#welcome to my blog please donate to my friend's movie
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Yeah yeah, John Green cock monologue and bug ass Tramp Stamps, but to me the best celebrity scare that Tumblr ever pulled was Lin Manuel Miranda voluntarily leaving after not a single person bullied him, simply because people making gifs of a bootleg of Hamilton made him sad. That's natural selection babey
#muh muh kids are watching my 1k a ticket constantly sold out broadway show for free#about me#i#why did this post blow up??#welcome to my blog please donate to my friend's movie
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So... I will be posting the links here for the Wonwoo Contents
Fluff
(new) 5 ways to say I love you by @moon-stars01
(new) A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes by @wonniehae
(new) A Special Ingredient by @svttism
(new) A Silent Love by @nctxdreamies
Bad Fight! by @callmebcby
(new) Better Better by @serenityseventeen
Bookstore employee by @sptegami
Colour by @ally-127
(new) Comfortable by @m1ng-how
(new) Counting Sheep by @serenityseventeen
(new) Curious Cat by @lavenonie
(new) Damaged: Before by @kpop-cakepops
Drunk Confessions by @chillihansol
(new) Earl Grey by @seokmingiggles
(new) Feel So Lucky by @toriasaurio
Fearless by @minghaocouture
Friends to Lovers by @akwablu-blog
(new) Giggles by @insideofrose
(new) Haunted House by virryth
(new) Heart & Seoul by @bubblebeom
Hi, I’m Wonwoo.by @novawon
Hogwarts Alumni Shirt @tonicandjins
(new) Home by @geminirules
(new) Homework Nights by @quicksilverster
(new) I Found Love in your Smile by @wonlouvre
(new) If you had 3 Wishes, What would they be? by @glowonu
(new) Just you by @justasoftstan
(new) Kairosclerosis by @nose-bandaid
(new) Late Night Wonders by @snowydaffodils
(new) Like the Movies by @binniesthighs
Literature by @heartgyus
(new) Let me take you Home by @ctrlhao
(new) Letter to You by @writer-k-pop
(new) Letters to You by @wooziujidoots
(new) Library Crush by @serenityseventeen
(new) Library Trips By @bootyful-seventeen
Modest Jeon Wonwoo by @woozisnoots
(new) More Than You Know by @writessvt
Neighbors to Lovers by @thekpopaus
Never Change by @stuckwithsvt
Not So Cold-Heart by @mywonuderful
(new) One More Chapter by @justasoftstan
(new) Opposites by @serenityseventeen
(new) Outward by @gamerwoo
(new) Popular Guy by @gyugiggles
Ranked Game by @ribosoons
(new) Ready to love by @3raaaachachacha
Saudade by @uriurijihoonie
(new) Say You Won’t Let Go by @geminirules
(new) Setting It Up by @justasoftstan
(new) Sharing is Caring by @gamerwoo
(new) Shiny Star by @wonwoonlight
(new) Shy Desires by @serenityseventeen
Shy Shy Shy by @okaykpop
(new) Snuggle Donation: Pact by @kpop-cakepops
Something Old, Something New by @kwanisms
Soulmate by @svtskneecaps
Summer Scent by @escapewriter
(new) Squishy by @justasoftstan
(new) S𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 S𝗈𝗎𝗋 by @mieohmy
(new) The Cat Cafe by @purplehoranghae
To Die For by @starlightshua
(new) To my Growing Child by @serenityseventeen
(new) To my Youth by @viastro
(new) The Best Friend A Girl Could Ask For by @kpop-cakepops
(new) The Ulzzang Project by @hongnanglen-arina
(new) Villain! by @ @solarwonux
(new) Valentine’s Day with Wonwoo by @kpop-in-new-albion
(new) Welcome to fatherhood by @woozibby
White Lies by @luvshuas
(new) Winner by @serenityseventeen
(new) You Give Me PVCs by @chal-kagyu
You Mean the World to me by @svtskneecaps
(new) Your Cat Loves You by @jeonflo
Angst
(new) Avenue of Tears by @dropsofletters
Blind by @wtf-taeyong
Boundaries by @nobodyeverasked
Child of Athena by @keeper-of-the-uwus
(new) Chili by @cherrycheolliesc
Daydream by @tonicandjins
Dreamcatcher by @love-dreams
(new) Encumber by @jeonstellate
Everything I Didn't Say by @tonicandjins
(new) Everything Leads Back to you by @boowanie
Fear the Wraith by @gamerwoo
(new) He lost you by @zarryscherrys
Hearing Lips by @gamerwoo
How could I ever forget about you? by @woozibby
Hurtful Eyes by @shuatoyou
(new) I Found You by @uchukiyoo
(new) In the Spring by @viastro
(new) Lie to Me by @haokyeom
(new) Like a Dream by @yakultberry
Look me in the eyes and tell me you love me by @infinitum-imaginaerum
Lost by @min9yusnovia
Lost Souls by @cheolgyushua
(new) Love & Letter: To The Thirteen Boys I’ve Loved Before: The Seventh Letter by @serenityseventeen
(new) LoveLorn by @themyunghoxo
Missing You by @geminirules
(new) Moonlight by @solarwonux
(new) My Dream is You by @cheolbooluvr
New York: The City Of Dreams By @tonicandjins
Not So Sweet by @extrasugafree
(new) Oh my God, They were Roommates by @luvvchwe
(new) See You Again by @geminirules
(new) Surprise by @wonwoonlight
Ten Questions by @chocosvt
(new) The Art of Healing by @boowanie
(new) The Moon Told me so by @nose-bandaid
(new) Things I Wish You Never Said by @gayforseungcheol
(new) To Bloom and to Wither by @sunduskwine
(new) Wedding march by @sincerelyshobe
To all the boys by @shra-vasti
(new) Why haven’t you kissed me yet? by @solarwonux
(new) Yours by @gyukult
Smut
(new) 3 nights by @hotgirlwonwoo
A Moon Without Stars by @chocosvt
(new) Anteric by @smileysuh
(new) Baby Doll by @solarwonux
Birthday Treat by @multmilk
Caffeine by @meltwonu
(new) Champagne Kisses by @solarwonux
(new) Crash, No Burn by @softhaos
Crop Tops & Tattoos by @solarwonux
(new) Cuff 1 by @smileysuh
Dream by @sebuntease
(new) Gam3 bo1 by @sunflowergyeomie
(new) Game interrupted by @diamondyjh
(new) Getting Closer by @bubblebeom
(new) Getting Closer II by @bubblebeom
(new) I Though you Hated Me? by @glossyeon
Let Me Watch by @kinksvt
Limitless by @alltheattractiveasiansimgines
Math Tutor by @sebuntease
(new) Meanie Sandwich by @meltwonu
Missing You by @sebuntease
(new) Movie Night? by @hongnanglen-arina
(new) Payment Due! @solarwonux
Private by @17mounteens
(new) Punished @otptings
(new) Refresh by @snowydaffodils
Rich Girl by @blushnote
(New) The Bet by @hotgirlwonwoo
The Copy Machine is Broken Again By @tonicandjins
The Other Side by @17mounteens
(new) Something told me it was you by @wonwooze
(new) Sugar by @solarwonux
(new) Strawberries and Bad Decisions by @solarwonux
The Step Brother by @sebuntease
(new) Under The Moonlight by @solarwonux
(new) Until I met you by @meltwonu
(new) Until It Feels Like You’re In Heaven by @odetojeons
(new) Valentine’s Day Drabble #5 - First Time by @solarwonux
(new) Wasted Game = Wasted Night by @starryse
(new) Will You Punish Me If I Don’t? by @odetojeons
(new) You’re the perfect view by @halloweenniles
Other AU’s I dont know where to place (hehe)
700 Years Promise @onetwosevensquad
(new) Accidents Happen by @fluffyyunho
(new) Achilles by @gamerwoo
All Fun and Games by @gamerwoo
Big Bad Wolf by @for-dogs-and-flowers
(new) Bittersweet by @networkluvs
Bodyguard Wonwoo by @jungnoirr
(new) Camera Lens Pointed At You by @svt13roses
(new) Cat Cafe with Wonwoo by @17cafe
(new) Cooperation by @serenityseventeen
College AU by @seventeen-teen-teen-trash
(new) Give Your Heart by @gamerwoo
Familiar Faces by @i-see-thevision
(new) Here’s My Problem: I Can’t Get You Out Of My Head by @just-some-random-blogger
Hunger by @svtwrites
I Can’t Let You Go Until I Win @narika-a
I Never Meant to Make You Bleed by @jungnoir
Invitation by @tonicandjins
(new) Level Seven by @heeseungsapple
(new) Neighbor next door by @svtshine
More Than That by @neoyeppuda
(new) My Little Ghost by @seodami
Second Life by @starlightshua
Sober Up by @geuyeoreum
(new) Sweet Home by @devoidwrites
(new) Tell me the Same by @ joonsgalaxy
(new) The Beat of a Love Rhyme by @dropsofletters
(new) The Little Flower on your Wrist by @nose-bandaid.tumblr.com
(new) The King by @craby-bouquet
The Switch by @woozibby
(new) The unDead's Love by @chupacoupsie
(new) Tinkerbell by @softforhao
(new) What happens at the party by @craby-bouquet
(new) Wild Card by @serenityseventeen
Note: Will update.. this list is not yet complete :D
Dilemma: There are fics I’ve ready with no titles and i don’t know how to include them here
P.S: If there’s anything I need to add or to change PLEASE feel free to send me a message or a comment :D
• 10/26/2020 I updated this again with a few more stories and I think I might separate each genre into one post. I just realized there’s a lot of them.
• 07/22/2021 I updated this with new fics around I labelled then (new) so many fics we can read now.. Enjoy!!
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Hey Claire! Congrats on the 650 followers and Happy Birthday!!! You’re aren't the only one who's still writing anime blogs, but remember all that matters is how old you feel! 🥰
I’d love to join your event!
Describe yourself: gender, appareance, major course/work, hobbies, mbti.
So because I've got the attention span of a squrriel.
MHA please for the match up
Gender: Female
Appearance: 5’1”, Curly long dark brown hair and hazel eyes, I've been told my eyes are very pretty. My height is an issue with reaching stuff, but I’m not against trying to reach things myself. I hate needing assistance, but it's appreciated when they don't make fun of me for it lol.
Personality: I’m a pretty private person, so it's often ill know more about others than they know about me. I take a while to warm up to people, unless we have things in common. People can stress me out, and crowds aren't always my thing, but I don't mind them. I usually do my socializing and then I like to go home and relax with my safety bubble of home. I can be described as awkward sometimes as I don't always know what to say. I'm the worlds worst at small talk, but I can have In depth one on one conversations all day. I guess you could say I’m shy around new people unless we have something in common and you want to get to know me too. I’m good at reading body language so I can read more than most. I can be very chatty, and my sense of humor is very dark and sarcastic.
Mbti: (i’ll get back to you on this one)
Major: Nursing School / IV Tech
Hobbies: writing, reading, singing music, or humming. Working out, swimming. Movies and generally spending time with friends or playing pool at a bar is a lot of fun for me. I don't drink though, but sometimes it's nice to get out.
Sev my dear, I enjoyed reading your request and I have to say from the beginning I pictured who could be the perfect escort for my birthday party, here for you:
My Hero Academia: Mirio Togata
The perfect match for your life is a bubbly extrovert personality like Mirio!
Mirio is someone who can see through the surface, he likes mundane activities and parties and he knows when you want to come back home.
He helps you interacting with people and takes the lead if you feel in discomfort with them.
He doesn't feel ashamed to say embarassing things just to take you out and breath again to gain some peace of mind.
When you feel social anxiety he loves to take you and go stargazing while eating whatever you want to eat.
Dates with him consist in you helping grannies cross the road and help lost children at the mall, these actions help Mirio improve his mood since he became quirkless but helps you bonding with people without feeling the menace of knowing them.
What you prefer the most is definitely staying at home cooking together or just reading a book while you wait take outs!
If this isn't a balanced and fantastic relationship I don't know what it is!
Hope you liked this, you're welcome to help me donating a Ko-Fi if you want to, kisses 💜
#claire birthday event#claire milestone#my hero academia#mirio togata#mirio togata fluff#mha fluff#mha headcanons
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Champagne-- C.H
a/n: totally self-indulgent piece here, used as therapy for myself. yeah. might delete.
donate to my ko-fi here :)
Masterlist
Copyright talkfastromance4 © All works is intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction or any part or all contents in any form is prohibited. You may not, without written expression and consent from the author, distribute works amongst other social media platforms
• • • •
It’s late, nearing the bar close and Calum enters the dive bar close to his home. It’s pretty much vacant except for a few patrons scattered about the space and he sees a young woman sitting by herself with a whole bottle of champagne next to her.
Curious but keeping his distance at bay, he approaches the barstool next to her then nods at the bartender. He orders his drink, watching the motions while also glancing at the woman next to him. He takes in her outfit, dressed to the nines in a rose gold dress with a crown on her head that has a jeweled number placed in the middle. A sash has fallen to her legs, Calum can vaguely make out ‘Ha’ and ‘irthday’ to figure out it must be her birthday today.
He pushes a twenty dollar bill forward in exchange for his drink, glancing at the woman again. She puckers her lips to the bottle, takes a long drink and wrinkles her nose from the bubbly. Calum surveys the room to see if anyone is in the same attire as her; if her friends or family are around. When he spots two old men and a younger couple making out in the corner by a flashy game he realizes she’s alone.
Her phone dings and she moves sluggishly to swipe at the notification. She scoffs opening up her small clutch that’s also next to her, but with the alcohol in her system her dexterity is off and her phone clatters to the floor. Calum moves quickly to retrieve it for her just as she tries to get off the stool. Her legs are tangled in her sash and she falls into his chest.
Calum keeps his grip on her phone while also keeping her from falling to the sticky bar floor. He grunts helping her sit back on the stool, the sash completely falls in a small heap on the floor. He notices her shoes are rose gold and that she has a tattoo on her ankle before he looks into her eyes.
She’s drunk, that’s for sure, but he can see a sadness hidden behind the alcoholic lenses.
“Thank you,” she says softly, taking her phone from him. Their fingers brush, he notices how cold they are.
“You’re welcome, I don’t think there’s any damage,” he responds, eyes glancing at her champagne bottle that is nearly empty. Did she really drink that by herself? “Um, I’m Calum,” he holds out his hand.
She tells him her name slipping her ice cold hand in his, then he notices there’s goosebumps on her arms. Without a second thought, he removes his leather jacket draping it over her shoulders.
“Oh, please, you don’t have to--”
“You have goosebumps,” he shrugs then offers her half a grin, “can’t have the birthday girl freeze, can we?”
She bites her lip as tears free fall from her eyes. She tries to swipe them away but more tears come. Calum panics and grabs napkins that are in front of her from a little square tin.
“I’m sorry, what did I say? I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he apologizes and helps dab under her eyes with the napkin. He makes sure he doesn’t ruin her eye make-up which he also notices is rose gold. It must be her signature color, if he’s being honest, she looks really pretty in it.
“You’re the only one who noticed actually,” she sniffles letting him continue to dab at her cheeks. She reaches for the bottle but Calum is faster and moves it away.
“If you finish that you might throw up, that’s not fun,” he shakes his head.
“Too late,” she snickers then covers her face in her hands. “I’m so pathetic. I’m crying alone in a bar, puke and rallied and drank a whole bottle of champagne. And now a really cute stranger is drying my face.”
“It’s not pathetic,” he shakes his head, doing one final swipe under her eye. “And I’m glad to help make sure the pretty birthday girl’s eyeshadow is intact.” he tosses the napkin to the counter and pulls up the barstool so he can sit next to her. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m a really good listener. I’ll even buy you water.” He looks to the bartender who overheard his request.
“Water’s free,” she sniffs, giving him a watery laugh.
“So is kindness. Tell me why you’re in a bar alone on your birthday?”
“Everything went wrong. No one texted me back about my plans, I bought my own decorations and didn’t even put them up because I guess it’s “selfish” to want to decorate for your own birthday. I’ve been sitting here for hours and no one showed up,” her voice wavers, “so I decided to get drunk by myself by taking some shots, ordered an appetizer and drank and drank until I got sick. Then I felt better and bought myself this bottle of champagne. I feel like I’m in a poorly written movie.”
She moves to cover her face with her hands again just as a large glass of water is placed next to her bottle of champagne. Calum holds onto her wrists, gently moving them away from her face and pushes the water in front of her. She drinks it heartily, Calum’s fixated on the rings she’s wearing as the water level descends.
“I’m sorry that this is happening to you,” he tells her truthfully, she shrugs while she continues to drink her water. “How about I celebrate with you? We’ll do whatever you want.”
“You’d do that for a stranger?” she raises her eyebrows, resting her cheek in her hand.
“No one deserves to be alone on their birthday. What would you like to do first?”
She stares at him for a long time, finishes her water then huffs out a breath. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
They end up walking to a gas station and he buys her all the snacks and candy she wants. Then they go to Target and he buys card games and other board games they could play. Their final destination is a spot on the beach, his headlights shining on them while they eat and play.
While they’re playing Candyland, they also play 20 questions and find out each other’s likes and dislikes, dreams and fears, hobbies, favorite movies, the best and worst memories. When their snacks are nearly gone, she unfastens her heels then stands to her feet holding out her hand.
He takes it willingly, loving how her pink nails peek out from his black leather jacket and also loving how she still has it on.
“Where are we going birthday girl?” he grins following her to the edge of the waves.
“In the water,” she smiles. She squeals when her toes touch the frothy water.
“Hang on,” he chuckles toeing off his shoes and socks, his hand still firm in hers. Once he’s barefoot he joins her in the water, biting back a swear but it still breaks through. “Shit! This is cold.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she giggles, wading in a little deeper. She laces her fingers through his, kicking her feet in the waves. “Thank you for this, for spending my birthday with me, a total stranger.”
“I don’t think we’re strangers anymore,” he smiles watching her play in the water. The light from his car makes her crown sparkle and he swears he’s never seen someone so authentically beautiful.
“That’s nice,” she sighs airily.
Her body twists away from him to explore the length of the water’s edge, but he’s quick to reign her into him. The water splashes against their legs, she giggles from the movement and Calum adjusts her crown. His eyes move to hers slowly, his fingers caressing her cheek until he combs through her hair.
She stares at him expectantly, eyes wide as he leans down. He touches her lips softly, tasting her lip gloss and cherry coke. She brings her hand to his cheek, nails scratching against his scruff. He removes his hand from hers to grab onto her waist, pulling her against him. She lifts her other arm to loop around his neck, the motion makes his jacket fall off her shoulders.
“Oh no! Your jacket!” she exclaims pulling her lips from his.
“I don’t care,” he shakes his head, rubbing his thumb on her cheek, then onto her lower lip. He pulls another kiss from her. “You can pay me back.”
“How?” she giggles playing with his hair.
“Take me out on my birthday,” his hand on her lower back moves a little lower.
“When’s that?” she laughs breathlessly, swaying in the water with him.
“In six months,” he grins then kisses her more feverishly until his headlights burn out and they’re left kissing in the ocean under the stars.
• • • •
Taglist: @galcalirwin @cashtonasff5sos @thecurlsofgod @myloverboyash @rotten-kandy @tea4sykes @jannimoeller3 @loveroflrh @iovehemmings @cxddlyash @princesslrh @here-for-the-uproars @katiaw2 @g-l-pierce @fairyintheglass @gosh-im-short @banditocth @dezzym17 @koalacal @lukeisbaby @spicycal @mysticalhood @notinthesameguey @wastedheartcth @atlcal @itjustkindahappenedreally @calumance @babylon-corgis @thew0rldneedsmcreycghurt @lanternlover2 @istaywithmyjonas @calteahood @sarcastically-defensive17 @another-lonely-heart @calumhoodaf @frontmanash @philthepegacorn @mantlereid @lukedorkyhemmings @addietagglikesbands @kikixfandoms @sanrioluke @mayve-hems @morguelth @haikucal @thatscooibaby @meghanrose05 @idontneedanyone @dinosaursandsocks @cassie-sos @suchalonelysunflower @burstintocolor @zhangyixingxing1
**if your url has a strike through it’s because your blog didn’t show up as a tag! :(
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Slow your roll there Thomas Middleditch fans, new and old...
TW: Abuse, emotional/mental manipulation, gaslighting, body-shaming
You might wanna sit down for this. :-/
I’ve noticed that there’s been some more Silicon Valley/Jake and Amir hype happening (most likely as a result of the fabulous Middleditch and Schwartz Netflix special) and for those of you that are new here, welcome but proceed with caution.
In truth, the amount of recent fandom revolving around Thomas Middleditch has honestly left me dumbfounded. Because not to be that person but...
...he’s pretty awful.
And given how rampant cancel culture has become, I’m GENUINELY surprised how most of y’all let this fly for so long. Or even worse, let it slip past you in the first place.
And to that I say---no more.
Thomas and Andrée:
Thomas around 2010-2012 was romantically involved with a fellow comedian/actress named Andrée Vermulen.
They eventually broke things off and he started dating his now ex-wife Mollie (who I’ll get to). It wasn’t until June of 2016 when Andrée came forward about how Thomas (who she chose not to name, maybe due to the fact that he had a very popular HBO comedy on at the time and wanted to avoid any drama) pressured her into getting breast implants. He preyed on her self-image issues, saying he was a “boob guy” and instilling the idea within her that her natural breasts weren’t ‘good enough’. She got the procedure, which he’d initially offered to pay for but then demanded afterwards that she pay him back for it. The implants caused her both immense emotional and physical trauma as you can go onto read about in her original Instagram post.
(This goes without saying but please do not send any hate towards Andrée, she’s very clearly put all of this behind her and I honestly feel bad drudging all this up.)
After getting a removal surgery, she decided to keep the implants and donate them to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Los Angeles. She originally wanted to send them to Thomas but decided that it would be more cathartic to give them to a place where her story could be told over and over again and shared with others who may have needed to hear it.
God bless that woman. :,)
Thomas and Mollie:
Since many fans chose to sadly ignore the whole Andrée situation, it flew under the radar. But it was admittedly pretty hard to ignore the onslaught of websites and blogs when last year in September...this was everywhere you looked:
Now, at first glance, it seems pretty harmless. It was 2019 after all. Non-monogamous relationship dynamics such as polyamory and open relationships seemed to be pretty widely accepted and still are.
That was never the issue.
The issue was Thomas single-handedly committing one of the most preventable, egregious acts of foot-in-mouth syndrome I and many others have ever seen.
In short, Thomas waited until AFTER he and Mollie wed in 2015 to express his desires to “get non-traditional” with their relationship.
What a prick.
He goes onto describe himself as being a very sexual person which again, isn’t a bad thing. The fucked up aspect is where he basically acknowledges that Mollie is a private person and then airs out ALL of their dirty laundry in a Playboy article that I can’t help but feel is a publicity stunt.
Not in it’s legitimacy. But just as a way to get his name back in the airwaves following the bomb of a Godzilla movie that he starred in and to drum up interest in the last season of Silicon Valley that would be premiering later that year. Either way, I highly recommend reading the full article as it gives you a better idea as to how Thomas sort of dragged Mollie into all of it.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of women who have come forward online (most of these are unconfirmed however), saying that they were approached by either the couple or just Middleditch following his improv shows for group sex.
There was also the time a photographer friend of his posted on IG a photo of a scantily clad woman (I’m sorry for not including the post he was replying to, I genuinely forgot the person’s @ and will try to find it if I can) and THIS was his response:
Just...why?
It wasn’t until this past May, when he and Mollie, who had been married for 5 years, filed for divorce over “irreconcilable differences”. **insert pikachu surprised face**
Thomas has since expressed regret over his Playboy interview, saying that it was a “painful learning experience” but wasn’t it also JoJo who said “too little, too late”.
Yeah, sure seems like it.
TO CONCLUDE;
You can by all means still be a fan of Silicon Valley. I’m currently sat five feet away from my season 4 “Changing The Way Things Change” poster on my loft wall. You can by all means still like Richard. Who doesn’t miss that anxious, awkward lil bean? You can still be a fan of Jake and Amir. You can still like Doobs. And Solar Opposites and Captain Underpants and anything else he’s known for and been a part of. And hell, you can still be a fan of Middleditch and Schwartz and even...still like Thomas (why would you tho??).
But if you do choose to stand by Middleditch and actions and his future projects, please don’t at the same time feign support for abuse victims and when you are LITERALLY supporting a known abuser and manipulator.
That’s all.
Stay safe out there.
- Soph <3
#tw: abuse#thomas middleditch#n e ways stan ben schwartz#silicon valley hbo#middleditch & schwartz#richard hendricks#silicon valley#jake and amir#doobs#the final girls#solar opposites#jarrich#thomas#middleditch#tw: gaslighting#tw: body shaming#tw: emotional manipulation#cancelled#celebs#celebrity#celebrities#television
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Holly & Ivy (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, 2020)
We could be broke together. Living our dreams.
Starring: Janel Parrish, Marisol Nichols, Jeremy Jordan, Sadie Coleman
Plot Synopsis: A contractor helps a woman renovate a house so she can adopt a sick neighbor's two children. (x)
In My Humble Opinion: Early on in the movie, the female lead goes around to a bunch of libraries hoping to interview for a children’s librarian position. She’s not able to get it because a bunch of the libraries are gong under hiring freezes. One librarian notes that with her Masters in Library Sciences she should be able to get a data management job. And I was like, “Oh! I know about that! My friend, Rachel, who is a real children’s librarian told me about how she learned about that kind of stuff when she offered to help me fix my archive!”
So like any intrepid made-for-TV Christmas movie blogger, I decided to ask my friend, Rachel, a real librarian about Holly & Ivy to see if it handled this fake librarian content well. Thankfully, my real librarian friend had also watched the movie too which made this “interview” possible (I say this very loosely, it was mainly a freewheeling text conversation that I edited for clarity). Questions are italicized. Answers are not.
How many books are in your car?
I don’t have a car.
If you had a car, how many books would be in it?
Going by how many books I have in my apartment that currently do not fit on my bookshelf: 13. No wait, 14.
Hiring freezes are a problem for children’s librarians?
All librarians, since the majority of a library’s budget is through government funding.
Have you made 3-D snowflakes as a librarian?
I make 3-D snowflakes with the kids at the library every year. Seeing that made me feel like a big huge Hallmark stereotype. Also making 3D snowflakes is fun and easy and I recommend it if anyone has scrap paper or construction paper for crafts.
Are the Trixie Belden books really discontinued? I remember reading them as a kid.
According to Wikipedia, they were out of print for a number of years, which does happen to many books even ones which were once considered popular, but the publisher did release some new editions in the early 2000s, but not all of them. So I guess so. [The library I work at] has e-book copies.
Can you quote children’s authors off the top of your head?
I can’t quote children’s authors on command and do not ask me to.
As a librarian, would you date Jeremy Jordan’s character?
Yeah he’s cute, and I got a good dude vibe. He seemed very self-aware.
How do you feel about home improvement projects?
I once lived in a house where the previous owner had done a lot of home DIY themselves which led to a light switch like six feet up because that was where he ran out of wire. I recommend you do it only if you know what you are doing and have the right supplies. I admire those who can.
Overall, did you like the movie?
It was fine but too sad and that ending was very sudden. I knew it couldn’t wrap up before we knew if she was deemed capable of taking care of the kids but to time jump and kind of gloss over the mom’s death was like a choice. The romance was solid but boring.
Any other commentary on the library content?
Libraries are important! Please highlight how they need funding so that qualified passionate people who genuinely care about library services aren’t unemployed because of budget reasons. Defund the police and fund schools and libraries and community programs! That’s what you should take away from this Hallmark Christmas movie.
Thank you for your expertise.
So there you have it. A real librarian’s thoughts on this Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie. Because I know that’s what everyone’s top concern is when watching a Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie.... the authenticity of the librarian content. You’re welcome. Support your local library!
Watch If: You have elves in your home, if your tree trimming requires choreography or if you have been interested in gingerbread houses since you were six.
Skip If: You don’t have an overwhelming passion for building furniture, if you have no problem borrowing things from strangers or if have burned water.
Final Rating: ★ ★ (★) ☆ ☆
If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to [email protected] through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!
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(Not Really) Tagged by: @scienceoftheidiot, who’s rad and welcomed all followers to do this! :D
Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 people
Tagging: Like my predecessor, I don’t like to tag much, but please do this and tag me if it brings you pleasure!
1) Name: Malina
2) Gender: Female
3) Star Sign: Taurus
4) Height: 5’3′’-5′4′’, somewhere in there
5) Time: 2:56 pm
6) Birthday: May 3
7) Favorite Bands: Celtic Thunder, Queen, Blind Guardian, Blackmoor’s Night?? I don’t really follow bands as much as individual songs tbh
8) Favorite solo artists: Phil Ochs, Billy Joel, Leslie Fish??
9) song(s) stuck in my head: The ENTIRE Les Mis soundtrack recently, but yesterday we watched Rudolph so a bit of “We Are Santa’s Elves”
10)Last Movie: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Rankin-Bass)
11)Last show: The Joy of Painting or, if it counts, youtuber BlindWave’s reaction to Hamilton.
12) When did I Create this blog?: I think spring 2013? When I was in college and all my nerd friends were doing it and I wanted to connect with them through that and understand what they were talking about??
13) What do I post?: reblogs of pretty things, smart things, nice things, fandom things, righteous things, funny things, cute things, and my vERY OCCASIONAL THOUGHTS on life or fandom or whatever??
14) Last thing googled: "mercy corps” bc I was thinking about donating to them, but the more entertaining recent searches are “shelley french translation timeline” and “when did people stop believing in brain fever” both of which were historical research for Les Mis fanfics! XD
15) other blogs: None that I use currently
16) do I get asks?: Not much. I’d like more, but ya know, my social disposition and attention span being what they are, it’s only natural
17)why I chose my url: Cyrano de Bergerac quote! Referencing Don Quixote’s symbolic windmills! Fighting FOR THE IDEAL!! Reaching for the STARS!!
18):following: 2,093 XD
19): followers: 295 HEROES
20) average hours of sleep: I haven’t thought about this in like a year and I won’t now either. When I have more things to do, it’s less, but I also stay up to all hours for no reason so it’s really utter chaos
21): favorite number: 64
22) instruments: I play the guitar and recorder (poorly) and can work out basic tunes on piano sometimes. My best instrument is my voice, but it’s still a little shaky on the actually reading music bit
23) what am I wearing: blue and purple plaid pants, reddish under-armor shirt, a blanket draped on my shoulders
24) Dream job: One where I MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD!! And one where I TELL STORIES!! Combining all the arts! Music! Drawing! Acting! Writing!! Comics and musicals and filk albums and novels and ALL THE THINGS!!
25) Dream trip: Egypt! And also the Andes!!
26) favorite food: Chinese food from this ONE specific local restaurant, and in general, French fries, especially curly fries.
27) nationality: American, ugh
28) Favorite song: At the Moment?? Probs “Red and Black” from Les Mis. Or “Drink With Me” if I’m feeling Sentimental, or “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” if I’m feeling . . . something else.
29) Last book read: Vincent and Theo! A sort of story-like history/biography about Vincent Van Gogh and his supportive brother! Haven’t finished. Last book I FINISHED was Les Miserables!
30) Top 3 fictional universes id like to live in: Middle-Earth, Hyrule, and the Pokemon world, off the top of my head??
Thanks for reading!! Feel free to participate!
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Welcome welcome my fellow reader. Do you happen to have a narcissist in your life? Are you just waking up and realizing that you in fact have done nothing wrong and are actually not the bad guy? Or are you still stuck in the neverending cycle? Here are 11 signs below that you’re involved in narcissistic abuse.
1. You dissociate as a survival mechanism.
-Dissociation is the state of disconnecting to deal with said problems. You might not often know that you are doing it but most say that they feel like they are in a fog and looking through a screen or film as if they are watching a movie.
-Dissociation is a way we protect ourselves from getting more hurt by the abuse.
2. You walk on Eggshells.
-Most of my life I was always told by my Nparent that she had to “walk on eggshells around me”. Which ended up being a form of projection which I will explain later. For those that don’t want to wait, projection is a form of simply projecting their issues onto us and being told that we are doing certain behaviors for example that actually they are the persons committing said actions instead.
- Walking on eggshells includes being overly careful while talking to said N, making sure that your tone of voice is just right and being overly careful with what you say because you know that anything you can say can be taken out of context and you don’t want them to blow up on you. This is not normal . Normal people (well no one is normal but you get where I’m going) will not blow up on you for not saying the wrong thing and they also won’t hold it against you for years.
3. You put aside your basic needs for them to please them.
-Notice how you could practically save their life with a kidney donation and they’d still mention how your kidney wasn’t good enough for them. I’m using this as an example scenario although I’m sure some of you have actually experienced this sadly. Never give a narcissist what they ask for because they will never be happy with what you give them.
4. You’re dealing with health issues as a side effect to the abuse
-Most common are high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. Heck, I even heard of someone who had constant UTI’s her whole life until she moved out of her parent’s house. If you see that your symptoms are getting worse and festering, or that you just have any to begin with; plan your exit strategy right now even if it might take a couple of years. The hope of being able to leave might lessen what you are going through physically and emotionally.
5. You’ve developed a sense of mistrust in others.
-It’s hard to trust others when the people closest to us flip personalities on a whim. How are we supposed to trust someone when we know that one minute they hate us and the next we happen to be the greatest thing since sliced bread? Narcissists will play you up, then play you down, then play you all the way up again.
6. You’ve experienced suicidal tendencies and/or self harm.
-It’s a way of coping with the N-abuse from sense of hopelessness and helplessness.
7. Self Isolation
-Many abusers teach their victims how to self isolate by getting rid of the friends and anyone close in their life that can see through the abuse. Narcissists are good at seeing these people before the people themselves can see them.
8. You find yourself comparing yourself to others, often blaming yourself for the abuse.
-For example, in grade school at Parent day I would spend it alone often watching other parents lovingly interact with my classmates and I would think to myself “why isn’t my mom like that?”, therefor leading me to believe what many of us believe that we are the ones who cause our parents to act this way, not the other way around.
9. You self sabotage and Self destruct
-After all, when we are used to everything crashing down no matter how good it gets, we get caught in a vicious pattern of not trusting our hopes and dreams and often fall in the pit of self shame caused by years, months or even weeks of insults.
10. You protect your abuser and even gas light yourself.
-Gas lighting is basically telling yourself or being told that you’re something or doing something when you’re not. Or being told that something is the way it is when it really isn’t. The term comes from a play where the cheating husband would turn the attic light on to go through hidden belongings he didn’t want his wife knowing existed. When the attic light would go on, the lights in the house would dim. The wife caught onto this and confronted him about the dimming lights to which he told her, “you’re just imagining it, I don’t see any dim lights”. And she believed it at first until she woke up from the abuse that started and continued to happen.
-You find yourself making excuses to friends about said N-abuser’s behaviour.
11. You fear doing what you love and achieving success.
-You walk on the eggshells of your own dreams because in your mind you feel that you have a higher chance at failure than success.
If any of these rang true to you, you might be involved in narcissistic abuse. The only way out is to slowly wake up and realize what is going on. That is the first step to getting out of the vicious cycle. Once you start to wake up and face the music, you’ll find that your narcissist might even call you out on being “different” then you were the other day. My narcissist constantly tells me that I have an attitude, which most of the time I don’t. The only time it comes out is when I’ve had it with her and from this I have learned to just shut my mouth and choose my battles. I will talk more about my experience in the blogs to follow. Any stories to share? Send them to [email protected] to be featured on this blog (you will remain anonymous).
If you happen to be a Narcissist who belittles and demeans others, you are not welcome here and will be blocked if you happen to cause trouble on this page. We don’t have time for people like you.
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Missing Pieces (The Haunting of Braidwood Manor)
Title: Missing Pieces
Book: The Haunting of Braidwood Manner
Character: Hannah/MC with mention of the Waverly family and a few Freshmen characters
Rating: PG-13
Warning/Trigger: Mourning, loss.
A/N: This goes out to @kennaxval and @strangerofbraidwood . Tags are at the end of the story. If you would like to be added, moved, or removed please let me know. If you enjoyed the story please consider giving it a re-blog so others might enjoy it as well.
Turning up the collar of her cream colored wool coat, Hannah hurried down the crowded sidewalk towards the little flower shop on the corner. It had taken some smooth talking, along with the promise of a glowing online review, but the owner had come through for her. “Be right there,” a frail voice called out when Hannah tumbled into the little shop. A few minutes later a petite elderly woman with owl like eyes and a white top knot appeared from behind a curtain, a smile on her wizened face. “How might I help you?”
“I placed an order for Hannah.” Tucking her lips between her teeth, Hannah waited with baited breathe. 'Please don't have sold my flowers, I know its Valentine's Day and I'm late getting here but those flowers are important,' she thought, her heart constricting at the thought. The recipients wouldn't know whether she brought a single flower or a full dozen each but Hannah would know. She'd made a promise to herself and come hell or high water she would honor it.
“Ah yes!” The elfin lady's face lit up. “Five dozen red roses. I have them in the back.” Without another word, she ducked behind the curtain. Moments later she returned, five beautifully arranged bouquets carefully set upright in a wooden crate. “Thought this might make it easier for you,” she beamed. “Must some very important people for you go through all this trouble.”
“The most important.” Emotion constricted her throat. It never got easier. Someone had told her that it would but they had lied. 'Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry,' she silently chanted as she handed over her credit card. Two hundred and fifty dollars on flowers would hurt, and she would be paying on them for months, but they were the only thing she could do for the people she loved. In an ideal world she would have been able to select the perfect gifts and enjoy the excitement on their faces when they opened them, but Hannah had learned and accepted that there was nothing ideal about the world in which she lived. It was a cruel, lonely place.
The florist offered her a gentle smile, her gnarled fingers raising in a quick goodbye when Hannah hoisted the crate into her arms. “Do come back.”
Hannah murmured that she would before ducking her head and carrying her crate of flowers out the door. The quiet, gravity of how she was spending Valentine's Day weighed on her as she made her way towards the older Toyota she had purchased with a prayer and a thousand bucks Victor had loaned her. She carefully set the crate in the passenger seat, wincing when she glanced at the time on the dash. There was only two hours before her shift at the coffee shop. Her heart screamed that it wasn't nearly enough time while her mind reminded her it was the perfect amount of time. It wasn't good to dwell where she was headed.
Saint Michael's looked the way it always did. A picturesque cathedral that looked cozy despite its size, and air of welcome about the cemetery tucked next to it. Sniffing and then clearing her throat, Hannah gently gathered one of the bouquets in the crook of her arm. She murmured a greeting to the groundskeeper and Widow Harrington before focusing on the headstone to the left of the statue of Saint Michael himself. “Happy Valentine's Day Jonathon,” she said softly, crouching before the marble slab that was etched with her brother's basic information. Birth. Death. Loving Brother and Son. And only a dash to represent the life he had lived. “I know, red roses on Valentine's Day is so contrived but hey, I wouldn't be your annoying little sister if I didn't intentionally do things to piss you off.” She squeezed her eyes shut, willing to the tears to disappear. It was a useless plea. The salty drops were already running down her cheeks. “Your friend Zig put in an application at the coffee shop,” she whispered. Crouching, she placed the bouquet in the urn attached to the headstone. “I told him I would put in a good word for him. He was always nice. A little hot headed at times but nice.” Her fingers shook as she fluffed out the arrangement, shifting the stems until they looked the way she wanted. “I'm supposed to hang out with this girl Kaitlin and her roommates after work tonight. We're going to try to make it to the midnight release of that new wizard movie. It's more your kind of movie then mine but...I told you I would try and I'm trying.” Taking a deep breathe, she laid her palm across his name. “I love you Jonathon, and I miss you more and more each day.” She blinked back several tears and let out another huff of air. “Don't forget to look after Eleanor, Thomas, Clarissa, and Simon for me. They're our family now too.”
Clearing her throat, Hannah stood and hurried back towards her car. There were those who thought she was crazy for wanting to spend Valentine's Day wandering from cemetery to cemetery, leaving expensive flowers that would wilt and die. What they thought didn't matter. Valentine's Day was supposed to be about love, about reminding people how important they were and even if it didn't make sense to anyone else, what she was doing made sense to her. During the thirty minute drive to Braidwood Manor she went over the things she wanted to tell the Waverly's. She'd uncovered so many things that they would have wanted to know and it sucked that she couldn't actually tell them. On New Year's she'd tried. She'd let herself be conned by some gypsy who swore they could commune with the dead. Hannah might have bought into it if the woman hadn't gone into some spiel about their peaceful deaths. Murder and suicide were never peaceful. 'Stop thinking about that,' Hannah ordered, blinking back tears as she turned her car off the main road and onto the seldom traveled lane would take her to the family cemetery where Eleanor and her siblings were buried. 'Remember your promise. You're only going to focus on the good.'
“Happy Valentine's Day,” she called out, her voice echoing in the woods that surrounded the small plot. “I tried to get a different color for each of you but the florist was only able to promise red, so...I'm sorry Thomas but you're going to have to get over having the same as Simon.” She walked around the car to retrieve the crate from the passenger seat. “I have some news that will make you smile Clarissa but first...” Hannah stopped in front of the first of four identical headstones. Eleanor Waverly. She dropped to her knees and traced the name with the tip of her finger. 'I should have said yes,' she silently sobbed,' when you offered to stay I should have been selfish and said yes.' It had seemed too good to be true, nobody got a second chance at life. Or did they? Hannah found herself questioning that more and more. She'd read some things, met some people, specifically an Egyption antiquities dealer named Kamilah and her girlfriend/assistant Lily, that made her think maybe there was more to life after death than, well, death. “I discovered something you would find interesting. There's a Waverly Hall at Hartfeld. I had forgotten all about it because I'm not an English major. I did a little digging and it turns out the funds to build it were donated by your father! Since you...none of you...had the opportunity to attend college he had a hall built in your honor. There's even a plaque with your names on it.” Shifting slightly, she reached for a bouquet and laid it at the base of the headstone. “I wish I could give you these in person. I mean, if you were here I probably would have done something a little more personal like baked a cake or made your favorite dinner.” She paused, closing her eyes. “I should have told you that I loved you,” she murmured. “I should have been brave, like you, and just...” She shook her head. There was no use in dwelling on what she could not change.
“Clarissa,” she choked out, scooting on to the next head stone. “I found out the most fascinating thing. Do you remember that boy you were telling me about? The one you had a mad crush on but never had the chance to tell?” Reaching back, Hannah dragged the crate towards her. “I think he might have a crush on you as well because...” smiling sadly, she placed another bouquet near Clarissa's headstone, “...he had a daughter named Clarissa. I tried to find out more information, like did any of his ancestors know how his wife and him came about that name...and in the process I got to actually meet your namesake! She's an elementry school teacher in Northbridge. She says her father named her after a dear friend of his that died too soon. He didn't forget you Clarissa. He made sure you were remembered.” As she had done with Eleanor's, she traced Clarissa's name, her heart tightening with each letter. Her hand fell away and she made herself move on to the next headstone. Thomas.
“I'm not sure if you heard me telling Eleanor about Waverly Hall at Hartfeld, but that isn't the only memorial on campus. My friend Kaitlin is a music major and every day she practices piano in the Thomas Waverly room. Your father did that for you...just you.” The crate was almost empty, save for the two bouquets for the boys. It hurt to pull out the flowers, to lay them in the dirt that covered where Thomas's body rest. “When I found that out I had to tell her about you. What an amazing musician you were and how you probably would have become famous if you hadn't died so young.” It was hard to say what Thomas's musical future would have been but Hannah liked to think he would have become a household name. “And Simon,” she forced herself to lay the last of the flowers against his headstone, “I found your insect collection in our science department. College students marvel over it and the fact that it was built by someone so young makes it even more awe inspiring.”
Rising to her feet, Hannah struggled against the sob tightening her throat. She had known this would be hard, had thought she was prepared for the onslaught of emotions, but like so many times before she'd been wrong. “I miss you,” she whispered, her eyes welling with a fresh onslaught of tears. “I miss you more than you could possibly know.” Sniffling, she took a deep breathe and let her eyes wander from headstone to headstone. “I...I have to go now but I promise I'll be back soon.” She took a shuddering breathe, whispered her love once more, and then made her way back to the car. If she hurried, she would just make it to work on time and then after..after she would try to pretend her heart wasn't shattered in a million pieces. 'Who knows,' an all to familiar voice whispered on the wind, 'maybe you'll find love again.'
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Episode 8: A Very Long Engagement & Parasite
Please consult these Instagram slideshows for accompanying images:
A Very Long Engagement
Parasite
Both
Welcome to The Costume Plot.
Jojo
I'm Jojo Siu.
Sarah
And I’m Sarah Timm. We're professional designers with a passion for costume design and the performing arts. Our podcast does contain spoilers. Accompanying slideshows for each movie are linked in the episode description.
Jojo
We hope you'll join us every other week as we delve into the wonderful world of costume design in The Costume Plot. [music]
Sarah
Hi, welcome.
Jojo
Welcome! So we just wanted to give a shout out to all of our new listeners this week. Sarah, you want to tell them a little bit about what you did? [laughs]
Sarah
Yeah, my favorite fashion blog, Go Fug Yourself, who-- I have been following them for literally like, 10 years, at least. I emailed them. And I was like, "I love you. Could you possibly shout us out?" And they did! They were so kind. And we had a huge spike in listeners. So hello, welcome. We are so happy to have you here.
Jojo
Yeah!
Sarah
And we hope you like the show. Because we're really excited that you're here. [laughs]
Jojo
Yes. And we would be nothing without our listeners. So thank you so much for adding to our numbers. And also just getting to know us a little bit better through this podcast. So, welcome.
Sarah
Yeah. We've had a couple of Instagram DMs from people who are just really excited to have found us, and I... I said this to my friends, I was like, "I feel like we have something really good. And we just need to find our audience." So like, I hope that we're getting close to finding more people, you know?
Jojo
Yeah, definitely.
Sarah
And then another thing just at the top, I wanted to... I had this idea this week, and then Jojo was like, "Yeah, that sounds good." I listen to this other podcast, it's-- I mean, it's called Good Christian Fun. Shout out to them. But they do this thing where to incentivize people to give them reviews, they donate $1 for every review they get on iTunes. So we're going to try that.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
So if you could leave us a review, that'll also help us grow our audience. And then we're going to donate $1 if you do that, and we're going to pick... we haven't decided which charity yet. But it's it's going to be something related to our subject matter. So like, Dress for Success, which is the one that like helps people find wardrobes for... to find careers. Or maybe Equity Fights AIDS, which is like the Broadway Cares foundation that everybody knows about. So yeah!
Jojo
Yeah, definitely.
Sarah
Please review us!
Jojo
Or, if there's... I was gonna say also, if there's people who have charities related to what we talked about, and have an interest in sending money somewhere, please let us know. We'll consider it. And think about it. So yes, please give us reviews.
Sarah
Yeah, if there's like a theater costume specific, or even film costume specific charity... I don't know what that would be. But yeah, if there's a good cause, a worthy cause you know of, please send it our way.
Jojo
Mmhmm. It also just gets us knowing what's out there as well. So, always better.
Sarah
Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of theaters are struggling right now. So like, a good cause is always to donate just to a theater. But I don't-- I don't know if we should single one out because like... we're in California...
Jojo
There's so many.
Sarah
Yeah. There's so many, like, how do you pick? Yeah.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
I don't know.
Jojo
Cool. That's so exciting! New year, new things.
Sarah
New year, new us. [laughs]
Jojo
I know, in the midst of all the craziness that has happened this week.
Sarah
Oh, God. Yeah. We hope they we are a little distraction from the craziness... in the world.
Jojo
Yes. That's what we try to be.
Sarah
Talking about some pretty dresses. Well, not in the case of my movie this week, but... [both laugh]
Jojo
I was gonna say, "Mmm... Maybe not!"
Sarah
So what's theme this week, Jojo?
Jojo
Yeah, our theme, I'm super excited about. Because Sarah and I decided to do foreign films this week. And this is actually the first time both of us have not seen these movies prior to this week's recording.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
So that's also really exciting. Because, you know, we don't always choose movies that we've seen thousands and thousands of times. Of course, it means we watch it at least a couple times before we talk about it on this podcast.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
But we are not the experts, just remember that this is because we love talking about these movies. And I'm really excited to be talking about a movie that I've heard a lot of good things about and then finally had the chance to see. So this movie that I'm going to be covering is actually called "A Very Long Engagement." It's a French film, which... I actually do watch quite a few foreign films. I watch a lot of Korean films. And I also watched a lot of... I should say, Korean dramas, not really Korean films. [bl] And then I also watch a lot of Bollywood, but this is one of the few French films that I've gotten to see, and it's the same director who did "Amélie," Jean-Pierre Jeunet. He's actually a self taught director who teamed up with a designer-slash-illustrator named Caro, and they together came up with one of their first projects, "Delicatessen." Which was one of their first full length movies. And it actually won four César Awards, which is basically like the French version of the Academy Awards, which is amazing.
Sarah
Nice.
Jojo
Obviously, "Amélie" is another one of his that Americans will probably recognize a little bit more. And then he also did "Casanova," which was a TV movie. So it's, you know, most of his films are not going to be as recognized to an American audience unless you study more art films, because he does have a very art film bend. But just the fact that he's come from kind of this self taught direction is pretty amazing. And then our costume designer is Madeline Fontaine. She's most well known for "Jackie," she was nominated for the Academy Award there, but she also won a César Award for Best Costume Design for "A Very Long Engagement." So that was kind of the claim to fame. A little bit of background about the movie, it is actually set in 1917. The director was really fascinated with World War I and did actually three years of research before he even started filming this movie...
Sarah
Wow!
Jojo
...which is pretty amazing. He has a very specific and very quirky perspective, which obviously you see that in "Amélie," but it does carry over a little bit into this movie as well, mostly in the way that the characters kind of interact. And also the way he kind of jumps from place to place in the script, which is also very important and very reminiscent of "Amélie." This is obviously a much darker movie because it's about World War II-- World War I, sorry. And there's a lot of like, violence and gore, and body parts being blown up.
Sarah
Really?
Jojo
And he really wanted to depict the war as it would have been, and as he-- as, you know, normal people would have experienced it, as opposed to a more glorified... or, I guess, romanticized version of the war. So, so that was one of the things that he talked about wanting to really emphasize in this movie. And I think the costume designer also reflected that pretty well. The movie itself is actually based on an original novel by Sébastien Japrisot. I'm probably saying that wrong as well. [bl] It received a nomination for Best Art Direction, as well as Best Cinematography at the Oscars. Unfortunately, it didn't win either at the Oscars, but it did win, again, several César Awards in France.
Sarah
It can be very hard for foreign movies to break through to like, regular Oscars that aren't just Best Foreign Film.
Jojo
Yes, definitely. And it's interesting too, because there's all these comments from people who love this movie, you know, who all rave about how they should have gotten the Oscar awards, and all these other things. And I'm sure there's a lot of other politics involved with that as well. But yes, beautifully stunning movie, there's a lot of... it's a little hard to follow, I will say. That's kind of one of the things that I think was a disadvantage of this movie. Because, and this is also very characteristic of "Amélie," his movies do tend to be very... non-chronological?
Sarah
Right.
Jojo
And nothing is like, in order. And you also aren't really told where-- what time period you're in, what location you're in. It's a series of a lot of flashbacks. And it's more about kind of the idea of memory and sort of whether it's Audrey Tatou's memories, or other characters' memories. You're kind of not really ever sure where you're at in the movie. So that was kind of hard to track when I was trying to do costumes and figuring out like, what scene is this? And when is this happening? I almost wish that I had bought the DVD, because apparently there's an extensive hour and a half long documentary about the entire process, including costumes.
Sarah
Oh my gosh.
Jojo
So unfortunately, I won't be able to speak to some of that stuff that's on the documentary, but I've been told to go and just watch that. Because apparently it's pretty extensive. But I will talk about the costumes that I covered for this, just because there are still a lot of really beautiful details that I think we can gather just from costume... you know, sort of fact-finding as you're watching.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
Before I go into that, I did want to start with a quote from one of the cinematographers because I think especially in film, costume designers do have to work very hand in hand with cinematographers, because it's all about the image. And the cinematographer is kind of like your art-director-boss, for lack of a better term. Obviously, they're the ones that are looking at the whole entire image, the entire big picture visual of the movie. So one of the things Delbonnel, probably also saying that wrong, said in his quote was... "Delbonnel's richly colored images transport the viewer past realism and into what could be called 'cinematic impressionism.'" Sorry, this was something that was said ABOUT his cinematography.
Sarah
Mm, okay.
Jojo
"As the film reaches its emotional conclusion, the viewer is left with an unforgettable patchwork of multi-hued memories." So this was from The American Cinematographer, which is an international journal that follows film and digital production techniques. So I thought that was actually a really accurate portrayal. And we'll see this as we go through the costumes... of, you know, what the cinematography did and how the costumes helped reflect that. Let's see... the other thing that I wanted to mention before I get started, because I'm going to be covering a lot of Audrey Tatou's character's costumes, because she is our main character. And she's really the one that we see the most. One of the things that IndieWire actually wrote about her character was that it's one that gives off "sentimentality and intense emotion," and it's a fine balance between the two. So that's definitely something that, you know... as I was looking through this movie, I was able to look at how the costume designer was able to do that. And I think she did a pretty successful job.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
So the first image we're looking at is actually her in bed. And this is shortly before she's-- obviously, she's heard in the war that her fiancé Manech... so, Audrey Tatou's character's name is Mathilde. And basically the idea is, the story follows her and her fiancé Manech, who has been sent off to war. And he's one of five soldiers who basically tries to get their hand decapacitated--incapacitated, sorry, is the right word--in order to try and prevent... like, to try and escape the torment of war, or the torture of war. However that happens. And it's a series of different stories about how each of them did that. And in the case of her fiancé, he basically lights a cigarette and holds his hand up over the lines and then gets shot in the hand.
Sarah
Mmm.
Jojo
So with that, obviously, it's a way for them to try and get home, or get sent home and say, "Okay, this is a war injury." However, it also was a sign of essentially cowardice. So their way of trying to punish them was to basically throw them over the trench lines and leave them on German no man's land, so that the Germans could basically take care of them. So this movie is basically her trying to find any kind of access to Manech, and find him and be reunited with him and find out what's happened to him. So it's a series of her kind of doing this investigative sleuthing by trying to get in contact with all the people that came in contact with her fiancé. So her first outfit is when she is like-- right before she goes to Paris, and that's where she's actually hiring an investigator, she essentially lives out on a farm with her aunt and her uncle. And she also suffers from polio. So like, this character has a lot going on. [laughs]
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
She was born with polio, or I should say she had polio when she was very little. And so she's got this limp that she's always walking around with. And there's a very long and like, really sad and overly dramatic story about how she and Manech met as children, which I'll go into detail more a little bit later. But with this one, I wanted to focus on just the softness and the quality of the colors, because for this particular costume design in general, not only was the cinematography super tight and really limited in color palette, but the costume design was also very much like that. And so you can kind of see here, she's got a lot of earth tones. Most of the movie, Audrey Tatou is actually in essentially browns, beiges, a lot of kind of sepia tones. So it is very much like a memory.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
Which is something I really love. And also a color palette that I actually like to use a lot in my own work. So that was already something that was kind of a favorite. The other thing that we've talked about in the past is obviously texture. You can see on her cardigan here, most of her clothing actually features some kind of either vertical stripe, or some kind of really tiny plaid. It's always a very kind of structured look. And the only times that we ever really see her in color are when she goes into flashbacks of her memories with Manech before he went off to war. So obviously a very, very specific direction with color palette.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
And you can see here, she's got a lot of-- there's that same corduroy with the wale that we talked about last episode. [bl] Only laughing because we can never figure out the best way to explain what "wale" means. But hopefully if you listened to our "Jingle Jangle" episode, you know a wale is now. [laughs]
Sarah
Hopefully if you had questions, you've just googled it. [bl]
Jojo
True.
Sarah
So... once again, we are professionals but we're not necessarily experts. That's why when I tell people about this podcast, I make sure to stress that it's conversational.
Jojo
Yes, very much so.
Sarah
We're... we're not what you should be referring to in your research papers, how about that. [bl]
Jojo
Yes, maybe one day? I don't know. But I do love that there's such a mixture of different textures here, and everything is always very structured and kind of a geometrical line or pattern. There's not... I shouldn't say there's no florals, but it's mostly in the lace work that you see any of the kind of more organic shapes on her. But for the most part, especially when she goes into Paris, we'll see that she definitely changes kind of the silhouette and textures of what she's wearing. But most of the softness that happens when she's in the farmyard is this kind of softer cardigans, a lot of corduroy, you'll see that in her jackets later on as well. And much softer drape, too. So you can see that the cardigan obviously is a much softer garment in general than say, a blazer, or something that's a little more structured. So when she's at home, it's a much softer silhouette. When she goes into Paris, you'll start seeing that change. So I'll move on to the second look. The second look, this is again, still her at home. And it's her writing letters, basically, to the people to try and find out who has information about her fiancé. Who can get her in contact with, basically, the soldier that was in charge of the five defactos... whatever the right word is.
Sarah
Is it defectors?
Jojo
Defectors! Yes, thank you. But yeah, so she's writing letters, basically to the investigator to start this investigation and start figuring out who she needs to get in contact with. But one of the things I love about this outfit is because... this actually does show her in a lot of the blouses that are very characteristic of her character. It's a lot of very sheer cottons. But you can see here, the designer really took the time to like, make sure that the embroidery was there. It sounds like they had a really extensive process. Again, because I didn't watch this documentary... it sounds like a lot of it was handmade, or I assume that a lot of it was handmade, because they wanted this to look like they were really living in rural farmland in France.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
And you can see that, not only in the kind of handmade embroidery quality that's on her clothing, but even just the fabric itself, everything is very organic. So I did want to mention that about this particular look. Okay, so now we're on the train, she's going to Paris, and she's trying to find-- she's meeting the investigator, basically the detective that she's going to be hiring to find Manech. And it's not as easy to see here. But this movie is... because it's set in 1917, there's a lot of 1920s. Of course, it's set back a little bit. So it's probably more between 1905-1910 in terms of actual fashion trends. She's obviously from a lower-- I don't want to say "low class," but more mid, probably lower-to-middle class, in terms of...
Sarah
Yeah, she's not a rich lady.
Exactly. And so in terms of her clothing, you do see a lot of repeats, because it was very, very realistic. They wanted this to be a true representation of how people lived in that time during the war. So you'll see this jacket repeated quite a few times throughout the movie. Interestingly enough, she always has some sort of a brown kind of straw hat. There's this one, which is a little bit of a taller brim and almost looks like almost like a top hat.
Hmm.
Jojo
But it's not quite a top hat, but it's made out of straw. And she also has decorative pieces on it. But she also has another brown straw hat that is more like a cloche. And it has sort of a flipped-up brim in the front and kind of a dovetail in the back. So it's-- I don't know if it was meant to be two hats, or if it's supposed to be one hat that she kind of restyled for different occasions, because that was also done in the 1920s. So I just wanted to focus on that, because it just shows the versatility of these outfit pieces, because she's obviously wearing them for different occasions.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
But also her focus right now is not to look trendy. She looks nice enough to go into the city. But she's obviously got a much higher priority.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
The interesting thing that's-- and I don't know if I have a closer picture of this jacket. I want to say I do. Yeah, so if you look really close, this is a zoomed in picture. And this is that other hat I was talking about. So it's got that front brim that's kind of flipped up, and then the back is actually left down. So very much like cloches from that time. The other thing you'll notice here in this really big close up, is that that jacket is actually made out of corduroy again. So like, I really feel like the designer used corduroy to define this character.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
That whole idea of that kind of textured rib is very prevalent, and stripe is very prevalent throughout the entire movie.
Sarah
I love the gloves too.
I know. So many gloves. [laughs] She wears a lot of those kind of lace gloves. It's like this mixture of kind of the hard and the soft, or the delicate.
Yeah.
Jojo
Which I think defines a lot of that idea of the balance between that sentimentality and that intense emotion that they quoted for her character earlier. I think the costume designer, that was her way of embodying that balance, which I think was really successful. So again, another version of that, or another view of the other hat that she's wearing, but again, it kind of looks like-- it's almost like the brim has changed a little bit. And then obviously, the hat has been pushed back up to the kind of more top hat shape. So again, I'm not sure if this is the same hat or if she just has those two hats that she's wearing between her looks. But again, another really great shot of that corduroy on the jacket. Okay. Oh, and other gloves. This was a big movie for gloves, because the 1920s also, you really wore everything. Like, it was all about wearing all the pieces to go out. You never went out without your gloves and your coat.
Sarah
Yeah, gloves and hat, too. Like, being in public without a hat was like, "No way." You know?
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
In pretty much every period up until, like, the 60s.
Jojo
Okay, I'm gonna start with this image first, because-- so Marion Cotillard, who is also a French actress that we know very well in America. She actually plays a very small side character in this movie. But interestingly enough, because there's these five soldiers in this movie, it's not just Audrey Tatou's, you know, love story. There's also these other four soldiers who also have their own kind of love stories. And that's sort of where the side stories kind of branch off. Another reason why this movie is very confusing, because there's just so many characters. But Marion Cotillard is one of the characters who actually is a prostitute in the beginning, and ends up falling in love with one of the other soldiers who gets killed fairly early on. So when she finds out he's killed, of course, she's kind of doing the same thing as Audrey Tatou's character Mathilde, except that she is actually going back and finding revenge on all the characters that have killed her lover.
Sarah
Ooh.
Jojo
So she is secretly figuring out who all these people are, and then going around and killing them, kind of starting from the top down.
Sarah
That's awesome.
Jojo
So this is one of the scenes where she meets with one of the people that has killed her lover. And she's in this great... it's almost like a long coat from the 1920s. And almost like a riding coat from-- actually probably from more Edwardian era.
Sarah
Wait, but this isn't the 20s, right? It's World War I.
Jojo
It's 1917.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
So it's like, right before the 20s.
Sarah
Yeah, so it kind of bleeds into each other.
Jojo
Exactly. So you'll see a lot of the kind of-- it's like, leading into the 1920s. But like, the-- it's almost like Edward, late Edwardian.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
But she's got kind of that... it's not quite a cloche, but the hat is kind of entering the cloche shape, it's starting to fit close around the head. I love that she's got this kind of dead bird on the front of her hat, [laughs] because it's very characteristic of this moment in particular. And the big thing that I thought was really phenomenal about this particular outfit is that she actually... well, one, she's got the black lace gloves. She's kind of-- like, she sort of embodies death right now, which is basically what she's kind of doing. She's the harbinger of death for all these people. But she shows up in this dark tunnel, you know, and she meets this guy who basically sees her from a distance and just sees this silhouette of this woman dressed in black. And she's got these black little round, like, moon specs. Or not moon specs, but they're like brown specs.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
And the funny... not "funny." But it's the greatest thing about this is that the specs are actually chained. There's like, chains that actually connect to her belt. And her belt has this little pulley system that basically is linked to this little pistol that sits right at her hip in the beginning. So this is after she has turned the belt to the front.
Sarah
Cool!
Jojo
And I caught this, I caught this great screenshot of it because I was like, "I need to show the public how this happened." [bl] Because it just happens so fast. And of course, there's no actual images of this online. But I love that she's basically come up with this huge contraption all on her own of how to connect her glasses. So she-- when she takes off the glasses and pulls on it, it basically pulls the chain and yanks the pistol to fire. And of course, that's how she shoots the guy once he gets within range. [bl] So it's, you know, of course, it's this whole elaborate ruse, and that's the only thing in the scene that you ever see. Again, it's all these short, small scenes that you ever see Marion Cotillard in, and yet she's kind of doing the same thing that Mathilde's character is doing throughout the story, just from opposite sides.
Sarah
Mmhmm. Wow.
Jojo
So yes, I didn't talk about her costumes, which I'm a little sad about, but most of her stuff is very over-elaborate. It's very much height of the 1915 era, because she is a prostitute, so she's getting a lot of these kind of hand-me-down clothes. But from, you know, wealthy men who are paying her.
Sarah
Mmm.
Jojo
So she is very, very well dressed. And it's not until kind of the end of the movie when they finally capture her, after she's killed all these people and left bodies in her wake, that she finally goes back into a dowdier look, to match in the same sort of sepia tones that Mathilde is.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
Okay. So again, like I mentioned before, really the only time that we see Mathilde's character in color is when she's in these flashbacks with Manech. And even in this one, I wanted to focus a little bit more on kind of the softness and the texture of how the designer really created this character. Everything about Mathilde is very, very homespun, and very homely. And it kind of makes us think more, like, French countryside, as opposed to height of Parisian fashion.
Sarah
Right.
Jojo
And they did a really good job of really foiling her with Marion Cotillard's character by doing that. So I just wanted to-- again, most of these costumes are just things that I really enjoyed looking at. [bl]
Sarah
Yeah, that's fine!
Jojo
Because also, it was a lot of sweater cardigans that I was like, "I just-- I want to own that, and I want to own that." [bl]
Sarah
[sing-song] We love cardigaaans.
Jojo
But yeah, so I love the texture on this and how subtle the colors are, and then kind of, you know, contrasting that with... even Manech is very, you know, I mean, he's obviously dressed very rural class. But just the soft tweed-ness of his jacket, as opposed to sort of this done-up coat, which he wouldn't have been in anyways. But the softness of both of them in this scene really complement each other very well. And it's really, really lovely. There's a lot of film critics who actually compare this movie to "The Notebook" and, like, you can't compare it because it's so much more beautiful! Because like basically, it's kind of like those first ten minutes of "Up."
Sarah
Oh, God! [laughs]
Jojo
Basically you see their whole entire, you know, love story within maybe 15 minutes,
Sarah
And you're like, "Is this a children's movie?! I'm crying!" [bl] Yeah, that.
Jojo
So this movie, within the first... I mean, this isn't even in the first 15 minutes. This is probably like halfway through, or maybe a third of the way through the movie. But she goes into this flashback, and there's this huge bell tower. And actually, she always goes up to a lighthouse that's in her countryside hometown, to basically look out for if he ever comes back. But this scene in particular-- because they walked to the bell tower quite a bit when they were children. So it's her flashback of him carrying her up the stairs of this bell tower because she's got polio...
Sarah
Aww.
Jojo
...on his back! [laughs] It's just them going up to have this romantic moment in privacy with this bell tower.
Sarah
How sweet.
Jojo
So yes, really, really tragic, but also really beautifully... beautiful visuals for this movie. So most of these I pulled just because I wanted to continue tracking through all the unity of costumes that I think this costume designer has done really beautifully. So again, going back to that idea of the stripe on her. This is kind of when she's starting to get closer to finding Manech, she's starting to put together hints and clues from all the people that she's now come in contact with. And also, I just I thought this was interesting, because the entire movie, she's looking for this man named Célestin Poux. And that sounds like a horrible last name, but it's spelled P-O-U-X.
[laughs]
And I was like, "I guess that's how you say it." But she ends up finding him finally, which is this guy here with this giant handlebar mustache. And he's basically the guy that... from what I remember, again, this was a very confusing movie with many, many characters. But Célestin is basically the man who kind of like, found Manech and basically kind of passed him on, and was sort of the last one to see him before he disappeared. So he is kind of helping her, when they finally find him, to find out what really happened with Manech. Because there's a lot of back and forth, you're not really sure if he's alive, you don't know if he's died. You want to hope that he is, and then you know, you get something that happens that... maybe he isn't. So there's a lot of back and forth with this movie. It's a very emotional roller coaster, let's just say that. But I love that he's in this kind of light pink. And then she's in this, you know, it's still the same color palette of the sepia with her. But now that she's got some hope, she's let her hair down. Because the other thing in this movie is that she always has her hair kind of braided up. Sort of in, like, the Princess Leia braids.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
Which also makes her look very kind of youthful and a little more countryside, as opposed to this more, for lack of a better term, "let loose," like-- I feel like she's now got hope, she's got a little bit more of a better outlook on whether or not Manech is actually alive. And I think this is sort of where she starts having her turning point of like, "I'm going to find him." So I wanted to do a couple of the shots of her as a child, because I thought the-- I loved the childrenswear in this movie, I really do feel like it is not talked about enough. And we haven't really touched on childrenswear either.
Sarah
Yeah, we haven't.
Jojo
But I think the costume designer did a really beautiful job. I love that this dress is actually buttoned in the back, I think that was also pretty common in the 19-- you know, early 1900s. And again, it's that same kind of gingham that we still see in her older clothes, that we tie in with her childrenswear. I also do love that in that previous scene where she's starting to have hope, again, is when she returns to the one braid. And I thought that it was interesting that that's what she also wore as a child.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
So it's kind of this idea of like, "Okay, I'm returning to youth, I believe that he's alive, I have a little more hope," and it's returning to this youthfulness. Same thing with the next outfit I chose for the children. So this is actually not even a real memory from her childhood with him. This was when she first meets him and he invites her to the lighthouse. And so this is her as a child imagining that this is what's going to happen when she gets to the lighthouse. Because there's this whole made-up moment in her head where like, she basically gets to the top of lighthouse and then almost falls over the side. And he grabs her up and does this whole romantic gesture, and this is sort of what happens after he's saved her from falling over the edge.
Sarah
Aww.
Jojo
So none of this really happens, it's just in her memory. But I love that the costume designer has still put her in this very romantic color, which also gets carried over later, in the next look where we see her lying on the cliff side. And this is after Manech has basically made his proposal to her. So it's that same idea of that same-- you know, even though that particular memory didn't happen, that feeling of the happiness that she felt in that memory is reflected in her clothing, color-wise and also silhouette-wise.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
So I thought that was really, really lovely. And again, showing how much color psychology can really affect not just the character, but also the audience watching it. Because I think this movie was very much more about the emotions that it was evoking as opposed to the historical... even though there was a lot of historical accuracy. It was less about the historical depiction in terms of chronology, as opposed to the actual emotion of what was happening between these two. Okay, so a couple of the side characters, and I'm going to kind of...
Sarah
Jodie Foster?!
Jojo
I know, right? [laughs]
Sarah
She speaks French?
Jojo
Yeah, apparently. And actually, she speaks French pretty well in this movie.
Sarah
Wow!
Jojo
So she is yet another side character. So she actually is married to one of the other soldiers that was in this group of cowards... defectors. And she has five children with this soldier. And he basically has this whole idea that if he has a sixth child, the military will allow him to go home. Because if you have six children, it's too many children for you to take care of, too many mouths to feed, whatever. So we can't have you in war when so many people are relying on you. So he basically comes up with this idea for his best friend--who is also a soldier in this small group--to sleep with his wife so that she can have this sixth child, because he is actually barren.
Sarah
Ohh.
Jojo
So then there's this whole side story where she basically falls in love with the best friend. And so she's like, also hearing about him, because he ends up also dying in the war. So a lot of this is very much like-- she hears all these stories of all these other soldiers around Manech. And then you kind of see glimpses and small snippets of what happens to the women around the war. So in that sense, I feel like, you know, even if you're not looking at the costumes, just the sheer amount of what you're seeing is like... you really are seeing the war from every side, from a very realistic perspective. Of not just the people in the war, and the soldiers that were experiencing such trauma--and all this PTSD from the war--but also the women surrounding them that were trying to support them, or wait for them to come home, or... you know, all the other stuff.
Sarah
I actually read a book called "The Nightingale" recently that's literally about that. It's about two French sisters during World War II. And it really is just like... I realized that so many war stories focus on the loss of life and the horrible experiences that the men have, which are all very...
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
...of course, relevant and horrible and tragic. But like, the women are fighting their own war back at home, basically.
Jojo
Absolutely. So this, of course, is Jodie Foster. You know, this is kind of towards the latter half of the movie where Mathilde has finally discovered who this woman is and gotten in contact with her, because she knows she's related to one of the soldiers. And so this woman basically--or Jodie Foster basically--writes her a letter explaining what happened from her perspective, and how she heard about the death of her husband, and the death of her lover. So one of the things I wanted to point out for this particular character is that, you know, she's basically a single mother now, of essentially five children. I don't think they ever actually ended up having a sixth. But just the sheer softness and kind of broken-down quality of her silhouette, and you know, just the clothing that she's wearing. We first see her in a market, like an open marketplace. So then in this particular look, I love that it's this kind of really soft and almost very delicate lace cardigan that she's wearing over top of this. Let's see if I can zoom in. It's basically like a Swiss dot cream blouse. But everything is kind of this sheer, and sort of very vulnerable. And even the neckline is very vulnerable. It's very low, it's very open.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
So I think that was something that I thought the costume designer did really well for her character.
Sarah
I love big, open, holey knits.
Jojo
Yeah. [laughs]
Sarah
I love 'em. I love a knit!
Jojo
Especially when you can really see the pattern.
Sarah
Yeah!
Jojo
Like, you can see the lace on this one. Because sometimes, especially from far away, even if something is really delicate and kind of lacy, you don't always see the detail.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
But I do love that about that. Okay, so for this one, this is one of the first memories where basically it's like the first night that they sleep together. So this is Mathilde and Manech. And I love that the costume designer here has thrown in such a subtle-- again, she's in a stripe, but he's also in a stripe, and they're varying different widths of stripes. But the fact that they kind of match together and that they're in this scene together... not only does it just show their class and their character and who they are, but it also just ties them together very well. And I do also love that the costume designer has continued to use this idea of this very subtle kind of romantic red... in a much more muted color palette, of course. But that you're always seeing some sort of love, or some sort of representation of love, in all of Mathilde's character. Or, sorry, in all of her costumes, and all of her clothes. I do also love that you get to see sort of the more "undressed" of the early 1900's, because I think sometimes... I don't want to say we all assume that everyone wears, like, a full three-piece suit or a two-piece suit. But I love seeing kind of the more dressed-down, like... what is everyone else wearing? What is the everyday look? What are the clothing pieces that are underneath all of the vests jackets, all the other accoutrements, I guess. And also, you know...
Sarah
I think that's important. Like, a lot of costume history is studying fashion plates, and what was trendy, but it's also important to study, like, what were real people wearing?
Jojo
Yes.
Sarah
And like, what was practical at the time, you know.
Jojo
Yeah, I mean, and when you are dressing a character, you're thinking about what they're wearing underneath, because it is also about like, "Okay, well, when I put on clothes, I don't just suddenly show up in a suit, I have to put on all the layers underneath it."
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
You know, what goes under a suit? I have an undershirt, I have a button up shirt underneath that, then I have the vest, then I have, you know-- or in this case, the suspenders, which... we've talked about this before, but I also just love a really good worn suspender. So...
Sarah
Oh yes. [laughs]
Jojo
...both of these clothes just look so lived in. And it really... it just gives you a lot of insight about these characters that, you know, they're not people that are looking for the trendiest, cleanest things and the sleekest outfit. They've lived in these clothes for a long time. And you know, right now, the important thing for them is that they're together, not that they have the most fashionable outfit.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
So yeah, you can definitely-- I feel like sometimes costumes can evoke a feeling as opposed to just telling you what is practical, or what people are actually wearing. And I really loved this shot for that reason.
Sarah
It's beautiful.
Jojo
Yeah. Okay. So obviously the final shot of the movie... and huge spoiler, she finds Manech. [laughs]
Sarah
Yaaaay!
Jojo
And of course, there's this very bittersweet moment at the end, because he actually has lost his memory.
Sarah
Ohh.
Jojo
And one of the things the director has talked about too, is that he wanted to focus on this very real part of the war, that many war heroes--even if they made it back--would have memory loss. Would not even remember the people that they left behind. Which is also just a huge, tragic part of the war. But I love that in this final moment when she comes to see him-- because she finally finds out that he is still alive. So of course everyone in the audience is raving because they're like, "Yes! She finally found him after this incredibly long journey of going through everyone else," and then she comes and finds out that he has amnesia and that he probably won't remember her. And yes, the fact that he is just alive is of course, you know, the happiest thing that she could ever imagine. And so she comes to him in this beautiful cream-- like, it almost looks like an 1900s short coat? I'm not quite sure what the actual garment name is. But it's very traditional. Like, she's got the blouse on underneath that's in sort of a white lace, which I'll show in a couple seconds, the close up of that. And then she's got this pleated kind of 19... probably 1907 skirt. And it's got like, really small pleat tucks in it, which she also uses a lot--the costume designer uses a lot--in a lot of her skirts. And again, to kind of harken back to the corduroy, that idea of the stripe, she always has some kind of stripe somewhere. And then the coat itself is actually also a cream corduroy.
Sarah
Really?
Jojo
So again, this idea of carrying corduroy throughout her costume for the entire movie, I think was really, really well done by the costume designer. And again, such a subtle detail that you would never notice unless you were really looking close, and stopping and starting this movie like I did. But I love that she used that subtle detail to give her that character. The other thing that I wanted to focus on talking about for this particular outfit is that because this is her first time essentially reunioning with... I don't even know if that's a word. [laughs]
Sarah
Reuniting?
Jojo
Reuniting, thank you!
Sarah
I like "reunioning," though, that's fun.
Jojo
I totally just made up that word. But she basically... this is her first time reuniting with Manech. And so even though he doesn't remember her, it's her chance to show up in this almost bridal gown? Almost as if like, this is their wedding. Like, even if he doesn't remember her. She has hoped now that he's alive after this long time. And so she comes presenting herself to him in this very... I don't want to say "virginal," but it's almost like she's basically kept herself pure for him.
Sarah
Right.
Jojo
So I love that she switched to this color, because this is really the only time you ever see her in such a bright array of white. Because obviously she has, you know, cream colored blouses that she wears and pairs with other things. But this is the only time you ever see her pretty much head to toe in white. So just the close up of this.
Sarah
Ooh!
Jojo
So yeah, you can kind of see here, it's really subtle, but it's a really small wale corduroy all over her coat. And then she's got this really lovely kind of delicate lace underneath. So I love that that last moment is that... such a huge visual marker of of her kind of reuniting with him, and essentially is their wedding without really being a wedding.
Sarah
Right.
Jojo
So... so yeah, that was my take of all the costumes in this movie. Again, I didn't focus too much on the men in this one, mostly because it was a lot of soldiers' wear, and I think that... I don't want to say that that's not important. There's a whole 'nother podcast that can be done about...
Sarah
Sure.
Jojo
...you know, costumes in military, because it is so extensive in terms of all the things you need to know to understand the uniforms. The ranking, the hierarchy of what happens in military uniforms.
Sarah
It's a lot of work, like...
Jojo
So much.
Sarah
...that's so much research that you have to do, to even know...
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
...like, what any specific character should be wearing.
Jojo
Yes, absolutely. Well, and the fact that you know, when you're in-- when you're doing any war movie, it's a lot of distressing.
Sarah
Yes.
Jojo
So we talked about distressing last time, the level of distress on these these military costumes, like... I can't even imagine. It must have taken so long. Like, this was I think they said this was a $4.5 billion budget or something like that?
Sarah
Did you say "billion," with a B?
Jojo
Yes.
Sarah
What?! [bl]
Jojo
I was like...
Sarah
I don't think so. Maybe euros?
Jojo
Maybe, I don't know. I mean, it was done... like, I think he contacted Warner Brothers about it.
Sarah
No one does billion-dollar budgets.
Jojo
It was just something so incredibly crazy that I was like... I mean with this movie, though, because like, they spent half of the budget just building the entire French Parisian metropolitan scene.
Sarah
Oh, gosh.
So it's like, it did require quite a lot of money. I don't know if it was in the billions. I'll have to go back and check on that. [Post-episode fact check: the budget of the movie was $51.2 million.] But yeah, I was like, "Oh my gosh, the sheer amount of just things to make this movie is insane."
Yeah.
Jojo
But yes, I will say one quick thing about the military, all of the scenes in the war. The cinematographer really... you can kind of see there's almost like... so the rest of the movie is kind of in this sepia tone, but most of the war scenes are, you know-- it's sort of a mix of sepia tone. And then all of the costumes--or sorry, all of the military uniforms--are blue, because it's the French Army, but it's this really beautiful almost, like, cornflower blue.
Sarah
Ooh.
Jojo
I don't know how to describe that. But I think you know what I'm talking about, Sarah.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
But it's this really beautiful kind of muted blue. That's in contrast with all the brown and earth tones that are around it. So yeah, visually, super stunning movie. I cannot say enough about the production value of this movie, because it was really well done. Like I said, the only thing that was a little hard to follow was just the amount, sheer amount, of characters.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
But yeah, beautiful movie, beautiful costumes. And also just... Audrey Tatou is just a really beautiful actress.
Sarah
She's lovely.
Jojo
And also like, Jodie Foster and Marion Cotillard. They picked some really big names for this movie. So...
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
...so yes, if you get a chance to watch it, it's sort of one of those underrated movies. It's not really talked about a lot, but it's really well done.
Sarah
Love it. Great job.
Thanks!
You're welcome.
Jojo
I'm excited to hear about your movie.
Sarah
Me too. Can we take a quick break, 'cause I gotta pee. [short musical sting]
Okay, so I was blown away by this movie.
Jojo
I still need to see it. So excited.
Sarah
So this is... I'm covering "Parasite," in case you didn't read the title of the episode. [laughs] It's a Korean film by director Bong Joon Ho. It was released in 2019. And it kind of, you know, made a huge splash when it came out. I'm sure everybody's heard of it. It won Best Picture, right? I'm pretty sure.
Jojo
I think so. Yeah.
Sarah
Which is a huge deal for a movie in the language other than English.
Jojo
Yeah!
Sarah
And it's... I went into it not knowing, like, anything about it. I knew that it was a commentary on like, wealth inequality and class. And that's about it. So I recommend, I mean, if you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it. I am going to spoil some of it. But I'm going to not-- I'm not going to spoil the very end, I decided. just like, you know, "Murder on the Orient Express," I didn't tell you who done it. So I'm not going to tell you what happens.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
I'm just gonna tell you the lead up. So yeah, the costumes are designed by... I'm so sorry. These are Korean names. I'm gonna do my best. Okay. Choi Se-yeon designed the costumes. I don't know if that is a man or woman, so I'm gonna say "they." Because I couldn't really find any information on them. They don't have, like, a website. And I googled the name Se-yeon and it's unisex. I was like, "well, that's helpful." [bl]
Jojo
Yeah, sounds about right.
Sarah
And I couldn't find any interviews with this person, either, about the costumes. I found interviews with Bong Joon Ho about the production design and the costumes kind of together. But this designer has also done other Bong Joon Ho movies, like "Okja," and then just like a bunch of other Korean films.
Jojo
That's usually how it goes, I think, with with Asian directors, though.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
They sort of have their team especially Korean--like, from Korea--directors.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
They'll work with their team from Korea. So...
Sarah
That makes sense.
Jojo
...that's probably why we don't get a lot of news in the press about them.
Sarah
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's about the movie as a whole, I think. I think they're not really all that fussed about featuring, you know... they're a team and it's a unit. So it's about the movie.
Jojo
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah
Yeah. So this movie came about, I found this really interesting-- Bong Joon Ho said that actors had been asking him to write a play.
Jojo
Ooh, interesting.
Sarah
And so he originally conceived of this as a play. And he said, "The stage is a limited space. I was trying to come up with a story that I can tell with just two homes, one poor and one rich." So that makes sense, it doesn't have a lot of... like, they don't go a lot of places other than just their houses.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
And he described himself as "Very fascinated with the sense of infiltration. When I was in college, I worked as a tutor for a very rich family. And I got this sense that I was spying on the private lives of complete strangers." So that's kind of like where the conception came from. So broadly, sort of, the story is about two families, one rich and one poor. And the poor family basically infiltrates the rich people's home, and it starts with the son. He gets a job tutoring the daughter of the rich family. And then they're like--the rich family's like--"Oh, we need an art tutor for our son." And so he gets his sister in there, but they do it by lying about like, their credentials, they make up college degrees, and they pretend like they're not related to each other. And then they eventually get the dad in as the driver, and then the mom in as the housekeeper, and they get the other people who are working there fired.
Jojo
Woooow.
Sarah
And they lie their way into employment basically, because they're super poor, and desperate, and struggling, and they need the money. So they basically con their way into taking these rich people's money, which, like... I had no idea this movie was about that. [laughs] It's so good.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
So yeah, the themes of the movie include wealth disparity, social inequality and imperialism. Like a lot of countries, especially right now, South Korea has a really big gap between the wealthy and the poor. Like in America, you know, it's like the gap just keeps getting bigger. They have really high rates of unemployment. So at the beginning of the movie, the poor family, the Kims, are all unemployed. And then the imperialism and colonialism theme kind of comes in when... because the rich family's son Da-song is obsessed with Indians. American Indians, Native Americans.
Jojo
Mmm, okay.
Sarah
So he has like, a teepee. And he plays with all these replicas of Indian stuff. And Bong says, "The Native Americans have a very complicated and long, deep history. But in this family, that story is reduced to a young boy's hobby and decoration. That's what happens in our current time, the context and meaning behind these actual things only exists as the surface level thing." So I thought that was really interesting, too.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
And then the other thing I loved from this interview, that has nothing to do with costumes, or the theme of the movie, is that they built all of these sets from scratch...
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
...including the apartment--and about 16 other facades--in a water tank, so that they could flood them. Because there's a flood scene where like, the water is up to here in their apartment. And so the whole thing was built on a soundstage with a water tank. And I was like, "What!"
Jojo
Whaaat!
Sarah
Expensive.
Jojo
There's so much that I learn about, like, how movies are made behind the scenes when I'm doing these... you know, research.
Sarah
I know.
Jojo
Or when I'm... sorry, I can't talk today. When I'm doing research for these.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
And it's like, it's incredible how much you learn about just the process. And like, why films need and require so much money. [laughs]
Sarah
Yeah! Yeah, yeah. And they built the rich people's mansion too, which is like, so nice looking. Okay, onto the costumes. Okay. So the Kim family, which is our poor family, they're stuck in this sub-basement level apartment. And the coloring and design of the frame... you can tell that Bong Joon Ho is like, really particular and exact. And he works with his team to come up with something very-- like, it really evokes the feeling that he's going for.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
Because the way that it's shot, and how crowded it is, you can see this first picture of them in the bathroom. Like, the frame is so crowded, and everything is very dirty looking, and it looks really damp. And they always are very sweaty when they're in their house. And since sub-basement level apartments flood a lot apparently, in monsoon season and stuff, they're always full of mold. And like, it looks like that, you know?
Yeah.
You can feel the desperation, I think. So then... so you have these-- here are the two siblings, their names are... The son is named Ki-woo, and the daughter's named Ki-jung. Jung? Ki-jung. [bl]
Jojo
Just smile and nod.
Sarah
I'm sorry. Ahh... you would think, as a lover of k-pop, I would have gotten better at Korean names, but I have not.
Jojo
[laughs]
Sarah
Yeah, so you can see they are wearing loungewear. Lots of times in their house, they're wearing short sleeves and shorts because it seems like it's hot and sweaty and sticky in their house.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
And then, this character sweeps in. This is Min. And he sweeps in and gives him the idea. He's like, "Oh, I was this tutor for this family. But you should-- I'm not going to do it anymore. So you should do it." And he is like, such a contrast to Ki-woo because he has this very smart blazer on. And his pants are also kind of cropped at the ankle, you know, really trendy looking. And you can tell, like, Ki-woo was like, "I'm a loser." Like, you can tell that he thinks of himself as a loser, and then Min comes in and he has this thing to aspire to, basically.
Jojo
Okay.
Sarah
And then so when Ki-woo goes for his job interview with the rich family, then he basically wears exactly what Min was wearing, which is a blazer and nice pants. But he does keep this, he has this button up shirt that is just like, collarless. It's not a mandarin collar, because I think mandarins stand up further up your neck.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
I think it's just collarless. That's how we say it. That's how I say it. [laughs]
Jojo
Is it like a henley? It's hard to tell.
Sarah
Here, I'll zoom in. It's a button up.
Jojo
Okay.
Sarah
It just doesn't have a collar. Which I thought was interesting.
Jojo
Interesting.
Sarah
So next I'm going to talk about Ki-jung. Gosh darn it. I didn't write down how to pronounce that one. Jung? J-U-N-G.
Jojo
I find it ironic I chose the French movie and you chose the Korean movie. [bl]
Sarah
So, it's because... it's so we could have a pronunciation adventure on both of our parts. [laughs]
Jojo
Yep!
Sarah
So I love this picture of her. She's really smart, and kind of just, like, doesn't give a crap. And this is her in an internet cafe forging him a certificate from school. And she's smoking a cigarette indoors at an internet cafe. And she just does not give a crap.
Jojo
NBD.
Sarah
Yeah. I love-- I LOVE her. She was great. Oh, and I was gonna say, like...this movie has costumes in it, obviously, because all movies do, but I'm kind of just going to talk broadly about the characters, because the specific things they wear are not necessarily as important as just the feeling that they give, because it's contemporary.
Jojo
Yeah. Right.
Sarah
So... it's clothes, you know. So this is Mrs. Park. And she is very Western... fashion-y. Like, her clothes look like they come from American stores, or maybe European stores. And that was intentional. Like, she even she gives Ki-woo the name Kevin, and she wants everybody to have American names. And then she says multiple times, she talks about ordering stuff from the US and how that means that it's really good. So she clearly aspires to this sort of American ideal of wealthiness. And you can kind of tell in this, this white outfit that we meet her in. White... I think, to me, a pure white outfit definitely connotes wealth, because white is so hard to keep clean.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
So it's almost like this luxury thing where you're like, "Well, I can afford to wear all white in my house because I'm not doing any housework," you know.
Jojo
Right.
Sarah
Yeah. And then this is her housekeeper, who they get fired. And I pulled this that has-- this shot that has both of them in it, so that we can see what she looks like later on when she loses her job. But we'll get to that.
Jojo
Ooh. [laughs]
Sarah
Yeah. She looks very different later. So this is also Mrs. Park and they call her "Madam" the whole time, which is interesting.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
And I like this outfit. It's kind of-- sort of like, oh, it's kind of brown. It looked green to me earlier. Kind of greeny-brown, like...
Jojo
Almost like a greenish-gray though.
Sarah
Yeah. It's like a gingham check. And I think that this looks very 60s. It looks kind of Jackie O to me.
Yeah.
Here's a shot of the full body. So it's like a little matching set. So cute.
Jojo
Yeah, very Chanel.
Sarah
Yeah, Chanel! Maybe it is, I don't know. I couldn't find any interviews, so I don't know specifics. [bl]
Jojo
"I have no information." [bl]
Sarah
And then I grabbed this shot of her in her jeans. And you can't really see in this screenshot, but it looked to me, when I was watching the movie, like they had sparkles. Maybe on the back pocket. So this is her dressing to go camping. And it's so funny to me that like, even when she's going into the wilderness, she's wearing very expensive jeans, probably, you know.
Jojo
[laughs]
Sarah
And it kind of gave me-- it kind of reminded me of how Marie Antoinette used to dress up as a peasant for fun. You know, like a rich person putting on clothes that look like a poor person, almost, but they're not, 'cause they're very expensive versions of it.
Jojo
And it's still like, looks like it's well put together.
Sarah
Yeah, it looks-- the textiles look high quality, you know.
Jojo
Right.
Sarah
She probably ordered them from J.Crew or whatever.
Jojo
Right.
Sarah
And then also, you can see in these screenshots, just as a direct contrast to the shots of the Kim family in their home, the Park family in their home. It's like a palace. Like, there's-- the frame is empty, kind of, for a lot of the shots. And it just shows you how much space they have, versus the poor people having no space.
Jojo
Right.
Sarah
And they're like, living on top of each other. And then in this scene, she's carrying a full Birkin bag. Which... if our listeners don't know, a Birkin bag is a specific purse made by Hermès. And it is a purse that you have to join a waitlist to buy. And it's going to run you at least, like, $40,000. [laughs]
Jojo
Yep.
Sarah
Which is insane.
It doesn't even look like you could carry very much in there either.
I know, it's just... it's JUST a purse. [bl] I'm pretty sure this is a Birkin. Yeah, that strap across the front is Birkin-y.
Jojo
And the scarves on the handles, too.
Sarah
Oh yeah. Hermès scarves are a thing. Yeah, you're right. It's basically just a status symbol. And it's just-- it's like, another, you know, example of her aspiring to this... basically, rich white lady aesthetic. And this is just her at the grocery store.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
She just took her Birkin bag to the grocery store. [laughs] What's next? Oh...
Jojo
And also, you're wearing that blazer and those pants to the grocery store too.
Sarah
I know. And I mean... behind her is Mr. Kim, the dad of the poor family, and he is basically like her...
Jojo
Like, gofer? [laughs]
Sarah
Yeah, like he's pushing the cart, he bags the groceries, he drives her home. Like, she might as well not even be there. [laughs] But...
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
So... and then the last Park family thing I have... I didn't really talk about the dad, but the dad kind of fits into the same aesthetic as her. He wears a lot of business wear suits, sort of American-y looking, these are their pajamas. And in the interview, the one specific costume thing that I could find that Bong Joon Ho talked about was their pajamas. Because apparently in Korea, it's not super common to have pajamas that are different from your regular loungewear. So like, around the house, most people would wear just like, you know, sweats and soft shirts and whatever. Loungewear. And then they would sleep in that too. But rich people have pajamas.
Jojo
Ahh.
Sarah
So the fact that they have these silky L.L. Bean-looking pajamas is just another way to see their status.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
As Richie Rich, rich, rich people. So let's talk a little bit more about the Kim family. This is them in their apartment. And you can see, just like I said, the crowdedness of the frame. They're all wearing loungewear, you know, soft... like, he's wearing--the son is wearing--basketball shorts, they've got sweats on. And the contrast of them in their own house versus when they get these jobs at the Park family house is pretty stark. So this is Mrs. Kim. And she's you know, she's very clean. I think she even gets her hair cut in the middle of the movie. She's wearing her most elegant ensemble, you know, and then here's her that same day at home eating dinner. She looks very sweaty.
Jojo
Mmm. Yeah.
Sarah
And hot.
Jojo
Yep.
Sarah
You can tell, there's some movies where you're like, "Oh, every time they they cut the makeup artist was like spritzing them with that fake sweat stuff," you know?
Jojo
Mmhmm. Like the glycerin?
Sarah
Yeah. [bl] Just got to look really, really damp. And you can see also that the lighting is so different. The lighting in their apartment is greener, it gives you that sort of under the sea, moldy feeling.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
And then the the rich people house is like, not that.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
It's much warmer. And then here's Ki-jung. She's... she's laughing at me every time I try. [bl] This is her...
Jojo
It's a good effort though!
Sarah
I'm trying! I didn't want to just...
Jojo
I know.
Sarah
...do the American thing and be like, [pronouncing hard "R"] "Mrs. Park." [bl] 'Cause I know that's not right. But this her before the son-- the rich son's birthday party. And this is... this comes right after their apartment gets flooded. So they have this really traumatic night where they have to... so... I'll explain a little more of the plot. The Park family goes camping. And so the Kim family comes in and are basically just like hanging out in the house, because they're not there.
Jojo
Mmhmm.
Sarah
Having, like... they're drinking, eating a bunch of food, making a mess. And then the rich family comes home before they're supposed to, so they have to hide. And it's a very stressful scene, and so they escape and it's pouring rain. And then they get home and their apartment is flooding. And there's a scene... I pulled it here. She's sitting on the toilet of their house, in the bathroom, surrounded by flood water, and the sewer is backing up. So like, the toilet is spraying brown... liquid.
Jojo
Ohhh.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
Gross.
Sarah
So she did this, and then they had to sleep in a shelter. And then she has to come to the rich people's house the next day and look like this, and pretend like nothing happened. And it's just like, so... heart-wrenching.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
And upsetting. And also what upset me is there's a scene where Mrs. Park is talking about how the rain was such a blessing, because it like, got rid of the pollution from the sky. And she's just so oblivious. Like, the whole theme is that she's oblivious, and spoiler alert, there are people living in her basement. There's a guy living in the basement of her house and she doesn't even know. It's the housekeeper's husband.
Jojo
Oh my gosh.
Sarah
So here-- there she is. So this is them. This is her after she gets fired. So remember how I was like, "Here she is before she gets fired"?
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
This is her after. So it's like, he's really illustrating the line between destitution and getting by. And the husband, her husband, is hiding in this house because he's hiding from debt collectors because he's so far in debt.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
So.
Jojo
So much. So much happening.
Sarah
This movie is... so good. So then here's them at the birthday party. We just have to pretend everything's fine. So this is her dress that she chooses. And I love it because she really blends in. This is the shot of the party. And she looks like she belongs there, you know, she not sticking out. She doesn't look, like, poor. And she just has to like pretend everything's fine. It's this chiffon... floral print. I think it's really pretty.
Jojo
Ooh, yeah.
Sarah
Very feminine.
Jojo
Gorgeous.
Sarah
Yeah, very different from everything else she's worn up until this point. The... toilet... oh, I think the last picture I have is just the-- this is Mrs. Park in her closet. Oh, does she have more than one Birkin? Look at that.
Jojo
Oh my gosh. Yes, she does.
Sarah
She has three!
Jojo
One in every color.
Sarah
She has red, brown, and black. Oh, God.
Jojo
That's crazy.
Sarah
I grabbed this shot because the size of this closet is basically like the size of the entire apartment, the Kim's entire apartment. And it's just like another way of illustrating, like, how much space these rich people have and how oblivious they are to the fact that the people who are in their house every day are struggling so, so profoundly.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
Okay, is that it? Yeah. So I'm not going to tell you what happens at the end, you guys will have to watch it. It's on Hulu. The twist came out of nowhere. I had no idea that it was going where it was going.
Jojo
Wait, it's free on Hulu?
Sarah
It's on Hulu, if you have Hulu.
Jojo
Oh, I do have Hulu.
Sarah
You should watch it!
Jojo
I have to watch this movie!
Sarah
Yes! Yeah, like I said, I was blown away by it. And at first I was watching it and I was like, "Uh-oh, this isn't like a costume movie. What am I gonna talk about?" You know?
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
But contemporary movies, you-- it allows you to kind of just like talk about the themes, and how the costumes help illustrate the theme. So I really think the contrast between the scenes in the Kim's apartment and the Park's house are so... they're really good. I don't know how to say it. Like...
Jojo
I think that's-- it's an inevitable part of costume designing, is that you do have to understand, not just the factual research that comes along with designing a costume for someone. But it's also understanding the emotion. I mean, and I think that that kind of happened with the French movie, too. It's like it was very much more about the emotions that you're kind of feeling when you see those costumes, as opposed to how accurate. I mean, like, yes, the accuracy was still there in terms of what they would have worn and, you know, in your case, what what your characters are wearing. Like, obviously, these are all very realistic people.
Sarah
Mmhmm.
Jojo
But I think the fine art of being a costume designer also takes into account, how are these pieces--and how is this outfit--going to evoke the idea of the feeling that the director is going for? Which-- that's the harder part, I think, of costume design, is learning how to design for an abstract idea or a concept.
Sarah
Right.
Jojo
As opposed to, "I need this literal cardigan," or "I need these literal pants," or "this specific hat."
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
Sometimes it's harder to kind of conceptualize that in an abstract form and figure out how to still do that with costumes.
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
Whether that's through color or texture, or, you know, that kind of thing, or even just interacting with other costumes.
Sarah
Yeah, I think a good way to do that is to ask yourself, "Why is this character wearing what they're wearing?" And kind of start there.
Jojo
Mmhmm. Yeah.
Sarah
Also, like, we talk about color a lot. But it's important to know what color does and which colors represent what emotion, subconsciously. I think once you have that sort of foundation of knowledge, it's easier to think about those abstract things. And how...
Jojo
Yeah, definitely.
Sarah
...how clothes can be interpreted in certain ways.
Jojo
It goes back to psychology a lot too, I think psychology is a huge factor in costume designing, because a lot of what we wear, even if we don't think about it, that comes from a psychological reaction to how we've looked at clothes, or how we've appreciated clothes before. So... it's definitely important.
Sarah
And how we see ourselves, as well.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
How you want to be seen and how you see yourself is a huge part of how you dress the way you dress, you know? Which is...
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
...like in "Parasite," it's very clear, because when they go to these rich peoples' house, they know they need to present themselves as these people that they basically, like, invented. They invent their credentials.
Jojo
Right, right.
Sarah
They pretend like they have all these years of experience and all these contacts. And so in order to to look that part, they need to wear the right clothes.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
Because, like, rich people... it goes back to the obliviousness of the rich family. They see a nice outfit, and they hear, "Oh, I have this degree in Art Psychology," or whatever BS that the daughter is coming up with. And they're like, "That sounds great!" And they're fooled, basically, by...
Jojo
Yeah. Right.
Sarah
...by the facade.
Jojo
It's... I mean, it says a lot about our culture too, because I think even in America, the people that are the most cynical or the most suspicious are the people that have endured that hardship, and have been tricked before, and that are desperate. Because we've seen what that looks like. You know, I feel like it's-- I don't want to say all wealthy people are not smart or intelligent, or that all not-wealthy people are super smart or cynical. You know, obviously, there's nuances in all of humanity. But I feel like, you know, people that have to work for that and have gone through the hardship of being tricked or cheated, kind of understand from a different perspective than people who have had things handed to them, that have never had to deal with that hardship.
Sarah
Yes.
Jojo
So yeah, it makes a big difference.
Sarah
Yeah, it's a really different life to not ever have to worry about, like, when your next meal is going to be, or whether you'll have a house next month, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. So crazy.
That got heavy at the end there. [laughs]
Jojo
I know! Well, it's interesting, too, because it's coming at an appropriate time, because that's what's true nation right now.
Sarah
It's true! Yeah. So in summary, we should eat the rich.
Jojo
Everything is timed, it's such a coincidental, and maybe not so coincidental...
Sarah
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, Bong Joon Ho made this movie not that long ago. And it's, you know, it was only a couple years ago. So it's very relevant.
Jojo
Yeah. And it's already been happening in Korea. So I'm...
Sarah
Yeah.
Jojo
I'm sure-- it's a very universal message, which I think is why so many people flocked to this movie so quickly.
Sarah
Yes. And it's very smartly done too. Like, it-- it has layers to it that you don't immediately realize upon first watch that you kinda have to think about.
Jojo
Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah
I loved it. Ten out of ten. Perfect movie. [bl]
Jojo
I love it. Cool. So that wraps up our foreign film theme of the day.
Sarah
Yeah!
Jojo
I'm super excited. Thanks for sharing about that movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it now.
Sarah
You're so welcome.
Jojo
And I'm glad to know that it's on Hulu. Unfortunately, my movie is not for free right now.
Sarah
Aww.
Jojo
But but you can rent it for very cheap on Amazon Prime.
Sarah
That's a pretty good deal. That's-- we like that.
Jojo
Yeah, it's like three bucks to rent it.
Sarah
Oh, that's not bad at all. Yeah.
Jojo
All right.
Sarah
Okay.
Jojo
That concludes our episode for today. I'm Jojo.
Sarah
I'm Sarah. Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed.
Jojo
Yeah.
Sarah
Please interact with us on social media. Our handles are going to be in the outro. Once again, hi to everybody who's new and we hope you like it.
Jojo
Yeah. Thanks for joining us.
Sarah
Yeah.
Both
Bye!
[OUTRO]
Jojo
Thank you for listening to The Costume Plot! You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @thecostumeplot. If you have a question, comment, or movie suggestion you can email us at [email protected].
Sarah
Our theme music is by Jesse Timm, and our artwork is by Jojo Siu. Please rate and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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11 Questions Tag!
Thank you to the wonderful @jejublr for tagging me (ilysm)
1. Assemble your favorite meal!
Oh goodness. I think my favorite meal would be chicken from my favorite mediterranean restaurant with some veggies and rice, and then a big slice of Reeses Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for desert (it is to DIE for)
2. If you could make a team of superheroes, who are the members and what are their powers?
I am going to cheat a bit and use already existing superheroes with the exception of a few: it would be me (powers of telepathy) and my bestie (powers of telekinesis), Wonder Woman (b/c she is perfect), Black Widow, She-Hulk, Gamora (from Guardians of the Galaxy), the Amazon Warriors, the Valkyrie, and literally every other female superhero. Together we will go fight the people who continue to sexualize us in the media. Its going to be great. We’re going to have jackets and everything. Anyone is welcome to join this League of Women Against Unnecessary Sexism (or LWAUS for short)
Whoops...got a little long...I like comic books and superheroes...
3. What’s your favorite animal? Why?
DOGS (b/c they are the sunshines of the earth). But I also like tigers, octopi, dolphins, and platypuses (and quokkas)
4. What would you do in case of a zombie apocalypse?
This is hilarious, but I have an entire apocalypse plan with some old friends of mine. We are going to re-group in our hometown and rally together to form a working group. I was designated to be the cook/therapist b/c im clumsy af and useless otherwise...its going to be great
5. If your life is a movie, what would be the genre?
Drama-Comedy Musical. I have a lot of good, funny moments because I love to make a fool of myself. Its dramatic bc i’ve also been through a lot of tough crap. And its a musical because I can.
6. What do you think about rain?
I LOVE IT. I love being inside on rainy days and listening to it outside my skylights. We don’t get a whole lot of rain where Im from so I always appreciate it when it comes
7. Describe a perfect day.
That’s tough. I think sleeping late, getting a perfect cup of coffee. Sitting on my couch with my laptop and netflix on the tv. I have the house completely to myself. I don’t have a single project or paper to worry about. Later on in the afternoon I go out for ice cream or something with my bestie and we talk about life and high school memories and stuff. That night, I head to a family dinner with my mom’s family and we talk and celebrate. I get home, stay up blogging for a few more hours, before finally falling asleep peacefully.
8. Would you rather have barbed wires for teeth or grass for hair?
Seeing as how I am allergic to grass (it won’t kill me, but i still have a slightly bad reaction), I have to go with barbed wires for teeth. It’ll be like having braces all over again.
9. Do you watch TV?
Depends. Actual channel changing television, no. Television shows that are available online and stuff, YES. ALL THE TIME. TOO MUCH TIME. Like seriously, if you give me a show, I have most likely watched it or at least heard of it
PLEASE COME TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE SHOWS!!!
10. What would you do if you have $1,000?
I would donate a good portion of it to a charity of my choosing, either Arts in the Armed Forces, a runaway youth shelter, or a charity that aims to end human trafficking
11. Tell me 3 facts about yourself!
I am a huge nerd...I love anything gaming, Star Wars, comic books, superheroes, Disney... I legitimately run a podcast that talks about all this stuff because I love it so much (Get Them to the Geek on Soundcloud check it out)
I am a relatively big sports nut too. I love baseball and soccer the most (even though FIFA is evil). I have been watching both since I was very young, and even played soccer for the majority of my childhood (I had to stop due to knee injuries)
I am 100% pissed about the fact that BLAKE FUCKING SHELTON IS THE SEXIST MAN ALIVE! LIKE, HAVE YOU SEEN JASON MOMOA, ANY OF THE FAMOUS CHRISES, SO ON AND SO FORTH
Ok. Im calm now. I promise
My 11 Questions
1. What is one thing that you like about yourself?
2. What is your favorite meme?
3. What is your Harry Potter House (if you have one)?
4. What is your favorite smell?
5. What is your favorite joke?
6. If you could punch one person in the face, who would it be and why?
7. Any TV/Drama/Movie recommendations?
8. What is your favorite au/an au you would like to see? totally not trying to get ideas
9. What is the strangest thing you own (but do not explain why you have it)
10. Favorite movie of all time?
11. If someone were to be cuddling with you right now, who would you want it to be and why?
I tag a few of my followers and stuff bc i want to get to know y’all better: @luke-hemmings-princess @sugacrackers @jungshookmeup @psych0philosophy @princeshushu @au-writer @kpopsinarios @pocketful-of-woozi and @blondshua !!!!
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Thoughts. Not happy ones.
Looking back, though I have loved many fictions and been involved in several fandoms, I have to say after being part of it for 4 years that the Reylo fandom really is the toughest being part of. I had to get used to the fact that I couldn’t speak about what I loved and made me feel good to my friends because they were repulsed by it, even (especially) those who are usually open on the kinds of discussions most people find creepy and know how important it is to be able to speak to like-minded people, like the feminist and BDSM community.
This blog was my happy place, the one where I could vent and create and laugh and share the things I loved with you. I had to witness the hate, which luckily I didn’t receive much online, the constant criticism and belittlement of everyone and the utter feeling of being rejected. It was the only place where I could express myself because I understood the hard way that it wasn’t worth it anywhere else. It was the place where I could escape the very gruesome reality of this world. I grew used to shut up because people, and even “woke” people would find me stupid and infantilize me for what I chose for my escapism if I ever voiced my opinion in the face of their humiliation, witnessing them mocking us while having fun publicly in their own (safe and accepted) fandoms. And while I knew none of this was acceptable and I wished to make them understand how the weight of their rejection was harmful to a lot of us who truly needed this to have just a little bit of fun in this cruel world, who didn’t need anyone’s help to save us from our internalized sexism or whatever they thought we were doing, at the end of the day, here, we had each other and that was all that mattered.
Naively, I thought things would calm down after the last movie because it’s over now, and because everything we’d been saying since 2015 came out to be true. We’re canon. I thought people would move on. Writing these last few words, I can’t think of anything else than Kelly’s mirthless laugh when she was asked if she was happy about Rose’s arc. Oh, my sweet summer child.
But things are even tougher now.
And a lot of us, the majority even, feel heartbroken and hopeless by what the last movie chose to do with Ben and Rey. I tried to cling on to as much positivity as I could in the hopes that I would be able to enjoy even a sliver of the elation I felt after the last two movies which I shared with you all, but things just aren’t the same now. I just feel like we’re being attacked from all sides now because it’s the cool thing to do, and because a lot of us left the fandom because of our heartbreak or the constant alienation that made many of us shut down our accounts, there’s not many of us left and I don’t feel even the shadow of the cohesion that once existed between us to counter the hate, the sense of community we shared because we liked the same thing in a hostile world.
People are using us as punching bags, somehow making us responsible for the shitshow that was forced down our throats, because it’s easier to attack fans who only enjoy shipping two characters than a megacorporation for, non exhaustively, erasing a woman of color’s character to 1.16mn of screen time in an effort to please the racist fuckboys who trashed TLJ and folding over backwards to negate the most loved ship in the fandom (even by us) of two gay men of color because they didn’t think it would be financially profitable to them. Somehow, everything that is wrong in these movies and the surrounding fandom is our fault now, even though the Reylo fandom has been one of the most welcoming I’ve been part of. We’re not the ones who threatened to boycott the movies because there was a man of color in the lead actors, or who kept throwing hate at Kelly to the point where she had to quit social medias for her own sanity. In the midst of our heartbreak, we donated 80.000$ (to this day) to Adam’s charity. And, because one of the actors mocked us and some of us responded to it, we’re being blamed for every racist attack he had to endure since he was revealed to be in the cast. And no one is defending us. And no one is sharing the important things Kelly and Naomi are saying about privilege and being women of color in Star Wars, because it’s funnier to mock us.
But hey, anything to make them feel better, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I wish I could end this on a positive note, but right now I can’t. I’ll just keep watching Carrie videos and tributes, because I miss my space mommy.
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Lost luggage, stolen bikes & sightseeing: the Rio therapy sessions
It’s been a tough couple of days. Ultimately things can only go up from the point of feeling like utter crap & a lot of good things have happened in the last 48 hours so I’m starting to feel a lot more positive.
The bottom line is - Rio is awesome; beautiful, fun, sunny, heaps of fun stuff to do, loads of awesome street art, incredibly friendly helpful people everywhere & cool vibes which is exactly what I hoped for from a place I have wanted to visit for so long. However, it was off to quit a rocky start. As I mentioned in my last post I have been struggling quite a bit recently for a number of reasons, some of which I omitted from this blog for personal reasons, but have been massively looking forward to the arrival of Hannah from London for the festive period (not that I’m feeling too festive in 30+ degrees of sweltering heat, but that’s beside the point & also not necessarily a bad thing because I will never, EVER complain that the sun is shining, especially when I know my friends back home are cold & miserable). However, Hannah’s arrival was blighted by her airline leaving all her luggage in Germany, from whence she connected to Brazil from London, & she arrived stressed, tearful, sleep-deprived & anxious with no clean clothes or vape equipment in desperate need of a shower & nicotine. It was not quite the movie-level reunion either of us had planned or hoped for but did involve a lot of hugging & crying as expected. However, the people at our hostel here are impossibly lovely & were very sympathetic towards Hannah’s plight & so in a flurry of activity between them & myself within ten minutes Hannah had cigarettes, a towel, fresh clothes borrowed/donated from me, all the toiletries & makeup she could possibly need, coffee & a freshly made bed in the bunk directly above mine. After her sanity had been restored we set out to truly begin exploring the wonders of Rio.
This involved taking a cable car up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain - world’s most adorably named mountain imo - which again marked big achievements from me in my ongoing quest to eliminate vertigo from my life. The mountain is remarkably smooth & very tall, like a giant turtle shell rising out of the ocean, & wrapped in jungly-ness. From the top we could see all of Rio; it’s surrounding islands, the harbour & it’s scattered boats, numerous more pre-historic looking mountains in the distance, Jesus with his arms spread, & many circling condors. It was a blissfully sunny day & it was truly incredible to see for so far all the beauty of this incredible city. During our ogling of the delicious views we were visited by heaps of tiny adorable marmosets that scurried along the viewing platform eating candies & numerous other decidedly un-marmoset-y treats donated sneakily by wayward tourists choosing to pointedly ignore the PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE MARMOSETS signs. I was very happy about this because a) marmosets are the cutest things ever & b) Hannah had specifically requested the sightings of monkeys during her stay & as a regular human & not God I was somewhat concerned about my ability to be able to deliver on this & yet here we found ourselves, on day one, looking at the cutest monkey-type creatures ever, right up close & in their natural habitat.
When we descended the mountain, the sun was beginning to set & we went for a swim on Batafogo beach where we saw green parrots & drank coconuts & ate THE BEST CHURROS OF OUR ENTIRE TRIP SO FAR. It seems they love dulce de leche even more in Brazil than any of the other places we’ve already visited in South America & this is in no way a bad thing.
The next day - yesterday - we sunbathed on the world-famous Copacabana beach, then rented bikes & cycled to Rio’s lagoon, which is vast & beautiful & surrounded by mountains. Rio is pretty progressive in its cycling policies with lots of proper cycle paths round the whole city so cycling about seemed like a no-brainer. After making it halfway round the lagoon we decided to follow the signs to the botanical gardens & spent a blissful 90 minutes there before it closed. Not only does Rio have the best churros but is also home to the best botanical garden I have ever seen; it’s more like a huge, vast park than your typical greenhouse-like BG & we oohed & aahed over the most ginormous palm trees, beautiful orchids, & some fruit that look like giant lychees before inadvertently stumbling into monkey land: big patches of bamboo where we must have witnessed literally 20 monkeys eating their lunch. Another great score for Monkey Watch. Again, a real treat to see these sweet creatures right up close in such a beautiful environment. We also found giant fish & a turtle & a capybara in a lilypad-filled pond. I just love seeing exotic creatures in their natural homes. It really fills my heart with such joy & Hannah too was so excited by this it made me even happier.
After the park closed we returned to our bicycles & cycled back round to our lagoon starting point & took a swan pedalo out across the water as the sun went down & the city lit up all of it’s twinkling night lights; very beautiful reflected in the water. Roxy had had to go home before this to sort out some stuff for a doctors appointment so Hannah & I, post-pedalo adventure, walked all the way back catching up on 6 months worth of gossip & ranting & counselling each other over our respective woes. It felt great to have a bit of time for just the two of us to talk & reminisce about anything & everything; I have missed Hannah so much & I didn’t quite even realise how much until she got here. I still can’t quite believe that she is actually here in Brazil. This is literally the longest we haven’t seen eachother in the entirety of our friendship & I have really struggled without her.
However, all good things must (temporarily at least) come to an end & on our way home, whilst stopping to buy Hannah some new clothes & stuff while she awaited the arrival of her luggage (thank you Lufthansa for the free sh*t, you incompetent cretins!) one of our renal bikes got nicked from outside the mall. FACK. Not cool, whoever you are! I feel like this is how the bike rental clowns run a racket on innocent tourists because they had provided one shitty lock for all three bikes which quite frankly I could probably have knawed through. A clean cut & we were one bike down & somewhat panic-stricken. There went another £100 which was significantly less than these cowboys tried to squeeze out of us but thanks to our lovely hostel hosts once more coming to our aid managed to whittle it down. However, paying for someone else’s crime truly stings. Plus it was another example of how alienating it can be to not know a language & having to rely on the kindness of hostel people etc to translate everything & help get you out of a jam.
That said, the rest of today was marvellous. Roxy was tied up with her doctors appointment all day so Hannah & I declared it an ART DAY & visited Boulevard Olympico to look at all the giant murals, painted in the run up to the Rio Olympics in celebration of Brazilian culture. They were incredible. I have never seen such huge paintings; rendered in exquisite detail, portraits in the most vibrant colours with fantastically expressive faces. We also ate our first ever Cuban sandwiches & cinnamon lemonade - get to know - & went to the beach again to cool off in the sea. Cue more churros & coconuts.
I am now beginning to realise some things; Hannah’s arrival proved the catalyst for a pretty extreme late-night breakdown where the presence of the very person to whom I always turn in a crisis prompted an outpouring of emotion that has led in turn to some pretty heavy realisations. It is with renewed vigour that I am beginning to plan my return to the UK, to stability, to the loving arms of my friends & family & potentially to some help that I feel its finally time to admit I need. Having now eliminated the possibility that it was my job and/or London responsible for my sporadic waves of depression, given the fact that I have intermittently experienced the exact same feelings whilst away, I am now one step closer to deciphering what exactly is going on in my brain. Although it is with crushing disappointment that I must admit that travelling did not sure me of this ailment, at least now I can check the possibility of that off the list & try & move forwards. Hannah’s presence is so immensely welcome at this time; she is as always the most incredible, loving & supportive friend. I have been looking at flights home & being a gal that likes to have a plan having an end point in sight is in itself helping me feel more positive. I said all along that I would travel for as long as my money and/or enjoyment lasted & for now at least, it seems 8-9 months is my max on both counts. It’s cool. Only good things will come of this, I am certain.
I can now focus on spending as much quality time as possible with my oldest & dearest friend before she flies home again in 3 weeks. We have lots of fun stuff planned, including going to see some famous mosaic’d steps, visiting Jesus (just in time for his birthday!), going on a tour of a favela, Christmas at the beach, seeing in the New Year with some samba in Sao Paolo & rounding it all off nicely at the world’s biggest waterfalls. Things are looking up.
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about me + tag list
ENRY WHO?
Hi, I’m Enrica and I live in fair Verona, Italy. I’m an artist and also a content creator (mainly in Italian). My website is here and my artblog on tumblr is here.
This is my personal blog, where for the most part I reblog stuff I like. Sometimes I also post my own stuff. I’m chronically depressed though, so I’m generally veeeery slow at drawing! sorry!
I love video games, but I have very specific tastes. If you follow me you can expect lots&lots of Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Pathologic, Dishonored... basically all games with a strong narrative. I live for good stories.
I have accounts on steam, gog, epic games, uplay, origin... and I’m “enrychan” everywhere. Add me as a friend if you want! :)
I have an infinite list of stuff I want to read/watch at all times, but I manage to actually do very little of that, because my brain is an asshole. I’m also trying to list all my books on goodreads.
PATREON&KO-FI
In case you want to support me, I have a patreon and a ko-fi, where you can pledge or make a one-time donation. every little bit counts. thank you!
IN CASE I’VE BLOCKED YOU AND YOU WONDER WHY
This blog is my personal little corner and I will protect it viciously, so I WILL instantly block you if you’re racist, omophobic, TERF, white supremacist and all that despicable garbage.
I will probably block you for much less serious resons too, because I’m petty like that! I’ve blocked people just because they hated a character I like and were a little too vocal about that. In this case please don’t make it personal, I just want my dashboard to be as welcoming a place as possible! :)
>>>> MY TAG LIST
About me [relatable posts] / My faves / Capricorn
Reiecta [personal project] (Kahliq/Anvar / Reiecta wip / Reiecta shitposting)
---
Animals (Birds / Cats / Dogs / Howls ♥)
Art (Inspiration / Heritage / Islamic Art)
Assassin's Creed series (AC1 / AC2 / ACB / ACR / AC3 / AC4 / ACU / ACRogue / ACS / ACC / ACO / ACody / Altair ♥ / Ezio / Connor / Edward / Frye siblings ♥ / Jacob Frye ♥ / Evie Frye ♥)
Beautiful people
Beautiful places (Italy [dedicated blog here] / Greece / Japan / Rome ♥)
Dishonored
Disney
Dragon Age (Anders ♥ / Anders/Hawke ♥ / Dorian Pavus ♥ / Inquisitor/Dorian ♥ / Anders defence squad / My Kirkwall Trash Crew / my OCS / Constance Hawke / Ayden Joshua Trevelyan)
Fallout
Fashion
Flowers
FullMetal Alchemist
Game of Thrones/ASOIAF
Handsome men
Mad Max: Fury Road
Marvel
Mass Effect ♥ (femShep ♥ / maleShep / femShep/Kaidan / maleShep/Kaidan / femShep/Garrus)
Minekura-sensei (Saiyuki / Wild Adapter ♥ / Kubota/Tokito ♥)
Movies
Pathologic ♥ (Artemy/Daniil ♥)
Portal
Pretty things (Anders/Hawke pretty things)
Red Dead Redemption
References (Human body / Resources)
Sailor Moon
Skyrim
Star Wars
Studio Ghibli
The Last of Us
Tolkien things ♥ : The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings
Video games
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Innovate Like a Turtle
A simple strategy any teacher can use to improve teaching
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
We teachers are too busy. There’s too much to do! But eleven years a go, I hit upon something that works for me. I realized that I didn’t have much time, but I could take 15 minutes just two or three times a week to learn and try new things. That is when “innovate like a turtle” was born. Since then, my classroom has changed. My students are more excited. I’m a better teacher. And as I travel and tell my simple story of powerful transformation, other teachers are doing it too with incredible results. Join us. It isn’t that hard.
But what does it mean?
Welcome to episode 297 of the Every Classroom Matters podcast. In this episode, Annette Lang and I discuss how her decision to “innovate like a turtle” has transformed her classroom. Understand how this can work for you.
Listen to the Audio
BAM Radio Network | iTunes
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How can a teacher innovate when they have no time?
Does slow, steady innovation really work?
Can any teacher apply these principles and make their classroom better?
Check Out Today’s Sponsor
Bloomz is your one-stop solution for parent-teacher communications. More than just connecting with their cell phones, you can send long or short messages. You can share pictures and links. You can even coordinate volunteer schedules, donations, and parent-teacher conferences. I’m using Bloomz in my classroom.
Learn more about Bloomz
http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&layout=embed&tmpl=component&id=4175&catid=91&Itemid=1181
About Us
Today’s Guest: Annette Lang
Annette Lang@msalang has been a technology teacher for over 12 years, with a Master of Arts in Teaching. She completed her library endorsement and worked as a district librarian. She has taught middle school through high school. Currently, she is working as a technology educator to Freshman and Sophomores at Bio-Med Science Academy.
Host: Vicki Davis
Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher is a full-time classroom teacher in Camilla, Georgia. Winner of the ISTE Online Learning Award 2006 and Best Talk Show Host in Education 2014 and many Best Teacher Blog awards, Vicki seeks to shine a spotlight on what works in education wherever it happens in the world. Vicki has created more than 30 global collaborative projects, programmed apps with her students, and is now shooting a full-length movie with her digital film class. Read more about her here.
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If you enjoyed the show, please rate this show on iTunes and leave a review. Thank you for helping other teachers find the show.
The post Innovate Like a Turtle appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/innovate-like-turtle/
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NEWS - BOOM! Studios Message to Retailers
As lockdowns continue across the nation due to the current global pandemic, many are uncertain as to when things will get back to normal or if there will be a new normal.
Today, BOOM! Studios’ President of Publishing and Marketing, Filip Sablik, released a message to comic book retailers that they are standing by for when the time comes to reopen for a new “Day 1”. In the meantime, please support your local comic shop – many have curbside pickup or offer delivery services. BOOM! Studios has a tool on their site to help Boost Your Local Comic Shop.
You can also catch up with our Ranger Merch Reviews for the BOOM! Studios Power Rangers comics by listening to our review episodes.
youtube
Full transcript is below.
To Our Retail Partners,
A new day will dawn for the direct market. I believe we must rise to meet this rebirth by recommitting to who we are and what makes comic book stores special. Soon, we’ll have new comics to sell. When that moment comes, every comic shop will have a fresh start. Each store has their own new Day One in their future. Some parts of the world will open before others to ensure safety. Comic shops won’t have a single uniform Day One. One size doesn’t fit all.
But one thing is certain: Your customers will return. And on your new Day One, you’ll have an opportunity you haven’t had since you first opened your store – the chance to make a first impression.
How do I know your comic book customers are coming back? Because you sell community. Community is what makes comic book stores special.
Before COVID-19, customers could buy comic books online at the click of a few buttons. Many websites sold cheaper than you could even after shipping. Your customers could read the newest stories instantly when they woke up through digital apps. None of this information is new or secret. If price or convenience was the only thing driving a customer’s decision to purchase, there would be no foot traffic in comic book stores after the widespread adoption of the internet. None at all! But comic book fans didn’t exclusively buy new releases off the internet or an app. They bought them at your store. Because you sell community.
It’s why I love comic shops. Where else can I talk about Saga coming back? Now I don’t debate who’s stronger—Superman or the Hulk. But I’ve been there when two people—neither of whom worked at a job where the boss or a co-worker wanted to debate this—started discussing it and asked me what I thought. In case you didn’t know, I have a shrine to the original superhero in my office. You see, you don’t just sell issues of Superman—or Once & Future.
You also sell community, a place where everyone knows your name. You sell a place where every customer knows that you’ll introduce them to the best work from their favorite creators. You sell them Kieron Gillen’s Once & Future or Ludocrats because they love Die or The Wicked & The Divine. You sell them Brian Azzarello’s Faithless because you remember they enjoyed Moonshine or 100 Bullets. You sell them James Tynion IV’s Something Is Killing the Children because they’re devouring his Batman or The Woods.
You sell a space where people appreciate gorgeous art by Jim Lee, Jenny Frison, Dan Mora, and Mike Mignola. You sell a place where people know who these creators are — and if a customer doesn’t know who they are, you educate them. And in turn, you know your customers. What they like, what they don’t like, who they are, who their families are, and what matters to them. You’ve shared in their joys and laughter, their achievements and triumphs.
Your store is a unique, integral part of the comics industry. No other comic store can replace the experience of your comic store.
I believe that comic book stores are your customers’ “third place.” I had planned on making this idea a central part of my presentation to our retail partners at the Diamond Retailer Summit in Orlando weeks ago.
In his seminal book The Great Good Place, Robert Oldenburg introduced the idea that in order for a society to flourish every person must have three realms. The first place is home. The second place is work. We all have these first two places. They are understood and universal.
But the third place is a place that is not linked to your home life and not linked to your work life. It’s a place we can be ourselves free from the responsibilities of home or work. They’ve existed throughout human history. We all seek them out whether we realize it or not.
In Ancient Greece, it was the agora. During the Enlightenment and French Revolution, it was the coffee house. During the American Revolution, it was the tavern. In modern life, it might include churches, community centers, coffee shops and cafes, bars and pubs, restaurants, malls, hair salons and barber shops, pools, movie theaters, clubs and organizations, libraries, and even parks.
Because they are a third place, I believe comic book shops are an intrinsic part of our society. Comic book shops matter.
The good news is that you don’t just sell comic books. Because you offer your customers something far more valuable – community. If your store is a reflection of you, your staff, and the customers you want to fill your store with, that’s a third place only you can create. You’ve created a place where a group of people can be themselves, debate their favorite stories and heroes with friends, share their burdens with a friendly ear, and discover the next amazing story from a trusted source. And community is the most powerful reason for customers to shop at a comic store.
Across the world, we’ve seen members of our community rally to boost their local comic shop. Those customers, the customers you serve, aren’t buying your backstock, donating money, signing up for book clubs, or ordering gift cards to save the places they buy comic books and graphic novels.
They’re doing it to save their third place. The third place you’ve created cannot be replaced, replicated, or made obsolete by another channel that offers to sell the same product you sell to your community. You are a community builder. Don’t lose sight of who you are, why your store exists, and what you believe. No other channel can sell the same stuff you do.
We’ve all had to hunker down while this passes outside. We’ve had to find shelter and safety. But Day One is coming. It’s time to engage with, to strengthen, and grow your community. I’ve seen amazing examples of comic stores learning to live stream across social channels, running book clubs through video conference services, offering curated or concierge shopping services, providing information and entertainment to their communities through blog posts, videos, and newsletters, and so much more. I’ve talked to retailers who are organizing, cleaning, and reinventing the interior of their stores to make them even more welcoming when they reopen. Some of these ideas generate an immediate return, but even if they don’t, investing in your community is something that will pay dividends in the long run.
You are community builders.
And what’s more, I believe that when this is all over – whether the world returns to something that closely resembles the world before or whether our new normal is quite different – that our community will need both of us more than ever. After weeks of isolation and communicating through text, phone, and video chat, we will all need to reconnect with our third place. We will all need stories. Stories that help us reconnect with our humanity, that will help us make sense of what happened, stories that allow us to escape, and stories that inspire us.
Let’s make sure we’re ready when that day comes. Let’s take this time to make sure that we have the best stories ready to go. That our third places are all the best versions of themselves.
At BOOM! Studios, we’re ready for your Day One. As your best partner, we’ve been planning and refining our 2020 publishing plans to ensure that we show up with Must Read stories to earn our space on your shelves. We’ve already shared with you our Retailer Support Services to support you when you open your doors again for your community. You’ve seen our continued support every week in our retailer newsletters arming you with small business tools and information. There’s more support to come. More importantly, we will transparently share our plans so you aren’t wondering what’s going to draw your community in for this new dawn, you can start talking to them about it. Together we’ll make sure that when our community returns to their favorite third place that they are excited to do so and are greeted by the best Must Read stories we can deliver.
I’ll see you there. At my local comic shop.
Filip Sablik
President, Publishing & Marketing
BOOM! Studios
NEWS – BOOM! Studios Message to Retailers was originally published on Ranger Command Power Hour
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