party like it's 1776

Alice | 18 | King George wannabe I drabble in doodling | opera nerd | anything musicals/Broadway/orchestral, I'm into | befriend me but I'm not your ministry project | sister is @artdalek

[coffeebuddha]

rational brain: you have zero occasions to wear tiaras and buying twenty different ones ‘just in case’ would be a ridiculous waste of money

lizard brain: BUY THE SHINY, PUT THE SPARKLE ON HEAD, HOARD THE PRETTY, BE PRINCESS

[bidet-of-evil]

[notahotlibrarian]

Look y’all.  Buy the fuckin’ tiara.  

I bought one randomly several years ago (because I wanted it, and it was on sale) and you know what? I’ve worn it several times now.  To a Marilyn Monroe-themed event.  For the last three New Year’s parties I went to.  On Halloween. To a fuckin’ work event.  Randomly around my house while listening to music.

Life is long.  Wear what makes you happy, even if it’s a ten pound goddamn tiara of stars.

[smartmouthdwench]

On Tuesdays, we wear tiaras.

[tiarasnteakettles]

Hello.

[morloth88]

[classical-carp]

instrument moral alignment chart

[prokopetz]

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

[veteratorianvillainy]

#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)

[persephoneshadow-deactivated202]

I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.

[prokopetz]

Totally.

A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.

(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)

Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:

Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36

TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66

Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.

The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?

[observethewalrus]

YES YES YES HOLY SHIT YES FUCKING THANK YOU!

[ainedubh]

Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.

[slitthelizardking]

I really appreciate when tumblr commentary is of the quality I might see at an academic conference. No joke.

[lierdumoa]

This doesn’t even account  for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well. 

But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.

[destinationtoast]

Yay, mathy arguments. :)

This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.

In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het).  (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.

[thewightknight]

Shakespearean insults, with cats.

7 more here.

[kat-howard-deactivated20241127]

I did not realize how very perfect cats were at delivering Shakespeare’s insults until now.

[mckitterick]

[overcalm]

[aesthete-degas]

Figaro: Through the phone books you'll be scouring, it won't be at all empowering

Cherubino:

Cherubino:

Cherubino: i came out here to have a good time and honestly i'm feeling so attacked right now

[roadtogalavant]

GALAVANT TO SAVE THE DAY WITH A FULL SOUNDTRACK RELEASE (FINALLY)

Way back in days of old, there was a legend told about a hero known as Galavant, and that hero was the star of an ABC series that had its moment in the sun for two seasons in 2015 and 2016. The show from Dan Fogelman was a musical medieval comedy and featured music by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater. Galavant had wit, a tremendous cast, and memorable songs coming out of its ears. Though ABC and Hollywood Records released soundtracks for both seasons, they didn’t make every single song from the series available–much to the frustration of fans. That’s changing.

While talking with Alan Menken about his contributions to the live-action Beauty and the Beast, we learned a new, comprehensive edition of the Galavant soundtrack is in the works. The composer had just played me the Galavant theme song (complete with singing!) and said a two CD soundtrack with every song from Galavant is happening. That means we’ll finally get to play tunes like “Secret Mission” and “I Love You (As Much As Someone Like Me Can Love Anyone)” on repeat alongside our other favorites. Menken said he pushed to make the release happen and get all the music out there, to which I say, “Thank you.”

Read more

[star-anise]

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

[prokopetz]

I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.

[prokopetz]

Seriously, we’ll never figure it out. I’ll wager trying to understand “exit, pursued by a bear” with the text of The Winter’s Tale as our primary source is like trying to understand loss.jpg when all you have access to is a single overcompressed JPEG of a third-generation memetic mutation that mashes it up with YMCA and “gun” - there’s this whole twitching Frankensteinian mass of cultural context we just don’t have any way of getting at.

[sandovers]

no, but this is why people do the boring archival work! because we think we do know why “exit, pursued by a bear” exists, now, and we figured it out by looking at ships manifests of the era -

it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.

we think the answer is polar bears.

no, seriously!  in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’  it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they?  so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless?  well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences.  and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear?  what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity? 

and, voila, we have a death-by-bear for the unfortunate antigonus, thereby freeing up paulina to be coupled off with camillo in the final scene, just as the comedic conventions of the time would expect.

[aeolian-mode]

I’m absolutely embarrassed that I never knew this before but…

The pen stand that most Wacom products come with?

It twists off and has a bunch of nibs in it. I’ve been buying extra nibs when they were in this stupid thing the whole time.

[jateshi]

Reblog to save a life.

[thedovahcat]

ARe YOU KIDDING

[viatorai]

I just checked and HOLY FUCK

[discretelyobvious]

For anyone who has a Wacom Intuos that looks like this 

The spare nibs are on the back of the removable panel where you can change the pen loop colour. 

Also there’s a little hole in that compartment that looks like this

You see the little eject symbol? This guy is how you remove your worn down nibs.

Press the pen nib in on an angle like this and lift up.

and ta-da! you just removed your pen nib!

[cannoliao]

HOOOLLLLYYY COOOOW

[iswearimnotnaked-deactivated201]

see honestly i am the easiest person to impress because literally no one has ever really bought me flowers or taken me dancing or on a picnic or any of that romantic junk and i would just melt at any of it

[paprika]

[labors]

[jolts upright at 2:54 am] i’m GAY

hey … so,.. uhh… (looks at notecards) did you uh did …you fall out of heaven because um (drops cards) shit fuck oh god fuck im so sorry  youre-youre just s o.pretty i m soryr

[petty-revenge-stories]

Thirsty?

I play in an LA symphony and of the world’s greatest trumpet players sits directly in front of me. For those of you who don’t play brass instruments, you almost need a constant supply of water to keep from keeling over especially from two straight hours of playing.

So this player is absolutely brilliant. For this concert when we first started playing I had only seen him open his music once and then never again. His playing is f*cking unreal, and he has never once missed a note or played remotely out of tune. Let’s call him Sam.

So, Sam is the essential god of the trumpet, and everyone, including myself, treats him as a deity. There are just two problems with good ‘ole Sam; he’s nervous as f*ck, and always forgets his water bottle.

So, we’ve played this concert about five times, and this is our sixth. Halfway through, Sam plays a beautiful solo which could melt the soul of Satan into a warm puddle, and like clockwork, two measures before he plays, he leans back and steals my buddy Roy’s water bottle. This happens literally every concert, and it pisses Roy off because not matter how many times we tell him, he doesn’t give it back until the concert is over. An a**hole he is.

This sixth concert, we reach the solo, and as usual, Sam leans back, grabs the bottle and takes a big ‘ole swig… And chokes. Because that’s not water. It’s Vodka.

He drops the bottle, rushes to grab mine… More Vodka. Our conductor is looking at Sam, and it’s half a measure before he plays. Panicking, he picks up his trumpet… And plays his solo the best of his life. We took him out for drinks afterwords.

He bring two water bottles to concerts now.

Petty Revenge: Your daily dose of the best petty revenge stories. | source

[alrightevans]

jane austen: this character is going to be the purest, sweetest, prettiest, kindest character i have ever written jane austen: everybody will love her jane austen: she is her mother’s favourite jane austen: a rich, kind, handsome bachelor falls instantly in love with her jane austen: the heroine looks up to her jane austen: she has never done anything wrong in her entire life jane austen: if she has any character flaws at all its that she is TOO much of an absolute sweetheart jane austen: and i will call her….. jane austen: jane :-)