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olympic-paris · 1 month

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

August 25

1530 – Ivan IV – The Terrible – was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 until his death (d.1584). His long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into geographically vast multiethnic and multiconfessional state.Ivan managed countless changes in the progression from a medieval nation state to an empire and emerging regional power, and became the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of All Russia.

Ivan was a patron of the arts and himself a poet and composer of considerable talent. His Orthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St. Peter", and fragments of his letters were put into music by Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin.

Although he is better known in English as Ivan the Terrible, this is probably a mistranslation from the Russian: a more accurate term may be "formidable".

His last years alternated between debauchery and religious austerity. He was married no less than seven times. But he was also attracted to young men in female attire. One of the most ruthless chieftains of Ivan's political police, Feodor Basmanov, rose to his high position through performing seductive dances in women's clothes at the tsar's court.

The nineteenth-century poet A. K. Tolstoy (1817-1875) wrote a historical novel, Prince Serebriany (1862), set during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, where he described with great frankness the paradoxical character of Feodor: a capable military commander; the scheming initiator of murderous political purges; the tsar's bed partner; and an effeminate homosexual who discussed in public the cosmetics he used to improve his complexion and hair.

1839 – On this date the famed cowboy writer and editor Bret Harte was born (d.1902). He's best known for his book Outcasts of Poker Flats but he had a penchant for writing about homoerotic couplings, as in his book Tennesee's Partner. The men in that last novel, Tennessee and Partner, acted so strangely attached that it led to Mark Twain's consternation: "Why would men act this way? Why would they pair with each other rather than to other women?" Why indeed?

Harte's other "men only" homoerotic loving partnerships can be found in his "Notes by Flood and Field," "Captain Jim's Friend," "Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy," and "In the Tules" a story that one scholar called "the most blatantly homoerotic story Harte ever wrote." Harte wrote it while living in England while that country was being rocked by the Oscar Wilde trials. So he may have been so inspired.

Harte also published Charles Warren Stoddard's now classic, overtly homoerotic novel South Sea Idylls — a book that delighted Walt Whitman with its descriptions of same sex attachment and fidelity.

1845 – Ludwig II (d.1886) is better known for his enthusiastic patronage of Richard Wagner and for his fabulous castles than for his conduct of affairs of state. His withdrawal from public life, perhaps in part due to the impossibility of living openly as a gay man, led to allegations that he was mad, and ultimately to his deposition and death.

Ludwig II of Bavaria was named for his grandfather, King Ludwig I, with whom he shared a birthday, August 25. The two also shared an avid interest in the arts. From his earliest years the younger Ludwig enjoyed drawing, making model buildings, and dressing in costume to act. Upon hearing Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin for the first time when he was fifteen, Ludwig developed a lifelong passion for the composer's works.

When Ludwig ascended to the throne of Bavaria at the age of eighteen (upon the death of his father, Maximillian II, in 1864), one of his first acts as king was to send for Wagner, for whom he immediately provided a rent-free house and a generous annual stipend. Ludwig not only commissioned Wagner's operas, but also envisioned a glorious theater for the staging of them. This dream would be realized when the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth was built (1872-1876).

Ludwig took great joy in the presence of the composer, upon whom he lavished attention and costly gifts. Whether the two men had a physical relationship is unclear, but of Ludwig's devotion there can be no doubt. Wagner's presence in the Bavarian capital was controversial. Members of the court feared that he might gain undue political influence over the young king, and they were alarmed at the amount of money that Ludwig was spending on him. Wagner left Munich after about a year, but throughout his life he enjoyed the patronage of the king, with whom he exchanged hundreds of affectionate letters over the years.

Ludwig faced serious political and military challenges early in his reign. In 1866 he proposed compromise measures to try to forestall a German civil war. When hostilities broke out, he allied Bavaria with Austria in the Seven Weeks' War. Their forces were defeated, and the following year Ludwig entered into an alliance with the victorious Prussia. With war looming between France and Prussia in 1870, Napoleon III attempted to bring Bavaria over to his side. A patriotic German, Ludwig remained loyal to his ally. Faced with the threat from France, the German states moved toward confederation into a single empire. Ludwig was concerned about the loss of Bavarian independence, but in negotiations with Prussian Chancellor Bismarck he was able to secure a privileged status for Bavaria. He then sent a letter, drafted by Bismarck, to his fellow German princes, urging the political union, which was formally declared in 1871.

The most important romantic friendship of Ludwig's early years was with Prince Paul von Thurn und Taxis. The two young men took pleasure in riding and hiking together in the Bavarian mountains and in reciting poetry to each other. Importantly, Paul shared Ludwig's enthusiasm for Wagner's operas and on one occasion played Lohengrin in an elaborate outdoor nighttime staging of the scene of the knight's arrival in the swan-boat. Ludwig had an obsessive devotion to the handsome Paul but eventually broke with him after hearing rumors that the prince was involved in relationships with women.

Ludwig was in no hurry to marry, but after considerable indecision, he became engaged to his cousin Sophie in January 1867. As their wedding date, August 25, Ludwig's birthday, approached, however, he postponed the ceremony until October 12, the anniversary of both his parents' and grandparents' marriages. After another delay Ludwig broke the engagement and never considered marriage again.

It is not clear at what point Ludwig recognized his homosexuality. His diary, which he kept beginning in 1869, reveals that it was a source of inner turmoil for him. As a Catholic monarch, he felt an obligation to conform to the teachings of the Church, yet he could not deny his nature.

Ludwig developed a deep affection for Richard Hornig, a former officer in the Bavarian army who had become the chief equerry of the royal household. Ludwig gave a lake property to Hornig, whom he described in his diary as the "Beloved of My Soul." The two had frequent quarrels, though, and Hornig eventually married. He nevertheless remained in Ludwig's service almost until the end of the king's life.

Ludwig became infatuated with a young Hungarian actor, Josef Kainz, whom he first saw on stage in 1881. During a brief relationship the king gave him many expensive presents and took him on a trip to Switzerland. Ludwig rather quickly became disenchanted, however, apparently having found Kainz's performances in character in the theater more interesting than the actor himself.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Ludwig's greatest artistic passion beside opera and theater was architecture. Beginning in 1869 he undertook the construction of three extravagant royal residences, one of which, Neuschwanstein castle, begun in 1869 and never completed, is a fairy-tale confection perched high in the Bavarian mountains. The elaborate building projects plunged Ludwig deeply into debt. They also consumed a great deal of his time.

Never extremely interested in affairs of state, he withdrew increasingly to his refuges. There the king organized late-night picnics to which he invited good-looking stable boys and soldiers from the castles. He also gave parties at which the same guests were attired in Turkish-style costumes, at least until some of the handsomest were required to strip and dance. Ludwig had less and less contact with his government ministers, who became concerned by reports of the king's erratic behavior, including experiencing hallucinations and issuing nonsensical orders, as well as his determination to continue building despite his dire financial situation.

In 1886 a group of government leaders arranged for a psychiatrist, Bernhard von Gudden, to declare Ludwig insane even though he had not examined the king. Since incapacitation was grounds for the removal of the monarch under Bavarian law, they had Ludwig arrested and taken to Castle Berg on Lake Starnberg.

Only a few days later Ludwig was dead. He and Gudden went out for a walk on the rainy night of June 13, 1886 and never returned. The following morning their bodies were recovered from the lake. The circumstances of the men's deaths remain a mystery. It has been theorized that Ludwig committed suicide and Gudden tried to save him or that Ludwig planned to escape and Gudden died attempting to stop him.

The people of Bavaria mourned the death of Ludwig, who had remained extremely popular. Thousands, many of them weeping, lined the route as an enormous procession bore the king's body to church for the funeral mass. On learning of Ludwig's death, his devoted cousin the Empress Elizabeth of Austria declared, "The King was not mad; he was just an eccentric living in a world of dreams. They might have treated him more gently, and thus perhaps spared him so terrible an end."

1876 – The Sacramento Daily Union reports that Ah Lee and Ah Joe both plead not guilty in California for “crimes against nature.” Ah Joe is sentence to three years in prison. Ah Lee’s fate is unknown.

1918 – Throughout the 1960s, Leonard Bernstein (d.1990) was undoubtedly the most visible proponent of classical music in American culture. Through his outgoing personality and resourceful uses of the media, particularly television, Bernstein introduced "highbrow" culture into the homes of middle America, while also defending rock and roll as "real" music and espousing radical causes. Given his overwhelming celebrity and acclaim as a composer, conductor, pianist, and lecturer, the meteoric career of this son of Russian Jewish immigrants would seem to exemplify the all-American success story; yet, for most of his life, the specter of the closet lurked threateningly behind the glamorous and often brash public image of Leonard Bernstein.

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1918, Bernstein studied at Harvard University, the Curtis Institute, and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where he came to the attention of maestro Serge Koussevitzky, who mentored the early stages of his career.

In 1944, the twenty-six-year-old Bernstein was called on at the last minute to replace maestro Bruno Walter in conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The public notice and acclaim that resulted from this performance thrust the young musician into the limelight, and he was soon in demand as a conductor and teacher throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1958, Bernstein was appointed musical director and chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, a post he retained until 1969, and he remained conductor laureate until his death. In 1959, at the height of the Cold War, he traveled with the Philharmonic to the Soviet Union, where the orchestra performed his Second Symphony, entitled The Age of Anxiety after the W. H. Auden poem that inspired it, an apt work for the given historical moment.

Bernstein simultaneously pursued a very diverse career as a composer, creating "serious" pieces, including three symphonies, three ballets, the choral work Chichester Psalms (1965), and Mass (1971), a theater piece commissioned for the opening of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D. C. His best known works, however, are those he wrote for the Broadway musical stage, including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956; revised as an opera, 1982), and the highly popular West Side Story (1957).

By the early 1960s, Bernstein was one of the most prominent cultural figures in American society. Through his association with the Kennedy family and his media appearances, he exerted a tremendous influence in presenting the fine arts to the American public in a manner free from the social snobbery with which they are so often associated. He was one of the first orchestral conductors to utilize the relatively new medium of television, and his frequent appearances familiarized the general public with his flamboyant style and extravagant gestures at the podium, mannerisms that infuriated many "purists" but established him as a familiar figure in many American living rooms. Through his televised educational series of Young People's Concerts (1958-1972), he demonstrated that classical music was not just accessible to the masses but that it could even be fun.

Unlike most classical musicians, Bernstein was outspoken in his political views, particularly on the Vietnam War and civil rights issues. His Mass disturbed many critics and listeners with its unambiguous anti-war sentiments. So did some of his well-intentioned but nonetheless eccentric gestures, such as inviting members of the Black Panther party, a radical group of African-American militants, to his cocktail parties to mingle with socialites and other representatives of the cultural elite.

In spite of Bernstein's public avowal of unpopular causes, he was, for much of his career, unwilling to risk exposure of his homosexuality. Indeed, the social mores of the 1950s and 1960s were such that a revelation of homosexuality would undoubtedly have destroyed the celebrity and influence he had attained. In 1951, Bernstein married the Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre, with whom he had three children. Bernstein nonetheless engaged in a number of homosexual relationships over the years. In the mid-1970s, the couple separated, and Bernstein attempted to live an openly gay life with Tom Cochran, who had been his lover since 1971. A year later, he returned to his wife, who was by this time terminally ill. After Montealegre's death in 1978, Bernstein became increasingly open about his gayness; even so, as his daughter observed after his death, his need for a "middle-class sensibility" kept him from living a completely gay life.

Bernstein's final major composition, the opera A Quiet Place (1983), positions a bisexual male character, who functions as the mediator between the other, more conflicted characters, at the center of the action. The opera's message is one of reconciliation and acceptance among all people.

Although increasingly in ill health in his final years, Bernstein continued to perform and record until his death from a heart attack on October 14, 1990. As a conductor, he had a vast repertoire and recorded frequently, often in collaboration with the greatest singers and solo musicians of the postwar era. As a result, he has left an extensive and remarkable legacy of recordings and video performances that will ensure his reputation as an intelligent and enthusiastic conductor, composer, and musician for generations to come.

1929 – A respected member of the French literary establishment, Dominique Fernandez has not only won many prestigious literary awards, but in March 2007 he was elected to membership in the venerable Académie française, a significant honor. Inseparable from Fernandez's identities as an academic, historian, novelist, essayist, and travel writer is his identity as a gay man who came of age during the 1950s.

Fernandez did not come out publicly until the 1970s. In his remarkable autobiographical work L'Étoile Rose (The Pink Star, 1978) he has written of the belatedness of his coming out with some regret: "Je songeais . . . à tout ce qui aurait été différent dans ma vie, si, à dix-huit ans, j'avais pris conscience que j'étais gay, au lieu d'un paria." ("I dreamed . . . of everything that would have been different in my life if, when I was eighteen, I had understood that I was gay instead of a pariah.")

The author of dozens of novels, travel memoirs, essays, and works of criticism, Fernandez pioneered the "psychobiography," a literary form that he used to imagine the lives and inner struggles of gay artists in past centuries. He has also explored the experiential gulf between homosexuals who grew up under almost total societal disapproval and those who developed their gay identities after the gay liberation movement made public homosexuality a possibility.

Fernandez was born in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on August 25, 1929, the son of a French mother and Franco-Mexican father. His father, Ramon Fernandez, was a prominent biographer and literary critic who ended his career in disgrace when he served on the executive committee of the fascist Parti Populaire Français, collaborating with France's Nazi occupiers. Dominique was fifteen years old when his father died and was deeply affected by the scandal and shame of his father's last years. However, he followed his father into the world of literary academia, passing his baccalauréat in 1946 and entering the École Normale Supérieure in 1950. In 1955 he earned his degree in Italian. In 1968 he was awarded his Ph. D, having written his thesis on gay Italian writer Cesare Parese.

Fernandez married Diane Jacquin de Margerie in 1961; the couple had two children before the marriage ended in 1971. In 1974, Fernandez publicly revealed his homosexuality and published a novel, Porporino, ou les mystères de Naples (translated into English in 1976 as Porporino, or the Secrets of Naples). The novel, about the life of a castrato in eighteenth-century Naples, depicts homosexuality openly.

Dozens of books followed, including L'Étoile Rose, which explored the cross-generational relationship between a middle-aged provincial professor and a younger, post-liberation gay man, and Dans la main de l'ange (In the Angel's Hand, 1982), the bleak story of gay Italian writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered by a male prostitute.

Throughout his life, Fernandez has been an avid world traveler. He has recorded his experiences in numerous travel memoirs, documenting his journeys to such diverse destinations as Italy, Portugal, Russia, Syria, Brazil, and Romania. Many of his travel journals are illustrated with photographs made by his longtime companion, architect Ferrante Ferranti.

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1939 – Chris Dickerson (born Henri Christophe Dickerson) is a former American professional bodybuilder.

Dickerson was born the youngest of triplets. He studied music and is an accomplished opera singer in addition to his career in athletics.

One of the world's most titled bodybuilders, Dickerson's competitive career spanned thirty years; he was known for both his heavily muscled, symmetrical physique and for his skills on the posing dais. Dickerson first entered bodybuilding competition in 1965 by taking third place at that year's Mr. Long Beach competition. He trained for many of his most important competitions in the 1980s with former Mr. Universe Bill Pearl.

He was the first African-American AAU Mr. America, the oldest and first openly gay winner of the IFBB Mr. Olympia contest at age 43, and one of only two bodybuilders (along with Dexter Jackson) to win titles in both the Mr. Olympia and Masters Olympia competitions.

a not-so-greasy view

During the 1960s, Dickerson did much physique modeling. His 1970's nude work for photographer Jim French is today considered some of the best in an admittedly limited field. Chris appeared in French's hardcover photo essay, Man (1972) and also posed for the photographer ten years later.

He also appeared in porn movies for Colt

Dickerson retired in 1994 and was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2000. Today, Dickerson lives in Florida where he continues to train, conduct seminars, and correspond with current athletes.

1958 – Christian LeBlanc is an American actor, best known for his role as Michael Baldwin on The Young and the Restless.

He was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and first played the role of Michael Baldwin on The Young and the Restless from 1991 to 1993, and then resumed the role in 1997. He has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for the role eight times, and won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award in 2005, 2007, and 2009.

He previously starred on another soap opera, As the World Turns, playing Kirk McColl from June 2, 1983, until the summer of 1985.

In 1988, LeBlanc played a police officer in the NBC police drama In the Heat of the Night, a TV version of the acclaimed movie. LeBlanc was featured in eight episodes.

Christian appeared on As The World Turns again as his Y&R character Michael Baldwin on April 4 and 5 of 2005, when the character was crossed over to assist Jack and Carly Snyder in a custody suit.

On June 20, 2021, he revealed on Maurice Benard's podcast State of Mind that he is gay and has been married to his husband for 28 years.

1968 – Alexis Bittar is an American costume jewelry designer, best known for chunky Lucite bangles and collaborations with numerous leading fashion designers. In 2010 he won the CFDA Accessory Designer of the Year award.

Bittar was born on August 25, 1968, in Brooklyn, NY to Bob and Helen Bittar, both university professors and antique collectors. He is of Lebanese descent. At age ten, Bittar began selling flowers from a hand-painted cart near his home in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he sold antique jewelry and vintage clothing on St. Mark's Street in New York City. Once, as a birthday present, Bittar's parents purchased him $300.00 worth of vintage jewelry which Bittar used as the seedlings of his nascent commercial operation. While attending the Bronx High School of Science, he discovered the New York club scene, which fueled his interest in fashion and design. During high school, Bittar was also a heavy partier.

Bittar briefly attended State University of New York at Albany, but left after a year. The New York Times reported that after his return to New York, Bittar "plunged" deeper into drugs and the nightclub scene. During this period Bittar was estranged from his parents. The tension between him and his parents was multifaceted; in part it stemmed from his general rebelliousness and in part from his revelation to his parents that he is gay (a revelation which was received poorly at the time). Recognizing the destructive influence they had on his life, Bittar closed the door on drugs and alcohol by the time he was 22. He continued to pursue his interest in jewelry and design; with time and hard work, the rift between him and his parents healed.

Using Lucite and semi-precious stones and metals, Bittar began selling handmade pieces on the streets of Soho. In 1992, Dawn Mello, the fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman agreed to carry his designs, followed by Barneys New York, the Guggenheim Museum, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

In 1999 Bittar launched the first of what would become many collaborations with fashion designers, working with Burberry to make Lucite jewelry featuring the trademark plaid. Subsequent collaborations have included the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Estee Lauder, Michael Kors, Jason Wu, Jeremy Scott, Michael Angel, and Patricia Field.

Bittar opened his first boutique in New York City in 2004 and expanded to the west coast in 2010. Today there are seven Alexis Bittar boutiques in the US.

1974 – Eric Millegan is an American actor, primarily known for his work on the Fox series Bones in which he played Dr. Zack Addy. Millegan is openly gay, and was out before being cast in the role.

Eric Millegan was born in Hackettstown, New Jersey, but raised in Springfield, Oregon. He studied acting at the Interlochen Arts Camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts before studying musical theatre at the University of Michigan. He currently lives in LA.

In 2003, Out named him the "Hottest Up-and-Coming Openly Gay Actor" of the year.

He began his musical theatre career at age 7, in the 1981 Eugene Opera production of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. He continued with the company in several other productions, including Madame Butterfly, La Bohème, Carmen, and Hansel and Gretel. Millegan appeared on Broadway in the 2000 production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

In January 2005, he starred as Harold opposite Estelle Parsons' Maude in the world premiere of Tom Jones and Joseph Thalken's Harold & Maude: The Musical at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. In 2006, he returned to Eugene, Oregon to play Frederic in Eugene Opera's production of The Pirates of Penzance.

In August 2009, Millegan released a video on YouTube in which he comes out about his experiences living with rapid-cycling bipolar disorder.

Millegan married his long-time partner, Charles Michel, in New York City on June 28, 2012. He announced his union on Twitter.

1997 – Markus Thormeyer is a Canadian competitive swimmer who specializes in freestyle and backstroke. Originally from Delta, BC, Thormeyer moved in 2015 to Vancouver, British Columbia after graduating high school to train with the High Performance Centre-Vancouver. While he swims he is also pursuing an undergraduate degree in environmental science at the University of British Columbia.

Thormeyer began swimming at the age of 10 for the Markham Aquatic Club in Markham, Ontario but moved across the country to Delta, British Columbia shortly after he started. He continued to swim competitively under the Winskill Dolphins Swim Club through to his high school graduation.

As an age-group swimmer, Thormeyer made a name for himself on the Canadian swimming scene. At 15 he competed at the 2013 Canada Summer Games for Team British Columbia, where he earned a bronze in the men's 100m backstroke. He also represented Canada multiple times on the junior international stage, being the youngest male on the Canada's 2013 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships team and winning five bronze medals at the 2014 Junior Pan Pacific Championships. These accomplishments earned him the Delta Sport's Hall of Fame 2014 Youth Athlete of the Year and the Sport BC Junior Male Athlete of the Year in 2016.

It wasn't until 2015 when Thormeyer made his first senior international appearance at the 2015 Pan American Games where he won a silver as a part of the 4x100 m freestyle relay. Later that summer at the 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships, Thormeyer went along to win gold while also setting a new world junior record with Penny Oleksiak, Taylor Ruck, and Javier Acevedo on Canada's mixed 4 × 100 m freestyle relay.

After winning a gold and two bronzes at the Canadian Olympic Trials in 2016, he was named to Canada's Olympic team for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Thormeyer swam the third leg of the men's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay which qualified for the final in fifth place, but ultimately placed seventh overall in the final. Later that year in December, Thormeyer won a bronze medal as part of Canada's 4x50m mixed freestyle event alongside Sandrine Mainville, Michelle Toro, and Yuri Kisil at the World Short Course Championships in Windsor, Ontario.

Thormeyer is also a part of the University of British Columbia varsity swim team. Winning multiple individual events and contributing as a key swimmer for the relays earned him the title of both U Sports Rookie of the Year and UBC Thunderbirds Rookie of the Year in his first year on the collegiate stage. He has proved himself to be a vital component to the UBC Thunderbird varsity swim team, contributing to multiple Canada West Championship titles and U Sport Championship national titles.

In April 2017, Thormeyer was named to Canada's 2017 World Aquatics Championships team in Budapest, Hungary, where he contributed to a bronze medal for Canada in the 4 × 100 m mixed freestyle relay. He also was named to the Canada's 2017 Summer Universiade team and competed at the games that summer in TaiPei City, Taiwan.

In September 2017, Thormeyer was named to Canada's 2018 Commonwealth Games team. Thormeyer won a bronze medal in the 100 metre backstroke event. Competing backstroke for the first time on the international senior stage, he qualified for the final in second place with a significant best time. In the final however, he was edged out of silver by a couple tenths, taking the bronze

Thormeyer came out publicly as gay in February 2020, although he had come out to his teammates prior to the Rio Olympics. Of this period, he wrote:

"Hiding my sexuality became a huge distraction to my training and was starting to affect the relationships with my teammates too. Some days I dreaded going to the pool in fear that my sexuality would be exposed. I’d show up late and leave early to social gatherings and workouts. Some days it would even spiral and I would question why I was swimming and be scared of my own goals. "Having to deal with that was awful. Every day felt like a threat and not an opportunity. This mentality was not healthy and paired with the combined pressure of wanting to qualify for the Olympics became too much. I knew coming out would possibly solve these issues, but I was still scared because I didn’t know what would happen. I feared the unknown. "I’m not a dramatic person, so I didn’t want to make a big scene when I was coming out, I just wanted it to happen organically in normal conversation. One day, we were all hanging out and the topic of relationships came up in conversation. This was my moment. I casually said that I had never been on a date with a guy and I was kind of scared of it. That I’d probably be a nervous wreck and ruin it. "Then, without a sliver of judgment or skipping a beat, my friends told me that I’d probably be fine on a date as long as I just had a good time and just was comfortable being myself. "Knowing that I had such amazing teammates supporting me so strongly regardless of my sexual orientation was one of the best feelings in the world."

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lesbianfakir · 4 months

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hey quick question my good dude, I'm putting together something and u need to know, I have kindq searched all the wiki and have not found anything on Fakir's leitmotif

do you happen to know what it is or am I relegated to adding generalized Tutu songs?

Yay you’ve come to the right place!! This post has links to the songs plus analysis, might be helpful.

Tldr version: fakir’s official theme is Beethoven’s coriolan overture it plays when he’s fighting or otherwise being a bastard. Then you’ve got an excerpt from Scheherazade, this one is more for his chiller moments, like writing and building his relationship with duck. Finally, we have a prelude from Lohengrin (same name as his sword). This one only plays once so you’re going to have a hard time finding a leitmotif but it plays at a super crucial moment (fighting kraehe in the season 1 finale) so I figure it counts.

Lmk if you want help isolating the specific leitmotifs from these songs!! I would do it here but I don’t have headphones with me rn. Hope this is helpful, and you are so so welcome to ask more questions

#asks #fakir

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yume-tsuki · 5 months

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🔰Eight Guards of the Abyss🔰 part 25 the Guads of the Abyss 🦉🦢🐦‍⬛🐇🐎🐕🐃🐺 (birb +black is a crow(it was one sign on twitter so here it happenend to become two)

the final part of Arc2 :) Next week will be the start of Arc3 ❤️🎊 #eight Guards of the Abyss for more chapters Arc3 preview: Finally the enemy will show herself while revealing her evil plan... I hope you guys like my story so far x) well I do and I'll write as long as I have fun and ideas. xD Well,I was so inspired that I finished Arc 3 so quick that I already work on arc4. Only the drawings I have to finish, but also are already 7 finished pictures for it x) As info who the kids are upper picture from left to right Artemes an oc and giant Helen a member of the winged people or goddess clan I don't know who survived now, also an oc Belinos, he is a demon and half vampire. His grandparents are Zeldris and Gelda Galahad son of Lancelot Constantine son of Tristan and Isolde Lohengrin daughter of Percival and Anne Mordred an oc who his past will be revealed soon ( I know it's obvious XD) and Ethelred the daughter of Donny and Tioreh

#Eight Guards of the Abyss #nanatsu no taizai #four knights of the apocalypse #seven deadly sins #mokushiroku no yonkishi #nnt #7ds #oc #au #lancelot 4kota #percival 4kota #donny 4kota #tristan 4kota #tioreh #isolde 4kota #meliodas #ban #elaine 7ds #anne 4kota

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mikrokosmos · 1 year

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youtube

Alexandre Desplat - Main Theme to Asteroid City (2023)

Last night I went out to the movies with friends and we saw the new Wes Anderson picture, Asteroid City. This is the first time in a long time that I've seen a film in a theater and I do have a lot to say about the movie and the unique way that it shows the kind of crisis and anxiety that artists have in the creative process. But from the first moment I fell in love with the score by the acclaimed film composer Alexandre Desplat. Just as Anderson uses picturesque scenes and stock characters of Atomic-Age Americana to evoke a nostalgia for this idealized past we can only experience as artificial recreations, So Desplat turn to post-war American music to capture not only an atmosphere of the era but also of the American Sublime. There are only a few moments that his score comes through mixed with retro country western tracks. The opening of this “suite” holds us with a high-pitched note held over a melody in the lower register of the piano. This distinct “Americana” sound feels that way because it is reminiscent of Copland’s orchestral writing. But then the oscillating xylophone and bells brings in a pulse that makes me think of American minimalism with the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Little wind arpeggios come in to heavily emphasize Philip Glass' style of “minimalism”, which can be heard throughout his scores. And this nod to Glass ends with a long held organ pedal point in the bass, reminding us of his iconic score for Koyaanisqatsi (1982). Then, unexpectedly, the held note which opened the score is revealed to be the opening to the serene and otherworldly prelude to Wagner’s Lohengrin (or at least a short pastiche). Why reference Wagner here? I'm going to guess that this is related to the Wagnerian sound of heroism, triumph, and the sublime all being paired with the reminiscent love for the cowboys of the Old West. And these long held notes, and evoking the repetitive and potentially endless sounds of looping American minimalism come together to create a musical depiction of the American Sublime of endless Horizons and expansive nature and the quiet beauty that places like the Southwest has. I might be reading a lot into it and I don't want to argue that this is what Alexander Desplat had in mind when he decided to write in an American musical style for matching aesthetics, but I think this adds a nice little cherry of a detail on top of an already complicated and multi-layered film.

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esther-dot · 1 year

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It's just weird that how many times it occurs in Brienne chapters about how Sansa will no longer remain maid or being raped. I just hope that Grrm spared Sansa from getting involved in any kind of unwanted sexual encounters. I mean if he can save Brienne from getting raped at last moment he could have Sansa spared from it. I am actually wary of how he will deal with Sansa sexuality considering time gap he scrapped.

I think that Martin has had Sansa endure these assaults not as a prelude to her getting raped, but rather, to make her escape from them all the more remarkable. If a horrible fate doesn’t seem possible or imminent, the fact that it doesn’t happen wont hit with the same weight. To me, when the Hound holds the knife to her throat and nearly rapes her, the idea isn’t that he never would, but that he was this close to following through, and Sansa’s compassion was the only thing that stopped him.

I mentioned to someone in the comments on a recent post that the Hound brags he’s a butcher and women and children only meat, but Sansa’s kindness to him, her compassion for his suffering, prevents him from seeing her that way, changes how he views himself. It’s an awful moment, I don’t like reading about Sansa getting perved on and assaulted, but I can understand why Martin included some of it, to show the power of something other than brute force, to show her power over villains. That’s not to deny that the accumulative affect of it all by now is a lot. It is. We pretty routinely bemoan it!

I’ve been pretty confident that book Sansa will not be raped or killed for some time. Before I’ve pointed to the “virgin” trope in medieval lit (I know) as a potential reason why it never seemed like part of her story:

Telling the hero what God has in store for them is The Virgin’s primary job. She tires to keep the hero on their quest. She is often described as beautiful, graceful. Though still generally a secondary or even tertiary character in Medieval literature, The Virgin is still important to the plot. She is respected and protected in some way throughout the story. Even when she is in trouble, the author doesn’t do any physical damage to her, often just putting her to sleep or locking her somewhere until the hero can save her. (link)

(talked about this some more over here)

and I also think, as much as Martin writes a lot of sexual violence/threats of sexual violence, this isn’t something he’d do to Sansa thoughtlessly. I found this quote on his old blog some time ago, and it is reassuring to me that he takes the threat of rape against his characters seriously (poor guy wrote this before GoT premiered--I can only imagine what he thought after s5):

I have sometimes allowed other writers to play with my children. In Wild Cards, for instance, which is a shared world. Lohengrin, Hoodoo Mama, Popinjay, the Turtle, and all my other WC creations have been written by other writers, and I have written their characters. But I submit, this is NOT at all the same thing. A shared world is a tightly controlled environment. In the case of Wild Cards, it's controlled by me. I decide who gets to borrow my creations, and I review their stories, and approve or disapproval what is done with them. "No, Popinjay would say it this way," I say, or "Sorry, the Turtle would never do that," or, more importantly (this has never come up in Wild Cards, but it did in some other shared worlds), "No, absolutely not, your character may not rape my character, I don't give a fuck how powerful you think it would be." And that's Wild Cards. A world and characters created to be shared. It's not at all the same with Ice & Fire. No one gets to abuse the people of Westeros but me. (link)

Rape, even though he includes far more sexual violence than we may want, is something he takes seriously. He isn't going to have Sansa raped so that it trends on twitter/sparks countless articles, ups viewership, unlike how GoT used it. It would only happen in ASOIAF if Sansa's story demanded it, and since we have a prophecy of Sansa killing a giant in Winterfell rather than being harmed by one, I believe that Sansa will go North and be empowered, not further victimized.

As for a general wariness about how he is going to handle Sansa's sexuality, it depends on how you read the foreshadowing, but I do tend to think she will have a romantic relationship on the page, so I guess it isn't all good news for you, anon! 😅

#sansa stark #anti the hound #anti sansan #dot chat #<<< for filtering

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cparti-mkiki · 1 year

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i knew what kind of opera wagner writes and still nothing could prepare me for how deeply corny the end of lohengrin is lmao. monty python and the holy grail

#my posts #lohengrinposting

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magic-in-onyx · 1 year

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Await hold on!! What if...

Fakir kidnapping Mytho and holding him captive, with him being of Drosselmeyer's bloodline, was what caused the Story to not move? (As intentional or subconscious as it could have been on Fakir's side.)

Because Drosselmeyer's goal with it was to trap the characters in a perpetually reoccurring cycle of Despair, right? And Fakir shattering Mytho's heart and keeping it shattered (and letting the Sword of Lohengrin rust, only to later reforge it IN HIS OWN BLOOD which is of Drosselmeyer's own line) stopped the Story, because the point of the Story was to endlessly repeat the cycle of "everyone loves the Prince - their feelings wake the Raven - the conflicts free the Raven - the Prince fights the Raven - the Prince loses his heart". (The shard that is soaked in Raven blood is Love for more reasons than one, because Love takes on many forms, and is easily tainted, as Edel has said.) By suspending Mytho in nonfeeling darkness, Fakir effectively stops the cycle of Despair.

Enter Duck, whom Drosselmeyer personally seeks out and engages by giving her the Shard of the Prince's Hope - a both real and false hope which is to both force the Story to move, make the characters blindly believe they can succeed, but also deepen the Despair the characters would feel during the climax as Hope is unavoidably betrayed. Drosselmeyer gaslights Duck and makes her temporarily forget her origin, causing her to better adapt to the Story, which probably in some way also influences the memories of other characters, including Fakir, as the Cogs begin to turn.

This would mean that Fakir, over the course of the series, and likely more instinctively than not, stops, resumes, rewinds, breaks and resumes again, and finally completely reconstructs the Story's original narrative, in that order.

Note that he meets Siegfried just around the time he causes his parents' death as well, albeit after the fact, so around the time he stops writing (actively, that we know of).

For there to be creation, destruction must occur first. Chances of failure, of re-establishing the cycle of Despair are grand, so no wonder Fakir is so wary of Tutu, and so reluctant to agree with her mission, and believe in their success. Once he does, Duck's own Hope and Faith light the way, and not the borrowed Hope, which is also a product of Drosselmeyer's writing just as much as the Prince himself.

Fakir likewise renames Siegfried to Mytho when he 'claims' him from Drosselmeyer, and personally shatters his heart and traps him in protective limbo.

Fakir also damages the Sword of Lohengrin twice, once before the beginning of the series, (inadvertently or not,) and the second time when he breaks it while enabling Tutu to win the Shard of Love from Kreahe. (Not to mention he also inspires her dance confession, because he is the one to tell her not to speak the words of love and disappear.) A sword that is meant to belong to the Knight from the Story, but is in the end wielded by Mytho. (So is Mytho/Siegfried a knight as much as he is a Prince?) The Sword's two halves transform into two swans (a motif also on its hilt) that end up pulling the flying carriage at the end of the series. The Sword is only ever reforged in blood once, it being Fakir's (bathed in the blood of the Prince's enemy, god, captor, friend, and protector). Mytho reconstructs the two broken halves by summoning the swans to face the Raven. It is also partially wielded by Rue, who slays the Raven together with Mytho.

I'm not sure how I want to end this post, but I had to out these drabbles in writing.

Also how come, while even Fakir's and Autor's memories were altered, and complacency encouraged by the Story's influence, Charon appears to have forgotten nothing at all points in time?? If even Drosselmeyer's own Heir is made to forget his origin, and his puppet of destruction (Tutu) as well? (Autor logic-ed his way to the right conclusions.) The only other people who seem to be immune to the Story's hypnosis are the Bookmen.

Was Charon secretly a Bookman who deffected from the Order to raise the Heir to Drosselmeyer in hopes of winning against Drosselmeyer once and for all? So that this poor child would neither die as a result of Drosselmeyer's sadism, nor suffer from either his ability or the Bookmen's prosecution? So that he would be the savior of the new age?

I must be reading too much into the meta... (^^')

#princess tutu #ptutu #fakir #my fic #ao3fic #mytho #ahiru #musings #drabble #meta theory #Drosselmeyer #Rue #karon #charon

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loathsome-sickness · 9 months

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This system has OCD, for the sake of not capitulating to obsessive checking we no longer look at the DNIs of people we reblog from, we only look at it when choosing whether or not to follow someone. Messages about us 'violating' DNIs will for this reason be deleted and ignored, just block us and move on.

Hello, I go by many names but Lohengrin/Lohen and Loathsome/Loathe are both acceptable ones to use. I am/am part of a plural system, you could call this an amalgamation of many of us and our public facing front for our social media, writing and art. (However, if you want to just see our art and not our Opinions/memes, our art-only blog is @in-the-backwoods) We may switch between singular and plural first person pronouns irregularly, and we aren’t consistent with tagging who is speaking. As a collective, we strictly use it/its pronouns online.

We are queer, neurodivergent and disabled, and we’re over 30 years of age. Our written work, art, and posts often include things like gore, violence, sex and other adult topics, and as such we do not allow minors to follow this blog.

We love getting asks and are generally ok with invasive questions, so long as people are understanding when we choose to not answer.

Our writing can be found on Ao3 under the pseud Loathsome_Sickness - Please be mindful of the tags and your own limits when reading.

There’s some info on tagging under the cut.

We cannot consistently tag very much, so we keep it limited to a few specific warnings. Be aware the only one we're strict about trying to tag all the time is flashing, but even then we may a) not recognise it in the moment, b) have an oopsie, or c) be too dissociated to remember.

#realistic - is for any images/gifs that appear to have realistic blood or gore, but we either think aren’t real or can’t be sure. This is usually things like SFX makeup, edits & movie gore.

#irl - is for anything that we believe is real blood/injury, medical ‘gore’ or animal remains. We will only reblog things we believe were posted consensually and never anything involving human death or severe injury.

#animal death - related to the above for animal remains, but also anything that mentions animals dying fictionally as well.

#flashing cw - we try to be as liberal as possible when applying this because we’d rather over-tag than under-tag, but be aware sometimes we might not be clocked in enough to notice so do not rely on our consistency if it is a matter of personal safety.

#eyestrain - anything that makes our eyes feel a certain way, really.

Any tags that start with of; [text] are to signify that a certain system member is related to the post/reblog. Anything else we won't tag consistently so just be aware of that when following.

#pinned

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fuckmeyer · 1 year

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Come Nightfall tracklist & album notes

[every song & artist referenced in Come Nightfall]

Chapter 1 - Offer

A Change is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke

"While Sam Cooke's track burst into life, my brush tap-tap-tapped on canvas."

Chapter 3 - Date

2. Devil’s Gonna Git You – Bessie Smith A piano in a Bessie Smith song plinked with fervor.

3. Welcome to the Jungle – Guns N’ Roses "If you think I’m going to subject myself to Axl Rose, you’re out of your mind.”

4. Booze and Bules – Ma Rainey 5. State Street Rag – Louie Bluie 6. West Coast Blues – Blind Blake He tripped over himself explaining the origins of Detroit blues (Ma Rainey! Louie Bluie! Blind Blake!) and the birth of twelve-bar blues, whatever the hell that meant.

7. Lohengrin: Prelude – Richard Wagner “So what's on the menu for tonight?” gesturing with my head to the tiny stereo. “Wagner, to celebrate my being done reading that freak Nietzsche?”

8. Clair de Lune – Debussy 9. In the Garden – Emile Pandolfi 10. Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op 18: Adagio sostenuto – Sergei Rachmaninoff “You know what it reminds me of?” I said, patting his knee. “Debussy. With a little Emile Pandolfi zhuzh to it. Or like if Rachmaninov woke up one day and decided to write something a little more understated.”

11. Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton "You know I like your recs.” “Except Bobby Vinton.” “Fifties trash," I said with a dismissive shrug.

12. Bella’s Lullaby (From “Twilight”) – Carter Burwell “It’s a lullaby. Your lullaby. I wrote it for you.”

Chapter 5 - Party

13. It Had to Be You – Bing Crosby “The last real birthday party any of us had was for Emmett in 1945,” Edward said. “I believe Bing Crosby was on the top of the charts.”

14. I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys “So,” I said, “Backstreet Boys, huh? Nice.”

15. End of the Road – Boyz II Men Alice knew my secret. As an avid Boyz II Men fan, we’d jam out to 90s boy bands in the car on the way to the mall. It was the only way Alice could get me to the mall.

16. What a Girl Wants – Christina Aguilera Christina Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants” began to play in the background. Alice danced near a cluster of flickering candles while she snapped a picture of herself.

OCTOBER

17. Thriller – Michael Jackson Red solo cup in hand, I sat beside the radiator. Observing the sky of drunken college kids dancing, chatting, flirting above me. Listening to Michael Jackson's “Thriller” for what seemed like half an hour.

18. Teenagers – My Chemical Romance Angela had confessed her love for My Chemical Romance on the car ride over, but she was never a classic rock fan.

NOVEMBER

19. You Go to My Head – Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra’s voice chased me down the hall. The cold tickle of Edward’s lips sing-whispering “You Go to My Head” had done it. So soft, so sweet, so irritating, so real, too real, stop, Edward, leave me alone—

DECEMBER

20. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra 21. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Bing Crosby 22. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Tony Bennett

Chapter 12 - Hunting

23. Hammer Smashed Face – Cannibal Corpse “‘Hammer Smashed Face’.” “What?” “Cannibal Corpse?” “What?” “I’m, uh. I’m sorta into metal now.”

24. Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) – Backstreet Boys 25. Say My Name – Destiny’s Child 26. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana Not only did the glovebox contain emotional support picks from childhood that didn’t remind me of my ex—Backstreet Boys’ Millennium, Destiny Child’s The Writing’s On The Wall, and Nirvana’s Nevermind, among others—but also a cannister of prerolls and ‘shrooms I’d inherited after the death of Ang’s stoner phase.

27. Still – Geto Boys I flipped the radio on and fiddled with the dial until I found something lively, loud, and safe from memories of him: Geto Boys rapping about picking out our victims when the time is right—

28. Still D.R.E. – Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg The truck became quiet enough to hear the soft plinking keys of “Still D.R.E.” over the radio.

Chapter 13 - Friends

29. Hey Ya! – Outkast While Jacob babbled, he bobbed his head out of rhythm to Outkast’s “Hey Ya” whispering over the radio.

30. Bennie and the Jets – Elton John The list became longer as quickly as daylight retreated from the garage. No way could we accomplish everything in one summer. [...] Backpacking through China, seeing Elton John live, breaking Kenenisa Bekele’s world record, falling madly in love.

Chapter 14 - Adrenaline

31. By the Time I Get to Phoenix – Dorothy Ashby Dorothy Ashby’s harp plinked in the background.

SATURDAY

32. Hips Don’t Lie – Shakira A poster of a bikini-clad Shakira crinkled under my weight.

Chapter 22 - Family, Part 2

33. Who Am I (What’s My Name) – Snoop Dogg Snoop Dogg rapped softly between choruses of girls singing his name. Jake groaned. “Old rap? You’re on this again?”

34. Complicated – Avril Lavigne Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” played quietly. I resisted the urge to turn the dial.

35. Doctor Jazz – Jelly Roll Morton Truth was, I fell in love with Edward. Period. Not just the trivialities, like the song he loved to drive to (Jelly Roll Morton’s “Doctor Jazz”), the books he loved to read aloud to me in the meadow (Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way), or the movies we watched on rainy days (Shakespeare adaptations, mostly).

Chapter 24 - Deviations

36. Voice of the Soul - Death “Death is okay,” Edward answered without enthusiasm. “Get real. Death is awesome.” “As if you would know?” “As if you would know,” I retorted. I pulled it out from the Pre-Owned bin. “Look at this. Tell me this album cover doesn’t scream ‘expertly curated collection of badass metal ballads’.”

37. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds – The Beatles Posters covered the store, from The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s to handmade CDs ~ Buy 2 Get 1 Free! signs.

38. Beyond the Cemetery – Cannibal Corpse “When I finally get around to exploring the genre beyond Metallica—” I waved the CD case “—these guys right here. Or, ooh, maybe this. Cannibal Corpse. Tomb of the Mutilated. Wow. Yikes.”

39. Meditation, Op. 42, No. 1 – Tchaikovsky, Leonid Kogan “Okay. Are we done casing the joint or what? Do they have it?” “At the front—under lock and key. Now the issue becomes a matter of price.” “Soviet violinist dude has a price?” “A steep one,” said Edward, “and warranted, being among one of the greatest violinist 'dudes' of the twentieth century.”

40. They Can’t Take That Away From Me – Frank Sinatra “We may never never meet again, on that bumpy rooooaaaaad to love.” “How can you be so casual about it?” “Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of…” He spun me around; my sopping shoes squished. “The way you hold your knife, doo-doo-doo doo doo-doo…”

Chapter 25 - Fate

41. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Guns N’ Roses “I’m not concussed.” To prove it, I rattled off the date, the sitting president, and the names of all the guys in Guns N’ Roses.

Chapter 27 - Volterra

42. Orfeo ed Euridice, Wq 30: Dance of the Furies Over the machine’s growl, I could feel the pulse of the frantic string instruments of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in my seat—Alice’s unsuccessful attempt at getting me to calm the fuck down.

Chapter 28 - Verdict

43. Maramao perche sei morto* – Trio Lescano (*NOTE: not referenced by name) Music burst from behind the thick antechamber doors, some upbeat Italian swing music on vinyl that sounded straight out of the 1940s.

44. As Time Goes By – Billie Holiday Buoyant plinking piano notes of Billie Holiday’s “As Time Goes By” spilled down the long hallway, filling the somber, imposing space with life.

45. You’re as Pretty as a Picture – Al Bowlly A female server flashed me a dazzling smile, offering her tray of fancy desserts. Some upbeat Al Bowlly song pulsed in the background. Like a statue reanimated after a broken spell, Edward bared his fangs at the enemy.

46. What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong We rose above the murder and death, but “What a Wonderful World” still followed us over the tinny speakers.

21:32

47. The Devil Went Down to Georgia – The Charlie Daniels Band* (*NOTE: not referenced by name) "I happen to know the devil holds fiddle battles in exchange for souls."

Chapter 31 - Postmortem

48. Bein’ Green – Van Morrison Leah stared at the portable speaker playing Van Morrison’s “Bein’ Green”, one of Harry’s favorite songs.

49. Bring It On Home – Lou Rawls Lou Rawls played in the background. I choked on a chuckle remembering the way Harry used to dance in that lame dad way of his—the pumping of his arms, the slow shoulder shimmy, the hip bump he’d do to Sue to make her giggle…

EPILOGUE: PRELUDE

50. Vermilion, Pt. 2 – Slipknot

#come nightfall #the time is nigh.#litter alley i will cry when this is over

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septicaemic-fungemia · 2 years

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Welcome!

Welcome! This is one of two shared art/creativity/etc blogs for two queer, disabled artists to share and archive their work. The artists in question are Mod Haunt and Mod Sickened, and you can find more information about them and all their various links below! Most of the content on this blog will be reblogs from our other accounts, rather than original posts, but everything posted here belongs to one of us. This blog is where you will find all of the more NSFW things, and the companion blog, @deimani-synthesis, hosts the content suitable for more general audiences. Because of this, this blog is for people who are 18+ only.

Meet the Mods

Mod Haunt

Traditional & Digital Art (commissions will be available eventually)

Animation

Video Games (both real and fake)

Comics

Streaming

Cosplay/OC Costumes and Videos

Make-up Videos (‘cringe’ TikTok lip syncing with potential extended versions on YouTube)

Writing

Heya, I’m Mod Haunt, you can call me Beetle. Please use they/them or it/its pronouns. I am a creative person by nature, constantly trying to pick up hobbies. My focus is character art currently, but I have several comics planned out, a few game ideas and with any luck I would like to make my art my permanent job with commissions. I’m a mix between a Goth and Decora fashion. My art will most likely reflect that.

SFW/Personal Twitter || NSFW and Vent twitter || Personal Tumblr || Art Tumblr || Twitch || Youtube

Mod Sickened

Dark Erotica Writing & Writing Prompts/Challenges

Text-based Smut Games

Traditional & Digital Art

Graphic Design

I am Mod Sickened, aka Lohengrin or Adonis, and I use it/he pronouns. I am a system of around 11 members, and we all have our own interests, kinks, etc that we like to explore through art and fiction. Our best and oldest skill is writing, and you will find a lot of that here, most of it with adult and taboo themes. We are possibly most known (currently) for hosting the Sintember writing challenge.

Personal NSFW/Gore Tumblr || Archive of our Own || Writing Discord Server || Writing Twitter || Sintember Tumblr

Shared Links:

SFW Tumblr

#pinned post

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reggiecristal · 2 years

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Reggie’s Report Card: Lohengrin, Metropolitan Opera, March 2, 2023

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor: 4.2/5 Stars

I expected good things from Yannick going into last night, given what I’ve heard of him in symphonic music, and he largely met and satisfied the requirements of his role. His tempi were well judged, responsive to the action of the text and the inner life which the orchestra reflects, and many of the most musically and dramatically satisfying moments in the piece came at his baton. The horns, in particular, sounded wonderful—resplendent and full, never harsh or braying, and unified both as a section and with the ensemble at large. Winds were at times less satisfying, sometimes failing to spin the long lines of Elsa’s theme with sufficient legato, but the clarinets, in particular, deserve praise for their contribution to the drama’s color. As a string player, it is my duty to complain about something or another those sections could be doing, and so shall I here. The violins took more time to warm up than I’d have liked—their task in supplying that silvery, ethereal timbre the prelude asks for was only met towards the section’s end, and before then was watery and weak, rather than transparent, but full. Once at full strength, however, they were often a source of great beauty, giving the proud lines of the piece’s martial music a soaring arc, the intimacy of the Bridal Chamber Scene an honesty of sentiment, and the scheming of Ortrud and Telramund powerful dramatic tension through their exemplary articulation and rhythmic vigor. At times, however, I do wish they’d lean a bit into “messiness”; there’s a tendency, due to the section’s level of technical polish, to treat clean, faultless unity of sound as the norm, rather than as an expressive decision—a bit of fray in the upper reaches of the violins would give the public scenes a more lived-in, natural exuberance. The celli, of course, deserve recognition for their contributions to the night’s orchestral success, but I’d have liked to have felt the colors of the violas and basses more potently. They, of course, would never project over the rest of the sections, but the depth and warmth they provide to the middle and lower voicings in the strings was at times lacking. The same could be said for the lower voices of the chorus: they were at something like 140 strength, with a roughly 2:1 men to women ratio, but in voice the men’s chorus favored the tenorial voice too strongly. There is a certain machismo in Wagner’s writing of the men-at-arms, and with what’s written for them, he imparts a definite archetype of martial masculinity—the baritones and basses were needed to give that example firm grounding and, of course, a “manly” sound (bleh, I know). Overall, however, the orchestra came away as the most successful performers of the night, and Yannick, as I’m not wont to say often, fulfilled the demands of his position admirably.

Tamara Wilson, Elsa: 3/5 Stars

Elsa is my favorite character in this opera—seriously. I love Ortrud for her shadiness and general girlbossery, but Elsa, for many interpreters, is an enigma. Many sopranos find her bland, but a few see past the character’s initial coolness to see the incredibly rich inner life the girl harbors within her. Tamara Wilson came most into her own in the Bridal Chamber Scene, like her Lohengrin, but was generally of more secure voice. Like Christine Goerke, Wilson is the possessor of a significant instrument. For that reason, it’s a pity that the typical American nasality mars the warmth of her tone, robbing it of the variety of colors necessary to imbue Elsa with real life. I personally see the character as like a medieval mystic—particularly in the centrality of bodily experience and imagery of bridal union with Christ. When Elsa falls dead at the opera’s end, it is not for having lost a husband, but for having lost her only opportunity to be transfigured; union with Lohengrin is her opportunity to transcend the empty, lonely existence through which she wanders, lost in dreams of salvation. Elsa sings to Lohengrin that in him she must fade away, giving all that she is—this is a woman giving herself to union with her god, not just to a man. In Lohengrin, she senses the divine, but, tragically, the doubt Ortrud plants in her mind disturbs the absoluteness of her faith. Elsa, sensing her opportunity for salvation, wants it to be bared to her outright—she wants to know Lohengrin’s name, as he said she may not, so that she may speak it as sweetly as he does hers—to know him as he knows her. In this she fails the test of her faith—Ortrud and Telramund fail because they rely on their own craft, wit, and strength to achieve their goals, and Elsa falls in line with them when the trauma of her absolute solitude drives her to desperation. Even having just married her knight, she awaits his leaving with terror, beset by all the fear and uncertainty her faith had veiled and fortified her against. Lohengrin fails to comfort her as a woman, rather than as a wife, and, being denied human comfort, Elsa falls to her fears, demanding his name and, in doing so, failing the test of her faith. At the scene’s end, having realized the enormity of her loss, she echoes Peter at his denials of Jesus—when she cries “Allewiger, erbarm dich mein!” she has already passed on, the one purpose for which she lived having passed her by. As Elsa, Wilson imparted her humanity best—the limitations of her range of tonal colors stopped her from portraying the dreamy, otherworldly character Elsa has in the first act. Her legato, given her experience as a Verdian, did not satisfy, either, and so her separation from the declamation of the King and his men was not as clear as it should have been. At times, her vibrato also widened more than I’d have liked. As Elsa’s doubt reinvigorates her humanity, Wilson singing began to satisfy more, and when Elsa’s shame and grief follows her error, Wilson’s effort to imbue her lines with sentiment brought her voice into more natural alignment, forgoing the persistent nasality endemic to her vocalism for fleeting moments. Generally, Wilson’s inability to impart Elsa’s transformation through her music hampered the otherwise audible efforts to do the drama justice: the light embellishments in Elsa’s dreamy fantasy lacked spontaneity, the legato smoothness, and a general lack of rhythmic flexibility denied her portrayal the range of expression required to do the character’s inner transformation justice.

Piotr Beczała, Lohengrin: 3/5 Stars

Oh, Piotr. This singer frustrates me because, aside from seeming like a nice guy, he has a gorgeous instrument and some idea how implement it musically and dramatically, but the technique with which he wields it fails him. It generally seems that youth carried his voice intact into his forties, but now that he’s in his fifties, the insecurity in his top, with the way he’s so often scooped up to higher tones, has come to claim him. What’s more, his mastery of his breath is incomplete, so a wobble mars his middle voice and above, and sustaining the long lines asked of him in this role with heroic voice proved a struggle. Piotr was at his best between the extremes of his character: Lohengrin combines dramatic proclamations bursting above the upper passagio with scenes of great intimacy, sensitivity, and art, requiring an able mezza voce to impart fully. The tenor’s declamation lacked thrust, insufficiently rhythmically rigorous to give Lohengrin’s expression a flexible, potent authority, and his mezza voce suffered from problems of registration—Piotr’s head voice is not sufficiently integrated to deliver “Das süsse Lied verhallt”. That very scene perhaps encapsulated all aspects of this tenor’s incomplete portrayal. His opening remarks to Elsa were imparted warmly, but without the sensual mystery which intrigues and hints at the man beneath the mask of anonymity. This scene is remarkable for how greatly it develops Lohengrin’s character in so little time. The scene is effectively a confrontation, the fruit of the seeds of doubt Ortrud planted in Elsa’s mind blooming and forcing Lohengrin to both soothe and please his bride as her anxieties seize her. Though a warrior, Lohengrin appreciates the sensual beauty of nature and speaks of love as his true calling. Piotr failed to rise to the poetry of the character, his insecurity in his high notes marring the character’s flights into pure sentiment. He was most at home in Lohengrin’s attempts to calm Elsa, but truly found his footing in Lohengrin’s frustration with his failure and resignation to the demands of his duty; there, Piotr’s warm, rich tone in his middle voice took a plaintive tone, darker and softer as his character came to terms with the ruination of his joy. The extremities of expression written into this scene stretched Piotr more or less to the limits of his ability, but also showed glimmers of beauty here and there. Lohengrin’s procession of aria’s in the opera’s end strained him similarly, but did not show him to any great advantage, though “In fernem Land” was home to the few moments in which his mezza voce took a more promising timbre. All in all, Piotr was a sympathetic presence let down by his technical insecurities.

Christine Goerke, Ortrud: 2.8/5 Stars

In an interview played back during one of the intervals, Goerke describes her approach to Ortrud as believing in earnest that she is the wronged party—denied her birthright, as the princess of a conquered people, and denied the dignity of practicing her culture, such as her religious beliefs, openly. It’s a smart approach, as, with most well-written antagonists, there is an element of truth to their claims. In these things, I respect Goerke’s acumen, and in her portrayal there was certainly an impression of dramatic instinct and attention to the text. Vocally, however, her technique did not allow her the freedom to express her ideas fully. Her instrument is undeniably the real deal: full and rich in the middle, but short on top as many dramatic sopranos find themselves. Sure enough, Goerke seemed most at home, vocally, in the middle of her voice, which she could emit with dramatic thrust, and her top had the wiry, metallic tinge I expect of her. She’s stated her admiration for Astrid Varnay in the past, and it shows in her voice. Unfortunately, Varnay’s technique was the weakest part of her artistry, and like Varnay, Goerke commands a very generous vocal endowment without either full control or freedom. The lower passagio was rather veiled, sour even, brightened by the standard American nasality, but lacked the power of her chest voice, which came full of color and bite when she opened into it. Her voice, really, is in parts: the colorful, punchy chesct voice, the veiled, unpleasant lower-middle, the wide, warm middle range, then the thinner, strained acuti. Goerke, however, is of will in proportion to her vocal endowment, and gave great effort to meet the extreme demands of Ortrud’s music, but this effort took focus from her dramatic portrayal, which was, as Goerke said, of a woman seeking justified vengeance, but her Ortrud lacked the bite, the sarcasm, bitterness, and malicious craftiness others have brought to the role. By the end, Goerke seemed more intent on making it through “Fahr heim!” than in crowning a complete, persuasive interpretation.

Thomas Hall, Telramund: 3.9/5 Stars

Thomas Hall, I believe, made his Met debut last night, and as a replacement for Evgeny Nikitin—a known element at the Met who, I’m glad to say, was not missed last night. Unlike Nikitin, Hall actually saw fit to sing all of his music, and with as thankless a role as Telramund, he actually acquitted himself well. His instrument is appropriate for the role, if not glamorous: well enough suited to the low tessitura that he was able to resonate well in the lower notes, but secure enough up top to make something of the dramatic outbursts written for his character. His characterization was similarly adequate. Hall’s Telramund remained a noble throughout his trials, portraying a man led astray by his thirst for power. His Telramund, however, is always earnest—he does not represent his beliefs falsely, truly believing, at first, Elsa guilty of murder, Lohengrin of witchcraft, and himself justified in attempting the latter’s life. Hall did an admirable job in filling a role which is often poorly cast with a thoughtful, capable presence. His voice might have not been the most beautiful or unique in timbre, but he fulfilled the assignment, which, on short notice, is all that can be asked for, particularly in this role.

Günther Groissböck, King Heinrich: 2/5 Stars

I distinctly remember Groissböck’s performance as Filippo II in Don Carlo last Fall on account of his vocal estate—namely, that it was far lesser than I’d ever heard it, dry, strained, and emitted without a shadow of the ease with which I’d previously heard him sing. Lamentably, on account of what I know of his dramatic talents, his voice was in a similar state last night. As Heinrich, Groissböck generally failed to imbue his character with the dignity and authority asked of him. Heinrich can easily become a tedious presence—he’s often the voice of Wagner’s politics, notably of ethnic and national identity, as well as gender, in the opera, and as such is easy to portray as a rambling, moralizing bore. While Groissböck did not fall into that trap, he nonetheless failed to produce an offering of any other kind of interest, often limited to just playing it straight by the lack of color and vigor in his voice. Often, what was of most interest in listening to him was knowing a high note’s approach and wondering if he’d make it—he largely did, though he flagged in pitch on some, fell into straight, white tone on others, and generally failed to impart the role with the quiet, simple dignity which would make Heinrich not only a driver if the night’s action, but a sympathetic one with presence and gravitas.

Also, just as a note, I found it funny that the Met omitted Lohengrin’s line “Nach Deutschland sollen noch in fernsten Tagen des Ostens Horden siegreich nimmer ziehn!”

#reggie goes to the opera #don’t mind me i just needed to let this out

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