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royalnightshadeart · 1 year

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Royal Nightshade's Influence Map (Part 1)

Hi again! This is Volt and we're back with another blog post! This time we want to chat a little about the artists and themes that inspire us; what makes "Royal Nightshade"? KingRhapsody and I want to share what we love. This is part 1 of 2!

Volt's Influence Map

I'll admit, my influence map is a little all over the place, and there's a lot that I actually don't have on here- I wanted to really work my brain for the themes and artists that recur or that I constantly refer back to, so that meant not just reaching for a bunch of Disney or anime from my childhood and calling it done (Not that there is anything wrong with that).

More below the cut!

Artists

JC Leyendecker: (Top left) One my my current inspirations and has been for quite some years now. I learned about him and the way that he made art. He led quite the fascinating life. Some of my favorites of his are on that map, I love his finished advertisements and works for the Saturday Evening Post just as much as the quick studies he did. There is something timeless about his art that I love that I find to be the opposite of Rockwell's, which tends to lean very 'Americana' and 'Of That Time'.

A lot of the visual cues I try to implement from him are the sculptural brush strokes, as well as the very confident air about the characters he draws. There is something very statuesque about his work, and yet it isn't stiff or lifeless. He has a unique design sensibility that I really like. A lot of his work is quite like Art Deco, which I love in architecture.

John William Waterhouse: (Top Middle) I absolutely love his color mixing and his theming of powerful women and scenes from mythology. His work is looser and more ethereal than Leyendecker's. I find the running theme to be strong silhouettes and good contrasting and saturated colors. There isn't much else I actually have to say about him, except that I like to do master studies of his work every so often.

Frederic Leighton: (Lower Left) If you hadn't noticed, I love painters who create within the themes of classical art or mythology (more on that later). But Frederic here is actually one of my favorites specifically because of that. his colors and light are masterful, and I'd love to create powerful scenes like the one on the map of Hermes returning Persephone to Demeter.

Modern Media

I don't want to spend too much time here, because there's more modern media than I have room to cover. Needless to say, I grew up with toonami and Super Nintendo. So I chose some games and an anime that best suited what I feel represents a good deal of my influence from those things. Notable mentions are

Yu Yu Hakusho, a shounen anime you should watch if you haven't already, and definitely an influence on the way I approach characterization. If I had to tell you an example of what my favorite style is for 90s anime, I'd point you here, or to Cowboy Bebop.

Chrono Trigger is definitely a part of my formative years as a baby gamer. I took pretty well to fighting games, and I could sit here all day and talk to you about how much I love King of Fighters, but Chrono Trigger sums up what the vibes are when it comes to non-linear narrative, which is definitely what my comic is shooting for, but not in a time travel way directly. This game makes you think about the consequences of actions you can and cannot control in the flow of history.

And the music slaps.

Seiken Densetsu 3- Oh, I'm Sorry, Trials of Mana, was a game I played many times on an SNES emulator, fan translated. The characters and the various adventures you went on really inspired me! The colors in this game are so rich and I liked all the different locations and monsters. It makes me want to expand on the lore of the world in which Royal Nightshade exists. King has played this one too and he thoroughly enjoyed it!

My favorite characters are Kevin, (but then again I love werewolves) and Angela (because she shares my name and has cool magic, sort of a brat though). Please play it! The remake is not bad, but the original is great. Music also slaps, but not as hard as Chrono Trigger to be Honest.

Themes

And finally, I'm sure you've noticed peppered throughout the map is Hermes, who is honestly The Best. God of commerce, travel, boundaries and communication. I love him so much. Here at Royal Nightshade we stan a busy god.

In general, you'll see themes of mythology (Greek in particular although I love all sorts), as well as liminal spaces, fantasy and alchemy; the latter one is a big influence to me, given that the main character of my comic is an alchemist. I don't know. I love the symbolism, the theories, the philosophy, it's so easy and fun to make up themes within the umbrella of alchemy because it was so based in belief and what many early practitioners thought was the way to back up their theories.

I love mixing fantasy into reality in those ways and playing at the boundaries of science and magic. King tells me I'm really into 'science fantasy' themes, and I guess it hadn't occurred to me until he mentioned it.

This was a great exercise in exploring what I'll be bringing to the table here at Royal Nightshade! You can expect a little bit of everything from those inspirations.

#VoltBlog #influence map #Royal Nightshade Art #Archive2022

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transformers-fan-continuities · 3 years

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Spotlight: Ties That Bind

This one’s a doozy folks! If you missed the last spotlight you can go read it here, but strap in for The Ties That Bind, an absolutely brilliant take on humanformers. It’s hosted here at @tiesthatbind-tf created by @artsy-hobbitses!

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

Ties That Bind is a humanformers-based original continuity which is part Science Fiction and part Alternate History where the invasion of Quintessons and introduction of their technology to Earth in 1920 sets the world and humankind on a completely different trajectory. The active narrative spans a period from 1920 to 2070, covering the First and Second Quintesson Wars, the interplanetary Antillan War (leading to the creation of Unicron on Mars) and the Great War which involves the Autobots, Decepticons and Functionist stalwarts, and how it affects the characters.

The cast is pretty sprawling and the narrative is mostly centred around human drama with bits of humor interspaced and a dash of horror (mostly centred around how the previous government often chose to utilize the technology left behind from the Quintesson Wars to create new systems of oppression, which affected many of the characters, in the name of worldwide rebuilding efforts).

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

I will admit to this continuity being very much heavy on the relationship between Old Bastards Optimus Prime and Megatron, which is given considerable weight as they were best friends who had known each other since childhood and were deeply intrinsic to each other’s growths as individuals, which makes it all the worse when guilt and betrayal enter the party. Despite being captains in two corners of this battle, there’s a part of them that just cannot let go of their pasts together and they need to reconcile with how this will affect their agenda (Megatron) and how they lead their team (Optimus) who don’t necessarily share their history.

Other characters with significant development include:

Starscream, a Cold Construct in a toxic working relationship with Megatron with whom he is hiding a dark secret, who struggles to balance the underhanded viciousness he believes he needs to gain power and his innate desire from his Senate days to make the world a better place.

Windblade, a Camien native who fights her government’s apathy concerning the situation on Earth which they see as unsalvageable compared to their more Utopian society.

Prowl, a Cold Construct raised from childhood to be a cop in a police state, who finds out that he was brainwashed several times to ensure his obedience and efficacy as a government asset and is now working to reclaim some semblance of the humanity he was never allowed to feel and figure out how much of him is who he really is and how much is programming.

Hound, a sheltered Beastman who joined the fight to ensure that Beastmen the world over would have the same rights he did in his homeland of Shetland Isle, but is forcefully stripped of his humanity and faced with his animal side during the war and has to relearn what personhood means amid his trauma.

Q) Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

God with the amount of time I spent sleepless trying to figure out how the logistics of this or the semantics of that were supposed to work in universe, I cannot for the life of me say it’s fluffy fun, but I can’t exactly say it hasn’t been pretty engaging either!

There’s elements of war being messy for everyone involved where there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between friend and foe at times, but I think for most part it prescribes to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that people are inherently good, but are corrupted by the evils of society. Despite its dark themes (Including but not limited to child abuse, torture, illegal experimenation and brainwashing), love and friendships do prevail, kindness does beget kindness, found families are made, even the smallest actions matter, and things do get better because there are people on both sides who genuinely want to, and strive to make it better.

With Cold Constructs and Beastmen, it also delves heavily into what it means to be human; to have agency and personhood.

There’s also a strong undercurrent of taking responsibility for one’s actions, even if they were made with the best of intentions (Avoidance of this is what eats up Starscream and Megatron from the inside, and what Starscream eventually embraces).

Q) How long have you been working on it?

There’s two answers to this!

I’ve had a Humanformers-related universe going all the way back to 2007 around the time the first Bayformers came out---basically I had a choice between learning to draw cars or draw people (I was an anthro artist back then) and I immediately chose people.

The 2007 draft however had no worldbuilding or connective storylines and was mostly a fun little venture into character design and practice which were actually instrumental to me experimenting and learning how to draw humans properly.

I left the fandom for about a decade and when I came back to it in late 2020 around September via the War for Cybertron series on Netflix, I immediately got hooked on the 2005 IDW comics I missed out on and wanted to get around to updating my old designs as well find a way to translate several of the concepts I wanted to explore in a human sense, so the 2020 update became its own full-fledged original continuity with detailed worldbuilding and history.

You can see the artistic evolution of several characters from their original incarnation below!

Q) It’s incredible to see your artistic improvement too! Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

Say hello to my workspace! I’ve been working exclusively on the Ipad Pro since late 2016, which is fantastic because I can basically whip up concepts and sketches on the go anywhere. Nowhere is too out of bounds to work on TTB!

Also, do enjoy this sneak peek at true!form Rung, whose synthezoid human body took years to perfect.

Q) YESSSSS alright I must admit this is one of my favorite Rungs, and certainly my fave within TTB. Amazing. Phew, anyway. Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

TTB was initially conceived as a faithful retelling of the IDW 2005 narrative before it was transformed into its own continuity and as such, it borrows heavily from concepts and mirrored plot lines introduced in that run! I chose to have the series inspired off it specifically for the amount of history and worldbuilding it introduced to the franchise.

Anime like Gunslinger Girl and Beastars inspired the depictions of Cold Constructs, especially the more harrowing aspects of their upbringing as government assets instead of children, and Beastmen (Beastformers) in TTB.

I haven’t depicted the world itself in my art all too much, but the architecture from Tiger and Bunny, which has sort of a futuristic Art Deco feel to it, is what you’d usually see in major cities. There is an in-universe reason for that---with a Point Of Divergence set in 1920 followed by 25 years (an entire generation) of progress basically being kicked to the curb due to the Quintesson wars, mankind was basically in a time-locked bubble until the end of the wars, and by then their heroes were 1920s-style rebellion leaders, which lead to 1920s fashion (especially among the Manual Working Class---Megatron, Jazz and Optimus all rock 1920s fashion at some point of their lives) and architecture being celebrated and retained as sort of a reminder of how things were before The Invasion. This anime’s background design is also where I adopted the tiered system TTB’s major metropolises are often built on (with each tier being designated to a different working class) from.

The main artistic style itself is a love letter to 90s cartoons, in particular Gargoyles’ deep and drama-driven character narratives and designs as well as The Centurions’ take on body armor logistics.

I also take inspiration, especially armor-wise, from the characters’ given heritage and background. As an example, Hotrod who is depicted as Irish has the flames on his armor done up with Celtic knots. Welsh aristocrat Mirage’s armor bears olden knight-style filigree and has his Autobot logo designed as a coat of arms. Indonesian Soundwave’s armor and Decepticon logo takes cues from Batik and Wayang Kulit while their mask is based off the Barong.

Q) They are absolutely gorgeous! Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

The worldbuilding in general! Most Humanformers I’ve seen tend to treat it like a fun exercise which it is and is definitely valid, but I found myself wanting a full-fledged world to lose myself in and I sought to try and make that world myself by drafting a detailed history and timeline of events which would affect ongoing narratives, having indepth worldbuilding to include almost all societal aspects of the universe and expanding on the concept of Beastmen and Cold Constructs existing in a human setting.

I’m not so secretly proud of the research and diversity included to make the cast look like the multicultural, globally-based team that they were meant to be instead of being locked to a single region! My original draft from 2007 was, to put it simply, quite culturally monolithic and I wanted to improve on that aspect with TTB.

I’m also proud that I’ve kept to it this far! I’m a notoriously flaky person jumping from one idea/fandom to another and to have kept at this continuity for the better part of ten months is honestly a personal feat.

Art-wise, this scene depicting a young Megatron working alongside Terminus and Impactor (cameo by @weapon-up-wallflower‘s OC Missit!) is definitely one of my favorites since it helps build up the world they live in and plays to familial bonds and comfort found in one another despite their less than ideal circumstances.

Q) Everything has come together so beautifully, you absolutely should be proud. What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

I am dying to hear more from @iscaredspider’s Sparkpulse continuity! Her designs are MIND-BLOWINGLY GORGEOUS and I want to hear more about what inspired her to work on it!

Also YOU. Yes YOU BLURRITO. LET ME HEAR MORE ABOUT SNAP.

Q) [wails and squirms away in the mortifying ordeal of being known but in a very flattered way] I WILL SOMEDAY I PROMISE aflghsdjg thank you QwQ

Well that was fantastic, Oni, thank you muchly! A magnificent continuity with so much to look forward to! Coming up next is another personal fave of mine, the first inspiration for SNAP, so stick around...

#long post #gore #ties that bind #spotlight #transformers #HUMANFORMERS #transformers au #tf original continuity #transformers fan continuity #transformers redesign #maccadam #i said id post this on sunday but i realize thats a holiday for lots of folks on this site :/

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kingstylesdaily · 3 years

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Paul Roberts: How he taught Harry Styles his gloom-busting Kindness moves

When the Harry Styles video for Treat People With Kindness was released it became an immediate hit. Its choreographer Paul Roberts had created dances for One Direction - though with 1D there was no Phoebe Waller-Bridge to consider. So how did Roberts combine the two stars' talents to create the energy-lift which people have been craving in the Covid gloom?

Styles' video for Treat People with Kindness came out on New Year's Day - though it was shot in London in February 2020.

Choreographer Roberts had worked often with Styles in the One Direction years. Roberts says the timing of the shoot, at the art deco Troxy in Stepney, east London, turned out to be fortuitous.

"We had a great time but we didn't know how lucky we were. Looking back it was about three weeks before the world started to burn. Maybe that's partly why people are loving it now - the video has such a carefree sense to it."

Roberts has had 20 years as one of the UK's most in-demand commercial choreographers. He created dances for the 2019 Spice World tour and has worked with everyone from Katy Perry to Sir Paul McCartney.

He devised work for the dance group BalletBoyz and, as well as stage work, he choreographed One Direction in videos such as Kiss You, Steal My Girl and Best Song Ever.

"So when Harry got in touch to say he wanted me for a new video it was a thrill. The only definite thing was it would be a song from the album Fine Line - but we didn't even know which song would be chosen."

With One Direction, Roberts spent six years working with a hugely successful boy band whose members insisted dance would never become a major part of the act.

'Waiting for 10 years'

Wasn't that a choreographer's nightmare?

"It was always really interesting working with One Direction. I knew very early on that there was a magic about them and I could see they had other skill-sets aside from being this very good-looking five-piece - and then four-piece - band.

"In personal moments you got to see them flourish. They'd mess around doing silly dance moves but I'd think, 'Actually if you wanted to dance really well you sure as hell could do it.'

"So when Harry contacted me and we spoke about doing a video with a lot of dance I was like, 'Well I've been waiting 10 years for this.'" Styles knew he wanted Phoebe Waller-Bridge to have an equal presence.

"I believe Harry went to see Phoebe in the West End when she had her success with Fleabag. They went out to dinner and got on really well. That's when Harry started to think how they could work together in some way."

Before shooting began there was a five-week rehearsal period - far more generous than most projects ever get. But a lot of the time Styles and Waller-Bridge weren't in the same room or indeed country.

"I was with Harry in a dance studio in London and we had all kinds of music to try out from modern alternative stuff to old school big band and Glenn Miller. We were exploring. Only on the third day did we begin to apply what we'd done specifically to the Treat People With Kindness track.

"Meanwhile Phoebe was in Canada working on the James Bond script. But fortunately I had a brilliant assistant on the project called Jared Hageman so Jared flew out to work with Phoebe. And eventually Harry needed to be in LA so I went there.

"He was amazingly devoted to the whole thing. He'd be shooting the Watermelon Sugar promo in Malibu and they'd wrap at 8pm but he'd get in a car and come to the studio and we'd rehearse moves until gone midnight."

Roberts says by then it was clear the choreography would at least nod to the Hollywood of an earlier age.

'Dance language'

"The directors Ben and Gabe Turner sent me a link to a black and white movie from 1943 called Stormy Weather. There is a justly famous sequence in it with the Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, called Jumpin' Jive.

"I think it's the greatest dance-sequence ever filmed and Gabe and Ben and Harry all wanted our video to have some of the same feel.

"I think in Harry's head he wanted to push himself to the absolute limit of what he was capable of. We were never talking about just an average soft-shoe shuffle.

"So the reality was that I and Jared would talk constantly and exchange material from thousands of miles part. And of course Phoebe and Harry would also pitch in ideas.

"We wanted to find a dance language that would take things as far as we could possibly go with Phoebe and Harry, without it becoming comedic.

"Actually my big worry was practical - that they'd both start out with massive energy but that as the weeks progressed you'd have these two incredibly busy people with no time for everything needed to make the project special. But neither would give up, not for a moment."

Nostalgia for better times

He says it was important the dancing had a contemporary edge as well. "Harry and Phoebe are modern artists and very intelligent. They're fashion forward-thinking.

"I find that once you've stopped giving artists their steps it's often quite nice to step back and just watch how they interpret the music. Sometimes little gems can be grabbed and put into the mix.

"It was discovered very early on that both Harry and Phoebe had huge potential. The delight came from their energy combined with the talent of the film-makers plus the extended period of time we had to rehearse.

"I work in a world where budgets have shrunk considerably so it was a big investment for managements and Harry's label."

Roberts remembers the two stars finally came together for little more than the last week of the project, including the shoot. But there was still time to bring in a ballet dancer to give guidance on "port de bras" - how to hold your shoulders or extend an arm gracefully.

"Harry and Phoebe are both decent and generous beings. So we all kept it fun, despite the blood, sweat and tears which had gone into the preparation.

"When finally we were together they could layer on little side-eyed glances or maybe some tiny movement of the face which the camera would pick up. Above all we wanted a sense of style [no pun intended] and panache."

He says the fact most of us feel a real lack of either style or panache in our lives has given Treat People With Kindness an impact as a video it might not otherwise have had.

"The whole thing has a nostalgia for a time where you could be in a club and socialise with friends with no social distancing. I think the chemistry Harry and Phoebe have together just oozes joy. And for most people joy is in short supply."

via BBC.com

#kingstylesdaily #Harry Styles #hs: mention #hs: news #hs: tpwk #January 2021

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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the hotly anticipated kingdom episode 7 review is here!!

this episode was a lot less spectacle-y than the last one (the last episode with stages, i mean), and i think that was a good choice for all the groups on the whole to tone it down on the run up to the finale, because at the rate everyone was headed there would be no room to go any higher. i'm very glad that there was actually a collab stage and not just a song swap, especially because it gives a chance for the boys to work together and make friends when they otherwise arent going to be able to interact much. love love love to see them making friends and having fun doing these stages!

i'm not really sure why mnet didnt put the vocal stage this episode, because what on earth else are they going to put in the next episode with it??? i know it's a content stretch but still, it seems like a weird choice to me. anyways, there’s four stages for me to talk about this time and i'm going to try to not ramble out of control, but we’ll see. i did enjoy watching all of these, but we’ve all got favourites and i'm going to rank by which group i liked better out of the two for each stage, and then i put a few conclusions at the end. strap in folks this is another long one.

rap stages

skz + btob + atz

i was actually really surprised at how much i liked this stage. i would not classify myself as a rap fan and believe it or not i actually do not place a lot of importance on lyrics when enjoying music. although i have very high lyric retention and comprehension, i focus more on the sound than the literal words, so a fair amount of rap is swing-and-a-miss in my personal listening. plus when you add a language barrier on top of that, a lot of the nuance and technical skill of it just flies over my head. so i really dont have much to say about the sonic elements this time around, sorry. also.....i know i joked that nobody from the kingdom staff is reading my reviews.....but is someone from the kingdom staff reading my reviews????? i specifically mentioned that i think skz should do an art themed stage and then we got one????? i know i manifested the punk ateez stage but did i manifest this also??? am i just that powerful???

costume

obviously these are pretty basic rap/hiphop stage looks, but the white was a really good choice for visibility’s sake, and also thematically: it reflects the colours in the lighting really well.

i am DYING to know who the designer of minhyuks jacket is. if somebody knows please tell me i love it so much. it looks like some of the recent belted jackets that dior was putting out, but the drawing on the front armscythe piece reminds me of the superm/kim junggi collab for tiger inside. say whatever you want about superm, but you cannot deny that that is not some of the coolest merch on the kpop scene.

loved the traditional korean elements that came through in addition to the western references: the screens, hongjoong’s fan, minhyuk’s big fuckoff brush, the masks, and the sleeves on the dancers at minhyuk’s bit. those are a costume feature from a style of korean traditional masked dance called bongsan talchum. the masks themselves are versions of hahoetal masks, which are used in a very specific archetypal ritual dance in andong. i think these are imae masks, who is the servant/fool archetype that mocks the nobleman and the scholar. i suspect that was a deliberate choice, but i can only speculate.

another point about the masks which is not relevant but maybe a fun fact for people who don’t know. i actually thought at first that they were western theatre half masks, which are a very old style of mask that, like with hahoetal masks, represent a number of archetypes/stock characters. maskwork is a very common training practice in theatre schools, because it teaches body language and control, because half your face is covered and you cannot speak in your own voice (sometimes you cannot speak at all, this is one of the rules of full mask). the tradition of usings masks to portray emotion goes all the way back to the ancient greek chorus, but more commonly people in the west sometimes know it from the italian commedia dell’arte, of which you will have definitely seen some of the character archetypes before. i just find it neat that the same types of art pop up in different places seemingly independently of each other. humans are cool.

set

not much to say here, it's pretty bare with just some propwork. thought the screen use was fun and they used it smartly in a couple of transitions.

thought changbin’s bit of ‘interrupting’ the artists was cute and fun. there’s obviously a picasso reference there, and the four technicolour paintings are a reference to andy warhol’s pop art silkscreen portraits, most famously of marilyn monroe, but he also did many other celebrities in the 70s and 80s.

lighting

i LOVED this lighting. super bright and fun, lots of use of colour, obviously. the projections were there to enhance the visuals and weren’t distracting in any way. i thought the transition to black and white/ink with minhyuk was smart and had good contrast, it gave a strong rhythm to build back up to for the climax.

sound

bang chan’s ‘spelling colour with a u’ bit had me SCREAMING with laughter. we spell colour with a u normally bang chan, the americans are the ones that are wrong.

staging

i don’t really have a whole lot to say here, it was pretty straightforward and fun. like i’ve said in previous reviews, i wish they were more conscious of the steadicam direction and would stop showing extended bits of the production crew. at least everyone was wearing full blacks this time.

fun use of the upward angle combined with the groundwork/leg choreo during hongjoong’s verse, that was a highlight for me.

sf9 + tbz + ikon

nothing against this stage, the other one just hit harder for me. bobby is the best rapper on the show and he really carried this stage with his charisma. he’s a fun performer to watch and he knows how to command a space. i'm sure there’s technical notes that people have about the raps themselves, but i'm here looking at visuals as a priority, which i'm sure you’ve all grasped at this point.

costume

these were clearly extensions of these idol’s personal styles, with is a perfectly fine choice, especially for a rap stage where the emphasis is more on authorship. LOVED bobby’s 11yro girl at recess look.

amusing that both rap stages involved paint in some way? loved the backup dancers shooting supersoakers filled with paint at them, but i wish i knew the reason for it? i'm glad i saw this stage first because i would have been underwhelmed by the paint throwing if i had seen this after rainbow bonanza.

set

almost no set at all here, just a few props. i'm not judging as harshly on lack of set this round because these stages are meant to be more about skill than anything else.

lighting

i loved the projections, i thought they were unobtrusive and i admit, i LOVE outer space themed anything.

i liked that they did more concert lighting and had no projections in the first half to put more focus on the performers, it really highlighted the fact that this stage was about them, and not about anything extraneous.

sound

it was indeed a song.

staging

i do wish there had been a bit more control of the space, because it did look very empty at some parts and they could have staved that off by keeping tighter camera shots. this stage is so fucking big, holy shit.

they really brought their onstage chemistry and they looked like they were having a blast, which FINALLY!!

i actually really liked hwiyoung’s opening, i think there was a lot of potential there for some sharp contrast work that i wish had been played through a little more, especially with the cool white light overtop the black costumes. it actually reminded me a bit of the intro in the music video from a rapper i do actually listen to, bewhy’s gottasadae.

glad to see some more use of camera effects with the black and white, but why did they do it over the paint throwing? it just made the trajectory of the paint invisible because there was no colour contrast.

performance stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

ok obviously im gonna have a lot more to say about the performance stages, nobody is surprised there. this one was the better constructed of the two and my personal pick for better stage, but i actually liked watching the both of them equally.

costume

king shit, literally. we love contemporary hanbok in this house. there was good colour and style distinction between the three of them without clashing.

costume change was fun and neatly blocked, it's pretty common to see backup dancers and chorus hiding quickchanges but i liked how this was a more unusual formation.

taeyang rocking the organza skirt and the big purple eyeshadow, thank you for keeping it cunty as always.

i really liked juyeon’s underlayer look. finally we get a good tbz costume look thats thematically relevant!

set

like all the stages this round, pretty minimal. the setting was almost entirely established through the costumes and the projections, which is some really good designwork. it's pretty much just the litters (the lifted chairs they entered on), and some smaller props. they managed to not make the stage feel empty because there was a lot of projection visuals to compensate, which is difficult to do without being overbearing, but i think they mostly pulled it off.

i originally thought it was gonna be weird to try and mesh the traditional korean architectural aesthetic with the weird mnet deco, but i ended up not noticing it as much as i thought i would.

lighting

like i just said, projections very well done and do a fantastic job of conveying setting without being overly distracting. like with the atz/skz/btob rap stage there’s a really broad range of colour use here that they offset by brightening and properly fill lighting the faces so you can actually see what’s happening.

the use of the strobing lasers and more concert style lighting fit really well with the change in the music from traditional instrument sounds to electronica and the more hiphop/isolated movements.

sound

i liked it well enough! i think it had a good arc that we can see echoed through the rest of the piece, like previously stated in the lighting and movement style.

staging

like i mentioned with the quickchange, there was some really interesting formations using the backup dancers here, especially as a lead toward/away from the camera

having the three of them enter on litters; again, literal king shit, love to see it.

this has a pretty clear narrative that doesnt really need an external explanation, which is good. i have to assume that the burning of the paper with 妃 (concubine) is intended to be a gesture of ‘burning’ the love out of their hearts, but that was the only thing i'm still confused on. this may very well turn out to be a reference to a specific story that i just have no idea what it is, but we’ll see once the subs are out!

i loved juyeons solo bit with the alcohol drinking and the table flip, that was the choreographic highlight for me. i just really wish he would use the other muscles in his face more often. we know youre pretty, you dont have to blue steel your way through all your performances!! take a page out of donghyuk’s book and make some ugly faces, it's good for you!!

i though taeyang’s swordwork was fine, but since i do actually have a decade of sword training i'm very judgemental. it's not bad, he obviously has practiced with the weapon and he knows how to control it, but he doesn’t have the same understanding as someone who has trained with a sword as a weapon and not just as a prop. if we hadn’t seen another stage with swordwork in it i probably wouldn’t have brought this up (that's a lie, i still would have brought it up, i have a third dan), but you can really see the difference between how minhyuk moves with his sword and how taeyang moves. a lot of this has to do with the proper weighting of the blade, which i mention briefly in my second episode review in btob’s section (and also this ask here, where i talk about properly weighted weapons in relation to the gun choreo in sf9’s and ateez’s previous stages); minhyuk is likely using a ‘real’ sword (it’s blunted but still made using proper methods and materials), and taeyang is using a cheaper-made replica (unless you’re doing full contact striking a LOT there’s no way a properly made blade breaks like that. also you would never tape it together hello??? respect the blade). if you know what you’re looking for, you can tell from the movements themselves when someone has training. minhyuk did a load of real training for a film where he was a swordsman, and you can tell; the sword is an extension of his arm, all the movements lead with the tip of the blade first, because that’s your first, your fastest, and your most dangerous point. you do 90% of your cutting with the first eight inches of blade, but it takes a lot of specific training to get your hands and arms to a place where that kind of movement is possible. taeyang’s movements are driven from his hands, which is unsurprising, because that’s where he’s used to his extensions stopping. the tip follows rather than leads. wow this got insanely sidetracked i hope you liked this crash course on swordwork.

this is pretty much what i expected to see from this unit. these three groups all have standout soloists, so i wasn’t surprised to see these three boys as the picks. juyeon and taeyang especially, theyre both from groups that are more likely to do experimental stages and choreography that highlights them as soloists and skilled dancers.

skz + btob + atz

this was a letdown from ateez’s last two stages, because they knocked those out of the park, but it's only fair that they have a bit of a fall. that being said, i did really enjoy watching this for its sheer ridiculousness; i’m forgiving the wolf concept this time because well, it’s wolf. you can't cover wolf and not do a wolf concept, that’s against the law. also, like i’ve said before, i'm all for dark concepts IF you give them thematic weight. is it on the nose? yes. is it thematically relevant? also yes. is it dumb? also also yes, but that’s never stopped a single kpop group in the history of ever.

costume

friendship restored with ateez stylists, rivalry started with skz stylists. the fur shoulder fluffs??? stupid and i love them. perfect in every way. however i keep seeing the same fucking costumes on the skz boys and i will come directly for the stylists at jype if they dont get their shit together. be! more! creative!!!

i really really wish they had gone more 2013 kpop with it, we need more of that ugly ridiculous styling. peniel was actually pretty close, with the overly long tunic and those yellow lenses. very vixx on and on (yes i know they were vampires from outer space, let me live)

i actually thought the wolf gloves were fun? the small bits of uv paint actually worked instead of looking out of place, and i'm glad they put them on wooyoung because the uglier an outfit, the better he pulls it off.

set

same dice, just the long table and the camo net at the beginning, which i thought was unnecessary. the table was useful for levels though, so happy to see they utilized that.

lighting

there is so much happening all the time. lots of lasers. it's definitely aiming for camp territory, and i dont actually hate it as much as i did on my first watch. it actually wasn’t as dark as i thought either, because its mostly lit with blue and amber. but it doesn’t really have that great of an arc and its not really that good on the whole.

the projections are a bit much for me, but that’s only when i'm actually looking at them. true to form, i didn’t even notice the excess of red slashes until like my fourth rewatch because i was too busy watching the performers.

sound

rookie exo my beloved. the original wolf goes so hard for absolutely no reason, so i’m not knocking this stage for being ridiculous. in fact it should have been more ridiculous. i think they did a fine job updating the song for a.....less 2013 sound.

i like that they didn’t bother to live sing the stage even though they recorded vocals for it, it gave them all a chance to actually focus on just the dance.

that being said, i am kind of missing all the adlibs from the original. but even though there’s some strong vocalists in this unit, they aren’t made of the same stuff as baekhyun, luhan, chen, AND d.o.

i literally just realized that peniel had already debuted when this song came out AND is technically exo’s senior because btob debuted like two weeks before exo officially did.....oh no

staging

choreographically this feels a lot more like the skz stages that we’ve seen rather than the ateez ones, so i'm curious as to who the choreographer was.

the tricking was definitely more ridiculous in this one, but i can't really say any of it was there for no reason because it all had elements of fighting in it. the scale of the tricks was quite large though and not very well blended with the rest of the choreo, which ending up making them look awkward. i thought it was a nice detail that they shone a green toplight on the dancers that made up the cliff wooyoung climbed up so that it looked like there was grass on it. cute.

the blocking is lacking a lot of fluidity, and i think that’s partially the scale of the tricking and also the editing, because this editing is TERRIBLE. there’s so much cutting, why is there so much cutting!! haven’t we already learned that longtakes are the best for this???

there’s a lot of stuff here that had good potential but could have been pushed a little farther. i feel like i say this for every mediocre stage, but what can i say, i'm good at constructive criticism.

they should have given more showcase to the tree and the scratching arms; it's the most iconic move!! i also wish they had kept some kind of iteration of the different unit ‘leaping’ in over the exiting one, i always thought that part of the original choreo was really fun and did a lot for establishing them as wolves.

i LOVED peniel entering with all those backup dancers in chains, thats some fucking iconic shit. very ‘im the alpha wolf,’ which is valid because he’s like at LEAST five years older than everyone else on the stage. i wish that instead of being the backup dancers it was the actual members, because THAT would have been an image. theyre all wearing harnesses and collars anyways, just clip em in! he’d be like one of those dogwalkers!

me last week: specifically talking about how krump is an uncommon style in kpop and it's very hard to get right kingdom, throwing the manifesting dodgeball at me for the third time: here would you like a KRUMP SOLO?

if you didnt believe me before that krump is hard to get right, i sure hope you do now. peniel did fine, but you can see how easily you can veer off into looking ridiculous.

some conclusions

i mentioned this really briefly in an ask i got earlier today, but i do think it's important to establish that the two performance units are doing two different types of performances. i can understand why people are underwhelmed by the atz/skz/btob stage and wanted it to be less of a traditional kpop dance stage and more like the experimental stages we’ve been seeing for the last few weeks. and i agree! i think they could have done more with it. but i also think that this kind of stage was a good choice for this particular subunit. unlike with the sf9/tbz/ikon unit, there are not really any standout technical soloists in ateez or skz. ateez has, in my opinion, the highest ratio of dancers with actual stage presence of any of the 4th gen groups ive seen. they’re at a solid 75% for any given performance, and occasionally they can bump that higher depending on the stage. that high of a stat is rare. it's extremely rare for a group to have all its members have good stage presence (i can think of like, maybe two or three?), and to get over 50% is pretty damn impressive. but ateez’s strength isn’t in how good they individually are as dancers, but it's in how well they work together. there’s a reason why they put FIVE of them in the performance unit. one of the first things i said about ateez to hanya is ‘i love wooyoung but he doesn’t stand out when he's not centre.’ which is for good reason!! he’s not supposed to! they all willingly give up centre and take it back when they need to, because they have that charisma. there’s a very cohesive push and pull to watching ateez that speaks to their strengths as performers. dancing in a group where you are all meant to be equal is a very different skill than just being a talented soloist. you have to understand what to prioritize in a different way. taemin dances differently with shinee that he does in his solo career, especially since they’ve been back. he understands when to step back; more often than not i find key to be the standout dancer in shinee choreo.

this is a very long winded way of saying that wolf was a good choice for them even though the stage didn’t turn out as well as it could have. also the fact that they made a cohesive performance at all, with a week of rehearsal and while working with essentially strangers is a feat and speaks to all of their skill at their job. performing in a group is a huge part of kpop, and they did call this the performance stage, and not the dance stage.

i'm not entirely sure on what the breakdown is on why each of the subunits were formed. i know the team sizes are extremely uneven, with sf9/tbz/ikon clocking in at 26 people and atz/skz/btob clocking in at 17 (i'm not counting changsub because he's not there and probably has a scheduling conflict), which is like, a whole extra group of difference. but atz/skz/btob utilizing their whole groups for each of the units (5/3/1 for performance, 1/3/1 for rap, and 1/1/1 for vocal, for 7/7/3 total), verses sf9/tbz/ikon only bringing out six people for these two stages and then six for the vocal stage is......weird? that's over half of their group number that’s not performing. i do think the groups brought out their standout performers and made smart choices with the stages but the balance still strikes me as odd. i do wish tbz had actually done some group choreo because they are very strong group performers and it would have been fun to watch.

ateez really played the long game here, good job boys. teaming up with the group who gets the highest fan votes AND the group with the strongest technical skills? i see you.

i think this is probably too wild of an assumption and is only based on circumstantial evidence but.....i think hongjoong might actually have a lot more creative sway than i previously thought. all the stages he’s been a part of have been very well designed, and i know he provided suggestions for the two ateez stages prior to this... i’m probably thinking too much.

ok you know what i know there were some other points in my brain somewhere but this is already 4000 words so i’m going to stop. if i remember anything else its probably gonna end up in the answer to some of the asks i’m inevitably going to get because i think my opinions on these ones are a little bit more controversial, whoops!

not entirely sure if ill do an extensive review for next week’s stage, because i'm not really a ballad fan and i dont really do vocal reviews, but i could do a quick one. i guess it also depends on what else they put in the episode. we’ll see!!

#kingdom #kingdom review #ateez #btob #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #kpop analysis #if you read this i hope you like fun facts about theatre and swords!#despite having never seen me hanya managed to clock that hongjoong and i are extremely similar #so that might be why ive jumped to this nonsensical conclusion #also tbh i do have an opinion on why the unit breakdowns are like that but its mean so i will keep it to myself #ok im done now #i patiently await my asks #text #lol forgot to tag #ikon

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hlupdate · 3 years

Link

Styles' video for Treat People with Kindness came out on New Year's Day - though it was shot in London in February 2020.

Choreographer Roberts had worked often with Styles in the One Direction years. Roberts says the timing of the shoot, at the art deco Troxy in Stepney, east London, turned out to be fortuitous.

He devised work for the dance group BalletBoyz and, as well as stage work, he choreographed One Direction in videos such as Kiss You, Steal My Girl and Best Song Ever.

With One Direction, Roberts spent six years working with a hugely successful boy band whose members insisted dance would never become a major part of the act.

'Waiting for 10 years'

Wasn't that a choreographer's nightmare?

"In personal moments you got to see them flourish. They'd mess around doing silly dance moves but I'd think, 'Actually if you wanted to dance really well you sure as hell could do it.'

Roberts says by then it was clear the choreography would at least nod to the Hollywood of an earlier age.

'Dance language'

"I think it's the greatest dance-sequence ever filmed and Gabe and Ben and Harry all wanted our video to have some of the same feel.

"I think in Harry's head he wanted to push himself to the absolute limit of what he was capable of. We were never talking about just an average soft-shoe shuffle.

"So the reality was that I and Jared would talk constantly and exchange material from thousands of miles part. And of course Phoebe and Harry would also pitch in ideas.

"We wanted to find a dance language that would take things as far as we could possibly go with Phoebe and Harry, without it becoming comedic.

Nostalgia for better times

He says it was important the dancing had a contemporary edge as well. "Harry and Phoebe are modern artists and very intelligent. They're fashion forward-thinking.

"I find that once you've stopped giving artists their steps it's often quite nice to step back and just watch how they interpret the music. Sometimes little gems can be grabbed and put into the mix.

"I work in a world where budgets have shrunk considerably so it was a big investment for managements and Harry's label."

"Harry and Phoebe are both decent and generous beings. So we all kept it fun, despite the blood, sweat and tears which had gone into the preparation.

He says the fact most of us feel a real lack of either style or panache in our lives has given Treat People With Kindness an impact as a video it might not otherwise have had.

#harry styles #tpwk #articles #210121

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thatlittleegyptologist · 4 years

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hi lottie, silly question. does it make me a bad person if i like Art Deco? i really love the aesthetic but i know that it incorporates a lot of egyptian themes and if it were done today, it could be seen as appropriation of egyptian architecture. it looks very graceful and striking to me, and i really dig it but it's a Western style and im not sure how to feel about that. sorry for the bother, i know it's a fluffy quetion, but you seemed like a good expert to ask. thanks for your time

I have to confess that I am deeply uncomfortable answering things like this. An expert in this I am not, nor do I think I should be speaking on this with any authority considering I’m a white woman. But since you’ve asked I’m going to give it a well meaning try. It won’t be perfect. So, what I’m saying is RIP my notifications.

Art Deco style, as far as I can tell, incorporates a number of cultures into its style at varying periods of development. Initially it appears to have both Japanese and Indian influence, particularly Japanese culture through what is termed Japonisme. This influenced artists like van Gogh, and Degas, and fed into the Impressionist and Art Nouveau styles, and ultimately into the Art Deco movement. In an interesting twist, the Art Deco movement originally inspired by Japanese culture actually ended up gathering enormous interest in Japan itself and the Japanese developed their own Art Deco style. Other influences are rather numerous; Greek and Roman art, Egyptian art, African art, Maya art, Mesopotamian art, and Oceanic art. They were extremely inspired by archaeological work going on at the time, namely the sites of Troy, Pompeii, and the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Anyway, I digress, I was trying to get a hold of history and influences of the Art Deco style in order to properly address the question. I’m an Egyptologist, not an Art Historian, so this is difficult.

What Art Deco strikes me as most, insomuch as we’re referring to problematic motifs, is that it revels in exoticism of foreign cultures. The style is grand, glittering, luxurious, and modern. None of the furniture or styles were cheap, meaning those from the cultures still living that had aspects of their cultures incorporated into the art style probably couldn’t afford it. While it’s a global style, incorporating motifs from all over the world, it has to be seen in the colonial and imperialist origins that enabled those from Europe to go out there and take aspects from other cultures and monetise them. There’s also the materials like ivory and jade, which were exploited from colonised nations. The period you’re asking about is the 1920s ‘Egyptomania’ style that burst onto the scene after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. This style is extremely gaudy compared to the later style which became more subdued thanks to the influence of the Great Depression. But it’s this period that you’re wanting me to talk about.

So, Ancient Egypt and Cultural Appropriation. This is where I feel least comfortable and qualified to answer, but I’m going to try my best to give you at least something. At the end of the day I am just a well meaning idiot trying to traverse a difficult topic, and I don’t believe I’m going to get it entirely right, but I will try. Cultural appropriation is a rather fraught term, and one I’ve seen weaponsied to beat people with on either side. I’ve yet to see a coherent definition that people can agree on either, so I’m going to follow Lindsay Ellis’ path of ‘as a theoretical term, cultural appropriation is neither bad nor good, it just describes a sociological phenomenon. It may have deleterious or positive effects on certain groups, but the term itself is neutral.’ Basically, it’s situational and dependent on power balance between the two groups. If it is a minority group taking elements from the more powerful group, then there is no real harm. If it is the larger group taking elements from the minority group, then that’s where the harm comes in. But as Lindsay says in that video there isn’t a clear cut line of what is good and what is bad. This brings me to Ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egyptian culture is considered a dead culture. While some people today may still practice aspects of the original culture, though distorted by time, the culture known to the Ancient Egyptians themselves has been dead for a long time. In fact, Ancient Egyptian culture was heavily borrowed from by contemporary civilisations like the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, and Minoans, and some of those motifs have worked their way through history divorced from their original context. This is particularly prevalent during the European Renaissance, which took a lot of Classical and Egyptian art and incorporated it into the new art. It’s how you get Obelisks, Pyramids, and Sphinxes in random places. Historically, the culture and it’s motifs have already spread far beyond their original context through Cultural Assimilation and Exchange, particularly through Greek/Roman syncretism, that most people wouldn’t know that they were looking at something that was originally Ancient Egyptian. Take the name Susan, or the word Adobe. Both of these stem from Ancient Egypt. Susan comes from Egyptian sšn and Coptic shoshen meaning lotus flower, from Hebrew Shoshana meaning lily, and into Latin as Susanna. Adobe from Spanish adobe, from Arabic اَلطُّوب‎ (aṭ-ṭūb), from Sahidic Coptic ⲧⲱⲃⲉ (tōbe, “brick”), from Demotic tb (“brick”), from Egyptian ḏbt (djebet). Anyway, I’m getting off track, but the question is here; can you appropriate from a culture that’s dead and was also assimilated into several major cultures that directly influenced other major cultures? The answer is...yes and no?

Culturally, you aren’t harming an Ancient Egyptian by wearing lotus earrings in an Art Nouveau style. It’s not like wearing a Native American War Bonnet while not being Native American. The latter is disrespectful to a living culture, whereas the former is not. A lot of Art Nouveau Egyptian Style is Lotuses, Papyrus reeds, columns in papyrus and lotus style, Cats, Obelisks, Snakes, and Scarabs, with the occasional ‘goddess’ (and I use that term lightly because they pretty much never have any identifying regalia, they’re generic). None of these motifs are particularly sacred to the Egyptians. They had religious significance, but also appeared in all forms of art and were worn as jewellery too. Obelisks are just giant propaganda penises, Cats were good for killing mice, but they rarely gave them names and in later periods just straight up killed 1000s as sacrifices, and papyrus/lotus columns were just Egyptian archaism and honouring of the original papyrus/lotus reeds used to build pre-dynastic buildings. These are not symbols the Ancient Egyptians would be upset about someone using. Earrings of an unstabbed Apep? Ohh boy they’d have a problem with that. Luckily those don’t exist in Art Nouveau Egyptian style, and I’m hoping they don’t exist currently.

However, we must bear in mind the socio-political environment in which the Art Nouveau Egyptian style was created. The 1920s were a time when European empire and colonialism were on a wane, but that didn’t lessen their power or impact. As I said before Art Nouveau styles are rooted in exoiticism of foreign cultures, as well as Imperialism and Colonialism, and was expensive to own. A luxury product created from the ancient art of colonised or ‘exotic’ nations, monetised and sold to a Western audience, and not a penny went to the ‘borrowed cultures’. The ‘Egyptian Style’ really plays off this. Coming to the fore after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and cashing in on the sudden need to have everything Egyptian, it became the en vogue style. However, the Egyptians themselves didn’t benefit much from this art style. Certainly, the rich in Egypt did, and it did increase tourism to the country, which has continued to this day, but I don’t believe you can say there was an equal exchange here. I cannot say it was deleterious as I’m not Egyptian, and am aware of my country’s own impact on Egypt, and let’s face it, a lot of the world, at the time.

So, ultimately, while you’re not harming an Ancient Egyptian, there is a potential to upset modern Egyptians. I can’t speak for them. Not in any capacity. Some may be not bothered in the slightest, and some may find it terrible. I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. In respect to liking the art but knowing it comes from a period of Imperialism and Colonialism? You have to look at the art and ask yourself ‘is this harming Egyptians?’ not Ancient Egyptians, because they’re dead and so is their culture, but people alive now. If you still like the art, and are aware of the background as to how such pieces came to be, then it likely isn’t harming anyone. It did harm people at the time of its initial creation, but does it still harm people? Are you ok with the legacy if it turns out that no one is being harmed right now? That’s a personal question you’d have to ask yourself. I cannot answer that or make that decision for you.

That’s all I can say on the topic. I’ve tried to be as careful and respectful as possible, but I know I will have made some mistakes, or there will be parts people disagree with. All I ask is that if you do disagree, please do it respectfully. I’ve not come at this with malice, and I’ve tried to do my best.

#long post #Anonymous #thatlittleegyptologistresponses #I spent 3 hours on this on a sunday when I could have been napping

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pollenallergie · 4 years

Text

Spoils of Love

A/N: I wrote this really quickly a couple nights ago at like midnight because I wanted to write it down before I forgot it. It’s short and probably not the best in terms of grammar and sentence/paragraph structure, but I’m still proud of it. Also, side note, Sugarbaby!Reader x Roman is definitely a new obsession of mine. I would like to maybe make a series of oneshots and blurbs about it based on requests like ill-skillsgard does for Faith x Faust and dreamtherapy did for Axel x Kitten. I know I always ask for people to send requests and stuff and its probably getting a little annoying. However, if anyone does have any Sugarbaby!Reader x Roman stuff, please send it my way!!

Pairing: Sugarbaby!Reader x Roman Godfrey

Description: Roman loves to spoil you. One of his favorite things to buy for you with is quality lingerie.

Warnings: mentions of sex, the world “incestuous” is used once, mature language, a tiny bit of angst (if you squint)

Word Count: yeah... uh I wrote this down in the notes app on my phone and I’m much too lazy to copy and paste it over to Word to check the word count so I have no idea what it is, sorry.

When it comes to lingerie, Roman loves anything Art Deco, preferably silky; bonus points if it’s a dark shade of crimson, a sultry black, or, in contrast, a pure white, a delicate cream, or a pale pink. It's no secret that he prefers the finer things in life, he is rich after all. He showers you with attention and extravagant gifts; designer dresses, spontaneous weekends away in Europe, lavish lingerie, silky sleepwear, pearls and jewels galore, and just about everything and anything else a woman could dream of. You made it a point in your life to not be overly materialistic, but with Roman that was nearly impossible. He enjoyed spoiling you, whether that be with gifts, verbal praise, exquisite sex, warm cuddles, last-minute vacations abroad, his undivided attention, or all of the above.

Roman was rarely a selfless, loving man, but with you he found it hard not to be. After all, you had changed his life. When he’d first met you, he was a lonely, pessimistic, previously incestuous billionaire with trust issues, anger issues, and an unwanted child. Of course, most of that was at least still partially true, but he’d gotten much better. You’d unintentionally taught him that he was capable of being loved and that he deserved to be love as well as to appreciate the time he has with people rather than to push them away out of fear of them abandoning him or dying at his expense, to love his daughter despite the tragic and despicable events that brought her into this world, and to move on from his fucked up family so that he could properly enjoy his life. You’d shown him the brighter side of things and introduced him to genuine, wholesome, romantic love, and he could not be more grateful.

One of his favorite ways to express this gratitude to you and unconditional love for you was to whisk you away for a lavish weekend in either Paris, the city of love, or Milan, the city of fashion and elegance. These weekend trips would be filled with decadent food, afternoon shopping trips, lazy mornings in bed, the best sex of your life, and many other finer things. These trips also often resulted in numerous additions to you already massive lingerie collection. Filled with fine silks, 24 karat gold and elegant silver clasps, detailed lace and embroidery, shiny latex and pvc, soft cotton, custom-made corsets, high quality mesh and tulle, non-irritating pasties, bras and panties of all styles, numerous matching sets, many elegant individual pieces, and all other sorts of lingerie and sleepwear. It was safe to say you had far more lingerie than you did everyday clothing, not that you were complaining.

Roman certainly wasn’t complaining either. Coming home after a long, hard day of work to you parading around in your silky slips, camisoles, lounge shorts, and robes was one of his favorite things in the world; so was stripping you bare of your elegant lingerie so he could take you any way he wanted to. Roman also loved how much more confident you seemed to feel when wearing the lingerie he bought you, each piece seemed to accentuate the very best parts of your gorgeous form and you certainly seemed to take note of that.

You weren’t a vain person by any means, hell you were a fully grown adult and yet you still occasionally struggled to love and appreciate your body, but sometimes he would catch you admiring yourself in the mirror while wearing his extra special gifts for you. You’d be standing there for nearly half an hour, seemingly in awe of how good your body looked, and that right there, that made his heart swell with joy. Just knowing that you were finally seeing yourself the way he saw you, as an inexplicably beautiful, magnificent goddess of love, made everything worth it.

#sugarbaby!reader x roman godfrey #sugarbaby!reader x roman #roman godfrey #roman godfrey fanfiction #roman godfrey oneshot #hemlock grove #hemlock grove fanfiction #hemlock grove oneshot #sugarbaby!reader x sugardaddy!roman godfrey #sugarbaby!reader x sugardaddy!roman #reader x sugardaddy!roman godfrey #reader x sugardaddy!roman #sugarbaby!reader #sugardaddy!roman godfrey #sugardaddy!roman #hemlock grove AU #roman godfrey AU

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charcolor · 3 years

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ok. because nobody was asking about it, here's my proseka group ranking

25-ji - i am mentally ill and also i kin one of them. their covers/songs are all so good. it's also unique in a lot of ways (only group where none of the characters meet at school, only group with only 1 first year, only group with a sekai manifested from someone that isn't the leader, only group that was an established music group before their main story, etc) and i like that. and because i'm edgy i like their aesthetics, story, and characterization. there's lots of interesting and realistic scenarios with them. kanade has trauma and blames herself for her father's illness, mafuyu has ultimately been driven to suicidal depression mostly due to her overly controlling parents, ena has a severe inferiority complex because she works super hard on her art and gets no recognition or praise outside of 25ji even from her own family (kinnie moments), and mizuki has resorted to skipping school to avoid transphobic harassment from other students. these are real problems lots of people relate to, someone could even relate to all of them at once, so it makes the stories so intriguing and the characters so memorable

wxs - my gf likes this one so i have bias. i love the clowns because they're all totally autistic. i love tsukasa and emu's noises. i also like how colorful they are and i think they all have very good backstories. i'd really like emu in particular to be expanded on she definitely seems like she'd be a "my family is rich and cares more about money than my own happiness" kinda character but i might be reading too deep into it.

vbs - definitely the gayest of units. they also get the giga-p songs AND echo so huge bonus points for that. i love their styles, an in particular is my favorite character design in the whole game. their story also rules, the only thing that kinda bothers me is i think kohane should have kept her glasses. the haircut i understand, it's cool, but i don't like the trope of "character stops wearing glasses to signify Change" bitch she needs to SEE!!!!!!!!! i know she has contacts but i don't get what was wrong with the glasses :( (also i know kohane is first in the lineup but i'm not the only one who thought an was the leader at first right. like she's the one they show at the beginning of the vbs story, kohane doesn't show up til like halfway through chapter 1 and i dont think they even display her name at first. actually that kinda bothers me too)

mmj - i like them, i don't have any strong opinions. i like some of their songs but i definitely feel like the songs they cover are very inconsistent, in some cases i think they should have gone to other units (like i think patchwork staccato fits in more with 25-ji, maybe near as well). i think the concept is super interesting, 1 aspiring idol + 3 girls who quit being idols, and the story behind those 3 girls and WHY they quit being idols. the characters just don't really stand out to me though...they're not like, boring or copied from other characters or anything, they just don't super interest me. BUT i do really appreciate how their story is handled, and their subsequent event stories are realistic idol stuff like finding an agency or managing live streaming sessions, i think it's a good take on that stuff

leo/need - i think the story is very well done, and the individual characterization too, but i gotta be honest. the more i think about leo/need the more upset i am. it has everything to do with their songs. i don't generally like deco*27's style, he's very talented but his style is just not for me (but i like hibana and ghost rule). pretty much every song leo/need has other than teo, roki and hibana (though even with hibana i play with the meiko cover) is sooo boring to me to the point where i actively dread having to play through them in multilives. not to mention that ichika gets WAY more emphasis than any other group leader. off the top of my head i can think of 5 songs (hibana, teo, roki, dramaturgy, and umitetie katiyetan or whatever it's called. whatever that one is) that are just ichika and miku duets, which is way more than any other group leader. in fact the only other miku/unit member duet i can think of is hated by life itself (with kanade). ichika even gets a solo cover (night sky patrol of tomorrow) which im pretty sure literally no other unit member has (not counting another vocal versions obviously). saki, honami and shiho get NO songs of their own, or even like individual duets with ichika or miku (and luka has NOTHING. vbs and mmj let her sing with them but not the unit that she was literally assigned to!!). in the mvs for teo and roki they just play their instruments together in the background without singing. i get they're the band unit but all the characters are meant to be singers in some form, there's no reason the other members shouldnt get to sing. (and it's not like ichika herself doesnt have an instrument!! like it's not like everyone else is too busy!!) LITERALLY DURING SHIHO'S BIRTHDAY LIVE SHE DIDN'T SING AT ALL IT WAS ICHIKA AND MIKU DOING TEO. i didnt see honami's birthday but i imagine they didn't let her sing either. it just really pisses me off how they just, neglect ichika's friends way more than they would for any other unit. but yeah i just think their songs are boring

#.....i may have made this post specifically to complain about leo/need. sorry #aimee's antics #long post

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prettyallfriends · 3 years

Text

Pretty Rhythm: My☆Deco Rainbow Wedding Chapter 13+14

(I'm weirdly motivated to just churn out a tonne of chapters tonight. I may get 2 more out of the way... Anyway, in chapter 13 we get some Rinne lore and general sadness. In chapter 14 we basically get confirmation that Ayami is in love with Chae-kyung. I got whiplash between these two chapters)

Chapter 13: The Runway Needs a Prism Heart

Mia: Aaaand here we are!!

Penguin-sensei: You insufferable airhead, dragging people along without thinking!!

Mia: People?? What are you saying~? You’re a penguin!

Penguin-sensei: Oh yeah, I forgot for a second! Yes, I am indeed a member of birdkind. I am, and always have been a penguin~ Penpen!... Wait, what are you making me say!?!?

Mia: Woah, now, don’t get mad. Anyways, what’s Rinne doing around here? (It’s a snowy tree ice rink type area)

Penguin-sensei: Geez! Rinne is entering a fashion show here today.

Mia: A fashion show!? Wow, that’s the perfect job for her, huh? I wonder what coord and what persona she’ll be wearing. That’s it! Why don’t you enter the fashion show too, Player?

Penguin-sensei: It’s not that easy to enter!

Mia: Huh really... Then, I have a question for you, Player… Does Rinne really enjoy being all alone?

Choice: She’s probably lonely / I think she’s fine

Mia: You really think so? No matter how much power you have, you’re bound to get lonely if you’re by yourself all the time. And she changes her personality so much, she might forget her true self. Let’s find her and ask her ourselves.

…

Mia: Hm, we still haven’t found her, huh? --??

Rinne: Seven-hued metamorphosis… Change!!! Pop!!! Yaaaay!☆ Today I’m gonna be super poppy and energetic! And I’m gonna work super hard for my fashion show☆

Mia: She’s changed her personality again!? So now she’s pop, huh… Wait a minute, I can’t just space out! Let’s go, Player!! Kaboom!! Excuse us!!

Rinne: Gah! You surprised me~ Oh? What’s wrong, Player?? Ah, I’ve got it! You want to enter the fashion show, right?

Picock: You fiends! What art you doing here!?

Rinne: It looks like Player wants to enter the fashion show too. It's fine, right? Whoo, okay☆

Picock: Poppycock!! Rinne, thou art entering the fashion show alone! Thou art more than enough! You must adorn yourself in the sexy coord next!!

Rinne: Seven-hued metamorphosis… Change!!! Sexy!!! Ehehe♡ Wow, I’m so touched that you came just to visit little ol’ me, Player-chan♡

Mia: And now she’s acting all sexy!?

Picock: As Rinne possess the powers of every variety of coord, she alone is enough to showcase them all. Next… is this coord! Rinne,--

Mia: That’s enough!!

Rinne: Hm…?

Mia: We don’t want to talk to the personas that Rinne uses with her coords… We came here to talk to the real Rinne!!

Rinne: The… real me??

Mia: Rinne, your said that Player has a wonderful heart, right? They use their own original My☆Deco coords. And you both want the Rainbow Wedding. If that’s the case, then fight Player as your true self!

Rinne: Stop it!!! Ugh… the power of the coords is… (she goes back to her normal outfit)

Picock: Rinne’s seven-hued metamorphosis has… reverted!?

Rinne: I… can’t do it.

Mia: Why not!?

Picock: You insolent fool! Thou art going awfully far… In that case, Player, you are to serve as Rinne’s opponent in this fashion show! Fashion a coord that suits your stage, and show us the power of My☆Deco!

Mia: Hell yeah! Player, you need to use your My☆Deco power to open Rinne’s heart!

(prism show yanno the drill)

Mia: Woohoo!!! Your coord and stage were perfect for each other! You didn’t have to change your persona to be able to perform a great prism show!

Picock: How can this be…? How canst thou perform so well without a seven-hued metamorphosis!?

Mia: It’s because Player is in tune with their own heart. My☆Deco is all about decorating your own heart, after all! Changing your persona to match your coord all the time, meanwhile? That's really sad. Rinne needs to realise that.

Rinne: Your own heart… The real me… Aaaaaaah!!!

Mia: Rinne!? Are you okay??

Rinne: I don’t get it… I don’t get it…

Mia: What don’t you get?

Rinne: I… I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything!!

Mia: Huh…?

Picock: Rinne, do not push yourself too hard whilst trying to recover your memories. There is no need to hurry. Once thou can acquire the Rainbow Wedding…

Rinne: ...I’ll remember everything I’ve forgotten?

Picock: Of course.

Rinne: That’s a relief…

Picock: It would be better if you two left for today. Rinne needs to rest.

Mia: But… Won’t she just keep doing her seven-hued metamorphosis? I mean, at this rate she’ll lose more and more of her true self!

Rinne: It’s fine… Don’t bully them, Picock.

Mia: Rinne…?

Rinne: I’m empty. But if I play all these characters… I feel like someone will tell me it’s okay to exist… After all… I’m…

Picock: Rinne, thou must rest.

Rinna: Right…

Picock: Player. If thou wishes to worry Rinne, the least you can do is polish your My☆Deco power first. The child who was chosen by the Rainbow Charm to wield the power of My☆Deco… Perhaps, you might… No, now is not the time for this.

Mia: For what? Now I have to know!!

Picock: Well then, farewell for now.

Mia: They left… Hmm. It feels like we’ve made a step in the direction of Rinne’s secret… But at the same time, her secrets keep piling up… What did Rinne forget? Agh!!! I! Need! To! Know!!!

(sad music still playing. ATARASII HAIR STYLE DE ASOBERU YO!!!! ATARASII KYOKU DE ASOBERU YO!!!!! Ljdkhjkasfj meganee realy knows how to ruin a moment. Anyway im sure it will be a great relief to learn that ive finally gotten my dream hairstyle and hair colour unlocked)

Chapter 14: Writing a Memomemo About the Secret of the Coord

Mia: You seem pretty down, huh Player? I’m pretty concerned about Rinne too, she seemed really sad… When I look at someone making a sad face, I end up feeling sad too… Ah... There’s a cat outside the window. Cats sure are great~ Not like they have anything to worry about. That’s it! Let’s become cats and just purr all day! Now, you do it too, Player! Purr, meow~~~

Ayami: STAND UP, GIIIIIRLS!!!

Mia: AHH!! Stand-up? Or is it stand up?

Ayami: That’s right. Stand up, girls. Memomemomemomemo…

Mia: What the hell, Ayami! I was in the middle of lazing around like a cat!

Ayami: Ah! Cats… A black cat!!! Cats sure are great… And they never have anything to worry about…

Mia: I literally said the exact same thing!

Ayami: Ah… I also want to become a cat.

Mia: Why? Did something happen, Ayami?

Ayami: Um…

Mia: That reminds me, you wanted to participate in Stand Up Girls, right?

Ayami: That’s right. I’m going to form a team with Chae-kyung-san and enter next time.

Mia: That’s cool. You’ll be able to pull off a very celebrity show then!

Ayami: Yes… And I’m happy about that, I’m really looking forward to it… but we decided that I’m going to be in charge of designing our coords.

Mia: But you’re great at designing, right?

Ayami: I really love Chae-kyung, but when I think of the kinds of coords she usually wears… Well, they’re the cream of the crop! They’re out of my league! ...which is what I’ve been thinking as I write memo upon memo upon memo upon…

Mia: Wow… Your notebook's completely full! You won’t thinking of any new ideas like this.

Ayami: I know that. But whenever I think about it… Ugh. Player-san, do your have any good ideas?

Choice: Try to get some inspiration from something around here? / I’ve got nothing

Ayami: Something around here… That’s actually really good advice! Hm…? What are you looking at, Player-san? Oh, Mr. Cat. Look, he’s sleeping with his tummy out, aww. He’s so cute, all relaxed like that. ...Ah!

Mia: Did you think of something!?

Ayami: As expected of Player-san! You wanted me to get inspiration from the cat, didn’t you? I need to learn how to relax my heart just like this cat!

Mia: Is… is that right!?

Ayami: I’ll take a memomemo! I’ve thought of a design! Player-san, could you do a show in the coord I’ve designed? I’ve taken a memomemo of the cute, meowing Black Cat Coord! Hm, that’s right… Powder Snow Park is close by, let’s go there!

(prism show. My nyas?)

Ayami: Amazing! That was a very meowmeow show! Chae-kyung-san will definitely like the coord too…

Chae-kyung: Ayami!

Ayami: Chae-kyung-san! You were watching too?

Chae-kyung: That was a very celebrity show. Ayami and Player are both amazing! With this coord, we’re sure to get a celebrally good result in Stand Up Girls.

Ayami: Ehehe… I’m so happy to hear that. It’s all thanks to Player-san. Carefully thinking things through is important, but freely thinking things through is important too! I’ll make a memomemo of that!

Mia: Wow, Player, you’ve really grown, huh! You gave Ayami design advice, you’re so cool! Your My☆Deco power has to have powered up too, right?

Ayami: According to my memos, by powering up your My☆Deco power… you’ll be able to decorate your prism stones with frames!

Chae-kyung: Being able to create your own celebrity original coords is wonderful!

Ayami: You should try making a lot of new coords with your new ability to add frames. That’s it! If you’re okay with it, why not use this Black Cat Part for your My☆Deco?

Chae-kyung: You’ll definitely be able to make a celebrally cute coord!

Mia: Now that your My☆Deco has powered up, you’ll be able to enjoy prism shows a lot more! The Gold Spiral Cup is coming up soon, too. Work hard up until then!

Chae-kyung: We’re also going to work celebrally hard at the Gold Spiral Cup!

Ayami: Player-san, thank you so much!

(naur bc why did google drive keep autocorrecting chae-kyung to chase-kyung. bitch who tf is chase-kyung. maybe chase-kyung is her mechas car transformation idk)

#pretty rhythm #pretty rhythm 3ds #pretty rhythm dear my future #pretty rhythm aurora dream #pretty rhythm rainbow live #pretty series #mdrw

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marshmallowprotection · 4 years

Note

what fonts do you think the mysme characters vibe with the most? (you don't have to respond but personally jumin is very much a lobster font kinda guy)

Oh. God. As someone who has been into Graphic Design in school forever, I have had hell learning about fonts and I can tell you all kinds of things that I’ve picked up over time. I’ve never thought about what fonts that they would enjoy personally, but now you’ve got me thinking. Just don’t get me started on the people that bust a nut over Helvetica. I had to watch a whole documentary on that for school.

Hm, personally, Lobster is a bit too bold for Jumin in my opinion, I feel like he would lean towards a more slender, Serif style font. Personally, my favorite font is Garamond, and I feel like Jumin would like Garamond. It’s a classic font and used in many books.

Jaehee would be similar in that regard, I’m seeing a Serif font face for her as well just given her energy. I think she’s more modern and sleek in her style choice so Futura seems like a good pick to me. It’s not too wild and it’s not too overwhelming.

I can’t not say that Zen has a fondness for Broadway. I mean, it’s an Art Deco style but it holds a classic element to the stage so even though it seems like a sort of cheesy thing, I can’t really see him leaning any other way. He needs a bold font, much like himself. Sans-Serif all day for him, baby.

Yoosung has been in school and he’s still in school so I know that he’s got to have the same disdain for Times New Roman that I have. So, that’s a no-go for him. He seems more like a guy that would enjoy something more personalized in nature, or something more akin to handwriting, so Gill Sans it is.

V can be all over the place but he seems like he likes a modern, clean, and basic font that doesn’t have a lot of weight. So, he’s definitely a Sans Serif kind of guy. I’m getting Century Gothic from him for some reason and I’m just going to go with that.

Seven is someone that likes Comic Sans a lot. It’s not a meme. He needs a font that is easy to read and fast to read. He can’t stop when he’s working. He needs a Sans Serif font. The Dyslexie font is also really great if you’ve got a struggle with words getting mixed up. He also likes WingDings.

Saeran, I feel like, isn’t picky. Yes, he needs something Sans Serif to work really fast but I think on a personal level, he might really enjoy looking at Serif fonts in his free time. I spend a lot of time looking for really nice script fonts to use on personal things and like Rosellinda Alyamor really seems like something he would like.

#anon #ask #mod kait #mysme #mysticmessenger #mystic messenger #yoosung kim #saeran choi #saeyoung choi #jaehee kang #hyun ryu #jihyun kim #jumin han

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evandearest · 5 years

Text

Art Deco

Request: Heya hunny bunch! As your requests are still open could you please do a James March x Reader where she stays at the hotel post Liz and Iris’ take over, and she gets along with the other ghosts, which attracts his attention and something kinda blooms from there? Idk if that makes sense? ✨💛 ~@/mavalenovaninagavi

Warnings: maybe language? mentions of alcohol

Notes: ok, so i got kinda carried away with this idea, (and kinda put a little personal twist on it) but i really loved the concept! when the inspiration hits me, i try to use it lol. feedback is really appreciated ♥️

also, you guys can let me know if you want a part two, i’d be willing to make it a mini series :)

Title inspired by “Art Deco” by Lana Del Rey.

Tag List: @evanpeters-petermaximoff @sebastianshoe @mavalenovaninagavi @justanotherahsfan @riotsqrrrrl @ahsx97 @gretaahs @bish-ima-clown

Main Masterlist

You had always been a fan of the past. You’d always liked to look back at how things used to be, it often helped you have a deeper understanding of yourself. Sometimes, you even felt like you belonged in the past. Like you should’ve been there, but some mess up in time, some warp, per say, had born you into this time.

You never were a fan of the way society was, how toxic and ignorant the new-age social situation was. Looking back at how things used to be, you could almost laugh at how utterly dumb humans were nowadays. You were a fan of a time when things were more extravagant, when people were wiser, and more graceful. The time of when people appreciated just how lucky they were by enjoying it—not posting it on Instagram. Most people nowadays took it for granted, just how much they had. You hated that.

You’d realized many times that there was few people—if any—that shared the same perspective as you. Sometimes, that made you feel disappointed, sad, almost, that no one out there could see things the way you did. You felt that there was absolutely no way you would ever have anyone that would understand your view on the world.

Even though you tended to get along well with everyone, you didn’t have many friends, and it wasn’t necessarily because they didn’t like you—it was just that you couldn’t relate to them. They would never understand where you were coming from, all of them caught up in the modern day affairs that you strayed away from. You just had to accept that.

You’d immediately felt drawn to the hotel. It was like it was calling you, begging you, to enter it’s doors and discover what it had to offer. You were always curious, always ready for adventure, so of course you couldn’t deny the attraction you had to it, couldn’t deny the way gravity seemed to drag you into its embrace.

When you entered, you felt the shift. You felt the way the air changed, to warn you of the dark corners lurking in the proximity. But somehow, despite the warning signals, you couldn’t turn away. You felt calm, comfortable. You felt like it was simply fate that had dragged you into the building, and you didn’t mind. Fate could take the wheel for a change.

Step by step, you had made your way further into the luxurious climate of the “Hotel Cortez”. Your eyes scanned the atmosphere, taking in all of the colors, the style, and the complete authenticity the structure had. You felt excitement bubble within you, for never in your life had you seen something so utterly... perfect. You immediately wondered just how long ago this particular building had been built, knowing no one in your age could’ve had the eyes of someone expressing this style. If you could take a guess, you would say the 1920’s, but you couldn’t be so sure. The whole place screamed the “art deco” style that ravaged the whole 1920’s, the style you so craved to see. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

You’d been greeted with the most unique of faces. Two ladies were standing behind the front desk, and you could tell that this place was their home. Not by the fact that they were behind the desk, but by the sense that they were so comfortable. No normal, everyday person of this age could be comfortable in a place like this. (You being an exception, of course.)

On the right, there was a beautiful woman dressed in extravagant clothing. She was likely someone who knew her way around her own taste, which you admired. She radiated confidence and determination. You could sense it so much so that you could almost feel the emotions yourself, just by being in her presence.

The woman next to her was older, and she seemed tired, in more ways than one. You could see that she was content, but seemed to have an emptiness inside of her. You saw yourself reflected within her, immediately feeling relation and sympathy with the women. You knew how it felt to be out of place, simply not knowing when or where you belong. You felt it more often than not, especially recently.

The ladies seemed to sense your presence, both of them turning to look in your direction. The older woman stared with interest, while the extravagant woman gave you a bright smile. You gave a small smile back, approaching them with soft steps.

“Hello,” the older lady greeted, smiling politely. Your gaze turned to her, your eyes softening at the stress worn woman.

“Hello,” you greeted back, your eyes flicking between the both of them. You noticed their confused stares, and quickly elaborated on your attendance. “I was just stepping in.” Your eyes scanned around you again, glancing at the staircases and the balcony above you. You turned to them again when a thought struck. “Do you happen to have a bar?”

The well-dressed woman smiled, her eyes glimmering with something like excitement. “Yes, I’m the bartender.”

Your eyebrows rose for a moment, the pieces clicking together in your brain. You nodded shortly, acknowledging the information. You hummed in approval, gently swaying on your heels. “I’d love a drink.”

The bartender nodded, gesturing with her arm. “Right this way.” She began to lead you through the lobby. You followed behind her, your eyes peering around in amazement.

Soon enough, you were up on the balcony, which you now knew was the bar. The elegant lady walked behind the counter as you sat down on one of the bar stools.

“The name’s Liz Taylor,” she said, placing her hands on the counter while studying you. “What’ll you have?”

You smiled softly, “Surprise me.” Her eyebrow arched, but she nodded, beginning to make a drink. You could tell she was intrigued.

“{Y/N} {L/N}, by the way,” you introduced yourself as she handed you the drink. You glanced down at it, before raising it to your lips. It looked fruity, but tasted strong. You were surprised at the quality of the drink, and the contrast of the look to the taste. You nodded, licking your lips in satisfaction.

“This is really good,” you said, smiling at her. You were quite impressed, and intrigued, with this “Liz Taylor.”

Liz smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been doing this for many years.”

You arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Really?” You glanced down at the drink again, before settling your eyes back on Liz, a small smirk forming on your lips. “Well I should have guessed, it certainly shows.”

Liz smiled again, gratefully. She paused a moment, seeming to be thinking about something. She looked back at you. “What’s your passion?”

You began diving into how you currently didn’t have a job, but that you’d been through many. You’re conversation quickly spiraled into almost a whole share of backstories. You learned that Liz had a boyfriend named Tristan, and had worked at the Cortez for many years. You could tell something was a little off about her story, and if you were being honest, her in general. You just couldn’t put your finger on it.

Amidst your conversation, you were joined by another interesting-looking person. She had sat next to you while smoking a cigarette, and she had also seemed intrigued by you, very interested in why you were here. You learned that her name was Sally.

You’d chatted with Liz and Sally for nearly two hours, when suddenly you felt a shift in the air. You didn’t know what it was, but all the hairs on the back of your neck seemed to stand alert. Someone new had entered the room.

You turned around, craning your neck to scan the bar area. Your eyes quickly fell upon a man. You were shocked into a trance as soon as you had him in your sight. His slick suit, black hair, thin mustache. The cane he held, the way he stood. His charming atmosphere. It seemed as if he had been pulled out of a 1920’s movie, having been the classic 20’s man in the film. If you were any other person, you might not have noticed that, but you were you, and you’d seen plenty of 20’s films. He was definitely a ghost. You settled on. He has to be.

You were so immersed in him that you didn’t even process that he was approaching you. You were shocked out of your thoughts when the man stood directly in front of you, peering down at you with his dark eyes. His eyes pierced into yours so intensely you felt like you were dreaming. You didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or him, but you suddenly felt very dizzy. He looked away from you only at the sound of Sally’s voice.

“Hello James,” she said, and you didn’t miss the hint of venom in her voice. His eyes shifted to her and he seemed to be bored as soon as his eyes landed on her.

“Sally,” he replied, and you seemed to be frozen at the sound of his voice. His voice. A pure 1920’s accent.

His eyes transferred back to you, before going to Liz behind you. You couldn’t see her, but by the questioning gaze he was giving her, you could tell she got the hint.

“This is {Y/N},” she informed him, “she was just stopping in.” His eyes flicked back to yours before his lips turned upward in a small smirk. The next thing you knew, he was kissing the back of your hand. Your heart thumped wildly in your chest as butterflies erupted in your stomach simultaneously.

You knew you should be wary, this man was a complete stranger. But for some reason, you didn’t feel any fear. You felt safe, in fact, safer than you’d felt in a long time. You felt calm.

He pulled his lips back with a smirk before speaking. “Tell me, {Y/N}, what was it that brought you to my hotel?”

His hotel. You didn’t know if you believed in ghosts before, but you definitely did now. The way he said your name made your whole body go warm, to the point that your knees felt like jelly.

You stared up at him with big eyes, not quite being able to find your words. He was too intoxicating; even the strong alcohol in your bloodstream couldn’t compare to him. He simply rendered you speechless.

“I-I... uh,” you stumbled for words, but as he looked down at you almost softly, all your nerves seemed to fade away. You felt the same calm feeling that you’d felt when you first made your way into the hotel. The words seemed to come to you. “I just felt drawn to this place, honestly.”

‘James’, as Sally had called him, arched an eyebrow and tilted his head slightly. “That’s interesting,” he spoke clearly, his eyes studying you carefully. “What was it that attracted your attention?”

“James,” Sally suddenly interrupted, making you remember that there were still other people in the room. “Leave the poor girl alone.” She rolled her eyes, annoyance in her voice. Your eyes snapped back to James when you noticed he was still staring at you for an answer; having completely ignored Sally.

“Well, the building’s so beautiful, for one thing,” you said, deciding to ignore Sally too. He smiled at you, excitement glimmering in his eyes.

“Isn’t it just extravagant?” He linked your arm with his slightly firm one, and politely walked you over to the balcony. He smiled as he admired the lobby. You smiled too, but you were more focused on admiring him.

“Yes, it has the best style. I’ve always liked the 1920’s.” He looked over at you, and you noticed the slight surprise on his expression. You smirked at that, deciding that you quite liked surprising him.

James looked at you with a sudden seriousness. “I must admit, I’m impressed.” He paused as he watched a smile forming on your lips, one of his own accompanying yours. “There’s not many left out there that still think so.”

“I’m very aware of that, believe me.” You looked down at your hands, your eyebrows furrowing a little in thought. “It’s cost me quite a lot in life.”

Your eyes widened slightly when you felt his hand on the side of your face, cupping your cheek. You stared into his eyes shyly as he looked at yours with a sudden certainty.

“And why is that, darling? Who could possibly not be... infatuated by you?” He watched you as you swallowed nervously, a deep breath passing your lips.

“A lot of people aren’t.” You bit your lip as your anxiety spiked at your honest confession. You had no idea why you were telling him this, you just felt very comfortable in a way even you couldn’t explain. You stared at your feet, afraid to meet his eyes.

He let out a sound, reminiscent of a hum, before tilting your chin up to meet his eyes. “That’s obscene.” He let out a breathy laugh, rocking on his heels slightly. He looked pretty shocked, which surprised you. “I’ll be honest, {Y/N}, I am a fairly easy specimen to bore.” You giggled softly at that. “However, when I first laid sight on you, chatting with Liz and Iris, it can be assured that I was not bored. Rather, intrigued, by your aura.” You raised your eyebrows, surprise taking over you.

“Really?” You let out breathily, quietly, while looking up at him in disbelief. You seemed to have lost your voice. You really couldn’t wrap your head around what was happening. He was intrigued by me?

He suddenly leaned down, his breath tickling your ear softly, making a chill run down your spine. He breathed out, his lips grazing your ear. Butterflies exploded in your stomach as your breath caught in your throat. You could smell his distinct scent; cigarette smoke, cologne, and some type of alcohol that you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

“Indeed.”

It was only one word, but it had much more of an impact on you. You felt like your knees were about to give out underneath you, like you couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

He pulled back slowly, looking down at you with a strange expression. You’d seen it before, and it could only be described as one thing: need.

You let out the breath you were holding slowly, never once breaking eye contact with him. He put a hand out to you, a charming grin taking over his features.

“So, tell me, darling. Since you’ve been apprised your desire of the hotel, would you like to appease my fascination for you?”

#american horror story #ahs #evan peters #kit walker #evandearest #james march #jimmy darling #kai anderson #kyle spencer #rory monahan #james march x reader #james patrick march #james march imagine #ahs hotel #ahs imagine #evan peters x reader #evan peters imagine

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ducktracy · 4 years

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165. porky’s building (1937)

release date: june 19th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: frank tashlin

starring: mel blanc (porky), billy bletcher (dirty digg), berneice hansell (rabbit), tedd pierce (sandy c. ment, dog)

alas, the photo limit prevents me from placing this in here, but the cartoon opens with a highly amusing disclaimer:

any similarity of characters or happenings in this picture to actual people or events is definitely intended................. if you think we're going to sit around for days thinking up new ideas - you're pixilated!

somewhat of a strange anomaly is mel blanc voicing fat porky. this is the first frank tashlin cartoon since porky’s romance, the last cartoon to feature porky’s original voice actor, joe dougherty. fat porky wouldn’t survive past 1937—frank tashlin was the sole person who kept him going, after tashlin’s porky’s double trouble he got a diet. this is more of a personal anecdote than a concrete observation, i always found this so-called “transitional period” amusing. nevertheless—it’s up to porky you beat his rival, dirty digg, to see who can build the best town hall the fastest.

frank tashlin, ever the cinematographer, introduces the cartoon with a silhouette behind a closed door, the door identifying the silhouette as sandy c. ment, city building commissioner. tedd pierce provides the voice for sandy, discussing the plans for the new city hall about to be built. we see porky and a particularly grizzly brute as the gentlemen sandy is referring to, the only two contractors in the city. they’re both tasked with building the city hall--whoever can come up with the cheapest bid wins. i believe it’s norm mccabe who does some particularly funny animation of porky waving to his rival, only to receive a steely glare in return, much to the rejection of porky. i’m certain frank tashlin’s feelings towards porky were projected into that glare.

sandy displays the city hall plans, revealing a poster of an art deco feat of modern architecture. tashlin’s cartoons in the 30′s are particularly rife with the streamlined, art deco feel, supported by his tendency to use jazzy underscores as we see here as well. more norm mccabe(?) animation as porky and his rival get the papers they need to sort out the bids. lovely animation as any sense of camaraderie between the two is gone in a snap, both nose to nose (or nose to snout?) as they stalk over to their desks to crunch the numbers, not once breaking physical contact or eye contact until absolutely necessary. mel blanc and billy bletcher’s voices collide as the two crunch the numbers aloud, the billy bletcher brute deliberately copying porky’s numbers. the two finish, the staring contest resumes, and they do the same furious tango back to sandy.

as fate has it, the two reach a tie with their bids at $3,000,000.02 each, with a hilarious detail of dirty diggs’ paper including scribbles of a stickman and a self serving game of tic tac toe, indicating just how dedicated he is to his craft. the tie stumps sandy on how to determine who gets to build the city hall, until he reaches a conclusion—both get to build the city hall. whoever finishes first, wins. a lack of sound effects hides the detail, but there’s some rather amusing animation as sandy jabs a finger in porky’s face and honks dirty digg’s nose daffy duck style.

transition to the two now at their respective construction sites, waiting to take off like runners in a race, accompanied by a crowd no less. sandy fires a starting pistol, and the two take off to build. digg hops into his backhoe, clearing the land for his building. can’t go wrong with the backhoe scooping up a giant boulder and crunching it up with an anthropomorphic mouth, spitting the chunks into a cart. porky’s dinky little contraption is just as whimsical, with a mechanical boot slamming itself against an actual shovel suspended by a pulley to clear the way. frank tashlin does a wonderful job juxtaposing the personalities, through mannerisms and extraneous details such as their equipment.

the rubbery animation associated with digg is only furthered as he struggles to pull his backhoe out of the deep hole he dug for himself--we see that the street lamps in the city are caught in the machine, bobbing up and down in their respective “posts”. finally, digg prevails, pulling out a tangled mess of rubbery street lamps. points for creativity.

elsewhere, the cartoon takes a rather morbid yet wonderfully hilarious turn: a dog construction worker loads crates of dynamites into a hole, chuffing halfheartedly on a pipe as he waddles back to the dynamite lever, hands in pockets, marching along to a whimsical rendition of “boulevardier from the bronx”. rolling up his sleeves, he prepares to pull the lever, when a crowd of spectators approach, leaning in as the dog prepares to fire. the dog opens one eye and grunts “step back folks, ya bother me,” VERY well timed to a nice little oboe underscore with each syllable. the crowd gives him his space... until the dog prepares to fire again. another “step back folks, ya bother me.” they oblige, until they don’t. the charade continues, until finally the dog waddles back to the hole where the crates are stashed, rendition of “boulevardier from the bronx” and all. the dog pokes an eye open as the lemmings inevitably wander to the hole of dynamite (a fitting underscore of “let’s put our heads together” to boot.) the dog squeezes his way through the crowd, heads to the lever... and BOOM! cold blooded murder dismissed with a mere dusting off of the hands. a WONDERFUL gag timed succinctly and purposefully prolonged--the same dog would reappear a year later in porky the fireman, another tashlin piece, doing the same prolonged waddle and same accompaniment of boulevardier from the bronx.

a collection of some whimsical animal gags, gags that feel like something out of a harman and ising cartoon, albeit more polished. two beavers load cement and sand into a cocktail shaker strapped to the side of a camel, a pelican dumping water from its beak into the makeshift cocktail. the camel shakes the shaker, all of the animals swaying along. perhaps slightly outdated, yet still fun nonetheless. turtles flip their shells open (wheels attached to the top--or in this case, bottom--of the shells) and tow away the mixture created by the animals. meanwhile, a dog carrying a load of cement, the hod carrier, marches up a support beams thanks to suction cups tied on his shoes, complete with some jaunty music and animation. dirty digg lives up to his namesake by playing dirty, hurling a brick at the dog. the dog falls, his suction cups continuing to ascend up the scaffolding, underscore and all.

we meet camera shy porky for the first time in a few minutes, a reflection of frank tashlin’s distaste and uncertainty regarding the character, who encourages his team to “get in there and fight!” they’re all lined up along a bench, a sign above labeling them as “HOD CARRIER SUBSTITUTES”. thus sparks the running gag of the cartoon: as the substitutes dash off do to their duty for porky, a diminutive rabbit (voiced by berneice hansell, of course) zooms up to porky, donning a sweater that reads “HOD CARRIER” as she squeaks “how ‘bout me, porky?” porky isn’t at all convinced by her diminutive stature, snapping “no!”

on porky’s team, a few pelicans pull the appropriate levers to mix water, cement, and sand in their bills, flying off and twirling their heads and bills around to create the mixture. one pelican successfully discards his load down a long chute to the construction site. the next, however, isn’t so lucky. ever the conniving weasel (or dog), digg attaches a dead fish to a balloon for the oncoming pelican to feast on. the pelican, eager for the snack, spits out its mixture in favor of the fish, the mixture pouring from the sky and landing right on porky. none too deterred, porky encourages his cement mixer substitutes, a line of pelicans, to, once again, get out there and fight. as they fly off, the eager rabbit from before, now donning a sweater labeling her as a cement mixer, squeaks “how ‘bout me, porky?” the same routine as porky once more yells “no!”

digg’s construction site is going swimmingly, as to be expected. a wonderful slanted layout as we spot the builders hard at work. despite the success of the building, digg barks “okay boys, c’mon down. i don’t need you anymore.” digg marches into his office, a makeshift shack on the site, and we’re left to ponder what it is he’s scheming as a rolling pan of the exterior shields us from digg's view, the billy bletcher laugh the only thing cluing us in to nefarious acts. tashlin loved to do the concealing pans, and they work out well in his favor, adding a sense of suspense and anticipation. out on the other side comes digg in a fancy new machine--DIRTY DIGG’S BRICK BRICK LAYING MACHINE.

porky, who’s dutifully laying his bricks the old fashioned way, spots digg’s new trick, and is hardly pleased. mel’s stuttering is particularly heavy, still attempting to emulate joe dougherty as porky complains “say! you can’t do that!” digg takes no offense. “well, i’m doing it, ain’t it?” settings on digg’s machine include start, full speed, super speed, super colossal speed, gosh darn fast, and reverse. digg pulls the lever to start, increasing the speeds as bricks inevitably hurtle out of the chute and land right into place on the site of his building. wonderful (and tedious!) complex animation as the bricks pile on, one after the other, even porky taking a moment to admire the handiwork. tashlin’s cartoons always seem to entail bits of animation that seem so tedious and complex to animate, such as a whole mess of train cars zigzagging on train tracks in porky’s railroad, or the interminable pile of luggage carried by daffy in porky pig’s feat. tashlin’s eye for detail is keen.

a score board gloatingly displays digg’s lead over porky: digg has 22 stories, porky 2. as porky mourns his loss (”woe is me... woe is me!”) no matter--the eager beaver bunny from before is there to cheer him up, donning a “brick layer” sweater with the same “how ‘bout me, porky?” porky declines. a quick zoom in and out, and the rabbit asks the same question, now donning a “colossal brick layer” sweater. porky once more declines. with the third and final “super colossal brick layer”, porky finally yells “no!”, to which the rabbit sulks off. thankfully, porky has a change of heart. “ok-ok-o-oka-ok-ok-oka--alright, eh-geh-geh-go in there and eh-feh-fi-feh-fight!” little rabbit is ecstatic.

the power of popeye compels the rabbit as she flexes her muscles, even flexing her ears to make a pair of makeshift muscles. one ear scoops the mortar, the other tosses a brick on top, and we very quickly realize she is MORE than capable for the job, laying bricks three times as fast as digg’s machine. the scoreboard hurries to adjust porky’s “score”, both of them now tied at 77 stories each. even better is the little “whew!” the rabbit sighs after pausing to rest, a lovely bit of comedic timing both underscoring and highlighting her work.

now, digg rushes to beat porky’s building, realizing he has a worthy competitor on his hands. the two are neck and neck... until the poor mechanical design of digg’s brick layer lands him in hot water. he mistakes the reverse setting for the highest speed setting, and with a hearty kick to the lever, the lever breaks and is now stuck in reverse. mel blanc seems to provide digg’s exclamation of “gosh! it’s stuck in reverse!” instead of bletcher. just as quickly as he had laid the bricks, the bricks of digg’s building come hurtling back into the machine, the machine swelling bigger and bigger as it threatens to burst from the congestion. digg’s entire building is now without a brick, and to make matters worse (or better), the machine finally explodes.

porky’s dinky little backhoe from before comes to life, digging a plot of land the perfect size for digg to fit in. digg flops to the ground from the impact of the explosion, receiving a swift kick to the ass with the machine’s shoe and a konk on the head via shovel for good measure.

elsewhere, porky triumphs, his city hall now complete. the cartoon’s motif of “fifty-second street” triumphantly underscores porky’s victory as he shakes his fist in the glory, perched on top of his architectural feat as his adoring fans shout from below. suddenly, we’re visited by a familiar friend: the little rabbit from before zips to porky’s side. “how ‘bout me, porky?” instead of shooing her away, porky is more than happy to lift her up and have her pose on his outstretched hand. a wholesome iris out as the little rabbit clasps her ears together like fists, reveling in the glory.

truthfully, this is probably the one porky cartoon i forget about the most. not that it’s bad by any means, but out of his hearty filmography of 153 cartoons, this one isn’t the most notable. with that said, this is a fine cartoon. the animation is certainly the highlight: whether it’s porky and dirty digg doing their furious nose-to-snout tango, the dog lumbering around the site of the dynamite hole, the animals mixing cement together, or the entire brick laying montage, there is a lot to admire, the climax of the cartoon especially. the “how ‘bout me, porky?” gag is especially amusing, albeit taxing (as it was intended to be), and the dynamite gag with the dog is wonderfully morbid. porky still has a very transparent personality, yet mel’s deliveries are fun to listen to, especially at this stage when he’s still figuring out the speech patterns. the cartoon’s music score is absolutely WONDERFUL, very jazzy, very upbeat, a fitting score to match the streamlined look of the cartoon.

while this isn’t my go-to recommendation for porky cartoons, it makes for an amusing watch. i wouldn’t urge you to drop everything and see it, and if you don’t watch it you’ll be just as well off, but this is a fine cartoon with a lot to admire.

link!

#lt #porky’s building #looney tunes #reviews #tashlin #long post

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chiseler · 4 years

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Mitchell Leisen: How’s About It?

Mitchell Leisen was a major American film director. He belongs in the first rank, not the second tier, where he has often been placed by those who value the scripts he was given by Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett more than what he actually did with those scripts. Leisen’s name was usually written in sloping cursive in his opening credits, and that set the mood for what he had to offer. His was a gentle style, a deliberately unobtrusive style, smooth and gliding, attentive to nuances, visual and emotional.

Leisen made a point of nearly always moving the camera only when it is following a character who is moving right along with it, and the edits in his movies are as invisible as possible. He made three films that are undisputed classics: Easy Living (1937), written by Sturges, Midnight (1939), written by Wilder and Brackett, and Remember the Night (1939), written by Sturges. All three of these classic Leisen movies are partly about pretending to be something you’re not in order to move up or over into another social atmosphere or class and take on a new identity, and this theme is something that always interested Leisen particularly.

He got his start making costumes and dressing sets for Cecil B. DeMille, and he also made costumes for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. That training shows through in his later work, that sense of fantasy and beauty for its own sake. Leisen had a fetish for absolute authenticity when he did period pictures, and he took this fetish to nearly Erich Von Stroheim lengths if he had the money to spend. Remember the peacock headdress that he designed for Gloria Swanson in DeMille’s Male and Female (1919), or the sexy harem pants he put on Fairbanks for The Thief of Bagdad (1924), or the barely-there garments he designed for Claudette Colbert in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and you can get a first sense of Leisen’s aesthetic: hopeful, fantastical, erotic. And he was a pretender himself on some of these early movies because he was very skillful at making sets and crowd scenes look more opulent than they actually were given some of the budgets he had to work with.

He took the reins from nominal director Stuart Walker for two films that proved his range: Tonight Is Ours (1933), a high comedy that begins with a sexy masked ball, and The Eagle and the Hawk (1933), as grim and concentrated an anti-war film as you will find from this era. Leisen next graduated to prestige pictures like Cradle Song (1933) and Death Takes a Holiday (1934), with its high-flown Maxwell Anderson script. Leisen was fond of Death Takes a Holiday all his life, and he even wanted to re-make it in the late 1940s, but it has not held up as well as some of his lesser-known pictures from the 1930s.

After Murder at the Vanities (1934), a backstage movie with some odd musical numbers, Leisen took flight with three pictures that demonstrated the full scope of his talent. What makes a really great director, a major director? The ability to take a poor script, like the one Leisen was given for Behold My Wife! (1934), and make it into something that moves like a dream and seems inevitable. While you watch Behold My Wife!, there is a double consciousness of how outlandish and slapdash the plot and dialogue are and how Leisen transcends this through pacing, framing, and staging, so that there is always something to delight the eye. Leisen movies generally have a difficult-to-describe kind of creamy look, as if every person and table and chair were covered in the same sort of protective satin sheen.

He used a similarly fast, super-controlled pace for Four Hours to Kill! (1935), another backstage movie where Leisen himself plays the orchestra leader but you never see the numbers on stage. A kind of musical proto-noir, this movie depends on Richard Barthelmess, who is playing a criminal waiting to be taken to jail, and Leisen is alert to Barthelmess’s needs and sensitive to his big scene, where his character talks about his unhappy past. And then Leisen was given a script (by Norman Krasna) and two stars, Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, that were particularly congenial to his style, and the result was his first classic, Hands Across the Table (1935), a rather anguished comedy about love and the urge for security. Leisen had mastered form, and now he mastered the content that interested him, good-bad people navigating their own wants and desires and what they will do for them. For Leisen, mixed emotions are really the only emotions possible.

In all of his most characteristic films, Leisen’s characters are at a crisis point and need to decide to take a chance and see what they can get away with to become another version of themselves. There is lots of comedy in a situation like this, of course, but Leisen always hints at the dark underside of pretending. There is an American urge in these pictures that says, “What I say I am is what I am,” and that urge is usually naïve (think of early Joan Crawford heroines). Leisen looks at this urge from a height of sophistication, almost always warmly and tenderly, but sometimes he lets a really grim insight slip through. Think of Carole Lombard’s anti-social asides in Hands Across the Table, or that harrowing scene where Barbara Stanwyck goes home to her grudge-holding and cruelly puritanical mother in Remember the Night and you will feel the hurt that animates Leisen’s search for a created world of his own.

In many ways, the 1930s were Leisen’s best creative period, where he turned out beautifully balanced and finished entertainments like 13 Hours by Air (1936). He was a romantic who had a special way of visually enfolding the lovers in his movies that is almost Frank Borzage-like, and he glorifies very different women in what must be the best close-ups of their careers: look at some of the close-ups of the melancholy Sylvia Sidney in Behold My Wife! and then look at the close-ups of the wised-up Joan Bennett in 13 Hours by Air and see how Leisen gives them the same glamorizing treatment without ever losing what makes them so individual. Even pure assignments like Artists and Models Abroad (1938) glow with a kind of dreamlike assurance, as if to say, “Why shouldn’t a comedy look beautiful?”

And when Leisen had a meatier script, like Swing High, Swing Low (1937), which also starred Lombard and MacMurray, he was capable of virtuoso work that blended comedy and drama so seamlessly that it’s difficult to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. He did some Sturges-like slapstick for Easy Living, including the famous automat scene where the windows fly open and everybody grabs at the food, which was his idea. But for Remember the Night, Leisen pared down the Sturges script, cutting unnecessary scenes and verbose dialogue until he had what he wanted, a portrait of a hard-boiled woman who starts to long for the warmth of a “why not?” idealized mid-West home. Remember the Night is probably Leisen’s finest film, and a peak in his career, a comedy-drama or a dramatic comedy all whipped together until the consistency is exquisite and just right.

After the very sensitive Hold Back the Dawn (1941), a Wilder-Brackett script about a hard-boiled male gigolo (Charles Boyer) pretending to love a sheltered, repressed girl (Olivia de Havilland) until his feelings actually become genuine, Leisen’s career settled in for a few years to minor comedies, as if wartime austerity had affected his budgets, his scripts, and his imagination. In 1944, he did two movies in color, Lady in the Dark and Frenchman’s Creek, one anti-feminist and one feminist, and both rather nightmarishly disconnected and self-indulgent.

Leisen was going through a crisis in his personal life by the mid-1940s, and it showed in his work. He was mainly gay, but he didn’t want to be, and so he had married a fledgling opera singer (“a horror” according to the sharp-tongued Ray Milland) and he was carrying on a tortured affair with costumer Natalie Visart while also pursuing men. Leisen’s loyal secretary Eleanor Broder told David Chierichetti, the author of the definitive Leisen book, Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director, that her boss tried taking hormone shots at one point because he thought they might eradicate his homosexuality, but of course that didn’t work. Leisen lived with the pilot Eddie Anderson in the late 1930s, and Anderson left him for Shirley Ross, the actress who talk-sings “Thanks for the Memory” with Bob Hope in The Big Broadcast of 1938, an unusually sentimental scene within his work that Leisen insisted on. When that picture finished, he had a heart attack, and his health was never quite the same afterwards.

In the 1940s, after Visart had gotten pregnant with his child and lost it, Leisen took up with the dancer Billy Daniels, and his unhappiness grew. Daniels dances in what has to be Leisen’s worst feature, Masquerade in Mexico (1945), a semi-remake of Midnight that is so distracted and poorly timed that it would seem to give credence to Billy Wilder’s many complaints about Leisen over the years in interviews; if you were to watch Masquerade in Mexico right after Midnight, it would seem like a mark against Leisen as an artist in his own right rather than a servant of superior scripts where he could get them. Daniels is actually the only thing this movie has going for it: he’s an exciting dancer, and an intriguing screen presence, sexy, petulant, a little dangerous. Many in Leisen’s inner circle disliked Daniels, but maybe Masquerade in Mexico might work if it could just be Daniels dancing as Leisen watches.

The blandness of the décor in something like Suddenly It’s Spring (1947) is a real comedown from his Art Deco 1930s pictures, but Leisen rallied in this period with some of his best and most personal films, starting with Kitty (1945), a sumptuous Gainsborough period piece with all the trimmings and a Pygmalion subject that activates all of Leisen’s interest in pretending and “passing” as something you are not. Best of all from this time is Song of Surrender (1949), an uncommonly severe movie about a New England girl named Abigail (Wanda Hendrix) who finds a way out of her repressive environment by listening to music. What Abigail feels in Song of Surrender is surely what Leisen himself must have often felt as a young man growing up in the mid-West at the turn of the last century, and so this picture, which he said he didn’t much like, is his secret movie, his confession movie. It’s a great film, daringly stark and stripped-down, and it is as unerringly paced and controlled as all of his best 1930s work; there are moments when it feels like a precursor to Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) in its insistence on the will power needed for a woman to find aesthetic and sexual fulfillment.

Leisen did an intriguing noir with Stanwyck called No Man of Her Own (1950) and an overlooked, charming adaptation of J. M. Barrie called Darling, How Could You! (1951), which is filled with longing for family life that Leisen certainly knows is a fantasy like any of his others. (How poignant it is when Joan Fontaine says in that movie that if her children are going to love her they mustn’t “think me over first.”) He spent twenty years working at Paramount Studios, and he was a creature of the studio system; when the studio system went, so did he, but not before one more diverting small musical, The Girl Most Likely (1958), which was the last feature made at RKO. “When the studio decided we no longer needed a certain department, it was shut down and if we needed something after that, we had to make do ourselves,” Leisen said. “It was really eerie.”

Ill-health and an unwarranted reputation for spending too much money kept Leisen mainly working for TV in his last years, so that he was back to low budgets and bringing in his own furniture to dress his sets. He had been fired from Bedevilled (1955) for hitting on one of the straight actors he was working with (the actor complained to MGM), and this put another shadow over his reputation. He had made Fred MacMurray’s career, but when he tried to get work as a director on MacMurray’s hit TV show My Three Sons, it was no go. “He sent me a telegram asking for the job,” MacMurray said. “He was, well, you know, a homosexual and he had gotten into some trouble on a picture he was making in Europe. With the three young boys we had working on the show, I just didn’t think it was right. So I never answered the telegram.”

It was his women who stayed loyal to Leisen in his final years, both his secretary Broder (who was a lesbian), and his old lover Natalie Visart, who had never really gotten over her love for him and came to stay with him toward the end (Visart’s son Peter was killed in a gay-bashing in the 1970s). Leisen’s responses to David Chierichetti’s questions in their interview book are unfailingly candid, insightful, and juicy, but his standing has never ascended to the level of that of Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder, even though his visual style was far more developed than theirs, and his point of view arguably more sophisticated and certainly more kind-hearted. He was a romantic with an edge of disquiet, and this made for matchlessly rich pictures, pulsing with hope and with pain.

Leisen knew about all aspects of picture making, and he has the requisite number of classics for entrance to the pantheon, plus a whole slew of other pictures of interest. He made Remember the Night and Song of Surrender. He made Midnight and Kitty. And he made Easy Living and Darling, How Could You! Those are all heights, and from different periods, and they prove the consistency of his inventiveness and the distinctiveness of his talent. His creativity came out of personal unhappiness on the one hand and unprecedented creative license and support under the old Hollywood studio system on the other. We will not see that particular combination again.

by Dan Callahan

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