#matthew derby

[sinceileftyoublog]

The Pines of Rome Interview: Sounding the Alarm

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Some reunions happen off the cuff, a band simply finding themselves in the same room again, missing what they had and immediately deciding to get back together. Others, like that of Rhode Island slowcore band The Pines of Rome, seem to happen over a number of years, a result of shifts in modes of thought. Yes, the pandemic caused guitarist/vocalist Matthew Derby to finally reach out to guitarist John Kolodij, but events in his circles both close and broad was what lit the spark.

20 years ago, The Pines of Rome played what was then supposed to be their final show. While they were never a political band, Derby was always involved in the local arts community in Providence, a scene that’s long been uniquely closely intertwined with political organizing through organizations like AS220. Over time, though, not playing music, Derby became less and less involved, ultimately feeling “detached,” as he told me over the phone earlier this year. A day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, one of the stalwarts of the local arts community, writer and activist Mark Baumer, was killed by an SUV while walking barefoot across America to raise awareness of climate change. Though Derby mourned Baumer’s death, he took the time to self-reflect and started to become involved again in the local arts community. And when he started writing songs again, he knew he had to write one about Baumer, which turned into “I am a road”, the first track on what would be come the first The Pines of Rome album in 20 years, The Unstruck Bell (Solid Brass).

After Derby and Kolodij started jamming, they contacted the band’s drummer Rick Prior and recruited a new member, bassist Steven Kimura. They entered the studio with prolific producer Seth Manchester, knowing they had something, not necessarily an album, but a collection of songs that at least continued on the post-rock journey they paused decades prior. “The By & By” featured an interplay among exploding distortion, mammoth snares, and gentle harmonics. “Slick Enhancer” was deliberate, too, featuring guitars that were at once rounded and raw. The comparatively twangy “White Ships” chugged along, but used silence and space like you’d expect from a band inspired by the slowcore acts of the early 90′s. Eventually, though, they decided to shake things up a little bit. “REDACTED” spotlighted shuffling electronic tape loops. “Siren” and “I am a road” featured acoustic, finger-picked guitar. With a little bit of reigning in from Manchester during times they wanted to go too over-the-top with instrumentation (Derby recalls the band wanting to put a harmonium on “I am a road” simply because it was there in the studio, Manchester standing firm and saying no), it turned out The Pines of Rome did, in fact, have an album. The Unstruck Bell was released in May.

The Pines of Rome also have returned to the stage, playing with contemporary kindred spirits like Cloakroom and an album release show at the Columbus Theatre in Providence last month. But before Derby even practiced for those shows, he started writing new material. The band plans to go back in studio with Manchester later in the year. He’ll probably have to be honest with them about their loopiest instrumental ideas. In the meantime, though, they were able to do what they wanted live, and yes, their sets purportedly included a full-band version of “I am a road”. 

Read my interview with Derby, edited for length and clarity, below. He speaks about how it feels to be back, the state of post-rock, political music, and being inspired by new bands.

Since I Left You: Despite the presence of your new band member, does it feel like you never left? Or are you starting anew?

Matthew Derby: There is an element of that kind of cliché. There’s just something about the way John and I write. There’s some alchemy happening with our two guitar parts I’m never able to replicate on my own. When I try to write my own stuff, it ends up sounding like the worst kind of Journey ballad, which is dignifying them too much. Neither of us were able to achieve on our own what we got out of playing together. When John and I started playing again, we picked up right where we left off, and it was a tremendous relief. I didn’t know what I was missing. It felt really powerful to be able to have that articulation or musical language that really only works when we’re collaborating.

SILY: Do you feel like you had any newfound inspirations or influences this time around, whether instrumental, thematic, and/or lyrical?

MD: That’s a really good question. Definitely, in terms of influences, in our first incarnation, the combination was largely the Saddle Creek-style folk stuff that was happening in the late 90′s, and post-rock, which we were really heavily influenced by, bands like Rex, June of 44, and Bedhead. We were trying to combine those two influences. In the 90s, [I thought] that post-rock bands [were] going to stay around and keep making music forever, and [the] new form [would] become folk or jazz or whatnot. Five years later, it was gone completely. All of those bands disappeared. In a way, we started [The Pines of Rome] again because we were missing that. I personally wanted more of that kind of music in the world. At the same time, our tastes have changed over the course of 20 years. The genre striation that was around in the 90s has given way to a much more permissive musical culture, where genre distinctions are quaint and old fashioned. One of the bands we look to as a model stylistically and lyrically and musically is Big Thief. They’ve merged so many genres into this new Americana that’s hard to pin down and describe but feels very much like their creation.

SILY: Post-rock can go two ways, as does slowcore. The Bedheads of the world get the Numero Group treatment, while the cleaner, atmospheric bands like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai soundtrack commercials. And sometimes you can get more metal or jazzy with it. Do you feel like that’s true to the spirit of the original post-rock, this genre-less style of music?

MD: I don’t know that I would have articulated it that way, but it’s a good summary. There’s more to explore in that space, and we felt compelled to push it in new directions but also retain whatever unique spin on it we could provide to add our voice to the chorus of people still trying to explore that stylistic train.

SILY: The bands that endure or endured, like Low, Yo La Tengo, and Lambchop, are unafraid to embrace things once looked at as cheating, like AutoTune and drum machines, and put it in their music in a tasteful way. It speaks to that lack of purity you refer to.

MD: Invoking genres [in general], there’s a way in which, like AutoTune, you’re bringing in a stylistic quality that’s been celebrated and maligned. Once the hype and the backlash has died down, it’s another way bands can express themselves. When John and I started playing again, one of our rules was, “If it feels good, keep doing it.” It seems like the most obvious aesthetic you could possibly make, but the initial hesitation of, “Are we just going to sound like Bedhead?” or any band popular 20 years ago that sound really dated, was replaced by, “Let’s just pursue this to our logical conclusion.” Run through our filter, it might not sound like anything we’re afraid of imitating.

SILY: Is there a song on the album where the rule of, “If it feels good, keep going,” led to something unexpected?

MD: The first few songs that we wrote were the last song, “Slick Enhancer”, and “White Ships”, which are slow tempo, open and spacious, with this culmination in big, crashing tsunami waves. To us, that was where we naturally go. We started, and thought, “Let’s go with it. This is what we do.” We play these slow, deliberate songs where we carve out negative space and fill it in at dramatic points in the song. Then, we thought, “Uh oh, we’re on the verge of writing a fourth song that does that same thing.” At that point, we deliberately changed course. There definitely is a point where you have to break your own rule because you don’t want to make every song on the album sound the same. We started to challenge ourselves. We said, “Let’s try to write a song in a completely different style.” Someone said, “Let’s write a krautrock song!” John started to come up with a riff that eventually turned into “Redacted”, which is not something anyone would listen to and say, “This sounds like Neu!” Its genesis, though, came from our desire to not want the album to be one note and to explore a different sonic terrain. We took a left turn, and what came out is not at all what we tried to put in, which was a lesson to us. We can try to deliberately rip off anyone we want, but it will always come out the other end sounding like what we do. We loosened up, and have been doing a lot more of it since the album was recorded.

SILY: In hindsight, that shuffling at the beginning of “Redacted” reminded me a little of maybe not Neu!, but Tortoise. It does chug along.

MD: Yeah. The initial impulse was the song “Hallogallo” from the first Neu! album. We originally played it where we all had volume pedals and tried to manually ramp up the volume. It was originally 8 minutes long and...started with the drums barely playing. [When] we brought it into Machines with Magnets, Seth Manchester said, “Guys...I don’t think this is the spirit of the song. Let’s find another way in.”

SILY: It’s an effective second single, though, because if the first taste of the new music was “Slick Enhancer”, which sounds like you never left, this one is a bit more unexpected.

MD: That was what we were hoping. I’m glad that came across.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the lyrics of “I am a road”?

MD: There was a poet and activist in Rhode Island who used to teach at Brown, Mark Baumer. He was a really influential creative person in the Providence arts community in the early 2000s. He was in the MFA Program at Brown and taught poetry. He was rigorously experimental and did all kinds of weird things. One day, he showed up to his poetry class in his coveralls and just cowered in the corner and pretended to be scared of the class, and that was his poetry class. He was also really involved in organizing. He was part of this group called The FANG Collective, an abolitionist group. They were originally protesting the [Iraq War] and [War in Afghanistan], and he actually chained himself with a bike lock to the door of the headquarters of Textron, a company in Rhode Island building cluster bombs causing horrendous collateral deaths in Afghanistan. He was arrested for that. 

He was a really influential figure. I knew him and was always kind of intimidated by him. We’d go to readings together, and I’d say a few words to him. He had this practice of walking across America barefoot to bring awareness to climate collapse. He went around the country once and raised a bunch of money. In 2016, around the time of Trump’s election, he went out again, and on the day Trump was inaugurated, he was hit by a car and killed. To me, it really felt like he was the first casualty of the Trump administration. The whole Providence arts community was totally heartbroken. It was the beginning of my realization that I had given up a lot. We had stopped playing in the band, and I had drifted away from the Providence arts community. I had become detached. It was a wake up call. I became more active in local organizing and the Providence arts community. The song came out of that.

[Mark] was also an early vlogger. He has hundreds of videos of himself going across America. There is this last video of him on the day he was killed. Because that was the start of a change in me, I used that as the material for that song.

SILY: Are you still involved in AS220?

MD: Not really. Friends of mine are. They’ve gone through a bunch of radical changes over the past 10 years. They’re doing amazing work.

SILY: What sorts of changes?

MD: They’ve always been about supporting the arts community, but once Trump got elected, [they started to ask questions like,] “Whose community are you representing here?” They’ve taken huge strides in becoming inclusive and representing and inviting a greater and more accurate version of what the Providence arts community looks like, demographically and politically. Those things weren’t on the table prior to this recent spade of changes.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

MD: It’s related in a way to “I am a road” and the influence that Mark had on me. We were thinking about the idea of this alarm that hasn’t yet sounded. The potential that a bell holds. It’s a little pretentious, but the bell has all of the potential in it to sound the alarm, but someone needs to strike the bell in order for the alarm to sound. It was a gesture at this moment. John doesn’t want me to reference the pandemic, for good reason. This isn’t a “pandemic record.” The effect the pandemic had in something is undeniable, and we felt like we were experiencing in real time this climate crisis, and it’s possible that we’re already living in a climate apocalypse and we just don’t know it. That’s where that concept of the unstruck bell came from.

SILY: I don’t know whether this album is your attempt to sound the alarm, but, at the risk of sounding reductive, it’s interesting that this style of music could sound an alarm, this slow music. Do you think about that?

MD: Yeah. It’s something I struggle with a great deal. I do recoil at music that is overtly political or tries to push an agenda. My aesthetic sensibility tells me to stay on the John Prine end of the spectrum of making a song that might plant a seed in someone’s mind that would motivate them to take some kind of action, but not urging them to do so. Slowcore and post-rock aren’t traditionally the vehicles--you’re not going to go to a protest and start singing songs from Spiderland. It’s not really attuned to that. But as I’m getting older, the ways in which all of these systems are interconnected, I’m interested in that place where we can create something aesthetically interesting and new [that] tries to take genre tropes in a new direction. Part of that new direction asks, for instance, “Can we just write a simple love song in the time we’re living without it spilling over into all of the other things going on in the world?” It’s something I think about a lot, and I don’t know that we’ve carefully delineated the Venn diagram of talking about and raising awareness of an issue and songcraft, trying to make a song that people want to sing around a campfire. I don’t know where we fall in that.

SILY: If one of the main purposes of art is to create empathy, which I think is inherently political, the observational, humanistic, earthbound songwriting of John Prine falls into that. At the same time, music that’s slower in pace that requires patience to listen to deeply, there’s an inherent humility in that act, too. That’s where I see the Venn diagram.

MD: I really love what you said about patience and listening. Trying to slow things down is an act alone that triggers a different way of thinking. That’s really beautiful.

SILY: It can exist at the same time as the urgency. It has to.

MD: Totally.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art of the record?

MD: John is friends with Will Schaff, the artist. We’d been an admirer of his work. He did the [art for the] Godspeed You! Black Emperor record, [Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven]. He did a [Songs: Ohia] record. He also started to embroider during the pandemic and would post these works he’d been doing on Instagram. I grew up in a Catholic family, and my mom was really involved in the church, and she did a lot of banners and tapestries for the church. The embroidery kind of recalled some of that work. We didn’t really think it through that much, and we gave Will the album title. I think John gave him the songs in their raw state and asked him to make an interpretation. That’s what he came up with. It was a collaboration without constraints. I really love how it came out.

SILY: Do you know what shape your new songs will take?

MD: This might end up being super pretentious and we might back away from it, but our goal is still to split the record sonically between one side all acoustic and the other all electric, as an organizing principle. That’s helped us shape the songs. We found that there were certain things we could get away with stylistically in an acoustic setting we weren’t able to do with a full electric setup. We may continue down that path, but [it could be] a cool idea that has no substance. We do plan to record a bunch more acoustic songs this time around. We’re trying to push out on both ends of the spectrum. We have songs that are a bit more aggressive, like the big middle third of “Slick Enhancer”, and much quieter songs. We’ve really been into the band caroline, and the way they’re able to play this one riff for 7 minutes and make this hypnotic hymn out of it with different movements. I don’t know how they do it, but we’re experimenting with songs closer to that feel.

SILY: What else is next for you?

MD: We’re trying to figure out whether we can get out on the road. Solid Brass, the label that put the album out, are awesome. They’re good friends of ours from a long way back. They’re also just starting up, figuring out how to work a label. We’re trying to figure out to what extent we’ll end up able to get on the road. Honestly, to me, when we re-joined, my single ambition was just to play with the band again and start writing and recording songs. We didn’t have any aspirations of putting a record out, even when we first recorded with Seth. We love working with him and just booked time for the pure enjoyment. We’re trying to keep that same spirit for the next record, keeping expectations of where it will go out of the equation. Once I start thinking about that stuff, it makes it harder to write the songs we want to record and that we’ll have fun playing and figuring out.

SILY: Anything else you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching you’ve enjoyed?

MD: We’ve been super into the band Wednesday. It was one of these moments where they’ve found a way to perfectly merge shoegaze and country music that felt surprising and cool. The lyrics are the best kind of David Berman, incredible plays on words, clever and funny while totally heartfelt and devastating. It’s a lot of what I aspire to and am still working toward.

SILY: A quintessentially Southern voice.

MD: Yes! And not a cliched one. Crystal clear in terms of the poetry and lyricism of it.

[rwrbmovie]

Matthew López via Instagram story

[captainlexapro]

Tkachuky Derby & Hughesapalooza - 2024

*click for better detail- apologies for the lighting and general quality of the pics 😓!!*

acrylic on paper

please don't steal or repost 💚

inspired by this tweet specifically (plus credit to the earliest twitter mentions i could find):

Made these for my fellow brothers bowls enthusiasts!! Especially those who know it’s all about the intricate webs of familial narratives in athletics. and the concepts of destiny and talent. and brothers as both allies and adversaries. and the bonds between siblings. and…

links to inspo, reference images, and other thoughts below the cut!

THEY'RE DONEEEEEE!! 😭🙌 i spent probably 2-3 full days' worth of time from concept sketches to final products. so much paint. so much frustration. they're still not perfect - there's little issues on both (if you notice something, i promise i'm aware of it!!) but 'fixing' stuff in acrylic often leads down a rabbit hole and i just had to call it and be done.

there's intentional little details on both - let me know what you catch! hopefully you can see them okay 😅

*i know they play each other more than once per season but i only wanted to make these for their first '24-'25 meetings)*

Let's get some whimsy up in here now, boys!

Derby:

team colors - Panthers Senators

matthew reference

brady reference

Kentucky Derby posters inspo

I wanted to keep the derby poster more 'clean' graphically. lots of derby posters have sharp lines of color and lots of movement, so i knew i wanted large swaths of the team colors somehow (thanks to the ppl that voted on my poll for what the team color shaping should be! i did follow the winning choice lol) chose poses where they look like they are moving in the direction of the 'flow.' generally wanted to keep focus on the idea of matthew vs brady, so i have them 'looking' across the way. was originally going to put in outlines of skylines for cities relevant to them, but that proved to be way too big of an undertaking so i scrapped that idea and came up with some different references. put some detailing for each of them that i'm reallyyyyy hoping you can see when you like zoom into it, but here’s some closer pics:

their last name is ukrainian for weaver, so i wanted to put a little nod to that somehow. not sure it will translate/be clear to viewers, but i limited myself by making the poster so damn small...*I* know they're there and can see them lol if it's not clear to ppl i will come back here and explicitly say what they are lol

Palooza:

team colors - Devils Canucks

luke reference

jack reference

quinn reference

Music posters inspo

inspired by lolla/music posters. wanted a more 'fun' vibe overall. while the derby poster would be more for say like, putting on a wall or hypothetically used for marketing purposes, palooza was more marketing poster and maybe on a t-shirt, too. definitely wanted a calligraphy type font for the name - just felt it out and came up with that shaping. tried to reference lolla a bit. used the devils and canucks coloring - and combo of those (did you notice?) - for the palette. wanted it to be a bit more pop graphic-ish (and hopefully not too cartoony). used some hockey/venue shapes and references, as well as some little hugheses-specific easter eggs...fun fact: the reference pic i used for jack is the EXACT SAME as his nhl25 cover. they just edited it to have the devils' home jersey colors. (i was like wait a second....i know that pose. bc i've been staring at it trying to paint it for hours!!!)

some pics of the palettes and initial sketches:

If anyone has fun nicknames for other nhl brothers bowls, i’d be open to making more posters! Lmk!

If u read all this just know i love u and hope you have a good day 🫶

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

taylor swift lyrics x colors x textiles in art – blue

Tim McGraw – Taylor Swift // Portrait of Marie-Joseph Peyre – Marie-Suzanne Giroust 💙 Tim McGraw – Taylor Swift // Lady in the Boudoir – Gustav Holweg-Glantschnigg 💙 A Place in This World – Taylor Swift // Portrait of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester – Jean-Étienne Liotard 💙 Dear John – Speak Now // Young Woman in a Blue Dress – Jacopo Negretti 💙 State of Grace – Red // Portrait of Mrs. Matthew Tilghman and her Daughter – John Hesselius 💙 Red – Red // An Unknown Man – Joseph Highmore 💙 All Too Well – Red // Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve – Titian 💙 Everything Has Changed – Red // Portrait of the Marquis de Saint-Paul – Jean-Baptiste Greuze 💙 Starlight – Red // Mrs. Richard Brown – John Hesselius 💙 Run – Red // Judith with the Head of Holofernes – Felice Ficherelli 💙 This Love – 1989 // Fair Rosamund – John William Waterhouse 💙 Delicate – Reputation // Miss Elizabeth Ingram – Joshua Reynolds 💙 Gorgeous – Reputation // Marguerite Hessein, Lady of Rambouillet de la Sablière – workshop of Henri and Charles Beaubrun 💙 Dancing with Our Hands Tied – Reputation // George Albert, Prince of East Frisia – Johann Conrad Eichler

Cruel Summer – Lover // Peter August Friedrich von Koskull – Michael Ludwig Claus 💙 Lover – Lover // Lady Oxenden – Joseph Wright of Derby 💙 Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince – Lover // Portrait of Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi – Alexander Roslin 💙 Paper Rings – Lover // Young Woman in a Blue Dress – Jacopo Negretti 💙 London Boy – Lover // Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson – Anthony van Dyck 💙 Afterglow – Lover // Portrait of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn – Fyodor Rokotov 💙 Christmas Tree Farm – Christmas Tree Farm // Portrait of Mary Ruthven, Lady van Dyck – Anthony van Dyck 💙 invisible string – folklore // Two Altar Wings with the Visitation of Mary – unknown artist 💙 invisible string – folklore // Portrait of Madame de Pompadour – François Boucher 💙 peace – folklore // Fair Rosamund – John William Waterhouse 💙 hoax – folklore // Portrait of Charles le Normant du Coudray – Jean-Baptiste Perronneau 💙 coney island – evermore // Portrait of the Marquis de Saint-Paul – Jean-Baptiste Greuze 💙 Carolina – Carolina // Mrs. Daniel Sargent – John Singleton Copley 💙 Bejeweled – Midnights // Elsa Elisabeth Brahe – David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl 💙 The Great War – Midnights // Portrait of Françoise Marie de Bourbon – attributed to François de Troy 💙 Hits Different – Midnights // Mrs. Benjamin Pickman – John Singleton Copley

[nothingenoughao3]

huge fan of Dreams in the Necromancer House! Phenomenal in general, but to be specific, I was very impressed with the pacing and structure of the fic. apologies if you’ve talked about this before, but how DO you structure your longer works? is there a specific outlining process you rely on? I ask because, while I technically *understand* the three act structure, I don’t like “get it.” I can feel when something is paced well but I don’t understand why or how, if that makes sense (and of course as a disclaimer I do understand that there are only guidelines, not hard and fast rules). Anyway, just super interested in your process and would love hear anything you have to say about it! ❤️

Well, first off, thank you for reading that whole damn story! I'm grateful to hear that you enjoyed it, and are curious about how it came to be.

I'd like to note, for people who read this and are not you, that I don't do Read More cuts anymore. I lost a ton of writing on my former blog because the name changed and the Read More links all broke forever. There may be spoilers for "Dreams in the Necromancer House" in this post, although not for the ending! Please keep in mind before you interact with this post! I am immune to spoiler damage but not everyone has this super power.

I had a specific split genre of story in mind. Pacing is strongly affected by what kind of story it is. What's acceptable levels of character-building in a drama will come across as unbearable time-wasting bullshit in a thriller. You can not explain the intricacies of the plot in some styles of horror, and it's more effective that way, but you generally must take the time to explain these things in a mystery, and so on.

"Dreams" is a cosmic horror/romance. Cosmic horror as a genre is driven by plot and relies on extremely vivid world-building (which is why so many of Lovecraft's narrators don't have names--they aren't necessary!). Romance as a genre is driven by character and relies on extremely vivid descriptors of those characters and their immediate physical reality (their bodies, their homes, etc). These seem like they'd contradict each other, but they augment each other if handled correctly.

So, chapter 9 is structured like this:

Dan talks to Matthews and pulls the Moby-Dick prank. Plot-driven, but with a bit of comedy to lighten the overall tone of the story, which has gotten pretty dark.

Matthews consults with Asenath, Derby and Clarke. Entirely plot-driven scene meant to remind the audience of the stakes.

Dan and Herbert get ready for the party, and The Shaving Scene plays out. Character-driven scene, light on plot and heavy on romantic elements.

Dan realizes why Herbert's sneaking off during the parties. Seems like it's plot-driven, but the emphasis on physicality, location descriptors, and the like reveal that this is another character-driven tangent.

Breaking it down like this, we can see that 1 and 2 are cosmic horror-themed, and 3 and 4 are romance-themed. The first half of the chapter provides the reader with a ton of necessary information while sprinkling in Danbert-flavored treats as a reward. The second half is more explicitly about Dan and Herbert's relationship, while continuing to establish what little set-up is still needed for the big opener of the next chapter.

The Shaving Scene is extremely light on plot, and it would be cut from the story if it were a pure cosmic horror tale. But for this kind of split genre, the scene was vital. It gives readers a chance to get to know Herbert and Dan a little better, fall more in love with them (if that's even possible), and incidentally, because it's NOT plot-related, it builds anticipation for the next big plot point at the party. If I've done it right, readers are constantly aware that Dan and Herbert are preparing to go to the party/revelry, that this is a Big Deal, and the reader's going to be worried despite the flirting that things are going to go Very Badly For Them. Then, as Scene 4 plays out, the reader's tricked into thinking the Very Bad Thing is just another relationship misunderstanding--only for Dan's "... oh, boy" to confirm that the Very Bad Things are going to be Very Much Part Of The Plot.

I think readers are smart and can pick up on cues, even if those cues are sometimes absorbed subconsciously (I've done this myself!). I feel like when I'm writing a scene where Dan's cooking food and there's a lot of descriptions of the incidentals in the kitchen, how the weather's been, how heavily he's been smoking, that readers will learn at a certain point that these are cues for "This is a romantic/character-driven part of the story". And if the scene begins with, or features, a ton of flashbacks and history that give it a broader scope that spans decades, then this is probably a cosmic horror scene. (Note that a LOT of Armitage and Asenath's scenes take this approach, and that gives them a different feel from how Dan and Herbert's romantic scenes are framed.)

Also, it was necessary to ease folks into this kind of structure. I feel like the opening four chapters were pretty much about establishing the world I wanted the characters to inhabit--introducing many of the important new cast members, establishing a timeline, bringing in elements that seem small but become hugely important later, etc. At that point, the romantic elements were very light and suggestive and past-tense. The first sex scene in ch. 4 was, primarily, there to let everyone know that yes this is going to be One Of Those Fics where they do in fact bang, they just aren't right now. And it ends with Dan having the same kind of emotional response I wanted from the reader: wistful and sad that they aren't together anymore, unsure of how it's going to be fixed.

(Not to get too parenthetical, but there are many meta-jokes like this in my writing. Like, uh. You know how Dan sometimes is like "I'd rather think about X than Y?" He's leaning on the fourth wall and acknowledging that the story is about to switch from cosmic horror to romance, or vice versa. Now you know.)

After those first few chapters, though, you can pick the story apart and see how romance starts to intrude more on the cosmic horror structure. Ch. 5 is primarily about The Plot, but then there's that bit with Herbert and Dan arguing about the chores and the cat. Ch. 6 opens with Dan talking about Herbert and their dynamic, has a bit about the plot again, and then veers into a long flashback regarding their breakup sex. The end scene with Armitage is comparatively brief. Ch. 7 has some plot elements, but we're getting into heavily character- and relationship-driven subplots interacting with the main plot.

At that point, building suspense becomes easier! If I want to delay the discovery of some element of the mystery, I can throw Herbert and Dan into an argument. And if I want to stop them from getting along too well just yet, I can throw more cosmic trauma their way. And if the story goes full throttle on cosmic horror (like in chs. 10 and 14), then I can throw in elements that raise the stakes by reminding people of the romance--Dan praying to Herbert for help, Herbert admitting that Dan is the cause of all of his insomnia. Those reminders hit so much harder when they're a surprise raising-of-the-stakes.

Now, you may be like "But how do you know when to switch around the structure?" and the answer is vibes.

More specifically, this is why I think writers tell other aspiring writers that they must read stuff in the genre they want to write. Do that and you'll pick up on the vibes of the genre: how much space you're expected to take up on characters, world, plot, theme, and so forth. I can generally rattle off how one should structure a lot of the fiction I'm interested in writing because I read a ton of that shit.

And if you don't have the time for that, I strongly recommend watching movies in the genre you want to write. For example, "Re-Animator" is almost perfectly divided into thirds. The first 35 minutes are character- and world-building and establishing of initial stakes; the middle 40 minutes dramatically raise the stakes and line up all the previously-established elements; and the last 30 minutes is all climax, all the time. The end of the film feels inevitable as it plays out, especially the last scene: there is no other way it could have gone, because nothing has been wasted--everything the movie put down in the beginning, it picked up in the end. That's good stuff, even if we like to laugh at the goofy shit, like Jeff Combs wearing a cat backpack.

The first things I wrote to completion were not short stories or novels, but plays--so I'd also suggest that you could consider a different act structure entirely for your stories, if the three-act structure doesn't feel intuitive for you. The five-act structure worked well enough for Shakespeare. Ancient Greek plays didn't really have acts. You just wrote another play if you wanted to continue the story over another 24 hours! Stuff like the three-act structure are tools, and if the tool doesn't work for you, there are other one available.

I have talked in another ask about how I do outlines and research and references. I relied on the structure of a lot of movies, TV shows, short stories (many of which were not Lovecraft), and board games to inform "Dreams", so for me, drawing pacing ideas from other storytelling styles has worked out pretty well.

It's very late where I am and I'm not entirely sure I've answered your question, and I'm sorry about that. If you have any other questions or need me to clarify something, feel free to send another ask! I appreciate you letting me know that "Dreams" meant something to you.

[hetalia-club]

Stardew Mod Alfred Jones (America)

Summary of Town & Buildings you should read this first if you haven't so you're not confused.

Jones Household: Alfred

Alfred (America), His brother is Matthew (Canada) and they are also roommates living on a ranch/ tree nursery together at the furthest end of Cindersnap forest. They own a small farm where America raises cows & Canada has a small tree nursery where he taps trees for maple. They live the furthest away from town so they have space to farm. They come from a family of Ranchers and got a very large trust fund from their parents. Being raised rich he does not really have a concept for money and will often say tone deaf things until you form a relationship with him. (Commenting on your clothes similar to how Haley does) Bakery contribution- Supplies Milk for the baked goods and coffee Drinks. He also makes all the Apple Pie. Alfred Visits the Bakery on Monday morning around 10am to make his milk deliveries. He will stay there for about an hour and then head home opening his store around 12pm that day. Alfred break down: Alfred Loves grindball, cows and eating. He used to be in the military and fought with Kent in the war against the Gotoro Empire. After an injury he was given an honorary discharge and deals with the guilt of feeling like he got out easy. His Milk puns can make for a fun double entendre that he is unaware of. He can come off as self-centered and chauvinistic at times but he means well. This boy loves cows and will talk about them any chance you give him. He’s a cowboy if you will. But just because was a trust fund kid does not mean he’s afraid of getting his hands dirty or hard work. Don’t let his condescending demeanor rub you the wrong way once you break that outer shell this farm boy will love you until the cows come home. The Ranch-His house doubles as a ranch so he sells Barn Animals like Marnie does and Hay + tools like sheers, milk pale and anything else you might need for your animals. He does not have as big of a selection of Marnie but his prices are slightly cheaper if you are willing to make the trek there for your stuff. Animals bought from Alfred are already full grown and there is not waiting period to have them grow from babies as Alfred raises the animals up himself so they will start producing products right away. Keep Reading Down Below >>>>

Birthday- Summer 4 Loves- Pumpkin Pie, Banana Pudding, Survival Burger, All varieties of Milk, Gold Bar and Apple Pie Likes- All universal likes except for flowers and crops that cannot be eaten. All cooked food and all crops that can be eaten with a couple exceptions Neutrals- all universal neutrals, all raw fish (Because they have the ability to be cooked and eaten) Dislikes- all universal dislikes, flowers of any kind (They are not food) Hates- Salad & Moss soup & Universal hates Gift receiving lines- Loved Lines- Wow my favorite! It’s like you can read my mind or something… Liked Lines- Sweet, Thanks! Neutral Lines- Thanks for the gift I guess Dislikes- Um, Okay Hate Lines- Why did you give me your trash? I guess I’ll throw it away for you Birthday Gift Lines- Happy Birthday to me! Thanks for remembering. Unique festival dialog: Egg Festival- I asked Mayor Lewis if we could do a milk festival instead this year. He said he didn’t think the idea would “catch on”. Desert Festival- Every year I misread the flyer and think I’m attending the “dessert festival”. This is still alright though I guess. Flower Dance- *Alfred is busy eating and doesn’t seem like he wants to talk* Ask to dance? If yes- Dance!? With you!? I thought you’d never ask! I mean…dancing is cool sure. If no- Sorry, I have literally anything else to do. Firework Festival (New Event)- It’s my birthday today you know. It almost feels like these fireworks are a celebration for me. If only I had some Banana Pudding today would be perfect. Luau- Can you guess what I added to the pot this year? If you guessed milk you were right. Trout Derby- Does not attend Dance Of The Moonlight Jellies- I don’t get what’s so exciting about a bunch of glowing fish. Now a cow with glowing milk, now that would be cool! Don’t steal that idea… Stardew Valley Fair- (Has a stand with Matthew where they are showing off Cheese, Milk, Maple syrup, and some tree fruits.) Came to stake out the completion, Eh (Player)? Mattie and I are taking home the gold this year I know it. Brew Fest (New Event)- I’m on my 18th shot of espresso. What do you mean slow down? Who are you my Mom/dad/parent? (Depending on which gender you picked) Spirits Eve- I wonder If I could make a Golden Pumpkin Pie from the Golden Pumpkin. Don’t steal that idea… Festival Of Ice- My brother dragged me here. It’s too damn cold out here *Shivers*. Hopefully the cows are warm enough in the barn. Squidfest- Does Not Attend Night Market- I wonder if you could milk a mermaid. Why are you looking at me like that? Was it something I said? Feast Of The Winter Star- *Alfred Is eating an entire Pumpkin Pie from the tin with a fork*. *He looks like he’s trying to hide it from you* Friendship Letters after befriending Alfred: 2 Hearts letter: he will send you a letter in the mail and a bottle of Maple syrup as a gift The letter will say: Found this while going through my brothers stuff. I thought it would annoy him if I gave it to you. 4 Hearts letter: Sorry I was so annoyed with you before you’re actually pretty cool you know. I Got you something little to make up for it don’t spend it all in one place. The letter will contain a Gold Bar. 6 heart letter- Now that we’re such good pals I thought I would share with you my mom’s top secret Apple Pie Recipe. This information is classified. Letter contains the recipe for Apple Pie. 2 Apple 1 Wheat flour 1 Maple Syrup Health+ 80 Energy+ 175 8 Heart letter- When you first moved in I never thought I would even talk to you. But I want you to know you’ve become my best friend. I look forward to seeing you every day. Let’s hang out later okay? Letter contains a Diamond Romance Dialog Receiving a Bouquet- For me? Hell Yeah! That’s so crazy and here I was about to just go buy a bouquet for you. Mermaid Pendent- No way, no way, no way! You seriously want to marry me? I was too afraid to ask you! I’ll get everything set up don’t even worry about lifting a finger baby.

Married Life With Alfred Jones: When married to America his corner of the farm will be a singular cow which is named Big Tex. When married to Alfred there is a chance if you speak to him in the morning he will give you milk and will tell you it came from Big Tex fresh this morning. Three days after marrying Alfred you will get a letter in the mail from ‘In-laws’ with 10k gold congratulating you and apologizing for not being at the wedding. After Marrying Alfred he will still go tend his stores and will hardly ever be actually at your house. Due to the long walk he will warp to and from there and cannot be followed since the slow pace NPCs walk would take him literally all day to get there. Alfred will call you babe from now on regardless of gender. If you go visit him at work he will have special dialog expressing he’s happy you came to see him but you don’t get a discount just because you’re married. Occasionally he will mention the current war saying he ‘hopes everyone is doing alright without him’. On Sundays he and Matthew will meet each other in Cinderssnap Forest by the river unless it’s raining and then they will both stay home.

[warrenwoodhouse]

Cliques - Bully Guide (Game Guides) (Guides)

List by @warrenwoodhouse #warrenwoodhouse

List of all of the cliques in Bully and in Bully: Scholarship Edition.

Main Game

Nerds

Boys

Algernon “Algie” Papadopoulos

Bucky Pasteur

Earnest Jones

Melvin O’Connor

Donald Anderson

Cornelius Johnson

Fatty Johnson

Thad Carlson

Girls

Beatrice Trudeau

Hangouts

The Library

The Observatory

Preppies

Boys

Chad Morris

Gord Vendome

Parker Ogilvie

Tad Spencer

Derby Harrington

Bif Taylor

Bryce Montrose

Justin Vandervelde

Girls

Pinky Gauthier

Hangouts

Harrington House

Old Bullworth Vale

Glass Jaw Gym

Greasers

Boys

Johnny Vincent

Ricky Pucino

Hal Esposito

Lefty Mancini

Norton Williams

Peanut Romano

Vance Medici

Girls

Lola Lombardi

Hangouts

Auto Shop

Add

Jocks

Boys

Kirby Olsen

Casey Harris

Bo Jackson

Damon West

Dan Wilson

Juri Karamazov

Luis Luna

Ted Thompson

Girls

Mandy Wiles

Hangouts

Football Field

Swimming Pool

Gym

None

Boys

Gary Smith

Peter “Petey” Kowalski

James “Jimmy” Hopkins

Constantinos Brakus

Ivan Alexander

Gordon Wakefield

Lance Jackson

Pedro De La Hoya

Ray Hughes

Sheldon Thompson

Trevor Moore

Girls

Angie Ng

Eunice Pound

Christy Martin

Gloria Jackson

Karen Johnson

Melody Adams

Zoe Taylor

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Bullies

Boys

Russell Northrop

Trent Northwick

Davis White

Ethan Robinson

Tom Gurney

Troy Miller

Wade Martin

Girls

None

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Carpark - Bullworth Academy

Townies

Boys

Duncan

Edgar Munsen

Clint (aka: Henry)

Gurney

Jerry

Leon

Omar Romero

Otto Tyler

Girls

Zoe Taylor (before re-attending Bullworth Academy)

Hangouts

Add

Townsfolk

Boys/Men

Mr. Doolin

Add

Girls/Women

Miss Abby

Add

Hangouts

Old Bullworth Vale

Add

Police

Boys/Men

Officer Williams

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Old Bullworth Vale

Bullworth Town

Add

Prefects

Boys/Men

Prefect 1

Prefect 2

Prefect 3

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Orderlies

Boys/Men

Add

Add

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Add

Add

Carnival Folk

Boys/Men

Add

Add

Girls/Women

The Siamese Twins

Add

The Last Mermaid

Hangouts

Billie Crane’s Traveling Carnival

Faculty

Men

Dr. Crabblesnitch (Principal)

Mr. Burton (Gym Teacher)

Mr. Lionel Galloway (English Teacher)

Mr. Hattrick (Math Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Mr. Luntz (Janitor, Shop Attendant)

Mr. Matthews (Geography Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Neil (Shop Teacher)

Dr. Slawter (Biology Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Dr. Watts (Chemistry Teacher)

Mr. Wiggins (History Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Women

Miss. Danvers (Secretary)

Mrs. Carvin (Librarian)

Edna (Cook)

Mrs. Danica McRae (Nurse)

Mrs. Peabody (Girls’ Dorm Hall Monitor)

Miss. Peters (Music Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Ms. Deidre Philips (Art Teacher, Photography Teacher)

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

[rwrbmovie]

📌 september 8 | imagen & emmys

This Sunday, September 8th, is the day of the Imagen Awards and the second night of the Creative Arts Emmys! It will be an exciting day - RWRB is up for 3 awards! Here's a post detailing everything we know so far.

Bookmark/like this post, or return to it (it will be pinned on the blog for the weekend) as we will update it as needed.

The times below are in PDT (GMT -7). To see what time it will be in your timezone, use this website.

IMAGEN AWARDS

📍 LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, LA 🕜 Times: - Reception: 5:00pm - Dinner: 6:00pm - Ceremony: 7:00pm

NOMINATIONS:

Best Special or TV Movie

Taylor Zakhar Perez, Best Actor - Comedy (Television)

HOW TO WATCH: The official Imagen foundation Instagram account (@imagenfound) mentioned a livestream of the red carpet beginning at 4:30pm (like what they did last year). Unsure if there will be a livestream of the ceremony as well.

CREATIVE ARTS EMMY AWARDS

📍 Peacock Theatre, LA 🕜 Ceremony begins at 5:00pm

NOMINATIONS:

Outstanding Television Movie (This award will be the last category presented)

HOW TO WATCH:

There is no official livestream of the award ceremony.

🔗 Backstage livestream: Gold Derby will be reporting from backstage in the media center, announcing winners as they happen live

FXX: An edited presentation of the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies will air Saturday, Sept. 14, at 8:00 PM PDT

Hulu: Following the FXX telecast, the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Awards will stream on Hulu Sunday, Sept. 15, through Wednesday, Oct. 9.

Gear up for the Emmys by checking out RWRB's fyc campaign content here!

Can Taylor and Matthew attend both events? Here's my response.

[captainlexapro]

happy tkachuky derby day to all who celebrate!!

Acrylic on paper *click for (a little) better quality*

Tkachuk means weaver in ukrainian, so i tried to emulate a fabric design effect. Matty has the stanley cup/palm trees and six stars/gateway arch. Brady has captain’s C/tulips and four stars/gateway arch

[fishfingersalad]

Rvb skating hcs, bc I miss skating but I can’t figure out how to put the brake back on my blades, and where I live is rlly hilly so I need it or else I'm trapped in the cul-de-sac.

Putting a break cause its a real long list lol

Skateboards:

Alpha Church (Can’t actually skateboard, swears he can but he's sooo wobbly) Tex (Can actually skateboard, makes fun of church) Tucker (Between Church and Tex’s levels, hes decent at it) Wash (Don’t think I need to explain this one) Niner (I’ve seen a lot of wheelchair niner hcs, shed totally do wheelchair skateboarding) Palomo (Falls over a lot, but hey he just keeps on going.) Bitters (Absolutely holds it over Palomos head that he’s better at skateboarding) Theta (canon)

Rollerskates:

Kai (Dunno if this one needs an explanation, she might like derby ngl) Donut (He seems like he’d use them as transportation, just skatin around) South (She’d do roller derby and get so competitive about it) CT (Seen some videos of people doing sweet flips and tricks w skates) Ohio (She gives me the vibe of someone who’s got cool iridescent pink roller skates) Andersmith (Picked up skating cause the younger lieutenants were into it) Matthews (He’s a bit unbalanced, but he’s determined)

Rollerblades:

Carolina (Speed, blades are faster than skates) Simmons (He is shaky as hell, but he is trying. Won’t skate anywhere that’s not flat.) Kimball (Lina taught her, they race) Dr Grey (Dunno, just vibes) Jensen (Much like Simmons but with more uneven terrain) Epsilon Church (Picked blades so he could skate w Lina, and to be different from Wash n Alpha) Omega/O’malley (I'm just picturing him chasing people around at high speeds, cackling) Eta (Wanted to try something new, and to spend time w Theta)

Iceskates:

Florida (Specifically figure skating) Felix (Honestly idk, he’s cold and sharp like an ice skate) Delta (He’d ramble about why it’s an intellectual sport, but actually just thinks its fun) Sigma (He’d be rlly pretentious about it)

Scooter:

York (Guy has no balance but still wants to be included) Iota (Cheers on Eta and Theta, does sick scooter tricks)

Other:

Grif (I think he’d have a longboard that he rides around) Sarge (Quad bike) Doc (Also a longboarder) Idaho (I think he’d prefer dirt bike racing) Iowa (Quad bike, it’s like a mongoose) Caboose (Mountain bike, no real explanation, just vibes)

Doesn’t skate (or bike or anything):

Lopez (He prefers cars, might've made an electric skateboard at some point but doesn't rlly use it) Wyoming (Can’t see him skating at all ngl) North (Cheers everyone else on and records videos) Maine (First aid) Locus (Tried to skate once and fell over. Now he just broods from the benches.) Doyle (Too nervous, prefers to just watch) Gamma (I don’t think he’d go outside much ngl)

[amphibious-thing]

OFMD Stede Bonnet as a Macaroni: Wealth, Gender and Sexuality in the 18th Century Fashion World

Historical Inaccuracy in Our Flag Means Death? Never!

Historical inaccuracy! I hear you cry. A Macaroni in 1717!?! It is true macaroni fashion was really a late-18th century fashion trend, seemingly reaching its peak in the 1770s. However Our Flag Means Death is nothing if not historically inaccurate. Stede’s costumes seem to take inspiration from across the 18th century rather than worrying about what would have actually been worn in 1717.

Early 18th century suits tended to have round necklines, loose-fitting sleeves with wide cuffs, long waistcoats that stoped just above the knee, and coats with full skirts just a little longer that the waistcoat.

[Left: Matthew Prior, oil on canvas, c. 1713-1714, by Alexis-Simon Belle, photo credit: St John's College, University of Cambridge, via Art UK.

Middle: Matthew Hutton of Newnham, Hertfordshire, oil on canvas, c. 1715, by Johannes Verelst, photo credit: National Trust Images, via Art UK.

Right: William Leathes, Ambassador Brussels, oil on canvas, c. 1710-1711, by Herman van der Myn, photo credit: Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service: Ipswich Borough Council Collection, via Art UK.]

As the century continued we get standing collars and turned down collars but round necklines were still around as well, sleeves got tighter with smaller cuffs, the waistcoats got shorter and the coats lost their skirts.

[Left: Thomas ‘Sense’ Browne, oil on canvas, c. 1775, by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, photo credit: Yale Center for British Art, via Art UK.

Middle: Sir Brooke Boothby, oil on canvas, c. 1781, by Joseph Wright of Derby, photo credit: Tate, via Art UK.

Right: David Allan, oil on canvas, c. 1770, by David Allan, photo credit: Royal Scottish Academy/National Galleries of Scotland (Antonia Reeve), via Art UK.]

Stede’s collars are inconstant some are rounded but others are turned down and Ed’s purple suit has a standing collar. Many of Stede’s coats have wide cuffs, but most have little skirt to them. His teal suit from the pilot has a bit of a skirt but its paired with a short waistcoat.

Most of Stede’s waistcoats are short with the exception of his suits from both the wedding portrait with Mary and the the family portrait. Both suits are very straight giving him a boxy appearance and are pretty different from most of the suits we see him in.

All in all I don’t think they were aiming for historically realistic clothes but with the collars, short waistcoats, and lack of skirts I get more of a late-18th century vibe.

So what was a Macaroni?

A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), defined macaroni as follows:

An Italian paste made of flour and eggs; also a fop, which name arose from a club, called the maccaroni club, instituted by some of the most; dressy travelled gentlemen about town, who led the fashions, whence a man foppishly dressed, was supposed a member of that club, and by contraction stiled a maccaroni.

The macaroni club was said to have comprised of young men who had gained a taste for French and Italian textiles on their Grand Tour (a traditional trip taken tough Europe by upper class men when they came of age). The earliest reference to the club is from a letter from Horace Walpole to Lord Hertford on the 6th Feb 1764:

at the Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses),

In his book Pretty Gentleman: Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-Century Fashion World Peter McNeil suggest the club was actually Almack’s. Almack’s was a private club at 50 Pall Mall that was attended by prominent Whigs including Sheridan, Fox and the Price of Wales. (p52) While the name may have originated from the men at Almack’s it was soon used to describe any man who followed the associated fashion trends.

So what were these trends?

Hair

“Still lower let us fall for once, and pop

Our heads into a modern Barber’s shop;

What the result? or what we behold there?

A set of Macaronies weaving hair.”

~ The Macaroni by Robert Hitchcock

Probably the most iconic aspect of macaroni fashion was the hair. “It was the macaroni attention to wigs that caused most consternation” explains Peter McNeil. The macaroni hair “matched the towering heights of the female coiffure, with a tall toupee cresting at the centre front. The wig generally had a long tail at the neck (’queue’), which when folded double was called the ‘cadogan’, all of which required regular dressing with pomade and powder, sometimes in the colours of pink, green or red.” (p45)

The height of the macaroni hair was a point of particular fascination in macaroni caricature exaggerating it beyond what the macaroni were probably actually wearing. Compare below Tom’s hair in the satirical print What is this my son Tom to the self portrait of Richard Cosway, who was satirised by Mary Darly as “The Miniature Macaroni” (a reference both to his height and his career as a miniature painter).

[Left: What is this my son Tom, print, c. 1774, published by Sayer & Bennett, via The British Museum.

Right: Self-Portrait, Ivory, c. 1770–75, by Richard Cosway, via The Met.]

The way Stede usually wears is hair is not particularly macaroni nor particularly 18th century for that matter. The exception to this is his wig from The Best Revenge Is Dressing Well though even this doesn’t have the iconic macaroni hight.

Interestingly both Stede and Ed are wearing flowers in their hair. While there are certainly depictions of women with flowers in there hair I’m not aware of this being a trend in mens fashion at all. However macaroni were known for wearing large nosegays.

While the tall hair was certainly iconic not all macaroni wore their hair tall. Joseph Banks, who was satirised as “The Fly Catching Macaroni” by Matthew Darly, is depicted in his portrait with a fairly typical 18th century hairstyle. Its not the hair alone that makes a macaroni, it was just one aspect of the fashion.

[Sir Joseph Banks, oil on canvas, c. 1771-1773, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, via Wikimedia.]

Suit

“If I went to Almack’s and decked out my wrinkles in pink and green like Lord Harrington, I might still be in vogue.” ~ Horace Walpole to Lord Hertford, 25 Nov 1764

Menswear of the period consisted of the same basic elements; shirt, stockings, breeches, waistcoat and coat. What differentiated the macaroni from others was the fabric, cut, colour and trimmings of the suit. “At a time when English dress generally consisted of more sober cuts and the use of monochrome broadcloth,” explains Peter McNeil “macaronism emphasised the effects associated with French, Spanish and Italian textiles and trimmings”. Popular amongst macaroni were brocaded and embroidered silks and velvets, sometimes further embellished with metallic sequins, simulated gemstones and raised metallic threads. Popular colours included pastels, pea-green, pink, red and deep orange. (McNeil, p30-32)

Far from wearing “monochrome broadcloth” Stede likes a “fine fabric” and dresses in a range of colours, we see him in teal, pink, purple, green, white, red, peach &c.

Tightly cut French style suits known as habit à la française were popular with macaroni. (McNeil, p14) Stede’s suits vary somewhat in cut but some are very French. The peach suit Stede wears in We Gull Way Back particularly has a very macaroni feel to me. Compare it to the English suit (left) and the French suit (right).

From the back you can see the English suit has more of a skirt to it.

Both Stede’s suit and the French suit are somewhat plain but have been paired with a floral embroidered waistcoat, while the English suit has a matching plain black waistcoat.

[Left: English suit, wool, silk, c. 1755–65, via The Met, number: 2009.300.916a, b.

Right: French suit, Silk plain weave (faille), c. 1785, via LACMA, number: M.2007.211.47a-b.]

Fabric covered button’s were common in the 18th century, you can see them on both the French and English coats above. In contrast Stede wears a lot of metal buttons. Steel buttons were popular amongst macaroni, a trend that was satirised in Steel Buttons/Coup de Bouton.

[Steel Buttons/Coup de Bouton, print, c. 1777, by William Humphrey, via The British Museum.]

Pumps and Parasols

“Maccaronies who trip in pumps and with Parasols over their heads” ~ Mrs Montagu

High heels had been popular amongst men during the 17th century. The Royal Collection Trust explains:

In the first half of the 17th century, high heeled shoes for men took the form of heeled riding or Cavalier boots as worn by Charles I. As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes. High heels were impractical for undertaking manual labour or walking long distances, and therefore announced the privileged status of the wearer.

(Royal Collection Trust, High Heels Fit for a King)

In 17th century France Louis XIV popularised red-heels by turning them into a symbol of political privilege, which in turn spread the fashion to England. But with the sobering of menswear in England around the turn of the century the high heel and the red-heels went out of fashion. (see Bata Shoe Museum Toronto, Standing TALL: The Curious History of Men in Heels)

The high heel had a bit of a resurgence in the 1770s with macaroni fashion. The Natural History of a Macaroni snipes that the macaroni’s “natural hight is somewhat inferior to he ordinary size of men, through by the artificial hight of their heels, they in general reach that standard”. (Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, July 1777, p458)

Red-heels were reintroduced to England by young men returning from their Grand Tours. A young Charles James Fox (satirised by Mathew Darly as “the Original Macaroni”) wore such French style red-heeled shoes. The Monthly Magazine recalls a young Fox as a “celebrated “beau garçon” with “his chapeau bras, his red-heeled shoes, and his blue hair-powder.” (Oct 1806) and The Life of the Right Honorable, Charles James Fox recalls him in his “suit of Paris-cut velvet, most fancifully embroidered, and bedecked with a large bouquet; a head-dress cemented into every variety of shape; a little silk hat, curiously ornamented; and a pair of French shoes, with red-heels;” (p18) And in Recollections of the Life of the Late Right Honorable Charles James Fox B.C. Walpole recalls him as “one of the greatest beaus in England,” who “indulged in all the fashionable elegance of attire, and vied, in point of red heels and Paris-cut velvet with the most dashing young men of the age. Indeed there are many still living who recollect Beau Fox strutting up and down St. Jame’s-street, in a suit of French embroidery, a little silk hat, red-heeled shoes, and a bouquet nearly large enough for a may-pole.” (p24)

Compare the French style red-heeled shoes of Louis XIV to Stede’s red-heeled shoes.

[Left: detail of Louis XIV, oil on canvas, c. 1701, by Hyacinthe Rigaud, via Wikimedia.]

However most macaroni were depicted wearing the more standard late 18th century low-heeled bucked shoes. Where they distinguished themselves was the size and decoration of the buckles. “Such buckles could be set with pate (lead glass) or ‘Bristol stones’ (chips of quartz), or diamonds if you were very rich.” Explains peter McNeil, “The new macaroni fashion was for huge silver or plated Artois shoe buckles which the Mourning Post claimed weighed three to eleven ounces.” (p90)

While certainly not as iconic has his heels Stede also wears these sorts of shoes. Compare below the shoes from a macaroni caricature to Ed wearing Stede’s shoes (I couldn’t get a good shot of Stede wearing them).

[Left: detail of How d'ye like me, print, c. 1772, published by: Carington Bowles, via The British Museum.]

“A great many jewelled accessories accompanied the macaroni look”, writes Peter McNeil, “They included hanger swords, very long canes, clubs, spying glasses and snuff-boxes.” (p68) Tragically we don’t see Stede with a fashionable dress sword or a cane but we do see him with another accessory popular amongst macaroni; a parasol.

Popular in France parasols/umbrellas were adopted by the macaroni. They were popular amongst both men and woman in France but in England they had a feminine connotation. (McNeil, p129) In the 1780s as umbrellas became more popular amongst men there was a cultural pushback to the perceived gender transgression. On the 16th of August 1780 the Morning Post complains of of the “canopy of umbrellas” bemoaning that “the effeminacy of the men, inclines them to adopt this necessary appendage of female convenience”. On the the 4th Oct, 1784, the Morning Chronicle published a letter complaining of “that vile foppish practice of sheltering under a umbrella”. The author of this tirade writes that while “the ladies should be allowed to secure their beauty and persons from the heat of the sun, or the inclemency of the weather,” because “it is natural, and has a striking effect”, that “to see a great lubberly cit, bounce from his shop, with a coat, hat, and wig that are not together worth one groat,” sheltering “from the influence of the solar beam” was “intolerable.” However:

The macaroni being of the doubtful gender, may in part claim a feminine right; his dress is too delicate to bear an heavy shower, perhaps his person is so too; but a coach, if a clean one is to be found would serve his purpose much better, as there would be less likelihood of his being washed away into the kennel, which he deserves to be kicked into for his d-----d affectation.

Wealth

Born from rich young men returning from their tours with a taste for French and Italian textiles macaroni fashion was expensive. Certainly a working class man would not be able to afford Stede’s wardrobe. Both the sheer amount of clothes he has as well has the fabrics those clothes are made of are indications of wealth. However to say that Stede’s wardrobe is only an indication of wealth would be missing part of picture.

Most rich upper class English men (including colonial) wore plain monochrome suits. Even amongst the gentry macaroni fashion was not the norm. Compare bellow George Washington (left) who was a wealthy planation owner, but notably not a macaroni, to Richard Cosway (right) who was a famous macaroni.

[Left: George Washington, oil on canvas, c. 1796, by Gilbert Stuart, via Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Right: Detail of The Academicians of the Royal Academy, oil on canvas, c. 1771-72, by Johan Zoffany, via The Royal Collection Trust.]

In spite of the expense macaroni fashion was not exclusive to the upper classes. “Macaroni dress was not restricted to members of the aristocracy and gentry,” writes McNeil, “but included men of the artisan, artist, and upper servant classes, who wore versions of this visually lavish clothing with a distinctive cut and shorter jackets. Wealthier shopkeepers and entrepreneurs also sometimes wore such lavish clothing, particularly those associated with the luxury trades, such as mercers and upholsterers -” (p14)

It was possible to copy certain aspects of macaroni fashion on a cheeper budget. The hairstyle in particular was achievable without braking the bank. And there were ways to replicate the effects of certain expensive fashion trends for cheeper prices. For example patterns could be printed rather than embroidered.

[Left: printed waistcoat, cotton, c. 1770–90, via The Met, number: 35.142.

Right: embroidered waistcoat, silk, c. 1780–89, via The Met, number: 2009.300.2908.]

The Town and Country Magazine complains “we now have Macaronies of every denomination, from the colonel of the Train’s-Bands down to the errand-boy.” (McNeil, p169) The Morining Post mocks macaronies that couldn't financially keep up with the trends:

The macaronies of a certain class are under peculiar circumstances of distress, occasioned by the fashion, now so prevalent, of wearing enormous shoe-buckles; and we are well assured that the manufactory of plated ware was never known to be in so flourishing a situation.

(14 Jan, 1777)

In 18th century England, class was about more than just how much money you had. It was about pedigree. “English society was particularly alert to those whom it felt were using clothes to achieve a social status they did not merit” explains McNeil. Richard Cosway was a famous macaroni from modest background. Born to a Devonshire headmaster he was sent to London to study painting at 12. He became a very successful miniature painter and grew rich from the patronage of the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Whig circles. In Nollekens and his Times J.T. Smith writes of Cosway:

He rose from one of the dirtiest boys, to one of the smartest of men. Indeed so ridiculously foppish did he become that Mat Darly, the famous caricature print-seller, introduced an etching of him in his window in the Strand, as ‘The Macaroni Miniature Painter’

(McNeil, p105-14)

But it was not only the Darlys that satirised Cosway Hannah Humphrey mocks Cosway as a social climber in A Smuggling Machine or a Convenient Cos(au)way for a Man in Miniature which depicts him standing under the petticoats of his much taller wife Maria. In the background there is a picture of Cosway climbing a ladder that rests upon a woman (she is believed to either be Angelica Kauffman or the Duchess of Devonshire). Below this reads:

Lowliness is Young Ambitions Ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his Face But when he once attains the upmost round He then unto the Ladder turns his back, Looks unto the clouds - scornin [sic] the base degrees By which he did assend. Shak. Jul. Caesar.

[A Smuggling Machine or a Convenient Cos(au)way for a Man in Miniature, print, c. 1782, by Hannah Humphrey, via The British Museum.]

Another famous macaroni not born into the aristocracy was Julius Soubise. Brought to England from the West Indies as a slave he was taken in by Catherine Hyde, the Duchess of Queensbury. She gave him a leisured childhood, in which he was taught to play and compose for the violin, was taught to fence by Domenico Angelo, and learned oration from David Garrick. “Macaroni caricatures of Soubise parodied a foppish upstart whose outfits and entertainments, financed by the Duchess, affronted both racial and social expectations of an African male.” Writes Petter McNeil, Soubise was satirised as “a Mungo Macaroni” an “offensive term meaning a rude or forward black man.” (p118)

[Left: A Mungo Macaroni, print, c. 1772, by Matthew Darly, via The British Museum.

Right: The D------ of [...]-- playing at foils with her favorite lap dog Mungo after expending near £10000 to make him a----------*, print, c. 1773, by William Austin, via Yale Center for British Art.]

The expense of Stede’s wardrobe is a key part of the narrative. Stede has nice fancy luxurious things. Ed wants nice fancy luxurious things. Ed was born a poor brown boy and while he may be rich now he can never truly change his class. He could be as rich as Richard Cosway or Julius Soubise but to the gentry he will always be that poor brown boy.

Gender

As we have already seen in the tirade against men using umbrellas the macaroni was perceived as being of “the doubtful gender”. (The Morning Chronicle, 4 Oct, 1784)

The Natural History of a Macaroni writes that there “has within these few years past arrived from France and Italy a very strange animal, of the doubtful gender, in shape somewhat between a man and monkey,” that dresses “neither in the habit of a man or woman, but peculiar to itself”. The author states that “they are in no respect useful in this country”:

that the minister of the war department would give orders to have them enlisted for the service of America: we do not mean to put them on actual duty there. Alas! they are as harmless in the field, as they are in the chamber, but they may stand as faggots to cover the loss of real men.

(Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, July 1777, p458-9)

A “faggot” being “A man who is temporarily hired as a dummy soldier to make up the required number at a muster of troops, or on the roll of a company or regiment.” (see OED)

[The Masculine Gender & The Feminine Gender, etching with touches of watercolour, c. 1787, Attributed to Henry Kingsbury, via The Met.]

The macaroni wasn’t just considered effeminate because of the way they dressed but also because of their interests and the way walked and talked. Famous for playing fops and macaroni, the actor David Garrick did a lot to establish the character of the macaroni in the public mind. In his poem The Fribbleriad Garrick mocks the men who were offended by his performances asserting, perhaps accurately, that they were offended because it was them he mocked. He portrays a group of angry effeminate men meeting in order to seek revenge on him for his portrayal of them:

May we no more such misery know! Since Garrick made OUR SEX a shew; And gave us up to such rude laughter, That few, ’twas said, could hold their water: For He, that player, so mock’d our motions, Our dress, amusements, fancies, notions, So lisp’d our words, and minc’d our steps,

The macaroni had become more than simply an effeminate man, he had become a new sex. Something not quite man or woman. Something in-between. A new description of a macaroni asks the question:

Is it a man? ‘Tis hard to say - A woman then

          - A moment pray -

So doubtful is the thing, that no man

Can say if ‘tis a man or woman:

Unknown as yet by sex or feature,

It moves - a mere amphibious creature.

(McNeil p169)

Sexuality

Much like today in the 18th century effeminacy was associated with homosexuality. Men who had sex with other men were known as mollies. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), defined a molly as “A Miss Molly; an effeminate fellow, a sodomite”. In the History of the London Clubs (1709), Ned Ward characterises mollies as follows:

There are a particular Gang of Wretches in Town, who call themselves Mollies, & are so far degenerated from all Masculine Deportment or Manly exercises that they rather fancy themselves Women, imitating all the little Vanities that Custom has reconcil’d to the Female sex, affecting to speak, walk, tattle, curtsy, cry, scold, & mimick all manner of Effeminacy.

“By the 1760′s,” explains Peter McNeil, “too much attention to fashion on the part of a man was read as evidence if a lack of interest in women”. (p152) 

Macaroni were often portrayed as incapable or simply uninterested in sexual relations with women. This attitude is expressed by Mr. Bate in the following dialogue from The Vauxhall Affray; Or, the Macaronies Defeated:

Mr. Fitz-Gerall: I always though a fine woman was only made to be looked at.

Mr. Bate: Just sentiments of a macaroni. You judge of the fair sex as you do your own doubtful gender, which aims only to be looked at and admired.

Mr. Fitz-Gerall: I have as great a love for a fine woman as any man.

Mr. Bate: Psha! Lepus tute es et pulpamentum quæris?

Mr. Fitz-Gerall: What do you say, Parson?

Mr. Bate: I cry you mercy, Sir, I am talking Heathen Greek to you; in plain English I say, A macaroni you, and love a woman?

Mr. Fitz-Gerall: I love the ladies, for the ladies love me.

Mr Bate: Yes, as their panteen, their play-thing, their harmless bauble, to treat as you do them, merely to look at

While lack on interest in woman does not necessarily mean attraction to men, Matthew Darly takes the implication there in his 1771 set of macaroni caricatures which induces a print entitled Ganymede, a reference to Zeus’ male lover of the same name. Ganymede is believed to be a parody of Samuel Drybutter who had been arrested for attempted sodomy in January 1770. Darly also includes the character Ganymede in Ganymede & Jack-Catch. Jack-Catch is a reference to the infamous English executioner John Ketch. In the print Jack-Catch says, “Dammee Sammy you’r a sweat pretty creature & I long to have you at the end of my String.” Ganymede replies, “You don’t love me Jacky”. Jack-Catch is holding a noose with one hand and stroking Ganymede’s chin with the other. Jack-Catch is soberly dressed in typical 18th century menswear, while Ganymede’s dress is distinguished by his lace ruffles and styled wig. The print is not only suggesting that macaroni are sodomites but making a joke of the execution of them. The punishment for a sodomy at this time in England being death by hanging.

[Left: Ganymede, print, c. 1771, Matthew Darly, via The Met.

Right: Ganymede & Jack Catch, print, c. 1771, Matthew Darly, via The British Museum]

An anonymous letter to the Public Ledger (5 Aug, 1772) says blatantly what others had already implied. “The country is over-run with Catamites, with monsters of Captain Jones’s taste, or, to speak in a language witch all may understand, with MACCARONIES”. The writer warns macaroni who have “escaped detection” as sodomites and “therefore cannot fairly be charged” that they have not avoided suspicion:

Suspicion is got abroad-the carriage-the deportment-the dress-the effeminate squeak of the voice-the familiar loll upon each others shoulders-the gripe of the hand-the grinning in each others faces, to shew the whiteness of the teeth-in short, the manner altogether, and the figure so different from that of Manhood, these things conspire to create suspicion; Suspicion gives birth to watchful observation; and, from a strict observance of the Maccaroni Tribe, we very naturally conclude that to them we are indebted for the frequency of a crime which Modesty forbids me to name. Take warning, therefore, ye smirking group of Tiddy-dols: However secret you may be in your amours, yet in the end you cannot escape detection;

Bows on His Shoes

18th century shoes were typically buckled, laces and ribbons were simply unfashionable. As mentioned previously macaroni were distinguished by the size and decoration of the buckles. So are Stede’s bows simply ahistorical? Well there are references to 18th century men wearing laces and ribbons.

Towards the end of the 18th century laces started to come into fashion. Appeal from the Buckle Trade of London and Westminster, to the Royal Conductors of Fashion (1792) complained that despite how “tender and effeminate the appearance of Shoe Strings” the “custom of wearing them has prevailed.”

Perhaps the most intriguing reference is that of Commissioner Pierre Louis Foucault’s papers where he details the surveillance, investigation and entrapment of "pederasts” in Paris. It is important to note that the word “pederasty” was used synonymously with “sodomy” in the 18th century and did not denote age simply sex. An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1726) defines “A pederast” as “a Buggerer” and “Pederasty” as “Buggery”.

Foucault and the men working with him identified particular clothing worn by men seeking sex with other men that he called the “pederastical uniform”. In Foucault’s papers men are described as being “attired in such a way as to be recognized by everyone as a pederast”, “clothed with all the distinctive marks of pederasty”, or simply “dressed like a pederast”. This “uniform” generally included “some combination of frock coat, large tie, round hat, small chignon, and bows on the shoes.” Jeffrey Merrick in his article on Foucault speculates that these men dressed this way to signal to each other. However when questioned by police they would understandably deny such a purpose, one man when questioned about his outfit responded that everyone “dresses as he sees fit”. (Jeffrey Merrick, Commissioner Foucault, Inspector Noël, and the “Pederasts” of Paris,1780-3)

Conclusion

I’m not saying Stede is intended to be a macaroni. If that were the case they would have given him the iconic macaroni hairstyle. However the costuming team has clearly pulled from fashion trends that were associated with effeminacy and homosexuality. While OFMD is evidently wholly unconcerned with creating period accurate costumes the costumes are still clearly inspired by historical fashions. Perhaps the curtains really are just blue but maybe Stede wears bows on his shoes because he’s gay.

[laytonnpcbracket]

Welcome to the Layton NPC Showdown!

This is a bracket to determine which of the many memorable NPCs from across the Professor Layton games are the greatest.

GAMES INCLUDED: Every game except LBMR. Eternal Diva characters are also not included here.

WHAT COUNTS AS AN NPC?: Anyone who doesn't have a puzzle animation. Characters excluded are Layton, Luke, Flora, Clive, Emmy, Randall, Aurora, Des, Espella, Phoenix, Maya, Katrielle, Ernest, Sherl, Hastings, and Emiliana.

WILL THERE BE NOMINATIONS?: Nope! Every NPC will be included.

WHAT ABOUT THE LAYTONMOBILE/MOLENTARY EXPRESS?: No vehicles. Not characters.

WHAT ABOUT THE PUZZLE LADS/LASSES?: I only plan on including characters that we can speak to in-game, so no Puzzle Lads or Lasses. Sorry to the people who like them 😔

WHICH CHARACTERS ARE INCLUDED, THEN?: Anyone who isn't an exception listed above that is in the profiles of the game! A full list is enclosed below.

WHEN WILL THE TOURNAMENT START?: More information forthcoming on that! I have to seed the bracket first :)

WHY IS NAIYA YOUR ICON?: In my opinion, she's one of the more underrated NPCs of the series. I'll probably cycle through some of the ones I have available to me right now.

WHAT CRITERIA SHOULD I VOTE ON?: Whatever makes you happy :)

ARE ALTER EGOS SEPERATE CHARACTERS?: No. For instance, Ratman is not included because his secret identity is in the tournament.

US OR UK NAMES?: I will try to make available as many names for the NPCs as possible! Which includes their Japanese names and as many names in the localizations as I am able to obtain from the wiki and my own sources. I'll probably reliably have the English (both versions where applicable), Japanese, and French names for every character when I do the bracket rounds. The list below however is entirely in English.

And now for a list of the entries! I didn't check all of these for inconsistencies, but I attempted to ascertain that I used the US versions. Some of them might be UK versions though because that's the version of the game I have (specifically Diabolical Box NPCs and Last Specter NPCs -- I know some of their US names but not all).

Franco

Stachenscarfen

Ingrid

Percy

Marco

Ramon

Matthew

Lady Dahlia Reinhold

Gordon Reinhold

Simon Reinhold

Claudia

Beatrice

Deke

Agnes

Pauly

Crouton

Flick

Rodney

Chelmey

Lucy

Zappone

Gerard

Jarvis

Adrea

Pavel

Crumm

Prosciutto

Archibald

Sylvain

Martha

Giuseppe

Augustus Reinhold

Granny Riddleton

Don Paolo

Bruno

Andrew Schrader

Anton Herzen

Katia Anderson

Sophia

Mr. Anderson

Beluga

Sammy Thunder

Macaroon

Chester

Babette

Tom

Ilyana

Geoff

Garland

Nigel

Jacques

Barton

Grousley

Steve

Capone

Mitzi

Lili

Sally

Marjorie

Conrad

Karla

Romie

Dorothea

Clabber

Oscar

Nick

Gabe

Balsa

Wurtzer

Lopez

Laurel

Parcelle

Lulu

Albert

Madeline

Remy

Angus

Kostya

Dylan

Joseph

Rory

Lila

Damon

Felix

Niles

Duke

Hopper

Olson

Derby

Dawson

Joanie

Krantz

Grinko

Marina

Opal

Ray

Gregorio

Narice

Gertie

Hamster

Precious

Winston

Claire

Dimitri Allen

Bill Hawks

Spring

Cogg

Dean Delmona

Shipley

Puzzlette

Beasley

Parrot

Subject 3

Bostro

Family Goon

Lockjaw

Splinters

Marzano

Layman

Fisheye

Silky

Shmelmey

Shmarton

Ward

Smith

Florence

Vito

Art

Niklaus

Anita

Alfie

Hazel (UF)

Adeline

Max

Becky

Margaret

Pallard

Dupree

Natalia

Harold

Horace

Hardy

Cuthbert

Segal

Catanova

Rosetta

Colby

Rudolph

Misha

Dylan

Viv

Pepper

Checker

Avogadro

Maya (UF)

Myrtle

Belle

Graham

Slate

Ernest (UF)

Berta

Minnie

Paige

Raleigh

Beacon

Mark

Rosa

Grosky

Keats

Clark Triton

Brenda Triton

Arianna Barde

Tony Barde

Doland Noble

Levin Jakes

Loosha

Toppy

Crow

Marilyn

Roddy

Scraps

Tweeds

Wren

Socket

Louis

Badger

Aldus

Charlie

Jasmine

Bucky

Fische

Beth

Mido

Clarence

Joe

Molly

Marion

Browne

Hugo

Dominica

Paddy

Brock

Aunt Taffy

Shackwell

Greppe

Goosey

Mimi

Hans Jakes

Maggie

Yamada

Sean

Olga

Finch

Sebastian

Cornelius

Chappy

Hannah

Mick

Colby

Monica

Thomas

Nate

Ewan

Chief Engineer

Naiya

Chippe

Bram

Ghent

Nordic

Gilbert

Roland Layton

Lucille Layton

Henry Ledore

Angela Ledore

Alphonse Dalston

Leonard Bloom

Sheffield

Billson

Mrs Ascot

Pascal

Guy

Lapushka

Gustav

Gonzales

Drake

Tyrone

Sterling

Mordy

Collette

Maurice

Juggles

Puck

Yukkles

Murphy

Cookie

Tanya

Firth

Madelaine

Stumble

Artie

Michelle

Nils

Frankie

Conner

Humbert

Policeman (MM)

Yuming

Esther

Lionel

Doug

Mr. Collins

Leon Bronev

Raymond

Prima

Harald

Donna

Mascha

Georg

Mackintosh

Solveig

Erik

Hazel (AL)

Igor

Sonya

Moos

Larisa

Karpin

Boris

Dariya

Pavlova

Carmichael

Amelie Chelmey

Policeman (AL)

Tommy

Morel

Chestnut

Amanita

Blewitt

Chanterelle

Button

Lepidella

Bud

Javier

Benny

Miranda

Martine

Barbara

Ruby

Scarlett

Flint

Old Red

Jesse

Derringer

Julien

Romilda

Sheppard

Piet

Felicia

Rik

Beatrix

Umid

Banu

Dana

Temir

Mehri

Nassir

Adler

Robin

Macaw

Plover

Grouse

Gannet

Swift

Carmine Accidenti

Olivia Aldente

Allan

Bardly

Zacharias Barnham

Newton Belduke

Birdly

Boistrum

Cecil

Cinderellia

Constantine

Cracker

Cutter

Darklaw

Dewey

Dzibilchaltunchunchucmil

Patty Eclaire

Eve (cat)

Flynch

Foxy

Jean Greyerl

Hoot

Judge

Kira

Knight Captain

Knightle

Lottalance

Lyewood

Lettie Mailer

Balmung

Mary

Muffet

Muggs

Ridelle Mystere

Nozey

Petal

Petter

Ms Primstone

Emeer Punchenbaug

Robbs

Old Rootie

Rouge

Servius

Shakey

Johnny Smiles

Snowy

Storyteller

Tuggit

Price

Wordsmith

Pipper Lowonida

Phineas Barnone

Madame Doublée

Liza Wight

Grant Sloans

Cesar Chance

Mustafa Fulhold

Hans Lipski

Aleks Lipski

Maverick D. Rector

Seymore Fraymes

The Major

Eddie Torre

Hayes

Maid

Wooooster

Bianca Teller

Security Guard

Shadee

Taboras Lloyd

Douglas Dert

Ratboy

Mo Heecan

Mrs Slow the Tailor

Midas Pullman

Declan Swabber

Abel Seamon

Felicity Hastings

Gene Ohm

Billy Kidd

Royall Britannias

Clover Pryce

PC Beate

DC Booker

Waiter

Séan Butchin

Bo Bells

Hessie Tate

Benjy

Bess

Keane Fisher

Bob Bracket

Stripey

Patch

Cat

Yapper

Gudrun Weldon

[hetalia-club]

Stardew Mod Part 2: Jones House Hold- Canada (Matthew Jones)

Summary of Town & Buildings you should read this first if you haven't so you're not confused.

(Note: all characters have had their personalities slightly altered to fit into the Stardew universe. I tried to keep them as true to their cannon selves as possible and giving them pizazz so they fit in with the rest of the world.)

Matthew breakdown: Matthew loves Grind ball & Nature. His roommate and brother is Alfred (America). He is friends with the bear who appears by the sewers and will mention feeding him in conversation and allude that you should to. He is shy and does not really want to talk to the player until you gain 2 hearts. Then his dialog will be more that a simple “…”. Matthew was raised by a rich family on a very productive ranch. He may say some tone deaf things every now and again but don’t fault him for it. therefore he has little concept of how money should be spent. He is drawn to nature and if he is not working he will be found outside enjoying himself even if it’s raining. He likes trees & anything to do with them. Matthew is friends with the bear who lives in the Secret woods. Who has now been recolored white. Matthew is very intune with nature and will say some cryptic things from time to time. But don’t think about it too hard. He’s just obsessed with bears and trees.

The Nursery- Matthew & Alfred’s house which doubles as a shop. On Tuesdays & Thursdays Matthew will man the counter at he and Alfred’s shop. On Matthew’s days the shop will operate as a tree nursery. He will sell tappers, maple syrup, pine, oak & maple seeds + a selection of fruit tree saplings.

Bakery Contribution- Matthew delivers his shipment of Sugar Pie to the bakery every Monday Morning. He will stay for about an hour and then head out to the river to stand awhile.

More under cut>>>

Birthday- Summer 1 Loves- Pancakes, Ginger Ale, Maple bar, Raw Salmon, & Sugar Pie Likes- All universal likes all forgeable food Neutrals- All universal neutrals and all raw fish Dislikes- All universal dislikes All varieties of cooked fish. Hates- Cave carrots, Moss Soup & Pale Broth & Universal hates Gift receiving lines - (Until you reach 2 hearts with him he will give no response but “…” To gifts regardless if he liked it or not. But with hate and loved gifts the <3 or dust icons will appear above is head) Loves- This is my favorite Thank you! Likes- This is great, thanks Neutrals- A gift? Dislike- Oh, You sure this was for me? Hate- Thanks, I hate it Birthday Gift Line- You remembered my birthday? I feel like everyone always forgets. Thank you!

Unique Festival Dialog: Egg Festival- Marnie didn’t even notice me this morning when I was watching her hide all the eggs. I can tell you where they are hidden if you want. Desert Festival- It’s really hot out here.I’m not built for this weather. Flower Dance- The air here smells sweet. Not as sweet as my nursery though. Ask to dance? If yes- I was planning on just being a wall flower. But of course I’ll dance with you.   If no- *Matthew turns his back to you seeming to be pretending like he didn’t hear you* Firework Festival (New Event)- My brother always acts like these fireworks are for him. He can be so conceded sometimes. Luau- Hello (Player). Oh what did I add? It’s a secret. I’ll give you a hint it’s sticky and sweet. Trout Derby- Don’t distract me right now. Dance Of The Moonlight Jellies- Alfred has been pouting all night. It’s hilarious. Stardew Valley Fair- (Has a stand with Alfred where they are selling dairy products and tree products). We’re totally going to win this year we’ve been stowing away our best products all year. Brew Fest (New Event)- What would make this cup of coffee even better is a stack of pancakes covered in maple syrup. Spirits Eve- Arthur gets really into this festival. He and that strange guy in the tower were setting it up all day. Festival Of Ice-  This is my favorite festival. I wonder what the prize is this year. Squidfest- Don’t distract me right now. Night Market- My brother makes me watch the mermaid show every year.Have you figured out the puzzle yet? Feast Of The Winter Star-  Another year completed. Winter is over and Spring is just around the corner. Just the thought of the pollen is already making my nose itchy. 

Friendship letters after befriending Matthew

2 Heart Letter: Sorry I was so cold to you before. It takes me a minute to warm up to new people. Hopefully this makes up for it. I’ll be sure to talk to you in town from now on. Letter contains maple syrup. 4 Heart letter: I saw you running around town the other day. I was going to say something to you but you seemed really busy. I stole this from my brother’s supplies. I’m sure he won’t miss it (hopefully you look in your mail box before this expires. Letter contains milk. 6 Heart Letter: We’ve become pretty close for not meeting too long ago don’t you think? You’ve become a really good friend to me. I wanted to share with you my top secret recipe. My dad’s Sugar Pie Recipe. (PS. Be sure not to overcook it. If you think it’s not done, it probably is!) Sugar Pie- 2 Maple Syrup 1 Wheat flour 1 Egg H+ 65 E+200 (Letter contains recipe for Sugar Pie) 8 Heart Letter: I’m so glad I get to call you my friend. People in down don’t talk to me much. I always feel invisible, well unless it’s my brother. But when you came everything changed. You brought me out of my shell and I’m grateful for that. Next time you are in Cindersnap Forest meet me in the Secret Woods, you’ve been there right? There is someone I want you to meet. (Letter has no gift and is an invite to Matthew’s 8 heart event)

Romance Dialog

Receiving a Bouquet- You…you’re sure? Wow okay, I would love to.

Mermaid Pendent- I thought you would never ask! I was starting to get worried. I’ll pay for the whole thing don’t even worry about it.

Married Life With Matthew Jones:

When married to Matthew his corner of the farm will be two maple trees with tappers on them. Occasional gifts from Matthew will be a bottle of Maple syrup. Three days after marrying Matthew you will get a letter in the mail from ‘In-laws’ with 10k gold congratulating you and apologizing for not being at the wedding. Matthew will still leave the house every Tuesday & Thursday to tend his shop. Due to the time it takes him to walk there he will warp there and back and cannot be followed. Matthew will hardly ever be home and continue his schedule as usual. Replacing his house with yours. He will still go visit his bear friend by the river and his brother from time to time. He will not become a husk of his former self. Matthew will have coded in ‘grumpy’ days where he will be grumpy and not feel like talking. He may say ‘my brother and I had an argument’ or ‘the bears are mad at me’ don’t worry too much about it and he’ll be back to his regular self by morning.

[corvussei]

Not to merge two of my interests as I always do, but

I feel like when it comes to alt fashion, soft Matthew bounces between that very blurry sweet/classic line in lolita, but also does a lot of mori. He'd look cute in kogal too tho tbh <3 (I think when I make Matthew more tough or more masc etc he would fit more into something in the realm of goth-punk)

Alfred I see much more in bright ass colors like Decora and white/silver based cyber looks or uchuu styles.... they'd be so cute on him. But he can just as easily fit into vintage sort of "preppy" styles. Yknow, the collared shirt under the polo sweater or with the sleeves pushed up and a nice watch and some oxfords or derby shoes. That kinda thing.

And Arthur of course in egl in general!! Classic lolita or aristo/ouji styles would all fit him. Or mori as well ngl, the natural muted colors and jewel tones are good for him.

[rwrbmovie]

Gold Derby: Making of 'Red, White & Royal Blue': Sarah Schecther, Matthew López and Taylor Zakhar Perez on Emmys

Sarah Schecther, Matthew López and Taylor Zakhar Perez on Emmy-nominated film. López calls it 'the little engine that could': 'It's just so nice that people thought enough of this movie to nominate it.' Gold Derby editor Daniel Montgomery hosts this special roundtable.

[bigassbowlingballhead]

I think it will have to be different interview tonight since the other two were interviews done by Deadline and Gold Derby staff respectively, and this combo of Taylor/Matthew/Sarah together wasn’t done with any of the FYC from May.

But I hear you, there’s only so many ways they can answer the same questions. I’m glad they are doing all of this and taking the Emmy FYC seriously, but I’m really looking forward to new things.

exactly, it's the same questions over and over, you watch one FYC interview, you've seen them all. that's really what's getting me. It's nice to hear him talk about it so much, but at this point he's said all he could possibly say about it. and, to me, it's getting exhausting. I need something new.