#and also it's required to get in with the bohemians and tends to have the more fun options 9 times out of 10

[thegreatyin]

honestly the longer i go actively playing caeru's account (on some days, more than i play the scoundrel's) the more and more i realize the real reason why so many fallen london OCs are rampant hedonists is because the quirk system is broken and it's really hard to not raise your hedonism stat even a little bit

[detectivemickey]

Detective Mickey Pilot: Character Backstories - The Sensational Side Characters

These are the characters in my fanfiction series who will appear and have specific backstories that will affect their personality and the story. This won't include everyone as I don't have infinite time plus some characters are either spoilers, have pretty much the same backstory as the media they are from (Ex. Darkwing Duck and Scrooge McDuck), or I haven't come up with a backstory for them yet.

I do plan to update with more characters or as the story grows.

Note: This is not required to understand my story but moreso just extra details for those interested.

If you haven't checked out the Core Four yet. I also recommend doing so.

Goofy Goof - Estimated Age: Mid 30's - Early 40's

Goofy traveled quite a bit with his parents and therefore never really had a single place to call home. The places he spent the longest in were Spoonerville and Mouseton. He went to the same high school that Pete’s family went to and interacted with them a couple times, though they, especially Pete, didn’t really like him since he tended to cause trouble for any of their schemes. Eventually Goofy managed to get involved with a very wealthy mysterious bohemian woman and they instantly fell in love. Together they traveled the world going on all sorts of wacky adventures. One day she wanted to try something really wacky and live a life with Goofy as a mundane average family. So they moved to Mouseton and Goofy got a job as a janitor at Mouseton High and Mouseton University and she became a stay at home wife. They had Max around this time to truly complete the family experience. However she ended up finding the lifestyle boring and desired to go back to their more wild and free life before. 

But Goofy was actually really enjoying settling down and wanted to stay to give Max a more stable life. That is when they decided to make the tough choice and separate so that they both could be happy. When she left her money left with her and Goofy was unable to make payments on the house with his janitor salary thus he had to move to a trailer home. However he wasn’t entirely alone as he met Donald and Mickey at Mouseton High and formed a friendship with them, becoming a formidable  trio. Around the time Mickey and Donald got close to graduating college, he decided to move back to Spoonerville as the Spoonerville Business College offered him a “promotion”, they let him do the windows too for a little bit more money, which would help him further support Max. There is where he met Peg who was visiting her old business college and she helped him get a cheap house right next to theirs, much to her husband Pete's dismay. They lived in Spoonerville for a while, but as Pete moved back to Mouseton. Goofy decided to join him as he was motivated by Daisy and Minnie to start his own cleaning service and missed being close to his friends. He ended up once again Pete’s neighbor in Mouseton, again to Pete’s dismay. Max has mixed feelings about moving as he was glad to be close to his friend PJ and wanted to support his dad, but had to move away from his new girlfriend, Roxanne, resulting in a long distance relationship. However it seems like the move may be the least of their worries as a hidden family secret might make their lives a bit more super than they were expecting.

Donald Duck - Estimated Age: Late 20's - Early 30's

Donald was born and raised mostly in Duckburg. Donald first met Mickey at a regional Junior Woodchuck camping trip where they were bunk buddies. They connected over a love of photography and became close friends, visiting and writing to each other whenever they could. Eventually, his family temporarily moved to Mouseton and Donald ended up spending his high school years at Mouseton High with Mickey, Minnie, and his twin sister Della. Donald struggled with figuring out what he wanted to do in life and after school decided to join the Navy in hopes it would give him a sense of direction. He went to Mouseton University, where he met Goofy, and was a part of the college military program there. He also got to go abroad for a couple of summers, meeting José Carioca in Brazil and Panchito Pistoles in Mexico. They formed a pretty close knit group towards the end of Donald’s college years, even starting a short-lived band, and still keep in touch. 

After college Donald continued to work in the Navy, but had to go off-duty to help raise his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie in Duckburg after Della was no longer able to. Della joined a secret government aerospace training program, but didn’t realize that would mean she would have to dedicate around a decade of her life to the program, away from her family. She would still visit any moment she could and after she completed her contracted time she quit the program so she could be with her boys and help Donald in raising them. But beforehand Donald had to raise them alone, working whatever temp jobs or jobs that Scrooge would bring (force) him on, in order to support his new family. He met Daisy at one of Glomgold’s parties that Scrooge dragged him into to do some spying, and they quickly connected. Daisy isn’t always in Duckburg, but she tries to stay as close as she can. Now that Della is back, working as a pilot for Scrooge and other private clients, Donald is no longer alone in raising the boys and has a bit more time to himself. But he still feels like he never really figured out what he wanted to do in life, as the Navy wasn’t cutting it for him either. Now that Mickey is getting attention for capturing the Phantom Blot, Donald can’t help but feel a bit jealous, but perhaps there is a heroic future in store for the duck.

Daisy Duck - Estimated Age: Late 20's - Early 30's

Daisy grew up in a large city in the Northeast part of America. She lived a pretty comfortable life in the city. She initially wanted to be a journalist and went to college for it, but found out that she had a passion for planning parties when she was a last minute wedding planner for a family friend. With help from her family, she started her own business as a party planner. She actually met Minnie on a forum for small business owners where they would share advice but also vent about some of their more troublesome clients. They became close online friends and would video call each other to hang out. As Daisy’s career grew, she started to get more and more wealthier clients, but unfortunately the more high end opportunities resulted in less creative control and freedom, making her feel like the parties don’t actually show off her skills. However she still wants the status of the wealthier clients so she keeps doing them. One day Daisy got a rare chance to be a party consultant for Flintheart Glomgold, her most prestigious client at the time. She didn’t end up getting paid for the gig, but she did meet Donald there and they quickly bonded and started to date. Eventually she would learn that her online friend, Minnie, was actually the girlfriend of her boyfriend’s best friend, allowing for the easy creation of their friend group. She now tries to do gigs mostly in Calisota trying her best to stay close with her boyfriend and friends there. When she isn’t working, she usually stays at an apartment near Donald's house boat. Thanks to Donald’s connection with Scrooge, Daisy has had a chance to network with a whole bunch of new clients that seem to respect her vision a bit more. Though such extravagant parties can be rife with some kind of trouble that may need the help of a detective.

Felicity Fieldmouse (Amelie Felicity Mouse/Fieldmouse) - Est. Age: Mid 30’s - Late 30’s

Felicity Fieldmouse was born and raised in Mouseton. She is the oldest sister of Mickey Mouse by a couple of years and is very close to him. Some could say that she practically raised him. Ever since she was little she loved journalism and since elementary school she would write her own articles and share it with friends and neighbors. She would let her brother join in as he would be in charge of taking any pictures and drawing the comics. She pursued this dream and eventually graduated Mouseton University and immediately landed a job at the Mouseton Argus after having many internships there. She greatly impressed the Editor in Chief at the time with her tenacity and compelling writing, which seemed to cause a rift between her and future Editor in Chief. She helped her brother get a position and prove his worth and then ended up accepting a position at a WDN. This resulted in her leaving Mouseton and her brother to move to New York City where the news network’s headquarters was at. She is the single mother of her two sons, Morty and Ferdie. They can be troublemakers like their uncle was, but also are just as good-hearted. It was tough raising the two boys alone, but she did her best to keep them out of trouble. Felicity loves her younger brother and her sons and has always tried to protect them and keep them safe from the dangers of the world. But despite how much she tries, she can't protect them all forever and some of her attempts to keep them safe may end up leading to future consequences.

Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse - Estimated Age: 11 - 14

Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse are the twin sons of Felicity Fieldmouse, both born in Mouseton. Ferdie is a smart though meek mouse who has interests more on the nerdy side. He does very well in math and science classes and hopes to pursue some kind of technical career in the future. He may be mild, but he also has a deep curiosity for the unknown and enjoys going on adventures with his brother, though partially to make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. Morty on the other hand is a bit more rambunctious and mischievous, oftentimes being the one leading the “adventures”. He isn’t sure what exactly he wants to do, but definitely wants to do something big like be a professional football player or a video game streamer or a movie star. He may seem rowdy, but he is pretty clever and enjoys some of his brother’s nerdy interests, though he tends to push his brother out of his comfort zone on their adventures. Despite having different personalities, they get along very well, pretty much offsetting each other’s weaknesses. They love their mom, though they can drive their mom crazy at times. They also love their Uncle Mickey and always thought he was cool ever since they were young, as he was the one who always beat them in Snow White and the Seven Brawlers and knew the best ice cream spots in Mouseton. However little did they expect their uncle to be even cooler as the one who caught the Phantom Blot. For better or for worse, this has inspired them to go on adventures too and get into even more trouble than before.

Mortimer Mouse - Estimated Age: Late 20's - Early 30's

Mortimer Mouse was raised mostly in Mouseton by his grandmother. He still has his parents and they are pretty wealthy, but they were also busy and rarely had time to take care of him. He first met Mickey and Minnie in Kindergarten and they actually were friends at first. Mortimer was always a bit rough around the edges and would often say rude things or pull pranks, but he rarely meant harm. But as they grew older, the relationship between Mickey and Mortimer soured, as Mortimer started to bully him almost out of nowhere. This led to them becoming rivals even to this day, with Mortimer constantly downplaying Mickey’s achievements and doing things to actively upset him. Mortimer even dated Mickey’s crush Minnie in high school, though it was only for a week. Despite his relationship souring with Mickey, Mortimer still genuinely likes Minnie and has tried to get her to dump Mickey for him, it has never worked for him though. After graduating high school, Mortimer got a degree in legal studies at Mouseton University and became a private detective. He was inspired by the fame of Detective Casey who was a very well known detective in the 1960’s. In hopes of achieving the same exact fame, he got his private detective business and started his own agency. At first the venture was unsuccessful, but recently he has been managing to take out wave after wave of criminals almost miraculously. Getting the attention of the Mouseton public, especially the news. At least he did until Mickey completely stole his thunder. But one has to wonder how he is able to find all of these criminals so easily and if perhaps there is more to the situation here.

Clarabelle Cow - Early 30’s to Mid 30’s

Clarabelle Cow was raised mostly in Mouseton by her aunt. Her aunt was the owner of “The Moovelous Belles Bakery” which is a very popular bakery in Mouseton  passed down the Cow family for generations. Clarabelle would help out at the bakery from time to time, but her aunt made sure to let her have some free time to spend with her friends. Clarabelle was part of a trio that included Clara Cluck and Horace Horsecollar. They often would go on their own adventures around Mouseton, usually causing trouble. She actually knew Mickey as they lived in the neighborhood and crossed paths quite a bit. She and the rest of the group served as mentors to Mickey and his friends, often being the big kids who would give advice or help them out. Though she was the one to give the actual good advice. Ever since middle school Horace and Clarabelle have had an on again off again relationship. Usually once they break up, Clarabelle is able to rather quickly get a new partner and even dated Clara for a bit, but eventually she and Horace would end up together again. After graduating high school, she started working full time at the bakery, preparing to take over once her aunt retires. The bakery is run so effectively though that Clarabelle rarely has to work overtime and can use her free time as she wishes. When she is not working, she likes to spend her time taking a bunch of classes, usually in something athletic or some kind of self defense. Secretly, Clarabelle isn’t sure if she really wants to take over the bakery once her aunt finally retires. She does however find joy in learning new skills and even holding classes for her friends if they are interested. Thankfully many of these skills would be very useful for a fledgling detective to know.

Horace Horsecollar - Early 30’s to Mid 30’s

Horace initially grew up on a farm outside of Mouseton, but moved to Mouseton with his family. He has been living there ever since and is often found with Clarabelle and Clara Cluck as part of a trio. Horace was always a bit of a dreamer, however he never could stick with just one dream. He would constantly bounce from interest to new interest, but would retain skills becoming a bit of a jack of all trades with knowledge in all sorts of odd things. Sometimes these interests would lead to some kind of scheme to get rich or famous off of it. Though Horace can sometimes get over his head, he never means to cause harm and will take a step back and fix it, if he goes too far. Since middle school he has been in an on again off again relationship with Clarabelle, with sometimes the reason being the result of one of his latest schemes. But he usually is able to win her heart again, or she wins his, and they get back together. Most of the men in his family tend to be handymen so Horace started his career after high school as a handyman. Though now he does all sorts of freelance work alongside being a handyman, as a result of him learning so many different skills. He’s managed to get by mostly on the inheritance from his great uncle, unfortunately the money is starting to thin and he may have to start finding a way to cover his living expenses and his new hobbies. Though these new hobbies may seem like a waste of time at first, sometimes by chance they may be exactly what a detective needs.

Clara Cluck - Early 30’s to Mid 30’s

Ever since Clara Cluck was a little chick she had a love for the theater and performed at a young age. She acts and sings mostly at the Mouseton Local Theatre which was run by an elderly though beloved member of the community. When she wasn’t on stage, she was usually spending time with Clarabelle and Horace. She really gets into the drama and thrill of their adventures. Though she often would exaggerate the events when recalling them. This however has led to her growing a talent in story writing. When the elderly woman who ran the local theater died, the Mouseton Local Theatre was shut down and its fate seem to be sealed. But after Clara graduated college with a Theater Studies degree, she opened the theater back up and has been running it ever since. Outside of running the theater she also teaches acting, piano, and singing lessons to anyone who is interested. While this might seem disconnected to Mickey’s new role as a detective, the theater has always had a history with mystery.

Detective Casey (Jr.) - Estimated Age: Early 40’s - Mid 40’s

Detective Casey is actually the son of the much more famous Detective Casey Sr. His father was one of the best detectives around, cracking some of the most unsolvable cases across the nation and taking down some of the biggest criminals in the world. However he is now retired after his last case nearly got him killed. Hoping to make his father proud, Casey decided to follow in his father's footsteps and became a detective. Casey initially got a lot of hype early on due to the reputation of his father, which may have helped him get the job as a police detective at the Mouseton Police Department in the first place. Unfortunately, he struggled to solve cases as well as his father did, never even solving the first one he was given. Brick was transferred from a police department in Texas to help and while Casey struggled with the idea of a partner at first, they managed to solve much more cases than before. But still not at the level as his father. It doesn’t help that Mortimer Mouse has been outdoing him lately and catching waves of criminals at unprecedented levels. And to make matters worse a junior journalist managed to catch one of the most infamous criminal masterminds in the world and is now being offered to work as a police detective at his department. This unfortunately has put a bit of a damper on his and the new detective’s relationship, before they even had a chance to work together. But if he could warm up to Brick, maybe he can warm up to this new guy and find a way to live up to his father’s legacy

Portis Egmont - Estimated Age: Mid 40's - Late 40's

Portis grew up in a large criminal family known as the Pete Family in the rougher parts of Mouseton. His mother and father died in a shootout while he was young and he was mostly raised by his aunt Maw Pete. He was very close with his cousin Pete, as they were usually teased together by the other cousins. Pete and Portis often caused trouble at school as a team, as Portis was able to add an element of science to their schemes. Portis actually gained a fascination with science at school and would often steal materials, with the help of Pete, to make his own gadgets and perform his own experiments. He actually wasn’t interested in joining the family on crimes and wanted to be a scientist instead. He was one of the few members of the Pete family who graduated high school and went to college. He graduated with a bachelors in biochemistry and a minor in robotics, and then went to graduate school to get his masters and potentially a doctorate. During his time at school he eventually got a chance to work at a research lab on campus. However he struggled to connect with his peers and saw the research lab’s strict adherence to ethics as a hindrance to their progress. After doing some secret unethical experiments to speed up results, Portis got found out and was expelled from the school. At the same time Pete was planning to form a new gang called Pete’s Gang and Portis, now without a direction in life, joined. The two did some crimes on their own and eventually hired two new members, Scuttle and Trudy. The years they spent together was truly a highlight as they were able to accomplish many things and build a close bond together. They even did some work with the Phantom Blot, as he was becoming a more prominent figure, with the Phantom Blot being specifically invested in Portis’ scientific capabilities. However, while working on a job for the Wind Willow Weasels, they got busted and Pete, Trudy, and Scuttle ended up getting caught and arrested. Portis however was not caught as the Phantom Blot rescued him beforehand and made a deal to free the rest of Pete's Gang in exchange for Portis to work with him personally on a project of his. Portis agreed and worked on the project for about a year, until breaking away from the Phantom Blot and continuing any work with him remotely. Since then he has been working on a variety of different gadgets and experiments commissioned by criminals from all over. He reconnected with Scuttle and Pete, but is currently busy with his new business. However, in his free time when he isn’t working on another villain’s plan, he is working on his own and they are finally coming close to completion.

Trudy Van Tubb - Mid 40's - Late 40's

Trudy lived in a poor area that was under constant threat by local mobs and police. Her mother was sickly and her father was kidnapped, never to be seen again. She had to join a small gang of other teens and children in order to get enough food and money to keep her and her mother alive. Unfortunately just as she got into her middle teenage years, her mother ended up dying and the gang she was a part of abandoned her. She then became sort of a mercenary to various criminal groups, only usually staying for a single job. However that changed when she ended up joining Pete's Gang. She ended up falling in love and getting married to the leader Pete and the gang was doing very well. Unfortunately this didn’t last, as a failed job and a possible betrayal by Pete, resulted in Trudy and others getting arrested. After being broken out of prison by the Phantom Blot, she went her own way and went back to being a solo mercenary, even doing a bit of espionage and rumored to be an assassin as well. Now that some time has passed, she hopes to be able to see Pete again to ‘discuss’ what happened. She initially found it hard to track him, but now that word is spreading of his new criminal business in Mouseton. He is now easier to find than before.

Scuttle - Estimated Age: Mid 30’s to Late 30’s

Scuttle was kicked out of his mother’s house when he was in his late teens. Since then Scuttle was homeless and mostly committed theft to get food. One day he found a flier and it led to him joining a new gang started by Pete and Portis. Everything was going great until a failed job resulted in nearly everyone getting arrested, including Scuttle. However instead of going to prison, in a mix-up Scuttle ended up getting on the wrong bus. After over a decade of getting into wacky shenanigan after wacky shenanigan, he finally got reunited with Pete and joined him on his new crime venture with the used car dealerships. While Scuttle may first seem like he doesn’t offer much, he is a wild card that brings a sense of randomness that can either save or ruin a plan.

Pepper - Mid 20’s to Late 20’s

Pepper never really knew her father, but was very close to her mother. Her mother worked at F.O.W.L as one of their top agents and Pepper joined their junior agent program to follow in her footsteps. Despite being part of an evil organization, Pepper has a bright and optimistic personality and puts in a lot of effort to do a good job. Unfortunately her mother ended up disappearing on one of her missions, which led to Pepper being let go from the program after she wasn’t able to keep up on her studies and failed too many tests. She still managed to get work at F.O.W.L as an egghead thanks to Black Heron, a friend of her mothers. But eventually Pepper was able to regain her positivity and has been outperforming all of her fellow eggheads. She shows a lot of promise with her expert hacking skills, enough to be specifically hired on jobs to use that skill. Despite the setback, it seems like she has a bright future ahead of her, but whether it is with F.O.W.L is the question. 

Sylvester Shyster - Late 50’s to Early 60’s

Sylvester’s entire family was a family of lawyers. It was pretty much expected that if you grew up in the Shyster family, you are going to be some kind of a lawyer. Sylvester decided to follow in his family’s lead and went to the same school his parents did and got the same law degree. One of his very first clients was a small gang leader who was on trial for a string of crimes across town. Sylvester initially was warned about taking this case as it seemed like a losing battle, but to flex on his family and his peers he took the case and ended up winning. To thank him the gang leader discretely offered him some connections to some of his friends and Sylvester started to realize that there was much more money to be made in the criminal underground than as a typical lawyer. He still does a normal case every once in a while as a cover. But in secret he works with various crime gangs giving them legal advice to prevent them from getting caught or to assist in any future court battles. One of the biggest gangs he helped was the Wind Willow Weasels who eventually introduced him to Pete as they started to work with him. The two connected pretty quickly and Sylvester has been helping him forge legal documents and create manipulative contracts. Sylvester has been very successful in his secret criminal dealings, but who knows how long that is going to be a secret.

[informels]

7 Incredible Ways to Stylishly Wear Party Wear Shirts

Shirts for men are a wardrobe requirement that goes well with both Indian and Western styles. These clothes are so adaptable that they look well in both formal and casual contexts. They exude a clean, manly vibe that goes well with their style. Although initially connected to Western clothing, blending textiles and designs from many cultures has produced an abundance of Indo-Western shirt possibilities, confirming their standing as fashionable statements and valuable clothing.

A classic men's shirt usually has a collar, cuffs on the sleeves, and a buttoned front opening. The traditional style has full or three-quarter sleeves, while more recent iterations have the popular half-sleeve or sleeveless choices. Even collarless shirts are becoming famous nowadays.

How To Amp Yourself in A Party Wear Shirt for Men

Shirts have transformed the ever-changing menswear market, offering a variety of looks from semi-formal and formal to casual and celebratory. However, purchasing party wear shirts is not only a thing. You should be vigilant in what you choose and how it defines your personality. It all lies in how stylishly you wear a shirt. Let's explore more about it.

Choose Fabric Wisely

The fabric is a critical factor in determining the personality of men's party wear shirts. Renowned for their ease and softness, cotton and linen are the most popular materials for summer clothing. Men may show off their shirts all year round because of the textiles' adaptability. While cotton and linen are more suited for warmer climates, alternatives like pure silk, art silk, or mixed materials are also suitable for winter, as are rayon, khadi, and traditional linen for formal events. The fabric plays a vital role in classifying what you wear.

Unique Pattern Phenomena

Beyond the traditional checks and stripes, Indian men's shirts come in various designs. Intricate borders, paisley designs, and embroidered peacocks are examples of ethnic influences that add charm. In addition, the colour scheme rejects the conventional white, black, and grey to embrace vivid colours that complement the rich Indian colour spectrum, such as blue, red, green, and purple. Ombre patterned shirts with contrasting shades are also in. 

Bold hues and eye-catching colour contrasts have recently been popular in men's shirts. Wearing these modern styles is perfect for special occasions and get-togethers. One incredibly fashionable design that sticks out is the "border-style fashion," defined by contrasting colours or embroidered strips close to the collar, buttons, or cuffs.

Cuts And Types

Numerous cuts and designs go well with the diversity of colour and fabric. Indian designers tend to choose more extended shirt designs since they look well with traditional clothing like indo-western pants, salwars and pyjamas and have a timeless appeal. Casual outfits commonly feature short, half-sleeve shirts, with linen frequently forming looser, bohemian-inspired shapes.

Don't forget the formals, though! Indian shirts are so versatile that they go well with Indian and Western outfits. On hot summer days, a clean cotton shirt looks great with jeans for a semi-formal vibe. Formal shirts are a popular option for everyday workplace attire as they blend well with fitted pants.

Layering Options

The untucked shirt style is more appropriate for casual events as it allows you to wear them with jeans or other less formal bottoms. Add jackets, blazers or Indian men's dupattas to the party wear shirts for wedding to ramp up the ethnic flare and create a cohesive ensemble that combines modern and traditional elements. 

Gain style points by being an expert layering stylist. Over your base layer, wear an open shirt or a lightweight, fashionable jacket. Layering creates visual appeal and lets you modify your ensemble for varying weather conditions and events.

Accessorising Options

Add flare to your wardrobe and tighten your waist with a stylish belt to make a statement. Examine a range of belt designs, from classic leather to elaborately woven to those with eye-catching buckles. Beyond its usefulness, a well-chosen belt becomes a statement piece that enhances the look of your entire ensemble. This fashion feature highlights the waistline and plays a crucial role in subtly conveying your unique style.

Also, you can elevate your party ensemble with the right accessories. Consider donning a statement watch, a sleek leather belt, or a stylish pocket square. Experiment with cufflinks or bracelets to add a touch of personality. Accessories complement your party-wear shirt and showcase your attention to detail and fashion-forward sensibilities.

Experiment With Prints

Try different textures to add flair to your look. For a tactile and eye-catching experience, mix classic materials with textiles like velvet, corduroy, or tweed. This subtle change of pace turns an everyday look into something opulent and chic. The interaction of various textures gives depth and demonstrates a sharp sense of style, enabling you to make a distinctive and unforgettable statement with your clothing selections.

Give A Sporty Touch

Adopt a contemporary style by skillfully combining sportswear and tailoring. Opt for fitted pants and sleek sports shoes to elevate your look, or wear a clean, crisp blue party wear shirt with fashionable joggers. This surprising combination of materials, athletic inspiration, and finesse creates a modern, athleisure-inspired style. Combining the ease of athletics with precise tailoring demonstrates adaptability and captures a vibrant and current fashion sense.

Bottomline

Men's shirts have evolved to represent a harmonic fusion of international and local inspirations, providing a sartorial trip that suits various preferences and circumstances. The men's shirt represents classic refinement and modern flair in a formal setting, casual get-together, or joyous occasion. Remember that confidence and a willingness to try new things are essential to having excellent style. Apply this fashion advice to your wardrobe to create ensembles that are current and distinctively you.

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[uncloseted]

has fashion become more casual lately or is it just me. it's a silly reference but i think of hanna from pll and how she dressed on the first seasons and how she started dressing around season 5 and post time jump. maybe it's because they wanted to make her more mature but i feel like that's when the shift happened. like, you hear people say they're a "jeans and a t shirt kind of girl", but even models dress like that. then i watched some of those "outfit ideas" videos on youtube and they were

Anonymous asked:

all so baggy and simple. yeah people should be allowed to wear whatever they want but i feel like girls who are into fashion and models are considered the epitome of femininity and i'm not sure they are if that's what fashion looks like. maybe i'm being too judgemental here. what do you think?

Okay, so I think the answer is yes, but no, but yes 😂 I would say that fashion has been casual since the 90s, when we saw this cultural shift towards caring being "uncool". As a result, a lot of people were trying to cultivate a kind of "I didn't even try" approach to their looks that has persisted until today- the "effortless beauty" or "cool girl". In response to that, I think many places dropped their dress code requirements, and it became acceptable to dress casually in more places.

I will also say that I think since the pandemic started, fashion has become significantly more casual because people were going out less and working from home more. There was a real push towards being comfortable since nobody was going to see you anyway. Now that the world is opening up again, though, I think that's going to change, and I imagine that we will see more of a push towards exciting or interesting looks.

But I don't think the level of casual that's acceptable or that people wear has really changed that much in the past few decades. What I do think has changed is a push towards "personal style". With the advent of the internet, and especially the advent of social media influencers, our relationship to fashion and trends has changed. There's not one dominant style anymore, but rather a few that are equally trendy. And because many people now think of themselves as a brand, whether or not they actually have a social media following or anything to sell, their style has become part of that "branding". People feel a certain pressure to have a distinct, recognizable, and cohesive clothing style in all areas of their life. That's how you get people with super-specific taglines for their personal style, like, "Miss Frizzle’s crafty niece gets a job in a cubicle maze" or "androgynous bohemian beatnik" or "Space Station Royalty" or whatever. And the result of that shift seems to be that we've lost an idea of formality when it comes to clothes except for in very particular circumstances. A big, puffy, cottagecore Selkie dress is, for all intents and purposes, equally as casual or formal as a baggy tracksuit.

In terms of the examples you gave, I think Hanna is the exception rather than the rule. The Pretty Little Liars girls never dressed super realistically to begin with, and Hanna in particular was often in outfits that were impractical. I don't think there's a huge difference in her looks before and after the time skip other than they're more professional, maybe a bit more practical, and current to 2016.

In terms of models, I want to push back on the idea that they're "considered the epitome of femininity". Runway models aren't really intended to be beautiful, or even that traditionally feminine. When I think of someone who's "considered the epitome of femininity", I think of someone more like Marilyn Monroe- small, soft, with lots of rounded edges and big facial features. By contrast, models tend to be tall, broad, and angular, with sharpness in their faces. That's not to say that they're any less feminine than their Marilyn Monroe counterparts, of course, but just to say that I don't think they're necessarily considered the epitome of beauty or femininity as a whole.

The "model off duty" jeans and a tee shirt look has always been a thing, maybe because when you get paid to wear fussy, uncomfortable clothes all day, you want to be comfortable in your time off. If you look at the supermodels of the 90s, they have that same kind of casual, jeans and a tee shirt kind of look that models today often wear:

And if you look at models' street style in the 2000s, the story is pretty similar:

[aurora-daily]

Runaway with AURORA: we meet the songwriting sprite to talk about music old + new

'We simply have to survive. And that is enough'

Interview by Blossom Caldarone for gigwise (July 8th, 2021). 

A textbook empath and considerate soul, Norway’s AURORA has an endearing air of childlike sensitivity. Comfortably seated in her mother’s French dress, we caught up over Zoom amid the frenzied #runawayaurora trend and the singer’s monumental TikTok rise.

AURORA’s 2016 single ‘Runaway’ is now the dainty accompaniament to millions of short videos on the increasingly influential TikTok. Predominantly featuring suburban teenagers, the trend has encouraged people to find the charm in their otherwise mundane corners of the world. “Seeing the beauty in the small things is something we all lost on the way” she says. Whether users film lakeside days out, pose elegantly or capture early morning sun beams, the trend's theme is strikingly on brand for AURORA: “It’s nice that people have created a wholesome vibe to it - you never know with the trends! I’m happy it’s not anything horrible.”

Momentarily gazing at the mountains outside her Bergen window, it’s clear to see AURORA isn’t fazed by the numbers that currently skirt her name. “It’s a very abstract thing for me and therefore I don’t spend time trying to understand it. I’ve just been home, doing my normal things, cooking my dinner, reading my books and being in the studio. I’m very grateful that people are letting my song into their hearts” she softly explains.

Written when she was only 11, the song platforms a prematurely advanced AURORA grapple with the concept of running away from the people we love when we are in pain. “Just like a dog that goes out and dies alone in the forest, we do the same. We struggle so much in talking about these very mutual, normal feelings but can’t deal with them when we are going through them ourselves.”

It’s a universal reality that stumps any age or decade, and her philosophy on the song’s ability to resonate is profound: “Music, unlike us, has no age. If it’s good or relatable, or if it has nerve, it will never die and it will always make sense to someone.”

She’s embarked on a week of interviews, and I’m her last before the weekend. Conscious she may not want to wax lyrical about Runaway any longer, I turn the discussion to the things that make AURORA tick. “My biggest muse is Mother Earth and nature. It always has been and always will be” she gushes. “It grounds me, it opens me up. It humbles and strengthens me.”

Her Nordic roots affording her the luxury of stunning outdoor access, she talks effusively of its importance, and how life’s increasingly high tempo is detrimental. Astutely describing being human as an “extreme sport”, she accredits success to ending up in her own bed at the end of the day. “The world is way too demanding in every area. It’s almost impossible” she laments. Her approach to living is one of simplicity; where surviving is the only necessity and anything else a mere plus. “It’s a matter of life or death, we simply have to survive. And that is enough.”

With last year’s lockdown allowing her to fully immerse herself in her artistry, AURORA found herself revelling in the desolate streets and empty shops, whilst finding ultimate inspiration in the silence. Her introverted intentions thrived whilst she empathised with the struggling extroverts in the world: “Silence is so rare and I love it. I try to be in silence as much as I can”. AURORA famously doesn’t listen to much music apart from fellow celestial Enya: “I’m afraid I’ll miss out on an idea if I’m listening to something else. And I don’t want to be effected by other melodies. It contaminates me” she explains. A theory shared with anything but pretence, AURORA evidently has an ability to hone in on the nuances within the quiet; a skill that requires patience and devotion to creative processes.  

Her timely mid-pandemic single ‘Exist For Love’ is a song that prioritises the fundamental importance of love. A delicate step away from previous AURORA releases, its traditional tendencies embody the timeless essence of a '50s love song, a trait only enhanced by its cinematic Isabel Waller-Bridge arranged strings: “I just felt like we needed a divine love song. I truly believe that when we understand love - unselfish pure love - we understand why we exist” she plainly explains, again finding a way to strip down concepts that feel hard to define.

“When I write, I think a lot about what the world will need. I wish to make something that will be good for people.” Often writing selflessly, boundaries are key; being an empath can be exhausting. “I can’t really read the newspapers. I have to learn things through discussion, and then dive into matters if I want to educate myself more. I spend little time on social media because it makes us sad, but it also makes me sad to see so many sad people on social media.” Surrounding herself with others who also tend to give more than they receive, AURORA ensures her good intentions are not misplaced.

As for her fans, they are at the forefront: “I think a lot about them. It’s all for them.” But it will come as no surprise to learn that she doesn’t like the more vacuous side of the industry, and finds getting recognised slightly unsettling. “It’s good to know it’s all worth it. As long as you can say something that means something, you can use the music as a tool to support people out there” she justifies.

Her new single ‘Cure For Me’, out now, is another example of AURORA’s altruistic approach to songwriting. A playful tune that will surprise fans with its cheekiness, it debunks the idea that humans should ever need to be cured, and that anything other than who we are is abnormal. “People are very self-critical and it doesn’t take much for us to assume that something is wrong because we look different, or act different, instead of just accepting that we are different. We are all biologically designed to be unique” she explains. We go on to discuss how we’re led to believe that we’re crazy for being emotional or sensitive: “That’s what inspired me to make this song, as an anti-gaslighting song where you just celebrate that it’s fine, and you’re going to be fine, and I don’t need a ‘Cure For Me' because I’m perfectly ok as I am.”

The song’s juxtaposed setup is a peek into what’s to come: “It’s fun for me to be less serious about things. It’s very new for me. I am often very serious in all my music. I really feel like we need a bit of light right now, everything has been so intense.”

Heading into a newfound artistic side, AURORA is considering how the new sound should be consumed too. With her mystical ability to sonify nature and art, AURORA’s eclectic and ethereal world has always captured feeling in a visual way. “I love to be able to shape how people see my music, even if just a little bit. For many people, it’s easier to understand the whole thing when they can see it as well.” She is currently painting an “intimidating” canvas and studying Egyptian history, alongside Greek and Roman mythology. Finding inspiration in their bohemian attitudes towards female roles, AURORA is focussing on the old, the new and repeated behaviours in between: “Everything we’ve done in history, both good and horrible, has sometimes taught us to be better and sometimes not. Our patterns of behaviour are very interesting.”

So with ‘Cure For Me’ here and a well-researched new artistic process in full flow, AURORA is peacefully going about her business and prioritising the small things that make her feel truly content. Currently, she's filling her home with flowers: “It makes me more happy every day than I could ever imagine.” Her intentions are in the most authentic place; a space that prioritises connection and understanding, and one that prioritises the heart in a world where its complexities are so often dismissed. “As long as we remember to take care of the mind and the heart, we’ll have the capacity to care for others as well” she finally assures me.

[faraway-in-headspace]

I?? I searched Chicken Choice Judy on google out of curiosity because it sounds oddly familiar like there’s a similar-sounding name and I found 4 websites selling the shirt design. But the descriptions on these pages are BUCK WILD??

Written version of the descriptions under the cut (very long).

[Begin ID

First image states:  Long ago, when I had hair, I was an undergrad living in a house with nine other men. Near as I can tell, three of them (not sure which three) never bought food, just lived off what they stole from the Chicken Choice Judy shirt But I will love this other seven. We had several house meetings about it, but nothing changed. One day, I came in from grocery shopping. By coincidence, all 10 of us were in the kitchen. I started putting my stuff away. 1st thing I pulled out of the bag was my half-gallon of milk. I opened the carton, took a couple of drinks from the carton, then gargled some of it, and spit it back in. I opened my tub of margarine and licked the whole surface. By now, the room chatter had stopped because the other nine jaws had dropped open.) To your original question, those specific topics would take several years to build, as they depend on several layers of pre-requisites, which would require either that more advanced topics such as algebraic topology to be taught in elementary school, or that the buildup process happened blazingly fast during high school – both of which probably stretch the biological limits of what pre-teens and teenagers can reasonably be expected to accomplish. I spit on all my veggies, took the bread out of the package, and licked and spit on it, then carefully put it all back in the plastic bag. Remind teenage daughters to look through them before going on date with the boyfriend, in case they want to use one. I labeled it all and put it away. None of it was stolen. I never said a word, but I made it a point to repeat the performance anytime anyone was around to see it. Others began to emulate my approach and food theft stopped. Even I found it revolting, but it solved the problem. Works even better if you are sick or can at least make your thieving roommates think you are. While some cities are starting to reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the country are continuing to wear masks in public and practice social distancing. Vogue is committed to staying safe, and offering hopeful, optimistic content that highlights moments of camaraderie and exceptional acts of heroism from around the world. We are all looking for a little comfort too—be it a soothing Instagram account or a stylish creator on TikTok. It reminds us of the power of little things.

Second image states:  A couple of guests informed me my office was too minimalist and that they expected more things to be hanging on my wall the Chicken Choice Judy shirt besides I will buy this next time they visited my wife’s and my home. I kinda hope they held their breath while they were waiting for our next invitation. They both went on to backstab me and my wife pretty bad a few years later. Another set of guests tried to squat. I had driven them all the way from Florida to Massachusetts under the impression that they had jobs and a place to live lined up. They offered no money for gas, hotels on the three-day trip, or compensation for the inconvenience and effort. He even tried to weasel out of the dinner he offered as a thank you by forgetting his wallet. The dude got me off the streets years ago and I wanted to pay him back in some way, but my wife and I were in no position to have extra residents in our home. We just don’t have the room or money. I made all of this VERY clear and told my old buddy that we could only house them for a couple of days max. There are MANY other details, but the disrespectful thing my former friend said was wordless. As I was kicking them out and they were angrily loading stuff into my car to bring them anywhere but here, my buddy left his gigantic knife right in the center of my wife’s desk. Like that was supposed to make us change our minds and let them stay? In the days of dial-up, I had a family call and not be able to get through because we were online. They decided to show up unannounced. They literally caught me in my underwear as they were let into the apartment before I could even react to being rudely surprised. Some of my family members have a history of abuse, violence, and stalking, something at least one of the visitors, my mother, was quite aware of since she lived through it with me. Her tagalong friend decided to put in her two cents and tell me I should get a call waiting or a second line because they were trying to call me. That did it! I suddenly forgot I was just wearing underwear and angrily asked my mother’s friend if she was paying my phone bill. My mother-in-law, stepfather and mom’s friend beat a hasty retreat and NEVER did the pop-in ever again.

Third image states:  That was why when we did get to reality shows, Etro and then Dolce & Gabbana plus Jacquemus later in France, it was wonderful. Clothes are all about contact: As a wearer, you feel them on your skin, and as a watcher, you process them with your eye. The watching part can be done secondhand, but the Chicken Choice Judy shirt in contrast I will get this impact will always be second to the real thing. I read some commentators in the U.S. saying, “Too soon” or “Wear a damn mask!” which I always did, but these opinions while valid enough lack perspective. Milan and its surrounding region Lombardy went through what New York did but earlier. Through sagacious governmental management much more effective than that of the U.S., Italy has managed dramatically to flatten the curve across the rest of its territory. These shows just like the reopening of flights, stores, factories, and restaurants were symptomatic of recovery that, far from being taken for granted, is being tended to with vigilance and cherished with gratitude. The digital Fashion Weeks were better than no Fashion Weeks at all, but as an upgrade on the real thing? Nah. Like everyone, I missed the shows in the experiential sense this season. But for the first time since I began covering the collections several years ago, I didn’t miss a single brand or designer’s contribution to Paris Fashion Week. Which is to say, thanks to the Fédération’s online platform, I was able to watch every name on the haute couture and men’s calendars. This brand on-demand convenience not to mention being spared the logistical headaches of zigzagging across the city was pretty great. Also, everything was on time, from the films to the manner in which we filed our reviews. While efficiency can be satisfying, it’s not necessarily exciting. Ultimately, we had to accept that the focus this season wasn’t going to be the clothes but rather the brands conveying some combination of identity, process, and values. And in the absence of standardized criteria as in, showing a minimum number of looks, specifying a time range, it was interesting to observe how heterogeneous these experiments proved to be quasi–ad campaigns versus short films, conceptual or fantastical visions versus raw and documentary style. A proper kimono takes nearly an hour to put on – I’m sure most Japanese girls would much rather spend a few seconds and slip on a dress. Get survey responses from targeted consumers today.

Fourth image states:  Around a decade ago, not long after he started his own label, Massimo Alba made a great mistake. A batch of shirts and T-shirts he was working on that had already been garment-dyed one color were mistakenly exposed to another. Speaking at his showroom presentation this weekend, Alba said: “It’s very interesting to me that so many good things start out as mistakes like this.” That accident was to Alba what the Chicken Choice Judy shirt moreover I will buy this mold-infected petri dish was to Alexander Fleming: a stumbled-upon eureka that led to a career-defining course of the investigation. This collection featured a series of softly tailored jackets, corduroy pants, and shorts, plus light cashmere sweaters that were hand-overdyed two, and sometimes three colors. It’s a process that led to variations in tone that included acid-trip floods of purple on purple to subtle bleeding of magenta across mustard yellow. Like most of Alba’s garments, these dyed pieces appeared at first glance conventionally prosaic. The more attention you gave them, however, the more their exceptional qualities became evident. Take a pale blue jacket, for instance, which at that first glance seemed passingly related to a surgeon’s scrubs. To the hand it was light and almost textureless in its softness: The fabric was a cotton mousseline developed for Alba by Albini. Long-sleeved, in a delicately mottled finish of washed-out sky blue, it made for an ideal mid-summer shake in pink, sleeveless, it was an impactful shirting second skin. Other interesting developments this season included a cotton pant named the Myles with acutely kinking stitched gather at knee-level on both legs and another handsome pant, baggy in white poplin, with patch pockets. A blue tropical weight jacket named the Lenny, after Bernstein, was Alba’s interpretation of a bohemian creative’s ideal piece of workwear. Collarless shirts in ripstop linen and button-up short-sleeves in terry were further finely effective coups de théâtre. Alba is a self-deprecating yet dangerous designer: Try just one carefully chosen piece and that’s it, you’re spoiled for good because nobody else quite compares. The museum in Prague where this portrait is held describes the ring on her first finger as the ring given to her at her wedding. It’s not comfortable. Maybe a lot of girls think that a see-through blouse can attract the attention of boys or they think that it will make her look much smarter. Meghan has no dress sense: no knowledge of fabrics, fit, styles that flatter, proper tailoring, Her father raised her in L.A. Enough said. Her idea of dressing for an event is “dress up” like a little girl dressing up as a princess. Shiny! Tight! Celebrity “fashion” not elegant, just flashy.

/end ID]

[kamccormickhnd1b]

Still Life Photographers

Josef Sudek was a Czech photographer best known for his haunting black-and-white images of Prague, interiors, still life, and the landscapes of Bohemian forests. Many of Sudek’s most memorable images were taken from the very window of his small studio, documenting his humble courtyard during changing weather and light conditions. 

“Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings.” 

-Josef Sudek

Sudek was born on March 17, 1896 in Kolín, Czechoslovakia, Sudek had originally worked as a bookbinder before serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War, when he was wounded and subsequently lost his right arm due to it needing to be amputated. After this, he began to study under the photographer Jaromir Funke and grew and developed into an influential figure of the medium. 

Known as the ‘Poet of Prague’, Sudek never married, and was a shy and retiring person. He never appeared at his exhibition openings and there are few people that feature in his photographs. In 1974, Sudek had a large exhibition at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. He died two years later in Prague, on 15 September 1976, when he was 80 years old. Later, larger retrospectives were mounted in his honour in both Prague and Brno, in the Czech Republic. Many of Sudek’s works can be found in museums such as the National Gallery of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

One of Josef Sudek’s most famous pieces is Prague, circa 1950. In the 1950s, Sudek purchased a Kodak Panorama camera and began to photograph the city streets in this new wide 1:3 format. The Panorama was made in 1894 and had two shutter speeds-fast and slow. The lens of camera was spring driven and rotated during the exposure projecting a slit of light that travelled across the film to produce an image. The film was held against a curved film frame and in combination with the swing lens produced an image with multiple perspective lines. Armed with the Panorama would go out into early morning Prague to capture what cityscapes that were eerily devoid of people, such as the image above.

I liked the look of this image because immediately, I was drawn to the almost black tree that is the centre of the image, you can see in the background of the branches buildings and signs of civillisation, but Sudek chose to photograph this. With his dislike of people and large crowds, I feel like this was his way of photographing the population without actually photographing people or residents of the place. 

I really like that the focus of the image is the tree, he liked to photograph desolate landscapes, and a barren tree fits that description. The tree is rather lifeless, maybe with the time of year it had an effect on the leaves, but I liked this shot because to me personally, there’s a ploy on life and death: he’s looking and focusing on something that is completely lifeless, and in the background, is life. I doubt this was what he was going for, but it���s what I personally take from this image.

Another famous work of Josef Sudek is Circa, 1960. 

I liked this image in particular because it has a similar take to it as the first: the focus is the branches, the little flowers on the branches, with a looming building in the background. With Sudek’s dislike of social gatherings, I feel it shows in his work because he focuses on shots where you can see there is life, he just chooses not to go near it or to photograph it like many other photographers would. I liked that his main focus is sticking to landscapes or “still life” objects, such as trees and flowers. To me, this is another take on his preference on shooting empty images in the way of people, he didn’t like involving people, so he involved them in a way that didn’t require speaking to them or even being near them. And even then, there is no people, you can faintly see people in the distance, but it is a black blur and barely noticeable thanks to the detail of the branches and everything else in the frame. 

I like the composition of this shot because while the main focus is technically the branches, my eye is drawn to the building in the back. It’s out of focus, but it also looms there and is rather daunting to look at, it sticks to his genre of shooting rathre haunting like images.

Josef Sudek-Still Life

I looked into more of Sudek’s work surrounding still life in particular this time. Below are the images I liked the most and I will be talking about why I was drawn to them.

The image above was the first image I took a liking to when I typed in still life iages by Josef Sudek. I liked the dark ambience of the image, but I also like the use of the water (I’m assuming) and the eggs, one of which is fully in tact while the rest have had their shells removed. 

I liked the use of shadows, mainly around hte back of the image, on the table and the front egg itself, it helps to add a rather daunting look to the image, almost creepy. 

I liked this image because it immediately reminded me of “beaten and battered” people in the world, by that I do not mean people being abused, I mean people having scars. Whether it be through accidents, vicious attacks or even their own doing, this image spoke to me on that level: the apples are scarred and damaged, all but one, and with how the apples are positioned, I almost get a feeling of care here. To me, it seems like the unharmed apple is “tending” to the other two, the damaged ones, like a loved one or a friend would do whenever you are hurt or damaged.

I like this image because there’s an elegance to it. I was drawn to the use of a flower not quite fully blooming while in a glass of water. There’s a story to be told here, and for me, it’s a story of life in the smallest of places, you don’t have to own a large and wonderful flower pot to maintain a flower. 

I liked this image because that’s the story I take from it personally, I like to look at images and see a story and figure out on my own what that story may or may not be, even if it isn’t the right story at all. I like that we will never know, not unless we speak to the photographer himself, all we can do is wonder about it and tell a story of our own through someone else’s shot.

I liked this image because I was drawn to the use of reflections and the use of dark ambience for the vase and the flower. The image is taken against a window with a vase and some dying plants and some background accessories such as a candle stick, I believe. I liked the use of reflection in the window to show off the outside scenery to this window, the tall gates, the buildings, the trees, I like how well he captured a rather Gothic ambience to the image and I like the patterns in it; from the vase itself and the gates. 

In many of Sudek’s shots, I get the sense of mortality, as there is usually something involved in the shot that represents death, like the dying tree, the dead plants, but there is also a story on life too: the looming buildings in the background and the blooming flower. I don’t think this was Sudek’s intentions, but it is the story I like to take from it.

[moviestorian]

Im glad the asks helped! I have anxiety and depression and can understand what youre going through. My ask today is what are your thoughts on Bo Rhap as a movie?

Thanks! :) I’m above all extremely happy to see people on this site being so kind and supportive in time of need, it’s a human quality that will never get enough praise! I’m also really sorry to hear about your problems. :( I send you lots of love, I can imagine how difficult it must be for you, but I’m sure you're strong and coping❤️

As for your actual question - that’s some truly excellent and interesting timing, considering that I rewatched BoRhap (with @incblackbird) literally three days ago. :P It was already my third rewatch, and while I enjoyed the movie overall, I liked it quite significantly less than upon the last time I saw it. Of course, there’s been gazillion discourses about BoRhap, whether it’s genius, extremely evil, etc., but since it’s such a broad topic (and I think some of my opinions could potentially outrage certain parts of the fandom), this time I’m going to stick to purely cinematic terms.

Needless to say, the soundtrack is excellent - with music such as Queen’s you don’t really have to do much, but they made a good choice of songs, alternating between their best known hits (We Will Rock You, Somebody to Love, Bohemian Rhapsody) and songs to fit the narrative (Doing All Right, Now I’m Here, Who Wants to Live Forever, Love of my Life). It’s practically impossible to leave the screening of BoRhap without at least one Queen song stuck in your head.

The cast was overall very good, too. My personal favourites in terms of acting were Gwilym Lee (who I liked even more than Rami), Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton and Allen Leech - I think they did a great job with their roles as they were written (whether their characters were well written or not is a subject for a whole another discussion). All the side characters were well acted, too (Mike Myers, Meneka Das and Aaron McCusker, for instance, I found particularly memorable), but I must admit I wasn’t a big fan of Joe Mazzello and Ben Hardy, but even they weren’t bad. So, acting is definitely one of the strongest points of the film.

Moving on, I also think they did a great job when it comes to costumes (Brian lending some of his old clothing definitely helped) and make-up (except for Roger’s wigs, perhaps); the choreography and stage movement for the characters were super well done, too - and it definitely wasn’t an easy task!

Now, let’s discuss cinematography. I will talk about editing in a separate paragraph, so for now I’m gonna stick to other aspects. The composition of shots struck me as rather mediocre, nothing particularly exceptional in either good or bad way, it was pretty basic but rather correct. Of course, there were some shots I really liked, but if I were to start adding screenshots the post would become way too long. XD The colours I really liked, especially in the musical scenes - they were vivid and lovely, and they used a combination of colours that I tend to appreciate in cinema, like various shades of blue and red. Finally, the camerawork - for dialogue scenes it was correct; again, rather average with some use of handheld camera which served no particular dramatic purpose, but it wasn’t nowhere near very bad, also it’s quite a common thing in modern biopics I would say. Handheld camerawork isn’t bad in default, but my comment largely comes from my personal preferences: in most cases I don’t really like it, especially when it’s particularly shaky. Then, there are scenes in BoRhap which display excellent camerawork, namely Live Aid and We Will Rock You scenes. If most scenes were filmed like that, I would give the movie a higher rating.

Before I move to the worst (imo) cinematic aspects of the movie, let’s have a look at writing. It is probably the most divisive thing in the fandom - people seem to either adore or absolutely loathe it; my stance lies somewhere inbetween. The first time I saw the film (I’m gonna remind you that I’ve seen it four times), I had certain objections, but the script didn’t bother me all that much; I was mostly simply having fun in the cinema. With every next watching, the experience was getting gradually worse, but even now I don’t hate the movie. Yes, some of the dialogue is cheesy, trite and makes me cringe a bit - certain parts of the script definitely end on an “overly sentimental” territory, I can’t deny that. Knowing quite a lot about Freddie, Queen and their stories, I generally think they deserve a better script; some characterisation was a bit offputting and chronology was all over the place. Having said that, I understand where some of those narrative choices come from, as scripts for mainstream movies require oversimplification of events, archetypes, and patterns. And quite frankly, I don’t think BoRhap differs any drastically from most modern biopics; it’s not a masterpiece, but - in my opinion - it’s also not bad overall. Regardless the flaws of the script, the movie still managed to emotionally affect a huge, if not major, portion of viewers, entertain and move them, and honestly? I think that was pretty much the point. Btw, there were some lines that I really loved, like “Puritans in public, perverts in private”, and I still think that their decision to cut from Live Aid performance to Ray Foster’s grim face during We Are the Champions was the funniest shit ever. XD Would BoRhap’s script benefit from sticking to historical accuracy? I’m gonna say yes, I think so - the scenes that were the closest to actual events are definitely the strongest - but this approach would require tons of changes, including narrowing down the narrative scope and probably the characters, too. Also, a lot of people keep forgetting that this is not an arthouse, niche film and therefore resorts to narrative and cinematic choice that compromise between satisfying the fans and the newbies; it’s meant to tell a (simple) story and entertain, not educate and provoke existential and philosophical debates. Still, I think the script could have been done a bit better, because some scenes  (the tour “Now I’m Here” montage) feel a bit...random?

Finally, the infamous editing. I totally agree that it was one of the most undeserving Academy Awards that year, because some scenes were simply atrocious, with their unmotivated and overly fast cuts and unreasonably ridiculous face that doesn’t fit the dialogue scenes, and those are honestly the worst when it comes to pacing and editing. I think the editing is the worst aspect of BoRhap; but even here, I could point at some examples of pretty amazing editing (Oscar-worthy? Not necessarily, but definitely very good); again, I’m gonna bring up Live Aid and “We Will Rock You” scenes, especially the latter, because less people talk about it. I already mentioned that it has some really nice camerawork AND colours, but also the editing is actually really cool, because it’s cut to the music! Which makes me think: “what a shame!”, because if they went with different editing choices, the movie would be affected in a positive way. The way we have it, it’s either a hit or miss (sadly, mostly miss), and the badly edited scenes are pretty striking, so the ones that are done nicely are unfortunately a wasted potential.

Okay, this is already waaay too long, so I’m just gonna finish with a few general remarks. Well, despite BoRhap’s flaws, I still like and enjoy it. With every screening slightly less, but enjoy it anyway. I don’t think any amount of discourse will ever take away my positive experiences and memories from seeing it twice in cinema. It sparked my previously dormant love for Queen and united me with some people in the fandom and in real life; making this movie made Brian and Roger happy; as a result, I like this movie. It brings back a lot of positive recollections, which sometimes is more important than critical discussions. And boy, do I adore those - I’m often critical and I adore analysing stuff academically; but I think that not all daily interactions require those and depending on who’s asking and what about, I’m capable of switching between the two options. If somebody asks me in 25 years whether I remember the times of BoRhap’s release, I’ll be far less likely to say “yeah, the editing sucked and writing was cringy, I remember the discourse on tumblr and instagram” than “Yes, I remember that chilly evening in December when I had a really fun time and ended up with 10 Queen songs stuck in my head”, because the latter is the experience I want to remember.

Thank you for this ask! Hope it wasn’t overly exhausting to read, I didn’t proofread this, sorry! xx

[random-thought-depository]

My most significant reaction to this essay is to think that “create a haven for outcasts and a paradise for bohemians, with lots of warm connections of mutual support and fun between people who don’t fit in with broader society” is a much better goal than “save the world.”

“Create a haven for outcasts and a paradise for bohemians, with lots of warm connections of mutual support and fun between people who don’t fit in with broader society” is a goal that a small number of people with moderate access to resources can actually achieve. You just need to find these people and convince them to associate with each other and support each other, and the infrastructure for that is pretty cheap in the internet age, and the rationalist subculture already has the infrastructure for that. As a form of altruism, I think it’s pretty cost-effective. A person’s whole life can often be turned in a better direction with as little as a few thousand dollars. A single moderately affluent person can make an enormous difference to the lives of five or six or a dozen other people this way. I guess it’s not as efficient as mosquito net charities or something like that, but I think it’s probably much better than, say, contributing money to Friendly AI research (I suspect that by the time we actually build general AI any Friendly AI research we cook up now will be at best historically significant philosophical texts that introduced some important general concepts but are hopelessly outdated when they discuss the meat and potatoes of programming, at worst the equivalent of Medieval physicians writing elaborate treatises about the subtleties of the four humors theory of medicine).

I think “create a mutual support community for eccentric nerds” is also likely to be a very satisfying form of altruism (which, among other things, means less risk of burn-out). You’re helping “your people,” and every day you’ll interact with people whose lives have been obviously and tangibly bettered by your actions. Your altruism will be part of a network of mutual support and “thick” social connections between people who like each other and feel personal loyalty to each other, which is a very time-tested and successful formula (it’s a strategy that has a lot of problems too, sure, but it has some actually very nice features).

By contrast, “save the world” is... probably beyond the power of a small group of people with moderate resources, even if that’s a group that trends more affluent and smarter than average. I mean, taken at face value, “save the world” is a problem that has absorbed a significant fraction of humanity’s total intelligence and resources for literally centuries. Big concrete steps toward “saving the world” (such as, say, inventing commercially viable fusion reactors) would probably require an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project or bigger in many cases. Even “modest” steps in the “save the world” direction (such as, say, a coronavirus vaccine or a new hydroelectric dam) tend to be quite skill-intensive and technology-intensive and/or resource-intensive.

Compared to the status quo of 1800 C.E. the world has been saved, but it was mostly done by a strategy that looked very different from the high rationalist “get a small number of smart people together with the explicit goal of saving the world” strategy. The actual historically successful world-saving strategy was a huge number of people working to solve a huge number of more specific problems that were only tangentially related to saving the world. “Get a relatively small number of smart enlightened people with the right mindset together and set them to work with the explicit goal of saving the world” reminds me more of science fiction, specifically of Isaac Asimov’s concept of the Foundation, and I honestly wonder if that’s mostly where the idea came from (I observe that “member of the Foundation” is an aspirational social role that’s very ego-pleasing and seductive to a book-smart “gifted” eccentric who doesn’t fit in well with mainstream society; y’know, the kind of person likely to be attracted to science fiction and rationalist subculture).

For a small number of people with moderate access to resources, “Create a haven for outcasts and a paradise for bohemians, with lots of warm connections of mutual support and fun between people who don’t fit in with broader society” is an easily achievable goal. For a small number of people with moderate access to resources, “save the world” is at best going to inspire a lot of useful efforts that contribute to that project, but at worst it’ll be like twenty people trying to level a mountain with hand tools; a lot of effort expended accomplishing very little (I think the big danger for such a group is getting seduced into pouring their efforts into a glamorous and seductive but probably futile moon-shot; something like “instead of this hard grinding work of actually saving the world, maybe we can just build a friendly super-AI that will do it for us!”).

Also, I think “save the world” is a community recruitment pitch that’s likely to disproportionately attract people who are scrupulous-in-the-badbrains-sense, fanatical, narcissistic, or some combination of those things. Frank Herbert once made this observation about politics:

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” - Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune.

I think Frank Herbert identified a real recurring problem with managerial institutions here. Politicians and bosses are high on my list of people I’d be a little wary of dating or being friends with, because I strongly suspect that becoming a politician or a boss really does select for narcissism and authoritarian tendencies. I think you almost have to be a little narcissistic or have significant authoritarian tendencies to look around and think “the world would be better if other people were forced to obey me!” I think this effect contributes to many of the institutional and social pathologies of governments, businesses, and other hierarchical organizations. Likewise, I think you almost have to be at least little narcissistic to hear the high rationalist recruitment pitch of “we’re assembling a team of smart enlightened people who are exceptionally suited to saving the world, so we can save the world!” and think “I’m a smart enlightened person who’s exceptionally suited to saving the world, I belong on that team!” Please don’t feel too personally attacked if that description sounds like an uncharitable description of you, being a little narcissistic is a common personality trait, and part of the reason for that is you probably actually are better than average at the things you like and are good at … but I’d be wary of joining a community with a recruitment pitch that selects for narcissism and fanaticism, and I’d be wary of making such a recruitment pitch for a community I belong to.

I will note that, as an unquantified System 1 impression, I feel there’s a very cloudy but noticeable correlation between how close a piece of writing is to high rationalism and how much it’s infused with a miasma of a lot of the things I find most off-putting about the rationalist subculture; elitist contempt for ordinary people, very self-important vision of rationalist subculture’s role, cult of smartness attitudes, mix of vaguely Randian, Nietzschean, and Protestant work ethic attitudes, libertarian-adjacent politics that implicitly reflects the biases and class interests of affluent tech-company workers.

[blogulianatish]

The sun in Aquarius

Solar Aquarius tend to be friendly, original, intuitive, free-thinking, different, independent, freedom-loving, have a tendency to science, while being unusual and helpful and have a broad Outlook. They can also be impartial, unpredictable, tactless, rebellious, unconventional, stubborn, tough, radical, Bohemian, and eccentric. Aquarius likes any work that requires ingenuity and detached application of certain rules and formulations.

Aquarius seek to share their knowledge with others in order to achieve a better life for all. Group activities – their normal mode of operation. Help others, so they can help themselves peculiar Aquarius.

Aquarius friendly, but detached, they have warmth, but seem very far away. Showing coldness or detachment, they are not really indifferent to others. It's just that they are much more concerned about humanity as a whole, and not any particular person. Since Aquarius, as a rule, do not have inflated to the limit of the ego, they rarely bother to show themselves to deserve approval or praise.

People under the sign of Aquarius are fond of using new ideas and methods in the old traditional environment. They are philosophers, visionaries and idealists. A sense of friendship drives them in an attempt to improve things as much as they can. Sometimes people who are Aquarians are eager to help, don't understand them and react negatively towards them. Sometimes they're just ahead of their time, and sometimes they're just weird. 

Aquarius have the determination and perseverance to leap forward, but sometimes their energy is relatively low, which leads to throwing projects to their completion. They have an analytical and scientific-oriented mindset, having the ability to think things through before making accurate conclusions. Although they tend to have good concentration abilities and are able to absorb large amounts of information, there are times when they are simply scattered.

Aquarius, as a rule, get along with others, mostly not gossips and not petty. They do not like disputes until they feel the need to protect a person, ideals or principles. Since Aquarius are so willing to listen to something new and different, they have little patience for those who refuse to hear about new concepts. Sometimes Aquarius outraged just for fun. They are known to do things consciously in an attempt to shock people. It is preferable for them not to be bound by schedules and rules, but they can also easily adapt to them if necessary. But do not expect that they will always do everything on time.

Aquarius dislike people who are dependent on them, because they are usually not owners. Giving others personal freedom, they expect the same in response. Since Aquarius is not particularly concerned about how other people think about them, they often do not turn around making an opinion about someone else's behavior.

In love, Aquarius want to see an intellectual partner next to them, with whom it will be pleasant to communicate. They may hesitate for a long time before making responsible commitments, such as marriage, or any other form of partnership, because of their constant desire for independence. However, when 

Aquarius marries, the marriage usually turns out to be stable. They are loyal and faithful to their marriage partners, but are not prone to excessive expression of feelings, especially in public.

[bearbarking]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 / 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒.

𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒔.

name: Bark nickname: Just Bark age: 27 species: Mobian, Polar Bear

𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍.

morality: Tends to try and be neutral-good, job requires doing things against morality religion: Atheist sins: greed ⁄ gluttony ⁄ sloth ⁄ lust ⁄ pride ⁄ envy ⁄ wrath virtues: chastity ⁄ charity ⁄ diligence ⁄ humility ⁄ kindness ⁄ patience ⁄ justice known languages: English

𝒑𝒉𝒚𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍.

build: scrawny ⁄ bony ⁄ slender ⁄ fit ⁄ athletic ⁄ curvy ⁄ herculean ⁄ pudgy ⁄ average height: 5′3! scars ⁄ birthmarks: None abilities ⁄ powers:  He’s very powerful, one of the strongest Mobians restrictions: Poor speaking skills. He has a hard time getting his point across to most, likes to be silent

𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔.

food: Typically fish, when he can get his paws on it pizza topping: Anchovies :) dessert: Doesn’t really have one, but cookies are good color: silvery blue music genre: He doesn’t listen to music all that often, but he likes some of the music Nack puts on. movie genre: Action! curse word: He doesn’t talk a lot, so he doesn’t really have one!

𝒇𝒖𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒇𝒇.

favorite song: He likes Bohemian Rhapsody hobby: He likes to just... watch TV whenever he can. He also likes to cook, despite the limited tools he has to do so! sings in the shower: Nope! likes puns: Nope :(

Tagged by: Nobody, but I stole it from @pistolbitten​ Tagging: YOU! 

[arcticdementor]

When I saw him, he was outside Payne Whitney. Nothing about the tall, gray façade suggests it is the university gym, unless there is a new trend of contractors housing athletics departments in Gothic cathedrals. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the frosted glass panes and arches that the third floor hosts the world’s largest suspended indoor swimming pool. It is a work of art, like the rest of Yale’s buildings.

Marcus was smoking by a bench, his face jaundiced from three packs that day. This is atypical for Yale students—most abstain from smoking. There was no reason for him to smoke so much, just as there was no reason for me to ride around campus on a blue Razor scooter. But Yale students tend to have such quirks. His suit-jacket was dusty and smelled of sweat—he didn’t mind lifting weights in a dress shirt and trousers if that meant more time to read Nietzsche alone at the bar.

When I hugged him, he felt skeletal. I asked if he had eaten today. He assured me that his earthly requirements were limited—no need for anything other than alcohol and cigarettes. “I can buy you a sandwich.” He refused. I insisted. A nice one. Bacon and egg. Or steak and cheese. I was testy now. “GHeav is right there. I’ll be back in six minutes.”

He turned his face towards me, warm with friendliness—and with one sentence, he changed our relationship forever.

“You know I’m rich, right?”

“What?”

“You know I have a trust fund, right? I can buy my own sandwich if I wanted it.”

This is the moment when after three years of friendship, Marcus sat down and told me his life story. His cottages in Norway. Sneaking into the family study. Learning about the cost of hardwoods and hearing his boorish, critical father sulk in 5-star hotel rooms.

Marcus did not act this way out of anxiety, grief, stress, or because he had nobody to tell him his habits will kill him. He lived as a starving writer not out of necessity, but for the aesthetic. Out of some desire to imitate the Bohemian 19th century writers. Out of artistry. Style. Intentional choice.

…

This is a story about an institution and an elite that have lost themselves.

…

Over the past decade, elite colleges have been staging grounds for what Matthew Yglesias has termed the Great Awokening. Dozens of scandals have illustrated a stifling new ideological orthodoxy that is trickling down into the rest of society through HR departments, corporations, churches, foundations, and activist organizations. The nation is becoming polarized and its parts disconnected. The right is evil, and the left is stupid. Or is it the other way around?

The campus “free speech” debate is just a side-effect. So are debates about “diversity” and “inclusion.” The real problems run much deeper. The real problems start with Marcus and me, and the masks we wear for each other.

…

Based on statistics from the class of 2013, approximately 2% of students hailed from the lowest income quintile, while 69% came from the top 20%. How did those poor students fare after graduation? Around 2% of students at Yale move from the bottom to the top quintile. In other words, nearly all of them. You show up poor, and you leave rich. Going to an Ivy League school may be the fastest way to join the upper class.

But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody kept talking about how broke they were.

…

Poor people—actually poor people—don’t talk this way. They tend to stay under the radar because they don’t know the rules of the game. But I bought it—at least when I was a freshman. If they were constantly announcing how broke they were, my assumption was that they must have even less money than I do.

This turned out to be wrong. The reality was that they were invariably from the upper-middle and upper classes. I know this because they eventually told me, like Marcus did. But there were tells. These students didn’t act the way my friends and I did growing up. They didn’t know how much pens or flights or cars were supposed to cost. They couldn’t tell when a restaurant was a good deal.

Pretending to be poor is a lot easier than pretending to be rich—just because there are so many different ways to be poor. But there are still small quirks you have to get right. Social class doesn’t just influence how you walk and talk; it influences how you interact with others. The stereotype is that poor people are improper—but sometimes it is the opposite. They try to do things as they think they are meant to be done. Spending a hundred hours building bat wings for a Halloween costume. Renting a limo for their child’s prom.

But lying about anything is tricky—you risk being found out—so what were these people trying to accomplish by acting broke? And this raises the broader question: why pretend to be of a social class you are not?

…

What about the regular rich? Not the children of billionaires, but the children of millionaires. The common impulse is to emulate the people one or two levels above you—so they might also act poorer than they are. But whereas the super-rich learned purposeful discretion from their parents at weekly dinner table meetings, the regular rich did not. They learned it through mimicry—and with varying degrees of success. The less sophisticated copycats end up brazenly proclaiming that they are “broke” and “upper-middle class.”

For some people, this isn’t an act; they actually believe this. After all, they do seem poor when compared to the hyper-rich. They can’t afford spontaneous Spring Break trips to private Bali islands. They see their prep-school classmates’ Facebook photos and realize that they are one, or maybe two, pegs down from that, and so they use the term “upper-middle class” without really knowing what this term refers to. They have no idea how the actual upper-middle class, the middle class, or the poor really live. Those students never went to their prep school, so for all intents and purposes, they do not exist. Like Krasnoyarsk, Siberia—we know it exists. We can find it on a map. But we don’t need to concern ourselves with it. Often, this is what the real poor are to rich people—they are a theoretical construct that exist somewhere else.

…

In another instance, I was privately discussing with a professor the pros and cons of a Food Stamp reform proposal. After some analysis, I commented on my own experience with the program. His response was complete shock. “You don’t really mean you were on welfare. You just mean you were supported by your parents, right?”

In a world of masks and façades, it is hard to convey the truth.

And this is how I ended up offering a sandwich to a man with hundreds of millions in a foreign bank account.

…

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with haphazard and sometimes warped class signaling. But if you put on a façade for long enough, you end up forgetting that it is a façade. The rich and powerful actually start believing that they are neither of those things. They actually start believing that there is not much difference in status and resources between themselves and the upper-middle class, the middle class—and eventually, between themselves and the actual poor. They forget that they have certain privileges and duties that others do not. They forget that the inside joke was just a joke all along.

…

When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

…

There is another reason why people might pretend to be poor. This reason is much more serious than fitting in or avoiding hitmen. The rich and powerful are expected to take responsibility for things, and blamed when they go wrong.

“Check your privilege.” Just about every college student has heard this phrase since 2013. What it means is evasive. But like most memes that strike a chord with people—there is some point to it. The rich have privileges. They therefore also have responsibilities. The responsibilities are not always so fun.

…

Would you want to be the strongest man in the village right at the moment when you failed to use that strength properly and the village is dying and rivals are out for blood? Or would you rather be the average person, eating the normal amount of food, without being hated?

But that was just a thought experiment. Those are people in crises—in a hunter-gatherer village at war. We live in America. Certainly things are different during a stable, prosperous period, in a technologically advanced society. Would you want to be exceptional then?

Not necessarily. The elite are faced with certain hard burdens.

The elite are expected—by everyone else, and by each other—to use their power to make sure society works properly. That is, they are expected to rule benevolently. The reason they are expected to do this is that if they don’t, nobody else can or will. The middle class and the poor do not have the powers and privileges that the rich and elite do, and cannot afford the necessary personal risks. But without active correction towards health and order, society fails.

…

In times of political uncertainty, when things are not going well, elites face more scrutiny, and more internal pressure to find people to blame—whether rightly, or as scapegoats. It becomes a bigger liability to be openly elite.

Further, such times are themselves caused by political dysfunction among the elite, when elite institutions forget how to listen to reason (or have decided not to) and forget how to coordinate towards benevolent rule.

At elite conferences, they wonder how to regain trust, or otherwise deal with the rising atmosphere of populist discontent. They acknowledge that something is deeply wrong. But they dare not lay the blame at their own feet, caused by their own overreaches and dysfunction. Anyone who did would immediately be under suspicion. No longer one of us, but one of them. So, those who might otherwise lead the difficult but necessary elite self-critique instead keep their mouths shut, or they say the wrong thing without ideological, psychological, and social preparation for the consequences and get cast out. Only the true believers incapable of self-critique, the incompetent, and the cynics, remain as voices in the public forum. They talk in circles, never quite able to correct course and come to any new conclusions, except the need to double down on current ideological practices.

…

They say that the recent scandals at Yale had to do with racial and social justice. I don’t think that’s what it was really about. When looking at one or two scandals, it’s easy to buy the story that it is just students organizing and using their rights of free speech and assembly to protest what they see as injustices perpetrated by the university. But when looking at all of the scandals together, another narrative starts to emerge.

And that narrative is much closer to this: members of the ruling class are not sure what to do with themselves—and they are not even sure they want to rule.

…

When people think of universities, they think of their local state school, or else Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And when they think about Yale, it is often when they are reading about a president, a Supreme Court justice, or the editor of The New Yorker. That’s because Yale graduates play no small part in running the world. It is the school the elite want to send their kids to. It is the school the lower classes assume their kids will never go to.

…

What happens when a school with this position is embarrassed about its role as an international trendsetter? What if instead of doing the hard work to set the tone for responsible rule, it abdicates that responsibility?

…

But the appearance of bottom-up protest politics is always a bit of a false narrative.  It would be one thing if the students were polled and a majority said they wanted the name changed, or some other process was used. At least the university could say that it was making decisions based on some objective democratic process, and wasn’t just being pushed around. But this is not what happened. No polls were taken. There was no authoritative process. The school said no for a few months, then caved. If the school were actually confident in its position to resist, it could have easily pushed back on the protests. Instead, it folded on demands from a small number of students willing to make noise. Either the university administrators are spectacularly spineless, or the protests just provided a convenient impetus and excuse to do something they already wanted. We can look at several more incidents and notice a similar trend.

…

What do all of these events have in common? Some had student support. Some did not. Some started as public outrage taken to the street. Some were completely internal. What they had in common was an administration and student body coordinated around an ideology that continually mutated to ensure moral entrepreneurship and a continued supply of purges, as new forms of human behavior or commonplace descriptors became off-limits. Some of this energy was genuine, some cynical.

These were not kids protesting the Vietnam war, or graduate students mobilizing for better pay and medical care. Nobody would have had a gun shoved into their arms and sent across the world if Yale had not fired the professors. Nobody would have lost money if they did not change “Master.” In fact—Yale lost money on these changes in the form of alumni donations and administrative time. Meetings, committees, redone paperwork, and brand new “head of college” plaques. These changes were neither meant to save lives, nor to save money.

But what was the point of it all?

…

Thousands of hours of human effort and labor. And for what? What was it for?

If you ask supporters, they will tell you the cost does not matter so much, because this is about creating an ideal world. Of course the professor should be fired—how dare she stand against the minority student organizations? Of course it’s okay that the Yelp reviews were published—she should never have written them. Of course names should be changed if they hint at or honor the wrong ideology. What does preserving history matter if history is racist? The university is handling things according to its proper ideals of empathy and inclusion.

In short, their point was that this was all to help poor people. Immigrants. People whose parents are from distant, impoverished lands. People of color. Changing “Master,” firing the dean, and firing professors was all for this.

Except this did so little to actually help any of these people that this could not possibly have been the main motivation.

None of this was actually to their benefit, except for the few activists willing to invest time and energy into the game. It is not easy to stay up-to-date with the new, ever-more complex rules about what you are allowed to say to qualify as the bare minimum of sociable and sane. It is cognitively and socially demanding. I had to not just study psychology and computer science, but I had to stay up-to-date with the latest PhD-level critical theory just to have conversations.

…

If words like “Master” are deemed offensive based on questionable linguistic or historical standards, then this means other words and phrases can become offensive at a moment’s notice. Under these rules, only people in the upper ranks who receive constant updates can learn what is acceptable. Everybody else will be left behind.

The people best positioned for this are professors at elite universities. They are ingrained in the culture that makes up these social rules. They get weekly or even daily updates, but even they cannot keep up.

…

A cynical observer might conclude that this is all just revolution as usual; a small clique of agitators seizing more and more power, and purging their enemies by virtue of their superior internal solidarity, a bold and demanding ideology, lukewarm popular moral support, and no real organized opposition. In some ways, that is what’s going on. They have the bold ideology, the ambient support, and no real opposition.

But importantly, they don’t have internal coordination by any means other than adherence to the ideology itself. Even members of the clique are never really safe. Anyone who contradicts the latest consensus version of the constantly mutating ideology, even if they have worked to its benefit or are otherwise obviously on side, gets purged. If you don’t keep up, you get purged.

It doesn’t matter that the ideology is abusive to its own constituents and allies, or that it doesn’t really even serve its formal beneficiaries. All that matters is this: for everyone who gets purged for a slight infraction, there are dozens who learn from this example never to stand up to the ideology, dozens who learn that they can attack with impunity if they use the ideology to do it, and dozens who are vaguely convinced by its rhetoric to be supportive of the next purge. So, on it goes.

This is the nature of coordination via ideology. If you’re organizing out of some common interest, you can have lively debates about what to do, how things work, who’s right and wrong, and even core aspects of your intellectual paradigm. But if your only standard for membership in your power coalition is detailed adherence to your ideology, as is increasingly true for membership in elite circles, then it becomes very hard to correct mistakes, or switch to a different paradigm.

And this helps explain much of the quagmire American elites are stuck in: being unable to speak outside of the current ideology, the only choice is to double down on a failing paradigm. These failures lead to lower elite morale, resulting in the class identity crisis which afflicts so many at Yale. Ironically, the result is an expression of that ideology which is increasingly rigid on ever more minute points of belief and conduct.

…

What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.

There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored when they volunteered information that countered the main narrative, because the surface-level debate wasn’t the point. The point was to signal that you were with the program. Only a select and secret group of student “leaders”—who were already savvy enough to engage comfortably with hierarchy—were invited in to chat with administrators.

Shouting from the rooftops that “They aren’t doing enough!” is much easier than following any traditional system of elite social norms and duties, let alone carefully re-engineering that system to reestablish order in a time of growing crisis.

…

But there is more to selling out that nobody talks about. These jobs are the dream jobs of the middle class. They’re not supposed to be jobs for the sons and daughters of millionaires and billionaires—these kids don’t actually need the money. They want independence from their parents and proof that they can make it on their own—and prestigious work experience—but they have wealth acquired through generations that they can always fall back on. These people are generally as harmless as the middle class—which is to say completely harmless. They keep to themselves. They quietly grow their bank accounts and their 401ks. And just like the real middle class, they don’t want to risk their next promotion through being too outspoken. They have virtually no political power. This mindset is best encapsulated by: “I’ll go with the program. Please leave me alone to be comfortable and quietly make money.”

They effectively become middle class, because there is no longer any socially esteemed notion of upper class. They have a base of power, of f-you money, that they could use to become something greater than just another office worker or businessperson. But there is no script for that, no institutional or ideological support. What would it even mean to be an esteemed, blue-blooded aristocrat in 2019? So they take the easy and safe way.

How else do Yale students give up their responsibility?

They go in the other direction. These are the people who call themselves idealists and say they want to save the world. They feel the weight of responsibility from their social status—but they don’t know how to process and integrate this responsibility into their lives properly. Traditionally, structurally well-organized elite institutions would absorb and direct this benevolent impulse to useful purpose. But our traditional institutions have decayed and lost their credibility, so these idealists start looking for alternatives, and start signalling dissociation from those now-disreputable class markers.

…

Who is winning? This question is an important one. Yale administrators had lofty goals. In an attempt to placate their own biases, the administrators and faculty forgot that they are the ones who are supposed to be teaching. Instead of expelling or suspending the small number of people actively undermining the student body and university as a whole, the university does nothing, or actively accelerates the process. The professors are the ones who leave. The radical clique feels emboldened.

Now we can begin to understand the real problem at Yale. It is not free speech—and it is not non-inclusivity. The standards of reality, and the standards of morality not based solely on being woke, are ousted. That’s because the conventional standards of elite morality, based on responsible use of power—actually responsible, not just a convenient feeling of doing good—are much harder, and based on the very self-consciousness that everyone is trying to avoid.

…

The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions?

Is the point of Yale to promote the humanities and knowledge of the West that is hard to learn anywhere else? This is not the full mission. Donald Kagan and Lee Bass’s year-long history of the West program was cut, due to faculty protesting that it was not multicultural enough, despite having large interest and $20 million in funding.

Is Yale’s vision a futuristic, technocratic university? Is the university divesting from the liberal arts for the purpose of committing to the technology of the future? This isn’t the case, either. Computer science enrollment has increased significantly in the past decade. But Yale’s computer science department is lagging behind other schools. The university has taken steps towards improving the department, but in general shows no signs of a visionary commitment to expanding tech or significantly expanding professorships.

…

Maybe the university has lost every purpose other than giving students a social environment in which to party. If the students aren’t educated or visionary, at least they’re networking and hedonically satisfied.

Except they’re not. It would be one thing if they were happy—but even this is not true. They don’t know what is expected of them, or what they should aspire to be. The lack of expectations creates nihilistic tendencies and existential crises. In 2018, around one quarter of Yale undergraduates said they sought mental health counseling. One quarter of Yale students took the “Happiness and the Good Life” course in 2018 in an attempt to find answers. Students are demanding more mental health resources. A new wellness space was created with bean-bag chairs and colored walls. But the real sources of unhappiness are more systemic. They are rooted in uncertainty about the future.

If Yale students are uncertain about the future and their role in it, what does that say about the rest of society?

…

So what if Yale, and Yale students, are abdicating responsibility? We can all just send our kids to Harvard, or MIT, or move to California and go to a state school. I heard UC Berkeley is pretty good.

But the problems present at Yale are present at every other university, and schools outside of the United States look to elite American universities as role models. If things are broken at elite universities, things are broken, period.

…

Yale is supposed to be using its power and reputation to set standards for excellence, but instead it is abandoning its responsibilities and getting embroiled in controversy after controversy. Yale is not special in this regard—other colleges are also often embroiled in controversies. But the controversies of top colleges matter most because they determine what is acceptable for everybody else.

And what’s happening at Yale reflects a crisis in America’s broader governing class. Unable to effectively respond to the challenges facing them, they instead try to bail out of their own class. The result is an ideology which acts as an escape raft, allowing some of the most privileged young people in the country to present themselves as devoid of power. Institutions like Yale, once meant to direct people in how to use their position for the greater good, are systematically undermined—a vicious cycle which ultimately erodes the country as a whole.

Segments of this class engage in risk-averse managerialism, while others take advantage of the glut to disrupt things and expand personal power. The broader population becomes caught up in these conflicts as these actors attempt to build power bases and mobilize against each other. And like Yale, it seems a safe bet that things will continue and even accelerate until some new vision and stable, non-ideological set of coordination mechanisms are able to establish hegemony and become a new ground for real cooperation.

[bohofashionchic]

3 Factors Why You Require Boho-Chic Fashion in Your Wardrobe

Boho-chic is a style that has actually long been in fashion. Nevertheless, some individuals believe that maybe boho style dresses aren't truly for them. The truth is that boho is a style that can be for anyone. Lots of celebrities have actually been on the boho style for almost 20 years, and this style is not going anywhere anytime soon. This style has actually progressed, however the primary staples of this free-spirit style have been consistent throughout the years. Here are 3 of the very best reasons that you require boho chic dresses in your life.

Boho Chic Is Timeless

It's not fun needing to change your wardrobe as trends change since you wish to stay up to date with all of the latest designs. That's why fashion professionals always suggest keeping classic and iconic pieces in your closet. While some trends have actually come and gone, boho-chic is a popular style that is worn by celebs almost two decades later on. And there is no indication that this style is going away anytime soon. For instance, take a look at this simple black fit and flare dress. There's nothing more ageless than the little black gown, which is a versatile item that can be used for any event. You can dress up this dress with a set of stunning heels and elegant accessories, or you can dress it down by using strappy shoes.

No matter what kind of boho-chic style dresses you are wearing, it  is difficult for you not to appear like you are on-trend when you leave the house. Plus, you get to make it a lot more stylish by wearing a few of the most on-trend devices so that your classic piece looks even more stylish. You have many choices, thanks to your option of adhering to a style that is as iconic as boho chic is.

Boho Fashion Offers Visual Interest

The issue with many styles is that they are very one-note in their look. This style is something that can get you a lot of excellent compliments, like a discussion piece as you go anywhere throughout your daily travels.

Have a look at this fantastic bohemian batwing sleeve maxi dress. On its face, it just appears like a fantastic plain white dress that isn't unique. But at a closer look, you will observe various products that are layered together to develop a stunning visual effect. The elaborate lace information and layers change what seems like a basic white dress into an elevated piece that can be worn for any event. Want to include more visual interest to your attire? Stack on stylishly strong accessories and trendy shoes to make this style your own. It's everything about creating an attire that has plenty of visual interest.

Bohemian Fashion Is the Perfect Style

There are numerous reasons that boho style dresses are ideal for everybody, no matter what your body type is or where you live. Want something that is breezy to wear on warmer days to still look stylish? A boho style gown is a best way not to compromise style for comfort. Want something that enables you the liberty to walk around? Once again, the easy-breezy style of boho-chic dresses is the ideal solution to move as you like. All bohemian style clothing is indicated to be spacious and lightweight, making it perfect for wearing even on those irritatingly warm days.

What's even better about boho chic gowns is they are best for anybody. Usually, boho dresses have a lovely A-line shape that produces an perfect form for any body shape. These are extremely forgiving around the mid-section, boosting your smaller sized waist so that you do not have to sacrifice style no matter what your form is. For instance, take a look at this flare sleeve bohemian beach gown. The flare sleeves provide you coverage if you are uncomfortable about your arms while still offering you breathable and roomy sleeves to keep you fresh on those warm days. This dress also has an empire waistline and is an A-line style dress. This type of look means that it is lovely for anyone who wishes to use this beautiful gown.

Boho-Chic Is truly For You

Now that you know the best factors for buying boho-chic gowns, you need to know how you can find the best boho dress for you. Among the first things that you should think of is the length of the dress. Boho gowns are available in different lengths. Do not hesitate to customize your dress to ensure that you get the perfect length for you. It would be best if you likewise took a look at the color. The fantastic thing about boho-chic gowns, specifically the designs these days, is that you can get them in any color that you desire. In the past, boho-chic tended to stay with cream colors though now you can get numerous bold shades and patterns that are ideal for whatever style you are trying to achieve. Lastly, boho style dresses deserve investing a little additional on since this will make sure that you get great quality dresses that will last as long as this trend will.

Boho-chic is a versatile style that was implied for every body type and every occasion. You can dress up any fashion with the best accessories or pick more casual accessories to dress down the look. You can take your boho-chic from work casual to date night with only minimal changes to the attire and makeup. In the past, individuals associated the boho-chic with looking more like hobo-chic. They looked at this style as something that wasn't very created or appealing. As you can see, boho-chic can be a trendy and great try to find anyone to rock.

[chrysaliseuro2019]

We've all become Poodies

Post a tasty breakfast at the castle we duly bought 8 of their specialty chocolates each of which were named after previous residents of the castle. 4 with strawberry and 4 caramel. They were to prove extremely tasty way beyond your usual offerings. Liz went looking for the sheep but he had been moved. We speculated whether it was in preparation for the table but he looked like he would be a very chewy offering so presumed it was for the paddock. We set off for the town of Sigulda which we had heard about and which also read well in crits. Scenery very flat, well farmed with plenty of corn looking crops (I noticed Pete said one field was Barley but he brought some extra knowledge having lived on a farm as a boy - I didn't really have a clue) and also with cows here and there (I COULD recognise them). Sparsely populated. Also pretty green. This was the standard scenery throughout Latvia and Estonia (to come). Low populations meant that there is still plenty of space. At Sigulda we drove into town and then went looking for the scenic chair ride which would give us a good view of some pretty nice and very verdant surroundings and potentially the castle. It was very amusing along the way to see kindergarten kids being taken for a walk, little tiny tots all strapped together in rows of two so they couldn't take off across the road. It was a bit like Santa's sledge with the teacher/carer in charge As we drove around I saw a little bunch of them about 100 metres away and just wanted a closer look so we went down that street. This was a fortuitous diversion as we stumbled upon a small park and toboggan ride. One of those little metal carts on a metal rail heading down a reasonably steep slope in and out of trees. All 4 of us were up for it and went on individually and laughed our way down though occasionally the corners were a bit sharp which made you thankful for the seat belt otherwise we might have been off. What a hoot and we all felt a bit younger and adventurous. Photos half way down told the story and Sue starred with a swashbuckling sweep of the arm and big smile captured perfectly. Unfortunately no soft copy. Part of the deal was a chair ride back up the slope so we killed two birds with one stone. The chair looked over and through the trees and passed over what looked like a real toboggan ride in winter with steep grassy slope. This place would look even more picturesque with the snow down. Next stop was Cesis. Another attractive town with a medieval castle. After a stroll through town which had a few interesting old buildings and shops it was time for coffees on the edge of a small square. A lazy 45 minutes and another stroll around town this time mostly outside the castle walls and through the gardens. They were setting up for some sort of event presumably a concert at a stage in the gardens which would have been a lovely place to sit with the castle as a backdrop. Part of the enjoyment and pleasure of being in this part of the world, especially as we were just passing through, was to just enjoy the relaxed ambience and picturesque scenery and towns (though some had the soviet concrete block look in places but all interesting one way or the other). Nothing too rushed here. We now had Estonia and the capital Tallinn firmly in our sights though it was more than three hours drive. Lunch was required. The town of Parnau was a possibility but it was too far away. We started to head up the coast with the Baltic to our left looking for anywhere to stop. A restaurant came up but apparently the waiting time for lunch was 40 minutes at least. Time we didn't really want to waste. It was also pretty formal when a reasonable sized snack would probably do. We pressed on and the hunger pangs in the car were becoming palpable. The little towns were coming fast enough but we couldn't find anywhere to eat. It just seemed like houses. Finally we saw a small cafe/store which had the charming sign "Pood" outside. The mind boggled about how this could be interpreted but clearly you could get something to eat there and who knows what else. Weather was quite pleasant with the sun out and around 22 degrees. Turned out it was just a small store/ pastry shop/ deli/ bottle shop. A sort of you name it we have it place. We got pizza and pastries and soft drinks and sat outside by a small field pretty pleased to have found it and just soaking up a bit of local, albeit basic, charm. Often the best. A stream of young people who seemed to be on a camp, some of them with bows (as in arrows) flowed into the shop and past us with the young guys usually in the throes of downing a can of beer which they had just purchased. Quirky and fun. Boxy visited the wooden outhouse which actually looked more like an incubator for mosquitoes but the rest of us were not game. He confirmed it was at the rudimentary end of facilities. On to Tallinn and we rolled up at the Park Inn Raddison in the late afternoon. Not our normal style of hotel (in that it's more your big and impersonal) but choice was pretty tight and probably cut the best deal, at least on booking.com, that we could find. Nothing flash but the room quite spacious and breakfast included. Did the job. Headed out around quarter to eight and found a local pub in the centre of town for pre dinner drinks. Much research going into dinner on the Internet and we decided to go to a restaurant called Ribe. A really good choice. Sue and I shared the halibut (tasty but a touch soft but that may have been how they like it) and Guinea fowl with Peter and Liz on the Guinea Fowl. Guinea fowl excellent and desserts were good too. Most of all it was a funky little place which would not have been out of place in most cities in the world. Waitress really helpful and friendly and she gave us some more restaurant recommendations including for their sister restaurant "Radio" for the next night. We headed home through the lively streets. Flower market still going. Liz and I are spending our late evenings exploring possibilities for the next phase of the trip. Ferry to Helsinki and a couple of nights there definitely on but post that we need to decide. Greece looking good. Peter and Sue tend to turn the light out earlier which may explain why they are a bit more sprightly than us first thing. Next morning after a hearty and tasty breakfast we went on the free tour of Tallinn. We really enjoyed it after a slowish start where the young lady who was our tour guide spent a little too long talking about a haunted house. 3 mins would have been enough not 10. We were looking for a bit more nitty gritty. Things improved though as we went along and she explained more about the history of Estonia and some relevant buildings and monuments. Life has been tough here with a series of wars and conquerors over many centuries. It has been ruled by Danes, Germans,Swedes and Russians. Independence was declared in 1920 and then in 1939 the Germans and Soviets carved up Europe with the Soviet Union taking over and independence went out of the window. Then the Germans were back in 1941 with the Soviets back again in 1944. Independence finally returned in 1991. Quotas of citizens were sent to Gulags, many never to return. The guide advised that the quota which was also the case in some other soviet satellites was just a number which was picked to ensure that those remaining understood the cost if you didn't toe the line. Buildings and monuments we saw included the Victory Column a monument to the war of independence 1918-1920 and a tribute to those who fought in it for which Estonians are eternally grateful. It was made of green glass in the shape of the cross of Liberty, Estonia's most distinguished award. It was actually only opened in 2009. Apparently there is a construction flaw in that in the moist and cold Tallinn winter mould gets into the monument. This means that they have to totally dismantle it pane by pane annually and give it a good clean. At great cost. Discussions about replacing it with a more practical icon not requiring this amount of maintenance cause consternation among the diehards and others and so each year the de-construction/ re-construction process continues. We also visited the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral built in the late 19th century with the Russians hoping to move Estonians away from the Lutheran religion. It was disliked by many Estonians and post independence in the 1920s a decision was taken to demolish it. This never took place because it is gigantic and there were not sufficient funds to carry out the demolition. The church is opposite the Estonian parliament building and the demolition decision was revisited in the 1990s post the second declaration of independence to extend the car park for the MPs. Nothing has happened to this point and one fancies it won't but what would I know. We had progressively warmed to our guide and she took us to vantage points to get a good look at the city. Also she pointed out to us the bohemian part of town. Not very far from the old city ie 15 minute walk. After the tour we headed for it. It didn't disappoint, eclectic and alternative, little cafes and bars and a combination of quirky and tasteful shops. Also a very good market with all manner of offerings where we stopped for a coffee. After the tour finished we wandered into the main square where a stage was set up and the bohemian version of Morris Dancing was taking place compete with traditional folk outfits. Also some singing and recitals including by very young children. It was interesting to stop and watch for a while. I joked to Boxy would he get up there as they were asking for volunteers to dance when blow me down that's what they did. We were a bit too slow to get into the first set but I managed to have a dance with the prettiest of the dancers after that. I'm sure she said how come I got lumbered with the old fart? This was in front of the main stage and went for a couple of minutes. I stumbled around around doing the odd turn and poking a toe out here and there (complicated this Estonian dancing). They didn't suggest I apply to join the troupe at the end. We had a light lunch and then went our separate ways though that didn't last too long. Peter and I separately but pretty simultaneously stumbled upon a little craft beer cafe and enjoyed a tasty bevy. My Slovenian IPA was superb. Peter and Sue headed off to explore. Liz and I got together again briefly to look at an excellent painting , a portrait, which was a possible buy. Not exactly cheap and turned out I liked it more than Liz (so never really a starter😅). We then headed off separately again. Turned out we both really trundled around the old town just soaking up the laneways and sights. I headed upwards and enjoyed the views again. Back to the ranch and Liz and I spent a fair bit of time looking and booking our next legs. We probably just dallied 10 minutes too long doing so. Heading out around 8.00pm it had started to drizzle. We had decided on the sister restaurant to last night's which was a 15 minute or so walk away from the old town. In fact in a residential area. We grabbed some umbrellas from the hotel and with Peter leading the way on google maps we headed off. Within a few minutes drizzling rain turned to torrential rain. Sue and Liz who were both in sandals soon brought us to a halt under a building for some shelter. Water was streaming down the paths and the streets. A 5 minute or so stop and off we set again with rain back to a drizzle but water everywhere. It was particularly necessary to keep your eye out for passing cars as there were large puddles beside the footpath which could lead to a severe drenching. The drivers I must say seemed to appreciate this and gave us a wide berth thankfully. Anyway we arrived as a damp quartet with the girls particularly so. It was worth it. Delightful little restaurant. Maitre de/owner also very friendly. It was a sharing menu and whitebait, cauliflower, tuna and beef all went down well. As did wine and desserts (sticky date pudding, ice cream). The owner also gave us details of a restaurant in Helsinki to visit which apparently was not a tourist haunt. We had a drier trip home. I went for a quick stroll around town to walk off dinner while the others headed home. Tallinn had been good fun and interesting. Liz felt another day there would have been good. I found it a touch commercial but you can get off the beaten track. 2/3 days enough though I would suggest

[frankencomplex]

hc - mbti

          god I already know this is gonna get so fuckign long bc i’m a huge nerd and can never shut up abt personality analyzation. on tht note , if anyone ever wants to talk mbti or just have me overanalyze ur muse’s personality..... hmu bc i physically cannot shut up abt it

charles is an intp ! i’ve probably said this before & it’s like weirdly integral to my portrayal of him ( or at least gives a lot of insight into it ) so for those of you who don’t know what mbti is at All , it’s a personality typology theory that divides human personalities into four categories : introverts / extroverts , intuitives / sensors , thinkers / feelers , and judgers / perceivers. therefore , charles is an introvert intuitive thinker perceiver , or if you want to get real deep & use cognitive function theories , he uses Ti ( introverted thinking ) , Ne ( extroverted intuition ) , Si ( introverted sensing ) , and Fe ( extroverted feeling ) in that order. 

if you read about the basic characteristics of an intp , the personality type ( sometimes nicknamed “ the logician ” ) is known for being “ philosophical innovators, fascinated by logical analysis, systems, and design. They are preoccupied with theory, and search for the universal law behind everything they see. They want to understand the unifying themes of life, in all their complexity. ” source 

the description above is charles to a T , and i’ll explain why ! he’s a huge introvert. by no means does he gain energy from social gatherings , and he’s far more content to explore the contents of his own mind than to explore the minds of others. he’s an intuitive , which means he’s more concerned with abstract , unconventional ideas , and can be quite detached from the world around him , while a sensor would be focused on reality and their concrete senses. he’s metaphorical , dreamy , non - traditional , and unfocused ( though that is not solely an N trait ). he’s a thinker , which means he relies on logic & facts more than his own feelings or the feelings of those around him. lastly , he’s a perceiver , meaning he prefers to work at his own pace without rigid structure , and prefers open endedness over set plans and commitments.

I know that’s a lot , but it makes a lot of sense when you read about it. now , to get deeper , mbti is supported by the theory of cognitive functions ( Ti > Ne > Si > Fe for charles as I mentioned earlier ). the whole idea is that every personality type uses a “ function stack ” of different modes of thinking / interacting with / viewing the world , and there are four predominant functions per type that are all accessed at decreasing levels of development. the first function is the most developed , the last is the least. so , without further ado , here’s charles’s personality type explained by his four functions. i’ve taken the most useful parts of the article on the following website. source

INTPs’ Dominant Function: Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Ti involves the application of logic and reason for the sake of understanding a given situation, system, or problem. INTPs use Ti to bring structure and order to their inner world, granting them a strong sense of inner control. Inwardly, INTPs are highly self-disciplined, working to effectively manage their thoughts and their lives. The disciplined nature of their Ti compels INTPs to frame many things as a goal or challenge. These challenges may be physical (e.g., trying to achieve an ideal state of health or fitness), intellectual, practical, psychoemotional (e.g., becoming self-actualized), or later in their development, interpersonal (e.g., “perfecting” a relationship or becoming a skilled lover). In order to succeed in these personal challenges, INTPs are apt to impose rules on themselves. However, because of the wayward influence of their auxiliary Ne, they commonly end up breaking or sabotaging them.

INTPs are also less interested in working with facts than with ideas. Jung writes: “His ideas have their origin not in objective data, but in his subjective foundation.” INTPs are constantly digging into the background of their own thoughts in order to better understand their origins and to ensure their thinking is founded on solid reasoning. They see it pointless to try to build theories on a dubious conceptual platform.

INTPs often find it easier to identify inconsistencies or logical shortcomings—to assert what is not true—than to identify and confidently assert what is true. They can quickly locate inconsistencies or logical shortcomings in a given theory or argument. They excel when it comes to identifying exceptions or imagining scenarios in which the proposed explanation could breakdown. Due to their sensitivity to theoretical exceptions, they can be quick to throw theories and start from scratch. INTJs, by contrast, seem less deterred by ostensible exceptions, perhaps feeling that they will eventually be explained or otherwise rectified.

When functioning constructively, INTPs, like INFPs, often employ a trial-and-error sort of approach to building their theories and ideas. INTPs start with a given (Ti) and then use their auxiliary Ne to explore various connections and possibilities. They also integrate past experiences and acquired knowledge through their tertiary Si. It is usually only after years of toying with ideas that something resembling a systematic and coherent theory may start to emerge.

INTPs’ Auxiliary Function: Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

INTPs use Extraverted Intuition (Ne) as their auxiliary function. Ne can function either perceptively or expressively. The verbal expression of Ne amounts to something like “brainstorming aloud.” When orating, INTPs may not always seem to “have a point” as they haphazardly drift from one idea to the next. Even ideas that seem inwardly logical and sensible INTPs may suddenly sound incoherent when they attempt to convey them through their Ne.

In its receptive role, Ne prompts INTPs to gather information. It goes beyond or looks behind sense data, allowing INTPs to discern otherwise hidden patterns, possibilities, and potentials. Their Ne is constantly scanning for relationships or patterns within a pool of facts, ideas or experiences. INTPs commonly use this receptive side of their Ne in activities such as reading, researching, and conversation. They enjoy asking questions that allow them to gain insight or knowledge from others, making INTPs good facilitators of conversation.

INTPs may also use their Ne to sniff out intriguing possibilities. They commonly enjoy and assume the role of wanderer or seeker, rarely knowing in advance exactly what they are seeking.

Ne also confers an open-mindedness, helping INTPs see truth on both sides of an issue without forming unwarranted judgments or premature conclusions. More specifically, their Ne can be seen as contributing to their openness to alternative or Bohemian lifestyles. INTPs are those most likely to suddenly become vegetarians, join a commune, or decide to live out of the back of a van. They are drawn to the idea and challenges of an unconventional lifestyle.

Like other NPs, INTPs often have a love-hate relationship with their Ne. They love the fact that it helps them remain open-minded and grasp the bigger picture. But living with Ne also has its challenges. For one, it can make it difficult for INTPs to arrive at firm conclusions or make important decisions. It often seems that at the very moment they are feeling good about a given conclusion or decision, their Ne steps in and causes them to start doubting it again. This has obvious implications for INTPs who are trying to find their niche in the world. This can leave them feeling discouraged and restless, worried that they may never find what they are looking for. They may feel frustrated by their seeming lack of progress toward anything substantial. The fact is that INTPs desperately want to produce something of lasting worth or value, but they also want to ensure they get it right. They don’t want to leave any stone unturned before arriving at a conclusion. While INTPs typically enjoy this quest for truth, there comes a point when they begin to feel the pressures of life impinging on them. Questions about careers and relationships loom large as they enter their late twenties and thirties. This can be frustrating to INTPs as they feel like life is requiring them to make decisions long before they are ready. As is true of all IN types, they feel that life would be far better if they weren’t forced to consider practical concerns.

INTPs’ Tertiary Function: Introverted Sensing (Si)

Unlike Ne (or Se), INTPs’ tertiary function, Introverted Sensing (Si), is a conservative function. It involves an attachment to past experiences and past precedent—to the routine, familiar, and predictable. Types with Si in their functional stack, including INTPs, tend to eat a fairly routine or consistent diet, “eating to live” rather than “living to eat.” Si types are not only conservative with regard to their diet, but with respect to the material world in general. They tend to be savers rather than spenders, seeing excessive material consumption as unnecessary, or perhaps even immoral.

Like other Si types, INTPs also have a diminished need for novel physical pleasures, lavish surroundings, or material comforts. They are minimalists to the core, relatively unconcerned with their physical surroundings.

INTPs’ Inferior Function: Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

Last but not least, Extraverted Feeling (Fe) serves as INTPs’ inferior function. While having inferior feeling doesn’t make INTPs emotionless robots, their feelings do seem to have a mind of their own, often coming and going as they please. Realizing how hard it can be to voluntarily contact or summon their emotions, INTPs tend to feel awkward and uneasy in emotional situations. Although they may be cognitively aware of the appropriate emotional response, if they’re unable to directly tap into their feelings, INTPs can appear clumsy, mechanical, or disingenuous. This can be unsettling to others who are looking for outward signs of authentic emotion from the INTP.

Fe is also concerned with maintaining social harmony. While Ti and Ne may inspire INTPs to function as provocateurs, their Fe encourages them to operate as peacemakers. Far more often than INTJs, INTPs will “bite their tongue” in order to avoid hurting or offending others. Doing so also minimizes the likelihood of emotionally-volatile situations which can engender anxiety and disquiet in this type.

Another aim of Fe involves establishing emotional rapport and connection with others. But again, while INTPs may do at fair job at reading others’ emotions, they may fail to actually “feel” what the other person is feeling. This is why INTPs are sometimes described as “outwardly warm, but inwardly cold or calculating.” Fe can be a bit of an act in the first place (e.g., political glad-handing), but this seems particularly commonplace among INTPs and ISTPs. Although casual social engagement may help them feel good for a while, perhaps even give them an ego boost, without sufficient Ti stimulation, it won’t be long before they’re scoping out the nearest exit.

Finally, it’s not unusual for INTPs to oscillate through phases in which they feel they don’t need other people at all. Especially when their work life is running on all cylinders, they can feel invigorated and invincible. But the psyche will only permit this sort of Ti lopsidedness for so long. Eventually, INTPs start feeling a bit lonely or empty, sensing that something important is missing from their lives. This prompts them to reinitiate contact with others, at least until they feel compelled to reassert their independence. Striking a balance between their independence (Ti) and relationships (Fe) can thus constitute a lifelong challenge for this personality type.

that’s all , if you read this far I will love you forever. if you ever want to talk personality shit , here I am

[avegurdotcom-blog]

Modern Interior Design Styles

The love of aesthetics/beauty and creativity is part of human nature. It is one of the very attributes that differentiate us from other animal groups, and this practice has been going on for ages. Even when our primary task was to look out for food and shelter, but we felt a desire to make improvements in the environments that we inhabited. No conclusion has been made on if this was to satisfy some deep spiritual mission or a method of transferring on vital knowledge to fellow group members, or whether it was simply a way for an individual to satisfy an urge to leave his legacy for future generations, we’re yet to find out. For the long time being, people have turned inquisitive minds to innovative ways of solving problems and also dealt with the issues that have challenged them in the struggle to survive: problems such as how to work more efficiently, how to live more comfortably and how to guarantee their safety from danger. There comes the quest for Modern Interior Design styles.

As we have gained more affluence and get blessed with more leisure taste, the Modern Interior Design styles has become more important to us and is something with which we want to imbue our homes with. As proven, ‘style’ is a very personal notion, so why should anyone look to employ someone else, an interior designer, to advise them what is right when it comes to style? What justified reason should a designer presume to impose his ideas upon a space that doesn’t belong to him? The answer is this; interior design is much deeper than ‘what looks right’ or satisfying. It is about taking a holistic view of the way that individuals use and enjoy the spaces that they inhabit. It is about finding and creating a cohesive solution to a set of problems and working the solution in order to unify and strengthen our experience of the space. Many people understand this only that they lack the necessary skills to face the job themselves. And so there is the need for professional interior designers to execute their mastery.

Well crafted interior design changes the atmosphere in a space. It does increase our efficiency in the way we work our daily routines and add depth, understanding, and meaning to the built environment. A well thoughtful and well-crafted design makes a space easier to understand and experiencing such a space lightens the spirit. It is, therefore, not just about the aesthetic; it is skilful and philosophical. Beautiful spaces portray the truth on the new and exciting ways to individuals life is lead. It promotes the loved one has for his/her immediate beautiful environment.

There is always some conflict between the meaning of the terms like ‘interior architecture’, ‘interior design’ and ‘interior decoration’. There arises the distinction between the different professions? In truth, the distinctions are not absolute. There are several factors where the supposed boundaries lie. Talking about professional aspects, it always a matter of which country the designer is working in (or perhaps more properly, which regulatory system the designer is working under), though those factors are not definitive. Interior decorators generally work with existing spaces that do not require physical alteration. With the application of matching color, light, and surface finish combination, they will transform the look of a space, perhaps making it suitable to function in a different way from that for which it was originally designed, but with very little or no change to the structure of the building Modern Interior Design styles is achieved, Interior designers span the ground between interior architects and interior decorators. Surely, the scope of the projects undertaken varies from the purely decorative, to ones where a great deal of structural change is required to meet up with the brief requirements. An interior designer will competently handle the space planning and creation of decorative schemes at the same time as considering major structural changes.

In Modern Interior Design styles, none of the professionals will necessarily be experts in all aspects of a project and will call on other specialists (such as structural engineers or lighting designers) to help fully realize their ideas.

TYPES OF INTERIOR DESIGNS AND DECORATIONS ARE:

MODERN:

Modern is a broad design term that typically refers to a home with clean, crisp lines, a simple color palette and the use of materials that can include metal, glass, and steel. Currently, the modern design uses a great sense of simplicity in every involved element, including furniture placing and layout. Another word that’s commonly used to describe modern style is sleek, and this doesn’t require a lot of clutter or accessories to produce modern style designs. Interestingly, genuine materials to achieve sleek style can be best recognized by experienced designers.

CONTEMPORARY:

Modern and contemporary are two styles that are frequently used interchangeably. Actually, contemporary is quite different from modern because it describes design based on the here and now. The most notable difference separating modern and contemporary design style is that modern tends to describe designs that started in the 20th century. While contemporary on the other hand is more substantial and with emphasis on the present and doesn’t really adhere to any style in particular. For clarity sake, contemporary style makes use of curving lines, whereas modern design doesn’t use it. For more understanding, we encourage our readers to refer to modern vs contemporary article for more information.

MINIMALIST:

The minimalist concept is one that’s popular in Australia and in a few European countries but rarely applied here in Nigeria, unless on special brief request. It takes notions of modern design and it does more to simplifies them further. It’s color palettes are neutral and airy; the furnishings are simple and streamlined, and there’s nothing is excessive or flamboyant in accessories or décor. The concept of minimalism is ultimately defined by a sense of functionality and ultra-clean lines.

INDUSTRIAL:

Industrial style as the name implies it draws inspiration from a warehouse or an urban loft. There’s a sense of unfinished rawness in many of the elements for this style, and it’s not uncommon to see exposed brick, ductwork, and wood. An iconic home with an industrial design theme would be a renovated loft from a former industrial building. Always appear with high ceilings, old and rusty timber and dangling metal light fixtures with sparse functional furniture. There may possibly be few pieces of abstract art or photography to add a dash of color to an otherwise neutral color scheme derived from the primary materials of wood and metals. The deliberate idea behind these rough disposition is as a result of industrial activities that sooth this type of design and decoration.

MID-CENTURY MODERN:

Mid-century modern is a reversion to the design style of the mid-1900s—primarily the 1950s and 60s. There’s a retro nostalgia present in Mid-Century Modern Design, and also some elements of minimalism. Functionality ideas or “fussy-free” was the main theme for Mid-century design. It emphasizes pared-down forms, natural or organic shapes such as “egg-shaped” chair, easy-to-use contemporary designs and simple fabrications. It easily complements any interior and also helps with the coherent transition from interior to exterior.

SCANDINAVIAN:

The Scandinavian design pays homage to the simplicity of life demonstrated in Nordic countries. Scandinavian furniture design often feels like a work of art, although it is simple and understated. There’s functionality in the furniture along with some interesting lines, many of which have a sculptural influence. Other common characteristics include all-white color palettes and the incorporation of natural elements like form-pressed wood, bright plastics, and enamelled aluminum, steel, and wide plank flooring. If there are pops of color it often comes from the use of art, natural fibre throws or furs, or a single piece of furniture. Spacious, natural lighting, fewer accessories and functional furniture characterizes Scandinavian designs.

TRADITIONAL:

Traditional design style offers classic details, sumptuous furnishings, and an abundance of accessories. It is rooted in European sensibilities. Traditional homes often feature dark, finished wood, rich color palettes, and a variety of textures and curved lines. Furnishings have elaborate and ornate details and fabrics, like velvet, silk, and brocade, which may include a variety of patterns and textures. There’s depth, layering, and dimensionality within most traditional designs.

TRANSITIONAL:

Transitional is a very popular style because it borrows from both traditional and modern design to facilitate a space that’s not “too much,” in terms of one style or another. There’s a sense of balance that’s appealing and unexpected. A transitional design may incorporate modern materials, such as steel and glass, and then unite them with plush furnishings. The transitional design also includes relatively neutral color palettes, creating a calming and relaxed space that manages to feel both stylish and sleek, as well as warm and inviting.

FRENCH COUNTRY:

Warm, earthy colors are indicative of a French Country design style, as are worn and ornamental wooden furnishing. The style has an overarching farmhouse inspiration. French Country design may include soft and warm tones of red, yellow or gold and natural materials like stone and brick. French Country design can include collections of ornate porcelain dishes and heavy linens and bed coverings.

BOHEMIAN

Bohemian is a popular style for home design and fashion. It reflects a carefree lifestyle with little rules, except to follow your heart’s desire. Bohemian homes may include vintage furniture and light fixtures, globally inspired textiles and rugs, displays of collections, and items found in widely varied sources including flea markets and during one’s travels. It’s not uncommon to spot floor pillows and comfortable seating spaces when incorporating the bohemian style. This eclectic style can incorporate an ultra-glam chandelier paired with a well-worn rug and a mid-century chair. Within the Bohemian style, there’s a laissez-faire attitude where anything goes as long as you love it.

RUSTIC

Rustic design is drawn from natural inspiration, using raw and often unfinished elements including wood and stone. The rustic design may incorporate accessories from the outdoors with warmth emulating from the design and architectural details that may include features like vaulted ceilings adorned with wood beams or reclaimed wood floors. Many designs now integrate rustic design with more modern furnishings and accessories.

SHABBY CHIC

Shabby chic is vintage-inspired style, but compared to Bohemian and other styles, tends to be more feminine in finishing, soft and delicate. Shabby chic furnishings are often either distressed or appear that way; its paint tends to have antique-style finishes. The Shabby Chic color palettes include white, cream and pastels. Light fixture and wall hangings are part of its featured ornate and continue the feminine vibe of shabby chic design.

HOLLYWOOD GLAM

This very style is also referred to as Hollywood Regency, Hollywood Glam is a design style that tends to be luxurious and quite appealing, over-the-top and opulent. It’s a dramatic design style with exciting features, perfect for a homeowner who enjoys making a statement. This design style can incorporate some features of the Victorian design, including plush, velvet furnishings, tufting, and antiques. The dominant color palettes are particularly bold—think purples, reds, and turquoise.

COASTAL/HAMPTONS:

The coastal style also is known as dubbed Hamptons style hails from the iconic U.S. beachside area. Common features include light, airy color palettes with cool neutral shades paired with blues and greens. Furnishings are often white or beige. The room can contain elements of wood and accessories are often inspired by the sea. Blue and white striped patterns for pillows, large windows, white plush sofas, and painted white wood are also common fixtures of the classic Coastal/Hampton style. The intention is to create a relaxed and comfortable environment that is inspired by the beach and ocean. Interestingly, here in Nigeria many of our clients appreciate these decorations stills by our decorating team. Avegur Decorating makes the acquisition of materials for each of the selected styles, and we guarantee the best.

WORK APPROACH:

For functionality sake, no design for space should ignore the existing building into which it is being integrated. A good understanding of what exists is fundamental to deciding what needs to be done if the space is to fit and serve the functions of which it was placed there.

None of this means that your design should be a pastiche of the existing style references of the building. The best designs respect the existing building and will reference it in some way in their execution, through materials, methods of construction, craftsmanship, pattern, form. All of the preceding research should bring you to a point where you understand the essential points that will have an impact on the design: –What structure exists. –What functions and activities will take place, –and how these will be addressed practically (for example, what furniture is required). – What is possible in the space –(and just as importantly, what is not possible, due to time, technical or budget limitations). – How the space functions and interacts with others –around it. What emotional response the client wants that space –to generate in the user and what aesthetic style is desired. This is necessary, but for the design to feel considered and complete, rather than being a random collection of elements, there is a need to find a unifying idea that will hold the disparate parts of the design together. This a single idea will be one that sets the stylistic tone of the design. It is this single idea that is the concept.

BUDGETS AND CHARGE:

How designers should charge for their services is one of the questions that new clients and customers are usually anxious about. Over time, three main models for charging (with many variations on them) have appeared and can be summarised as: –Charging a percentage of the overall project value. –Charging only for items supplied by the designer –(such as furniture) with a markup fee. –Charging a design fee based on an assessment –or projection of hours worked on the project. Arguably the most appropriate method of charging is that which sees the designer charging a design fee. This means that the client can see what is being paid for directly, without fees being ‘hidden’ in other charges, as is the case when a markup is added to goods supplied. It also means that payment is made within a reasonable amount of time of the work being done and that financial commitments on the client are kept to a minimum as charges for each stage of the project are agreed before work is undertaken. However, the designer decides to charge, an open and transparent system will be to the benefit of all. While it is helpful if the relationship between designer and client is a friendly one, it is important that there is a written contract or form of agreement between both parties for the legal protection of both sides. This will define the type of services provided and their scope, the fee structure, dispute resolution, copyright issues, and what is expected of both the designer and client. Trade associations in many countries will have standard documents that can be used in these cases, but even if this is not so in some countries, contracts can be drawn up with the assistance of a professional that will protect the interests of all concerned.

GALLERY: