#something something la pieta

[noisyghost]

just put a bandaid on it

[plagueofskeletons]

something cool about a villain grieving their dead sibling or whatever

[uncreativebean]

How am I supposed to live in a world where at 24 Michelangelo created the Pietá sculpture and I'm sitting here trying to see if I can still roll myself into a blanket burrito??

[blackcr0wkingart]

I CAN FINALLY POST THIS

for my partner's birthday, i finally drew something i've wanted to make him for like.. at least 5 years. Elesh Norn and Atraxa from Magic: the Gathering, inspired by La Pieta.

I didnt want to do this until I knew I could do it at least some justice, and it's so funny to me that the year i finally felt i could do it, the Phyrexians came back and bit the dust, lmao. Oddly fitting?

I'm so proud of this though and my partner hung it up immediately ;w; this is one of my favorite pieces to date, so much was out of my comfort zone and still managed to go mostly right !!

[juana-the-iguana]

The Kat-aang kissing scene at the end of A:tLA was my least favorite scene, but Aang flying away from the GAang in the Sozen's Comet is the most disappointing one. That was supposed to be Part 1 of Aang's character's finale (the fight with Ozai would have been Part 2) and the writers flubbed it.

The scenario parallels him leaving the Southern Air Temple before the show starts.

He was at the air temple (an idyllic, innocent home), the time came for him to leave home and face other aspects of the world but that necessitated leaving behind Gyatsu, the man he loved the most and a parental figure. He's being asked to sacrifice too much for something he never wanted in the first place. He can't handle the pressure so he runs away, leaving behind Gyatsu. Maybe he wanted to run away for good, or maybe he needed to clear his head to come back, but he was never allowed to choose because there is a massive storm and he only survives because of spiritual intervention. When he wakes up after 100 years, his destiny is clear but his survival has come at a clear cost: Gyatsu is gone, and so are the Air Nomads.

And here's what happens before Aang runs away in the last few episodes:

He's at his home on an Eden-like island, the time came for him to confront the Fire Lord and that means killing Ozai. This is against his beliefs and would mean a departure from the culture and people he cherished. It's too much, he didn't even want to fight that battle, he wanted to lay low and keep training in this paradise. He can't handle the pressure so he runs away, leaving behind the people he loves the most, including Katara who is also a maternal figure in his life (they literally recreated La Pieta in Ba Sing Se). He is now in the middle of another sea, but unlike 100 years ago the water is warm and there is no physical storm forcing him there. This is a spiritual location and he talks to past Avatars. When he leaves his destiny is clear.

There's just one thing missing from the story this time around and it's the sacrifice.

They set one up in the form of letting go of his attachment to Katara. He did that in Ba Sing Se and still died, so when he returns he doubles down on his attachment to her to the detriment of her and their relationship.

Katara was an idea to him, she represented all of his worldly attachments. He had to let her go for his own good, but things didn't work out the way he wanted and he was free floating. He could hold on to his attachment to her and leave behind his Avatar duties (which he tried to do) or let her go for good.

When Aang leaves, Katara is the last person to try to get him to stay. This should be a significant moment, but the show just brushes by it. The audience should note how she is angry at him and showing that anger to him, which is not what she has done in the past when he runs away. Something is different between them. Their relationship is not the way it was before and it will never be that way again. He already lost her, he just needs to accept it.

This could have been very powerful moment. This should have been a powerful moment and the show should have built off of that emotionally.

Leaving behind Katara (again) should have been on the forefront of his mind. There should have been clear parallels to Ba Sing Se. And then it should have become obvious that his (romantic) relationship with her was already dead. She rejected him in EIP, he pushed her too far and now they're fighting again.

He should look at that and realize that and thought of what other ideas he is holding to an impossible, unrealistic standard. And, just like he is still able to be friends with Katara even though the idealized version of her no longer exists in his eyes (or rather, it shouldn't have after EIP), he should have realized that some of his beliefs about the Air Nomads are the same way. He had unrealistic ideas of what it meant to be an Air Nomad that he learned during a time of peace. He can still be an Air Nomad, even if he doesn't follow those beliefs to the law (and have Yangchen tell him that!).

Make him have to leave behind Katara like he had to leave behind Gyatsu and that same idea. It's hard, it's painful, but it is necessary to fulfill his destiny.

He literally does not need to kill Ozai. Personally, I like the idea of taking his aversion to violence that we see at the start of the series and turning it up to 10 after he wakes up at the start of the season. He's not scared to fight Ozai during the Day of Black Sun because he might not be prepared, he's scared to fight. Bring back his fear of confrontation from the start of the show! Killing is just the icing on top of this terrifying cake. His big "prove himself" moment should be showing up to fight in the first place! (It also makes him being totally ok with his friends killing other people seem a lot less hypocritical).

Idk that's just my idea, but there are so many other options that can carry the narrative full circle.

But the writers went the lion turtle route instead.

[mourningmaybells]

literally the only times I’ve ever gotten mad about the misuse of Catholic Church imagery is when Berserk tried to criticize the church (good!) but it was really vague and then used the crown of thorns to crown Casca (the crown of thorns is a joke, a jester hat, a noose, a boo boo the fool clown nose of suffering for a greater purpose in the context of Christianity) and also La Pieta being used for uwu couples since it always puts the woman in a motherly caretaker role (something fanbases already do constantly but I hate it so much)

like that’s it. do what you want. Judas used tongue.

[felix-lupin]

G'morning 💟💟💟

This is a ramble about a post about the Harry Potter books (wishing they were not written)...

I Really Enjoyed the Geodyssey series by Piers Anthony (Isle of Woman, Shame of Man, Hope of Earth, Muse of Art... I never read the last book... Climate of Change)

I read the first 4 books many years ago, and I Really Enjoyed reading these books and the style of writing that spanned across many generations and time periods. I re-read this series many times over the years, and each time I enjoyed the stories and the characters.

Piers Anthony is a prolific author that has written a plethora of books. I have only read the Geodyssey series, and not any of his other works.

And then something happened and the reputation of Piers Anthony changed from 'respected prolific sci-fi and fantasy author' to 'creepy creep'... He was writing too much about panties and female bodies and teenage sexuality and he is no longer popular or respected 😶

These things are confusing and sad.

Many times I have experienced emotional cruelty from others in the form of 'You like/enjoy (random media)? Then you must be the kind of awful/evil/wrong person who supports (inappropriate behaviors of the creator of that media)!'

These things are confusing and sad.

I imagine that about 98% of Creatives are Normal Humans that will be sometimes good and sometimes bad, but always Humans that are Going Through It, making mistakes and learning, and never perfect... And only about 1% of Creatives are perfectly evil rotten humans, and only about 1% of Creatives are perfectly good kind humans. The individual that consumes media is not responsible for the actions of the media creator. I guarantee that all humans have enjoyed a work of art/music/literature that was created by someone that they would be repulsed by, if they were to know the creative personally. Should this diminish the experience of enjoyment that the individual feels upon consuming the media?

For example... Michaelangelo was secretly queer but openly hatefully homophobic. In person he was bitter, condescending, sadistic, and rude. He did not bathe, and upon his death he had had the same pair of stockings on for So Many Years that it was necessary to scrape them off of his skin with a spatula. Meeting him in person would not be a pleasant experience for most humans... But he gave us David and La Pieta and the Sistine Chapel and So Much More! Should the Beauty of those works be diminished because they were created by an asshole?

And Jared Leto is a bad person and a bad actor, but Mr. Nobody is still an emotionally beautiful and thought provoking film.

There were too many examples, across all media, and through out all time. Should you choose to only consume media that was created by perfect humans, it would be necessary to live bereft of Art.

I perceive Art like this... There is a Collective Consciousness of humanity's ideas and imagination (the noosphere) and Creations are conducted into this realm of reality (born) through the Creatives (conduits). Consider the Michael Sheen quote/acting advice about the characters they portray not being able to exist unless they open themself and channel that out into the world (paraphrasing)... Consider a child being born... Is that child an extension of the parent? Responsible for the behaviors of the parent? Or is it its own entity that should be perceived by its own merits? Creations of Art are the manifestations of ideas and imagination that have been born through the conduit of Creatives... Creations of Art are the Children of Creatives. Should you be repulsed by a beautiful child because its parent is ugly or vulgar?

Have been thinking on this for a day or so... And just wanted to submit these thoughts for your consideration.

(I agree 100% that JK Rowling is a jerk and this ramble is Not About That)

💟💟💟

Good morning!

It's definitely a. Complicated subject? I agree that people shouldn't be harassed for what they enjoy in media, though. Someone who harasses or belittles others for what they enjoy in media will always be 100x worse than the person that's enjoying the "bad/problematic" media.

I personally could never read the Harry Potter books after what happened with JKR, but I do understand that there's a good amount of people who read the stories *before* the transphobia stuff came out, and to a lot of those people the series means something to them. There is some degree of separating the art from the artist, although it's impossible to do that entirely.

I think it's mostly fine as long as one acknowledges the problems that a work does have, things in the work that are. Prejudiced, for example. Although I do also understand that there's a lot of people that would rather not be. Reminded about Harry Potter, or talked to about it, or it upsets them when there's references to it.

Both of those people—people that are attached to Harry Potter and keep talking about it and making fanwork for it, and people that don't want to talk about it and having it referenced makes them uncomfortable— are valid. As long as nobody's harassing or belittling anyone else. Although, I will note that, while I can't control what anyone decides to do with their money bc it's their money, even the people who are still fans shouldn't buy things that are going to give money to JKR.

[oldkamelle]

ok so there's this sculpture, and i know nothing about sculptures save like the very famous ones, and i like it a lot.

(this is me just free flowing my thoughts as they come. it got kind of long, so open at your own discretion i guess.)

so the piece is called "lamentation over the dead christ". in christian art they do that thing fanartist would do back in like 2015 where they'd draw a specific moment from a gameplay video. same thing here, but with the bible instead. think the crusification of jesus, all the different paintings and sculptures of that. or pieta, the scene where, after taking him off the cross, mary is holding and cradling jesus' dead body. that's what "la pieta" by michelangelo is depicting. anyway,

this piece by niccolo dell'arca shows jesus after he's been taken down the cross and has been rid of the wooden stakes. he's laying down on the ground surrounded in a half circle by a group of figures who are expressing horror over the death of the son of god, y'know, it's a big deal and whatnot. so you have this half circle which creates a really nice flow for the piece, for the composition, but also, more importantly, for the flow in emotional depth in the figures.

you start of with this guy, joseph, who's equipped with tools in both his belt and his hand, so it's implied essentially that he's the one to have removed the wooden stakes from jesus' hands and feet. he has this poised and composed look, held together strongly. he's the only one staring out, towards the viewer, almost pushing you to bare witness to the death of jesus and what that means. i'm not religious, but its still interesting, y'know the thought behind details is always a fascinating part in art. next to him you have this woman, salome, i don't know who she is either. she has this pose of buckled knees, fingers spread and digging into the thighs. her pose alongside mary's, who's next to her, are really fucking nice. mary's especially is my favourite between the two, with her clasped hands pushing towards the chest, elbows pointing outwards, as this sorrowful expression with the mouth open mid-cry. just.. aughh. seeing depictions of such human poses, mundane, no embellishments, i live for that shit.

next is saint john. he's a guy. a dude, even. y'know how back in the day women would do these shows of hysterics, with loud cries and begging, at someone's death/funeral (they still happen sometimes today, i know, but it's rare), and men were of course forbidden in divulging in anything of the sorts. they had to remain composed, strong, like my guy joseph at the beginning. but its so cool with this fucking guy, john, because you see him physically trying to adhere to that social norm, hand on face trying to conceal, to forcefully compose, nostrils scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed, you see the physical, the muscles strongly in play trying to hold back the grief of witnessing the dead son of god. and even his overall pose kind of shows that, right? the pull back with the shoulder, this contrapposto, it's another manifestation of physically trying to hold back the grief. of course, he's failing. you see his face and it's almost like he's mid cry, swallowing it down. this entire piece is made in terracotta, which had become like a trend back in the renaissance, as it was pretty cheap and allowed for far more detail, like thin strands of hair for instance. terracotta could also be painted. you can see the remnants of the color in john's shirt, joseph's sleeves, kinda. so all these figures were at one point fully painted, bringing another layer of life to the piece. the point was to really make the scene feel as though real, the anguish, to prompt the viewer even further into fully engaging and joining the figures in the grief. its just really fucking cool to think about.

back to this shit. the piece de resistance, the last two figures: mary of something and mary magdalene. when looking at this piece, especially for the first time, your eyes will immediately go towards them, and its natural of course. they hold the most amount of dynamism in the piece, not with just their expressions (remember the intensity of physical grief is ever rising in the piece), but, as you see for yourself, their poses as well. now these two are fucking amazing; like i said, they hold the dynamism, the biggest displays of horror but they also hold a beautiful contrast.

both marys are running towards jesus with these wails of denial, right. but the mary of something else is trying to stop her galloping, her rush towards the body, a repelling denial of "no this cannot be true." she's in a semi contrapposto; we see and feel all the energy of her run trying to maintain the push forward in its moment, what with the way her front knee is holding the weight of the body, the way her hands are splayed out in front of her, trying to desperately block this truth, the pull-back of the upper half of her body, the cloth draped on her shoulder billowing in place with the abrupt stop in motion. look at the cloth on her head! ughhhhhhhhghghghgh.

speaking of cloth, mary fucking magdalene. my brother in (dead) christ, mary magdalene.

the hell do i even say, lads. she's running full sprint, horror perfectly etched on that open mouth scream, fingers spread open wide. both these gals are saying "this cannot be true" but magdalene's is the denial of rectification. it's as if she's ready to drop down on the ground and change reality to what it should be with those anguished hands, full of frightful energy. it's, it's fucking harrowing looking at her. the flow of wind coursing through her clothes, the fanning-out motion of it, oh brother, its so beautifully captured. look at the wave of her head scarf!

and all for a motherfucker in a "i had to do it to them" pose

(pic credit: https://medium.com/@alejandro.orradre/lamentation-of-christ-niccolò-dellarca-b74c8e6f10a7) the lighting is of course adding a lot to the drama of the photo, kind of achieving a sort of a chiaroscuro effect maybe, but goodness gracious, look at this!

(second pic credit: https://medium.com/@alejandro.orradre/lamentation-of-christ-niccolò-dellarca-b74c8e6f10a7) this is mary's expression. you can almost hear the wails, perhaps the short bursts of grieving songs between the wails, just oh man.

look at this freaking guy. the wrinkles on the side of his nose as his face scrunches up in an attempt to save face. his lower eyelids, that careful look over the grim reality on the ground.

the amount of emotion depicted throughout this entire piece is kneecap breaking, it's beautiful. i've kind of run out of steam at this point, but yeah, this is a banger sculpture (group of sculptures?), i really like it. if you have any favourite sculptures that are not that well known, please tell me, i want to see more art.

[hobbydrawer]

Religious symbolism, reference and implications, oh my!

Disclaimer: Content is based on the gameplay demo. The final gameplay is subjected to change by Neowiz and Round 8 studio, and thus, potentially making this post’s information outdated. Also, I am not a religious study expert. Please take everything I said in this post with a grain of salt.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To be fair, I thought I’m kinda done with the lore digging mission of this game’s demo but then... something happened. I came back, took a second glance at stuff in the gameplay and realized a few things.  This game has a lot of religious and philosophical references, and things don’t just stop at that La Pieta statue at the end of the trailer.  1) Christianity and Gnosticism 

The lamp that contains our buddy, Jiminy Gemini the Talking Cricket, is named as “Monad’s lamp”. Monad, in the concept of Greek philosophy, is the absolute Divine being, that comes first and being the perfect existence (that later bear the dyad, and then the points, etc). Monad is usually presented as a circle with a dot in the center, as below:

“The symbolism is a free exegesis related to the Christian Trinity.[5] Alan of Lille mentions the Trismegistus' Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers where it says a Monad can uniquely beget another Monad in which more followers of this religion saw the come to being of God the Son from God the Father, both by way of generation or by way of creation.[5] This statement is also shared by the pagan author of the Asclepius[5] which sometimes has been identified with Trismegistus. The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers completes the scheme adding that the ardor of the second Monad to the first Monad would be the Holy Ghost.[5] It closes a physical circle in a logical triangle”

In this way, the concept of Monad is “tied in” with Christianity and the “voice of the conscience” that the Talking Cricket represents in the novel. As the description suggests, “Do not fear [...] cricket’s guidance will be with you.”, Gemini will function not only as our combat guide AI but probably also as the voice of conscience, the moral compass and the voice of the Divine. Being the voice of the Divine, Gemini could likely end up against P/the player in certain quests, and this might lead to the events like in the novel (the Cricket being killed, and then later appear again as the Ghost of the Talking Cricket). In fact, as I pointed out in one of my previous posts, this Gemini we saw in one of the gameplay demos is not even the first version of  Gemini that P met.  Additionally, being the voice of conscience and representative of the Divine, Gemini could also act as an agent for the Three council (whose symbol we encountered in V’s factory), and whose job is likely to guide and shape P toward a certain development (with P being hinted as one of the puppets that didn’t receive The Grand Covenant inscription).  The reason I’m speculating that Gemini and the Three council are probably relating to each other is because of this symbol:

that vaguely combines the idea of Monad with the Holy Trinity (and further reinstate the statement from The Book of the Twenty Four philosophers) : 

With a game that places a lot of emphasis on destiny, predisposed fate and God, it is not at all surprising that we get to see something like this in the game. The floor is drawn out with a “physical circle enclosed in a logical triangle”, and the placement of the chairs vaguely suggests the existence of a Holy Trinity-equivalent in the game. However, note that the game doesn’t strictly adhere to the Holy Trinity’s description in Christianity and also adds in their own creative characterization in the game.  It is possible that the Three council is comprised of Geppetto (the Father), Sophia (the Holy Spirits) and Venigni (the Son). So each person, to their own respect, is ‘God’ (or God equivalent) by themselves. Giveth that Gemini made some remarks about a mysterious woman, who is possibly related to Gemini and its duty, could it be that the Talking Cricket is referring to Sophia?  Another possible candidate for the third position could be Antonia, who is a genderbend version of Master Antonio (the person who discovered and gave the magical wood log to Geppetto in the novel). Following this interpretation, Antonia is the “Holy Spirits” in the Trinity, whom discovery and work has helped create the famous Krat puppets.  note: Someone has pointed out in Discord that Venigni is a reference to the name Benigni. Roberto Benigni is the director and comedian who both directed and played as Pinocchio, the titular character in the movie of the same name in 2002. He then goes on to play as Geppetto in Garrone’s movie in 2019. This is interesting, because a graffiti on the wall accused Venigni as “a dummy”...And the guy is owner and director of a factory which made a lot of important stuff, including puppets...And he is the Prince of the High society too... => So by either embracing the Divine’s guidance, or rejecting it, P is subjected to be an Antichrist Antigod figure or to be led toward salvation, to fulfill his destiny.  2) Buddhism, reincarnation and the concept of rebirth that happens in many heroic journey novel  A common concept that is employed in many adventure novel is the death and rebirth cycle for the protagonist. This can happen physically or metaphorically, depending on the plot’s direction. “The adventure of Pinocchio” is no exception. Many times, the protagonist went through literal and metaphorical deaths: being hung on a tree, turn into a donkey and thrown into the sea, swallowed by a shark, mourning for the death of his mother figure, etc.  And I swear I don’t have a hallucination from reading the Korean interview (that, unless I have been fooled by the beloved Google Translate), but: 

According to PD Choi, there will be Buddhism theme supplemented in the background as if the game doesn’t have enough religious reference already. It may sound far-fetched and ill-fitted with the Western philosophy and Christianity reference already there but, hear me out, this may work in tandem wonderfully.  One of the Buddhism concepts that overlap with the death-and-rebirth theme of the novel is the wheel of life and the cycle of reincarnation:

According to the principle of the cycle of reincarnation, one individual/soul will be born into one of the six realms, and depending on the karma they accumulate in their lives, that once one individual die, they will be reborn into an appropriate realm befitting of their good deeds or bad deeds. All beings are trapped in this cycle endlessly, and they can only break free from it through enlightenment. (”All beings within the six realms are doomed to death and rebirth in a recurring cycle over countless ages -- unless they can break free from desire and attain enlightenment.”)

The six realms are (some wording can vary depending on regions):

Realm of God-Heaven (also known as Realm of Deva)

Realm of Demon (sometimes refer to as Realm of Atula)

Realm of Hungry Ghosts ( Hungry ghosts = Preta-gati in Sanskrit, or Gakido in Japanese)

Realm of Human

Realm of Animal

Realm of Hell 

In this, Hell is considered the ‘worst’, for all of its torment, and suffering, while Heaven is the representation of “bliss” and “pleasure” (but not necessarily the best, because the ‘Deva’ who enjoy a long life of bliss are eventually blind from the suffering of other realms’ citizens, and in the end, are still subjected to the principle of the reincarnation).  Interestingly, a parallel: by traveling to the Land of Toys and being turned into donkeys...is vaguely an equivalent of being reincarnated into the Realm of Animal, because both realms require their denizens to accumulate “ignorance” and “laziness” to be ‘reincarnated’ into animal Now this next part is simply my interpretation of the situation, and again, does not necessarily reflect the game’s content, or the development team’s artistic interpretation. So treat it with a grain of salt (or as a headcanon) ======================================================= With all the info so far, it is possible to consider Krat city right now as a representation of “Realm of Hell”. According to Chinese mythologies, that was popularized in Tang dynasty, Hell is consisted of 18 layers. And then, in an interview, Director Choi has hinted, that the game will have around 15 chapters, each chapter represents an area, with expandable DLC. I don’t know how many DLC packs the team are going to implement but summing up the number, that’s roughly equal to the 18 layers of Hell!  Now if you go along with this interpretation, putting into the perspective of P’s journey going into Krat (Hell) to find his father, Mr. Geppetto, then we can draw a big parallel with a famous Chinese Buddhism tale called “Mulian saves his mother from Hell”

(image courtesy of a 19th century scroll, from Wikipedia) The reason why I’m pulling this up as a parallel is not only because of the idea of P finding Mr. Geppetto in Krat but also because of Geppetto’s plea from the Gamescom’s trailer, asking P to help him. In the original Mulian tale, Mulian’s mother was punished in the deep layers of Hell for her sins (”his mother is suffering extremely in the Avīci Hell, the cruelest of the purgatories “), suffering all sort of cruel punishment. Mulian, who is a Buddha’s disciple, wants to save his mother due to filial duty. But he can’t do it by himself, and thus needs to ask for help from Buddha and other disciples. Thanks to his relentless and filial effort, his mother (after reborn through many other realms as well) is finally saved (some ver may say not), and thus the concept of Ghost Festival is born. It is possible that Geppetto has committed some serious sins in the past, and is now “suffering for his punishment” in this hellish Krat. P, being a filial child, is willing to journey into this hellscape to save his father, but he would need help from other characters to do this. note: This story was one of the earliest to be written down in the literature Korea, Japanese and Vietnamese. A another interesting finding.  => In this interpretation, P’s journey is parallel to Mulian’s journey. By saving his father, P might be setting up a foundation for an unprecedent virtue/action that never seen before. And like Mulian, who later ascended and achieved enlightenment (breaking free from the cycle of reincarnation), P could also achieve enlightenment, transforming into a being beyond human. (I don’t know if this interpretation can apply to Antonia, no info further so far to support this) ======================================================== 3) P/Pinocchio and how does he fit into all of this? With so many elements coming together like this, it is easily to be confused about what role or figure P is playing in this game. To be fair, I don’t know either. We don’t have enough information to interpret this. One of my speculations is that P is currently “stuck” at the Realm of Hungry Ghost, which is a domain below the Realm of Human, and characterized by an aching emptiness and perpetual yearning for something that is unattainable. This is also a domain for obsession and addiction, and a result of accumulating bad karma for such desire. Some might say it is a domain for those who refuse to ‘descend’ into Hell. This would make sense, considering that P wants to be a human, to ascend to the Realm of Human.  I’m using the word ‘stuck’ is because so far, we haven’t seen P displaying any characteristics of a typical denizen of the Realm of Hungry Ghost. More likely, P only reflects a part of the characteristic of this realm: longing and yearning for something perpetually- in this case, Humanity. Thus, this is not a strong evidence to support this theory.  Another possibility is that P is already outside of this cycle of reincarnation, but he is willing to earn a ‘soul’, and become a part of this cycle, so that he could fulfill his predisposed destiny that is guided by the voice of the Divine (to be a savior? to break the cycle?). But for whatever his higher calling is, he must first delve into this Hell called Krat city first. 

TLDR: In a journey to Hell, influenced by both Eastern and Western religions, depending on whether you embrace the guidance from the High above or not, P may or may not end up being a Messiah, or in a less favorable position. Maybe P stands for Player, not just Pinocchio

[soldatrose]

got some unexpected free time and not enough braincells to be productive which means it's the perfect occasion to write something vaguely resembling a personal review. saw giulio cesare. holy shit! some messy and too long notes about it.

the bad:

honestly laurent pelly's staging and costumes don't really do it for me. which is too bad because while it's absolutely not revolutionary, the idea of setting the story in a museum storage area could still be used in really interesting ways, especially for a story like caesar and cleopatra's! but idk i felt that there wasn't enough coherence or subtlety to hold everything together. the museum workers alternatively interact with the characters or ignore them and those interactions never seem particularly meaningful. at some points the direction choices made me straight up uncomfortable, including the whole group of workers following cleopatra around. the story already has its fair share of sexual harassment, adding some wasn't really necessary. cornelia was treated in a similar way, she's constantly cornered against walls and shelves to the point where you just wish the direction could let her take some space on the stage.

also yeah those costumes are really ugly. :/ cornelia's asymmetrical dress pissed me off a little.

(i liked caesar's cloak though. mmmmh folds. i wonder what material they used)

the ??:

cleopatra's boob out was funny the first few minutes and then i started feeling cold for her tbh. problem of seeing this opera in january. also shout out to the two ladies behind me who were whisper-wondering whether it was a real boob (it was not)

sorta-related is ptolemy getting an apparently disappointing bj from a male slave in the harem. diversity wins your orientalist caricature is bisexu-oooh. oooh no. it was funnier when it was whatever ptolemy and achillas had going on in the glyndebourne prod.

still on ptolemy. i'm putting it in the ?? category because it's not a requirement but some of the prods i've seen choose to make the domero la tua fierezza aria a semi tragic moment of irreconciliable fracture between two siblings and i quite like that. you don't have to like ptolemy to admit that he's also caught in a vicious circle of violence. that prod didn't go that way and ptolemy stayed a sort of comic relief from beginning to end. it's a choice, i respect it, but it does make the character and his arc less interesting.

the painting collection moment (i think it was during the se in fiorito?) was cool because woohoo artworks but also. it felt a little bit like watching a bad youtube history edit about cleopatra ngl. still amusing to hear caesar contemplate marrying lydia like we didn't just see a painting with calpurnia on it.

looked it up afterwards because i didn't know this painting and the british museum describes it as caesar discarding pompeia for calpurnia. and now i'm wondering whether the production knows that because all the other portraits were of caesar and cleopatra or cleopatra alone??? confusing for no reason

the handel portrait and nireno going "???" made me laugh though. hi genius

emily d'angelo didn't sing caesar. i hope she will one day i know she would be amazing in that role.

the good:

my first baroque opera live!!!

honestly just. this opera. you can't really fail (or at least you can't fail me) with this opera as long as you put an okay orchestra and okay singers. the whole cast was great and the orchestra amazing. i wish we could have clapped specifically for the horn player because they did fantastic.

EMILY D'ANGELO SEXTUS. HI. HI.

i already knew gaelle arquez's caesar from the champs-élysées prod and i still like her a lot! greatly enjoyed iestyn davies's ptolemy too, his voice is truly wonderful and that video of him in agrippina is also why i'm a bit disappointed they didn't give him a short despair moment. i loved oropesa's cleopatra, i don't think she does many ornaments (?) but her se pieta left me genuinely breathless (one of the moments where the staging actually supported the music instead of hindering it!) and so did her piangero.

did i mention emily d'angelo's sextus? yeah holy fuck. do i have the words. obviously i was biased from the start on account of. everything. but her voice is fantastic and so warm (and constantly carried over the music, which wasn't a given) and she almost brought me to tears in the cara speme. also those quick moments where she's almost screaming. mmh.

still the cara speme but i desperately need an hd pic of her sextus in that "fragile" wodden packaging box.

looks like this btw. get in the box boy we're shipping you to libya:

ok last cara speme comment but it seems to be the only moment in the prod when the characters seem to purposefully leave the stage to leave space for another character's aria.

pompey's decapitated marble head is still a goddamn hit, so is the picture of his wife and kid mourning under it. was weirded out (half in a good way) by the fact that the alma del gran pompeo was performed with a funeral urn when pompey's head was very much. still there. behind bars.

the funeral urn looked like an amphora without handles though.

you have heard of caesar flirting with cleopatra during pompey's funeral, get ready for caesar and cleopatra almost getting it on in front of pompey's urn. somehow i had forgotten that "caesar will find me more attractive than pompey's decapitated head :)" is an actual cleopatra moment

all the statues! *parisi caesar's statue being brought onto the stage wobbling on its forklift* my brain immediately: kick it down :)

hyperfixating on sextus and cornelia real quick but once again the priva son d'ogni conforti introduces a distance between them and ough, the way he looks at her and she ignores him completely. which well. fits the aria. technically you could see the son nata a lagrimar as a reparation of that, esp with the parallel priva son d'ogni conforti/il dolce mio conforto. also we still had the non ha piu che temere with an absolutely elated cornelia and a sextus still reeling from ten different traumas. i love that, especially because i just re-discovered that sextus is supposed to have already left.

btw it was an unclear struggle but i think cornelia was the one to actually stab ptolemy??

*sextus asks caesar how he survived* *something huge falls in the wings, which i'm assuming was the deus ex machina leaving the stage*

cleopatra contemplates suicide, pulls out a snake. for all the caesar and pompey hauntings in the antony&cleopatra story it didn't occur to me that a&c could haunt giulio cesare. i need to think on that a little. (esp because it's not the only thing that happens in reverse, ex: cleopatra comes out of the carpet at the very end of the opera)

well anyway, i'll maybe watch the scholl&bartoli prod some time next week or the week after. to complete that deck.

[trucbiduleschouettes]

At the end of the last encounter of @semageon ‘s campaign Cantatio, my genasi bard carried the bad guy down the tower the encounter took place at

I have been wanting to draw something about it after seeing La Pieta statue for almost a year now, and FINALLY went around to draw it! 

(do not use/repost) 

[ravenzeyez]

Leaving it all behind song recs

I made a list of all the song recs from Leaving it all Behind, idk if anyone has done this (someone probably has) but i cant be bothered to see if someone has so here it is.  Leaving it all Behind Way Down We Go - KALEO Bitter End - Rag’n’Bone One Thing Right (Instrumental) - Piano Dreamers. Lilium (Ellen Lied) - Grissini Project Lay My Body Down - Rag’n’Bone Man One - Metallica Fake it - Seether Shallow - Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood  Astronaut In The Ocean (Alok Remix) - Masked Wolf. “Going the Distance” from Hercules Lovely – Billie Eilish & Khalid All Around Me – Flyleaf Ocean eyes – Billie Friend Like Me - Betty Who Till It’s Gone - Yelawolf Skin - Rag’N’Bone. We Will Rise Again (feat. Meredith Godreau) – Dan Romer  7 years – Daniel Jang Take on the World - You Me At Six Risking it All Winterwolf - BrunuhVille Stokkseyri - Jónsi & Alex Become the Beast - Karliene Say My Name - Ólafur Arnalds Run - Ludovico Einaudi Threnody - Goldmund Walked Through Hell - Anson Seabra All I’ve Got - Rüfüs Du Sol  Come Away to the Water - Maroon 5 Next To You - Little Big Town Song of the Abyss - Aviators Bad Habits - Ed Sheeran July - Noah Cyrus 39 Seconds & Tokyo Rain - Marcus Warner Wolfborn - BrunuhVille NFWMB - Hozier  Male Fantasy - Billie Eilish Into The West - Peter Hollens NFWMB - Hozier Become The Beast - Karliene (I listened to this A LOT) Snake Eyes - Mumford & Sons Watch The World Die - Cody Jinks sum of our parts - mary lambert invincible - adelitas way Heat Waves - Harrison Running up that hill - Kate Bush Pieces by Rob Thomas Sunny side of summer - Bobs burgers movie Love is not dying - Jeremy zucker Little dark age - MGMT Take it all back - Judah & The Lion Sedated - Hozier This Place is a Shelter - Olafur Arnalds Experience - Angèle Dubeau and La Pieta Run - I Virtuosi Italiani and Ludovico Einaudi something in orange - Zach Bryan running away (acoustic version) - Hoobastank everything - Lifehouse Into the Fire Good To Be Alive - PVRIS Mad World - Gary Jules  Tokyo Rain - Marcus Warner Don’t Blame Me - Taylor Swift Good to Be Alive - PVRIS Save Me - Jelly Roll Bells in Santa Fe - Halsey  Lay My Body Down - Rag’n’Bone Man Gasoline - Halsey Song of the Abyss - Aviators Ghost - Badflower Falling Up - Dean Lewis

[toughknit]

something about the barista wearing a shirt saying "heretic" and me ordering my decaf with la pieta on my shirt

[fateandwar]

Something different rises in me this dawn. For I see, like the biting cold in late November, clearly what must be done. I suppose it brings upon a certain kind of melancholy this time of year is familiar with. A death of nature, as it faces its crucible season, I follow in sync a death of something within. Thawing only with sun as the day breaks, sparks of new beginnings have the possibility to take shape. A sense of mystery in what the light may bring. For a finger could not place such a feeling as this.

Flight composed by Rachel Portman, Angele Dubeau, la Pieta

To believe by the cinematic orchestra

[galaghiel]

piety - the quality of being religious or reverent

[swordmaid]

a little compilation & comparison of my-- j/b re-imagined as classical art series i seem to be doing these days. individual links: the kiss / la belle dame sans merci / pieta

la belle dame sans merci is still my favourite one out of all of them tbh, though, if you have any suggestions of what piece i should adapt next you’re more than welcome to throw ‘em my way !