apprenticegamemaster

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Ball Gown

late 1870s

by Madame Elise

British

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Helena Christensen by Karl Lagerfeld 1991

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Stella in 2 of her ballroom dresses from the early eps

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We need more isekai premises with plot twists that it's not isekai, I think.

Like some dude appears to have woken up in a mysterious other world, except it actually is some weird cosplay cult that has kidnapped him. Or a wildly intense reality television prank show. Or alien abduction. For one shining moment he thinks that something truly magical has happened to him, only for it all to come crashing down and now he's gotta survive an extremely intense Midsommar LARP instead.

Not because it's more "realistic", that's still an absurd premise, I just think that isekai has become such a standard expectation itself that the whole song and dance of someone refusing to believe it should now, sometimes, be replaced by the reverse. Guy who is convinced that the walrus at his door must be a fairy in disguise, but it is actually a walrus.

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"But if this other world has always operated according to video game logic, why is the isekai protagonist literally the first person to figure out all these basic mechanical exploints" well, largely because litRPG isekai is merely the latest flavour of I've Been Transported To Another World Where Everyone Is Stupid Except For Me, a venerable genre that's been a going concern at least since Mark Twain.

When I was a kid, it was American sci-fi authors writing stories about shitass engineering majors getting portal-fantasied to alien planets and single-handedly saving civilisation on the strength of being the only person in the world who knows what a flowchart is, and very little has changed – right down to the weirdly inverted character arcs where the loser protagonist discovers that they don't actually need to engage in any self-reflection at all because the very traits that rendered them odious in their native society are what make them God here.

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Ha a lélek vándorlásában hiszünk, el kell fogadnunk hogy ha zenészek voltunk, zenészek maradunk akkor is, ha négy lábbal újraszületünk..

[apprenticegamemaster]

It is the only surviving fragment of a lost medieval manuscript telling the tale of Merlin and the early heroic years of King Arthur's court. In it, the magician becomes a blind harpist who later vanishes into thin air. He will then reappear as a balding child who issues edicts to King Arthur wearing no underwear. The shape-shifting Merlin – whose powers apparently stem from being the son of a woman impregnated by the devil – asks to bear Arthur's standard (a flag bearing his coat of arms) on the battlefield. The king agrees – a good decision it turns out – for Merlin is destined to turn up with a handy secret weapon: a magic, fire-breathing dragon. 

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The 'Loot From the Rainbow' an illustration from Arthur Ferrier in 1928

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This is the single funniest article title ever

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Australia’s version of the onion has just character assassinated all you gays

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Welcome to the fungle

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photos from a "private birthday party" at Kansas City's The Colony

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Hey kid, look at me.

I want you to T-pose. Turn your right thumb up and your left thumb doen and look at your right thumb. Move your arms up and down a bit until you feel a nerve running from your armpit to your palm. Now turn your right thumb down and your left thumb up, and look at your left thumb. Keep your chest facing forward and your shoulders back. Move your arms again until you feel that nerve again. Keep alternating between these two for a minute, or look at each thumb thirty times each.

Now sit down. Put your left hand firmly under your left buttock, palm down. Keep your shoulders back and put your right hand over the crown of your head, very gently pulling it to the right. Do this for thirty seconds, then do it again but with your right hand under your right buttock.

These are stretches for the nerves in your arms, and are very good for people who sit behind a computer a lot, or fibre artists, or you name it. Do them daily. They will hurt in the beginning, but keep doing them, even after the pain has gone, or it will return and you'll have to start all over.

[apprenticegamemaster]

Hunter and Luz's deaths being reverses of each other is crazy work in so many ways. Hunter is working on his emotional well-being, and beginning to accept himself. He lists the things he wants to do in order to stay focused so he can take himself (and Belos) out. Hunter hasn't been able to fully escape his trauma, in fact it literally overtakes him and he hurts people he loves, and he's holding onto the potential life he won't get due to Belos. Hunter's possession is forced on him, it's out of his control, it's the unfair expectations and history of violence that he could try and recover from but it still a part of him.

Luz has been in the exact opposite mindset. She's been really depressed and doesn't see a future for herself where she doesn't hurt everyone in her life because of her guilt. Luz is planning to sabotage her friendships in order to protect her friends from her perceived "brokeness". But her death is sudden and shocking, her sacrifice isn't made out of guilt but of an inherent impulse to save somebody else. Luz has to choose to come back, and she accepts a "possession", where she's in control. Luz has to accept that she's good, that she is worthy of life because she's here, right now, and she is enough.

They both also deal with the aftermath differently, with Hunter grieving and being angry at himself for what happened (which Luz and their friends perceive as him being angry at them). Hunter wants to get revenge on Belos at first, but then his focus shifts to protecting his friends and fighting for the Isles instead. Luz comes back with a lot of joy and excitement, she's happy to be alive again and its fun and she's more than happy to get revenge. After that fades, Luz is left tired. But they both end the series getting on the same page- they both love their families, and they both choose to live.

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