please stop making patroclus normal, he's as weird as achilles and maybe a little more. they match each other freaks in the worse way and i think it's beautiful.

POV: You are loved by Ruckus

so much of what people attribute to like inherent biological differences between age groups is a lot more just the result of having different amounts of life experience. is that teenager functionally brain damaged because their brain is "underdeveloped" or have they only been alive for 14 years and thus do not have the same amount of practical experience + wisdom to draw on when dealing with difficult situations.

Is that toddler "overreacting" to losing his favorite toy by crying uncontrollably or is it genuinely the worst thing he's ever experienced because he's only been alive for two years?

Is that teenager "hormonal" because she's obsessed with a boy or is it just the first time she's felt this kind of love?

Is that child "stupid" because they can't figure out a basic problem or is it just the first time they've seen that problem?

I'm more equipped to handle those experiences because I've dealt with them before, not because my brain is more developed or because I'm smarter or inherently a better person. It's their first time being alive, give them a break. Its also your first time being alive, give yourself a break

As much I love Hector x Andromache, I hope Andromache still had something inside her to love Helenus too after so much suffering (the death of her family, the death of her husband, the death of her son, the enslavement, the abuses of both Neoptolemus and Hermione). With both Helenus and Andromache surviving the tragedy, I genuinely hope that they were able to heal together and that their marriage was an opportunity for Andromache to once again experience the healthy relationship she deserves. Epirus will never be Thebe Hypoplakia or Troy, but I genuinely hope it will be immensely better than Phthia was to her. No abusive owners or aggressive jealous wives.

At the same time, I can't even imagine what it was like for her to learn the fate of her loved ones. Maybe she hadn't heard about what happened to Hecuba, for example, but I imagine she certainly knew about what happened to Cassandra considering how much Agamemnon's death seems to have been a well-known topic. What is it like to look at Helenus, knowing that his twin sister had a fate that could have been Andromache's? Taken as a sex slave by an Achaean and threatened with death by that Achaean's legitimate wife. Hermione didn't get what she wanted, but Clytemnestra did. Andromache could have had the same fate as Cassandra. Does she think about that when she looks at Helenus and sees such a familiar face?

At the same time, did Helenus deal with survivor's guilt? He was taken as a slave, but he didn't stay that way for long, as Neoptolemus left him in Epirus to rule the place. He remained alive and in a position of leader, without further threats. He wasn't murdered, he wasn't given manual labor, he wasn't continuously abused. Looking at Andromache, his abused sister-in-law who suffered a fate so similar to his sister, his dead brother's wife, the mother of the nephew who was brutally murdered… I wonder, did he ever feel guilty about this, even though he was obviously not to blame? Did he ever see in her the sister he couldn't protect? Did he ever see in her the brother who couldn't be there to defend his wife? Did he ever blame himself for having uttered the prophecy about Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, even though he hadn't even done so of his own free will but because Odysseus had forced him? Did he ever think that if he had resisted longer, Neoptolemus wouldn't have been sought after? Troy wouldn't have fallen then, Andromache wouldn't have been enslaved, Astyanax might perhaps have been alive. Of course, in the end Troy was destined to fall anyway, but did Helenus ever entertain that fanciful possibility?

I don't know… Helenus and Andromache's marriage has genuine potential...

Yeah, I think I ship them...

Astrid Dane As the Master of the Veil

This post is putting the evidence together for my personal favorite Shades of Magic theory - that Astrid Dane is back in the new books as the Master of the Veil. It hit me hard on the first read, and on re-reads I've seen more. Nothing is conclusive, but here it is...

As far back as ADSOM, there are suggestions Astrid may come back.  

As much as he wanted to leave her there in the broken garden with her brother’s corpse, he couldn’t.  Magic, like everything, faded.  Spells were broken.  Astrid could be free again, one day.  And he couldn’t let that happen.  

Kell thinks he killed Astrid by shattering the stone statute, but Astrid was possessing someone in Red London when she died.  The first time Kell meets her, she is wearing the red pendant and already possessing Rhy, so we know she can act in White London without breaking the connection.  So when her body dies in White London, her spirit may have lived on in Red.  

Most of what we know about the Master of the Veil points to Oren Rosec as the only real viable candidate from the characters introduced in Threads.  From the White Rose, we know that he’s male, noble, and not Veskan (since the White Rose is Veskan and knows he’s not a native speaker).  He’s also a water magician, since he uses ice.  From Berras, we know he’s male, young, and has a claim to the throne (meaning Vestra). 

The only other young noblemen introduced in Threads are Hok, who is Vestran, and Nero, presumably Lady Nassaro’s missing son from Rhy’s wedding, who is a bone magician.  Oren is a water magician and he was in the brothel right before Alucard met the White Rose, and not long before she meets the Master of the Veil.

But Oren, by himself, is not a very interesting option.  Schwab doesn’t give him any real depth of character.  The only real point of interest in him is the mention of his sister in his conversation with Alucard.  

“Oh, Hanara?”  Oren waved his hand.  “She stayed with the estate.  She was the oldest, after all.”

Alucard’s attention snagged on that word.  Was.

Oren speaks of his sister as if she is dead, and doesn’t seem distressed.  Oren’s father was dying at Rhy’s wedding, five years before.  The Rosecs live in the far north.  So nobody is around and alive who knew the original Oren Rosec.

Then there is the Master’s meeting with the White Rose.  The language Schwab uses parallels the description of Astrid’s first appearance.

Kell’s POV from DSOM:  Astrid had draped herself over one of the two thrones… “  

Ciara’s POV in FTOP: She noticed the way he draped himself across the chair …

Kell in DSOM: ..her hand slid past the paper and closed around his wrist … lightning danced up Kell’s arm, followed almost instantly by pain.  

Ciara in FTOP: ... his hand closed around her wrist, his fingers burning cold.

Kell in DSOM: Kell did not realize she had risen from her seat until he felt her there beside him, running a finger down the silver buttons of his coat.  

Ciara in FTOP: …the Master of the Veil was right there, no longer behind the desk but in front of it, in front of her … [and later] It left an awful, eerie feeling, like his fingers sliding over her skin.

Schwab is too good and too creative a writer for this to be accidental.

Lila and Alucard together come to the conclusion that the Hand is not Arnesian.  

“Do you have no suspicions?”

“I have many-but that is all they are.”

“Care to share your strongest angle?”

“That for all their talk, they’re not Arnesian at all.”

Lila’s steps didn’t slow.  It had occurred to her already, of course.  “You think they’re being funded by a foreign power.”

“The best war is the one your enemy fights with itself.”

The Master relishes physical pleasure.  From Berras’s POV, he appears in the meeting at the Veil having just had sex, and bringing drinks. When Ezril doesn’t want hers, he drinks both.  This could be hedonism, or someone who came from a world of deprivation.

Then, there is a sadistic element to the Master:

Ciara: She flinched, but his grip tightened, seeming to enjoy her discomfort.  She’d handled enough patrons to recognize the ones who took pleasure in another’s pain.

Berras:  “We can say he fled, and left his family to the wolves.”  The humor in his voice was clear.  “I do wish I could be there. It is only so much fun to watch.”  He rolled his empty glass.  “I take it no one should be spared.”

Finally, there is the man at the door of the Veil when Lila, and then later Kell and Alucard, arrive.  

A host stood waiting to greet each guest as they arrived.   He was dressed head to toe in white: a fitted suit beneath a pale, pearl cloak …

White being particularly associated with the Danes.

The man seems to have been the one to have recognized Lila and alerted Berras that she was there.  Nobody else had a good opportunity to see her face because she put the mask on immediately after speaking to him.  Berras says she isn’t as anonymous as she was, so it could have been chance.  

But then man also seems to recognize Kell, and he behaves strangely.  

“Walk away,” said Kell softly, and perhaps the host caught the glint of his black eye, and guessed at the identity of Alucard’s companion, or perhaps he simply did not think it was worth dying for, because as soon as Kell withdrew the point of the knife, the host turned, and strode down the stairs, tearing off his mask and casting it into the bushes as he went.

Kell’s eyes don’t seem visible from the earlier description of his mask.  But Astrid would be able to recognise his voice.  And she’d have reason to avoid Kell, the one person in Red London who knows her well enough to realise it is her.

Finally, and bringing things back to the Doylian rather than Wastonian analysis, there is Holland.  In ACOL, he makes it very clear that he is mad that he does not get to have the chance to take revenge on the Danes.  There is unfinished business there.  Why did Schwab make such a point of it, when she knew Holland was going to die?  Just to rub our noses in the tragedy of Holland’s life?  But she’s said she always planned to come back to the world … if Astrid is still around, and so is Holland, then he has the chance to take her down.  

And Holland deserves nice things. 

Stop. Stop characterizing Chrysothemis as “Team Clytemnestra” she’s team family. She’s team “Electra, Orestes is alive!” She’s team “I don’t hate you that much” she’s team I don’t want anymore death and murder and I miss how things used to be. I love you both but I can’t kill our mother. Hatred can’t keep me alive.

I love it when trends return, gives me a chance to actually participate lol

*if you picked a book leave a comment and I'll roll some dice and tell you which one lol

all I could hear was growling, so I stood up to take a look

the first law of tragedies: the end is already written and inevitable. the second law of tragedies: your actions are all your own and you can choose to get off this ride whenever you want. the third law of tragedies: we both know that you are never going to do that.

The Polycule (revamped doodles!)

OK, finished my second re-read of The Fragile Threads of Power. I'm All In on my personal fan theory. Astrid is back. The Master of the Veil is Astrid Dane who was possessing someone in Red London when she died and is now back from the grave and is fucking shit up.

Fibre crafts are 50% soothing repetitive action and 50% "God Fucking Damnit"

@dr-dendritic-trees

I don’t really want to wade into discourse too much today because I know everyone is extremely miserable online rn but I think if you want to give people genuine advice on what to do politically, “join a union/get involved in your current union/organise your workplace” or “join ACORN/a tenant union/etc” is much more actionable advice than like “build community.”

the problem with “community” is that it doesn’t have the same formal infrastructure / resources / political connections / organising capacity that allows your hard work to have reach far beyond your immediate circle (which is what a union has), and also because like, “community” is an extremely vague and abstract concept that can mean anything from a local restaurant run by your neighbour to a church to your dnd friend group. Reaching out and helping your neighbours is a good thing, lots of people are having a really tough time and helping people around you pay rent or take care of their family or etc is a good thing and you should feel good doing that, but in response to the complete institutional and political failure of electoral liberalism I think the next best option is to turn towards already existing national infrastructure that can mobilise people without requiring you to individually maintain dedicated personal relationships with everyone around you. In my experience + the experience of many long-time activists that I know, relying on interpersonal connections to organise and get things done leads to highly sectarian, disorganised, toxic, and unpleasant organising conditions. The cold impersonal bureaucracy of union membership is legitimately a good solution to this problem.

there are many little positions of power available in these organisation that become open to you for as low a cost as showing up to zoom meetings. I have personally been elected to positions in various unions/orgs literally because I was someone who showed up to meetings! Nobody goes to committee meetings! You get annual budgets! You get to pass votes, organise events, spend money on organising materials! You get to buy food for people! Organising is so much easier in these spaces.

And of course, you are going to face the same ideological resistance, apathy, ignorance, incompetence, and bigotry that you would at your local queer meet-up or community neighbourhood council, and I have no illusions about the institutional limits of unions (which can also be reactionary, bigoted, highly disorganised, incompetent, toxic, and so on), but if you want to avoid completely exhausting yourself and resenting everyone around you, you don’t need to build “community” from the ground up, there are already structures out there where you can do good work. For all the resistance there is to unions and union activity, you will face that same level of resistance with local organising but have none of the power, resources, or institutional legitimacy already secured by unions

Hey, fellow hand spinners,

The Last Supper: remix edition. The weird surrogate child of god made everyone eat of her flesh and drink of her body, betrayed his right hand man, and then screamed at god for forsaking her.

i cannot be the first person to post this here but i am going so fucking insane about the gaia music collective's one day choir singing wait for me. the opening harmonies are you KIDDING me