What are you listening too?

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#1
Music is an important part of my creative process. It breaks down writer's block and has inspired some of the best scenes I've written.
I've got pretty eclectic taste as as far as music goes. Good music does a lot to help me with all sorts of tasks, and sometimes is a distraction. At any rate, what music do we find inspiring on TFF? It could be favorite tracks for writing, or just what you happen to be enjoying right now. It doesn't really matter, whatever is good for you and your muse, or just what you happen to be down with.
I have a liking for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. I dig the positive message they put out with their music, and I'm not just talking about Thrift Shop.Their latest track "Downtown" is pretty damn catchy and more funk inspired than his previous work. It doesn't hurt that I used to have one of those crappy little mopeds.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGhoLcsr8GA[/video]
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#2
Five Finger Death Punch's "Lift Me Up" featuring Rob Halford inspired a recent action sequence in the Anime Inspired Novel I'm currently trying to write...

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-2yuGgp_U8[/video]
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#3
Speaking of that, the 'Opening Song' of the story [in my head anyway] is an obscure Megumi Hayashibara song called "Question at me" which is the theme to a live action magical girl show. It works well because it's a magical girl story and I just like the way it's put together and the feel of it for the story because reasons.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80cMq0EBLkc[/video]
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#4
I have a soft spot for John Williams in my writing moods...

Used this track for a Scene in Matter of Force. The one where the Sith Girl invades the Death Eater hideout where she manhandles and throws out Greyback using the force.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHcNxKvRzbs[/video]
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#5
The Beni Arashiro version of the Kim Possible theme is actually kind of an unofficial image song for one of the characters in the book I'm writing.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze04OUFKFPQ[/video]

She's actually not modeled after Kim or any character in the show. She's loosely based on Deadpool, she thinks that she's an Anime or Manga character, constantly talks and is very sarcastic, and makes pop culture references and occasionally breaks the fourth wall. The song kind of stuck as an image song for her because the magical power gained from becoming a Magical Girl acts as a universal translator and after she learns it she annoys her older brother by singing the song over and over in all sorts of different languages for a few hours. The powers run in families so they don't hide the fact that they are magical girls from their families.

The bad guys are a boy band and the "Tuxedo Mask" type character is in fact a former member loosely based on Justin Timberlake.

No one involved is particularly sane and I'm recycling my original characters Gia and Spike from Gaijin for the story as the main protagonist's legal guardian and her 'retired' Yakuza boyfriend. He's a thuggish brawler with a serious attitude and his parents died in a car accident and the family cat turns him into a magical girl and refuses to turn him back until he saves the world. He just moved into a new town after living in Japan while his aunt finished up her schooling and residency, and must now attend High School as a teenage girl, no one but his family knows he's really a boy as it happens to him on his first night in the new town. He also starts out as a tall burly white guy, but when the cat transforms him he's a five foot two Japanese girl [there is a reason for it]. His father was white and his mother died in childbirth, he remarried a Japanese woman when he was about two and that's who he knows as his mother.

He also has a younger sister and the Japanese side of his family hates him outside of his aunt and a couple of his cousins, one of who is based off of Kei from Gaijin, and the other is an adult character based off of Nabiki from Ranma 1/2 who is a talent agent for the Japanese pop industry, she also represents a few adult actors and seiyuu. The magical girl group don't become idol singers, but she does manage him and the other magical girls merchandising through a few shell corporations and an LLC. His grandfather is also fond of him, but married into the magical girl side of the family by way of an arranged marriage. His father's parents and his birth mothers parents both passed on years before and were only children.

The action is not limited to the town the main protagonists live in as one of the abilities they have is the power to open portals that can take them anywhere in the world, Japan is one of the places that is frequently revisited as his stepmother's side of the family takes care of a popular Shinto Shrine dedicated to Amaterasu that also doubles as a small hot spring resort. I'm parodying anime, so there has to be a hot spring/group bathing environment.

I'm also mirroring what I did with Luna in Gaijin and having the magical cat start out as a prissy and conservative type who gets hit on the head, loses her memory, and transforms a very self centered cat like personality once she remembers she can talk, much to the confusion and frustration of the other two magical cats who have a much more reserved and human like mentality.

Oh, and his situation is similar to Anna's in Matter of Force. He starts out as a straight male, thinks he'll just be gay as a girl but tries to act like a normal girl because his situation is temporary and he doesn't want to complicate things, and slowly comes to the horrible realization that he's straight as a girl and attracted to males and it freaks him the hell out.

I've got a ton of writing done on it, but it honestly needs a rework. I kind of get into some elements a bit too fast and need to trim down a lot.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#6
[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LqJlDXk7_E[/video]

The Japanese version...
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#7
Another character has electric powers so...

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGmIgF7ksJw[/video]

Thus far she has not stolen the railgun trick and she's actually more like Thor than Jupiter or Mikoto and fights with a War Hammer.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#8
Closing theme is Angel Links "All My Soul". Again, not officially, just how I visualize it. I kind of visualize segments of the story as episodes. Not sure why really.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shsSTauOi1w[/video]
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#9
[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5EM6_DHKOU[/video]
Just like this song and it fits with what I'm writing. Not sure why exactly and it's not tied to any particular character or scene [yet].
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
#10
...and finally for tonight...

The story eventually ends up in space and involving other magical girls from other planets uniting against the big bad of the story as it is a threat to all life in the universe...

I think of this song as the 'second opening theme' if it was a show. If I was actually making an animation of this, I'd probably try to license this one for it...

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6FPJOgfCkc[/video]

Honestly, I'd probably try to get that Megumi Hayashibara theme as well as it's kind of obscure. I can probably avoid the Kim Possible rights as there isn't an actual scene involving the song, just mention of the incident involving it.

The Five Finger Death Punch song would be nice for the fight scene that was inspired by it, but that one would probably be kind of expensive. I'd get it if I could, but more than likely I wouldn't be able to afford the rights.
 

goldenarms

Well-Known Member
#11
What am I listening to? Right now?

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jw27h74o2k[/video]

It's pretty interesting, though it also makes me wonder if other such songs/sounds would translate as some kind of insult if sped up 800%.
 
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