#Royal de Luxe

[puppetdaily]

El Xolo from Royal de Luxe

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Monsieur Bourgogne in Saint-Herblain, France. :: Installation by Royal de Luxe :: [via "EYE"]

Photo by Loïc Venance

* * *

“The outside is the only place we can truly be inside the world.” ― Daniel J. Rice

[teethburger]

no cops at pride just all of the royal de luxe giants

[sexysauron]

Review #4: Crown Royal Fine De Luxe

For many folks around the world, Crown Royal is Canadian whisky and Canadian whisky is Crown Royal. There is some truth to this, beyond the base fact that it’s made here; the brand’s origin is rooted in something that sets us apart from our nearest neighbour: our constitutional monarchy. The first Crown Royal was created to commemorate the 1939 royal tour of Canada of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). It was a blend of fifty whiskies, which is also true of today’s Fine De Luxe expression, the subject of today’s review.

Fifty whiskies. Past experience has shown me the challenge of incorporating so many components, as the resultant blend always seems to end up rather muddled. The website implies that the core of this whisky is a Coffey distilled rye. Let’s try to pick out those spicy notes, from grain and from barrel, to see if this has the character befitting of what we here generically term “rye.”

Crown Royal Fine De Luxe Gimli Manitoba Blended Age: NAS ABV: 40%

Price paid (MLCC): $32.92 Reviewed: 2023-07-12

Colour: Dark amber.

Nose: Lavender and mingled fruitiness; red and honeycrisp apple, a bit of apricot and cherry. Toffee, hints of bubblegum and baking spice.

Palate: Creamy toffee and rye spice; oak. Red apple and nectarine. Pear and a bit of maple.

Finish: Honeycrisp. Oak and rye spices, quickly fading. Toffee remains longer. Pear closes out.

The mingled fruitiness above is quite well integrated, and it should be noted that the exact notes I get for that characteristic are variable between sittings. This is an intriguing pour in that regard. There’s good variety here too; about the only things holding it back are the relative lack of strength of flavour and somewhat insubstantial mouthfeel.

Score: 3 out of 5

Fine De Luxe could serve as a decent benchmark to measure other Canadian whiskies against. It has something for everyone, in quantities that do not dominate but rather harmonize.

Scoring Guide 1 out of 5: Terrible; no redeeming qualities, just say no. 2 out of 5: Poor; possesses qualities that detract, fodder for mixers. 3 out of 5: Mediocre; middle-of-the-road whisky, sippable but perhaps better in a cocktail. 4 out of 5: Good; a solid pour, enjoyable neat and outstanding in a cocktail. 5 out of 5: Superb; continues to surprise and delight, something to cherish.

[vizreef]

Uher Royal de Luxe // reel-to-reel tape recorder (Germany, 1969)

[patoune-prod]

Believe me, nothing beat seeing them in live. And the elephant is wonderful too, you can even hitch a ride!

To tide all of you over, and in light of the fact that every display of these marvelous machines on tiktok is framing them as giants or figures of fae magic or the second coming of Jesus or whatever, let's take a moment to appreciate the INCREDIBLE puppets coming out of Royal De Luxe and Compagnie La Machine. I know they can also be counted as animatronics/robotic but...fuck it, I'm covering both and they're essentially puppets too.

You'll notice there's lots of Long Ma. I will be doing a Long Ma specific post.

[raayllum]

Today on crackpot theories: Aaravos' making the world's worst grocery list of items for his Cosmic Council takeover, re: Claudia and the Sunforge staff

I was thinking about how both Claudia and the Sunforge staff are included in her intro, despite not really needing the staff to be (as far as we know, but bear with me for a moment).

Viren, for example, doesn't have any item in his intro, despite the fact that Aaravos clocked that he had the relic staff Immediately. This was one of the biggest indicators at the time that Ziard's staff was related to Aaravos (since we didn't know he was a 'great one' yet).

Callum has the cube (which we'll circle back to) in his intro, yes, but again that makes a bit more sense with the context we have. It's called the Key of Aaravos, of course it was going to be something in relation to Aaravos in the Startouch elf's head of "hehe play into my hands".

It does show a pattern, though, of Aaravos not just going after mages, but mages who specifically have the 'gifts'/objects he's left behind that he needs. He needs the Relic staff, at the very least, because it has the quasar diamond he left inside as a contingency plan seemingly just in case he was ever imprisoned since murder only temporarily delays him. The cube may be something he's been looking for for a while now.

So he adds Viren and Callum to his little collection, convenient pawns pulled in by lures, and then constructs two more grocery list items together in quick succession in S3:

I've pondered before about why have Luna Tenebris and Queen Aditi go missing at all, in terms of being part of his plan. On the one hand, it makes sense without really trying: taking out Luna de-stabilized the archdragons (who seem like the only real threat to his power) and he couldn't let Aditi stabilize them. That doesn't explain why he'd eat her, though, unless it was just for fun.

It also never entirely sat right to me that getting the Sun staff / orb from Lux Aurea was just about protecting the soldiers from dragon fire. It felt too short sighted, not for Viren maybe but for Aaravos, given that if the Sunfire elves hadn't gotten involved, the assault on the Storm Spire probably would've gone on without a hitch.

Season six did provide more context, though! If Aaravos knew there was a good chance that taking out Lux Aurea and de-stabilizing the royal family again would make it easier to manipulate and kill Sol Regem, I could see that being incentive enough. If he's waited a 1000+ years for his revenge on that dragon, what's a couple more?

But like I said... if Aaravos ate Aditi for a reason, which was nullified maybe by his 300 year imprisonment... Does he need to eventually eat the Sun orb too? (Or Claudia, as she's consumed by the corrupted light for a beautifully on the nose metaphor?)

The relic staff has seemingly served at least one of its main purposes for now, though perhaps the quasar diamond can continue to be used past the point of giving Aaravos a new body? And we know the cube is related to Aaravos' book, so he'll want both of those within his possession and likely, like Viren in Lux Aurea and in Katolis with Claudia, be brought right to him. But I wonder about the corrupted Sun staff

The simplest reasoning I could see is the Staff just symbolizing Claudia's attachment to Aaravos and dark magic, but given its inclusion in the pawn intro, I can't help but think there's more to it, anyway. Why have it specifically on Aaravos' grocery list of items to get if all he wanted to do was corrupt the Sun forge, after all?

[voluxpa]

-- ANGUS -- déesse des étoiles et des constellations; tenue rehaussée de bijoux, stature royale. invoquée le plus souvent pour retrouver son chemin lorsqu'on est perdu dans la nuit. animal totem : le poisson-phare

crédit icons : LUX, crédit idée : GAZAL. nb; cette déesse est une invention sortie d'une imagination fertile et incroyable. je ne peux que vous encourager à zieuter ses pl sur le serment de l'encre que je vous joins en commentaires.

[copperbadge]

A small remark about your "Job Offer" fic: all trains coming from Nice are arriving at Gare de Lyon in Paris, which is for all the southeastern lines, whereas Gare du Nord is for all the northern lines (i.e. Lille).

Thanks for the fic, though. It's great, like all your Shivadhverse!

Yeah, I reversed the two, which is particularly funny since I spent like, a good solid few hours in Gare de Lyon when I was in Paris. You'd think I'd have managed to get it right :D I will be fixing for publication, never fear!

(I also got the arrondissement wrong, I'm not sure how, since I ALSO stayed on Rue des Lombards and it's a really small and short street, it's not like it's complicated.)

Sometime I should write the story of Michaelis and the swimming party at the Piscine Molitor. I feel like he probably had to do some quick thinking not to become entangled with the contessa that wants to be his next queen. And it's also kind of fun to write the royals hobnobbing a little, because they don't really do the ultra-luxe thing, but they're adjacent to it a lot. Like, he could stay at the Molitor, it's a hotel and a fairly swanky one and he has the money for that. He'd just rather stay at the Shivadh guesthouse that has like eight rooms and he's in the only (small) suite, since it's really all he needs and he knows he's likely to be among his people there.

But he is absolutely going to let a slightly predatory Italian noblewoman treat him to lunch if it means he gets to spend the afternoon in a really nice pool. Depending on the quality of the lunch he will even flex a little when he dives.

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

If you like big puppets (aside from dragons) you should check out the Royal de Luxe puppets!

They're honestly incredible, here's a clip from a performance they did a few years ago!

I can only imagine how amazing they must be to see in person. They're fully articulated with moving joints, jaws, eyes, and even eyelids! Their costumes are removable so they can wear different clothes for different events. I'm big fan of Little Girl Giant, but honestly all their puppets are just stunning.

this is going to be the most redcore post but i genuinely think giant puppet dragons are holy beings

[tiaramania]

Infanta Maria Francisca's Wedding Tiara

The Duke and Duchess of Braganza have announced that the wedding of Infanta Maria Francisca, Duchess of Coimbra, and Duarte de Sousa Araújo Martins will take place on Saturday, October 7th at the Basilica of Our Lady and Saint Anthony within the Palace of Mafra. Thanks to an interview with Observador, we know all about the bride's planned wedding jewelry. The quotes below have been run through Google translate.

Infanta Maria Francisca will wear Queen Amélie’s Diamond Tiara which is the same one worn by her mother, the Duchess of Braganza, at her wedding in 1995. "I feel very honored, very lucky, that they lent it to me, because it is a very valuable tiara. I feel that I am not that worthy of wearing the tiara and I am really happy that they gave me this opportunity." I don't have a post on it yet but here are some from other blogs. It was made in 1886 by Leitão & Irmão and was a wedding gift to Queen Amélie from her father-in-law, King Luís I of Portugal, so you'll sometimes see it called the Dom Luis Diadem.

Along with the tiara, Maria Francisca will wear the same diamond earrings that were worn by her mother on her wedding day. They were a gift from the Duchess of Braganza's mother, Raquel Pinheiro de Castro Curvello.

Maria Francisca will also wear a sapphire and diamond bracelet that belonged to Queen Amélie on loan from a friend. "A very dear friend of mine, who has an antique shop, is going to lend me a Queen Amélie bracelet. He told me 'I have this bracelet from Queen Amélie that I bought at an auction house and I insist that you wear it because it belongs to your family and has sentimental and historical value'."

For the reception after the wedding, Maria Francisca will wear a pair of earrings that belonged to her grandmother and namesake, Princess Maria Francisca of Orléans-Braganza. The diamond from her engagement ring was taken from these earrings and the groom replaced it and another diamond with emeralds. "Both in the ring and in the earrings, I have my grandmother Francisca and Duarte represented."

The former Portuguese royal family are generally well regarded and even attend state banquets in Portugal. We already know that some of the Lux royals will be there and I also expect other former royals to attend.

The wedding will be televised at 3:00pm local time on TVI (Televisão Independente) and I'll post a non-geoblocked link if I can find one.

[corviiids]

For the director's cut fanfic thing: ⭐⭐⭐ (these are THREE stars valid for whatever. I'm giving you blank checks)

thank you again <3

blank check 2/3 goes back to as you like it again! but this time i want to talk about my shadow designs for the akechi bossfights we've encountered in the preceding chapters >:3 there are five - the Puppet, the Singer, the Bard, the Dancer, and the Magician.

but this got really ABSURDLY long this time so ill stick to mostly the Puppet, and just do a brief ("brief") overview of the others for now.......

(for context: this is my palace au and akechi's keywords are akechi goro, the world, theatre.)

the Puppet (photos of giant puppets below if that freaks you out!)

the first Wing the thieves encounter is the puppet show, and the boss shadow is a giant marionette:

For one thing, it’s huge—maybe three or four times the size of a human being. It’s also gleaming, carefully polished and buffed, reflecting light more viciously in the areas where it seems the wood might be chipped or worn. The polish throws the lines of joints and pieces into sharp relief, giving the puppet the general impression of something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails. Behind it, mostly concealed by its limp bulk, is a door. As they might have gleaned from the chatter of the audience, the show does not yet seem to have begun. As such, the puppet on stage is limp on its strings. Most disturbingly, it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks. They can just make out the side of the thing’s eyes from where they’re standing. Gravity has not been kind to them: the puppet’s eyelids are dropped open, bulging eyes left wide and staring up as far back as the build will let them. They haven’t rolled all the way into the wooden skull, presumably because they can’t. Instead, the unseeing yellow eyes remain fixed on the back corner of the stage. The puppet is entirely still. “I think I’m going to be sick,” Makoto says faintly.

i think the Puppet is my favourite of the five because he's so disturbing. i imagine he looks a bit like the giant marionettes by the french street theatre show royal de luxe:

but i really love these guys, so i think it's uncharitable to say akechi's shadow looks exactly like them. i know giant puppets are always a little freaky but i genuinely love the royal de luxe puppets and i think the workmanship on these does genuinely do a ton of work to dispel that uncanny vibe.

puppet akechi on the other hand is absolutely drenched in uncanny valley, so i guess imagine these puppets but much scarier. the main thing is those places where different pieces of wood are joined, in the joints / on the limbs / etc, because that's very key to puppet akechi's look in my mind, hence "something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails". the Puppet is a marionette, but the way he's been constructed and set up on stage almost calls to mind the imagery of a corpse that's been reconstructed to perform. the way he moves is really unnatural:

Ren is beginning to think they might be able to get past and slip through that door without a fight when the whole creature rears up, back strings going taut, and lashes wildly out at him with a horrible clack of its arms—he leaps back and crashes directly into Haru, who catches and dips him like a princess before twirling him frantically into Ryuji and the puppet gouges a deep gash in the stage floor.    As they watch it screeches, howls an unnatural shriek, eyes suddenly wide and bulging larger. They ‘blink’ a few times, eyelids flipping, then the puppet Akechi goes limp on its strings again, though decidedly more upright than before, like whoever’s pulling the strings is now on guard. Its eyes stay open this time, bright gold and piercing.

very much not like something exercising its own agency, but like a body on strings being operated by someone who did not care to practice in the artistry of operating a puppet to make it look like a live thing - the puppet is literally just a tool to be flailed about.

this also shows in the way the puppet sits when it's at rest. guys do you know how god damn hard it is to find normal pictures of puppets? when you google marionette it just comes up with a bunch of fnaf shit. anyway check this guy out

at rest, they usually just kind of dangle innocently, or might slouch forward if given too much slack, right? it was important to me that puppet akechi look very wrong at rest, as if he's not "at rest" so much as he's just been left to hang. hence: "it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks." i'm basically imagining meat hooks, like, in a slaughterhouse or something you know? like he's just dangling from those.

that imagery was inspired by persona 5 dancing, actually - akechi's finishing pose in his dance is this:

this is just such an unnatural pose. when i saw it for the first time, i just couldn't get the image out of my head of a string puppet who'd been hung up and left to dangle without any regard for how it might look or feel (lol). not to mention that blank look in his eyes. i think a lot of the Puppet was born from this dance because the dance itself is so dynamic and silly but then the lead-up to the end suddenly gets very jerky and puppet-like. i really like his dance!

the Puppet's battle mechanic is that the applause will continue as long as the Puppet is either acting or getting hurt (kind of like the mettaton fight in undertale actually?). if the applause stops, then the Puppet will be inflicted with Despair - in p5 the Despair effect means you lose SP for each turn and then instantly die on the third turn. makoto ends up healing the Puppet and yusuke mercy-kills it before it can commit suicide:

Fox silently raises his gun. The Thieves collectively flinch as the Puppet dissipates. The applause starts back up. “If we’d left things silent,” Yusuke says, “it would have only happened again.”

because this is the first shadow bossfight the thieves encounter in the Theatre, i needed it to have some broader implications (vs some of the later shadows who have more specific interactions). so obviously the analogue for akechi is that the performance needs to continue and he needs to continue receiving acknowledgement from the public / from shido / etc because if he's not useful and entertaining and noticeable and such, then he's nothing - his life doesn't mean anything. obviously, if he doesnt perform for shido (perform in the sense of working, but also in the sense of showmanship) he'll probably be killed. but also, akechi really externalises his sense of self to an insane degree. the conceit of the palace is essentially that his entire internal world is the show, it's just this shallow performance, the backstage is empty. if he stops existing in the cognition of the masses, he essentially "stops existing".

i think a lot about third semester akechi in royal and how completely he's faded from public awareness. he doesn't care because he's a dead man walking and has locked into nihilism at that point. but if you look at what akechi says in the engine room:

his voice when he says this says a lot to me. akechi's envisioning the world as it will look when he has to return and face the consequences of the world discovering what's behind the curtain and realising his credibility was all a show. to be honest, i think this also plays a role in his decision to sacrifice himself in this scene. i don't think he wanted to die, but i think he did realise that the post-thieves, post-truth world wasn't a place that held anything for him anymore, and his desire to return to that reality was dramatically weakened, so it was an easier decision for him to choose to make that sacrifice than it otherwise might have been.

um, i had a point. okay, so, i was saying that once the applause stops, the Puppet begins to despair. the Puppet also is the most direct representation of akechi as someone who is being used. all the shadow bosses correlate to some aspect of akechi's need to perform and to the varying reasons why they all have that sense of desperation:

“Kinda feels like they’re just defendin’ themselves, you know,” [Ryuji] says. “Or somethin’. Look too much like him. It’s weird they can’t talk, cos it’s like fighting a dumb animal. Don’t they all seem real scared to you?” None of Akechi’s Shadows have delivered grand speeches about conquering the world. Even Futaba’s Shadow had given them a fairly strong indication of what was going on with her, that overwhelming guilt which had given birth to a resolve to lock herself up in her mind and die. Akechi’s Shadows have lashed out, tried to destroy them, sure. But it feels different in a way that’s growing more and more impossible to ignore. Desperate to fend them off, more than anything, like each one is the final bastion standing for a world that could crumble at any moment.

that's why once you figure out how to stop each shadow's "show" from going on, they instantly die:

ripping the Singer's mask off causes him to cease to exist (see below)

silencing the Bard, who relies on the power of his words to manipulate others, removes his power and reveals that he's pretty easy to take down

the Dancer's feet are always bleeding because he can't stop moving. he's hard to catch, but the moment he stops dancing, he's revealed to have extremely low defence and can be taken out very easily

but the Puppet is literally being manipulated by a puppetmaster. because he no longer has any use when the applause stops, he no longer has a reason to exist. i also just thought this would be a fun effect to start on because it's so drastic as an introduction to akc's psyche and really gives the thieves a sense of what they're working with by throwing them directly into the deep end.

ok let's leave the puppet behind for now. im gonna be more brief with the others i promise (maybe)

the Singer

LET'S TALK about. beneath the mask. a song about ren. but it's also a song about goro.

I'm a shape-shifter at Poe's masquerade Hiding both face and mind All free for you to draw

the fic goes over some of my meta about this:

[Yusuke] I have done some research. [Makoto] Oh? [Yusuke] I believe when the Opera Shadow sang of “Poe’s Masquerade”, he was referring to a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “The Masque of the Red Death”.

eternally grateful for the scene during the pyramid arc where yusuke loredumps about egyptian mythology so i have precedent to do this

yusuke summarises the story in this chapter (chapter 4), but basically: the story is about rich people abandoning the common folk to a plague, until a personification of the plague wearing a red mask enters the castle. when his mask is removed, it's revealed there is nothing underneath. everyone in the castle then succumbs to the plague.

the superficial connections to akechi are pretty obvious - red mask, plague doctor. etc. but this song is really, really telling for both ren and goro. i briefly went over this in my last dvd commentary post about the palace fic, but this relates to my meta around both of them as mask wearers. the line "all free for you to draw" is a big one - ren is "all free for you," the player, "to draw" - he becomes who you need him to be, and because you need to max out your confidants, he becomes (via you) who his friends need him to be.

goro is similar on a different scale because he moulds his personality to what the public expects him to be. he takes it one step further, because it's less utility for him and more foundational - as i said, to an extent the performance is the substance of his personality, which is the core of the distortion. so both ren and goro are wearing the mask, malleable in character, their actual personality being somewhat questionable, but that emptiness is only true for goro. ren's definitely got something underneath it, but goro feels like he doesn't.

brief cw for suicidal ideation, but i also generally take it as a given that goro doesn't really expect to live past 18 after defeating shido. not that he's actively suicidal, but i think literally or figuratively he knows after shido's downfall, his own life will pretty much be over, and that's part of what drives the emptiness. the show really only needs to go on until that point, and after that there's no need to build a real thing underneath to return to. he's very much living for that goal.

anyway: so the Singer starts out singing the Phantom of the Opera - the Shadow is very much modelled after the phantom - but swaps to beneath the mask and begins to connect with ren. the Singer wears a red mask. i really like this mask! i envision it as looking like someone pouring blood over his face and then the blood freezing in place, so it just looks very molten and liquid but fixed over half his face.

ren defeats the Singer by ripping his mask off:

[Ren] Please don’t take off my mask, revealing dark [Ann] OMG!! [Ann] THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK OFF HIS MASK!! [Ann] HE REVEALED DARK!!!! [Ann] HE DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!

(i love the thieves because i dont have to be subtle about my symbolism i can just make them say it)

anyway, just like the figure in the Masque of the Red Death, ripping off the Singer's mask reveals "dark" underneath - he ceases to exist.

Just a cage of bones There's nothing inside

the Bard and the Dancer

when i was first plotting this fic, i was actually designing the palace not as a written environment but as though it would be a playable place. so a lot of it is informed by me picturing what this palace would be like to play through and explore, building it out as a video game environment in my mind's eye and then trying to describe it from that point. i took the same approach to the bossfights, so they're all designed around central gameplay mechanics which are largely based on status effects and how the player would strategise around them. (to that end, a lot of the design stuff in my doc never made it into the fic...)

the conceit of the bard was a shadow who can manifest abstract concepts into being by manipulating reality with his words. so the status effects he uses are brainwash and sleep, mostly. his monologues are modified versions of shakespeare's works.

part of the reason why i started writing this fic was specifically to challenge myself in aras of writing im not very confident in: so longform planning, progression of plot, environment description, and action scenes being major ones. writing all the boss fights was and continues to be a real challenge. the chapter that the bard shows up in (chapter 5) ended up taking ages and ages in part because i kept putting off writing this fight. now that it's done, though, the bard fight is actually maybe my favourite fight scene i've written lol. it always turns out that way!!! the reason i like it is because i realised the physical action wasn't the fun part of writing a fight like this. since it was focused on status effects, it meant i got to crawl into ren's headspace when he got brainwashed, which i really really enjoyed doing because i got to drag out some trauma that joker has lovingly repressed.

   to set my fellows, phantoms in the wings    in deadly hate the one against the other…    This isn’t the Casino. This is somewhere else entirely. The Casino, and everything that came with it, that was months ago. How did he forget? The cottonwool that had crept so slowly into his blood dissipates in a mad rush that leaves him dizzy with disbelief. His hands, now that he can feel them again, are trembling. The knife between his fingers, trembling. The cool floor beneath him, the air in his lungs. How close had he come to never feeling that again?    Had he really just been feeling safe about that plan? Had he really felt everything was going to be okay? If anything had gone wrong—anything at all—he’d have been gone. He’d have been dead. How had they made it so he felt okay with that?    A trick? A ruse?    How blasé they’d all been, when it was his life they were gambling with like a worthless set of poker chips! And they’re here—all around him. Safe? He’s never been in more danger.    “Joker!”    Surrounded. He’s surrounded by the ones who left him for dead.

the Dancer doesn't get as much attention in text because i didn't want to slow down the pacing of the story every few minutes to do another huge scene tgat doesn't really serve a purpose, just like the exploration of the Globe Wing didn't. all that mattered was that he was shown to be adaptable, agile, and resilient - the Dancer needs to be in top condition at all times and ready to dodge any threat. the imagery that came through to me the strongest was the idea that his feet are always bleeding, so he leaves bloodstains all over the floor.

the Magician

this was another scene i adored writing. i think environment-wise, the House of Cards is my favourite Wing in the palace because it's the most unique structure. it's not a styled theatre like the others, it's more on-theme to the Magician, like he's set up his own performance environment. so it's just a huge house of cards made of crumbling playing cards which is really difficult to navigate and which joker kind of blends into.

the premise for the Magician was someone who needs to perform miracles and present impossible illusions as reality with a flair for drama. the Magician fools the Thieves over and over and over again, because they are good-hearted people who want to save him.

did you ever see that unused mementos request in royal where akechi tells the thieves about a target to save someone, and doesn't tell them that the someone in question is dodgy themself, and watches to see how quickly the Thieves immediately trust them?

i don't think i based this fight off this request because im pretty sure i had it planned out before i ever saw this, but i was really pleased to see it because it's very much the same idea. even in the engine room, akechi calls the thieves idiots for inviting him back into the team. of course, this isn't a good or healthy worldview lol and it's something he has to unlearn because he literally trusts no one and that's not an extreme anyone should be endorsing, but he also has a point in that the thieves are willing to throw their faith into things way too easily and don't look critically at people or situations. so the magician fools them, victimises them, tricks them into considering him a victim, fools them again, traumatises them, but they all continue to feel empathy for him and try to save him when he's in trouble. akc's cynicism vs the thieves' faith is a big theme of this one i think and the question is like, when to doubt vs when to trust even when you have evidence to the opposition. i think the right position is somewhere between thesis and antithesis (which iirc is not actually the wording hegel used when describing dialectics? lol... i might be wrong. i never studied hegel so my knowledge is pretty superficial. but i think this was a translation thing anyway because allegedly goro doesnt refer directly to hegel in jp? someone can confirm or deny idk)

anyway those are the bossfights we've had so far!!! just the VIP Box to go now......................... :3

[fashionbooksmilano]

Luxe de poche

Petits Objets Précieux au Siècle des Lumières

Musée Cognacq-Jay Paris-Musées

Paris-Musées, Paris 2024, 96 pages, 22x28cm, ISBN 978-2-7596-0579-8

euro 28,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

L’exposition Luxe de poche au musée Cognacq-Jay présente une collection exceptionnelle de petits objets précieux et sophistiqués, en or, enrichis de pierres dures ou de pierres précieuses, couverts de nacre, de porcelaine ou d’émaux translucides, parfois ornés de miniatures. Les usages de ces objets varient, mais ils ressortent tous des us et coutumes d’un quotidien raffiné, signe de richesse, souvenir intime. Au siècle des Lumières comme aux suivants, ils suscitent un véritable engouement en France d’abord puis dans toute l’Europe. 

Luxe de poche a pour ambition de renouveler le regard que l’on porte sur ces objets, en adoptant une approche plurielle, qui convoque à la fois l’histoire de l’art et l’histoire de la mode, l’histoire des techniques, l’histoire culturelle et l’anthropologie en faisant résonner ces objets avec d’autres œuvres : des accessoires de mode, mais aussi les vêtements qu’ils viennent compléter, le mobilier où ils sont rangés ou présentés et enfin des tableaux, dessins et gravures où ces objets sont mis en scène. Ce dialogue permet d’envisager ces objets dans le contexte plus large du luxe et de la mode au XVIIIe et au début du XIXe siècle.

Point de départ de cette nouvelle exposition, la remarquable collection d’Ernest Cognacq est enrichie de prêts importants – d’institutions prestigieuses comme le musée du Louvre, le musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris, le Château de Versailles, le Palais Galliera, les Collections royales anglaises ou le Victoria and Albert Museum à Londres - afin d’offrir une nouvelle lecture de ces accessoires indispensables du luxe.

03/05/24

[joealwyndaily]

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist), Oscar nominee Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Emmy winner Guy Pearce (Mare of Easttown) and Conversations With Friends and The Favourite star Joe Alwyn are among cast confirmed for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.

Principal photography began in recent weeks in Hungary with cast also comprising Raffey Cassidy (White Noise), Isaach De Bankolé (Casino Royale), Alessandro Nivola (The Many Saints Of Newark), Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac Vol I), Jonathan Hyde (Titanic), and Peter Polycarpou (Evita).

Word has been seeping out on social media and on blogs (including our friends at World Of Reel) about some of the rumoured casting but this is the first official confirmation from the production about the new configuration of the project we first revealed three years ago.

Co-written by Vox Lux and Childhood Of A Leader filmmaker Corbet with partner Mona Fastvold (The World To Come), The Brutalist chronicles thirty years of an artist’s life. When visionary architect László Toth (Brody) and his wife Erzsébet (Jones) flee post-war Europe to rebuild their legacy in America, a mysterious and wealthy client (Pearce) ends up changing their lives forever.

[dabbingonronpa]

Across the Spider-Verse Director's Commentary notes (part 1)

I haven't seen anyone mention the physical release of Across the Spider-verse's director's commentary anywhere, so for the sake of archiving, I wanted to post some notes I made while watching it.

This is only part 1 of it, up to Hobie's appearance. I'll watch the second part of the director's commentary later and post that here, too, and link to this original post.

-The scenes flashing while Gwen was drumming was the first AND last thing to be finished. -Earth-65 is a mood ring, inspired by the Spider-Gwen comic covers, taking a water guache style. -The first scene of Gwen talking to her father in her room was used as the inspiration for the lighting and colors of the rest of the scenes in her dimension. -The penguin was deliberately used to referene Spider-Guin. -The Vulture was based on the style of the Royal de Luxe -The Editor's Note about Hammerspace came more from a necessity to better land the joke for casual audiences. -In the wide shot of Gwen and Captain Stacey at the Guggenheim, there was a statue that ressembled Bert and Ernie that kept re-appearing over and over again. -Patrick O'Keefe did all the Dimension titles ("Brooklyn: Earth-1610", etc) -THe blue sketch lines underneath the Spot are meant to represent his lack of skill -JJJ in the beginning narration with Miles says, "I always loved the original Spider-Man, I always loved him, and I always said it," but is inaudible under Miles's narraiton. -Production Assistant Tyre voiced the little kid at the coffee shop, pitched-up. -The advising counselor scene was almost cut out of the movie. -Jefferson's name change from Davis to Morales is more a retcon if anything. -The robber Gwen and Miles apprehend is designed after the Bodego Bandit -THEY REFERENCE THE STICKY BUTT -Gwen is described as Miles's "light," hanging out with him in the day brings out the world's colors, but as soon as she leaves at the cook-out it gets dark and desaturated. -Luna Lauren Velez (Rio's VA) initially forgot to record the La Bendición during the scene with Rio and Miles, saying that they HAD to get it in the movie after forgetting it in the trailer, as "my mother's gonna kill me!" -The building the Spot was in was built "complete" first, THEN had holes cut out of it -The storyboards for hologram!Spot was notoriously confusing for the animators, nicknamed the "Orange Doonesbury" -The Cosmic Spider was originally meant to cameo, but it was cut. -Mumbattan was stylized on the Indrajal Comics from the early 60's. -Pavitr's introduction was revised by a group of Indian-American writers after a full day of workshopping "how to make it cooler"

[identifying-typewriters-in-posts]

Watching Will Wood music videos (as one does) and happened to see this flash across my screen! A quick check for specifics and:

Royal Quiet De Luxe

1950-1952

Typewriter Database Link

And the video this screenshot comes from is the video for 2012 by Will Wood and the Tapeworms