics. (The only exception to this will be the poker night OOM, once I write it. For that, I have to dig out the line in Witches Abroad about what happens when an obvious novice sits down to play a card game with a bunch of known card sharks.)

Conflict Diamond... well, there's a reason all her icons have keywords from Talking Heads songs. The main ones are Life During Wartime (no, her journal name has nothing to do with Sheryl Crow; I didn't even think of that till I heard her song that uses 'this ain't no disco' at work a couple months after I apped her) and Girlfriend is Better.

Cata doesn't have a soundtrack, and Sam (::SIGH::) hasn't been around long enough to have one.

[stillbecoming]

Right now all my major characters are from TV shows, and I mostly listen to music from the shows when I want to get in the mood to write them (I've been listening to the "Little Miss Muffet" track and the music from "Restless" a lot lately, for Buffy). Cameron's the only one I have much of an original playlist for -- "Samson and Delilah" and "The Man Comes Around" are on it, from the show, but also a handful of robot- and apocalypse-themed songs. And "Poker Face."

I also put songs from vids about the characters on their playlists -- like, Buffy's has "Peacekeeper" and "Come Together" (and "Lover's Cross" hee hee hee), among others.

Also all of my characters have "It's the End of the World as We Know It" on their playlists. I don't know what that says about me.

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

I looooooove music. I have playlists for all of my characters, including Matt-the-OC, and although I don't always put them on while I'm playing (sometimes my Playlist Du Jour will take precedence, like my Christmas List right now), I often do! Some personal favorite character songs of mine:

Puck: "My Wasted Life" - Get Set Go

everybody knows that cheating's not the answer
but sometimes cheating is a whole lot faster
I get by by wasting time


Ava: "I Can't Decide" - Scissor Sisters

I can't decide whether you should live or die
oh, you'll prob'ly go to heaven,
please don't hang your head and cry
no wonder why my heart feels dead inside
cold and hard and petrified
lock the doors and close the blinds
we're goin' for a ride


Poison Ivy: GUESS.

with a taste of your lips I'm on a ride
you're toxic, I'm slipping under


Matt (what do you mean he doesn't count???): "I'm Only Sleeping" - The Vines cover

please don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
and after all I'm only sleeping



I'm actually potentially overly invested/interested in character music. >.>

[dynastessa]

Oh, man. I used to have a huge Tristran/Yvaine playlist, but Tristran's probably the only one I've ever had music for. And most of it is sappy, mellow indie stuff.

Otherwise, I'm pretty much a 'music is played all the time anyway, so whatever's on works!' type of RPer.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I associate songs with characters (both my own and other people's) really easily, and I like to give my characters theme songs and am frequently inspired by music, but a lot of the time when I'm actually writing I'll have either no music or just whatever comes up on shuffle.

The exception is if I'm doing some kind of important major plot thing, in which case I'll have one situationally-appropriate song on loop (or periodically switch between two such songs), often one that jumped into my head of its own accord.

[genarti]

I don't actually listen to music when I write. I can't do it; the music gets in the way of the words, and I can't write a thing.

That said, I do totally associate music with characters. (This is, in fact, the easiest way to get me to like a song I wasn't previously wild about, is to give me a solid character association with it. It doesn't need to be a character of mine, or even one I like, but it gives the song an emotional context for me it didn't necessarily have before.)

Songs that spring to mind, which means I'm probably forgetting all about lots:

River: The Talking Heads, "And She Was." Sheryl Crow, "Safe and Sound." (River-Simon, that one.) Sarah Slean, "Universe," which is totally the fault of a vid. Mmph, I have a lot more, but I can't think of them offhand.

Trowa: Lucy Kaplansky, "Nowhere." Cibo Matto, "King of Silence." (That's for Trowa-Cathy.) Beatles, "Fool on the Hill." For Gundam Wing at large: Chris Cornell, "You Know My Name." I have a ginormous GW playlist, so I'm stopping there.

Piotr: Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared." (This is from a pretty bad comics-vid, but it works!) Vienna Teng, "Lullabye for a Stormy Night." (Piotr-Illyana, the non-messy aspects of their relationship.) Dschinghis Khan, "Moskau." (Hilarity!)

Lan is hard to find songs for. I have a couple, but I'm only half-convinced by any of them, IIRC. It's easy to find epic and self-destructive, but hard to find the right kind.

Regan, ditto. Only without the epic self-destruction. Honey, also ditto, but for entirely different reasons! For Honey, I basically just put on the theme song for Ouran and I'm set.