#your composite male image is also white

[werehamburglar]

"men and women's faces are soooo different i swear, we can mathematically calculate sex appeal i promise" your composite male image has a soul patch.

[ssruis]

Wrt the people talking about the new set as fan service: my initial reaction was also “oh cute” & moving on, but after carefully reading the full arguments of the people who found it distasteful, I agree with their points. I’d normally link or post screenshots of the points made, but since the Prsk fanbase apparently is jumping people over this on twt I don’t feel comfortable doing that. To summarize and add some of my own explanation:

> everything in gacha games is fan service, which doesn’t have to necessarily mean it’s sexual - ode for the pure of heart featuring rui/touya (popular with female audience) looking very princely was fan service. The white day knight/fantasy theming is fan service (popular & well loved aesthetic). Fantasia squad was fan service for the players who like the male characters, etc etc.

> I don’t feel like arguing about all of the cards, so I’ll just point out what bothers me about the most egregious example (Rin’s card)

When considering art, you have to consider the deliberate choices the artist made, and what messages they are trying to get across with the atmosphere they have created.

Why choose the maid aesthetic? Why make these cards a player pov? Why choose framing that (using the grid composition, contrast and lighting from the window, the way lines direct the eye) makes the points of interest and emphasis Rin’s face *and* butt? Why choose that pose, with Rin looking over her shoulder, with a surprised expression and prominent blush? Why is the posing reminiscent of art of vintage pin up girls (or any other similar art movement)?

It’s male gaze. The answer is male gaze.

The male gaze is often just associated with overt sexualization, but that’s an overly simplified definition. The male gaze can also be portraying women in positions of servitude (most often within the home), emphasizing body curves (even through clothes), voyeuristic povs, emphasizing cuteness/demure-ness/shyness, etc. It’s about the (assumed male) viewer having power over the female subject.

Rin is cleaning, the light from the window heavily highlights her butt, the framing of window itself specifically draws the eye from her head to her back to her butt using contrasting colors/light/point of interest, the parallel lines in the piece direct your eyes down her body (Japanese audience, reading image from right to left). If the emphasis was on the action she is doing, rather than her body, the light source and brightest colors would be on the other side of the image, the duster would be brighter, as would the objects/set pieces she’s interacting with.*

Sexualization/male gaze isn’t restricted to the very obvious “woman sexy posing in a bikini” image, and having that viewpoint will only serve to limit the ways you understand art and artist intention. It’s similar to taking “all art is political” to mean “all art is either republican or democrat” and responding “well that’s stupid and you’re stupid.” You’re missing the point.

I’m a little disappointed the knee jerk reaction here seems to be “you’re wrong and you’re actually a freak who sexualizes minors for pointing this out” here, especially because the point of calling this out is to say that it’s distasteful to do a card like this for a character who is, despite not having a canon age, pretty much portrayed as younger than the main cast (making her 15 or younger).

Nobody is saying “this set sucks you can’t like it if you like it you’re problematic and project sekai should be cancelled forever”, it’s just something to keep in mind. You don’t have to agree with the argument, but acting like anyone pointing this out is insane isn’t fair or justified.

> also just as a side note: maid cafés have a pretty long history of sexualization, with the emphasis/appeal of having power over the workers and them being your servant while dressed cute. I don’t entirely think this set was going for a maid café look, but I do think it’s something to be mindful of.

> *it’s a little hard to articulate/explain this, and my knowledge on how much the average person knows about stuff like this is skewed due to my own education in art/art history/design/etc. If you find this confusing, I’m willing to explain more in detail and specifically point out what I’m talking about.

> I have a different post on the taisho/daisho romance elements, which is an entirely different discussion, so I’m not bringing that up here.

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Hi!!!! I hope this long unasked-for tumblr missive finds you very well!Sorry to crash into your inbox and randomly rant a Stucky AU idea at you but it's happening, also it's your fault bc I got this idea after reading all your wonderful wonderful Stucky AU fics.

ok ok so

what if

It's all New Yorky and Brooklyn-y. They each live in Brooklyn apartments but are from slightly different worlds.

Bucky is a sweet beefcake composite of all the wholesome Male Archetype tropes: protective, folksy, tough n strawng, stands by his word, pretty basic and square, fruit of the loom tshirts levi jeans, have a beer after work with the guys, this here's the best pizza/hot dog/etc in New York, and so on. -I've been telling myself the vibe I want is in the scene from No Country For Old Men when Llewellyn Moss goes into the clothing store and needs a whole new outfit and the guy says "we only got white socks" and Moss says "I only wear white" and the store guy clearly approves it's this whole cowboy moment and it's like OK??? You're in very dire need to be expressing that as a hard principle??? So dumb except it's also so great.- Bucky is devoted to his mom and his sisters who he probably helped raise, but he has a cliche good role model blue-collar dad (who maybe died years ago). He is every (non-shitty) older-brother trope and most dad tropes.

Steve is pre-serum Steve. He just has all the pre-serum Steve qualities aka is a highly principled spitfire who never stops fighting and whose perspective is colored by living with chronic illness and pain and not meeting the Male Physical Ideal. Art and education led him to college scholarships and then law school but he was raised by hardworking nurse single mom Sarah, so he's not a rich lawyer but a beleaguered one fighting on behalf of the little guy. Still a more middle-class and intellectual existence than Bucky's, particularly in Bucky's eyes.( Always love pre-serum Steve and his experiences in society in any decade bc we are so weird about gender identity and he shows that in so many ways.) (Also I just have always had intense irrational tender protective love for small sprites of men that I keep under wraps bc they are grown adult humans.)

These two come into each other's lives because of Something With Unions and Labor Disputes in NYC. Ahem. I started researching NY labor disputes and didn't know where to dive in. I have zero knowledge or context or background except for that season of the Wire with the longshoreman union. BUT anyway Bucky is some kind of super generational blue-collar union dude. It's entirely possible he suffered an injury to his left arm that took him more away from the physical side of things and got him more involved with the union. Either way he's a part of a union that is engaging in a Righteous Dispute with the employer. It's all very labor rights and worker justice, things which I believe in strongly but am so embarrassingly under-educated about.

And STEVE is a lawyer who fights on behalf of worker's rights! I know lawyers but not remotely union law. But I'm very confident lawyers are involved in labor disputes. Socialist Steve with a head full of knowledge and a powerful courtroom presence, using the system to try and make things better. I've spent more time thinking about Bucky and his white socks I can't lie but there's clearly cool stuff here.

Steve is an out gay man, while Bucky is incredibly in the closet at work and out to his immediate family but very private and very single. Steve has a lot of angry opinions about lgbtq+ rights, and he struggles hard with his self-image, but he also has fun being gay. He has game. Bucky is lonely and has no game except his Regular-Guy thing, which works for anonymous hookups but not much else.

They meet because they end up working together on the Some Kind Of Labor Dispute! They bring super different but equally important things to the table! The reader learns about the history of unions in NYC! They are constantly liason-ing and being overworked and fussing at each other for caring too much about Truth and Justice. Steve privately thinks Bucky is the biggest most ridiculously attractive dreamboat but would never dream he was gay let alone interested in him. (Bucky gives this Steve the pants feelings that Cap Steve gives Lawyer Bucky in Unpredictable Synchronicity). Bucky feels like a big square idiot compared to Steve, can't fathom that his old-fashioned blue-collar bro vibes inspire anything but disdain in someone as intelligent and accomplished and cultured and bravely uniquely themself as Steve. They are both for different reasons very afraid of falling in love. They share ups and downs in the case and get to know each other better.

and THEN

KISSING HAPPENS

so yeah that's my pitch dawg. Sorry for dropping this whole thing on you, I like online social interacting a lot but I definitely do not know how to do it lol

I got the idea for this story from getting COVID over the holidays and spending like 6 hours lying in bed with a fever, fully conscious but unable to really do anything, haven't had a fever like that since childhood, and I ended up entertaining myself by thinking up a scene in the above-described setting, where they're working on the case together but Steve comes down sick and Bucky pops in on him only to go all older-sibling on a feverish Steve who resists but actually needs some coddling, and it feels vulnerable and intimate and they each realize they have a crush/how bad the crush is. It' s been a bee in my bonnet ever since and I have like 3/4s of one page written. If you wanna write it, holy shit dude please do it. If you wanna talk about it, YAY OMG. If you're like 'ok cool but i have my own ideas buzzing at me to get written, this is a You Problem,' that's totally legit and I hope I write it one day and when/if I do I will be heavily under the influence of your fics.

If you are still reading, bless you, and let me just include in case you're actually interested:

QUESTIONS I HAVE NOT ANSWERED:

-What decade is it?????? I started overthinking this but it seems tough. The whole idea is really giving me 80s vibes. The thing about that is that pivotal gay history was happening in New York in the 80s and it was unspeakably fucking tragic and neither centering that in the story nor glossing it over feels right. So just nowadays?? But are big righteous union disputes in NYC still a thing nowadays?? Or say fuck it and go earlier but wow writing in the 70s or 60s feels like such a wild move. TBH that might be it. Earlier decades create more obstacles for their love story, but a more current setting would be easier to get into both as a writer and a reader.

-What the hell job are we talking about? Longshoreman seems kinda tricky but also kinda obvious. Steel worker? Construction? What is a good cliche union job in which the union's cause is righteous? In New York? I'm sure there are many to choose from but it does feel like it needs to be reasonably historically/politically accurate. Maybe 60s longshoreman?? But that's so long ago... the dilemma

-PS everyone is in their mid-to-late 30s bc that is my demographic and every main character being 17 makes me so old and tired.

Thank you so much for reading this, there's no pressure to respond at all of course, I had to get it out somewhere lol! Thanks for your awesome AO3 presence in general, you are such a delightful and talented writer, I'm very glad to know your work!!!!!!

Okay, 1, I had a very, very bad week because hellish flood disaster conditions [I am fine but my friends aren't and I have trauma from previous floods] and also some other weird life shit. Anyway, this made me laugh with such happy delight my kids were like, "WHAT ARE YOU READING!?" I did not tell them.

2. OMG THE SOCKS. The white socks.

3. Yeah we are on the same page here, friend. One can't set a gay love story in the 80s or 90s in NY unless it's about AIDS, I have a thing about that. I mean, I can't stop people, but I would try to blow it up with my mind. Nothing personal.

4. I actually know a lot about unions and in particular the trades, which are, more or less, the various unions that build things. So. Here's a fun one. In Pittsburgh the city chose the lowest bidder to repaint a bridge and used a contractor from Florida that was non-union. Um, maybe this doesn't sound as scandalous to anyone but me. It's a big deal because local hire is important to the local economy.

In a modern setting, a lot of construction projects that come into an area sign a community benefit agreement/project labor agreement that commits to using a certain % of local labor, high road labor standards, and things like apprenticeships which are entry level jobs which can mean that local people actually have a chance at the jobs. So we'll say the people that are repainting the bridge, or, whatever, installing the HVAC on the new soccer stadium, used a non-union contractor from NEW JERSEY which is in violation of their agreement. That kind of thing is definitely the kind of dispute labor attorneys would get involved in, and union reps are very possessive over because obviously they want the work for union contractors. So I can totally see Bucky being his local union rep - IUPAT is the painters union, could also be LIUNA - and working closely with an attorney doing a suit against the city or a developer for not using local hire/union labor.

There are certainly other kinds of labor disputes, that's just the kind I know the most about.

5. OH MY GOD listen. LISTEN. listen ARE YOU LISTEN? Blue collar Bucky feeling like Steve is too fancy to ever love him. Steve feeling like Bucky is too manly to ever love him. Their insecurities are a complementary ourobouros spiral of doom, like, the gift of the Magi by OHenry. It's two sides of the toxic masculinity coin and it's, ARE YOU LSITN??? STOP it with the tragic gender/classism dynamics. Heterosexuality and capitalism are the real villians of this tale. Oh it's so beautiful. Thank you.

6. The current port strike is absolutely DELIGHTFUL inside joke and relevant reference given fandom's love of making Bucky a dock worker. So, I mean, go for that, if you're feeling it. I have never lived on a coast and don't know much about dockworkers though I do know it's very dangerous work, and actually know someone who lost their arm doing river barge work, which, I'm guessing, is somewhat similar to port work? No actual fucking clue?

7. I feel really seen because yes indeed this whole plot is very much aligned with my interests, if you haven't guessed yet.

8. I am not gonna lie, as much as I adore every thing about this, probably not gonna write this. Right now I am very tired so it's a bad time to guess.

9. Please talk to me about it. I would love to enable this beautiful madness.

10. I am glad your Covid is better.

[republicsecurity]

Behind the illusion

Don't read this if you are afraid of getting your illusion and fantasy destroyed. Read this if you want to embrace this kind of creativity and maybe help in writing stories, reports or snippets from this world.

Some people have asked how I generate this stories and the artwork. It is simple: it's a mixture of midjourney AI generated pictures and processing done in Affinity Publisher. The text are made with the help of ChatGPT after setting a lot of parameters or learning the model.

So how do I make the pictures? I have found pictures look well if you design them around the following prompt:

"A Cinematic Scene from 2023, sci-fi Drama, "Resilience", close up shot, one smiling teenage male cadet in red one piece uniform with shaved head, talking on videoconference, captured by Handheld camera, film directed by Greta Gerwig, Inspiring, toom call, --style raw --ar 21:9"

Midjoruney gives me this for examples and I use the upscale button to make the bigger.

--ar 21:9 = defines a hight and wideness. Here I choose to make the pictures wider. If you do nothing you get 1:1 which you can well use for instagram.

The prompt should be structured like this:

Setting the scene - (closeup, panorama, bird eye,...), then the subject, then more info about the camera, film. it's also possible to go for a style. I often opt for "ODST", by "Syd Mead", or "Tron".

See full instructive article: https://linusekenstam.substack.com/p/tutorial-dynamic-prompting

Also you can use the pan option:

to get these by simple repeating the command:

For angles use this guide

Another technique I like is varying this prompt:

I got this from him:

A photo from first person POV | while climbing through a street at golden hour | talking to a cadet in red body suit with shaved head | like a FPS videogame | from the angle, style of ODST --ar 16:9 --style raw --no helmet

As you can see I used "style of ODST" and "ar 16:9" to have a video game like image. Not every command produces what you want and you have to settle for it sometimes or try.

How to make these into more complex Images?

I do some creative after processing. Lets show on this picture:

As you can see, this is already some interactions of the base prompt. I then copy the picture into Affintiy Publisher:

I then use the image adjustment tools "fx" to change the colours and thus often the moods of the images. So you can make it look like a green tinted night vision image.

Also through publisher I add text overly, the helmet POV corners, symbols, etc...

Items and Mockups

From time to time its nice to have some items and mockups, sometimes in colours that they are not necessarily in real life.

Here in the Accessories page I created everything, except the chastity cage by Midjourney. The prudes don't let you create these things, so for sexual stuff you have to either use things that looks like it or use other sources.

I then combine these images on a bigger DIN A4 sizes canvas, that often emphasises the meaning.

mockup of a red flightsuit uniform on white background --style raw

I usually upscale and then use the picture I like best.

Examples

panorama shot a group ODST paramedic cadet with helmet in red full body armour, shot on Kodak Chrome, marching on a training ground, in the style of double exposure, red and green, mixed race , male --style raw --ar 16:9

a young men with a shaved head trying on some red ODST body armour, workshop, captured by Handheld camera, mixed race; image split into 4, shot from different angle, bright colours --style raw

Angles

Futuristic Filmschool Portrait, young cadet with shaved head in red flightsuit uniform, standing in front of a grey wall, Detailed Face, Minimal Composition, Simplicity, Awardwinning Muted Colors --ar 9:16 --seed 5000

Text

Text and story is an entirely different thing. I use chat GPT after i gave it some basic instructions, biggest problem was to let it write about mind control and chastity without disapproval. I still don't remember how I made it do that.

[martamdxcontextualstudies]

The Dangers Of AI Art

Human vs Machine 

How do artists show their interpretation of this idea?

Istallations, interactive art pieces

Dangers of AI

Why is this art form so popular?

Why is it causing so much harm to independent artists?

Why is it so harmful?

What can we do to stop it before its influence grows beyond our control?

Is it actual art?

Can it replace artists?

What are the negative impacts of the dark side of artificial intelligence?

The Dangers of AI Art (studybreaks.com)

By Kristen Kalebich, Arizona State University

“Many apps, software and websites allow AI to generate art, and all they need is access to the internet, key words or phrases and sometimes a picture.”

“Artists seem to be engage in a losing battle”

“AI art often uses pieces of a person’s artwork and implements them into the new image without giving proper credit.”

“The generator plagiarises.”

“AI art pulls and meshes similar images found online.” 

It doesn’t really find inspiration for a certain art piece like most artists would. AI also doesn’t have a particular style, colour palette or median that it focus is on. It hasn;t spend years developing a style or an idea like an artist would. 

It lacks originality. And the emotional factor which is often how art bring attention to the viewer. As humans we can often feel the painting when looking at it. 

“AI struggles to implement these emotions into an image because it is guided by instructions and commands rather than complicated, subjective feelings.”

“What started as a harmless generator used to create fun and colourful art has become detrimental for artists.”

Create Something Amazing - NightCafe Creator

AI generator

Stable Diffusion

A next-generation text-to-image algorithm

DALL E 2 

From OpenAI, an advanced text-to-image algorithm

Coherent (CLIP-Guided Diffusion)

More control and better composition than Artistic

Artistic (VQGAN+CLIP)

Create beautiful images from a text prompt

Style Transfer

Turn your photo into a masterpiece

It has a bunch of different art styles that you are able to choose from before generating the images:

Nightcafe, artistic portrait, anime, hyperreal, 3D game, pop up, photo, ect

Algorithm: Stable

Model: Stable Diffusion v1.5

Text Prompt: Dog sitting on a couch looking out the window

Style: Oil Painting

Algorithm: Stable

Model: State Diffusion v1.5

Text Prompt: Group of bees sitting on a flower about to be attacked by wasps

Style: Hyperreal

Text To Image - AI Image Generator API | DeepAI

Text Prompt: Battle of the Crayfish

Style: Fantasy

Style: Cyberpunk

Style: Comic

Style: Impressionism

To me AI is an idea i find quite terrifying. We have seen so many movies about robots and computers taking over its not hard to see it as science fiction. But with the way technology is evolving so rapidly, it could quite easily replace us. From artists, to writers, graphic designers, photographers, AI can easily replace all of them. Leaving people who love their professions and have spend years building up their careers with nothing.

The Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence Art and its Impacts (analyticsinsight.net)

By Geetha Malathkar, November 29 2022

“New and exciting”, “gaining popularity quick”

“Potentioal for AI art used for polictical propaganda, to create fake art and to infringe on copyrights.”

“AI can now create realistic images, videos and even sculptures.”

“Sometimes indistinguishable from art created by humans” 

“Because AI is powered by data, it is biased against underrepresented groups. For example, if an AI is trained on a data set of predominantly white male faces, it will more likely create art that is biased towards white male faces. This could lead to a future where the art world is dominated by biased AI created work.”

“This could lead to united consequences like the ones we have seen with discriminatory recruiting algorithms and microsoft’s twitter chatbox that became racist.”

“As companies build AI algorithms, they need to be developed and trained responsibly.”

Ai also massively reduces the time it takes to create pieces of art. In order to create the art i used in the ai generator, i had to type in a few keywords that best described he image I want to achieve. It also gave me a large variety of art styles I could chose from to get my ideal result. All those images combined took around 10 minutes to create. A significantly shorter amount of time it would take me to illustrate the same prompt by hand. 

Although this could be somewhat beneficial to a lot of companies, it would completely rock the art world off its feet. 

There is also a much larger chance of being hacked when using Ai generator programs. Behind each successful AI generator there is a programmer. It could be quite easy for them to input a series of codes and “take advantage of AI systems” that ultimately could lead them to getting into your hardware much easier. 

CYBERARTS 2016

Prix Ars Electronic

Starts Prize '16

"The digital revolution that was recognisable on the horizon decades ago... Now constitutes the mainstream in media, business and politics." (pg 10)

"Dissatisfaction and mistrust are widespread" (pg 10)

"The artists and scientists involved in this project are not only paving the way for new developments, but also opening up totally new ways regarding the role of science in our society and the interplay of technology and nature." (pg 10)

"On the social level, this is a matter of new positive future scenarios of new social models, which are the approaches to a process of rethinking that seeks ways for us to livewell without growth." (pg 10)

INFERNO (pg 74-75)

Louis-Phillippe Dewers, Bill Vorn

"Participative robotic performance inspired by the concept of control."

"Bodies are handed to eternal and external forces controlling them."

"Shifting the exoskeletons command from the authors, to the computers and to the performers."

"Inferno questions the nature of control either mechanic or human."

"Also addresses recurrent issues revolving around the human-robot symbiotic relationships."

"Wearing or being entrapped in a robotic entity recalls the concept of the cyborg that emerged in the late 80s."

PATHFINDER (pg 82-83)

Generative approach for conceptional choreography

Qnformative in collaboration with Christian Loclair

"Generates and projects abstract shapes into space in order to simulate Danzers exploration."

"Digital approach to the conceptual research of Dance."

"Choreographers can adjust certain parameters of the algorithm - such as speed, complexity, or the geometry of objects."

"Pathfinder expands the idea of creative collaboration by integrating an intelligent digital entity to an artistic process."

[pn403journalling]

Lee Price is another painter I have found who has made art about food and women, depicting herself and other women eating food in private, such as in their bedrooms or in the bath. Whilst this may be a metaphor for compulsive or disorderly eating (which Price has experienced herself (McMeekin, T. (2014)), I think the locations additionally represent both the shame and the indulgence of eating in general for women: hiding away your binges from public eyes, as well as excusing yourself for private time to indulge in food, especially dessert, as expanded on in my Susan Bordo research, which also tends to be a featured food in Price's art.

[Figure 1: Butter (2010) by Lee Price.]

In tandem with this, the way that the food itself is treated in Price's work acts as an absent referent to drug usage or romantic intimacy. Overall there is an overarching theme of hedonism and impulsiveness in her body of work, and the choice of location elevates her work to be more about the simple act of eating. The presentation of Price's environments feels "perfect", like a modeled photograph, even the food is put to the side with some intent.

[Figure 2: Price's painting Jelly Doughnuts (2010).]

Jelly Doughnuts (2010) (seen in Figure 2) depicts a woman dressed in a white vest and underwear sprawled on a white bedsheet, with smeared jam on both. The jam doughnuts in question rest directly on the sheet, and the lady is wiping her mouth. At first glance, the painting is so realistic it would be fair to assume it was a photo instead. The choice of a top-down perspective is unique, and gives a voyeuristic edge to the painting. I feel like this choice is aligned with the male gaze in film, as well as the famous Margaret Atwood quote: "You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur." (Atwood, 1993). From this angle, she is looking up at the ceiling, thinking of what she looks like as she eats in private. The viewer, a projection of her own mind, looks back.

The woman is relaxed but it still feels like she's posing, the composition feels chaotic with everything flung onto the bed: the crumpled sheets, the doughnuts with no plate, spilt jam and the woman herself (to an extent) due to her loose, let-down hair. However, it doesn't feel unkempt or too dirty due to the abundance of white. In comparison to Halls' paintings, which feel vibrant, visceral, uncanny and chaotic, Price's work feels organic, clean, ideal and lifelike. Whilst Halls focuses on the absurdity of her topics, Price hones in on the psychological clash in women: indulging in food, whether it be as a coping mechanism, disorderly eating habits or for hunger's sake, yet still wanting to look good whilst doing it (just in case someone's watching).

To add, the titles of the paintings focus not on the women or their environment, but on the food they are eating, turning it into the subject of the painting, therefore turning the women into the objects that accompany the food. Despite this, the visual subjects are the women, who are always in the centre of the image, with their consumption of the food turning it into an object. This exchange between subject and object may further emphasise how women are defined by the food/diet they eat, by not being acknowledged in the titles (not even as a "Woman Eating Jelly Doughnuts").

Bibliography:

Atwood, M. (1993) The Robber Bride. USA, New York: Doubleday.

McMeekin, T. (2014) Lee Price's realistic paintings of women and food, arthaus. Available at: https://blog.myarthaus.com/lee-prices-realistic-paintings-women-food/ (Accessed: 22nd April 2023).

Images:

[Figure 1] Price, L. (2010) Butter [Oil on canvas]. Available at: https://artvee.com/dl/butter/ (Accessed: 22nd April 2023).

[Figure 2] Price, L. (2010) Jelly Doughnuts [Oil on canvas]. Available at: https://artvee.com/dl/jelly-doughnuts/ (Accessed: 22nd April 2023).

[mortedeveles]

Model For Me

Summary: Y/N has always been a timid, awkward person and artist when it comes to social interactions and it only gets worse when she asks her crush and best friend, Katsuki Bakugou, to model for her. And not just any type of modelling; Y/N needs to do a composition of a nude male body. Luckily for her, Katsuki's personality is anything but shy and he doesn't hesitate to undress in front of her. It's for art, he says. But something tells Y/N that the boy has hidden and devious intentions. 

Genre: fluff, humor, suggestive content (a wee bit of NSFW themes)

TW: cursing, sexual themes, nudity.

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x fem!artist!reader

HERE: PART ONE

PART TWO.  PART THREE.  PART FOUR. PART FIVE. PART SIX. 

a/n: this was originally going to be a oneshot but it was too long to be 1 oneshot, so the chapters will be rather short (1k-2k) but all of it together would be too long for a oneshot so it’s staying as a short story. i have two pointers for this short series!

1- reader is not white in this oneshot!  (i don’t specify reader being white in others, but skin color isn’t usually mentioned) (i’m using the term poc since i’m not sure what else to use) nationality or ethnic background won’t be stated so feel free to employ your own! this isn’t really relevant tbh but i just wanted to clear it up in case someone got confused.

2- reader’s best friend here is Aneko! i would’ve used (F/N) but it would have been more troublesome so i decided to name the friend! 

 enjoy!!

Copyright © 2020-2021 by Veles. Do not repost, plagiarize, or read my fanfiction without my permission. 

''This month's assignment is human anatomy,'' your teacher stated. She walked around in the cramped classroom, holding a beautifully drawn painting of the nude female body to her chest. 

Even though your classes weren't high end or expensive, you were still at awe at how talented your teacher was, especially since the classes were held in a small recreational center that was on the poor end. Since the classes were cheap, you would've thought that the art teacher would be inexperienced or an amateur. Sometimes you wondered how an artist like her didn't have more recognition.

''Since I'm familiar with all of your abilities and weaknesses, each of you will have a specific kind of rules,'' she said. She passed the papers around the rectangular table and once you got your hands on your copy, your face paled.

The bold words GENDER: MALE stared back at you as you swallowed nervously.

While you weren't shy or timid around the opposite gender, having to sketch a naked guy with his dick out sounded... unpleasant.

Your eyes only widened as you continued to read the rest of the rules.

The assignment must be done in a live session with the model, do NOT use images or any other type of resources.

Male must have a muscular and athletic body.

Preferably, the model should be in a position in which they are using their quirk. 

Medium: charcoal.

The model must be drawn with the background as well. This assignment also includes a linear perspective. 

You slowly raised your hand as you bounced your thighs nervously with the tip of your toes. The teacher raised an eyebrow and beckoned you to speak.

''Ma-Ma'am, is it necessary to do the assignment with a nude male model? Can I change it?'' You said nervously.

You could hear your friend snicker beside you and you elbowed her in the stomach without glancing, keeping your eyes on the art teacher. A soft 'ouch!' was heard from your left. 

She sighed in response and stared at you through her glasses.

''Yes, Y/N. Everyone received different requirements. I will revise the progress every three days and I expect the project to be done by the end of the month. Remember that this assignment won't be done in class, so try your best and remember to use your knowledge to your advantage.''

You nodded and ducked your head, swallowing nervously. Who would you even ask to model for you? Money was tight at the moment, you were too broke to hire a model. And besides, most of your money would go to the art supplies you needed to restock on for the assignment.

''Aww, is the baby too shy to see a guy naked?'' your friend's teasing voice made you snap back to reality. Pouting, you turned to face her evil grin and stick out your tongue at her.

''Shut up, Aneko... I'm not shy! I've just never...well...'' you stammered, fiddling with your hands.

Aneko smiled smugly in response as she lowered her head to meet your nervous gaze,

''Never what...?'' 

You shook your head in response, refusing to admit that you'd never seen a naked guy. Scratch that, you had, through a screen of course, but being in the same room as a naked guy...? Nope. Hell, it was a rare occasion for you to be alone in a room with a boy. But staying with a naked boy?! You sighed. You can already feel the headache forming. 

The teacher's firm voice snapped you out of it. ''Very well. The class is over. I'll see you all next week. Have a great weekend!'' 

Everyone rose from their seats, stashing away their art supplies and heading out of the small classroom. You stayed behind with your best friend Aneko, chatting about nonsense.

''So, who are you going to ask model?'' she said casually, stuffing her can of spray inside her ratty backpack.

''I don't know...'' you mumble. ''I don't really think I'm close enough with any guy to ask him to model for me...''

''Don't say that!'' Aneko chided. ''Well.. there is one person you can ask....'' she grinned at you as the two of you walked out of the classroom.

You furrowed your eyebrows at her words. Who was she talking about? From all the boys you knew, someone who was a male had an athletic build and a flashy or useful quirk, you'd say it would be...

Katsuki Bakugou.

Suddenly, you froze in the middle of the hallway. Aneko raised her eyebrows and she stopped as well, questioning your actions.

Thank god for your dark skin, otherwise, Aneko would've noticed you were blushing. She tugged your hand and urged you forward. But nope, once his name had surfaced, you were frozen. Thoughts of undressing your friend Katsuki were all over your mind, making you feel more flustered with every passing minute. 

''Y/N, is something wrong? Why are you...'' she trailed off and her voice died down. But a devious grin rose from her lips and something told you that she knew exactly what you were thinking.

''Ohhh. Naughty Y/N! You're thinking about him, aren't you?! Asking Bakugou, your big, fat crush to be na-'' her next words were muffled violently as you pressed a hand against her mouth and with the other one, grabbed her ear and dragged her out of the run down the recreational center. 

Aneko was screeching in protest, but her noises were muffled by your hand, keeping a firm grip around her. Once the two of you were outside of the center and no one was around to hear, you dropped your hand, grimacing when you saw that Aneka had tried biting you. Several times.

''Ouch, ouch! Why'd you do that?'' she grumbled, rubbing her sore ear.

''Don't say that when we're in public!'' you hissed, rubbing your warm cheeks.

''Even though he's still a student, Katsuki Bakugou gets a lot of attention from the media! Not to mention, I'm a U.A student too! If someone heard a word of this, who knows what they would've done with it! I don't want to be part of a teenage scandal!"

''Sorry...'' your friend mumbled as she glanced towards the ground. You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

''It's okay, Anne, just please be more careful next time,''

Aneko smiled sheepishly and gave you a thumbs up. You smiled and shook your head in disbelief and the two of you began to walk home.

''Do you really think I should...ask Katsuki to model for me?'' you blurted out. Aneko shot you a glance as the two of you crossed the road and continued walking forwards.

''I think Bakugou is the type of person that will never back down from a challenge,'' your friend said. ''And besides, he'll probably agree so you don't ask another guy to strip for you. He'll get really mad.'' she snickered.

You gasped and you felt the familiar warmth travels across your face. Squeezing your eyes shut for a moment, you shook your head in denial and frowned.

''No he wouldn't!'' your voice was a pitch higher and what was intended to be harsh, ended up sounding like a harmless squeak. 

Your friend laughed loudly and her laughter turned into relentless wheezing as she bent over her knees and leaned against the wall. Her lips were quirked upwards and her eyes danced with amusement.

''It's so funny seeing you all riled up when I mention your crush,'' she cooed.

Scowling, you stomped away and you were so angry that fumes were basically rolling off your body. You could hear Aneko's joyful laughter as she picked up her speed and caught up to you. 

You were frowning deeply with your arms crossed, gaze focused anywhere but your cruel, cruel friend.

''Come on babe, don't get upset! You know I say it because I know it's true!'' there was a hint of pride and smugness in her last sentence, making you stop dead in your tracks and point a finger at her.

''You don't know that. He'd never like me...'' you mumbled. ''I'm too awkward and a dumbass to be with someone as confident and loud as him,''

The hope in your heart was quickly extinguished when you realized she was merely joking. Huffing, you shook your head and grabbed her by the ear, dragging her all the way home, though she kept complaining and whining the entire time. 

''Don't you get it?'' the look in her eyes was sincere. Slowly, you could feel a hint of hope growing in your heart. ''You guys are a perfect combination!''

''He's a tough and strong grunting caveman and you may be a dumbass, but you're his dumbass,'' she cooed. ''He'll protect you from anything!''

''Please don't tease me a lot of that,'' you spoke up once you had reach your door. Your gaze drifted to your doorknob. ''I know you don't mean any harm but...it just makes my hopes get up. And in the end, it never works out. And I just get myself hurt for no reason.'' You smile at Aneko's pained expression and opened your door.

''I'll see you later, Anne. Take care and don't forget to text me once you get home, okay?''

Your friend nodded mindlessly and walked away, sending you a final wave. You waved back, smiling softly. Once she was out of your sight, you closed the door and leaned against it. With your phone in your hands, you shakily texted a risky message.

Katsuki had been your friend since the beginning of U.A, since you were quick to befriend him, despite his violent and rude attitude. You didn't mind. It was funny and endearing seeing him react to the smallest of things.

Y/N: hey katsuki, can you stay behind after school tomorrow? i have something to ask you.

Once you had hit SEND, you threw your phone on your couch, a giddy smile on your face as you spun and looked like a clown for a few moments until you calmed down. Sending the message had sent a surge of adrenaline and confidence into your heart. 

Maybe Aneko was joking, but if you were up to the task, you could get closer to Katsuki. And if you were lucky, you'd score a date with him. 

Copyright © 2020-2021 by Veles. Do not repost, plagiarize, or read my fanfiction without my permission.

[sfxdesign]

Art Style Instagram Pack

30 stories and banners for Instagram, Facebook and VK in “male” colors: blue, black, and white. Perfect for promoting fashion, perfume, other products for men and corporate events.

Captivating Blue Choose blue as a fresh harmonious color with an inspiring touch. The color of the sky and the sea, it symbolizes freedom, intelligence, reliability, stability, and aristocracy. It makes your content look calm, serious and balanced.

Energetic BlackBlack means authority, power and protection. Brands “dressed” in black look sophisticated, strong, and more expensive. It’s also best for businesses selling high quality professional products and luxury goods.

Elegant WhitePositive and fresh, the white color makes the content noble, clean and soft. It’s used to emphasize simplicity, accuracy, the beginning and the new. Depending on its shade and texture, white gives a soothing and peaceful feel, or a strict businesslike tone.

Features:

30 templates stories size (1080x1920) and banner size (1920x1080) Fully layered and well organized Smart Object ready Editable text and images Photos are not included The pack includes 15 vertical and horizontal compositions:

Minimalist black template with a neon smile and a black and yellow sticker symbolizing a warning. Dynamic banner with a blue background, two golden chains crossing the screen and shards of gold. Black and white urban banner with two text lines crossing the screen and a yellow sticker where you also can type your text. Refined template with a white background and two golden splash of lightning. Elegant grey template with golden chains. Joyful black banner with colorful confetti, round sticker for your text and a rainbow sticker. Cheerful blue template with two light blue ribbons and hand raised with the sign of the horns. Black and white typographic poster with big bold letters on the background, small text lines and a yellow round sticker for your text. Optimistic banner with sunny green, violet and black ropes tied together and a blue background with huge letters. Sunny blue template with two small text stripes crossing the background. Minimal grey template with three balloons and a yellow sticker. Positive white banner with two small blue text stripes crossing the background. Optimistic banner with sunny green, violet and black ropes tied together and a grey background. Typographic blue template with a man statue, round sticker and two small text stripes crossing the background for your text. Festive blue banner with shards of gold.

Get yours here on: https://creativemarket.com/SFX_DESIGN/7027602-Art-Style-Instagram-Pack

[creativeconspiracy]

‘Fragile Masculinity,’ a digital self-portrait triptych

I wanted the images to be very cohesive and work together as a triptych. I wanted to create that cohesive appearance by utilizing similar colors and overall subject matter. My concept for this piece was use Greek statues blended with images of my own face to create a narrative around the subject of transgender men and “the ideal man.” The color scheme is blue, pink, and white – which represents the colors of the transgender pride flag. The Fear and Euphoria statues both have blue bases and a slightly darker pink neon frame, and the Broken statue has a pink base with a whiter neon frame. I chose to make the neon frames all arched, referring to the usual triptych frame shape. The neon choice was done specifically to blend modern times and the past with the Greek sculptures.  

Overall, I wanted the statues to be able to open up and explore the narrative of life as a transgender male, how everyone’s journey is different, and our emotions and responses to them are diverse just like the people who make up the community. I do feel like the interpretations of the emotions and the statues are each represented well while maintaining a cohesive composition when placed together.  

In Depth Conceptual Analysis:

The Fear statue has one arm up shielding the face referring to a defense position as if being attacked for being who they are (subtle top surgery scars are visible) but also could be interpreted as looking to the future with uncertainty. For transgender individuals emotions fluctuate constantly between excitement and fear, and the future is one of the many scary things about transitioning. Unfortunately, there are not very many older trans men, so it is almost impossible to imagine what your future will be like. That uncertainty creates a very deep fear

The Broken statue is a bit of a dichotomy as well. It could be interpreted straightforward as broken, empty, and hollow. However, there on the other side of the spectrum there is also some piecing yourself together - becoming the person that you have always known you were. 

The Euphoria statue like the other two, has a dual intended meaning. The top surgery scars are prominent on the chest and the glowing eyes can be interpreted as happiness building up. Another interpretation is that the glowing eyes are pink, referencing how people will continue to see you as female no matter how much you change about yourself. For my personal journey, I did not begin my transition until I was around 24 years old, I spent my entire childhood, teens, and early adult life being perceived as female, experiencing life, and being socialized as a woman. I do not feel that I need to erase that part of me, or be ashamed of that part of me – for me the glowing eyes represents the strength of the woman I was to become the man that I am. For some transgender men it could represent the attempt to hide a part of them. I chose to use a Greek Statue that did not have the arms, to reference the constant reminder of the parts you do not have. Sometimes euphoria reminds you of the things that make you dysphoric. 

Design Brief:

For this project, you must create three separate images that are self-portraits. Each of these images should reflect a distinct emotion such as anger, fear, or joy. How you do this can vary greatly. You can use your face, different body parts, props, or perhaps objects that are metaphors for you. The subject matter can overlap, change scale, and be seen from different orientations or viewpoints. Backgrounds, middle grounds, and foregrounds can be manipulated digitally or manually. The style of the imagery can change from portrait to portrait. For example, would flat graphic shapes of value or color or blurred edges of realistic shapes best convey a particular emotion? Please view the PowerPoint of self- portraits and portraits to see examples by various artists and how they use the formal elements to help convey particular emotions. Research self- portraits by Rembrandt, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Hockney, Kehinde Wiley, Jenny Saville, Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close to gain knowledge of how form and context informs content.

You should consider how the design elements (line, value, shape, texture, pictorial space, color) and principles (pictorial balance, rhythm, focal point, movement, contrast, repetition) will help create a formal composition that conveys the specific emotion you are trying to convey.

Technically, you will have to demonstrate a variety of Photoshop applications to achieve your desired effects. Among these, but not limited to could be: saturation and desaturation of color, modifying of edges by blurring and sharpening, adding texture, modifying values, and adding lines.

[wehavethoughts]

Darryl Carter Review! Part 1: The New Traditional

The New Traditional by Darryl Carter With Trish Donnally Photographs by Gordon Beall Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2008

I’m venturing out of my comfort zone in both form and function. This book is from 2008, so not the freshest on the interior design scene. Additionally, the sophisticated style is far from my personal taste. Regardless, I also thought it’d be fun to have a two-part review, rating Darryl Carter’s two books. Carter is Black and male, and I’m trying to include non-white cis-female authors in my reviews. I was going to do two books in one post, but I think each one stands on it’s own. This post will address The New Traditional and next time, I’ll review The Collected Home. Welcome to Part 1. 

This large-scale, hardcover volume is fit for a coffee-table, with impressive photos and a very intimate writing style. Carter lauds a classic and calm sensibility, as he describes it, and repeatedly refers to logic. When I took a breath from the fantasy, the book did feel out-of-reach. Old money vibes. Overall, I award this book 5 out of 6 worldly geese. 

The New Traditional is a very refined aesthetic catalog guided by precise and thoughtful prose. Three subtitular key phrases span the top of the front cover: reinvent, balance, and define your home. The book really carefully details a design philosophy, pulling from anecdotal experience and the discipline of craft. Carter does an excellent job articulating this new approach to a traditional style, emphasizing in particular a mix of modern and antique. Elegant images of dining rooms and studies, in the limited color palette of warm neutrals, free from clutter or disarray, upon closer inspection, reveal a very intentional composition of old and new, worn patina and sleek smooth surfaces. 

As I mentioned, many of the rooms portrayed aren’t my particular style. Carter enjoys antique mechanical tools and centuries old figurines, for example. The rooms are also pretty sparse and formal. I still was able to enjoy him narrating countless examples of his design reasonings, what he did when a challenge presented itself, how he put a fun twist on a found piece of furniture. This book is generous in sharing knowledge, but I must be clear: he fancy. But he comes from traditional arts schooling (and law!) rather than a scrappy, DIY ambition. So yes, he’s dealing with nicer homes and nicer stuff, but the tone of the text (which can also get pretty fancy) is warm and insightful. And, I mean, the pictures look like they’re from a museum!

I think the reason I’m okay (I think) with this clearly well-funded designer’s interiors is because the written content expresses a tremendous amount of care and appreciation for the materials of the objects in the home. Carter is keen to preserve antiques and to experiment on pieces that aren’t. He hopes that any furniture piece or any room is not too precious to go unused, which is a very precious insight. He consistently encourages his readers to lean into their own style, to find harmony and use cooperation to achieve balance. I love how he playfully uses pieces outside of their intended function: using a dining table as a desk, altering a couch arm to hinge down for more lounging space, putting shuttered doors in front of windows for the illusion of a terrace. One of my favorite nuggets of his advice is to use the reverse side of a rug, as it preserves the rug and shows more muted, abstract colors which is to my taste. His philosophy does not seem to identify with excess, but rather with having a hand in making home feel like home for those living there, for the things they actually do… his clients just have money. 

Small critiques here. Firstly, most of the pictures were not on pages nearest the text describing them. Carter would paint such a vivid picture, I would think to myself, wow that would look cool, and then 20 pages later there it’d be: the picture he was describing! So I don’t know what the editing team was doing there. A second thing is a question: there were like 800 (hyperbole) ancient Chinese figurines mentioned, and I hope those clients were Chinese. Rich Westerners just hoarding artifacts from non-Western cultures is whack. More on this in Part 2, as The Collected Home goes into more depth about obtaining collections. 

Finally, I just wish someone who seems to be ridiculously classy would also care about using more sustainable resources. So many times he’d suggest using synthetics and other machine-made materials because of all the benefits that technology has come to provide (mostly durability). I feel a little sad, thinking, of course he can recommend that. That’s why people pay him a lot! For the result! Even if getting there isn’t green. 

In the end, 5 of 6 sumptuous geese for Darryl Carter: Part 1. I was very pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed The New Traditional even though it wasn’t ‘my’ style. On the surface, Carter’s other book, The Collected Home, looks like more of the same, but I could be surprised again. Let’s see what more there is to see in Part 2!

With loving curiosity,

DesignMod

[sarahkempphotography]

Clean White Research

After some research I came across a photographer named Lois greenfield and was instantly captured by her work. Lois Greenfield is an American photographer best known for her unique approach to photographing the human form in motion. Lois began her career as a photojournalist but was later drawn to the potential of dance. She covered the experimental dance scene for the Village Voice (an American news and culture paper) from 1973 to the mid 90’s. Her unique approach to photographing the human form in motion has radically redefined the genre and influenced a generation of photographers

Her series of work

Anti Gravity

Geometry

My favourite pieces from her projects

I find this image very captivating, the clean white background contrasted with the checkered bodysuits the models are wearing captures your attention straight away. The models pose creates an interesting shape which makes this image interesting as it isn't the sort of pose you're use to seeing in portraiture. The framing of the Image is slightly off centred which gives the image a lot of negative space which again helps the models stand out. The floor in the image appears to be glossy as it is reflecting the the checkers, personally I think it is slightly distracting but it also gives more dimension to the image as well as the shadows that are being casted on the floor

This image has a great composition, the poses done by the models creates amazing lines in the image. Their facial expressions contrast with each other as the male model is smiling and the female model is showing no emotion. The movement of their clothing and hair creates motion in the image.

[canmom]

If someone else was turning VECTOR into a hyper commercialized franchise, how would they butcher your baby?

lmao well, very kind of you to imply it’s not already star wars level bad. (the web novel in question if anyone’s wondering)

problems i think i have is that the State in VECTOR is too simple, too ‘obviously’ evil - because it’s kind of written off-the-cuff in pursuit of striking images. so it would be very easy to paint it as another sci-fi evil empire that has nothing to do with our own society.

but here’s a few ways you could ruin it for me:

go for the modern ‘gritty shakeycam realism’ choreography instead of something extremely stylised, dance-like and anime-inspired (if it couldn’t be, well, outright anime - VECTOR was kind of an attempt to emulate a sense of Kaneda-school, Imaishi-esque cinematography in prose before I decided to take a shot at becoming an animator for real)

make it less horny/less guro. the hypersexualised setting is a p vital part of its identity to my mind; likewise the violence is supposed to be overwhelming and hit hard or it’s pointless. obviously this means it would get a hard 18 rating and never sell! i know this shit is niche.

how they might write dialogue/characterisation, less traumatised characters. if you had the girls doing american-style action movie quips, you’ve missed the vibe.

making all the protagonists really skinny (and white, they might try that too...) instead of like, athletic, having muscles.

deciding it needs to have a ‘male lead’, or any heterosexuality whatsoever, which would completely undercut absolutely everything I’m trying to do here lmao.

likewise: casting cis people as any of the VECTORs. (casting cis ppl as the resistance members would be ok though ideally not all of them; the Director/CHIASMUS’s parents/random cops and such would be necessarily cis. the metaphor is not subtle, but you could imagine they’d try it.)

giving it a straightforwardly ‘happy ending’. I haven’t reached the ending yet so I don’t know what it will be but, I v much want to avoid cleanly tying everything up and leaving no lingering unease.

that’s some things i’d be afraid of, the other fear would be that, improbably, it does succeed, only to spawn endless franchise tie-ins that rehash the original story without doing anything new with it.

outside of those obvious errors... well, nobody’s ever gonna adapt my stuff so it’s fine lol, but there’s a very vague, ephemeral sense of visual inventiveness that i associate with like, broadly older anime and French comics, occasionally some American works that draw on those sources like Aeon Flux, or most recently stuff like K6BD’s extended riff on wuxia. without that sense of direction, the confidence with composition and colour and negative space and etc., it would feel kind of pointless.

basically: look at the differences between the original Aeon Flux animated series by Peter Chung, and the movie they made of that. or for a prose example, the YA novel Mortal Engines, and the movie they made of that. i’d hate to see something like that happen. tbh with the American movie industry as it is, I wouldn’t want them to touch it.

that said, I think there’s definitely plenty of places VECTOR could be improved. the opening is quite weak, for example, and I plan to rewrite it at some point. the ending to the last segment could potentially have more emotional weight.

setting-wise, I think the Witnesses (the steppe nomadic culture in danger of colonisation) need a lot of fleshing out beyond their brief appearances so far, with at the very least sensitivity reading and if it was going to film, giving someone writing input who has a personal stake there. I also feel like the everyday functioning of the State barely comes across. right now it’s sort of a cartoon setting: fleshing out by a good artist or writer, even if it’s barely relevant to the story directly, could add a lot of texture to it that I haven’t been able to give it yet.

honestly if I was to adapt VECTOR to anything, I think it would have potential as a webcomic. (animation would be ideal but that’s kind of beyond me working alone from my bedroom). I wouldn’t want it to be adapted in its current form - it’s too rough around the edges, and maybe a more polished rewrite as a comic with a consistent update schedule could find a real audience. who knows...

ty for the ask, it’s a fun thing to imagine. thankfully almost nobody reads my stuff so we’re in no danger here :p

[benchgenderstudies]

Opening Letter to Labor Secretary Martin Walsh//

Disclaimer: This letter was originally slated to go through the White House email form as it could not be left for understaff prone to market loyalties. The matter relates to the physical abuses of laborers in the fashion industry and the protection of women in the marketplace. One runway model summarized her experience in the runway fashion industry as ‘ what most people called sexual harassment, we called compliments”. .. 

As was written for the White house email form. 

Dear President Biden, Enclosed is a letter I have prepared for your new US Labor secretary. The reason I am sending it through this venue is because M Patricia Smith, Labor Solicitor/assist to secretary is likely to trash it. Smith is a loyalist to a misogynist fashion industry and cannot be trusted to assure the Biden administration is made aware of significant problems. Problems that I found the Pennsylvania House and Senate delegates were too incompetent to handle.

Dear Labor Secretary Martin Walsh

Congratulations on your appointment to the US Secretary of Labor. It is a post with many opportunities of advancement considering its previous inhabitants have done so little to advance it. OSHA's budget is only limited by the initial investment in staff so that dangerous workplaces can be fined . David Michaels, Edwin Foulke Jr, and trumps appointee were not prepared of the bankroll they were leaving on the table by keeping the agency understaffed.

Ever since 2008 I have called on OSHA to regulate the fashion industry , specifically the fashion modeling agencies; to stop the industry anorexia that exists in its coven. One of your very own employees : M Patricia Smith, solicitor actively enabled the sex trafficking industry within NYC fashion to flourish by circumventing regulation aimed at ending eating disorders. How would that be linked? Agencies such as Elite Models go along with haute couture's demands because they can prescribe upon a female an emaciated frame by which she is no threat to them. She is no threat to demand her due pay for her commercial estate as the person the luxury brand uses to parade their diseased prescription of 'the female”. She is not female, usually, not for them.. rather she's typically pictured the androgynous prepubescent frame suited to turn on pedophiles as they are.. even if she's technically 16-22yo.  That alone is a public health danger no matter who calls it art. Luxury fashion exists to be callous by its exercise of Bourdieu's Habitus: the arrogant exercise of trashing others for not wearing their clothing well or talking under the luxury parameters/terms of the Veblen good.

Every time I contact DOL, somehow the entire explanation bores them into inactivity. So , I'll tell you ahead of time.. if you dont understand what I'm telling you .. ask. The Department of Labor ,especially OIG and OSHA are far underperforming in protecting American workers. It is not only OSHA's duty to adopt the body mass index to regulate industry but also to adopt ALL health standards accepted by NIOSH/CDC in the effort of assuring a safe workplace. That is OSHA's duty as an agency.   Is it not the Department of Labor's duty to avoid protect workers despite how the market might recontext them as contractors as a financial convenience. It is the goal to protect the rights of workers as they are in each industry and not by that industry's cowardice or vanity to exploit them in all the ways they will and do.

In this debate you're going to hear all sorts of nonsense about “Feminism' and “ Homophobia” as a defense for what the luxury fashion industry does. All you have to do is ignore their lawyers and their excuses and instead protect the public from the models and from becoming “ their kind of fashion model”. You're going to probably ask “ how can I prove the fashion industry causes eating disorders?”  It does. But be real clear that just like murder you can kill a man with a sword or a gun. I am not saying all eating disorders are caused by the fashion industry; an industry who models malnutrition as a class status repeated back in the time of the “Gibson Girl”. All girls colleges reported worry that their students looking like worn dark eyed zombies was not a healthy state for students to be in.

A gay male fashion designer is neither an expert on anatomy nor gender studies, or gender psychology simply because he has a front row seat to his experience. He is open to be criticized and prodded exactly what about the female body he is aware of in physiological terms. Whether he protests by barking back “ you're just homophobic” avoids recognize he has nothing to respond. Dolce and Gabbana's designers failed out of fashion school so would hardly be the candidate to have a graduate or even bachelors degree in basic biology.  Bluntly, just because he prefers his sex as a penetration by penis in his orifices doesn't mean he can appropriate the Cis Female identity and preferences for his own; for his microphone to redesign her; to artify her as an object of his creation. She is not his creation. So lets start at the reality that if a fashion model emaciating herself from age 16 onward AWAY from her natural fillout.. by the same championed methods as anorexics.. (stimulant abuse, strict calorie restrictions, exercise abuse, drug escapism) that she too will become injured no differently than the diagnosed anorexic the Usgov/NIH currently confuses themselves to be 'a mental disorder”. Its not a singular set of incidences. Its a tragic mistake of LGBT fashion designers and agencies to abuse a girl into their standards of sizing when said sizing is injurious to her.

I am going to close on these points: No matter if a foolish girl moves from Wyoming to New York City to chase her Vogue dream of being a runway model... her sense of liberation to be that model stops being 'feminist” when she forgets herself as an object set infront of youth and the public.  When she is made a model to others.. her liberty is zero. Her occupation is not an ideal circumstance no matter how she smiles or how many magazine covers shes on. She is not an ideal female nor feminist to allow herself be made a 'hero' and 'celebrity' infront of young girls while  she secretly is only in the industry to settle a fraudulent debt against her. These agencies recruit girls on the image of prestige. They hire limos and other image related services at her expense without telling her... or so the scam goes. Even if I detest the model herself for being a foolish stooge ,.. she has a right to grow up physically as a case of health no matter what her occupation is.  Her identity does not owe the industry a duty to stunt itself to 'be its girl' . “It” doesnt know what a real girl is nor how to correctly respect her. If we really were talking about 'gender bending”, then the bulldyke butch female is absent on the range of imagery. The guys might wear the dresses but the females just look angry and spent.

Due to couture labels like Balenciaga, Gucci, and Dior.. the luxury fashion market clusters around them as a cult of personality.  It is not merely fashion. Dior built his name on trying to repopularize the waspwaist.. and so we must also realize the practices of body modification (ie tattooing, piercing, corsetry) are also not for people below 18; an age 16 & 17 year old girls should not be allowed or expected to oblige. Couture's waif is body modification in a most anti female way of things; so.. neither CFDA nor its couture industry are feminists at all.   Balenciaga is actually more famous than Dior  in that the original models were 14 year old girls in place of models. Now the fashion critics are all gaga for 'the androgynous' norm not calculating that a girl too young to have one gender isn't either old enough to split the difference between two. The artification of gender is not its study nor its protection as an asset of classism.

The fashion industry is arguing that the “ Body Mass Index' is an inaccurate measure of health. As a paper chart, it was never meant to be a clinical test measure; Strike one. When skin calibers or hydrostatic weighing become part of the actual measure of body adiposity then BMI is plenty fair. More the point, a female below 18.5 even by the paper chart shows a lack of care for herself in weight training and metabolism maintenance. By trying to be a model or imitating model prescribed crash diets.. the youth and females of the public injure their metabolism in three ways : 1) they are incapable managers of any crash diet. 1a) they dont know to reset their reward food choices. 2) they indulge multiple crash diets and for far longer than the plan itself advises 3) the crash diet look is not the same look offered from hard training and a mere weekend worth of fasting for a judged event. These females are acting like the ideal body is maintained daily and weekly. Its not. The fashion industry tries to cheat its way to looking like the hard work of elite athletes concealing all the cheap taste addictions/ 5 star lard cuisine its fine dining jet setters choke down their throat between events.

The fashion industry also doesnt realize that body composition is larger than the height/weight chart. Body composition is small piece of Anthropometrics and Goniometry of the Movement studies field; Not Psychology. I actually find the female led psychology field in the study of eating disorders has enabled young girls to remain getting injured by market forces.  This is not a day camp for women to console each other as victims.. Its a mockery of gender and sex education that its archetypes are paraded as ambiguous fads on the runway There are finite limits to the health of the female body that the industry is not protecting ; worse.. they indulge these 'international standards” so that the females and males applying for these jobs are worn out and too tired to fight about due credit. The broken mirror on the industry is they worship youth only so the youth cluster for easy fame.. and much easier exploitation; knowing nothing about the industry's dangers. New models are especially vulnerable to prostitution, forced drug addiction, rape, and the long term effects of eating disorders due to the silence of the current models and organizations like “ The Model Alliance” that try to legitimize the profession.  Fashion designers have no say what eating disorders. They hesitate incriminate their own “homoerotic imagination” as diseased. Neither Fashion designers nor talent agencies have a soapbox on which to defend their exploitation of the models (mostly female).. in that 'she can leave whenever she wants... except she cant” . Due to the debt scam held over her.. she is forced to crash diet continually (malnourishment) until she is either out of debt, dead or in a hospital. She'll remain in that hospital taking small checks to shut up.. and take blame for 'her self made diets”.. instead of connect that no matter how self managed her disaster.. the primary cause of her illness ; her PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION; is by the compulsion to 'fight hard for her fame” and the agencies income.. no matter how unlevel their commitment is to her safety or industry legitimacy.  

TO BE QUOTED:”Eating disorders victims are bonded by physical exhaustion that cannot be mistaken as a mental symptom to be bandaided by antidepressants.” -Michael Bench.  Eating disorders are a physical ailment resulting from the queer fetished 1)calorie restrictions AND 2) food combination/pairings  that set her GI tract and immune system into a downward spiral. 3) When the female dieter decides the first crash diet didnt work, her move to another plan ( of weird diet combos like grapefruit and baconbits) adds to the confusion of the GI tract. The GI tract biome is set off balance by these diets... and so too is an injury to her metabolism.. An injury of the public occurs through these extreme and fast results diet motivations as much as the fraudulent diet instruction itself.

The problems of the Department of Labor effectively advocating for employee safety are also complicated by its unwillingness to address NIOSH- NORA as a bunch of deadbeats.. They're too worried if a Christmas tree bundler was risky instead of keeping young women away from molesters, sadists, human traffickers and embezzlers among the industry protected by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. CFDA's primary error is that it only wants to defend the designers broken visions instead of the whole industry's aspirations to forward interesting art-as fashion. The Androgyny fad is a lie; its an artification of the female body by MALE models and designers to wear.. without concern how its prescriptions are unhealthy to her. The Fashion industry and HHS are going to retort  “ anorexia” is a mental health problem.. not an employment/labor problem. So it happens uniformly in all industries then? Its image is promoted in fashion but not taking fault for? A female prescribed to look as though her growth curve recessed on itself.. to a size she was at age 12 or 14 is not only unhealthy.. its negligence  and injurious damages owed to her by the brand and the agencies defending it.

Again. If you have any questions or wish to hash out more of a detail about these matters, do not hesitate to contact me. However.. after these many years that Department of Labor has done nothing to protect women from the fashion industry's bad actors.. its about time the whole executive branch find a conscience. Where there is a gender wage gap there also exists here a lack of care whether any industry abuses women or the public of females. There is only the President and the Vice President to conference on this .. I can tell you first hand the Labor OIG have failed repeatedly to act in forcing OSHA to perform its duty in adopting and enforcing HHS/ CDC health guidelines whether developed by NIOSH or otherwise. When Howard Shapiro was acting OIG legal he exclaimed “ we have no mandate to regulate fashion modeling by Bmi because its not in the 1970s founding of OSHA”. Of course it wouldnt be if BMI was adopted in 1998. Here I have to emphasize Shapiros lame excuse wasn't just that he didnt want to address BMI as a health metric but that he was refusing all health research and standards that were available ever since OSHA and NIOSH were founded. Shapiro owes the government his salary back. I hope your service in US LABOR determines you deserved every dollar of your office salary.

the regulation of the fashion industry is a necessary act of responsibility for all workers and to protect women. If the equality of women is a central pillar of President Biden’s campaign , this is not a matter to ignore. Please recognize my effort carrying on ever since 2008 has always stated “a prescription upon women that makes an ideal of a male cut/toned physique will not be healthy for a female to sustain. In the cause of artified androgyny and not accurately presumed gender swapping,, the female model is being physically abused for a norm ambivalent to her health”  And this is why the gay male fashion designer is not credible to be designing for women in the frame of presuming himself gifted to those ends. The cult of personality around Dior and Balenciaga are not merely poorly aware of the female body. Couture is actually stubbornly refusing a majority of women in its pathetic aversion to sewing around curves. They are selfish to actually recognize any curvy female frame as it takes attention away from the slim “androgynous” ideal .. most like their mirror. Cosmosexuals vanity is toxic.   

Cordially , Michael Bench , MEP, WGSGC

Exercise Physiologist

Gender Anthropologist

Author of Native Supremacy

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Bambi (1942)

In the early 1920s, Austrian Felix Salten began working on his best-known novel. Salten, a prominent Jewish author, was an avid outdoorsman who closely observed the habits of wildlife in the Viennese countryside. His experiences led him to write Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which became a bestseller in Europe. It was a bestseller in the United States, too, but Salten’s work had somehow been recategorized as a children’s book when exported across the Atlantic. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) producer Sidney Franklin (1942’s Mrs. Miniver, 1942’s Random Harvest) purchased the film rights, but he experimented and failed to find a satisfactory way to adapt Salten’s novel. Frustrated, Franklin handed the reins to Walt Disney. While Disney took on this new project, the Nazi Party banned Salten’s novel – claiming it to be, “a political allegory of the treatment of Jews in Germany.”

Salten, who soon fled for neutral Switzerland (never to return home to annexed Austria), may have inserted some such allegories, but that is not his novel’s primary intention. In one of the novel’s most memorable passages not present in the Disney adaptation, Bambi’s father shows his son a poacher’s corpse – another human has shot this poacher. In realizing humanity’s fragility and its sameness to the animals of the forest, a frightened Bambi, while examining the poacher’s body, declares, “‘There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.’” Salten’s novel and the 1942 Disney adaptation directed by David Hand are about the inevitability and universality of death – subject matter not exclusive to children.

Bambi was slated to be the second animated feature by Walt Disney Productions (now Walt Disney Animation Studios). Due to production delays, narrative confusion, aesthetic difficulties, and especially the Disney animators’ strike of 1941, it is the fifth and last entry of the studio’s Golden Age. Whether because of or despite these delays, Bambi seems an outlier in the Disney animated canon. It bears scant artistic resemblance to any of its predecessors or successors. To the bewilderment of viewers who believe that a great movie requires plot, Bambi dispenses of such notions. If conflict appears, it is resolved immediately – with one continuous exception. As Walt Disney insisted on the animation being as realistic as possible while retaining anthropomorphic qualities, the True-Life Adventures series (1948-1960; fourteen innovative nature documentaries that continue to influence the subgenre’s narrative and visual grammar) remains Bambi’s closest cousin in the studio’s filmography. Bambi – wildly innovative, underappreciated upon release and today – completes a consecutive run of five animated features for a Golden Age. Rarely matched today are the standards set by those five films.

This film is a coming-of-age tale; more specifically, it is about a male fawn’s experiences and observations on the natural life cycle. It begins with Bambi’s birth and concludes as Bambi inherits his father’s role as Great Prince of the Forest. This animated Bambi is less pedantic than Salten’s book, which focuses on Bambi’s survival lessons from the other woodland creatures. Instead, story director Perce Pearce (1940’s Fantasia, 1943’s Victory Through Air Power) and screenwriter Larry Morey (primarily a lyricist; 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) adopt a free-flowing episodic structure where Bambi lives life innocently, with violence puncturing through the idyll rather than being omnipresent. We see him befriend the rabbit Thumper and skunk Flower, learn to observe his surroundings before grazing in the open meadow, and play in the snow and on the ice come his first winter. There are comic misunderstandings and warnings about men, neither of which dominate the film.

Bambi also takes time, for a minute or a few, to avert its concentration from its protagonist to other animals. In a less disciplined film, these decisions might undermine the film’s goals – in this case, to portray nature as faithfully as possible within the bounds of a loose narrative. But each of these scenes focused away from Bambi either strengthen Bambi’s characterization, the liveliness of the forest, or the film’s messaging.

A handful of scenes including the elderly Friend Owl introduce us to Bambi and his mother as well as those adolescent, animalistic romantic tinglings he calls “twitterpation”. Friend Owl moves the film forward in ways that abided by the censors at the time, as well as introducing concepts to Bambi and friends in just enough time that is necessary. The most graphic moment during the first scene featuring the hunters (who are never depicted, aurally or visually) does not concern Bambi and his mother, but a few nameless pheasants. Covered in shadow by the long grasses, one of these pheasants speaks of the impending danger, and the audience hears the terror in her tremulous voice. Flying out of the underbrush in a desperate attempt to flee, she is shot by the hunters, and drops to the ground. The frame shows the pheasant’s corpse, but does not linger. This is the only depiction of a dead animal in the film – contrary to the recollections of many viewers. For younger and older viewers alike, this scene emphatically communicates the dangers that Bambi’s mother has warned about, priming the audience for what is to come, and doing so without sensation.

It leads directly to a scene that has become a sort of childhood rite of passage. The death of Bambi’s mother in a later scene has traumatized multiple generations of viewers – intrepid, timeless cinema. As Bambi and his mother are grazing on early Spring grass in the meadow, the latter senses movement and pokes her head up, turning her head realistically as if on a swivel. Her eyes are wide, unnerving. She looks straight at the audience; this would be the stuff of fourth wall-breaking comedy in any other context, but here it is almost inquisitive. Bambi is one of the few Disney canonical films in which what is happening off-screen is equally (if not more) important than what the audience is seeing – something most evident here. The film stubbornly fixes its perspective on the deer and the snow-blanketed backgrounds that emphasize how exposed they are. They flee. There is no cover as the editing becomes more frantic, closing in on the deer’s terrified faces as they rush back to the thicket. A shot rings out. The film’s score – a constant presence throughout Bambi until now – decrescendos from broadening string lines to a chorus vocalizing pianissimo (mimicking the wind-blown snow drifts), and disappears completely when the Great Prince of the Forest appears.

The Great Prince is obscured by the falling snow.

“Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

Silence. Stillness.

Bambi sheds but a single tear. He walks away with his father and, mirroring his deceased mother, looks towards the audience – this time, not in accusation or inquiry, but faint hope. Cynical viewers label this scene as anticlimactic due to Bambi’s lack of expression. But the filmmaking preceding it – a combination of the editing by Thomas Scott (1939’s Beau Geste, 1948’s So Dear to My Heart); the compositional decisions by composers Frank Churchill (Snow White, 1941’s Dumbo) and Edward H. Plumb (1944’s The Three Caballeros); the attentive character animation by artists too numerous to single out here; and the moody lighting and brushstroke textures to the backgrounds set by Tyrus Wong (1956’s Giant, 1969’s The Wild Bunch) – helps justify Bambi’s reaction. Some of the most important, at times traumatic, moments in life are silent and still. There is just enough pathos here without being anticlimactic or maudlin, or to be patronizing towards young viewers.

And yet the next scene shows Bambi grown up, in the middle of Spring, at play. There is no allusion to the tragedy on-screen a few minutes prior. The filmmakers are not minimizing Bambi’s trauma or nature’s violence, but saying that life nevertheless continues. There is growth, the acceptance of grown-up responsibilities, romance, love, child-rearing. Stags – like Bambi and the Great Prince – mate with does, but do not participate in the lives of their fawns. Unlike other Disney films where animals assume greater anthropomorphized qualities (1967’s The Jungle Book, 2016’s Zootopia), Bambi’s naturalistic approach contradicts any application of human norms and values onto its animals.

For years, this meant struggling to animate wildlife – especially deer. Rendering deer in appealing ways is difficult, due to the shape of their face and the positioning of their eyes on either side of the face. In the end, the animators went with character designer Marc Davis’ (Davis also led the character design of Thumper, Flower, and Cruella de Vil from 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians) outlines: maintaining realistic deer anatomy, but exaggerating the face with a shorter snout and larger eyes. The Great Prince’s antlers proved most infuriating due to the intricate perspectives in animating them. When the animators resolved that they could not animate antlers from scratch, a plaster mold of deer antlers were made and was Rotoscoped (projecting live-action film onto an image for an animator to trace it) the film’s animation cels.

But the most remarkable contribution to Bambi comes from Tyrus Wong. Wong, a Chinese-born American artist, established the look of Bambi’s painterly backgrounds. Based on landscape paintings from the Song dynasty (960-1279; a Chinese historical period when landscape painting was in vogue), Wong’s concept art caught the eye of colleague Maurice “Jake” Day. Day, a photographer, illustrator, and naturalist, spent weeks in Vermont and Maine, sketching and photographing deer and the woods surrounding them. His sketches, however, were deemed too “busy”. By comparison, Wong’s concept art – using pastels and watercolors – is impressionistic, deeply atmospheric. Disney, impressed by Wong’s work, appointed him to be lead production illustrator, and instructed the other background animators to take inspiration from Wong’s concept art. Wong’s lush backgrounds have graceful dimension (a hallmark of Song dynasty landscapes), seemingly extending the forest beyond the frame. A brushstroke implies dimensions to the forest unseen. Wong’s sense of lighting – whether soaking in sun-bathed greens or foreboding black-and-white, blues, or reds – helps Bambi smoothen otherwise abrupt tonal shifts.

Nevertheless, history downplayed Wong’s enormous contribution to one of the greatest animated films ever made. The studio fired Wong shortly after Bambi’s completion as collateral damage from the aftermath of the Disney animators’ strike – by the terms of the agreement with the strikers, Disney recognized the animators’ union but would lay off a union-approved equal ratio of strikers and non-strikers. Wong later found work as a Hallmark greeting card designer and a production illustrator for Warner Bros. Retiring in 1968, Wong was contacted by Disney to serve as a sketch artist for Mulan (1998) – Wong declined, stating that animated films were no longer a part of his life. Only within the last decade has Wong, who passed away in December 2016 at 106 years old, received due recognition for his contributions that his on-screen credit does not reveal.

Perhaps inspired by his meetings and collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski and music critic Deems Taylor for Fantasia, Walt insisted on a film score to be present across Bambi’s runtime. Composers Frank Churchill and Ed Plumb take inspiration from the Silly Symphony shorts made prior to Snow White – Bambi’s score and soundtrack occasionally blends with the sound mix and it liberally uses “Mickey Mousing” (the synchronization of music with actions, most notably footsteps, on-screen). With the writing team periodically revising Bambi, Churchill and Plumb waited until the final structure of the story was set before composing the music. Transcripts from the Disney Archives also reveal an emboldened Walt – again, perhaps inspired by his experiences from Fantasia – to insert his own preferences in how the music should sound. Walt, a man who once professed that he, “[didn’t] know beans about music,” was more musically articulate than he had been before Fantasia, and was unusually influential in the film’s orchestration. In the end, the Churchill and Plumb score is largely framed by the opening credits number, “Love is a Song”.

Love is a song that never ends. Life may be swift and fleeting. Hope may die, yet love's beautiful music Comes each day like the dawn.

In a few short stanzas, the composers begin a score that falls silent only two times: when Bambi’s mother mentions “man was in the forest and when the Great Prince of the Forest appears shrouded in snow. If one did not already associate it with the actions of the film’s characters, Bambi’s fully-orchestrated score sounds like a lengthy, motif-filled tone poem that can be heard in a concert hall. Listen to the string harmonies supporting the “Love is a Song”-vocalizing chorus during “Sleep Morning in the Woods/The Young Prince/Learning to Walk” beginning from 4:19-5:20. That sort of harmonic density would not be out of place in a late Romantic-era concert hall. Occasionally, that tone poem of a score gives way for the limited musical soundtrack like “Little April Shower” – the film’s best song, and one where instruments and vocalizing humans serve to simulate the sound of rain and wind. Bambi contains some of the tenderest music, reflecting the film’s thematic content, in the Disney canon.

Upon release, many critics and audiences found Bambi a step backward for Disney, caring not that the studio’s namesake and its animators agonized over its realism. Disney had upended the moviegoing world’s expectations with Snow White and spawned competing studios looking to replicate that alchemy. But in doing so, the studio also coded audience and critic expectations that animated film should only be fantastical. To strive for realistic animation to reflect nature was, “boring” and “entirely unpleasant” – for these critics (who say nothing about how animation can guide emotion), animated fantasy was innovative because it bent reality in ways live-action cannot portray. Echoing the most vehement criticisms hurled towards Fantasia, Bambi’s then-contemporary naysayers implied that even attempting to animate nature realistically and ignoring fantasy would be a pretentious exercise. In columns and tabloids, the American media also devolved into a mud-slinging debate over whether Bambi – because of its off-screen portrayal of humanity – defamed hunters.

By similarly contradictory logic, animated film in 1942 was mostly perceived as children’s entertainment – an attitude that has been dominant ever since, and one that yours truly tries to discredit with exasperating frequency. With no other rival animation studios attempting anything as ambitious as a Fantasia or Bambi, gag-heavy short films from Disney and its competitors contributed to these widely-held views. With World War II underway, the dissonance of expectations would only escalate. American moviegoers, though wishing to escape from the terrible headlines emerging from Europe, North Africa, and Asia, believed animated films too juvenile for their attention. Bambi – a dramatic film intended for children and adults – faltered under the burden of these wartime contradictions. It would not make back its production costs during its initial run.

This commercial failure, on the heels of the animators’ strike, cast a shadow over Disney’s Burbank studio and on Walt himself. Walt would never publicly admit this, but he believed he had been too focused on animated features. So much of his creative soul and experimental mind had been dedicated to the Golden Age films, but at what cost? The critical and commercial triumphs of Snow White and Dumbo were offset by Pinocchio’s (1940) budgetary overruns and the headline-grabbing negativity (by music and film critics) that financially drowned Fantasia and Bambi. Internal divisions that led to the animators’ strike nearly destroyed the studio; heavy borrowing from Bank of America resulted in runaway debt. Walt – spiritually and physically – would not be present for the rounds of layoffs (mandated by the agreement with the striking animators) that almost halved the studio’s staff after Bambi’s release. He accepted a long-standing offer from the Office for Inter-American Affairs to embark on a goodwill tour of South America to help improve relations with Latin American nations (as well as collect ideas for future animated films).

Bambi remains a sterling example of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ artistic daring. The film pushes realistic animation as far as the technology of its time can. It does so not only for the sake of visual realism, but to reinforce the profound emotions it has evoked for decades. The film’s tragic dimensions are legendary, oft-parodied; yet this does not (and should not) define it. Almost eighty years since its debut, Bambi’s reputation continues to be mired in the contradictions that first greeted its release. There are some who still believe that animated cinema, by its nature, is specifically for children. And by an extension of that thought, some believe tragedy has no place in animated cinema. What a limited view of art that is, an underestimation of humanity’s capacity for understanding.

Bambi concludes the Golden Age of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Since its departure from theaters, moviegoers have rarely been treated to animated cinema of equal or greater maturity – let alone from Disney itself. The artistic cavalcade of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) resulted in five consecutive films resembling nothing like the other, but all united in ferocious innovation. The central figure of this Golden Age, Walt Disney, was personally involved in each of these works; the end of this so-called Golden Age comes as he stops dedicating himself so completely to the studio’s animated features. In their own ways, each film helped define what animated cinema can be and who it is for. That debate remains fluid, one where the principal interlocutors learn from or disregard the lessons of this Golden Age.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the seventeenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Wizard of Oz (1939), Mary Poppins (1964), and Oliver! (1968).

[hinatahyugacute]

This is the song recommended by voice actor Nana Mizuki! Pick up 10 songs! This album should be bought first!

Voice actor Nana Mizuki who entered the 20th anniversary of her debut as a singer this year. Mizuki, who is famous as the queen of Anison, often uses the word "voice actor first" to describe her success as a singer.

She is a top runner of the times, with many achievements such as winning the 1st place in the Oricon weekly ranking, performing at the Tokyo Dome, and appearing in the "NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen". He is still one of the leading anison scenes.

It was also a big topic that he announced the holding of his first online live "NANA ACOUSTIC ONLINE" the other day and showing that he would continue to take on new challenges in the current situation. In addition, her 40th single, which includes a serial number for purchasing online live viewing tickets, will be released on October 7th this year, so her activity is drawing attention.

Today we would like to introduce 10 Animate Times recommended songs from Mizuki's songs! I will also introduce the albums you should buy first, so I hope that it will be a reference for those who will touch on Mizuki's songs in the future.

This album is the first to buy! "THE MUSEUM Ⅲ"

Amazing contents such as almost all the recorded songs are tie-up songs!

CD with all 17 songs, MUSIC CLIP of "Iki Koi" which is the first recording of this album, and "Sugafest! ~ Miracle Festival once in 20 years" to commemorate 20th anniversary of Suga Shikao's debut. A 2-disc set of Blu-ray (DVD) with patterns recorded.

This album, which contains single songs, is the third of Mizuki's best album. From 26th single "Synchrogazer" to 36th single "TESTAMENT" are recorded, many songs that are unique to Mizuki are recorded, such as collaboration songs with TMRevolution and reconstruction assistance songs with Koichi Yamadera.

Also included in the video is the live classic "ETERNAL BLAZE". It is exactly the content of Mizuki's singer activity, and you can feel Mizuki as a singer with both your ears and eyes!

Introducing Mizuki's recommended songs!

Here are 10 recommended songs from Mizuki's famous songs! We have selected from classic live songs to nostalgic masterpieces, so if you plan to participate in future live performances, please check!

Deep bass and terrible hard sound ""Let's live at this moment-when-"

◆ Collected works 39th single "METANOIA" Released on July 17, 2019　

◆Music information TV anime "Senki Zessho Symphogear XV" opening theme. A song with a magnificent finish that seems to be the opening of the 5th Symphogear series. It has a different approach from the previous series songs, and you can see different aspects from other series songs such as male chorus and rap. This is a Nana Mizuki song, with a feeling of "singing" to follow the work! A song that gives the impression of.

Recommended second song "STARTING NOW! ]

Nana-san's cheerful support song "I have a dream that only those who know everything can touch it"

◆ Recording work 36th single "STARTING NOW! 』2016.07.13 release 12th album "NEOGENE CREATION" 2016.12.21 release Best album "THE MUSEUM Ⅲ" 2018.01.10 release

◆Music information The cheering song "STARTING NOW!", which has a pleasant running feeling, is the opening theme of the TV anime "There is a problem with this art club!" While it's a refreshing rock tune that will support all your love and dreams, it's also a lively fun song. In the lyrics, there's "Please come!!", but the phrase is very Nana-like, reminiscent of the closing words of the radio "Nana Mizuki Smile Gang."

The song "Dream Coordinates-Zodiac-Gently Write" of the work

◆Recorded works 21st single “PHANTOM MINDS” 2010.01.13 release 8th album “IMPACT EXCITER” 2010.07.07 release Best album “THE MUSEUM II” 2011.11.23 release

◆Song information The single that recorded this song was the first voice actor in history to be “1st place on the Oricon weekly single chart”, and was also shown at the second appearance “61st NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen”. This song, which is the theme song for the movie version "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st", is a companion song to "innocent starter", the opening theme of the first Lyrical Nanoha series.

The emotion expressed in "innocent starter" at that time is drawn in a different way. Of course, it's a lively song, but it's also a song that strongly reflects the work "Lyrical Nanoha".

Recommended 4th song "Shinai"

I'm sure I can't help but tell you "I can't reach you no matter how much I think"

◆Recorded works 19th single “Shinai” 2009.01.21 release 7th album “ULTIMATE DIAMOND” 2009.06.03 release Best album “THE MUSEUM II” 2011.11.23 release

◆Song information This song has achieved various records, including the Oricon single daily chart second place. The ballad, which is also the theme song of the TV animation "WHITE ALBUM", has the image of this work, and the melody reminiscent of a popular song is impressive.

Mizuki's various thoughts, such as the feelings of his father who died just before making the lyrics and the image of "WHITE ALBUM". A quick ballad inspires the lacrimal gland.

Recommended 5th song "Orchestral Fantasia"

This is exactly the "sea of ​​strings" "Wandering in the sea of ​​strings"

◆ 6th album “GREAT ACTIVITY” released on November 14, 2007

◆Song information

This song, which is loved by many fans even though it is an album song, is a work in which so-called strings such as acoustic guitar and violin stand out. It is a song full of Mizuki's taste, with the strings' fantasy melody and painful lyrics in harmony. The guitar quartet presented at "LIVE THEATER 2015" is a must-see.

Recommended 6th song "SUPER GENERATION"

Support song that will not fade even after many years "Let's go find the most important thing"

◆Recorded works 13th single “SUPER GENERATION” released on January 18, 2006 5th album “HYBRID UNIVERSE” released on May 05, 2006 Best album “THE MUSEUM” released on February 07, 2007

◆Song information Mizuki-san was the first song in charge of composition, and if you say Mizuki-san's style, it is the first child (Mr. Mizuki calls herself the song No. ◯◯). Even 14 years after its release, it is a support song that fascinates fans without fading at all. If it is performed live, the cheers of the audience will become louder. Especially, the last big chorus of "LaLaLa" can feel the unity like "Nana Mizuki's live!"

Recommended 7th song "ETERNAL BLAZE"

A sense of words that shines everywhere in the lyrics "Yes, surely it starts here..."

◆Recorded works 12th single “ETERNAL BLAZE” 5th album “HYBRID UNIVERSE” released May 05, 2006 Best album “THE MUSEUM” released February 02, 2007

◆ Music information Even if you are not very familiar with Nana Mizuki's music, there are a lot of people who know this music. This song is the theme song of the TV anime "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's" and is counted as one of Mizuki's successes.

The lyrics are written by Mizuki-san, and the words that have a unique reading, such as "Goddess-Tenshi-" and "Nightmare-Maboroshi-", are scattered everywhere. This song is a classic live song! I think that there are many people. In particular, the shout of "ETERNAL BLAZE!" during the interlude responded to Mizuki-san's agitation, and the excitement of the hot air in the venue explodes at once.

Recommended 8th song "Tears' Night"

Mizuki-san and Uematsu-san The origin of the tag! "Tears' Night Repeated Your Name"

◆ 4th album "ALIVE&KICKING" released on December 08, 2004

◆ Music information This is the first work by Noriyasu Uematsu (Elements Garden) and Mizuki, who work on many popular songs. A lyrical song that seems to be Mr. Uematsu's music, with a fantastic and speedy melody, and Mizuki's passionate singing voice makes you feel comfortable and somehow sad.

It was performed at the first full orchestra concert "NANA MIZUKI LIVE GRACE -ORCHESTRA-", and it is a masterpiece stage, so please check it out!

Recommended 9th song "New Sensation"

Representative presence of Mizuki-san's support song "One-off life should definitely be enjoyed"

◆ 7th single "New Sensation" 2003.04.23 release 3rd album "DREAM SKIPPER" 2003.11.27 release Best album "THE MUSEUM" 2007.02.07 release

◆ Music information Akio Mishima, who is in charge of producing many King Records artists including Mizuki, is also a support song that pushes the drum. It has been sung in many live shows so far, and was also shown at "LIVE EXPRESS 2019" held last year.

The lyrical lyrics and the melody with a deep groove make the listener feel energetic, and "Men energize" makes the song feel like Mizuki. In addition, it is a song that attracts attention to guest artists, such as welcoming Masami Okui to the chorus.

Recommended 10th song "POWER GATE"

The classic song that has been sung every year since its release "We can change the times"

◆ 4th single “POWER GATE” 2002.05.01 release 2nd album “MAGIC ATTRACTION” 2002.11.06 release Best album “THE MUSEUM” 2007.02.07 release

◆Song information Mizuki has sent many popular songs to the world. Of course, there are many songs that are standard songs for live performances, and it seems that it will become one album by itself. Among them, this song, "POWER GATE", is the most sung live and popular with fans.

You can feel the power of the singer "Nana Mizuki" no matter what the energy of the song and the sense of unity at the live performance. Mizuki-san sings in the song, "We can change the times," but a support song that is so compelling is rare.

source: https://www.animatetimes.com/news/details.php?id=1598603646

[ask-de-writer]

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MET BY MOONLIGHT

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

5740 words

© 2017 by Glen Ten-Eyck

written 2003 by Glen Ten-Eyck

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express written consent of the author or proper copyright holder.

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These had been made with fine, supple leathers taken from the destroyed village of the Marquosts. They had originally held pictographs of things that the Shamans and Totem Society leaders had thought worth recording. Their pictograms, like Egyptian hieroglyph or Chinese ideograms were a genuine written language. That was one of the ways that the Marquost society had been more than a little different from that of the Indians about them.

The men had a Society of Shamans lead by the Great Shaman. They had the charge to do the mighty magics that needed the Blackwall and its power. I was descended from that tradition.

The women had charge of the assorted Totem Societies. Most Indians drew inspiration from their totem animals. The Marquost women did more than draw inspiration from their totems. They became them. They were not lycanthropes, cursed to change with the moon. Marquost women were skin-turners. They donned the skin of the totem animal and became that creature in truth but with a guiding human intelligence and cunning. They were lead by a woman known as the Mother of Change, who could become any animal from any of the Totem Societies — and if rumor be true — any other beast as well.

The High Shaman and the Mother of Change were the ones who wrote and decided what to write.

After three hundred years, their wisdom and spells were coming to light again on my computer monitor. As the English writing was subtracted from the Darkmoon palimpsests, I began to notice something else.

My hackles rose the way that they will when you find that something is very wrong. When I examined the original photographs of the book pages more closely, I found the cause. The originals were genuinely ancient. That was almost beyond doubt. When you are a Shaman, as I am, you get a feel for such things. The problem was in the handwriting. I had a three hundred year span of books open to me. Everywhere that I sampled the Darkmoon Dairies I found the same thing.

The Darkmoon Diaries were a forgery. A unique forgery. I was willing to give long odds that there was no other such forgery in the world.

Efforts to make the handwriting different from writer to purported writer had grossly succeeded. It was the little things that betrayed the forgery. The downstroke of the f’s and s’s. The loop form of the e’s. They were common throughout. It appeared that one person had written all three hundred years worth of dairies.

The most recent volume revealed the likely author.

Just as I was pondering the diaries, Allison delivered a note from Laelia inquiring about my progress and inviting me to assist with cataloging the Hilstrom house. I put aside my problem with the dairies for the more immediate one of helping with Hilstrom house and seeing what might be of use. A Shaman may benefit from much that the ordinary person might not even find interesting. There might be things in there that could lead me to other surviving descendants of the ‘Founding Fathers’ of Flocking Bay.

Because of the age of the Hilstrom House and the contents it was known to have, it was necessary to catalog everything. We would assess what to include in the sale or even if the place should be sold at all. Some of the contents, at least, would have to be auctioned off and some kept for the library and the Historical Society museum.

The Hilstrom House was worth putting aside my petty mysteries. It would be an easy restoration to bring the house back to its original state. Most of the original hand hewn planks and timbers were still there and in place. The electricity and gas had been put in with no attempt to hide the wires and pipes inside the walls.

The fireplace still had the original hand made crane to hang cooking pots over the flames. The andirons were a recent addition. The originals we found later, cast out into a bramble thicket behind the house.

The whole place could easily become a colonial museum. When I breached the idea to Laelia she agreed that it could be done at little cost. The only problem that she foresaw was the simple one of maintenance cost. Such museums rarely paid their way and the township was simply too poor to support another one in addition to the Historical Society museum.

“Don’t give up, though,” she said, patting my hand. “You can propose it at the township meeting. If it is approved, they will find a way to do it.”

I felt that odd hackle-raising twisting that tells you where magic is. It led me to a corner of the living room. There, in a window seat made to serve as a storage chest, were many papers and books … and the source of my feeling.

The old matchlock musket appeared to be in near perfect condition. It was mounted to a plaque with an engraved brass plate just as the diary had said. It read, “This gun won us the town now called Flocking Bay. Eben Hilstrom shot and killed the Shaman with it. The gun would never fire again after.”

Laelia reached past me and took the old gun. “The Historical Society will want this testament to the shameful deed that founded this town.”

I looked at her strangely. I was beginning to fear that Laelia might be a descendant of one of the Founders. A check of ship passenger manifests from 1645 through the end of 1648 showed none who could be Laelia or her ‘ancestress.’ Something would have been in those records even if she had been a stowaway. What did she have to hide? Several things that she had said before flitted through my mind. The unique forgery of the Darkmoon diaries. The Darkmoon crest. The timing of her ancestress’ arrival in Flocking Bay. The low price of the indenture.

With a winning smile, I said, “Laelia, I think that these papers will be enough to keep us busy for the rest of the day.” “Let’s take them back to your place where we can catalog them over some of your wonderful tea.”

We strolled back to Changer’s Court in a pleasant afternoon, with the wind playing with leaves and trying to steal our booty of history.

Back at Laelia’s cottage, I breached a different topic as she puttered about her modern kitchen with its gas range, making tea for us. “Laelia, I have some of the palimpsests done. I think that you will be interested. I found your indenture contract. You can even see where Eben Hilstrom altered it.”

The puttering in the kitchen stopped for a moment. You could hear the strained smile in her voice as she see replied, “You mean the indenture of my ancestress. I’m not THAT old.” She resumed puttering purposefully about and emerged with the tea tray.

As she set it down on the coffee table, I said, “I’m afraid that you’re not telling me the whole truth, Laelia. I can prove that you wrote all of the Darkmoon dairies and I can also prove their age.

“I need to ask you some questions about your origins. I can only think of a few reasons that a person might live so long.”

She let out a long sigh and leaned back in her chair. Resignedly she said, “Have some tea and ask what you will. It was a long run from Poland for my sister and I. She was killed in France. The Crest says it all, to those perceptive enough to read it, as you seem to be.”

I raised my tea to my lips and smelled the aroma. My hackles rose again. I could smell and feel the power. It was a familiar power, like my mother’s but stronger. I had my answer.

“No,” I said, putting down the cup untasted. “You have lied long enough. You are not a werewolf and you are not Polish either. Though being one would account for your age. I know who you are.”

I spoke in Marquost, the old Indian tongue of the area when I said, “Ask me what you want to know, Mother of Change. This Shaman will tell you truthfully what you wish to know without the power of that.” I pointed at the tea.

For a second, she appeared startled. Then she let out the same laugh that I had heard and liked earlier. She replied in the same language, “Your accent is abominable! Still, I haven’t heard anyone use this language at all for years!” Her speech was the utterly relaxed, easy flow of a native speaker.

“Near enough to three hundred years, I expect,” I said softly. “You must have been lonely, living among your enemies for so long.”

“Not so lonely as you might imagine,” said Laelia with that calm that comes only from utter assurance. “I have been stalking my prey. I have got to know them and listen to their Councils and give them advice. When the time is right I take one of my skins and turn it. Then an enemy suffers. That is when proper vengeance comes. They have suffered and must suffer for a long time yet to come. That is why your killing them is not to be accepted. Do not do that. It may put them on their guard.”

Startled, and just a bit guilty, I said, “Mr. Hilstrom was the last of his line. He was old and a bachelor. The Hilstroms are gone.”

Her cheerful laugh interrupted me. “Where did you get that silly idea? That was only the end of the male line. What is the true line of descent?”

I was dumbfounded. I had forgotten, been taken in by the white man’s patrilineal lines of descent. So proud of my own matrilineal descent from the last Shaman, I had used the white man’s genealogical rules to track my enemies! I would have to start my genealogical work all over.

I hung my head in shame. Determined, I raised my head looking Laelia in the eye. “A Shaman must acknowledge his error and try to remedy it. I must begin to search for the neglected lines of descent. Our enemies must die!” I said firmly.

She rebuked me gently but with absolute certainty. “They must NOT die! Death is the END of vengeance. I swore ETERNAL revenge to the Blackwall, pouring on it the blood of my foes. When the last of them dies, so do I!”

Smiling, Laelia said, “I help them in their need and see to it that they stay within my reach.” Her eyes going lupine, she added, “I stalk them down the trail of time. In each generation, they all suffer. A few die. They go on. And so do I.”

I looked at Laelia with new eyes and a heightened respect. I said softly, “Mother of Change, I am sure that your eternal vengeance is more suitable than my slaying. This Shaman opens to you the whole power of the Blackwall.”

—THE END—

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