#the center image is just a screencap from the show but for some reason its making me lose it.... the blur is so aesthetic and nice

[rxarchive]

Wednesday Addams - Rave'N dress

11/30/2022

In the third episode of Wednesday on Netflix, the titular character attends a Sadie Hawkins all-white prom. She wears a dress, ostensibly reposessed, by Thing, from the local oddities and antiques shop, that is in fact a vintage nylon blend Alaïa gown sourced by costuming super-star Colleen Atwood.

I was torn about costuming anything from the show, but after seeing the dance montage, I couldn't reasonably keep her off the list. It's going to be a great costume for dance parties at cons, and I'm particlarily interested in wearing it with my friend who cosplays as Number Five from The Umbrella Academy.

I had to go to to Youtube for details of the dress, so pardon the screencaps below.

The Material:

The material is what most cosplayers would refer to as organza, and I assume Ms. Atwood called it nylon so as to distinguish it from its fancier cousin, silk organza.

The first article linked states that it is actually a mottled black-brown tye-dye, but as brown is my least favorite color on the planet, I will be using plain black organza, perhaps with a touch of a color-shift fabric on a sub-layer to add some visual intrigue (pizazz, you might say.)

The structure of the dress, from the top down:

Notably, there are no seams running accross the shoulder in the transparent yoke. This means the replica will need to be created with the pattern shoulders taped together.

The center back will also need to be on the fold, to avoid showing a seam.

Then, the above-bust flounce. From the back view above, we can see there are two lines of ruffle. These could be integrated into the pattern, but I'll likely tack them straight onto the dress bodice, trim the seam allowance, and cover with some braid.

From the back view, we can see the interior non-transparent dress is:

structured like a corset

posessed of straps

not attached to the transparent yoke

Ergo, it is effectively two dresses. Now, I'm in a bit of a rush, and I like things to be easy, breezy, covergirl.

Therefore.

I'll be making one dress, thanks very much.

By layering the interior solid fabric and the exterior organza on all pattern pieces, and making a unified garment, the complexity will decrease - no corseting required - and the edge binding/lining will be more complete. Organza is itchy, and this is for the best.

So:

Snug fit bodice

Transparent yoke

Collar and front placket, down to waist

Under-arm zip (b/c no back zip) if you don't want a full front placket

I'll be avoiding a back zipper, just because of the transparent yoke. usually, I'm all for faking the buttons and slapping a zipper on the back, but I'd like to maintain the smooth look and collar, given that she''s wearing her hair up.

The solid material would best be something with a low stretch profile and a little heft. I've been on a denim kick recently, because it's cotton with built in interfacing, but something with a little shine might be better.

I'll call it 1-1/2 yards for the bodice + 1 yd (conservative) for the ruffle.

Now, onto the skirt.

From this objectively terrible screencap, we can see that the skirt is:

Ankle length

Floofy

Gather-tiered

Has at least three layers

I can tell that the skirt is tiered and gathered because of the stripes of texture I can see in the image, roughly 4" and 10" down the skirt from the waistline. It's also the only explanation for the sheer volume of the dress, as we can see when she kicks at the 0:16-0:19 mark in the dance scene.

I see two layers - edges that stick up, not at the hem - at 1/3 and 2/3 down the skirt length in the video. It looks like they might be asymetric, but I'm not about that life, so I'll be ignoring that possibility. These are two layers on top of the base layer skirt.

Three layers of organza + modesty layer.

The modesty layer would be simplest to costruct out of cotton - it runs through the machine quickly, and gathers well. But, it can be stiff, and catch on itself.

To maintain the floofy flow, I think I'll use something thin, slinky, and soft.

For the gathering: for ultimate floof, use 2.5x the fabric required for the measurement. Ergo, with a 26" waist, the first tier of the skirt would be 66" wide. I'll use tiers in the 8-10" height range.

The math here is Fergalicous to do, so I won't be doing it. WeAllSew has a super great blog post about a cute as kittens floor length rainbow tiered skirt, so it's a good reference!

They list their fabric requirements as:

3/4 yard (44” wide) – Upper-tier (U)

5/8 yard (44” wide) – Middle-tier 1 (M1)

7/8 yard (44” wide) – Middle-tier 2 (M2)

1-1/2 yards (44” w.) – Middle-tier 3 (M3)

1-7/8 yards (44” wide ) – Lower-tier (L)

Their skirt is for a 40" hip, so I'll need a bit more, but I won't be needing it quite as long, so i'll need a bit less. How much more or less? No clue. I'm not doing the math, it's easier to do with just folding the fabric.

The yardage here sums to 5.6 yards, So I'll aim for 6.5 yards. But wait... that's just the base skirt!!

With a skirt layer at 2/3 the length, I'll need the top U, M1, M2 + 1/2 of M3.

With a skirt layer at 1/3 the length, I'll need U, M1 + 1/2 of the M2 layer.

Ergo, I need: 10-1/2 yards for the skirt 💀

3 U : 3 * 3/4 = 2.25

3 M1 : 3 * 5/8 = ~2

2-1/2 M2 : 2.5 * 7/8 = ~2

1-1/2M3 : 1.5 * 1-1/2 = 2.25

1 L : 1 * 1-7/8 = ~2

This math does have some wiggle room, but it's better to over-estimate than under-estimate. This skirt is big, team. I'll be visiting the dollar discount alley (I love you, Seoul) Before I try to get it anywhere else.

What else?

A little belt, not even relevant at this point of discussion.

Some buttons

Black interfacing

162 miles of black thread

Pockets

Joyously, with a skirt this big, a little pocket can go unnoticed. Unfortunately, with all the layers and gathering, having a side slit to access a pocket on an interior layer would not work too well, as it would be hard to access.

Might as well wear leggings with side pockets, and just hitch the whole shebang up if access is needed. Given the belt, could add a (small) fanny pack to it. That would work very well.

That's all for now -- will update with details as work commences. :)

#Wednesday #2022 #to do list #costume analysis #cosplay

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 33 Review: The Gentle Zombie

{ Not available on YouTube }

{ Synopses: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

And now, following our over-4,000-word-long sojourn into the eerie, isolated estate of San Rafael on Tuesday, we at last return to the even eerier and even more isolated locale of Maljardin, THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES’ Garden of Evil! *sting*

Once again, Colin Fox has the day off to recover from his spinal injury the year before, meaning we get another Foxless episode. Unlike some of the previous Foxless episodes, however, this one is a real treat. We get the first centered around the mysterious Quito, Jean Paul Desmond’s silent manservant, Raxl’s closest companion, and owner of the adorable Chalcko, mascot of this blog. We also finally get payoff for my least favorite Maljardin-era subplot, the saga of the Holly portrait--which, if you ask me, is long overdue--and it’s good.

The Lost Episode summary for this episode indicates that it was always intended to focus on Quito. As usual, the Cleveland Plain Dealer provides the most detailed and best summary (and I am not at all biased, despite living in Cleveland):

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 24, 1969). The “Repeat” part is a misprint, as the episode only aired once on WKBF.

Interestingly, we already saw Quito give Holly the gift of a sparkling stone three episodes ago in the aired version of Episode 30. For whatever reason, the executives and/or Ian Martin himself decided to have this event occur earlier in the series’ timeline, possibly with its original importance to the overarching story decreased. The second sentence of this summary, however, remains accurate, as you will find in this review.

Quito kissing the cryonics capsule.

The episode begins with Quito visiting Erica Desmond's capsule and bringing more flowers for her. Both the way he kisses the capsule and the fact that Jean Paul doesn’t make him give Erica flowers show that he, like Raxl, truly loves her.

After leaving the crypt, he visits the Great Hall following a painting/bickering/recap scene between Tim and Holly, to stare at the portrait of Erica--or, rather, the roughest possible approximation of her appearance, because Jean Paul has done everything in his power to make Tim’s project as difficult and frustrating as possible for him (see also my post on Episode 24). A drum pounds for suspense, he turns to face the portrait, and, just as he reaches out to touch it,

HE COLLAPSES!

Fortunately, Alison and Dan come in from outside at just the right moment for her to check his pulse. She believes him dead at first because he has no heartbeat, but then hears him breathing despite him continuing to have no pulse. She concludes, much to pragmatic lawyer Dan’s shock, that Quito must be a zombie as he once said (this is another instance where I can’t recall which episode, unfortunately).

This is what the Holly portrait looks like now, by the way.

A close-up of the face. Still looks approximately halfway between Holly’s face and Erica’s in Tim’s original sketch of her.

They leave Holly and Tim alone with Quito while they go to the lab (in Alison’s case) and the crypt to search for the missing cyanide (in Dan’s), when they hear Holly scream! Dan, who was so close to making friends with Chalcko, bolts upstairs to find the mysterious servant previously thought to be dead (un-undead?) has once again come alive. He starts to pursue Holly, but Alison stops him, so he turns around and tears the cover off the Holly portrait. “Is it Holly, or my sister Erica?” she asks herself out loud. “I can’t tell!”

The rest of this scene suggests that perhaps Quito, too, can’t tell, or at least sees too much of Erica in Holly to ignore. Most likely, that’s why he’s drawn to her and waits on her as though he were her servant as well as that of Jean Paul and Erica. Dan attributes Quito’s fainting to the shock of seeing a portrait that so captures Erica’s likeness that the uncanny resemblance between her and Holly frightens him.

Two and a half months ago, Curt of the Maljardin Blog wrote that the production crew did not cast an actress to play Erica at the beginning of the show, as evidenced by their use of crew member Lara Cochrane to play Erica’s corpse in Episodes 1 and 4. But now I wonder, what if Ian Martin originally intended for Sylvia Feigel to play Erica as well as Holly, given his frequent mention of their alleged resemblance? It seems like an odd decision, especially because I believe that Sylvia was originally destined for a dual role as both Holly and the blonde girl whom Tarasca sacrificed in her nightmare. But, if Sylvia Feigel was supposed to portray the living Erica, would that mean that Erica’s past incarnation was not Jacques’ wife Huaco, but the sacrificed girl? It wouldn’t make sense for Erica’s past counterpart to be her instead of Huaco, unless he decided to also give Sylvia her role, which would have made her Huaco’s third actress. But this is all extremely unlikely, especially because such a quadruple role seems like far too much for a single arc of a live-action series. Even Dark Shadows didn’t make its actors play four roles in the same arc.

All right. Enough of a theory that I myself don’t completely believe, even if it is possible (if improbable) that Ian Martin intended it. Matt-- who, naturally, hurried down the steps when he heard his stalkee screaming--thinks that the reason why Quito fainted upon touching the portrait was because he "sees something of Erica Desmond in [Holly]." I believe there’s more to it than that, though. There must be something supernatural going on that made him faint, something like Erica’s ghost exerting her power over him. But they never did explain this bit, so--like most of this show--it’s up to interpretation.

Tim: “Quito, I thought you were dead!”

Quito touches the portrait and then his heart. “Only Raxl can tell what he’s trying to tell us,” Matt claims, but Alison, too, understands the message. Quito, whom Dan calls “a soulless man,” loves Holly.

This horrifies Holly even more than Matt’s affections. She shouts “NO!” and Quito retreats to the crypt. She throws a fit, disgusted by the thought of “a monster who lunges at people” wanting a romance with her, and even accuses him of pushing her down the staircase, even though Quito was in the temple at the time.

For the Serpent’s sake, Reverend Stalker, leave her alone! The last thing she needs is your “comfort” when we know that what you really want is to get in her pants!

Holly: “Drag, drag, drag, the Reverend Matthew Drag!”

I’m dying of laughter at this terrible line.

Dan suggests that, if Jean Paul can’t bring Erica back to life, he may decide to replace her with Holly. We know that Jean Paul would never do that, but that his ancestor Jacques almost certainly would--at least once he got bored with his lovely witch Elizabeth/Tarasca. (I’m still not convinced, though, that he doesn’t want to make her sacrifice Holly, either just for fun or so that she--and, after their marriage, he--can get her fortune.)

Tim begs to differ about the painting’s resemblance to Erica, once again lampshading the absurdity of the whole situation. You have an artist painting a portrait of a dead woman, using a living one as his model who may or may not resemble the show’s current image of Erica Desmond. He took on this commission to save his life, but, now that he is on Maljardin, he’s in more danger than he ever was while the Mafia was pursuing him. And now a zombie passes out, and the other characters blame it on Erica’s likeness to Holly, which Tim must know is a completely ridiculous explanation. I’m telling you, someone’s spirit--either Erica’s or Jacques’--made him collapse. And if it was the latter, most likely Jacques intended to kill him a second time.

Quito in the crypt.

I want to shift focus now to the subject of zombies and their portrayal on SP, as well as what we know of Quito’s past. This section will contain references to slavery and suicide, so, if those subjects trigger you, you may wish to skip ahead to the next section, beginning with another copy of the photo of Quito looking into Chalcko’s birdcage.

Before I got into SP, I was long predisposed to dislike zombies because of the clichéd way that most horror movies and shows depict them: namely, as mindless creatures focused solely on eating human brains. Hordes of walking corpses who go on living only to consume and destroy are a useful metaphor for the effects of things like consumerism and social media addiction, but they don’t make for interesting characters; in fact, they make for rather dull ones, in my (highly unpopular) opinion.

But Quito was shown from early on to be a very different kind of zombie, almost the opposite of the Dawn of the Dead type. We see hints as early as Episode 12 that he has thoughts and feelings and now we have confirmation that he even has the capacity for love. He appears mindless, soulless, and unfeeling to some other characters, but those who know him well like Raxl and Jean Paul know that, despite his silence and his undead state, he has a mind, a personality, and even a heart. It doesn’t hurt that Kurt Schiegl gives Quito a great deal of expression and personality through his body language; we may not know exactly what thoughts are going through Quito’s mind, but we can get an idea. (And he never once expresses an interest in eating brains, which is another plus.)

The reason why Quito is so different from most modern portrayals of zombies is because he is based on an earlier conception of who zombies are and how they are created. In the traditional beliefs of Haitian Vodou, a zombie is created when a Vodou sorcerer or bokor resurrects a corpse to serve as his personal slave. While there are many theories as to when these legends originated, the most likely theory (which Mike Mariani argues in The Atlantic) is that they began during the period of French colonialism. During this period, which stretched from 1625 to the Haitian Revolution at the turn of the 19th century, most of the population of the island of Hispaniola (then known as Sainte-Domingue) was enslaved on sugar plantations, which required back-breaking, often deadly labor. This, combined with the other indignities of slavery, drove many enslaved Africans living there to commit suicide in an effort to return to their home countries. The idea that those who ended their own lives would be stuck on Sainte-Domingue eternally as zombies came about as a way or Haitians to discourage suicide. “Death was better than slavery for many – the suicide rate among Haitian slaves was very high. It was bad to be a slave,” Amy Wilentz writes in her review of the Vice documentary I Walked with a Zombie. “Worse would be to die and discover that, rather than returning to Africa, you continued to be enslaved as a dead person, run by a master, doing his bidding – and this is the fear that created the ‘Americo-normative’ zombie, as we know him.”

According to Mariani’s article, zombies did not become associated with bokors until after Haiti won its independence and subsequently abolished the institution of slavery. He calls this “the post-colonialism zombie, the emblem of a nation haunted by the legacy of slavery and ever wary of its reinstitution...The zombies of the Haitian Voodoo religion were a more fractured representation of the anxieties of slavery, mixed as they were with occult trappings of sorcerers and necromancy.” Wilentz associates this with “the fear of re-enslavement,” for “no one wanted to be dead, consciousness-less, and working for free for a master,” especially in a country that had fought so hard to rid itself of its shackles.

The show canon for Strange Paradise has not given--and will not give--much information about Quito’s backstory. What we do know is that he is a native of somewhere near Maljardin, descended from an indigenous Central American culture related to the Aztecs, and that was alive during the same period as Raxl. He was Jacques’ “servant” (more likely a slave) in the 17th century and, at some point before Jacques’ death, became a zombie. We also know from his reaction to the Conjure Man’s name in Episode 13 that the Conjure Man did something to him at some point that traumatized him, which may or may not have included the spell.

The Paperback Library novel Island of Evil, however, gets far more detailed about Quito’s backstory and shows his transformation into one of the undead. In the novel, Jacques forces Raxl to relive a particularly painful memory from the 17th century in order to coerce her into doing his bidding in the then-present. In her memory, Raxl visits the pregnant and bedridden Huaco des Mondes during a dinner party, although Jacques has forbidden them from meeting with each other. When he catches her returning from Huaco’s room, Jacques gets revenge on Raxl by stabbing Quito (who is her husband in the books) and then forces an African Vodou priest whom he recently purchased to resurrect him for his guests’ entertainment.[1] It’s worth noting that, like the zombies of Haitian folklore, the Vodou priest tells Raxl not to allow Quito to consume salt: “Should he eat either [salt or meat],” he says, “he will know he is a dead man.”[2] Thus the book canon connects Quito both to the horrors of slavery in the colonial-era Caribbean and to early zombie folklore, before zombies became the brain-eating monsters they are usually portrayed as today.

Quito checking on his adorable bird. Curt recently mentioned the possible connection between Chalcko, Huaco (Jacques’ “pigeon”), and Erica (Raxl’s “little bird”) in a post on his Tumblr, which was a piece of possible symbolism that had never occurred to me until then.

Dan reveals to Matt that Jean Paul has a Stanford-Binet IQ of 187. I’m noting this only because I’ve referenced it before in regards to Jean Paul’s alleged intelligence juxtaposed with his tendency to make stupid decisions. He may have an IQ of 187, but that only applies to his book smarts, not to common sense decisions like the knowledge that you should never make a deal with the Devil unless you are absolutely certain that the Devil won’t screw you over, or that you can defeat him through loopholes or some other, similar means. Even the smartest people--even those with an IQ of 187--can be manipulated, and that is true of Jean Paul, whom THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES has successfully outsmarted. I wonder if he even suspects that Jacques has no intention on bringing Erica back to life, as he revealed fourteen episodes ago?

Holly talking to the cryonics capsule.

At the end of the episode, Holly visits the crypt to talk to Erica’s capsule. “ Mrs. Desmond,” she says, her hands on the capsule, “I want to say something to you. I don't know if you can hear or not, but I'm so afraid. I’m afraid of Quito, I’m afraid of my mother, and also of the Reverend. Mrs. Desmond, I’m so afraid somebody wants to kill me. But not your husband. I love him the way I love my father, but I'm so lost and so alone. Please help me...I want to know what it was that Quito and they saw in the picture.” 

Quito catches her talking to the capsule and approaches her, his arms outstretched. “No, please!” Holly pleads, finally screaming and running from him, leaving the zombie with a heart alone in the crypt.

Upstairs, Holly calls for everyone to “see what you’ve done,” and the camera cuts to the portrait, which now bears a slash across the middle:

The end of the ill-fated saga of the Holly portrait.

“There is your spirit of love,” she cries, “or is it hate?” Alison, Matt, Dan, and Tim stare on, shocked and appalled by the slashed portrait and forever unaware of the identity of the culprit. The episode implies that the responsible party is Jacques Eloi des Mondes by showing a shot of his portrait glowing shortly before this scene, but this episode’s trivia on StrangeParadise.net indicates someone else. As with the trivia for Episode 30, it has to do with plot points that ultimately remained unexplained on the show, but nevertheless contains spoilers for the true nature of one character, so read at your own risk.

The first time since the pilot that Jacques’ portrait has glowed.

Coming up next: The characters react to the slashing of the portrait and we learn a telling bit of backstory about Elizabeth Marshall.

{ <- Previous: Episode 32   ||   Next: Episode 34 -> }

Notes

[1] Dorothy Daniels, Island of Evil (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), pp. 92-99. I will cover this book and the other two Paperback Library novels in more detail in a future series of posts.

[2] Ibid., p. 100.

#strange paradise #maljardin arc #ian martin #review #week 7 #episode 33 #foxless episodes #analysis #extra long corona edition #chalcko (quito's bird) #the damned holly portrait #historicalnote #iq of 187 #maljardin blog #paperback library #17th century #speculation on ian martin's original story #unexplored plot point #unpopular opinions #zombies #my holly/erica/huaco/girl-sacrificed-by-tarasca theory may be my craziest one yet #the things i come up with when i should be sleeping

[glass-es-say]

The Fitzjames Sweater: a Terror conspiracy theory

Do you like your meta long and stupid? And full of not-really-mystery about a single item of clothing? Then boy do I have a meta for you; the center of which is James Fitzjames’ sweater—and the identity of its final owner.

(Half meta-analysis, half conspiracy theory, half absolute blithering nonsense under the cut, lads.)

Now, this is a pretty distinctive sweater, especially in an expedition full of grey and navy arans. There are a couple of specific design elements (best outlined in knit-the-terror’s posts) that make it easy to identify The Sweater once it ends up on Le Vesconte: the side cables, the gansey-esque top and bottom, the ribbing patterns on the sleeves. The short neckband also visually distinguishes The Sweater from the cowl-necked white sweater Mr. Collins is wearing (also I think that one gets pretty soundly torn apart when Tuunbaq eviscerates him).

All of this is great and wonderful. However. What I’m most interested in is the cuffs.

These are double-length cuffs in a 1x1 rib with (perhaps anachronistically) a thumbhole knit in. Fitzjames wears the cuffs folded up most of the time, though if you turn up your brightness and squint you can spot that they’re all the way down at the time of poor Morfin’s death.

The garment construction appears to be such that sleeve was worked flat and them seamed into a tube—the thumbhole then just being part of the seam that wasn’t sewn up. (Why you would make a sleeve like this is beyond me—seaming sucks and it would literally be just as easy to add the thumbhole in when knitting in the round, but I suspect it has something to do with how they produced the no-doubt 10+ versions of this sweater they needed for filming.)

So, we’ve established some key characteristics of The Sweater that help us identify it. We’ve determined that it ends up on Le Vesconte after Fitzjames’ death. (Actually, Le Vesconte’s wearing The Sweater + waistcoat when Fitzjames collapses, so presumably James gives it away before then.)  But can we show that anyone else has worn it? (Spoilers: sort of, but also yes.)

The morning after Silna leaves the Inuit village, when Francis is running around trying to figure out which way she went, he’s wearing the above outfit. His left hand is gone at this point, so his sleeve is tied up at the wrist, but there, covering his right hand… is an extra-long white sweater cuff with a thumbhole.

The image quality isn’t great here (the cameraperson decided to focus on the acting instead of a sleeve cuff for some reason) but when you look at all the angles next to each other, the resemblance is pretty obvious. Either there was always another long-cuffed white sweater on the Franklin Expedition that we are never shown, or Francis has at some point picked up The Sweater and is wearing it under his slops.

You can see a sliver of neckband underneath all his other layers in the picture above, just like with James.

Now, my main hurdle in 100% proof that this is The Sweater is, actually, also my most definitive proof: the thumbhole. (My gift and my curse…my blessing and my burden...)

Assuming James hasn’t folded his cuffs to intentionally obfuscate, it’s pretty clear that each sleeve has one—and only one—thumbhole along the inside seam of the sleeve. It’s a logical assumption—I have no clue why you’d put a thumbhole on the outside of the sleeve because, like… that’s not where thumbs are.

By the time Francis is wearing the sweater it’s pretty beat up, so there are a number of noticeable holes in the cuff rather than just the one. (As we see from Le Vesconte’s shot at the beginning of this post, the rest of The Sweater is faring a pretty similar fate. My poor knitter’s heart is weeping.) While some of the holes have a fuzziness around the edges that indicates fraying, there’s still one hole with a cleaner, more finished edge that would indicate its identity as the real, intended thumbhole.

The problem is, it’s on the outside of the sleeve. Crozier appears to be sticking his thumb through another, accidental hole on the opposite side of the cuff. Even if The Sweater was worn inside-out and/or backwards, he shouldn’t be able to wear the thumbhole on the outside—at least, that’s what I thought. Then I tried putting on a sweater with only one hand. (It’s called field research, please don’t judge me.)

Basically, it’s really easy to get a sleeve twisted when you pull on a sweater, especially if it’s made to fit someone with a different physique. Without the opposite hand (or using your teeth, I guess), it’s basically impossible to untwist it, a difficulty that I imagine is compounded if you’ve already hooked your thumb through the cuff in the wrong place. I personally hate the feeling of a twisted sleeve, but Francis has just woken up in an unfamiliar place and honestly at this point in his life he might’ve just shoved the sweater on and called it a day.

Plus, we see the left cuff on Le Vesconte earlier and the thumbhole appears to be on the outside. The sleeves on this sweater are consistently Way Too Long, so it’s possible things just got twisted around whenever an actor would put it on and they left it that way for realism’s sake.

We don’t see Francis in it after the scene in the Inuit village, but like, even if The Sweater was still wearable after another two years, Francis is pretty well covered by his fur parka. (Also… just saying… the emotional implications of a moment where the last remnants of James Fitzjames unravel under his fingertips are uh… pretty juicy.

James has holes in him and so does his sweater.)

So! I think it’s fair to say that, at the very least, the sweater Francis is wearing is supposed to be the Fitzjames Sweater, as shown to the best of my ability (and screencap resolution). I won’t call it “beyond a doubt” but I think it’s a pretty strong foundation—which is good, because here is where my knit-wear based fever dream starts to, uh, unravel.

My initial assumption after realizing Crozier had the white sweater at the Inuit village was that he pulled it off Le Vesconte after Little’s death. (And idea which cannot help but conjure the morbid image of Crozier undressing a body beset by rigor mortis with one hand…. Or asking Silna for help.)

The tangle in this theory is that I went back and looked at the first few “travelling with Silna” scenes, initially for proof that Francis doesn’t pick up The Sweater until the Little Camp—and found the opposite. 

There’s no sign of The Sweater on Francis before the Tuunbaq showdown, but he has somehow acquired The Sweater before finding the body of Le Vesconte. The same identifying features I’m using for the end scene are all there, so. Can’t really deny that. (The best view we get is from the sad dead Jopson hair stroke, which  also dates the timeframe a lot better then an ambiguous “Crozier walking around” screenshot.)

(For what it’s worth, the thumbhole arrangement appears to be done properly this time. Or at least, the hole on the outside of the arm is the frayed “accidental” thumbhole.)

To clarify the timeline:

Fitzjames has The Sweater.

At some point before James collapses, Le Vesconte acquires The Sweater.

Francis is kidnapped by Hickey’s camp. He does not have The Sweater, or at least not visibly.

Le Vesconte (and sweater) leave the sick (including Jopson) behind and head off toward the eventual Little camp.

Tuunbaq showdown. Francis spends some time in recovery.

We can assume that at some point during this bullet point or the next Le Vesconte and buddies die.

Francis and Silna leave the Hickey camp, find the abandoned men and sad dead Jopson. Somehow Francis has acquired The Sweater.

After this, Francis and Silna find the Little camp, presumably including a dead Le Vesconte and The Sweater.

(You could argue that Le Vesconte actually ended up staying with the sick but Francis’ is wearing the sweater when he first sees Jopson so he would have had to have it before finding them.)

(Also, I have suspicions that this figure leaving the sick camp is Le Vesconte.)

So! There is an indication that, at the same point in time, both Crozier and Le Vesconte(‘s body) were wearing a version of The Sweater. If from this point forward we consider the sweater Fitzjames is seen wearing to be the “true sweater” and the extra to be the “double sweater”, then I see four possibilities:

Option One: Francis already had the sweater double.

Points in favor:

This gives the fun image of Crozier and Fitzjames showing up to the expedition on day one and staring horrorstruck at each other like “we wore the same dress!??!!”

You change. No you change! No you change!!!

Points against:

We see Francis in all kinds of informal dress and never see him wearing it. I’m not actually sure we ever see him wearing a sweater, period. Man hates being cozy, I guess.

There is literally no way costume design would have done this. Like, it beggars belief.

Option Two: Someone else (at the Hickey camp) had an eerily similar sweater that Crozier felt justified in taking.

Points in favor:

It doesn’t show up until he and Silna go back to the Hickey camp, so it’s unlikely that he would have gotten it earlier and just been carrying it around without wearing it.

They did seem to just leave all their stuff lying around, so Francis wouldn’t have to pull it off a dead body, which is a lot more palatable.

If the sweater was a standard “baby’s first officer sweater” present, Hodgson could be a candidate for the true owner.

Points against:

“Baby’s first officer sweater” is just like… not a thing the Victorian Royal Navy did. Also, we never see any of them wearing it, so.

Why wouldn’t the owner have worn it to the Tuunbaq showdown? I get that they’re all wandering around in their shirtsleeves but if someone had a sweater that was remotely still wearable, I feel pretty confident in thinking they aren’t just going to leave it lying around.

Option Three: Actually, Le Vesconte’s sweater is the double.

Points in favor:

Obviously Henry and James got them as best friends forever tokens and whenever they notice they’re wearing them at the same time they spend like, two minutes just hugging each other and saying “bro. bro. bro!”

It absolutely infuriates Francis.

This implies that Francis (or possibly a Hickey camp member but uh… unlikely) got ahold of the Fitzjames version after his death. James isn’t wearing it when he collapses (god… think of the blood stains…), so it would have been as easy as packing it up once he’s dead.

Francis is either in slops or in shirtsleeves after this point so if he keeps the cuffs folded up and his slops collar buttoned (which he does) then we might just not have seen it?

Even if we assume Le Vesconte’s sweater is a different one, there’s still pretty strong evidence James wasn’t buried in his sweater—see the above point, and also the fact that it doesn’t later show up on Hickey’s person. That’s a nice sweater, man, even if it’s fraying, and if I were already stealing a dead man’s boots I would’ve taken the sweater too.

Points against:

Le Vesconte is wearing The Sweater when James collapses—Fitzjames, notably, isn’t. (James mentions the heat as a reason why he can’t keep walking, so he might just not have been wearing it?)

God, guys, I don’t know that much about the Victorian knitting industry but the idea of two bros going out and getting matching sweaters seems… implausible at best.

Option Four: Making a TV show is hard and keeping track of all the details is harder and someone just accidentally put Jared in the sweater five minutes of screen time too early and we were past the time for reshoots and just assumed that no one would be neurotic enough to notice this.

Points in favor:

Script supervisor is like, a really hard job and if this is your biggest slip up then honestly? Who even cares.

Points against:

I care. I care very much.

But which option could be the truth? What conclusions have we formed from this tedious trek across the frozen wasteland of HD screencaps? What horrors have we (me, literally just me) wrought in the name of split-second costume design based character choices? Could Crozier have somehow gotten The Sweater from Le Vesconte after Tuunbaq dies but before reaching Little’s camp? Is there another, actually viable explanation for the mystery of the twin sweaters? How many good fics/headcanons could come from any of these options? I don’t know! Please discuss!

(For however much it matters: my personal favorite is Option Four. None of the others seem a terribly plausible story justification, and also I like the emotional weight of Francis picking up the sweater as a memento of JFJ—or the intention of it, even if continuity gets a little screwy.

Also, if no one writes fic about this then I will be forced to and who really wants that?? Write this fic for me and save us all the turmoil.)

(A thousand props to @knit-the-terror for sussing out enough details that I could even make an argument focused around the cuff of a sweater. Please forgive my corrupting your research for a frantic fever dream rant about something that mostly doesn’t matter.)

#this is my magnum opus and my greatest shame #the terror #meta analysis #james fitzjames #henry le vesconte #francis crozier #that sweater lasts longer than most of the cast #and I love it just as much

[beesmygod]

this is what riverdale is about (part 5)

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

hey guys. im back to upset you with more information about the first season of riverdale. the next post will wrap up season one. this post will cover eps 7-9. iirc the previous episodes, even when watching it, felt like filler. i was worried i was never going to get the fire of the first three episodes back. we do. don’t worry.

images are from the riverdale wiki

SEASON 1 (PART 3):

in a lonely place: jughead is now living in the high school, living every weirdo teenager’s worst nightmare. even better, literally everyone finds out about his relationship with betty “harriet the spy” cooper, making things a little awkward in the group. while discussing polly’s bold escape, cheryl’s goon squad of mean teen girls let her know the hot goss, which she takes to her mother and the sheriff to implicate polly in the murder of jason blossom. she then, and i mean this 100% literally and honestly, goes on twitter and tries to get the following hashtags trending: #PollyCooperKilledMyBrother, #NowhereToHide, and #SharpenYourPitchforks.

jughead then tries to convince his alcoholic, gang leader dad to shape up and get his job back at andrews construction but his dad is a stupid dick. later the gang goes on a hunt for polly in the woods. when this is unsuccessful, betty’s mom reveals ALL about polly’s pregnancy on camera during her plea for her to come home. it turns out polly is just hiding in the attic of the house, where betty finds her. polly begs betty not to tell anyone where she is and that she wants to have the baby and continue with her plan to go to the farm upstate where she will raise it herself. keep that in mind.

with the knowledge about the baby out in the open, cheryl offers an olive branch to betty by offering to let polly secretly stay at their house. cheryl is truly a capricious trickster spirit who pivots from one extreme to another at the drop of a hat.

then literally the most crazy and inexplicable thing int his episode happens: veronica, kevin and josie go to a fucking club on a school night. these teenage kids go to a club in a town that primarily runs on maple syrup and they are let in for some unexplained reason and this is just portrayed as a normal thing you can do in riverdale. they are minors and end up drinking for free when hermoines mom cancels her card and they threaten the owner by exposing him for serving minors. this scene is BONKERS

jugheads dad goes back to work with fred andrews but there’s tension between him and archies dad. literally none of it ends up mattering. don’t worry about it. jughead tells his dad that his mom is getting her GED, working in a call center to support jellybean (his little sister, not like a dog or something). this is a huge spoiler from the future but i dont know if the riverdale writers forgot about this scene or don’t care but none of this turns out to be true to their situation at all. not even close.

jughead is arrested and unarrested for jason’s murder when archie’s dad inexplicably forges a time card to cut him loose. the only proof was fingerprints on the torched car, which are still there for some reason. cheryl intercepts betty yet again to warn her and polly that the blossoms also are insane weirdos who just want her for the baby so polly is shipped off to the stay with the lodge family in the 5 star hotel.

the final shot reveals jason’s varsity jacket is in jughead’s dad’s trailer...for some reason.....

the outsiders: this ep starts with polly explaining literally everything we already know except with the added information that jason was selling drugs FOR the southside serpents for money for the baby. betty worries about how escalating situation between the coopers and the blossoms and who gets control of what when it comes to polly and the baby, and veronica bizarrely suggests they hold a baby shower to unite the feuding families. if you just want to have a party just say so.

clifford blossom, professional bastard man, has purchased archie’s dad’s construction crew out from under him which leaves the project in limbo. he confesses to archie about how fucked the company is now and how everything is fucked. clifford is also making a play for the land veronica’s dad secretly bought from prison using his wife as a proxy, which makes the whole “let’s host a baby shower thing at our apartment and invite the blossoms” thing seem like a hugely bad idea now. BUT DONT WORRY TEAM!!! 4 high school boys are here to do construction for no pay to save the company. no one verbalizes what an insane plan this is. they carry on until moose, the big closeted gay lad, get his ass flipped like a pancake by two anonymous goons who bust up some equipment and moose’s face. archie the brain genius decides he’s going to solve this mystery himself, taking moose and jughead to a bar called “the whyte wyrm” (literally the worst name for anything ever in human history) to find out who did the slapping. as archie is about to get his head caved in by a gangster, jugheads dad shows up in his cool leather jacket, revealing himself to be the head of the gang.

the baby shower is a miserable affair. alice cooper shows up, penelope blossom shows up, for some reason they bring the senile grandmother. the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife. then archie BUSTS in flipping his ass about jughead’s dad being a gangster. the just immediately throw him out which kind of rules because no one has time for him right now. the baby shower ends horrible when the blossoms make the lightest suggestion that polly might visit them and betty’s mom loses her fucking mind. everyone shuffles out except for polly, betty and alice. POLLY NOW DECIDES TO REVEAL THAT HER DAD HAD SCHEDULED AN APPOINTMENT FOR AN ABORTION APROPOS OF NOTHING. COME ONNN. anyway alice focuses her insane rage on hal who she boots out of the fucking house for his insane choice.

jughead and betty ask jugheads dad if he killed jason, he denies it and then they share a smooch outside the trailer. “they” being jughead and betty, not his dad. that would be a little too weird. well, not as weird as the reveal that jugheads dad has been instructing kevin’s serpent boyfriend to date him and pretend to like him for information.that’s pretty fucking weird. jughead’s dad refers to jason’s jacket as “insurance”.

jughead’s dad then shows up with his gang to take over the construction from the 4 high school boys, but hermoine reveals that the goons that were sent were sent by her husband, who might have caught wind of her affair with fred.

polly wisely decides to take her change with a different insane family instead of the one that tried to force an abortion on her and heads to thornhill manor with cheryl and the rest of the blossoms.

la grande illusion: i really need to thank whoever transcribed this entire narrative buttnugget from jughead because it truly is a spectacular example of the level of writing quality you get from the fine people at the cw. please enjoy this screencap of the opening monologue from the riverdale wiki:

today in riverdale is the annual meeting of the board of trustees, where the blossom family meets to discuss the state of the business and slurp syrup in redheaded harmony. the wigs on this show are outstanding and never more noticeable than when they’re all lined up in a row for you to appraise. cheryl invites archie to the tree-tapping ceremony and he, for reasons i cannot understand given everything we know and love about cheryl, accepts, albeit after some prodding on her mom’s behalf. she knows people at a very prestigious music academy you know, nudge nudge. betty thinks its also a good idea for him to go so he can check up on polly, who is ignoring betty’s calls now.

ethel, who you probably remember from the “sticky maple” episode, reads a fucked up poem to the class and veronica reaches out to ask her what the FUCK that was all about. things at home aren’t good for ethel: her family is fighting over money and they’re going to have to sell the house. so veronica invites her over for a play date with kevin so they can do whatever rich people do.

archie attends the tree tapping with cheryl where he holds a bucket and cheryl taps the tree. everyone claps. great job cheryl. archie comes to her defense when her family shit talks her ability to hit a tree or lead a company, but i guess they somehow don’t know that she is the most wild bitch on the planet and can not be dissuaded from doing anything. in fact, she insists that archie join her for a banquet later and he CANNOT say no.

betty is told polly is fine, and passes on this and the news from the blossom shareholder meeting to her mother who plans to use this information to destroy the blossoms using her newspaper. betty’s mother is truly a needlessly perpetually horrible woman for literally no reason almost 100% of the time. if its not to betty its to her sister and if not to her then to any random stranger she can sink her fangs into. however, her husband is still fucking pissed about the whole “getting thrown out” thing and is enacting a one man coupe on the newspaper. alice trashes her own office in retaliation. these people are the worst.

meanwhile veronica realizes that ethel’s dad used to work for her father, until hiram lodge’s incredibly illegal deeds financially ruined them all. ethel’s father tries to commit suicide and veronica shows up with flowers explaining how her family is the one responsible for all this. as you can expect ethel is not really pumped about this turn of events and tells her to tell the truth at her dad’s trial.

at the banquet, archie is HIGHLY encouraged by the blossoms to keep seeing cheryl. perhaps...in a romantic way? i wonder what reason this family of redheads could have for trying to indoctrinate yet another ginger into their fold. they share a weird kiss and archie flees, but not before securing two bits of information: polly warns him that the blossoms are involved in jason’s death and the blossoms themselves are close to securing the drive-in plot and part of their plan was to send veronica’s father to jail to eliminate the competition.

betty FOR SOME REASON invites her mother to write her expose at the school newspaper. why? i don’t know. her mom accepts. why? i don’t know. archie’s girlfriend, valerie, dumps him because he’s been spending so much time for cheryl, which i don’t know what he was expecting. in the final scene, cheryl, spurned by archie, scratches out his and polly’s face from a photo of the tree tapping. like a normal person would

---

if you like my posts and write ups on various things you can see more of it on my patreon, which is primarily for my webcomic, but sometimes other things too. consider tossing me a buck for more freebies. ok bye see you next time for the end of season 1

#riverdale

[papersynth]

The Feud breakdown theory

TLDR: Its basically one big Klance-centric episode, this whole theory’s probably a reach but its nice lol. Reposted from my twitter. More under the cut!

Lets start off this thread by pointing out one of the glaring things that immediately hit me once I started watching this episode when it aired: the title sequence. I'm not particularly old but my parents have always loved gameshows and reality television.

They would watch it in the living room and so one of the things that stuck out to me the most was how the logo for Garfle Warfle Snick is visually similar to "The Dating Game" which was a 60's TV show centered around a bachelorette picking out a guy to take out on a date.

Even the dang flowers.....

It was at this moment I thought "well, after being basically deprived of any Klance scenes for 3 seasons, you'd think S7 would bring you some of that and boy oh boy I've been fed so well. I think its strange for them to visually replicate a DATING GAMESHOW logo. We know for a fact that they were going for a family feud esque style, so why didn't they just replicate the Family feud logo instead? The vibe of the entire episode would change because it'll be a glaring reference.

Going back to Kaplan's tweet about how things aren't what they seem, the Feud really, like, obviously lets you know, that things really aren't what they seem. The story shifts in focus and tone and so do the characters.

My theory is that this episode foreshadows events to come that even the paladins never knew were even challenges themselves.

I believe this sort of aids the Klance fight theory (graciously written by Ca HERE) because that altean colony which they believe was a win for them to discover, could possibly be their next challenge (their garfle, becomes a warfle)

We also know that it isn't new for Voltron to use the "it was an altean all along!" as shock value for their enemies but at this point, I think Allura's starting to learn that her race is equally capable of evil.

This adds to the idea that during the 3 year gap, there's a possibility that the altean colony and Haggar/Galra have been working together to develop new technology (Hunk: I've never seen the Galra use weapons like these before) because clearly it isn’t the olkari helping them.

Time for my biggest reach yet, how the fuck is that a chopstick lance. You can recognise a mullet for a hundred feet away but you can't recognise a sword at point blank. Strange considering Keith drew out the sword pretty quickly, so there's no way Lance saw chopsticks.

NOTHING in this image screams chopsticks. I even went and printed out this god forsaken screencap and tilted it to see if it looked like chopsticks from a far angle and nope, still looks like a blade. This one's a reach but, chopsticks are insinuate a "yin-yang" dynamic.

Chopsticks is a strange pick because it doesn't LOOK anything like a chopstick. It would have made more sense to call it a shovel, paper fan, knife, surfboard etc. Go off. Chopsticks have always been used as a pair, one cannot exist without the other, which brings me to voltron's wings. I like the idea of Voltron being similar to Darling in the Franxx because of their mecha designs kinda taking reference from Evangelion. This is a reach definitely, but its cute whatever, eat this up. There's a mythical bird called "Jian" and it only has one wing.

The bird can only exist with another of its kind, where together, they can fly and soar. Wings and duality are symbols that have ALWAYS gone hand in hand, simply because there are two. Chopsticks being Lance's stupid fucking word choice is so damn specific its hurting me.

HERE'S ANOTHER REACH Y'ALL, the reason why chopsticks are thicker and circular at the top but thinner and squared at the bottom is because they represent the heaven and the earth. WHERE'D THEY COME FROM Y'ALL. WHERE DID THE PALADINS GO? UH? BACK TO EARTH YEA?

And once again, Keith draws this one very quickly so it does show that Lance can make a good guess immediately. I can see why he would say Dog here. SO WHY COULDN'T YOU SEE A BLADE AT FIRST LANCE? EXPLAIN YOURSELF. MOVING ON FROM THE DAMN DRAWING GAME.

I think these two screenshots speak for themselves. Earlier this morning I wrote a theory about how the Klance dynamic is all over the place because Lance has grown as a person in his absence and he's confused as to how he's supposed to behave towards "new keith".

He takes a jab at Keith throughout the start of this whole episode

"Not my fault keith can't draw!"

"I'm not a mind reader!"

So once again, its the usual bickering coming from Lance, but we see that shift later in the episode, I'll get to that later.

The next game with bii boh bi. Funny to me how the game's called "The Garflator" when we've already established that "Garfle" means to "win". The monster isn't the Garflator as they've misleaded, its the tank.

If you don't believe me, here's the subtitles literally calling the monster the "Warflator". Strange isn't it? You miss these things when you watch it the first time. Bob wasn't joking when Warfle and Garfle were interchangeable.

I don't really want to analyse how Bii Boh Bi acts throughout the whole segment mainly because I think that's reaching a little too far, and it was likely comedic the entire time, but I can't help but notice that his tone throughout suggests a "fill in the blanks" situation.

My theory is that this situation foreshadows the possibility that someone will help Lance fill in the blanks, and guess what the answer is in the GARFLator. He might even really be running out of time so again, stick it out till the last episode of S8.

Bonus: Seems like its pretty nice isn't it. Our crops are watered and his skin is cleared. Joking of course, but overall the whole Garflator/Warflator situation keeps getting mixed up together that's why I think this theory's reaching but I digress.

Time for the scene that made all of us Klancers scream into the depths of hell. We all already know that they didn't have to vote for each other if it was meaningless, but after seeing the recent surplus of Lance being hurt by Keith leaving, I've got a solid theory.

Lets look at the scene first, mainly at Hunk and Pidge's faces. We know Hunk is emotionally observant while Pidge behaves logically, so I think when we're speaking logically: Lance picking Keith seems HIGHLY illogical to pidge.

Lance "hates" Keith. Why pick him to survive? THE MATH DOESN'T ADD UP. On the other hand, Hunk's facial expression here seems more....worried? Not confused. There's been substantial evidence that Lance was hurt by Keith leaving, and if he spoke to anyone about it, it'd be hunk.

I think Pidge is surprised to hear these things come out of Lance's mouth and seeing Keith pick him. Remember when they all picked someone to help Lance? The braniest of the team? I think honestly Pidge might be the first to pick up on their possible affections towards each other.

This sort of parallels the earlier scene where Lance was the last one to figure out Pidge was a girl, but maybe that's reaching a little too hard (Curse these short arms!)

Earlier this morning I wrote a thread about how Lance picking Keith to leave here is probably the nail in the coffin that he deeply cares about Keith. Remember, this situation would probably be the third time that Keith has left Lance.

Read the linked thread, I won't reiterate it here but basically Lance grows in Keith's absence, stepping up when he needs to, but its not really what he wants. Losing Keith again might be devastating, but that only heightens why this scene is so affectionate. He makes this choice himself.

He calls Keith the future because he has faith in his skills (he's our leader) and him as a person (plus he's half galra). That Keith HAS a future. This is SIGNIFICANT because the only other person that has said that they have faith in Keith, was Shiro.

Shiro is VALUABLE to Keith, he's the most important person in his life. Having people believe in him has always been difficult and I think where Lance says (although cryptically) that he believes in Keith, is really where their new dynamic takes off.

THAT's why Keith behaves somewhat coldly in S7, because its never gonna be easy for him to suddenly accept a new person in his life. He’s not sure how he should react to another person caring for him. Both of them know their dynamic isn't what it used to be, they can't joke and jab anymore. We're back to square one, but its different this time.

One last thing about this episode (that isn't Klance related) is Luxia's kingdom, just a fun quick thought that maybe the Baku might be back, i mean he never really was defeated, just trapped. ;)

Uhhh that's it! Can't think of anything else haha. Thanks for the wild ride friends, I hope these feed your optimism for today~ Again, they're all just theories but I hope S8 is a good experience for everyone! Have a great day :)

One last thing: I would love it if Klance happens and the theories prove true, and if it doesn't its okay! Sure I'll be disappointed, but its fine if I'm wrong about a fictional TV show lol.

#klance #keith #lance #vld #vld theory #klance theory #i think this was a nice theory #i worked hard on it pals uwu

[mattalesarts102-01-blog]

Project 1: Snippets

Hooray, my first Studio Arts project! I had a great time working on this- I can't remember the last time I was so excited to work on homework.

For this project, our task was to think about weird things we've heard people say, favorite quotes, song lyrics, et cetera and create images based on those "snippets." Like the Emo trash that I am, all three of my "snippets" were song lyrics. My first one, "Is anyone there? Oh... hi," is a line from Sad Machine, my favorite song from Porter Robinson. The second, "His hair, his smoke, his dreams," is a line from Colors, my sister's favorite song from Halsey. The third, "I'm drowning in a lifeboat," is a phrase used often by death's dynamic shroud.wmv, my mom's favorite Vaporwave artist (you read that right!) I chose those lines for the second and third because I intend to give the final prints as gifts to my sister and my mom, respectively.

Here, I'll briefly break down my process for each of them:

"I'm drowning in a lifeboat"

I started by creating a physical image. I sketched out the letters in pencil after very carefully drawing margin lines with a ruler. Then, I painted the letters vertically using heavy body acrylic thinned with water to make it appear like watercolor. While the paint was still wet, I photographed the page (using my hair clip to keep it from flopping over.) In Photoshop the following day, I resized and cropped the image, straightened it, added a Gaussian blur to smooth over the pixelation, then applied automatic color fixing operations.

The idea behind this image plays into my interpretation of the quote. I spent a long time painstakingly drawing out the letters and their spacing, but intentionally put very little effort into applying the paint neatly and even used the wrong kind of brush on purpose. Upon seeing this image out of context, one might think that the creator had a fair amount of skill with drawing, but next to no skill in painting. The point of all of this is to illustrate frustration. I interpret "I'm drowning in a lifeboat" to mean "I have the good foundation I need to be successful, so why am I still failing?" This image shows a good foundation in the drawn lines, but ultimately, it fails to be as neat and tidy as it set out to be.

"Colors"

I happened upon a stack of very old magazines someone left outside of McMaster and decided to use them to create a collage. I cropped the images and pieces of paper by folding and tearing, I arranged them in several different ways to see which configuration looked the best, then I pasted them in place. Despite the final image being in black and white, I used blue ink to write the text as an even deeper reference to the song. Then, I photographed the page in better lighting. In Photoshop, I resized and cropped the image, added a Gaussian blur, then applied a black-and-white filter. It didn't occur to me until days afterward that I needed to cite my images, and I'd put the magazines back in the pile where I found them! Would they still be there after several days of classes and rain? I'll cut to the chase: yes, they mostly were, but I had to do a bit of reverse image searching to find all the information needed. (This was about four days ago, and I'd written much more here, including the citations, but for some reason my post edits never saved so I've had to do all of this AGAIN.)

(Image sources: [top] Unknown historic photograph. [center] Moya, Rodrigo. "Che Melancólico." 1964. [bottom] Hopper, Dennis. "Double Standard." 1961.)

"Sad Machine"

For this one, I typed the quote into a Windows command terminal with the intent of the final image having a Vaporwave aesthetic. I tried photographing my computer screen for a more "lo-fi" look, but it looked unironically terrible and I decided to just use a screenshot. I used my computer's Snipping Tool to capture just the part that I needed, and I imported the capture into an 8"x8" blank artboard. To make the text clear and bright, I applied a very heavy-handed sharpening operation and turned down the saturation to get rid of color noise. Opening a new blank layer underneath the screencap, I created a two-color gradient and added color noise. I specifically chose to use blue with RGB values of 0, 255, 255 and magenta with RGB values of 255, 0, 255 (those colors probably have technical names that I don't know) because they're very popular in Vaporwave aesthetics and because I used those colors ad nauseam in my early days of making digital art in MS Paint and GIMP. I know that those colors don't quite print properly, though, but that's still in line with my intentions. Vaporwave aesthetics are characterized by mocking the technological ignorance of decades past and by imagery that can only truly exist on a computer. Imagine, if you will, someone amazed by the capabilities of their first home computer creating artwork to their heart's content using crazy full-saturation colors that simply cannot exist in the real world. They get their artwork printed and are disappointed in how their beautiful cyan and magenta turned out to be some sad pale blue and some dull reddish pink. And so the stark difference between the printed version and the uploaded web version of this snippet plays directly into its meaning.

[drink-n-watch]

I’m often out of step with the greater anime community. I’m the dork that’s super excited about the show that’s dead last in popularity in a season or that loves the least popular arc of beloved shows. At least I feel that way. I know a lot of people say the same thing and it’s not possible that no one agrees with popular opinion. That’s just not how popular works…

What I’m saying is that for better or worse, everyone was talking about the first season of Fire Force but this second one has generated much less interest. Yet in many respects, I like this second season more. And this episode really had some interesting setup.

The visual cues stayed the same as in the last few episodes at least at first. There is some interesting variation in the second half and I’ll try to point it out. One this I did really enjoy was the obvious mirroring between the dark lady of the Tabernacle and the Evangelist. It was pretty heavy-handed, however, this show has trampled on visual tropes and traditions a few times so when it puts out something so obvious that’s interesting in its own right.

 For a long time now Fire Force has been investing imagery. Our hero and protagonist is a devil with shiny red eyes. His friends are clad in heavy dark uniforms to overwhelm their figures and make their proportions look inhuman. The antagonists are dressed in white and often look like noble knights. The Evangelist has a lot of god imagery woven into their design. It makes sense that the dark lady would be good and the Evangelist bad but… Demon infernals are enemies. One can argue that they were brought to the form against their will but on a practical basis, they are still the guys we need to defeat. The church may be a wildcard but Sister, who has the most traditionally innocent character design, has been nothing but a peach! It’s like the show doesn’t play by its own rules or maybe things simply aren’t black and white.

Also, I was quite excited to finally get some definitive info on the Evangelist. First, it seems that the Evangelist and Adolla may be one and the same, finally clarifying that Adolla is an entity.  Second, we found out the Evangelist is a her. Despite seeing her a few times in season 1, I thought it was a man. Not sure what that says about me. It’s somewhat interesting to me that Fire Force is introducing so many powerful female characters this season. A lot of them are bad guys too.

First, that last image of the boys sleeping is one of my favourite caps!

Second, I know the images or anything, but this episode has some really great sound design. I don’t usually notice it much in Fire Force but I liked it this week. It made noises vary in register instead of making them louder in order to make more impact which I appreciate and there was a great use of silence. Silence is an underappreciated part of sound design.

I went back over my past screencaps and noticed that the desert shot, you know the one with the campfire, is a composition that’s reused a few times. Basically putting the group in the background (the fairground) in the center of the shot with and a level horizon close to the bottom and a huge sky. Then adding bones or curves protrusions to frame the image on either side making it look like our heroes are in some giant maw about to get devoured, or maybe a giant spring trap. It’s a cool shot.

Oh yeah, there was some story as well… We find out that the dark lady was indeed human and a pillar. Having been infected by one of the Evangelist’s bugs she should have become an infernal but she kept her mind and her will so I’m assuming she’s also a prokinetic. She also laid a bit of Dogma on us but nothing too shocking. We knew most of it or at least suspected as much. Mostly it defined the Evangelist as something not at all human. Something from beyond the void?

Stories with religious imagery or themes probably aren’t for everyone. As far as I can tell it’s pretty much only the iconography that’s being borrowed here. It does create a certain tone though. The episode also once again hinted to a short towards political intrigue. As the Church of Sol and the State of Tokyo are apparently very much integrated, going against one would be tantamount to going against the other. And there are finally doubts about the church forming on the edge of Shinra’s mind.

This is a huge deal. It also directly implicates Amaterasu, source of comfort, safety, possibly even life to the people Shinra has sworn to protect. What does all of it mean? A crisis of faith?

The also answered my question from last week. There is someone in Aaterasu and Shinra seems pretty confident she is Amaterasu. Great goddess of the sun and central character in one of my all-time favourite games. Amaterasu can’t be evil? Can she? We’re mixing religions here…

I kept that screencap of the poll with the loudspeaker for a specific reason. It was the best shot I got to illustrate a little something I noticed. After they got back to Tokyo, there was suddenly an abundance of dutch angles. Fire Force is a show that uses a lot of camera techniques and visual tricks. And although there have definitely been dutch angles in the past, they were never quite so present and insistent. And in this particular episode, I didn’t really notice any until the last minutes when they were home.  Dutch angles are often meant to convey a sense of unease. It’s a way to communicate to the audience that something’s not quite right without every saying it. So what’s wrong with Tokyo?

I’m dusting off my Shinra avatar!

Fire Force 2 Episode 10 – Orthodoxy I'm often out of step with the greater anime community. I'm the dork that's super excited about the show that's dead last in popularity in a season or that loves the least popular arc of beloved shows.

#action #anime #comedy #episodic #Fire Force #shonen