#or maybe referencing classical paintings?

[mochapao]

Thank you for the advice! Just one question and that's it-- What references do you use?? I've been trying to find good ones but whenever I type on either pinterest or google all of then are just useless- What do you type to get such coolness??

for the art ive posted here ive rarely used ref at all💀 bad practice i know but thats why theyve all only been bust ups w the occasional hand hahhaa

the only one ive used ref for is the belos tying his hair one where i acc took a pic of myself doing the pose for once🗿🗿 embarrassing but it really works n i think ill do it more often! i looked up man w arms up on pinterest to see clothing folds in similar positions lol..

pinterest and google r also my go-tos and i agree they suuuck for super specific poses from imagination but for clothing folds theyre helpful (in the experience i gained like yesterday LMAO),, in the case of difficult full body poses/big compositions maybe get a free app like 3dposer where u can pose 3d models for ref! its so godsent but takes a bit o time to set up right (and draw right💀)

thanks for asking! these r fun to answer :^) if anyone has 2 cents to spare on refs id like to know tbh🗿

#idk where ppl r getting their refs from w their bang on anatomically correct art #i think the trick is to pick the reference for pose/folds first and THEN draw it ? but picture in my head go brrr #but yeah self pics r actually pretty useful! (i rediscover every few years) #or maybe referencing classical paintings? #i need to practice more🧍‍♂️ #asks

[thepythakorean]

parallels between the boy and the heron and this painting, plus general analysis

Arnold Bocklin, Island of the Dead. 1880

i want to preface this by saying i am by no means an art history nerd, i just happen to know some stuff about the background of this painting in particular.

as soon as mahito is sucked into the tower floor he is standing at the shore of an island surrounded by an endless ocean. he is dwarfed by a large set of golden gates that say something like "those who seek my knowledge shall perish" and an even taller forest of cypress trees. these features all frame a white dolmen (primitive tomb usually made of giant rocks stacked like below) that beckons to him.

this scene immediately struck me since it has so many of the visual elements of the painting. mahito is even framed in the foreground to be so very small approaching these giant, daunting structures just like the boat heading for the island in the painting. besides the tombs, the cypress trees are also traditionally associated with mourning and death at least in europe/the mediterranean. other ghibli movies have lavish european aesthetics tied to characters (howl, yubaba, etc.) but it feels particularly intimate here given that mahito's great granduncle, the creator and ruler of this world, is apparently european and can only pass on his role to a direct descendant. (btw not saying the gaudy european decor signature of howl and yubaba aren't important to their characterization, it def is! i'm just saying it stood out to me in this movie especially.) the cliffs full of stone entrance passageways are prominent later in the movie as himi takes mahito through the parakeet's domain, and interestingly, in the delivery room where natsuko is, there is another dolmen behind her (can't find pics since the movie hasn't been uploaded yet urgh).

the backstory to the painting continues to parallel to the events of the story! so there's 5 versions of this painting. the first three versions were painted in a cemetery close to bocklin's residence which was also full of white headstones and sculptures, and cypress trees. one of his infant children, one of many children he lost, was buried there. the one i posted above is the first/second-- while bocklin was working on the first, a the soon-to-be wife of a politician visited his studio, saw the wip, and commissioned her own version with the added white figure and coffin to commemorate her first husband who had just died of diphtheria. already somewhat similar to how mahito's mother died in the hospital fire (well. she died from the fire but presumably she was there because she was sick) and when his father shortly remarried. these were also added to the initial wip and stuck in later versions of the painting. bocklin later wrote to her, "you will be able to dream yourself into the world of dark shadows". the movie is also very dreamlike-- it's a fantasy world filled with strange creatures, alternate versions of people he knows, and passages that seem to alter the fabric of time and space. people also seem to forget about it as soon as they leave even after spending long periods of time in it like a dream. the painting is also very dreamlike, but why? the warm lighting, maybe not in the version i posted but in a couple others, may explain it, but the island itself resembles the curtains and stage of a theater (referencing the audio clip below the description). even if it doesn't look EXACTLY like that to you, it's definitely a too-perfect little scene in a nebulous expanse of space. this theatrical quality is also shown in the movie by the parakeet uprising side plot as well as the scene when himi and mahito collapse in front of the delivery room-- the curtain falls directly in front of the viewer over them as though a stageplay just ended. oh and a friend mentioned to me how this is a classic hero's journey plot and mirrors orpheus in the underworld. island of the dead has also directly inspired NUMEROUS other works of art, including other paintings, stage productions, and symphonic poems. apparently the painting was so popular many people in berlin hung prints of it in their homes (i do too)! as i stated above though, a lot of the visual elements in the painting were already traditional symbols relating to death so i don't want to 100% conclude that miyazaki was directly inspired by this painting, he may have just also resonated with those symbols independent of bocklin which i still think is awesome.

the first time we see himi also reminded me of the painting. she's wearing a white dress and standing at the bow of a small wooden boat, and though her intentions are to save the warawara from the pelicans, she inevitably kills some of them too. visually and thematically she's like the white figure at the front of the rowboat in the painting. she acts as a guide for mahito (analogous to the rower? he traveled to this world of his own volition but needed a guide) for a good part of the movie and is a collage of life and death. she is a younger but kind of omniscient version of his dead mother; she's known all along she is mahito's mother but is about to be born into the world by the end of the movie and accepts her fate happily. she can control fire which envelops her like how she died in the real world, but is harmless to the touch unless she directs it as a weapon, and as we see with the warawara and pelicans it helps creation but also destroys much like fire's role in the natural world. natsuko, though a separate person from himi, is still connected as a sibling, and we see her wandering into the forest at the beginning of the movie while wearing white like himi, back turned to mahito, and that is what prompts him to first enter the tower. the strange nature of her character that doesn't adhere to a proper time or space parallels the way the white figure completely stands out in the painting, at least the ones with darker lighting. another crazy parallel surrounding fire and wwii between the painting and the movie is that the fourth version of this painting was destroyed during wwii due to bombing, again like how mahito's mother's hospital was presumably set on fire by bombing during the war.

the looming effects of war alluded to throughout the movie eventually tie into its resolution, when mahito accepts his new family that he initially rejected, his own imperfect being, and the fact that one must seek out love to be happy in this bitch of a world. his great granduncle is confused as to why mahito wouldn't want to recreate his own world like him. why would you want to return to the world that killed your mother and rejects you as a person? the world that forces your people to die in war and will eventually drop the deadliest weapon mankind has ever seen even a century from now onto your home? you can make everything perfect here! he's created something of a "paradise" himself, full of lush tropical plants, parakeets, and strange insects (some of them looked like the bugs from nausicaa, another fantastical world of lush nature which is also threatened by war. interesting), almost like a garden of eden, and it so happens to be at the very top of the tower. funnily enough, bocklin also painted this several years later:

Arnold Bocklin, Island of Life. 1888

i don't know much about this one so idk if it's an explicit companion piece to the island of the dead but it certainly looks like it. the similarities are now less apparent to the movie if there are any, it's much less lush but there are exotic plants and uh birds and stuff. this is definitely more likely a case of shared inspiration from the symbols themselves rather than movie directly looking at the painting. anyway clearly the promise of a perfect paradise isn't real, as this is interrupted by a war of his own unwitting creation, the uprising of the parakeets he wanted to breed in a paradise that literally bring about the end of the world. no world will ever be perfect when left long enough to its own devices. life finds a way! plus, this world was created through so much death (the construction workers in hazardous conditions, the way the tower keeps spiriting people away. btw in the english sub mahito's dad calls the whole ordeal a "disappearance" but he says "kamikakushi" in japanese which means "hidden by god" in reference to people who mysteriously disappeared as if from supernatural circumstances and yes that's the word they used in the japanese title of spirited away!!!) and is on the verge of collapsing from reality every three days just because of some building blocks?? the real world may be on fire but it'll go out/burn less badly someday, and at least it won't completely disappear in a snap, not in an easily imagined timescale for a human anyway. it's up to you to make the best of it, and this is what mahito decides. there are also visual allusions to other ghibli movies about the constantly present threat or consequences of war. the only other landmark aside from the island mahito lands on is a line of ships which kiriko later tells him are all fake. it immediately reminded me of the stream of planes in porco rosso which were the souls of dead fighter pilots moving on. the shadow people in the swamp were also reminiscent of those in the train in spirited away, which are never explained to my knowledge but the given that spirited away's characters are largely spirits and the way souls are so similarly designed in this movie makes me feel that they were also souls of people in spirited away.

through this imagined otherworld, there is also the blurring of lines between life and death, reality and imagination. himi plus her dyad with natsuko (they're sisters AND they look exactly the same AND both are mother figures to mahito) are great examples of this. mahito's mother is gone, he knew this and set foot into the world anyway. he rejected natsuko as his new mother but in going through the struggles of the tower he comes to accept familial love for her and even keeps confusing "natsuko" and "mom" while reaching out to her in the delivery room. a family is made up of different people but inevitably you will see each other in each person. in the delivery room scene we see the paper hanging from the ceiling lash out to attack and stick to mahito like tape, it even leaves red marks on him. this is one of the best scenes in the movie to me because of its visual contrast to him rushing to save his mother in the fire. in the fire scene, the real world around him is blurred and distorted and at times so is mahito and especially his mother. the fire doesn't seem to burn him or his clothes (i could be remembering that wrong tho) and the scene cuts off before it shows him possibly going in further. in the delivery room, everything is drawn with clean lineart, no stylization. there is no mistaking the reality of this situation even though this world is conjured, the dawning realization upon mahito that this person is his mother is so visceral that he actively fights through the paper literally snapping its jaws and natsuko spitting her hatred towards him. when mahito is ready to leave the tower, himi leaves through a separate door to be born as his mother sometime in the past though she is not a warawara and knows what has happened/will happen, an exception that further demonstrates the nonlinear nature of time and space in the movie.

after coming out of the tower, the heron tells mahito he should forget everything that happened in there. even his grandmother seemed to have forgotten the whole year she spent in there (it seems like tower time reflects irl time judging by the events of the movie). anything that comes out doesn't just disappear, it transforms into a real-life counterpart as we saw with the pelicans leaving as they were (presumably minus the ability to speak) and the parakeets going from big bloodthirsty things to regular parakeets. so mahito can't just forget, especially because he comes out changed from his experiences in there, not just himself personally but also his changed relationships with natsuko and the heron, and also his little souvenirs. then the movie abruptly ends with mahito narrating that they left for tokyo again shortly after the war ended. i like to think that this was a hopeful ending where mahito maintained that character development and was able to welcome natsuko and his new sibling into his family while being able to seek more friends and family in the future. i've seen other analyses talking about how this movie was semi-autobiographical for miyazaki and i can see it, how events early in his life shaped his personality and how he had to fight to find beauty in a world that otherwise treated him poorly, so i'm glad he ended the movie on that note, although in less words. pretty similar to how spirited away ended, although there was arguably more loss involved, but still hopeful, and that's what i find so powerful about this movie. and like this movie, spirited away involves a dyad between yubaba and zeniba as a device for the hardships and beauty of life, how they're not so discreet at times. as a last kindasorta tie-in to bocklin's work, i'll point again to the island of life which was created after the island of the dead, plus a composition directly inspired by the island of the dead, a symphonic poem with the same title written by sergei rachmaninoff. the last time i listened to this was in high school and it's like. 20 minutes long so i'm too impatient to give it a relisten now but from my vague recollection plus some quick searches it's a very somber piece that escalates into emotional climaxes yet still contains warmer tones, and goes back to the same "rowing" motif at the end. it weaves together evocations of life and death in one piece, also illustrating how the two really are so closely connected.

tl;dr, this was me the entire movie because miyazaki SEEMS to be heavily inspired by this one symbolist painting i happen to like a lot:

also also here's a self portrait of bocklin:

yes, all of his paintings are that cool.

#i'm so excited about this painting!! #there's so many freaking similarities in not just the painting itself but its conception #the boy and the heron #kimitachi wa do ikiru ka #how do you live #studio ghibli #hiyao miyazaki #arnold bocklin #island of the dead #isle of the dead #tweet

[mygwenchan]

Teena through Zouey's eyes - Famous artworks and movies in Playboyy the Series - Part 2

Like in EP1, the Teena-Zouey scenes in the second episode of Playboyy also reference other pieces of media. I was able to identify imagery that directly copies the Canadian-French gay movie "J'ai tué ma mère" (eng title "I killed my mother") from 2009.

First, let's compare the scenes.

Paint splattering on canvas in "J'ai tué ma mère":

And the paint splattering during the Teena-Zouey scene:

The two boys in both the movie and in Playboyy are also depicted in a similar way, including the background that consists of old newspapers:

However, that's pretty much where the similarities end. I could go on and interpret what it means that they used "J'ai tué ma mère" for Playboyy, maybe compare the two main characters with Teena and Zouey and so on. But to be honest, I don't think it's that deep.

I suspect the reason why famous paintings, sculptures and now even movies are referenced in Playboyy is very simple: These scenes are shown from Zouey's point of view and Zouey is an artist and he is very gay and he is very horny 😌 (the paint splattering has a totally different meaning in Playboyy than in the French movie > Teena and Zouey had a lot of fun together hehe)

It's not a coincidence that pretty much all the art works used show the naked human body. Zouey himself said in the first episode: "We are majoring in art because we like beautiful things. What else is more beautiful than the human body?" It's very obvious what Zouey believes to be the most beautiful body type: a male body with the classical Greek proportions. And let's face it, Teena comes very close to that ideal (yes, I'm using this as an excuse to post naked Teena ✌).

Here we've got the Doryphoros for comparison (yes, I'm using this as an excuse to post naked sculpture ✌)

The Greek ideal has always had a certain homoerotic connotation (even in ancient times), so it's no surprise that Zouey is attracted to it as well. And in Zouey's case, that boy get's really horny about it. Being sexually attracted to pieces of art is actually not that unheard of. He could lean towards pictophilia (attraction to pictorial erotic art), schediaphilia (attraction to cartoon characters), agalmatophilia (attraction to statues). Or Zouey simply can't get aroused unless he is confronted with beauty, be it in a painting, a manga or in real life.

Right now Zouey is focused on a real life beauty: Teena. But what I find interesting about this is, that by viewing Teena as the ideal male body, Zouey is forgetting that Teena is a human like everyone else. Teena actually feeds into that fantasy. He presents himself as the perfect muse, he is charming and sweet and not too pushy. But is that actually the real Teena? When asked what his dreams and plans for the future are, Teena doesn't give an honest answer.

My best guess is that Teena too wants to live in that fantasy, in which Zouey and he have this perfect relationship and both of them are happy. This will most likely present a problem in the future. Because in the end Teena is a normal human. He has actual real things he dreams of and he has flaws. It's something both of them will have to accept at some point and maybe then "What else is more beautiful than the human body?" will become "What else is more beautiful than the human heart?"

[Part 1] [Part 3]

#playboyy the series #playboyy #playboyy meta #meta #teena x zouey #playboyy ep2 #gwen's watchlist

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2024 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest

Happy Rockman Day! Time for this year's Megaman Summer Fanart Contest rules thread! Two categories, in which you are allowed to submit one entry for each category, if you would like. If you place in one category, you will be automatically disqualified from the other, for reasons of fairness, and to give other people a chance to win a prize. CATEGORY 1 (Talent): Pallette Pastiche

Ms. Museum Curator is back, looking for new pieces of art to display in the Kattleox Art Museum! A couple years ago for Valentine's Day, she needed your creations to display for an exhibit that featured a little bit of red and showed a little bit of love. This summer, her new exhibit is all about pastiche on your palette. What is pastiche? It's an artsy term that essentially means to imitate another work/artist/period. Or to just simplify it, we're talking a parody. So, for this theme, I would like you to parody any work of art, be it a famous painting, sculpture, etc.,…or maybe a piece that isn't as popular…only with Megaman characters involved in it.

As a visual example, way back in the CapcomUnity days, for Mega Man 10's release, there were fanart contests for each new Robot Master. When Solar Man came up, I decided to do an homage of this cognac poster art by Leonetto Cappiello:

Your possibilities are endless, depending on how ambitious you want to be! Alien Dr. Wily in Munch's 'The Scream,' Botticelli's 'Birth of Shield Sheldon,' Higsby carving the 'Venus de Mariko,' Da Vinci's 'Mona Laika,' or even 'The Last Cross Fusion Supper,' featuring the immortal Barrel and his 12 CF disciples. Just to throw out a few ideas. Content Requirements: * Megaman character(s) of your choice in a parody of a real art piece * please also send me a pic of the actual art piece with your entry, just so we can all see what you were referencing CATEGORY 2 (Humor): Pirates of the Alohahabean

Y'arr, ahoy me hearties! As voted by you on Twitter, the humor theme this year will be pirate-themed. Pirates have plenty of rep in the franchise, from Classic's Pirate Man, Marty and her band of pirates in Iwamoto's X manga, the Bonne family sky pirates, unused Tribe forms in Star Force, or, well…Ashe huntin' for booty.

For this theme, you can take any of those aforementioned pirate-y characters, or use any others of your choosing dressed up or acting like pirates, in the hunt for treasure. It could be a chest full of zenny, jewels, The Mother Lode, or whatever other booty you can imagine. The only problem is, this pirate treasure hunt is disturbing other characters who are just trying to enjoy a summer day on the beachy sands or the high seas. Your job is to draw the most hilarious scene in which this quest for a glorious bounty goes awry. Savvy?

Content Requirements: * Mega Man character(s) of your choice who are pirates or dressed/act as pirates hunting for treasure * A comical scene where these pirates interrupt a nice day on the beach/in the water for other characters PRIZES: The winners for each category will receive the following: 1st Place: $175 USD 2nd Place: $100 USD 3rd Place: $75 USD SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: When you submit, I would prefer you to include the following information in this format, along with your entry: • (Your name/preferred alias) – As much as I usually know who you are, there’s always someone new or somebody who has a different preference from what their email name says. • (Category this entry is for) – You can either say 1/2, or talent/humor Only submit your own work, as usual. Any character, major or minor, from any series is allowed. OCs are allowed, as long as your art contains at least one canon Megaman character. As always, participants are allowed to submit from all over the world. Paypal is still the preferred method for cash prize payouts. Please have a valid account to receive your winnings. Kids, get your parents permission before entering. Entries do not need to be colored, but it is preferred. The more effort put into things as always, the better chance you have! Entries can either be e-mailed to me at rock2125[at]hotmail[dot]com, or you can just PM/note me a link to your pic. DO NOT post your pics in this journal, your dA galleries, Twitter, tumblr blogs, other sites, etc. until the contest is over. This is the fairest way for competitive reasons. I prefer to keep them all secret until the deadline has passed. I'll edit a confirmed entry list in this thread when I receive them. So you won't be in the dark about whether or not I've received your entry. DEADLINE: The deadline for this contest will be Sunday, August 25th, 2024 by 11:59PM, global end of day. This gives you over 2 months to finish your entry! MISCELLANEOUS INFO: As usual, If you don't plan to enter, but would like to help me judge, please let me know through DM or mention so here. Never hurts to have extra opinions on all the entries. Bug me with questions if you have any. Please join in, and good luck to everyone who enters! Confirmed Entries: ???

#Rock Miyabi's 2024 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest #Rockman #Megaman #Mega Man #Fanart Contest

[julianrchandlerx]

setting: just in bloom  featuring: julian chandler & briar-rose reed @briarreed

A day off usually meant running errands for his elderly landlords and working on any commissions he had lined up, but since everything that happened Julian was being a little more selfish with his free time. Going back to normal life after these kind of events… it didn’t always pan out, not really quickly anyway. But he still wanted to make the most out of a free day to do something that could bring him a spark of joy amidst all the turmoil and fear which lingered following the events of that ill fated night. Chaining up his bicycle right outside of Just in Bloom, opting for a relaxed bike ride rather than using his inhuman speed to run across town, the vampire let out a content sigh as he entered the flower shop. Nothing said classic still life painting better than beautiful flowers, right? And maybe get some for Marian, too, he thought as he began looking around.

His eyes were practically glazed over, searching for the right combination of vibrant color and interesting shapes to make the most visually stunning subject. But Julian’s search would be interrupted when instead he found his gaze stopping on a familiar face among the florals. Warm, dimpled grin spreading over his lips, he lightly waved at Briar as he approached. “Hey… Fancy bumping into you here,” he greeted, a jovial tone to his voice. They both were in the (sadly ruined) play, ran lines together beforehand… Julian liked to think they were maybe friends now. “Y’know I was just wondering, does being named after a flower make you an authority on the subject? Because I could definitely use some advice on which ones to pick for a still life, or which to give to a, er, youngish lady.” His features softened, and his voice dropped a bit lower losing that goofy edge. “And maybe this is an excuse to ask how you’re holding up after… Everything.” He didn’t have to elaborate, he was sure she knew what he was referencing.

#&& convos. #int ft. briar

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

This is pretty much a continuation of this post. The post that documents my enjoyment of the Andy Zaltzman/Nish Kumar/Hari Kondabolu combination. The original lineup of the revamped Bugle – in its early days it only had one guest per episode, and Hari was on the first episode, and Nish on the second. This made it interesting to listen to those two episodes in a row. Hari’s episode: jarring, rough, hard to handle after I’d just listened to the entire John Oliver/Andy Zaltzman run where they clicked perfectly, and now instead of John we have this Hari guy, who does not appear to know what show he’s on and could not possibly have less chemistry with Andy. Then the next episode somewhat assuaged my fears, as Nish opened his episode by referencing a long-running Bugle joke (“Hello Buglers and fuck you Chris”), and immediately jumped in with his strong rapport with Andy that he’d built over doing live gigs with him for several years (not in a double act way like John and Andy or anything, they’d just been on the same bills together a lot.

Now, The Bugle does two guests per episode, and every time we get these two together it’s a treat. Which means there was a fucking excellent episode of The Bugle the other day. One of their best in a while. It had that golden lineup – obviously Nish and Hari are both funny individually, but they also work well with each other. Partly because they’re friends and know how to play off each other’s styles really well, but more than that, they make a fun contrast. Nish as the longtime Bugle nerd (arguably, when John Oliver left The Bugle in 2016, Nish Kumar was pretty much waiting in the wings ready to steal his life, by which I mean his regular Bugle spot and his position in Daniel Kitson’s “here’s a stupid thing my friend did” stories) who would probably die for Andy Zaltzman. Hari as the outsider American for whom it’s a running joke that he has never listened to The Bugle and never will; and regards Andy Zaltzman, The Bugle, Bugle listeners, and all of Britain, with a sort of amused, only very affectionate bafflement.

In this episode, we got several running jokes, including Hari bringing back “how dare you ask me that?” as his answer to the initial “how are you?”, which I think he hadn’t done in a while. And some callbacks to original-run Bugle episodes.

Andy Zaltzman: The first of November, 1512, truly a momentus day. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was exhibited to the public for the first time. Michaelangelo’s famous piece of DIY. Reactions and reviews on social media at the time – well, it’s fair to say were mixed as reactions on social media tend to be. They included “more cocks and balls than I was expecting from the ceiling”. Another person wrote “I’ve heard it’s good but I haven’t seen it yet”. Classic social media reaction. Someone else wrote “absolute rubbish, the way they used to do ceilings was way better”. Again, these things just don’t change through time. Another comment was “Why do modern artists insist on painting people how they actually look these days? What’s wrong with painting simplified, stylized versions of the human form? Pretentious, elitist, and above all woke. One star.” Again, just classic from social media. Another person wrote “I’m going to fucking kill you, Michaelangelo, you fucking fuck.” Some things never change. And another response was “Do you like betting? If you’d like the best odds on how many people will die in the next cholera outbreak in Rome, click here.” So we’d like to think that civilization progresses, but maybe it doesn’t. As a special treat, a bonus extra at the end of today’s show, we will play you the full story of how Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, how he replied with an emphatic "Vat I can" to Julius the Second’s question “Can you paint that ceiling, bud?” As revealed, exclusively, way back in issue 34 of The Bugle. A bonus blast from the past. Nish Kumar: Is that Mickey Paintbrush, by any chance? Andy Zaltzman: it is, yes. Issue 34, it was quite early on. Nish Kumar: That takes me back to listening to The Bugle in the toilet at one of my temp jobs.

Followed fairly soon after by:

Nish Kumar: “That Jesus Incident” was the working title of The New Testament, wasn’t it? Andy Zaltzman: I thought it was twelve fucks, one cunt. Nish Kumar: I’m back in the toilet! Andy Zaltzman: That is a long callback.

Note: this is a reference to Bugle episode 127, from September 2010.

Andy Zaltzman: It’s been awfully sweary The Bugle recently. I don’t know why that is. [Producer] Chris, any suggestions? Chris Skinner: Maybe you just need to listen to the words of the Pope. Andy Zaltzman: What did he say? “Don’t fucking swear?” Chris Skinner: Right, that’s now 12 “fucks” and 1 “cunt” today. Actually now I’ve said that that’s 13 -2. Andy Zaltzman: 12 fucks, 1 cunt. That’s pretty much the Jewish attitude to the new testament, isn’t it?

Well I'm at this, here's what the "Mickey Paintbrush" reference meant, from episode 34, in June 2008:

Andy Zaltzman: Bugle feature section now! And 500 years ago this year, Michelangelo, or as he was known by his friends, Mickey Paintbrush, was commissioned to do a little bit of decorating for the Pope. He got his nickname, of course, not because of his artistic skills, but because he had tough, bristly straight hair, which, when he was drunk he would dip in a vat of paint, and headbutt cartoon testicles into the sides of churches. Anyway, the story goes that Julius the Second asked Mickey Paintbrush, “Can you whack a lick of paint on the ceiling in my chapel? It could do with a bit of sprucing up.” “Sure, Papa J,” replied Michaelangelo. “What do you want? How about a bit of a fresco?” “Uh, sure, why not?” replied the pontiff. “Great!” yipped the young artist. “I was thinking of doing something with some dogs playing snooker.” “Uh, right, Mickey P,” said the Pope, awkwardly. “It’s just, uh, I was just kind of hoping for something a little bit more, kind of neutral. Maybe just, you know, some plain off white Magnolia colour. You know, Mick, something that isn’t going to go out of date.” “Right-o, Skipper,” replied Michaelangelo, a little downcast. “Hey, do you mind if I do a couple of little bits from The Bible in the corner?” “Oh, all right,” conceded the Pope. “But just, nothing too flashionable, Mickey.” “Yay!” yelped the 33-year-old 5-time winner of the Golden Chisel Award for Terrific Sculpture. “I’ll go and get my special scaffold.” Four years later, an angry pope banged on the door of the Sistine Chapel with his big staff. “Have you finished yet, Paintbrush?” he shouted. “Yep, all done, Big Man.” The pontiff stormed in, hat akimbo. “What the fuck have you done to my ceiling, you flash fuck?” “Sorry, Pop,” said the artist. “I just got a bit carried away.” “Oh, balls!” winced the Vatican Vicar. “Bloody hell, Mickey! What is your obsession with naked cocks? Shit, I’ve got a Christening to do in twenty minutes, this is going to have to do.” “Okay, boss. Sorry, boss,” mumbled the four-in-one painter, sculptor, architect, and chicken impersonator. “You haven’t heard the last of this!” blasted the Catholic kahuna. “Give me that paintbrush! That’s confiscated!" Pope Julius turned to go to his dressing room. Just then, something on the ceiling caught his eye. “Hang on, that looks like… no, it can’t be. Is that my wang? Mickey Paintbrush, have you painted my papal prong on that nudie man? Come here! Come here, you little… oh, no, he’s got away. I knew I should have got Da Vinci to do this. I knew it.” So, to commemorate half a millennium since this historic moment in the history of history, we present to you: The Bugle Italian section. John Oliver: …Andy, that to become a regular feature. Historical Storytime. Misinform your children with Andy Zaltzman.

So that was the opening, to this episode, already full of Nish and Andy doing callbacks at each other while Hari mentions again that not only was he not listening to the original John/Andy Bugle in toilets in 2013, but he doesn't listen to it today, or understand what anyone involved with it is doing.

They brought back discussions of The Bugle in general throughout the episode. There were multiple instances of Nish Kumar taking on the voice of all listening Bugle nerds by admiringly referring to something as "classic" or "vintage" Zaltzman. ie:

Andy Zaltzman: Huge celebrations across the country to commemerate one year of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. I'll just go through all the achievements of the little fella since he took over as Interm Prime Minister in the after-shite of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. [two second pause] How would you assess his first year? A year in which he's basically captured voters' imagination like a baby penguin captures a polar bear in a pair of fishnet stockings. In other words, not at all, and he's gone about it in quite a weird and unsettling way."

Nish is right to call that vintage Zaltzman! I hate saying this because I don’t blame him at all for it, but to be honest, there was a while in the second half of 2022/early 2023 when it sounded like Andy was struggling a bit for material. He was repeating a lot of stuff (not that he never repeats stuff normally, but not as much as this), and some of his new stuff felt fairly by the numbers.

Like I said, I don’t blame him, because he’s been doing this forever. The Bugle has been running since October 2007, with the occasional week off, sometimes a month off in the summertime, about a year off in mid-2015 to mid-2016 when John Oliver split like an unreliable father, but mainly, it’s been running almost every week for years and years. And The Bugle isn’t like some podcasts where the guests and the host can just turn up and make shit up as they go along, or trade stock questions and stock answers. They have to write material beforehand and be ready to present. Andy shows up to every single episode with at least three or four completely new monologues on various topics, and a bunch of other prepared lines. It is fucking impressive, the rate at which he turns over material. He’s allowed to have an off month, or six. It wasn’t even that bad, just a little less inventive than usual. Also, we got a very reasonable explanation for why when he announced in early 2023 that his father had just died, so he maybe had a few other things on his mind besides writing new absurd similes every week (RIP Zack Zaltzman, I’ve always enjoyed Andy’s stories about how he could become a comedian because his dad was a sculptor and therefore had no grounds to tell his son to get a real job).

Anyway, the point is that Andy Zaltzman is back. He’s been on fire for the last few months, writing his usual inventive stories and lines every week (minus the month off the took in the summer where he didn’t write about anything but cricket), and they’ve been great. He had a few really good ones in this latest episode, and I liked hearing Nish acknowledge that. While Hari, of course, couldn’t give a shit.

All cumulating in this exchange from the end of a long discussion between Andy and Nish – where Hari notably shut up for an extended period – about the British political situation:

Hari Kondabolu: You guys are talking about British politics so I tuned out a while ago. You guys talking about that Colin Firth movie, is that what we’re talking about? That’s a while ago, fellas. Andy Zaltzman: Sunak did say that his government has achieved a lot in its first year. And I can cut him a bit of slack for that, because, I mean, what could he have said? I mean, he can’t come out and say, “My government has done very slightly less shit-ly.” He couldn’t have said, “Well we’ve achieved nothing, which is, to be fair, a vast improvement on my two immediate predecessors.” I mean, it’s clearly a tough gig for him, taking over, and I don’t think he’s played it very well. It’s like being a door-to-door hairdresser for a struggling door-to-door hairdressing business, but then turning up with one pair of scissors sticking out of your forehead, and then another rammed into your ear, blood running down your face, and a squirrel’s tail gaffer taped to your scalp, knocking on someone’s door, saying, “Can I interest you in a haircut?” It’s a tough sell. It’s like being a snooker player, tucked in behind the green, needing a three-cushion escape shot to hit the last red, fifty points down in the frame, so needing snookers anyway. He chalks the cue, he takes a deep breath. He reaches into his waistcoat pocket, he pulls out an iguana, plonks it on the table, and says, “Run, my pretty. Run.” That is, essentially, the situation that our Prime Minister has been in. Nish Kumar: That is the essence of Andy Zaltzman. Given that there is a substantial listenership to this podcast from outside the United Kingdom, and yet, when we move on to the section about specifics on United Kingdom politics, instead of trying to open it out, he doubles down, and tries to explain things with a snooker metaphor. [my brain is requiring me to add an editor’s note here – he means “simile”] Andy Zaltzman: I like to think of it as educational, Nish. Hari Kondabolu: I mean, to be honest, a bunch of our listeners are Anglophiles. They love this shit. It gives them like a secret wisdom, it makes them feel better than other people. I’ve met these people after shows, I know what they’re about. They like puns, Nish, they like puns.

...

...

...

...Go fuck yourself, Hari. You don't know me. How very dare you? I have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

I definitely didn’t love the idea that, when talking politics to my friends in 2009, I could reference British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, making me sound cultured and worldly while my friends only knew the Canadian and American politicians. Of course, I only knew about Alistair Darling because I listened to The News Quiz every Friday, a thing I did not because I was cultured or worldly, but because I was in love with Sandi Toksvig.

You will also notice that I tell this story about how I was (definitely not) like this as a teenager, because I think that sounds more acceptable than admitting I’m exactly the same now. The person I’m obsessed with enough to bring me to The News Quiz is now Andy Zaltzman, but not much else has changed.

So, there was more to this episode than just people replaying established patterns in amusing ways. Throughout the episode, all three people had a bunch of good material that walked a really, really difficult line of trying to write topical comedy when the top story in the news is related to ongoing genocide. I think they did it well, acknowledging that there are some parts of it that shouldn’t be trivialized with comedy but it’s still worth trying to pick it apart and point out the absurdities of the rhetoric. They did it as well as anyone could, I think. But I have chosen to ignore all that and write a multi-page post about how much I enjoy the recurring patterns in comedians' attitudes toward The Bugle and each other.

It's a good thing they have going. Never change, Andy. For the love of God, please never change.

[llovelymoonn]

Hello!! I love your posts 🥰

Can you share with us how do you do web weavings? Like tips and techniques

Idk 😁

Thank you 💗

🥰

resources

for quotes/poems/words poetry foundation is something i use a lot. sometimes (on tumblr) i'll look up a specific poet like natalie diaz or yves olade as a starting point.

for art i tend to use saatchi art or artists here on tumblr.

ideas

i get ideas from asks (i.e. requests), go to tumblr with an idea (e.g. 'on death' or 'the best thing i ever did was let you go'), or get ideas from a picture/photo or a specific quote i come across (like the one below):

(doris kareva shape of time tr. tiina aleman)

theme

there are many different ways a quote can be used/interpreted. i tend to take the major/obvious themes of a quote and use that for a webweave. in the above quote by doris kareva, the two most obvious themes are the sea and the mind. therefore, i would draw parallels between the sea and the mind, maybe titling the webweave 'on anguish as the sea' or something similar.

structure

i typically use 5 pictures and 5 quotes, though this varies between webweaves. for this example, i'll use 5 of each.

going with the title 'on anguish as the sea', we'll start off with the above quote by doris kareva.

personally i think classical paintings match the theme of this quote best, but you can go whichever direction you like with it.

so i pretty much just google 'classical paintings the sea' and choose the ones i think fit best:

to find quotes, i searched up 'the sea' on tumblr and found these quotes i felt matched:

on poetry foundation i looked up 'ocean' and found this:

i also looked up 'the sea' and found this quote:

quotes:

doris kareva shape of time (tr. tiina aleman)

rosanna warren the cormorant

khalil gibran sand and foam

angela jackson and all these roads be luminous: "woman watches ocean on a reef through a glass-bottomed boat"

khalil gibran the greater sea

pictures:

gustave courbet the wave (1869)

ivan konstantinovich aivazovsky ship on stormy seas

emil carlsen

vasedin yury among waves

emil carlsen the sky and the ocean (1913)

then you pretty much just put it all together however you want (in whichever order you'd like), and it becomes something like this:

on anguish as the sea

doris kareva shape of time (tr. tiina aleman) \\ gustave courbet the wave (1869) \\ rosanna warren the cormorant (via @cithaerons) \\ ivan konstantinovich aivazovsky ship on stormy seas \\ khalil gibran sand and foam \\ emil carlsen \\ angela jackson and all these roads be luminous: "woman watches ocean on a reef through a glass-bottomed boat" \\ vasedin yury among waves \\ khalil gibran the greater sea \\ emil carlsen the sky and the ocean (1913)

referencing

this is just a little add-on in case anyone doesn't understand the way i reference. i use: "author title of book: "title of poem" (translators) (year) (via the account that made the quote)".

*actually i can't remember if i do translators first or the year, i don't often have them both there. haha

hope this helps xxxxx

kofi

#fully gave you a tutorial haha #hope it helps #asks #frutify #snipping tool is your best friend for getting around tumblr's 10 pic max rule

[arachnowophowobia]

I love how Lucifer has gone from the Big Bad of Christianity to an underdog rebel of a tyrannical social structure; I personally think it reflects people's views on authority and religion and how that's changed over time with things like civil rights and humanitarianism advancing as a common philosophical perspective over common interest and totalitarianism. While religion kept trying to keep hold of its power, descriminating against and subjugating a large portion of both followers of the faith and literally everyone who isn't Christian, religious extremism has made people think more critically about the faith, which in turn made people rethink the role of the Devil, instead if an evil force trying to get you to sin through any means even deceit, he is a morally grey man teaching about self-worship and knowledge.

It's also really interesting to me that works of art like The Fallen Angel (painting by Alexandre Cabanel, 1847), which this work of mine takes direct influence, and Paradise Lost (epic by John Milton, 1667), that were viewed as blasphemous in their time, have taken hold of maybe not pop culture, but everyone who is interested in religion and art knows of them at least by sight/name. And now there's media like Lucifer (2016-2021) who go beyond the Milton representation, making him still an angel, or somewhere between angel and human, he's still morally grey, but a lot closer to righteous than in most other representations. It's really ballsy to give The Devil a redemption archz even Milton made his sympathetic Lucifer have a corruption arch instead.

Honestly, I'm only writing this in cus I love this subject and have yet to find a proper outlet for it other than the occasional reference (especially in highschool essays, teachers loved when I referenced classical works in highschool essays 😅)

#lucifer #lucifer morningstar #john milton #satan #church of satan #the fallen angel #fallen angel #paradise lost

[baronvonkrieger]

The Old Dark House; a twice told tale.

It was a dark and stormy night. Travelers find their car has developed problems and so they go to an old lonely house to seek shelter. In a stunning turn of events, nobody breaks into song, and there are no musical numbers. This isn’t after all, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but “The Old Dark House” (1932), a pre-code Universal Horror film. In 1927, J.B Priestly (1894-1984)had a book published called “Benighted”. The book was a classic 'old dark house', which in films, had seen increasing popularity during the silent era, and has been referenced to this day in films like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, and Scooby Do cartoons. As popular as the old dark films were in the silent era, that popularity didn’t seem to carry into the sound era, and most of those made before WW2, were remakes of silent films, like “The Cat and the Canary”. One of these films that was not a remake was the 1932 “The Old Dark House”. Director James Whale saw some potential in the literary work “The Benighted”, and chose to make a film based on that book called “The Old Dark House”.

This was a film that Whale wanted to make, and he insisted Universal buy the film rights to the book.  Whale selected the film's largely British cast, several of whose members were theater colleagues of his with minimal film experience, and would appear in several of his later films. These included Charles Laughton,  Ernest Thesiger, and Boris Karloff. This may be the best performance from Thesiger, maybe even better then his performance as Dr. Pretorious in ‘Bride of Frankenstein”.

Although all nine of the New York daily papers gave the film positive reviews, many other publications gave it negative reviews. “Variety” calling it “Inane”. Initially, the film received good box office, but poor word of mouth saw box office receipts drop during the second week. The audience turn-out dropped to less than half in its second week and the film was pulled after ten days. In Britain the film did much better, even getting a re-release in 1939. Although not that popular in the United States, it did have a fan in Charles Addams. When his eccentric family made their very first appearance in 1938 in the New Yorker, The butler that would come to be known as Lurch, was clearly inspired by Karloff’s mad butler Morgan.

Universal would lose the rights to this movie in 1957, and it would be considered a lost film. A remake was released in 1963, directed by William Castle and co-produced with Hammer Films. Charles Addams would provide the title art for this movie, whose signature is painted by a hairy hand. That hairy hand (proto Thing?) and a very Charles Addams style Victorian house would be included in the poster art. Although the 1963 “The Old Dark House” is from the same source as the 1932 version, it is a very different film from the Whale film. This time, an American car salesman (Tom Poston) is asked to deliver a car by his roommate, to an old mansion on Dartmoor. In this case, In this version, a will requires that the members of a family descended form the pirate captain Morgan, are required to return to the dilapidated mansion before midnight each evening or forfeit his share of the family fortune. This story involves the different family members being bumped off one by one, while the Yank, bears witness to the strange proceedings.

The 1963 Old Dark House has developed a poor reputation, possibly in part, because of how it has been blamed for taking the place of the 1932 classic. William K Everson, author of “Classics of the Horror Film”, went so far as to call it a “practically blasphemous remake”. I get that. The 1932 film is a great classic film, and was nearly lost, but that wasn’t exactly the fault of the William Classic and Hammer remake. The fault is more that of Universal Studios, which allowed the film to become neglected. Director Curtis Harrington, a friend of James Whale, begged Universal to find the film, and it was located in 1968. It is easy to find now on DVD, or you can watch it for free on You Tube.

But is the 1963 film the “practically blasphemous remake” that Everson claimed? Of course not. Outside of the title, the two have almost nothing in common, and are different enough, you can watch one, without making comparison’s to the other. My first viewing of the 1963 film was on a 16 MM projector, being shown on a screen in my family’s back yard. I was very happy to see the Charles Addams opening, and I genuinely liked it, not being aware of the 1932 film, I was able to watch it without being troubled by the differences in the Hammer/Castle film, and the 1932 Whale classic. Catching it later on, I liked that the dilapidated  mansion they used for the film was “Oakley Court”. If you have seen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, you would be familiar with the house. Being a Hammer co-production, it was in the vicinity of Hammer’s Bray studios, so it was used in a number of Hammer films.

I love both films enough to have them of DVD, and consider them both worth a watch.

#rocky horror picture show #Tom Poston #Charles Addams #Universal #Boris Karloff #Willaim Castle #James Whale #Hammer #the old dark house

[lesbiancarat]

Feel my rhythm by Red Velvet, maybe? 👀

listen... there isn't a red velvet song i don't like. at least not that i can think of 🤣 but that being said feel my rhythm is probably one of my favorites of theirs. i absolutely LOVED how they incorporated classical samples and referenced classical paintings in the mv. i'm not someone who knows a ton about either of those things, but my sister double-majored in art and music so i feel like i gained a lot of appreciation of those things through her

and like, sampling classical music in a pop song has been done before and it doesn't automatically make it good, but i think it worked so well for feel my rhythm. the whole song and mv felt so whimsical and i keep going back to it ever since it came out. it's so satisfying to listen to and is one of my favorite releases this year

#melia.ask #anon

[blogger360ncislarules]

Growing up in St. Charles, Illinois, Dallas Jenkins was not the child who was restless while sitting in the pews of church during a long service or in a classroom learning about the Bible. In fact, he was invigorated by Scripture lessons. And the Evangelical Christian, who would end up creating spiritual megahit The Chosen, always asked lots of questions.

Jenkins remembers seeing classic imagery of Jesus Christ while in classes, where the Son of God was dressed in immaculate white and blue robes on flannelgraph and picture books (so unlike The Chosen’s scruffy Savior, played by Jonathan Roumie). “He was just a big, smiling guy, and all the disciples are these old, bearded dudes,” the 48-year-old recalls. “But I was the one in class [asking], ‘What would it be like playing cards against Jesus? He always knows what you have! What would it be like to play sports with Jesus or to sit around a campfire [with Him]?’”

Now, Jenkins has brought those questions to life. The Chosen’s Jesus shares campfires with His Apostles and even joins in on a catching game with His hometown friends in Season 3. Maybe in Season 4 they can play the 1st century version of Go Fish?

(Credit: The Chosen)

Telling stories is in Jenkins’ blood, after all. He’s the son of prolific Christian author and New York Times bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins, who has written over 200 books, including the Left Behind series (with coauthor Tim LaHaye) and three Chosen novelizations. Besides inheriting what Jenkins calls “the storytelling gene” from his father, inspiration was also found on the big screen, he notes, citing a moment from his high school years when he first saw the 1975 Jack Nicholson drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “I was watching it, moved, with tears in my eyes, and I thought, ‘I want to do that.’ If I can arouse in viewers the kind of reaction that this did for me, maybe I could have some impact.”

After studying media and the Bible at the University of Northwestern–St. Paul and marrying his wife Amanda (the couple now have four children), Jenkins had some early career stumbles, and his first major feature, 2017 feel-good film The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, was a financial flop. He took his biggest — and most successful — swing when he created The Chosen.

The goal was to present a faithful Jesus who also felt fresh — unlike the one-dimensional Christ he encountered as a young Christian. “I grew up seeing a lot of portrayals of Jesus, a lot of paintings and stained-glass windows that didn’t feel very authentic,” he notes. The Chosen’s Jesus not only cracks jokes with a big grin, but He broods and gets emotional. And viewers see more than just the final results of His miracles — we see Him at work. Adds Jenkins: “The Chosen does not shy away from the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, capable of doing miracles.”

Jenkins also works some miracles of his own. In addition to being the show’s creator and an executive producer, he writes every episode with cowriters Tyler Thompson and Ryan Johnson (often in the wee hours) and, as if that wasn’t enough, he also directs every single episode. “I’m a bit of a control freak, so that’s part of it,” he says with a laugh. But it wasn’t ego or vanity that led him to helm each hour of the series. “I just felt like it was important for the show to have one voice and to be cohesive, because we shoot it like one big narrative,” he says, referencing recent prestige dramas with one mind at the wheel like Big Little Lies and The White Lotus. “We don’t shoot it episode by episode.”

And as busy as he is behind the scenes, Jenkins also steps in front of the camera for The Chosen’s seemingly never-ending fountain of social media and video content — from showing off the latest swag (sweatshirts! coffee mugs!) to interviewing his own cast about their experiences on set. Might we see the charismatic creative in a role on the biblical drama? Don’t hold your breath. “If you saw me in the background, it would feel like, ‘OK, there’s Dallas trying to talk to us about crowdfunding Season 5 right in the middle of this [episode],’” Jenkins says. “I’m comfortable just keeping that in the studio.”

That’s probably a good thing, since the busy creator definitely needs some time to unwind. “I really do need to rest more,” Jenkins agrees. “It’s not the physical exhaustion of [making the show], although that is tiring. I’ve got a lot of energy. But I need to take more mental breaks and more spiritual breaks, so I’m not just spending time telling stories about Jesus. Sometimes I need to spend time with Him.”

#the chosen

[owlixx]

Comic Todo List

So the sky is the limit now that I’ve got Marvel Unlimited access and I’ve maybe already bit off more than I can chew, but I wanted to go through the series I’ve added to my library on MU and state my interest in them so I don’t forget what I was thinking.

And to be clear, my attention span is super short right now since I just got the app. I like the idea of reading 500 xmen comics in a row…but not yet. So my balking point for issue counts is incredibly low right now but that will change after the first pass of reading a bunch of short series.

Also addendum to my last post: I read like 25 issues of Agent Venom and he’s my blorbo, that was pre college

Man Thing ‘74

22 issues is a bit much for my lack of strong interest here, but I’d like to see some old spooky stuff sometime

Black Panther ‘77

A bit long for how old it is and my current interest but I’ll get around to it.

What If ‘77

44 issues, but some real classics. I wish they had them all in one place.

Contest of Champions ‘82

3 issue crossover, no brainer

Secret Wars ‘84

Short, sweet, never read it all the way

Kitty Pryde and Wolverine ‘84

Short xmen primer

Scarlet Witch and Vision ‘85

12 issues for some classic avengers

Beauty and the Beast ‘85

Seems like a small hidden gem

Strange and Doom ‘89

One shot, easy

Infinity Gauntlet ‘91

Always surprised by how small these crossovers are lengthwise on the core story

Spiderman 2099 ‘92

Long but I want to remember to check out all of 2099

Inhumans ‘98

Short primer on them

Contest of Champions II ‘99

Too funny not to read

Garth Ennis Punisher ‘00

Not a big Garth fun but I want to give it a shot

Daredevil: Yellow ‘01

Recommended to me

Ultimates ‘02

I wanna know a little bit about ultimates

Spiderman: Blue ‘02

Recommended to me

X-Statix ‘02

Reccommended to me

Hulk: Gray ‘03

Recommended to me

1602 ‘03

It’s Neil Gaiman, Cmon

Runaways ‘03

A modern classic

Fantastic Four Origin ‘03

Curio

Warlock ‘04

Hidden gem

Loki ‘04

Website recommended it

She Hulk ‘04

App reccomended

House of M ‘05

Easy, vital read

Young Avengers ‘05

Kind of curious

Son of M ‘05

Short, seems interesting

X-Factor ‘05

Circle back to later

Nextwave ’06

Love a self contained story

Dr. Strange: The Oath ‘06

Seems like a succinct strange story

Blade ‘06

Gotta have one blade

Civil War ‘06

Never actually read the original

World War Hulk ‘07

And same here

Guardians of the Galaxy ‘08

App recommended

Punisher ‘09

App recommended

Tron ‘10

I love tron

Uncanny X-Force ‘10

Recommended to me

Deadpool Kills ‘11

Short and oft referenced

Wolverine and Xmen ‘11

Recommended to me

Infinity ‘13

Short, could be fun

Age of Ultron ‘13

Gotta know the source material

Silver Surfer Parable ‘88

One shot

Moon Knight ‘14

More good look knight

Silver Surfer ‘14

I’ll give him one run

Ms Marvel ‘14

Her origin

She Hulk ‘14

Comes recommended

Black Widow ‘14

App recommended

Elektra ‘14

App recommended, says it’s painted

All New Wolverine ‘15

Recommended to me

Vader ‘15

Gotta try one star wars

Captain America: White ‘15

Recommended to me

Scarlet Witch ‘15

App recommended

Jessica Jones ‘16

Recommended to me

Gwenpool ‘16

Recommended to me

Mockingbird ‘16

Self contained story

Civil War II ‘16

Morbid curiosity

Thanos ‘16

A bit long but could be fun

Old Man Logan ‘16

Recommended to me

Black Panther ‘16

App recommended, I’m iffy

Rocket ‘17

App recommended

Black Bolt ‘17

Recommended by everyone

Immortal Hulk ‘18

Recommended to me

Jessica Jones ‘18

Recommended, short

Venom ‘18

Apparently the best venom

Deadpool ‘19

App recommended

House of X ‘19

Short, recommended

Black Widow ‘19

App recommended

Dazzler ‘19

Recommended to me

Guardians of the Galaxy ‘20

App recommended

Empyre ‘20

App recommended

Xterminators ‘22

Recommended to me

#comics #comic books #marvel #marvel unlimited #marvel comics

[prismasaryn-sims]

mmmmm yes no maybe so-so? the classic bella dress. which was me heavy referencing lyralei's bella who referenced hers off of nilou's bella (which is still the best bella textures). honestly there's zero reason for this to exist, i rarely use soft brushes for painting and it's still looking off. I don't think this'll look good if it got split but the original bella dress doesn't look good split either.

#wip #sims 2

[mushibashiraas]

i bought tickets to see the new downton abbey movie with my mom and i keep thinking of riddle. i mean, alice in wonderland IS set in mid to late 1800s/early 1900s, yes?

using Downton Abbey as a reference as well as making a lot of comparisons to life as a noble family in the early 1900s. and of course, just like with the jamil headcanons, i'm gonna try to mainly write for a gn!yuu/gn! oc. also, if i get any "life in victorian england" things wrong, i apologize. i'm word vomitting while geeking out about history lmao

btw! here's a link that i referenced for the "courting in victorian england" headcanons. and here's a playlist i made that i listened to while i wrote these. so go watch downton abbey!!!!! puh-lease! such a good, thrilling, classy, fun show. cannot wait for may 20th! ugh *dreams of getting all dolled up with my mom just to see a movie* lmao

- assuming the time for afternoon tea doesn't go against the Queen of Hearts' Rules, riddle always makes sure to take his tea after classes.

- being raised with a typical classical education of a well-known family, riddle knows how to play the piano and the violin. whether he'll allow an audience while he's playing or not will be up to his mood as well as — of course — the Queen of Hearts' Rules.

- for all of his talents and hard work, he's decent at singing. in fact if yuu, ace, or deuce catch him in the act, he gets so flustered and most likely will chase them around the heartslabyul dorm screeching "OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!"

- oh! can we also talk about his ceremonial robes vignette? *simps in ex-equestrian rider* to commemorate the little lord rosehearts on his first horse/taking his first equestrian lesson, his mother commissioned a photo to be taken as well as a well-known, professional artist friend of hers to paint a portrait of him.

- he looked so cute!! all wide-eyes and innocent. a big smile on his face as he cheered and encouraged (much to the shock and horror of his mother) for the horse to "pick up speed! pick up speed, horsie!" she immediately scolded him. thankfully, there was a trainer walking the horse around with the reins; riddle wasn't allowed to hold the reins until he was 9.

- it's kind of hinted at but he doesn't know how to cook. at all. and why would he when all of his meals and healthy snacks were concocted by chefs and bakers and kitchen maids employed in the Rosehearts household?

- even his afternoon tea snacks consisted of fruit and carefully measured-for-nutritional-value-by-his-mother sandwiches

- if he lived in a modern!au instead of twisted wonderland, he'd probably graduate from harvard law school as its top student. there is no winning an argument against/with this child.

- any loopholes found he'd quickly counter with Rule 610 before writing a note to see if he could personally amend that loophole (he'd have no such luck doing so as usual, unfortunately)

- it would be his dream to, unlike his mother, serve in the queen's court as her royal attorney. bby boy would be all starry-eyes his first court case. don't worry though! just like his time as heartslabyul's housewarden, he'd be a pro at masking his courtroom jitters and be nothing but professional and respectful.

- does riddle ever get sick? with one of the Queendom of Roses' best medical mages for a mother, he doesn't usually get sick. there was the time in his labcoat SR, though, where he caught a slight cold.

- if yuu gets sick, he is right there in the infirmary with one of mother's potions (the recipe memorized long ago) scolding them about studying too hard and how important it is to take a break or switch subject material.

- oh and you can bet your bottom thaumark that when referencing illnesses besides the simple cough or cold, he'll use their full names. for example, he'd call a sore throat "pharyngitis" or "streptococcal pharyngitis." ...............maybe "strep throat."

"Getting enough sleep is also essential to keeping any hints at a cold at bay. You're lucky it is just a simple cold! With you coming from another world, who knows how bad you would be. What if it was influenza or worse?! Even The Queen of Hearts did well to make sure she never got sick! Honestly, if Mother didn't send me more potions you'd succumb to a high fever and hallucinations....."

- considering he's so busy with his studies, duties as a dormhead, and learning how to cook caring for the hedgehogs, dating would be the last thing on his mind.

- but say — in the future, when he graduated from night raven college and learned how to cook — he found someone to share his life with, he'd court them properly.

- his mother, being as strict as she was, made sure he abided by the usual "courting" rules expected of men (similar to "courting rituals" in victorian england and the early 1900s).

- even though victorian women usually came out and were chaperoned to balls and dinner parties at the age of 17-18, his mother absolutelt forbade him from attending the majority of the charity banquets and dinners she and her husband were invited to/attended so that he could focus on the full curriculum she gave him.

- even so, she made sure to drill into him general manners and etiquette including courting other potential suitors. she did wish for him to marry well and make sure he didn't bring shame upon the Rosehearts name.

- the last time she brought him out to a holiday ball and dinner party, he almost "resumed his acquaintance with a former dance partner out on the street." *gasps* the horror! the audacity! one of the few mistakes he ever made against mother that he sorely regrets.

- now, unlike in victorian england where — for the woman — "intelligence was not encouraged, nor was any interest in politics" twisted wonderland is different and women are held in high regard as perfectly strong, capable, and more than intelligent. *looks at riddle's mother*

- aside from this being a wish from riddle's mother for his future spouse, riddle himself would independently wish for someone who is equally intelligent and clever. of course it would be nice to "play the role of a gentleman." but if they ever encountered something they could handle perfectly well on their own, then by all means he'd step back and proudly let them handle whatever it is. *cue the smug look on his face as he watches them thoroughly chastise rulebreakers*

#twst #twisted wonderland #riddle rosehearts #twst headcanons #i had a lot of fun with this!!

[bippot]

Summary: A crime writer moves to Evergreen and Vigilante is more than willing to help her settle in. He's not sure why. Maybe it's because she's nice to him. Her family, on the other hand, aren't at all what they seem.

Tags: Autism Spectrum, Dungeons & Dragons References, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gun Violence, Idiots in Love, Eventual Smutz Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Family Drama, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Children, Canon-Typical Violence

After moving to Evergreen, a writer decides to check out the nearest restaurant and finds a morbidly goofy man working there.

Music recommendation: S&M by Rihanna

Peacemaker, Adrian Chase Masterlist - here

Never using her own name was common in the business, so she often writes using a pen name. Usually a different one depending on the genre of the commissioned story. Fantasy is Sam Greywell. Romance is Juliet Younstung. Sci-Fi is Harry Sawyer. And last, and by no means least, crime is Taylor Savage. It felt like having a little secret identity—or four. But, in reality, it was actually a marketing ploy by the publishing company to trick misogynist nerds into reading a book they believed was written by a man. It worked. She had a bit of a following. A little more mainstream success would have been nice, but the attention she did receive was more than enough. It paid the bills and much more.

The move came about since America was where her books were the most popular. Especially her crime stories. Americans love violence. And guns. So her darker, more psychologically troubling books were incredibly popular there for some strange reason that she was reluctant to look further into.

She had thought about moving to Gotham, but that seemed too dangerous. She had been to Gotham too many times in her life. Too much has happened there. Evergreen, Charlton County seemed like the right fit. Safe enough that she could survive on her childhood kickboxing skills and pepper spray. And it's exciting enough to have at least two superheroes patrolling at night.

The apartment she selected was humble. A blank slate that could be filled. It had a yard that she could turn into a garden. Or add a hot tub. She could paint the walls any colour she wanted. Maybe wallpaper instead? The possibilities are overwhelming and endless. Plus, the library was nearby. She could read if she wanted. It was more than enough for her.

Yet, as she stared around at the piles of boxes around her feet, she sighed, "Fuck this," and slipped away in search of something else to do. Anything. Anything but shift through possession and wonder why she decided to fly away and separate herself from everyone she's ever known.

Walking the streets of Evergreen as the sun began to set was beautiful in a strange way. Quiet. Peaceful. There were just a few birds chirping, a few cars passing by, and a gentle breeze. Not quite home. However, it hid a small sense of familiarity behind its buildings. Every city is the same if you look hard enough. The buildings were all the same. The sky was the same. She was the same. Finding a place to sit was easy. After walking past five nearly identical coffee shops, she noticed a small yet lively restaurant: Fennel Fields. The home of authentic Italian cuisine, apparently. It looked more like a diner to her.

She quickly found an empty seat opposite the kitchen and sank into the worn brown leather seat. It felt normal. Comfortable.

Almost immediately, a man in an apron sauntered up to her, notebook in hand. He seemed to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. His dark hair was slicked back and his beard was trimmed. His shoulders were wide. His face was classically handsome. The type of guy you'd assume would be prom king in high school. The type to rely on a football scholarship, only to injure his Achilles tendon and, therefore, his future of getting professional brain damage on a weekly basis was washed down the drain in one fatal kick. Maybe he was better off as a server. He looked down at her and cocked his head to the side. "What can I get you, little lady?" He asked. "I'd recommend the eggplant rolls with spinach and ricotta. It's our meal of the day."

Having realised she had not yet thought about ordering, she scans the menu and impulsively says, "Tiramisu." Did she even like tiramisu?

"A dessert girl, eh?" The waiter asked, and she just looked up at him expressionless, "Alcoholic?"

"Uh, yeah, I've been to a few, what you guys would call, AA meetings," she says, then realises he was asking about the food. He chuckles, not quite believing her. She continues, "Oh, the food? Yeah, the booze one is, uh, what I want."

"Good to know," He wrote it down, not even looking at the paper before him, "Coffee?"

"Yeah, black, please."

The waiter walks away, so she looks around the diner. It seems... ordinary. Nothing special. It's quaint. Clean. Unassuming. Her eyes land on the kitchen door straight ahead, and she finds it wide open. A little dog-shaped doorstop was jammed under the bottom to keep it in place.

Inside was a man dancing to his music whilst washing dishes, completely unaware that the door was open. He swayed his hips from side to side enthusiastically, almost knocking the hat off his head. His left hand swooped up to hold it in place as his right grabbed a wooden spoon from the sink, brandishing it as a makeshift microphone. He mimed the words to whatever song he was listening to, as if he were performing to a stadium filled with thousands of adoring fans.

In reality, it was one increasingly entertained customer. She watched him with a smile, her head resting on her hand. The way he was having the time of his life was infectious. So much so that she found herself laughing. He dramatically jumped around, eyes closed, and did the signature boyband point (unknowingly directly at her). She examined his lips in the hope of working out what the hell he was listening to. It looked a little like "S & M" by Rihanna, but, who knows?

The dancing man finally opened his eyes. He noticed she is looking at him and immediately freezes. His eyes widening in shock and his mouth opening slightly to form an embarrassed smile. "Nice moves." She mouths to him.

When he regained his motor control, he pushed his glasses further up his nose with the slightly damp wooden spoon. It was an attempt to come off as suave, but he ended up lightly poking himself on the inner part of his eye, near the tear duct.

For some reason, this awkward busboy was strangely charming to her. Her hand moved over her mouth in a feeble attempt to stifle her laughter. Schadenfreude at its finest. Noticing that he had regained his composure, she raised her hand to give him a thumbs-up as if to say "you good?"

Blush spread to his cheeks as he returned the gesture. In an attempt to hide his redness, he looked towards his shoes. They were untied, so he bent down to fix them. His vigorous dancing must have done that. When he raised his head next, he watched as she spoke to the guy giving her the meal. Damn his bodacious moves.

The waiter was Philip. Adrian did not like Philip. Not one bit. He used to bully him in school, yet they both ended up working at the same place. Fate is a cruel and wry bitch at times. Fingers were crossed that good ol' Phil would commit a heinous crime and Vigilante could put two bullets in him. One in the middle of the forehead and one straight to the dick.

"Thank you," She glanced at her waiter's name tag, not wanting to be impolite, "Philip."

"My friends call me Phil."

"Good for them." She plainly stated, wanting the conversation to end. To further signify that she wanted the conversation to end, she reached into her bag and pulled her laptop onto the table. Philip nodded and walked away quietly.

Glancing back to the kitchen, she finds that the man - and his dancing - are gone. That's a shame. He seemed cute. His disappearance ensured that she could focus on writing the first draft of her latest commission. Only breaking her concentration to consume her purchases. The restaurant atmosphere was vibrant enough to be idea-inducing without being too distracting, so it was perfect for writing. She'd have to make it her go-to work spot. Something about the atmosphere there just feels right. So right that the evening had gone by in a blur and she had yet to notice that most of the other customers had filtered out. Her focus was interrupted when a cheerful voice asked, "Uh, are you done with those?"

Moving her gaze from the computer, she looked up to find the dancing man holding a tray stacked with plates. Up close, she got a better look at his face. It was goofy, framed with a head of brown, soft curls that were squished by that stupid hat. His eyes were twinkling and his dimples were deep, probably due to a high frequency of smiling. She liked it.

"Thanks, how's the eye?" She asked, a little teasingly, as she handed her crockery to him. He nodded slightly and gave a small thumbs-up. She continues questioning, "What were you listening to earlier? I was trying to read your lips to figure out what song you were miming along to."

"I don't know what you're talking about," He lamely denies it, shrugging cartoonishly. She lifts an eyebrow and gives him a sideways glance, not letting him get away with lying.

"Oh?" She rests her head on one of her hands and playfully explains, "I distinctly remember a spoon," She reaches for one from his tray and hovers it below her mouth, making sure not to touch the dirty cutlery against her lips, "Was a very effective microphone." He cracks a grin as she continues to joke. "Busboy at diner is charged with one count of perjury and five counts of busting it down. How do you plead?" She raises the faux microphone towards him.

He stiffly moves his face towards the spoon. "Guilty," he promptly replies, and gently takes the spoon from her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers as he lies, "And, I have total faith in the justice system, I swear."

"Well, that makes one of us."

Quickly, he scans around the room, searching for any of his co-workers and wondering if they were looking in his direction. Philip was looking in her direction. This could be a moment for him to get one up on his former bully. Adrian takes off his hat, places it on the table along with his tray, and slides into the seat next to her. "What you writing?"

"Book."

"Really?" He seems genuinely interested. "About?"

Turning to him and trying her best crazy face, her grin grew wider and eyes narrowed as she declared, "Homicide."

Arm subtly reaching behind the back of her seat, he replies, "I love homicide." He can't control his excitement and doesn't realise that his statement could be damning. "That tame BBC sanitised shit or real gory, eyeball popping out of the socket kind of shit?"

"Real gory." She replies, wondering what he will ask next, "I'm not a pussy. I just wrote a scene where this mob guy is periodically chainsawing off his victim's body parts. Starting at the dick."

His eyes light up as he anticipates the upcoming scene, "At the dick?" He looked as if he is tasting the words like candy, "Can I read it?"

Looking like a child about to open their gifts on Christmas, his eyes pleaded with her. She gave in instantly and scrolled to the correct place in the document. Once she found it, she tilted her laptop screen towards him as she noted, "It's the first draft, so, it's not perfect yet."

Adrian scoots closer to her so he can get a better view of the screen, pushes his glasses up, and begins to read, his arm wrapping further around her back. The way she writes seems familiar to him, as if he had read some of her work before. Which was strange, since he didn't have much time for reading in his busy schedule. He practically gave it up when he became Vigilante a few years ago. Boy, the last book he can remember reading was 'Guerrilla' by Taylor Savage.

Whilst he is reading, she rests her head on both her hands and studies his expressions. The more progress he made, the wider his eyes spread. Occasionally, his eyebrows would raise if he read something that he particularly liked. He looked down at the screen and then back up at her. Not understanding how the most beautiful creature he had ever seen had written this horror. "This is fucked up. Super fucked," He beams, "Marry me."

Chuckling at his choice of words, she drinks in the compliment, "I'm glad you like it."

"You're a sick, sick woman," he says, but the humour in his eyes is unmistakable. "I don't know if you get this often, but this reminds me so much of a Taylor Savage novel."

She scrolls her document to the top, where it reads: Gunpoint Rose By Taylor Savage. "You're Savage? I thought Savage was a dude?"

"Who says I'm not a dude?" She jokes, wiggling her eyebrows, then closes the lid of her laptop. Luckily, she enabled autosave, so nothing was lost. He stares at her in awe as she continues speaking, "It's my super-secret identity. Well, one of them."

"It's not really super-secret if you tell people who you are. If I went around by a different name, hypothetically speaking, I wouldn't go into restaurants and tell people about it," He says, and then pauses awkwardly. "Hypothetically, of course, that would blow my cover. What if the person you told went around town spilling the beans? I could tell people now." He managed to say that in one long breath.

She leant closer to him, her smile falling as she whispered, "You could." She looked at him directly in his heart eyes and, strangely, felt comfortable doing so. "But, who would believe you?"

At that moment, he wished he had his visor on so she couldn't see the dumbstruck expression that was plastered on his face. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as that turned him on and he was increasingly close to being noticeably aroused. 

Before he could say anything, his supervisor appeared and ushered him to work. Providing him with an excuse for a swift exit. He hurried to his feet and said a very quick, "Bye." She watched him leave and finally allowed herself to blush, lowering her head and the playful grin returning to her features.

Chapter 2: +5 To Initative

#adrian chase #vigilante #vigilante x reader #Youtube

[somnianus]

On Chinese and Eastern Dramatic Acting vs Western

Part 1    Part 2

Mostly in ref to the Untamed/Word of Honor, but applies to a lot of East Asian works-

I’ve been getting the sense that people I know from the west (also being Asian-American myself) often interpret Chinese/Japanese/Korean drama and theatre to be too corny/cheesy/over-acted. A quick search on some internet forums confirms this. Maybe it’s because I used to watch a lot of C-dramas when I was a kid (Legend of the Condor Heroes/Return of C Heroes/Journey to the West/The Reincarnated Princess/etc), I personally did not notice that the acting was over the top. 

I don’t really speak for the quality of acting of these actors because I barely follow them in their careers, but I do know that some of them are immature actors or don’t have much formal training (which may cause the cheesiness above). However, Eastern dramatic acting in general does seem like a common complaint, so I decided to look into it - this is all coming from someone who JUST recently got back into watching C-dramas btw, doing my own research so don’t mind me if there’s some incorrect things down here, I am by NO means at all an expert in drama and theater (lol):

^Villains are often depicted with very exaggerated facial expressions (Above, Xue Yang, The Untamed)

Part 1

1. Chinese concept of mo vs western equivalent of “mimesis” or “imitation”

From this, an excellent chapter on Chinese theatrical concepts vs Western concepts.

Mo plays a significant part in traditional Chinese theatre, usually held to be antithetical to the realism of Western theatre because of its emphasis on theatricality. 

Mo means mimesis or imitation, but in a very different sense from the Western concept. One of the first Chinese scholars to use this term, Fu Sinian, used it to compare Western theatre to Chinese theatre:

Presenting a real event and performing an entertaining show are not compatible. The former emphasizes imitation (yige zhong mofang^b); the latter stresses spontaneity and entertainment. The former performance produces a lifelike image; the latter has nothing to produce. The former puts emphasis on the plot; the latter puts emphasis on theatricality. Therefore they are completely contradictory to one another.

This guy actually goes onto critique Chinese theater, saying it should be more like Western realism, so that there will “be no singing, and the acting will imitate people’s real gestures.” However! Other Chinese critics tried to approach Western vs traditional Chinese drama as two DIFFERENT but still valid forms of art. For example, Yu Shangyuan (1927) said western performance is “writing realistically” (xie shi) and chinese performance as “writing suggestively” (xie yi). Western dramas really rely on an accurate/semi-accurate representation of life and realism. Traditional Chinese drama and acting relied on the “symbolic and imaginative.”

Then what is mo? It is the emotional display, the emotional revelation, that is shown on stage. Starting from the Yuan dynasty, the Chinese drama was thought to be a continuation of poetry rather than its own independent stage art.

Poetry is where the intent of the heart goes. Lying in the heart, it is “intent”; when uttered in words, it is “poetry.” When an emotion stirs inside, one expresses it in words; finding this inadequate, one sighs over it; not content with this, one sings it in poetry; still not satisfied, one unconsciously dances with one’s hands and feet. [anonymous, 1975, from Shi Daxu 200 BCE]

Chinese drama with dancing and singing, was the most expressive product of poetry. The importance of mo cannot be stressed enough - it is the measure by which traditional Chinese drama was judged, how well this drama make you feel? Love, pain, loss, guilt, happiness? Plot becomes something that doesn’t matter as much (more on that later).

^Beijing/Peking Opera - highly stylized, emotive, “unrealistic” performances

To emphasize how central and important this concept is, it’s thought that a good Chinese playwright never fails to “seize a highly dramatic scene to stage an elaborate presentation of an emotional state.”

Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. [Peony Pavilion, Mu dan ting]

This quote really shows how important it was to show these emotions on stage, to inspire the audience to feel deeply. Chinese critics believed that the best part about drama was how efficient it is to display emotion. Playwrights should “depict extreme bitterness, extreme happiness, extreme silliness, and extreme sobriety; imitate these feelings to the utmost (miao mo jin xing^p).”

Such performances are not necessarily accurately mimicking reality, but they are obtained through the “revelation” of a character’s internal emotional world.

2. Mo vs the depiction of reality or theatrical truth

The Chinese concept of aesthetic truth relates a lot to theatrical truth. In a lot of traditional Chinese art, painting, poetry, etc, aesthetic truth is not empirical, and doesn’t have to be accurate to life, or realistic. It’s a “truth that lies beyond mere superficial likeness.”

To the Chinese artist, an accurate resemblance between art and reality is not only superficial but often distorting. Chinese artists hold a dialectical view on the “form” (xing) and the “spirit” or “content” (shen) of an artistic object. According to them, xing  and shen are not always complementary. On the contrary, they often stand in opposition to one another. (referenced in the chapter above)

Traditional Chinese artists would rather represent the object with the wish that their representation matches its spirit, or abstract identity, than its actual form because a “photographic image is a shallow image.” It’s easy to draw a picture of something realistically, but it’s much harder and more satisfying to depict its nature, its feeling, its spirit.

This also naturally affects theater and dramatic performances.

Dramatic writing can be divided into two types: “a painting-like work” or a “transformed work,” in which the latter has higher artistic value because it reaches more towards the essence of dramatic object. Realistic imitations are fine, but they’re not really enough to reveal the mo or true feelings of something.

In addition, traditional Chinese dramatists believe that “all dramas are nothing but allegories. One need not ask about their origins in actual life.” You might be able to see, then, that these older playwrights and critics really fancied the overdramatic depictions of emotions.

a. The Chinese notion of theatrical truth/aesthetic truth vs European

Onto what we, as part of the Western audience, are more used to:

For Italian neoclassical critics, the pleasure of a drama hinges  on how accurate, how realistic, the depiction is. Castelvetro, the leading Italian Neo-Classical critic and creator of the concept of “the three unities,” claims thus:

We cannot imagine a king who did not exist, nor attribute any action to him.

Another Italian critic, Robortellus, said that a creative/imaginative story with no “verisimilitude” (truthfulness, in this context, realism) is less appealing than one that imitates a real-life event:

Thus if a tragic plot contained an action which did not really take place and was not true, but was represented by the poet himself in accordance with verisimiltude, it would perhaps move the souls of the auditors, but certainly less.

So basically, it’s fundamentally the opposite of Chinese theater. Italian dramatic works prized being realistic, being properly adapted from reality and real events. Chinese dramatic works, however, enjoyed the emphasis on heartfelt emotional demonstrations, or mo. Even in critical writings, the word “truth” is used, but it is usually used to modify the word “heart” or “emotion.” It is very concerned with the internal, the truthfulness of heartfelt emotional expression.

Taken these contexts, you can see why the Chinese stage/dramas are wholly “unreal” as Tao-Ching Hsu puts it. Everything, the makeup, the costumes, the props, is expressive and suggestive rather than imitative.

b. Bejing/Peking Opera, jingju

A famous example is the Beijing/Peking Opera, jingju. The makeup and costumes themselves are fantastical representations. The colors and patterns suggest different moods, temperaments, characters, and even changes in emotions. Actors would make distinct movements to depict distinct emotions with varying levels of energy. The stage itself may be sparse, because it is not as important as the expression of emotion and drama. 

The stage is sparse not because of the lack of technology or funding, but because it leaves room for the actor themselves to fully express their internal thinking/feeling/emotions. Characters can cross hundreds of miles in a few steps or may take the whole stage to cross a supposed road. This representation looks “unreal” to a realistic-minded audience, but it is very genuine to a Chinese audience.

Summary (so far)

This crucial understanding of the concept of mo (the emotional revelation), and the way traditional Chinese drama depicts life and stories, informs how their modern works are also portrayed. Coming from a Western dramatic background, where realism and plot are the most important aspects of a work, it can be very confusing, right? Even Chinese scholars began to judge their own dramatic works through a Western lens.

How does this traditional background affect modern Chinese dramas and works? I think it still has a very large effect, even though much of Western ideals about dramatic works have been heavily integrated into modern Chinese dramas.

Part 2: On Theatricality and how it transfers into Chinese Cinema

#cdramas #theater #acting style #beijing opera #the untamed #word of honor #kdramas #jdramas #theatricality #east asian cinema