#her outfit is inspired by Slavic cultural wear

[sammendelcreates]

Okay okay okay here’s v2.0 and 1.0 of my current dnd character Dolores Snapbristle, or Lora as she goes by.

The second pic was a quick drawing of her just to get an idea down, while the first was made directly after in a “oh shit wait I actually need to flesh this girl out” lol

She’s a hexblood sorlock who I only *just* started playing. She’s very nosey and loves her little trinkets and baubles.

[perseruna]

i Adore your fake marriage ice and flame art!! I was wondering, what reference/insp did you use for their outfits??

hello i am SO sorry I'm so late to this unfortunately uni got in the way BUT here's an in depth thread on the costume design of this piece and all the little details and references you might have missed <3

starting off, I wanted it to feel like a wedding picture of two people from different cultures, and they're not only marrying each other but so are their aesthetics. the costumes are very distinctive while also being complementary to each other.

yennefer’s dress is very much Indian sari inspired, while jaskier’s main influence comes from the Detva region of Slovakia. I wanted these costumes to be clearly influenced by traditional clothing while being something they would also wear in universe.

yennefer’s gown while being inspired by traditional saris is also inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli take’s on saris as well as this Simone Ashley's look (also the fabric is supposed to be a two-tone taffeta, so I hope that reads well enough)

jaskier's Detva inspired look works so perfectly in universe with his s1 doublets in my opinion. His costume is also inspired by other slavic folk clothing, for example his pants are mostly inspired by the polish mountain style clothing from the Zakopane region.

yennefer's also wearing alta dye on her fingers, which women adorn their fingers with for marriage ceremonies in the Bengali culture. The red dye also matches jaskier's red doublet and the dark blue flowers on jaskier's vest match yennefer's dress. like I mentioned before they're wearing wedding rings with gemstones that match each other's eye color <3 yennefer's wearing bangles, a maangtika and a nath, while jaskier's sporting the single pearl earring that I always draw him in and his other neckless are under his shirt

+ some process from the drawing !! (fun fact the first file that I found on this concept is from may 1st 2023 lmaoo) anyway I really really love it and I'm very proud of it, my fave yenskier piece to date <3

[mask131]

Cinematic bloodlines (1)

The novel "Dracula" gave birth to many, MANY different adaptations, with several of them forming a very particular chain of works that I will call "bloodlines". And the first one actually begins with... a theater play.

In June of 1924, twelve years after the death of Bram Stoker, Dracula was adapted to the stage in Derby, by Hamilton Deane. This play was a huge success - in June of 1927 it was moved to London, and there made so much noise that by September of the same year it crossed the Atlantic and became a Broadway fame. It is from this specific play that the iconic "Dracula outfit" comes from, this evening wear, these soirée clothes with a black cape. It is also at Broadway that one particular actor would start playing Dracula, forever changing the fate of the character: the Hungarian-descendng Bela "Lugosi" Blasko, destined to become the first "face" of Dracula.

We move on to the core of this bloodline: the 1931 "Dracula" movie by Tod Browning. The first "actual" Dracula adaptation on screen, or at least the first talking movie about Dracula, and the one that immortalized Belga Lugosi in the role of the vampire count.

This movie was a huge and lasting success, and erected Dracula as a cultural icon in the American landscape. Jean Marigny wrote that one of the reasons this Dracula worked so well at the time was due to the historical context - the mix of the Great Depression's miserable effects and the inherent xenophobia of the USA, which found themselves "embodied" somehow by Dracula, this sickly and cruel "foreigner", this diseased and malevolent "other" which brought evil into the world. From 1931 to the end of World War II, roughly, American cheap literature and pulp fiction saw a boom of Dracula copies and imitations, so many vampires with Germanic or Slavic names that all were more-or-less subtle personifications of the political threats the USA had to deal with - Bolshevism or Nazism.

Though, again by Marigny's word, this "xenophobic" and "political" reading of Dracula does echo wonderfully one of the elements that made the original novel a success - as beyong a "good versus evil" and "vice versus virtue" battle, the Dracula novel also presented the vampire as a threat coming from a far-away country on the backwards, peasant, superstitious and ancient Eastern depths of Europe, coming into the harmonious and civilized order of Britain to cause trouble and disrupt peace... Perfect to please the inherent xenophobia of Victorian England. Though, it also should be pointed out that the novel, while adhering seemingly to this inherent bias, still was quite subversive - for example by having the Count be clearly more powerful and more prepared than the protagonists, who are all somehow weak or mediocre embodiments of the Victorian society, outmatched and unarmed for quite a long time against this clearly far superior being that is the vampire...

Also, this movie solidified the idea of a younger Dracula - as unlike in the novel, Lugosi's vampire doesn't start as an old man with a long white mustache...

The 1931 Dracula led to the development of what we know today as the "Universal Horror", a series of horror movies developed by Universal Pictures and which formed the first big "cinematic family" of the horror world. In this setting, "Dracula" got a sequel: "Dracula's Daughter" in 1936, very very loosely inspired by both "Dracula's Guest" and "Carmilla" (the two most prominent depictons of a female vampire at the time). The movie is about, as you can guess, Dracula's daughter who is trying to use all the methods she can, both supernatural and scientific, to break the vampirism curse she inherite from her father... The movie is also well-known for playing with the lesbian subtext of Carmilla, reusing it on screen in a Dracula context.

The third part of the unofficial trilogy came in 1943: "Son of Dracula". This is not actually about the literal son of Dracula, unlike "Dracula's Daughter". Rather it is about count Dracula moving not into London but into New-Orleans to spread his vampirism (was it the first time Dracula was depicted arriving in America? I think it might be...). In fact the other working titles for this movies were "The Modern Dracula" and "The Return of Dracula", all much more faithful to what the movie is actually about. This picture is also notorious for being the first time the "Alucard" trick was used in vampire fiction (note that Dracula is not played here by Bela Lugosi, but rather by the other giant of horror Lon Chaney Junior)

After this initial trilogy forming a very loose story (continuity was not the main concern of Universal movie-makers), the Universal Horror entered the era any big franchise enters at one point - crossover times! With "House of Frankenstein" in 1944, and "House of Dracula" in 1945, both about events gathering under one same roof Dracula, the creature of Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, the three iconics of the Universal Horror.

Then we entered the era of parodies, and the Universal Dracula ended up with the 1948 parody "Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein".

This is the end for the old "classic" Universal line. There is actually more down it, Universal didn't stop its vampire movies there, but I'll keep it for another post, because I want to conclue this post with three other movies.

Bela Lugosi is quite famously THE Dracula - and many believe that he was the only actor for Dracula in the Universal movies. Yet, as said above, he wasn't present in all of them - Son of Dracula, for example, was without him. Rather, this idea comes from the fact that, after playing Dracula on stage and on screen, Lugosi ended trapped in the role and type-casted as a vampire. He notoriously played in an unofficial trio of vampire movies which solidifed his reputation as "the vampire actor".

The first was another Tod Browning production made not so long after the original Dracula: 1935's Mark of the Vampire (or Vampires of Prague), which was strongly inspired by a silent horror movie currently lost, "London after Midnight". There, Lugosi played a "count Mora" who causes mysterious deaths in Prague with his daughter Irena. (And in this angle you could consider this movie a sort of unofficial rival to Universal's "Dracula's Daughter").

Followed in 1943 "The Return of the Vampire" by Lew Landers, which was basically trying to be an unofficial, unlicensed sequel to the Universal 1931's Dracula, even having Lugosi play the main vampire haunting London (Armand Tesla). This picture also contains a copy of Universal's Wolf Man in the person of Andréas the werewolf.

The last one is another parody in the line of the Abbott and Costello movie (in fact it was heavily inspired by it): the 1953 John Gilling's movie "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire", where the vampire is titled Van Houssen and plans to dominate the world by... building a robot army. Well... it was the 50s.

All of these lead to the treatment of Lugosi' vampire typecasting as both his legacy and his curse - to the point that when he was buried, he demanded it was in his Dracula costume...

[belovedblabber]

6 and 20 for Adaira, Corin, and Faolán!

Ahhh thank you so much for sending this ask!

Fairly long answer below the cut:

For 6;

Corin dresses like someone's weird uncle if that uncle was like 10 times sluttier. Wandering vagabond chic. Yet somehow also the vibes of a man who owns like, three button ups from target that he's had for a decade plus, and two pairs of pants. He dresses like if you took Aragorn lordoftherings' aesthetic and then ran it through a spin cycle that spit it out gayer and sluttier. In terms of color he wears a lot of browns and grays, and his clothing has been mended and patched a lot. His clothing also has little embroidery details in various spots that have just been added over time by Faolán as an ongoing labor of love. He also has lots of earrings in each ears, all the way up and down, various hoops studs and ear cuffs. Man also often wears a lot of rings (including his wedding ring), and has a distinctive necklace he always wears. He also often wears very beat up fingerless wool gloves

Faolán, unlike his husband, is very neatly and beautifully, if simply, dressed. He takes good care of his clothing, and mends it himself. He also does his own embroidery, and his clothing is covered in traditional embroidery that was passed down to him by his mother. It is very culturally significant, and involves complicated patterns and symbols that speak to various myths and stories. He typically wears dark browns and burgundies and colors in that general vibe. That goes for what he wears under his armor, anyway. Because unlike Corin he is a martial fighter and is often in armor. I have tried designing and redesigning his armor a million times. Fingers crossed one day I'll get it down dfghjk. He has a pair of earrings Corin gave him as a gift many years ago, and he never takes them off. He also has some lovely bracelets. He and Corin also both have wedding bands.

At the start of the story Adaira is orphaned and on her own, and is dressed in beat to hell clothing that is an absolute mess. Once Corin and Faolán take her in they make it a priority to get her a new wardrobe, and Faolán very lovingly decorates a lot of it for her. I have designed out outfits for her a ton, probably more than any of my other ocs, and would love to do so more if I ever get out of my years long art block. Her clothing styles are heavily inspired by Slavic and Armenian folk costumes, and I love drawing them so much.

For 20;

Corin is tall (probably about 6'3-6'5, I keep changing my mind on exact height) and skinny as a rail. A lanky man, an absolute beanpole. He has a long face with sharp cheekbones and a long aquiline nose that's been broken so many times it's kind of forgotten its original shape. He has very very dark brown eyes (or he has gray eyes, I go back and forth. Can you tell I'm indecisive?). He's also just one of those people who has a 'twinkle in his eye,' so to speak, and he smiles easily. Also I am pretty sure he is often rocking some eyeliner. He has lines around his eyes and on his face, and his hair is silver in the present (and salt and pepper in the past) and he wears it about shoulder length, sometimes a bit longer. He also just has perpetual stubble. He's quite pale overall, but has a tan that comes from being out in the elements a lot. He's got a pale scar that starts at the corner of his right eye and then snakes down his cheek to his neck, as well a many other scars all over his chest and arms. His age is very hard to pin. His hands are elegant, with long thin fingers that are tattooed with intricate patterns that sometimes seem to shift around and change places (I am still working on designs) They're not his only tattoos, but they're the only ones I've settled on for sure in terms of location etc. 

Faolán is 5'7, built like a fighter in the way that people who like, do actual strength work are strong (I am not phrasing this remotely right). Point being he's not like showy muscle, he's the kind of muscle that will wreck your shop. He is a swordsman and it shows. He has curly, very dark brown hair that is just now starting to get some gray at the temples, and he typically keeps it about chin length or sometimes a bit longer, with some braids done through it. He has large golden-brown eyes with long dark lashes, and he is very handsome. Just a lovely man. He has a strong jaw and a nose that's been broken many times, and unlike his husband he stays clean shaven. He has medium brown skin with warm undertones, and a multitude of scars in various shapes and sizes that tell the stories of his many adventures, misadventures, and journeys. I want to give him a cool tattoo or tattoos) designs[s], but haven't settled on any yet

Adaira is a c. 11 (indecisive me goes back and forth on if she starts the story at ten or as a new 11), and she has a very distinct face shape that I used to draw a lot but am bad at describing oops. She is also like 11, as I said, and so has a lot of growing to do. She has fairy blood, and her eyes reflect this. They are very large, to a degree that is not quite human, and they are tilted at an angle on her face that is not so startling that it is immediately alarming, but definitely has something uncanny about it that rings of not entirely human. They're also spaced a bit wider than is normal (I am not describing this well, it's something I've drawn a lot but have yet to describe elegantly fghjk). Color-wise her eyes are a beautiful dark brown that catches the light and seems to draw it in and reflect it back (and her eyes are in fact reflective like a cat's at night dfghj). She also has slightly sharp canine teeth. She has brown skin slightly lighter than Faolán's, and freckles everywhere. Her hair is very curly, and she keeps it short, about at chin length. It's a fiery red that seems to have different shades and highlights in it depending on how the light catches it, and it refuses to behave, always a fly-away mess around her face. She is short for her age (idk exactly what that entails), and time spent on her own has left her scrappy and undernourished. She was born missing her left arm from about a bit above the elbow down, and later on in the story will sometimes have an arm made of fire in its place

The story takes place over years so their appearances and clothing will shift throughout, but as Adaira starts the story as a little girl, her changes are the most dramatic as she grows up

Anyway, thank you again for asking me this, it made my night! I'm sure my answers aren't very coherent and have some typos (I fully did not sleep last night). But I had so much fun answering this, so thank youuuuu!

[maniclemons]

Yolanda, Camp Sensibility and the "Oscar Wilde Of The Camera"

Okay, so I was minding my business reading stuff for my work on dream narratives in popular culture and suddenly I was attacked at the footnotes section of one of the academic papers (which happens all the time tbh). The author mentioned in passing that, well, there is a musical called YOLANDA AND THE THIEF (1945) which just happens to be one of three Vincente Minnelli musicals that have been characterized as a self-conscious camp style of visual excess. The author argued that the camp style in musicals, especially those made by the Arthur Freed unit at MGM, was particularly appropriate to the even greater visual excess of the dream sequences. 

So yeah, of course I did a double-take and immediately thought of Donde estás Yolanda (Sherlock and John reunion theme) - thanks for the opportunity to refresh the hell out of it @thepineapplering !

FEATURES OF INTEREST of “Yolanda and the Thief” in no particular order:

• The "dream ballet" dream sequence (inspired by Dali); • Repressed homosexuality manifesting itself through nightmares and fear of entrapment in a heterosexual marriage; • Integration of straight romance (plot) and gay-inflected visual codes; • Critique of a capitalist culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it (writer/director/set designer/crew member etc.) • Something else?

Also of interest: Holmesosexuality: On Mark Gatiss’s Camp 

As I am not, academically speaking, a specialist in queer theory, all the references can be found below.

I haven’t seen anyone writing about this particular musical in connection with Sherlock yet, but I might be wrong, because my tumblr search skills still suck a bit. Anyways, it was fun and added more contextual layers to my own understanding of the show!

“YOLANDA AND THE THIEF” is a 1945 American Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer “Arthur Freed Unit” musical-comedy film set in a fictional Latin American country called Patria. It stars Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan, and Mildred Natwick, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Arthur Freed. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Arthur Freed. The “Freed Unit” refers to the “unit” (studio team within the larger studio production house that was MGM) headed by lyricist and producer Arthur Freed. 

"Yolanda and the Thief" is one of three Vincente Minnelli musicals that have been characterized as a self-conscious camp style of visual excess, the other two being " Ziegfeld Follies " (1946) and…….. "The Pirate" (1947). As Jane Feuer suggests, "a gay subcultural reading would elevate these Minnelli masterpieces of the 1940s above the currently more esteemed Freed Unit musicals of the 1950s – "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Band Wagon", whose sophistication stems more from their smart Comden and Green scripts than from elements of excess in their mise-en-scene."

CAST:

Fred Astaire as Johnny Parkson Riggs Lucille Bremer as Yolanda Aquaviva (aqua-viva? as in Latin vivere/vita? as in "aqua vita(e)" which is "an archaic name for a concentrated aqueous solution of ethanol" and at the same time a type of magical water which brings people (mostly heroes) back to life in Slavic mythology?) Frank Morgan as Victor Budlow Trout (a friend of Johnny's and literally his partner in crime)

FEATURES OF INTEREST (in no particular order):

• The "dream ballet" dream sequence (inspired by Dali); • Repressed homosexuality manifesting itself through nightmares and fear of entrapment in a heterosexual marriage; • Integration of straight romance (plot) and gay-inflected visual codes; • Critique of a capitalist culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it (writer/director/set designer/crew member etc.) • Something else?

The narrative of Yolanda offers a romance between a naive and wealthy young woman, Yolanda Aquaviva (Lucille Bremer), who is tricked by a con man, Johnny Riggs (Fred Astaire), into believing that he is her guardian angel. Johnny plays upon Yolanda's gullibility in order to convince her to confer her power of attorney on him, but just as he is ready to depart with the goods, he finds himself romantically and erotically drawn to her. His attraction to her surprises Johnny, because he ostensibly does not expect to find Yolanda a figure of erotic contemplation, and his jaded sensibilities lose out to his romantic impulses. But moments of camp playfulness in the film offer another reading of Johnny's surprise at discovering himself in a seduction beyond his overarching greed and cynicism, for there are strong possibilities for seeing him as gay.

DREAM SEQUENCE BALLET

The "dream ballet" sequence is an extended (approximately 15 minute) routine for Astaire, Bremer, and various others, which Minnelli has described as, "the first surrealistic ballet in film". Its Dali-esque scenery sort of mirrors "real-life" Patria which Yolanda’s Aunt Amarilla called “an out of the world place” elsewhere. That’s really what Minnelli was going for here. He seeks to evoke a feeling that Johnny have left behind what he knows and entered a world of mysticism and dreams.

This dream sequence ballet opens with Astaire dressed in a remarkable dandy outfit with a pair of off-white satin pajamas. Becoming restless in his bed, Johnny dresses and walks through the streets of Patria's unnamed capital, where he moves into increasingly surreal landscapes in which various women trap him in symmetrical dance steps: washerwomen unfold furls of different-colored fabric in stark geometric patterns that form a prison out of which he cannot escape. Yolanda’s entrance into the dream is grandly spooky. Against the backdrop of a Dali-esque desert landscape, Yolanda rises from a pool of water wrapped head-to-toe in pale scarves that float all around her. Her face is obscured, a look reminiscent of René Magritte’s 1928 painting The Lovers, and more suggestive of alienation than romance. Once Johnny unwraps Yolanda from her scarves, the spookiness of the sequence dissipates a little, but the mood has been set, and when the unwrapped Yolanda puts her arms around Johnny and sings, “Will You Marry Me?,” the effect is mildly sinister. The sequence concludes as Yolanda dons a set of outrageously long bridal veils and Johnny gets one of them wrapped around his neck like a noose when he attempts to flee.

In the "Will You Marry Me?" number Johnny wrestles with the trauma of potentially being trapped in a marriage to Yolanda for her money. Yolanda appears throwing off a series of veils trimmed in coins, and sirens in short dresses and high heels entice him with a cask into which Yolanda has dispensed her gold. The number effectively links Johnny's fear of marriage with his greed, or, more properly according to the dream-logic of the "Will You Marry Me?" sequence, his greed is the film's alibi for not stating more directly his desire not to bond with a woman, no matter what her beauty or wealth. The film temporarily addresses the question of whether Johnny will accede to the demands of marriage through the camp art direction's treatment of him as gay.

So this is more specifically a nightmare ballet, one that takes marriage—the typical happy ending of many an MGM musical (including—spoiler alert—this one)—and transforms it into a thing of anxiety and horror.

While the dramatic function of the dream ballet is questionable, its adventurous spirit and execution should not be ignored. Bear in mind that Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet for the original stage production of Oklahoma! first appeared on Broadway in 1943, just two years before Yolanda and the Thief hit movie screens. Yolanda and the Thief also predates The Red Shoes by three years and An American in Paris by six. Minnelli was staking out new territory here, trying out a storytelling technique that he and other filmmakers would employ with greater success in the future.

STYLE

What is labeled as the integration of straight romance and gay-inflected visual codes is more generally within the camp sensibility what we might call "style," or more particularly, a style of excess. James Naremore describes this differentiated style as Minnelli bringing “a rarefied sense of camp to musical numbers, making…[him] ‘an Oscar Wilde of the camera.’” To be an “Oscar Wilde of the camera” would of course conjure images not only of queer sexuality, but a simultaneous devotion to the aesthetics: one who would converse, write, lecture on subjects ranging from poetry to interior design. This parallels Sunsan Sontag’s assertion that “Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of camp. For camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style [sometimes] at the expense of content.” Indeed, Sontag begins her “notes on camp” by quoting Oscar Wilde’s famous aphorism, “one should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” However, camp is not simply an adoration of colour and texture, but a certain critical – comical, even – perspective on heterosexist and gender normative culture, both male and female. 

And beyond discussion of pure aesthetics of delight, camp within the Freed Unit is also indicative of a process of labour as method of negotiation between queer identity and heteropatriarchal capitalist hegemony (critique of a culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it).

AUDIENCE REACTION

Campy style within Freed films circulated to noncamp audiences under the more general idea of their being “stylized” or “witty". The comments of film-goers who attended previews of, for example, Minnelli's "The Pirate" confirm that the studio knew that the film tended to emphasize its own spectacular art direction while sometimes disregarding streamlined storyline and clear characterization. In the cards, where anonymous viewers offered praise and disparagement, a repeated emphasis on the art direction arises: "the sets detracted from the people and the music was too loud," "not realistic enough," "entirely too surrealistic," "the beautiful background settings were exceptional," "plot rather thin," "truly one of the most exciting pictures from every standpoint, direction, artwork, color, dancing, scoring," "beautiful coloring," "slightly fantastic plot not developed in as natural and realistic a way as it could have been," and perhaps the most telling, "Minnelli back to the small minority who really appreciate him." The above comments would suggest that these viewers had screened a film by Dali or Bunuel, not the product of MGM after twenty years of corporate film-production experience.

Which takes us to the next (and very familiar) aspect…

MISE-EN-SCENE VS. STORYLINE

Musicals have largely been understood as primarily narrative films at the expense of other features. The plotline that structures many musicals is that of straight romance and marriage. The world in which a man and a woman meet and find initial attraction, in which their union is frustrated, and where ultimately the prohibitions to heterosexual bonding are overcome through the mediation of the song and dance number is typically the world of the musical. But there is more to the making of musicals beyond the plotline and its ancillary subplots, all of which are said to be brought to happy closure at the film's completion.

What seem to have been the memorable features of Freed unit musicals for contemporaneous viewers were their dazzling sets, costumes, use of color (in terms of film stock, set painting, and lighting) and choreography. These specific elements of film production are perhaps most likely what the various viewers are locating as the Freed unit's distinguishing style, or, to remember the viewer who commented on the "small minority" who might be interested in Minnelli films, that this style was idiosyncratic enough to have both fans and detractors. This style distinguished the unit's films from those of its rivals.

Minnelli's work habit of plotting a film's numbers by creating a series of paper dolls and scaled-down sound stages in which to place these figures suggests that his first impulses were to conceive of a film through its mise-en-scene rather than its storyline. Within the limits of the system, Minnelli was able to say a good deal about sets and costumes, and he usually influenced the overall visual conception of his films.

Dance (and singing) performance disrupts the narrative by momentarily disregarding the force of the story for the power of the spectacular dance routine. Likewise, the backdrops and costumes perform a similar function but that we tend not to notice their potential to antagonize narrative because, of course, most often the disjunctive features of the mise-en-scene are maintained in the film's movement back to the storyline.

Just as Johnny emerges from his dream shaken but unsure of what it means, the historian of camp production can perhaps trace the presence of a masked homosexual narrative only by remembering the strange details which seem to have been so easily forgotten.

REFERENCE:

Tinkcom, Matthew. Working like a Homosexual: Camp Visual Codes and the Labor of Gay Subjects in the MGM Freed Unit. Cinema Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 24-42.

Turner,  Lexi C M K. A Queer Translation: “Camp” Sensibilities of the Classical Hollywood Musical Era, vs. the 1970s Desertion of Narrative Utopia.

Cohan, Steven. Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005).

Dunne, Michael. American Film Musical Themes and Forms (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2004).

Cohan, Steven. “Introduction: Musicals of the Studio Era.” In Hollywood Musicals, the Film Reader. Edited by Steven Cohan. 1-15 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).

Feuer, Jane. The Hollywood Musical, 2d ed. (London: BFI Books, 1993).

Sontag, Susan. “Notes On ‘Camp.’” In Against Interpretation and Other Essays. 275-292 (London: Penguin, 2009).

https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2018/10/24/yolanda-and-the-thief-1945/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolanda_and_the_Thief

[gayregis]

Ok i love fashion. I dk fashion. I love doing fantady historical fusions and the fashion on the show deadass kills me SO hard. It doesnt. like. nothing feels good. Theres no clear cultural influence on clothes. In TW3 at least the clothes felt like.. like I could see art and go 'oh i know what influenced that' but it feels so vague and generic in the show???

LEGIT! and it’s such a shame too because they missed so many opportunities through visuals:

it’s definitely beautiful enough. medieval/renaissance (i say renaissance as well, because the continent is more advanced than earth’s europe in the 13th century) has such great beautiful examples of design that can even be quite whimsical to an audience that is unfamiliar with it. 

re: the “it doesn’t feel slavic” argument that i’ve seen on reddit. specifically in regards to the art direction, costume design, and set design, i agree, because there is a lot of beautiful cultures that could serve as wells of inspiration for the art team, but they seemed to ignore it. i’m not anything of an expert or even an amateur, but just googling “medieval polish fashion” gives some good results. there are a lot of beautiful motifs on this page that could easily be incorporated into the witcher’s designs. (in regards to casting, i don’t agree so much with this argument, bc a lot of the arguing about it lacks nuance and voices from poc, but that’s an entirely different post to make!)

they could connect characters. the main issue in MY opinion is that the dressing felt individual to characters and random, meant to just look good or intriguing but not help in telling the story. visuals tell narratives, and outfit and dress are a large aspect of this. if there is not overall motifs that can connect characters to one another, then you’re missing a great opportunity. for an example of what they did right with this, i loved how everyone in cintra had those blue sashes with their three lions on them. (also, it even made me realize as a books fan that the three lions could represent calanthe, pavetta, and ciri… lol). but i do not see any connection between ciri, pavetta, or calanthe’s outfits. this is missing an opportunity to draw a connection between them.

they could create factions and visually represent being “other.” keeping with the previous bullet point, they could extend this opportunity to whole factions. as a base example, the cintrian and nilfgaardian conflict is represented by how they have different armors… but since nilfgaard is a rich and powerful empire, their armor should have reflected this. in more peaceful scenes, they could use historical influences from different regions/nations of europe to demonstrate a difference between different witcher nations. also they could easily represent an “other” by using this faction mentality, kind of like what they did with the dryads’ outfits, because they seem so different than those in human civilizations, but they could have pushed this contrast by making the humans’ outfits to be stylized and man-made with bright colors, decorations, etc.

they could demonstrate character qualities and contrast between characters. geralt dresses in a worn black leather jerkin in the first short story in the books, and carries his sword on his back. dressing in all black (with his white hair and shining eyes) creates this image of a man similar to ideas of death, in my mind - he’s intimidating. he’s also strange for even a swordsman or mercenary, he doesn’t carry his sword like every other man in vizima. and his equipment is worn, yet he does not look old… he obviously has been in many fights. compare this to jaskier, who dresses fancifully and elegantly, with colorful jerkins and lace shirts and a plum bonnet with a feather in it. he obviously is a performer (and also kind of looks like a noble with these fancy get ups, which hints at his backstory that’s only revealed later on!) compare this with yennefer, who although she dresses extremely elegantly and nobly, dresses in all black and white. she is refined, but not gaudy and looking for attention (no offense jaskier… that’s your job!).

they could demonstrate character transitions. ciri dresses like a princess in cintra, but when her life goes up in flames along with the city and everyone she’s known and she goes to train at kaer morhen, she dresses in a shoddily-made leather jerkin sewn together quite shittily. not only does this demonstrate how she has fallen a long way on the social status ladder, but it demonstrates how very much the witchers at kaer morhen want to take care of this child, even if they’re not very good at understanding her and her needs at first. and how much she in turn wants to be like them.

but instead we just got some outlandish bullshit where yennefer wears a cage on her shoulders and a lace mask that she immediately takes off, and nilfgaardian armor that doesn’t look like any kind of armor ever made in history or in the present. costume design is not just meant to draw your eye and have you say, “oh that looks weird,” but to help the story! this is part of the entire reason that a visual adaptation to a book series was wanted!

[ba1aphoebeowen]

Analysing Character

corIn order to decide on my essay question, I thought I would start by looking into my chosen character in more depth, both character wise and in design. I’m hoping that this research will solidify the route I wish to take. 

Character Design

To start looking into Marceline’s design, I took a look at the Art of Ooo book, which is a comprehensive compilation of the artwork of Adventure Time from conception to full on production. 

Marceline, like many of the other characters, has always had quite a simplistic, simple design. She fits in well with most of the other characters on the show, having a rounded head and a long, skinny body. 

There were quite a few outfit concepts, as this image shows, and when the show did go into production she ended up being one of the more varied characters in this respect. Anytime she would appear on screen, it would be in a new outfit. 

Looking through the art book, it seemed that Marceline’s concept art didn’t have a massively cultural drive in her design. A lot of things were experimented with, inspiration varying from many places. She shows a range of more modern and more dated styles, this putting the idea of how old she is across more strongly. 

When looking into her design, I found a quote from the series creator, Pendleton Ward, where he says that Marceline varies in design because  "girls own more than one outfit". 

Her style is seemingly centered around her being a teenager in many different ways. Some of her outfits (such as below) take on a more rebellious approach to her physical age, whilst some other (such as above) are more stylish. Her outfits also showcase variations in hairstyles, seeming to change with what mood she’s in with the outfit. For example, a torn dress is accompanied by a half shaved, unkempt head of hair, contrasting her more friendly and perhaps more appealing long locks going down her back. 

Her design being kept close to her age is kept as the show is developed, all connecting to her age and, at some points, her character’s point in the story. For example, this design (below) is from an episode where Marceline gets to meet her childhood caregiver again for the first time in a long time. The episode as a whole highlights her less than pleasant childhood, and her outfit makes her feel like more of a child. It also refers to another episode that does actually delve into her childhood, where she first meets said caretaker, and she’s wearing a similar outfit - a red top with a dungaree-skirt of the same purple colour. 

 Overalls are seen as more of something a child would wear in the modern day despite originating as covers for more dirty work in the 1770s. 

While it could be considered that the overalls could both refer to the modern view, which is more childish in appearance, as well as their original use hundreds of years ago, I find this unlikely. The time period of the show suggests that Marceline wouldn’t have been alive for a time where this style choice would have been anything other than a more down to earth and carefree outfit. 

As Marceline’s character develops, her outfits become less and less frazzled and unkempt. The start of the show suggests a lot of instability, some things she needs to work out in order to get along with people and to keep her style steady. She also shows a change of posture, even in the character turnarounds (above and below), where her stationary pose is quite hunched over, and for the concept of a later episode she’s straightened out and appears more confident. 

Marceline’s colour designs, like her outfit styles, varies from episode to episode, but not as much. Her hair is kept black throughout the show, and her skin is a pale blue, and these create the base for all other outfits. Red is a common colour for her to wear, this relating both to her character as a vampire that can ‘eat red’, as well as her character. 

Red isn’t a colour that is used often in the other characters, the ones coming to mind are Marceline’s father and Peppermint Butler, both characters having quite evil traits, which could be hinting at Marceline’s vampire origin. Another character that comes to mind is Princess Bubblegum, a character that isn’t red but pink, and becomes quite a large part of Marceline’s character later on in the show. This colour choice could be suggesting their connection.

The darker colours that Marceline usually wears is most likely to make her seem more foreboding, as you would expect a vampire to be, but as the show progresses this ‘fear’ that she’s meant to inspire becomes more and more diluted as her designs change. 

Marceline has some smaller details that relate to her vampire half, the most notable being the two bite marks on the left of her neck. She does also have fangs, although these are prominent a lot of the time. The concept of vampires has existed for millennia across many cultures, so the exact origin of the concept is hard to pin down. Marceline’s character isn’t too centered around her vampirism in design, but she does use a couple of the tropes this creature tends to carry, such as the bite marks, an aversion to the sun and some other powers (such as floating, healing, shapeshifting). 

The first time it was mentioned in the English language was in 1745 in a book called “Travels of Three English Gentlemen“, but it had been mentioned in other languages before this. How a vampire was created changes between cultures, such as in Slavic and Chinese traditions where there was no biting involved, just a deceased person being jumped over by an animal. Fangs weren’t really involved in earlier accounts of vampires, but they all relate by drinking the ‘vital essence’, mostly blood, from people. 

The most clear tie between Marceline and vampire folklore is in the modern beliefs of vampires, where they have a certain charisma in order to get their prey, for blood or non blood reasons. 

 A lot of her vampiric traits seem to be more inspired by more modern takes on the species, such as in Dracula (1897), Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and The Vampyre (1819). Some traits are easier to find in folklore also.

Although Marceline isn’t shown to need the moon to heal, the vampire that she takes this healing ability from seems to gain strength from it. A possible inspiration for this could be from the 1819 print of The Vampyre, where Lord Ruthven can heal from the moon. 

Shape-shifting when related to vampires originates from the Jewish folklore Estries, but a more modern example would be Dracula who has this ability also. 

Marceline’s pointy ears could be sourced, as much of vampire traits are sourced, from Dracula. In the 1924 play of Dracula, the character is made to ‘disappear’, which could contribute to Marceline’s ability to turn invisible (or a general trait of being able to disappear when needed, either through invisibility or speed).  One of Dracula’s more notable traits is the ability to turn others into vampires, which is something Marceline shares. 

Her ability to turn into a bat could originate from Asian cinema, where in the 1950s a vampire woman, a ‘manananggal’, is said to have bat like wings. This could also relate to how bats are often connected to rabies, which is passed on through bites.

Marceline’s roots in vampire history and fictional culture do make her seem to be a more threatening villain, but she counters this with her personality. Her design holds very little in physical ties to vampires (the most notable being Dracula, a character that had a big impact on this kind of creature) which could be a way of separating the two, so her vampirism does exist but doesn’t define her. 

Personality and Background

When looking into Marceline’s personality as demonstrated in the show, she starts off as a minor antagonist to the main characters. As the show goes on, she maintains an almost cynical and cruel but humourous persona.

Looking into the Art of Ooo again, I found some details as written by people that worked on the show. I also found the Adventure Time Pitch Bible which details her early concept as well. 

From this image from the pitch bible (above) Marceline started out as a musical character that provided an almost guilty pleasure to the protagonist - with the “allure of a daredevil”. Of course, when the show went into production, more was added to her character.

Rebecca Sugar, a story boarder and songwriter for Adventure Time worked a lot on Marceline and this influence really boosted her popularity with audiences. Olivia Olson is her voice actor, and a singer. 

Rebecca Sugar: “She seems bad, but she’s anxious and doesn’t have a high opinion of herself.” “Tries to hurt people on purpose because that’s less painful than hurting people by accident.”

This quote is evidenced throughout the show, starting from Marceline’s premiere “Evicted” in episode 12 where she seems to be friendly with the protagonists, but is meaner than she needs to be to them. Later on as Marceline and Princess Bubblegum’s relationship is shown, it can be seen that she does this to her as well, especially following some relationship that they had before the show. 

Olivia Olson: “The world sees confidence, maybe even a hint of intimidation or haughtiness. Yet, deep down, there’s always a reason she got that way. She has lots of layers.” 

The origin of this attitude could be seen through flashback episodes, such as “I Remember You” where Marceline’s childhood is looked into. She was left alone during the Mushroom War (a nuclear war that wiped out most life) as a child and found by Simon (the Ice King before he lost his mind). Simon then had to leave her to keep her safe from himself, which continues her record of being abandoned by people she looks up to.

The episode “I Remember You” is a turning point not just in Marceline’s development but in the show as a whole, as it shows it’s audience a darker side to such a bright and colourful world, and how they are willing to delve deeper into themes of abandonment and flaws in childhood. 

Marceline’s background is shown through flashbacks, the environment of these seeming to be in the 1980 - 1990s due to some cultural hints within the episodes, such as the singing of the “Cheers” theme song, a show that ran between these years. This show was almost exclusively aired in America, so it’s safe to assume that this is where she started out - despite the mapping of Adventure Time being a lot more scattered compared to real world Earth. 

Essay Question

How does Marceline portray vampires historically and culturally in Adventure Time?

How she diverts (drinking red instead of just blood)

Connections to Dracula

Character design differences to standard vampires

To what extent has Marceline’s childhood affected her adulthood?

Psychology of children and trauma

Effects of mentors (Simon, Ice King, Hunson Abadeer)

Character design (Changes in outfits)

Interaction with other characters (Finn and Jake, other vampires, her father)

To what extent did Marceline affect the popularity of Adventure Time?

Songs (Rebecca Sugar’s influence, Adam Muto)

Backstory

Character Design