#alexander arc

[diioonysus]

red + art

[gyossefka]

Alexander Mcqueen

[enthraud]

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt

[ydotome]

[zegalba]

Alexander McQueen "Joan of Arc" Spring/Summer 1998

[makeyourownhistory]

Two religiously psychosis historical figures

[riku-izanami]

Follow this awesome artist

[fragrantblossoms]

Marc Vaux. Double Arc and Sphere (by Alexander Calder), 1932.

[gothgleek]

Taylor Russell in two custom Alexander McQueen looks based on the Joan Collection from Alexander McQueen FW 1998

[jin-jamm-desu]

Wait For It - Leslie Odom Jr., the Hamilton Musical

Geto Suguru is to Aaron Burr as Gojo Satoru is to Alexander Hamilton.

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Hamilton faces an endless uphill climb

He has something to prove he has nothing to lose

Hamilton's pace is relentless he wastes no time

What is it like in his shoes?

Hamilton doesn't hesitate

He exhibits no restraint

He takes

and he takes

and he takes

And he keeps winning anyway,

changes the game

He plays and he raises the stakes

And if there's a reason he seems to thrive

when so few survived

Then goddamit I'm willing to wait for it

wait for it

Wait for it

Wait for it

[bastardalbum]

realized that me and my twitter mutuals fav historical figures both experienced religious psychosis and this is what came out of it. amen

[colleybri]

Andor and Rogue One: Sacrificing love and sacrificing for love

I often contemplate Luthen’s monologue from Andor episode 10: the full meanings and implications of what he has sacrificed. The clues to what his backstory might be and how his future might unfold. Perhaps the most intriguing item on his list of what he has given up is ‘love’. The difficulty of analysing this one is that the word has so many different meanings, and once again I’m rueful that in English we didn’t keep the Ancient Greek tradition of having different words for the many different types of love that we can experience. There are separate words for romantic/sexual love, the love between parents and children, between siblings and between good friends. There’s love in the sense of a strong liking (as in “I love chocolate��) and the love that develops over time in a relationship that needs a lot of work (as in an arranged marriage).

Luthen might mean one or all of these, but he might well also mean a very specific type of love: the one often called ‘universal and unconditional love’. The Greek word is Agape, (pronounced Ah-ga-pay). It’s the selfless love felt for humanity as a whole, and is that behind the willingness to do anything for someone without expecting something in return. It’s the biggest question Luthen will have to face. Is he ready and willing to die for the cause - and if so, will this kind of love be the motive? The problem is that in doing what he feels he needs to do for the greater good he thinks he is ‘damned’ as his actions are anything but loving, at least on the surface. He threatens babies, sacrifices innocents and plans to kill a man at his mother’s funeral. Perhaps he is a long way from ‘agape’.

Cassian is a little easier to track as we have at least the start and end of his story - Season 2 will fill in the remaining gap. The excellent Rogue One novelisation makes explicit that within the film Cassian has an epiphany and it’s made really clear in the extract below, which is from just after where he and the others volunteer to go with Jyn to Scarif (knowing full well the huge personal risk involved).

The novel earlier emphasised the ‘need’ in Jyn’s eyes, which is ultimately linked to her love (denied at first) for her father and her faith in his message about the Death Star. Cassian couldn’t go ahead with killing Galen and it’s interesting that here he now shares that ‘need’ to act: ��He tried to imagine executing another coldly elegant mission for Draven and finding nourishment in the stale, momentary thrills of danger and triumph… He couldn’t survive that way anymore. …Jyn was changing. And through her, he would do what was required of him. They all would”. Interesting choice of words: ‘Coldly’.. ‘stale’. This will be the Cassian of the end of Andor season 2… Needing to find his fire again. It’s no doubt why we will want to watch the film again immediately afterwards, as Diego Luna has been urging us to do. I think we’ll need the ‘redemption’ part of the story.

With apologies to some of my Cassian x Jyn loving friends ;), this for me is the main canon ‘love story’ in Rogue One. Putting faith in Jyn’s own faith in her father’s message is for Cassian a kind of re-dedication to the cause - a renewal, perhaps, of something like the ‘vow’ that Luthen speaks of. But the motive this time seems to be something positive. In his monologue Cassian speaks of all the awful things he’s done on behalf of the Rebellion. Walking away now, as the Alliance wants to do, would be unthinkable. Making the ultimate sacrifice eventually becomes the only ‘choice’ left but I think it’s so important that Cassian makes it with a clear head and for the right reasons. It’s why I think that any heavy personal losses that Cassian might experience in S2 won’t come in the final arc, which takes place in the days just before the film - I don’t think Tony Gilroy would want us to think that Cassian is acting from any sense of ‘Oh well, my life is so shitty I might as well do this as I haven’t anything else to live for!’ That wouldn’t even be a sacrifice, which means giving up something you value. Instead, Gilroy explicitly says of Cassian that he is “someone who will consciously, open-heartedly sacrifice himself for the greater good”. In other words, he has a clear mind and is doing this for the ‘right’ reason. And the reason is love, I think - and in the ‘agape’ sense. In other words it’s not for love of Jyn or even love of himself (although I think he is genuinely and justly respectful and proud of himself when he dies) but for love of all those theoretical billions of strangers who might possibly be saved because of their sending the Death Star plans.

Cassian, Jyn and the rest of the Rogue One team make the final sacrifice for love. Unconditional love of strangers. The most selfless act of all. It makes me cry every time I rewatch, but the beach scene is a perfect visual representation. Cassian and Jyn are united in a platonic hug, comforting and literally supporting each other. No doubt thinking about all the loves and losses they have experienced in their mirror-imaged traumatic lives, war-torn from such an early age. They don’t want to die but are accepting of their approaching doom and the knowledge that in doing this they have helped each other to rediscover purpose and hope. They have “tried” as Nemik would put it. And finally, being swallowed up in bright transcendental light - recalling the sunrise Luthen knew he’d ‘never see’. Imagery of death but also of hope for ‘someone else’s future’, their sacrifice being the most selfless love of all.

So you can absolutely see the ending of Rogue One and the ending of Cassian’s story as hopeful, transcendental and inspirational as in that sense he is indeed ‘messianic’ as Tony Gilroy has described him. Not because he is a religious chosen one or a mystical figure - he’s an ordinary average man, who started out as a ‘loser.. .a nobody…’ who has done something extraordinary, for love. It’s a fully secular spiritual journey but no less powerful for that. His bible, as it were, has been Nemik’s manifesto.

As for Luthen himself… his fate is unclear. I’m not sure what might be coming for him, but I hope it does the character justice. Perhaps he will get some kind of glimpse of sunrise or perhaps his ending will - in contrast to Cassian’s - be in a totally sunless space.

“Tell him he knows everything he needs to know and feels everything he needs to feel, and when the day comes and those two pull together he will be an unstoppable force for good.”

[laurearte]

Qui est-ce qu’ils regardent mal au loin ?

[a line up of the chimera ants (king&guards) in suits, all looking smug and staring to the left. Meruem’s fit is military inspired, Pito’s is more school uniform, she’s carrying a head-shaped handbag and gripping Pouf’s arm, Pouf’s wearing a marbled multicolored suit and holding a violin case, Youpi has a more relaxed, pleated red suit]

[zegalba]

top: alexander mcqueen: joan of arc fall 1998 bottom: beyoncé: lemonade the visual album 2016

[patrocles]

It will not be written that Alfred did stand on Uhtred's shoulders. Many times. But I know it to be true.

⮡ THE LAST KINGDOM (2015 - 2022)

[jaxihammer]

I feel like we're all just collectively ignoring the Blessed Eternal thing. Like yeah, Commander, let it live rent free in the vents to further your Character Development™, I'm sure the mind-controlling-the-medical-officer thing was a total fluke???