#Verna smith

[baebeylik]

Human Effigy (Hattak hobachi) by Verna Smith. Choctaw (Chahta) Nation of Oklahoma. Credit to the Verna Smith Collection. 2009.

Choctaw Nation Capitol Museum. (CM)

[aphrodeiities]

𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔤𝔬𝔡𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔱𝔶𝔭𝔢

[I AM FOLLOWING AYESHA K.FAINES RESEARCH OF FEMININE ARCHETYPES]

↳ the sexual feminine archetype of the mystic archetype.

♇ when your percentage of the lover percentage is lower than 70%. and when your personal score matches with your percentage goddess the most. [your lover archetype is dominant and the mystic archetype is the second dominant too].

♇ the goddess is one of the sexual feminine archetypes that belong to the feminine archetype the mystic, whereas the other sexual feminine archetype is the enigma.

♇ people who belong to the goddess archetype are perceived to be sultry women, women who have an ethereal and laid-back essence which could be considered hypnotic and mesmerising to those around them. they have a type of emotional manner that keeps the people around them at arms-length.

♇ when developed, those who belong to the goddess archetype have an emotional intelligence that could be considered wise, and due to this, they might appear other-worldly to other people. even if they're people who are emotionally smart, due to them being distant to other people, they come off as aloof, but it is usually because they're focusing on themselves.

♇ as majority of them are naturally introverted, they are people who like solitude and isolation, sometimes like a hermit. and most of the times, they like to tend to hobbies that help them search inward, such as meditation.

♇ though, even though if they're introverted, they still like attention, they like being surrounded by their friends and loved ones.

♇ their appearance can come off as striking and to pair it off, they have a personality which could be perceived as distinct. as i have mentioned, goddess women like inner peace, so they tend to be interested in spirituality, connecting to something that is greater to them helps them feel comfortable, safe and protected.

♇ their most private area, where they feel the most comfortable is their home. it helps them keep a grounded energy. people find their energy to be alluring and pleasant, and even more enchanting and people find them to be at their most magnetic is when they're disappeared from the public, specifically when they're a celebrity. a good example, is alexa demie.

♇ she is known to hide in the shadows a lot, and sometimes, well actually majority of the times, it has people wondering what she actually wants for her career. an example can be seen in this video.

♇ overall, goddess women are stars, even said by Ayesha her self, they're a star light years away, and only a few people can see their qualities.

♇ when close to their loved ones, they appeal and encourage their dreams and future wants. when they're closed to the people they care about, they're like a warmer version of a siren, which could be considered a "mermaid". a calm mystic essence, an aura that can make people want to be around them more.

♇ the description of a goddess woman can include them having a sultry voice and lush hair. they're women who take care of their appearance as how they look likely matters to them a lot.

♇ on one hand, they can become people too fixated on other things that cut them off from their comfortability. and since they are people who attract all kinds of people, one of them being curious individuals, they sometimes get overwhelmed and get into hiding. underdeveloped goddess women sometimes are not able to express their creative and "erotic" energy.

♇ majority of the time, goddess women are peaceful and humanitarians. they're likely feminists and stand for a cause. and when speaking to them or hearing them speak, you'd realise they're usually kindly spoken people, very articulate.

♇ other people might see them as a young soul, or someone who brings refreshing energy. artistic energies, when fully developed they can easily bring their ideas to life.

♇ they like things that touch their soul, attracted to things that help them understand their roots and are not afraid to face their inner-depths. sometimes underdeveloped goddess women might fear to face their inner-depths to please other people in their life, to be a walking matt for them.

♇ as i did more research about goddess women, i understood that they can be deeply in touch with spirituality, and like to be very private. other people around them could sometimes feel like they cannot or dont live up to their potential. and sometimes this could lead people into thinking that they're stupid.

♇ they have a dreamy way of speaking, and even sometimes drag out their words. when they dont see themselves as the high value they are, they could get into relationships with people that dont really fit with their political views, specifically feminism.

♇ when it comes to their clothing, they like to wear garments that define their personality. could like aesthetics that are dark or portrays their femininity in a "broken" way. specifically lana del rey. most of them are into the vintage aesthetic, and have a style that other people want to replicate. [gabriette and alexa demie specifically].

♇ they're very expressive about their likes and dislikes, and most of the people i've watched are into getting tattoos, or are interested in having things that make their physique stand out.

♇ most of them have a strong connection with their mother and make-up, and sometimes they might allow make-up to help value themselves.

♇ goddess women understand that women can be many things, and can express themselves in ways the patriarchy dont want them to be elevated in. as they're seen as glamorous, they like to look good as they're usually under the spotlight. many goddess women have a popular partner, or even if their partner is unknown, they could be a respected person with an authoritative position. sometimes their partners could be their complete opposite.

♇ whenever goddess women are under the spotlight, the usually get meme'd a lot, or just whenever they do anything people speak about it. they could sometime feel suffocated by fame.

♇ as goddess usually represents fertility, it's not a surprise that most goddess women are into having a family of their own. but even if they want a family of their own, it doesnt mean they dont want to work, as i did research, i realised most goddess women were/are into modelling.

♇ they like to pursue a route that gives them happiness, so people in their social circle could think of them to be stubborn. they're usually questioned for their ideas and how they embrace their heritage and roots, and since they're usually questioned a lot, goddess women step into a role of being self-aware.

♇ some goddess women could be into cosmetic surgery, and can be a bit [but almost too much] into heteronrimity.

♇ their intelligence and beauty could be envied, they're open about their sexuality and most people look up to them for guidance. when doing research about them, i realised that a lot of them have been victim of sexual shaming, [even though many people have been in general, this has also happen to some of my friends who do belong to this archetype].

♇ when it comes to their appearance, a lot of them have doe/bug eyes, have luscious hair, they also have an earthly and natural type of beauty, which can make them be deemed as elegant and graceful.

♇ they like to be prepared for anything, especially career wise. and women who belong to the goddess archetype like to experience almost everything with their partner. sometimes might be seen as someone who is smothering. on the other hand, even though they like to be around their partners a lot, they also like to be private.

♇ and in a friendship group, they might be seen as the mother of the group, or you could say leader of the group. can be into making food, and also specifically the art of it. unlike the mother archetype, they dont only/mainly do it for their partner, they do it for themselves, their friends and the people they care about.

other goddesses ↴

♇ goddesses i put above are eva peron, cindy crawford, dita von teese, jisoo, grace kelly and melania trump.

♇ understanding the goddesses archetype, is that it shows that they are women who are usually do focus on themselves, and can be so to themselves to the point that other people might feel like they do not know them at all.

♇ and to make the goddesses archetype easier to comprehend i gathered characters from different tv shows or films that come under the archetype.

♇ from yellow jackets - lottie matthews, lottie. is a big example of an underdeveloped goddess archetype, though it isnt necessarily her fault due to the trauma she has gone through while stuck in the wilds. she is a very spiritual person, and even isolates herself with other people to find herself. but due to her spiritual nature, people easily found way to see her as a leader and was advised for her guidance, during the time the team were stuck in the woods, lottie was seen as somewhat as a mother [not to be confused as the mother archetype as they are striking differences between the two]. she helps other people express their emotions and speaks about spirituality that could make other people uncomfortable.

♇ from the maden men franchise - betty draper, her character strengthens my idea that a lot of goddess archetypes are models, as she was a model for a print ad. she is a character who gets with a romantic partner that has authority, her romantic partner, don who is a completely different person to her, made betty express versions of herself that she disliked and wanted to change for the better.

♇ we have the addams family - morticia addams, for the fictional goddess women, morticia addams is a patron saint of what a goddess archetype is. her husband, gomez kisses the floor she walks on, morticia is a seductress and has a striking appearance that fascinates other people and makes other want to replicate her style, in real life [like vanessa hudgens] and in the show, wednesday. she is soft spoken, almost dreamy like and could be considered as laid-back and ethereal.

♇ from the postman always rings twice - cora smith, a mysterious woman who is married to someone who has authority, [an older man]. is perceived as a character that can also be deemed as an underdeveloped goddess archetype, who uses the love a man has for her to aid her to kill her husband.

♇ the fall of house usher - verna, another mysterious woman who does keep people at arms length, people come to her to have once in a life time deal, she uses her erotic energy to lure people in and capture them. she is wise, and has a calm essence that makes people comfortable around her. verna is prepared for everything and knows how to handle obstacles like how the two siblings, specifically the man went against her deal and hunted everyone in the usher family down.

♇ we have from the infernal devices and shadow hunter chronicles - tessa gray/herondale, like the other goddess archetype, tessa gray has a romantic partner who has high authority from the novel she is from. will herondale is the leader of the clave and is well respected. aside from that, tessa is usually under the spotlight because of what she is, and is seen to be someone who is serene, wise and has a warm energy that has many people want to be around her, but as she gets older, she does keep people at an arms length. in the early books, fertility was a big theme for her, as she was unsure if she could have children because of her being a half-demon. like a goddess archetype, tessa herondale has a grounded energy and has a striking beautiful appearance that other say is unconventional.

♇ from lore olympus/greek lore - selene, being a goddess herself, selene is someone who is respected and under the spotlight as she is a prominent and important figure for those who worship her, and like most women from the goddess archetype, she is someone who wants to have many moments with her loved ones, like endymion. a deity of fertility, she is someone who likes to keep in the shadows unlike her brother, helios who is considered to be flashy. selene has a personality that could be deemed as peaceful and timid like most women under this personality type.

♇ from the witcher franchise - yennefer of vengerberg, fertility was a big element to her character, as having a child was something she was not able to do, but with geralt, ciri was able to be her child surprise. and like the other goddess archetypes, yennefer is seen with a partner of authority/power, and it being geralt. her beauty is perceived as other-worldly, and becoming [beautiful], and powerful was so important to her that she constructed herself to become a better version of herself in a painful manner. there was a moment of the show, [i'll play the games later], that there had to be much internal search because she had lost her powers for a brief moment.

♇ next from legacies, there is josie saltzman - looking within herself was a big theme for her character, because she was known to be a character who was in her twin sister's shadow, lizzie for a long time; to the point that other characters had almost forced her to become a better version of herself, and even stand up for josie to her sister. josie was almost like a glass child. her main relationship, or most known one, is with someone who is the opposite of her, penelope, someone who had high authority within the boarding school she was in. even though josie is timid and shy, she is very emotionally intelligent, which is why people like to be around her a lot. she is understanding and empathetic.

♇ lastly, there is a character from winx club, aisha - in the show aisha is one of the main characters who gave advice to other people, sometimes she can be perceived as the mother of the group, [once again, to not be thought as the mother archetype]. when aisha was younger, aisha was isolated, which kind of made her into someone who is explosive and has a strong temper. and when. the series began, aisha was seen as anti-social, but when she is gotten to know more, the people around her are more aware of her open-minded traits.

♇ as i have done my research, i gathered that a lot of enigmas are are likely going to have capricorn, taurus and scorpio in their big six; in order of how much they appeared.

♇ they are also going to have leo, aries and taurus appear in their dominant signs; in order of how much they appeared.

♇ the planets sun, saturn and moon appeared in their dominant planets the most; in order of how much they appeared.

♇ the element that appeared the most was fire, second was earth.

♇ lastly, when it comes to the modality, what appeared the most was fixed.

♇ feminine archetype masterlist

to find out what feminine archetype and sexual feminine archetype you are

buy a natal chart reading from me

masterlist

♇ pluto

[thisisrigged4]

hello! :D I see you would like some charles-related content <3 (or anyone for that matter hehe)

heres a present for u <3 also what's some of your favorite things about charles? :D (I.e personality traits, appearance , etc) that you just really really appreciate about his character? ;3

<3 <3 <3

I love how he is smiling slightly in that photo <3

It got a bit long than I first thought

What isn't there to love about his personality?

I love how he has a goofy sweetheart deep down and is not the stoic serious all-around man people make him out to be. For example, getting a drunken piggyback ride from John, "You should have taken the money." "I know, I'm a fool.", playfully grabbing at the prostitute's hand as Arthur insults them. Those fleeting moments and how sweet they are. (Also randomly tossing a chair in a bar fight was peek)

How understanding and patient he is too. Take Dutch and Molly/Susan for example and How Dutch snaps at them saying "How much he has going on and they want to talk" and yet Charles has just as much going on but anytime his friends need/call for him, he always has time/is willing to help or listen.

His "no nonsense" attitude and how he never leaves the player guessing in the game. Or how he doesn't tolerate negative people or behaviors. Like when Arthur was going to send away the German woman and her kids in Dewberry Creek. Or when Micah racially profiled him and Charles straight up yeeted the dude. My favorite one tho was in "An Honest Mistake" when Uncle/Arthur split up with Bill/Charles in the trees and the dialogue that follows

Charles - "Anything dumb Williamson, you're on your own."

Bill - "Oh shut the hell up."

The last one I'll include is compassion and wanting to help others/be better. For the natives, for the German woman in Chapter 2, Saving Jack in Chapter 3, stopping to look over Lenny after he is shot (He is literally the only one besides Arthur to not just breeze by the body; IG Javier to but he literally just peaks for two seconds before dipping). I know he wasn't fond of Kieran until a little before his death but (I at least) liked how we didn't see him torturing him like the others. Live and let live.

As for appearance, everything. I'm a sucker for a man with long hair. And the face, why does it have to be that damn beautiful? Seriously tho, his smile is awkward and adorable, I wish we had gotten to see it more. I am really obsessed with his face. Eye shape, beautiful.

So this is where it might get a bit weird but his hands are attractive to me and I can not explain why. Like, they are just hands, why so attractive?

That's my crazy ramblings, thank you asking friend <3

[camyfilms]

THE JUNGLE BOOK 1967

Now, now. I know how you feel. But you must remember, Mowgli. Greater love hath no one than he who lays down his life for his friend

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

March 4th is National Grammar Day when we are all encouraged to “speak well, write well, and help others do the same!” For those in need of a grammatical refresher, we’re sharing Friend Grammar Pictured Lessons in Grammar by Helen L. Smith. Published in Duluth, Minnesota in 1930, Smith’s workbook takes learners on an animated journey of the rules of language and writing with the guidance of “Friend Grammar.” In her own words, “This book appeals to the EYE, the EAR, the IMAGINATION, lends itself to DRAMATIZATION, and HAND WORK”.  

Friend Grammar Pictured Lessons in Grammar was a gift Verna L. Newsome and is part of our extensive Historical Curriculum Collection. 

Read other Milestone Monday posts here! 

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[reasoningdaily]

StoryCorps: Leesburg Stockade Girls Recall Time As Civil Rights-Era Prisoners : NPR

Taken in 2016, (left to right) Emmarene Kaigler-Streeter, Carol Barner-Seay, Shirley Green-Reese and Diane Bowens stand outside the stockade building in Leesburg, Ga., where they were jailed in 1963.

The day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his landmark "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963, a lesser known moment in civil rights history was unfolding in southern Georgia.

More than a dozen African-American girls, ages 12 to 15, were being held in a small, Civil War-era stockade set up by law enforcement in Leesburg, Ga., as a makeshift jail.

Though they were never charged with a crime, the girls had been arrested for challenging segregation in demonstrations in nearby Americus, Ga. For about two months, the girls slept on concrete floors; there was no working toilet or shower. There were minimal food and water deliveries each day.

"The place was worse than filthy," recalled Carol Barner-Seay at StoryCorps in 2016.

Barner-Seay, who's now 68, had been imprisoned there along with Shirley Green-Reese, Diane Bowens and Emmarene Kaigler-Streeter. At StoryCorps, the four women recounted their time together in the stockade.

"Being in a place like that, I didn't feel like we was human," Shirley Green-Reese, now 70, said.

In August 1963, African-American girls were held in a Georgia stockade after being arrested for demonstrating segregation. Left to right: Melinda Jones Williams (13), Laura Ruff Saunders (13), Mattie Crittenden Reese, Pearl Brown, Carol Barner Seay (12), Annie Ragin Laster (14), Willie Smith Davis (15), Shirley Green (14), and Billie Jo Thornton Allen (13). Sitting on the floor: Verna Hollis (15).

Bowens, who's 68, was especially concerned about one of the girls, Verna Hollis. "I was scared Verna was going to die. If she ate, it would just come right back up."

Hollis didn't know that she was pregnant at the time. "We didn't know because we were children," Green-Reese said.

Looking back, Barner-Seay remembered Hollis' strength. "If she complained to anybody, it was under her breath to God, but we never heard it," she said.

Hollis' son, Joseph Jones III, is now 54 years old. A year before Hollis died in 2017, she recorded a StoryCorps interview with him, reflecting on those months she'd been jailed as a teen.

"I was scared and mad that you could treat a human being like they treated us," said Hollis, then 68. "We both could have died in there."

Jones told his mom he, too, was inspired by her strength. "I'm proud of that, and I try to live from that," he said.

'This is us'

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee eventually learned where the girls were and sent photographer Danny Lyon to the stockade to photograph them. When Lyon's photographs documenting their squalid living conditions were published, the girls were released.

When Green-Reese went back home, she says she didn't feel welcomed. "When we got out of that stockade, my classmates and my teachers never asked me where I was coming from," she said. "I felt like I didn't fit in, so after high school, I left the area and moved forward."

She took a job with a library in Savannah, Ga. In the archives at work one day, she saw for the first time one of Lyon's photos of the imprisoned girls, including herself, behind bars at the stockade.

"I said, 'This is us.' "

But Green-Reese didn't share the photo with her coworkers. "I didn't want them to know I was in that jail," she said.

It wasn't until 2015 that the women who had been imprisoned in the stockade got together to discuss their time there.

Bowens says she doesn't do well in confined spaces. "Today, when I got in this elevator, I was about to have a heart attack," she said in 2016. "I just don't want to be closed in, and I don't want to be in the dark."

In the StoryCorps podcast, Emmarene Kaigler-Streeter shared what she'd tell the men who locked her up: that she feels sorry for them. "Because they were not looking at us as children," she said. "They were not looking in the hearts. All they were looking at was the fact that we were black."

Green-Reese says the experience is in her "fibers."

"And I still don't like to talk about it," she said, "but this is a part of all of our lives forever."

[hallowszn]

𝙰𝚅𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙰𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙼𝚄𝚂𝙴𝚂 𝙱𝙴𝙻𝙾𝚆 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝚄𝚃.

–  THESE MUSES ARE AVAILABLE TO BE WRITTEN WITH FROM SEPT 1ST TO NOV 1ST.  some may get added to my main or request list if i vibe with them enough !  

more could be added.

KIRA COBAIN, OF GENERAL HORROR SETTINGS. ORIGINAL CHARACTER. HORROR NOVELIST WHOSE RECENT PROJECT (A STALKER/KILLER NOVEL) SEEMS TO BE COMING TRUE AROUND HER. MUSE IS DEAF AND USES SIGN LANGUAGE , LIP READING , AND HER PHONE TO COMMUNICATE WITH HEARING PEOPLE.  FC: KASSIUS NELSON, AGE: 31, SEXUALITY: PANSEXUAL, SHE/HER.

GHOSTFACE, WRITTEN AS AN ENTITY AND NOT AS A SPECIFIC GHOSTFACE. 

DANI ARDOR,  OF MIDSOMMAR. WRITTEN MOSTLY IN A ‘MAY QUEEN’ CENTERED VERSE. FC: FLORENCE PUGH

AMANDA YOUNG, OF SAW. FC: SHAWNEE SMITH

ADAM FAULKNER-STANHEIGHT, OF SAW. FC: LEIGH WHANNELL

ELAINE, OF THE LOVE WITCH. FC: SAMANTHA ROBINSON

“JANE DOE”,  OF AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE.  WRITTEN CANON DIVERGENT OF THE MOVIE AT THE ENDING.  SHE SUCCESSFULLY BRINGS HERSELF BACK TO AN FULLY ANIMATED FORM, AND NOT BEING A ‘’CORPSE’’ ON THE MORGUE TABLE, AND ESCAPES.  FC: UNDECIDED

DRACULA, OF GENERAL HORROR/DRACULA LORE.  FC: UNDECIDED

LUCY WESTENRA, OF THE INVITATION/OTHER LORE. FC: SARAH GADON

AMANDA RIPLEY, OF ALIEN: ISOLATION. FC: NONE.

SYDNEY PRESCOTT, OF SCREAM.  FC: VICTORIA JUSTICE 

LAURIA STRODE, OF HALLOWEEN.  FC: HANNAH DODD

SELENE, OF UNDERWORLD. FC: KATE BECKINSALE

MORTICIAN BARBIE, OF BARBIE. FC: NATASIA DEMETRIOU

SPOOKY SZN MUSES AVAILABLE ALL YR ON MY MULTI, BUT HERE TOO:  riley viktor  (medium, oc) , wednesday addams  (vampire based) ,  caroline abbott  (cannibal, oc) , lucas roy  (serial killer, oc) , iwtv muses, jennifer check,  edward frankenstein/the creature, “verna”  (written as lucifer) , clarice starling (hannibal, silence of the lambs) , death (personified) , other mother (coraline) , morticia addams (vampire based) , odelia kramer (saw, oc), carrie white.

[kudosmyhero]

The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #14: Spider-Verse, pt. 6: Web Warriors

Read Date: July 12, 2023 Cover Date: April 2015 ● Writer: Dan Slott ● Penciler: Giuseppe Camuncoli ◦ Olivier Coipel ● Inker: Wade von Grawbadger ◦ Cam Smith ◦ John Livesay ● Colorist: Justin Ponsor ● Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos ● Editor: Nick Lowe ◦ Devin Lewis ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● he better not have killed Silk… ● ok, that’s funny. the ol’ switcheroo! pig for baby ● oh jeez…

● 👏👏

Synopsis: On Loomworld, Gwen and Jess battle against a horde of Goblins as the Spider-Army arrives. Seeing Gwen battling with a Green Goblin, Peter tells Mayday and Ben to get her out of danger and that Osborn is his. Gwen retorts that she can handle herself, and Peter stands back as she takes out the Green Goblin on her own. While Gwen thanks Peter for trusting in her and Peter thanks her for showing him that anything is possible, Jess tells them that the Inheritors have Cindy.

In the Inheritors' base, Daemos tells his brothers what happen to Solus and aks Morlun what do they do now. Morlun replies that they complete the ritual as their father wanted, but Daemos claims the ritual is meaningless as the Master Weaver also told them that Solus would outlive him. Jennix reveals to him that he contained their father's thoughts and essence inside a crystal, but with his cloning facility destroyed he can't get it a new body. Daemos takes the crystal for safekeeping, and Morlun tells them their father will rise again, but not the spiders. He plunges a knife into the Other's corpse, spilling its blood onto the Web of Life and Destiny and preventing it from ever taking another host. When the Master Weaver tells them that the Spiders have sensed this and are coming, Morlun tells Daemos to stay with him and sends his siblings to stall them while he finishes the ritual.

As the Spider Army clashes with Jennix, Verna, Brix, and Bora, the Web Warriors arrive to provide backup. While Otto questions Peter's competence in putting their faith in a bunch of misfits, Jess spots the tattered remains of Kaine's costume and furiously swears to not let any other Spiders die. Morlun tells Cindy of the nature of the Bride and cuts her palm, spilling the Bride's blood onto the Web, causing it to begin to unravel and preventing future Spider Totems from arising through chance, curses, magic, and unwanted luck. As Morlun prepares to impale Benjy, proclaiming that the blood of the Scion would destroy the Web completely and prevent any new Totems from arising at all, the knife is yanked from his hands as Peter, Otto, Uncle Ben, and Mayday arrive.

Daemos easily defeats Otto before being attacked by Mayday, who reaffirms her vow to avenge the deaths of her loved ones. Peter engages Morlun, mocking him over his fear of being taken down a third time. Morlun sneers that he's become far more adept at killing Peter, proving more than a match for him. Peter calls out to Ben for help, but Uncle Ben warps away using the Web of Life.

In the entrance hall, the Inheritors battle the Spider-Army. Karn arrives to the surprised delight of the other Inheritors. Brix points out that with Morlun in charge, Karn's exile has ended and with him, the fight is won. However, Karn spurns them and announces that his family only gave him pain. He renounces his inheritance and states he now fights on the side of the righteous as Spider-UK, Anya Corazon, Hobie Brown, Ashley Barton, and Pavitr Prabhakar arrive. Peter mocks Morlun's 18th-century fashion sense as the Inheritor expresses confusion as to why the Web isn't disintegrating. Cindy sneers at him that the Inheritors have lost and that far from crumbling, the Web is repairing itself. Morlun prepares to spill the blood of the Scion and finish the ritual, only to be kicked in the face by a naked Peter Porker, who reveals he swapped places with Benjy while Morlun was distracted, while Uncle Ben took the baby home to Earth-982.

Peter mocks the increasingly unhinged Morlun before calling in Miguel O'Hara, who arrives with Lady Spider and Leopardon in time to stop Jennix from killing SP//dr and Mangaverse Spider-Man, to the delight of Takuya Yamashiro. Mayday snatches Solus' phylactery from Daemos, and when he reveals it contains the life essence of his father, pleading with her to return it, she furiously begins to crush it instead.

When Morlun sneers that Peter's tricks have only delayed the inevitable since he knows where the Scion was taken, Otto proclaims that he has found a "superior solution" to stopping the Inheritors that Peter and the other Spiders were too blind and gutless to see, slitting the Master Weaver's throat to Morlun's and Peter's mutual horror. Seeing this, Mayday spares Solus and abandons her pursuit of vengeance, causing Daemos to surrender out of gratitude. Outraged, Morlun furiously attacks Peter and begins to drain his life-force, bashing aside Jess, Spider-Ham and Gwen when they try to save him. When Morlun mockingly asks for Peter's last words, Peter tells him to go to hell and warps himself and Morlun to Earth-3145.

When Morlun, choking on the radiation, stammers that Peter said he would never kill, Peter instructs him to follow the web arrows to the shelter and run if he wants to live. With his life force drained, Peter begins to fall to the radiation but is pulled back to Loomworld by Cindy, who reveals that since they were bit by the same spider she can locate him anywhere in the multiverse.

The Inheritors, save Karn, are rounded up and sent to Earth-3145, and when Daemos expresses confusion as to why the Spiders would show him mercy, Mayday lobs Solus's crystal through the portal, causing him to run through after it. In the aftermath of the battle, Spider-Ham tells Mayday her father would be proud of her, while Miguel states that they could use the Web of Life to return to their proper dimensions. Spider-UK suggests they take a moment to relax first, while Otto begins plotting something. Cindy tells Peter that his pheromones are arousing her, but Peter turns her down.

(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_3_14)

Fan Art: Spider-Gwen by Ry-Spirit

Accompanying Podcast: ● Amazing Spider-Talk - episode 14

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

Horror Still Lives in Hollywood Studios Today

During the 1900s, the American studio system saw a shift of studios shaping their house staples around budget, genre, and talent. The two most notable studios that where known by their specific styles were RKO Radio Pictures for its low-budget horror films and Universal Studios for its “monster films.”

RKO Radio Pictures is remembered for its low-budget psychological horror films that address moral dilemmas and combine them with supernatural elements. In the 1940s, RKO produced two films by Val Lewton, Cat People (1942) and Isle of the Dead (1945), that were riddled with the same themes of superstition and fear with the prominent use of shadows to create an eerie atmosphere. Cat People dealt with a woman afraid she will transform into a cat and is a descendent of an ancient tribe of cat people, and Isle of the Dead explored themes of superstition and fear of the unknown, in the context of a plague. In both films, superstition plays a huge element which is emphasized through their atmospheric and moody settings, and the use of shadows, lighting, and sound design to create a sense of tension and unease. “The distinction of Lewton’s films is further emphasized by their supposed prescience: if, as Wood maintained, they ‘seem to have had little direct influence on” the ‘evolution’ of the horror film, this was supposedly due to the ways in which they ‘strikingly anticipate, by at least two decades, some of the features of the modern horror film’ (Wood, Hollywood 85). Similarly, Gifford has referred to Cat People (1942) as ‘a minor masterpiece that changed the face of horror films’ (161), and Frank has claimed that the Lewton productions were “the most powerful influence in horror films during the 1940s’ (42).” (Jancovich, 21-22). The performances from the actors were also intriguing and believable on such a low budget, giving RKO more praise in the horror genre. Both films are driven by these character’s stories and their psychological struggles and internal conflicts.

These narratives are also both wrapped up in historical and cultural context, with Cat People incorporating Serbian folklore, and Isle of the Dead being set during the Greek War of Independence. These time periods, when meshed with the film noir techniques, made them the successful horror films they are. It was said that Cat People saved RKO’s horror exploration, “...Lewton’s feline females eventually scared more than $3 million out of audiences. His secretary, Verna De Mots, said, ‘Cat People saved RKO when it was practically bankrupt.’ (Siegel, The Reality of Terror, 40)” (Vieira, 4-5) Overall, RKO’s ability to create an eerie environment with their use of lighting and shadows, such authentic talent, and appeal to relevant themes on such a low budget, showed their effective approach to horror, setting the tone for future RKO films.

During the 1920s-30s, Universal was producing successful monster films that were pioneering the new era of horror cinema. For Universal Studios, many of these greatest success films featured dark themes, murders, and monsters, releasing horror films that paved the way for how monsters would act and look in horror films. After the success of Dracula (1931), Universal saw their opportunity to take over the monster film business and make frightening movies that scared and excited audiences. This fueled many films made by Universal where a misunderstood monster experiences oppression from society, drawing in many studio talents for future movies and stories similar to it.

The original Frankenstein (1931)  was the prototype not only for the dozens of Frankenstein movies but also for the creation of “mad-scientist” horror films, “The social context of Whale’s Frankenstein films, and of the Universal production output during the 1930s in general, cannot be underestimated. David J. Skal writes that Frankenstein’s monster was ‘like a battered hood ornament for a wrecked economy’ (Skal, 1992: 132).” (Smith) With the success of these movies, Universal became know as the studio to make “monster movies.”

In today’s Hollywood, with Marvel and DC banging out superhero movie after superhero movie, the idea of studios only producing one genre of film still exists today, however, it has become boring after a while. However, studios like A24 and Blumhouse are kind of taking over this idea of producing similar genres but they all have different stories and messages just like RKO and Universal Studios did back in the 20s-30s. With the recent success of Talk to Me (2023), A24 is definitely a front-runner in studios that produce horror and thriller films that is reinventing horror. Many of these films are also lower budget, making it, in a way, the present-day RKO.

Works Cited:

Jancovich, Mark. “Relocating Lewton: Cultural Distinctions, Critical Reception, and the Val Lewton Horror Films.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 64, no. 3, 2012, pp. 21–37. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/jfilmvideo.64.3.0021. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.

Smith, Andy W. “‘So Why Shouldn’t I Write of Monsters?’: Defining Monstrosity in Universal’s Horror Films.” Gothic Film: An Edinburgh Companion, edited by Richard J. Hand and Jay McRoy, Edinburgh University Press, 2020, pp. 21–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv10kmdxf.7. Accessed 5 Oct. 2023.

Vieira, Mark A. “Darkness, Darkness: The Films of Val Lewton - Edinburghfilmguild.Org.Uk.” Bright Lights Film Journal, 12 Jan. 2007, edinburghfilmguild.org.uk/2010-11/Val_Lewton_films.pdf. 

[lesdupont]

LES DUPONT FEAT. JEAN-LUC VERNA // LULLABY

Lullaby is a song by The Cure featured on the album Disintegration, from which it was taken as the first single in April 1989. The meaning of Lullaby has been speculated by fans, including as a metonymy for addiction, depression, or sexual assault, and Smith has offered multiple explanations as to its theme or content, such as childhood nightmares or abuse. One explanation by Smith follows that the song is about the disturbing songs his father sung to him as a kid, and the horrible ending they would always have. Tim Pope, a long-time collaborator of the Cure on many of its music videos, interprets "Lullaby" as an allegory for lead singer Robert Smith's drug-addled past.

Lullaby has been covered by Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, and now Jean-Luc Verna with arrangements by Les Dupont.

Tracklisting:

Lullaby (Candy Mix) 4’46

Nightclubbing (Ice Mix) 4’16

[character-actor-tournament]

Round 1 Results

Jesse White vs Joe Besser

Ed Wynn vs Broderick Crawford

Halliwell Hobbes vs Lionel Barrymore

Charlie Ruggles vs Ernest Thesiger

Frank Morgan vs Frank Jenks - tie

Betty Garrett vs Rags Ragland

Josephine Hull vs Mischa Auer

S.Z. Sakall vs Tom Dugan

Patsy Kelly vs Al St. John

Margaret Hamilton vs Edward Everett Horton

Nella Walker vs Hans Conried

Hattie McDaniel vs Billy Gilbert

Thurston Hall vs Leonid Kinskey

Marjorie White vs Eve Arden

Edward van Sloan vs Jack Oakie - tie

Charles Winninger vs Butterfly McQueen

Alan Mowbray vs Zasu Pitts

Charlotte Greenwood vs Henry Armetta

Marjorie Main vs Pat Buttram

William Demarest vs Bert Lahr

Marie Dressler vs Beulah Bondi

Una O'Connor vs Martha Raye

Dwight Frye vs Charles Coburn

Ned Sparks vs Esther Muir

Thelma Todd vs Elisha Cook Jr.

Christian Rub vs Samuel S. Hinds

Doodles Weaver vs Gail Patrick

Sydney Greenstreet vs Alice Brady

Roland Young vs John Carradine

James Gleason vs Verna Felton

Una Merkel vs Eugene Pallette

Willie Best vs Conrad Veidt

Maude Eburn vs Scatman Crothers

Guy Kibbee vs Walter Brennan - tie

Nat Pendleton vs Clarence Kolb

Jane Darwell vs Raymond Massey

Erich von Stroheim vs Barry Fitzgerald

Eddie "Rochester" Anderson vs Jack Carson

El Brendel vs Reginald Gardiner

Joseph Calleia vs Warren Hymer

Walter Slezak vs Sam Levene

Edna May Oliver vs Richard Lane

C. Aubrey Smith vs Charles Laughton

Gabby Hayes vs Red Buttons

Franklin Pangborn vs Elsa Lanchester

Lionel Atwill vs Martha Mattox

Bill Robinson vs Jessie Ralph

Andy Devine vs Harry Davenport

Richard Carle vs Ernest Truex

Edward Arnold vs Herman Bing

Cliff Edwards vs Sterling Holloway

George Zucco vs Nancy Kulp

Warner Oland vs Jean Adair

Gregory Ratoff vs Grady Sutton

Helen Broderick vs Glenda Farrell

Lillian Yarbo vs Arthur Edmund Carewe

Marjorie Gateson vs Hugh Herbert

Phil Silvers vs Joy Hodges

Ray Bolger vs George E. Stone

George Davis vs Donald Meek

Warner Baxter vs Jerry Colonna - tie

Spring Byington vs Stuart Erwin

Felix Bressart vs Angelo Rossitto

Eric Blore vs Billy Barty

[ageofkarme]

Lost methods and rare materials? Most followers of Vulcan would leap at such opportunities for the sake of notoriety across the queendom. While successful construction utilizing revitalize ancient crafting techniques would surely grant Karme a large amount of praise from his fellow Apprentices, his mind was so far from his own potential social advancement.

Karme just wanted to do something cool with awesome metals, and he wanted the end result to look sick when Tortsen charged into battle. His whole body was buzzing he could hardly contain his excitement, his giddiness a stark contrast to the witcher's serious tone.

"I attach a unit to your stump to conduct your antimagic, allowing me to get the required movements to establish haptic feedback externally. The adamantine will help protect those efforts and transfer the data to your limb, the second part. If I can control the flow of antimagic in your arm at least, then that should be enough. Usually, we'd apply some sort of psionics to help you control your limb, but this way–" Karme could've gone on much longer, but he did catch the way Tortsen clutched his large chest. Was he wearing mithril armor? It was so silver, how cool! "I would only need a small amount. The prosthetic itself will be made from a crystalline-based material. I would only need mithril for the attachments. Where the joint will attach to your stump and where the arm will attach to the joint." Tortsen was the client and Karme was his loyal engineer which meant, as he'd learned from Verna, he had to get out of his head and remember that a project like this wasn't all about him. "Look, I know I'm not a royal smith from Iskaldrik, but I did my research. I can work with these materials Torty ... er, Tortsen. If you have mithril, I can take what I need and rework your armor set so that it's still functional. I'm on your side in this, I promise."

The very notion that he'd have to spend more time with this spritely twink churned something foul in Torsten as he tried to imagine a version of reality where he could be content. This was a natural sacrifice though... and if Karme could help him, then it was a battle that Torsten would force himself to undertake.

Incessant chatter did little to tell Torsten anything that he did not already know: the apprentices who'd poked and prodded at his stump had concluded the same thing. Witcher, no magic. The armaments that he and his kin earned were specially designed to channel the antimagic that flowed through their veins - by everything that Torsten understood, how it could pair with Karme's proposition was beyond him. Metallurgy was far from his area, the problems that Torsten faced were better resolved with his sword and his shield.

"There is only a handful of adamantine weapons known, the process of its forging was lost before the First Age... But I have a small amount." A boon from the Storm Giant. Torsten's hand went over the chest of his mithril plate, the armor that he'd earned after bitter years of survival. Somehow, the choice to cut off his arm had come easier than what Torsten would say next. "How much mithril do you need?"

[thisisrigged4]

One of the many struggles of being a bisexual writer is that I've spent the last two years writing strictly F/F now that fucking CHARLES SMITH has my attention, i suddenly have to relearn how to write men and a F/M relationship

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Cinderella (1950)

In the first few decades of Walt Disney Productions’ (now Walt Disney Animation Studios) existence, the studio veered perilously between periods of feast and famine. The success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Dumbo (1941), and the modestly-budgeted films of the package era kept the studio afloat despite Walt Disney’s occasionally disastrous business instincts and rotten luck due to World War II cutting off European audiences. With WWII concluded, Disney’s propaganda commitments to the federal government and tightened budgets were no more. With the exception of the aftermath from the release of The Black Cauldron (1985), the studio’s survival has not been seriously endangered since. That is in large part because of the gamble that is Cinderella, directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson.

Any rebirth for Disney animated features depended on Cinderella’s success. Not since Dumbo had so much been riding on one of the studio’s movies – especially now as Walt was dividing his attention between animation, live-action features, television, a preliminary plan to build a small play park, and collaborating with the FBI to root out suspected communists at his own studio. More later on Cinderella’s legacy (I think you, the reader, have an idea about what happened to the Disney studios after this), but the film was the fifth highest-grossing movie in North American theaters that year, ahead of Born Yesterday and behind Cheaper by the Dozen and Annie Get Your Gun. In various ways, Cinderella is among the most important movies in the Disney animated canon, even if it does little to nothing to elevate animation in cinema and contains issues that have metastasized in subsequent Disney animated features.

Decades before the Disney name became synonymous with fairy tales and princesses, the writing team assigned to Cinderella used Snow White as their template on this film. The opening minutes of Cinderella share much of Snow White’s alchemy: the opening of an ornate storybook, an orphaned young woman whose lot in life is to be a rag-wearing scullery maid, that same woman singing about dreams to an audience of animals that instinctively know of her kindness. What starts off too similarly like the second coming of Snow White then descends into an overstretched sequence of the animals’ tomfoolery (half the film is dedicated to the animals’ hijinks!).

Cinderella’s animals, unlike those in Snow White, are fully anthropomorphic – they wear clothes, converse with Cinderella in their high-pitched squeak-talking, tiptoe around the obviously villainous cat named Lucifer, and make fools of themselves to entertain the youngest set. In the opening minutes, Cinderella squanders its serviceable musical opening for vapid hilarity as it unlearns the lessons that began with Snow White and reached its apotheosis with Bambi (1942). In works where animals live alongside humans, animal side characters serving as comic relief are most effective and timeless when they behave like animals, not humans. Disney’s animated canon has been hampered by this development – one codified by Cinderella and, in its foulest iterations in recent decades (e.g. 2005′s Chicken Little), originates from commercial, not artistic, decision-making. The excessive screentime for the animals in the film’s opening third and especially the heavily gender-coded dialogue and behavior by the mice – “Leave the sewing to the women!” – is enough to eject Cinderella from the upper echelons of the Disney animated canon.

In my review to Snow White, I wrote that the writing of female characters in Disney’s animated canon films reflects the writers’ understanding of gendered roles in their respective times. Cinderella expressly looked to Snow White for inspiration after two decades where the Great Depression and World War II upended traditional gender norms. In the 1930s and ‘40s, thousands of American women found themselves in traditionally male occupations, altering – if only for a time – popular beliefs about what might be considered masculine or feminine behavior. Over in Burbank at the Disney studios, its departments were segregated by gender (its ink and paint department was solely staffed by women, and there were no significant clusters of women elsewhere in the studio) – insulating it from this phenomenon.

As if foreshadowing the gender-conforming atmosphere of the 1950s, it should not be a surprise that Cinderella cannot envision women beyond a vessel for marriage or a homemaker. With an eye towards a prince to sweep her away from her stepmother and stepsisters, an interesting protagonist Cinderella does not make. And with Cinderella not showcasing as much of her personality as Snow White did, she feels far more inert as a character than her predecessor. However, comparable to Snow White, Cinderella’s life has been one of deprivation and a lack of healthy human interaction – one without quarter, love from others. Knowing little else about life beyond her scullery duties, it is easy to see why she holds such retrograde beliefs for her own salvation.

Cinderella’s rough beginning is nevertheless the prelude to its visual wonderment. The visuals in animated feature films are the collaborative work of hundreds – credited or otherwise – of animators, background artists, character designers, painters, inbetweeners, cinematographers, and more. Sometimes, one particular artist wields an influence that extends across an entire feature. In the correct set of circumstances, they set an aesthetic that alters the artistic direction of animated films for an entire national film industry or a single studio. For Cinderella, its visual beauty is set by its backgrounds. Tyrus Wong’s background art defined Bambi a decade earlier; here, it is Mary Blair’s work that defines Cinderella.

Blair, a modernist whose style fit the films at United Productions of America (UPA; a breakaway studio which was founded by striking Disney animators) better than Disney, had been working at the studio since 1940. She worked through the package films era and on two live-action/animation hybrids in Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948). But it is Cinderella where Blair’s style – flat, graphic, abstract – is the dominant force of the film. Blair’s buildings and their arches shoot upwards, supported by architecturally impossible reed-thin columns, making rooms cavernous and façades larger than life. The sprawl of these interiors suggests not only the fantastical atmosphere that this fairy tale inhabits, but the grandiosity of Cinderella’s story. The vertical frames of Blair’s buildings are elegant and abstract, never intimidating, as if hailing from a children’s storybook. With the exception of when Cinderella is dancing with (and fleeing) Prince Charming, blues, whites, and sometimes muted greens dominate the scenes of her regal desires – as if shimmering in moonlight.

In character design, three men – all part of the “Nine Old Men” fraternity – served as supervising animators for Cinderella. I find Cinderella’s character design plainly uninteresting, but it is how she moves that will leave awestruck this film’s most vocal detractors. Marc Davis (the three principal animated characters in Song of the South, Alice in 1951’s Alice in Wonderland); Eric Larson (Peter Pan in 1953’s Peter Pan, Mowgli and Bagheera in 1967’s The Jungle Book); and Les Clark (1928’s Steamboat Willie, 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians) made heavy use of rotoscoping in their attempts to animate Cinderella. Rotoscoping, developed by Max Fleischer (and made exclusive to Fleischer Studios by patent from 1915-1934), involves an animator tracing the movements over projected live-action footage as opposed to animating something from scratch or some other form of reference. As an animator traces over the footage, they may add a personal flourish – a delay or embellishment of movement – in the process. For animating humans, adhering completely to human movement via Rotoscope results in footage that looks stilted, as if hailing from a different universe than one created for an animated film. For Davis, Larson, and Clark, there hardly is a scene where Cinderella is not benefitting from rotoscoping. The rotoscoped animation allows Cinderella to move more fluidly than any human character drawn by the Disney animators at this point in the studio’s history. Whether she is scrubbing the floors, waltzing with her animal friends or Prince Charming, or making herself scarce before the stroke of midnight, there is a majestic grace to her movement – and yes, that includes the moment where she loses her glass slipper.

The less cartoonish a character acts in Cinderella, the more they are rotoscoped. So alongside Cinderella, Prince Charming and especially stepmother Lady Tremaine – the latter’s supervising character animator was Frank Thomas (an animator for the Seven Dwarfs on Snow White, supervising animator for Tod and Copper on 1981’s The Fox and the Hound) – are the two other characters heavily rotoscoped in the film. Lady Tremaine’s imposing posture and manner of dress gifts her a wordless authority over everyone residing in the Tremaine château. In contrast to Cinderella’s stepsisters – characters who act and look in ways that one might expect in a bawdy animated short film – her stern demeanor, realistically angled long face, and deliberate movements effuse opportunism, menace, spite. Lady Tremaine’s appearance, in respect to how much it contributes to the film, is a pronounced upgrade from the Queen in Snow White. She relates a spectacular amount of characterization in just a glance, a scowl. Yet, Lady Tremaine’s darkly charismatic character design would only be the appetizer to even more iconic villainous designs to appear later that decade.

The incidental score by Oliver Wallace and Paul J. Smith is dominated by quotations from the songs, and is not nearly as independent from the soundtrack as previous Disney animated canon scores. For the first time in a Disney animated feature, the studio looked outside its Burbank campus for its songwriters. Looking towards Tin Pan Alley, Disney hired Mack David (the title songs to 1959’s The Hanging Tree, 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World); Al Hoffman (“Papa Loves Mambo”, “A Whale of a Tale” from 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea); and Jerry Livingston (the title songs to The Hanging Tree, 1965’s Cat Ballou). Cinderella possesses a wonderful musical score, headlined by “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, and “So This is Love” – ignoring “The Work Song” (squeak-sung by the mice in something that set a precedent for Alvin and the Chipmunks), of course.

One of these, obviously, is unlike the others. “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, sung by the Fairy Godmother (voiced by Verna Felton, who voiced the Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo and, over the 1950s, became a Disney voice cast regular), is an exuberant frolic, and easily one of the best songs with nonsense lyrics in film history. Nonsense and novelty songs in Hollywood typically wear out their welcome, running a minute or more longer than they should. Clocking in at roughly one minute, the Fairy Godmother performs her magic, and promptly whisks Cinderella away to Prince Charming’s ball by song – a musical exemplar in narrative brevity.

Thirteen years following Snow White, Cinderella benefits from advances in recording technology and a richer – if not necessarily fuller – orchestral sound. Ilene Woods was primarily a radio singer, and her voice’s timbre is suited to play Cinderella. “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” parallels Snow White’s “I’m Wishing” in its exceptionally early placement and nowadays-formulaic function. But it is a serviceable introduction to Cinderella as a character, even with no specific dream mentioned in the lyrics. Sung with Mike Douglas (as Prince Charming), “So This is Love” is a dreamy duet, a waltz that musically defies a typical waltz. Waltzes, in ¾ time, usually have a pulse that even those not versed in music can “feel”. That pulse is usually on the downbeat, the “1”. Yet “So This is Love” generally begins its phrases and pulses on the “and” of the second beat (as one would count a measure as: “1 and 2 and 3 and”). The song’s frequent use of slurred notes, even fermatas, gives it its romantic flow and dramatic ebbs. This is an unconventional waltz, one that resists categorization and a song that would have been quite difficult to compose – despite its outwards simplicity.

Walt Disney appreciated the financial cushion that Cinderella provided (funding for the project met fierce resistance from his brother and the company’s CEO, Roy), and never truly worried about funding issues after the film’s release. The funds from Cinderella were injected across the company: for feature animation, live-action narrative features, the True-Life Adventures nature documentary series, Disney’s eventual television presence, and into purchasing a tract of orange groves in Anaheim. As for Cinderella itself, Walt could see the artistic shortcuts (rotoscoping included) in most every frame. It was no Snow White, he thought to himself. And though this 1950 adaptation was technologically superior in every way from the 1922 silent Laugh-O-Gram* short based on the same story, there seemed to be no artistic fulfillment for Walt in this Cinderella’s success.

Cinderella heralds the start of the Disney studios’ “Silver Age” – the second half of Walt Disney’s tenure as the creative ringleader at his namesake studio. Various film writers will provide conflicting definitions for these periods in Disney animation history. According to this blog, the Silver Age (1950-1967) is named as such due to the cessation of the package films and the return of more traditional animated features, Walt retreating from his once-omnipresent role in the artistic decision-making for those animated features, and the limited animation of the 1960s. However, the Silver Age is also the beginning of the studio consciously crafting large portions of these movies (if not the entire movie) explicitly for children. This is not to say films specifically for children are not worthwhile – Dumbo being a prime example. But to introduce characters, plot devices, and humor geared for children at the expense of the film’s storytelling or thematic resonance to viewers of all ages is the Disney studios at its most cynical and business-minded. These trends – that are not solely the fault of any single film – have persisted into modern animation, and are artistically incompatible with Disney’s Golden Age animated features. Those cynical trends are absent in the next Disney animated feature – an adaptation of a Lewis Carroll work that embraces a tsunami of colors and its own looniness.

To audiences in North America who had not seen a non-package animated feature in almost a decade and to war-weary audiences abroad reintroducing themselves to Disney films, Cinderella must have been an astonishing work after episodically-structured movies without a natural through line. In this Silver Age, Walt Disney and his animators would define the studio’s hallmarks – princesses, fairy tales, comic relief intended for children inserted for non-artistic reasons, and the distinctive visual style of artists like Mary Blair. Cinderella is the genesis for these developments. The Silver Age’s most innovative, accomplished work would still be several years away.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

* Founded in 1921 by Walt Disney, The Laugh-O-Gram studio was located in Kansas City, Missouri, and was the short-lived predecessor of the modern-day Walt Disney Animation Studios. Alongside future animation industry stalwarts Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Friz Freleng, the Laugh-O-Gram studios made short animated silent films. Many of these films were based on fairy tales – including Cinderella (1922).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the twentieth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include 12 Angry Men (1957), Oliver! (1968), and Jingle All the Way (1996).

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

Verna (Emily Rose) Smith 1x4 Four (2007) 2/ 2 

Jeff: You’re done?

Verna:*nods*

Jeff: Hop on.

Verna: Dwight’s coming to pick me up.

Jeff: Boyfriend. [Verna nods] He’s late.

***

Verna: Will I ever see you again?

Jeff: How about tonight?

Verna: *smiles and kisses him*

***

Jeff: Hey, there. [Verna turns and shows her black eye] Whoa.

Verna: Go away.

Jeff: What happened?

Verna: Please. *indicates where Dwight is* 

[Jeff goes outside to try to beat up Dwight]

[theamazingstories]

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN & BUTLER, MO REVISITED

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN & BUTLER, MO REVISITED

Figure 1 – Robert A. Heinlein Today is November 11, which is Remembrance Day in Canada, and Veterans’ Day in the U.S. (which, thankfully, seems to have survived the midterm elections on Tuesday). Please take a moment to remember the people from all over the world, not just Canada and the U.S., who fought and died, both as soldiers and civilians, to preserve freedom. You and I owe a lot to them,…