#so all my knowledge is from spoilers and social posts

[nightmariann]

Have any AkiAngel fans considered the very good idea of a pushing daisies AU?

[rrking]

Some General BG HCs

Me and my wifey often discuss Astarion things in real life, and there are a few that I thought I would share.

Spoiler warning⚠

Astarion

Random knowledge bank. Meeting your parents for the first time and your dad wants to talk about history? Ask Astarion, if he doesn't just know, he remembers.

Enjoys going to the library. Does not enjoy the rabble who also enjoy the library. You have to explain to him over and over about library cards and infrared scanners so he doesn't just nope out and steal the book. Also gets annoyed when books from his time are revised.

Don't want to touch the raw meat packaging? No worries, Astarion will lick it up for you. Imagine him leant against the kitchen counter sucking up the blood from that piece of paper at the bottom of the mince. (A wifey thought)

On the subject of blood, if you cut your finger in the house he will be licking that up for you with a leering grin. Dragging it out so he can watch how you roll your eyes at him.

Comes in late, as usual, but this time after taking out every fucking goose or pigeon in the local area. The council are unhappy. Astarion is ecstatic. Word of a bird plague is sweeping through the borough. You are not happy with Astarion. Astarion doesn't care about the council until they put your council tax up.

Glares out of the window at kids playing but won't admit they're kind of cute. Especially glarey when kids come to the door trick or treating. Bonus points if they're dressed as vampires... Maybe he'll compliment them. "Darlings, look at your adorable little capes! Does your mother know you lot are prancing around dressed like monsters?" Will absolutely deny any niceties when you look at him knowingly, a smirk appearing on your lips as you notice the bucket of sweets he's holding, still excited after giving the children far more than they needed. or asked for.

Moans and groans when you watch vampire films. "Darling, turn that nonsense off, would you? Were you curious about vampires, you have one right here."

Groans even more when you watch law and order style programs, particularly court ones. Bad memories. "And why did he not get the death sentence?!"

Serial social media meme stealer.

Always creeps up behind you when you are looking in the mirror, ready to scare you. Or shag you, you be the judge.

Gale

Want chippy but don't want to get up or wait for an order? Blink. Gale will blink there and back. What's faster than Uber Eats? Going via the Astral Plane.

100000% will make you a brew if you ask :) He turns up with your favourite mug and your drink exactly the way you like it.

The type of man to run you a hot bath ready when you get in from work or if you've had a hard day just because.

Definitely discovers Nivea for Men.

Remembers things like birthdays and anniversaries.

Sees shiny things and wonders if they're infused with the weave. Gazing through the jewellery shop window.

Suffers through Harry Potter at Christmas wondering where all the elegant wizards are.

Started a thing where you leave post it notes for one another with sweet nothings on. Today as you're walking past the calendar pinned to the kitchen wall, you spot a new post it note. This one is pink and bares Gale's graceful handwriting. It reads: "My most special one, everyday I wake up next to you I feel luckier than the last. Have a great day x" Such devoted notes leave you feeling warm inside.

Halsin

Prefers to buy 'living herbs' than ground jar ones because NATURE.

Is that person who goes past an adult shop and says loudly "let's go inside!"

Definitely gets stuck in garden chairs and the like due to being so massive. Don't get this man in a smart car.

Stands up at barbecues if the chair is too small. It probably is.

Literally has to be told to avoid the bear story to others because they will not understand but tells it anyway if he gets too drunk.

Actually finds it quite difficult to adapt to modern society almost more than Lae'zel.

If you live in the countryside, Halsin definitely finds it a little easier, but if you live in the city he is constantly asking questions. The thing that catches his eye today is a statue above the bank door - a lion with a key in his mouth. "Does that petrified displacer beast not wish to return to the wilderness?" "Halsin, that is a statue of a lion with a key in it's mouth." "...Oh. Why does it guard a key?" You look at him curiously, unsure of how to answer such an innocent question. "It's just HSBC's thing... I don't actually know."

Struggles to find clothes that actually fit.

Will share you a meme you tagged him in and never truly understand the new technology.

Totally enjoys long walks and feeding ducks. Eats all of the bread.

Tries to speak to the animals at the zoo. (Wifey)

Incosolably weeps at nature programs. Very confused when you try to explain that nature has to take it's course for them to film.

First thought upon seeing CGI animals dancing and talking : "IT'S A DRUID!"

Votes Green Party.

Lae'zel

Lae'zel struggles the most to integrate into modern society.

She takes up some form of fighting WWE and does not understand why the fighters don't actually hurt each other.

She complains about this after making absolute bank of course. "Ch'k! These istik talk about fighting for glory - Yet they simply roughhouse for pitiful coin." "Yeah, but look at how famous you are, Lae'zel..." Rollin', rollin', all my bitches rollin'.

Hates ood in Doctor Who for obvious reasons. "Tsk'va, ghaik!"

Wifey came up with 'Bae'zel'.

Karlach

Believes stupid spam emails you have to send onto others. (Wifey thought of this)

Shares that post of the missing dog on the other side of the world who was found 3 years ago.

Discovers TikTok, only shares animal videos and smashes TikTok dances.

Discovers aircon. 🥺

Discovers hot wing challenges... Excels at said hot wing challenges. and collects all the t shirts for winning food challenges.

Shadowheart

Posts things on Facebook like 'Shar/Selune keeps me in check. Like, share and comment 'Praise be to Shar/Selune' if she keeps you in check." Definitely gets flamed by the others.

Ends up with cute hobbies like paper quilling and crafts. Makes things for you. "You've really improved your crochet, Shadowheart! What is this one called?" Gives him a simple name like Bob or Clyde and puts him with the rest, cramming the mantle with them.

[cowboys-tshot]

A Beginner's Guide to Epic: The Musical

Are you new to Epic: The Musical and overwhelmed by four years worth of content to go through? This is for you! (Note that this is a work in progress post that will be added to in the future as new information and Sagas are released).

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/24

*There will be some spoilers in this! The Odyssey is thousands of years old, but Epic: The Musical is an adaptation, meaning things are different. I recommend listening to all the songs in Epic before reading this, as this guide is intended to clear up misunderstandings/confusing moments and provide context.

**All of the underlined bits are links to whatever it is I'm referring to, just in case I'm making no sense. I will try to include sources for everything, or at least indicate where I got certain information from if there's no link available.

General Info:

*This is basic information about Epic: The Musical as a whole. This includes where to find new information and content, BTS things, etc.

• First of all, here's a quick rundown by the creator himself. There'll be some overlap in terms of what I cover here.

• Epic: The Musical is created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, often referred to as "Jay" or "Mr. Jalapeño" by his fans. This is who writes the songs, casts the characters, and voices Odysseus himself!

• Epic: The Musical was originally (pre-Ocean Saga) produced under Blair Russell Productions, but Jay has never been paid the royalties from the songs released under them (and they have yet to give back control of the Epic social media accounts), so Epic is now produced under Jay's own company, Winion Entertainment LLC. (source)

• Jay is most active on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. All videos that he posts to these platforms are generally the same, so don't worry if you can't follow him on all of them. He talks about several Epic-related things, including release dates, BTS, animatics, details about the music/story, snippets of released and unreleased songs, and also plenty of funny videos. He is very active within the fanbase, and you're likely to find him (and other cast members) leaving comments on posts by fans!

• Here are Jay's other links, including the Epic: The Musical Discord server. In my experience, the Discord server and Tiktok are the best places to get information as quickly as possible.

• Epic is still in progress. As of the latest update to this guide (09/01/24), the Wisdom Saga has just been released last week, leaving only two more sagas before the end. The songs are all part of a concept album, and there is currently no stage adaptation.

• Jay takes many creative liberties with The Odyssey for the sake of this adaptation of the story. He made a video recently explicitly saying to NOT use Epic as a basis for your knowledge of The Odyssey, at least when it comes to academic settings. Many of the things that occur in Epic DO NOT occur in the original story, and some parts of the original story have been cut out. Here is a video where Jay explains the purpose of Epic as an adaption. (I won't be including a list of differences in this post, but I might make a separate one if anyone's interested.)

• Although Epic takes a lot of these creative liberties, there are several little easter eggs sprinkled in among the actual plot points from The Odyssey. (I'll go into these later.)

• Jay will usually do a recap video before each new saga, going over all the events of the previous sagas for any newcomers.

• When a new saga is released, Jay will hold a LIVE listen-through. I highly recommend being there for these events, because they include lots of cool and important things such as:

official animations, animatics, and artwork, all of which provide insights into character design and events within the songs

Jay's live reactions (his facial expressions and little dances/lip-syncs are delightful)

details about the events within the songs that aren't made clear within the music itself (like what a character is doing, what is happening around them, etc)

Jay's comments in the LIVE chat, which includes details/easter eggs, BTS stuff, jokes, headcanons, and LOTS of love and praise for the actors and fans!

• Seeing as there is no stage adaptation for Epic, a lot of the visual elements come from artists and animatics/animations. Jay actually works with several of these artists for official trailers, artwork, and animatics/animations! Some of these artists include: Ainhoa Velasco, @wolfythewitch, @gigizetz, @_mircsy_, @drawing_angie, @anniflamma, Scilla_nimation, el_crafts, samantha_artt, and Giulia Toneatto. These people are all incredibly talented and deserve all the love from the Epic fanbase!

Info About the Music:

*I am not musically adept at all, and this post is already very long, so I am not going to list much specific information—just general common themes and some examples of them. Most of this information has been confirmed by Jay, in videos that I've linked below.

• If you're having trouble understanding the lyrics and/or the meaning behind the lyrics, Genius lyrics has the entire album and is full of helpful notes about the context within the musical. A lot of lyrics get misheard, so even if you think you understand what's being sung, I'd recommend checking just in case lol.

• The Troy Saga and The Cyclops Saga have been rereleased under Winion Entertainment LLC! This includes new vocals, altered music, etc. These were released alongside The Thunder Saga, along with new cover art. It's preferred that you listen to these versions of the songs, and NOT the originals, because Jay only gets royalties from the current ones.

• Many characters have their own musical motif, or even multiple motifs. There are also other motifs that are more general, like the "Danger is Nearby" motif.

• Many important characters have their own instrument that plays an integral part to the songs they're in. You can typically tell which instrument accompanies each character by listening to what is most prominent in a song that focuses on that character. (ex. Hermes with harps and the lyre, Athena with the piano)

• If you hear a character's musical motif or associated instrument in a song they don't play an integral part in, that can mean a few things (listed below). With the more general motifs, they have their own separate meanings outside of the characters.

That character is present, even if they're not singing. (ex. Hermes in "Puppeteer," signifying that he's listening to Odysseus' speech, which is brought up at the beginning of "Wouldn't You Like")

That character is related to whatever event/conversation is occurring. (ex. the same musical motif in "Ruthlessness" and "Storm," signifying that Poseidon is the one that sent the crazy storm)

The kind of instrument being played can indicate the emotion or tone of a scene. This is scene primarily with Odysseus, where the use of a nylon or acoustic guitar indicates that he is not being ruthless (source).

• When background vocals are accompanying a mortal, there is always a physical, in-universe source for those voices (ex. Odysseus' crew as background vocals in most of his songs). When background vocals are accompanying a god or other powerful being, there does not have to be a physical source for those voices—gods can basically summon a choir of voices at will (ex. "Ruthlessness"). (video explanation)

• Background chanting specifically is a common element in Epic songs. Typically, this chanting consists of the names of characters present/focused on in the song (as seen [heard?] in "Survive," "Ruthlessness," and "King").

Unclear/Vague Moments Explained:

*Some of the plot points, characters, etc. in Epic can be confusing on the first or second listen. So, I'll clear up some of the common things people (including myself) didn't notice or understand at first.

• The deep voice at the end of "The Horse and the Infant" is Zeus, voiced by Luke Holt. Zeus shows Odysseus a vision of Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, and tells him to kill the child.

• Odysseus drops Astyanax from the walls of Troy at the end of "Just a Man." Many people didn't catch this until the callback in "Monster" at the end of Act 2.

• "Warrior of the Mind" is quite confusing to those that don't have context. It is a flashback to a younger Odysseus, when he first met Athena and took her as a mentor.

• Athena has an ability called "Quick-Thought," which lets her have telepathic conversations with someone within milliseconds by pulling their mind into another dimension.

• Polites dies at the end of "Survive." He is the voice saying "Captain...". (I didn't realize this for a good while when I first started listening to Epic.)

• The voice telling Odysseus to wake up in "Keep Your Friends Close" is Penelope, not Aeolus.

• The lil' guys in "Keep Your Friends Close" are called winions (they're also the Lotus Eaters in "Open Arms"). Jay describes them as "little wind creatures that dance when they get excited and then float away uncontrollably." They don't actually exist in The Odyssey, but they're pretty cute!

• At the end of "Ruthlessness," the line "remember me" is said by Poseidon, who's basically sending his voice through the ocean fog (since Odysseus is very, very far away from him now).

• In "Done For," the yelling you are hearing in the background is essentially a Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh battle between Circe's chimera and the monster Odysseus summons using the moly plant given to him by Hermes. There is an animatic by mircsy to serve as a visual aide, which I find very helpful!

• In "There Are Other Ways," Circe was holding a knife and planning to stab Odysseus as she tried to seduce him. When he pulls away and rejects her, she quickly hides the knife.

• In "The Underworld," shades (souls) are in a constant loop, repeating whatever they were thinking when they died. Tiresias is an exception to this rule, seemingly because of him being such a powerful prophet. (confirmed in "The Underworld Saga" LIVE listen-through)

• I feel like this is fairly clear, but for those that aren't familiar with The Odyssey, I'll say it anyways. (Spoilers? I guess?) The prophecy in "No Longer You" is SUPER heavy on the foreshadowing. I won't go into it here, since many people already have, but let's just say the Greeks were big on self-fulfilling prophecies.

• As mentioned previously, background chanting is a big thing in Epic. In "No Longer You," the background chanting also serves as a prophecy detailing the future events of Odysseus's journey. Currently, only part of these lyrics have been confirmed by Jay: "SIREN SONG - SCYLLA THROAT - MUTINY - LIGHTNING BOLT." This leaves two lines that are not confirmed.

• In "Mutiny," after Odysseus is stabbed, he is tied up and knocked out before the crew sails to the nearest island. Right before he says to get to the boat and row away, he manages to untie himself.

Fun Facts/Easter Eggs:

• Circe is voiced by Jay's girlfriend, Talya Sindel.

• When Poseidon kills off most of Odysseus' crew in "Ruthlessness," he says that there are only 43 men left. But in "The Underworld," the souls of his crew say that 558 men died under his command. Considering Odysseus started off with 600 men ("Full Speed Ahead"), this math doesn't add up. This is because in The Odyssey, when Odysseus and his men party with Circe for a year, a man in his crew named Elpenor woke up drunk on Circe's roof and proceeded to walk off the roof and die from the fall. He actually has a cut song.

• Jay messed up the amount of years in "There Are Other Ways." It had not been 12 years, but 10. This little screw-up is referenced in "Different Beast."

• Odysseus' mother is voiced by Jay's actual mother.

• If you see people commenting "rawr rawr rawr" or "🦖" on Jay's videos, they're referencing his April Fool's prank this year. He made a video saying he'd completely changed the Act 2 closing song, "Monster," and proceeded to play a happy-go-lucky sounding song going "I am the monster, rawr rawr rawr."

• In every single saga, Odysseus says "what." in an absolutely bamboozled manner (or "huh" in The Troy Saga, and he does it twice in The Ocean Saga). It happens in "Open Arms," "Polyphemus," "Keep Your Friends Close," "Puppeteer," and "No Longer You." Occasionally, this "what" will be said by a different character (Poseidon in "Ruthlessness," the siren in "Different Beast")

• Perimedes (another man in Odysseus' crew, who lives all the way until "Thunder Bringer") and Elpenor were best friends.

[dracox-serdriel]

OMitB Season 4 Theories

Spoilers for all episods of Only Murders in the Building Season 4 up to episode 6. (If you want to skip it, please strike the 'J' key to jump past this post.)

Sazz knew about another murder in the building (likely the "sensitive topic" she meant to discuss with Charles at the end of Season 3) and possibly also knew about the cameras hidden in Oliver's and Charle's apartments.

Obviously, someone else knew Sazz knew about the murder and that she planned to spill the beans to "the podcasters"

The spy cameras must've been placed sometime before the start of Season 4 (how else would the killer know that it was safe to enter Charles' apartment to get Sazz's body?)

My theory is that the cameras were somehow placed by Marshall Pope or someone helping him spy. (Mostly because of his stage direction -- he describes Oliver as "flitting around" -- not something that would be obvious actions given the OmitB trio are podcasters who rely way too much on hidden cameras -- so more sound than video.)

When did Dudenoff die?

In theory, he could've died before Tim Kono.

The Brother/Sisters said that Dudenoff cut off all contact with them three years ago. (To the best of my knowledge, they are the only ones who gave a firm time about when they last spoke to Dudenoff.)

The "old incinerator" is banned because it causees a very noticable power surger in the entire building whenever it's used. Andn, according to Oliver & Charles, that kind of power surge hasn't happened in a while (since the old incinerator was banned).

It's possible Dudenoff died three years ago. His body could've been stored in any number of secret corners of the Arconia - though my guess is that he was hidden in the bricked up walls that cut the West Tower off from the rest of the Arconia.

Dudenoff's death predating Tim Kono's has a number of thematic components/call backs:

In episode 1x01, Charles' opening monologue: "Here's a thing I don't get. People who worry about living in a big city because of all the crime. As any true crime aficionado will tell you, it's the boondocks you need to worry about. I mean, let's face it. Nobody ever discovered 19 bodies buried in the backyard of a 14-story apartment building."

In episode 2x03, Oliver says: "Bunny and I, we're lifers. She's probably gonna be buried in the Arconia. And on hot days, the whole building will be able to smell you."

It makes sense that the killer would want to burn the body after someone cotton onto Dudenoff being dead.

My theory right now is that Dudenoff wasn't murdered. The illegal sublets are all under his name; his death would nix the rent control entirely - so all of the Westies with illegal sublets have cause to cover up his death. So his death could've been accidental or natural, and plenty of people still had tons of reason to cover it up. Not to mention there's someone is cashing Dudenoff's checks on 125th street - that could be part of the cover up or it's just another reason to keep his death a secret.

It would be easy for Sazz or literally any outsider to see evidence of the coverup (and maybe even the body itself) and conclude - well of course this was a murder! Especially if they didn't know about the illegal sublet thing going on.

Missing Pieces

The student film, "The Desecration of Alice", almost certainly had another actor from Dudenoff's classes -- a woman, the person who played Alice. I'm guessing that this is Rudy's ex-girlfriend, Helga -- the one who abandoned Hammy Faye Baker (the pig) in the Dudenoff's studio apartment.

What's with the Ham Radios? Seems like a way someone keeps in contact while staying off the grid.

Who is cashing Dudenoff's social security checks? I have zero reason behind it, but I truly think it's Lester the Doorman. He's been doing it as a favor, cashing the checks, then dropping the cash off to someone, per Dudenoff's request. Again, zero reason for me to suspect this. Just thinking.

Or... is Dedenoff actually dead?

Dudenoff has allowed people to illegally sublet from him for decades. Would it be so wild for him to have allowed someone he cared about to use his health insurance coverage to replace a shoulder? That could easily explain how the serial number traced back to him -- without him actually being dead.

This would also explain the Ham Radios.

Who is the killer?

Not enough information about who is the killer/shooter of Sazz, but people I'm keeping an eye on:

Bev Melon - the producer

Marshal Pope - the writer

Helga

Ana - Inez and Alfonso's daughter

Rudy aka Christmas-all-the-time-guy - easily the most atheltic of the Westies, could almost certainly handle the ubertight window of he shooter + the cleaner

Scott Bakula - ok, not really, but why not? Super sus how he turned up in 4x01 and was like, "Ho-hum, TOTALLY not like Sazz, right?!"

Sazz's Agent - unnamed character, see next section

Why Sazz?

Sazz has a ton of connections - she's the reason Charles had friends when he worked on Brazzos. Most people at the stunt bar seemed to know her fairly well. She is clearly far more competent at keeping interpersonal connections (especially those critical for her job) than most of the other characters in OMit-B.

The relationship Sazz was keen on quitting (she gave more than she got) -- I know Charles thinks it was himself -- but I don't think so. I think the person Sazz was keen on quitting was actually her agent. This is a character we've only heard about in passing, with Sazz talking to them on the phone -- but it makes a lot more sense than it being Charles.

The Theory of Season 4

While there's no real limits to the question "Who has access to Charles and Oliver's apartments?" Because of all the secret passage ways and stuff... but my theory is that Sazz's agent is in complete cahoots with Bev Melon (the producer) and leverage Sazz to plan cameras in Oliver's and Charles' apartments, among other things, to help Marshal (the film writer) and Bev get a full jump on the OMit-B.

Oliver is 100% right to be surprised at how far along the project is when they go out ot California in 4x01. That didn't happen by accident. This production had a crapton of inside sources to draw from to get it to where it is.

If Sazz's agent used blackmail or even just basic power pressure to get Sazz to participate in this kind of spycraft, then I could easily see how Sazz would want to get out from under that thumb.

At least, that would explain why Sazz is suddenly pushing to retire, even though there was a recent reboot of Brazzos giving her plenty of work (even if the show is on hiatus ATM).

[storm-and-starlight]

Here, I'm bored, so have my headcanons for how much non-heroes know about the Robin situation

Most people, at this point, are Aware Batman Exists. He's a part of the Justice League, he's talked about in most hero discussions, there's a photo record of him both in Gotham and outside on League business (though the Robins have a much more extensive photo record, especially Tim).

Similarly, most people, even those who don't care about superheroes at all, are vaguely aware that there has to have been more than one Robin

Like, first of all, Robin is famously the og kid sidekick and yet there's been a Robin around for like twenty years, so even if someone has no knowledge whatsoever usually if they get asked they take a moment to think about it and then go "yeah I guess there would have to be more than one by now?"

Also the Tim -> Damian transition 1.) took place post-Batman's cryptid era, 2.) took place in the age of social media and internet communities, and 3.) was really obvious (extremely pale kid in his late teens who mostly worked solo and fought with a bo staff to non-white child who is never seen without Batman and has a sword), so it got passed around the internet for a while that "holy shit there's a new Robin? did the last one, like, die???"

(Tim eventually jumped in to be like "no I'm not dead I'm going by Red Robin now calm tf down")

So anyways the average person is aware that there's been more than one Robin, and that there's probably been like. three? if they think about the timing of it at all.

Also: considering that both Nightwing and Red Robin are established (if not well-known) adult superheroes, as are Spoiler, Orphan, and now the Signal, the general assumption is that Batman is running some kind of hero training academy? and most of the Batfam is Robin "graduates".

People who are genuinely knowledgeable about the superhero community will give you the answer of "we have good evidence that there have been five separate people in the Robin uniform, four of which were Robin for multiple years and then there was also that blonde girl who showed up for a week but no one knows what was going on there."

Robin I was Robin for like a decade-ish? and then after spending more and more time with the Titans stopped being Robin to make room for the new guy? and changed his name to Nightwing? and that's the generally accepted storyline, but there's not a lot of solid evidence because this was very firmly in Batman's Cryptid Era and he was very camera-shy.

Also, while the fact that Robin I became Nightwing isn't, like, common knowledge, that's mostly because it's not something most people think about. It's very easily Googleable.

If you type in "what happened to the first robin" you're gonna get like three different reddit posts asking the same thing and the top answer is usually something like "he probably graduated and started going by Nightwing. Evidence: Robin (black haired, just under six feet, very acrobatic, leader of the Titans) disappeared off the Titans' roster and then a week later Nightwing (black haired, just under six feet, very acrobatic, new leader of the Titans) showed up, he's known to work with the rest of the Bats in Gotham a lot, the uncertainty's just because no one's said "Yes, Nightwing was the first Robin" out loud somewhere it could be recorded"

It is confirmed that Titans Robin is the og Robin -- he's mentioned working with Batman several times in old Titans interviews and things.

The transition from Robin I to Robin II wasn't spectacularly well-known at the time unless you particularly liked Bat-spotting, but these days it's pretty well recognized that ten-ish years after Robin showed up, the old one graduated and the new one showed up much younger and a lot less flippy than the last one. Batman was still in his Cryptid Era, so there's very little photographic evidence, but what there is is is pretty clear on the fact that Robin II is much younger than the Titans Robin.

The transition from Robin II to Robin III was not really known about at all at the time it happened -- this was like... juuuust in the beginning of the social media era? and Tim and Jason look more dissimilar than Dick and Jason but no one was getting a close look at either Robin II or Robin III anyways. Mostly what people knew was that Robin disappeared for a while and Batman went... crazier than usual, and then Robin came back and things started slowly calming down again.

What's known now is that Robin II is "missing, presumed dead".

No one really knows what, exactly, happened, but at some point a post collating all the evidence went mildly viral online in superhero drama communities that Robin II and Robin III are almost definitely not the same guy.

Their accents are different, the costumes are different, Robin II was in the 15-16 range when he disappeared and the Robin that showed back up was definitely in the 11-12 range, Robin II was a lot more willing to just punch people while Robin III is more techy

and also Batman's actions post-Robin II's-disappearance make a whole lotta sense if you look at them from the perspective of "something real bad just happened to his sidekick"

Like. Robin II could have retired. But also no, he couldn't have.

Robin III to Robin IV is, as aforementioned, the most well-known of the transitions, and also the one that solidified the understanding that Robin is a temporary position -- it wasn't super widespread knowledge that there were multiple Robins until all of a sudden Sword Robin showed up, and then all of the obscure forum posts cataloguing the different transitions got spread around a lot and now "there have been five Robins" is general knowledge among people who keep tabs on superheroes.

The four "main" Robins all have rough timelines known and discussed, and then the fifth Robin is Blonde Robin/Girl Robin

People know for a fact she existed -- there's definite evidence in the form of five-ish clear photographs of a girl with long blonde hair in the official Robin suit, two of which have something that is largely agreed to be Batman in them, and a handful of reliable eyewitness accounts, but the most that anyone can say about Blonde Robin is that she existed? and was around for like. two weeks? maybe?

TL;DR average layperson knows that there has to have been like two? three? Robins by now, right? Doesn't the latest one have a sword? Average Gothamite is like "yeah, there've been like four and one of 'em definitely died and then apparently there was a blonde girl for a bit?", someone really into superhero lore could tell you rough (year/month) estimates of when each Robin switched over, how long they held the position, and what happened to them once they graduated.

[flightfoot]

Any feligami fic recommendations?

Felix is Fine by SortaArtsy

Felix wakes up sick, but is determined to keep it under wraps. Kagami refuses to be fooled. Feligami fluff. Implied past trauma/ abuse, though nothing explicit. Set post S5 so there are SOME SPOILERS!

If you want a Felix sick fic, this story’s the fic for you! I like how Felix and Kagami actually talk about why Felix is so determined to keep the extent of his illness hidden, what caused him to feel like he needs to do that, and Kagami’s understanding about it. Colt sucks.

---

to assess the equation of you by ThisKwamiNeeds-aNap

“I’m not a wanted fugitive,” she said, dryly. “You could change that.” She wasn’t sure if he was joking. Wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be joking. She stared for a long second, as if she could read more into his intent in the pupils of his eyes. They stayed there for a long second, unblinking. OR: Félix and Kagami try to talk about that after credits scene in Pretension

---

the awful felix saga by chivalrousamour

It should be noted that Félix was not exactly the most normal of people. He was idolized by others and popular, yet never had many friends. His social skills mostly amounted to knowledge of how to smile and speak politely enough that people let their guard down around him. As a result of his tendency to ignore or hate most people, he only had the few loved ones, and he'd commit murder for them. Like literally commit murder for them. Several murders, even. He did not have good knowledge of boundaries or restraint. So it should really say something that Félix, of all people, looked at Adrien's phone, and immediately said "oh, what's wrong with this guy." Because, like, dude. Why did Adrien have so many pictures of a girl he wasn't even dating? Even Félix knew that cropping group pics to be just the two of them was a weird thing to do.

So this is part of a series. I put that series on my top ten completed fics of 2023 list. I think you can mostly understand what's going on here without reading the other fics in the series, but I highly recommend you do read them, because they're hilarious! But this fic should at least give a taste of the tone of the rest of the series and give an idea whether you'd like to read the rest.

---

The Peacock and the Dragon by TheVioletThread

kagami reflects on love, past and present, lost and won. felix destroys everything he has ever loved.

This is a three-chapter story, with the chapters being mostly independent, rather than naturally leading into each other.

The first chapter is from Kagami's POV, delving into the mindset she's grown up with due to Tomoe's parenting.

The second chapter, on the other hand, is from Felix's POV and mostly follows his horrific backstory, the abuse he suffered at Colt's hands, and his mindset even after Colt died.

The third chapter goes over Amelie's life, how she thinks of being the one left behind to deal with her parents' expectations, how she does, in fact, abide by them, basically being sold away to the highest bidder, and the despair as she's unable to do what she was "purchased" to do: provide an heir to Colt.

There's some beautiful prose here and exploration for Felix, Kagami, and Amelie, I highly recommend giving it a look!

---

one does not love breathing by @wackus-bonkus-maximus

All of Paris watched as Hawkmoth murdered Chat Noir, taking the Black Cat Miraculous for himself. Ladybug swears revenge, but her enemy—and every miraculous in his possession—disappear without a trace.

Six years later, a new team of villains launches an attack for the last remaining Miraculous: Volpina, armed with new powers; Queen Bee, with questionable loyalty; Argos, the new holder of the Peacock Miraculous; and Cat Walker, who Ladybug hates the most.

Takes place after S4 - Strike Back.

So this is mostly a Lovesquare fic, but there's lots of different perspectives here, including Felix's and Kagami's. They may not be the main couple, but they still have more focus and development here than you're likely to find in most other fics.

Which is especially impressive since Feligami was one of the major pairings in this fic even BEFORE the Miraculous season 5 bible got leaked. Wackus was clairvoyant on that front.

[failureface]

thoughts on "Welcome Home, Franklin"

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Okay, this special was really great.

I love Franklin. He's a sweet boy who never had a unkind thing to say about Charlie Brown- he was the straight man to the wacky antics of the Peanuts gang. But I never got the feeling he was more than that in the strips. This special serves as the backstory and character that Franklin didn't originally get, but sorely needed.

And this special beautifully and gracefully rights some of the wrongs that past Peanuts media made.

I was surprised this film even went there in terms of discussing racism a little. Peanuts is an IP that you expect people to be overly-protective of. 'No, the scene in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" isn't racist- and it's NOT weird that all the kids are white' is more of what I expected to hear from this. But refreshingly, this special addresses it. Like, YEAH, there IS a lack of diversity! It feels so much better for that stuff to be acknowledged rather than swept under the rug.

I love the fact that Franklin is unsure of himself and his ability to make friends. This makes him super relatable and sympathetic, and also makes a clear connection to why he gravitates towards Charlie Brown. The two of them bond over their shared feeling of being "the Underdog", and not knowing how to make friends or navigate social landscapes. Franklin also opens up Charlie Brown to new experiences and knowledge, telling him about discrimination and introducing him to music he hasn't heard before. Not only that, but Franklin encourages Charlie Brown to be less anxious and push himself further. And Charlie Brown is a much needed friend and sympathetic ear for Franklin. They have each other's back and their bond is undeniable.

That's what this special is truly trying to get at. That friends of different backgrounds and experiences from us can help us to learn and grow as people. I think that's a really wonderful message and one that we all need at any age, and one that we especially need now.

Overall, this special really blew it out of the water, and I gave it five stars.

Special shoutout if you were able to make it to the premiere stream in the Peanuts discord, that made it twice as fun to watch!

Some miscellaneous thoughts under the cut

Franklin's music taste is so elite

The music picks in this movie are honestly fantastic. The soundtrack really elevates the experience and every song is awesome

THE BEACH SCENE! It's so rewarding as a fan to see moments that are plucked straight from the strip. It feels like the people making them really know Peanuts

All the little tiny schrucy crumbs- I eat it up. I know screenshots and gifs will be made and posted and I will be reblogging them.

Lucy and Franklin's beef- I wasn't expecting it but it's so funny and adds some really great dynamics into the fold

Since this is about the friendship between Charlie Brown and Franklin specifically, minor inaccuracies Franklin actually being on Peppermint Patty's baseball team in the strip are forgiven. Some fans more scrupulous than I would probably have an issue with this, but I'm not one of those fans. This isn't 100% faithful to Peanuts Lore but I don't mind.

I LOVED the scene where Charlie Brown wants to pull the breaks and Franklin wants to keep going. It shows so much without saying anything, and it gives way for great conflict that makes sense and comes from real places within the characters

And I love how Franklin is allowed to be mad, and he and Charlie Brown fight. We're not afraid to rock the boat anymore, and it makes Franklin feel so much more human

Just the right amount of Snoopy scenes, this one reached the perfect balance of Snoopy and Story

Everything is just so overwhelmingly cute here I had to restrain myself from writing "cute" or any of its synonyms in my review

"We saved you a seat!" <3333

[i-cant-stop-fandoming-help]

Thoughts on Whit/Suspicious or not?- Spoilers for drdt. Feel free to give me feedback or tell me your thoughts. or even argue respectfully on anything i say, idk.

I keep seeing these posts of "whit sus for staying calm and thinking of charles," alongside his knowledge of hanging, but i just. I don't know, i kind of don't see him as suspicious?

In my head, his knowledge of hanging could possibly be because of his mother. I don't remember if it was ever said how she died, so at his knowledge of hanging, part of me sort of just assumed that it had something to do with his mother.

Alongside that, I took his attention to charles as the only way to keep himself calm as well. He needed to focus on someone or something else to try and distract himself from the fact that someone was about to die. There was nothing he could do to convince teruko to move, charles had already tried. And, since he's good with emotions, part of me wonders if he picked up on Teruko's mental state. Either way, I think i was really just him wanting to distract himself.

But then again, i'm not the best with these things. I'm not the smartest for social situations or emotions. And I'd be fucking terrified in a situation like that. But if there's a chance that Whit saw his own mother's dead body, I wonder if he'd have possibly developed a morbid interest in how hanging works as a result. I've only seen one dead body in my life, and it was the result of a long life and sickness. So i can only wonder if any possible morbid interest was in an attempt to try to cope.

Even if not, i think distracting himself would also be a way to cope in stressful situations.

But I'm just a writer. I don't theorize much and I haven't rewatched the first part of chapter 2 in a good long while. So maybe I'm wrong about all of this, or my goldfish memory failed me on a detail. Who knows? certainly not me.

I gotta get back to writing now, farewell.

[pitifulwolves]

Baby girl

Just a lil sneak peek for the fic I’m writing ☺️

Current rating: General (will change when the fic is finished)

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Relationships: Noah Diaz/Mirage (Transformers)

Characters: Noah Diaz (Transformers), Mirage (Transformers), Kris Diaz (Transformers)

Additional tags: “Accidental” Flirting, Mirage doesn't understand humans as well as he thinks, Flirting, Pet Names, Misunderstandings, feelings are reciprocated don't worry, Feelings Realisation, Light Angst, Other tags to be added, Rise of the Beasts spoilers

Words: 900+ (will change once posted in full)

Mirage was pretty well adapted to human interactions, from pop culture references to general personal relationships, in his eyes he has it pretty down pat.

Of course, in reality, the cybertronian couldn’t know everything, after all, movies and music could only teach him so much.

This, unfortunately, meant that some things got lost in social translation, and what Mirage expected to be universal- was not.

Mirage had recently fallen into the knowledge of pet names and nicknames amongst humans and interpreted it as a general show of affection between two people.

The memo he missed, however? Was the distinct difference between platonic and romantic pet names.

And that's how they ended up in their current situation.

Noah had just finished replacing Mirage's front bumper, the Autobot having practically ripped it off while out running a cop car during the last of his and Noah's escapades (the G.O.Es hadn't been too pleased about having to cover that little incident up).

Noah looked over Mirage’s freshly repaired front, checking to make sure everything looked right and sleek. He tilted his head to one side, mentally praising himself a little before asking “How’s that feel Raj’? Not outta place or anything?”

“Feels good man! You know you're getting pretty good at fixin’ me up, hell maybe even as good as our medics!” mirage stated, taking a moment to shift into his cybertronian form, stretching out his joints, letting out a much too casual and perky “Thanks for the repair baby girl”

“Woah- what did you jus- what did you just say?” Noah's eyes were wide at Mirage’s words, his face flushing as he spluttered over his words.

“What? Am I not allowed to thank my bro for fixing me up?” Mirage gave him a quizzical, clearly not catching onto the cause of Noah's flustered state.

“What- I never said that- you just called me ‘baby girl’ man, where did that come from?” Noah pointed out, hoping Mirage would realise his ‘slip up’.

“Well we're bros, right? It's, y’know, a nickname” Mirage explained with a small shrug “I don't get what the big deal is”

Noah sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose

“Pet name, Raj’, what you just called me, was a pet name”

“Okay, so? What's the difference? Aren't they both like, human affection things?”

“Technically yeah but- that one? That one’s usually saved for partners Raj’” Noah half laughed.

Noah looked up, eyebrows immediately furrowing at the look of hurt comes over Mirage's face, his voice having a small static crack as he asked

“What- so we’re not partners?”

“Hey- no, thats not what I meant-“

“No, I get it man, it’s cool” Mirage scoffed, ready to turn away from the brunette.

“Mirage- man listen-” 

“Noah, it’s fine, really-“


“Raj’ I didn’t mean that kind of partner!”

Mirage’s shoulders decompressed a little at Noahs words.

“Well what did you mean then?” Mirage asked, arms creaking as they folded over his metal frame.

“I mean like- that kinda shit is for people who are dating man- you know, that kind of partner” Noah’s eyes had shifted towards the ground now, an odd pang of pain going through him as the words left his mouth.

But of course, they weren’t like that, they were just. Work friends.

Mirage gave a small ‘oh’ his voice unusually small, sounding almost disappointed.

“Hey, we’re still bros, Raj’” Noah spoke, giving a halfhearted smile.

“Yeah, bros” Mirage echoed, his voice barely above a whisper, optics trying to focus on anything that wasn’t Noah. 

The atmosphere in the garage had shifted dramatically, a weight now hanging heavy in the air, and both of them knew it, but only one knew why.

As much as Mirage didn’t grasp all human shows of affection well, he was still very aware of his own feelings for Noah.

Gauging how Noah felt on the other hand, was a much more demanding task.

The banter they had, in humans, it could easily be brushed off as friendly, and nothing more than a joke, but Mirage held the hope that maybe, just maybe it was more than that to Noah.

Since their little, incident, Noah had been a little off around Mirage, no longer throwing back witty replies to Mirages teasing, only giving short acknowledgements of the Autobots words.

Even their late night drives became less and less frequent, and Noah was only found in the garage if he had to be there. Kris was the first to notice this. 



“So, what’s goin’ on with you and Mirage?” He asked through a mouthful of cereal, not even looking up at his brother as he spoke.

Noah’s eyebrows furrowed a little, tending to some near on burnt pancakes sitting on his plate, attempting to make them more appetising with a dousing of maple syrup.

"What do you mean? Everything's good with me n' Raj'" he responded, his tone just he slightest bit too defensive

"That why he's been moping alone in the garage?" Kris countered, finally looking up at

Noah, eyebrow raised questioningly.

Noah huffed out a sigh "It's grown up stuff Kris, nothing you need to worry your little head about, yeah?"

Kris rolled his eyes at Noahs response 
"whatever, you should still talk to him though, he won't stop listening to that stupid backstreet boys song" 

Noah rubbed a hand over his face, sighing yet again before nodding
"Yeah… Alright, I'll talk to him tonight"

@rottedmolarx

[writingonleaves]

just two hours to get there, babe (i can make it back about an hour or so) - reckless driving au

universe: reckless driving au

warnings: not much! some minor spoilers of things that haven't Happened in the au yet, a devils cup win sometime before 2029 lmfao

title: "jersey giant" by tyler childers

word count: 1.8k

author's note: got emo about stamkos' goodbye to tampa bay on the players tribune (its always the players tribune) and whipped this up!

important context!! amelie wins an award from World Sports Photography (a real award) along with some prize money, and she decides to donate all the money to Sports Media For Everybody, a (made-up) organization that supports queer media professionals. Below is her op-ed for SMFE, which ends up circling around hockey media circles / hockey twitter. i like to see it as the first real Public thing she's ever posted / written. this is published about a month before jack and amelie get married in 2029, btw. enjoy and lmk what you think!!!

A Photo Worth More

by Amelie Fishel

Background: Amelie Fishel is a photographer mostly known for her work in sports. She has photographed in the NHL, NFL, PWHL, MLB, WNBA, the Olympic Games, the World Cup and more. Her photos have appeared in AP, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Athletic. Her photo of New Jersey Devils alternate captain Jack Hughes (also her fiance) during the Stanley Cup Final won a World Sports Photography award last week. A member of SMFE for over five years, Amelie has spoken in numerous classrooms and at panels and workshops to share her knowledge. Alongside Jack, she is an ambassador for You Can Play. 

When I took a bow at my last dance recital with Michigan Dance Company, I thought I was done with sports. 

Don’t get me wrong. Dance had — and still has — brought me so much. It taught me a lot of things about myself, and brought me friends I still talk to today. But after blinking at the stage lights onwe last time to loud cheers from our family, friends and fellow dancers, I knew I made the right decision to stop my decade plus intense training. I would end up dancing recreationally throughout college, but nothing close to what I did at MDC. 

During my first week at the University of Michigan, I was timidly walking around the overwhelming Festifall, which happens every year at the school. It’s basically a club fair to showcase everything you can do at Michigan. Whether by happenstance or something else, I locked eyes with Jenny DeAngelo, who is currently the social media coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers. I still remember — she had the cutest bob, a camera around her neck and the friendliest smile.

“Are you interested in working for the Michigan Athletic Department?”

Looking back, vaguest question ever. They could’ve been asking for equipment staff or helpers for ticket sales. But I walked over to Jenny, and that was it. 

For my whole four years at Michigan, I photographed almost every sport. Football, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, field hockey, you name it. I gave up a lot of weekends and school nights when I could’ve been out partying (let’s be honest, knowing me, I wouldn’t have been anyways) to stand at the sidelines of a field or court. I always knew I wanted to do photography, but the sports part of it all caught me off guard. 

Photographing hockey was almost a different skill set. I never played and didn’t really know anyone who did. But hockey at Michigan is sacred. I felt it the first game I shadowed, with Yost Arena filled up to the brim. I remember panicking because the sport was so fast. How could I ever keep up?

But I’ve never backed down from a challenge. 

I started being placed on the hockey beat more and more to the point where the guys started knowing me by name. I found myself at Yost pretty often during the season. And with my love for photographing hockey came my love for the actual game of hockey. Michigan hockey, in a way, was where another very important branch of my root love for photography started. I will always be grateful to Kristy, Maggie, Lauren and all the players and staff I worked with there for the encouragement and setting the expectations astronomically high for how a photographer is part of the team’s DNA.

I’m so grateful that my first gig after graduation was with the NHL. Being trusted to photograph the Philadelphia Flyers, the New Jersey Devils, the New York Islanders and the New York Rangers as an inexperienced but eager 22 year old was such a pleasure. I learned a lot and I still look upon the early years of my career with so many good memories. 

Since then, I’ve been lucky to continue doing what I enjoy on stages I could’ve never imagined I would even have a seat at the table at. From the world stage with the Olympic Games and World Cups, to Stanley Cup Finals and Super Bowls, to junior and high school sports Every sport at every level has taught me something new, and I feel so grateful that holding a camera still feels fresh. 

I’m extremely honored to receive this award for a photo that personally means so much to me.

When I took that photo of Jack during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, I honestly don’t remember what I was thinking. I was a ball of nerves that entire game — that entire post-season, to be honest with you — and I was purely doing everything out of instinct. I was urged multiple times by many people to not do my job. Go be in the crowd and enjoy it as a fan, everyone told me. But I couldn’t. I would’ve rather been working with the safety net of the camera around my neck because that would calm down my nerves. So they let me do it, more for my sake than anything, I think. What I do remember is when the final horn sounded, because everything leading up to that point flashed through my mind like a movie. Like a supercut, as Lorde would say. 

An image of when Jack and I first met flashed through my mind all those years ago in Michigan (the state, not the school). An image of the first Devils game I shot flashed through my mind, where he, of course, scored. An image of me crying in a conference room in Madison Square Garden flashed through my mind, when I felt so burnt out and questioned if I wanted to even do this anymore. It wasn't the first time I felt that way, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. An image of Jack coming into my office and waiting for me to finish editing photos flashed through my mind, the quiet hum of The Rock as our soundtrack. 

I remember when family and loved ones were shuffling onto the ice and I saw Luke skating up to me, the cup in the back and the biggest smile on his face. All I could think of was him in the Michigan maize skating up to me all the years prior. It felt like the most full circle moment. 

Basically, it felt like a movie, where everything that led up to that point came crashing down on me and all I could feel was pure joy and pride.

To me, that’s it. Photographing people is about capturing the pureness of emotions. Joy, sadness, frustration, anguish, confusion. I hate to use a cliche, but it’s true. A snapshot of a moment in time can say so much. That’s what keeps me going. That’s what motivates me to keep trying when the last thing I want to do is click that damn shutter. 

Recently, I was asked last minute to shoot a Devils game. It had been over a year since I had done so, so I jumped at the chance. I didn’t realize until I walked into the familiar hallways that it was Hockey Is For Everyone Night. Chris Sccopetto, one of the equipment guys (more commonly known as Frosty) tossed me something when I walked in. I looked down and teared up. It was a roll of rainbow ribbon. 

When I covered the NHL on a consistent basis, I would tie a ribbon in my hair, the color matching whatever team I was working for that night. It was a little thing I did just for fun. During the Hockey Is For Everyone nights, I used to always put something rainbow in my hair. I was honored that Frosty remembered. 

At that Devils game, I was shooting pre-game warmups, and a young woman was against the glass. After she got a puck from Dougie Hamilton, I went up to her, showing her the picture and asking if she would want a copy. I don’t always do this, but the picture was too good and I felt like she’d appreciate it. Just as I was about to leave, she told me she liked the ribbon in my hair. We got to chatting, and I found out that she had just come out as bisexual to her family, and she had looked forward to being at the game tonight for a long time. I offered her the roll of rainbow ribbon and went on my way, but that interaction will stick with me for awhile. From one bisexual woman to another, we’ve found a common space in a sport we love.

In light of recent events, nights like Hockey Is For Everyone are more important than ever. I have been lucky that my sexuality hasn’t been an issue in any workplace I’ve been a part of, but I know that I am so lucky it hasn’t been. As a photographer, I feel the energy of the fans at every game I shoot. For all fans, staff and players to feel included and to feel like they belong in a world that they love is crucial. It’s how the sport will be sustained. I know how important that feeling of inclusion is. It’s not just rainbow ribbons and tape — it goes beyond. It must go beyond. 

Hockey Is For Everyone, and similar events to it, is a start. But that’s just what it is. A start. It’s through actions small and large where the work continues. It’s through just telling someone that you hear them and support them. It’s through donations, no matter how big or small, to organizations that do incredible work. It's through offering a shoulder to cry on and being the loudest to voice support in triumphant moments. Allyship exists in so many forms. 

In the corner of the photo that won this award, if you look on the top right, you see a fan waving a rainbow flag, by the way. 

I’m so lucky that the passion for my work led me to do what I love alongside the love of my life also doing what he loves. People say working with your significant other isn’t ideal, but now that I don’t do it as much anymore, I can say that I miss it greatly. Jack, you make me laugh and feel so incredibly happy. I love you. All the friends and colleagues I made through my work have been the greatest blessings and deserve all the thanks. My friends outside of work who remind me that life is more than just a camera, you deserve all the gold stars. Thank you. My family - Mom, Dad, Colette, Kaiden, Charlotte and Xander, thank you for all your cheerleading. 

But lastly and mostly importantly, thank you to everyone who has let me point a camera at them. The way I’ve been included in vulnerable, intimate and beautiful moments just by simply being there and doing my job — it’s a feeling that never gets old. Thank you for letting me into your life. I look forward to continue doing it with integrity and love for as long as I can.

yours,

amelie fishel

~*~*~

tag list (lmk if you wanna be a part of it!!): @ru-kru , @bunbunbl0gs

[kishiar-la-orr]

in defense of first game kishiar,

turning is a finely crafted story. kuyu makes sure to ground every single one of their characters to the world that they live in, the world the story happens in.

today (as always) i am gonna talk about kishiar, but more specifically kishiar and his relationship to mortality, recontextualizing the things he did in the first game and all. super special humongous gigantic thanks to @kouraissant for helping me with this and bearing with my nonstop kishiar and mortality thoughts!

a lot of the things i'll be talking about also involves a degree of personal experiences and maybe a healthy dash of self-projection. as a disclaimer, you don't have to agree with me on anything and everything, but i'd rather some of the more personal parts to not be responded to rudely or unkindly. i will not tolerate that, sorry.

usual kishiar & mortality tw: canonical suicide attempt discussion, canonical self-harm, canonical death. be wary of spoilers.

1TL = first game/pre-regression/first timeline 2TL = second game/post-regression/second timeline

kishiar is a really fascinating character and his relationship with mortality moreso. a lot of the things that kishiar does, in my opinion, is very much colored by his circumstances growing up, specifically being born with the knowledge that second, third, etc. imperial children tend to be die young as if having 'major defects' be it physical or mental (ch 109) and ended up having no power, remaining unmarried and bowing their heads their whole lives (ch 14).

that is to say, all his life, he surely knows he can die quickly and easily, almost anytime. it's true that for everyone, death does come suddenly, but in kishiar la orr's life, death is like a childhood friend you don't like but are forced to get along with. again, this colors his whole life. this is the kind of circumstances that forces you to mature really quickly, to learn to be expressive and speak your thoughts like it's your last day, but to also learn to hold your tongue and bow down your head because you're a prince and your words still have consequences beyond normal children's would. you're forced to accept that this is the kind of life you will live and the kind of death you'll be documented as. by all accounts, i think that the current kishiar is really good at managing social situations however tricky they are, the fact that he's a rizzmaster, part of all those also comes from being used to having to process things quickly because you don't have the time to even live, being used to having to be expressive because god knows when your last day will be.

given all that as a background information, let's reexamine the conditions of 1TL.

i'd like to first point out that in 1TL, the very health and life expectancy that he used to not have pre-awakening was already given to kishiar during the awakening. i'm not too privy yet with the circumstances during the two years since the fall of the red stone to the cavalry recruitment in early canon, unfortunately, but i'll assume it was also time spent preparing and not just in silence, maybe even preparing for the cavalry to be created or searching for a cure for keilusa as well (though this is just personal theory). even so, two years really isn't that much time? soon after his awakening and tasting good health and better life expectancy the first time in his life, 1TL red stone retrieval mission happened, which forced kishiar to withdraw the divine sword without him meaning to and regained him the same vessel issues he's always experienced his whole life, basically bringing him back to square one after giving him the one thing he's always wanted his whole life. it's like the universe telling him: "look at everything you could have once had. endless possibilities. none of them are yours. not anymore."

to me, after at least 600+ chapters of reading, kishiar's character's basis is his loved ones. almost all of his actions can be traced back to him doing it in alignment with the position he has (being a prince and a duke) and out of the love he has for nathan, keilusa, and other people in his life. to be brought back to square one, struggling once again with the same old vessel issues, except worse this time, because many of the past imperial children didn't even make it to age thirty (ch 109) while he was already 29 and he almost died once already because of this very same thing.

expanding on his past experience with vessel issues and his response to it, from chapter 602 and chapter 160, likely kishiar's condition was so bad he might as well be almost dead before the timely awakening happened and immediately was followed by his second gender manifestation. he probably thought it was for real his death happening, not a surprise. he cleared off everyone and attempted suicide by touching the divine sword. that he cleared off everyone can also be argued as a selfless action, wanting to keep the smallest person possible to witness his impending doom, in order to save his loved ones from the heartache of seeing him suffer, try to kill himself and/or die.

it can also however be seen as selfish. after all, who is it that loves you and wants you to kill yourself?

this is where we will have to reiterate some points: kishiar is someone who's good at processing and expressing emotions. he's also good at knowing how to hold back and when to hold back from expressing said emotions. he's also someone who is logical and reasonable. and i also want to introduce some new points, that is: the universal fact that a lot of mental strain and generally bad mental health often cause irrationality in people, even someone who's perceived as reasonable or someone who's good at emotions. spiralling is called spiralling for a reason.

from the point of view of reason, leaving your cavalry commander mantle to the hyper-competent guy you happen to love to death, watching him get inaugurated, constantly visiting him, and of course, the pethuamet fight (which yuder 2TL classified as kishiar self-harming) are all illogical. kishiar's 1TL actions cannot be called reasonable or logical because they aren't. they are irrational the same way you and i get irrational when we're in extreme emotional duress. can anyone really claim to be logical when the threat of death looms so closely you can't even see it clearly anymore?

let's talk about some more things, like how the commander uniform he personally tailored for yuder (ch 625) is seen as yuder as unnecessary. logistically speaking, it really is unnecessary, it's not like yuder needed a new uniform when he can just wear kishiar's old ones and it'd probably just need some adjusting to fit better? but then it is explicitly stated by 2TL kishiar as 'hoping the person will wear them and think about the person who made it.' (ch 626)

also on the same conversation, 2TL kishiar stated that the strongest fear he has ever felt was during the late emperor's funeral, the feeling of being powerless, how frightening it was to look at the reality in front of him while he could only imagine what would happen to him, keilusa and the country in the future (ch 625). and in chapter further back, he also stated that in the tactical game, in the event that his special piece is almost caught by the enemy before he can use it, he would 'take the initiative and put it out as a bait in front of the enemy' (ch 105).

it paints a picture of this: it's not that he wants to do all these things, it's that who knows how to deal with death and the mental strain that comes with it when there are no actionable steps you can take, nothing under your control? he has a history of harming himself too, as i said, with the suicide attempt. in kishiar's case, the self-harm and the manifestation/post-awakening incident when he tried to kill himself, everything feels a bit more like struggling to feel a semblance of control in a world that is out of his control, when even his body feels out of his control all his life.

really, all of the things that can be deemed illogical, like ruining his relationships with everyone just so they feel less pain when he dies or like selfishly leaving yuder a legacy to care for or constantly visiting yuder even after his retirement, it stems from the selfish and very human desires of wanting to keep the loved ones near while he has time, trying to wrestle for a semblance of control, trying to leave anything useful at all that is within his capacity to give towards his loved ones for when after he's gone, grappling with all of the complicated emotions and love and care he has that he can't even act on. it's made even more complicated when you remember that kishiar isn't even suicidal originally. he's like this because of the circumstances thrusted upon his hands, he's only driven to that point because maybe he too doesn't want to die a dogshit death.

the upside is just because it's illogical doesn't mean it's treated callously or looked down upon. 1TL kishiar's actions are written beautifully by kuyu and never in a negative light. yuder himself has gripes about 1TL kishiar, but never outright insulted or downplayed his influences. if anything, the way yuder thinks of 1TL kishiar's actions, especially after knowing the imperial family's vessel issues, is very sympathetic (ch 293). in the words of our friend baby potat aloo,

like: look at this man trying to wrangle with his own tragic fate as best as he can while people he cares about most and people who care about him are unfortunately subjected to the pain of passively spectating his self-destructive ways of trying to gain some semblance of control (thinking of nathan and uuder) and/or secretive plans that seem like the 'best' choice in his opinion. nonetheless it's still about love.

that has been a long discussion over kishiar and mortality, kishiar and his loved ones as the basis of his motivation for every action. but let's not forget to talk about yuder, the one he has an almost-electric connection, deep and soulful, to. in a way, chapter 291's kishiar dialogue line "i feel like i can live now" can be seen as something he says out of love for yuder, because yuder is one of his loved ones, one of the ones he treasures the most. but also you can see it as another control thing. he's there out of his own accord, he came there through the window without being seen out of his own choice and yuder always 'tolerated' the situation, never reporting it. we can argue these are games and rendezvous they both consented to.

next, let's discuss: this is what he said in chapter 46, right before his death:

"...I wonder where it all went wrong. Thinking about it, it seems like it was when we retrieved the Red Stone." "..." "Yes... That's right. It must have been then that everything started going wrong. But even knowing that, I couldn't stop it. Because I had no other choice."

it rings so much of hopelessness, of someone who can't do anything but imagine a universe where the only thing he wanted in life was ripped away from him the moment it was bestowed. and then immediately dismissing it because it doesn't matter when it's already happened and the only thing he can do now is, just like the dukes before him, bow down his head and await for his death.

in later chapters, we also come to know that he cleared off the entire building and it was nearing his birthday when the assassination took place. we can also argue that this is euthanasia or assisted suicide, the executioner and helper is the one kishiar loves the most, who doesn't even really want to kill him. rather than a dogshit death he didn't choose, 1TL kishiar arranged it so that he dies in yuder's hands, knowing that it'd change his relationship with someone he loved so much, to die like a euthanised dog, spared the pain of unattainable hopes. in a way, it's a curse on yuder's memories, good or bad, of him, in a way, it's an act of making yourself an open wound. this too isn't rational, similarly to the way he leaves a personalized clothing for yuder's inauguration and new status as the cavalry commander or the way he gave him a name, this is a way of leaving behind a legacy, a desperate act of wanting to be remembered by his loved ones.

so, what's the point of all of this? nothing, i'm just a kishiar shooter. but also, everything. because the miscommunication in 1TL isn't one that can be so easily solved by speaking up. it's something that's integral to the story plotline, caused by the story circumstances, it's a testament too to how good kuyu's writing is and the complexity of kishiar as a character. it is, unfortunately, not as simple as just say you love him before you die. that is my conclusion.

some more unrelated, but perhaps also fun points:

i truly think, like a true self sabotage, kishiar's actions as an attempt to feel some semblance of control only works against him, making him feel more powerless and out of control

also this is for sure why he's so invested in healing keilusa

to another degree, cavalry in 2TL becomes his purpose and one of the major factors of his identity (the way it was to yuder 1TL, which is a discussion for another time), so in 1TL, stepping down could arguably also be seen as a loss of both authority/power and responsibility, leading to an even more 'out of control' feeling, even if he was indeed the one to step down out of his own accord, like no one forced him

1TL yuder was looked down on as a male omega leader, not man nor woman, commonborn cavalry commander who slept his way up. a lot of the things he did, even down to his fighting style, was also, to a certain point, a way of fighting for power, to look powerful and gain authority and be feared, if not respected. at the same time, kishiar didn't die instantly. he committed a lot of actions (as said earlier) that felt more like a grappling with control, which is just another form of power/authority. in a way, you can see these two foiling each other at the moment, struggling with power over how ppl perceive you (yuder) vs struggling with power over how you perceive yourself (kishiar). which is also funny because turning is also a story about power to me, what-with the catalyst to all of canon's plot being the red stone, which granted power to the people living in turning's canon universe

thanks for reading!

[siffrin-enthusiast]

(spins the question wheel in my brain) umm. if isat characters ran funny websites - made a geo/neocities or something - what kind of websites do you think they'd run, and how would they be designed?

OOOOHHH...let me put my thinking cap on. no plot spoilers but some ramblings about their characters :)

mirabelle would have a cursing of château castle fanpage and occasional reviews of other book series. she'd also write quite a bit about the change belief and post about her own OCs (she has OCs trust). mira tries so very hard to keep it aesthetic but autism blasts every few months and has to clean it up with isa's coding knowledge.

isa would have a page for his fashion business. he 100% coded it from scratch in a neocities with details about how each piece was made and how it was loved during its creation. it has a link to his personal social media for contact, 20% of which is about his brand and 80% is full of pictures of dogs he sees out and about. isa is really good at coding in my opinion!

i like to think odile would take up a blog as well as photography. i just imagine she'd like to document more of vaugard, more of herself and her heritage, to appreciate the quiet hum of change in the country through careful piecing-together of the present. she writes a lot and shares recipes that she doesn't make, but samples as she travels ka bue & vaugard. i DO think she makes the occasional shitpost kind of hidden away from the main landing page

siffrin had a website but last updated it six months ago. he's that one blogger that remembers they have a blog every year or so and comes back with an ao3 author kind of life tragedy every time. they give killer insight into various plays he sees and really good shitposts that keep people coming back though. probably a pretty plain, simple coded page with not too much CSS. there's probably a few drunk late at night kinda venting posts that are taken down the next morning.

bonnie's neocities is probably just a little overstimulating to look at. i'm sorry i think they'd have some eyestrain. isabeau/odile made them a custom layout and then bonnie hops on and rambles about their current interests in a private corner of the internet. bonnie's kind of in that "kid who wants to be taken seriously so they hide their more 'childish' interests" and them having a space to just indulge in/explore all of their interests would do them good!

[celaenaeiln]

who do you think would be the batfamilys godly parents in a pjo au?

Interesting question!

Previous post about how Dick and Percy and Tim and Nico are identical.

Also disclaimer: All these characters can come from different gods which is why I struggled with this because I have a hard time simplifying them into one trait but I tried my best to do them all right.

Bruce: I think it'd be really interesting and fitting if Bruce's godly parent was Hades. Bruce's obsession with not killing could lend itself to him experiencing the afterlife and resolving to himself to never send anyone there. He has an obsession with anti-killing and Bruce is also a billionaire so it would tie in with Hades being the god of riches.

Dick: He's the son of Apollo. Mainly for the reason that he's seen as the light to Bruce's darkness and how he made everyone happy and laugh and stuff. Apollo, the god of light, music, and archery matches with Dick's background as a performer and his exceptional physical abilities and combat skills. He also likes helping people. Apollo is the god of healing which means he can accelerate healing, provide comfort, and alleviate pain. Apollo was also known for his beauty and charisma. A demigod of Apollo would have a natural charm, an engaging presence, and the ability to inspire and captivate others which certainly applies to Dick. Furthermore Dick became an actual prophet in the Death Metal arc, having visions of the future. So many attributes that belong to Apollo are also written for Dick. I was already working on this ask when I got the second one but here's a brilliantly written essay ask by anon about why Dick could also be a son of Ares.

Jason: Jason's pretty much the son of Ares. He struggles with pain and he has a canonical violent nature to his robin ("mean streak" as Alfred called it). As Red Hood he has a lot of anger and restlessness and love. Him being the son of Aries also ties into how Jason feels sad about his own anger sometimes. This would be something fun to explore with him analyzing his own bloodlust like in canon and coming to terms with it. It also makes sense because as Red Hood he acts a lot like Clarisse but smarter. Because Ares is the god of war, Jason would have a high pain tolerance and resilience which enables him power through battles and this could be tied to his post-lazarus pit experience. Ares' children possess exceptional combat skills, strength, and a fierce determination which aligns with Jason.

Tim: Athena. As a demigod of Athena he would possess exceptional intelligence, critical thinking skills, and a natural thirst for knowledge. Furthermore he and Dick have a good tactical sense on the battlefield which aligns with Athena's Goddess of Wisdom and Strategy.

Stephanie: Hermes! She's fun, outgoing, and social but Stephanie also struggles with insecurities of not living up to expectations. For as bright and sunny as she is, she also gets super anxious about her abilities and meeting Bruce's. I feel like this is very much how sons and daughters of Hermes felt. They were a super happy bunch but at the same time they felt a collective feelings of being abandoned by their parent. Of not being enough for them. This feeling marks the majority of Stephanie's robin career. Her reappearance as Spoiler aligns with the Hermes demigods of being accepted for who they are and becoming happy. Furthermore Hermes, the god of travel, communication, and athleticism, would align with Stephanie's resourcefulness and agility as Spoiler. Hermes' children possess swiftness, agility, and a talent for communication like she does.

Cass: Artemis. Goddess of the Hunt. Children of Artemis would heightened senses, such as enhanced vision or hearing, and are skilled in survival techniques which fits in perfectly with her meta-like body reading perception skills. Artemis' children often value their autonomy and prefer solitude and while Cass may not prefer it, she's not opposed to it either. Artemis is self-sufficient and can adapt to any situations by relying on her own skills and resourcefulness which Cass excels at.

Damian: I don't know how it would work but Damian's godly parent would also be Hades. Maybe Hades is his grandparent but his powers are strengthened by his connection to the Lazarus pit given the revival thing and how Hades is the god of Death. Hades is associated with darkness and shadows so ofcourse Bruce and Damian also have the power to manipulate shadows, using them for concealment, transportation, or even offensive purposes.

Duke: Duuuuuke. Duke was so hard to define and I debated over him for a while before coming to the conclusion that his godly parent is probably Hephaestus. Given Duke's resourcefulness, technological skill, and his ability to manipulate light as the Signal, Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, and technology, would align with Duke's technological prowess and inventive nature.

Again all of them are multitalented and can come from a number of different parents so I did my best to take into account their history and abilities and motives and tried to write them individually. This turned into less PJO gods and more actual Greek God characterization whoops

[goblins-trashbin]

BG3 tavs (+ durge)

A post introducing my bg3 characters so far! Some descriptions will be short, some (one lol) will be long. Spoilers ahead!!

Clover:

They’re my first tav! (They/them) A drow druid with a criminal background, Clover was out on a heist when they got taken away by the nautiloid. When they were little they dreamed of a life in the woods, living in nature with the animals they so loved. Unfortunately, coming from a highly conservative matriarchal drow family, their mother stopped supporting their dreams and education when they came out as non-binary, seeing as they were no longer destined to be the next matriarch head of the family. Their teens were spent stealing and squatting, trying to stay alive. Their only comfort were the animals that took them in from time to time.

Clover romanced Astarion. A mischievous duo, both villainised by the ones who made them, the partners in crime helped each other grow through their trauma and heal. After defeating the nether brain they live out their days looking for a way for Astarion to stay out in the sun. During day Clover has resumed the druid training they had to drop when little, thanks to Astarions wide social network.

Ceedaer:

A half-elf/half-human bard, Ceedaer (he/him) was performing in a tavern when he was kidnapped by the nautiloid. He doesn’t come from wealth, but his parents worked hard to support their son when he early in his life showed an interest and talent for music and poems. His parents died in a fire during one of his school recitals, when a candlestick fell and knocked over a glass of wine. The entire school burned down. Ceedaer made it out, but his parents fell to the burning rubble. Now he dedicates his entire life to his craft, his passion and the loss of his parents fuelling the magic his music produces.

Not knowing much about magic, Gale’s knowledge and charm drew Ceedaer in, and he soon fell for his passion, enthusiasm and ambition. Ceedaer couldn’t bear the thought of losing someone he loved so much again. He and Gale fought hard to find alternatives to Mystra’s “great” plan to blow Gale up, and luckily it all turned out well. After defeating the nether brain, not having to blow Gale up after all, Ceedaer and Gale moved together into Gale’s tower in waterdeep. Gale started teaching at the academy, spreading his infinite knowledge. Meanwhile, with the help of Gale and his new mother-in-law, Ceedaer started his own bard school, teaching music and magic, and the connection between the two.

Leandra:

The dark urge. After Orin’s betrayal, Leandra (she/her) found herself on the nautiloid with nothing but a throbbing headache and a non-stop stream of voices, commanding her to commit atrocities beyond comprehension. Not even her memories were intact, something that made her feel like somehow, she wasn’t supposed to even be alive. She walked around for days, with no goal other than to find out who she was. She wasn’t even bothered by the worm in her head, at first. Eventually, however, Leandra started feeling somewhat… at peace. Not with the worm, mind you, and especially not with the gruesome voices in her head, but with herself. Suddenly she was surrounded by people. Good people. Mostly good, anyway. It felt different, but welcome.

She worked up the courage to tell the group about her urges after an incident involving a particularly good soul. Astarion, ever attracted to murder and chaos, confronted Leandra, suspecting their newest guest hadn’t just abandoned camp like she claimed she had. She didn’t understand why, but Leandra broke down in tears. She told Astarion about everything. The amnesia, the voices, the urge. She expected Astarion to brush her worries aside, or even encourage them. To her surprise however, Astarion looked at Leandra with a deep understanding. It didn’t take long for her to tell all her new friends about the urges.

When the gang, after months of walking, fighting, and enjoying each other’s company, reached Baldur’s Gate, Leandra’s memories slowly started coming back. The town, the people, even one of the dead three’s diciples, Orin the Red, it all felt so familiar. It didn’t take long for Leandra to finally find out the truth: she was a bhaalspawn, made by bhaal himself. Made to be the ultimate murder weapon. Made from blood, to drown the world in blood. She, together with her new found family, sought to kill her blood-kin and end the cult of Bhaal, and her urgea once and for all. When all was said and done, Bhaal reclaimed Leandra’s blood, and she died. She didn’t stay dead for long though, as Withers saw her as an important part of taking down the Absolute. The resurrection didn’t come without a cost, however. Leandra had been brought back alive, but in doing so, she felt a part of herself die. True, it might’ve been a part of her she hated, but her urges were gone. She was no longer a bhaal-spawn. She was no longer the murder god’s daughter. She thought this would be a triumph for her, so she was quizzed as to why she felt empty. Like her very soul had disappeared. Perhaps it was because she never had a soul at all?

Obviously, having gotten the help from her friends, including her love Astarion, to take down Orin and the cult, she had to help Astarion break his own shackles as well. They both went into the nether brain fight free of their master’s influence. Their happiness was short-lived however. Astarion, after beeing freed from the tadpole, no longer had protection from the sun. Feeling the sun’s rays burn him slowly for the first time in almost a year, sent him into a panic. He ran as fast as he could to hide in the shadows. Leandra was just about to run after him when another companion caught her attention; Karlach’s engine was about to give in. She had promised to stay with her in her final moments, and she had no plans of ignoring any of her new family’s needs. In Karlach’s last moments, Leandra made the spontaneous decision to take Karlach back to Avernus. They were to fight, side by side, until they could find someone to fix her engine and let her roam free again. Unfortunately this meant having to leave Astarion behind, without even saying goodbye.

Six months after the battle, Karlach and Leandra were invited to a family reunion. There, Leandra saw Astarion for the first time in a long while. At first she was relieved; Astarion had lived and seemed happy! Eventually however, she realised that they could never return to being a couple. The pain of being abandoned by his love had forced Astarion into denial; he was happy to see Leandra again, but wouldn’t even talk about their relationship or how she had left. She understood, after all those walls were the only protection he had ever had before meeting her; she couldn’t expect them not to go up again after she so abruptly left.

Not only that, but Gale wasn’t at the party. He had left the gang, annoyed and determined to reclaim the crown of karsus. Tragically, that was the last thing he ever did. After catching up with his tressym, Tara, Leandra found Gale’s projection holding an envelope. It was a message, Gale’s last words. In the end, the reunion for Leandra was bittersweet. She had ensures Karlach’s safety, and she had been able to catch up with her found family, but in the process she lost two of the dearest people to her heart. At dusk the following day, Karlach and Leandra returned to Avernus, in search for some blueprints. She never saw neither Gale nor Astarion ever again.

Maple Whispers:

My newest tav! She’s (she/they) a wood elf monk who’s currently romancing Shadow Heart! Not much info on her atm, I’m still in Act 1 with her :>

[libertineangel]

A history & overview of communist groups in Britain

I've done so much reading into all the different splinter groups here, trying and failing to find one worth joining, that I might as well make all this accrued knowledge useful in case anyone wants to know what the situation is like (spoiler alert, it's a shitshow). I'll put it under a cut 'cause it'll probably get fairly long, and I'll tackle the Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist sides separately 'cause they split in about 1932 and have barely had any crossover since.

I will not be unduly neutral or polite in my assessments, because Mao would call that liberalism and also it's no fun, so get ready to roll your eyes a lot and understand exactly what made Monty Python do the People's Front of Judea bit.

The (ostensibly) Marxist-Leninist side

In 1920, several smaller Marxist groups merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain, the official British section of the Third International, and immediately set to work arguing with itself about the viability of parliamentarism, eventually adopting Lenin's position on the temporary utility of reformist unions & parties, which led them to spend several years trying - and even succeeding in a couple of seats - a strategy of entryism into the Labour Party, which is a phrase we will all get tired of by the end of this post; when Labour then lost the general election in 1924 it blamed the Communists and banned all their members, which sounds awfully familiar.

The CPGB did gain a fair bit of support & swelled its membership during the general strike of 1926 though, albeit in a handful of specific areas and industries, and then lost most of them again during the Comintern's Third Period because the workers didn't want to abandon their existing trade unions in favour of revolutionary ones. Did a couple of decent things in the 30s, fought at Cable Street and raised a small battalion for the International Brigades; they went back & forth on their stance on WW2 in line with the Comintern, supported strikes, actually reached their peak membership (~60,000, still tiny compared to their European comrades) during the war because they were the loudest anti-racist, anti-colonial voice around who did do a fair bit to raise public awareness of Britain's horrific treatment of India.

In 1951 they issued a new programme, The British Road to Socialism, which is pathetic reformist bollocks that insists peaceful transition to socialism is possible and sensible, and five years later the Soviet suppression of the '56 uprisings caused a massive split that saw a good 30% or so leave the party, causing them to return to the good old tactic of trying to push Labour and the unions leftward.

Nothing material really came of that and the Party declined further with the Sino-Soviet split, after which a minority of pro-China members left to form the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which has since turned Hoxhaist (also surprisingly anti-immigration, and I'm fairly sure they're transphobic). Throughout the 70s they got increasingly Eurocommunist until even more revolutionaries got sick of them, and in 1977 another split saw the formation of the New Communist Party of Britain, which claims to still be anti-revisionist while also having spent the last 24 years insisting everyone vote for Labour (also from what I've heard they don't even email potential recruits back, so I doubt they'll survive beyond their current old membership, not that they'll be much loss because I don't believe they've ever actually done anything). Tensions between the Eurocommunist leadership and the Party membership continued to rise through the 80s until a final split in '88 produced the Communist Party of Britain, which is still extant today and still uses that silly electoral reformist programme from the 50s, and as an indicator of how that's going they earned 10,915 votes in the London Assembly elections this year, the third fewest of any candidate, less than half even of the fucking Christian People's Alliance (also their youth wing the YCL has marched alongside TERFs up in Scotland, they're the party that one author endorsed over Labour).

The CPGB finally folded in '91 and its leaders founded a series of steadily softer left think tanks, while other self-declared Leninists went on to form the Communist Party of Britain (Provisional Central Committee), which is so small and insignificant I can't even figure out when they actually started; nowadays they are, to quote someone off Reddit, "a small and almost entirely male group of Kautsky enthusiasts and leftist trainspotters with a knack for the fine art of unintentional self-parody, who regularly publish articles defending Marxism against the feminist menace."

Entirely separate from all that shit, in 1972 a group of students inspired by Hardial Baines formed the Hoxhaist Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), and honestly I don't really know much about them because nobody online seems to have any idea if they do anything and looking at their website burned my fucking eyes. There's also the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (yeah a different one), formed in 2004 when a bunch of people got expelled from infamous union leader Arthur Scargill's party; they are so rabidly transphobic it makes the CPB look welcoming.

Finally, there's the Revolutionary Communist Group, which surprisingly formed out of the Trotskyist International Socialists (which became the SWP, we'll get to that soon); they're not a formal Party because they don't think the revolutionary situation here is developed enough for one, but they are fairly active in protests and pickets. Unfortunately, back in 2017 they dragged their heels investigating a member's sexual assault and then let the perpetrator back in after a two-month suspension and apology letter.

The Trotskyist side, if you can stomach it after all that bollocks

Modern British Trotskyism descends entirely from the Revolutionary Communist Party of 1944, formed by the merger of two smaller groups at the request of the Fourth International. They split after three years over the viability of entryism into the Labour Party, with the majority correctly seeing it as bollocks. Unfortunately, the majority RCP did fuck all afterward and grew disillusioned enough with the leadership to throw their lot in with the minority breakaway known as The Club, who kicked them all out again and proceeded to never do anything of note whatsoever (they eventually changed their name to the Workers' Revolutionary Party and imploded in about nine different - equally irrelevant - directions in the 80s when founder Gerry Healy was expelled for having serially abused women in the party for decades).

Followers of notable RCP member Tony Cliff (formerly the 4I's leader in Palestine) joined him in his new Socialist Review Group, devoted to Trotskyism but breaking from orthodoxy in favour of Cliff's theory of state capitalism that's silly even by Trotskyist standards that I don't think even the party itself really adheres to anymore. They changed their name to International Socialists in 1962, tried to appeal for left unity and got roundly ignored by everyone except a small Trotskyist group called Workers' Fight, which joined the IS, swelled their own ranks, tried to challenge the leadership and got thrown out again; they still cling onto existence as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, whose existence I had completely forgotten until I saw a poster of theirs down my road and remembered I was in fact at the London Young Labour conference which banned them for refusing to properly investigate the repeated abuse of a teenage boy in their youth faction. The IS still tried to grow, but expelled what would become the aforementioned RCG in '72, expelled the faction that's now Workers Power in '74 (whom I have never heard of, which at least means I don't know of any awful shit they've done), tore themselves in half in '75 when Tony Cliff decided older workers were reformist and recruitment should focus on the youth, and in 1977 they renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP did do a few decent things, like form the Anti-Nazi League and organise Rock Against Racism, but to be honest those had a much bigger impact on the British punk scene than actual politics. Using charities and campaign groups to jump on bandwagons for shameless self-promotion is mostly what they're known for these days, along with making placards for any protest anywhere no matter how irrelevant they are to the party's platform; their membership and image among the left took a tremendous blow in 2014 after the Comrade Delta scandal, in which they were found to have covered up the National Secretary's repeated sexual abuse for years.

Followers of other notable RCP member Ted Grant joined him (after their expulsion from The Club) in his Revolutionary Socialist League, which believed in entryism into the Labour Party, and in 1965 it split with the 4I (because the 4I thought they were shit) to become Militant. They actually managed to take control of Labour's youth wing and successfully pushed the Party to commit to nationalising the country's major monopolies, but when Labour - on a platform of spending cuts and reformist liberal appeasement - lost the election to Thatcher in '79 they blamed it on the Communists and in December '82 they got blacklisted (which sounds awfully familiar). Took a while for that to sink in though, and Militant-affiliated members actually managed to take over Liverpool City Council through the mid-80s - they planned a massive amount of public works building, cancelling redundancies and other such things that sounded good but they really couldn't pay for, and tried to play bankruptcy chicken against Margaret Thatcher, which went as badly as you'd imagine and embarrassed them on the national stage (even if the people of Liverpool still supported them). Their last act was to help instigate the Poll Tax Riots in 1990, but that was one good deed to many for a Trotskyist group and they finally split in '91 - a majority decided they should finally sever ties with Labour and strike out on their own, while the minority insisted that entryism into the Labour Party really could net real national success if we just keep trying come on guys let's stay on the sinking ship history has taught us nothing!!!

The majority formed the Socialist Party, who have done nothing of note ever, and in 2013 they failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment within their ranks. In 2018 their international, the Committee for a Workers' International, experienced a split which it looks to me was over the old established leadership not getting with the times when it comes to women and LGBT+ people, and the majority went off to form the International Socialist Alternative, with the Socialist Alternative being its British branch; just last April the Irish section disaffiliated with the ISA because of its poor handling of abuse allegations against a leading member.

The minority stayed in Labour under the name Socialist Appeal, under the leadership of Ted Grant & Alan Woods, never really doing anything, and in 2021 Keir Starmer's left purge finally banned them, which was totally unrelated to their decision to finally strike out on their own this year as the Revolutionary Communist Party (yeah a different one). They're a money-grabbing newspaper-obsessed cult who've harboured abusers in five different countries, and to be honest I don't even see why they still exist now that they're no longer devoted to entryism considering that was the entire reason they split from the rest of Militant in the first place, they might as well reunify with the CWI or the ISA but far be it from me to expect insular Trotskyist control freaks to make sensible, practical political moves or to ever get the fuck over a split.

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x2

Additional thoughts that had too many spoilers to go into my earlier post will be found here. Spoilers for all the teasers and trailers, plus through book 13: A Memory of Light.

So one of the big questions that I have is: how much is Lanfear acting with Ishamael's knowledge and how much is she going her own way? Ishamael said in the Darkfriend social scene that he is still looking for Rand. If he's being truthful there (and he's talking to his minions, so there's really no point in lying), then Lanfear has not told him that she located Lews Therin.

2. I hadn't thought about this on my first watch, but @ladyofpembroke noted that Lanfear is probably in Rand's final dream in the next episode, so it seems possible that she actually has a hand in all his dreams. Constantly reminding him that he could kill his friends if he sees them again is a good way to make him want to stay where he is (with her) and not try to reconnect with his past life. Like any effective manipulator, she's keeping him isolated from his friends and family as much as she can.

3. otoh, we know from the books that being able to locate someone's dreams doesn't mean that you know where they are in the physical world, so this might be an Ishamael-influenced dream (I note that while Rand's visions of his friends has them wearing their S1 outfits, Ishamael is wearing his s2 outfit, which Rand hasn't seen), so this might be an Ishamael-influenced dream since he figures he might as well torment Rand in the dream if he can't find him irl.

4. Given that Rand is already hearing whispers, I wonder when the show plans to re-introduce Lews Therin to us in his own form. It might even be this season, if they wanted to make sure to keep a lock on the actor (or we might get another Age of Legends cold open -- though I note that we only had one cold open in this set of three episodes, though that might be because Rafe & co were aware that they would likely all air the same night so that might have affected their choices there - I'd love an AoL cold open where we get to see Lanfear and Lews Therin together).

5. So, did Rand find his way to Cairhien first and then Lanfear set up an inn in the Foregate to entice him to her, or did she set up her inn before he arrived and she figured out a way to lure him in? Either way, she's doing a much better job than the Lanfear in the books. She's much less suspicious than "random noblewoman who managed to appear in an unpopulated parallel world so that Rand could save her" and she's more subtle too. While the cringefail Forsaken in the books can be amusing, the threat level of the villains also helps tell you how seriously to take your protagonists, so I'm glad that they beefed up her threat level by actually making her effective. Right now, Lanfear is #winning on every possible level.

6. I love Errol because he serves several story purposes -- he's reminding us that Rand looks "like an Aiel"; he's serving Hurin's purpose in the story of giving Rand someone to look after and be protective of; he's teaching Rand sword forms because he was a blademaster; and he's giving us a bit of history about "the Aiel war". And the actor is quite charming. Plus he's used to show us both Rand's compassion and his need/desire to find mentors to help teach him the skills he needs. At this point in time, Rand does believe that he's defeated the Dark One and his nightmares are just nightmares but he does still want to learn how to protect himself and how to control himself.

7. We mostly hear indistinct whispers until Rand is walking down the hallway (it's the shot from the trailer) and it resolves into "Do you hear me? You are mine, Rand al'Thor." Which is very interesting. Our first inkling of Lews Therin? If so, it shows a greater awareness of Rand as a person than LTT's voice showed in the earlier books when it appeared in his head. I've speculated that this might happen, so I wonder if we're going to get more genuine back-and-forth between Rand and LTT than we really got in the books as a way of letting us into Rand's internal narration without him needing to pour out his heart to any of the characters around him.

8. I am actually loving Perrin getting Rand's plotline here -- it's working really well for him, being used to show us how Perrin can smell what happened in places so vividly that he's re-experiencing the past. I feel like if I didn't know this was Rand's original plotline, I wouldn't have guessed. It suits how they're exploring Perrin's character so well. I do wonder... Elyas speaks of Perrin experiencing a 'vision' -- I wonder if they're going to make the mystical side of being a Wolfbrother more distinct from what Dreamers do in this show version. Because it really was kinda... weird in the books how Perrin and Egwene are doing all this training in the same dreamworld but Perrin never runs across her or any of the Aiel Dreamwalkers, even once they're spending more time in the wetlands side of things.

9. The nailed-up Fade is used in the books to mark when Fain 'takes control' of the Darkfriends & Trollocs. I wonder here if it's meant to mark the moment when the dagger owns him more strongly than the Dark One does. Because the people of Shadar Logoth were not darkfriends -- and they focused on this in s1, too, because dagger!Mat is not a fan of the Fade that he meets in the farmhouse.

10. Love foreshadowing of Errol talking about "Aielman among us and no one bats an eyelash in the entire place" -- Rand is going to be bringing a lot of Aiel to the wetlands. I bet we're going to get to see some of these sword forms in the finale!

11. Liandrin does seem like she's becoming genuinely invested in Nynaeve. I like that (almost) everyone gets their own personal Darkfriend -- Nynaeve has Liandrin, Mat also has Liandrin (she's a hard worker!), Rand has Lanfear, Perrin has (remorseful) Ingtar, Moiraine has (double agent) Verin, Lan has (repentant) Tomas, and even Egwene gets a scene with Sheriam (who will get to be Her Darkfriend Among Us later on, if we're able to follow the books that closely when we get there), though she's not really the focus of Sheriam's attention. Everyone gets a little personal attention from the Shadow!

I like that Nynaeve gets rushed forward to the test for Accepted due to Liandrin wanting to teach her so badly. It seems more realistic reasoning than we get in the books.

12. Another big lie from Liandrin here about how Mat is here because they are "only observing" that the effects of the dagger are out of his system, which Mat immediately calls bullshit on. He's locked in a cell and only Liandrin is around -- that is not an official observation by any means. That's a prison. It's been six months. So I would put Liandrin's official lie count at two. Notably, she's only lying to Mat so far, who is both kept well away from other people and also doesn't really know as much about Aes Sedai (we know from Egwene and Moiraine's conversation in the woods in s1 that the people of the Two Rivers do not have the Aes Sedai oaths memorized).

13. My dearest, my darling, my deepest love is finally here! At the end of my reread, when I was ranking my favorite characters, Elayne was my number one favorite. Ceara is doing such a good job with her and the writing is also excellent. I love how many different sides of her we get to see in just these two episodes -- sheltered noble, awkward girl who grew up with no friends, someone familiar with the Tower but not familiar being a novice in the Tower, but a tinkerer (!!! so excited that they put this in so early) at heart and incredibly loyal and compassionate. I just adored her so much in these two episodes and I am looking forward to seeing more of her. I do really hope that, in the midst of all the chaos, that the show does manage to give her something of a meet-cute with Rand, even if it's less obviously romantic than the one in the books. But I'm really looking forward to more of her interacting with Egwene and Nynaeve, and hopefully meeting Aviendha and/or Min and/or Mat in the finale or before it.

14. I have zero issue with Sheriam not being a redhead. I think it's a good idea for the show to cut down on the number of redheads, given that Jordan says it's rare but then keeps giving us random redheads. Limiting the on-screen ones to the Aiel and the royal house of Andor seems like a good idea to me.

15. So first we got Perrin's letters last episode. Now, in this episode, Elyas tells Perrin that the soldiers he's with right now "are not your pack". While he could be talking about the wolves, of course, I feel like, as a viewer, that makes me think of the EF5 and how that's who Perrin belongs with right now. Especially after Perrin's letter talking about how he feels 'exposed' without the others around. Again, it gives me the hope that we'll get more moments of reconnection between the EF5 over the course of the show.

16. This moment with Verin is such a great one to look at knowing the truth of her situation. "Even oaths have loopholes one can exploit". She's the expert at it. Oaths are a bit of a minor theme in this episode and the next -- the loopholes and also, next episode, we're introduced to the Seanchan oaths where Perrin is, I assume, going to take the very reasonable position that a forced oath is not binding (which is the same position that Mat had in Winter's Heart but inexplicably abandoned in Crossroads of Twilight when he decided his accidental wedding vows were binding).

Oh! I knew I remembered hearing the words "Toman Head" in these three episodes but hadn't remembered it was Verin mentioning it! I thought it was noted as part of the Dark Prophecies but it's mentioned here as mainline prophecy. But the name is out there now. And this conversation also confirms "sword of flame" and "battle in the sky" for the finale, most likely, and a mention of a "branded hand" which feels like it confirms the herons. I wonder if Rand is going to use the same weave on his dad's sword that we saw Verin using at the end of the last episode for Tomas's sword. This may also mean that it's using that weave that burns the herons into Rand's palms?

17. The Rand and Lanfear scenes. Wow! But, yeah, I wonder how much her non-reaction to his bloody knuckles struck show-onlys. She doesn't ask him what happened, who he beat up. She just kisses his bloody knuckles and sweet-talks him into bed.

18. So far, we've heard/seen three separate form of violent teaching in the White Tower -- the unnamed woman who beat Moiraine to make her channel (likely Elaida); Liandrin's behavior with Nynaeve; and Sheriam telling Elayne that she'll be switched. Both Liandrin and Sheriam, of course, are Black Ajah. But from Egwene's reaction here, it doesn't seem like being ordered to be switched is anything close to the common punishment that it seemed to be in the books. But we'll see!

19. It does occur to me that Gawyn (maybe Galad too) might already have been in training with the Warders even if Elayne wasn't a novice yet -- Elayne has been spending her summers in the Tower and it's entirely possible that Gawyn's training to protect her meant he was sent off early to start learning from the best. We don't get any hints in this episode or the next about her brothers, but we're pretty focused on her developing friendship with Egwene.

20. "Min is in Tar Valon" and "Min and Mat share a plotline" were my two most hoped-for options for Min's storyline for this season, so I'm happy about that. I do wish that Min had been given a chance to bond with Elayne or Egwene but, hopefully, there will be time for that later. But I really love the set-up we've been given where we are going to explore Elayne with Egwene and Nynaeve; Min being more fully-explored with Mat; and then Aviendha when she enters Perrin's storyline. All of them are getting fleshed out as individual characters before any of them get romantically involved with Rand. I am feeling pretty hopeful that we're going to get our polycule (and a genuine polycule, not a harem) in the upcoming seasons. They've been putting in a lot of "poly relationships are valid and complex" groundwork in and it looks like they are going to be making sure that all of the characters involved get to be full characters who have their own agendas and their own arcs.

Some people on reddit are still pretty disappointed that Min isn't the male-gaze fantasy that she is in the later books but I have been thrilled with the changes that the show has done so far with her. We also maybe get a hint here that Min is going to be canonically bisexual by the way she jokes about Liandrin, so I will cross my fingers on that.

20. Min's viewing! I do love that they're massively cutting down on the number of Min's viewings to focus on ones that are interesting and relevant. This one is particularly interesting because there's nothing like it in the books. Mat stabbing Rand, then cradling him as he falls.

Theory #1: this is a flicker-flicker world (maybe we only get one big one?) and it's not Our Mat stabbing Our Rand but an alternate one.

Theory #2: Rand asks Mat to fulfill his promise to keep Rand from going mad and that's why Mat stabs him.

Theory #3: Rand loses control of himself (like Lady Amalisa in 1x8) and Mat stabs him to try to get him to lose his hold on the One Power.

Theory #4: Mat gets placed under compulsion (which would be another reason for him to want protection from Aes Sedai and channeling).

Theory #5: Mat gets The Dagger again and he's the one who gives Rand the wound in his side, while under its influence.

Theory #6: It's metaphorical and Mat takes the place of Alivia and helps Rand 'die' at the end of the series (seems unlikely but I'll throw it out there).

And probably lots of other things I haven't thought of. But it definitely shakes Min to see it.

I wonder if she only agreed to help Liandrin after this moment or if she'd already agreed and this is just additional incentive. I don't think she's told Liandrin anything about Rand. She was able to keep that secret from Moiraine even under blackmail so I think she kept it from Liandrin too.

But I do love that we get a viewing that connects Mat and Rand together, even if it's through a traumatic encounter. I am a simple soul who finds messiness intriguing.

21. Lanfear! Talking about her broken heart to the man who broke it and who she is, even now, doing her best to groom back into the man that she wants. The layers in this conversation are exquisite. When she tells him that he can't hurt her, she also can say that because she has a strong grasp of what she can do with the Power while he's still stumbling in the dark. Ooof, but Rand was (unknowingly) on risky ground when he confirmed that he does sometimes think of his past when he's with her.

Also, talking about how "no one else" could ever have power over her heart now that her previous lover is gone... when she's literally talking to his reincarnation. The conversation is just so rich and so sharp and there's so much of it that is going over Rand's head because he doesn't have the necessary information to even begin to put the pieces together. "What's left to hurt if he still has my whole heart?" she says, to the guy in question. "When I'm with you, I can pretend you're him." YEAH. I BET YOU CAN.

22. So I wonder if Moiraine's threat here to Lan, that she would let Alanna take his bond if he didn't let her leave on her own, is going to be the extent of the "Myrelle" plot point that Alanna absorbs and it won't actually happen in fact. But now it's out there as an idea that Warders can be forcibly bonded so that when Alanna forcibly bonds someone else down the road, the idea isn't coming out of nowhere.

23. I was so shocked when the Seanchan attacked in episode two. I was thinking this would happen in episode five. But once I sat down and thought about it, I realizes that Perrin has already hit all the main points of the Hunt for the Horn storyline on his side of things (and even partly on what Rand would have been doing). We've found the traitor and had Ingtar reveal his sympathy towards said traitor; we've found the Fade and the moment when Fain started playing by his own rules; and we've even been exploring Perrin and his senses. This does mean that we're going to have a lot of potential time to explore the Seanchan invasion and culture.

24. I don't have any issues with Ishamael openly being Suroth's advisor vs someone covertly giving Suroth her marching orders. High Lady Suroth is a Darkfriend and always was. We're just taking it out of the shadows and showing it openly to the viewers (and Perrin).

I do wonder if Perrin specifically seeing the Shadow and the Seanchan so entwined will have an impact on his later storylines. That I wonder about. But the later books were, tbh, really weird about how low-impact the Falme encounter ended up being in the long run for pretty much everyone except Egwene. Min basically forgets she knows anything about the Seanchan even when that information could help Rand, everyone forgets about the environment of paranoia and fear that the Seanchan created in Falme, etc. There's a lot of weird forgetfulness going around, especially in CoT & KoD, when Jordan wanted to sell us on his slaver romance.

(the way that the show has been improving characters like Min and relationships like Rand/Lanfear does give me a lot of hope in how they will handle Tuon and the Mat & Tuon 'romance' and that they'll make it better than the poorly-written dumpster fire that it is in CoT & KoD)