#her style her storytelling structure her outlook

[fictionadventurer]

In my continuing quest to learn more about Laura Ingalls Wilder as a writer beyond the Little House books, one of the most surprising things I've learned is that apparently she wrote a small collection of cutesy poems about nature fairies.

They were originally published in a children's column in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1915, and are apparently about a couple of fairy characters who paint flowers and bring dewdrops and bring about other natural phenomena. This post goes into more detail about the poems, and the interesting blend of practicality and whimsy that goes into her presentation of fairies.

It also provides one of the poems.

And this quote about the importance of giving children fairy tales that's almost Chestertonian.

Wilder explained why she preferred such magical images of natural processes in a column for the Missouri Ruralist called “Look for Fairies Now.” She argued that children needed tales of fairies to help them see beyond the surface and to use their imaginations. In the olden days, she explained, farmers left some of their harvest for the Little People who “worked hard in the ground to help the farmer grow his crops.” Perhaps this idea was just superstition, she continued, “but I leave it to you if it has not been proved true that where the ‘Little People’ of the soil are not fed the crops are poor. We call them different names now, nitrogen and humus and all the rest of it, but I always have preferred to think of them as fairy folk who must be treated right.

On the one hand, this feels like just another example of how it was apparently a requirement for female authors of a certain era to write cute nature fairy poems. But with the context of the quote, it's also surprisingly fitting for who she is as an author.

[screenspirit]

Personal Stories and Memory in Jay Rosenblatt’s and Su Fredrich’s Avant-garde Cinema

Avant-Garde offers distinct artistic strategies that can be steered to hold aesthetic representations of the filmmaker’s mindset and objectives set when creating the film. To elaborate, some experimental filmmakers choose their aesthetic strategies concerning how well they highlight experiences they aim to convey through their work, one particular example being their personal stories and memories, which they use as stimuli for Avant-Garde films. Two prominent examples of this idea in Avant-Garde are Jay Rosenblatt’s Phantom Limb (2005), a communication of the filmmaker’s experience and growth surrounding his younger brother’s death and Su Fredrich’s Sink or Swim (1990), which articulates how the filmmaker’s relationship with her father impacted her outlook on her childhood and personal identity. Both these experimental features draw on the filmmakers’ subjective memories of their past events which serve as their works’ narratives, all conveyed through the stylistic devices that highlight their position in Avant-Garde cinema.

One crucial artistic strategy used by both filmmakers which assists in elevating the anecdotes presented narratively is the use of found footage as the imagery. Rosenblatt and Friedrich both rely on shots and sequences that have been previously filmed by someone else and through the use of editing and placement, tell their own story through found footage. This feature of avant-garde cinema conveys how they partake in first-person filmmaking where everything shown is ‘overtly filtered’ by their ‘sensibility and ‘point of view’ [Rascoroli, 2009]. It is this artistic choice of structuring personal films through recycled sequences that serves as a distinct bridge between the Avant-Garde and the documentary, emphasised by Rascaroli who states how ‘their foregrounding of autobiography and their expression of authorial subjectivity position them in between…that of the Avant-Garde…and that of first-person documentary’ [2009].

Therefore, these filmmakers are expressing their autobiographies through a combination of Avant-Garde and documentary style, with found footage being one primal artistic choice. Friedrich’s example of the use of found footage connotes heavily to her memories of her father and childhood, exemplified in one of the earliest sequences shown in the film titled ‘Witness’, in which spectators see shots of a father holding his young daughter in what appears to be a home movie. Rosenblatt mirrors this in his film by showing personal home movies of him and his younger brother from their childhood as an opening to his visual storytelling.

Both these examples fulfil the purpose of building up context and introductions to the filmmakers’ individual and personal narratives and their themes; Rosenblatt’s story of loss visually articulates what he had before his brother’s death and Friedrich introduces ideas of parenthood and childhood using her images of parents interacting with their children. Taking this choice in source of footage into account when observing ideas of memory and personal stories, one can identify the filmmakers’ objectives because ‘home movies have much the same status as family photographs as regards of temporal reference’ and thus, ‘offer an image of the past of individual shown’ [Turim, 1989]. Thus, both filmmakers are using footage they did not capture themselves to present past events that connect to their narratives. This aesthetic action causes the sequences to immediately hold a personal and unique characteristic to them since spectators are observing what should be private moments in a young family’s life that have been captured on film for nostalgia and memorial purposes. As a result, identification of the filmmakers’ memories and stories can be easily distinguished since they are using found footage from the past to build up the narratives.

Found footage as an aesthetic decision articulates the contexts relating to the storytelling and with separate motives about emotional responses and cognitive approaches to their work. Rosenblatt’s example of recycled footage showing his brother before his passing is working to drive emotions of sadness and sympathy from his audience because he is allowing them to witness the memories he has of his brother visually through the shots shown. Additionally, they will later observe Rosenblatt’s experiences following his brother’s death such as the funeral and healing process. As a result of this, they will recall back to the opening sequence of the film and find themselves sharing the feelings of sadness Rosenblatt must be experiencing since the home movies allowed them to see a minor example of what the filmmaker has lost. Friedrich, however, is aiming to produce a separate instance of sympathy towards her personal story using her recycled footage. Her spectators will take in the imagery of the father holding his young daughter and identify its associations with family and child development since relationships and bonds with parental figures are credentials in a child’s early life.

It is these connections the audience has made from observing this example of found footage in the film that will assist in creating emotional responses of pity towards Friedrich when they later see such articulations as her parents’ divorcing and father leaving through voiceovers. The spectators will then think back to the recycled footage of the father and daughter and feel sympathy towards Friedrich as her family has broken up and she may no longer have interactions demonstrated in the home movies. Thus, both examples of found footage in the films are soon laced with specific emotions which assist in building the filmmakers’ personal stories since they are showcasing their past which hold significance to their storytelling.

It is this concern with the past that serves as a critical element to the recycled footage aspect of the Avant-Garde, it provides an opportunity for experimental filmmakers to demonstrate their creativity because they are taking fragments of film that were captured for one reason and editing them into their narrative. Usually, the past is engaged within film through the temporal editing technique of a flashback which helps to ‘merge the two levels [shared and recorded] of remembering the past’ and is used in the Avant-Garde as an ‘element in creating an expressive manipulation of the image and film montage’ [Turim, 1989]. Thus, they are a device that breaks the current narrative time shown which bridges the past with the present.

However, Rosenblatt and Friedrich have instead placed their examples of footage connected from the past in the openings of their films in a chronological structure to provide their spectators with ideas of their past which will benefit how they interpret the events they witness in the upcoming sequences. This mirrors the use of flashbacks as a device because it coheres to the story and elevates character development since spectators observe events in the film subjects’ lives that affect their character. Furthermore, the past and how it is demonstrated holds connections to one’s memory which can be explained as ‘a system of storing and retrieving information’ [Baddeley, 1997]. This means that the filmmakers offer their interpretations of events psychologically held in their memories through the already recorded footage in which the memories are visually stored. This effectively links back to Turim’s claim that the two levels of recalling the past coincide with one another to structure the filmmakers’ personal-based narratives and convey further emphasis on how important the artistic strategy of found footage.

Friedrich emphasises the presence of personal stories heavily and consistently throughout her film, combining her story with those of her mother and father which all share connections and influences. Friedrich’s story is the focus of the narrative, highlighted in a majority of the sequences such as the one titled ‘Journalism’ in which a series of experimental techniques combine to convey the story and its themes. One of these is the voiceover that plays over the images shown; a young girl, who is telling Friedrich’s story throughout the film, shares with the audience how Friedrich was given a diary when she was young in which she wrote down her stories, thoughts and secrets. One can interpret the symbolism of the diary as a manifestation of Friedrich documenting and expressing her personal story, as a diary consists of one’s ‘record of facts and events…own impressions, ideas, sensations, self-analysis and reflection’ [Rascaroli, 2009].

A diary also mirrors the epistolary novels of the 18th century, a genre consisting of novels telling stories through letters and journaling which takes an ‘interest in individuality and the inner self’ and a phase of ‘deep transformation and great expansion’ [Rascaroli, 2009]. The Avant-Garde is a cinematic style that draws inspiration from other mediums of art, particularly ‘relating to the fields of literature’ which it ‘pays homage to and finds inspiration in’ [Rascaroli, 2009]. Therefore, the diary mentioned throughout this sequence of the film links with how Friedrich is presenting the story of her parental relationships and childhood as well as conveying the influence literature as a medium holds on Avant-Garde cinema and how it is incorporated into it.

The childhood aspect is emphasised using the footage of young girls playing in a playground; a further example of filmic techniques used to elevate narrative ideas since the images connect to the voiceover articulating an event in childhood. The voiceover then mentions how Fredrich’s parents divorced and this serves as the pivotal point in the narrative and a painful memory Fredrich documents in her diary, which we are told is erased by her mother as it was written in pencil. Here, Friedrich is drawing ideas of different levels of memory which coincide with Turim’s claim on recorded and shared past. Her mother may be able to erase the physically recorded presentation of Friedrich’s memory of the divorce kept in the diary yet is unable to do so to store it in her daughter’s mind, thus, conveying ideas of memory and personal stories in Fredrich’s narrative with relation to how they are documented and interpreted.

In addition to this, Friedrich develops the memory of her parents’s divorce by combining events she can recall that serve as their personal stories and memories. Friedrich first does this in the sequence titled ‘Ghosts’; a calling which holds connotation to figures of the past haunting individuals connected to them which alludes to the idea of memory and the past throughout the film, where the shots are of a letter addressed to Fredrich’s father being written by her on a typewriter. This links to the previous connection between the Avant-Garde and literature, specifically this film and the form of an epistolary novel since a letter is being used as the source of articulation of events. The use of the letter as a stylistic strategy is effective in that it elevates the personal element to Friedrich’s work, mirroring the symbolism of the diary and allowing further insight into her deepest emotions at this point of her story thus progressing the development of that personal story.

In this letter, the spectators learn more about how the separation is impacting Friedrich’s mother when Fredrich writes about how she watched her mother spend most nights alone and crying while listening to a song called ‘Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel’; an articulation on the loss of a loved one which coincides with the experience both the mother and Friedrich are experiencing yet this particular communication is tied more with the mother. Here, Friedrich has captured one parental figure’s personal story in the film in which the medium of music is how her mother expresses her emotions, with lyrics such as ‘Where I do not have him/That is the grave/The whole world is bitter to me’ [Schubert, 1814] which link to the experience of a breakup. In contrast, her daughter does so in writing and later filmmaking.

The letter ends with a statement made by Friedrich on how difficult it is coping with the ‘conflict between memory and the present’, therefore, Fredrich is emphasising how the positive memories she has of her parents do not match what is taking place in the present time, specifically when watching her mother cry and this must be creating emotions of bitterness and grief within her. The memory of watching her mother go through this while writing it in the letter must bring these emotions forward and in turn connect the feelings and memory as one. Baddeley highlights this when stating ‘anything experienced in a given mood will tend to be recalled when that mood is reinstated’ [1997], thus memories and events in a story are tied with emotions that echo them.

The audience observes this in the later sequence ‘Drinking’ where Friedich communicates how watching her half-sister and father interact reminds her of her memories of her childhood with him as ‘her childhood was being played out in front of her’. This conveying of her mother’s story is connected to Friedrich’s memory of having to witness her mother go through this and this memory is then incorporated into the personal tale shown in her work. Friedrich then adds her father’s personal story during the ‘Envy’ sequence in which the voice-over articulates how her father wrote poems to express his own emotions towards Friedrich and the situation. The poetry as a medium echoes Friedrich’s diary, letter and filmmaking in addition to the mother’s choice of music, thus, elevating personal stories being compressed into different formats of artistic medium with the experimental film being the overarching form since Friedrich has collected all mediums implied in her Avant-Garde work.

Overall, both filmmakers recruit the Avant-garde film model in a tapestry of aesthetic organisation and sentimental essence, the former stemming from pre-filmed footage and the latter ideas around memories of family as part of an individual’s personal story, highlighting the mode’s unique stylistic and storytelling properties. Rosenblatt’s feature recruits its footage, as building off from its subjective contextual messaging, in a somewhat raw and touching manner. He narrates a stage of life any audience member can resonate with, using the experimental aesthetic toolset of a collective archive of diverse found footage he can edit together into one cohesive personal meaning. A sufficient portion of this can additionally be applied to Friedrich’s work, one that encompasses the power of using pre-existing objective footage and other mediums of art to communicate stages of her subjective experience. However, Sink or Swim’s story is slightly more niche in its subject matter and aftermath. Regardless, Friedrich’s creation also resonates on profound levels due to the immersive emotion in vision as combined with the relentless quality in execution.

Bibliography

Nardelli, Matilde. (2010). Laura Rascaroli (2009) The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film. Film-Philosophy. 14. 191–195. 10.3366/film.2010.0058.

Constance Balides, Maureen Turim, Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History, Screen, Volume 32, Issue 1, Spring 1991, Pages 120–125, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/32.1.120

Schubert, Franz, Gretchen am Spinnrade, Part One, scene 15 of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, 19 October 1814

Baddeley, A.D. (1997) Human Memory: Theory and Practice (Revised Edition). Psychology Press, East Sussex.

[oosteven-universe]

Compass #3

Compass #3 Image Comics 2021 Written by Robert Mackenzie & David Walker Illustrated by Justin Greenwood Coloured by Daniela Miwa Lettered by Simon Bowland    Evil pursues Shahidah El-Amin to the ends of the Earth…and miles beneath it. The quest for the Cauldron of Eternal Life takes Shahi—and her one-time sister-in-arms, now enemy, Ling Hua—deep within the darkest caverns of Christendom, where the treasure hunters face monsters, visions, and the legions of the dead!    This series continues to impress me.  As our young heroine tries to investigate what she’s gotten herself into and tries to outsmart Ling we see this hectic and utterly delightful story begin to take sharper shape.  I really like the direction that the boys take this issue in.  While we’ve been seeing both girls and their current predicaments seeming to parallel each other where they go and how they are so similar becomes even more crystal clear as the issue progresses.  That these girls are as physical in their approach as they are cerebral and it adds some really great oomph to the story.      I  am very much enjoying the way that this is being told.  The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well.  The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continue to bring their personalities out.  The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and the twists & turns along the way keep us glued to the pages.    The way that we see this being structured and how we see the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen.  It is within these layers, or avenues, that we see being explored with this insane characterisation adds so much great depth, dimension and complexity to the story.  Also the various factions that surround these two young women are given a chance to be understood more and this adds that little bit extra to the book that helps move the story forward. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.    The interiors here have a very comic book style to them and then there’s also a very distinct horror style mixed into this as well.  So by blending the two styles a new kind of imagery is created and it really has this wonderful aesthetic too.  This new blended style allows for some incredibly interesting attention to detail throughout what we see.  The linework is great and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised is well rendered.  The way we see backgrounds, which could be better but again that’s me, being utilised and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a talented eye for storytelling.  The colour work is exceptionally well rendered.  The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of colour. ​    This is a surprise hit for me.  It is endearing and charming and has all this unexpected charisma to the book.  There are moments where the girls defy stereotypes and prove that no matter where you come from you can be and do whatever you want to do.  This is a fantastic message too and it doesn’t matter if you are a boy or girl, young or old, it just sends such a positive outlook towards life.  With some spectacular writing and intelligent characterisation surrounded by these great interiors make this a true gem of a find. 

[inknose]

mdzs read diary part IV, the end

It’s inspiring how much self care wwx is gonna finally get now that his husband will go along with whatever he does, so he’s gotta look out for lwj’s well being if not his own. that is emphatically the STUFF

dragging my hands down I face as I read this, after all these chapters of getting up close and personal with ghouls bleeding from every orifice, slaying ancient beasts, rebelling against the entire cultivation world, the two of them are absolutely paralyzed by middle school crush sleepover math

chicken

he actually drew kissy doodles .... he....

IDK I THINK I JUST DOCUMENTED THIS PART CUZ I WAS STILL SCREAMING you cant expect me to have very useful things to say at this point

this is torture you are both so mushy you are so GONE

This part really stood out to me, it’s an attitude I feel like wwx implies with his inner narration a few times but most clearly says here: he’s not one for allowing himself to exaggerate how bad his circumstances are/could be even a little bit - he’s already lived through some extreme low points and found a way to keep going, so he never makes sweeping statements about what he couldn’t live without (Inner JingYi: you’re supposed to say you’d be lost without him here!!!) Instead he seems to accept as a given that being alive doesn’t guarantee him any pleasantness or joy at all, and as a result his feelings toward being in TRUE LOVE are surprisingly pragmatic, but also colored with such gratitude. There are a lot of things in the novel that struck me, like this, as being just a little to the left of familiar tropes/sentiments, and were more touching for it. Whether it be the influence of culture difference as opposed to what I’m used to reading in most western romance stories, or MXTX’s unique outlook, or a combination of both, it was really refreshing and made me pause over it. Not “I can’t imagine living without you” but “I could be living without you, but instead I get to be with you and I think that’s the best thing that could happen.”

ADJFDKFJ THE UST BEING SO STRONG THAT EVEN THE VILLAIN COMMENTS ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF EXECUTING HIS EVIL PLANS IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER FAIL TO MAKE ME LAUGH MY ASS OFF. hes like god damn! here I thought I had problems

it was at this moment that I realized we were doing this Now... I’m still recovering. What a scene. I am so glad I saw the most incredible fanart soon afterwards, bc the fact that someone has already drawn a perfect comic of this part means I don’t have to

I love you so much, you are so annoying, you are perfect... I like how he’s been experiencing openly requited love for all of ten minutes but he’s already figured out how to weaponize it to piss people off

doing!!! his!!! job!!!!!

ahh... it’s a really good story. JGY is a great character. One of the most interesting differences for me between drama watching vs. novel reading experience is that without an actor to bat his vulnerable doe eyes at you and smile faintly with his cute dimples, the book does not go much out of its way to try to lull the reader into a false sense of security around him or *endear* him to you the way the show does. But just by seeing events through wei wuxian’s POV, its still enough to evoke pity or understanding towards him. The overall impression is a bit more detached though, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle of how he could manipulate everyone closest to him and more of a general feeling of resigned tragedy that everyones the worst on this bitch of an earth.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU FOR EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!!!!

I clearly paused to take note of less and less parts at the end & the extras due to: a) too excited to reach the end b) too spicy to photograph and c) too sleepy cuz I kept reading in the middle of the night. but I absolutely took the time for Bro We Are Teens appreciation corner:

I’d absolutely read 40 more extra chapters of their monster-of-the-week field trip antics.

god... poor Jin Ling now basically has to deal with divorced parents that talk shit about each other to him whenever he is saying with one of them. except they are both his uncles. just a disasterhood of all uncles from start to finish. AUUUGH wei wuxian and jiang cheng have fucked me up completely, I dream of them reconciling but I also REFUSE to believe it would ever be easy. let me know if theres a fanfic that absolutely tortures you for decades before they hug

HAHAHA oh no this man ain’t making it to immortality thats for damn sure. HE’S JUST GONNA TRY AS HARD AS HE CAN HIS WHOLE LIFE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM BUT THEYRE *MARRIED* SDLKFJSF ohhhh it’s too funny, like... the mundane domestic family drama IN the fantastical swords and sorcery setting is what really ratchets up these things from amusing to fucking hilarious I think

aaaa the end... final random thoughts? No not final, I would like to please keep discussing at length and exhaustively, all the time please - CQL has gotta be one of the best TV adaptations I’ve seen. ANY adaptation of anything would be lucky to be so good!! reading the novel has just made me appreciate it even more.

- I don’t think I can do justice to what I find most fascinating about comparing the two versions briefly, to do that I need to get drunk and ramble at my friends for hours but... the condensed version is something like this. Really all the significant differences between the two versions (besides the ones which can be attributed to censorship and therefore aren’t worth discussing) are a side effect of the structure of how the story is told - there’s barely anything changed arbitrarily. Aside from having a cold opening, the drama sticks to a very linear version of the story, and I think for a TV show or film, that’s probably the best way to do it. We see everything, we get shocked and tricked and betrayed and surprised along with the characters, we feel the biggest impact at the climactic scenes having experienced all the build-up. The novel on the other hand is not only much more non-linear in WHEN we learn bits and pieces of information, but that information is also obfuscated under wei wuxian’s multiple layers of Unreliable Narratoritis, which are as follows: 1) difficulty remembering things because of personality/avoiding painful memories/actual memory loss, 2) No Homo Goggles still on, and 3) a wry sense of humor that makes the reader unsure of how much they can trust his attitude toward things, especially near the beginning. The experience of reading is a puzzle the reader has to mentally piece together through all of the above listed camouflage, and the puzzle itself is a three-sided mystery: One - How Bad of a guy was Wei WuXian really, and how exactly did all the bad stuff in his life go down; Two - wangxian epic pride & prejudice gambits; Three - political murder mystery. (I love stories like this btw... though I fully admit I’m glad I watched first this time bc it might have taken me a long time to tackle otherwise.) Because of this, where the drama wants to pull you in and submerge you in all the most potent emotional parts, the novel in direct contrast deliberately side-steps around these things and asks that you hurt yourself by filling in the blanks. In fact the more intense emotions and painful memories involved, whether it be his relationship with jiang yanli, his DEATH, the darkest days of war times etc, the more the novel evasively withholds details. I actually really like both styles of storytelling but each one is obviously way better suited to its medium. ANYWAY.... THATS BASICALLY WHERE MY BRAINS AT WHILE IM READING GAY SWORD WIZARD BOOKS

- The extras are so saturated with domestic married bliss that it’s a good thing I stopped taking pictures because I’d just take a picture of every page. this is too much for me to take... I did jump the gun a few times and read a few fanfics while I was still mid-read of the book (I tried to hold out but alas I am mortal) and at one point after finishing I was like “wow what fic was it in where lwj says something cute and wwx kisses him in public but they’re in the corner of the restaurant so no one really sees... OH NO WAIT that was actually in there.” and ... and that’s the LEAST OF IT... *stares into the distance* theyre married wow

- I ofc couldn’t help but see a few vague blogs beforehand so honestly I was braced for something like, wildly ooc for the sake of porn to happen in the extras... I definitely appreciate how the incense burner porn interludes could be uhhh a lot for many people and not my personal cup of tea in terms of smut however [here follows the words of a poisonous frog who has dwelt her whole life in the rainforests of BL] the concept is also surprisingly SWEET SDFLKJF like wwx sees lan wangji’s darkest mixed-up violent teenage fantasies and he’s just like aww babe you had a crush on me!! just... good for them

- I swear I’m not gonna rehash every cute married thing they do but wei wuxian grading papers in the tub........................rEALLY GOT ME

- I want to Draw - ok thats enough if I keep going I’ll just write “wei wuxian grading papers in the tub” seven more times probably

[moariin]

how to make your [fictional] world believable 

EDIT: this is an old post, most of my excerpts are based on my first and rough draft but the point still stand!

Quite an ironic title, but lately a lot of my asks on here and Wattpad were questions regarding worldbuilding and how I do them. I’m grateful for every single one of them! But I’m not 100 percent certified person to give out advice, I just thought it will be cool to expand on this ask. 

I also want to point out that this guide/advice can be also used in any genres (historical, contemporary, etc), fictional or real-world. Please note that this is based on my thoughts and ideas and so forth! And also this isn’t a full guide on how to get started on worldbuilding, but rather how to incorporate literacy devices and style to flesh out your world. 

Read more below the cut. 

So you made a world or in the process of making one, and now what? Well this post will help you polish it up. I will be using ‘These Hungry Dogs’ as an example.

Here are the 4 main breakdowns:

→  1. Sensory details

This is important to remember and should always be the first rule to keep in the back of your mind. 

A lot of times, people tend to get overboard with writing the government structure, types of religion, food, clothing, etc, that they forgot to put an emphasis on the five senses: sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste. Although having detailed structure or notes on what kind of government or cultural aspect is important, this have to come later. Keep it in the back of your mind.

An example of how to utilize the senses would be this: 

“ The Scheisygh was an unusual place. Upon reaching onto the spine of the thin, barred land stretched before him, [he] borrowed the same fragile morning air the terrain threw itself over the vast chasm. Even further, he saw the jagged teeth from the trenches embedded itself into the mountains. Dust and smoke spiraled into the air, a sign of life as the Myrgenvai camp rest just underneath the valley - hidden from prying eyes. ”

The bolded indicates the sensory details and both sight and scent are used.

By using these two sensory details, we have some idea on the geographical formation (mountainous region) from a character’s point of view and so on. We can also see how the character spots the camp, forming a distance in mind. I always try to put an effort in writing sensory details into the world. 

Here’s another example from my wip, The Water it Gives, using sound sensory:

Kenneth brought his briefcase along with him as he walked past the wheat fields, listening to the cicadas as the chirped eagerly among the grass. Everything is still and silent like the wind, not a single soul dared to cracked open its eyes and disturbed the solitude. 

→  2. Design (or ways to be sneaky)

Expanding on the five senses, a fictional world should always be active, giving life to the story. Things like having a short dialogue between the main character and vendor or overhearing a rumor while strolling down a market always lead the readers to be immersed in the world. 

There are two categories that goes with design are:                  1. Timing                  2. Environment 

Keep in mind that these two are the staple in every story as it creates a more grounded and realistic outlook on your fictional world. 

Timing is super important when crafting a story and worldbuild. 

One of the examples would be language, fictional or not, will always a subtle way to tell a place or region your character is currently in. Without the jarring details. 

“ They would always call him names. Names of which he had grown used to. Nuvahund, nuvahund, the children hollered after him as they prodded him with wide eyes and fits of laughter. ”

Now you may be thinking what does ‘nuvahund’ mean? Well for context, the excerpt above is where the fictional word makes it first appearance. Remember, not to force or reveal its meaning right away but instead let the readers keep it in the back of their mind. This is where repetition comes in. 

In the same chapter:

“ They whispered quietly of nuvahund. It was a common name, thrown into the streets and running mouths of children. ” 

Now in a different chapter and scene:

“ Drawing steps across the cavern, she slipped between cracks of the cavern, the one where [he] emerged from. She made a daring move as she glanced over her shoulders, hesitating a bit. But before [he] could react, Nadja was gone with an instant.

[He] threw his eyes to Isidor, throwing his voice out with anger, his throat grew tighter as he tried to choke his words out. "And you just let her go?" 

Nuvahund. How much he wanted to screamed bastard back. ”

This was done deliberately but also utilizing repetition and design, it creates a full circle: establishing a certain phase or word and revealing its meaning/definition. Context clues. Context clues.

So this brings to my second point, the environment. Environment can formed by the basic 5 W’s and H (who, where, when, what, why, and how). 

Bringing the previous example: 

“ The Scheisygh was an unusual place. Upon reaching onto the spine of the thin, barred land stretched before him, [he] borrowed the same fragile morning air the terrain threw itself over the vast chasm. Even further, he saw the jagged teeth from the trenches embedded itself into the mountains. Dust and smoke spiraled into the air, a sign of life as the Myrgenvai camp rest just underneath the valley - hidden from prying eyes. ”

This explores much of the five W’s and H, the bolded showing the what and where (The Scheisygh), who (the character’s pov), when (morning), how (the trenches embedding into the mountains).

Although not all of it was used, this scene explains much the environment and its formation the character is in. By using sensory details to reveal the geography/environment instead being straightforward can be more immersive in your storytelling.  

→  3. Personification 

Saving the interesting (creative) bits for last! 

This is one of my favorite literary device, I used it often in my writing. Most of the time I always personified the environment and geographical regions, basically all things inanimate. This is rather a more experimental type, find what you’re comfortable with, etc. Like the previous points I made, always remember subtly and design. As well as the importance when you want to draw personification into the story. 

This is a classic example on personification. 

“  As soon as the heart left the girl's open chest, the trees suddenly screamed, their melody becoming dissonant and coarse. With the loss of the girl's heart, they had lost one of their own. ”

Personification can be used alternatively, within fictional religion(s) or mythology for example. I tend to “shake” things up when writing mythology without giving too much away. So let’s say I want to write a particular scene where I could show a little world build. 

In this case, personification comes into play. Here we see that snow is personified as a shroud. 

“ As Emil stood watch as they work, the snow surrounded them, falling endlessly as if the white shroud Frau Holda had worn slid from her shoulders before retreating chaotic pits.”

ADDENDUM: Personification or any other literary devices should be only done when to serve the purpose. Always remember the design when formulating this (from the last point). The environment, and also the timing. For instance, say you want to write what’s the weather like during a scene. Try adding mythology or religion into the scene. 

As you can from the example of Frau Holda, a mythos figure, and her shroud as the snow falling. Things like that will help you avoid massive info-dumping and jarring exposition. Take things little by little, like digging a treasure. It’s hard work but in the end it will all pay off. Your readers are smart to find bits and pieces throughout the book.

REMEMBER! You’re telling a story not a documentary. 

→  4. Emotion/Tone

Like personification, part of the immersive storytelling is the emotion and tone. And I say, the most important. Remember what genre you’re writing or aiming for. Whether it’s fantasy or historical fiction or sci-fi, you should know which direction to take. 

Don’t be afraid to write flowery or purple! Though keep in mind the level and consistency, making sure that it’s the right timing. Personally, I usually write flowery descriptions whenever I stumble across writing a new place and connecting them into my worldbuild. Be smart and clever about it.

ADDENDUM: Think how each of your mythological figures represent, how do they act in folklore or stories? Are they violent? Virtuous? How do the people feel and act towards them? And how does your character see things, what is their perspective on the world and themselves?

By now, you can tell and pinpoint the direction I’m going for in ‘These Hungry Dogs’. As it’s a dark/low fantasy wip, I feel it would shaped better with a darker tone and setting, with some violent depictions (what I would call a red prose). 

Formulate the ideas and the plot, decide which tone works best for your wip and the genre. Although keep in mind, you can always explore out of the box, getting creative is part of the process. 

And that’s how the worldbuilding mafia works! I hope it wasn’t a jumbled mess to read through. Just shoot me an ask if you have any questions and I’ll be glad to help.

[eddycurrents]

Abe Sapien: Sacred Places - “The Healer”

Words: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie | Art: Sebastián Fiumara | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in Abe Sapien #13 | June 2014

Collected in Abe Sapien - Volume 5: Sacred Places | Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible - Volume 1

Plot Summary:

Travelling with Grace, the woman who was held captive by “he” last chapter, Abe comes across a family bringing their son to a healer they’ve heard of to hopefully cure him of an Ogdru Hem infection. Wacky hijinks ensue.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is solely in reference to the chapter itself and is not indicative of anything within the issues or collections.)

pg. 1 - This is brutal. It’s really weird to see Abe this vicious, but it’s powerful work from Sebastián Fiumara, Dave Stewart, and Clem Robins.

We also get a name for the woman who was being held captive last issue, Grace.

pg. 2 - Those fruit pies might still be all right to eat. I think they have enough preservatives in them to keep them “fresh” until the end of the world.

pg. 3 - Grace is definitely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Both from the loss of her daughter and for the hell that “he” put her through. The “smacked kitten” subservient behaviour that she shows when Abe says something about drinking a pop instead of water is disturbing.

pg. 4 - Another symbol of the fishy cult. And further evidence here of Grace’s fractured mental state.

Also, the half-transformed kid is creepy.

pg. 6 - Abe seems to get stabbed and shot a lot. You’d think he’d try to scavenge a first aid kit or something by now.

The pustules growing on the dead animal are reminiscent of what we saw in “To the Last Man”.

pg. 7 - It getting dark early, the ringing of a bell, I think Grace is probably right that they should be getting out of there. The situation, including basically having to ascend a hill, is somewhat like the mountains in Hellboy’s “The Crooked Man”.

pg. 8 - More creepiness. And continued uneasiness between the various people.

pg. 10 - Seems to be something important here.

pg. 12 - This is very weird.

pg. 13 - That the bell doesn’t have a clapper just puts the horror cherry on the top of this story. 

pg. 14 - This is just weird and creepy.

pg. 15 - I love the layout here. And it’s understandable that Grace is still on edge. I probably wouldn’t trust anyone or anything if I’d been in her situation either.

pg. 16 - Nice reminder of Abe’s real home.

pg. 18 - At least a decent outlook on the small things.

pg. 19 - Although it definitely seems like everything’s gone to hell again. That everything ends in ruin just reinforces that feeling that the world is sliding into oblivion.

pg. 20 - Well...that’s all the new people except for Grace down.

pg. 22 - And more creepiness from the carving. I don’t blame Abe for smashing it to pieces.

Final Thoughts:

I like the shift in storytelling style overall for these issues. Not just in alternating the two Fiumara brothers for the artwork, but in essentially presenting mostly self-contained single issue stories that feed a larger ongoing narrative, rather than the broader arc structure. And within those single issues, experimenting a bit with how the stories are told, like the third-person narration last issue and the circular storytelling here, with this chapter starting at the end, then going back and revealing the events that led up to the battle.

It’s also interesting that Abe has seemingly come to a decision that he’s going to go back to Colorado (or at least the timing of the sequences seems to imply that). For as long as he’s been fighting to just be another guy holding a gun shooting monsters, that seems like the decision here. Could just be a distraction, though, from Mignola and Allie.

d. emerson eddy has never found a carving of Jesus in his backyard.

[aquacai]

compilation of bts/army tweets i retweeted but doesn’t actually appear on my profile (TWITTER WHY)

TEXT POSTS:

Namgi are actual prodigies, how did bang pd just casually pick em up like that

ARMYs give BTS amazing promo but it only works cause...

And just in case anyone doesn't know, we call K-army "diamonds" because...

namjoon: i made espresso!! jungkook: i wanna try it namjoon: u hate bitter coffee  

seokjin couldnt give less of a shit!!!!

Hoseok is Rock Lee

We have faves that are so willing to educate themselves...

I actually adore the final verses of The Last so much.

Hobi’s pseudo-triple entendres

why is this something i feel like rap line does in the studio

the funniest part of this run ep was when taehyung said...  

BTS teletubbies @ MBC Gayo 2017

every update this year

top three betrayals are bighit not releasing tony montana feat jimin...

When I first began to fully get into BTS, I had a pretty jaded view...

Dear BTS 2013, its ARMY 2018.

MY  DNA

*Yoongi's dating rumour*

this episode (run ep. 46) was so full of innuendos

fake trans on jin’s supposed feelings about the SIN separation

whoever is directing run should be reigned as the nation's hero...

What do you call a company that surpassed and outsold the big3?

bts are the definition of hyping ppl up for doing the bare minimum

an actual conversation that happened (run bts ep 46)

suran suga again and army

So I suddenly remember when Namjoon said these during Wings Tour The Final...

She was pushed by another members of staff  while doing namjoon’s makeup

I WAS IN THE SHOWER BLASTING BTS AND ONCE I GOT OUT...

to the female staff who consoled jimin and keeps saying “you didn't mess up”...  

they went from pardon to what was that

What happened at the first two episodes just made me respect Namjoon more.

on a serious note, it would be nice if when bts gets a special someone...

Next time during BTS concert, instead of screaming “encore encore”...

yall ever wanna think about how namjoon said that jimin needs lots of love and attention and thats probably why he shared a room with hoseok bc thats what exactly hoseok gives him

if I have any feeling towards BTS thats stronger than Love then it's RESPECT

the reason Jin was going on and on with his (R)evolution (E)volution (D)rop in the ocean thing might be because he was "hinting" at Youtube Red

one day, there will be a last...

namjoon came to post a selfie and left with a dating scandal

remember when hobi said “i wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for bangtan”...

Namjoon admitting that he’s also “just a kid” ...

"The reason I make music is because, after all, I am also afraid of the world."

Yoongi's scalp is braver than any US marine

Sometimes we forget that Namjoon is also just trying to figure out the world.

PUMA fansign: thank you for making music that changes the world

Everyone has a musical preference & enjoy when their artists reflect that.

let me talk about taehyung and how amazing he is as a friend

i like when seokjin shares stuff about his childhood, we get to know his orijin

BTS is also  for redefining masculinity (hiphop is their way of life)

from humble beginnings to legends

burn the stage makes me realize that whenever rm post photos of nature ...

what exactly makes namjoon the sexiest for me ...

the reason seokjin’s chest and shoulders are so wide

Bighit: O! R YU DEAD, 2?

"What's your favourite song currently?"

the mask guy: u didnt bring anything to exchange so i cant help u

namjoons exchange [in the Fake Love Teaser 1] is so funny to me...  

here are some of my favourite joon interviews

"How did you join BTS?"

jin: i’ve been doing it for 4 years

I hate it when people say armys have two brain cells like bold of you to think we even have a brain (sarcasm lol)

i’m a new generation anpanman

When the Billboard news was released this morning... (wisha)

interviewer: so what are your goals?

sometimes i still think about how the fanchant of cypher pt4...

"Hoe calm down, my shoe lace is untied"

“itʼs ok, we all found bts when we needed them in our lives the most”

i’m so sorry but it’s fake love

i want to see the world from taehyung’s view

just for youuuu

i love that taehyung is never anything but proud when talking abt the fact that he’s gained weight

i bet taehyung gives the best hugs

Our bomb is like a permanent reminder...

remember when we were like omg hixtape‘s mv gonna have bomb ass choreography lmaooo

no but it's so cute bts call it family pictures and not group pictures??

there's an undeniable sexual energy between yoongi nd every trophy... 

bh staff: describe yourself in one word

jin: man, blowjobs sure are a mouthful (incorrect bts quotes)

THREADS:

I came across the Deloitte 2018 Media and Entertainment Industry Outlook

hoseok is one of the best dancers in the industry...

meaning behind whalien 52

KPOP101 LESSON 8: THE MINIMALIST ART OF THE KOREAN BALLAD

getting people flustered is hoseok culture - a thread

MY TOP 10 BTS SONGS (by KommonSense)

an explanation of rap lingo BTS use in their lyrics: a thread

I have some free time so like for an unpopular opinion. (hobybIo)

My Favorite Soft BTS Moments - A Thread! (odie)

Burn The Stage made me feel extremely vulnerable. (Aileen)

as Kings of Korean History [A thread] (KommonSense)

a thread of my favorite bts-related tumblr posts

Why and how the BTS rapline's experience with rap mirrors that of OG rappers

Everytime a BTS member was supportive of the LGBT community in any way

Namjoon (RM) Owning Up to His Mistakes

odie

Bangtan dancing styles thread

hoseok is one of the best dancers in the industry

Sky’s experience as a veteran ARMY

Jimin’s gliding technique (more threads on his dance technique)

analysis of how well DNA is structured as an EDM-pop song

I took a closer look into BTS’ intro Serendipity

Park Jimin is one of the most graceful and beautiful dancers in the industry

ok newbie kpop stans, welcome to history class (fandom shit)

An Introduction for the New, the Confused, and the Curious

BTS introduction thread

Science & literature are intrinsic to understanding how BTS and ARMY

how Singularity choreography coincides with lyrics

WHAT BTS ACTUALLY SAID - A MEGA THREAD

BTS song recommendations based on genres: a thread

rap line’s verses analysis

Mnet Comebackshow (LY:Tear) pre-recording review - THREAD -

"remember when" (BTS edition)

I'm watching a BTS music video and I don't know what the hell is going on, a thread:

LY: TEAR - MUSICAL ANALYSIS.

You know why I never will trust or listen to people who say "I left because of the fandom"

Type out what the bighit intro sounds like

Tyra Banks and her biological sons; a thread:

a thread about how BTS uses their music in their storytelling

for hot100, bts did what fans suggested

"Silly Little Trivia: Literal Choreography" thread for Fake Love

UNDERSTANDING BUniverse

BTS showing LGBT+ representation and support, a thread  (this, too)

BTS meets Western standards of “cool” established by 1960s music, particularly rock ethics

BTS’ success: human brand x fan relationship

to celebrate bts festa, here is a thread of army stan twt’s best moments

MEME PICS/VIDS:

Jimin in the Danger mv

save Cook-Jin

Hope as mom : can you even get in any college with these grades?

Namgi & their annoyingly jumpy kids

IM WHEEZING JIN DID IT AGAIN

Everything makes sense noW (spider bite, cooky bite)  

when they let you love them

When you need to wake em up

coming soon: Kim Seokjin only wanted a boyfriend

salt baes

EXPECTATION: "We aren't talking about BTS enough!

summary of run bts ep 46

i-armys and k-armys (suga’s ghost patting the clay)

Heaviest objects in the entire universe

"You will witness taehyung and jin fighting"

The battle of the year.

Hangsang with my thug

"Tangina mo," - J-Hope, 2018

choose your mineral water.

We all know... K-ARMYS & I-ARMYS

so who is giving them the candy?

I AM FUCKING DYING LAUGHING AT THEM IGNORING ALL THE KNOCKING IN THIS SCENARIO

I got bored and made ART

remember when namjoon asked for armys to edit him in because he missed the group picture with halsey

me listening to bts album skits

hoseok: hangsang with my thugs ||  his thugs:

we're finally getting the country comeback we deserve

fixed Jimin’s shots in LY:Tear

jungkook: made before i was born

this is what your food looks like inside the microwave

is this a theory?

is this an invitation?

He returned from the war

avatar Jimin

Yoongi and JK’s muffled convo

im just trying to take a nice screenshot....

ah yes, the four elements: fire, earth, water and snickers

Tyra Banks:  The BTS ARMY is devoted and crazy (in a good way!) xD

BTS [MV] - You Will Never Do a Live Alone

the nation's #1 producer & bts' hype man 

namjoon: you. me?

jungkook when he first met joon 

fierce lil meow meow

RM spinebreaker???

this looks like rap line were a group of friends who stuck together...

V was written all along in Jimin’s tweet lol

jwimin-ssi

Hangs out with Tyra Banks ONCE... 

learn the alphabet with BTS

TRANS:

When Bighit said they’ll donate 3% of LY album sales, u guys mocked us...

Kim Seokjin strange points

k-netz’ reaction on the Suga-Suran dating scandal

"Can bangtan fans please not get swayed by rumors?”

BTS trainer instagram re:B.T.S.

Music critic Kim, Youngdae nim’s MINI REVIEW on “Face Yourself”

Music critic Kim, Youngdae nim’s MINI REVIEW on “Euphoria”

bang pd and namjoon about his post supporting macklemore's song 'same love'

Konkuk uni student who became Seokjin's fan after speaking with him

I'm a multi-fan, I watch and listen to many idols, but I'm truly scared of BTS

an older woman(non-celebrity) admitted how much she loved BTS

So many warm teas in this article wrote by producer/musician Seiji Kameda

#LOVE_YOURSELF_轉_Tear Album HYYH Notes Translation Thread

180518 Love Yourself 轉 Tear - Thanks To Translations

“The lyrics in BTS’ album are so great  Huge congrats to receiving at BBMA ”

response to #1 Billboard 200

BTS 2018 Festa Member’s profiles

VIDS:

KBS Happy Together 3 - Spring Day sung in karaoke room

imagine being this close to sunshine

Ashes - Lim Jeong Hee ft. BTS (2011)

kook's carelessness brought out his sunshine laugh just like that

Remember when bts proved to armys that they are all really spiderman

that time the cameraman was filming bts and jungkook started telling him...  

i still get so soft over this the way jin hugged taehyung...

Seokjin killed it in this part in boy in luv

the sound of their footsteps is so satisfying omg

Remember when Jin and Ken met on a year end event rehearsal and they just...

Jungkook’s ‘yes’ and smile when Miri jumped through his arms...

seokjin and his interactions with camera men

Remember when Yoongi & Namjoon sang the high notes in Young Forever...

look at the difference between taekook and jinkook’s handshake lmao

this dance break has a special place in my heart :')

remember when Taehyung accidentally cut his real hair...

Nver forget that iris stevenson was the first one to believe in taehyung...

did yall notice that fdjghgd i’m shaking (run ep 46)

To remember the great SiN/YoonJin moment...

the wings era might be over but this snippet of each member’s solo songs...

Yes, Mom. This man right here. I love him. No more questions?

this is the best video of jin to ever exist

here’s jungkook having fun dancing to mama and lie

slush ft. jin

tell me why is it so funny that yoongi only opened 1/10 of his door n went back so fast

nothing but respect for my choreography leader

when jungkook opened the window well aware that it was raining

what makes you laugh? seokjin’s face

Bringing this back when taehyung was dancing nae nae...

SOMEBODY GIVE THIS BABY BLANKET AND BED...

i love this performance so fucking much!!!!

your ultimate mood booster (hobiiii)

HOLY SHIT MIN FUCKING YOONGI DID THAT

susko sobra ung bucket hats

THE WAY YOONGI AND HOSEOK SAY "RM" TOGETHER

remember when seokjin and hoseok were recognized by fans in america

jungkook imitated namjoon's finger heart and wink in a cute way

A compilation loop of Hoseok sneezing because it’s cute. Bless you!!

remember when jimin was hyping about their concert but hoseok

Hoseok left the group during Trainee days

heres 12 seconds of yoongi doing That Scream™ ...

this is what happens when you openly listen to bts without prejudice

when i say i want a rock song, i want THIS.

When Jungkook couldn’t pronounce Army bomb because of his Busan accent

U kno the thing joon does when he finds something?

reminding all of you that the special talent yoongi prepared is... imitating a doorbell

Here's a compilation of musicians getting shook by the sudden change to major in Jimin's 'Lie'

He actually blew a kiss how adorable

The fanboying level on this video is just

Hoseok doing background vocals/harmonising in Let Go (??)

...namjoon literally gets amused at the toy which blows a ball in the air...

NAMJOON DROPPED THE MIC HE WAS HOLDING AND JIN...

Lie rough instrumental

rough draft of Autumn Leaves, Young Forever, Wings (RM), Wings (JK)

Joon’s voice in the BBMA nomination teaser

Jin's reaction when I (sky) told him I brought him a present...

why BTS was nominated for BB TSA 2018

taehyung was fighting back his tears when they won TSA at 2017 BBMAs

Yoongi forgot his lines in Ma City and he just...

mannequin Tae

Bangtan ended ALL fashion weeks tonight !! (4th muster japan)

members cheering jimin up, wings tour macao

RM’s ending ment, Wings Tour the finale (Day 2?)

never forget bts' iconic reaction when they won their first daesang

When Jin was bowing, Jimin held him down and Jungkook immediately ran to sit in front of him.

jimin and seokjin debating whether dolphins could breathe underwater

look at tae's reaction when bang pd's voice broke

interviewer: what?

“DonT FiGht, Dont Fight!” :(((

RM: “we want to focus on our career”

Q: what's your favorite thing about yourself? yoongi: ᶤ ˡᶤᵏᵉ ᵖᵘᵖᵖʸ

WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT HOW JOON TRIED TO DO THE LIL DISNEY WAND THING WITH HIS FINGER IM HURTING

jungkook’s closeups

BTS with Ciara at the BBMAs 2018

don’t ever forget that seokjin is one hell of a snowboarder

“the reason why bts, who was not supported by big agencies, succeeded, is that they tried to read the world and to breathe [with the world] together”

this is what happens when u leave namjoon and jimin alone together

this video of seokjin being hype then instantly stops when his manager look at him will never be not funny

LMFAOOO WAIT TAEHYUNG AND NEYO WERE JAMMING TOGETHER

An exclusive interview with #BTS ! (MBC News)

i love this version of airplane pt. 2 so much (jk+jm part)  (jimin mode~) yt link full

john cena getting asked whats his favorite song off love yourself tear

The female staff who video tapes BTS bangtan bombs is amazing

WHAT THE FUCK JUNGKOOK LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE SEOKJIN...

Q: Please say something to international ARMYs

awake (short harp cover)

airplane pt. 2 dance cover

compilation of yoongi stuff in raps

wHY IS JUNGKOOK LIKE THIS

the way he said "what's your name?" and shouted "michelle!"

full vid of the two links above

#ISeoulU bts vid 2015

Tyra Bank’s music vid for Fake Love

vmin in sync is scary

fake love original choreo

jungkook said ‘mic drop!’ after he stepped on the wire and made the mic fall

tae acting in euphoria

puppy jungkook is still the most ᵘʷᵘ :(

hobi jk mirror dance with finger heart (mcountdown)

ONEW WAS THROWING CONFETTI AT TAE PLEASE THATS SO CUTE

Look how Jiminie gave the trophy to Yoongi cuz baby boy knows

tae: so show me  army: i’ll show you~  {music core)

minho and tae hugging (music core)

tae’s aegyo in board game run ep

look at taehyung acting all cute in the back

when seokjin goes like (•3•) its the cutest thing ever

wow jimin was that an accident

YOONGI REALLY IMITATED HIM IM SKFJDJ

What 시 (si; hour) is it?

SUGA: honestly, I rlly liked pro-wrestling

a fancam of taehyung spilling his water on his face

ARMY giving hobi a flower with his face on it (fansign) (180603)

BTS: *on their way to a very serious interview on one of Korea's biggest news channels*

yoonkok instant hug BV S1

sunud-sunod na aegyo in anpanman outfits

jungkook pulled off straps and threw down two straps then taejin picked them up

legends say this is the closest rep of how hoseok looks in real life

Kihyun really had the courage to throw confetti in yoongi's face tho

52 year-old man is a director of a company in Japan dancing DNA

I stan a king of fan service he's so adorable!

when taehyung was fake crying and jimin came & softly hugged him from behind

this or that game

jk imitating his hyungs (180607 fansign)

HOW UNSEE THIS IM LAUGHINF SO HARD shkhhh  (awake)

biggest mystery in kpop - who's collecting who in the background??? (taejin?)

SEOKJIN ENDED THE PERFORMANCE DOING A FINGER HEART... 180607

hopekook's modified mirror dance 180607 mcountdown

jk reacting to ariana grande bbmas 2018

Look a joonie :( look at him go :(

REMEMBER WHEN HOSEOK SAID HE WAS CLINGY WITH YOONGI (BV2)...

noona fan giving hobi and jimin “allowance”

namjoon drunk-tweeting?

carbonara

LOOK AT LIL MEOW MEOW GO (basketball)

look at jimin’s reaction when a noona gave him a finger heart

they had to throw the yellow cloth at the finish of the performance...

OTHER PICS:

tae being so accepting in star king ;w;

i may be not here since 2013, but im still lucky to witnessed yeontan's lil growth

remember when bangtan was running late for their show...

NAMJOON’S REPLY TO THE SELCA JIN POSTED OF HIM...

hobi and his hearts

ep 1& 2 of B.T.S. has at least cleared up 2 main issues in this fandom

RM has a little #WednesdayWisdom from Burn The Stage.

This photo is a complete mess.

yoongi’s kind of humor is my favorite

Their biggest dream isn’t to break records, its to stay together for a long time.

They recorded their interviews for the documentary when they did Gayo track 15

what jimin said here was really interesting and great

the most powerful twins

They decided not to blur these faces of people who's behind BTS’ success.  

BTS calls their staff with nicknames, noona or hyung...

it really went from edits to jungkook actually saying it

IM CRYING BIGHIT PAID FOR YOONGIS TUITON :((

LMFAO at none of them even touching the salad

tae’s uneven eyelids

when jin got allowance from his dad to buy steak...

LOOK AT YOONGI RUN SJDNDNDNDN

give me a better photo transition I'll wait #euphoria

love yourself 起 wonder (2018)

jin being peymous even pre-debut

THIS STILL GOTTA BE THE FUNNIEST THING JOON HAS EVER SAID

the most remarkable twins in history

a turkish tv show asked for ppl to send in pics w their siblings and someone sent in jin and jimin

taehyung’s a legend that listens to music on his laptop on the go

onigiri yoongi

MY MOTHER CAME INTO MY ROOM AND ASKED IF JIMIN IS MY BOYFRIEND

jung hoseok aka the king of mirror selcas

Tiny bestfriends vmin who have been inseparable since kindergarten AU

old bts pics I still can't believe exist: a thread

yoongi at namjoon's graduation (w/ hoseok)

I COMBINED TAEGI'S PICS TOGETHER AND OH MY GOD SJSB

"i put sticker on my carrier" yeah ryt

oh nothing just seokjin casually putting his LG G7 ThinQ at his jacket pocket

He show his flower uwu

taehyung accidentally becoming a meme on diplo's snapchat

Never forget Jungkook's Hongdae adventures

THANKS JIN for not killing jungkook

liam’s post of namjoon :D

that one time namjoon tweeted a picture of them with the caption of “we are all fools”

A 59-year-old friend of mine talking about Love Yourself:Tear

I was worried because I thought yoongi kept doing some kind of gang sign but--

This has to be the best reaction to a non-fan of BTS...

when you are sitting beside BTS but mcflurry ice cream is life

why is this exactly what all of their mixtapes sound like

dispatch - yoongi, fake love

taehyung’s chubby cheeks when he smiles

taehyung and his tea

OMFGGMFM LOOK AT Tyra Banks when boys went up for their award she’s a whole Mood I love her

BTS FESTA 2018 prediction

carry him again, jin

I KNEW THEY WERE GONNA CLOWN HIM

top10 mistranslations betrayal 

Yoongi doing ᵗʰᵃᵗ smile

wide open yoongi

brigada eskwela stairs album art

jin flower petals (fansign)

namjoon vs svt jihoon

yoongi continuing his lil meow meow agenda

These two cuties just melted my whole heart (tae and tanie)

So... are we gonna talk about how they drew one stickman thicker than the rest

Low key promoted BTS the past 3 weeks in our hospital...

The exact same cat, same plant & same island taken 1 year apart. (ARMYSelca)

yoongi bunched up(?)

[recentanimenews]

RABUJOI’S Top 10 Anime of Winter 2020

10. Magia Record

The style, atmosphere, and whimiscal visual language of the original Madoka are there, but the narrative depth (not to mention novelty) are notably absent. Questions are often answered with more questions in a story that remains stubbornly opaque, the very Madoka-esque MC Iroha’s central quest leads to a dead end, and there are probably more magical girls introduced than needed. That said, it’s not terrible, and probably a must-see for Madoka completionist. Hopefully its second season will improve upon the shortcomings of the first.

9. BOFURI

It’s full title—i don’t want to get hurt so I’ll max out my defense—is its general premise, but the devil’s in the execution, details, and above all tone, and BOFURI excels at all three and kept me coming back, where a similar VRMMO game, Infinite Dendrodragon, lost me in its opening minutes. In addition to being cute as all get-out, Maple represents a bright (light-wise, not smarts) ball of optimism who values making friends and having fun together over winning…though she wins plenty!

8. Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

While there are times when calling this “animation” is generous, the lushness of the painterly stills that suffuse Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun more than make up for the occasional lack of complex motion. Unlike other Lerche entries, it also benefits from a much smaller cast and an optimistic outlook that brightens its darker corners. Nene, Hanako, Kou & Co. are all beautifully drawn and voiced and easy to root for.

7. ID:INVADED

Drawing from a dizzying array of sources from Sherlock Holmes to Blade Runner, ID:INVADED makes up for it’s lack of solid resolution and occasionally scattered ideas with slick character design, a smattering of likable (or at least sympathetic characters with clear motivations, and some truly weird dreamscapes.

6. In/Spectre

A show that celebrates both traditional and modern forms of storytelling, Kyokou Suiri is anchored by it’s surpassingly spunky, takes-no-prisoners, pint-sized supernatural detective extraordinaire, the one-legged, one-eyed Kotoko. There’s a lot of talking in this show, but it’s almost never not thrilling, and often accompanied by just the right amount of action and comedy. Your mileage may vary when it comes to her likability or the show’s structure (half monster of the week, half final showdown), but I loved In/Spectre’s tendency to march to the beat of its own drum.

5. Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T

We’re only nine episodes into a planned 25-episode series, but Railgun T marks a return to character-driven, (relatively) straightforward storytelling and planting a firm spotlight on the titular uber-heroine Misaka Mikoto, frightening and adorable in equal measure, depending on her mood. She finds herself and her friends in the middle of a squabble between factions of her city’s underworld, but (perhaps) with her sparkly-eyed frenemy Misaki she looks poised to make life inconvenient for all of them.

4. Fate/Grand Order: ADF – Babylonia

An “It’s All Down To This/Us” pervades every episode of F/GO, but while the future of human civilization is taken to the absolute brink, there’s never the slightest sense of nihilism or fatalism in its narrative. That’s thanks to the dogged bravery of its two leads Ritsuka and Mash and their galaxy of awesome-looking gods, goddesses, and kings doing increasingly awesome things by their side. A feast for the eyes with the capacity to warm the heart.

3. Chihayafuru 3

Chihayafuru manga and anime fans alike probably found a lot to like about the long-awaited third season, arriving six years after the second with a lot to do. The primary gripe, then, is that we may have to wait another few years to return to this quirky world of intensely competitive karuta players more often than not finding the game a haven of clarity from their tangled relationships, emotions, and futures.

2. Somali and the Forest Spirit

Can a human child survive in a world that hates (and eats) humanity? More importantly, does her golem guardian love her? Yes and yes, as explored in a sumptuous fantasy anime packed with gorgeous painterly settings and equally colorful (and morally diverse) characters, in which the destination of the last human colony takes a backseat to the journey, which is educating for father and child alike.

1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

An deeply satisfying and heartwarming anime about three startlingly different yet equally lovable young women coming together to create something amazing. A Yuasa Maasaki love letter not just to anime, but the creative process itself. Any other challengers for Anime of the Year will face an uphill climb: Eizouken is in the stratosphere.

By: rabujoistaff

[ladystylestores]

Totême’s Founders Talk Physical Retail, and the Joy of Slowing Down – WWD

https://pmcwwd.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/elin-kling-karl-lindman-portrait.jpeg?w=640&h=415&crop=1

LONDON — Swedish label Totême has been forging ahead with growth, opening a shop-in-shop earlier this month and readying a number of accessories launches, including handbags and sunglasses, for later this year.

While the founders of Totême weren’t planning for a crisis like COVID-19, their slow-fashion strategy and timeless approach have buoyed the company in hard times.

Like any other business, Totême had to face the impact of the pandemic and was one of the first fashion labels to close its store in Stockholm, yet its healthy direct-to-consumer business and detachment from the fashion week calendar meant that it could stay afloat and keep moving forward with its plans.

Totême started as a digitally native brand driven by one of fashion’s most popular online personalities, Elin Kling, and the former art director Karl Lindman.

Kling, one of blogging’s biggest pioneers, has never chosen the easy or conventional route. When founding Totême more than six years ago, she shut down her own social media accounts, and instead of using her personal following to build buzz, she took a step back from the limelight and turned her time and attention to the fledgling label.

Totême’s San Remo scarf.  Courtesy Photo

Totême grew a loyal community of its own, attracting stylish minimalists across the globe who turn to the brand for its quality and timeless approach.

This community came together through word-of-mouth as much as it did on Instagram — and its flair for discretion and a slower approach to growth has helped the brand to maintain its relevance, irrespective of market trends.

Despite the duo’s digital know-how, the duo chose to also embrace some old-school values from the get-go — namely seasonless, slow fashion and offline engagement. They are now reaping the benefits: This month, the label opened a new shop-in-shop in Stockholm’s Nordiska Kompaniet department store, an institution in the Swedish capital.

Totême’s store inside the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in Stockholm.  Courtesy of Erik Undehn

The Nordiska Kompaniet opening presented an opportunity to keep experimenting with physical retail, following the brand’s successful flagship opening in Stockholm last year — and to inject a dose of its modernist vision into the historic store.

“It’s about bringing new vision to an old structure. We strongly believe that a brand like Totême can renew and create this value for iconic department stores, in this case Nordiska Kompaniet,” said Kling.

Lindman added that physical spaces act as a storytelling tool for the brand, to be enjoyed both by customers who visit the stores in person in Stockholm but also online by those looking at images of the quintessentially Scandinavian interior design for inspiration.

“We want to use physical spaces to communicate our aesthetic and brand values — we almost look at them as embassies rather than retail stores. As an experiment, we started with our first flagship store and that’s been a great project for us, because as much as it is physical in the sense that the customer could go in and look at our [collections] and aesthetic, it can also be translated to online stories or images. Even if you’ve never been to our flagship store, the space offers a way for us to communicate with you,” added Lindman.

In the case of the new space in Nordiska Komapniet, Lindman and Kling wanted to create a graphic, luxurious environment symbolic of the brand’s aesthetic.

Totême’s shop inside the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in Stockholm.  Courtesy of Erik Undehn

They partnered with the Swedish design studio Halleroed to create a space inspired by the Vienna Secession movement, that was the initial inspiration for the Totême monogram and also reflects the department store’s original branding.

“It was a challenge to build a store within a store, as it required a different rule box. We didn’t want to create the same home environment that we had built in our flagship store, but rather focus on certain values of the Vienna Secession movement and build a creative, pure environment that’s all about the details,” said Lindman, adding that physical retail will remain a priority for the brand.

“We’re quite small, but we have very dedicated followings around the world. Our goal is to engage with those communities and bring people together. One way of approaching that is building these physical embassies where people can meet us, experience our values and aesthetic vision, as a counterpart to the online business.”

Kling and Lindman are also readying a number of accessories launches, including handbags and sunglasses, for later this year.

“We’d like to offer a 360-degree solution to our customer. Since we’re talking about style, it’s impossible to dress a woman without thinking about her shoes or bag, where she goes out, what flowers she likes, and so on,” said Lindman. “We’re defining who she is and what she’s wearing step by step, then filter that down into products.”

But just like their highly successful footwear debut last year, the duo is keen on keeping it slow and highly edited with a single new style launching every second month on its own channels.

Mules by Totême.  Courtesy Photo

“I have more shoes than I have bags and that’s also the way we will be selling [the category]. We’re launching with one bag only, then the second one will drop a couple of months later, and that will be a different category within the bag range,” said Klin, adding that the utility is top of mind when it comes to making design decisions.

Her instinct has always been about looking at her own wardrobe and round-the-clock needs, be it a weekend with her children at the park or an evening cocktail event. From there the brand has made it its mission to create modern staples that respond to each occasion or need.

That’s why Totême loyalists are encouraged to buy into the brand with a longterm view, and each collection is designed to build on the previous ones, with items often coming back with small refinements or new color variations.

“It’s less about inspiration from a certain trip and it’s definitely all about a need for women’s modern-day lifestyle,” she added. “We’re thinking about dressing for an occasion, what we need [for that occasion] and how can we create new icons, new classics around that lifestyle. An icon to us is that item that lasts season after season, but can still have a modern outlook and be relevant today. How does a cable knit look like today? How do I make it feel modern but not too trendy? We’re not looking for trends, we’re looking for trans-seasonal style that lives for a long time. That’s where we score.”

Totême’s Avignon leather jacket.  Courtesy Photo

It’s an approach that resonates even deeper today, that consumers are reassessing their shopping habits and the industry is forced to slow down and grapple with the giant waste issues its relentless pace and thirst for newness has been generating.

“This new mentality that is dawning is very much aligned with our philosophy from the beginning. It’s less about new seasons, but twisting and reinventing the classics,” said Lindman. “Through this crisis, we’ve learnt that we can be even more specific, even more edited and focused on every single product. To us, that’s very sustainable: Having a point of view and an aesthetic approach, rather than trying to be everything for everyone.”

That’s why the duo have also chosen to keep their expansion into accessories limited to their own channels and a few see-now-buy-now products a year.

“I’m not looking to create five different pairs of Chelsea boots. We already have so many choices to make in our daily lives. I want to create the perfect Chelsea boot for me — and that’s enough. Then it’s up to the customer if she likes it or not, but at least she’ll know that for Toteme this is the perfect solution,” added Klin.

Totême’s store inside the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in Stockholm.  Courtesy of Erik Undehn

The company, which appointed former McKinsey executive Johanna Anderson as its new chief executive officer last January, has also been strengthening its direct-to-consumer business. E-commerce makes up 40 percent of its business and remains on track to grow to 50 percent by the end of the year.

“We still want to continue developing this collaboration with luxury [wholesale] partners which can carry our message. That’s why we’ve had four collections a year [to date] but we’re excited and interested in current discussions post-COVID-19 about slowing down the industry,” added Lindman.

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from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2zAYReb

[theconservativebrief]

What do you get when you combine the raw charisma and star power of a budding mega-celebrity, a heartwarming melodrama about finding love and friendship in multicultural America, and an iconic soundtrack that spans everything from pop-infused traditional Indian music to Roy Orbison?

You get Kal Ho Naa Ho, the beloved 2003 Bollywood romance headlined by international superstar Shah Rukh Khan, a.k.a. SRK, the “king of romance” in Southeast Asia and beyond. Kal Ho Naa Ho, better known as KHNH to its fans, was released 15 years ago this week and arguably did more than any film before it to introduce the style and music of Bollywood to an international audience.

If you’ve never heard of Kal Ho Naa Ho, that’s forgivable. This ebullient musical tale of Indian Americans falling in love in New York City has often been overlooked in the annals of famed Bollywood cinema. But KHNH left a lasting legacy in a number of ways: The movie kicked SRK’s international celebrity into high gear, and its extremely popular soundtrack, which broke sales records in India and abroad, helped export Bollywood music to the rest of world.

In India, Kal Ho Naa Ho was the second-biggest film of 2003. But internationally, it scored an even more significant milestone: It garnered what was then the biggest overseas box office ever for a Bollywood film, opening in the UK top 10 and breaking box office records for Bollywood films in the US. It even kicked off an industry trend of setting Bollywood films in New York.

But above all, KHNH — which is conveniently streaming on Amazon Prime — gave us a heartwarming, hopeful love story that captured audiences’ hearts while sidestepping tired genre tropes in ways that are still refreshing today.

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The title of Kal Ho Naa Ho translates to “tomorrow may never come,” and the film’s story revolves around a typical New Yorker: clever college student Naina (Preity Zinta), whose family epitomizes Queens’s thriving Indian-American community. But Naina’s headstrong determination never to get married is diverted when her mom, Jennifer (Bollywood veteran Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan), prays for positive changes to come into their lives.

For Naina, these changes happen by way of her bashful, dorky longtime friend Rohit (Saif Ali Khan) and the brash but charming Aman (Shah Rukh Khan) — a recent arrival to America who quickly becomes a huge part of the community. Over the course of the film, Naina falls hard for Aman. But even though Aman is clearly in love with Naina as well, he’s determined to set her up with Rohit, who’s been quietly pining after his best friend for years.

How does everything shake out? Well, I won’t spoil the ending for you, but suffice to say that KHNH devotes most of its dreamy love scenes to the chemistry between Zinta and SRK.

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Along the way, there’s plenty of infectious music, singing, and dancing, thanks to an unforgettable soundtrack and classic Bollywood dance numbers like this one:

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Each of these elements was crucial to KHNH’s success — and crucial to its celebration of multicultural America, globalization, and true love.

KHNH was a deep collaboration between producer/screenwriter Karan Johar and director Nikkhil Advani in his feature-length debut. On the surface, it seems like your average Bollywood movie. It’s got a typical three-hour runtime — outsize in America but standard in Hindi films — and a typical romantic melodrama at the center of the plot. Like nearly all Bollywood films, it features lots of singing and dancing, balanced against at least one giant moment of angst.

But there’s plenty that makes KHNH unique in the annals of Bollywood classics and even among rom-coms both past and present.

For starters, Kal Ho Naa Ho really does feel like a rom-com even when it’s using the traditional structure of a Bollywood melodrama. In many ways, Naina is the typical early-2000s rom-com heroine: an independent, nerdy 20-something city girl (her glasses, rare for a Bollywood heroine to wear in the early ’00s, reportedly spurred a fashion trend). Though Naina clashes with her family over her determination to stay single, she retains a firm agency over her own life.

Additionally, though the film focuses on the love triangle, it’s full of three-dimensional female characters, and its entire plot is fueled by choices Naina and the women in her family make. Some fans have argued that because the role of Naina’s mother Jennifer is so central to the plot, and because Naina’s community is largely directed by women, KHNH in fact presents an onscreen matriarchy — a rarely seen phenomenon in cinema even today.

What perhaps makes KHNH even rarer, though, is the way it treats Rohit and Aman. Critics have frequently noted that the two men’s friendship is considerably deeper than their mutual love for Naina, but despite an unfortunate running gay joke in the film that lampshades this intimacy, KHNH never turns their friendship into something toxic or divisive. Instead, it celebrates platonic male closeness rather than shying away from it — and even better, the two men never allow their friendship to be threatened, despite the fact that they are in love with the same woman.

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The final atypical thing about Kal Ho Naa Ho in the annals of romance is that the film goes out of its way to show Aman actively refusing to pursue Naina even though he loves her — which puts Naina in the position of being the one to court and woo him, something romance heroines rarely need to do.

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All of this could have served as the setup for a flare-up of deep conflict between the three main characters. But instead, Kal Ho Naa Ho constantly affirms the love and friendship that exist between all three of them, both as individual pairs and as a group. Refreshingly, even though Rohit is clearly the softer and less flashy of Naina’s two suitors, the movie never really positions either man as a “better” choice for her — instead, it presents them both as compatible with her in different ways, and ultimately never asks the audience to pick a “side.”

In 2017, director Advani discussed how unique the film’s positive outlook was in the annals of modern Bollywood romances. “It wasn’t a film about Aman and Naina or Rohit and Naina. It was about the friendship that Aman and Rohit shared,” he said. “None had attempted to make a film on those lines, and that’s why it was so successful.”

Though the meaning of the film’s ominous title ultimately becomes clear (again, I won’t spoil it), and though KHNH ultimately adheres to the rule of melodrama wherein even the happiest endings are attained through grief and copious tears, it’s difficult to wrest it away from its rom-com leanings. The film’s treatment of its central love triangle — and indeed, the concept of love itself — is the main reason for this. Kal Ho Naa Ho argues that it’s not only romantic love that saves us, but also a deep collective love among friends that transcends tragedy and helps us overcome grief.

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Beyond its subtly subversive storytelling elements, KHNH is also unique due to the role that New York plays in the movie. Shot mainly in New York and Toronto, KHNH drips with color and cheer. The setting is a key feature of the film, and one that was extremely important to its ultimate success in the US.

It was practically unheard of in 2003 for Bollywood films to focus on nonresident Indians — that is, Indian characters living overseas. But Kal Ho Naa Ho employed actual ethnic residents of Queens as extras, and depicted Indian and Indian-American characters as an organic part of everyday American life and culture. It even portrayed everyday American capitalism: A major subplot involves Jennifer’s competition with a neighboring restaurant.

Even within its depiction of Indian-American communities, KHNH is notably and impressively diverse. The film’s characters represent India’s own cultural diversity; Naina’s Punjabi family contains members who are Christian and Sikh, while Rohit’s family is Gujarati — a positive mix of subcultures within the Indian diaspora that enhanced the film’s feel-good humanism. Cross-cultural blending is not only accepted but encouraged, as are multiple approaches to love and marriage.

The character of New York is particularly moving and significant. Even though the movie’s production took place in late 2002 and 2003, KHNH in many ways feels like a relic of pre-9/11 New York and pre-9/11 cinema. It carries all the optimism and vibrancy of a city not yet reeling from a wound, set in an America that had not yet developed ongoing friction with its immigrant populations. Kal Ho Naa Ho wears its American character proudly, seamlessly fusing American and Indian culture into the background of its love triangle plot.

And underscoring that fusion is the film’s famous soundtrack, which turned artistic multiculturalism into its strongest selling point.

The KHNH soundtrack was written by the Indian performance trio of Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, and Loy Mendonsa, better known as Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy. They were fresh off their rise to public attention with their previous film, 2002’s Dil Chahta Hai — but Kal Ho Naa Ho not only surpassed its success but became an immediate best-seller and an instant cultural landmark.

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, the film’s title track is a ridiculously earworm-y love ballad that croons throughout the film, reminding us that tomorrow may never come. The video for this song, embedded above, clearly played to the film’s strengths — it’s basically SRK making love to the Brooklyn Bridge.

The entirety of Kal Ho Naa Ho’s soundtrack is about fusion — mixing vintage pop and modern pop, traditional and modern Southeast Asian music, and different varieties of international music. We see this most clearly in Kal Ho Naa Ho’s unexpected but delightful tribute to disco, in a scene that unites traditional Bollywood dance with the joy of ’70s music and the New York City club scene of the early ’00s. The song, appropriately enough, announces, “It’s the Time to Disco,” and indeed it is!

But unquestionably, the film’s most American moment, both musically and on the whole, comes when Aman sees Naina for the first time. Immediately smitten, he expresses his interest in her by singing an updated Bollywood cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” against the backdrop of a giant American flag. It’s interspersed with scenes where Aman rallies a classic all-American block party, as a collage of diverse performers all break-dance in front of the flag, reminding us that America is all about multiculturalism and rock ’n’ roll.

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The film’s soundtrack continues to be remembered and celebrated today and is widely considered one of the most successful soundtracks in Indian cinema.

All of this reaped huge box office success for the film.

Most significantly, all of this was occurring during a new intense period of cultural globalization and communication. KHNH was a cornerstone film, in that for many people it was their first experience of modern Bollywood cinema. It allowed nonresident Indians to connect to each other and to the experience of being Indian overseas, while seeing themselves depicted onscreen in ways that made their lives newly accessible to foreign audiences. And it celebrated Indian-American culture onscreen in ways that still feel admirable and unique today.

Above all, though, fans remember it for the tearjerking romance at its center — and the reminder to always seize the day and celebrate love at all costs.

Original Source -> Celebrating 15 years of Kal Ho Naa Ho, the classic romance that brought Bollywood to America

via The Conservative Brief

[wedecadentcollectiontacouni-blog]

Essay about story of an hour The Story of an Hour - Sample Essays

Furthermore, Chopin, in this story, tried to reveal the joy of liberation from an unsuccessful marital relation by using euphonious words and such usage can be found in this line: “The delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin, 1894). The Story of an Hour. The Story of an Hour is one of the greatest short stories ever written in English language. In this story Kate Chopin meticulously incorporated her unique style of writing and through such infusion the author tried to convey to the readers the pains and agonies from which women usually suffered while dwelling within the male dominated society. By presenting before the readers the emotional turmoil and psychological transition of the protagonist Mrs. Millard, Chopin succeeded to reveal the dark truths of married life, a life in which, conventionally, women are held imprisoned by rigid social conventions. By conveying the positive emotional state of Mrs. Millard, along with the a sense of triumph, which she experienced after learning about her husband’s death, clearly points to the fact that the central theme of the story is undoubtedly about the relation between marriage and imprisonment which no one but an unhappily married woman can understand. Though not stated directly by Chopin, the pivotal theme of the story circles round the dilemma from which women usually suffer when they are forced to lead a married life devoid of love and freedom and this theme has been conveyed scrupulously by the author through the infusion of selective style of writing, sentence structure, word use, use of figure of speech, and use of symbolism. In this story Chopin did employ the strategy of third person omniscient point of view which is “a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story” (Wiehardt, n. To ascertain the implementation of such method one can quote the following line: “But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (Chopin, 1894). Going through this line it can be understood that the narrator is like a God who can read the mind of the character and can understand her thoughts and feelings and moreover, the narrator has an all-pervasive presence which enables her to know about the emotional and physical transitions of the character perfectly. Hence, from this perspective it can be said that in The Story of an Hour, in order to reveal the joy of a woman who has just been liberated from the prison of her dejected married life, Kate Chopin did use the third person omniscient method of storytelling. Kate Chopin had a unique style of writing an in this story she did scrupulously amalgamate her emotional style of writing through which she “actively searched for female spiritual emancipation” (Deter, n. Chopin was a feminist writer who, unlike many other feminist writers of her time, wanted to upheld the personal freedom of women through judging the traditional outlooks of both women and men. Furthermore, Chopin’s effort to bring before her readers the harshness of a loveless and emotionless married life can be easily seen in The Story of an Hour by going through the complex sentence constructions like in the following line: “What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! By avidly reading such lines it can be understood that Chopin did deliberately use such complex sentences to convey the complexities of a loveless married life in which wife is like a prisoner bound to adhere to the traditional rules of the society which enforces her to be dutiful to her husband even if the latter did never show any warmth of lover to her.... View more ...

[doctorwhonews]

Torchwood: Believe (Big Finish)

Latest Review: Writer: Guy Adams Director: Scott Handcock Featuring:John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, Burn Gorman, Arthur Darvill Big Finish Release (United Kingdom) Running Time: 3 hours Released by Big Finish Productions - April 2018 Order from Amazon UK "We're responsible for everything we do, Val. Every book you've written for money that tells people what to think, every DVD you've produced for money that tells people what to change about their lives. Every speech, every assembly, every word - you don't get to do that and shrug away the responsibility." Upon learning of Big Finish’s successful acquisition of the Torchwood licence back in 2015, fans the world over – this reviewer included – immediately began drafting their personal wish-lists for the franchise’s impending audio continuation. What happened next after Miracle Day? Could Owen and / or Tosh return to the fold despite their demises in 2008’s “Exit Wounds”? Was it time to learn the fabled secrets of Torchwood Two? And no, seriously, when were we moving on from Miracle Day so as to get that failed US soft reboot’s sour taste out of our palettes? Perhaps the most pressing point on the agenda, however, was just how swiftly the studio could reunite Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper for any lost missions beyond those we witnessed on-screen in Seasons One and Two. Well, we’ve waited three years – the Owen-less 10th anniversary celebration The Torchwood Archive notwithstanding – to discover the answer, but it comes in the form of perhaps the range’s most satisfying boxset to date, Torchwood: Believe. Isolating his latest scripts from both the sinister activities of the Committee in Big Finish’s monthly releases and Cardiff’s present apocalyptic state in Aliens Among Us proves a genuine masterstroke on Guy Adams’ part. Rather than forcing newcomers enticed by the return of all five Torchwood Three members to hit pause and purchase past releases in order to decipher what’s occurring here, the regular range contributor delivers a totally standalone affair, albeit one which still packs no shortage of emotional punches thanks to further exploring many thematic and character strands first established in the original show. Part of what makes this approach so successful from the outset is how comfortably familiar Believe’s opening moments will seem to those fans who’ve followed the show in all its forms since Day One (episodic pun fully intended). At first, we’re presented with a run-of-the-mill debrief led by Owen into the ongoing exploits of the Church of the Outsiders, a seemingly innocuous religious cult whose efforts to hasten humanity’s ascent to meet – and interbreeding with – alien species include stealing classified UNIT data, dabbling in illegal cyber augmentation as well as setting up their own TV channel, community centres and full-fledged indoctrinatory academy. It’s a quintessential sequence that feels ripped straight out of the TV show, with each cast member helping to remind us of the lead ensemble’s witty rapport: Owen (Gorman) righteously assured of his every move’s necessity, Toshiko (Mori)’s reserved tendency to serve as the voice of reason, Ianto (David-Lloyd)’s still-growing confidence within the team dynamic, Gwen (Myles)’s often gung-ho attitude tempered by the personal grounding that she brings to the agency and Jack (Barrowman) as enigmatic as he is charismatic. So far so Torchwood, then? Clearly, we’re in for three hours’ worth of Avengers: Infinity War-style crossover banter, right? Not exactly. As Adams and producer James Goss accurately highlighted in the midst of Believe’s pre-release marketing campaign, the show – in its on-screen incarnation – would often split up the team to achieve different goals within the context of the wider mission, thereby allowing time to explore how each character’s individual passions and flaws affected their outlook on increasingly hostile situations. Indeed, the same rings true here as Ianto pairs himself with one of the Church’s devoted disciples to further investigate their goals, Tosh pursues the sect’s resident accountant Frank Layton (brought to life with self-titled and loathsomely complacent aplomb by ex-Doctor Who companion Arthur Darvill) and Gwen meets Church leader Val’s introverted daughter Andromeda, all while Owen oversees operations from the Hub and Jack heads off to pastures unknown. Yet to simply describe Believe as but a scattershot collection of plot threads which eventually converge would severely undermine the scale of Adams’ achievement, not least in challenging each member of the team with dilemmas the likes of which they’ve arguably never faced before. The Church’s interstellar ambitions resonate in extremely different ways for each of our protagonists, with Jack for instance earnestly admitting his yearning to travel the stars as he once did with the Doctor, Ianto – as with The Last Beacon in April – once again forced to consider whether his ties with Torchwood Three threaten to rob him of any soul, hope or life meaning, and most notably the show’s beloved unrequited romance between Owen and Tosh taking the most disturbing detour imaginable. For make no mistake, the scribe who showed us Suzie’s darkest inhibitions in Moving Target and took Gwen on a high-octane car chase with her local counsellor in More Than This has no qualms about taking further bold risks this time around either. Much as Gorman and Mori looked overjoyed to reunite their wayward almost-lovers when posting about their recording experiences on Twitter, the pair – both as actors and characters – are put through the dramatic ringer and then some here, Tosh’s efforts to extract any key intel possible from Layton about his supposedly selfless church-turned-charity soon developing into Children of Earth-level territory which could uproot her budding romantic tension with Mr. Harper forever. Think of a fall from grace on the scale of a Greek tragedy and you'll only just scratch the surface what's in store, as one of the pair colossally oversteps their reach to devastating effect. Thank goodness, then, that both stars knock the ball out of the metaphorical park with captivating, psychologically intricate and often downright heartbreaking performances. We’ll avoid spoilers here for the sake of preserving your listening experience, save for that the Tosh-Layton storyline builds to an extremely unsettling crescendo, to a place where this reviewer isn’t entirely sure even the TV show would’ve dared to tread on BBC One / Two / Three. Heck, Big Finish themselves rarely tend to stray into territory as macabre as this, barring some of their early Doctor Who Main Release excursions like Colditz or the Doctor Who: Unbound range, but when the results are so painstakingly powerful and haunting as this, one almost wishes that they’d take the leap of faith more often. Such narrative ambition on Adams’ part doesn’t end there – it pervades Believe on a conceptual level as well. Ever since juggling verbose duck companions with religious satire in The Holy Terror, Big Finish have shown their complete willingness to interrogate faith, its cathartic and chaos-inducing consequences for its followers / opponents, as well as whether anyone has the right to brazenly dispel theistic beliefs. Believe takes this contemplation to another level altogether, as Jack’s met with the profound existential dilemma of knowing that the Church’s desire to have humanity mingle with aliens will eventually come to pass, while Owen considers whether he’s fuelling the mission out of mere ego or indignation at religious groups’ naivety surrounding the afterlife, and Ianto undergoes an epiphany surrounding that aforementioned intervention by Torchwood into the beliefs of others without any consideration for the victims left behind come the mission’s denouement. Rhian Blundell's superb work as Ianto's endearingly sincere and passionate guide Erin helps immeasurably in the latter regard, with her and David-Lloyd's characters striking up a quaint college romance of sorts that won't fail to take even the biggest Jones-Harkness shippers off guard. Two questions might justifiably have occurred to readers of this review by now: why didn’t Torchwood Season Two’s final episodes make mention of these character moments if they’re so pivotal, and where does the inevitable alien antagonist factor into processes? Let’s tackle those in linear order – unlike Believe’s refreshingly non-linear structure, with Episode 1 in particular zipping cleverly between Owen’s initial debrief and each teammate’s consequent mission. Considering that Adams’ exemplary three-part tale situates itself explicitly between the events of “A Day in the Death” and “Fragments”, that it’s so intent on progressing arguably unresolved threads from the show such as the extents of Tosh’s loyalty, Ianto’s increasingly challenged worldview and Jack’s tendency to withhold the truth even from his comrades might stretch the credibility of its status as a ‘canonical’ in-between-quel for some. Nevertheless, just as some of Big Finish’s finest Who productions took slight liberties with continuity in the name of ambitious storytelling, so too does Believe admirably follow that route so as to truly test our perceptions of these evolving characters in fascinating, often remarkably unsettling ways. That also brings us onto its aforementioned extraterrestrial presence – again, staying clear of spoilers, Torchwood’s finest hours frequently arose from dealing with the worst of humanity rather than alien foes, which affords Adams the creative licence here to pit the team against fallible but equally rational members of their species whose sympathetic motivations only further the personal stakes for both factions. So in spite of bringing together the Famous Five as well as temporarily restoring classic elements from the show such as the fully-operational Hub and – of course – the SUV, Torchwood: Believe fast cements itself as anything but your average all-guns-blazing detective drama. There’s no denying that its audacious character arcs, unspeakably heartrending performances from Gorman and Mori, and realistic shades of moral greyness will result in a challenging listening experience for long-term fans, but those elements also set the boxset apart as an awards-worthy tour de force in truly provocative science-fiction. Between the masterful Beacon and the game-changing Believe, 2018 could be the year where everything changes for Big Finish’s Torchwood range; if that’s the case, then one thing’s for sure – Guy Adams and his entire lead cast are ready. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2018/05/torchwood_believe_big_finish.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[screenspirit]

personal stories and memories in the avantgarde

Avant-Garde offers distinct artistic strategies that can be steered to hold aesthetic representations of the filmmaker's mindset and objectives set when creating the film. To elaborate, some experimental filmmakers choose their aesthetic strategies in relation to how well they highlight experiences they aim to convey through their work, one particular example being their personal stories and memories, which they use as stimuli for Avant-Garde films. Two prominent examples of this idea in Avant-Garde are Jay Rosenblatt's Phantom Limb, a communication of the filmmaker's experience and growth surrounding his younger brother's death and Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim which articulates how the filmmaker's relationship with her father impacted her outlook on her childhood and personal identity. Both these films draw on the filmmakers' subjective memories on their past events which serve as their works' narratives, all conveyed through the stylistic devices which highlight their position in Avant-Garde cinema.

One crucial artistic strategy used by both filmmakers which assists in elevating their anecdotes presented in their narratives is the use of found footage as the imagery. Rosenblatt and Friedrich both rely on shots and sequences that have been previously filmed by someone else and through the use of editing and placement, tell their own story through found footage, conveying how they partake in first-person filmmaking where everything shown is 'overtly filtered' by their 'sensibility and 'point of view' [Rascoroli, 2009]. It is this artistic choice of structuring personal films through recycled sequences that serves as a distinct bridge between the Avant-Garde and the documentary, emphasised by Rascaroli who states how 'their foregrounding of autobiography and their expression of authorial subjectivity position them in between...that of the Avant-Garde...and that of first person documentary' [2009]. Therefore, these filmmakers are expressing their own autobiographies through a combination of Avant-Garde and documentary style, with found footage being one primal artistic choice. Friedrich's example of use of found footage connotes heavily to her personal memories of her father and childhood, exemplified in one of the earliest sequences shown in the film titled 'Witness', in which spectators see shots of a father holding his young daughter in what appears to be a home movie. Rosenblatt mirrors this in his film by, after presenting an opening piece of text informing the audience that he lost his brother when he was young, showing personal home movies of him and his younger brother from their childhood as a visual opening to his storytelling. Both these examples fulfil the purpose of building up context and introductions to the filmmakers' individual and personal narratives and their themes; Rosenblatt's story of loss by visually articulating what he had before his brother's death and Friedrich is introducing ideas of parenthood and childhood using her images of parents interacting with their children. Taking this choice in source of footage into account when observing ideas of memory and personal stories, one can identify the filmmakers' objectives because 'home movies have much the same status as family photographs as regards of temporal reference' and thus, 'offer image of the past of individual shown' [Turim, 1989], thus, both filmmakers are using footage they did not capture themselves to present past events which connect to their narratives. This aesthetic strategy causes the sequences to immediately hold a personal and unique characteristic to it since spectators are observing what should be private moments in a young family's life that have been captured on film for nostalgia and memorial purposes. As a result, identification of the filmmakers' memories and stories can be easily distinguished since they are using found footage from the past to build up the narratives.  

Found footage as an aesthetic decision provide an articulation on the contextual situations relating to the story telling and with separate motives with relation to emotional responses and cognitive approaches to their work. Roseblatt's example of recycled footage showing his brother before his passing is working to drive emotions of sadness and sympathy from his audience because he is allowing them to witness the memories he has of his brother visually through the shots shown and they will later observe Roseblatt's experiences following his brother's death such as the funeral and healing process. As a result of this, they will recall back to the opening sequence of the film and find themselves sharing the feelings of sadness Rosenblatt must be experiencing since the home movies allowed them to see a minor example of what the filmmaker has lost. Friedrich, however, is aiming to produce a separate example of sympathy towards her personal story using her recycled footage. Her spectators will take in the imagery of the father holding his young daughter and identify its associations with family and child development since relationships and bonds with parental figures are credentials in a child's early life. It is these connections the audience have made from observing this example of found footage in the film that will assist in creating emotional responses of pity towards Friedrich when they later see such articulations as her parents' divorcing and father leaving through voice overs. The spectators will then think back to the recycled footage of the father and daughter and feel sympathy towards Friedrich as her family has broken up and she may no longer have interactions demonstrated in the home movies. Thus, both examples of found footage in the films are soon laced with specific emotions which assist in building the filmmakers' personal stories since they are showcasing their past which hold significance to their story telling.

It is this concern with the past that serves as a key element to the recycled footage aspect of the Avant-Garde, it provides an opportunity for experimental filmmaker's to demonstrate their creativity because they are taking fragments of film that were captured for one reason and editing them into their own narrative. Usually the past is engaged within film through the temporal editing technique of a flashback which helps to 'merge the two levels [shared and recorded] of remembering the past' and used in the Avant-Garde as an 'element in creating an expressive manipulation of the image and filmic montage' [Turim, 1989], thus, they are a device which break  current narrative time shown which bridges the past with the present. However, Rosenblatt and Friedrich have instead placed their examples of footage connected from the past in the openings of their films in a chronological structure in order to provide their spectators with ideas of their past which will benefit how they interpret the events they witness in the upcoming sequences. This mirrors the use of flashbacks as a device because it coheres the story and elevates character development since spectators observe events in the film subjects’ lives which affect their character. Furthermore, the past and how it is demonstrated holds connections to one's memory which can be explained as 'a system of storing and retrieving information’ [Baddeley, 1997]. This means that how the filmmakers offer their own interpretations of events psychologically stored in their memories through the already recorded footage which the memories are visually stored in, linking back to Turim’s claim of the two levels of recalling the past which are coinciding with one another to structure the filmmakers’ personal based narratives and conveying further emphasis on how important the artistic strategy of found footage.

Friedrich emphasises the presence of personal stories heavily and consistently throughout her film, combining her story with those of her mother and father which all share connections and influences with one another. Friedrich's story is clearly the focus of the narrative, highlighted in a majority of the sequences such as the one titled 'Journalism' in which a series of experimental techniques combine to convey the story and its themes. One of these is the voiceover that plays over the images shown; a young girl, who is telling Friedrich's story throughout the film, shares with the audience how Friedrich was given a diary when she was young in which she wrote down her stories, thoughts and secrets. One can interpret the symbolism of the diary as a manifestation of Friedrich documenting and expressing her personal story, as a diary consists of one's 'record of facts and events...own impressions, ideas, sensations, self analysis and reflection' [Rascaroli, 2009]. A diary also mirrors the epistolary novels of the 18th century, a genre consisting of novels telling stories through letters and journaling which takes 'interest in individuality and the inner self' and a phase of 'deep transformation and great expansion' [Rascaroli, 2009]. The Avant-Garde is a cinematic style which draws inspiration from other mediums of art, particularly 'relating to the fields of literature' which it 'pays homage to and finds inspiration in' [Rascaroli, 2009]. Therefore, the diary mentioned throughout this sequence of the film links with how Friedrich is presenting her story of her parental relationships and childhood as well as conveying the influence literature as a medium holds on Avant-Garde cinema and how its incorporated into it.

The childhood aspect is emphasised using the footage of young girls playing in a playground; a further example of filmic techniques used to elevate narrative ideas since the images connect to the voiceover articulating an event in childhood. The voice over then mentions how Friedrich's parents divorced and this serves as the pivotal point in the narrative and a painful memory Fredrich documents in her diary, which we are told is erased by her mother as it was written in pencil. Here, Friedrich is drawing ideas of different levels of memory which coincide with Turim's claim on recorded and shared past. Her mother may be able to erase the physically recorded presentation of Friedrich's memory of the divorce kept in the diary yet is unable to do so to the storage of it in her daughter's mind, thus, conveying ideas of memory and personal stories in Friedrich's narrative with relation to how they are documented and interpreted.

In addition to this, Friedrich develops the memory of her parents' divorce by combining events she can recall that serve as their personal stories and memories. Friedrich first does this in the sequence titled as 'Ghosts'; a calling which holds connotation to figures of the past haunting individuals connected to them which alludes to the idea of memory and the past throughout the film, where the shots are of a letter addressed to Friedrich's father being written by her on a typewriter. This links to the previous connection between the Avant-Garde and literature, specifically this film and the form of an epistolary novel since a letter is being used as the source of articulation of events. The use of the letter as a stylistic strategy is effective in that it elevates the personal element to Friedrich's work, mirroring the symbolism of the diary and allowing further insight into her deepest emotions at this point of her story and thus progresses the development of that personal story. In this letter, the spectators learn more on how the separation is impacting Friedrich's mother when Friedrich writes about how she watched her mother spend most nights alone and crying while listening to a song called 'Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel'; an articulation on loss of a loved one which coincides with the experience both the mother and Friedrich are experiencing yet this particular communication is tied more with the mother. Here, Friedrich has captured one parental figure's personal story in the film in which the medium of music is how her mother expresses her emotions, with lyrics such as 'Where I do not have him/That is the grave/The whole world is bitter to me' [Schubert, 1814] which link to the experience of a break up whereas her daughter does so in writing and later filmmaking. The letter ends with a statement made by Friedrich on how difficult it is coping with the 'conflict between memory and the present', therefore, Friedrich is emphasising how the positive memories she has of her parents does not match what is taking place in the present time, specifically when watching her mother cry and this must be creating emotions of bitterness and grief within her. This conveying of her mother's story is connected to Friedrich's memory of having to witness her mother go through this and this memory is then incorporated into the personal story shown in her work. The memory of watching her mother go through this while writing it in the letter must bring these emotions forward and in turn connects the feelings and memory as one. Baddeley highlights this when stating 'anything experienced in a given mood will tend to be recalled when that mood is reinstated' [1997], thus memories and events in a story are tied with emotions that echo them.  The audience observe this in the later sequence 'Drinking' where Fredrich communicates how watching her half sister and father interact reminds her of her memories of her childhood with him as 'her childhood was being played out in front of her'. Friedrich then adds her father's personal story during the 'Envy' sequence in which the voice over articulates how her father wrote poems to express his own emotions towards Friedrich and the situation. The poetry as a medium echoes Friedrich's diary, letter and filmmaking in addition to the mother's choice of music, thus, elevating personal stories being compressed into different formats of artistic medium with the experimental film being the overarching form since Friedrich has collected all mediums implied in her Avant-Garde work.

Rosenblatt encapsulates his personal story in 'Phantom Limb' through the use of a sound in a voice over which articulates stages of healing from grief. The eighth sequence in the film, titled as 'Advice', consists of shots of a sheep being shaved while a voice over offers a list of ways parents can deal with the grief that comes with a child passing away, for example 'Know you are not alone' and 'Cry'. The advice given by the voice over could also be useful for Rosenblatt himself and therefore he is expressing his story through the use of a voice over which assists in highlighting his experience dealing with his brother's death; the voice over elevates and presents the process that comes with the film's overlining themes of loss and grief which have served as major developments in Rosenblatt's personal narrative. This is highlighted by Turim who articulates how the use of a voice over can 'reinforce visual cues representing a return to the past' and that 'verbal story telling can ease temporal shifts through sustaining power of the narrative voice' [1989], linking with Rosenblatt's ability to bring his past through to spectators using Avant-Garde film techniques such as sound. The pieces of advice communicated through the voice over are also connected to memories Rosenblatt must have of how he initially dealt with losing his brother because he would have heard this advice and carried it out, such as spending time crying and with other grieving family members, therefore, memories of this stage in Rosenblatt's story are being implied as well. Since one would associate the advice mainly with how Rosenblatt's parents dealt with their youngest son's death since it is directed to grieving parents, Rosenblatt is mirroring how Friedrich incorporated the personal stories of those around her in her art in relation to her experience of her childhood and with her parents' divorce; Rosenblatt and his parents are going through the same experience in losing a loved one but are experiencing it in a diverse way considering the relationship they had with that person. Rosenblatt's use of the voice over in this sequence helps to highlight not only his personal narrative but also that of his parents, both are tied with ideas of loss, pain and healing, thus, his artistic strategies are conveying multiple perspectives on the same event in addition to provoking diverse emotional responses from his spectators which are stemmed from whether they are a parent or sibling.

Furthermore, Rosenblatt's further use of recycled found footage also convey his personal story of grief and loss, specifically the third sequence 'Sorrow' which shows footage of several people crying at events such as funerals. This sequence emphasises how Rosenblatt as an experimental filmmaker has incorporated already filmed shots into his own personal film as an artistic way of presenting his past story through found footage and in turn has offered spectators his perspective on the experience of grief. Rosenblatt is visually representing aspects of his own personal story through these emotionally charged shots of people in the process of grief he did not capture himself by editing them to follow the home movies of him and his late brother, thus, highlighting the stage of this experience through the images of people crying for a loved one. He is manifesting himself in this recycled footage as spectators would recall back to the footage of him and his younger brother and the text stating he then lost this brother and the sequence of grieving people will be connected to him despite it not being his own footage. Therefore, Rosenblatt is establishing his presence as an experimental filmmaker who is able to edit footage not belonging to him to make it an artistic expression of his personal experiences in life, the artistic strategy of recycled footage has been edited and conditioned to serve as a representation for Rosenblatt's objective of articulation and story telling and therefore, demonstrates how personal stories can be told effectively in the Avant-Garde.

To bring forth a conclusion, both Rosenblatt and Friedrich effectively express their individual personal stories and memories in their work through the use of experimental techniques such as found footage, voice overs and inclusions of other artistic mediums such as literature. Spectators are given several interesting cues to associate the idea of the past with specific motifs such as family bonds and loss. Their choice in aesthetic strategies boldly represent their ideal expression and articulation of what memories and stories they aim to communicate to their spectators. 

Bibliography: Human Memory: Theory and Practise, Baddeley Alan, Psychology Press; 2 edition (28 April 1997) Flashback in Film: Turim Maureen, Routledge, 1989 The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film, Rascaroli Laura, Wallflower Press; First Edition edition (31 Aug. 2009) Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, Schubert Franz,  1814, Mentioned in Sink or Swin (1990)

[oosteven-universe]

Assassin Nation #2

Assassin Nation #2 Skybound/Image Comics 2019 Created & Written by Kyle Starks Created & Illustrated by Erica Henderson Lettered by Deron Bennett     Someone’s trying to kill Boss Rankin! After the shoot-out in his loft, the remaining assassins have accepted his offer to be his private security force. There’s no way anyone tries to knock him off now, is there? There is?! Are more people going to die? Probably!     After the premiere issue there was a lot to live up to in this second issue. Thankfully with Kyle at the helm of this ship we have nothing to worry about. The literal explosive events that we saw time around have settled and it’s time to start getting to know those who are left. I do have to say that Bishop while not my favourite character does make a wonderful number one to Rankin’s El Capitan. Plus now that his husband’s dead he’s got a vested interest in how all this plays out, which of course plays right into Rankin’s favour. Very interesting, as Arte Johnson would say.     I do like the way that this is structured. I love that Kyle is as creative as he is talented because that just enhances the enjoyment reading this. He understands how the flow should be so that information that we get doesn’t feel forced, rushed or just thrown out there because we should know it, it all happens organically within the story. The opening this issue is fantastic as we get to see Rankin and Bishop having that moment to catch up before heading into a meeting. This is the kind of conversation and dialogue that can only come from two men who have known each a long time and spent a great deal of time together. Oh and said dialogue is incredibly descriptive and makes ME want to hang out with Kyle.     One of the more genius notions was to have those who survived getting together and talk while having to wait for those two to arrive. There is something about Dave that makes you raise an eyebrow Spock style questioning. There is something about his fresh baby faced outlook that belies the army training and his shooting skills. He’s like the opposite of my man Fuck Tarkington and I think that the array of personalities that we see is more exciting than finding a c-note in your winter coat. I think it’s genius how we get to see them through that one event in their lives.     Erica might be one of the few artists whose work I adore that doesn’t have that George Perez attention to detail that I love. Her characters are full of emotions and their facial expressions are flawless in their descriptive of the personality of it’s bearer. There is something endearing about the way the noses and the eyes are done for each character that helps the reader connect to these people all in such varied ways. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show off this stellar eye for storytelling. I will say more backgrounds please, pretty please with a cherry on top! Yet while I want more the way Erica sets up the page is bloody brilliant. The colour work here too is so nice to see. We get this really nice utilisation of light sources that show us shading and colour blocking are a real treat. ​     So this issue I miss Fuck being in his overalls without a shirt with that delicious hairy chest, just thought I would share that. As we get to see the sequence of events unfold before us I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or simply snort and giggle. While I don’t know where or when or how it happened but somewhere along the way it started having that Monty Python black comedy sensibility to it where you think the room is full of nothing but Idjits. Also one scene had me humming a Benny Hill tune as I watched them try to run. I am here to testify that this book is going to become, if it hasn’t already, your new Magnificent Obsession!

[ba1bkbm]

Essay and Delivery Plan

LO6: Make judgements and present arguments through engagement with fundamental historical, cultural and ethical concepts and theories associated with your subject.

Engage in research into the background of the Alice books – why they were written, whether they have morals or license to be creative. What sets them apart from other children’s stories – they allow a more creative outlook on literature rather than books that are made with morals and lessons intact. Research the illustrations of John Tenniel and his tongue and cheek nature – why did they suit this book? What else did he illustrate for? What was the medium?

Research the background of all the Alice movies – incorporate the knowledge of Walt Disney pretty much leaving his animations to the Nine Old Men while he ran Disneyworld and focused on his empire. Write about the low success of Pinocchio and Fantasia, Walt’s “babies”, and how this affected the animation department and the outlook on Alice. Write about his major success as a major feature length movie animation studio, his rivals the Fleischer brothers and his early successes.

Sources: Walt Disney documentary, movies themselves, Animation History books, Alice book.

Carry on writing about Disney and how the animation studio has changed and morphed into something almost wholly 3D/CGI based, and how Tim Burton’s adaptation is both live action and CGI. Explain the benefits and compare/contrast with the original 1951 2D adaptation. Explain how animation is now such that a combination of live action/CGI is possible and both believable (NASA thought Gravity was real), but without the CGI it would be almost impossible – relate to Beauty and Beast live action CGI notes.

Explore cultural backgrounds of fairytales themselves - maybe the PowerfulJRE would help this? How could Alice’s story be used as a lesson or a moral - does it even have one? 

Create appropriate relations to theories - Christopher Vogler, Jamie Campbell, Christopher Booker, Vladimir Propp? (maybe). 

Points to Mention

 The plot; what type of narrative structure are they? How can they be compared and contrasted? What makes that particular type of structure good for that style of movie, if at all? Can it be compared to 3 or 5 act structure?

Does it follow a Hero’s Journey or Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale? If only one, suggest/discuss why the other adaptations do not, or whether they follow different types of narrative structure.

Visual storytelling; is it told or shown? (Hitchcock’s idea of “pure” cinema or things explained through dialogue.)

Aesthetics; what type of animation is it? Does this style suit the plot and overall theme of the movie? Refer to mise en scene and semiotics.

Fables and fairytales usually have morals or hidden messages. Do any of these adaptations contain any, and if so, what are they and how can they be compared? Are they the same?

Audience; who is it aimed at? How can you tell? Are they aimed at different audiences? What is the audience supposed to feel – what is the tone and genre? Are they any genre conventions?

History; write about the history surrounding each of these movies – political and historical. Explain how they came about, what it was like during the time they were being animated/created.

Introduction

Before Ozwald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, there was Alice in Cartoonland – or “Alice Comedies”, 50 silent shorts featuring a live-action girl in a cartoon world.

This was the beginning of the Disney companies long withstanding relationship with Alice. Based on the characters from Lewis Carroll’s classic stories, Alice became the groundwork in which Disney’s reputation grew to what it is today.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. 182)

Written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, after a boat ride down Folly Bridge in Oxford with companions Reverend Robinson Duckworth and the three daughters of Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte, Alice Pleasance, and Edith Mary.

Illustrated using etching (a style of printmaking) by Sir John Tenniel, one of the leading illustrators of the time who used his satirical and often radical cartoons as chief cartoon artist for Punch, a weekly magazine containing humour and satire.

Compared to other literature of the time (the Brothers Grimm), Alice was a revelation to Victorian society; a story without moral, rules or to inform children that if they behaved in a certain way then they would be punished.

“It’s sometimes said that Lewis Carroll’s Alice books were the origin of all children’s literature” “In Alice, for the first time, we find a realistic child taking part in a story whose intention was entirely fun.” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. VI)

Follows a ‘Voyage and Return’ story structure by Christopher Booker. The background of Voyage and Return stories is the protagonist voyaging from the real world into a fantasy world where “everything seems disconcertingly abnormal” (Booker, 2005, pg. 87)

In any story there must first be an inciting incident that “occurs toward, or at, the end of that first act, and the protagonist ‘falls down the rabbithole’.” (Yorke, 2014, pg. 30). Insert a figure with the customised structure done in Photoshop. In Alice’s case, her voyage and return was “just a dream” (Booker, 2005, pg. 106) and she learnt no moral or meaning from it, other than it was “what a wonderful dream it had been” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. 189).

Alice in Wonderland, 1951

“Sorry, you’re much too big. Simply impassible.” “You mean impossible?” “No, impassible. Nothing’s impossible.” (Alice in Wonderland, 1951)

Based on both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Overall, the film stays closely related to the source material, with a majority of the dialogue being taken directly from the book itself.

During the times after the release of Walt’s beloved Fantasia and Pinoccio, which did not achieve the appreciation that he had hoped for, Walt’s creativity “was focused on his ideas for Disneyland and he left the animation department largely in the hands of his trusted ‘nine old men’” (Cavalier, 2011, pg. 154). Disney’s version of Alice was met with no better reviews than his vision, Fantasia, and The New York Times declared:

Meant to be animated as a piece of visual storytelling – where the images and movie itself tells the story, rather than the dialogue driving it.

Alice featured a much more striking and vibrant colour palette than that of its predecessors; movies such as Snow White and Bambi were created with muted colours in mind with fears that use of bright colour would distract from the emotion and make the feature length animation movies difficult to watch for 70 minutes of viewing time.

Created using ‘cel’ animation (coined because of the fact that each animation was drawn and painted on sheets of celluloid before being photographed), which is “achieved when ‘key drawings’ are produced indicating the ‘extreme’ first and last movement which are then ‘in-betweened’ to create the process of the move” (Wells, 2011, pg. 36).

The plot of the movie was carved out by first creating a soundtrack that documented the conflict and substantial meetings of characters, and then the animation was fleshed out to fit these songs and the voiceovers added afterward, this is called “proto-narrative”.

Fans of the Lewis Carroll classic disapproved of the “Disneyfication” (the removal of unpleasant plot elements and the act of making a story “safe” for younger audiences and their parents) of the movie, and Disney fans were “uncomfortable with the story’s surrealist episodes and the spiky and somewhat grotesque nature of the supporting characters.” (Cavalier, 2011, pg. 154)

Alice in Wonderland, 2010

“I’m not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.” (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)

More than 50 years after the release of the original Alice movie by Disney, it was recreated using a hybrid combination of live-action and CGI with Tim Burton as the figurehead director. 

(It is reminiscent of Burton’s macabre stop-motion animation films, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.)

It could almost be seen as a sequel to the 1951 version, as it occurs later in Alice’s life after she has already visited Wonderland – now dubbed “Underland” – and does not follow the original text plot, but draws characters and scenarios from it instead.

The colour palette used for Underland is very dark and muted (see figure), with special exceptions to that of the Mad Hatter (who wears crazy colour combinations that clash and draw your attention) and the Queen of Hearts (donned in a blood coloured crimson).

Alice as Animation

It would not be possible to fully recreate the story of Alice without the use of some type of animation essentially CGI. Fairy tales and fables contain whimsical elements and cause for special effects that cannot be recreated in any other way even with modern technology at the level it’s at – NASA complimented the accuracy of the portrayal of space from the film Gravity (“What I really liked was the feel of space, the look of space, what the earth looked like up on the big screen. It brought back a lot of memories very accurately.” (NASA, 2014) which could not have been achieved without the amount of special effects and CGI used to recreate space itself.

Similarly, the upcoming 2017 live-action adaptation of Beauty and Beast heavily relies on the ability to use CGI for the Beast’s appearance. “You’re only going to see Dan Stevens’ eyes essentially, the rest of him is going to be a CGI creation… He had to have his face covered in basically UV paint, a special new technology… and then he was plopped in front of 30 little cameras and then had to perform the facial part of the Beast” (Clark Collis, PEOPLE, 2017).

Features anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to things entirely unhuman such as animals and objects) in the form of the Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, etc., something that “remains the constant locus of a great deal of animation.” (Wells, 1998, pg. 5)

Conclusion

Since its publication in 1865, Alice has resonated with people worldwide for its timeless story and fun adventures with “mad” characters. It continues to inspire pop culture to this day, and is used for inspiration in movies, books, television shows and games worldwide.