Musical Theater Aesthetics: The Basics

Musical Theater Aesthetics: The Basics

Hamilton: The mingling of dust and sweat, hefty textbooks, that one college sweatshirt, high school girlfriends, red pen on 12pt Times New Roman, Red Bull fueled all nighters, falling asleep on your term paper, bloody noses from fistfights, all consuming hunger, that poem you can’t name but cannot forget, hero worship

Dear Evan Hansen: Crying silently, sleeping through alarms, the school nurse’s office, back row at the talent show, checking your phone for alarms that won’t come, looking through photo albums of your childhood, keeping safe distances, board games, the smell of clean linen, the yearning for the ocean

Heathers: Fucking up your eyeliner, accidentally flipping off your mom, eating fruit while you do math homework, scanning lists for your name, scratchy jackets, sweaty handholding, kicking rocks, acne cream that doesn’t work, cherry popsicles on a spring afternoon, graffiti in the girl’s bathroom, curly pencil handwriting on loose leaf paper, the sound of music from someone else’s car as it passes by you on the road, shellshocked faces, faded red lipstick

Les Misérables: Marble that is past its prime, thin white dresses, stepping on cracked cobblestone, petal-soft kisses, mother’s necklace, hearing screaming through your rickety walls, cold sweat clinging to your forehead, biting into a peach that’s a day too ripe, rain hitting the dirt, going to church despite the pain

Be More Chill: Cracked phone screens, stealing bits of your friend’s lunch, playing truth or dare, incomprehensible inside jokes, weeds that look like flowers, sneaking out of the house, dancing to music coming from a phone speaker, platonic kissing, pink carnival tickets, dry-erase markers, cassettes, teachers that make weed jokes

Spring Awakening: “Am I gay” quizzes at 3am, the tight air of a local drugstore, staring up at your bedroom ceiling, posters of celebrities, piercing your own ears, kisses under the bleachers, failing tests, pink shag carpets, singing into your hairbrush, starting books but never finishing them, awkward family dinners

Wicked: Inscriptions on the inside of your yearbook, crying happy tears, slick black trench-coats, the screams of protest, staring at pictures in newspapers, eating lunches alone, laughter that drops off quickly, forgetting your own name, being willing to kill for your best friend, being willing to die for your best friend, dancing in celebration, refusing to show emotion

Phantom of the Opera: Intricate lace, voices echoing in cavernous spaces, footprints in freshly fallen snow, blood soaking through black suits, winding cursive on parchment, biting the locket your father gave you, the feeling of being in an inescapable trance, smelling roses but not knowing where they are, candles that have burned out

Rent: Screaming and not being heard, wearing clothes despite the holes, clutching the arms of the guy you think you might love, the feeling of weakness overtaking you, going to parties for the free food, reclining on a ratty couch and laughing until you cry, being able to speak three languages and barely using one, knowing someone who knows someone who knows someone

Fucking stab that reblog button if you hate pedos

I was soaked and freezing cold by the time we reached this alpine lake, but something about the sound and tranquility kept me completely unbothered.

Killer Queen - Queen (Isolated Vocals)

fuck. fuck.

Subway Sandwich Thighs: A Blight Upon Women's Legs in Comics

Please, No More Subway-Sandwich Thighs!

I want to talk about a comic art convention I see from time to time that really gets up my nose.  Now, when I say convention, I mean an accepted technique or practice in the field rather than a gathering of gloriously enthusiastic nerds in costume.  In this instance, I am talking about a particular drawing shortcut that is accepted as “solid” and “professional” in the industry that I find teeth-grindingly lazy and bizarre.  I call it “Subway Sandwich Thighs”. As illustrated below:

As you can see, the thigh and the calf are sandwiched together, mid-air, without anything pressing against the underside of the calf to make it that way. Legs do not work that way, not even in bendy women. We cannot bend our legs and make them do that in mid-air. For that to happen, we need to put our weight on our bent legs, kneeling on the ground. It is the weight of our bodies that pushes the two parts of the legs together. Usually, the legs splay to the side, so that they aren’t pushed together too hard. We often sit on the side of our butts after about three or four minutes, cause that shit is uncomfortable.

As an experiment, go in front of a mirror, and try to bend your leg as much as you can, pressing your heel to your buttock. Do not use your hands to press the foot and buttock together – just check how close you can get naturally. If you’re a guy, I really want you to try this.

Now, stand there and imagine flying for more than ten minutes in that position. It fucking hurts, doesn’t it? It’s tight, it’s unnatural. It’s the sort of thing a dancer does for two seconds before leaping away into another pose. It is not a natural position to take.

I half-jokingly wonder if artists employ it because it evokes the mental imagery of a woman splaying on top of a man during intercourse, straddling him. It can display the buttocks in a pleasing way, and it also makes much of the crotch. But it’s the most ridiculous bloody drawing convention outside of the Rubber Spine thing, and I’d be more than happy if it died a quiet death.

Here are some gymnasts, naturally flexible people, bending their legs in the middle of routines. Notice their aren’t squishing the two halves of their legs together:

Here are some women kneeling. Just for reference for later corrections:

And now, some corrections:

Okay, enough of me picking on JSC.  Here’s the nitty gritty of the matter, and a hat-tip to stylistic choices:

Thanks to tumblr’s downscaling, the red text is: Leg too long, No pelvis all butt, heel goes where? and Where leg go? as well as “This looks odd but my body is really like this”.

The anatomy I’ve done isn’t perfect, but I think I illustrate my point.

The Anatomy of a Fuck Up:

So what’s happening here? Why are people making this mistake over and over? The reason is twofold.

One: Mistaken anatomy. When these artists draw their stuff to arse-up, face-down, no-time-to-fart deadlines, they don’t have the leisure I do to stop and think about how a woman looks when doing these poses. So when they have to think about a woman flying mid-air, they think about a woman kneeling, rather than an actual woman with her leg in the air. They just transfer the kneeling leg position to the upright position, even though the human muscles, tendons and body mass DO NOT ALLOW for that to happen.  With kneeling positions, they just go ahead and trundle out the shortcuts they learnt earlier in the piece, without thought to how heels and butt-cracks work.

Two: It’s Not Important.

In most situations, accuracy of a woman’s anatomy is not important in a comic book or graphic novel. A female character must be alluring above all, so certain anatomically impossible conventions get the wave and are never fixed. Other people learn these “shortcuts” and that it’s okay to draw like that, and it keeps on happening. FOREVER.

I’m not saying don’t use sweeping lines for style.  I’m just saying let’s not have utterly ridiculous anatomy going on.  These women characters take up so little space already.  Draw them as the leg is supposed to look and suddenly they have legs and tendons and physical signs of strength.  I guess that isn’t sexy enough?

Why Isn’t Tumblr Freaking Out?!?!

Guys. Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed!!!!

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed!

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

I don’t know if I’ve said it enough. So…

ARTICLE 13 JUST GOT PASSED!!!!

I have been on tumblr all morning and haven’t seen one post about it yet! I don’t understand how!

ARTICLE 13 JUST GOT PASSED!!!!

It was a 438 to 226 fucking landslide vote too. (https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17849868/eu-internet-copyright-reform-article-11-13-approved)

They’re voting on it one last time in January 2019, but that’s barely any time to change anything!!!!

You still have time to call your MEPs so PLEASE!!! Do so.

If you’re outside of the EU, sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/axel-voss-save-the-internet-reject-article-13-and-11?recruiter=839558037&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

If you don’t know what this means, it’s basically then end of how the internet currently is in Europe. Memes? Nope. Youtubers? Bye!

You’d need a license for everything!!!!

And my fellow Americans my be all like, well, what’s the big deal for us? It’s a Europe deal.

No, because the Youtubers there that you love so much? This effects them too! I’m freaking out because Jack, the person who helps my depression go away, may no longer be able to do what he does!

Guys, we need to stop this somehow. Please.

Call your MEPs. Sign petitions. Protest (Peacefully please. Don’t get hurt).

I’m sorry for tagging you guys if you don’t want to be or already know, I just want as many people to know as possible!

I can’t tag everyone, but if you see this, please reblog it. Spread the news. Sign the petition. Call your MEPs. Do what you can to help stop this from passing in January.

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