#magic green and magic gold: maleficent aesthetic

[from-the-notebook]

maleficent tags

[roselyn-writing]

Hi! I wanna talk about my OCs that I didn’t show how they look like but they are in my Story When a rose turns black/WARTB. I made them all by picrew but I will draw them.

The first OC is Sire Aham the aspect of protection and wisdom, He is the leader of the aspects and he always protects them people and the dimensions along with other friends of his. His abilities: Light magic, Sword of Light. He is Immortal too.

Aesthetics: Light academia, Sun, sunrise, gold aesthetics. Medieval stuff.

Next OC is

Second OC is Sire Kilam the aspect of Twilight, Magic and wonder. His abilties are associated with sparkles and twilight, his favourite things watching the twilight view and drinking tea. He is the third aspect of twilight, the first one is unnamed and the second one is Saliena, I mentioned her on chapter 13 “true south”.

Aesthetics: Sparkles, Mountains, northern lights, Sparkles and Twilight (His aspect lol)

The third OC is Donovan the master of all evil, I was inspired by Maleficent, he has green magic, and he turned into a huge horned beast but not a dragon. I call it Antaris. They are huge-horned beasts that roamed Virginia in the past but they are near extinction now.

Aesthetic/powers: Slytherin, Green aesthetic, Greenfire and gothic male wardrobe. Dark magic, soul magic.

These OCs play huge roles in wartb!

I might add other OCs to this post.

[curecrafted]

𝙵𝙰𝙽𝚃𝙰𝚂𝚈 𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 ::

GENERAL : Name: Kai Chisaki. Age: 27-28. Gender: Male. He/him. Species: Sorcerer / Shifter / Unknown. Potentially a half breed. Occupation: Magical being / ambitions "prince" / King of Shei.

PHYSICAL : Height: 5'10.5" Build: Mesomorph. Hes like a jock if a jock was a nerd. Hair: Dark auburn. Short and tidy but still has some body to it. Eyes: Golden. Scars: None. Tattoos/Piercings: Three golden piercings in his right ear. They're not tattoos but he has dark markings all over body that have a particular pattern that could have them mistaken for tattoos, his arms/hands are completely black/ brown of the same coloring and he possesses talons that he seems able to retract at will. His hands do moreso resemble the feet of a bird than anything human. Jewelry/Clothing style /Appearance: Despite it being somewhat obvious something is a little "wrong" with him, Kai is considered to be exceptionally handsome and due to being an established member of the royal court of Shei he is usually exceptionally well put together, though it is clear he is an outsider and often at odds with the other members. As the prince and newly appointed king he tends to wear a golden headpiece adorned with jewels but perhaps his most striking accessory is his feathered cloak that compliments his bird-like aesthetic and his thick leather gloves that he's rarely seen without. His typical color pallets are golds, black, dark purples and dark green.

BACKGROUND : Found when he was just a small child by the king of Shei, he was taken in by the kindly old man despite the fact that it was clear Kai was not entirely human. Though outcast from his peers and presumably troubled because of this, he was raised in relative luxury beside the king and his biological daughter, the princess.

Years went by and as Kai grew, it became clear that he possessed incredible mystical powers, with a particular knack for the 'darker' arts and ruthlessness the old king lacked. Eventually, the princess disappeared and the old king fell ill and passed with whispers of foul play having made their ways through the court, but no one dares challenge the rule of the mad alchemist, dark sorcerer and new king. HEADCANONS / FURTHER NOTES : Okay so, we're still WIP over here but Kai's very heavily follows the evil sorcerer trope for this AU. Eri also exists and is claimed to be Kai's daughter but where she came from no one really knows. Is she his biological daughter ? Was there something between Kai and the princess before her disappearance ? Who is the princess ? We're leaving that vague, what we do know is she also possesses incredible magic powers similar to Kai's own and Kai has been using her as an enormous mystical buff. I kinda see the two having a slightly better relationship in this AU, though they do kinda have more of a Mother Gothel and Rapunzel type vibe so things aren't "good" there just seems to be more of a connection between them outside of Eri being a raw material Kai is harvesting (even if theres still a strong element of that.) I don't know if Kai actually cares about her or if he's just possessive. Keeping with the whole fairytale prince meets evil sorcerer vibe, we're hitting it with a bit of Rothbart and Maleficent: Kai has two alternate forms that he can shift into at will : one is that of a large demonic vulture and the other is similar, but much, much bigger, and more dragon/monster-like. These are considered to be his 'true' appearance.

[anothergirlblogging]

Are you more of a Light or a Dark Fairycore?

In the same mood as in my last post I am going to analyze a similar type of aesthetic. It is called Fairycore or Fairywave. 

With fairies being a mythical creature, this aesthetic revolves around nature, magic and soft farm animals like bunnies and little deers. The vibe that nature gives us is mostly calmness along with innocence and childlike thoughts. Now, when you think of nature I am sure that the colours that pop out to your head are a pastel tone of yellow, green, white, blue, pink, so earth toned colors in general.

But what you may not know is that another variation of this same aesthetic exists that is much darker and not that innocent. It is called Dark Fairycore and has a lot of darked-toned gothic elements as their key colors. Outfits or objects being black, brown, dark blue and forest green are the most common in this dark aesthetic. 

Some of the activities that a person could do are exploring a forest nearby your town, finding a quiet corner and taking your time admiring nature while writing or drawing to your journal. You can also pick flowers so you later on can press them and you can also collect ingredients for natural poisons such as autumn leaves, pine needles, herbs, flower petals, mushrooms and vegetable oil. If you are more of a courageous person, you can go dancing in the moonlight and sing in the middle of the forest. 

On another note, dark fairycore fashion can be really challenging in terms of finding certain of their common accessories such as hand knitted wool hats and scarves. They often combine a dark corset with a white dress underneath, some stockings or leggings and dark flat shoes or work boats.

On the contrary, light fairycore fashion has more pastel colours than dark ones. The main idea of their fashion resembles ethereal with lace and sheer fabrics, long floral dresses along with long gold necklaces, rings and bracelets with stones. The make-up tends to be glittery and glowing and it is also common to wear wire-rimmed glasses.

Last but not least some movies with fairies including both the dark and the light side of fairycore aesthetic are the following:

Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Animated:

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

Tinkerbell and the pirate fairy (2014)

[nomadicism]

Now that She Ra is over, what are your thoughts on it? What about that Catradora kiss?

Hi Anon! Thank you for the Ask!

ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ Where to start?

I have so many thoughts on the show, and I’ve had so many thoughts since season 1. I’ve not written much of anything about She-Ra because I keep coming back to this problem of ‘where to start,’ or how to structure my thoughts beyond a +1000 item list. I can’t even pick one or two thoughts to dive into, because they all end up connecting to everything else —> honestly, that’s the mark of a tight narrative, even the big pieces that can fully stand on their own are still leading through to another piece. I fail at every attempt to write something brief.

Section I: Short answer first.

I have a very short and subjective list of media where I not only love (for different reasons) nearly every character (main, secondary, background), but where I also feel that their individual places or moments or arcs concluded in a way that felt right from start to finish. It’s a short list of media where connections and conflict between characters never felt forced, out-of-place, out-of-context, or done for shock value. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power makes that very short and subjective list.

It’s not often that a story hits all the right notes with me, and it’s much more often that a story starts off strong like that, and then turns me off ½-⅔ of the way through. I’ve quit video games during the final boss fight because the story lost me in the lead-up and I wasn’t going to waste 10-20 minutes of my time for something that turned out to be ‘meh’. It ain’t got to be deep, or anything either.

I really loved the voice acting. Everyone is great. A post for another time.

I love the aesthetics, which I wasn’t sure of at first teasers, but won me over in less than 3 minutes of the first episode (season 1) because I love bright pastels, the character designs are fun (can I still gush over variety of body types? YES), so many opportunities to explore stylish takes on the characters, and those Moebius-inspired scenery/background designs are a special interest delight. Season 5 delivered a visual ‘end game’ for the aesthetics in many ways, Section III further down will get into that a bit.

Section II: “What about that Catradora kiss?”

I gotta preface this with, shipping is not my go-to for how I enjoy creative works. It’s not a hobby for me. Sure there’s a few I dig more than others, but I’m otherwise agnostic about ships, unless there is a really bad story-fit (and that’s usually a subjective thing), or involves tropes that are a deal-breaker for me (and those typically relate a lot to the story fit).

With that said, I’m really happy to see Catradora be pulled off so brilliantly, and I think the kiss is a bold and beautiful big deal in a way that might not be obvious when considered in a vacuum. I see it as passionate and heart-felt, but also, it’s achieving(?) a relatable outcome (for me at least) that’s hard to describe. It’s an outcome yielded by a story in which two women—a hero and a villain—are divided and fight bitterly and then reconcile through love, while fighting a purity cult whose founder-prophet-god-king forces subservience through a conversion designed to strip someone of their identity (e.g. names they’ve chosen for themselves), memories-and-motivations, and love for others.

Despite these conversions, love still remains, it can’t just be baptized or therapy-ed away. Controlling puritans and authoritarians wielding religion or peace-panaceas as a weapon have been the villains in the lives of countless women and LGBTQIA people for a very long time. So yeah, I’ve got some feels about that. The last time I felt anything similarly relatable, or as strongly, was the Utena and Anthy relationship in Revolutionary Girl Utena (and really, their kiss during the surreal sequence at the end of the film adaptation).

Section III: Thoughts on Cult Aesthetics and Clones (the rough cut)

(1) In the future scenes at the end, Adora’s white dress with gold tiara and accents have this kind of goddess-like or Pallas Athena feel to it, which is a great mirror of the design choices for the god-like Horde Prime, his Purity Space Cult, mechanics/ship, and flagship interior scenery. Not saying that was the intention, but that’s how it came across to me.

Of course, those colors would be used because She-Ra already wears white and gold with a bit of red accent, which complement how the princesses are bright and colorful (pastels and jewel tones). The bold and bright colors helps signify that Etheria is full of life. Etheria is verdant and magical, and that sets up a contrast to the Fright Zone and the darker colors found in Horde characters (Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Catra, Entrapta, etc).

So the first kind of contrast was with the Fright Zone standing out as a poisoned/toxic against the bright, lively colors of Etheria and the princesses. Season 5 introduces another take on that contrast as Horde Prime is the opposite, or antithesis of Etheria’s colorful life. He’s like anti-life with his shades of light-and-dark grays on white, and only glow-green as an accent. In some cultures and religious traditions, white is associated with purity, and in others it is associated with death.

When Horde Prime ‘purifies’ Hordak for the sins of individuality and emotion (emotion for others, for his own sake), Hordak is drained of the colors he chose for himself during exile. In addition to being a contrast to Horde Prime (and informed by the 80s cartoon design), Hordak’s dark blue (or blue-black) and red color palette reflects the traditional use of red as a color for evil (especially vampirism) from back when diabolism was a stand-in for ‘the Devil’ in many forms of visual media (comics, live-action, animation, etc). In place of diabolic red, Horde Prime has toxic glow-green.

I absolutely love the use of the glow-green accents. Color trends for villains and significations of evil come and go, and I’m glad to see the color green be used again, and used so well. The last time I saw that shade of glow-green used so well was in Sleeping Beauty (re: Maleficent’s magic and the orb on her staff) and as the Loc-Nar in Heavy Metal. In both films, there are connotations of evil as a poisonous and corrupting influence. Green, in the context of evil, almost always signifies poison (and sometimes envy). I also like that the glow-green color is used in ways that aren’t immediately saying ‘this is evil’, such as the green baptismal waters and flames from the purification scene, or the green amniotic protein fluid. The language of piety and trappings of the sacred can cloak a sinister purpose.

I don’t know if any of that was intentional, but Horde Prime feels like the perfect synergy of purity and death (which has additional connotations, but that’s a very personal interpretation).

(2) Horde Prime immediately gave me subtle cult vibes in his first cameo (Season 3), and the follow-through on that was perfect and exactly what I was hoping to see. The background music throughout the scenes aboard the flagship fits well (love the soundtrack), and has the quality of Ecstatic Experience without pulling directly from any specific religion. Horde Prime’s dialogue is a delightful bit of narcissism veiled with the language of piety.

A purity cult comprised of clone-brother-worshippers of the cult’s founder-prophet-god-king reinforces that narcissism and has all the fun-dark feels of shiny-techno-future-dystopias. It is also an interesting use of clones, especially in a story format that usually never has the time to really dive into the complexities of cloning. This is the sort of thing that you’d be more likely to see in a one-off episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, rather than the basis for a greater scope villain, or multi-season nemesis. (and yes, Star Trek: TNG had an interesting clone episode)

Clones in science-fiction tend to fall into just a few tropes, and I generally dislike seeing clones show up in a story because the execution nearly always feels sloppy (in small ways or big ways). I did not get that feeling from She-Ra, where, the clones occupy the “cog in the machine” trope, but it is not their existence as clones that make them that way, it is the Will of Horde Prime that does. They are simultaneously expendable and sacred in their unity. It’s a nice flip on “stronger by working together” that Adora and the others have to learn (and struggle) to do.

It seems like, despite their religious programming, the clones have a little bit of their own personalities until Horde Prime ‘inhabits’ them to exert his Will. I’m trying not to read too much into it, b/c what comes across as ‘inhabits’ to me (especially with the religious/cult context), was probably meant more literal like described in the dialogue as a hive-mind control kind of thing. The first time it happens—to post-wipe/death Hordak—felt to me like a possession scene from The Exorcist, but without the kind of horror visuals that would scare both adults and children. The quick-and-subtle amount of body contortion and sound is still gross and creepy (because it should be), but it also reminds me of Ecstatic Experience in the form of speaking in tongues, or snake handling, or being a medium for a spirit. Again, I’m not saying any of that is intentional, but that’s how I see it.

(3) Finally, there is Entrapta, Hordak, and Wrong Hordak. Clones rarely get to be ‘humanized’ through friendship or romance arcs. I can think of a dozen or more robots that get to be humanized in that way, but can’t recall any clones that have (excluding doomed clones whose friendship/romance only existed for the sake of selling the tragedy of their death). Hordak gets death, renewal, and romance in a way that worked really well, and the totality of it is unique. I was a bit surprised that they could work in another clone—and I love Wrong Hordak—who pulls triple-duty as (1) comedy; (2) relevant to moving various pieces of the story along; and (3) more humanizing of the clones, which, again rarely happens as most stories take the easy low road when it comes to clones.

For Entrapta’s part, she’s never put in the position of giving up who she is (‘weird’ by many standards) for a romance. Her passion for technology is both an amusing double entendre at times, and integral to who she is. A romance for Entrapta does not replace her passion for technology, she can have both. Dating myself but, I came up in a time where most media (for children or adults) would rob a woman of her agency or passions during the resolution of a romance arc. Maybe times have changed, but it’s still nice to see none of that nonsense happening here.

[georgi-girl]

My Sleeping Beauty Live Action Dream Cast.

original meme belongs to Blaze-On-Fire 

If you like Maleficent, that’s fine. I won’t judge you. But I don’t like it. And if I had the chance to remake Sleeping Beauty any way I wanted, I would do it this way.

With…

Taylor Swift as Princess Aurora. (don’t they look just alike?)

High Priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) as Maleficent. (instead of green and black, she has a gold aesthetic, her dragon form is gold too)

Dante Basco (or any half-black actor) as Prince Philip.

Diana Ross as Flora.

Chaka Khan as Fauna.

Kathy Najimy as Merryweather.  

Michel Douglas (Hank Pym) as King Stefan.

Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay) as Queen Leah.

Russel Brand as King Hubert and Viola Davis as his wife Queen Rosemary. (because Philip needs an awesome female role model)

The Three-Eyed Raven from Game of Thrones as Diablo.

American Pharoah (Triple Crown winner) as Samson the horse.

Also includes Jim Henson-style goblins as Maleficent’s army, and trained cardinals as Aurora’s bird friends. 

Important plot points are as follows:  - The Narrator points out that not inviting someone to a royal christening is a major insult, and fairies take insults very personally.  - The Good Fairies are more specific with their gifts: Flora gives Aurora inner and outer beauty, that cannot be marred by malice or trauma. While Fauna gives her communication, and a voice that can reach out to anyone, including animals.  - When Mal makes her big entrance, 4-year-old Philip stands protectively in front of his parents. 

- Maleficent's curse is vaguer, saying that Aurora will prick herself to death before the sunset of her sixteenth birthday.  - Queen Leah is the one who suggests that Aurora be raised in the forest, and for the first few years, she helps raise "Briar Rose" in the cottage.  - It's not outright stated (or maybe it is) but the three Good Fairies are a three-way-couple.   - Like in Tarzan, there’s a scene showing Briar Rose and Philip as kids. Flora tells Briar Rose that her parents are alive, but that she can't live with them because someone threatened their family. Philip asks Queen Rosemary what True Love is, and she tells him True Love is doing something scary for the person you love most.  - There's a montage (with awesome ballet music) of Philip and Briar Rose growing up. When they both hit puberty, they start seeing each other in their dreams; first at a distance, then getting closer and closer. "Once Upon a Dream" isn't just a song, it's a sign that they're soulmates!  - Ironically, Briar Rose is the first one awake, and the last one to fall asleep.  - Philip is good at many things, but not sword fighting.  - During the "Make it blue! Make it pink!" fiasco, Fauna solves the issue by making Aurora's dress violet with pink and blue decorations (hint that she's bisexual)  - A flashback reveals that Fauna and Mal were once lovers, but Mal turned away from kind (light) magic and became corrupted by cruel (dark) magic. 

- While Stefan and Hubert are having their drinking party, Leah reminisces on the brief moments she glimpsed of Aurora's childhood. She and Rosemary have a heart-to-heart about motherhood.  - When Philip asks Briar Rose her name, she admits she doesn't know what it truly is. He guesses that she's the princess but doesn't say it.  - Rose runs home to tell her Aunties that she found her 'dream prince' only to find out that she's the princess.  - She panics. To comfort her, Merryweather tells the story of the original Briar Rose (Merry's mother) a fairy queen who slept a hundred years until the human reincarnation of her soulmate found her and woke her up. (this becomes a subplot throughout the narrative)  - Merry tells Aurora that if this mystery man is really her True Love, they'll figure out a way to see each other.  - At the castle, Mal tricks Aurora with illusions of her parents (or tries to) and stabs her in the hand with a sharp spindle.  - While asleep, Aurora's spirit astral projects from her body. Only the fairies, (and later Philip) can see her.  - When she captures Philip, right after saying it's a pleasant surprise, Maleficent says "Philip, you've grown." and happily dubs him her new "groom".  - Another flashback reveals that Maleficent was originally Philips' godmother, but she wanted to give him the "gift of controlling people" Rosemary and Hubert rejected her gift and used religious icons to keep her away from their son.   - Aurora's spirit comforts Philip in the dungeon. She sings a reprise of Once Upon A Dream. - The sword and shield Flora gives Philip are family heirlooms. Aurora helps him wield them.  - During the big climactic fight, Fauna cleanses Mals' soul so that she could enter Heaven.  - The kiss itself is less like an actual kiss and more like mouth-to-mouth CPR. Proper kissing is saved for the ballroom.  - Finally, the birds make an appearance at the ball.