#this video is so full of glorious mystery

[tsunamiholmes]

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD ALEX WHAT IS THIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHAT THE HELL COULD THIS CONTAIN

#gravity falls #gf #book of bill #the book of bill #repost coming soon with the ciphers solved! #this video is so full of glorious mystery #I missed this sO MUCH

[im-sew-curious]

Isn't it glorious?

It’s here! I finally tackled my analysis of Key’s gold Gasoline era costume, worn in his music video for the song, photoshoots, a stage performance at the Inkigayo show, and a live performance at SM Town 2022. I’ll discuss everything from the fabrics used, the gloves, the shoes, complain about the zipper, talk about whatever the heck jumps are, break down all of the tiny little types of ornamentation (including the things I don’t actually know the name for) and more.

It’s scary in the best way. Buckle up. Grab some coffee or tea or vodka and a blanket.

I want to preface this by saying that this is going to be VERY long. I’ve polled my followers and nearly everyone said they want me to get as granular as I want. So I’m doing that. If that’s not your thing, here’s your exit ramp now. I get it. This is absurd.

You can also read it on my Twitter here. It actually has a LOT of bonus photos because they only allow me to have 30 on here, if you’re interested in seeing more. It may help clarify some things, as well.

Now then. Welcome to those who are left. Let’s begin!

Costumes by Dénicheur by Seo Seung Yeon

For his Gasoline era, Key has had four costumes designed and made by Dénicheur by Seo Seung Yeon, a Haute Couture Designer House that, among other things, makes elaborate costumes for Kpop performers. They’ve got an amazing Instagram portfolio to check out. They made him a gold and black costume for his G.O.A.T in the Keyland concert, the blue and white one for the Gasoline MV, this gold one, and a cream and gold beaded jacket for the 2023 SM Town Concert.

This fashion house’s trademark is intricately beaded, appliquéd…encrusted…costumes. I was able to get some high quality photos from some of you (thanks so much!) And the more I looked, the more I discovered.

If this were a piece of art (well, it is, but not in the same way) “Mixed Media” is what I’d call it. There are literally over twenty different types of beading techniques, appliqués, various types of sequins, trims, braids, rhinestones, chains, and more.

First, I’ll do an overview of the garments themselves, and then I’ll move on to the ornamentation.

The top (it’s not a jacket, it’s not really a shirt, it’s not a tunic. So I’m going with “top”) has a very boxy torso with exaggerated wide, padded shoulders. They’re completely squared. There are straight sleeves—not too slim, not too bulky. There’s a heavily ornamented oversleeve that reaches down to about his elbows and a “nude” colored full length under sleeve. It also has heavily ornamented cuffs at the bottom the sleeve. It has an exposed zipper up the center back that goes up into a short turtleneck collar. The collar and a portion of the lower neck back region are sheer with some beading and appliqués. There are sheer spirals around his arms and in chevrons on his front and scooping around to his back.

Just LOOK AT that masterpiece

The trousers are closely cut through the waist, hips, and thighs but become a bit wider at the knee. It looks like they were made full length but are always worn bunched up over knee high boots. They close at the center front with a very beautifully set fly zipper and flat trouser hook and bar. It’s so low profile that it wasn’t until I got some 4K images that I was even sure of where they closed. It was like he had been sewn in. I wrote a whole thread about it on Twitter that reads like a mystery novel, though I already spoiled the ending for you. Sorry.

The top is made of what is probably a “nude” (aka specially dyed to his skin tone) base fabric to hold the structure, with the ornamentation stitched over top. The external stabilizing fabric is what appears to be some sort of jacquard, possibly silk.

Jacquard is a type of weave, where the fabric is made of long and short “up and down” stitches of sorts, to make a pattern. Because some of the time it uses longer “stitches” on top, it becomes more vulnerable to the fiber breaking and makes it become kind of “fuzzy” looking. This can be especially true if it’s a natural fiber that usually has less structural integrity than a synthetic one. I initially thought this had started to happen on Key’s rear, but after a very close zoom in, I think that’s just a bit of appliqué edge pulling up. I think maybe one of his mic packs is down there too, but I’m really not an expert in that. I did the research so you don’t have to, folks.

Left: A type of jacquard fabric. The shine comes from the longer top threads, contrasting with details of shorter threads. Right: Is it an applique or is it some snagged fibers? Ultimately, I think it's an applique edge.

Perhaps the most interestingly nerdy thing about jacquard is that it was originally made on a loom that led to the creation of computer programming by utilizing a sort of “binary code.” There were punchcards that showed the strands of fibers when to go up and down. Like “holes and not holes” in which to weave.

A Jacquard Machine Loom with punchcards that create the desired design on the fabric

It’s important to note that this fabric needs to have some stretch because it is also used to make his very tight fitting trousers. If it were not a stretch fabric, he wouldn’t be able to do this like THIS or…most things, really.

Even though the jacquard is stretchy, it has some structure to it. It’s used as a stabilizer in between the “flesh mesh” on the outer layer. (aka power net, stretch mesh... There are many names!) It forms the base on which the majority of the ornamentation is stitched.

Flesh mesh is a stretchy mesh fabric dyed to the performer’s skin color and is used to give the illusion that you’re seeing their skin, but it gives much more strength than just a cutout. I wrote a thread about flesh mesh and the importance of taking into consideration the performer’s actual skin tone when building them a costume here

In this case, flesh mesh allows for adornment of these areas, as well. It’s important to note that, even though it’s a separate layer over the base, it is “tacked” through all layers in a regular fashion so it doesn’t droop with the weight of all of the ornamentation.

There are also some parts that have metallic gold applied pieces. This was probably made of a beefy metallic spandex applied on top of the base rather than some solid pleather, due to way it behaves on the body. The latter would have been way too rigid in comparison to the rest of the fabrics.

Heavy gold stretch spandex, forming a chevron on which to affix beads and other trims

Okay. Range of movement time. You know how I love discussing this. That’s because it’s the single most important aspect of costumes for dancers.

Let’s talk armpit gussets. They’re an American football shaped piece of fabric that is stitched in the armpit partially to the sleeve underarm, and partially to the torso underarm. It’s often made of a stretch fabric, but sometimes it’s out of the original “fashion fabric,” which is what we call the main garment fabric.

Gussets out of different fabrics under each underarm. You can see the gold bunch under his arm when it's at his side

It allows the performer to more easily move their arms above their chest and head to help keep the top from riding up. You can see in this photo, though, that it does bunch up a little when his arm is down, because of the extra fabric. It has to go somewhere when it’s not taut.

With this particular top, it’s interesting to note that, due to the asymmetrical decoration of his arms, one gusset is the gold stretch fabric and the other is the jacquard. That means that, either both fabrics have the exact same stretch, or his arms may be SLIGHTLY more limited on one side than the other. That’s fun! I really geeked out about this observation.

Often with jackets for dancers, they’ll have what are called “commodity pleats” around the center back shoulder area. They’re a sort of sneaky hidden accordion-like bit of fabric that stretches out during movement that may otherwise split the back open. Taemin uses them a LOT. But, since this top is so boxy, Key doesn’t need them in this instance. He already had the room he needed without any other accommodations.

They put commodity pleats in the back of most of Taemin's closer fitting jackets. I wish they'd make them the same color as his jackets, though!

With Key’s trousers, we’ve already established that they’re made of a fabric with a decent amount of stretch. But since I can’t find many good photos of his bottom half, I’m unsure about if he also has “crotch gussets.”

By this point, I’m kind of notorious as being the “crotch gusset person.”

The following posts explain them in much more detail, but basically, they’re long triangular wedges that start in the trouser crotch and taper down to nothing in the inseam. These are often put in trousers of dancers when people need a better range of movement.

I wrote about this in detail regarding Taemin’s pleather pants he wore in his Metamorph concert, as well as all of SHINee in the Your Number dance video. You can find my posts on the subject here:(Metamorph) (Your Number)

Jinki rocking a black crotch gusset in SHINee's "Your Number" Performance Video (Black Version)

Gussets allow for extra room and movement when one is trying to do extreme leg movements like squatting. Unfortunately, I don’t have many good photos of his inseam. There’s so much going on with appliqués and piecing of mesh vs jacquard, it’s hard to tell. Part of the front half of his trousers is flesh mesh, swirling around them. The other parts are the jacquard, whereas the back is all jacquard.

I saw one photo which made me begin to wonder if the inseam is a little further forward than it could be, though. That could mean there IS a gusset. I’m really not sure...I don't have official visual confirmation, but now you know more about crotch gussets either way. You’re welcome.

That seam line is up a bit more forward than usual. It really has me wondering, because that would happen if there was a gusset installed. Hmmmm.

Okay. Zipper education time. I apologize in advance. Things get spicy but I tried to tamp it down. The center back (abbreviated as “CB” in the industry) of the top has an exposed zipper. This means exactly what it sounds like: it’s exposed. You look at it, and it looks like there’s a zipper right there. It’s not hidden. Sometimes it’s a perfect match, and sometimes it’s “featured.” Exposed zippers actually become a trend every once in a while in everyday fashion.

I thought it was extremely interesting that, on this elaborate costume, they chose to use a zipper with metallic teeth on white “tape.” (The fabric on the sides of the teeth.) It was a huge disappointment for me, actually. I would have loved to have seen the zipper more carefully hidden like his fly was.

Hello, zipper. I see you loud and clear!

I have to comment a bit on what I view as the one flaw in this otherwise perfect costume. I will preface this by saying that I was not in the fitting room where this was conceived, and I don’t know about any extenuating circumstances and the reasoning behind this decision. But there a few things that I would have done differently regarding the zipper and back collar of this top if were to have made it.

But first: some zipper education. Besides exposed, there are center lapped, as well as regular lapped zippers. With the center lap, it’s like the fabric covers your zipper but you can pull the zipper down through it. Your hoodie probably has one. The regular lap zipper is more like your trouser fly in that there is one flap of fabric that covers the whole zipper, hiding it.

Top: Exposed. (Though it has a matching zipper and zipper tape.) Bottom Left: Center Lapped. Right: Regular Lapped.

Either of those types could have been used to make the zipper more discreet. I personally would have chosen to use a regular lapped zipper, which is less likely to get snagged than a center lapped zipper.

People have defended the exposed zipper by asking if it’s because it’s less likely to get caught. I very much get this argument, and, technically it’s right.

But, in my extensive experience, I don’t think I can recall a case of an exposed zipper in the back of a costume, quick change or no. It’s unattractive. (Not to mention a dead giveaway in a period garment!)

If it’s sewn well and tested, with the correct size lap and no loose fabric, it will work just fine. There should be a hook and eye at the top to make sure that it stays secure while dancing.

Part of being a good dresser is being methodical and purposeful, not frantically zipping something up in a way that is more prone to snagging. They keep their cool, perhaps taking a couple more seconds but ensuring that they pull it up smoothly. They use their fingers to block the overlap as they guide the zipper up.

(Random side note: I met a dresser once who preferred zippers be installed upside down for their quick changes. Hey, whatever works best for them! I wonder how they discovered that…)

I will also note that, as far as I’m aware, the only times he’s worn this costume, he didn’t need to get in or out of it quickly. I know that he wore it in the MV, the Inkigayo performance, and the photoshoot. He also performed at SM Town Tokyo 2022, though he had 11 songs during which to change between Bad Love and this. He never wore this look at his G.O.A.T. in the Keyland concert. Oh, and the collab with the Jinro frog. I’ll talk about that later.

So ultimately, all of the zipper quick change talk is for nothing. There COULD have been a chance that this was going to be worn during his concert, I suppose. But if not, in the end, I can find no reason that there needed to be an exposed zipper other than: they wanted it that way.

Sorry for that rant. I know that it was intense. I just…wish it were pretty. That’s all. I know it wouldn’t have bothered most people, but I personally think that the costume deserved better!

Well then. They arranged the symmetrical beaded appliqué motifs so they didn’t interfere with the center back line, so it wasn’t an issue being all chonky around the zipper.

Unfortunately, since the zipper was built into the neck with just the “stretch mesh,” it moves very differently than the rest of the top. It has a substantially weaker structural makeup and it can’t support itself the same, so it stretched at a different rate than the zipper on the solid fabric on the bottom. It kind of “bubbled” when he moved and it rode up.

Showing the neck bubbling, and, on the bottom left photo, you can see that there is some sheer stabilizer to ensure that the zipper doesn't just tear out of the sheer net.

It couldn’t have been helped unless that whole back neck area had been backed with the solid nude base fabric. That’s what I would have done, personally. But using the stabilizer helped a bit. Without it, it may have not lasted a performance.

I don’t know why they did it that way, but the result was rather disappointing to me, especially considering the care that was taken with the rest of the garment.

Okay. End rant. The rest of the costume is EXQUISITE.

One more thing to note is that the zipper terminates about 4” above the top’s bottom hem. It is right around where his waist is. It was built that way to ensure that he was able to move his legs and hips comfortably without getting hung up anywhere.

His knee high boots were covered with the same peach jacquard as his top, as well as utilizing the gold fabric to serve as ornamental buckled straps.

The stretch element of the jacquard is further showcased by the fact that it pulls over the boot toe smoothly, with little issue. A completely stable fabric wouldn’t be able to do that.

Now for the ornamentation. Oooooh boy. There are around twenty types of various adornments on this costume, and I thought I’d highlight some of them.

I can spy about 15 different types of ornamentation here alone.

Beaded appliques at the neckline

Heavy chains

Rhinestone appliques and/or individual rhinestone pieces

Bugle bead chevrons

Gold round beads

Yellow individual small rhinestones

Grey beads in between bugle beads

Gold and silver flat braid trim

Gold stretch fabric

Round flat decorative chain

Hanging paillettes

Dark seed beads with some of the paillettes

Gold dangling lil dudes

A sequined applique peeking out from behind a chain

Utilizing the main fabric as a chevon stabilizer as a design detail

About paillettes: these might actually be my favorites. They’re like “floppy sequins” that only have one hole at an edge. They’re made of a very lightweight plastic, so they’re virtually silent. If you wear a dress completely covered in paillettes, you’ll just hear a little rustle. In this case, his were mainly attached via dangly wires as fringe around the upper sleeves. There are a few other random instances throughout the garment where they’re stitched on individually. You can read more about paillettes in my post here.

Appliqués: There are at least three different types of appliqués in this costume:

Beaded

Lace

Sequined

Rhinestone

Appliqués are premade decorative pieces. It looks like someone hand beaded everything on the costume, but they were able to take a shortcut by using these. So no, contrary to what you might believe, there wasn't someone laboriously hand beading every single thing on to this costume.

It still takes FOREVER to invisibly stitch each motif on to the costume as well as, in this case, sometimes layer upon layer. A lot of them are attached to a net base, and in closeups, I saw how they trimmed the net away closely around the motifs.

On the top, we have the gold paisley sequined appliques. On his trousers, you can see the low profile lurex embroidered lace appliques. Bottom left, you can see the beaded and rhinestone applique. And on the right, beaded appliques. You can see that they're over flesh mesh so, when it's on Key, it just looks like he has a beaded collar.

The sequined, beaded paisley motifs are the most prominent and plentiful form of appliqués, focusing around the top’s cuffs and lower edge. They’re also heavily featured spiraling around the trousers. There are even some appliqués stitched across the seams of the trousers and top.

There are some huge, gorgeous bead and rhinestone appliqués, like this one on his right bicep that you can see in the photo above.

There’s also the Lurex lace (metallic threaded) embroidered appliqués that concentrate mostly on his trousers' waist and hips. It’s low profile without any bits that might snag the top while moving. They added a few jewels to it further down once it was no longer posing any danger to snags. There are also a few flat appliqués on his rear, so as to not make sitting uncomfortable but still be adorned.

Beads and gemstones: There are also individual beads and jewels both sewn and what appears to be discreetly glued on as accents. A popular adhesive we use for that sort of application is called E6000. It bonds pretty much everything from plastic, leather, metal, rubber, and wood. It’s like a slower acting super glue, but is more flexible.

You definitely need to use this in a ventilated area or, ideally, with a respirator. The fumes are no joke! There are little chevrons made out of long tubular metallic bugle beads that were probably glued instead of stitched on. There are also round bronze beads and gold rhinestones glued to the edges of the metallic fabric.

There are little dangling gold dudes, though I don’t know what they’re officially called. There are individual sew on rhinestones. There are circular decorative flat chains. There is gold beaded fringe at the wrists of the sleeves.

Top left: gold braid, beads and chains are heavily featured. Top right: the dangling gold dudes. I don't know what to call them. Bottom left: Paillettes, hanging on gold wires on the upper sleeve hem. Bottom right: Gemstones highlighting the center of the chest, with a whole organized, beautiful mess of braid, beads, etc.

There’s gold flat “braid” trim that also looks like it has a bit of silver in it to add dimension. It’s basically like a braided ribbon, often in metallic colors. It’s used a lot in military uniforms.

And there are a few other various random beads and trims that show up amongst the circus of adornment.

The layout of the overall design is asymmetrical, with left and right arms and legs that don’t match. However, the front of the top is completely symmetrical (which is extremely impressive) except for a few rampant rhinestones that intentionally deviate a bit. Here’s an abomination I made of the sleeves next to each other to see the asymmetry more clearly.

I THINK (not based on this photo but others that aren't Frankensteined together with different perspectives) that the sleeves are actually different lengths as well.

Something that I should cover is that with garments made out of a stretch fabric, like Key’s trousers in this case, stitching on something non-stretchy (like some appliqués) can be fraught. The appliqué can keep the fabric from stretching as much as it needs to accommodate a body in it, and it might tear off.

Sometimes, we need to stretch the fabric a bit as we sew on the motif so it will look normal when a leg is in it. It may look a bit puckered when it’s not being worn. The good news is that it appears that most of the motifs in this costume are on what is most likely a mesh backing, so they probably didn’t have to deal with that headache here!

Since the motif on the Jacquard fabric is pretty small, as well as the fact that some of the appliqués wrapped across the side seams, “pattern matching” wasn’t a big priority on this. However, it’s always preferable to keep the motifs at the same horizontal height. This is a REALLY small pattern, so it wouldn't matter terribly, plus the fact that it was so covered it can hardly be seen. There WAS a point on the right side seam where the pattern did match, but the fabric slightly torqued on the left so it didn’t. All in all, it wasn’t a big deal whatsoever. If it were a bigger print though, it could have been. I made a thread about pattern matching here. It's a subject I'm pretty passionate about!

This side seam was cut so that, at a fixed point, the motif was all at the same level horizonatally at there was a part where the motif perfectly matched up to create one complete one. Because there are curves in the seam, it can't do that everywhere.

Now for a bit of a departure: SHINee and its members have done a few collabs over the years, dancing with the frog mascot from Jinro soju. SHINee did one for Don’t Call Me, Taemin did one for Move, and Key did one for Gasoline.

They dressed the frog up like Key, complete with jewels and chains! It was precious. SO GOOD. Watch it now. I also bring this up because that video was the resource I used to figure out where the gold chains on Key’s top were “tacked” (AKA stitched to keep it held down strategically.) It was a nice close-up view. Thanks, Jinro frog!

(Side note: I have made mascots before and it's ironic because they freak me out. I also refurbished a hot dog mascot that had gotten too gross after public appearances over a decade. My life is weird.)

I love how scaled-back but accurate the frog's costume was.

Through the magic of the Jinro frog, I found the answer to the question “where were the chains tacked?” Here. Enough that they still have independent swing and look natural, but frequent enough to keep them from smacking him in the face. Based on the way they move, I think that is metallic coated plastic and not actual metal. Also, for safety's/comfortability's sake! You don't want to be thumped in the chest with every move.

Here's where the chains were tacked

Someone asked me how much they thought this costume weighed. My answer?

I really have no idea…but probably not NEARLY as much as it looks? I'm like 99.9% sure the chains aren't actual metal. I’m not sure if the “jewels” are glass or plastic. The tiiiiiny “seed beads” and "bugle beads" are glass, but there aren’t enough that they would weigh a significant amount. There's a lot of gold braid on there that's very lightweight. A lot of what you see are layered appliqués with sequins and seed beads, which weigh nearly nothing. The dangling paillettes are just a light plastic.

For the garments themselves, as we’ve established, the are a few layers of fabric and mesh, which aren’t very heavy. Because of the “encrusted” nature of the ornamentation, of course, it still weighs a bit more than just a regular top, and is probably kind of rigid on the front. However, it’s not like he’s dancing around in chainmail.

Lastly, there are his gloves. His left one is made out of that heavy gold stretch fabric that was incorporated into the rest of his costume, and his right was also made out of a flesh mesh. From the way it behaves in this photo, it appears to be a much heavier mesh than the top and trousers.

The right glove has thicker mesh that almost appears to have a natural fiber content that is getting snagged. It doesn't completely conform to the skin like a tight flesh mesh would.

The gloves are heavily ornamented with appliqués and beads. I’m going to guess that these were actually custom made for him, which is a big deal. I know very little about glove making, except it involves a TON of pieces to be done right. Gussets in between the fingers to make them slim and elegant and such. No Mickey Mouse hands here.

Stitching the ornamentation on to gloves is pretty difficult work. You either need a hand form and a curved needle or a very brave stitcher who uses their own hand as a form (palm up.) I haven’t done that for gloves, specifically, but I have been a “sacrificial hand” for other situations. I’m so calloused in most places, I don’t really feel much anymore!

There’s one more aspect to this costume that was seen in the intro for his Gasoline Inkigayo performance: the cloak. He didn’t wear it for very long, but it appears to button across his chest to the other shoulder with snaps underneath. The snaps keep the underlap from peeking out from…under the lap.

It looks like they might have had a wardrobe emergency here, because you can see that two of the three snaps were hastily stitched on with red thread. The ornamentation is asymmetrical, mostly focused on his right side. On his left shoulder, there is a decorative beaded “epaulette.” Those are the ornamental shoulder pieces you often see on military dress uniforms.

Left: The full cloak. You can see the facing on the inside edges, made of the same fabric as the outside. I'll write about that in a bit, and I'll show you a closer view later. Top right: The red thread holding on the upper snaps. Bottom right: Metallic epaulette.

It’s hooded and made out of the same jacquard fabric as the rest of his costume, and it has a satin lining the same color as the “fashion fabric.” It appears to be about calf length. One of the photos I found actually has a shot that shows the facing, the lining, and how the hem is done. Of course, I nerded out. It’s “self faced,” which means that there’s the same fabric that’s on the outside making up the “facing.” The facing is the first ten inches or so of the inside edge of the cloak. It makes a pretty transition from the outside to the inside, without a harsh switch to lining.

Then, there’s the hem.

While attached at the top, the hem of the lining and the outer fashion fabrics are allowed to “hang out” separately while on a dress form. Because fabrics stretch out at different rates (and it also changes by the direction they’re cut from the fabric, but that’s a whole different lesson…) it’s ideal for something like this to hang on a dress form and do its thing for a day or so.

In an ideal world, you’d have a fitting with your performer and you would mark a “level line” on them while they’re wearing the cloak (and also the shoes they will be wearing. Different shoes can change a lot!)

There are several different ways you can mark a hem. You can safety pin it up the way you want it, using a ruler measuring up from the floor to keep it even. But this can be awkward and clunky.

Or you can safety pin a “level line” and say that it’s, for instance, 18” off the ground, and you’d like the hem to be 16” off the ground. You’d draw a new hemline 2” down from the pins. It's the easiest way to know what's level and then decide exactly what you want to do later.

OR you can use what I call “the poofer” which is a little measuring stick on a tripod with chalk and a rubber squeezy ball that poofs chalk into a line at a set height, instead of dealing with pins. But sometimes the chalk doesn’t like to brush away, so that’s a bit of a risk in exchange for convenience.

First, let’s talk about hemming the outside cloak fabric. Because it may have stretched out unevenly, you may have wildly different hems lengths now that they’ve been “leveled.” Let’s say we’ll leave 6” of “hem allowance” to fold up into the garment so it can be lengthened later if we need to. You’ll trim the rest of it away. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve altered hem lengths on cloaks over the years! I'm always grateful to have extra.

You may want to finish the hem with a “serger” or “overlock” machine, which is the sewing machine that uses 3-4 threads to sew things, often stretch, together and kind of seals off the edges. It’s probably what stitches together the side seams of your t-shirt or hoodie or lounge pants or basically anything stretchy. It’s used to keep hems and the edges of fabrics inside garments from fraying. Sometimes people don’t do it, especially since it's inside, but it’s nice if you’re planning on altering it or if the fabric is really prone to fraying.

The cloak fabric is then thoroughly pinned and hand stitched up. There are many different sneaky stitches which grab a few threads at a time from the front of the fabric and are virtually invisible. Everyone has their favorites. My personal favorite is the “vertical hemming stitch” or “vertical blind hem.” I like it because it holds the inner hem and the outside of the cloak more tightly together than a lot of other styles. The “cross stitch” which is called the “blind catch stitch” here in this diagram is one of the most popular methods. However, I feel it can be a bit too loose some times and is more likely to be caught on something. The one downside of the vertical blind hem is that, if you pull it too tight, it’s more likely to show from the outside. It takes a very sensitive hand to get it right. The lining is usually slip-stitched to the cloak hem.

Once you’ve got your level line of your fashion fabric, it goes back on the dress form. I’m…not entirely sure I’ll do a good job explaining this because I work best with showing things with points and grunts. My apologies.

You mark the lining to match the level where the hem of the fashion fabric ends. You decide how far up from the bottom of the hem you want the lining to end (in this case, 4”.) So normally, you think you'd fold it up 4", right? Ha! You subtract two inches from that number. This means you’ll be folding up only two inches of lining. But, since we will be stitching it 4” up from the hem, that means there’s a floppy extra two inches. (Cue Advice.) What’s that for? Now I have to tell you about “jumps.”

Jumps are a sneaky trick. This method is used in suit coat hems and sleeve linings as well. Basically, they’re a way to give a little bit of wiggle room with the length of the lining to hem interaction.

After the fashion fabric is hemmed, you hand stitch the lining 4” up from the hem. You have two extra inches of lining. One extra inch of lining is pressed down so there’s an extra inch of “underlap". This photo (top right) showed me that they had done this to Key’s cloak. You can see it stretched out with the pressed line on the left, and it is folded over on the right.

Left: The "self fabric facing" at the center front inside of the cloak. Top right: The cloak hem showing the underside of the "jump" (left) and it down in its "resting" position (right). Bottom right: the "poofer." They're marking a level line.

If you want to get even MORE granular, that is considered a “soft press”, which means that the iron steams and very lightly rests on the fabric. A “hard press” is what it sounds like. Squish that lil dude and steam the heck out of it. That line is never gonna come out.

Okay. Enough of that. I can’t believe myself.

I could literally discuss this costume inch by inch, but I think I’ve covered it enough that you can peruse it yourself if you’d like and kind of know what you’re looking at.

I deeply admire and respect the, perhaps, 100+ hours of craftspersonship that it took to make this stunning costume. Don’t even ask me what it cost to make!

Do check out the Instagram of @denicheur.official where you can see other costumes they’ve worked on for groups like IVE, Enhypen, Stray Kids and more. They’ve got an amazing portfolio to drool over.

I hope you’ve gained an even greater appreciation for this gorgeous look, and the knowledge you’ve gained here can go forward with you as you enjoy future costumes! And thanks so much for sticking with me. I hope it was worth it!

#Shinee key #Key shinee #kpop #kpop costume #kpop costumes #Key #shinee #costume design #costume construction #costumes #gold costume #costume analysis #fashion analysis

[vonlipvig]

If you don't mind my asking, You play a lot of games right??, which are your favs, you'd rec to everybody and everyone, I'm on the hunt for some games to play and you have good taste so I thought I'd ask

You think I have good taste? Why, gorsh...😳

Jokes aside, I do play video games quite regularly! I don't think I'm the biggest gamer (I have a shitty laptop, so it's not like I'm playing newly-released AAA games), but I do have some that I'm very fond of, so here are some of my faves, some well known ones, some hidden gems:

Ace Attorney - The game I played when I was 13 and completely changed the trajectory of my life. Visual novel-like game were you play a defense lawyer and make your way through court to prove your client's innocence. A CLASSIC, the characters are amazing, the stories are fantastic, and god the MUSIC. Game of All Time for me (The Ace Attorney trilogy is where I'd start, but there are many more in the series, The Great Ace Attorney being a prequel duology that can be played individually and is also incredible).

Zero Escape - A trilogy of games about...hm. Well, it's like a bunch of people get kidnapped and put into these locked rooms, and they have to escape. It gets WAY crazier than that, but if you like puzzles, escape rooms, and insane twists, you'll definitely like these.

Not For Broadcast - A hilarious and dark FMV simulation game where you are tasked with editing a news broadcast, censoring swear words, picking the best shots, and basically manipulating what ends up on TV. This game is a MASTERPIECE, I cannot stress that enough. It is wonderfully acted, the characters are so memorable, the plot can get real dark...it's one of my most cherished gaming experiences, and I could not reccommend it enough.

Suzerain - A text-based, decision making, political simulator where you take the role of Anton Rayne, Sordland's newest president. Save the country from recession, rewrite the country's old constitution, or hell, maybe start a war! This game is delightful, and if you're daunted by the extensiveness of most sim games, don't be, because this is super intuitive and easy to get the hang of. The worldbuilding is fascinating, and the characters are lovable and fun!

Her Story - An unconventional one, but so fascinating. It's another FMV game, where you're presented with a police database full of interview videos from an old case. They're not in any particular order, though, it's up to you to make sense from it! A bit of a haunting game (it's not a horror game, don't worry), I totally reccommend experiencing it.

Return of the Obra Dinn - Jesus, another masterpiece. It's a first-person mystery game where you play as an insurance inspector exploring an old ship that has reappeared with nobody alive onboard. It's your task to discover the fate of all its crewmembers. I cannot tell you how incredible this game is, it's a big logic puzzle with an amzing atmosphere and an unforgettable experience.

Papers, Please - I feel like everybody has played PP already, but if you haven't, oh boy go get it! Made by the same guy that made Obra Dinn, you play here as a border checkpoint immigration officer, checking people's passports and documents to see who gets to enter the glorious country of Arstotzka. One of indie games' best, truly. If you can get it on a touch screen, even better.

The Case of the Golden Idol - If you enjoyed Return of the Obra Dinn, then you have to play Golden Idol as well. Kind of a detective-y, puzzle-y game where you search for clues on different scenes, which you then use to solve the mystery of what really happened. Hard to explain, but a joy to play through and solve!

The Darkside Detective - A fun as hell point-and-click detective game where you join Detective McQueen and Officer Dooley on some spooky, supernatural mysteries. Hilarious, filled with witty references and jokes, and with a dynamic duo that will make you fall in love with them (and their silly, blank faces). It's got a sequel, too!

We. The Revolution - This game sent me on a rabbit hole about the French Revolution, and it was so fun. You play here as a judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal during--you guessed it--the French Revolution. Make decisions about the cases that are brought before you, immerse yourself in the history of France (and talk to many of the key figures!), and hell, maybe even give it your own spin! Super fun, and has a gorgeously unique arstyle.

I think that's good for now, hopefully you'll find something here that's to your taste! Happy gaming!

#ah you let me rant about my fave games thank you for that lmao #but yeah here's a good selection! i vouch for all of these! #games #video games #video game recommendations #juli answers

[popculturebuffet]

Into the Spider-Verse: SP//dr: Edge of Spider-Verse #5 (Sponsored by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy webheads and welcome back to our second dose of action as your reward… for what I don't know. Maybe you petted a dog recently or something and they were a very good boy/girl. I don't know. With our main spider-trio clear, we're now into the other three spider-persons starting with our only other spider-woman SP//dr.. which is going to be annoying to type out already I can tell you that.

SP//dr is also the only spider-person in this retrosepective to not really have a lot of indivdual focus. She's mostly shown up in team up events only getting one shots in this and the edge of spider-geddon mini series, and the most she's gotten for a solo is a story arc is marvel unimited's spider-verse series. In contrast looking at the other spider-people miles is on his fifth solo series and has tons of minis, gwen has had three solo series and also tons of minis, Spider-Pig had a short lived solo we'll be visiting soon and multiple minis and while never having an ongoing, Noir has had three full mini series and a few one shots. And of course peter has had multiple runs of amazing, spectacular and adjetivelss spider-man along with marvel team up, giant size spider-man, two volumes of web of spider-man and spider-man unlimited, untolt tales of spider-man, two volumes of sensastional spider-man, webspinners tales of spiderman, spider-man's tangeled web, avenging spider-man, and spider-man/deadpool among COUNTLESS mini series. What i'm saying is while Peni has a great issue here and a great concept she really hasn't had the big character defining storyline most of her peers got, and out of the 6 chosen, she's easily the obscure pick, though it likely helped Lord and Miller switched out her origins considerably while leaning into the anime style to give them another distinct spidey to roll with. Kimiko Glenn's impecable as always performance probably didn't hurt.

So going into this.. Peni was a mystery to me, as I hadn't read this issue, spider-verse or spider-geddon. And boy howdy was this a massive fun suprise: For starters Peni was co-created by GERARD FUCKING WAY. For those who don't know him

But for those who don't, Gerard was, and maybe still is?, the lead singer and creative force of the emo band to end all emo bands My Chemical Romance. Naturally my faviorite album is their last one, an over the top and glorious punk album set in a comic style corprate wasteland and where Grand Motherfucking Morrison played the main bad guy. No joke, they showed up in two diffrent videos as the character. He rocks.

And for most people being a world famous rock star and having his own money bin only with pennies painted pink , black and red would be enough. For Gerard.. he wanted to write comics too and was damn good at it. He created Umbrella Academy out of his love for the x-men, which as far as I know he has'nt gotten to work on and i'ts a damn crime, and Doom Patrol, one of my faviorite DC Comcis teams. Thankfully he DID get to work on the latter and rescued them from a decades long limbo, crafting a run that's as batshit insane as it is damn fun and creative. It may not entirely make sense at times but like Morrison's own team defining run, it dosen't always need to to be awesome. He's also written multiple comics based on Danger Days, the album I mentioned, and the 12 issue series Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye. While his work is sporadic it's always memorable and this is no exception. So look alive sunshine as we plug in under the cut.

We open with the death of a spider-man: Peni Parker's dad peter dies horribly. How?

But there are two key points from this striking two page spread: SP//dr the man is dead.. btu the actual spider somehow bonded with him is alive

We then cut to young peni parker, age 10, who talks to her uncle ben and aunt mei who break the news which she takes with chilling calm… and then ask her to bond with SP//dr to help defend japan… and also prove their GREAT new caretakers by revealing they released the genetically altered spider her dad died with into the room to bite her without making sure she was okay with it. It bites her and a new spider is added to the web. As you can tell… they changed the tone a LOT with Peni. In the movie she's mostly just "LOOK ANIME'. Here.. it's more cyberpunk, with SP//dr likewise having a more mechanical design. I get Why they did it.. but wish they'd still kept peni unique while making her look anime instead of being generic anime school girl with robot buddy. Especially since SP//dr's armor is fucking sick looking as you could see on the cover

5 years later, she's on duty as this universe's mysterio is attacking.. and also really weird. While the guy inside we'll find out is some nerd in a cool suit and weird globe as usual… his way of attacking the populace is this cool ominous floating doom orb

It's honestly a hell of an interpretation and makes me mad we didn't get to see MORE of way's takes on various spidey rogues, as he naturally goes all out with it while still keeping the core: mysterio is still a showman, but more as a mad artist than a hollywood schster, and his hallucinations gas is stil la thing now just poored onto the street> The art is also incredible, fitting Way's pop punk astetic like a glove, being both colorful while also fitting the mildly gritty tone: this work is cyberpunk but more the anime brand with lots of flash and sound, aka the better version. Aunt May serves as Peni's mission contorla s she prepares to get in, admits sh'es a vegetarian and crashes in on mysterio while playing the song Love is a Weapon by Cult Summer Feat Gloss.. which is a song i'm not even sure actually exists.

What we get is an awesome sequence as our mechanized heroine busts in.. sadly she dosen't say this

But I think she DOES meet this guy eventually so it balances out. It's awesome especially once the hallucinogens kick in and our hero has to punch the guy out. We also find out he's a looney fan who sent her a mix cd.

We then cut to.. school as we see peni's id is public: SP//dr which is both the suit and the spider, and is confusing as you would imagine is there, and when Daredevil shows up to pick her up for superhero stuff she's excused. There's also what looks like anime mj looking at her. Neat.

I like this unvierse's daredevil too: he seems to work as SP//dr's handler, ;ally and a friend of her dad's, has a nice look to him (lookiing like armored daredevil but less 90's and more badass), and ikt's again why I wish we knew more or got a series, even a mini as this universe really ISN'T that explored. I mean granted given how way's work can go we could get more questions than answers, but we'd also get some real neat shit along the way.

We also get a really nice bit where the two break for lunch… where Peni both admits she's tired and asks about her dad. While we don't see MUCH of her here.. we get plenty of character as it's clear Peni feels lost, coming off stoic.. but it's clear there's a real sadness to her: She lost her dad, there's a job she was forced into and didn't ask for and she can never really have a normal life, something Peter, Miles and Gwen all struggle with, but it's magnified here: all of them at least can TRY thanks to the mask. Peni.. is stuck with everyone knowing she's the spider-person and we see that not having to hide.. doesn't make her feel any less alone.

The ending… is a bit more tied into the event than Gwen's.. I mean granted anything's better than

Btu the last few pages are Peni being greeted by Spider-Ham, does whatever a spider-pig does and Old Man Spider. Old Man Spider, who I hadn't seen before this is Ezikiel. He's a LOT to explain and I could just brush over it.. but i'm a wordy bastard so instead here's

JAKE EXPLAINS AN OLD SPIDER-MAN MOST OF YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF AND DON'T CARE EXISTS

During the early good parts of J. Micheal Strazenski's long run on spider-man, we found out spider-man was tied into the "web of life and death" and picked as the spider-totem for his universe, with the reason he has so many animal foes being their drawn to him via destiny and stuff. I think it's fine: it's not a necessary explanation but I don't mind adding some magic to peter's science based world. He soon met Ezikel, a successful businessman who also had spider-powers and used them for personal gain, but showed up to help Peter against morlun, a mystical vampire man who hunts spider-people who was cool at the time but sadly got a bunch of generic siblings who are the main reason i'm not super into reading spider-verse and were wisely replaced with kingpin for the movie. Point is he's a cool old guy and in this universe peter died fighting morlun, so Eziekl became spider-man.

Anyways our heroes go to get the suit, and we get Peni stating she's a weapon to keep going till termination, seeing her once again brush her emotions aside… because the reality is too terrifying. All that matters is the job. So with that our spider-'s swing off and we get Spider-Ham's classic catchphrase.

I mean i'ts no crackers and milk... oh who am I kidding it's SO crackers and milk. That'll do pig. That'll do. INto The Spider-Verse #5 is amazing, a ncie short story. If I have any complaint it's that it feels fragmented, with three diffrent stories: peni fighting mysterio, peni and daredevil fighting thgs mysterio told them about, and spider-verse spider-verse. But the energetic tone, art and great characterization for peni means it comes quick, hits hard and leaves a hell of an impression. Hopefully we'll see Peni again in al lher death metal glory. For now.. this is a nice single tha tstands on it's own

Next Time: Just say Noir as a very different Peter Parker must avenge his uncle's murder and dawn a spiffy fedora.

#gerard way #spider-verse #peni parker #SP//dr #marvel comics #spider-man #across the spider verse #into the spider verse #robots #cyberpunk #spider ham #old man spider

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 30/10/2023

The Lost Rip - A SilvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis Side Story

Season 3 Part of: The SilvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis

Directed by Keeby10, SparkBag

Part of Spooktacular Week! ● Requested by crickqt (Discord)

I was debating with myself internally for a loooong time over if I should even cover this one...as I've let on a couple of times before, I am a huge SiIvaGunner lorehead, particularly with the Christmas Comeback Crisis, yet its also something I don't really want to cover too much in detail on here. The CCC is, really, just a good ass series, with genuinely well done drama, mystery, character growth, visual style and music, the whole works. Its not exactly something I want to spoil or exposit over on here, is my point - I want people to check it out on their own! But The Lost Rip - A SilvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis Side Story is so, so much more than just a side story - its a ten-minute long, ridiculously high-effort bit.

Uploaded on the day of Halloween 2018, the rip originally had a far more straightforward title - Comeback Crisis [Episode 13] - The SiIvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis, or in other words the 13th Episode of the main series. This was, as is evident by the title switch - a bait-and-switch, to immediately draw the attention of anyone subscribed at the time who had been waiting for the rip. Now, this wasn't the first time this had happened for a Christmas Comeback Episode (it'd happened twice before, if I remember correctly?) but this time was different - this time, the bait-and-switch was part of the side story's plot itself. In truth, there's a second bait-and-switch awaiting viewers in the episode - this isn't a mere side story or a gag, but a full-on SiIvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis *CREEPYPASTA*.

The presence of Nutshackwoodman34 in SiIvaGunner lore is still not something I wholly understand - he's depicted as a normal guy who writes fanfiction for the SiIvaGunner channel, and said fanfiction has then been turned into joke lore videos such as this one. I'm not sure if this means he has literal governing control over the SiIvaGunner universe, or if his content is completely and utterly non-canon (which would suck, I absolutely adore Unusual Circumstances). Althesame, The Lost Rip works so well as a creepypasta story specifically due to how it plays with how fans just like us perceive media: despite being made by members of the actual SiIvaGunner team, it truly does just read like a fanfiction, quite authentically. Be it the killing off of core characters for no real reason, the invention of a whole new lore material that instigates the whole plot, and of course more obvious stuff like the intense edginess of it all and the self-insert character getting to help save the world.

In the end, really, it was all just a prank played on us, and a prank that's not really to be considered canon. But everything about it - the immensely charming crude-on-purpose art, the genuinely really enjoyable voice acting (SparkBag is still my go-to favorite voice for Wood Man in particular), the riffing on all the different kinds of Creepypasta material out there. Hell, I hope sentence-mixed Joel gets to be the canon voice for Grand Dad whenever he shows up in the series! But until then - The Lost Rip is glorious, both for me watching as a fan and me watching as an enjoyer of all things dumb-internet-horror.

#todays siivagunner #season 3 #siivagunner #siiva #spooktacular week #Keeby10 #SparkBag #christmas comeback crisis #siivagunner lore #woodman #nice >:] #creepypasta

[rainydawgradioblog]

10 most underrated Joni Mitchell songs

Joni Mitchell’s surprise return to Spotify marks the first day of my life. Two grueling years of mp3 downloads, YouTube video playlists, and Apple Music temptations took quite the toll, but we’ve made it. To celebrate, here’s a list of 10 criminally underrated Joni bangers that deserve your streams. Now!

“Refuge of the Roads” (1976)

The ultimate highway soundtrack, “Refuge of the Roads” is an escapist hallucination with some of the sexiest bass you’ll ever hear. Joni’s on the run, hiding from the critics and her deep-seeded feelings of love that keep her from being the picture of independence she longed to be. The song details her miraculous recovery from cocaine addiction thanks to a Tibetan Buddhist master in Colorado and the insignificance of her emotional existence. It’s also one of her favorite songs she ever recorded!

“Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)” (1972)

A piano tribute to Beethoven, “Ludwig’s Tune” is Joni finding solace in another legendary musician’s experience of being misinterpreted. Just like Ludwig, her art was deemed “too raw” at a time where no one was trauma dumping like Joni was. The song is a peak in Joni’s orchestration skills, with glorious winds and vocal runs, plus some of her best poetry to match. 

“Talk to Me” (1977)

I never thought the same woman who sang “A Case Of You” would be literally chicken squawking on record, but we’re blessed to live in that reality. Joni’s sense of humor on “Talk To Me” is on full display, dodging punchy acoustic guitar and raging fretless bass, begging “Mr. Mystery” (presumably Bob Dylan) to talk to her. “You spend every sentence as if it was marked currency / Come and spend some on me” is lyrical brilliance, not to mention one of the most iconic opening lines, period.

“Harry’s House/Centerpiece” (1975)

Joni’s storytelling skills fly under the radar way too often, despite her pointed observations in “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” being one of the greatest critiques of gender roles in music. Her blend of jazz fusion and a jazz standard adds to the traditional versus modern views of gender roles she’s observing, and her top tier crooning sells it hard. Not to mention Harry Styles named a whole album after the song!

Borderline (1994)

Not many of Joni’s songs match the intensity of “Borderline,” with a drop dead gorgeous steel guitar/organ combo and insightful 50-year-old cynicism. I think of “Borderline” as her 90s version of “Both Sides Now”. She makes sure to remind us that no one really knows life at all, and pretending otherwise only builds the borderlines between us. A brutally honest queen!

“Love” (1982)

For someone who allegedly doesn’t know love at all, Joni seems very well-acquainted with it on this song. Her insightful takes are a lot to digest, but they’re paired with winding early-80s production that work seamlessly. Think Leonard Cohen-level poetry and Steely Dan-esque funk with just a touch of 80s cheesiness.  

“People’s Parties” (1974)

Even Joni has social anxiety, and “People’s Parties” is very that. Her descriptions of the posh social climbers and dramatics at the exclusive events she attends is strangely relatable to your average introvert, while also serving up a juicy critique of elitism in showbusiness. “People’s Parties” is some of her most charismatic musical phrasing, and her lower register in the outro scratches every itch in my brain. 

“The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” (1979)

Charles Mingus pulled something so specific out of Joni that is not talked about enough. On “TDCFDM,” Joni’s practically playing the part of every instrument next to bumbling bass, skittering drums, floating saxophone, and razor-sharp horns, and sounding next-level doing it. If anything Joni’s made proves her supernatural abilities, it’s this song.

Conversation (1970)

“Conversation” is the original love triangle song, and Joni is feeling chaotic. She’s helplessly flirting back and forth with a guy who’s taken, bringing him apples and cheese and listening to him rant about his relationship issues. Sonically the song is the perfect encapsulation of obsessing over someone new, and her signature soprano is perfection as per usual. 

The Last Time I Saw Richard (1971)

Holding a candle to ballads like “A Case Of You” and “River” seems unthinkable, but Blue’s closer makes it look easy. Richard and Joni play two sides of a spectrum; Richard being chewed up and spit out by pain and heartbreak, while Joni is fighting for optimism amidst the emotional devastation we hear on Blue. Joni’s pissed and panicked that someone could give up on happiness, so she’s “gonna blow this damn candle out,” refusing to let life get the best of her. 

Here's my comprehensive guide to Joni in playlist form including influences, influencers, and more. Happy listening!

Mead Gill

[adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me]

Nature isn't binary

We live in a world that is thought of in binary terms.  

Socially we see polarization all over the place. The modern generation specifically thinks in very polarized terms and the rest of us are kind of getting pulled along.  The divides are getting bigger and bigger with right/wrong, left/right, white/black thinking usurping the complexities of the natural world. In the modern mind, gender, for instance, has become so ossified that our kids can't even conceive of a tomboy as anything but a boy.

Digitally, binary thinking is critical to the functioning of our digital toys.  Electrical engineers are steeped in programming relays that represent on/off conditions that are notated as 0s and 1s in programming.  The computer microchip is based on matrices of these relays, most currently running in the billions per microchip, but some having trillions of these switches.  The quantity of 1s and 0s allows computers to approximate analog processes, but at its core, a modern digital computer, by definition, can never truly approximate nature as well as an analog system can.

The problem with digital thinking is that it's not really natural.  Some who argue that nothing humans have the capacity to do is technically "unnatural".  But for my purposes, I'll stick with it.

Light and darkness have gradients.  Ask anyone who works with images.  Pixelization is a problem with digital images, as gradients must be converted in digital steps.  Forty megapixel cameras exist, but zoom into an image closely enough, and all you see is a square (which is also unnatural).  Sounds are gradated too.  To my ear, music has been less affected than has video, possibly because I have a tin-ear, but even with music, there's various CODECs that process sounds differently, some provide a truer sound utilizing a lot of digital storage, while some produce a merely adequate sound but save a lot of digital space and bandwidth.  Modems and Fax machines will not work on the most common digital CODECs produced by most commercial VoIP systems.  If that weren't enough, stereo sound wouldn't be possible if listening, hearing were binary.  Temperature is gradated.  Yes, absolute 0 Kelvin exists.  But just as absolute darkness doesn't become absolute light in the presence of a flashlight, so absolute 0 Kelvin doesn't immediately become whatever the other extreme might be in the presence of a match.

We do not experience life in digital terms.  God did not make us binary.  We appreciate the cool gradients of blue in the sky or on the ocean in an analog sense as we listen to the seagulls fly past us, listen to the crashing waves ebb and flow in front of us, and as we hear the occasional vehicle drive past in full stereo, behind us on the highway.  We feel the cold breeze as it picks up, dropping the temperature of our skin before it slacks off and the sun, once again, radiates the heat we felt before the wind gust.

When I think of Salvation,  I look at the "unnaturalness" of the dichotomy. The Bible gives us images - one of the strongest in support of a dichotomy is Matthew 25:31-34, 41.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. – Matthew 25:31-34, 41

There's a definite dichotomy here, to be sure, but we are talking about heavenly mysteries.  We are trying to understand ontological mysteries from limited language, and stories that were meant to be understood as approximations of ideas that were hard to express.

Compare that against Mark 10:35-37 (also in Matthew 20:20-21).

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” – Mark 10:35-37

Clearly if Matthew 25:31-24,41 is correct, one of the sons is asking to be condemned as a goat.  

But my favorite verse regarding courtly placement in heaven has to be Luke 14:10.

But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. – Luke 14:10

So what does this conflicting game of musical chairs in the court of God tell us about salvation?  

To me, that it's a mystery. 

But, I would argue further that given the whole Matthew 20:26-27 part of the story, that there may actually be gradations of salvation. Luke 14 seems to imply that a humble heart will be satisfied with wherever he might be, while the haughty will be humiliated.

I've said that I think Christ, through the cross, has given all men eternal life.  I have also stated that I believe that the closer we are to being in communion with Christ, the more that eternal life will be of value to us.  Love as warmth, love as a consuming fire, or love as something in-between.

I don't worry about "sins" anymore, I worry about repentance.  I try to condition my heart to seek Christ in everything I think about or do.  Things that I might have considered sins at one time I don't worry about much anymore if I can see Christ in them; other things that I let slide, that I know in my heart are leading me in the wrong direction, such as a fixation on some form of idolatry, or uncontrolled rage, I know are leading me astray.  Like Paul, I cry, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."  In such cases, all I can do is repent (change my direction), and trust in the, "Good God, who loves mankind."

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy upon me, A Sinner.

#Orthodox Christianity #Meditations

[nw100847]

Poki valorant rank

V - FPS io game.

ROCKET SOCCER DERBY - Play Rocket Soccer Derby on Poki.

CS:GO Player PoKI Results, Upcoming and Ongoing Matches | GosuGamers.

Pokimane Reaches Glorious Milestone in Valorant and Shares.

Valorant Competitive Team Rankings: World | VLR.

Getting My Valorant Rank Ft. Pokimane (Worst Game.

Pokimane - Leaguepedia | League of Legends Esports Wiki - Fandom.

Gry poki papa louie 4.

Twitch Streamer Pokimane Calls Out Obsessive Fan - Game Rant.

Valorant and CS:GO Ranks Compared: How You Will Rank in the.

What rank is poki in valorant.

List of people in OTV & Friends - OfflineTVandFriends Wiki.

What Rank Is Pokimane In Valorant And What Are Her.

VALORANT Tier List - Best VALORANT Agents To Win With.

V - FPS io game.

VALORANT is a free to play 5v5, character-based tactical shooter. The game operates on an economy-round, objective-based, first-to-13 competitive format where you select a unique agent to play for the entirety of the match. 1.4m Playing VALORANT 3.9k Agents Online Created Jan 23, 2020 Join help Reddit coins Reddit premium.

ROCKET SOCCER DERBY - Play Rocket Soccer Derby on Poki.

Jun 16, 2022 · A large portion of VALORANT players are ranked somewhere between Iron and Gold, according to a developer update from Riot.Just over 14 percent of VALORANT players inhabit the Iron ranks, while. TikTok video from Belly (@bellyval): "this is my full reaction to my diamond 1 rank up game! #valorant #valorantclips #valorantclip #valorantrank". original sound. 2557 views | original sound - Belly. After a quick few seconds of celebrating back, it was into round 10 accompanied by some shaky hands showing Poki's nerves from the insane clutch. The Ace Poki secured gave her and her team a great boost of morale to the point where the enemy team only ever managed to secure 1 last round against them, leading both Poki and xQc to victory 13-4.

CS:GO Player PoKI Results, Upcoming and Ongoing Matches | GosuGamers.

Jun 21, 2022 · Want to know how VALORANT ranks are distributed, check out our VALORANT rank distribution guide. VALORANT Ranked System Explained. The exact algorithm is a mystery, and for good reason. Once a formula is out, it becomes too accurately gameable and changes which would otherwise go unnoticed would cause an uproar when it isn’t necessary. Poki's dono "XQC is coming to kill your run" que XQC on a horse with a shotgun. pokimane - Rust. 343,583 views - Wed, Dec 30 at 1:34. poki real opinion on soda. pokimane... VALORANT - 1 hour (12%) 15,596. avg viewers. 18,002. peak viewers. solo q ascendant - chill secret anime stream 🤫. World rank Unranked Total earnings US$4,780 CS:GO: US$4,780.

Pokimane Reaches Glorious Milestone in Valorant and Shares.

Mar 09, 2021 · Pokimane’s settings, keybinds, and crosshair for VALORANT. Poki knows best. Jerome Heath. Screengrab via Amazon. Like any big-time streamer on Twitch, Imane “Pokimane” Anys jumped on the.

Valorant Competitive Team Rankings: World | VLR.

Pokimane has been grinding away at Valorant, advancing through the ranks and landing in among the best of the best just like other variety streamers. After a long and tough journey, the Twitch star was able to progress from Diamond to Immortal, putting her among the top 0.5 percent of Valorant’s greatest players.

Getting My Valorant Rank Ft. Pokimane (Worst Game.

Matchup weighting affects these numbers as well, so moves that would be used against significant meta targets will rank higher. When looking at potential moves, keep an eye out for Pokemon that have a strong tendency toward a single Fast Move and a single Charged Move. These Pokemon will have their optimal moveset in the most matchups. To understand what actually led to the Internet calling Poki a Terf, we need to first cover Pokimane 's simp story. For those of you who aren't aware, people often call Poki's fans out for being simps.... Valorant Competitive Changes: New Rank Ascendant, Removal of Split, Rank Reset and more. 17/06/2022. ESports.

Pokimane - Leaguepedia | League of Legends Esports Wiki - Fandom.

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Gry poki papa louie 4.

Combat Online. Combat Online (Combat 5) is a fast-paced, first person multiplayer shooter game created by NadGames. The game is a follow up to the original hit Combat Reloaded. Combat Online features the same awesome action-packed battles you know and love. This is visually one of the most advanced games available online. September 2, 2021. Popular Twitch streamer and personality, Imane “Pokimane” Anys has opened up about the difficult obstacles she is facing on her journey to reach Immortal rank in Valorant. Pokimane is on a dedicated rank grind to hit Immortal rank soon and then reach Radian. But the streamer has failed time and time despite dedicating a.

Twitch Streamer Pokimane Calls Out Obsessive Fan - Game Rant.

Check out Valkyrae - Pokimane - my new energy drink, Ninja Melk!AM. Ascending to Greatness. A more even Rank Distribution will help make VALORANT Ranked Matches more consistent for all players in various ranks and help accentuate the skill disparity across the nine ranks in VALORANT. Through the new Ascendant rank, Riot Games hopes that players in the heavily populated Bronze-Silver rank can find a new home in..

Valorant and CS:GO Ranks Compared: How You Will Rank in the.

Aug 30, 2021 · Popular streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys has opened up about the biggest obstacle in her way to becoming an Immortal in Valorant. Twitch streamer Pokimane is one of the prominent names in Valorant content creation. Despite her dedication to the ranked grind, the streamer has failed to hit the Radiant rank. Rampage Poki / Platinum 4 17LP / 198Win 179Lose Win Rate 53% / Katarina - 112Win 84Lose Win Rate 57%, Zed - 70Win 51Lose Win Rate 58%, Kayn - 26Win 24Lose Win Rate 52%, Akali - 7Win 9Lose Win Rate 44%, Yone - 8Win 7Lose Win Rate 53%.

What rank is poki in valorant.

RANK VIBES! 220/500 !AWRewards !XSET !Alienware !newvideo. VALORANT. Hosting.... trio w/ toast & poki | Twitter @tarik. VALORANT · 570K views · 7 days ago. 8:38:06. RADIANT RONALD | Twitter @tarik. VALORANT · 570K views · 8 days ago. 9:33:42. HAPPY 4TH | Twitter @tarik. VALORANT · 510K views · 8 days ago. 9:20:22. SUSSY SUNDAY - NOOB POV. Gry poki papa louie 4. Single-exposure modulation-based structured illumination. 5G - Trusted Connectivity Alliance. The SimsTM 4 Werewolves Game Pack for PC/Mac | Origin. CYB402 - Week 4 - Learning A - 1. Explain. Over-the-Air Profile Delivery Concepts - Apple Developer. Each rank has three different levels within it: Iron 1, then 2 and 3, then Bronze 1, and so on except for the top rank "Valorant" which has no tiers. You will have to play a few games unranked.

List of people in OTV & Friends - OfflineTVandFriends Wiki.

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What Rank Is Pokimane In Valorant And What Are Her.

.. Fandom's League of Legends Esports wiki covers tournaments, teams, players, and personalities in League of Legends. Pages that were modified between April 2014 and June 2016 are adapted from information taken from E Pages modified between June 2016 and September 2017 are adapted from information taken from EsportsW Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless.

VALORANT Tier List - Best VALORANT Agents To Win With.

Blend your style and experience on a global, competitive stage. You have 13 rounds to attack and defend your side using sharp gunplay and tactical abilities. And, with one life per-round, you'll need to think faster than your opponent if you want to survive. Take on foes across Competitive and Unranked modes as well as Deathmatch and Spike Rush.

Other links:

Poki Coom

Royale Games Poki

Small Breast Pokies

Joanna Jedrzejczyk Pokies

[s1utspeare]

DID SOMEONE SAY BODY LANGUAGE COMPARISON???

I heard the sweet, dulcet tones of acting meta on this post and could not resist her call, so @xcziel, @foxofninetales, this one is for you.

THE LIU CHANG DMBJ CHARACTER META: WANG CAN vs LIU SANG

So first of all lemme just say I love these bitches, and what’s interesting about Liu Chang is that he plays them on opposite ends. There’s not much he can do about the fact that, y’know, he’s the same-ass person, but there are some very distinct differences between Liu Sang and Wang Can, which we will be talking about now.

Liu Sang photo cred: @foxofninetales

Wang Can photo cred: @xcziel

Jiang Wu photo cred: me screenshotting @xia-xueyi’s Moonfall Echo subs (ep. 13)

PART ONE: BODY LINES

I’ve talked about body lines before! But now we get to look at it from the same actor in two different characters! As a recap, straight lines are strong, sturdy, confident, and straightforward; curved lines are weaker, but more interesting and more dynamic.

For example!!

We got our bitch Wang Can here!! This is our first look at this slimy man, and look! He’s like a square!!! All straight lines, all ups and downs. Him body a square!! The costume people also do a great job of boxing him up bc of the tailoring of his jacket, and the two neutral color palette. There’s no embellishments, no decor. This is a straightforward man!! He’s not hiding anything except exactly how much of a bitch he is

(Also notice that his hands are showing and in fists. This will be important in a minute.)

Next, we have our favorite boy Liu Sang, showing up for the first time (ignore the differences in angles):

Oho! He’s a curvy motherfucker!! Aside from the fact that his clothes are now tailored correctly to demonstrate his natural curves, this mans is also curving himself! His arms! Are loose! And bent!! His head and neck aren’t nearly as emphasized! And! AND!!!! His hands are in his fucjing POCKEEETTTSSS. That indicates FURTIVENESS! That indicates MYSTERY! We’re going to find some things OUT about this boy and we’re gonna like it!!!

In comparison, look at Jiang Wu:

LIU CHANG U BEAUTIFUL BITCH. He fucking BENT HIS ARM. He kept one straight and BENT THE OTHER!!! Oh joyous occasion!! We have a DYNAMIC BOY!! but not too dynamic—peep that hidden hand! Also I love this bc it was TWO DIFFERENT LIU CHANG CHARACTERS IN THE SAME SHOW!!! :D see!! Here’s Liu Sang again!

THIS IS A CONFIDENT LIU SANG!!!! He is CHANGED! He is capable of expressing emotions now! Look at just how much body language he has going on, while in comparison, Jiang Wu and Wang Can are like creepy Wood Baby Puppets. His body shape is boxy again, but that’s bc he’s the protagonist of this one. The plot hinges on him, he’s gotta be sturdy.

WHAT WE HAVE DETERMINED SO FAR:

Wang Can is straight lines, no hidden agenda (which is funny cause he’s a Bad Guy)

Liu Sang is dynamic lines and movement, and alludes to mysterious ✨secrets✨

Jiang Wu is a mix of the two and also a dumb dork (that’s not from the body language, I just think he’s funny)

PART TWO: HAIR, BABY!

Once again I owe my life to costuming people. Someday I’ll write that Mystic Nine costuming meta but today we’re focusing on Liu Chang and, specifically, his HAIR PEOPLE!!! I love them and would die for them literally

Once again, ladies and gentlemen and all my glorious they/thems, Wang Can:

OOOOOH I hate his slimy RAT FACE lemme AT EM. Ahem. Regardless, let’s take a look at this BITCH, shall we? We have: straight line face angles!! Very standard shape, BUT this is all accented by the fact that his hair is S C R A P E D back to within an inch of its life, like. Ahem. Sir. Please. Also this man’s got CONTOUR on. If u look at literally any pics/videos of Liu Chang out of character he is NOT this angular. His head is just as rectangular as his body, and the pulled back hair emphasizes his face, which is interesting as he doesn’t do a whole lot with it.

Alternatively, Liu Sang:

This is a nice boy!!! This is a nice soft boy!!! Look his face has CURVES that are emphasized by the glasses (which also draw attention to his eyes, which is good bc that’s where he does the most work, which we’ll get to later) and the HAIR!!! His hair is soft!! It’s flowy! It’s curvy! He conditions!!! This boy is approachable and will Not shoot you One Million Times with a Machine Gun. This also works with the Liu Sang Signature Ponytail, as he leaves thick-enough bang pieces out to also give the illusion of curves around his face. Also his nose and cheekbones are NOT as strongly contoured, so the angularity of his face is softened as well

WHAT WE HAVE DETERMINED SO FAR

dmbj hair and makeup people were doing the absolute most

Wang Can’s hair gives us the most access to The Face, giving him a slick, straight look, and also something else which we will discuss next

Liu Sang is Soft and Curved bc of the hair and glasses, primarily

Oh speaking of fucking which you know who else is soft??? Huang Junjie. That’s the softest man I have ever seen. His xiaoge is my favorite bc it’s perfectly believable that he’s Butter Inside based solely on his Cheeks (again, it’s the hair people doing the Lord’s work)

PART THREE: IT’S ALL IN THE FACE

The face is the actor’s best friend, and Liu Chang definitely uses his well. We know him as being sort of stoic, more on the Xiao-Ge end of things than the Wu Xie side, but if u compare Liu Sang to Wang Can, LS is going HAM with the facials.

Let’s take a look!

Fuck me UP!!!!!! Look at him!! This is one of the earlier episodes too so we haven’t even gotten to the real good stuff but!!!! Look at his eyebrows!!! Look at how wide his eyes get (once again, the glasses are jumbotroning the peepers)! Look at his unhappy lil mouth!! That’s a whole REALM of facial expression, and so early on in our journey!

Meanwhile, Fuckboy Prime:

(Pardon the garbage screencap, my laptop broke on me this week and I am Suffering)

This is at the very end of Wang Can’s time with us; he’s fighting and he’s going to die and he KNOWS it, but this bitch doesn’t even draw his eyebrows together. Mcwhomst???? Bitch u GOTTA give us more than that I’m BEGGING u

The other interesting thing about their differing facial expressions is that Liu Sang emotes mostly with his eyes, and Wang Can emotes mostly with his mouth. This is very obvious in the clip @xcziel posted, esp when he starts doing the whole gesturing-with-his-chin thing, but it’s prominent throughout.

These two screenshots were taken like fifteen seconds apart. He does a whole face journey, but only with his mouth. His eyes stay fixed; they move, sure, but they don’t get any wider or anything like that.

Liu Sang, however is always doing stuff with his eyes. For example (I couldn’t find an image of it quick enough but I know that @kholran has this gifset), the sacrifice scene where he looks up at Wu Xie with the biggest, most pleading and questioning eyes imaginable?? Kills me. The DEPTH in those bad boys. Fuck me UP.

This also checks out when we remember the glasses. Since they emphasize the eyes, we’re drawn to that part of Liu Sang’s face, so it makes sense that the majority of his expression would happen there. This is also prominent with his hearing abilities; whenever he’s trying to focus them (or get us to focus on him), he not only turns his eyes away, he SHUTS THEM, which means we as the audience know that there’s something going on underneath the surface, and really highlights the fact that this is an unusual and cool power!

With Wang Can, however, the structure of his face and absence of Hair Curves directs the eye to his mouth, so we watch that to tell what’s going on in his head. It’s all about directing the eye, and Liu Chang is very good at knowing where people are going to be looking!

SO: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

Liu Sang, Wang Can, and Jiang Wu are all very distinctly characterized through their body language

The same actor becomes different characters by using their toolkit (the body) to its full potential

Hair and makeup people are Wizards

Wang Can is a Whole-Ass Ho and I do not miss him even a little bit

Liu Sang’s body dynamics change over time and I love that for him!!

I’m a giant nerd the end

#this is a long boy but I’m a nerd and enjoy drawing Arrows #liu sang #wang can #liu chang #dmbj #dmetabj #my meta #acting meta #tomb of the sea #the lost tomb reboot #moonfall echo

[balioc]

A Taxonomy of Magic

This is a purely and relentlessly thematic/Doylist set of categories. 

The question is: What is the magic for, in this universe that was created to have magic?

Or, even better: What is nature of the fantasy that’s on display here?

Because it is, literally, fantasy.  It’s pretty much always someone’s secret desire.

(NOTE: “Magic” here is being used to mean “usually actual magic that is coded as such, but also, like, psionics and superhero powers and other kinds of Weird Unnatural Stuff that has been embedded in a fictional world.”)

(NOTE: These categories often commingle and intersect.  I am definitely not claiming that the boundaries between them are rigid.)

I. Magic as The Gun That Can Be Wielded Only By Nerds

Notable example: Dungeons & Dragons

Of all the magic-fantasies on offer, I think of this one as being the clearest and most distinctive.  It’s a power fantasy, in a very direct sense.  Specifically, it’s the fantasy that certain mental abilities or personality traits -- especially “raw intelligence” -- can translate directly into concrete power.  Being magical gives you the wherewithal to hold your own in base-level interpersonal dominance struggles. 

(D&D wizardry is “as a science nerd, I can use my brainpower to blast you in the face with lightning.”  Similarly, sorcery is “as a colorful weirdo, I can use my force of personality to blast you in the face with lightning,” and warlockry is “as a goth/emo kid, I can use my raw power of alienation to blast you in the face with lightning.”)   

You see this a lot in media centered on fighting, unsurprisingly, and it tends to focus on the combative applications and the pure destructive/coercive force of magic (even if magic is notionally capable of doing lots of different things).   It often presents magic specifically as a parallel alternative to brawn-based fighting power.  There’s often an unconscious/reflexive trope that the heights of magic look like “blowing things up real good” / “wizarding war.” 

II. Magic as The Numinous Hidden Glory of the World

Notable examples: Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle

The point of magic, in this formulation, is that it is special.  It is intrinsically wondrous and marvelous.  Interacting with it puts you in a heightened-state-of-existence.  It is -- ultimately -- a metaphor for The Secret Unnameable Yearnings of Your Soul, the glorious jouissance that always seems just out of reach.

It doesn’t so much matter how the magic actually functions, or even what outcomes it produces.  The important thing is what magic is, which is...magical.

This is how you get works that are all about magic but seem entirely disinterested in questions like “what can you achieve with magic?,” “how does the presence of magic change the world?,” etc.  One of the major ways, anyway.

The Numinous Hidden Glory fantasy often revolves around an idea of the magic world, the other-place where everything is drenched in jouissance.  [Sometimes the magic world is another plane of existence, sometimes it’s a hidden society within the “real world,” doesn’t matter.]  The real point of magic, as it’s often presented, is being in that magic world; once you’re there, everything is awesome, even if the actual things you’re seeing and doing are ordinary-seeming or silly.  A magic school is worlds better than a regular school, because it’s magic, even if it’s got exactly the same tedium of classes and social drama that you know from the real world. 

Fantasies of this kind often feature a lot of lush memorable detail that doesn’t particularly cohere in any way.  It all just adds to the magic-ness. 

III. Magic as the Atavistic Anti-Civilizational Power

Notable examples: A Song of Ice and Fire, Godzilla

According to the terms of this fantasy, the point of magic is that it doesn’t make sense.  It doesn’t make sense within the logic of civilized human thought, anyway.  It is nature and chaos given concrete form; it is the thing that tears away at the systems that we, in our [Promethean nobility / overweening hubris], try to build. 

There’s not a baked-in value judgment here.  This kind of magic can be presented as good, bad, or some of both.  Same with civilization, for that matter.

It’s often presented as Old Myths and Folkways that have More Truth and Power Than Seems Reasonable.  Narratively, it often serves as a dramatized version of the failure of episteme, and of the kind of entropic decay that in real life can take centuries to devour empires and ideologies.

This kind of magic is almost always the province of savages, actual inhuman monsters, or (occasionally) the very downtrodden. 

(I think it is enormously telling that in A Song of Ice and Fire -- a series that is jammed full of exotic cults and ancient half-forgotten peoples, all of whom have magic that seems to work and beliefs that at least touch on mysterious truths -- only the Westerosi version of High Medieval Catholicism, the religion to which most of the people we see notionally adhere, is actually just a pack of empty lies.)  

IV. Magic as an Overstuffed Toybox

Notable examples: Naruto, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Or, sometimes, we care about what magic actually does.  More than that -- sometimes we want to see magic doing really interesting things, and then other magic intersecting with it in ways that are even more interesting.

The fantasy here, in simplest terms, is “magic can achieve any arbitrary cool effect.”  There doesn’t tend to be an overarching system that explains how it’s all supposed to come together, or if there is, it tends to be kind of lame and hand-wavey -- a rigorous system of Magic Physics, delineating the limits of the possible, would get in the way of all the cool effects we want to show!

Once again, this shows up a lot in combat-heavy narratives.  Less with the genericized D&D-style “magic is a fist that can punch harder than your regular meat fist,” and more with people throwing weird and wacky powers at each other in order to show how those powers can be used creatively to overcome opposition.  Sometimes, instead of combat, you get magicians using their cool-effects magic to MacGuyver their way out of problems or even trying to resolve large-scale social problems.  Issues of magic usage within the narrative being “fair” or “unfair” or “cheesy” are important here in ways that they generally aren’t elsewhere, since the fantasy on offer comes close to being a game. 

(Ratfic often falls into this category.) 

V. Magic as Alternate-Universe Science

Notable examples: the Cosmere books

This covers most of what gets called “hard fantasy.”  The fantasy on offer is a pretty straightforward one -- “magic has actual rules, you can learn them, and once you’ve learned them you can make predictions and achieve outcomes.”  It’s puzzle-y in the way that the previous fantasy was game-y.  It’s often a superstimulus for the feeling of learning a system in the way that video game grinding is a superstimulus for the feeling of rewarding labor. 

The magic effects on offer tend to be less ridiculous and “broken” than toybox magic, because any logic you can use to achieve a ridiculous effect is going to influence the rest of the magic system, and special cases that aren’t grounded in sufficiently-compelling logic will ruin the fantasy. 

Not super common.

VI.  Magic as Psychology-Made-Real

Notable examples: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Persona

This kind of magic makes explicit, and diagetic, what is implicit and metatextual in most fantasy settings.  The magic is an outgrowth of thought, emotion, and belief.  Things have power in the world because they have power in your head.  The things that seem real in the deepest darkest parts of your mind are actually real. 

This is where you get inner demons manifested as actual demons (servile or hostile or anything in between), swords forged from literal hope, dungeons and labyrinths custom-tailored to reflect someone’s trauma, etc. 

The fantasy, of course, is that your inner drama matters. 

My personal favorite.

VII.  Magic as Pure Window Dressing

Notable examples: later Final Fantasy games, Warhammer 40K

This one is weird; it doesn’t really make sense on its own, only metatextually.  I think of its prevalence as an indicator of the extent to which fantasy has become a cultural staple. 

The fantasy on offer in these works is that you are in a fantasy world that is filled with fantasy tropes.  And that’s it.

Because the important thing here is that the magic doesn’t really do anything at all, or at least, it doesn’t do anything that non-magic can’t do equally well.  It doesn’t even serve as an indication that Things are Special, because as presented in-setting, magic isn’t Special.  Being a wizard is just a job, like being a baker or a tailor or something -- or, usually, like being a soldier, because the magic on offer is usually a very-simple kind of combat magic.  And unlike in D&D, it’s not like magic is used only or chiefly by a particularly noteworthy kind of person.  It’s just...there. 

The great stories of the world, in these works, don’t tend to feature magic as anything more than a minor element.  The point is to reassure the audience that this is the kind of world, the kind of story, that has magic. 

-------------------------------------------------

Thoughts?  Critiques?  Other categories to suggest? 

#media analysis

[frogtanii]

hq boys as the crimes they’d commit

warnings: CRIMES, crackfic, probably many typos idk i’m so tired lmaooo, cursing, drinking ??? idfk 😩💦

an: and i did this for what?? inspired by hq hcs royalty @sugardaddykenma @hina-wit-da-glock (AJSKSJ SORRY FOR TAGGING Y’ALL IF YOU SEE THIS, IT IS DEF NOT UP TO PAR W Y’ALLS WORKS ILY)

karasuno

sawamura daichi- insurance fraud!! somehow this is such a dad crime to commit?? dadchi didn’t try (dumb excuse, how do you accidentally commit insurance fraud smh) to commit insurance fraud but at one point in his late-thirties, he was very very broke and was already working as much as possible so, he decided to fake an ankle injury, as you do, and filed a bunch of claims which made him bank. daichi kept doing it until he was able to quit one of his jobs and buy himself a really nice suit and a rolex (uhhh 🥵). he somehow never got caught tho and to this day, none of his friends know how he was able to afford a tesla on a cop’s salary (sorry daichi but acab 😔✨)

sugawara kōshi- child abandonment!! ok you can try and fight me on this but i feel in my bones that suga absolutely despises children. he can tolerate ages 10+ but anything younger than that, he will punt them into the next dimension. the thing is, people just assume he likes kids because of how good he is with his team which is why his aunt begged him to babysit his nephew taro. taro was being an absolute brat when suga took him out for the day and he was 👉👈 this close to snapping. he put taro down for like 3 seconds to pay for their ice cream and when he turned back, the demon spawn was gone. he panicked, running around the park looking for taro when it turns out, taro was just bent down behind the bench. some random karen called the police and suga has never craved murder more.

nishinoya yuu- arson!! you CANNOT tell me nishinoya doesn’t have a ~murder~ playlist that he listens to to get himself hype (me too noya, me too). one night, he got a lil too hype listening to start a riot by duckwrth and watching demolition videos on youtube. he snuck out of his house to an empty shed like 30 minutes away and maybe... lit it on fire while genocide by lil darkie played on a speaker nearby. what he did NOT anticipate was the absolute size of the fire so he freaked out and called the firefighters who promptly called the police. he didn’t want to get grounded so he called daichi to bail him out. daichi still told noya’s parents 😔.

tanaka ryūnosuke- vandalism!! tanaka had been on alt tiktok and saw a group of cool friends spray painting an abandoned building. he thought “that’s cool, lemme do that!” but then he realized he had no friends (AHDGS JK I LOVE TANAKA). he asked nishinoya who was grounded from the arson incident and he knew he definitely couldn’t ask daichi, suga, asahi, or enoshita so he decided to go it alone. that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. he got the supplies, arrived to the building of his choice (thanks saeko :3), and decided to spray paint a huge p3ni5 in bright red paint. he finished “successfully” and zoomed back home. what he didn’t realize with his two-and-a-half braincells is that he signed his glorious piece with his full name. the cops were at his house the next morning...🧍

hinata shoyō- forgery!! hinata did NOT think that forgery was even a crime. how was he supposed to know that he wasn’t allowed to copy his mom’s signature on a permission form! all he wanted was to go to an overnight training camp 😿

kageyama tobio- attempted murder!! kageyama swears it sounds worse than was and he is absolutely incorrect. what happened was so much worse. he and hinata were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater (you can’t tell me they haven’t done some dumbass shit like this) and kageyma lost almost instantly (he has the tiny lungs of an asthmatic). he didn’t want hinata to notice so he held hinata’s head under the water for like 10 seconds. suga walked in though, saw hinata thrashing around in the water and immediately called the police. kageyama never forgave him.

tsukishima kei- cyberbullying!! first of all, i had no idea you could get arrested for cyber bullying!? that being said, neither did tsukishima who spent 80% of his time making fun of people online (and on his real account!! bold). eventually one of the people he bullied (hinata) reported him on instagram and his very lame account was deleted (pls don’t bully people online 😤).

yamaguchi tadashi- shoplifting!! andjksh this is so funny because this scenario has happened to me and i can just SEE this happening to poor tadashi. yamaguchi gets super late night cravings (and usually tsukki will walk with him at like 3 am 🥺 nEWAYS) so he’ll sneak out and walk to the mini-mart near his house. one night, he was so tired but also super hungry so he went onto his nightly routine and basically sleepwalked into the store. he picked out his favorite chips and candy bar (which are sour cream&onion lays and milky ways in case you were wondering 😌✨) and just... walked out the store without paying. the store clerk was mysteriously missing so yamaguchi made it all the way home, ate half the bag of chips and passed out without realizing what he’d done. once he did, he cried for 2 hours straight.

nekoma

kuroo tetsurō- telemarketing fraud!! kuroo originally did telemarketing fraud as a joke?? like he was trying to prank call someone pretending that they had lost their information and they actually gave it to him??? he was mildly concerned but even more excited. he did it over and over again but he never used the info for anything. to this day, kuroo literally has a notebook full of credit card numbers and bank account passwords but he refuses to use it because he believes it’s ✨wrong✨(but it isn’t wrong to take all that information in the first place under false pretenses, not realizing that once people find out, they are forced to close credit cards and accounts but go off self righteous king). once he brought the book up to kenma and he offered to sell it on the dark web. now kuroo feels less bad about what he’s done! :D

kozume kenma- computer crime!! pfttt this one seems kinda obvious but what do you expect from kenma :). he spends so much time on the internet, he’s definitely picked up some less than legal skills that still help him now 👀. kenma did little mini crimes like getting into other people’s wifi but his crowning achievement was when he hacked into the minneapolis pd website and had it so when you opened the page, a black lives matter screen came up. he never told anyone that it was him who did it but he thinks it’s the best he’s ever done.

yaku morisuke- racketeering!! yaku, the feral king, ran an underground gambling ring in the basement of nekoma (do they have basements?? who knows! i don’t!) during his third year. the only reason it didn’t get shut down was because coach nekomata took a portion of yaku’s profits whenever he won (which was literally all the time). everyone on the team has lost money to him which is why they never play with him anymore. they won’t even let yaku play monopoly 😔.

haiba lev- indecent exposure!! poor lev’s head is so empty, he tends to fall for whatever pranks his senpai’s do to him. this time kuroo had somehow convinced him that in order to grow his schlong, he had to run outside naked for 10 minutes because the moonlight had special growing properties. lev was a lil scared ngl because he was already superrr tall and didn’t need to grow his height (or his dick ((boy is hung)) but poor lev is insecure) but he did it anyway. long story short, an old woman saw him parading around the neighborhood naked and called el policia. 0/10 dick did NOT grow and had to spend a night in jail naked 😿

aoba johsai

oikawa tōru- prostitution!! KAKKAKA iwazumi made fun of oikawa for being so shitty and said that he couldn’t pick up anyone if he tried. flattykawa took this as a personal challenge and went out onto the street, asking people if they’d have sex with him. with the way he was asking (and the way he was dressed), people assumed he was a paid w h o r e and someone eventually reported him. iwazumi had to pick oikawa up from the station- he never let him live this one down.

iwaizumi hajime- battery!! it wasn’t technically battery but oikawa is a lil bitch and overreacts (at least in his words -_-). the amount of times iwa-chan has beat the absolute shit out of oikawa is uNREAL. he just can’t handle the stupidity sometimes so he just smacks the crap outta him. not for real for real but the way oikawa reacts, you’d think a murder was occurring. one time, shittykawa screeched so loud, they got a noise complaint -_- hajime hates it in these streets.

matsukawa issei & hanamaki takahiro- conspiracy!! issei and hiro have a secret blog where they discuss conspiracy theories and such but one day, hiro found an article that explained how jfk’s death was an inside job. he sent it to issei who began to theorize how HE’D do it. that devolved into a massive thread on their blog of how’d they murder a president which blew up and caught the attention of the cia who sent the a letter telling them to quietly delete the blog. they did because they were terrified but they kept the letter and now it’s framed in issei’s apartment.

kyōtani kentarō- assault!! baby is an angry little boy but for all the right reasons. he was at a bar (when he’s all grown up, duh) and he spotted an absolute drunk creep hitting on a girl who clearlyyyy did not reciprocate his feelings. kyōtani, being the respectful king that he is, went over to the guy, pulled him by the jacket and beat. the. shit. out of him. while the bartender was happy with the fact that the creep was out, he was not impressed with the damage to his bar. he just sent kyōtani out who casually adjusted his leather jacket and rings, and hopped on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. i am the FATTEST simp for this man ONG 🥴

shiratorizawa

ushijima wakatoshi- stalking!! poor ushijima has no idea how intimidating he can be. he was on a train late at night after practice and the woman sitting across from him left her purse sitting on the seat. being the gentleman that he is, he took the purse and followed her to return it. the only problem is that the closer he got, the faster she ran and when he tried to speak (yknow with his scary, deep, baritone voice), the woman screeched and called the cops on him because he was a “strange, big man who was following her home.” when the police showed up, ushijima was painfully confused and just held up this tiny ass purse in his massive hands. the cops laughed.

tendō satori- ???!! no one knows what crimes (or how many 😳) tendō has committed but each of his teammates have different ideas- ushijima: “i don’t believe tendou is capable of committing any sort of felony. well, maybe murder”; semi: “of COURSE he’s capable of crimes??! do you know how many times i’ve seen him come into the dorm with a suspicious stain of red on his sweater?? *shudders* if i end up dead, tendō did it...” in actuality, the only crime tendō has committed is ~drugs~ but he’s not bouta tell his friends that.

goshiki tsutomu- would be a VICTIM!! my baby tsutomu would NEVER commit a crime!!! i love this man with my everything and the only crime he’s committed is being too damn cute 😤🥺

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! headcanons #hq hcs #hq headcanons #crack fic #tsukishima kei #daichi sawamura #sugawara kōshi #ushijima headcanons #tendou satori #goshiki tsutomu #kyotani kentaro #matsukawa issei #hanamaki takahiro #iwazumi hajime #oikawa torū #haiba lev #yaku morisuke #kenma kozume #kuroo tetsurou #yamaguchi tadashi #hinata shōyō #haikyuu kageyama #nishinoya yuu #haikyuu tanaka #shiritorizawa #karasuno #aoba johsai #nekoma

[kiritouyadeku96]

mmmmmm character ask thing: spinner and/or mr compress

Spinner

First impression: My first impression of Spinner was I found him cheesy with his whole Stain thingy he had going on, especially his outfit. My god the moment when All Might burst through the wall to save Bakugou and he was blubbering on about Stain respecting All Might. Though his devotion to Stain low-key saved Izuku from being attacked by Magne, after Spinner stopped her from doing so once again because of Stain. I liked him but he did make me giggle in the first impression.

Impression now: Love him, and his development, wish for more focus on him because I think he deserves it. Do think he should be Shoji’s counterpart, like you know they both got mutant quirks. I feel like maybe they could connect…maybe. Another impression I have of him now is he was done dirty by the anime, cutting out a important moment that showed his struggle in society!

Favourite Moment: It’s a very small moment but I loved the scene where he worried for Toga, and asked her to return to them quickly. It was such a sweet moment, and one of the reasons I love Spinner he cares for his friends/comrades!

Idea for a story: Honestly I don’t have one I’m afraid, but who knows maybe one day I’ll think of one! Update: I literally just thought of one - it’s an AU and it ties in with my headcanon where Spinner and Shigaraki meet when they’re kids at the arcades, Spinner was getting picked on because he’s a mutant and Shigaraki defends him. They then become like best-buds whom play together at the arcades.

Unpopular Opinion: I don’t know if this would count but I really don’t like his outfit, but that’s it!

Favourite relationship: Shigaraki, I just think that their relationship is one of the best ones next to Twice and Toga’s in the League, and I could definitely see them being great friends for a long time. Bonding over video games, and so on.

Favourite headcanon: My favourite headcanon is that Shigaraki and Spinner will visit an arcade one day and play on all the games.

Mr.Compress

First Impression: ok not going to lie but my first and only impression of him was “I wonder what he looks like? I bet he’s handsome” 😅 and I wondered if he was a circus act or was there other reasons for why he was a villain.

Impression now: I still find him rather mysterious, and although we have some knowledge of his backstory. I would like a backstory like a flashback(we won’t get that I know 😭) but I can hope! Also maybe a look in on how he’s doing since removing a chunks of his body, because like have we had a look in on his condition? If we did I missed it 😅.

Favourite moment: Face reveal, like I always knew he was going to be handsome but yeah that moment was glorious. I also thought he was pretty savage you know by compressing a part of his body. His moment in the war arc was just so cool!

Idea for a story: I have a small idea of maybe a small fic of when he’s only a little boy, and his father is teaching him the ways of thievery and tricks.

Unpopular Opinion: ummm we need a backstory 🤷‍♀️ not just him saying he’s the great great grandson of a famous bandit, but like a full on backstory.

Favourite relationship: mmh 🤔 I’m not sure what relationship I like most with him, I do enjoy his interactions with Dabi and Toga quite a bit.

Favourite headcanon: I like the headcanon that he’s like a dad to the League, Dad-compress 🤣!

Send me a character, and I’ll you my opinion

#I always feel like I don’t answer these questions correctly I just like…babble on and lose track of myself 😅 #just know that I love these two and wish for more content on them #what I would give to see a baby Spinner 🥺🥺 like can you imagine?! he’s be so flaming cute I know it! #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha mr compress #my hero academia #bnha #mha mr compress #bnha spinner #mha spinner

[lokiondisneyplus]

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you haven’t seen Season 1, Episode 5 of “Loki,” now streaming on Disney Plus.

I think it’s when Alligator Loki ate President Loki’s hand that I realized I was in love.

To be sure, I was always into “Loki,” Marvel Studios’ third Disney Plus series and the first devoted to exploring a single character: the god of mischief as played by Tom Hiddleston. From the first episode, I dug the absurdist deadpan humor imbued by head writer Michael Waldron, and I was immediately smitten with how director Kate Herron employed ’70s sci-fi brutalism and a particularly British affinity for bureaucracy to build out the world of the Time Variance Authority.

“Loki” looked unlike anything I’d ever seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an increasingly difficult prospect given there are now 26 discrete iterations of the MCU — soon to be 27 with the impending debut of “Black Widow.” As the show has progressed, that feeling has only grown more acute as “Loki,” in its exploration of its title character’s identity, managed to carve out its own unique personality not just in the MCU, but also in the grander landscape of sci-fi storytelling.

To put it as simply as I can, “Loki” is a cosmic-yet-intimate time-traveling romantic action comedy about how Hiddleston’s sexually fluid narcissist finally learns how to fall in love with himself — or, rather, the female version of himself who has lived a whole lifetime of harrowing experiences apart from his own. In doing so, the show has proven that not only can the MCU work on television, it can thrive on it.

Marvel Studios’ first Disney Plus series, “WandaVision,” was a fabulous first step onto TV, proving that the MCU, itself an experiment in creating an episodic series of blockbuster feature films, could shrink itself down to the scope of an American sitcom. Its exploration of grief and the restorative power of comfort TV could not have been more relevant to an audience enduring a devastating pandemic. But as it unfolded, the escalating mystery of what was actually happening on “WandaVision” — Evan Peters showing up as Pietro-but-not-actually-Pietro, Kathryn Hahn hiding in plain sight as Agatha, Elizabeth Olsen unwittingly responsible for almost everything on the show as Wanda — began to overwhelm it. Fans and major entertainment news outlets alike began wildly theorizing each week — it’s Mephisto! it’s Magneto! — and the pressure to achieve a Marvel-sized scale, service a wide ensemble of MCU characters, and resolve all its narrative strands made the final episodes of “WandaVision” feel, to some, misshapen.

Marvel’s follow-up series, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” meanwhile, was at once more conventional and more ungainly, with five separate antagonists (John Walker, Karli Morgenthau, Helmut Zemo, Sharon Carter and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine) operating at cross-purposes and overshadowing the two title characters meant to be at the heart of the show and the exploration of being a Black man in America meant to drive it.

“Loki” avoids all of that, because it’s the first MCU show that understands to its bones that the best television is about its characters first, and its story second. The lasting pleasure of longform storytelling is allowing the audience a far deeper understanding of who is on screen than a two-hour movie can allow. That sensibility is already woven into the MCU: Watching Tony Stark, Thor, and Steve Rogers grow and changed over multiple features has been central to the franchise’s unprecedented success. But while Marvel’s conviction to make their shows the same way they’ve made their movies makes sense, it’s also had the paradoxical effect of making “WandaVision” and “FAWS” feel too overloaded with their characters doing stuff than just letting them be.

Each episode of “Loki” does just that. In Episode 1, Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson, never better?) sit and talk about why Loki does what he does; in Episode 2, they ruminate on the nature of accepted reality while trying to solve the mystery of the variant Loki’s whereabouts. In Episode 3, Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino, an instant star) spend the entire hour walking through a doomed planet getting to know each other, and casually coming out in the process. Episode 4 is when the story shifts into a higher gear, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer emerging as its true antagonist, but even that episode allowed for several extended scenes of human connection, between Ravonna and Mobius, Loki and Mobius, and Sylvie and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku, richer with each episode).

This week’s penultimate episode, “Journey Into Mystery,” introduces several new Loki variants, a critical new location in the Void (the purgatory at the end of time into which all pruned entities are dumped) and a blockbuster movie sized enemy in the monstrous, timeline devouring Alioth (re-imagined somewhat from the comic books). And yet, there’s still time for Loki and Sylvie to sit on a hill, share a conjured blanket and quietly express how much they mean to each other, and there’s also time for Classic Loki (the great Richard E. Grant) to get a deeply satisfying character arc. After explaining how his own existential despair at his lot in life allowed him to live well past his encounter with Thanos, Classic Loki’s encounter with Loki and Sylvie reinvigorates his sense of glorious purpose — and helps Loki to understand he’s more powerful than he’s ever allowed himself to be. It’s a full meal in miniature, and Grant makes the most of it.

All the while, Herron and writer Tom Kauffman work in all manner of delightful alternate reality Easter eggs, from the USS Eldridge (purported to have been part of an experimental cloaking and teleportation device in 1943) to the Polybius video game (purported to be a government psy-ops scheme). More notably, there are also some MCU Easter eggs, including the Thanos helicopter and the Living Tribunal that flit by quickly and appear designed to tickle Marvel die-hards and pleasantly mystify everyone else. And then there’s Alligator Loki, a flawless creature who should be protected at all costs.

There is one blink-and-you-missed-it moment, though, that could be something more, when the Qeng Enterprises logo shows up on the Avengers tower. In the comics, Tony Stark sells that tower to Qeng, which is secretly connected to the same Marvel boogeyman that’s haunted “Loki” from its premiere: Kang the Conqueror. The decrepit house Loki and Sylvie are stepping towards at the end of the episode also looks like it could — could — be Chronopolis, Kang’s HQ in the comics, although the TVA itself could be that as well. In any event, it’s been well documented, here and elsewhere, that Kang could be the entity who is really behind the TVA, especially since “Lovecraft Country” star Jonathan Majors has already been cast in the role and will appear in 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”

If “Loki” does introduce Kang in its finale, however, then the show is stepping onto its highest, thinnest tightrope yet. This is supposed to be a show about Loki, not about a villain that, within the world of the MCU, remains a total unknown. It’s a massive risk for any series to bring in a brand new character — let alone the Big Bad! — in the final episode, so this could be another example of an MCU series serving the larger franchise at the expense of its own story. That would be a shame. Sticking the landing, after all, has always been troublesome for TV because TV is so much more about the shared journey than the ultimate destination. And yet, if anyone in the MCU knows how to alight onto safe ground despite impossible odds, it is the god of outcasts, who lives to survive.

“Loki” streams new episodes Wednesdays on Disney Plus.

#Loki #episode 5 review #spoilers

[memzhay]

In Link’s Dream

In Link’s dream, everything is white and featureless. It’s like the Bruno Mars predictive text video they did that one time. You would not believe how hard it is to edit something where everything is white. It’s ridiculous! He thinks this is his dream, anyway. Though there is always the chance it is Rhett dreaming that he is Link having a dream where everything is white. Even in their dreams, the boundaries are always kind of blurry.

Rhett is there too. So, this is my dream, Link thinks. Rhett is always there. Sometimes he can see him. Sometimes he can’t. He’s not sure which time this is. Dreams are weird.

“Do you ever miss Jesus?” Rhett asks, and now Link can see him. It’s Rhett from a few years back. His hair dirty blonde rockets into space. His eyes shining with mischief. White t-shirt against the white universe. Link wants to bite him for some random reason.

“Yes!” Link cries like his heart is tearing at the seams, and instantly feels guilty for it.

“And no,” he clarifies. “How do you miss someone who isn’t real?”

“Same way you miss anyone you loved, who isn’t there anymore,” Rhett says, sad sympathy in his eyes.

“I miss the music,” Link admitted. “There’s nothing like a room full of people all singing the same song. The beautiful harmonies that just wrap around you like a blanket. The room fills with light, and it’s so warm. It’s like when we do ‘Friends Till the End’ at our shows, but you got to do it all the time.”

“I miss feeling like I knew what life was about,” he continued. “There were rules for everything. A framework. A process. Things aren’t so black and white in the real world,” he said sadly, looking around at all that white formlessness.

“But if I devote my life to something, I want it to be real,” he says. And he’s sure about that.

Rhett nodded in agreement. “This place is boring,” he said. “Couldn’t you at least dream about a beach or something?”

“No!” Link shrieks. “Not the beach-“

But it was too late.

Now it’s night on a beautiful beach. Port Hueneme maybe. A deserted cove that Link’s body moves toward of its own accord. Compelled as if by magic, a dark song laden with longing in the air. Feet hovering and drifting two inches above the sand like being pulled by a magnet suit, or the tide.

The creature is there waiting for him at the rocks. It’s Rhett’s face, but the eyes are dark and mysterious. Raw desire rippling in every sinew beneath the green skin, dripping like the water droplets from his beard glittering in the moonlight.

Link is in the water now and being pulled under. He’s not afraid yet. His legs wrapping around the creature’s waist, their chests locked together, wanting every piece of himself to be touching Rhett that isn’t Rhett and is. His feet seek out the glorious fins he knows are beneath him, but the creature is so tall and Link can’t reach them. So he twists his legs around the tail, feeling the texture of the scales, slick and rough, and so god damn beautiful! Link squeezes him so tight, it’s like they are the nucleus of an atom, the rest of existence orbiting around them. You could pull them apart, but it would be nuclear winter. The end of everything good. Burying his face in the creature’s neck. Burning, burning everywhere at once. His hands, his face, his groin, his brain, his… lungs. They are deep in the water now and Link looks up seeing bubbles floating to the surface, and he knows he is drowning. He is usually afraid at this point in the dream, but he isn’t this time. He looks in the creature’s eyes and sees no malice there, just dark things he can’t quite wrap his mind around and desire. So much desire! A bird can love a fish, Link thinks wistfully, but where would they live?

“What do you want?” the creature speaks to his mind.

“To be loved,” Link answers honestly. And now he is in a friendly blue room, sitting on a stool next to a camera across from Damnyell.

“Maybe you could love me, and I could love you,” Damnyell offers.

Damnyell’s eyes are filled with about 5,486 thoughts all at once. His thoughts. Richard’s thoughts. Rhett’s thoughts. Link knows in that instant how difficult it must be for him, his identity all swirling and tangled up in someone else’s life.  Link takes his hands and smiles into those sweet, kind of lost eyes.

“I love you,” Link assures gently. He is rewarded with the most lovely, innocent smile he’s ever seen, and it fills everything with sunlight. The last droplets of dark water evaporating beneath his feet.

“I love you too,” Rhett says, and now everything is white again and Rhett is his Rhett. His hair is tumbling to his shoulders. His eyes are gentle and older and knowing and full of pain and joy and humor and empathy. He’s everything!

If I devote my life to something, Link thinks, I want it to be real.

And it is.

With that, the dream releases it’s hold on him and he starts drifting into an easy, relaxed sleep. He hopes he can remember the dream this time. Rhett would like the part about the merman. Maybe he’ll tell him all of it this time. If he can remember.

#rhink #rhink fanfiction #rhink dreams #rhink fic

[rainydawgradioblog]

10 most underrated Joni Mitchell songs

Joni Mitchell’s surprise return to Spotify marks the first day of my life. Two grueling years of mp3 downloads, YouTube video playlists, and Apple Music temptations took quite the toll, but we’ve made it. To celebrate, here’s a list of 10 criminally underrated Joni bangers that deserve your streams. Now!

“Refuge of the Roads” (1976)

The ultimate highway soundtrack, “Refuge of the Roads” is an escapist hallucination with some of the sexiest bass you’ll ever hear. Joni’s on the run, hiding from the critics and her deep-seeded feelings of love that keep her from being the picture of independence she longed to be. The song details her miraculous recovery from cocaine addiction thanks to a Tibetan Buddhist master in Colorado and the insignificance of her emotional existence. It’s also one of her favorite songs she ever recorded!

“Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)” (1972)

A piano tribute to Beethoven, “Ludwig’s Tune” is Joni finding solace in another legendary musician’s experience of being misinterpreted. Just like Ludwig, her art was deemed “too raw” at a time where no one was trauma dumping like Joni was. The song is a peak in Joni’s orchestration skills, with glorious winds and vocal runs, plus some of her best poetry to match. 

“Talk to Me” (1977)

I never thought the same woman who sang “A Case Of You” would be literally chicken squawking on record, but we’re blessed to live in that reality. Joni’s sense of humor on “Talk To Me” is on full display, dodging punchy acoustic guitar and raging fretless bass, begging “Mr. Mystery” (presumably Bob Dylan) to talk to her. “You spend every sentence as if it was marked currency / Come and spend some on me” is lyrical brilliance, not to mention one of the most iconic opening lines, period.

“Harry’s House/Centerpiece” (1975)

Joni’s storytelling skills fly under the radar way too often, despite her pointed observations in “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” being one of the greatest critiques of gender roles in music. Her blend of jazz fusion and a jazz standard adds to the traditional versus modern views of gender roles she’s observing, and her top tier crooning sells it hard. Not to mention Harry Styles named a whole album after the song!

Borderline (1994)

Not many of Joni’s songs match the intensity of “Borderline,” with a drop dead gorgeous steel guitar/organ combo and insightful 50-year-old cynicism. I think of “Borderline” as her 90s version of “Both Sides Now”. She makes sure to remind us that no one really knows life at all, and pretending otherwise only builds the borderlines between us. A brutally honest queen!

“Love” (1982)

For someone who allegedly doesn’t know love at all, Joni seems very well-acquainted with it on this song. Her insightful takes are a lot to digest, but they’re paired with winding early-80s production that work seamlessly. Think Leonard Cohen-level poetry and Steely Dan-esque funk with just a touch of 80s cheesiness.  

“People’s Parties” (1974)

Even Joni has social anxiety, and “People’s Parties” is very that. Her descriptions of the posh social climbers and dramatics at the exclusive events she attends is strangely relatable to your average introvert, while also serving up a juicy critique of elitism in showbusiness. “People’s Parties” is some of her most charismatic musical phrasing, and her lower register in the outro scratches every itch in my brain. 

“The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” (1979)

Charles Mingus pulled something so specific out of Joni that is not talked about enough. On “TDCFDM,” Joni’s practically playing the part of every instrument next to bumbling bass, skittering drums, floating saxophone, and razor-sharp horns, and sounding next-level doing it. If anything Joni’s made proves her supernatural abilities, it’s this song.

"Conversation" (1970)

“Conversation” is the original love triangle song, and Joni is feeling chaotic. She’s helplessly flirting back and forth with a guy who’s taken, bringing him apples and cheese and listening to him rant about his relationship issues. Sonically the song is the perfect encapsulation of obsessing over someone new, and her signature soprano is perfection as per usual. 

"The Last Time I Saw Richard" (1971)

Holding a candle to ballads like “A Case Of You” and “River” seems unthinkable, but Blue’s closer makes it look easy. Richard and Joni play two sides of a spectrum; Richard being chewed up and spit out by pain and heartbreak, while Joni is fighting for optimism amidst the emotional devastation we hear on Blue. Joni’s pissed and panicked that someone could give up on happiness, so she’s “gonna blow this damn candle out,” refusing to let life get the best of her. 

Here's my comprehensive guide to Joni in playlist form. Happy listening!

Mead Gill