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what-i-call-men · 3 years ago

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Summoned

James Patrick March x GN reader

(I tried to go as gender neutral as possible with this)

Warnings: murder mention, not much otherwise just a bit of fighting then fluff with Mr. murder :)

Requested: by me for my fic thoughts “Another free fic thought for tonight! (Wow two in one night isn’t that much of a surprise) anyways the reader and James are dating, but have an agreement that on Halloween they get to go out and have a party/clubbing or just in general where James wouldn’t go. He summons them in the middle of devils night and they shows up wearing like a club outfit, in the middle of dancing too. They get in a fight over their agreement. Could be angst or smut or whatever”

(Pic is not mine)

You had come into the hotel purely on a whim. You had been searching out a place to stay because your relative you’d come to visit had kicked you out over some stupid disagreement. You’d come to the hotel in hopes of a cheap room with whatever money you had. Luckily enough you were able to get a room for a good enough price. Sadly though, you had been chosen that night by one of the monsters that lived in that hotel to be their victim of the night. Luckily though you were barely awake long enough to retain who it was.

For a few days after, you had walked down to the bar to talk to Liz and another woman you met named Sally, obviously there had been some others in there you’d met but Liz and Sally were the main ones usually at the bar. Although on a few nights you’d see a man come down from the elevator and sit further down the bar. Sometimes he’d be writing or reading something, sometimes he had a blonde woman with him and they’d talk quietly. He never really chose to interact with you so you would shrug it off and talk to Sally about her Instagram instead.

It wasn’t until one night that Sally couldn’t make it that you had instead spent the night with James, quickly hitting it off and soon going back to his room to talk pretty much all night. It wasn’t much long after that you two spent a lot of time together, slowly becoming infatuated with one another. You were murdered during the late 2010s and he was from the 1920s so you obviously had a lot of different outlooks on things.

After a few months of spending most of your time around James, you two became official and months turned into years of being together. About a year into your relationship you’d begun to go to devils night, which was not your choice, you only went for James. But it was the worst night of your life. Now you were fine with James murdering and whatever but his friends were the part you didn’t like. Aileen was really the only okay one in your book.

So you and James settled a deal after you throwing up for about an hour after Jeffery “had his fun”. The deal was that you’d spend the day of his birthday with him, doing whatever he’d like because the two of you could leave the hotel, but at night when he had his dinner party you could go out and celebrate Halloween with Sally and a few others that were more involved in the modern works. It was perfect for the both of you. You were not to disturb him and vice versa.

After a long day of spending James’ birthday walking around town, showing a few different places, but mostly doing some shopping for the two of you, you had gotten ready for your night out. James already had given a few disapproving comments and stares to your skantly clad body. Really you just chalked it up to his jealousy and lack of knowledge of the club scene. “Why don’t you just stay home and drink in the lounge dear? I want to be able to keep an eye on you.” He said as you adjusted your top that left little to the imagination.

“James, dearest, you could always come with us but I think the club scene would kill you again if you weren’t already dead. This outfit is tame compared to other people on Halloween.” You muttered and glanced at yourself in the mirror again. You turned to him, seeing him in his extra formal suit. “I’m going to meet Sally, Tristan and Elizabeth in the lobby.” You said and walked over to his frowning face, giving a quick peck to his cheek as you passed.

“Wait Elizabeth is going? I’m really not sure I’d like you to go out with her.” James walked after you as you made your way out the door. He followed after you and grabbed one of his suit coats, slinging it over your shoulders, a bit to “keep you warm” but also to cover you a bit more than the outfit you wore.

“We settled things James, remember? She’s coming with Will and she is your eyes and ears.” You muttered and pushed the down button for the elevator, turning to give him a longer kiss on the lips as the doors opened. You turned back to the elevator as Aileen walked out of them, flipping her hair back. She made a quick comment and whistle about your look as you got in the machine and closed the doors. “Love you my dear. I’ll see you later. I’ll be home before 3.” You called as the door finally closed.

You hadn’t been gone long into the night, you and Sally really splitting off and hitting the drinks hard as the others stayed reserved. What you hadn’t noticed when you left the hotel was that a witch had checked in for the night to do her spells in a haunted hotel. This was unfortunate for you but very fortunate for James who couldn’t get his mind off you not being in the hotel. His friends had even asked about you and were surprised you were allowed out, considering how possessive and controlling James was.

After enough comments from his friends and the time getting closer to your curfew, James beckoned Miss Evers to get the witch to him. She surprised down the hallways with the witch in tow only to be met with James at the doorway to the gathering. “You need to summon a ghost for me.” He said and there wasn’t much fight from the woman after his commanding tone scared the crap out of her.

You were having the time of your “life”, currently dancing against Sally as the loud music pounded through your chest, she was riding the wave of whatever her drug of choice was for the night. Being a ghost from the 2010s meant at least you knew most of the music and blended in well with the others in the club. Tristian had also come to dance with you and Sally for a bit before finding some other people to dance with.

This was the only downside of dating a man from almost a century ago, you knew he was too molded in his ways to ever join you for something like this. You knew if he even knew what twerking was he’d disapprove of you even thinking about doing it. But you currently were, right against Sally who was also learning to do it, but instead rather enjoying the attention you two drew from those around you.

At the hotel, the witch currently sat in the hallway outside the murderous dinner party, her alter around her and one of your rings that James had gifted you sat right on top of the alter. As she began her spell, you were dancing along with Sally, getting a weird feeling in your chest. You chose to ignore it because you’d already felt a bit guilty leaving James today so you assumed it was just the alcohol and guilt weight heavy on your chest.

As Sally wrapped her scarf around you and danced with it around your shoulders, suddenly the scarf hung loose around the air, and when you opened your eyes, you didn’t see your hypodermic friend, instead a very angry James, and his murder friends behind him, sat at the table. You realized the coat he had given you on your way out was very obviously not on you, instead it sat at the club with Elizabeth where all of your things were left.

You opened your mouth to ask how the hell you got here, glancing to the clock to see that it wasn’t even past 2 am, and it wasn’t the time which had pulled you because because all of James’ friend were still sat at the table. James grabbed your arm to pull you out of the room, but you ripped it from his grasp, a sudden surge of anger coming out. “James, why the hell am I here?” You asked and glared at him.

“You told me you’d be home before 3. And you-“ James began to lecture you and you cut him off. “And you promised i would come home to just you and that i could enjoy myself tonight, but obviously both of those were broken.” You raised your voice back to him and crossed your arms. His face became somehow more angry as you brought him down in front of his dinner party. Aileen let out a small whistle to you fighting against him with a quiet “get em” which was met with a glare from James.

“Y/n lets take this outside.” He said lowly and you huffed. “Oh I’ll take it outside. All the way back to the club with my friends.” You said and walked towards the door, letting yourself out, and stumbling over the alter outside the door. “You fucking summoned me, you asshole. Can’t even trust that I’d be home on time. I’m leaving and I will be home as late as i want.” You yelled back at James and he grabbed your arm properly this time, stopping you in your tracks.

He began to pull you back towards your shared room and when he threw you inside, he slammed the door behind the two of you, guests and friends long forgotten as you two stared at each other. You definitely were a change from the silent obedient women he was used to, and him a change from the lenient and careless men from your life. “Why are you so controlling? You get 364 and a half days with me every year for eternity and i can get that one half of a day in peace doing what I want to do?” You shot at him, but he didn’t respond, just pulled his tie off and his suit coat.

“You don’t just get to dress like that and go dance on other people when you belong to me.” James spat back as he grabbed your upper arm again, pushing you back towards your shared bed. “News flash James, we’re in the 21st century and you don’t ‘own’ me. Because I am forced to spend eternity here I wanted to make the best of it and spend it with someone who I enjoy, but until you decide to make a legal commitment to me I am free to be whoever I want.” You shoved yourself away from him as he stood above you, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Letting out a long sigh, James watched you turn to grab a cigarette from his bedside table. “Who said I didn’t want to commit with you, y/n?” He asked in an exasperated sigh. You rummaged around the drawer to search for his matches and looked back to him. “Well for starters, how about your wife? Hmm? How about you on multiple occasions? How about the 2 years of dating and endless arguments how to treat our arrangement with your wife and her boy toys?” You muttered as you couldn’t find a matchbook, now looking back to the drawer.

You paused and gently picked up a small box you hadn’t seen in the drawer before. “James-“ he cut you off and walked to the drawer, catching your attention. “I wanted to ask you earlier while we were out but the ring itself wasn’t ready until after you left for the night.” He muttered and grabbed it from your hands. “I would’ve been more comfortable if people out in the world knew who’s you were. And the arrangement with Elizabeth is over, she can live her life separate from us.” He said and you could barely comprehend his words through your head spinning.

You dropped the unlit cigarette to the ground, instead opting to grab him in a big hug, pulling him down to you. Your makeup definitely was smudged as he pulled away to open the box. “May I at least ask the question? I’ve been planning this.” He unwrapped himself from your arms, using his hand to help you stand up, and lowered himself to kneel before you. His speech was full of plenty of reassuring words, also euphemisms about how death was the thing to bring you two together and bring new life to each other. Your own thought were drowning in love for the ring and the man before you. It was dainty yet plenty jeweled with his own initials being engraved on the sides. It now sat on your finger, you pulling his own lips to yours.

Your solid kiss was soon interrupted by a knock on the door and an exasperated Sally at the door, holding your things in her arms. She paused as you stayed in James’ arms. “Oh thank god we’re not in deep shit.” She muttered and James tapped your back gently. “Go back out but be home soon.” He said lowly. You smiled and looked to the ring on your finger. “I love you.” You whispered and he kissed you before you ran back out after Sally.

#james march #james patrick march #james march x reader #james Patrick march fluff #ahs hotel #fic thoughts fulfilled

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lightthewaybackhome · 4 years ago

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Sorry this is so long. Probably should have done a 2 parter.

"My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!" - Aunt Frances, Practical Magic

My whole life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be artistic. I’ve wanted to create. I love beauty. I love artistry. I love creation. I love the artsy look: jewelry, tattoos, flowing clothing, and funky hair. It is a personal aesthetic I keep returning to, especially as I get older. As a child, I tried so many different forms of art—painting, photography, drawing— but none of them seemed quite right. None of them got what was in my head out. All of them fell short until I started writing. Writing was a flame, a fire, a drug. Writing allowed me to express what was in my imagination. This is the first thing to understand.

Everyone is artistic and art is everywhere. I’ve believed this as long as I can remember. There are amazing artistic feats in our world: books, movies, video games, paintings, sculptures, and magnificent pieces of music. Yes, art can be very high and very special. But, art can also be found in charcuterie boards, homemade quilts, sourdough bread, cocktails, soup, and all ordinary things if we but look and see. Art can be high magic and art can be ordinary. This is the second thing to understand.

As I’ve embraced being a homemaker, a HearthKeeper, a woman where she’s meant to be, I came across the term domestic artist. As much as I didn’t like the book Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle, it gave me this. It gave me the term domestic artist. That stuck with me. It spoke to me because it captured both the first and the second thing. It captured the never-ceasing call to create which haunts me at all times, and it elevated and honored the ordinary in a sprinkling of fairy dust. It said, “Yes, you have to cook today. Three meals plus snacks and drinks. It’s your job, but, but, what if, what if instead of looking at it as some drudgery, some Cinderella enslavement, what if you looked at it as an opportunity to create beauty?”

Not every meal, every outfit, every moment of your day can be a work of art. Some days you just have to do what you have to do. Some days get upended in the opening credits with a broken washer or a sleepless child. Some days plans change. Life changes. One minute life looks like this, and then the next it’s on to something completely different. But, the beauty of being a domestic artist is that you can create art in any of these moments and in any setting. You can find art in any moment and in any setting.

See, the world tells us that homemaking, HearthKeeping, is boring. It tells us it’s pointless. A waste. You could be changing the world. Only dumb useless women keep their homes. And that’s because they’re either tied down by a dictator of a husband or the demands of children or the cultural trappings of their religion. Courage, dear heart. Courage! Homemaking is magic. Homemaking is flexible. Homemaking changes with the seasons and the woman. I, I am a bit bohemian, a bit rustic, a mixture of rugged and romantic. I grew up a tomboy, but have embraced being a woman in her home since I was a child. I love leather and lace. I love cottage-witch aesthetics. I love boots and long flowing things. I like deer heads, linen, skulls, and ruffles. I like feathers and dreamcatchers, but I also love to decorate with open space. I love pies and feeding my husband. But, look at this, one of my best friends is a classic. She loves clean lines, traditional and timeless pieces. She loves modern accents. She loves beachy highlights and hammocks. She’s not into farmhouse, rustic modern, or raw-edged wood. On any given Sunday, she’s in a pencil skirt, simple top, simple heels with her three daughters in matching dresses while I’m in distressed boyfriend jeans, a mullet-tucked top, and wearing my crow skull. We’re very different, but we’re both homemakers who love making our homes.

I have a woman in my life who quilts and that flows out into their decorating. So many of her things are beautifully hand sewn. If she wants it, she makes it. Another friend grew up in Africa and her home is filled with her love of that culture. One dear friend loves plants and grows amazing flowers that she uses to create Instagram-worth bouquets. Another woman isn’t super fluffy-feminine but she has an eye for remodeling and so is constantly making improvements on her home: flooring, painting, and more. My sisters, like me, both enjoy a minimalist approach to decorating and all three of us have a special place for coffee. Both my sisters’ homes are welcoming and peaceful even with kids running around like crazy.

That’s the point, the world tells women to band together, that we’re a sisterhood, that we should go out and change the world, abandoning our homes before we’re relegated to only kitchen and nursery work, but reality tells me that the most amazing women I know are busy in their homes. This is sisterhood. This is where we bloom. It is here that we have flexibility. For over five years, I’ve struggled with chronic health issues. Homemaking lets me decide each day what I can do and how I’m going to do it. Homemaking lets you change what you do for each season of life. Lots of littles? Keep it simple. Empty nest? Explore. Somewhere in between? Keep growing. Lots of energy? So many things you can expand into if you just refuse to believe the lie that homemaking is beneath you. Don’t be normal. Don’t believe that homemaking is a waste of time. Don’t buy into the lie that you are somehow being less than everyone else when you raise your children, love your husband, and create beauty. Have the courage to be strange. We were made for this! It suits us. This is an environment women thrive in.

When I got over my grammar inhibitions and started writing, I felt like my soul came alive. I felt like I’d finally found what I’d been searching for since I came into this world. It doesn’t matter whether I’m writing an epic story or writing about HearthKeeping or just word doodling, writing, words, stories just flow from me. Wonderfully, homemaking is like that for me, too. I want to read books, I want to learn, I want to talk about it, I want to do it. It’s not perfect. I don’t always feel glorious, but I do feel ‘right’ when I’m doing this. I feel like I’m where I belong. I feel like this is a place I can both rest in and grow in. I feel safe when I’m having a fatigue flare up and I feel excited when I think about all that I can do.

A real-life example: Sundays are long hard days. They’re days that generally spike my fatigue and my husband is worn out. They’re both the best and hardest day of the week. When we get home I make a cocktail and we crash. Inevitably, the minute I sit down my man asks for a snack and what we’re having for dinner. For several years, this drove me up a wall. It is Sunday. The day of REST, why is it my responsibility to always make food? Epic sigh. Epic whiny sigh. I would meal plan for the whole week and then wing it on Sunday and Monday, always with poor results and grumpiness on my part. Then, one week as I meal-planned, I realized that I could also prepare for the weekend. Lightbulb. Facepalm. Really? Why had it taken me into my 40th year of life to realize that if I want a quiet, restful, happy weekend, I should just plan snacks, drinks, and meals ahead of time? I’m going to blame it on my chronic health, brain fog addled mind. I’m going to blame it on laziness. I’m going to blame it on being a young homemaker. Some are understandable, some are inexcusable.

Sundays now involve way less stress because I can immediately prepare snacks and know what we’re eating the minute we get home. No more attitude issue. No more stress. Easy and nice.

Did this change the world? Does this matter to anyone but myself? Did my husband even notice? Maybe not, but this is homemaking. This is HearthKeeping. It is my job and my calling. Even without notice or world-shattering consequences, I’m pleased with the outcome. More than pleased, I’m really happy about it. It brings me joy and delight to find a better way to take care of my family. It allows me to sprinkle my Sunday afternoon with just a little bit of artistry. I make drinks, snacks, dinner. I feed my family.

See, one of the lies that the feminists preach is that we’re wasted in our homes. And yet, the majority of the women I know who work outside the home aren’t doing glamorous jobs. They’re not travel bloggers or world-renowned chiefs or CEOs. They’re cosmetologists, retail workers, bank tellers, nurses, teachers, and such. Now, none of those are bad. Working outside the home isn’t bad. (I think each family has to decide what family looks like to them.) Please, please, don’t read that as degrading. I worked retail and I think retail is important. These are all God-honoring employment in which you can strive and serve. I’m not bashing any of those jobs. I have many many dear friends who work outside the home. What I am saying is that I think we as women need to ask ourselves if leaving our homes en masse was worth it. Has it given us all the joy, delight, and fulfillment the feminists promised us?

I’ve done both. I’ve been a co-owner of a business that I helped grow from nothing to something amazing. I’ve worked as an everyday retail worker. I write and am the main editor for a small neighborhood magazine. And I’m a HearthKeeper. I will tell you right now, no qualifications, that HearthKeeping is the most satisfying job I’ve ever had. It not only challenges me every day but it also works with me. The boundaries are what I set in place and so I grow as I can. The work never ends, yes, but it also never ends. There is always something else to explore.

I think being a homemaker is largely attitude. You can buck against what you do, and most women do. Just spend two minutes on Pinterest looking at doing laundry or dishes and the bitter hatred comes pouring out. Look at the complaints women make against their churches: we’re relegated to doing nursery work and kitchen duty. What if, just for a moment, we decided to be Domestic Artists? What if, for just a moment, we tried loving our jobs instead of complaining? What if we thought that dishes meant food and good times and healing of the souls around us? What if we saw laundry as a way to keep beauty and cleanliness around us? What if we saw it as our privilege and delight to take care of the food, children, clothing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, growing of the next generation, and the men of the world? What if we embraced the domestic arts and saw them as truly magnificent, glorious, unique arts? How many of us would be able to say with a straight face that working retail is more fulfilling than managing a small world? Is it more fulfilling to go work in an office than it is to orchestrate a place of welcome, rest, and renewal for your husband and yourself? It might be more visible, but is it truly more long-lasting?

I can say that it isn’t. I can say that I think being a homemaker is uniquely suited for women and that we should have the courage to go against the grain of our world and say no. No, I’m not going to give all of myself to work outside the home when the home is far more challenging and interesting. No, I’m not going to believe the lie that homemaking is oppression and boredom. I will find beauty in the ordinary and I will embrace art in the everyday. This is one of those amazing jobs where it is what you make it. It is what you pour into it. If you think it’s boring or demeaning you won’t get anything out of it. If you think it is challenging and rewarding, you will get the world out of it. You will grow yourself and those around you. Think about what a wonderful thing it would be if we made our homes our careers! If we women really took on the label Domestic Artist in our own individual ways.

#homemaking #hearthkeeper #housewife #prose #trad wives #traditional femininity #domestic artist #writing #artists on tumblr #art

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 4 years ago

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Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision

The Marvel star takes us inside her transformation to a new kind of hero

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 002

Magazine Scans > 2021 > Grazia

GRAZIA: Elizabeth Olsen is a trooper. We are in a field in Surrey on the outskirts of the Marvel studios; it’s a biting minus one and she is standing in a Chanel broderie anglaise sundress and increasingly soggy UGG boots. Her feline cheekbones face skywards, but Olsen is slowly sinking into the mud, trilling out high notes to keep herself warm (possibly distracted) and of course with spirits high. “It was the wind I think, that was worse than the sideways rain,” she jokes as we trundle back to the soundstage hangar that we are using as a studio. It’s the kind of moment that could go viral on Instagram, that is, if Olsen were on social media. Yet one of the biggest stars of our current cultural moment is completely offline – and that surprising fact might just be the least interesting thing about her. If anything, it is a sign of how Olsen has come into her own as a confident, decisive star with the power to create her own universe.

On the cusp of her 32nd birthday, Olsen is fastidious and professional, yes, but also bright, engaging, creative, and collaborative. Born and raised in the California sunshine, she is surprisingly at ease in the blustery conditions that deluge the English countryside in late January – or, it’s that she’s very good at acting. “It was one of the ugliest days of this winter – just hilarious – but I knew we wanted the shot,” the 31-year-old actress says.

Since October, Olsen’s been living in the leafy British countryside with her “man-guy-partner,” musician Robbie Arnett, just a short drive to the Surrey compound where Doctor Strange is being filmed. It’s a closed set, masked in secrecy as much as the socially distanced masked crew dotted all over the 200-acre studio. “It feels right being in a small city right now,” she says.

Indeed, Olsen is a modern-day Renaissance woman. Learned and dedicated to her craft, she studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School studying Stanislavski. (Surely, no matter how much of a genius the Russian theatre master was, he never could have conceived of the Marvel universe.)

Approached with the concept of WandaVision, “I thought it was perfect for television, and a very original idea that made me excited,” Olsen says. Also, she was happy she would get to work with Bettany again: “He’s very precise, like me.”

In many ways, WandaVision is a love letter to the first American television heyday. Olsen, who stayed up late watching Nick at Nite reruns as a child, says it’s a bit of a homecoming in that way. “I was a very hammy, performative child,” she explains. “So, I do think I got to live out some sort of childhood dream doing the show.”

“The highlight was really getting to tell a story about these superhero individuals told in different decades of American sitcoms, trying to match the tone of those sitcoms in order to help orate the story,” she says. “But keep it playful and fun.” Little did she know just how much we’d need that.

Half-filmed pre-pandemic in Atlanta and half post-pandemic in LA – with a six-month hiatus in-between “until all the unions figured out to work safely” – WandaVision was released almost a year into the pandemic. In many ways, it is an artifact of its time: centered upon a yearning for the simplicity of earlier days, yet shot through with the creeping realization that such days may never return, and perhaps never existed to begin with.

Indeed, the weekly story of suburban superheroes Wanda and Vision has played out like a parable of our times: Wanda living in her chosen bubble, her trauma resonating in the world we find ourselves in today. Olsen appreciates a good metaphor, but feels people may be projecting a bit much. “I see Wanda as a victim of extreme trauma, who does not understand how to process it,” she explains. “She has been a human experiment.” (Not to belabor the point, but haven’t we all?)

Being summoned by Marvel is like being called to a parallel universe for an actor: thrilling, yes, but not without a tinge of terror and a dash of the unknown. Six years in, though, it’s become like family in some ways. As a member of two dynasties – Olsen and Marvel – family is key to Olsen. She checks in on her mom (who still lives in California) and, like many American daughters, is researching which vaccine mom should get.

The performative gene runs strong through her family, of course – and no, we don’t mean her sisters. Olsen’s mom was a ballerina. Still, when she first started auditioning, Olsen took special care to carve her own path – one far from Full House. “Nepotism is a thing and I’m very aware of it,” she says. “And of course, I’ve always wanted to do it alone.” She did just that, her acting credentials consistently rising as her sister’s cemented their fashion kudos. Olsen bears a noticeable resemblance to her fashion-designer older sisters and her sartorial DNA is similarly low-key. She loves The Row (of course) and NYC label Khaite’s denim and cashmere.

For Olsen, her day job is like playing dress-up. This time around, she walked away from WandaVision with the girdle worn underneath her 50s wedding dress, laughing, “I mean, to have a custom undergarment like that, I felt like it was necessary!” Her WandaVision co-star, Kathryn Hahn, also became her shopping cohort when filming.

“She’s dangerous!” Olsen says. “She has the most exquisite, minimal but expensive taste.” It was Hahn who led Olsen to the independent boutique where she found the belted Julia Jentzsch trench that she wore to our shoot.

At the rail of samples compiled by the stylist, Olsen gravitates towards a spacious linen boilersuit and longline cashmere cardigan. Has she always been a tomboy, I ask? “I think I felt uncomfortable being a child being told they were pretty,” she says of her early auditions at age 10, adding that her love of ballet and musical theater could leave her “feeling exposed” at a young age.

Speaking of over-exposure, Olsen is distinctly offline in a time when so many are defined by their social media presence. Among celebrities and regular digital citizens, the perfect balance of online and off is up for debate, but Olsen is clear: social media saturation is a choice for all of us, and everyone needs to draw their own boundaries.

“It has to be a personal decision, right?” she begins. “So, my opinion has nothing to do with what anyone else does or doesn’t do with it.” Her own journey began when she momentarily dabbled with Instagram (since deleted), while filming Ingrid Goes West, director Matt Spicer’s frightening and funny debut feature about a social stalker, co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Up until that time, she says, “I had never touched it before. I thought, ‘This is an interesting social experiment for myself, to see if it is a good source to talk about charities or a good source to talk about small projects, or to share something goofier about myself.’ But I think at the end of the day, what I discovered was one, I’m really bad at creating a perceived identity!”

“I didn’t find it very organic to who I am as a person,” she continues. “I found some joy in putting up silly videos, but I think the main reason I stopped – not I think, I know the main reason why I stopped – was because of the organization in my brain.”

“Lots of horrible things happen all the time. Or, lots of great things happen all the time. Whether it’s something terrifying, like a natural disaster or a school shooting or a death, there are so many things that happen, and I love processing information. I love reading articles. I love listening to podcasts. I love communicating about things that are happening in the world to people around me. And what I don’t love is that my brain organization was saying, ‘Should I post about this?’ That seemed very unhealthy ….”

“And to then contribute to these platitudes that I don’t really love, you have to subscribe to two different ways of thinking,” she says. “So, I didn’t like that, and there was a lot of it that was just bothering me for my own sake of what value systems I have.”

That’s not to say that there’s any inherent value system – pro or con – in using Instagram. Olsen is clear that like any other method of expression, it’s up to the individual to use it as they see fit. “I do see a use of it and how you can use it well for work,” she says. “But I don’t think that I would like to use that tool to promote myself.”

She’s private for a millennial yes, but not prim. On the photoshoot, lockdown experiences were shared, and Olsen recounted her (hilarious) first at-home bikini wax: banishing her husband upstairs “for an extended chat with his therapist,” her trusted waxer on speed dial, and microwave set to ping! (Yes, Olsen is a trooper, as I mentioned.)

We catch up over Zoom a week later, her hair once again pulled up in a casual topknot, her cashmere turtleneck simmering in a dark claret, and her entire being suffused with covetable understatement. She chats buoyantly against an unexpected backdrop of pirate ship wallpaper in the playroom of a house she shares with Arnett, who proposed with an emerald and diamond ring in 2019.

“We first started to try to make it the gym, but it was so cramped,” she says of the jolly space. The home gym was instead awarded a larger room, where Olsen loves to maintain a varied fitness regime – running, yoga, dancing, more – though after all the intense Marvel filming, she jokes, “maybe it’s time to give up on my body?!” Being comic book fit does sound grueling or “time-consuming fun” as she anoints the “strenuous physical demands.”

Like most of us, she is longing for the spring, but she still takes a regular constitutional walk in a nearby Richmond park, whatever the weather. “The deer are incredible; every time I see them I feel alive,” she says. “We have been lucky to have nature around us in lockdown.” It’s a marked difference from her paparazzi-populated home in the Hills. “They know our walks, where we get coffee, work-out…,” she trails off.

Her haven in Los Angeles is her backyard, complete with a mid-century swimming pool and an edible garden. “It’s crazy the blackberries grow like weeds! I love watching a kid’s first reaction to an edible garden,” she gushes That has been the part of the pandemic travel restrictions she’s found hardest: missing her friend’s children growing up, and others who have been born this past year that she’s yet to meet. They will no doubt all be treated to her homemade blackberry sorbet on her return stateside.

Yet, her time on British soil will likely be prolonged, with a prospective indie commencing filming here when Doctor Strange wraps. Prompted for more detail, her firm charm kicks in. “I can’t jinx it!” she insists. Still, she will share that she’s heavily involved in the creative, and that funding smaller productions in the current climate has been a challenge.

Through it all, Olsen has remained determined and calm. “I feel patience is my superpower. But my weakness also,” she says. “I feel like it gets tested more than others who don’t have a lot of patience. If someone learns you’re easygoing or that you’re relaxed, sometimes it gets taken advantage of.” While she waits for the green light on that film, she is busy producing a new children’s cartoon with Arnett, “about loving and caring for our world,” and has also written a children’s book about to be published by Random House, all while the demands of Marvel life continue to surround her.

Indeed, Olsen is a superhero for the modern age: Multi-hyphenate, but fiercely devoted to the craft that she loves; instantly recognizable, yet thoughtfully protective of her private life; a woman with style, substance, success, and deep rewarding relationships with those around her; focused on a vision of a better world for us all.

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla

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identybeautynet · 3 years ago

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Black In Fashion 2021

Black In Fashion Only black is the new black: a cultural history of fashion’s favorite shade When the group Time’s Up encouraged all actresses and actors who would walk the Golden Globes red carpet to dress in a show of solidarity against sexual harassment of women in Hollywood and other workplaces, the color it asked them to wear was black. On Jan. 30, a group of women in the US congress followed their lead, donning black for the first state of the union address by president Trump, who has himself been accused by numerous women of sexual misconduct. There is nothing about black that inherently signifies protest, but really no other shade would have sent so clear a message. There’s a reason country legend Johnny Cash also chose to wear black as a reminder to Americans of the everyday injustices in their midst. Black clothing has an undeniable power. Unlike red or green, which represent specific wavelengths of light, black isn’t exactly a color; it’s what we see when an object absorbs all visible wavelengths, putting it in a category by itself. Its singular darkness has a unique visual potency, and its adaptability has long made it open to interpretation by the numerous groups that have adopted it. Black connotes seriousness and diligence, as in the black worn by religious orders. It can be sinister or rebellious, like the black cloaks of witches or the black leather jackets worn by biker gangs. In many cultures, it’s the color of mourning. But it can simultaneously be the epitome of chic and sophistication, yet charged with eroticism. All these qualities have given black a distinctive position in fashion enjoyed by no other color. The Little Purple Dress is not famous. “Yellow tie” is not a recognized dress code. Only black will ever be the new black. Black is in Among the endless variety of colors and combinations that fashion retailers stock, black is a perennially popular choice. In a recent analysis of more than 183,000 dresses retailing online in the US, retail technology firm Edited found that about 38.5% were some shade of black, making it by far the most common color available. Only about 10.7% of dresses came in the second-most popular shade, white. EDITED Edited’s representation of the dress colors currently retailing online in the US. At the moment, black’s popularity also appears to be surging. According to Edited’s data, black dresses sold out in far greater numbers in the first few weeks of January 2018 than during the same period last year. Edited did point to Time’s Up having an effect, though it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what’s fueling the trend, since an increase in the availability of black clothing online predates the movement. From the third quarter of 2014 to the same time in 2017, Edited found that black clothing for women grew substantially at a number of fast-fashion brands—by 269% at Boohoo, 145% at Zara, 114% at H&M, and 89% at Forever 21. Katie Smith, the firm’s retail analysis & insights director, attributed it to the brands “using black to try and establish longevity of their ranges, and appeal to a wider customer base.” The numbers speak to the breadth and endurance of black’s appeal. It works with every skin tone, every body type, and is generally a safe choice for a purchase—because even if demand for it ebbs, it never goes out of style. AP PHOTO/FRANCOIS MORI Naomi Campbell in classic black on the Louis Vuitton fall-winter 2018 runway. A cultural history There’s no official start to the modern popularity of black in European and American women’s fashion. Historically it’s been a signifier of grief, dating back to at least the ancient Greeks. But it has also been widely coveted for its appearance. In his book The Story of Black, critic John Harvey notes that, though the Romans principally dyed clothing black for mourning, there are indications they prized it for its stylishness. In the 16th century, there was a vogue for black clothing—then notoriously expensive (pdf)—among Europe’s wealthy, from Spanish nobility in the south to Dutch merchants in the north. But a convenient turning point in black’s more recent reign arrived around the early 20th century. That, Harvey writes, is when black “came to centre stage.” The spotlight fell squarely on it in 1926, with the introduction of Chanel’s famed little black dress. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/MARTIN SECK An array of Little Black Dresses from the Museum of Modern Art’s “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” exhibit. Just prior to that period, black was the standard uniform color for domestic servants and the “shopgirls” who staffed retail shop floors. Social norms, however, were losing their trappings of formality. Sportswear was beginning its rise, and hemlines already climbing higher, as young society women moved away from eras of lavish, restrictive gowns. Shelley Puhak describes in The Atlantic how the upper classes co-opted the easy, modern shopgirl style for themselves. “By the early 1900s, socialites who wanted to appear especially youthful and edgy donned little black dresses,” she writes. When Vogue put a sketch of Chanel’s simple, practical black dress on its cover in 1926, calling it “The Ford” of a woman’s wardrobe, it seemed to make official a new era in women’s clothing. It also promoted black as smart, elegant, attractive. AFP/GETTY IMAGES Coco Chanel lounging in black in 1944. In addition to fashion, black had another powerful force helping it to stand out: film. “The other great promoter of the Little Black Dress was the camera, especially the movie camera,” art and costume historian Anne Hollander wrote in her excellent 1984 essay (pdf). A novel world of entertainment, romance, and movie stars was opening up to an eager public—all in black-and-white. The brilliance of black Black’s effect on the eye gives it an irresistible visual appeal. “A black dress seems to make the body neater and smaller and to unify the parts,” Hollander declares. “Since many bodies are not slim and lack either perfect harmony or absolute coordination, a black dress can help give them that delicious resemblance to a stretch limousine that seems so desirable in the present fashion climate.” Yet black has a remarkable tendency to be distinctive without overshadowing the wearer, in a sense amplifying the person. Hollander points to a scene in Anna Karenina, where Anna attends a ball. Tolstoy describes another woman, Kitty, remarking on her black gown. She realizes that Anna could not have worn lilac, that she was most alluring when she stood out from her clothing. “And the black dress with luxurious lace was not seen on her;” Tolstoy writes, “it was just a frame, and only was she seen.” While it’s not exactly analogous, a recent study of male birds-of-paradise reveals an intriguingly similar power in their black plumage. The birds are well-known for their bobbing courtship dance, but according to the researchers, it’s actually their coloring that determines their success in mating. The mostly black birds raise their wings to form a light-absorbing field, causing their other colors to appear all the more brilliant. “The juxtaposition of darkest black and colors create to bird and human eyes what is essentially an evolved optical illusion,” explained Harvard University evolutionary biologist Dakota McCoy. “This study shows us that black makes us glow.” On male humans, black is often seen as dignified and levelheaded. In his Book of the Courtier, a sort of guide to life in the aristocratic courts of Renaissance Italy, Count Baldassare Castiglione states that black is the preferred color for a man, or at least something dark. Harvey points out in The Story of Black that black has been the standard for men’s evening wear since the 1810s, in large part thanks to the advocacy of Beau Brummell. The name may be familiar to some men. He’s widely considered the inventor of the modern men’s suit and a sort of founding father of contemporary menswear. AP PHOTO Sean Connery on the set of the James Bond movie “You Only Live Twice” in 1966. Black’s hold on high-fashion AP PHOTO A black chiffon cocktail dress from Balenciaga shown in 1957. In the decades since Chanel’s compact black number graced Vogue‘s cover, numerous designers have adopted and elevated black for their own purposes. Cristóbal Balenciaga used it for his elegant, architectural silhouettes, and Yves Saint Laurent for his androgynous “le smoking” women’s tuxedo. In the latter half of the 20th century, it became closely linked to fringe groups and rebellion. Bikers and beatniks donned black. Then, the Japanese design wave of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons made a new art form of the black look. Fashion journalist Suzy Menkes asked Yamamoto what was behind his well-known predilection for black in a 2000 interview for the International Herald Tribune. Yamamoto’s response has evidently summed up the feelings of black’s devotees so well that it has circulated for some time on social networks such as Tumblr and Instagram. ”Black is modest and arrogant at the same time,” he said. “Black is lazy and easy — but mysterious….Black can swallow light, or make things look sharp. But above all black says this: ‘I don’t bother you — don’t bother me!'” Given black’s adaptability and allure, it’s little wonder it remains a popular choice for all sorts of styles today. Black-obsessed artisanal menswear designers deploy it for their exquisite leather jackets. Designers such as Ann Demeulemeester have gravitated toward its romanticism, others like Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing to its sleekness. Black colors fancy cocktail parties, and goth kids match their clothes to their black eyeliner as readily as socialites thrown on black for a night out. By all indications, its attraction isn’t diminishing. We’ll be flying the black flag for years to come. Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion, Black In Fashion Read the full article

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feminist-propaganda · 4 years ago

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Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of Queen’s Gambit - Episode 1

I’ll start this long piece with a quote by Toni Morrisson. She once said : “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

After watching Queen’s Gambit yesterday I rushed to the Internet to see if someone had written all of the things I am about to write, all of the symbols I saw in the miniseries, all of the dog whistles, the references. I found articles about chess. About how the community had adopted the film, about which grandmasters the characters were based off of, about chess moves and theories, about production and the unexpected success of the series.

According to me, this is quite mediocre commentary. I eventually clicked on the New Yorker article that seemed to be a tiny bit smarter. After a couple of paragraphs I realized that the male writer was only going to rant about how the actress is “too pretty” to be Beth Harmon, and this seems to upset him. A lot.

But no one talked about Beth’s mother. Or the name of the series. Or the embroidery. The chess board. The tranquilizers. The math. The flashbacks. The exchange of queens. The sacrifice of the queen. Did no one see it? Or is it again one of those things; where the world is so obsessed with single mothers and representing them as huge, massive, quite literal train wrecks, but no one actually wants to look at them in the eye, talk to them, help them?

Let me tell you, as a single mother, this miniseries had me in tears the whole time. It’s really difficult to watch. It’s downright triggering.

Single mothers like to keep their silence. That’s because we know the world doesn’t like it when we start talking. It hurts. A lot. So instead, the world likes to make memes about how single moms are whores, how they are drunks or over worked. How they’re psychotic. How they ramble. They don’t make any sense. Bipolar. Crazy. How their children stare at the television all day, the way they microwave bad food. We laugh at them, and use them as comical relief in our ... what exactly? Cultural objects. Then we move on. We send a message to single mothers when we do this, and the message is important. You suck. Shut Up. Don’t exist. It’s your fault.

We make an entire mini series about a single mother who killed herself to save her kid, we put on the television images that hurt and harm single mothers and then the public responds with nothing. They don’t even bat an eyelash. Miss the point entirely. Great series about chess! Except it’s not about chess. Not at all. It’s about raising children alone, when the world hates you. It’s about a trailer. In the middle of nowhere. A strong willed woman who was a mathematician in the 1940s. Who taught her daughter everything she could. Realized she couldn’t do more. And made the ultimate sacrifice, the queen’s gambit. The riskiest, most reckless, bravest move of all.

So let me tell you about what it’s like to watch Queen’s Gambit when you’re a single mother. So that somewhere in the AI, it’s written. So that when our great grand children will try to understand our times, they’ll read it.

I’ll write an essay for each episode. And in each essay I will review the important lession that Alice passed on to young Beth, and how this takes her to Moscow, where she can live a much more fulfilling life than in the U.S.A.

Lesson 1 : Find A Two Dimensional Algebric Plane. Study It. Control It.

I recently learned from instagram user @itllbeokbaby and Amsterdam based artist and weaver Liza Prins that the words textile and text have the same origin as the word texture.

Text derives from the Latin textus (a tissue), which is in turn derived from texere (to weave). It belongs to a field of associated linguistic values that includes weaving, that which is woven, spinning, and that which is spun, indeed even web and webbing. Textus entered European vernaculars through Old French, where it appears as texte and where it assumes its important relation with tissu (a tissue or fabric) and tisser (to weave).

Women have been weaving, beading, sowing and stitching since the dawn of times. We also know that women used this technology not just to create clothes, tents or shoes. They used it as a container of information. As cultural DNA.

In South America, in places where writing as we know of it was never created, women would bead important tribal information into skirts. They would then use the skirts as a database of the tribe. To track births, deaths, epidemics, droughts and other important group defining events.

In modern times, women still use embroidery as a means of expression. My memories from childhood contain strong images of my aunts and grandmothers, sewing my name and date of birth onto pillow cases, bathrobes and bedcovers. They would do this by the pool, at the bottom of the ski slopes, on the beach or in the train. They would engage into conversation as they embroidered; as this activity required some concentration, but not their full attention. It was their way of being present; but also transcending into the past and projecting into the future. They sewed our lives into the cloth.

I once heard my grandmother counting the holes in the cloth she was decorating with her beautiful colours. I asked what she was doing. She said that to build the letters on the cloth, you needed to count the squares. Two to the top, four to the right, ten to the middle, etc etc. I was quite mesmerized. I was maybe eight at the time, the same age as Beth when she loses her mother. I had started learning some math in school but somehow the math in school seemed to be presented to me as the epitome of something quite different than this excruciatingly feminine passtime.

Math was presented to me as masculine, out of reach to us girls. And now I was disovering that these women in my family were geometry experts, fluent in linear algebra, and that at a higher level, they were database account managers.

In the first episode of the miniseries, in the first couple of minutes; we discover two Beths. The first Beth is in Paris, the beautiful, the chic; the glamourous Paris. Paris will always be the undisputed capital of Fashion.

Paris is the undisputed capital of fashion not because it is the home of polluting massive textile industries like the ones in Pakistan or Zara’s empire in Spain. Paris is the capital of fashion because it is the capital of Haute Couture. And Haute Couture is custom made, sowed by hand, piece by piece, bead by bead, sequin per sequin. It is delicate. It is slow. It is sacred. It is what my aunt’s did.

It is the opposite of industrial, the opposite of a sewing machine, the opposite of an engine. The opposite of yield failures, punching in and punching out. It is lace. Delicate, personal, eternal.

The second Beth we see is the eight year old Beth, that has just lost her mother. She stands on a bridge. Two cars have crashed into one another. And she stares on at the police officers. One says “Not a scratch on her. It’s a miracle”. The other says “I doubt she’ll see it like that”.

My theory is that the miniseries explain how Beth eventually begins to “see it like that”.

The first time we see 8 year old Beth she is wearing a dress, with her name embroidered on it. It reads Beth, in pink. Feminine. Purple flowers surround it. The embroidery is delicate. It’s on her heart.

We follow eight year old Beth as she gets sent to an orphanage. In the first couple of scenes at the orphanage, we think, for a minute, that maybe Beth will be okay here. The head mistress smiles, has nice hair. Shows her around. Yes, the bed is by the lavatory, but at least she has a bed, a roof over her head.

We only start despising this new mother figure when she takes Beth to choose new clothes. Beth takes off her dress, and stares at her name, written on the front. The headmistress selects a white shirt and grey dress for Beth. She hands to her these new items, symbol of her new life, of her integration within the orphanage and later mainstream society. The headmistress then grabs the dress with the name embroidered and looks at it with disgust. Then, she says “I think we’ll burn this one” and disapears.

Beth then understands that she is no longer allowed to love her mother. That to fit in this school, this orphanage, to survive, she must let go of the embroidery and all of the things she associates with her mother. Her mother, in the words of the teacher was a “victim” of “a carefree life”. A free spirited whore, a lesbian, a witch. There’s a lot of words we liek to use to describe women who don’t conform. And Beth’s mother, as we learn, never conformed.

At night, Beth sees her mother’s eyes, she hears the last words her mother uttered before dying in the car crash. “Close your eyes”. She said it with tears in her eyes and an air of great determination. She knew what she was doing, which is something Beth doesn’t want to tell anyone. Not even her new friend Jolene. Beth’s secret is her mother wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t crazy at all.

Then, Beth discovers the board. One day, she gets sent to the basement and sees the janitor playing chess. Later in the miniseries, Beth tells the journalist from Life it was the board that attracted her. Not the pieces.

As the first episode unfolds, Beth learns that the squares have names. She learns the names. And at night when she looks up at the ceiling she sees the board. She visualizes the pieces moving on the 64 squares. She moves them in her mind and imagines all of the alternatives. What the board would look like if she moved this piece to that square. What would her opponent do then?

To the journalist of the Life magazine, Beth says that the Chess board was a universe of 64 squares, and that she could control this space. All she had to do was study it.

The board is much like the cloth that Beth’s mother Alice would sew information onto when she was a young child. You count the squares and move your material through it. As you go, you make shapes, patterns, motifs. Beth looks up at the ceiling at night and the first night, without the tranquilizers, she sees her mother say “Close your eyes” which is too painful or such a young child. A young child doesn’t understand yet why a mother would say “Close your eyes” and then crash on purpose into a truck. A young child doesn’t know about the world yet.

Alice aknowledged that she was about to do something extremely risky, that the outcome was uncertain. Alice told Beth that she was going to purposely provoke the car crash.

But when Beth takes the tranquilizers at night, and now that she knows about chess, she can transfer her love for her mother into her growing obsession with Chess. She looks up at the ceiling and instead of seeing Alice’s last thoughts, she sees the Chess board. Which is the small piece of universe that Alice controlled, when she was alive. The cloth that she sewed her daughter’s name on: “So that you’ll always remember who you are”.

#feminism #single mom #the queen's gambit

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redemptionbaby · 5 years ago

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I know it's the wrong time of the year, but can I request some modern hcs about some of the gang's Halloween traditions? Who always dresses up? Who does/goes to haunted houses? Who sets up horror movie nights? Thank you

Dutch fuckin hates having to hand shit to snotty kids so whenever the doorbell rings Hosea pretends to be really busy with dinner so Dutch has to answer it

Karen really fuckin loves to dress up and she always wants to rope someone into doing a couples costume thing, and there’s a long running joke where she just slaps something onto Arthur. One year she dressed up as a ghostbuster and just threw a sheet over him.

Molly also dresses up, partially for her Instagram following, in very tasteful sexy renditions of things, like hello kitty.

Sean is the guy who wears a onesie even though he is a grown man and that’s his costume. He likes to pull pranks but he can never get his act together in time to plan something cool

Micah has a higher success rate with girls on Halloween because they think the Mustache is fake

Arthur uses Halloween more or less as an opportunity to start daydrinking and to eat candy for dinner because he’s too depressed to make real food

Charles is a creature of habit, every other year he will come in some outlandish and well crafted costume to parties, one year he was a centaur, but the years in between? He will take his ambien and try really hard to pass out by like 6 pm and just ignore all of it

Susan wears the same witch costume every year that she made herself and no one calls her out on it because it looks good as fuck

Sadie likes to dress up as classic slasher villains. Michael Myers, Jason, that kinda thing. She loves fake cornstarch blood

Uncle is the guy who will be dressed as a scarecrow and sitting in a chair on the porch and stay perfectly still so he can scare people taking candy from the bowl

Javier organizes the movie night schedule, he throws in a couple 70s classics, a couple modern horror movies, the nightmare before Christmas, the thriller music video, beetle juice, and something old as fuck, usually with Vincent price, to appease Arthur

Mary Beth will drag Kieran to haunted houses. She never gets scared, he’s in a constant state of almost pissing himself.

Lenny will volunteer at haunted houses! He likes to have the makeup put on and to get to scare people in a controlled environment where they’re asking for it

Strauss is the dude who gives away full candy bars with quarters taped to them, and some fancier toffees and such too, because he remembers being a kid on Halloween.

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aleksandermorozovaa · 6 years ago

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So more modern cressworth au headcanons I guess.

(X) - heres a link to my first set for this particular AU

Thomas and Daciana are fashion icons! ICONS. Daciana especially, you know that girl is like an Instagram fashion influencer. She’s got this whole gothic witch vampire thing going on and is killing at it.

Daciana has a personal vendetta against Audrey Rose’s oversized sweaters and cardigans, Thomas however adores them. She’s like a cute lil sock and her clothes are ALWAYS so soft he could just fall asleep on her constantly.

That being said, Daciana somehow manages to get Audrey Rose to try on some of her clothes for a girls night out and Thomas like dies on the spot. She looks so damn good dressed in tight black clothes. He just can’t keep his eyes off her.

She asks him later if he would love her more if she started to dress more like this. He shuts it down real quick because as much as he loves how she looks, it’s not her. Audrey Rose mentally tells herself to borrow Daciana’s clothes every once in a while, because they’re right. She looks AMAZING

One-time Audrey wakes up late for class and rushes to get ready accidently pulling one of Thomas’ jumpers on as she runs out the door. At this point no one knows they are dating other than like their best friends (I mean everyone knows but like Thomas and Audrey Rose don’t like announce it) so when she walks into the room everyone’s staring at her.

She figures it just because she’s late, but like no it’s because shes wearing one of thomas’ more memorable jumpers, its like a stripy greyscale one he wears a lot. It’s not until she sits next to him and he puts an arm around her chair she get suspicious.

“You should wear my clothes more often, they look a lot better one you dear Wadsworth”

She ends up claiming the jumper for herself.

Their biggest argument to date is whether Jaffa cakes are cakes or biscuits. Audrey doesn’t speak to him for like a week because how dare he imply that it’s a cake? When it’s clearly a biscuit. (It IS BISCUIT don’t @ me)

Thomas is surprisingly good at putting on accents, he often has full serious conversations with people faking different UK accents, (but he can’t do Scottish at all, it’s terrible)

He year he confused the fuck out of his professor because he spoke in a different accent everyday for like three weeks. Audrey struggled to keep her face straight when ever he opened his mouth.

Thomas is ALWAYS covered in ink? And also insists on writing in like pink pen or smth? So he’s always got pink stained fingers and hands. He’s also really bad for doodling and draws all over himself while AR tuts and scolds him because he’s going to get ink poisoning, which sparks up a long standing debate about how “You can’t get ink poisoning from drawing on yourself Wadsworth.”

Omg they travel all the time together, like whenever they get the chance they travel. At first its all around the UK, they go to all the historical site like these guys have a national trust membership and go to all the castles and museums. Fucking nerds I love them.

They spend their summer in Romania, Thomas takes Audrey Rose to all the places his mother took him and Daciana as a child.

While on this trip he realises he wants to marry Audrey Rose, well he already knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but he realises how badly he wants it, and how much he wants the rest of their lives to start.

He has to physically stop himself from blurting out a half baked proposal like five times on the trip. Like he doesn’t even have a ring. But he just wants to ask her.

He ends up asking her to marry him while they are studying in their usual spot in the library because he just CAN’T wait any longer. Its like so sudden he doesn’t even have the ring on him, and like he has to run home and get it with Audrey Rose giggling as she follows him and occasionally stopping him to kiss him some more. (This is after they get kicked out the library for like intense kissing. She’s in his lap and it’s just not appropriate for public)

#sjtr #stalking jack the ripper #hpd #hunting prince dracula #efh #escaping from houdini #ctd #capturing the devil #cressworth #thomas cresswell #audrey rose wadsworth #thomas x audrey rose #thomas cresswell x audrey rose wadsworth #kerri maniscalco

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coeval-magazine · 5 years ago

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The Witch Twins

Transmitted from a college dorm room, Robi and Alen Predanič use performance art to create “mysterious VHS tapes you find in the attic of the old house you have just moved in to”.

Let’s start by you introducing yourselves and how you started working together Alen: We are Robi and Alen Predanič aka The Witch Twins and we are from Slovenia. We are twins, 25 years old and we’ve been living in the same college dorm room for five years. This is where we created our own world. We make our own surreal, eccentric and colourful costumes and perform and pose in them, usually in our dorm room. I mostly shoot and edit the photos and Robi focuses on recording and editing the videos. When we’re finished we post it on Instagram. Robi went to college one year before me. We started listening to a lot of music from the 60s and 70s. We loved the warmness of the sound and visuals of the era. Inspired by that and other stuff like Harry Potter, we transformed our totally white room into a warm, psychedelic looking place. Throughout our childhood we were always in our bubble, creating something and escaping from real life.

Robi: We don’t take life very seriously and we like to challenge man-made social constructs such as gender norms. Two years ago, we came out. Shortly after, we started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race and because of that show we were inspired to experiment with wigs and DIY clothes. Our dorm room really played an important role in all of this, because it represented (and it still does) a safe, cosy and magical place where we could be authentic and creative. We actually used to dress up in women’s clothes when we were in kindergarten and when we were home alone. We stopped, because we realised that boys were not supposed to dress like that. Through the years we used to be terribly embarrassedabout our ‘weird’ past and our sexuality. It’s really liberating that the same thing that used to be such a burden, now makes us happy and proud.

What made you choose the medium of performance art to concentrate on? Robi: The reason I filmed myself in the first place was because of the cool VHS phone app. I realised I am comfortable in front of the camera while I’m in drag… it feels very natural to me. When I perform, I naturally gravitate towards randomness, humour and exaggeration. There are no rules in performance art, and I like that. Nobody is limiting me, I can express myself how I want to without being afraid of making mistakes.

Alen: Robi once asked me to join him in one of his videos. It was fun and it naturally became our thing. We also started doing photoshoots together. Performance art is not something that I was originally interested in, but it has become something that allows my costumes and fantasy to come to life.

Your work together has a very distinct aesthetic. How did this evolve? Alen: We both like to be dramatic and ‘’larger than life’’. We are expressing ourselves freely and we just do whatever feels natural. Renovation of our dorm room has helped us to figure out our aesthetic. We developed a colour palette that was very 60s and 70s inspired and we customised everything in the room accordingly, it came out psychedelic, and colourful. We continued that vibe with our costumes, videos and photos. When we buy fabrics for our costumes, we like them to have interesting textures and beautiful colours. Right now, we are into looking like trippy life size toys - colourful and not too complex. We also like to believe that we are undercover aliens hiding our big alien heads underneath our headpieces. We both love dramatic silhouettes and big headpieces.

Robi: When it comes to our drag, we like unusual combinations. If we feel like combining facial hair with long painted nails or a short skirt with a headscarf, we just do it. I enjoy making genderless creatures. I like to make my hips, shoulders, “hair” and accessories big. I like to transform myself; to create the most fabulous version of myself and confuse people in the best way possible… When I edit the videos, I like to combine footage of us with the footage of mysterious buildings and beautiful nature. The videos we make can be described as mysterious VHS tapes you find in the attic of the old house you had just moved in.

I interpret your work as very spiritual. Is spirituality something that’s important or influential to you as individuals and/or your work? Robi:I love combining art and spirituality, because that’s the way to make meaningful art. I think by being authentically and fearlessly ourselves we send a message that is very much spiritual. I like my work to radiate a peaceful vibe and we do that through music we use in our videos for example. We also include messages of peace and love in our work by using symbols such as heart, sun and flower in our costumes, videos and dorm room décor. The warm edit of the pictures and the videos adds to the welcoming and peaceful fantasy, as well. My work is also spiritual for me, because it feeds my soul. I really enjoy what I do.

Alen: I love spirituality. I am determined to fulfil the highest and truest expression of myself and I know I can do that through art.

What has made you label yourself as a witch? Can you tell me a bit about this side of your creativity and how/if this influences your work as a duo? Alen: Witches fit perfectly in a great fantasy. I’ve always loved witches. We both love magic, mysterious things and places. For me, a witch represents that. I often do magic and fly on a broom when I sleep, in my dreams and I love it. Not to mention, that when we were about 8 years old, we used to believe that we were magicians. We made a secret alphabet, special objects and we performed special rituals.

Robi: We naturally adopted this label, but we don’t take the label very seriously. We also sometimes say that we’re aliens. We love creating fantasies and by labelling ourselves as witches or aliens we do just that. A witch also represents a metaphor for an unconventional person. We are modern day witches in that sense.

You use very pronounced, textural silhouettes and there is a strong sense of fantasy through theatre. A visualisation of your combined imaginations maybe... can you introduce us to this alternative world you have created? What feeds this? Robi: We are very compatible when it comes to working together creatively. Our work is heavily influenced by movies with exquisite fantasy worlds. Such worlds are mysterious, dreamy, magical and visually stunning. They consist of trippy characters, stunning costumes, detailed set designs, mysterious places and soul touching music. We’re talking about movies such as Shrek, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Titanic. Also, horror movies such as The Ring and The Hills Have Eyes. I’m very inspired by operas and musicals as well, because of the dramatic body movements and the dramatic vibe.

Alen: Yes, what we do in the videos and the photos is visualisation of our combined imaginations. A lot of stuff that inspires our world is from our childhood. From a young age we were very aware of beautiful and magical things that surrounded us. Our kindergarten teachers were very creative and really made sure that we experienced a lot of magical moments. We were also encouraged to be creative by our grandma. Her house was always well decorated and we used to draw, make jewellery and decorative napkins from paper when we were at her house. We loved fantasy and magic and we still love it as much as we used to when we were kids. Major influence from many years ago are sticker albums and beautiful illustrations from children’s books.

When it comes to forming new concepts or beginning a new creative venture, how do you normally begin? Alen: We usually start with a colour palette, or with ideas about our headpieces. We then draw a sketch of the full costume. Sometimes we have a concept about the universe our costumes and characters come from, but most of the time, each of us just does our own thing and at the end it works out.

Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on right now? Robi: I am making a music video for an artist. We will soon start working on some of our last costumes in our college years era. We are moving out in three months.

Alen: I am working on my music. I am also a singer and I’m looking forward to finally sharing my music. We are also working on prints of our work.

What does the future hold, where would you like to see your work in 5 years? Robi: I want to continue filming with my phone app and make costumes and short movies. I’m also interested in performing live. Alen and I want to make an exhibition and publish a picture book of our work.

Alen: I definitely see myself on stage, singing in crazy outfits. Robi and I will continue to collaborate creatively on different things, because we love to work together.

courtesy ALEN PREDANIC and ROBI PREDANIC

@alenpredanic

@robipredanic

words KATE KIDNEY BISHOP

@sashasadies

show comments

#alenpredanic #robipredanic

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thecostumeplot · 4 years ago

Text

Episode 11: Dickinson with Bronwen Burton

Please consult these Instagram slideshows for accompanying images: Dickinson part 1, part 2

Both:

Welcome to The Costume Plot.

Jojo:

I'm Jojo Siu.

Sarah:

and I’m Sarah Timm. We're professional designers with a passion for costume design and the performing arts. Our podcast does contain spoilers.

Jojo:

We hope you'll join us every other week as we delve into the wonderful world of costume design in The Costume Plot. [music]

Sarah

Hello!

Jojo

Hello!

Sarah

Welcome back to The Costume Plot.

Jojo

We're so excited.

Sarah

So today is a special episode because we have a special guest for the first time. Jojo and I know her professionally, she's the shop manager and resident costume witch at Fullerton College, and you might know her from her YouTube channel Queen DeLuxe. It's Bronwen Burton.

Bronwen

Hello, friends.

Jojo

Welcome, Bronwen!

Bronwen

I'm so excited to be here.

Jojo

Yeah, thank you for being our first guest.

Sarah

Thank you so much for doing this.

Bronwen

I'm super duper excited.

Sarah

We're really excited.

Jojo

So we are going to be focusing on a movie today. But we also had a couple questions for our guest artist, which is something that will be a common theme for all of our guests artists, as well. But we wanted to start with a show that Bronwyn said she wanted to cover. So we're really excited to be talking about the show "Dickinson" today. So... Oh, go ahead.

Sarah

It's so interesting, because like when I was talking to people about being guests, I originally envisioned our guest episodes as not even being about TV show or movies. But then when I would talk to people about they'd be like, "well, I want to do this, and I want to do this." and like, oh... it makes sense. You want to do the show. [both laugh] That makes sense.

Jojo

that's what we've started.

Sarah

Yeah, that's exciting, though, that people want to join us in our thing that we do. That's... I like... yeah, I'm excited. So anyway.

Bronwen

yeah, I am super excited. This is like, I feel like Dickinson is one of my like new obsessions. So.

Sarah

I'm so glad to hear about it.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

you've definitely been talking about it for a while. And I finally got to see the first two episodes. But of course, I'm excited to hear about your thoughts on it. Now that you've seen the whole... well, now in season two, right?

Bronwen

Yes. And I'm not even sure if-- they were slowly releasing them. So I forgot to check to see if they're all... have been released, or if there's still a couple more. But it's a super interesting show. I'm super into it. But I've been reading a lot of things online and either people love it, or they hate it. There's no in between.

Sarah

It's kind of anachronistic, right? Like they're doing some modern stuff.

Bronwen

Super-- super, and super not anachronistic. So it's both. It's so weird.

Sarah

People get really spicy about that.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

They definitely do.

Bronwen

I'm super into it. So it was created by Alena Smith, who is a playwright. And she also has written for some TV. So I think that's why I'm enjoying it, since it's sort of got a playwriting kind of thing happening. So it's definitely got some theater-like background, but I think that's why I'm into it.

Sarah

We love that.

Bronwen

Yeah. The costume designer is John Dunn, who is-- he did "Vinyl" and "Boardwalk Empire". So he's done some big stuff.

Jojo

Oh, I love that show. [laughs]

Bronwen

And they had 40 people in their costume department. So it's kind of like a big...

Sarah

Wow!

Bronwen

Yeah. Which... I know, because you guys were talking about "Bridgerton"...

Jojo

That's a really good size.

Bronwen

...how many people did they have on "Bridgerton" again?

Sarah

I don't remember.

Jojo

It was like 208 or something like that.

Bronwen

But like, this show is so much smaller than "Bridgerton". So I was like, "wow."

Jojo

Right.

Bronwen

They have a lot of people working on it. At any rate...

Sarah

Well, “Bridgerton," they did it-- it was like-- it took them three years or something, didn't it? Like it-- it was in production for forever.

Bronwen

Okay, I don't know--

Jojo

Well, in terms of building, it was only five months.

Sarah

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I was making that up. [laughs]

Jojo

It was a really, really short time period. [all laugh] I was like, "five months? That's like, nothing."

Bronwen

Sorry, I don't have any of that information. But--

Sarah

That's okay.

Bronwen

And then, so I read an article with the costume designer, and he... so what did he say? He said... so, "Dickinson" is like a coming of age story about Emily Dickinson. So it's sort of based in reality, but then they don't-- we don't have a whole bunch of information about Emily Dickinson. So there's certain things we know, all the way through. And they hit those points, but then they're kind of making up the stuff that's in between.

Sarah

Ooh!

Bronwen

So and-- like, telling that story, I guess, through through the actual things that happened with storytelling. So it's super interesting. So when you look... when I look at her history, they're hitting all those points, so it's fun. Like, now it makes me want to read like all about Emily Dickinson. So, I don't know.

Sarah

This is gonna make me want to watch the show for sure.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

Right. So it's kind of-- but like, for me, it's all about the costumes. So that's why I started watching the show. Like, I'm not an Emily Dickinson fan. So here we are, I might become one.

Jojo

Yeah. [all laugh]

Sarah

That's awesome.

Bronwen

Yeah. So let's see, the costumes are deeply researched. So they're really historically accurate. I'm-- I was surprised because I thought they were going to be more inaccurate or anachronistic. But yeah, I feel like they did play with some color. But they're pretty... pretty right on. When I get to pictures I will show you. So he said that he wanted to sort of fix the warped idea that Americans have with the 1850s and 1860s. Because that's when it takes place. Because that's when we have all of those sepia toned photographs from the Civil War. So a lot of people think of it as this sort of dark and dingy thing. But actually there's lots and lots of color that's happening during this time, because this is when the new dyes were becoming available. So there's lots of bright colors and there's lots of plaid, and tone-on-tone, and pattern-with-pattern is happening. So he really didn't want it to be gloomy. He wanted it to be exciting. So that's what he said about it. So I guess I can go into a little bit of history of Emily Dickinson. So she was born in 1830. She lives with a middle class family. She has an older brother and a younger sister. So older brother Austin, younger brother-- or, younger sister Lavinia. And then a mom and a dad. And then her best friend is Sue, who is her best friend and her love interest. So...

Sarah

Oh!

Bronwen

Yeah. And Sue ends up marrying her brother because of lots of reasons. But her... basically, she ends up being an orphan, with no money and nowhere to stay. So her brother ends up marrying her and they live next door in a big old mansion. It's lovely.

Jojo

Like you do. [laughs]

Bronwen

Like you do.

Sarah

Oh, to be best friends with adjoining mansions! [all laugh]

Bronwen

Right?

Jojo

Just a walk away.

Bronwen

But at any rate, this show is weird, and I really like it. So I'm going to start, I guess I'm going to share my screen so you guys can start seeing...

Sarah

We would love to.

Jojo

Yeah! I'm really excited about this show too. Like I said, I only just started watching the first two episodes. But now that you said the playwright is, you know, a theater playwright, I was like, "Oh, that makes so much sense." There's a lot of just really nice beats in the actual-- I mean, just in the first two episodes, I think, that are very theatrical.

Bronwen

Yes.

Jojo

So I'm excited.

Bronwen

Yeah, I want to know what you think about it.

Jojo

Yeah, it's definitely-- well, and it's funny too, because I think I'm kind of like you, once I started watching this show, I was kind of like, "Oh, is this really what her life was like?" And I started going on a little rabbit hole of, who was Emily Dickinson, and were these things accurate? And how much of this is actually in our... what's the right word? Like, how much of this do we actually know about her life? And even the white dress at the beginning. Which, you know, I'll let you talk a little bit more about but I was like, "Oh, there's actually a story behind this!"

Bronwen

Yeah! So okay, so here is the white dress. So she starts out in this white dress. So this is an actual picture of Emily Dickinson, and here's our actress.

Sarah

Haley Steinfeld, right?

Jojo

Yeah.

Bronwen

Yes. Yes. So they actually look a lot alike. Or, they've made her look like Emily Dickinson. So I think that's-- it's really nice to see, they they got the ugly middle part of the 1850s going. For sure. The hair is surprisingly right, a lot of the time.

Sarah

That's awesome.

Bronwen

She does have her... yeah, she does have her hair down a lot, but it's okay. She's a free spirit.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

So the white dress, they have her start in this white dress. Because of this dress that is an extant example. So it is her dress. She started wearing white at the end of her life almost exclusively, which is pretty weird for the period. But this one, of course, is older. It's the end of her life where-- as we are talking about, kind of like her mid 20s.

Sarah

Was there a reason that she started wearing white?

Bronwen

There probably is but I don't, like...

Sarah

We don't know.

Bronwen

I think she-- I don't-- I didn't get too far down that rabbit hole.

Sarah

Right.

Bronwen

There was so much to research.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

So, but-- they would, in the show-- they do a seance and stuff, where everyone wears white to the seance, so they can be pure and connect with spirits and stuff. So it might have some spiritual wisdom connected to it. But it's nice that-- so they've basically taken the dress that Emily is wearing in the still, and almost recreated it in white, to sort of represent the white dress, or the white stuff, that she ends up wearing at the end of her life. So I think that's nice. And it's really pretty. Let's see if I can make this bigger for you guys. Like, you can see like the gathering and the smocking.

Sarah

Ooh, lovely.

Jojo

Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Bronwen

Like, the detail that they're doing.

Jojo

Even the sleeves. There's a really nice detail on the sleeves, too.

Bronwen

Yeah, it's... yeah. And it's like the detail that is in the original dress. They kind of recreated that over here.

Jojo

Yeah, so beautiful.

Bronwen

Like, it kind of picks up over the under sleeve. It is so pretty. And like this teeny, eeny weeny piping around the neck.

Sarah

Ooh.

Bronwen

I'm like, into all the-- of course, the construction detail, so...

Sarah

Of course! I love piping.

Bronwen

All right... me too!

Jojo

It's so beautiful.

Bronwen

So that's what she starts out in. And then we got all the other-- her other people. I wanted to talk about Sue. So this is Emily in her white dress, and then Sue... her last sister has died. Basically her entire family dies slowly, one by one. Super tragic.

Sarah

1850s, am I right? [all laugh]

Bronwen

Right. So she is in full mourning here. But she's super poor. So she doesn't have a lot of different-- like, the Victorian era has all these rules about what you're supposed to be wearing when, and what they're supposed to look like, and how dark they are and all this stuff. But she basically wears this really dark navy blue dress the entire time, because she doesn't have an extensive wardrobe. But this whole scene is really nicely shot. I don't know... Jojo, do you agree? Like, I love this whole scene.

Jojo

[laughs] Yeah, I do love that whole scene. She's like, in the tree.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

Again, this is only in the first episode. But this is when Emily's in the tree, and then she comes in in black. And she's in the tree in white.

Bronwen

Yeah, and this whole, I don't know... you don't know that they're kind of lovers before this. So you just think that they're best friends and she's consoling her, but also mad that she's gonna be marrying her brother. And so it's like, really, all this conflict is happening. And so it's really interesting to have Emily all in white, and then Sue all in black. So this dress is lovely, too. It's really hard to see all the details. But poor Sue.

Jojo

Sue does have a really sad life. [laughs]

Bronwen

She does! Here's a picture of the two of them together in real life. So...

Sarah

So is it from real life, that they were in love?

Bronwen

They don't know for sure, for sure.

Sarah

Oh, okay.

Bronwen

Because we obviously weren't there, but there are a lot of letters, she wrote her extensively. It's almost like she would write her a letter instead of walking across to go to her house.

Sarah

Ooh.

Bronwen

So there's like, tons of letters of them corresponding.

Sarah

I see.

Bronwen

And there are definite overtones, so...

Sarah

Right.

Jojo

I think I also read that there was quite a few of her poems that were edited, to like...

Bronwen

Yes.

Jojo

...because a lot of them were dedicated to Susan.

Sarah

Aww.

Jojo

And then it was edited out that they were dedicated. Because, you know, obviously that was not kosher.

Bronwen

Yeah, that whole thing was really interesting. Like, they didn't... they didn't publish her complete poems until 1955.

Sarah

Wow!

Bronwen

So like, all these, yeah, all of her poems were published, but they were edited and certain things taken out. And so the-- I guess, as respect for the family? So we haven't had-- we didn't have her full poems until 1955. Which I thought was interesting.

Jojo

A whole century later!

Sarah

Yeah!

Bronwen

I know! Crazy, right?

Jojo

Pretty crazy.

Bronwen

So this is a picture of the main characters, sort of. So Emily in the red, Lavinia over here, her younger sister. So she wears a lot of florals and ruffles. It's kind of more of the, I guess, traditional Victorian gal in at least the first season. And then this is her brother, Austin, and Sue here. And Austin always has the craziest 1850s hair, and I'm here for it. [all laugh]

Sarah

I love that kind of-- like, rumpled poet hair, Byron thing.

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

Yeah.

Jojo

So funny.

Bronwen

And then it kind of is on all the guys because it was super popular at the time. So but I-- and they usually don't really go for it in TV. And so it's really fun to see it going full out. Lovely.

Jojo

It still looks very boyish and charming. And I feel like we're entering back into that kind of phase in our culture, of appreciating that look. [laughs]

Bronwen

That's true.

Sarah

We talked with Emma Fraser, the writer, about Harry Styles, and how he...

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

...really looks sort of like a 19th century poet a lot of the time. [laughs]

Bronwen

I think, you know... we all have COVID hair too, like we all have a little bit more hair. [all laugh]

Sarah

Right?

Jojo

The length is no longer unacceptable, I guess?

Sarah

I feel like-- I see my guy friends on Zoom for trivia once a week. And every week their hair is longer, and they all are looking like Lin Manuel as Alexander Hamilton. [all laugh] Longer and longer.

Jojo

Like, just keep letting it grow out.

Bronwen

It's true. So, okay, let's see. Alright, so this... is it the second episode? No, the first episode still. They introduce Death, because of this poem right here: "because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me, the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality."

Sarah

Ooh.

Bronwen

So she actually talks about how she sees Death all the time. And they go for carriage rides, and they talk and hang out. So in the show, they actually have a spectral carriage that comes to pick her up. And this is her imaginary dress that she wears to go see Death in. So a lot of the show is in her imagination.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

Yeah, Sarah's mouth is standing wide open. [all laugh]

Sarah

I need to watch this!

Bronwen

Isn't it gorgeous?

Jojo

Even just the first two episodes! I was like, "WHAT?"

Bronwen

It's SO good. I'm glad you're liking it, because it's super weird. But I'm into it.

Sarah

I love weird! I need more things to be weird. [all laugh]

Jojo

This-- this is a good balance of really, again, I think like Bronwen said, honoring the story. And because we have so little information, there is so much for them to kind of run with. But they do a lot of really cool-- and again, I think Bronwen and I have had this conversation a few times, about the difference between this kind of anachronism and the "Bridgerton" anachronism. Where... this show, I feel like they kind of intentionally-- you kind of accept that this world is not... it's a weird in-between of the period and modern. Because I think one of the things, actually, I told Bronwen a while back, was that with "Bridgerton" all the music that they played in the background was modern music, but played with classical instruments.

Sarah

Yup.

Jojo

Which I'm... I'm not a huge fan of that. But maybe that's just because I've had classical training and I just... I feel like that needs to stay there. But I-- you know, that's my opinion. But with this one Bronwen had mentioned that all the music was very intentionally modern and contemporary. And that was actually one of the first things that I was listening for, Bronwen, when I was watching the first two episodes. I was like, "Yes, this is a good balance of matching the modern with the period." Like, I can still get into the period. But I understand that it's with modern language and modern slang and modern, you know, music that they've incorporated into that. So I do love that about this show. And I think that's one of the things that makes it so charming, is that you're still able to enjoy the story while still using a contemporary lens.

Unknown Speaker

Yeah, and there's a lot of contemporary language that happens also.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

So like, all the young people on the show end up using very contemporary language. Which is interesting since we're then like putting on top of that, totally... Emily Dickinson's poems, right layered on top of that, it's super interesting. And I'm-- I dig it all the time. I don't know. They're like-- they also project her poems in her handwriting on the screen as she's either thinking them or saying them out loud.

Sarah

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

To connect, so you have a visual and the sound that it's making. So it's-- I'm loving it. But at any rate, this dress is so gorgeous. I can't even handle it. So...

Sarah

I love it.

Jojo

Such luscious fabric.

Bronwen

It is... they said it was charmeuse in this Vogue article, so...

Sarah

Oh my gosh.

Jojo

Ooh. Yeah, I love the the upper part of the bodice too.

Bronwen

It is pleated so nicely. Yeah. So it's like super tiny little pleats all the way up.

Sarah

Is that Wiz Khalifa?!

Bronwen

Yes, he's Death! [all laugh] He's like, so cool and so...

Sarah

That's amazing!

Jojo

I love the way they portrayed Death too.

Bronwen

He is so perfect. Like, I can't...

Sarah

He looks a little bit like Dr. Facilier, from "Princess and the Frog".

Bronwen

A little bit.

Jojo

I can see that.

Bronwen

It's a little... it's a little more... less cartoony.

Sarah

Well, yes. [laughs]

Bronwen

I mean...

Sarah

The top hat was giving me that vibe.

Bronwen

Yes. And maybe the little green glasses, I guess.

Jojo

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

But yeah, he's he's very dapper. And he... the carriage itself is beautiful too. So every time the carriage comes, I'm like, "Yes!" Okay, so what else do we need to talk about? The ball. So they have a house party, where all of their friends come over in ball gowns, because like you do.

Sarah

Lovely.

Bronwen

The parents go out of town for the the week-- the weekend, or the night, or something. And so all of their-- her friends come over and they're hanging out. So this is everybody in their ball gowns, which are... look how accurate they are! [laughs] I'm always shocked.

Jojo

I know, so beautiful.

Sarah

Those are really pretty.

Bronwen

Right?

Jojo

I do also love that they've kind of placed the mean girl in this very specific color. [laughs] So the girl in the green is kind of like the mean girl of this season.

Bronwen

At least in the first sesason.

Jojo

I mean, you can tell from her stance too. I think this was the last episode I watched.

Bronwen

Okay.

Jojo

It was their ball scene.

Bronwen

It's a really interesting episode because they end up-- she has that full... Emily has a full moment where she is seeing a bee and she dances with it. Like, a hallucination.

Jojo

Because they take opium.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Sarah

Oh my god!

Bronwen

So, full hallucination in the middle of their living room. I don't know. It's crazy. So they're dressed to the nines at this little house party. And this mean girl is... she has an interesting backstory. So she's in love with Austin, the brother, and they ended up not getting married because she he marries Sue, and she's kind of sad about it.

Jojo

Very sad about it.

Bronwen

And then she... her husband dies, she ends up having a baby and her husband dies, of course, because 1850s, and... [all laugh]

Sarah

Everybody dies.

Bronwen

So in this episode, they're doing like a full on Victorian... line dance. And then it moves into hip hop dancing at the-- like, halfway through. As the night gets crazier.

Jojo

They're like, twerking in it or something, aren't they? [all laugh]

Bronwen

Yeah!

Jojo

...at some point.

Sarah

How do you twerk with all those skirts on.

Bronwen

No problem, man!

Jojo

I know. That's great.

Sarah

How do you, like... you can't even see your booty under a skirt.

Jojo

Like, they're twerking and then I think they're also doing the Doogie? I don't know.

Sarah

The Dougie?

Jojo

I'm... yes. [all laugh]

Sarah

"Teach me how to Dougie," that one?

Jojo

I'm born in the wrong century, Sarah! [laughs]

Sarah

The Doogie Howser, you know? [all laugh]

Bronwen

So Sarah, I was like... I wanted to bring this whole thing up, but I didn't want to name all the dances wrong. So thanks, Jojo, for doing that for me. [all laugh]

Jojo

I did it for you, Bronwen.

Bronwen

Thank you so much. So I don't look so old and...

Sarah

Oh my god.

Jojo

I have no excuse either, 'cause I really-- I'm like, I never learned the Dougie, but like... [laughs]

Sarah

I honestly couldn't tell you what the Dougie is. I just know that it's a song and I know it's a dance. Is it like, this one...? [demonstrates] [all laugh]

Bronwen

This is gonna be good for...

Jojo

Something like that. I don't know. [all laugh] I I don't even know how to pronounce it right, so... you know.

Bronwen

Alright, so here's...

Jojo

We're about on the same page.

Bronwen

...This is what Emily is wearing at that in that scene, in that episode. It's blue.

Sarah

Pretty, pretty.

Bronwen

Isn't it pretty? Like, cartridge pleated and has all this ruching up here.

Jojo

All that smocking!

Bronwen

And then her sister wears it in season two as a hand me down.

Sarah

Love that!

Bronwen

Right? So is I thought that was...

Jojo

So realistic!

Bronwen

So realistic. So cute.

Sarah

Awesome.

Jojo

It's cool seeing that up close, too. Because you can see how it's-- they've clearly arched each row.

Bronwen

Mmhmm.

Jojo

Even across the sleeve.

Sarah

That looks hard to do.

Bronwen

For sure, for sure. [laughs] It's really lovely.

Jojo

So detailed.

Bronwen

And then towards the end of the season, the circus comes to town.

Sarah

Ooh!

Bronwen

And she doesn't end up going, and she ends up having another like a dream sequence thing where she ends up being in the circus. Just as an escapism to everything that's happening in her own life. So... but this is her and Lavinia coming and being like, "Dad, we have to go to the circus!" [all laugh] But look at these...

Jojo

Oh, I love those sweaters.

Bronwen

Aren't they adorable?! I can't even!

Sarah

So cute.

Jojo

So cute.

Bronwen

So she wears this sweater repeatedly.

Jojo

Makes me want to knit something.

Bronwen

I know. I think they're crocheted, technically.

Jojo

Oh yeah, actually, you're right. That is crochet.

Bronwen

It's adorable.

Sarah

I love that they like recycled costumes. That's so... it's so... correct?

Bronwen

Yeah, you'd only have a certain amount of dresses. It's not like you're gonna have an entire-- like we are today. Having, like...

Jojo

Right.

Bronwen

...drawers and drawers of stuff, you would have just a few things. So things do recycle over and over. And she wears that sweater a lot as... when the season changes to colder. And this is the dress she's wearing underneath, and it has this really pretty trim running down. And all of the paisley dresses she wears are so pretty.

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

That's cute.

Jojo

That's a really lovely shade of red too.

Bronwen

Yeah, she kind of toggles between blue and red, depending on her mental state. So if she's feeling really good about herself, she's in red. And if she's kind of down on herself, it's blue.

Jojo

What an interesting emotional visual.

Bronwen

Right? So this is...

Sarah

Oh, THAT'S rad.

Bronwen

Right? So this is the corset that she ends up wearing when she goes... she's in the circus. And they actually have a little fitting picture of them figuring out all the tattoos, which I thought was interesting.

Jojo

Oh, cool!

Oh, whoa. That's pretty cool.

Bronwen

Right? And that's like... in this episode, she's just sort of feeling like a freak, right? Like, you know, her father doesn't get it. And she really wants to just be a writer and they want her to be a traditional Victorian lady. And it's not... it's not in her bones. It's just-- she's always writing poetry, and she just can't stop herself. So she's just feeling like she really does belong in the freak show and not in the house. So this is her little... it's so cool. I love these little striped acrobats on the side.

Sarah

Oh, yeah.

Jojo

I really do love circus wear, any kind of circus movie. I just enjoy how people reinterpret the circus each time...

Sarah

Me too.

Jojo

...in every era, every time. I do love that.

Bronwen

It's really... it's kind of sad, because this is very-- a very... moment, thing at the end. And you're like, "wait, I need to look at all of this detail!" I just want to pause it, and there's so many fabulous costumes happening in this entire scene. But...

Jojo

That's usually how it is.

Bronwen

I know, right?

Jojo

You know, the two seconds on screen.

Bronwen

And there's one episode where they dress up like boys to go to a lecture. They look so cute.

Sarah

Oh my gosh.

Jojo

So cute.

Bronwen

I love all the textures that they sort of layered on top of each other.

Sarah

Mmhmm.

Bronwen

I don't know, the clothes just don't stop. They just kind of just keep on going forever. Everybody looks awesome.

Sarah

I feel like I need to start this tonight. [all laugh] Like, I'm so excited to watch this now!

Bronwen

Okay, well this is, I think, the show to watch. So... and this is Sue when she gets married at the very end of the season.

Sarah

Pretty.

Bronwen

She just looks so stinkin' pretty. It's ridiculous.

Jojo

Look at that veil! It's so beautiful.

Bronwen

Look at this necklace! I mean, I can't.

Sarah

Gorge.

Jojo

Super gorge. There are some really lovely bonnets that I just want to sort of shout out to like... it looks like they were built. So...

Sarah

Is that Jane Krakowski?!

Bronwen

It is!

Jojo

It is.

Bronwen

I know!

Sarah

I am such a fan of her!

Bronwen

There's lots of sort of star cameos that happen. So I don't want to... now that you guys are gonna start watching it, I don't want to like... [all laugh] it's so fun to see.

Jojo

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw her as the mom. I was like, "Oh wait, what?"

Sarah

I love her. Also, I met her when I saw "She Loves Me" on Broadway, and she was so nice.

Jojo

Ooh.

Sarah

She was SO nice. She is a true star.

Bronwen

Yeah. And I feel like this is a very different part for her. Like, she's usually sort of glamorous, and she's very pious and kind of like closed and not fabulous?

There's still really funny moments that she has, which is one of the things I love about her.

Yeah. It's a very well-developed character.

Jojo

She has a very sarcastic, witty humor.

Sarah

She's a great comedic-- comedic actress, so I feel like doesn't get a lot of recognition for how good she is.

Bronwen

She's so good. But like, there is... the straw work on this hat. It's braided and it has straw flowers that are three dimensional that are worked in the lace on the inside. Yeah.

Jojo

So beautiful.

Sarah

Good for them for doing beautiful bonnets. I feel like bonnets... we've talked about bonnets and how often we have films just either completely ignore them, or it's just kind of like an afterthought.

Bronwen

Totally. And it's like-- they don't put a lot of bonnets on Emily. But I think that lets-- you know, obviously on purpose, but everyone else is wearing bonnets. So it's just to set her apart.

Sarah

Yeah, it makes her look like more of a free spirit, and different from everybody.

Bronwen

Exactly. Mmhmm.

Jojo

Yeah, they do that really well. She definitely stands out in every scene that she's in. Pretty much the entire show.

Bronwen

Yep. All right. I think that's all I wanted. I mean, the costumes do just go on and on. [laughs] There are-- I think in season two, there's some-- they go to the opera. And so everybody's in ball gowns.

Jojo

Oh, yeah.

Sarah

Ooh, yes.

Jojo

Gorgeous.

Bronwen

And her-- Emily's ball gown is blue velvet. And gold. It is so beautiful.

Jojo

Oooh.

Bronwen

It's probably in this ball gown section...

Jojo

I can't wait.

Sarah

I love velvet.

Bronwen

So at any rate, I don't see-- if there's anything else I wanted to mention. I mean...

Jojo

I think you did a really good job of paring down...

Sarah

I do too, you did great!

Jojo

...considering. [all laugh]

Bronwen

Okay! I mean, there's so much-- so many beautiful clothes every moment of every show. So...

Sarah

You understand our struggle now, of-- we have to edit ourselves down.

Jojo

Yup!

Bronwen

Yes I do. There's still way too many, still way too many.

Jojo

Always, especially with TV shows.

Sarah

Oh, yeah.

Jojo

'Cause every episode can be its own, like... you could have 60 costumes.

Sarah

I've been thinking about it. Like, my favorite TV shows. And I'm like... I really want to cover "Outlander," and I was like, "how about I just pick one episode, that I just think is..."

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

"...really a good example?"

Jojo

I think you HAVE to for a TV show, because otherwise it just gets overwhelming. Especially for things like that, where she goes into so many different time periods and areas and locations and interacts with so many different people. There's just no possible way.

Bronwen

Yeah, that show would be impossible.

Jojo

Yeah, it for sure.

Sarah

Yeah.

Jojo

Okay.

Sarah

Well, great job!

Bronwen

Thanks! [all laugh] Thanks, "Dickinson"!

Jojo

Thanks, Bronwen! I'm excited to watch the rest of it. Like I said, with just two episodes, it's... you know, it's been interesting just looking at the costumes. And seeing everything all together. I think-- I think you mentioned last time, production value is a big part of it. And like, you can definitely tell, they've really paid attention to all the details on this show.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

I think they did a really good job.

Bronwen

You know, that picture I showed of the of her dress, you can see what her room actually look like. And they really did make her room in the set look exactly like the room in the photographs. So...

Sarah

That's so cool.

Bronwen

They've really, really researched everything. And it's kind of nice to have the anachronistic be language, and music, and-- where the visuals are very anchored in the time period. So you don't feel like you're leaving the time period, really.

Jojo

Yeah, I think that's what makes it so accessible too, because we're living in such an audio... I mean, of course, with the podcast. But also just in general. It's such an audio world, that to give us that grounding of the contemporary and what we listen to, while still being able to see a visual from the time period, I feel like makes us connect to the time period a little bit better.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

Than if we were trying to do this weird mashup.

Sarah

Yeah, like you were saying about "Bridgerton," how they-- it's basically like string quartet covers. And...

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

I appreciated what they were trying to do, but I personally don't love a string quartet cover of a pop song, because it doesn't sound good. It sounds like-- if you're-- I think one of them was "Bad Guy" by Billy Eilish.

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

And it's like, this song is really good. But there's not really a way to convey this song with only strings, unless you have a really good arranger, and I feel like it was just kind of... it doesn't sound like classical music, it sounds like something else. And it kind of took me out of it a little bit.

Jojo

That's exactly how I feel about classical covers. Because it's, you know, especially with things like "Bad Guy," there's such a slam poetry kind of aspect to it.

Sarah

Yeah!

Jojo

...That I think you just can't get with classical music, because it's just a different-- it's a different medium. So yeah, I think that's what I love about this show is that they let the music just be contemporary, and let that kind of feel what's happening in the scene.

Sarah

I think that's cool.

Jojo

Because you still get that sense of, you know, this is a contemporary feeling, without having to look contemporary in terms of historical accuracy.

Sarah

Right. Yeah, totally.

Jojo

Yeah, cool. Thanks, Bronwyn. Great job! Hopefully not too scary, as our first guest artist. [all laugh]

Bronwen

Thanks though.

Jojo

No pressure.

Bronwen

No pressure.

Sarah

So me and Jojo know what you do. But do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about what you do, in the realm of theater? Or about your YouTube channel? Or, like... what have you been up to? [all laugh]

Bronwen

I know, it's a lot.

Jojo

Self promotion!

Bronwen

So I sort of, I guess... I don't know how far back I want to start. I guess I... you know, I went to school to be a-- I have a costume design degree from Cal Arts. And then ended up sort of not liking just being a costume designer. And I really wanted to build stuff, because that's really what I love. And so I ended up working in different shops starting out as a stitcher, and then ending up as a cutter/draper. And now I run the costume shop at Fullerton College, where Jojo and I work. And then the pandemic happened. And I had kind of started a YouTube channel, sort of on the side, because I wasn't seeing kind of the YouTube stuff that I wanted to see. I wanted people to know the right ways to do things, and that they're accessible and easy to do. And so I started that, sort of on the side, which was really actually great, because then pandemic hit, and we ended up needing to teach people how to do this stuff through Zoom, or whatever. So I kind of had a leg up on teaching far away. [laughs] On video.

Sarah

Yeah, you didn't really have to teach yourself how to record yourself doing things...

Bronwen

Yeah.

Sarah

...'cause you were already doing it. That's awesome.

Bronwen

Yeah. Pretty awesome. So that's kind of... and then, so my YouTube channel is pretty... I don't know, it's silly. And I do do some silly things. But there is a lot of educational stuff happening, as well. I try to make it as fun as possible. So, you should check it out.

Sarah

I love your YouTube videos. I think they're adorable.

Bronwen

Aww, thanks. [laughs]

Jojo

And seeing the final product too, all the stuff you've built has been so cool to watch.

Bronwen

Yeah, I hope so. And then, yeah... I just entered in the Foundations Revealed contest. We'll see how that goes.

Sarah

I saw that, yeah!

Bronwen

Yeah. It's a big...

Jojo

So exciting!

Bronwen

...Worldwide competition. So we'll see. I probably won't win, but you know, it's fun to enter and at least have a goal and something to do.

Sarah

Yeah!

Bronwen

In these times.

Sarah

Totally. Hey, who knows, you might win!

Bronwen

I dunno!

Jojo

I'm rooting for you, Bronwen.

Bronwen

[laughs] I think regular people get to vote. So at least you should check out what everybody worldwide has done.

Sarah

I'll vote, I'll vote for you.

Jojo

I wanna vote! [all laugh]

Bronwen

I don't think they're technically up, but it's gonna be on the Foundations Revealed website in March.

Sarah

And we will post that on our social medias when it's around so that people can vote for you.

Bronwen

Oh, that'd be great.

Jojo

Yeah, we can definitely do that.

Bronwen

Or they can vote for whoever they want.

Sarah

Well, yeah.

Jojo

Vote for Bronwen!

Sarah

We'd prefer that they vote for you. [all laugh]

Jojo

If you're listening to this podcast.

Sarah

I'm sorry, we don't make the rules. It's a legal requirement that you now vote for Bronwen. [all laugh] Since you're listening to this podcast.

Bronwen

Oh, my gosh.

Jojo

So funny. Bronwen has been teaching me a lot too, even of recording and how to do all of that and teach online.

Bronwen

It's bananas. It's been crazy. But fun.

Sarah

I mean, yeah, I know a lot of teachers. My mom is a vocal teacher and a choir teacher. And she has been having to teach vocal ensemble over Zoom.

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

And she's really been adapting to. So it's-- it's like everybody's learning a whole new set of skills.

Jojo

Absolutely.

Bronwen

Yeah, I think it's been kind of awesome. Like, in a way, it's really a lot of work and a really different way of doing things. But it has been good, and examining how we teach and sort of fine tuning what we're teaching and stuff. So I think it's been good on the most part. I mean, it's been real rough for our industry, but...

Sarah

Yeah.

Jojo

For sure.

Sarah

So, what is your history with theater? Like, we want to know if there's one specific show that maybe you saw when you were young? Or the first show that you worked on that made you go, "Oh, this is definitely what I want to do."

Bronwen

I think this is an interesting question. Because I think-- so, I grew up-- my parents were artists that made liturgical vestments.

Oh!

So, "liturgical vestments" is fancy word for the stuff that hangs in churches on the altar. Alter cloths and stuff. And it was in the 70s, when they were allowing women to be preachers and ministers and stuff. And they didn't have-- no one was selling robes for ladies. So my mom started making robes for women, and then they sort of ended up doing the art part and the liturgical vestment part. So I grew up in like-- a basic factory kind of setting where there was always silk and stuff in the trash cans. And I would put things together, just crafty. And I was always into costumes and clothing. And I thought for a while I'd be a fashion designer or something. But then-- and my parents, my parents were kind of artists. They always took us to different things that they could take us to, so we ended up going to a "Peter Pan" show when we were pretty little. And I remember it because my mom was actually crying when Tinkerbell died.

Sarah

Aww!

Bronwen

I know. And I was like, "What are you doing?" [all laugh] Like, you know, hard hearted me, I guess. I don't know. Like, watching the audience-- because that moment is so strange in theatrical... I don't know, experiences. Where the whole audience kind of has to buy into what's happening.

Sarah

Yep.

Bronwen

So I think that was the first moment that I felt that like, whatever was happening on stage was actually affecting people, and that we're having a communal response to that. So... which is a weird, kind of existential seven year old thing to be having. [all laugh] But I think that was the first moment that theater... how important theater is. And then I ended up working with a children's theater group, doing mostly building and helping with that, behind the scenes. So that's kind of what-- and then I ended up going to college and stuff. So it's not... it wasn't like... there's not a direct line from that show to theater. But I think all of my love of history and sewing and all that stuff sort of ended up coming together in like, "this is what you should be doing."

Sarah

I love that.

Jojo

Yeah, definitely having that history is great.

Sarah

Yeah, I do feel like a lot of people who work in theater, it's not It wasn't like a... "I've known I wanted to do this forever, and I just went and did it." It's like we all kind of have a meandering path where we try this and we try that. And then it just kind of-- we eventually arrive at theater. We go, "Oh, here it is." Like, "this is what I want."

Right. Yeah.

Sarah

But it takes us a while to figure that out.

Bronwen

Yeah, and then I did-- you know, I tried some film and it was just... the pacing was strange and it just felt... I don't know, theater is so much better! [laughs] For me, I would say.

Sarah

I completely agree. I've been on a couple of sets and they weren't even professional sets, they were small films, and I was like, "this is the most stressful thing I've ever experienced." [laughs]

Bronwen

Yeah, they're just sort of badly organized. Like, you're-- you're prepared for the thing they're going to shoot and then all of a sudden they're like, "Oh, we're gonna shoot this," and you're like, "But we're not prepared for that, we're prepared for this!" So yeah, it was very stressful and...

Jojo

Constantly changing.

Bronwen

Yeah, wait-- a lot of waiting around for, like, "I could have been preparing for this all day if I had known."

Sarah

Right, exactly.

Jojo

Yeah.

Sarah

Yeah, it's like intense boredom followed by the most stressful 30 minutes of your life...

Bronwen

Yes.

Sarah

...and then another five hours of intense boredom. [all laugh]

Jojo

"Hurry up and wait" is basically the entire motto.

Sarah

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Bronwen

But mostly theater, you're just busy the entire time. So, no sitting around, there's no sitting around in theater. So...

Sarah

Except for during tech. [all laugh]

Jojo

Unless it's just one of those shows.

Sarah

It's true, there are some techs where I'm like-- I hardly sit in the house at all because I'm just running around like a headless chicken.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

Yup.

Bronwen

That does happen.

Jojo

Very true. Well thanks Bronwen! It's cool hearing that-- I mean, because I know you've talked to me a little bit about some of your background, but it's cool hearing the full story.

Bronwen

I'm glad. I feel like I've not had the most normal childhood, or whatever. [laughs] And I guess, that's how you end up in theater for sure. [all laugh]

Sarah

That's a very fair point. Do you want to tell us a bit about maybe, like... your favorite show you've ever worked on, if you have one?

Bronwen

I always say "Edward Toulane." That was at South Coast Repertory. Really... I don't really know why, I guess, because it's not like I got to fit actors. I made tiny little clothes for this rabbit that was in the show, it's kind of like the star of the show. But he is a stuffed rabbit, that was about, what, two feet high or something? So it was like making doll clothes and getting paid for it, so I think that was my seven year old heart being like, "THIS IS THE BEST!" So... but, you know, and I've made tons of gorgeous dresses and fun stuff, but I-- that is the thing that kind of gave me the most joy.

Jojo

And you've talked-- I mean, you've talked about this before, Bronwen, but I know you really wanted to work for Jim Henson for a while, with The Muppets, too.

Bronwen

Yes I did. [all laugh]

Jojo

I mean, you probably still do.

Unknown Speaker

I want to, too!

Bronwen

Still do, yes.

Sarah

Me too, Bronwen! Yeah, every time-- so my parents, my family and I all watch "The Muppet Christmas Carol" together on Christmas every year. And every time, I stare at the tiny clothes and I'm like, "I want to make them." And then every year around Christmas I end up on the Jim Henson website looking to see if they have job openings, and they never do. [all laugh]

Bronwen

They never do. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" has beautiful costumes!

Sarah

It does! And I actually-- like, it's not oh, you know, it's a little false front vest, a false shirt underneath. It's like they've layered all the actual clothes, they're wearing everything that they should be wearing for the period, and it's all beautiful!

Bronwen

Yeah, absolutely!

Sarah

And it's like, wool and silk...

Jojo

It's alomost more historically accurate than some things you see today, on real people.

Sarah

Yes!

Bronwen

Honestly. Like, they're-- I think Rizzo wears this little smocked shirt.

Sarah

He does. Yes.

Bronwen

And it's... you can see all the hand smocking and it's all super tiny and you're just like, "oh my god, this is mind blowing."

Sarah

Yes!

Jojo

Uh-huh.

Bronwen

So, at any rate, I would love to work with The Muppets, since forever.

Sarah

We should do that. [laughs]

Bronwen

Yeah, of the things I've done, I've done a lot of weird things in my life but that is not one of them. [all laugh]

Jojo

Can we just start a small company and just like, market? Just say "Hey, we already do this for, like... just hire us as a team."

Sarah

I actually-- I know some people who did some work with All Puppet Players in Fullerton, and for a while I was like, "Can I please...?" They were gonna do a puppet version of "Pride and Prejudice"...

Jojo

Ooh!

Sarah

...and I was like, "I need to be involved in this," and then I don't think they ever ended up doing it. And it was a huge disappointment to me because I wanted to make puppet clothes so bad I was like, "I will do this for free." [all laugh] "I desperately need to do this."

Bronwen

Who knew that so many costumers are desperate to work at Jim Henson?

Jojo

In small scale. [all laugh]

Sarah

I know! It's fun because it's-- it's a different shaped body than we're used to.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Sarah

It's tiny, and everybody loves tiny things.

Bronwen

Yeah!

Sarah

And then they can't complain.

Bronwen

Yeah!

Sarah

Like, the doll or the puppet can't talk back to you, to tell you that their neck is too itchy. You know?

Bronwen

Right! Right. It's kind of the best of all worlds.

Jojo

Right, yeah.

Sarah

Exactly! [all laugh]

Jojo

So funny. I never even thought about it that way but that's so true.

Bronwen

I don't know I guess if you're...

Jojo

Working with an inanimate object that doesn't talk back to me.

Bronwen

I'm sure Miss Piggy would talk back to you.

Sarah

Yeah, that's... yes. I wonder if-- that makes me wonder how Muppet fittings are run. [all laugh] Does the person who is the-- is the person operating it while you're doing the fitting, just to see how it... moves?

Jojo

Talking back to you.

Sarah

Yeah! And like, can they help themselves from talking while they're...

Jojo

No.

Bronwen

I'm sure they can't. I'm sure they can't.

Sarah

Yeah, puppet people are like that.

Bronwen

[laughs] "Puppet people."

Sarah

We all know puppet people.

Jojo

We know puppet people. [all laugh]

Sarah

Some of the weirdest, and I mean this in the most loving way, some of the weirdest people I've ever worked with are the puppet people.

Bronwen

I don't know if I've worked with a lot of puppet-- I don't think I've worked with any puppet people.

Jojo

I was gonna say, I think both of you have worked with a lot more puppet people than I have. [laughs]

Sarah

We've been doing a lot of puppets at SCR, for some reason. We did "Amos and Boris," and they made a giant whale puppet for that. I mean, it...

Jojo

Wow.

Sarah

...it was more of a... like, a vehicle? But they called it a puppet, you know, and it had to have a mouth that opened and stuff.

Bronwen

Awesome.

Sarah

And then we did "Mr Popper's Penguins," which had a bunch of penguins in it.

Jojo

Oh, yeah.

Sarah

Oh, and then I did "Flora and Ulysses," I was the assistant costume designer on that, where the squirrel was a puppet. So I feel like I've worked with fair amount of puppet designers. They're always really weird.

Bronwen

Hmm.

Jojo

Interesting.

Bronwen

Well, that's fun. Good to know. I always like working with the weirdos, so.

Sarah

Yeah, I mean...

Bronwen

I fit in, you know.

Jojo

We click together.

Sarah

That is the beauty of theater, is that like... it's almost like joining the circus, right? Where it's a bunch of misfits coming together.

Bronwen

Exactly. Exactly.

Jojo

Very cool. Well, I don't know if I had any other specific questions, but I know we're nearing our time as well. I'm running at 52 minutes on my time.

Sarah

That's pretty good, I think. We usually like to stay to an hour...ish. [all laugh] You know.

Bronwen

Okay!

Sarah

It's easy to get excited and then just get carried away.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

Especially when there's beautiful costumes to be looked at.

Bronwen

I know, and every episode is honestly so well put together and everything. Like, I have favorite episodes that don't necessarily have my favorite costumes. So it was hard to choose what to talk about. So...

Jojo

Yeah, I feel like the show also keeps it-- it keeps the storyline moving, but you're always-- there's always something in each scene. There's not a lot of dead space.

Bronwen

Yeah.

Jojo

If that makes any sense? Because I feel like sometimes--especially with historical period shows--sometimes they focus so much on the dead space, and the waiting, that you're just kind of like, "why is this in here?"

Bronwen

Right.

Jojo

Like I'm just sitting watching nature happen for 10 minutes. [laughs]

Bronwen

That's definitely not happening. [laughs]

Jojo

Definitely not.

Sarah

I do feel like some period period pieces have a pacing issue.

Jojo

Yeah.

Bronwen

Mmhmm. I mean, Jane Austen... like, they're often just waiting for a letter, right, that's part of the book.

Jojo

Right.

Unknown Speaker

It's true.

Jojo

But you know, I feel like... so I guess this isn't the best example, but the new "Pride and Prejudice." There's very intentional reasons for why she has those waiting periods. But then there's there's other versions of "Pride and Prejudice" where I'm just like, "Okay, we just watched them walk across the courtyard for 10 minutes." [all laugh] Like, let's get to the other side of the courtyard already.

Sarah

Pick up the pace!

Bronwen

It's hard to get away from our modern pacing, right?

Jojo

[laughs] That's true.

Sarah

Yeah, we're used to a lot of instant gratification and 10 minute YouTube videos, so...

Bronwen

Yeah, yeah.

Jojo

It's true.

Bronwen

Definitely, I think it's hard.

Sarah

You've got to find a way to get people to not stare at their phone while they're watching your show.

Bronwen

Right. That's interesting you say that. "Dickinson," I never-- I never pick up my phone when I'm watching that show.

Sarah

I feel like that's as good a testament as any to how good it is, you know?

Jojo

Yeah, very true.

Bronwen

But I will say, it's not for everybody. [laughs]

Jojo

For the weirdos, maybe?

Bronwen

It's definitely for the weirdos, it's for us weirdos.

Jojo

Yes. Yeah, I definitely-- like I said, I'm only two episodes in but I'm really enjoying just everything about it right now.

Bronwen

I'm so glad because I was wondering.

Jojo

Thank you for the suggestion, Bronwen.

Bronwen

Okay, good. Nothing worse than being like, "this is the best show!" And then everyone else was like, "no, this show is terrible. I don't understand why you like it." [all laugh]

Sarah

Well if they don't like it, that's on them. That's not your fault.

Bronwen

No, it's not. [all laugh]

Sarah

So do you want to tell people where they can follow you on social media if they feel so inclined?

Bronwen

Sure, so I'm on Instagram @queendeluxesew. And then, on YouTube at Queen DeLuxe, or you can look up Bronwen Burton. I don't know if you guys have swipe up yet, on your Instagram.

Sarah

No. We sure don't.

Bronwen

I don't either.

Sarah

But we can tag you. We'll tag Bronwen on Instagram, and we'll also have it in the episode description, her social media and stuff.

Jojo

I'll probably post it on YouTube as well. I might be able to just link it to your actual YouTube page.

Bronwen

Yeah, so if you want to learn some sewing, you can check out my channel.

Sarah

Or just watch her make cute vintage-y clothes.

Jojo

It's pretty great.

Bronwen

Yes, or some historical things too, way back there. Yeah.

Sarah

Awesome.

Jojo

Perfect! Thanks Bronwen.

Sarah

Thank you so much for joining us. We had so much fun.

Bronwen

Oh good. I did too, and my dogs didn't bark, which was a miracle. [all laugh]

Sarah

I forgot about your dogs momentarily. Good dogs!

Jojo

That's a good sign.

Bronwen

I was waiting for them-- and we're going to have to stop our recording, or whatever, you're gonna have to do tons of editing, so I'm glad.

Sarah

Yay!

Jojo

I know, it worked out very well.

Sarah

Good job, puppies.

Bronwen

Good job, puppies.

Sarah

Okay well.

Jojo

Perfect!

Sarah

Thanks for listening to The Costume Plot.

Jojo

We're looking forward to next month where we'll be sharing a couple more movies. We're going to go back to covering movies again, but I know we're going to have more guest episodes in the future.

Sarah

Most definitely.

Jojo

Thanks for joining us.

Sarah

Okay, bye bye.

Jojo

Signing out!

Sarah

Bye!

0 notes

gukyi · 8 years ago

Text

masterlist

here lies all of the works i have ever written and posted to tumblr! they are sorted by ot7 series, then by members. this is the only place you will ever find my writing -- if you see any of these pieces on other platforms (wattpad, ao3, fanfiction.net, instagram, youtube, etc.), they are plagiarized works and please let me know. enjoy!

KEY: ⚥ gender neutral reader | ♡ favorites | ♔ newest

SERIES: ✎ in progress | ✓ complete

LAST UPDATED: 06.13.21

dandelion wisps

a collection of drabbles written either for requests, ask games, or on whims. sorted by member and genre.

sorted: a hogwarts au

⇒ a series of scenarios featuring each member, set during the same hogwarts universe. ♡; ✎

kim seokjin: white chocolate fudge ↳ friends to lovers au — fluff | 11k

you and seokjin are the heads of your class, but recently he’s been sneaking off with shitty excuses and leaving you to watch over the students. when you finally follow him after he abruptly bails on your evening walk, you find yourselves in the forbidden forest with… a hippogriff hatchling?

min yoongi: interconnection ↳ strangers to lovers au, journal au — fluff | 8k

you can never trust anything in the wizarding world. not even your own goddamn journal.

jung hoseok: plant boy ↳ opposites to lovers au — fluff, light angst | 11k

after seven years of doing it, you’d like to think you’re an expert at skipping class. stay hidden, stay quiet, and act inconspicuous. but when you accidentally draw the attention of jung hoseok while you’re camping out on the benches outside the greenhouses, you begin to realize that all it takes is a boy with sunshine at his fingertips and a particular affinity for herbology to change things.

kim namjoon: tutor ↳ enemies to lovers au — fluff | 11k

competition has always been a thing at hogwarts, but not even the house ghosts could be prepared for the volcanic explosion otherwise known as the culmination of the rivalry between you and fellow top student kim namjoon.

park jimin: boats against the current ↳ opposites to lovers au — fluff, angst | 12k

park jimin thinks his life is all well and good, that is, until he finds out that if he wants to play quidditch for his last year at hogwarts, he needs to pass a presentation in muggle studies. and, just like the novel he needs to research, he realizes that maybe his life would be easygoing and simple, if only he didn’t fall in love along the way.

kim taehyung: love, guaranteed ↳ friends to lovers au — fluff, angst | 11k

with the celestial ball quickly approaching, kim taehyung is horrified to find out that you, his best friend, are dateless. to remedy this, he initiates The Match Project, a matchmaking service designed to find the most optimal date. to you, it’s an opportunity to meet someone else so you can stop pining after your clueless best friend. to him, it’s an opportunity to finally, once and for all, tell you how he feels.

jeon jungkook: do you want me (dead?) ↳ enemies to lovers au — fluff | 11k

jeon jungkook, quidditch extraordinaire and overall pain in your ass, is the one problem you can’t seem to solve, even with years of being the school’s advice columnist under your belt. that is, until you begin to receive letters from someone under the alias of bambi, requesting help with confessing to a crush, and suddenly, your relationship with jeon jungkook takes a turn for… the worst?

kim seokjin

⇒ O N E S H O T S

start anew ↳ exes au — fluff; angst | 11k

it’s been five years since you left your hometown, vowing never to return, but a simple invitation to a christmas party and a yearning to know whether or not you’re truly over the heartbreak you left behind has you wondering if, maybe, the christmas spirit and promise of a new beginning can change your mind.

raspberry truffles ↳ friends to lovers au, fake dating au — fluff | 5k

how to fake date your best friend: step one: don’t fall in love with them. failed step one.

for you, anything ↳ friends to lovers au, enemies to lovers au — fluff; comedy | 21k

in the popular online multiplayer game, kingdom, you are the top-ranked knight with money, fame, and power. in real life, you’re a graphic design geek who’s got a very unsubtle crush on her gorgeous coworker, kim seokjin. but when you’re suddenly dethroned from the first place spot in your game, you and your kingdom character embark on a journey to reclaim your title, and learn on the way that things are not always as they seem.

the courtship chronicles ↳ friends to lovers au, fake dating au — fluff; comedy; angst; ♡ | 20k

dating has never been anywhere near your list of priorities, but kim seokjin is nothing if not determined. and when he comes to the rescue and accompanies you to your friend’s wedding, he decides to request only one thing in return: for you to let him take you out on fake dates and shower you in fake affection, and show you how much fun dating can be. he just needs to remember to keep the part where he’s been in love with you under wraps.

the heiress and the hotelier ↳ modern cinderella au, hotelier!seokjin, heiress!reader — fluff; comedy | 20k

when you share a kiss with a mysterious but gorgeous stranger on the night of your unwanted, lavish masquerade birthday party, the last thing you expect is for him to vanish at midnight on the dot. but when, as punishment for always arguing with him, your father assigns you to oversee the company’s newest resort hotel, you begin to realize that the handsome stranger may be closer than you think.

min yoongi

⇒ S E R I E S

the little things ↳ friends with benefits au, expecting parents au — fluff; ✎; ♡

what happens when you combine friends with benefits, an accidental pregnancy, and a certain min yoongi? he falls in love.

the truth between us ↳ enemies to lovers au — fluff; angst; drama; sci fi; ✓; ♡ | 100k

there is truly nothing more unfortunate than the fact that min yoongi, asshole extraordinaire, is the editor for your very first novel. you’re stuck with him. but then, the world shifts beneath your feet, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’ve always been looking at life from the wrong angle.

➘ one | two | three | four | five | six | epilogue

⇒ O N E S H O T S

magic of the night ↳ witch au — horror | 5k

there is a witch you go to for spells and potions whenever human nature is not enough for things to go your way, and he loves you more than anyone else ever will.

i’ll give you my heart ↳ christmas au, friends to lovers au — fluff | 6k

gift exchanges are cool. gift exchanges with your ceo-slash-best friend min yoongi are less cool, because what the hell are you supposed to get the man that already has everything?

a heart full of love ↳ e2l au, actor au, high school au — fluff | 10k

people say that actors are the most dramatic people in the world but those people haven’t met a certain min yoongi.

VOGUE ↳ e2l au, fashion designers au — fluff; comedy; angst; ♡ | 42k

you’ve always said that fashion is meant to push the limits of art, but no amount of swarovski crystals could ever prepare you for the latest assignment your manager has lined up for you: design a dress with none other than min yoongi, the evil genius that stole the show from you during paris fashion week, to be displayed in a showcase in milan.

that’s the spirit! ↳ f2l au, college au, halloween au — fluff; comedy; angst | 8k

min yoongi hates halloween. as his best friend and resident halloween-lover, that is simply unacceptable. but when halloween night rolls around and you and min yoongi feel farther apart than ever before, you discover that what’s come between you is more than just a bad trick, and that no matter what day it is, loving him is the sweetest treat of all.

♔ no choice (next to you) ↳ e2l au, neighbor au, frat boy au, college au — fluff; comedy | 13k

the pros of your last-minute senior year apartment sublet: cheap, furnished, close to campus, in a gorgeous old victorian conversion home, and right next to the greek takeout place.

the cons of your last-minute senior year apartment sublet: min yoongi, senior member of the beta tau sigma fraternity, and his party-throwing, vodka-loving, ruckus-making fraternity buddies, are your neighbors.

kim namjoon

⇒ O N E S H O T S

moving on ↳ supernatural au, carrie au — horror, angst | 10k

when kim namjoon moves to a new town the year before graduation, the first and only thing he is told is to stay away from her.

the snow globe effect ↳ librarian au — fluff; ♡ | 10k

when a freak blizzard hits and leaves you and kim namjoon trapped in the library together on the eve of new year’s eve, you realize that when life hands you lemons, you make lemon snow cones.

park jimin

⇒ O N E S H O T S

rich kid ↳ rich kid au, college au — fluff; ⚥; ♡ | 5k

park jimin is a rich kid.

earnestly yours ↳ enemies to lovers au, actor au, high school au — fluff; ♡ | 8k

it doesn’t matter if you and park jimin hate each other’s guts, because you will always get cast opposite each other for the school’s drama productions, and you will always have to kiss.

just a little bit of love (is all you really need) ↳ gymnastics au — fluff | 5k

jimin’s something of a legend at gymnastics, but suddenly you walk in and turn his whole world upside down. quite literally, might i add.

fairytail ↳ merman au — fluff | 19k

you have a particular disdain for the beach. jimin is here to change that. oh! and he’s also a merman. so there’s that, too.

into the wilderness ↳ camp counselor au, unrequited love au, friends to lovers au— fluff | 27k

alright, so last summer’s camp was… disastrous. from the murky green showers to the wasps nests, it was all-around a bad time. but none of those things could be quite as catastrophic as the end-of-camp counselor campfire, when you told park jimin that you were in love with him. and if telling him was terrible, then seeing him again this summer, one year after your fruitless confession, just might be the death of you.

kim taehyung

⇒ O N E S H O T S

seoksanhwa ↳ prince au, joseon au, sageuk au — fluff; smut; angst; ♡ | 23k

in the game of love and war, nothing is fair.

heart is where the home is ↳ airport au, strangers to lovers au — fluff; smut | 16k

when you woke up this morning, you didn’t really picture yourself falling in love with the attractive, well-read traveller sitting next to you on the plane, but a missed connection and an alarming amount of hand-holding later, you find that you both get a lot more than what you paid for.

practice makes perfect (or at least, significantly better) ↳ punk band au — fluff | 7k

taehyung’s the drummer in a local punk band, and you’re the university’s first chair flute. this is a love story that doesn’t exactly go as planned, but then again, does anything?

tattoos together ↳ tattoo artist au — fluff | 5k

you aren’t necessarily terribly particular when it comes to tattoos, and when you arrive at your favorite tattoo parlor one day in search of a new addition, one in particular catches your eye, but more importantly, so does the artist behind its creation. and slowly, you come to realize that art does not need sentimental value to be meaningful—it just needs to be loved.

broken rings & queens and kings ↳ enemies to lovers au, royalty au, arranged marriage au — fluff; smut; angst; ♡ | 24k

to make a long, long story very, very short, you and kim taehyung have been sworn enemies ever since childhood, that is, until you find out that you’re betrothed to each other for the good of your kingdoms, and everything comes crumbling down.

victorious ↳ childhood friends to enemies to lovers au, how to train your dragon au — fluff; angst; ♡ | 21k

you’re the village’s best dragon racer, if the two years of straight victory are anything to go by. at least, until the day that kim taehyung returns and sweeps the crown right from the top of your head. you swear he’s nothing but a sleazy, obnoxious, dragon-racing jerk, but find that belief turned on its head when the two of you stumble upon a night fury in the woods, whose only chance of survival happens to be the two of you.

four weeks ↳ enemies to lovers au, roommates au, college au — fluff; angst; ♡ | 20k

four weeks. that’s how long you’re trapped on campus after missing your flight home because of a grossly overtime final. and as you’re walking around your empty campus, thinking that you could sink no lower, you find yourself alone in the art building with a certain freshman year dorm-neighbor from hell, kim taehyung. and he’s got an offer that you don’t think you can refuse: he’s staying on campus this winter break as well, and he’s happy to let you live with him.

good luck charm ↳ friends to lovers au, roommates au, actor au — fluff; angst | 11k

kim taehyung has nearly everything he’s ever dreamed of: an apartment in new york city, a lead role in an off-broadway play, and a best friend to share it with. but even still, there’s one thing missing—love. and when he goes on the hunt for it, he dots every i and crosses every t, leaves no stone unturned, but forgets to look at the person who could ever love him the most: you.

love me or we both go down ↳ enemies to lovers au, arranged marriage au, rich kids au — fluff; angst; smut | 32k

after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

jeon jungkook

⇒ S E R I E S

fear is forever ↳ werewolf au — fluff; angst; ✓; ♡ | 10k

there’s a werewolf in that forest behind your house, they told you, and he’ll eat you before you can even beg for mercy.

➘ fear in your eyes | forever and a night

moonlight melody ↳ fake dating au, orchestra au — fluff; angst; ✓; ♡ | 50k

when your loving best friend playfully pranks you one too many times, you decide that revenge is best served hot, over a period of thirty days, and with a little extra help from the best violinist you know (sorry jimin).

➘ part one | part two

⇒ O N E S H O T S

the millionaire and his lover ↳ ceo au, friends to lovers au, fake dating au — fluff; smut; angst | 18k

over the course of your lifelong friendship with jungkook, you can’t say that you’ve ever had the greatest ideas, and a fake relationship with the boy you’ve been in love with for years is no exception.

pen pals ↳ friends to lovers au, high school au — fluff; smut | 11k

to put it simply, pretending to be jungkook’s pen pal when you were both eight just so he wouldn’t be disappointed was a bad idea, because now he’s in love with them. or, well, you, he just doesn’t know it.

long lost ↳ childhood friends au, celebrity au — fluff; angst; ♡ | 15k

jeon jungkook is famous, talented, and on the hunt for his childhood friend and first love. you are self-deprecating, a little awkward, and exactly who he’s looking for. only, there’s one (1; single, a solo) problem: he has no idea.

the wedding planners ↳ enemies to lovers au, wedding au — fluff; smut; angst; ♡ | 28k

the good thing about being your best friend’s wedding planner is that you get to watch him marry the love of his life. the bad thing? jeon jungkook.

ice prince ↳ enemies to lovers au, figure skating au — fluff; ♡ | 22k

when, due to inexplicable and total clumsiness, your reliable, talented ice dancing partner of five years breaks his leg right before the largest competition of your life, desperate times call for desperate measures. and for a brief, brief moment, you think that everything might actually end up not-that-shitty, until you find out that the aforementioned desperate measures go by the name of jeon jungkook.

the underwear thief ↳ neighbors au, college au — fluff; smut | 10k

jeon jungkook would like to make one thing very clear: it’s not his fault.

the coffee shop contract ↳ fake dating au, college au — fluff; comedy | 18k

apparently, having an instagram profile with a different girl in every picture is reason enough for your friends to strike up a deal where they’ll pay you to have a relationship. well, jeon jungkook’s no good at relationships, but a fake relationship isn’t a real relationship. is it?

if i told you ↳ friends to lovers au, college au — fluff; angst; comedy; ♡ | 22k

in order to pay for university, jeon jungkook decides to market his most valuable asset to the wealthy socialites of campus: himself. donning a suit and tie, tousled hair, and glasses (to look smarter), he becomes every rich daughter’s dream: the perfect boyfriend to bring to balls, dinners, and business gatherings. all while you watch from the sidelines, only able to dream of having that much money to buy yourself what you really want: him.

midas ↳ enemies to lovers au, ceo au, magical realism au — fluff; angst; ♡ | 32k

jeon jungkook was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the power to turn whatever he wants into pure gold. you were born with healing and invisibility powers but without a cent to your name. so when you’re plucked off of the streets for pickpocketing and assigned to be his minder as punishment, you realize you’re going to have to overcome a lot more than class differences if either of you are going to get what you want.

the love project ↳ friends to lovers au, college au — fluff; comedy; ♡ | 12k

from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.

the art of the rom-com ↳ enemies to lovers au, college au — fluff; comedy; angst; ♡ | 33k

FILM395, the art of the rom-com, was supposed to be an easy a with one of your favorite professors, but it’s not. it’s actually a sisyphean torture that comes in the form of fellow film student jeon jungkook, who has no problem responding to every one of your discussion posts about the consumerist ideals underlying every romance movie with his own paragraphs on the beauty of love like the hopeless romantic he is. and when the two of you find yourselves partnered up for your final project, which is to create a short film on rom-coms, jungkook decides to take it upon himself to show you what love is really like.

#masterlist #just for those mobile folks out there

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gnomegirlgabby-blog · 4 years ago

Text

So there is this cool gnome article! Thanks for writing this Max!

Garden Gnomes Meaning

The etymology of the word "gnome" is not completely clear. Paracelsus, named elemental earth beings pigmaei or gnomi to, possibly from the Greek word "genomos" meaning "earth-dweller."

It is less likely that "gnomus" was derived from the similar-sounding Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge."

Petite Gnome In Ancient Rome

The earliest appearance of garden gnome-like statues was in ancient Rome. Their garden forerunners were statues that represented the Roman gods.

The most common among them was the god Priapus, a minor fertility deity who originally came from Greek mythology. He was a protector of livestock, planting, and gardening, which was symbolized by the depiction of his… Well, permanent erection.

The primary function of these statues was to protect the gardens from evil spirits, as well as to ensure a successful harvest.

Early Modern Period-From Gobbi to Lampy

Swiss Alchemist Paracelsus Was The First One To Described Gnomes As Creatures With Magical Powers

In the Renaissance era, the grotesque potential of those statues was expanded following the general spirit of the age.

Swiss alchemist Paracelsus was the first one who described them as creatures with magical power. According to him, gnomes were one of the four elementals or nature spirits (invisible beings that existed among humans), belonging to the earth. They would come out at night to help plants grow. During this period, gnomes were pleonastically called "Grotesques" and thus were made to be ugly petite hunchbacks, painted in bright colors and usually named by the Italian word "Gobbi."

Garden gnomes became widely popular as home ornaments by the beginning of the 18th century, but mostly for wealthy families only.

The popularity of gnomes persisted thanks to the folklore, myths, and stories from around the world, such as German fairy tales, where gnomes and dwarfs were present largely as little creatures with mythical power helping humans in farming. They were a good example of how folklore and mythology influenced the history of everyday life.

The First Garden Gnome

It is believed that the very first contemporary-looking garden gnome (with the iconic red hat), was made in Germany by sculptor Phillip Griebel. Soon, the fashion had spread across Europe, from England to Poland, and Griebel concentrated his entire manufacturing around producing garden gnomes.

Consequently, the manufacture of gnomes became very common in Germany, with different businesses emerging across the country, although Griebel remained famous among them, and still exists as a family business in Germany.

In the 19th century, Sir Charles Isham brought several of Griebel’s gnomes to England, introducing them to the new market. He is credited with beginning the tradition of garden gnomes in the United Kingdom, where they were nicknamed "Lampy." One replica is still preserved and displayed in Lamport Hall, the Isham family residence in Northamptonshire.

The 20th Century- Intermittent Rise And Fall Of Gnome

The beginning of the modern era in Europe brought troubling and uncertain times, which culminated with World War I and World War II. Their consequences changed the course of modern history, as well as leisure time habits. Unsurprisingly, the popularity of garden gnomes was in decline during this period.

The Snow White And Seven Dwarfs Movie lay in restoring the glory of Garden Gnomes in the 21st Century

However, thanks to popular culture, garden gnomes have returned to homes and gardens in Europe once again. In 1937, Walt Disney Productions released "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," as an animated musical fantasy movie. Decades later, in 1989, the movie was recognized for its cultural and historical significance, thus being preserved in the National Film Registry. Part of its cultural influence lay in restoring the glory of garden gnomes, whose physical similarity with dwarves was more than obvious.

Since the 1970s, the mass-production of garden gnomes has replaced handicrafts. The variety of materials was greater than before, and many gnomes were now made of plastic. This type of production led to lower quality compared to the handmade gnomes.

However, such manufacture made garden gnomes more affordable and thus available to a wider market. However, they have lost the artistic value they once had. They traveled a long road from exclusive decoration for the wealthy and powerful, to the ornament frequently displayed in middle and working-class gardens.

The Traveling Gnome Prank

The "Traveling gnome" is a game that dates back to the 1970s. It started when one traveler photographed two of his gnomes during his travel around Antarctica.

It became widely popular during the 1990s, when a community in France named the Garden Gnome Liberation Front made a prank out of it, stealing gnomes and taking them traveling.

The concept was to give the gnomes freedom they were believed to want.

Thieves usually sent photographs of the gnomes to the owners, showing them that their minions were safe and sound, in their newly gained freedom and independence. This community dedicated itself to the purpose of "freeing garden gnomes."

Over time, the prank became popular on a global scale, with many cases of stolen traveling garden gnomes and their photographs in front of famous landmarks worldwide. Instead of some random backyard somewhere in the UK or Germany, the "traveling gnomes" could be seen in front of London’s Big Ben and Paris’ Eiffel Tower. Such cases often took part in news, both in North America and Europe.

One of the latest was telling a story of a Canadian lady, whose garden gnome was missing for eight months. Finally, the gnome was returned to her, along with his travel diary. This book, containing stories and pictures of his travels all the way from his Canadian home in Vancouver Island to the Baja Peninsula in Mexico.

Such hard work proved the commitment of pranksters and the practitioners of the Traveling Gnome game around the world.

In 2001, the traveling garden gnome theme became the basis of the famous French movie "Amélie."

Gnomes' Red Cap

The Garden Gnome trademark has always been the so-called Phrygain Cap

The garden gnome trademark has always been the so-called Phrygian cap. It’s a soft, conical hat, usually painted bright red. It originates from the Hellenistic period, as it is preserved in depictions in Greek vase-painting and sculpture.

Nowadays, the hat is known as a Gnome and has got a brand new meaning. In revolutionary France, the Phrygian-style cap became a symbol of revolt against the establishment, called "Bonnet rouge." It was first documented in 1870.

This is why the national symbol of France, Marianne, is always depicted wearing a red Phrygian cap. Since Marianne is a personification of liberty and equality, it is easy to bring together such tradition with the aforementioned Traveling Gnome prank, whose aim was to free gnomes from their garden prisons. No wonder this joke has bloomed in France, the very cradle of the modern concept of liberty.

Making of Garden Gnomes

Garden gnomes are typically shaped in the human form as small statues. Through centuries, they have been traditionally handmade from terracotta clay, using a mold. Once its shape got firm, the gnome could be removed from the mold.

The next step was drying and heating in a kiln, a special type of oven used for firing pottery until it got hard. The final step included painting and brushing the gnome in bright colors.

With the development of technology, the manufacturers started to use some other materials, such as resins and, more lately plastic.

Today, there are many tutorials on how to make a garden gnome at home available online.

Types of Garden Gnomes

The details of the appearance of garden gnomes have gone through many changes over the centuries.

The majority of them are shaped as males with long, white beards and pipes. Female gnomes were rather rare and usually without the beard, but having a simple dress, and the same pointed hat as the male ones. It is why they can look somewhat like witches. They can also be displayed as a gnome family, consisted of a mother, father, and children.

Since they were supposed to help with sweeping and planting, according to the legend, traditional garden gnomes were usually depicted holding garden tools such as shovels or wheelbarrows. More modern gnomes are rather represented during their spare time – reading, fishing or napping.

Uses of Gnomes In The Garden

There are various uses of gnomes in gardening. They can be put on different places around the garden or around the house: hidden in your backyard, in the flower beds or bushes.

Gnomes will also do well as decoration near a water feature - a pond or a fountain; they can reflect in the water. They can also be incorporated in solar lighting installations.

Also, a garden gnome can be placed somewhere around the front yard, for example at the front steps, where he can serve as a centerpiece. In the context of front yards, gnomes can make dull lawn patches more fun and interesting.

Gnomes, from Gardening to Popular Culture

As I mentioned before, garden gnomes became a significant part of popular culture nowadays, having appeared in many movies, commercials, and video games. After gaining popularity in Disney’s "Snow White and Seven Dwarfs," gnomes played roles in several more movies and books.

From a popular open-source desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems named GNOME to the marketing use of gnomes by the Social Democratic Party of Austria, gnome-like creatures remained the popular determinant of western culture. Not to mention famous novels written by J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Terry Pratchett.

Travelocity, an American online travel agency launched a series of viral marketing advertisements called "Where is my Gnome?" Its mascot, a very well-known garden gnome with black boots and red hat, became known as "the Roaming Gnome." Travelocity also created an official profile for the Roaming Gnome on Instagram and Twitter. Fans can follow his international escapades regularly, watching photographs of a cute gnome eating pizza in Italy, traveling on a plane or striking a pose in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

The cover of the famous George Harrison’s solo album "All Things Must Pass" contains gnomes that belonged to Sir Frank Crisp at Friar Park in Oxfordshire, another British gnome collector from the late 19th century.

Onto the big screen, "Gnomeo and Juliet" and its sequel "Sherlock Gnomes," are British-American production animated movies. The original was inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy "Romeo and Juliet," using its plot to tell a story in which gnomes are the main characters, reuniting two families, that used to be enemies. Art can use different traditions very well, and this movie is a good case in point.

One of the contemporary marks of garden gnomes is the process of their personification. Sometimes, they are given a specific voice and personality, to serve some artistic or comical purpose. One of the more famous examples is the Gnome Chomsky, made after Noam Chomsky, an American philosopher, linguist, and political activist, and he could be ordered online in several sizes.

There are also several gnome festivals around the world, conducted in many countries from the United States to Australia, celebrating those mythical creatures.

Garden Gnome Aesthetical Debate

The garden gnomes we banned in the Chelsea Flower show until 2013

The fame always comes with a flipside. It is certain that garden gnomes have a love-hate relationship with the public. A notorious example of that is the Chelsea Flower Show.

After years of appeals and protests, in 2013 the Royal Horticultural Society of Britain lifted a ban on using garden gnomes at the Chelsea Flower Show, to the joy of gnome lovers and to the horror of those who see the garden gnomes as the ultimate kitsch. The latter group has often been labeled "garden snobs" and "gnomophobes."

Since the Chelsea Flower Show is the most influential garden-related event in a country with a long gardening tradition, such a debate was expected.

Conclusion

From the very beginning of Western civilization, gardening was an important element of everyday life and relaxation. Garden gnomes have been given a big role in it. Related specifically to the gardening tradition, they remained the most common stereotype of home gardens across the world. Garden gnomes are a sweet cliché.

On the other hand, seen as kindred spirits and human little helpers, deeply rooted in our tradition and mythology, they became an inevitable part of every childhood. The stories they portray maintain the continuity of the culture, even beyond gardening.

Do you have garden gnomes in your garden? Do you think they are beautiful artistry or the expression of bad taste? And lastly - aren’t gnomes just cute? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Thank you for your article! It was much appreciated my thoughts on it are coming! Some of these things really made me think 😳

https://www.greenandvibrant.com/history-of-garden-gnomes

#gnomelove #gnomegirlgabby #gnomes #gardengnomes #gnomesgnomesgnomes #gnomewant #neededgnomes #GnomeArticle #GreenAndVibrantGnomes #MaxGnomes #GnomeFacts

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glitterisevil-blog · 7 years ago

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Regrets, I Have a Few....

Feeling unsettled about your completely transformed life with your newborn? Wishing that you could wave a magic wand and just go back to the way things were? You could be suffering from WHID Syndrome.

Which of course, is a completely fictional, unrecognised condition - but as everyone seems way more comfortable if a new mum’s feelings can be labelled as something, then let’s call it WHID or What Have I Done Syndrome for now.

Throughout pregnancy I was told countless times about this overwhelming rush of love that I would feel upon meeting my new baby. By the time my due date was approaching, I’d imagined what this amazing rush would be like. I suspected that if it didn’t arrive the second he was born, then it would catch me up later. I’d be doing something fairly mundane like hanging out washing, or perusing varieties of digestive biscuits in Tesco when all of a sudden this luminescent, ethereal figure would descend from the sky, sprinkle me with magical dust and I’d get this amazing glowing feeling that would leave me tingling from head to toe. Once I’d been sprinkled, I’d know I’d felt “it” for sure and I would never see, hear or feel things in the same way ever again. I would then spend the next few years floating around in this loved up, post-partum haze of joy.

And then he arrived. Ta-daaaa! And all I felt was knackered, emotionally hollow, and like someone had punched me in the fanny whilst wearing a knuckle-duster.

But I wasn’t too concerned about the absence of the love dust at first. It’ll all come after you’ve had a bit of sleep, they assured me. So I slept….nope, still nothing. Sore fanny – check. Knackered – check. Emotionally hollow – check. And that was it.

For the next few days I just stared with bewilderment at this tiny human who I suddenly found myself sharing my life and my boobs with, feeling a steadily growing, rather uncomfortable mixture of resentment, regret and…well, just nothing much else really. Where was this massive thunderbolt that was supposed to happen? Wasn’t this thunderbolt/magic dust/rush of love the only thing that would help me get through the trauma and the sleep deprivation and all the crying? Why had Mother Nature fucked up my order?

I turned to my trusted pal Google for some answers, creating a browsing history that would surely have seen me on Trafford Social Services watch list had it fallen into the wrong hands;

Not bonding with newborn

Don’t feel love for new baby

Hate new baby

Missing old life post-baby

Regretting having baby

British Airways flights to New York (yes really – at 3 am one morning, I contemplated a flit to another country as an actual feasible solution to all of this!)

A trusty internet search engine can normally solve most modern day problems, from what the fuck “on fleek” actually means, to how to cook the perfect Beef Wellington. However on this occasion it just wasn’t coming up with the goods. Nobody else seemed to be in the same place as me, feeling vast amounts of nothingness, mourning a life left behind and just generally feeling, well, a bit sad.

Everybody else on the internet was either having very serious feelings on a clinical scale, or else they were more loved up than Hacienda-goers circa 1992. Why was there no middle ground?

Let’s start first with those happy, loved up baby-bearers. Social media was full of friends, acquaintances and celebrities who’d had babies around the same time as me, but nobody seemed to be finding it that hard to adjust. In stark contrast, the rest of the childbearing world seemed to be cracking on very nicely with new parenthood thank you very much. I trawled through all the Instagram pics of smiling mums in fresh pyjamas, clutching their new additions with grins as wide as their c-section scars. Every hashtag compounded the fact that I was clearly just crap. Each #Blessed felt like a smack in the face. My hashtag would’ve said #thisisfuckingshit

Then there were the people who were at the other end of the spectrum. I read article after article about that condition that I might’ve had but dare not speak its name in case it came true. It was like Candyman – if I said Post Natal Depression out loud then it might just appear. Did I have PND? I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t deliriously happy about the arrival of my baby, so surely I fell into this category? Did I have to pick a side? After a week of going through symptom checklists I eventually came to the conclusion that I probably didn’t have it for a variety of reasons. And so I continued, and just got up each day, cared for my baby in a functional way, but felt no connection whatsoever with him because I just wanted my old life back.

I was one of the lucky ones, I was reminded. I’d had a textbook birth, which resulted in a beautiful happy healthy baby boy, I should be happy. I should be grateful. Didn’t I know about all the people who longed to have what I’m so nonchalant about? Of course, I knew this was true, but it still left me unable to explain why I felt so empty about everything. The only answers I could find lay in chat room discussions at ridiculous hours of the morning, because let’s face it – 4am is the witching hour of the new parent! I discovered a myriad of mummies (and a few dads as well) who were speaking out about how they felt about the arrival of their new baby and – just like me – they weren’t particularly over the moon about the disruption, the chaos or the sleep deprivation that had been thrust upon them. One mum wrote something like “We planned our baby, she is well cared for and loved but I wasn’t prepared for how much she would dominate our lives. I continually find myself missing how things used to be and feeling I’ve made a huge mistake that can’t be undone now.” Another lady described it as all the pieces of her life being thrown up in the air and falling back down in a random mess that she just didn’t recognise.

Yes, I thought! This is me, and exactly how I feel! As I read further, more and more people were saying the same thing. Once someone started off sharing, it gave courage to all the others that were previously afraid to speak. Here we all were at 4am - Selfish Arseholes Anonymous. One mum of a three week old baby owned up to having a packed suitcase full of essentials in her car boot, ready for the day when it all got too much.

But just like my unbooked flight to New York, she never quite made it either. Once the murky mists of sleep deprivation had passed, and once the 4am outpourings had been shared we all had one thing in common; we all got up in the morning and carried on. We fed, we changed nappies, and we tried to do our best to keep our new hatchlings alive and well for another day. And whilst we did it we probably cried a bit, or shouted at our partners, or possibly even both because deep down we were wishing we could just go out for a spontaneous run, or nip to the pub, or sit down and watch TV for half an hour completely uninterrupted, and have a brew that we actually manage to drink before it goes cold. I’m fairly sure that nobody ever stares at a shitty nappy thinking they’ve totally won at life. No, we actually feel a bit pissed off and a bit sad that this is our life now for the next few years at least. And actually – what I wish someone had told me is this: It’s OK to feel a bit sad because sometimes, being a parent IS a bit crap and life pre-baby WAS probably much easier!

So if you’re reading this at 4am, staring at your baby and feeling shit that you’re not in the New Mummy Delight Club, and worrying that you might have PND because of this then relax – embrace the diagnosis of WHID Syndrome and be assured that there are some easy ways to treat it:-

1. Firstly, accept that it’s pretty normal and that you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. It doesn’t make you ungrateful or a bad person for lamenting over your old life. Your old life was probably a pretty great one involving gin, a disposable income and being able to go for a shit in peace. Well who wouldn’t miss that?!

2. Keep the channels of communication open with your midwife, your health visitor and your partner/friends/family. Contrary to popular belief, health professionals don’t have social services on speed dial, on standby to whip your baby off you the minute you admit you’re not loving life. They actually recognise that this upheaval is pretty normal. If they (or you) spot anything that just might be PND then they will be able to support you. Similarly your partner or friends might actually be relieved to hear you say “Christ this is grim” and then everyone can drop the façade that becoming a new parent is all just snuggling your baby and eating lemon drizzle cake all day, because it’s actually fucking hard!

3. Disregard all social media posts that depict the perfect life and the wonders of being a parent. It’s not reality and serves only to make you feel as though you’re doing it all wrong. In the same way that nobody’s Facebook profile picture is ever a photo of them hungover, vomiting into the cat litter tray with their Disney pyjamas on, nobody is going to show the gritty, shitty side of new motherhood which usually involve eye bags you could use for your entire Aldi shop, and the toilet bowl looking like a scene from Hostel every time you attempt a poo. It’s all bollocks, and in the words of Public Enemy “Don’t Believe the Hype”

4. Do what makes YOU feel normal and ignore the Should Sharks. You know the ones who say things like “Oh, you should go to Baby Massage and get out the house because you need fresh air really” or “Going back to the gym so soon? You really should rest you know, because new mums shouldn’t exercise so soon…blah blah fucking blah!” So go to baby massage, or don’t. Go to the gym, or don’t. Abseil from a building dressed as Batman, or don’t. Stay holed up at home, or go out and paint the town – just find your normal, whatever that happens to be.

I got through the worst of my WHID Syndrome by having frank and open chats with my Health Visitor, staying off Instagram for a bit, and establishing a near-sexual relationship with white chocolate Magnums that lasted most of summer. I’ll never be completely cured though, as WHID is recognised as a chronic condition that will probably stay with you until the day you wave your baby off to Uni and turn his room into a walk-in wardrobe. I’m afraid to say that symptoms can only be managed and not completely eradicated. Things that are known to cause the odd flare up are:

- Those rare English sunny hot days, which result in the temptation to sit in beer gardens and drink Corona all day rather than breastfeed/be responsible for a child

- Indie bands from your youth getting their act together for a comeback gig that’s not in your hometown but technically still near enough for you to attend. If you could stay away for the whole night, obviously. Or get really pissed on Red Stripe. Or were able to do Britpop-style bouncing up and down without your uterus falling out in the middle of Leeds Academy.

- Awareness of purchases that would have once been doable. Admittedly extravagant purchases that would’ve meant beans on toast for dinner until the next payday, but still doable. Sort of. But on maternity pay? Massive LOLZ!!

So when an attack of WHID strikes, allow yourself a bit of wallowing time (anything from an hour to a day is OK, any more than that and you might want to have a chat with your Health Visitor ) and then I’m afraid you’ll just have to suck it up buttercup. That Corona isn’t going to be sipped in the sunshine, that designer bag isn’t coming to live with you, and you might just have to download the band’s latest album on iTunes. Your time will come again, but those things aren’t gonna happen for you right at this moment. You have a far greater and more important task to focus on, and you’re the centre of that little person’s universe. That’s feeling has got to taste better than warm Red Stripe!

#newmum #babies #just being honest #motherhood

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