#paul Mescal

#gladiator ii

This too cute for words. I still remember making up names like Paw Mescal, Pedro Pawscal and Denzel Woofington, when I saw an earlier Corgiator artwork in the series. 🤣

Second panel based on this:

(Click for full resolution. Please don't repost! Reblogs are appreciated though!)

Corgiator Series: 1 2 3 4 5 6

#paul mescal #his profile - oh my!

#I like how he collects festival merchandise, so he can look back on his fond memories.

#paul mescal

#Paul Mescal's beautiful smile and perfect legs give me a reason to live.

#How lucky we are, to be living at the same time as him.

#This photo makes my friend in the group chat have feelings that she should not have LOL.

# My Irish king always eats and leaves no crumbs.

#aaaaaAAAAAaaaaa

#paul mescal

#Paul's magnificent thigh in the second gif omg

#these gifs are class, so thank you

#For the last gif, I imagined David Attenborough narrating with, "Now, the males face off, to establish their dominance."

Hannolucius on the ground and on his hands and knees pt 2 rolling on the ground, thrown, kicked, and fighting

#paul mescal

#Paul is the real deal. We knew this from the start.

Paul talks about film stars

Holding The Man (2015)

For pride month, the fourth LGBTQ film that I watched for the first time is a 2015 film from my country of Australia, called Holding The Man. The film was directed by Neil Armfield and is adapted from Timothy Conigrave's 1995 memoir of the same name.

This is an exceptional and devastating film, with terrific chemistry between Ryan Corr and Craig Stott in the leading roles. In 1976, two students at an all boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave (Corr) and John Caleo (Stott) fall in love. This is of course is a problem for the school when this is discovered, and disapproved of by the boys' parents. This was a time when homosexuality was illegal in Australia.

This is also a story about AIDS, and as the story is devastating, you can probably guess where it's heading. Much like All Of Us Strangers, Holding The Man broke me, and I will think about this film for a long time.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Use of Colour in Gladiator II: Brown

So once again before I get into it, here's my copy and paste from previous iterations of this: I referred quite a bit to some of my favourite books, The World According to Colour: A Cultural History by James Fox, The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair, and Emperor of Rome and SPQR by Mary Beard while working on this. I highly recommend all of them! These are definitely not mind blowing ideas here, just stuff that came to me because this movie has given me a severe case of brain rot. If you disagree, that’s cool. If you’ve mentioned any of this before, I love that we’re on the same wavelength. If you think this is ridiculous and I’ve gone off the deep end, you are correct.

Here are past colour posts: White Yellow Purple

This one seems extremely obvious to me and I almost didn't want to do it, but I'm going through all the colours I can and mama didn't raise a quitter. So without further ado: brown can be used to represent humility.

The character we see most often in shades of brown is Lucius. This makes sense, considering his story line. He's been raised outside of the luxury of the palace and the imperial rights he was entitled to, and is risking his neck every time he has to step into the colosseum.

As Kassia St. Clair states, "In an echo of what happened in art, bright, colourfast dyes for cloth, such as scarlet, were difficult and expensive to come by, and therefore remained the preserve of the wealthy and powerful. This left brown for the poor." (The Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St. Clair, pg. 239).

And so it makes sense for Lucius to don brown hues throughout the film. But it also provides a full circle moment. Lucius is the representation of the hope for Rome. Marcus Aurelius dreamed of a Rome free for her people, and what better way to reflect the people than through the drab clothing of the humble gladiator?

But there are different types of brown. For example:

Before the party scene, Lucius is wearing a sort of olive-ish/khaki brown. "For thousands of years prior to this, warriors had decked themselves out in eye-catching styles to intimidate opponents. Bright colours, such as the red cloaks of Roman legions [...] could make individuals and forces look larger than they really were, and served as easy identification of friend or foe on smoke-filled battlefields." (The Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St. Clair, pg. pg 241).

Take a look at the colour his opponent is wearing for the fight:

Thraex has dressed his fighter in yellow. And while this is only a fight between two men and not legions, the idea remains the same. Lucius, wearing his khaki colour, comes out on top.

His brown coloured clothing also proves advantageous in the arena.

Now, obviously the way he throws the sand is a call back to Maximus. But, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did if he was wearing a bright colour.

I could continue on for just about every scene with Lucius, as he's wearing some sort of shade of brown, but you get the point. He's the humble, poor, chained gladiator. He's the hope for the Roman people (even if they don't know it), and he's the salt of the earth kind of person that should be in charge of Rome.

There's one more person that uses the colour brown to represent humility.

Ravi is the "good" character in the entire film. He's a former gladiator that freed himself, and offers his medical talent to help others. He offers Lucius a shoulder to lean on, advice, and is the one that sends for troops to be mobilized for Lucius. He's loyal, generous, and kind. It's no surprise he's dressed in brown too.

#I would volunteer to scrub his back.

#Paul was sensational in this film (he's always sensational), and the major awards slept on his performance as Hanno/Lucius.

#He has a regal, Roman face - perfect casting.

#Also, Paul was the hottest I have ever seen him in this film.

#I will rewatch my Gladiator II DVD for sure.

LUCIUS VERUS GLADIATOR II (2024) dir. Ridley Scott