#divine kindness

[fierifiction]

The little sea-asparagus crunch, creamy avocado, sharpness of the onion with the tenderness and children of God and the objects of the divine kindness...but it's all there is because I've got to use it to start this cake. I think it's going to be one of the most delicious recipes I've ever eaten in an oven. There really are only three ingredients that make this dish so good: an olive oil can of sea cucumber, an instant oatmeal muffin with coconut, and an extra oatmeal muffin.

[fieriframes]

[The little sea-asparagus crunch, creamy avocado, sharpness of the onion with the tenderness and children of God and the objects of the divine kindness...]

[twinstxrs]

the scene of fabian and gorgug seeing the reflections of yolanda & lucy as kristen lays them to rest… the look on lou’s face. the kindness of the act. kristen applebees, one of the most gifted clerics the world has ever seen.

[artgletic]

case study of the self-identified god

[lovely-bloomy]

starting the week in a good mood

weekly review and preview

on sunday evening or monday morning, take some time to review the past week's accomplishments and reflect on what went well and what could be improved. then, preview the new week's schedule and tasks. this will help you be mentally prepared for what's ahead and adjust your plans if needed.

set weekly priorities

determine a top three to five priorities for the week and keep your focus aligned with your most important goals, making you more prone to have adequate time and resources to them throughout the week.

organize your workspace

it's very important to start monday with a clean and organized desk, anyone who already did it knows well. being physically organized helps reduce stress and improve your ability to focus and be productive.

create a motivational ritual

my favorite! begin your week with a motivational ritual. this could be reading an inspiring quote, listening to a particular song that uplifts you, or writing down somethings you are grateful for.

initiate a positive interaction

our first steps through the day can really affect the mood of our whole day (it's scientifically proven!!), so try starting your week with a positive interaction with your family, friends or colleagues. this, aside from maintaining a good relationship and being good to everybody, will also boost your mood.

start with a small win

choose a small, manageable task in the very beginning of monday and complete it. it'll give you an immediate sense of achievement and set a positive tone for the rest of the week.

[tmascfaggot]

idea: hands being tied in constant prayer, arms bound to my chest, head made to be bowing, forcibly trapped in worship

[topnotchquark]

Carl Andre dead at 88, comfortable, rich, celebrated in the art world. Whereas Ana Mendieta never got to have her full life and express all that she wanted to explore through her art. Truly the petty injustice of life is cruel in such disappointing ways.

[earththings]

[lil-lemon-snails]

Have some low-quality sun screenshots while i stress over colour palettes :)

vvv

Went through SO MANY stages w this design and i'm still not 100% about it BUT- progress is being made (maybe)

Witness my pain

[gnar-slabdash]

I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range -- you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little. . . uh. . . interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time. . . .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything -- she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story -- a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky -- it’s the only piece that can turn corners -- and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one -- it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans -- that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

[maeo-png]

Of course it's fucking THESEUS

okay. i havent shut up about the greek myth aspects of Simon's story and i wont stop now. At first it was a statue of Persephone in the garden, with it's head replaced to be Betty, giving the implication that Betty is the Persephone to Simon's Hades, and it was Simon's status as an antiquarian. and now we've gotten Simon being a huge nerd and bringing up Theseus completely unprompted (so real)

a bit of context in case you need it, Theseus was one of those greek "legendary Heroes" (Achilles, Heracles, etc.), and previously King of Athens, but had managed to dodge most bad things that happen to Greek heroes. he was just stupid and i guess they took pity on him.

The Ship of Theseus or "Theseus' Paradox", which I'd imagine all of tumblr knows by now, but if you don't, is the question on whether if a ship, specifically Theseus', is still the same ship after having all of its parts replaced exactly. To me this makes for such an obvious connection to Simon. Simon's story factors around identity, first and foremost. (yknow. "I Remember You" and all that?) The concept of not knowing what you are fundamentally was originally Ice King's thing, as his previous life as Simon was essentially history. But now that's being brought to Simon. and Simon has the lucidity to process what that means for him.

[kurozu501]

been reading about the mistranslations of the elden ring ranni ending and its wild. I’d just assumed that the vagueness of the ending was down to fromsoft being fromsoft, a lot of the endings of their games ive played have been vague, with much left unexplained. So when Ranni’s ending explained basically nothing beyond “its gonna be Ranni’s Age of Stars from now on and you will live together with her as her consort” i was a little letdown but willing to accept it. At least my character gets to live on with their witch wife. 

Instead it turns out Ranni’s ending is basically her taking control of the system, setting it to “humans get to be free and make their own choices without divine interference” and then taking the whole system and leaving so no one can ever change that and restart an age of gods ruling over the world. Its wild. All the stuff about darkness and loneliness was actually about her, that this is a sacrifice she’s making, going off into the darkness of the universe alone for the sake of the world. Your character joining her on that voyage into the unknown. 

I actually really like how that means our character would remain a total mystery to the majority of the world, unlike the other endings where we become elden lord and get to be the new ruler. In this ending presumably everyone knows Ranni became the new god queen, bc of her announcement of the age of stars. But then immediately after that she left the world and you went with her. The generations that come after may never even record that Last God Queen Ranni Who Ended The Reign Of The Gods had a consort at all. Or if they do its likely the actual identity of her consort would be a mystery. 

Plus, this makes our tarnished’s ending with her much more romantic. Its not “we’re going to live it up as the new rulers of the world” its “this is going to be a hard and lonely voyage and thats exactly why i wont let you face it alone. we’ll go together”

[lucabyte]

Hmmm just gonna spit this headcanon out in text post form since A. I don't think I could exposit it well enough in image form and B. It's not actually textually/thematically substantiated and I don't like actually staking my stuff on just vibes alone*

But anyway. I'd say it's pretty evident that all the islanders forgot their names, right? King obviously. Because why the hell else would he do that, but also Siffrin No Middle Names No Last Name.

They're 'pretty sure' they've 'always' been 'Just Siffrin' 'as long as they can remember'. It's a pretty cruel twist of the knife to say that they don't even get to keep their birth name as a memento, which is why I'm saying as such.

My utterly unsubstantiated claim is I think it'd be cute to say that Sisyphus *is* the name Siffrin initially picked, assuming the myth of King Sisyphus is recontextualised as idk, just a play or something in the setting. But I like the idea of Siffrin going 'oh shit 🫵 he's just like me fr' at a tortured fictional character long before the irony kicks in.

As for how Sisyphus -> Siffrin. I think that chronic mumbler and emotional doormat Sif just did not correct people who misheard the name during their time travelling, and went through enough places with incompatible phonologies (pronounceable sounds in the language) without ever really writing it down that it just got kinda. Changed until it was unrecognisable, and Siffrin just went with it until the earlier pronunciations slipped out of their swiss-cheese brain. And they just kinda don't remember any of that.

Also, something something the horrid realisation that Siffrin also named themselves after a King. Just not as blatantly.

*(though I think there's something here about Siffrin, a guy from a belief system that seems to thoroughly disincentivise autonomy and self-motivated choice continuously having their hand forced to make changes/choices they don't want but have no choice but to... It's not solid enough to really back this up tbh, but it informs it.)

Anyway.

[effemimaniac]

love when women have tiny barely-there tits. angelic. when she's got those puffy perky nips with nearly nothing underneath... like molehills that make a mountain in my heart.

[lovely-bloomy]

i don’t know who needs to hear this today, but

you can always start again

you can change your mind

it won’t be always like this

your worth doesn’t depend on your looks

your character is what matters the most about you

you deserve to be seen

you still have time to figure things out, some people just pretend they did

your best is your best and sometimes it varies

you matter too

you need you, always remember this

[girlbloggen]