Phenderix Advanced Magic is a mod for the popular role-playing game Skyrim. This mod introduces a wide range of new spells, abilities, and enchantments to the game, enhancing the experience for players who are seeking more complexity in their magical abilities. One of the main features of Phenderix Advanced Magic is the addition of over 400 new spells. These spells cover a variety of different elements, such as fire, ice, lightning, and even some more unique forms of magic like time manipulation and gravity control. These new spells offer players a chance to experiment with different playstyles and strategies, making combat encounters more interesting and dynamic. In addition to new spells, the mod also includes a new enchanting system.
Cock Ring Ken is in the Barbie movie, so let’s talk about Cock Ring Ken
Tasha Robinson leads Polygon’s movie coverage. She’s covered film, TV, books, and more for 20 years, including at The A.V. Club, The Dissolve, and The Verge.
It can be hard to believe how much has changed over the past 30 years for queer Americans. In the distant past of 1993, gay marriage wasn’t legal in any state in the country. Sodomy laws all over America attempted to outlaw gay sex by criminalizing any oral or anal erotic contact. And Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist then only known to readers of a few independent alt-newspapers around the country, was capable of making breakout news with a scandalous revelation: Mattel’s latest Ken doll, part of the Earring Magic line of Barbie toys, was openly modeled on gay fashion. And Mattel had unwittingly put a sex toy around his neck.
Or, as Savage put it in 1993, “The little girls of our great nation wanted a hipper Ken, and Mattel gave them a hip Ken. A queer Ken.”
Image: Melissa Mathieson
Float into our DreamHouse: Barbie World is Polygon’s dive into everything Barbie, from her legacy as an iconic toy to her presence in games and movies.
That queer Ken is in Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie, in a brief, winking cameo. And given the satirical, knowing tone of the film — and the scene where he appears, in a nod to some of the most regrettable and hilarious choices in the Barbie toy line over the years — there’s no question that Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach know the name people have had for that Ken doll since 1993: “Cock Ring Ken.”
Savage’s 1993 column “Ken Comes Out” lays out the specifics. “Earring Magic Ken” (who doesn’t get his own credit in Barbie, alas) sported a sheer and revealing purple mesh shirt, a purple vinyl vest, two-tone hair, a single silver earring, and a gold band around one elbow. He also came with a pair of shiny plastic earrings for his owner to wear. “But Earring Magic Ken is sporting another accoutrement that’s been largely overlooked,” Savage wrote. “[H]anging around Ken’s neck, on a metallic silver thread, is what ten out of ten people in the know will tell you at a glance is a cock ring.”
Photo: Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images
Savage certainly doesn’t think Mattel set out to equip Ken with a cock ring: He initially suggests that in the quest for a fashionable party outfit, Mattel designers took pictures of people at nightclubs and translated their outfits into a doll design. “On closer inspection, Ken’s entire Earring Magic outfit turns out to be three-year-old rave wear,” he wrote. And he describes chrome cock ring necklaces — which is to say, necklaces exactly like the one on Earring Magic Ken — as “de rigueur rave wear” for the era.
“For about a year every gay boy at a rave was wearing at least one,” Savage wrote. “[T]hese cock rings were often pressed into service later in the evening, to help totally tweaked ravers keep up what the X was pulling down.”
Thirty years later, Savage’s column is well worth revisiting — and not just to get the gag in Barbie about why Earring Magic Ken was a questionable design choice, alongside Sugar Daddy Ken, a 2009 “adult collector line” doll whose suggestive name seems more deliberate than Cock Ring Ken’s apparel. (See, he has a dog named Sugar, and he’s the dog’s “daddy.” Even in this age of people treating their pets as kids, it’s still hard to buy that no one involved with that doll’s design intended any double entendre.)
No, the real reasons to read the “Ken Comes Out” piece today are the hilarity of watching Savage question a Mattel rep about the doll (she clearly thinks he’s just messing with her), and the revelations about how neatly Earring Magic Ken’s design captures an inflection point of change around queer voices in mainstream America.
America vilifying its queer citizens and hanging on to laws criminalizing them (which the Supreme Court had upheld as recently as 1986) while also appropriating from them was nothing new. Look back at the entire history of Hollywood, and you’ll see creatives and artists admiring and stealing from queer culture, and weaponizing the tastes of queer creators while keeping them underground and in the closet. What was new in the early ’90s, and what Dan Savage pinned down specifically, was an MTV-driven era where queerness was pushing into mainstream life faster than the Moral Majority types could keep up with — or even track.
“What the little girls were seeing, and telling Mattel was cool, wasn’t what their relations were wearing — unless they had hip queer relatives — but the homoerotic fashions and imagery they were seeing on MTV, what they saw Madonna’s dancers wearing in her concerts and films and, as it happens, what ACT UP/Queer Nation fags and dykes were wearing to demos and raves,” Savage wrote. “Queer imagery has so permeated our culture that from rock stars (Axl Rose and his leather chaps) to toy designers, mainstream America isn’t even aware when it’s adopting queer fashions and mores. Or when it’s putting cock rings, even little plastic ones, into the hands of little girls.”
Barbie doesn’t attempt to unpack any of this, naturally enough. Earring Magic Ken — or Cock Ring Ken, if you prefer — sails by as a quick gag about discontinued dolls, just one of approximately a million of the movie’s visual and verbal jokes about the Barbie line. As far as we could tell from the few seconds he’s on screen, he isn’t even wearing the necklace, though that’s something we’ll be watching for more closely once clips of the movie are available.
But it’s worth taking his presence in Barbie as a reminder of a very specific and particular moment in marketing history, one where designers trying to co-opt coolness didn’t realize how fast they were helping change history and move the world forward. Writers besides Dan Savage noticed what they called the “gender bending” aspects of Earring Magic Ken; they just didn’t have the working knowledge of queer culture to pin down exactly what they were seeing. Cock Ring Ken didn’t change the world, but he sure was a sign of how much it was changing in his day — and how quickly.
In addition to new spells, the mod also includes a new enchanting system. This system allows players to customize their equipment with powerful enchantments that can enhance their spells and abilities. By gathering rare enchanting materials and performing intricate rituals, players can create weapons and armor that give them a distinct advantage in battle.
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The Yassification of Ken: Earring Magic Ken and his enduring gay legacy
Another feature of Phenderix Advanced Magic is the introduction of new perks and skill trees. These perks further enhance the abilities of players, allowing them to specialize in certain types of magic or playstyles. Whether it's becoming an expert in destruction magic or mastering the art of illusion, these new perks provide players with additional ways to customize and specialize their characters. Overall, Phenderix Advanced Magic is a mod that brings a new level of complexity and customization to the magical aspect of Skyrim. With its extensive array of new spells, enchantments, and perks, the mod offers players a chance to delve deeper into the world of magic and truly master their chosen playstyle. Whether players are looking for more variety in combat or simply want to explore a new magic system, this mod is sure to provide a fresh and engaging experience..
Reviews for "Creating Life: Exploring Phenderix Advanced Magic Conjuration Spells"
1. John Doe - 2/5 stars - I was really excited to try Phenderix advanced magic as I had heard great things about it. However, I was quite disappointed with my experience. The mod claims to offer a wide range of new spells, but I found them to be quite underwhelming and not as powerful as the vanilla spells. Additionally, some of the spells had glitches and didn't work as intended, which was quite frustrating. Overall, I don't think this mod adds much value to the game and I would not recommend it.
2. Jane Smith - 3/5 stars - While Phenderix advanced magic does offer a decent variety of new spells, I found that it could be quite overwhelming and unbalanced. Some of the spells were overpowered and made the game too easy, while others were too weak to be useful. The mod also had compatibility issues with other mods I was using, causing crashes and other glitches. While I appreciate the effort that went into creating this mod, it just didn't meet my expectations and I ended up uninstalling it.
3. Mike Johnson - 2/5 stars - Phenderix advanced magic claims to revolutionize the magic system in Skyrim, but in my opinion, it falls short. The new spells added by the mod feel unbalanced and unrealistic. It takes away the sense of challenge and progression in the game. Additionally, some of the spells didn't mesh well with the lore of the game, making it feel out of place. I was initially excited to try this mod, but ultimately felt let down by its execution. I would recommend looking for other magic mods that offer a more balanced and immersive experience.