#she said that like. one or two small studies don't necessarily mean definitive fact

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

my mom read one or two articles with supposed "statistics" that say sleeping in a bra or even just frequently wearing a bra causes breast cancer and like I cannot believe that she's fearmongering to me about "would you rather wear a bra to bed because 'it's so uncomfortable without it' and have to fight breast cancer, or would you rather get your priorities fixed?"

[tangledinredstring]

I struggle to get my head around the religious lore of Fantasy High, sometimes - I suspect I haven't studied the correct subjects at school, but I do my best! But I will put some of my thoughts here, to see if pinning them to the conspiracy board helps me connect the dots.

So, I had this thought during the last episode, and I've seen it mentioned in other people's posts, but it was a bit strange that the dead rage god could be named in the circle, but Cassandra's name had been updated to be Cassandra, even though that definitely was not her name at the time. And there's a couple of explanations, that might be at play here, or a combination of the two.

The first is that Adaine was translating from a Proto-Sylvan language, so it wasn't like she was reading the English/Common words where it said "Susan/Cassandra". My thought it was more like she saw the rune meaning the combined concept of Mystery/Night and understood that to mean the god she knows as Cassandra.

The other explanation that came to me is that although the end result was the same, and possibly the cause leading up to it, what actually happened to the two of them is not the same, or at least I don't think so.

As I understand it, Ankarna died due to a lack of worshippers. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was done maliciously, although the fact that this appears to be the only written record of the name, especially since they are part of a pantheon of gods that are still worshipped, certainly points to someone going through after the fact and removing the name from history books and religious texts does point to that. There is a difference between knowing the god exists and believing in that god, but if no-one cared, the name would have been left in documents as part of the Giant pantheon, and there would be a possibility of worship if someone (like Fig) felt that actually, a god of summer and rage did fit their personal beliefs. But that was removed as a possibility, by parties unknown, so that they would be completely forgotten.

What happened to Cassandra was different, in that immediately prior to the Nightmare King incident she did have worshippers. They had been swayed by the church of Gallicaea into believing they needed to ritually destroy her previous name, but they did exist, so she didn't just fade out of existence like Ankarna. And it was the ritual that makes the difference here; before her followers could ritually destroy the name, she ritually changed it to the Nightmare Kings crown to save herself. Since big ritual magic was involved, and again when she came back to being Cassandra, I don't think it would be out of the question that reality could just be remade to reflect the new names.

TL:DR - I think too much about this.

I had one last thought, only tangentially related. I've seen people saying they feel like Porter is urging Fig to worship Ankarna specifically; because he is Genasi, and because he has some religious backing as a paladin, and with his feelings about rage, it makes sense that he is a follower of this god. But - perhaps I have read Small Gods too many times - that just doesn't make sense to me. If Ankarna had even one believer, let alone if he worships because his ancestors did, Ankarna would not be dead.