#circa a year pre-campaign

[1980sactionfigures]

THANK YOU & A NOTE GOING FORWARD

Hello everyone,

I want to thank everyone who helped me get through a very trying financial situation. Thanks you to those who liked/reblogged my GoFundMe campaign, thank you to those who donated and thank you to everyone for just being you. I am hoping to use this breathing room to start putting things together so that I do not have to rely on the GFM so much anymore. Or at least for a while. Fingers crossed. But again, thank you, everyone.

With that said, I wanted to talk about this blog and its future, something I haven't been able to think much on recently. With few exceptions - the very early days, fundraisers and holidays - I've maintained a fairly strict "one post a day" routine showcasing Action Figures of the 1980s or closely tied to that decade. Six and a half years later and over 3,000 figures, I'm starting to run a bit low on new things to ad that adhere to the somewhat-strict guidelines I had set for the blog. I'm down to about 100-150 remaining viable figures out there to showcase...not even four months' worth. In regards to this, I've decided to change a few things up.

As you've seen with the last few days, I've begun to include things like playsets and carrying cases to the line-up. I have always kept things strictly to the figures (with sets and vehicles only included when they came with a figure), but I'm going to be expanding on that. Vehicles are on the way, as well.

I've done my best to keep the blog contained to the 1980s, with some stragglers from the '70s that might have still been on toy store shelves in the early years. I'm going to be expanding that a bit, and will be including pre-1980s figures as well (not that there's that terribly many) that I haven't already. I will also start including a few of the early 1990s lines that continued the general "feel" of the decade, prior to the hyper-stylization that overtook the industry circa 1995.

I believe it's time to lift my self-imposed embargo on the "Big Five" of the era (having always felt they got enough attention already), and will start including some Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mix.

My definition of "Action Figure" has always been somewhat flexible, having included a few bendies and stretch types here and there. I'm going to be bending it a bit more here and there if I feel it works for the blog, so more bendies, PVC figures, mini-figures and the like. Figures that aren't necessarily "poseable figures," that sort of thing.

While I've shied away from it in the past, saving it for seasonal specials or fundraising, I'm thinking of finding a way to incorporate more of the older posts from years ago. Perhaps a day of the week reserved for another look at every figure I've posted in a specific line. Just something I'm ruminating on.

I do not want to completely betray the spirit of this blog, so I will try my best to make these additions as seamless as possible.

Thank you all again for helping in my time of need and I hope to see you all here for years to come. - Madison

[racefortheironthrone]

A Guildsman Goes Forth to War, World-Building Part II

Historical Departures:

As you might imagine, in a world that's experienced quite a significant change almost a thousand years previously, Europe circa 1500 AD in A Guildsman Goes Forth to War is not the same as the one from our timeline. Names and places are familiar but distinct, and the borders of entire countries have shifted because a battle that went one way in one timeline went the other in this.

For the purposes of this novel, I wish to draw your attention to two more significant historical departures that will be the most central to the main characters and the plot.

The first departure has to do with the outcome of the Franco-Flemish War at the beginning of the 14th century. As in our timeline, the war began as a conflict between Phillip the Fair (although in this world, he was King of Gallia, rather than of France) and the Count of Flanders, and turned into a Flemish revolt against the overlordship of France that enraged and terrified the French chivalry after the Guldensporenslag. Unlike our timeline, however, the Count of Flanders offered marriage of his younger daughter to Rudolf I of the Empire after Phillip blocked his marriage alliance to Edward of Anglia.

While sadly in this timeline the Flemish cause did not ultimately win victory either, the Imperial marriage meant that when French forces pushed the Flemings' backs to the wall at Zierikzee and Mons-en-Pévèle, they were met by an Imperial expeditionary force. Rudolf I was no partisan of the burghers, but neither was he about to have Phillip the Fair as a neighbor. And so instead, the Low Countries became a buffer zone between the Kingdom of Gallia and the Sacrum Imperium.

Major warfare between Gallia and the Empire was avoided. (After all, Phillip had his hands full with Edward and Rudolf desperately needed that bastard Pope to agree to his coronation.) As for the people who had fought so hard for their freedom, the militias were disbanded, the burghers were stripped of much of their former independence, all commoners were forbidden to carry arms, and the local nobility were carefully balanced between Gallician and Imperial lines to keep the peace. Everyone returned to the business of spinning thread into gold. But still the memory of the goedendag lingered...

The second, more recent event is the rise of the Lega di Mille Communi. At the height of the Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, a number of Italian communes hatched a conspiracy "as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man." To end the constant fighting and free themselves from the ambitions of Pope and Emperor both, these communes pretended loyalty to both factions, offering loans and fighting men while working within the walls of their own cities to plant spies, provacateurs, and assassins among the leading families of the signorile.

This silent campaign built to its height at the Second Battle of Legnano, where the combined forces of Pope Boniface VIII and his Guelph allies and Emperor Louis IV and his Ghibellines met again at that place honored in song and memory as the place where Barbarossa was humbled. When the battle was fully joined, a pre-arranged signal was given and the condottieri on both sides turned on their own armies, making a daring charge for the command tents of Pope and Emperor alike. In the confusion and chaos, those great and noble persons were taken captive in the name of the newly revealed Lega di Mille Communi.

The shockwave echoed across all Europe. For six months, the greatest secular and religious authorities in Christendom lingered in golden fetters, while Kings and Cardinals from ultramontano threatened foreign intervention. Across northern and central Italy, a civil war raged in the streets and in the fields, but the Guelph and Ghibelline partisans found themselves leaderless and undirected, unwilling to combine with their hated enemies against the professional forces of the well-heeled Lega who toppled government after government from within and without. When the dust had settled, a "Treaty of Perpetual Liberty" was signed by the Empire and the Papal See alike. Under the terms of this pact, the Lega was recognized as independent of both, the sole legitimate sovereign of all territories south of the Alps.

Naturally, this document signed under heavy coercion was immediately repudiated the moment the principals were freed (albeit under heavy bond). Louis IV declared war the moment he set foot on German soil, and Boniface would have done the same in his own territories had he not dropped dead of a rage-induced stroke. For another ten years, the Lega fought to uphold the Treaty, and ultimately narrowly triumphed thanks to a crucial alliance with the Swiss Confederacy that bled the Emperor's legions white as they tried to fight their way south through the Alps, and thanks to a deadlocked Papal conclave (kept that way by heavy bribery and constant espionage) that allowed the Lega to fight on one front at a time.

But in the end, the Lega endured because of the simple principles of its constitution. Under the articles of federation and defensive alliance, each commune was largely free to govern itself within certain boundaries. No separate alliance or agreement with any foreign state was allowed. Limited wars between Communi were allowed after arbitration, but not to the point of outright conquest of one city-state over another. Contracts would be honored across the Lega, and exchange rates between local currencies would be fixed at yearly conferences. Violators would face the combined forces of every other Communi bound together in fraternal oath.

One Pope after the other was crippled with debt until they had to sell the Donation of Pepin city by city and valley by valley, culminating in a truly Croesian subvention from the Lega for the new Prince of the Vatican. The Kingdom of Naples tried again and again to fight its way up the boot, only to find itself mired in costly sieges ahead and suspiciously well-funded peasant rebellions behind, until eventually the House of Anjou declined into civil war. The Lega was not a peaceful country after independence, but the fighting kept their condottieri well-trained and well-paid, and a new cultural ethos emerged among the Communi that they would uphold as jealously as the virginity of their kinswomen: "I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my cousins and I against a foreigner."

And so for the first time since the time of the Divine Julius, one of the major powers of Europe was a Republic(s). A specter had begun to haunt the crowned heads of Christendom...

[luxicides]

coquette fashion faves 🐇🎀⛸️💒🎧

the other day my mom inadvertently called me a bimbo for liking high fashion. to be fair, she did catch me watching rick owens fw22/23 when i should have been writing my lit essay, but who's she to judge? anyways, here's a quick list of fashion brands whose work i adore as of late. i'll try to include links to some of my fav shows from them too xx #girlssupportgirls

++necessary disclaimer: this is all just for fun!!!! obviously, these are all just my personal opinions. i'm in no way a fashion expert, nor am i claiming to be. live laugh love, gaslight gatekeep girlboss :3

and so, presenting....

LUXICIDES' DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO FASHION BRANDS IN THE MODERN AGE ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

1. MIU MIU

at this point, eeeeeeveryone has heard of miu miu. how could you not?

founded in 1992 by none other than mrs prada, miu miu has been having a (imo) well-deserved revival in the past few years. as the sister label of prada, miu miu serves as a more "youthful, playful and affordable alternative".

though i personally prefer last year's fall/winter rtw show to be more visually interesting than this year's spring/summer show, AND found their campaign with kendall jenner to be... a little lacklustre, i still love what the brand has been doing.

i just love the way miu miu's runway styling is done - going back to fw22, the incorporation of more preppy influences in their cable-knit sweaters along with the very obvious y2k references (mini skirts, lace and mesh, and those cropped tops girl!) is just... to DIE FOR.

and i'm not going to wrongfully malign the ss23 show! i thought the varying textures and how everything was just so flowy and loose. the set for this show was also incredible.

FAVOURITE: pre-fall 2020 (especially this look!)

2. BLUMARINE

ngl, when i first researched into blumarine, i was CONFUSED. just because i had always seen blugirl (their brand for teenagers) being labelled as blumarine (the core brand).... thanks pinterest.

but regardless, i think blumarine is FASCINATING. to me, they've always had elements of frivolity and femininity, with their intricate embellishments, and delicate lace detailings that are just to die for - every coquette girlie's dream.

lately, though, they've been moving towards more y2k influence: i mean, the ss23 rtw show is 99% denim. look at that and tell me that doesn't remind you of britney justin circa 2001 amas !!!

in all seriousness, i love the direction they're going in. i love that they're still maintaining some of the very ethereal, dainty energy that has been at the core of the brand for so long.

blumarine almost never misses with their styling. it's like their textures always go crazy - in the best way.

though it definitely doesn't get as much attention as its sister brand, blugirl is absolutely worth checking out too. i'm personally biased towards their older collections, think 2004-2005 era. they're literally all over pinterest, so it shouldn't be hard to find either.

FAVOURITE: fall-winter 2021 rtw

3. OZLANA

to me, ozlana is like the perfect combination of every trend i love. their pieces are so delicate and so dainty, and i literally can't get enough of their styling... like the fur coats? the pastels??? the DREAMINES???? oh my god don't do this to me rn.

literally every look from their 2022 shfw runway is basically perfect. to me, at least.

like - the colours. the bows. the denim looks in particular..... and the set!!!! don't even get me started on the set design.

ozlana is another brand i see on pinterest all the freaking time. honestly, they're kind of reminiscent to fw04 blugirl in the sense that they both have such dreamlike qualities to them...

unfortunately, ozlana does use real fur :( so that does dock them down a point. but i still do love their styling, and their pieces without the fur embellishments still are quite cute!

FAVOURITE: 2021 shfw

4. CUCCULELLI SHAHEEN

pinterest also brought me to this one!

think glamour. think sparkles. think euphoria but aged up and set kind of in a vaguely old hollywood-esque era. that's Cucculelli Shaheen to me.

Cucculelli Shaheen is NYC-based, and was founded in 2016. which is insane to me, because the level of craftsmanship in their work is breathtaking. their tailoring and the patterns of their pieces are literally... chef's kiss. i'd give up my first born for a dress from them.

listen, the embellishments? the intricacy? the detail??? their pieces are astoundingly lavish and astoundingly beautiful. not to mention, their shoots are basically works of art themselves.

i'm not a bride-to-be, nor am i going to be in the near future, but their bridal collections make me..... goddamn. someone wife me up.

FAVOURITE: collection 13 OR collection 10

5. SCHIAPARELLI

yeah. you don't even need an intro to this one.

if you've been anywhere on the internet in the past month or so, and i mean ANYWHERE, you've probably seen the recent schiaparelli show. and the reactions that go along with it range anywhere from sane, logical, to absolutely batshit crazy takes.

me, personally, in my oh so humble opinion - i loved the recent show. the phrase "a feast for the eyes" was basically made for this show. i mean, the uproar (get it) over the fake taxidermy heads alone was entertaining, but the show itself was a freaking stunner.

i've always loved daniel roseberry's work. i think he does a great job of sticking to the house's codes, whilst also creating a new, exciting vision for the brand. it's what elsa would have wanted!

daniel roseberry has brought so much drama to schiaparelli in his time there - both in terms of public intrigue, but also in the actual pieces. the garments are so bombastic and literally are each works of art in their own right.

i love their use of shapes and i love the over-the-top-ness of it all. i can't wait to see what they do next.

FAVOURITE: fall-winter 2022 couture

that's it for this post, hope u liked it <3 i've never really done much fashion critiquing (unless you count me and my friends sanctimoniously picking apart chanel's recent shows), so this is pretty much new to me.

:3 hope u all have a great day!

catastrophically yours,

luxicides

[bisluthq]

https://www.tumblr.com/bisluthq/757777034966712320/my-swiftie-fandom-comes-in-like-a-waves-i-got?source=share

16-year-old anon from earlier, and yeah, same! If you'll allow me to rant for a minute (though I may have already done so in the past) here is MY experience as a Taylor Swift fan over the years:

First remember being aware of who she is around Red/1989. I think the first song I heard was IKYWT and it was on the radio. From that point I would find any Taylor-related content on YouTube. This included music videos, interviews, parodies, the occasional bit of gossip (the only tidbit I remember pre-rep was Calvin at the Massage place that gave happy endings😭), and of course, speed-up versions of her songs because this was pre her adding her catalogue BACK to streaming, not that I WAS streaming at age 7, but yk.

I had a vague knowledge of some of her boyfriends. I knew Harry (duh) and Calvin (also kind of duh) and Joe Jonas. I knew of the Jonas Brothers (mainly cause of the purity ring jokes, which if we're being fr is their main legacy) and I also knew he did Cake By The Ocean which was EVERYWHERE circa 2016. I don't think I knew he'd dated Taylor, though. I think I also only found out about Hiddles and that whole circus around Rep.

Around 2015ish i saw a 1989 CD at Target and asked my mum to buy it. I then got a Red CD soon after. Cut to 2016/2017, Taylor's music isn't being played on the radio, and my 9(?) year old self is sad and confused. I knew nothing of the #taylorswiftisoverparty. I just knew they weren't playing her music anymore. Cut to 2017 - i, alongside the rest of the world, sat and watched the LWYMMD music video. I also remember watching the lyric video and being scared by the snake😭

After this, I tried very hard to listen to rep in full, but had no idea where to find it. One night, I was a scrolling on YT and found Delicate (or Dress), and then came across Better Than Revenge. My 9/10 year old self was SCANDALISED and VERY confused, as I had never seen the Speak Now album cover in. my. life. and thought she had already put out an album. Anyway, sometime between the release of Rep & Lover, I stopped seeking stuff out. When the Lover singles came out I hated ALL of them. From memory, ME! felt like a personal violation (I was BIG into PAN!C at the time, and hated that the song was so ass - though, in retrospect, the stuff of theirs (later work. Very little early stuff) that I listened to was objectively worse), Lover (song) was boring, and You Need To Calm Down made me viscerally angry due to me starting to realise I was not straight and desperately trying to believe I was wrong. I did not seek out Lover the way I had done Rep and was, at this point, a genuine anti.

Then folklore came out and people RAVED about it, so I decided to check it out. I liked it, but didn't click with it in the way other people had. It did inspire me to check out her back catalogue + rep/Lover. By the time evermore dropped I was IN IT, and I became even more in it upon hearing evermore. I got very involved in fandom culture (also got very into Glee... you can imagine what the combination inspired in 13 year old me), until around 2022, when I began being frustrated with Taylor’s jets and perfomatitive activism. I once again went anti (I also got very into Stranger Things around this time, specifically Max... played by Sadie Sink... Taylor Swift is the only constant in this world). Then, she reeled me back in with the Midnights marketing campaign. Once again, I was there the second it dropped (as I have been for all of her releases since evermore). WCS broke my brain (as right where you left me had the year prior) and I had no choice but to go FULL swiftie. And since then I've maintained it pretty solidly.

That's about it. If you've read through to here, thank you🙏 hopefully you found it interesting/somewhat entertaining.

that’s fair! It’s okay to like stuff more at certain stages and super fucking normal of you xx

I will also say that some of the stuff I say on here is probably not super age appropriate for my younger anons lol but at the same time I do try to be cognizant of y’all and idk it’s real life so I also try not to encourage people to do stupid shit. *I* have done stupid shit but that doesn’t mean you guys should. I do sometimes worry I glamorize like unhealthy behaviors and I hope y’all have the sense not to do a lot of the shit that I’ve done 💀

[utilitycaster]

Extremely quick incomplete history of Exandria with the main focus on Wildemount timeline

made mostly because I was like ‘uh when did Molaesmyr fall relative to Aeor’ after last episode; all info summarized from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount or events of Campaign 2; I know the Tal’Dorei guide and High Bearer Vord’s story has some more information but that’s less relevant here.

Long before divergence: creation of the world, granting of divine magic, fight of the peoples of Exandria against the Primordials during which arcane magic was given to the peoples of Exandria, founding of the city of Vasselheim

Pre-divergence: Age of Arcanum (lots of arcane magic, tons of flying cities, including Aeor, Zemniaz, and Kethesk. When Halas and Siff Duthar lived). Ascension of The Raven Queen. Release of the Betrayer Gods by Vespin Chloras. Founding of city of Ghor Dranas by the Betrayer gods at the site of modern-day Rosohna. Ghor Dranas attacked Vasselheim and was barely defeated by the Prime Deities.

Calamity: Following the battle between the gods, people turned to dangerous war magics and eventually a world-wide conflict broke out, destroying most of civilization (all but Vasselheim) and killing approximately 2/3rds of the world population. Aeor was thrown into Eiselcross during this time.

Divergence (year 0 or 1 PD): Signifies the end of the Calamity, with the Prime Deities sealing away the Betrayer gods along with themselves behind the Divine Gate.

Beginning ca 100 PD: The Veluthil Forest, a patch of forest that escaped an arcane forest fire that burned for over a century following the Calamity thanks to blessings from Melora and Corellon, becomes home to the new elven city of Molaesmyr.

Prior to 400 PD: In the Swavain Islands, the Ki’Nau people begin Uk’otoa worship

0-500 PD: Grimgolir (Dwarven society) founded in the Dunrock Mountains, Julous Dominion founded in Western Wynandir centered in Zadash, Kamordah founded as a separate society which worshiped a primordial being of fire. In northern/central Wildemount, the survivors of Zemniaz developed their own society and founded Rexxentrum.

Uthodurn is founded in the Flotket alps by members of the Grimgol Dwarf clan, presumably who fled north rather than south during the Calamity.

The Kryn Dynasty is founded by drow who came to the surface from the underdark beneath Ghor Dranas, having developed a faith in the Luxon. The new city on the wreckage of Ghor Dranas is named Rosohna, meaning Rebirth.

Draconia is founded by survivors of the floating city of Kethesk (draconbloods), who initially allied with the native dragonborn of the Dreemoth Ravine (ravenites) to build a new floating city but eventually enslaved them.

Beginning ca 400 PD: Marquet makes contact with the Swavain Islands off the coast of Western Wildemount in the Lucidian Ocean, makes an alliance permitting the creation of an outpost known as Damali. Shortly after a Ki’Nau conflict with the Vukan, a third party, who were annihilated by Uk’otoa in the process (the Marquesians were allied with the Ki’Nau), Uk’otoa was sealed away via three temples by worshipers of Zehir among the Marquesians. The Menagerie Coast begins to develop via Marquesian and Ki’Nau settlers on the mainland, and at some point prior to the present day the cities along the coast unite into the Clovis Concord.

539 PD: founding of the Dwendalian Empire by Eckhardt Dwendal, a powerful Rexxentrum merchant, and his son Manfried.

544-546 PD: Marrow War between the Dwendalian Empire and Julous Dominion during which the Julous Dominion also quashed an uprising in Kamordah. Ended with the execution of the leaders of the Julous Dominion during peace talks with Emperor Manfried, with the stated reason being they had attempted an assassination. This led to the Julous Dominion being incorporated into the empire.

circa 571 PD: Eve of Crimson Midnight, a brief but violent conflict in Rexxentrum between arcane practitioners originating in the Dwendalian Empire vs. those originally from the Julous Dominion. Many civilians were killed and the remaining mages were brought before the king as prisoners. The Cerberus Assembly was founded as a result, in explicit service to the Dwendalian Emperor.

585 PD: sudden toxic purple-gray blight emerged from the center of Molaesmyr, destroying the city. Some survivors fled northwest to the Pearlbow Wilderness and founded Bysaes Tyl; others fled northeast and eventually found Uthodurn, were taken in as refugees and eventually equal members of the Uthodurnian Diarchy.

571 PD - 835 PD: expansion of the Dwendalian Empire into Grimgolir, ongoing cold war and occasional skirmishes with Xhorhas and the Kryn Dynasty, treaties made with the Clovis Concord on the Western Coast of Wildemount.

815 PD: Fall of Draconia during the Chroma Conclave, which primarily affected Tal’Dorei and Issylra.

835 PD: Attack on the halls of Erudition in Zadash by the Kryn Dynasty.

For perspective

- Any survivors of the Calamity are either, for lack of a better term, a non-playable race (ie, dragons, archfey, etc) or have engaged in life-extending magic of some sort (consecution being the most commonly seen one - we know the Bright Queen is over 1000 years old - but there could be archdruids and people who have engaged in necromancy and other age of arcanum methods a la Halas). As such nearly all of the people in Wildemount who remember the Calamity first-hand are going to be high-level Kryn Dynasty officials, and most if not all of those were born as drow who would have experienced the Calamity living in the underdark beneath the city of Ghor Dranas.

- on the other hand, plenty of elves and older dwarves, gnomes, and firbolgs may recall the Marrow War/founding of the Dwendalian Empire, fall of Molaesmyr, and development of the Menagerie Coast and Clovis Concord. Ludinus is indicated to be from Molaesmyr pre-fall, Yussa could very likely be an original Marquesian settler to the Menagerie coast, and Cornelius, Constance, and Corrin probably remember the fall of Molaesmyr. Dagen might have been a child in Uthodurn prior to the arrival of the Molaesmyr refugees, and so on.

- Caleb and Fjord may have clear first-hand memories of hearing about the fall of Draconia; Veth, Jester, and Beau may have hazier ones, and it’s unknown if Yasha or Caduceus would have been aware.

[furys-burn]

Campaign 1 Watch Guide 

With the release of the animated series, here is a small watch guide covering the recorded live show with some short summaries and their comparable episode of the animated series. The comments also usually have a time stamp guide buried in them but you may need to scroll for a bit to find it. Later episodes of VM has this pinned but not earlier ones unfortunately.

First Mentions of the Briarwoods and Banquet: 23-27 Briarwood Arc (AKA What is covered in TLOVM): 28-35 Post Briarwood: 36-38  Wanna pick up where LOVM ends? I suggest starting with episodes 37 or 38.  Just here for the next Arc of the series and no down time? Start with episode 39. 

Link to the playlist

Link to “The Story of Vox Machina” with subs; This is a rough retelling of the party’s adventures before the start of them recording it live. Has some interesting character backgrounds and insight. Definitely worth a watch whether or not you’re watching it live.  Finally, I have given summaries of each episode below the cut with their animated counterpart. 

Happy Watching! 

Pre-Briarwood: 

Episode 1-22: The series starts with the campaign already 2 years in progress so it picks up quite literally in the middle of a quest as VM has been tasked to find Lady Kima for Allura in Kraghammer. Much of this appears to be dropped to simplify the story of Vox Machina but if you want an episode guide for these episodes in particular, please let me know! 

Episode 23: At the 3 hour mark, you will find the first mention of the Briarwoods. The episode also talks about Grog’s rivalry with Kern, a fighter from the Crucible, and introduces Kynan Leore, a young wide eyed fan of Vox Machina who wishes to join them.  Episodes 24: Prep for the banquet, vampire lore drops, and the reveal of Percy’s history with them. 

Episode 25: The actual banquet and first onscreen appearance of the Briarwoods.  Episode 3 of TLOVM. 

Episode 26: The fallback from their actions in the previous episode, they go on a side quest while Percy stays at the keep preparing for their journey to Whitestone.  Episode 3 of TLOVM.

Episode 27: It is house cleaning time as the party preps for their battle in Whitestone. If you would like to skip the shopping and some actions of a player at the table, skip to circa 2:43:00. This also the last appearance of Tiberius at the table if you would like to skip his time on the show overall. 

Briarwood Arc: 

Episodes 28-35: This is the entirety of the Briarwood Arc that is covered by the animated series. I will give a brief summary with its best parallel in TLOVM. Some episodes were obviously changed to fit a show’s script from what was done live so I recommend combing through the comments for a time stamp guide if you want a particular scene or moment. 

Episode 28: The party makes their journey to Whitestone with Emon in their mirror but get into trouble along way way.  Episode 5 of TLOVM. 

Episode 29: The first name on Percy’s list of Sir Kerrion Stonefell is about to be wiped off as Vox Machina enterers their first battle for Whitestone.  Episodes 6 of TLOVM (Note Archibald is changed from an older advisor to Percy’s father to his childhood best friend in the animated series) 

(This is also the start of things getting really swapped around for story’s sake in the animated series) 

Episode 30:  More searching through the city trying to uncover the secret plot of revolution and the introduction of Keeper Yennen who alerts Percy that he is not the only de Rolo who survived the massacre.  Also episode 6 of TLOVM

Episode 31: Scanlan takes on a one man mission to escape the trap that puts himself against Duke Vedmire. The rest of VM going against a part of the “New Nobles” that the Briarwoods put into place after the murder of the de Rolo family starting with Tylieri, a royal with a love of cruelty.  Episode 7 of TLOVM

Episode 32: An undead army is making its horrific way through Whitestone but a little cleric is about to do a shit ton of damage to help with that. Episode 9 of TLOVM

Episode 33: The brutal climb into Whitestone Castle begins where they make an unlikely ally in the dungeons. Climbing up, they also come face to face with Anders who holds Cassandra with a dagger to her throat.  This episode is a little bit all over: End of Episode 7 and all of episode 8. 

Episode 34: Betrayal flavors the party as they make their own into the depths of Whitestone to come face to face with the Briarwoods themselves. It is time for one hell of a boss fight.  Episodes 10-12 of TLOVM. 

Episode 35: The party have to contend with Percy’s own inner demons quite literally.  They also wrap up the Briarwood arc with a festival to bring some joy back to the town after a long five years.  Episodes 11-12 both pull from this episode. 

Post-Briarwood: These are events I believe will be covered in season 2. Episode 36-37: Downtime and some lore drops for PCs Episode 38: Start of the next Arc

Episode 36: Vox Machina enjoy Winter’s Crest, an annual event in Whitestone of fun, drink, and food that offers some needed reprieve after the events of the last arc. 

Episode 37: A return to Emon means proving one’s innocence and figuring out how the Briarwoods managed to deceive the Tal’Dorei council for so long. Also, Scanlan’s old troupe show up with a hefty dose of trouble. 

Episode 38: Scanlan meets a young lady named Kaylie who is more than she appears while the rest of the party journey to General Kriegs now abandoned home hoping to pocket some valuables and information.  Episode 2 of TLOVM. Note: In the live show, VM has been traveling far longer than in the animated series. The original fight covered in episode 1 happened two years before the Briarwood arc. The fight also happened long before they started recording their game. 

Episode 39: The party is invited to a royal announcement of Sovereign Uriel the II. This is only the start of where everything changes as they start the story that defines the rest of the the campaign. 

[meowkavian]

vtm original character information - uriel

uriel / nonbinary (they/them) / malkavian 

full details below under the cut

(i thought I should post their information on my main blog as well!)

introduction

Uriel, or Uri for short, was born May 27, 1988 in a town outside Portland, Oregon. It’s not known if they were born with the name Uriel or if they chose it for themself, or if the name was chosen pre- or post-Embrace.

As a precocious child that grew up into a precocious teen, they eventually found their niche doing shows at the local community theatre throughout their youth and young adulthood, then began focusing less on acting than the analysis of texts and plays as they grew older. Uriel pursued English for their BA, with a focus in Literature and Shakespeare, and was in the middle of their Masters Degree in Theatre (Dramaturgy) at a university in New York when they were turned.

Scoping out job opportunities and visiting some actor friends in Los Angeles during Spring Break 2012 led them to being out at night a bit too late, and it all went downhill from there. They were 24 years old when Embraced, with a true age of 30 at the start of the LABN campaign (circa 2018).

Though everyone says they'd have been a great Toreador, as luck would have it, they were turned by a Malkavian. (Uriel can't exactly remember how it happened-- all they know is that they woke up  in a cheap motel room near Santa Monica with a blood bag and a messy, chaotic apology note.)

Their appearance is eccentric— pale skin, short and messy hair bleached bone-white, large round glasses, an expressive heart-shaped face, owlish brown eyes with long eyelashes. They have a petite frame, only standing at 5”0. Uriel’s style can be best summed up as “2010s twee/hipster”, a product of its time—lots of layered clothing in earthy, autumnal colors, mismatching socks, accompanied by various charms/trinkets. They have 3 piercings in each ear-- one cartilage, two in the lobe.

unlife

The thing about being a Malkavian is that it comes part and parcel with mental illness as well as a host of other problems. Aside from the pre-existing anxiety and depression that followed them into the afterlife, Uriel’s Bane is unique—their longing and hope to work as a dramaturgy scholar and actor as a human was transformed into a form of echolalia, where they cannot verbally express words that were not used in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 

While they work around this most of the time by augmenting their speech using sign language or writing, it can cause them significant trouble.  (As they gain a better handle on their Bane, over the course of years they are able to essentially combine, cut and paste words and phrases together to create more understandable expressions. With significant concentration and effort, they can eventually isolate syllables from the text and use them to create words that don’t exist within the Complete Works, but this is an extremely rare occurrence.)

Due to this Bane, they have earned the often derogatory nickname, “The Mad Bard”.

Their version of Malkavian delusion comes in the form of “flashes of inspiration”(truly prophecies and future sight)—frequently inspiring them to draw, paint or create music. They can become obsessed and fixated on these flashes of inspiration, and on creating works based on them for varying periods of time. Sometimes, the flashes will leave them nonverbal or nonresponsive for a span of minutes to hours while they process what they’ve seen. It can depend on the substance of the vision as well-- though more often than not their visions are frightening and disturbing.

plot

Not long after Uriel is turned in 2012, they're discovered half in a hunger frenzy and searching for more blood at a Santa Monica drug test clinic—a Malkavian who sees something of himself in them comes across them, subsequently vouching for them to Baron Therese, who they do odd jobs for over the space of a few years. Uriel and the Malkavian who vouched for them become friends, but to his chagrin, Uriel ends up spending a lot of time around Toreadors in the hopes they can hang on to what they enjoyed in life—the arts, theatre, music.

Through years of attempting to ingratiate themself and gain an artistic mentor, they are continuously looked down upon for being of a lower clan and moreover, a Malkavian. Needless to say, their pursuits don’t end well.

One of the only Toreadors who grows to care about them is Gabriel, the wayward Childe of a major Camarilla player in the area. Uriel ends up finding no reason to cavort with anyone related to the Ivory Tower after eventually being publicly humiliated/ excommunicated for their attempts to assimilate.

By around 2018, Uriel has given up any hope that they will be accepted by most Toreadors, and they think back on that several year period mostly with bitter cynicism. One of the only bright spots was meeting Gabriel, and at this point, he has not yet left his sire for greater pursuits. While Uriel wears the moniker “The Mad Bard” with pride now, their time attempting to ingratiate themself into Toreador society left them with a distrust of said clan and other higher clans, (Ventrue, etc) for fear that they will be treated poorly.

At this point, they have returned to Malkavian-populated Santa Monica in the hopes they can carve out their own way of life, and have spent the better part of a few years there. They gain a haven of their own—an abandoned theatre on the area outskirts where it leads towards Los Angeles proper--where they lead a mostly quiet life; one dedicated to honing their artistic talents, reading, learning new skills, etc. They belong officially to no coterie--preferring generally to keep to themself-- but find kinship with other Malkavians and Anarch-aligned coteries in the area.

[radicalurbanista]

there is one possible good outcome of this year that I’ve been thinking about a lot

It requires a lot of action before and after the election and a focused political strategy for the next few election cycles. It will have to meet certain conditions at critical times, but if it does, it could mean the end of the republican party the passage of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, and a labor party. Basically, it depends on splitting the Democratic party after ensuring Democrat control of Congress and the White House, DSA expansion, and eliminating the electoral college.

1) Circa the 2020 election

Biden wins the electoral college

This is almost completely dependent on white moderates in swing states voting for Biden and on massive protests during what will likely be a highly contested legal battle for the presidency. The protests are to show leaders that we reject any legitimacy of another trump term. Protests against trump will face even more violence at the hands of police and their conspiring with white nationalists. There is still the possibility of a coup. But voting alone will not ensure trump’s removal from office, everyone needs to be out in the streets and organizing strikes and protests. It will be a lot easier than stopping trump after he’s secured a second term. If this fails, protesting conditions will become even more hostile, and Americans will see no relief from the economic depression or pandemic. The U.S. may end as a dictatorship, but I have no idea when.

Democrats take majority control of the senate

This is essential as well. There are many senate seats this year where Republicans could be replaced by Dems. Here is a more thorough guide on who could be unseated. This will help with passing bills that Dems agree on. The more the better. Without this, splitting the party won’t be possible yet.

Democrats expand control of the House

This will make splitting the Dem party easier.

DSA (Democratic Socialists) expand control at the local and state level

The emergence of DSA to a national party requires many more wins at the local level. This will give them the chance to become the left-wing national party. 50% of Democrat voters support socialism, and that’s pre-pandemic and pre-depression. It is these voters who will be attracted to the DSA as they grow.

Democrats expand control in state legislatures

Once the census results are in and states have to redistrict, Democrat-controlled state legislatures will likely produce less gerrymandered conservative districts. This will secure more representational elections for the next decade.

2) Before the 2022 election

Eliminate the electoral college

This is another very difficult part. Conservative Dems (like Biden) oppose eliminating the electoral college. His current views may not matter once the DNC tells him to do otherwise. It will likely be moderate and left Dems who push this agenda forward, as it is within the best interest of the Dem party to make the popular vote chose the presidency. National support for it may also be higher than ever after the election, meaning more pressure on Dems to act while they can. If the electoral college is eliminated, Republicans will lose their chance at winning the presidency again, meaning trump 2024 won’t be possible

Begin major canvassing for M4A, GND, police defunding, and abolishing ICE

Once Dems control Congress and the White House, the left can be more on the political offense rather than defense. The DNC opposes Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, but support for them will only likely increase as more people die from COVID-19, suffer under medical debt, face record breaking unemployment and evictions, and climate crises continue to destroy areas. These bills are popular, and the DSA supports them, which will give them leverage in winning more elections and even in poaching Democrat representatives like Bernie and AOC. Support for abolishing ICE and the police are only likely to grow thanks to continued BLM organizing.

Counter Republican campaigns at the state and local levels

Republicans are unified, backed by money, and think long-term, but this election is different because their only platform is supporting trump. Should they lose the White House and Congress, and lose the electoral college, they will have to create a whole new base and platform goals to win a national election ever again. Local organizers will have to counter republican strategies at the local and state levels in hopes of killing the party. Republicans might be able to find a way to attract half of the voter base again, but they might also be clinging too tightly to racism, which, although strong, is no longer enough to win the presidency through popular vote. They could also lose southern state control as cities like Atlanta and Houston grow and their voters flip the state blue.

3) Circa the 2024 election

Enter the DSA into national elections

If the electoral college is gone and the DSA was won more local and state seats in 2020 and 2022, the DSA has a chance to enter national elections. As a popular left-wing party and with the decline of the republican party, the DSA can now attract left-wing previously “captured” by Dems. They may likely not win the presidency, but the DSA will force Dems to be the nation’s right-wing party and become the left-wing party in doing so. Formerly republican voters will likely switch to Dems as the Democratic party becomes more conservative and if republicans no longer have a chance at winning national elections.

Center campaigns around major bills not yet passed (M4A, GND, police defunding, and/or abolishing ICE)

This keeps important issues relevant and keeps Dems on the defense as to why they won’t pass the bills.

4) After

Continue building revolutionary potential now that the two national parties are welfare capitalism/socialism-lite and neoliberalism.

The DSA will likely capture much of the working-class vote, Millennials and Gen Z, and POC. If republicans are still around, their goal will be to find a new way to split the working class vote, likely requiring collaborating with Dems. However, their old strategy of splitting by rural/urban may no longer work. Businesses will do everything they can to stop a party from representing workers: it’s why the parties realigned after the New Deal.

This is all possible and will offer actual harm reduction to the working class for the first time since the 70s. None of it will be possible without massive organizing and protest efforts on the ground. None of it will be possible without strong interracial ties and community building. Voting is essential, but it’s the bare minimum and inadequate alone. During this period, BLM and new leftist movements could grow, we could see a militant left party to further curb U.S. domestic authoritarianism. We could see national policy that interferes less in the Global South. We would likely see increased protections for workers, a redistribution of wealth, and new public infrastructure. We could even see the end of the U.S. by the close of the decade, or at least how it would finally happen.

I’m happy to explain any point further, but I thought I’d put my degree to use and share a possible political strategy for the next decade that could use protest and direct action with electoral politics to end U.S. dominance and global capitalism while making the conditions for final stages of revolution less hostile. The next decade will be turbulent regardless, but would this ^^^ is the best way for that turbulence to lead to liberation.

[maranello]

I think there are two types of bastard! Charles that we've seen so far.

First of all, we can all agree that the origin to that side was Austria 2019. Up until then, he was a very clean driver, he always saw the gap coming and was preparing for that. But Austria taught him that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to win.

Now, for the two sides, I call them monza 2019 and season 2020.

Starting with last season, charles had a shit car and was absolutely unreliable and undrivable. Bastard! Charles was qualifying like a monster in q3 and then, knowing that he has no power in the straights, he got into some reckless driving because he was so eager to keep the position. He refused to accept the abilities of the car, so he was taking many risks in gaps that weren't there. That type of charles, is the charles that doesn't believe in the car and he takes what he can, however he can.

But monza 2019 is bastard charles having trust in the car and knowing what he can achieve. It takes a lot of bastard energy to defend like that against a 6 time world champion (at the moment) while being in your second year in f1 and only in your first season at ferrari. Not to mention that you didn't give a tow in the quali to your 4 time world champion teammate. He pushed Lewis off the track for a moment, got told to not do that again but he knew at that moment that he has the pace, he has the car, he has the ability. And that push, was intentional and was done in a calculated way cause no harm was done.

I think if ferrari gives him a good car, we are going to see a lot more moments of his amazing driving skills. I know a lot of people say that this is a dangerous driving but monza 2019 taught us what charles is able to do if he has a decent (not even a great) car.

Sorry for the long message, happy to hear your thoughts :)

No, no, I agree with you on this!! Charles’ track bastardry definitely has different modes: one is race-winning mode and the other is do the most at all costs mode.

We got to see the first in Monza 2019, the latter throughout 2020. In the first mode, I would say he is willing to be a bit, well, “naughty” to win. He’s willing to do whatever he can get away with. In the latter mode, I would call him “unhinged,” or straight up “reckless” or “overambitious” when it goes wrong.

Al also touched a bit on this with the prev ask, and I was already suspecting, how Charles’ driving style/race performance is pretty much dependent on the car he gets to drive. Honestly, feels like it should be a no brainer, but I wish people remembered that more. We’re still seeing him in the “do the most at all costs” mode this year. I think he’s tempered down a bit of the “high risk, high reward” mentality this season, learning from his 2020 campaign. (“I will choose my battles better,” he said. He did choose his battles better in Baku.) Given that, I get why he still did everything he did today, especially when he was clearly feeling the race pace, but I must say, he is lucky to not have been taken out because of the Lap 1 incident like Pierre.

Both modes of track bastadry are frankly exhilirating to watch (when it goes right). Personally, I’d prefer his cleaner style like circa F2 2017 season or pre-Austria 2019 a bit more, just for my peace of mind, but on the other hand… I am a Schumi fan at heart. If Charles Leclerc wants to be a bit of a track bastard to win a WDC with Ferrari, I think he should go for it, you know?

I guess this is what people mean by “hard racing” when you’re driving on the limits of legality but can still keep it respectful between drivers! Like with Lewis in Monza 2019 — Lewis didn’t seem all that happy with it coming out of the race and asked for more “consistency” from the stewards for moves like that. But he also reiterated he had no problem with it after and called Charles “one of the most respectful drivers,” and I think this is where you have to hand it to the drivers being able to have a tough battle on track but separate that off track and be cool-headed enough to have a conversation over anything they’re not happy about with each other.

I really, really want Ferrari give Charles a stable and strong car so we can really see what he can do with it. Track bastard or not, I just want to see him win 💖

[usnatarchives]

"Ya Got Trouble"  from Meredith Willson's "The Music Man", Robert Preston & Shirley Jones, online here, GIF from here. 

YA GOT TROUBLE!  PRIME YOUR SOUL OR PIMP YOUR RIDE?

Trouble in River City:  Hoover shares Aunt Hannah’s vision of his town’s descent into SIN!

Yet another quirky post by Miriam Kleiman, Program Director for Public Affairs.

While campaigning for reelection in Iowa in Oct. 1932 (spoiler alert: he lost to FDR), President Hoover spoke of dramatic changes to his hometown (West Branch, IA) since his Quaker boyhood (emphasis added): 

“As you know the Quakers had an old-fashioned meetinghouse...  I have a vivid recollection of an elderly Aunt Hannah who delivered herself one day very emphatically on the subject of increasing wickedness of the world... she prophesied that if these habits were followed the day would come when that meetinghouse would be turned into the mockery of a theatre. That was the worst thing she could think of. I went back 25 years later and to my astonishment her prophesy had come true. The community had become affluent enough to build a better meetinghouse, and they had moved the old one across the street and changed it into a moving-picture house.”

Aunt Hannah called it - Hoover’s boyhood Quaker Friends meetinghouse went through an extended identity crisis, the equivalent of an Amish Rumspringa, changing from a sex-segregated place of (often) silent prayer to a movie theatre (with mixed seating!!!), then a car garage, then a meetinghouse once again.*

I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon, Then beer from a bottle. An' the next thing ya know, Your son is playin' for money (from The Music Man)

You decide - prophesy or progress? Read the Hoover Heads blog post by Hoover Library Director Thomas F. Schwartz and weigh in:  

What’s better? Wait quietly until the spirit moves you? Or help the spirit along with a music and a paid spiritual guide?  

What’s better? Repair souls or repair cars?

If you were a building, what would you want to be? A quiet house of worship? A movie theater? A body shop?

Friends Meetinghouse on the grounds of the Hoover National Historic Site. NPS Photo by John Tobiason

*Thankfully, the building’s soul was saved when the Hoover Birthplace Foundation bought, moved and restored it (redo circa 1964, pre-HGTV). Aunt Hannah would be so relieved! 

One fine night, they leave the pool hall,  Headin' for the dance at the Armory! Libertine men and Scarlet women! And Rag-time, shameless music That'll grab your son and your daughter With the arms of a jungle animal instinct! Mass-steria! Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground! (from The Music Man)

STAY TUNED to learn how Robert Preston, the Broadway Music Man himself, became the paid flack for the President's Council on Physical Fitness, the group behind that awful Presidential Fitness Test, and:

Hear “GO YOU CHICKEN FAT”, the Youth Fitness song!

Read a student’s complaint about teachers having “midriff bulge”

Learn about the remedial fitness plan Miriam received after failing the test at Byron Junior High. Really...  

[astriiformes]

I was tagged by @tam--lin in this hyperspecific tumblr-corner niche tag meme (which is delightful, honestly), so here’s my answers:

What sort of music were you into circa age 12?

Tragically, at the age of twelve I had not yet developed a taste in music, because all I was ever exposed to was the excruciatingly bland contemporary Christian station that was the only music my mother ever had on in the car and one (1) classic rock road trip playlist my dad, who does have an interesting taste in music but who never controlled the radio, created back when he was in college and still had the cassettes for. 

That said, of the classic rock road trip songs, I was most excited about the songs Magic Power by Triumph and Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas, and I particularly stand by the latter as a jam

Favorite fantasy or sci-fi thing media released in the last 5 years:

Last five years I might have to go with the Aerois campaign of the D&D stream High Rollers. I have assorted Critical Role feelings as well (although technically they started their first stream pre-2015 anyways) but I think Aerois might edge it out for me, personally

Favorite pair of boots:

So Groovebags doesn’t sell the exact model I own anymore (they’ve lasted me coming up on two years, which is a testament to them not exclusively being a fashion statement), but I have a variation on this style of boots that displays the subducting plate boundary a little more prominently that I bought on a big sale when I was in need of some good waterproof shoes. They’ve been worth every penny, especially since starting work at the science museum where having a pair of Ms. Frizzle-esque boots just adds to my science educator cred. I absolutely plan on replacing them with another equally ostentatious science design from them (they have SO MANY) when the plate boundary ones die, especially since they do unisex sizing which I, a transmasc person with very small feet, appreciate deeply

Song you blare loudly, windows-down, that confuses fellow drivers:

Officially, I don’t think I’ve ever done this, but emotionally it’s probably “Everybody Hates Elves” by Kari Maaren

A thing you don’t understand about US dating culture:

I don’t even know if I can pick one thing, I can conceptualize romance so poorly that I can barely even wrap my mind around the idea that people go on dates and that it’s at all different than just hanging out with something, much less zero in on some of the other things that confuse me.

Vests, y/n:

I have been living the vest appreciation life ever since my junior year of high school and I don’t intend to stop. In this household, we look like Marty McFly or bust.

Underrated musical artist you think we should listen to:

I Fight Dragons! I rarely hear people talk about them (other than people who I know I got into them) but they’ve been one of my favorite bands also since my junior year of high school and I’m just as into their new stuff as I was their discography then

You have to give up one forever: oceans or mountains. (Personally. You do not affect the world in any way.)

This choice hurts me but I know in my soul I gotta say oceans. The Rockies in particular stole my heart and haven’t let go. Moving away from Colorado to someplace flatter has been the first time I’ve really understood longing for another landscape.

Unpopular food opinion:

Black licorice is delicious and you’re all cowards. And I don’t just mean the normal kind, which I do love, but also the extra powerful salmiak stuff

Favorite museum:

I have a huge soft spot for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the little zoological and paleontological museums at the university I went to in Montana because I volunteered in collections at all of them. DMNS in particular was when I was in high school, so it was pretty formative (and it’s also just a great museum!)

I also love OMSI, in Oregon, which my grandpa would take me and my sister to every time we visited, and the AMNH in New York which I snuck down to several times while spending my freshman year at NYU. And the one bright spot in the disastrous abroad trip to Florence that semester was seeing the Museo Galileo, which is not one of the big names on the block but if you’ve ever wanted to see actual Renaissance-era scientific instruments or uhhhhhhh [throws dart at wall] Galileo’s mummified finger (no, really) it’s your place

Also, different kind of museum, but can I say the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff? I loved the Doctor Who Experience, and Cardiff

How many swords have you owned in your life:

Tragically the only fencing gear I’ve ever used was rented, although I did get to at least live the aesthetic of having a ton of them lying around the apartment I shared with the college fencing club captain in Montana. Other than that, the little foam sword I used for elementary school Shakespeare performances as Hamlet and MacDuff is all I’ve got for you, unless my fancy combat-grade Ultrasaber counts since someday when things exist again I’m going to use it in the local Saber Guild (lightsaber stage combat!) chapter

Most obscure word you know in a foreign language you don’t speak:

The tricky thing here is the definition of “don’t speak” because dabbling in language learning is sort of my thing (in phases, at least). I don’t have much fluency in anything other than English though, so even though it’s the language I’ve been studying most seriously as of late my pick has to be “iùl-oidche,” which is a poetic name for a navigational star in Gaelic

Dream cosplay(s):

This is...... a very long list. 

I’m technically actively working on Quill from High Rollers already but that one involves so much wild technical expertise that it still feels out there. Same for the fact that I’ve already done Percy de Rolo (from Critical Role) once, but the  entirely-reworked version of it I actually want to pull off when I have better sewing skills and more money counts as a dream cosplay.

Other than that.... every single OT Luke Skywalker, but especially his X-Wing pilot outfit and his throne room one with the yellow jacket (and also Hoth, because I live in Minnesota and it would be funny), as well as Legolas, Fjord from Critical Role, and Milo Thatch from A:tLE

(In true cosplayer fashion. Too many things)

Would you shoot a man to save public libraries, y/n:

.....it goes very against my character but like. If I gave the man an impassioned, Luke Skywalker-style speech about what he should do to save them and he didn’t use his powers for good. All bets are off.

[twilightoftheapprentice]

I’ve been in the MCU fandom since it was just the Iron Man fandom because those were the only movies that were out, so in honor of the end of the Infinity Saga, here are some memories of what it was like in the MCU fandom just after it got big on here circa 2012-13:

I’m pretty sure we just called ourselves the Marvel fandom at that time. I don’t think MCU really became a widely used term until after GOTG came out. 

Seeing the phrase, “Love is for children, I owe him a debt” at least five times a day

People were also very into Nat needing to wipe the red out of her ledger

75% of the fandom thought Loki was the hottest person in those movies

Widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of a Black Widow movie. It was what everyone was talking about post-Avengers. If I hadn’t actually watched us go from that to complete apathy when it was finally announced five years later, I wouldn’t believe it.

The oft-discussed fanfics where everyone was just kicking it in Avengers tower

The fandom’s most pressing question was what happened in Budapest. It was a runner up to “chilling in Avengers Tower” in terms of the amount of fic written about it. 

Stony was the big slash ship  

Clintasha was the big het ship. I don’t think any other het ship has ever achieved that level of prominence in the MCU. Almost everyone shipped Clintasha.

I also remember a lot of people shipping Tony/Loki, a truly unfortunate amount of Thorki, and then Clint/Coulson for some reason? 

Thinking Clint Barton or Maria Hill might be important at some point

The fandom treating Joss Whedon like a god. I know there were already people out there talking about his issues, but as a whole, fandom didn’t really turn against him until AoU came out.

Thor was almost universally considered the boring one

The campaign to save Coulson. I rewatched recently and he wasn’t in the movies as much as I remembered. Why did we love him so much?

Not knowing the tesseract or the Chittauri sceptre were infinity stones and not thinking the solo movies were really related to each other

The gif of the Hulk flinging Loki around that was clearly made from a cam recording

The movie theater that accidentally displayed a fan-made Thorki poster for Thor: The Dark World

The collective shock when Mark Ruffalo was cast as Bruce Banner and the following debate over whether he would be able to live up to Edward Norton’s performance

Marvel and Harry Potter getting lumped in with Superwholock to create one unholy megafandom

Bonus: A couple things I remember from the pre-Avengers fandom, 2009-2011

No one knew these movies were supposed to take place in a shared universe until Tony Stark showed up at the end of Incredible Hulk

Prior to Captain America coming out in 2011, Pepperony was actually a huge ship. I remember being at the midnight premier of Iron Man 2 and the entire theater applauding and cheering when they kissed because we’d all been waiting for it for two years (Ant-Man should have taken notes honestly).

When the post-credits scene in Iron Man 2 showed Mjolnir, the entire theater went wild because a lot of people were finding out for the first time that there was going to be a Thor movie. It has been publicly greenlit two years before, but people weren’t carefully watching Marvel Studios’ every move at the time, so anyone who wasn’t big into the comics pretty much missed the announcement. Captain America’s shield showing up in Iron Man 2 was a big deal for the same reason.

[theladyactress]

Anna Cora Mowatt and the Rumor Mill

It is more usual to think of historians as searching for verifiable facts about historical figures and events. Because this research project is focused on scandal and reputation, I am in the unusual position of being engaged in a search for verifiable rumors and documented innuendo.

I have seen traces many Ogden, Ritchie, and Mowatt descendants in my travels on the internet.  If you make a stop here, be assured that I am not casting aspersions on your illustrious ancestor.  Anna Cora was ruined financially and devastated emotionally by Walter Watts’ crime. Her effort to rebound from this scandal – further complicated by the timing of James Mowatt’s death -- was nothing short of astounding.  I am merely plumbing the depths of the pit into which she suddenly found herself plunged without friend or comfort.

To anyone joining us for the first time, here’s a brief rundown of the Watts scandal:   After Mowatt’s very successful Broadway debut in 1847 as first a playwright then as an actress, she was encouraged by friends, critics, and colleagues to try her luck on the London stage as many American performers had before her to varying degrees of success. Arriving there, she immediately drew the attention of Walter Watts, the manager of the Olympic and Marylebone theaters.  Despite the fact that she was a mere novice, he signed her to a lucrative long-term contract (Even stars players were usually hired only for one show at a time). Watts publicly presented her with expensive gifts and had a deluxe dressing room outfitted for her where he hosted champagne dinners attended by London’s literary and social elite. This jealousy-inspiring treatment came to an abrupt and shocking end in March of 1850 when Watts was arrested for fraud. Watts’ arrest brought to light the fact that he was a clerk for the Globe Insurance Company who had been financing a millionaire lifestyle for over a decade by systematically embezzling from his company. Four months later, Watts hung himself in Newgate prison.

(If you’d like to read more about the scandal and Mowatt’s entanglement in it, this webpage goes into more depth: Touch of Scandal)

The double difficulty in my research into this scandal is that I’m trying to sort out not only what really happened, but what people thought happened. Because of her personal rhetorical approach and the general standards of the times, Mowatt did not directly address the rumors connecting her to Watts. After a certain point in her autobiography, she even ceases to refer to him by name. Her biographers use phrases like, “everyone in London thought” when talking about the scandal, but it now seems like few of those people documented their beliefs. Therefore more than a century later, I am trying to pick up the echoes of a very damaging whisper campaign.

A tidbit I discovered in one of my recent research “finds” is a perfect illustration of the sort of damaging innuendo that may have been being spread tying Mowatt to Watts at the time of his arrest in a manner that did harm to her reputation in England.

The article, entitled “The Forgeries of Walter Watts” appears at the bottom of page 3 in a New Zealand newspaper on November 5, 1892. Walter Watts and James Mowatt had been dead for forty-two years when the article was published. Anna Cora herself had passed away twenty-two years before. Still, this “true crime” story from half the globe away was deemed by the publishers of the paper entertaining enough to devote two columns to -- wedged in between a chapter from a Robert Lewis Stevenson story and a testimonial for the Society for the Cruelty to Animals.  This account followed along the general lines of the narrative that I first saw recorded by David Morier Evans in Facts, Failures, and Frauds: Revelations, Financial, Mercantile, Criminal in 1859.  The narrative mentions all of what I have come to consider the “major” rumors tying Mowatt to Watts; such as the silver urn, the dressing room, the locket, and the silk scarf.  We will devote much time in future blogs dissecting each of these elements at length as they appear in this and other accounts.  However among the colorful details this story adds that I have not seen in other accounts, I want to focus here on the following:  “(Watts) sent the lady’s husband on a voyage to Trinidad…”

Nothing in my research indicates that Watts funded James Mowatt’s trip to Trinidad or that it was the manager’s idea in any way. According to Mowatt’s autobiography, her husband set sail for the West Indies in October of 1849 on the advice of more than one doctor after a re-occurrence of an unnamed neurological disorder or perhaps a growing tumor that rendered him blind in one eye and would kill him before the end of 1850. She says that the doctors thought the warmer climate and the long sea voyage would be good for him.

I have to enter into the record here that this is the point in Mowatt’s autobiography where she has stopped referring to Watts by name. She wrote her account of the decision for James Mowatt to set sail for the West Indies using a lot of passive voice and vague constructions like “doctors were consulted” and “it was decided.”  In the spring and summer of 1849, Watts was presumably still the Mowatts’ friend and great benefactor.  She was giving speeches in public talking about how wonderful Watts was and writing glowing dedications to him in the published versions of her plays.  Watts was Anna Cora’s employer and had access to much more money than the Mowatts did. If he generously offered help fund a medically-ordered trip to Trinidad for the critically ill James and insisted that Anna Cora stay in London to fulfill her contractual obligations, then how could they refuse?

Also, to look at the scenario from the other side, if I was Walter Watts – embezzler and con man, leading a double life, -- who had convinced James Mowatt,  -- ailing, middle-aged, controlling, ex-lawyer husband of my little American princess star actress -- to invest his wife’s life savings in the Olympic theater that I probably had burned down in the spring so I could rebuild with money I was stealing four and five hundred dollars at a time from the insurance company I was secretly working for... You know, I think I could think of a thousand good reasons why I might want him in Trinidad soaking in the sun and slowly dying instead of at a hospital in Germany or Switzerland that specialized in neurological disorders or cancer treatments while I had champagne dinners with his young beautiful wife in her fancy dressing room in London.

Thus you can see that the “(Watts) sent the lady’s husband on a voyage to Trinidad…” statement starts with the firmest foundation of a good rumor.  It is plausible. All the characters are behaving in the manner that we imagine that they might—even when we imagine them to be behaving very, very badly.  

[In a future blog, I plan to discuss the the aspect of rumor in which the spread of scandal is aided by prior negative perceptions of certain classes of individuals and how being an American actress in London fueled the harm caused to Mowatt by the Watts incident. However, we’ll leave that for now.]

In addition to being plausible, another aspect giving additional power to the Trinidad rumor is the truth of this information is knowable. Unfortunately, I’m not saying that I think that I will ever know the truth of the matter, but it is plausible that there were individuals at that time who knew the truth of about whether or not Walter Watts paid to send James Mowatt to Trinidad. When James left, Anna Cora moved in with her acting partner, E.L. Davenport and his pregnant wife, Fanny. They probably knew.  Their children could have known. Members of the theatrical company may have known. Friends of Watts could have known.  This anonymous account is written from the perspective of a young man of who Watts befriended.

Thus the “Trinidad” tidbit is succinctly is capable of confirming a willing listener’s most negative suspicions about Watts’ predatory behavior in the Mowatt marriage and Anna Cora’s either passive or active participation in that interference – depending on how negative one’s pre-existing view of her is. Although anonymous and even only ambiguously non- fictional, the narrator gives himself just barely enough credibility to serve as a plausible source for this information.

And so, my friends, forty-two years after the principals are dead, a strong rumor takes a deep, nourishing breath of fresh air.

The presentation chosen for this account leaves me with several questions that I’d like to share with you, dear readers. How seriously am I meant to take this “Page 3” story? It shares many characteristics with Sydney Horler’s “true crime” version of Watts’ story in his 1931 book Black Souls (A million thanks to Christi Saindon for helping me track down this hard to find volume!). Unlike Horler, though, the anonymous narrator claims to have first-hand insight to Watts’ actions and does not identify their version of the manager’s thoughts or words as fictionalizations.  Do any of you know anything about New Zealand newspaper publishing conventions circa 1890?  Was this section of the paper reserved for light entertainment? Reprints from English papers? Excerpts from books or magazines?

Also, my knowledge of Victorian medical science is thin. Do any of you have more expertise? How valid was the West Indies as a destination for the dying James Mowatt in 1849? I know that neurology was in its infancy and that “the rest cure” was being proscribed for a wide range of psychological and physical disorders of the brain that would be treated with medicine or surgery only twenty or thirty years later, but wouldn’t there be better places in England or Europe to treat someone with something that was exerting so much pressure it was making them lose sight in one eye?

I look forward to your input! Next week – more scandal!

[aion-rsa]

The Creeping Reality of V for Vendetta

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It's not the Fifth of November yet but that doesn't mean we can't consider how V for Vendetta's dystopian future is closer than ever.

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Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason, and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

These are the words that have accompanied hundreds of Guy Fawkes Day celebrations ever since that eponymous Catholic failed to blow up Parliament in 1605. But for many millions the world over, the poem is now synonymous with V for Vendetta, a shockingly subversive studio movie that was released in 2006. More than a decade later that film’s success at celebrating radical political ideas can still be felt by the fact that a movie which glorifies terrorist action (blowing up Parliament and Big Ben) is considered a classic in many circles, and is routinely viewed at the beginning of every November by movie fans the world over. It’s almost a fitting bit of irony that the film’s iconic visage of uncivil disobedience—the sleek and sexy reworking of a Guy Fawkes mask on Hugo Weaving’s face—has similarly become ubiquitous with anarchists, counterculture subversives, and online hackers, who all wear the trademarked Halloween item… that they helpfully purchase from the very capitalist friendly Warner Brothers’ merchandising arm on Amazon.

Nevertheless, the film is always worth remembering on Nov. 5 (or any other day), because director James McTeigue and the Wachowskis’ best screenplay to date succeeded at shrewdly adapting the V for Vendetta graphic novel to the big screen. Alan Moore purists might forever remain skeptical of such praise since by reimagining a seminal anti-Thatcher ‘80s hit piece, the Wachowskis essentially reworked the entire narrative as a brutally anti-Bush allegory (and reconfigured Weaving’s V and Natalie Portman’s Evey as a surprisingly convincing star-crossed pair of lovers from The Phantom of the Opera mold). In the process, Moore’s V went from being the poster child for anarchy to a defender of classical liberalism.

But on its own cinematic terms, V for Vendetta combines slick R-rated action movie set-pieces (that are appropriately theatrical for a comic book adaptation) alongside some pointed criticism of the U.S. government circa 2006, specifically in regard to the War on Terror and the persecution of minorities in right-wing media (remember folks: as recently as 2004, a president ran a successful national campaign by pledging to make a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage). The film may have unintentionally also endorsed the use of torture for political radicalization, but that’s neither here nor there.

Watch V For Vendetta on Amazon

Just as sweeping as its brava rebranding of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” V for Vendetta remains a pop culture artifact about the anxieties felt on the left in the waning years of George W. Bush’s presidency. And with it being so specifically fitted to those critiques, it should in theory seem very dated in the third year of President Donald Trump's tenure in the White House.

Yet, if one looks around, it becomes apparent that we are tiptoeing ever closer to the dystopian future that V for Vendetta warned so vehemently against…

A Government for the People That Watches the People

One of the most chilling (and familiar) beats of dystopian hell envisioned in V for Vendetta is the Orwellian presence of a Big Brother. The film’s cartoonish dictator, High Chancellor Adam Sutler, is clearly meant to resemble Adolf Hitler. However, the filmmakers also selected John Hurt for the role of the tyrant who stripped away his country’s civil liberties. This canny casting recalls George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four since Hurt starred in the actual 1984 adaptation of that book.

And like that story’s infamous Big Brother, Sutler’s Britain is under constant surveillance by roaming trucks that are eavesdropping on every dinner table, phone, or digital conversation amongst its citizens. This is an obvious allusion to the U.S. PATRIOT Act, which provided extraordinary freedom to government agencies to pursue suspected terrorists in October 2001 (less than two months removed from the shadow of 9/11). And its encroachment on civil liberties was as disquieting in 2006 as it is in 2019—after it was extended twice during the Obama administration.

As a U.S. senator in 2005, Barack Obama spoke precisely about reforming the law: “We don’t have to settle for a PATRIOT Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety—we can have one that secures both.” Yet elements of the PATRIOT Act were only allowed to temporarily expire in its June 2015 extension due to the maneuvers of Senator Rand Paul. Meanwhile Obama, a president I greatly admire, continued to run afoul of civil liberties groups and privacy advocates.

In fact, it was during his administration that Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, unleashed a cascade of classified documents that showed the NSA was secretly utilizing a global system of surveillance that was gathering massive amounts of information about the private correspondence of both American and foreign citizens. Initially, the White House’s reaction was to brand Snowden as “not a patriot” (he currently lives outside the reach of extradition in Russia) and to suggest that the American people simply needed to become “comfortable” with the NSA’s mass bulk collection of millions’ phone records. 

But eventually the Obama White House reversed course, first by appointing a panel to quell concerns of “distorted” information in the press about the “drip, drip” and “Big Brother” perception the U.S. government ascertained overnight. Subsequently, Obama pivoted closer to the side of civil liberties (especially after a U.S. federal judge ruled the bulk collection was probably unconstitutional). In June 2015, the NSA lost the carte blanche authority to collect millions of Americans’ phone records via the White House supported USA Freedom Act (the NSA now needs a targeted warrant from the FISA court).

So, all is well that ends well in this particular case, right? Maybe, except Snowden is still living in exile and considered a traitor by many government officials, the PATRIOT Act persists, the aforementioned parts that Paul was able to see expire were reinstated by the USA Freedom Act, telecommunications companies can still stockpile Americans’ bulk data, which the FISA Court allows access to with a secret warrant, and it is so easy to imagine a scenario where a president less constitutionally minded would not choose to introduce a bill after an intelligence agency was caught with its hand in the wiretapped cookie jar. Or one who would seek to expand its powers further when the PATRIOT Act comes up for renewal again.

In fact, given many of the strongest political winds at the moment, it seems that for every step forward, we’re about to take 50 goosesteps back.

Video of V For Vendetta - 3 - Control Through Fear

The Spread of Misinformation

Another hallmark of any good dystopian yarn is a state-run media arm that inundates and brainwashes a public via the spread of propaganda. Hence one of the most exciting moments in V for Vendetta is when the titular anti-hero invades and commandeers what is clearly intended to be a stand-in for Fox News, using their ability to infest every home in England to now instead offer a rousing cry of “vive la révolution!”

Of course even in 2006, it was unfair to conflate Fox News with being a government-run puppet of the Republican National Party or the Bush administration. In many ways, the tail wags the dog with Fox News setting the Republican Party's agenda, especially now that its standard-bearer prefers getting his news from Fox & Friends as opposed to his own intelligence agencies. By contrast, V for Vendetta simplified mass media misinformation for the sake of narrative brevity. Indeed, the point about the dangers of media misinformation are only more pronounced now than they were 10 years ago.

read more: The Best Dystopian Movies and TV Shows

As broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once prophesized in 1958, “For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities, which must indeed be faced if we are to survive.” At the time, Murrow was musing about the decline of broadcast news during a period where there were only three channels on television. Today with the increasingly endless variety of media resources in a post-internet and post-social media world, the dissemination of lies and falsehoods is greater than even the Wachowskis’ paranoia could imagine during the pre-iPhone naiveté of 2006.

With more information than ever at folks’ fingertips, the desire to insulate one’s self in a media echo chamber has ironically become only more desirable for millions.

To use V’s veiled punching bag of Fox News as an example, a University of Maryland study in 2010 found that Fox News viewers were more misinformed about factual information than those who consumed their primary news stories from any other major resource. Also, misinformation is arguably more dangerous to public discourse than even uninformed voters, because the misinformed are often more confident in clinging to discredited information.

Nine years later, it’s now a lot easier to fall down the rabbit hole of innuendo and ideological fanaticism (i.e. lies) than it was in the age when cable news reigned supreme. The more people become insulated in partisan echo chambers, the easier it is to create the effect of a brainwashed society hinted at in V for Vendetta—government run or otherwise.

Consider that Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and once frequent Fox News commentator, showcased this bizarre resistance to reality  among a group of Donald Trump supporters. Preferring a particular political candidate for president was their right, but when Luntz emphatically proved the future Republican nominee Trump lied about how many Syrian refugees President Obama attempted to bring into the U.S. in 2016—for the record it was 10,000 refugees while Trump falsely asserted it was 250,000—the reaction was apathy, including comments like “he’d let in as many as possible” and “what is in his heart?”

Luntz further found that only three of the 29 Trump supporters sampled believe that Obama is a Christian. One even insisted that he believed Obama was sworn into office in 2009 on a Quran. Also the general consensus was to prefer news from far right-wing leaning media like Breitbart (a site that willfully sided with the Trump campaign over its own reporters, even in an incident of alleged physical assault) and talk radio while anything considered “mainstream media” was to be viewed with hostile skepticism and outright denial. This was years before a fanatical Trump supporter, who watched the president call all non-right-wing media “the enemy of the people,” mailed several pipe bombs to CNN in addition to those of nearly a dozen of Trump's political opponents and critics.

Additionally, Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, was hired by Donald Trump to be his campaign's CEO, further muddying the waters of collusion between political leaders and the partisan, extremist media they court--although after Bannon fell out of favor with the mercurial president, Breitbart happily threw him to the wolves and fired the fallen Trump advisor from his returned chairman role, all to curry favor with the veritably lying and tweeting president.

In this current climate of media tribalization, it is far easier for a demagogue like Sutler to lie his way to power and to then retain it.

Video of Opening scene from V for Vendetta

Persecution of Minorities

V for Vendetta begins with a blunt and on-the-nose depiction of the kind of politics that High Chancellor Adam Sutler and his Norsefire Party represent. Roger Allam’s Lewis Prothero is obviously meant to be a cross between Howard Beale and Joseph Goebbels when we hear his televised voice before even realizing we’re watching Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving’s robed introductions.

From the very first frame, Prothero, and by extension the political party he represents, hisses his disdain for those inherently responsible for all of the problems in the world: “Immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists, diseased-ridden degenerates, they had to go! Strength through unity, unity through faith!”

read more: The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix

Drawing a parallel between the nativist bigotry represented by V for Vendetta and the current disintegration of the Republican Party is like tracing with a ruler. While V for Vendetta’s fears about the persecution of the LGBT community turned out to be thankfully unfounded in the Obama Years with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repealed and gay marriage now the law of the land, everything else Prothero espoused hatred for is again in the national conversation… except with even less nuance. This includes how the Trump adiministration is targeting people who identify as transexual as Other, beginning with banning them from the military.

It would almost be redundant to bring up how Donald Trump—the preferred president of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and Neo Nazis everywhere—suggested in 2015 that we should ignore the Constitution and founding tenets of this country by creating a religious litmus test for entry while banning all Muslims (which he has now made a restricted version of the law of the land via executive order). So let’s just focus on what the man who once inferred he did not know what the KKK represented. While on CNN in 2016, the GOP candidate said, “I think Islam hates us.” For the record, this also insinuated merit to Anderson Cooper’s question about whether Trump believed Islam was “at war with the West?” 

Let this sink in: The President of the United States insinuated that a religion of 1.6 billion people (that’s roughly 23 percent of the global population) is at war with the United States. It certainly gives his voters a boogeyman to fear in the shape of nearly three million fellow American neighbors. In the 2018 midterms, he shifted the focus back to his original boogeyman when he turned the media's attention to an “invasion” of South American refugees from a crumbling caravan a thousand miles away walking through Mexico on foot.

V for Vendetta features flashbacks of Sutler rounding up British Muslims, and gay and lesbian citizens to be taken to camps. While Trump has not suggested anything quite that drastic for Muslims (yet), he campaigned pretty damn close to it in regards to undocumented immigrants. And then he acted on it as president, supporting and then attempting to defend a policy designed to ruin immigrant families by locking children in cages. This makes good on a campaign launched by the claim that a majority of undocumented migrants are “rapists,” which in turn led to millions of Trump supporters chanting “build a Wall.”

One imagines that if Prothero was a real person, he’d have been in the bleachers right next to them, talking about how he also agrees about shipping off minorities in a “humane” way to a place where they’d be “happy.”

“He’s Completely Single-Minded and Has No Regard for Political Process”

Ultimately, however, the easiest way to glimpse our ever growing flirtation with Sutler’s future is to see how parts of our culture already march to the sound of the fictional character’s bark. Midway through V for Vendetta, V surmises that Sutler’s career began with “a deeply religious man and a member of the conservative party. He’s completely single-minded and has no regard for political process. The more power he obtains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become.”

Obviously, the Wachowski Siblings, as well as Alan Moore before them, were revisiting the rise of Adolf Hitler in a modern context. I would not suggest that it is a 1:1 comparison, but so much of how V describes Sutler could be used at this very moment to detail the popularity of Donald Trump.

In terms of political process, one only has to look at the Republican president’s woefully dishonest campaign promises and then often fractured policy, be it rounding up illegal immigrants or now claiming he has the power to revoke birthright citizenship without a Constutional amendment, despite it being enshrined in the 14th Amendment. In 2016, he ranted and raved about how he plans to immediately deport 12 million people living in America without due process, a claim he echoed in 2018 by playing ignorant to due process. Even Bill O’Reilly once called him out on that fact, pointing out in 2016 that under the Constitution, anyone detained on American soil (i.e. not just crossing the border) has the right to be processed in our judicial system—a harrowing (and impossible) feat if it is to be immediately implemented around 12 million times. Yet Trump just shrugged the facts off, repeating, “They’re here illegally,” as if repetition and magical thinking will make it constitutionally sound or at all humane.

Then again, Trump’s entire rhetorical approach has already been documented as operating on a fourth grade reading level, and it is as effective as the emphatic leader of V for Vendetta’s fictional conservative party. Increasingly, folks cheer when he suggests attacking cornerstones of American life like the freedom of the press. Much like how Sutler reacted to a political TV parody that made him look the fool, the Donald let his thin skin show when he suggested, with the utmost earnestness, that one of the things he wants most is to “open up libel laws.”

Even if the Supreme Court settled long ago in 1964 that you need to prove an organization reported inaccurate information it knew to be false with malicious intent, Trump would like to be able to sue “The New York Times [when they write] a hit-piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit-piece. We can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning, because they’re totally protected.”

His whining about the press suggests a chip on his shoulder worthy of when Sutler had a late night comedian disappeared into one of Creedy’s black bags.

Yet these are applause lines for supporters who are indeed embracing V’s visions of a dystopic 21st century where the more power Trump receives, the more aggressive they become. With almost every Trump rally during the heated primaries, there seemed to be another attack, another beating, and another protest devolving into chaos. In January 2016, Trump told an Iowa crowd, “There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?... I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”

Two months later in North Carolina, a black man was sucker punched by a Trump supporter as he was being escorted by police out of the facility, and it was captured on video. Despite visual confirmation of an unprompted burst of violence from a white supporter toward an African American protestor, Trump lied to his supporters when he said, “It was a guy who was swinging.” He then condoned the violence by saying, “I thought it was very, very appropriate… that’s what we need a little bit more of.” He then later would not refute the alleged attacker’s claims that the protestor was a member of ISIS.

After his ascendency to the White House, many emphatic supporters of Trump have become more violent instead of less so. When a visceral orgy of far-right politics converged on Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, Neo Nazis, Neo Confederates, and card carrying members of the KKK celebrated an event titled "Unite the Right," including a number of supporters dressed in President Trump's preferred golfing attire as they marched with torches and chanted "The Jews will not replace us," word-for-word the same cries made by Nazis at 1930s rallies. The following day, one such far-right extremist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. The following week, Trump gave rhetorical cover to racist supporters by saying "there were very fine people on both sides." A year later, a Trump enthusiast sent bombs to Trump critics. A year after that, a far-right terrorist opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring another 24.

Eventually, this is going to devolve into something even more tragic and reminiscent of the 1930s.

How is this anger growing right now in a country that actually has seen a growth in job creation, GDP, and access to healthcare while a decrease in the deficit and unemployment over the last six years of Obama's presidency and then increasingly so in the Trump years? There is an obvious racial and deplorable component for a number of voters in this country from the David Duke mold. Still, there are also reasons for justifiable anger with a cataclysmic income inequality gap and stagnant wages, the undeniable stench of money in politics, and the ever modern and unending anxiety of the new century: the threat of terrorism. But demagogues like Sutler and Trump are exploiting these fears and frustrations with such ridiculous ease, and building it on a foundation of hate, nationalism, and bigotry, that it seems almost fictional.

But if you think all of this is slanted, partisan hooey, watch V’s impassioned plea for the people of England to set aside their fear and face an ugly reality inside their culture. Then admit that it is not prescient for the direction our country is headed in.

Video of V for Vendetta: The Revolutionary Speech (HD)

So yes, Americans are closer than ever to achieving the dystopian future imagined for England in V for Vendetta. That’s something to remember, remember for the fifth of November.

A version of this article first ran on March 17, 2016.

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Nov 5, 2019

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[utilitycaster]

hello!! i just went thru your history of exandria post and im confused by the dates of the even of crimson midnight and the moleasmyr accident- in De'Leth's bio it says that he is one of those escaped elves and was also the founder of the assembly (ergo, was there for the Eve) so I think something is amiss... I also checked the dates, and Ludinus is an original member of the assembly. So how could he have fled Moleasmyr AFTER he'd already established the Assembly in Rexxentrum?

Hi!

Short, Doylist answer: Matthew Mercer is not superhuman and made a very understandable mistake.

Extremely long answer: Matthew Mercer is still not superhuman and still made a very understandable mistake (my guess is either he meant to put in 565 instead of 585 for the fall of Molaesmyr, or “not a half-century” for the date of the Eve of Crimson Midnight), but this, one of the the two biggest discrepancies in the history of Exandria* can both be handwaved (Watsonianed, if you will permit me turning that into a verb, and if you don’t I fully understand and probably deserve it) with a little bit of headcanon. Here is my headcanon which you are welcome to adopt, with dates, citations, and reasoning, below the jump.

Reasoning for the Date for the Eve of Crimson Midnight

So: the exact phrasing (Matthew Mercer, The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2020), 16) for the Eve of Crimson Midnight is “Not a quarter century after the Marrow War ended....” blah blah, wizards fought, got captured and brought to the king, “After days of deliberation, an agreement was drawn up that would absolve those involved of the usual punishment in exchange for direct subservience to the Crown and the goals of the empire. Establishing themselves as the Cerberus Assembly, this council of mages became an powerful tool for the empire to maintain its position as the dominant force of Wildemount.”

“Not a quarter century” is something I’d personally interpret as “slightly less than 25 years later”; this is also the typical interpretation of that phrasing for most native English speakers, certainly native speakers of American English, which both I and the author of the book are, so we’re going with that.

The Marrow War has an explicit date given; the Admonition (execution of rebellious priests who were in turn spurred on by Julous Dominion interests) was in 544 PD (Mercer, p. 15) and later that year Emperor Manfried (the title of King rather than Emperor comes later) attacked the Julous Dominion, starting the Marrow War. It lasted “over sixteen months” which again I’d interpret as “more than 16 months, but probably not more than 17 otherwise you’d say that”, so depending on when the Admonition was, it ended in either late 545 PD, or early 546 PD. Not quite 25 years later would therefore put us in roughly 570 PD for the Eve of Crimson Midnight.

Reasoning for the Date of the Fall of Molaesmyr

This is much simpler! Per Mercer, p. 42: “What is known is that in the year 585 PD, suddenly and without warning, a wave of purple-gray shadow rapidly crept from the center of Molaesmyr to engulf the entire city.” It then goes on to describe that the elves fled, some “eventually” to settle Bysaes Tyl, some to Uthodurn.

Ludinus Da’leth’s personal history

Mercer, p. 42: “Ludinus is the oldest and only original member of the assembly...He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl, but he saw the opportunity to achieve greatness within the empire and left his culture behind to continue his arcane pursuits.”

A note on Bysaes Tyl

Per Mercer, p. 96, it took several years to build up the city, but for the sake of argument I am treating the region to which the elves of Molaesmyr originally fled as also Bysaes Tyl, thus indicating Ludinus may have only been there very briefly.

Here’s How Ludinus Can Still Be A Founding Member Of The Assembly

While the Eve of Crimson Midnight occurred circa 570 PD, as did the initial agreement that those involved would be directly subservient to the crown, it doesn’t actually indicate how long it took for those people to establish themselves as the Cerberus Assembly.

I would absolutely believe that a bunch of wizard academics who all tried to kill each other so hard they created collateral damage in the streets of Rexxentrum would absolutely take 15 years or more to consolidate a formal council and give it a cool name. In fact, can’t you just imagine it? Ludinus Da’leth, a promising young elven mage living in “the height of reborn civilization on Wildemount” (Mercer, p. 18) sees his home, his laboratories, everything he’s worked on, all destroyed. Perhaps it’s by his hand; perhaps by that of a colleague. He flees to a bitter cold forest with absolutely nothing. To the south, Rexxentrum stands as now the major site of arcane talent. Perhaps there’s been communication between the wizards of the Empire and those of Molaesmyr. Perhaps he’s heard that they are sworn in service to the king, but have been in disarray because they can’t elect a leader-after all, they’re in this position because “A number of noble houses with a strong history of studying arcane pursuits began to compete with other high-born magic practitioners from the Julous Dominion”. They can’t openly fight anymore, but the political games continue and neither those from within the pre-Marrow War boundaries of the Empire nor those from the recently-incorporated Julous Dominion can agree on council representation, and they’ve been deadlocked for over a decade. They have been serving the king, but he is becoming displeased.

Enter a neutral** third party: Ludinus Da’leth, formerly of Molaesmyr. A suitable compromise who just happened to make his way south - a gifted mage, eager to prove his allegiance to the Dwendalian crown and share what he knows. And so: the founding of the Cerberus Assembly, 15-20 years after the Eve of Crimson Midnight and shortly after the fall of Molaesmyr, following an uneasy interim period of mages in slightly disorganized service to the crown. And scene.

*the other big discrepancy is that the Chroma Conclave was stated to be in the year 815 PD on page 20 of the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, but in Campaign 1 episode 103 a minor NPC when asked for the date says the year is 812, which would instead put the Chroma Conclave in the last few days 810 PD per the dates given. However, since the month and day that NPC gives also don’t line up internally even with the other stated events of Campaign 1, and since using a date of late 810 for the Chroma Conclave would make Allura pretty young when she sealed away Thordak and conflicts with a bunch of dates mentioned since, including Delilah Briarwood’s expulsion from the Cerberus Assembly, Vilya’s time on Rumblecusp, and The Darrington Brigade’s stand against Quackthulu, I’m personally inclined to say “Matt probably didn’t have the date written down when asked, because it was episode 103 and the exact year had not been relevant so far, and/or misread 817 for 812 when looking down at his notes.” The headcanon to fix this is of course that the NPC got the date wrong and Vox Machina either didn’t realize due to *gestures vaguely at the events of episode 102* or was like wait are we in the past? seems fake and then asked someone else offscreen and got the right date, which is way less fun but much easier.

**technically, lawful, although who knows what his alignment was then. If you also buy into theories that Ludinus was in some way responsible for the fall of Molaesmyr you get some fascinating parallels to one similarly opportunistic and ambitious Hot Boi, and yes I did make a really stupid alignment joke just to make this point.

[twatd]

6,000 Years of Murder – Part Four: There Goes the Neighbourhood

Tim: The Wicked + The Divine #36 finally gave us a definitive list of every damn Recurrence that has occurred since Ananke first started exploding heads, so we thought we’d take a walk through the annals of history and provide some context for what was happening at the time. Welcome to 6,000 Years of Murder.

In this entry, we hit the halfway mark in our voyage through history, as we found a modern religion, celebrate the most baller of all the Pharaohs and watch thousands of years of progress get flushed into the Mediterranean Sea... 

1657BC – North America It’s time for another one of our rare pre-Columbian trips to North America, and around this point, that means we’re probably in the area of modern-day Louisiana, checking out some mounds. The Poverty Point culture (an unfortunate name, but historians are a cruel and unusual lot) were a group of indigenous peoples who occupied the lower Mississippi Valley from around 2200BC to 700BC, building settlements in over a hundred sites and creating a large trading network throughout what is now the eastern United States. Mainly hunter-gatherers, they are descended from the tribes that passed through Wrangel Island and down into the continental US.

This time would have been the peak of Poverty Point culture, with work on their eponymous largest settlement just beginning. It would go on to take up 910 acres, and has been described as the “largest and most complex Late Archaic earthwork occupation and ceremonial site found in North America”. Exactly what Poverty Point was used for is heavily debated – some think it was a settlement or trading centre, while others point to its concentric rings of semi-circular mounds as suggesting a ceremonial function.

1565BC – Northern China Our last trip to Northern China saw the Xia dynasty emerging around Erlitou and the Yellow River. As we check back in, the Xia are on their way out, about to be replaced by the Shang dynasty, who will rule for around 600 years. The Shang provide us with some of our first examples of Chinese writing, and oversaw several important developments, including large-scale production of bronze; a foundation of a powerful standing military; artistic works in jade, bone and ceramic; and the construction of large walled palace complexes.

The Shang are the earliest dynasty we have concrete archaeological evidence for, with earlier dynasties existing in the weird space between oral history and folklore. Not only do we have evidence, but we have accounts of the Shang in classic Chinese literature like the Book of Documents, the Bamboo Annals and the Records of the Great Historians (although these were all written at least 1,000 years later). Sidenote: the Chinese remain great at naming things.

1473BC – Northern Indus Valley Our old friend the Indus Valley Civilisation is no more, I’m afraid. It dissipated around 200 years back, when consistent drought and aridification made agriculture more difficult, and urban settlements became harder to support. As it broke up, the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation scattered. Many headed east, while others remained, mingling with incoming Indo-European and Indo-Iranian tribes. For the next 1,000 years or so, the Indus Valley will return to a more tribal, pastoral model without a strong urban centre.

However, who needs an urban centre when you’ve got RELIGION?! Not just any religion, either – this time is known as the Vedic period, because it’s when the four central texts of Hinduism will be written, starting around this time with the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 Sanskit hymns and 10,600 verses. Discussing cosmology, the nature of god and the virtues of charity, the Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language, and a cornerstone of a religion that boasts 1.15bn followers today. If we’re trying to correlate Persephone fighting back with particularly momentous periods in history, the Vedic period – despite being largely pastoral – certainly qualifies.

1381BC – Central America It’s Central America. There’s a big head in the background. It must be OLMEC TIME. One of the earliest known major civilisations in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs were found in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco, between 1500BC and around 400BC. As the first major culture to emerge in the area, the Olmecs sort of set the template for civilisations that would follow in the area, and while that template included a complex writing system, the concept of zero, advanced calendars and a great ballgame, it also involved ritual bloodletting and, quite possibly, human sacrifice.

Let’s talk about the big heads. No known pre-Columbian texts explain their origin or purpose, and while only 17 have been unearthed to date, they have become a well-recognised symbol of the Olmecs. Once theorised to be popular ballplayers, they are now generally accepted to be portraits of rulers, although possibly dressed as ballplayers, like when Putin rides around shirtless on a horse. No two heads are alike, and they were carved from huge single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt, with the finished products ranging in size from 4'10″ to 11' tall. Those are some big-ass heads.

1289BC – Egypt Oh Egypt, we couldn’t stay away too long, especially when you’ve been so busy. The Middle Kingdom is long over and it’s time for the New Kingdom. See if you can recognise some of the names that have come and gone while we were away. Amenhotep. Nefertiti. Tutankhamen. But if they weren’t important enough to bring us back, what could possible be around the corner? It’s only ya boi Ramesses II, aka Ramesses the Great, aka Ozymandias, Great Ancestor, king of kings, the greatest, most celebrated and most powerful pharoah of the Egyptian civilisation.

The 19th Dynasty has just begun in Egypt, and at age 14, Ramesses has been appointed Prince Regent by his father, Seti I. Within 10 years, he’ll have taken the throne, and he’ll reign for around 70 years. During that time, he’ll engage in countless military campaigns, retaking territory from the Nubians and Hittites. He’ll also sign the first recorded peace treaty, oversee a period of unprecedented construction throughout Egypt, and move the capital from Thebes to a new city named after himself that includes huge temples and a zoo. Microscopic inspection of his mummified body, which was originally buried in the Valley of the Kings, suggests he was a redhead, adding to his similarities to Cheryl Blossom.

1197BC – Hattusa We’ve mentioned that Ramesses II was going to war with the Hittites – what’s their deal? Well, at this point, their kingdom is in decline, following a lengthy war with Egypt and the rise of the Assyrian Empire. But at their height in the mid-14th century BC, they encompassed Anatolia (aka modern day Turkey), Upper Mesopotamia, the Levant and chunks of modern day Egypt. The capital city Hattusa is located in central Anatolia, surrounded by rich agricultural lands and small woods that provided wheat, barley, lentils and timber, as well as grazing lands for sheep.

During the reign of the most successful Hittite monarch, Suppiluliuma I (circa 1344-1322 BC), large walls were erected around the city that are still visible today. The city had an inner and outer section, with the inner area occupied by a citadel with large administrative buildings, temples and a royal residence, all decorated with elaborate reliefs depicting warriors, sphinxes and lions. Unfortunately, just as Ananke perfects her force field, here comes the Bronze Age Collapse, which will result in much of the city being abandoned and falling into ruin.

1106BC – Greece That long mix of a fart noise and a scream you can hear is the Late Bronze Age collapse. In between 1200-1150BC, the area surrounding the Mediterranean  undergoes huge upheaval, shifting from the city-state and palace economy that has characterised the region back to small isolated villages. Wave goodbye to the Mycenaean Greeks (who just won the Trojan War finally), the Kassites in Babylon, the Hittites and the Egyptian Empire. In a 50-year span, almost every major city between Pylos in Greece and Gaza in the Levant will be violently destroyed.

What the hell caused all this chaos? There are a variety of theories, including climate change, drought, a volcanic eruption, changes in warfare, the rise of the Iron Age and a general systems collapse that encompasses all these things plus untenable population growth and soil degradation. Whatever the cause, the result is a complete shift in terms of power in the area. While Assyria and Elam will survive past the main period of collapse, they too soon shrink and fade. The Iranian people from Central Asia and the Eurasian Steppe will travel southeast, displacing the Kassites and Hurrians to become the Persian Empire, while following the Greek Dark Ages, this area will eventually re-emerge into the Classical Greek period with its many steps and columns.

1014BC – Central China While the Middle East is wondering what the hell happened, China is continuing to kick ass and take names. The Shang dynasty has come to an end, and been replaced by the Zhou dynasty, which will last longer than any other period of Chinese history, from 1046 to around 250BC. The period will see Chinese bronzeware-making at its peak, and the written Chinese script evolve from a very basic form to something close to its modern version. The Zhou dynasty is often compared to feudal Europe, with a complex system of peerage ranks and intensive agriculture carried out by serfs on land owned by nobles.

The first half of the Zhou dynasty is called Western Zhou, and begins with King Wu of Zhou overthrowing the Shangs at the Battle of Muye. Wu died shortly after and, with his son too young to rule, his brother the Duke of Zhou took command, stamping out civil wars and rebellions, conquering more territory and establishing the Mandate of Heaven, a sort of two-for-one sale that combines the divine right of kings with manifest destiny. All this upheaval and authoritarian rule is clearly approved by Ananke, who has perfected her Double Click Technique when it comes to taking out Persephones.

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