#at least the costumes were good...

[annabolinas]

Angela Pleasence as Catherine Howard in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Episode 5: Catherine Howard (written by Beverley Cross)

edited by me; apologies for any remaining artifacts!

Henry VIII was played by Keith Michell, while Will Somers (2nd picture) was played by Howard Goorney.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[kald-dal-art]

Could you draw Maureen and cass in the parade of the 75th hunger games, thanks

Love the moment where they are entranced by the D12 costumes so much. I know for a fact they were just thinking how the colors and light played around and how amazing it would have been to capture in a painting ☹

(Just like me fr)

[ride-thedragon]

"Hotd costume design was fine, you can't still be angry."

This is how they had Laena and Her daughters dressed in ESSOS?!

It's not the worst thing in the world, and thankfully, face cards carry house Velartarg, but the language of Essos isn't communicated. You can make the arguement that Laena wants them to feel like Westeros girls but that doesn't make sense because Daemon says their home is in Pentos sho to communicate that, them looking Pentoshi or calling back to Daenerys fashion in Essos would make the most sense for this disconnect and establish Essos at this point in history.

Rip Dany and Missandei. Mothers didn't live and die by the cloth to be represented in this light.

[ghostlyheart]

All of Nadja's outfits in the WWDITS premiere (5.1 + 5.2)

[canisonicscrewyou]

Okay here’s the thing, some of you are asking for the 2019 Aziracrow Cosplay Pics** in my inbox, and upon reflection how could we not. You’re gonna get so much more lore than you could’ve ever asked for or wanted,though. This is a long post, and I almost want to apologize for it. **Pre-HRT baby face pics ahead

For context, Damien and I have known each other since freshmen year of high school, 2012. In fact, we had like no classes together, and whenever one of us mentioned our nerd shit in class the first couple of days, kids kept telling us we HAD to meet each other. We finally met in a history class after they got transferred into it, and exchanged fandom memes back and forth after school on the sidewalk that day until our rides picked us up, and pretty much from then on freshmen year EVERYONE thought and asked if we were two little queer kids dating in our Catholic School.

And of course we weren’t— we just sat in each others’ laps a lot, or grabbed at each other a lot, and were a little inseparable for a while. Neither of us read anything into this. We were also, very importantly, cringey little 14-15 year old SuperWhoLock girlies, only I didn’t watch Supernatural, and they didn’t really watch Doctor Who, and we both thought Sherlock was pretty good. We supplemented our own love for our special little shows for the other. We were so inseparable that Damien’s 1-month-long-freshmen-boyfriend got them a Doctor Who gift for Valentine’s Day. The key to the Eleventh Doctor’s TARDIS. (My favorite, at the time, and also one that I knew they definitely sold at the comic book shop up the block.) They break up with him for giving them chocolates with nuts(allergy), and immediately give my little autistic ass the TARDIS key at lunch. Neither of us read anything into this. This is a common theme.

Damien, at some point, tells me to read a book they love, Good Omens. Due to my brain being the way it is, it takes about 3-4 business years, until college, to read Good Omens at their recommendation.

Damien is one of my best friends throughout high school and college. I also think it’s important to note that they were a jock, and I was a theatre kid. And the only time I convinced them to do something, a haunted house, with the drama club, to share a hobby maybe, they got hit in the head with a lightsaber by a 1st grader and needed stitches immediately after we started.

ANYWAYS.

I get Damien into cosplay a year or so later- 2013? 2014?

But it also takes us years to cosplay together- we would help with each others’ cosplays a lot. By that I mean I built a bunch of their props and they helped by getting the supplies with me and generally just hanging out. It takes us until 2019 to cosplay together.

Good Omens is out on Amazon Prime.

We text each other.

“Do you want to do a couple’s cosplay of this?

Yes, yes of course I do.

And yes, of course you’re Crowley, and of course I’m Aziraphale. And of course I’m Crowley, and of course you’re Aziraphale.”

Pretty much every week that summer, we built our wings from scratch, from wire and masking tape and ethically sourced goose and duck feathers and mall Chinese food. We go out and plan and shop for our gay little outfits. We sit and talk in their car, in my driveway, for ages every time, every night.

Another fun fact: this was the same convention that I painstakingly painted their tits blue for. And also painstakingly helped them wash blue off of in the shower, drunk, later that night. Unrelated, Aziraphale was the first cosplay I felt comfortable in.

Another fun fact: while getting ready for the photo shoot we booked that morning, my family dog scared my cat Almondmilk, and he peed all over my Aziraphale cosplay, and I yelled a bit. Our photographer rescheduled, blessedly, and a few hours later our photographer was asking how we wanted to stage the kiss, since of COURSE there had to be a kiss, but instead we sort of just—

“We’re really good friends— We’ve known each other since high school— We’ve already seen so much of each other this is no big deal— Do you need another shot?”

“Uh-huh,” Our photographer says, knowingly. “I think maybe one more, if we’re comfortable with—“

“Oh yeah, no problem at all-“

“Uh-huh, Yeah,” Our photographer says, knowingly. “Tilt your head up more.”

Not many couples can say they somehow managed to get their first kiss documented and edited in HD.

Damien got nauseous at the last day of the con, and the only thing we had to help were these honey sticks from a tea shop booth. They couldn’t open the little sticks themself, with their fangs in, so I took them and ripped them open with my teeth to give to them. Completely, totally unrelated, though, I think this was the summer I began to realize, perhaps realize once more, that I was so absolutely done for for Damien.

Anyways all of that went SO well, that we were planning every Ineffable Husbands cosplay we could. Somehow, our most logical next choice was a fun and very quick, messy little boudoir photo shoot in my college dorm room, while they were visiting me 3+ hours away from their school.

Down so bad you lovingly pack wigs to go to college with so that you can have your best friend sit in your lap for your little ship.

We did that as Just Good Friends, literally in front of an old friend who took the photos and helped us stage the poses a bit.

We went to sleep that night in that bed. It was big enough to fit 3, maybe even 4 people if you were in a pinch. The bed was not treated like it was that big. (Note, we now sleep on a full sized bed, and it’s suddenly too small.)

And we talked for a while and we went to bed and all I could think about was how much I loved them no matter the sense of the word. And how many nights we sat talking in your car in my driveway for way too long, wondering if I should ask if I could kiss you. (A quick pronoun change, because I know you’re reading this.)

And

Nothing

Came

Of

This

For

LIKE

FOUr

MORE

YEARS.

Just good friends. Just good, good friends.

And that’s how Good Omens helped me realize, in retrospect of 2019, how in love I was with my Crowley best friend.

[asmodeusamaryllis]

Man idk the argument about hvy being a Chinese company and so they're restricted on having characters with dark skin tones when dislyte is ALSO a Chinese company and they typically are really good at representing the culture they take from for their characters makes it somewhat mute

[chirpsythismorning]

The Hellflire Club Foreshadows Mike's Monologue (and More Than You Think...)

Several fans have noticed already that there are direct parallels between Mike's monologue in The Piggyback, with Eddie's monologue in The Hellfire Club.

While we've been grappling with all sorts of supernatural creatures over the course of Stranger Things' entire run, here Eddie is warning us about forced conformity and how that is the real monster.

This has also led fans to joke painfully about the fact that Max 'died' because forced conforming; that's what's killing the kids, aka Mike's whole speech to El wouldn't have happened the way it did in the first place, had him, Will and El not been trying so hard to be who they think they're supposed to be, instead of who they truly want to be.

However, what I want to add to this discourse, because I haven't seen anyone else acknowledge it (correct me if i'm wrong!?), is that this scene at lunch has two extras with whom Mike sits between, which are very likely meant to represent Will and El.

We've seen a lot of (love) triangle blocking used with these three before, often with Mike between the two. This screen-cap below has gotta be one of the most iconic and so I feel the need to mention it briefly:

What also makes this shot relevant as an example for this post, is the costume choice for Will and El here: the same shade of dark blue (hints of gray), and the fact that this doesn’t align with the colors/style they usually wear as individual characters. However, this was presumably one of the few times Will and El have genuinely interacted beyond supernatural happenings. And so now, with both of them standing on either side of Mike, after two seasons of him having only one of them beside him, and while the other was out of reach, what we're seeing is that these two are more or less two sides of the same coin. Whether Will and El are actually blood related (I'm like 75% sure they could be) remains to be seen. However Mike's bond between both of them individually is causing him to sort of be at war with himself (and his identity).

Now bear with me, because I know so many of you see theories/analysis involving set design/blocking/costumes and you just instantly check out and stop taking it seriously. But I can assure you, this is the real deal.

What follows, is so outrageously easy to overlook. And yet upon thinking about what it actually requires to film a scene, especially a scene like this with dozens of background extras, along with how this scene actually turned out, I'm going to explain why there are several factors which make me feel fairly confident about what these two specific extras represent.

To start things off, we know how this scene begins, with Eddie dramatically reading a Newsweek magazine:

"The Devil has come to America. Dungeons and Dragons, at first regarded as a harmless game of make-believe, now has both parents and psychologists concerned. Studies have linked violent behavior to the game, saying it promotes satanic worship, ritual sacrifice, sodomy, suicide, and even... Murder."

After they give us a short introduction to some of the faces of the Hellfire Club (notably Eddie), they cut to this point of view shot from Mike:

Here we are instantly introduced to the two extras that are going to dominate a majority of this scene outside of the main characters themselves, aka Willel...

note: interesting they don't include Mike in the shot for that specific sound bite below... almost as if he considers himself a freak for a different reason...

Yes, on the surface this scene is establishing that Mike and Dustin are finding a place in High School, as the freaks and geeks, but a place nonetheless.

Though, is that really all there is to it?

You'll see what I mean.

note: there's no meaning behind the circles touching here. i just wanted to acknowledge here that the El extra is visible at first, only for her to become hidden the moment that the Will extra becomes visible.

Now, this shot right here below is kind of iconic, because it's what made me realize that this girl extra here in the scarf represents El.

To provide a little more context, the Will extra next to Mike has already been picked up on by a decent amount of fans. I've even posted about it at least once. This guy definitely resembles Will at certain angles, to the point where he could arguably be a stand in/stunt double for scenes that don't require a close-up of him.

Also keeping in mind, this is a scene of the party in high school, in a D&D club. Assuming Will could have stayed in Hawkins and went to high school with the party, he would've more than likely been right here beside them. So that's what I initially got out of this scene and still partially do get out of it, regardless of these other observations I'm discussing here.

What's so fascinating about the Will extra though specifically, is that they avoid showing his face as much as possible, which is a unique choice that we're just not seeing be applied to the other extras in the frame. They even let us see the face of the guy across from the Will extra (blue/yellow striped shirt guy) multiple times, but apparently they really wanted to avoid showing this guys face (there are a few notable, but fleeting side profiles from an outside POV), almost to keep up this guise that we could imagine this is Will and hell, it could be him, bc it's pretty damn close.

However, upon recently rewatching this scene, I remember looking for other points when this Will extra might have been prominent, to see if I could find anything else.

And that's when I realized this girl in the scarf, directly blocks the Will extra at the most convenient time.

And that's when it hit me...

FORCED CONFORMING!!!!!!!

The following images below is when it really starts to get obvious that there was an intended direction going on here with the blocking of these two extras, in accordance with Mike's placement in the frame.

What sealed the deal for me, was noticing how the other extras surrounding them (excluding Willel), do not seem to be granted much importance in the continuity of this scene.

Continuity between shots is pretty essential to filmmaking. It's gotta be the main thing about film that just bugs me, which is that you can tell very visibly when a shot is followed by another shot, but from a separate take (has the capacity to ruin the illusion that this is real and not all fabricated).

For example, what I gather from the beginning of this following conversation, is that there were at the very least 2-3 takes done for these reaction shots of Dustin and Mike, and it's because the extras in the background give it away. Sometimes they're in the frame, sometimes they're not.

The Will and El extras provide a contrast to all the other extras, in that the continuity for their blocking in the frame is fairly spot on each time, equal to the standards of the main cast arguably. Meaning they had a mark and they had to stick with it.

Check this out:

side note: star wars reference (luke & leia??)

The most obvious thing that gives away the importance of these two extras, besides the blocking, is them both sporting an almost identical color in their costume. While the Will extra wears a maroon shirt, the El extra wears a scarf in that same color.

This is so simple yet sort of genius, because again, from what I understand, no one has noticed this, and so it's pretty epic once you finally do pick up on it.

The Will extra is almost always in the frame on Mike's right? The El extra is facing the the opposite direction as them (not on the same page), and wearing a scarf, which is there to represent the tentacle choking her during Mike's monologue...

This theory does take a turn for the hilarious, when at a later point Eddie starts monologuing again, while Dustin and Mike look at him fondly (w/ Mike in focus), the Willel extras are now nowhere to be found...

I think this choice was made to indicate that Mike's attraction to Eddie is based on the most basic type of attraction, while what he shares for Will and El is so much more complicated (and deep). When you're just experiencing everyday attraction, you're not thinking about your significant other or your hearts desire in that moment, because this moment is just a blip encounter that isn't going anywhere, it's attraction and that's all there is to it. Whereas what he feels truly for Will is true love, while what he feels truly for El is familial love. This tiny moment isn't about his conflict over his romantic feelings, it's about the fact that Mike is attracted to men.

And then what follows directly after this, is that little snippet of Eddie's monologue, which echoes Mike's monologue to El at the end of the season...

Oh and look who it is?! The El extra has made a reappearance, just in time!

This is one of the few times they made a point to have the El extra in the frame while the Will extra wasn't, which I also think is intentional because it could be a hint to how Mike's speech about falling in love with El the moment he saw her is a fabrication (copyright to be exact), and it also doesn't resemble the love that Mike has for Will, hence why he was almost entirely left out of those shots. (Also similar to Mike's monologue at the end of the season, where Will was in certain shots but not others, because the words did/didn't match Mike's feelings for Will at those points).

Lastly, we get a Gap (gay and proud) reference for Mike. And low and behold, the Will extra is making a reappearance, just in time!

I think what makes this scene easier to understand on a basic level, without making it too complicated for yourself, is comparing the implications that come with it, to the implications that came with Mike's monologue.

The choice to put Will in most of the shots, directly behind Mike as he professes his love to El, who is lying before him unable to look in his eyes or even respond, leads those truly paying attention, to the conclusion that this is not how you shoot a satisfying love confession. Therefore it can't be a genuine love confession.

Instead what this scene more so depicts is a character having a confession practically wrenched out of him. And because of all the other details happening over the course of this season and just the series overall, we can gather that Mike feels pressured to go through with this because he thinks he has no other choice.

They didn't beat the big bad this time, instead they lost. Because forced conforming, that's the real monster.

With only one season left, they're going to have to face the truth if they want to make it out alive this time (and happy!).

[spiralling-thoughts]

So I have been hyperfixating on the tributes fashion in the movie I feel like all the choices for their fashion were soo brilliant and they deserve more recognition and something I love about the fashions is that it very subtly hints at the wealth deferences between the districts and no better example of this than facet and velvreene the district 1 tributes

(now I couldn't find a good quality picture of them in the movie considering they are often just standing in the background but I found this what I like to call ' the actors having fun ' photo their actors took so that's what we are working with)

So it's fully agreed on by fans that Facet and velvreene are wearing their school uniforms with how their outfits are matching and the preppy v nick sweaters. It does look like a private school uniform not a public school uniform so it shows how district 1 is the wealthiest district and while I don't know the name of the fabrics they do look better quality and their clothes are tidy then say bobbin and woveys clothes they also are completely white so here is a little colour psychology

The color white symbolizes innocence and purity Which is important because facet and velvreene are just kids , they never showed any malice or ill well towards anyone and they tried to run away from the games , they didn't want to participate in this blood sport that they were forced into and Having to kill other children like them, they didn't want to be killers and ultimately they were killed for it. Them wearing bright white also made them stand out from the rest of the tributes and made them easy to see I always managed to spot them despite being in the background they rarely fade into the background which also hints at district 1 specialization in luxury items and how they create flashy high quality products however they also have black in their clothes and black can symbolise darkness and death. even though district 1 is the wealthiest district they are still not safe from the capitol cruelty and oppression the capitol is still willing to kidnap two of their children and treating them inhumanely and still drives internment from watching them kill and die

Their school uniform also contrasts with the academy students uniforms the academy students uniforms is bulky in silhouette and the blazers makes the students bigger than they are and their uniforms are red the colour of blood the spilling of the district children's blood and they do look like wannabe politicians ( the academy uniform honestly reminds me of heather chandler's look in heathers ) meanwhile district one's school uniforms fits them pretty well and seems more comfortable running in and it doesn't have gaudy accessories on it like the academis gold pins showing once again how even with them being more well off then other districts they still have to work hard to please the Capitol

[gaytobymeres]

Just saw barber of Seville and it was so good!!!!!! I love opera so much!! Also I love Figaro with my whole heart

[people-wxtching]

obsessed with how everyone's reactions to the lmm hermes pic is "why the fuck is he in a hoodie"

I'm fully ready to side with luke the second he comes on screen in a CASINO wearing that (frankly very ugly) hoodie

and if he sings there's nothing stopping me from letting kronos possess me

[toytulini]

i dont want to give in to Modern Shapewear but i really hate when im trying to have a Fun Outfit and theres fucking Distinct Lines from various under wear bands (bra, undies, maybe a pair of tights?) all at separate points? that are impossible to hide bc the outer wear is fucking form fitting spandex

[slingbats]

Okay and? The canon s5 outfits sucked, we did Not get good post canon nygmobs idk 🤷‍♀️

at least I feel robbed of decent menswear anyway

[foragergnome]

one year ago today i made my otgw beast!greg cosplay for halloween. i RLLY don't know what im gonna dress as this year

[jamieycomplainey]

my bone to pick with the fated campaign (along with all of the better things to be mad about) is that it’s canonically like 1770 according to J*red.

My Good Bitch. what do YOU think the 1770s looked like. Because I think you just picked an era at random and landed on the end of ROCOCO. which is not how anyone was fucking dressed in that dumbass campaign.

[hotwaterandmilk]

Questions are being taken until after episode 8 airs!

Thank goodness someone already asked about the necklace so I don't have to do it myself. I enjoyed all the questions about Kongming's headwear logistics and Maezono Keiji's shorts too.

A+ great show, great fandom, great thighs on Sekiguchi Mandy.