#pure speculation

So… the Season 1 intro for “The Mighty Nein”… there’s just something about it that feels interesting if you think deep enough about it.

Namely, the first ten seconds.

So far, it’s actually been shots that happened in what we’ve seen, albeit with added effects or altered lighting. Namely:

Fjord Stone falling into the ocean after the Tide’s Breath was sunk by Sabien’s cowardly betrayal in “Who Will You Be?”

Nott the Brave noticing Caleb Widogast before she runs off with his component pouch in “Mote of Possibility”

Beauregard Lionett practicing on a training dummy under Dairon’s tutelage in “Who Will You Be?”

Mollymauk Tealeaf pulling up the “Death” card, immediately foreshadowing the tragedy that would befall him in “The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities”

Yasha Nydoorin having her back to the soldiers before she lets loose her rage in the closing moments of “Mote of Possibility”

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this? Simple.

The remaining two.

Caleb Widogast’s childhood home burning down… which we may end up witnessing within the next episode or two.

But the real standout shot is Jester Lavorre’s sketch of everyone together. Yes. Everyone. All seven of them.

Which means… Yasha IS going to join the group before the season ends.

At least, that’s what I’m assuming.

And if so, what if that group sketch is one of the last shots of the season?

Time will tell as to whether this ages like wine or milk.

It was already known that the shapers didn't create the mortal races of Aramán, they simply shaped them. which means the different races (or maybe even some shared ancestor of them) existed 4500 years ago.

The elves have some connection to the realm of Faerie, possibly predating Sylandri marrying the king. But everyone else, all the mortals, are of the world. There were already established human families that had pacts with the Fae or elementals or had interbred with dragons and giants.

The world was such that they had well established Druidic traditions & religious rites. They also probably had written tradition, because we know precisely when the Shapers came and for how long they reigned on Aramán.

So the Shapers (extraplanar beings? unconfirmed but seems likely) arrive on Aramán 4500+ years ago. They take powerful primordials as spouses and dispose of them, and they exert control over races of Aramán.

The equivalent for our world would be that they arrived during the Bronze Age, which was marked the advent of written language and the formation of early governments and city states. Obviously impossible to say if their world was in a similar period of expansion pre-Shaper, but just to give you an idea of just how long ago 4500 years is in the scale of a world. The last Woolly mammoth died around 4000 years ago.

Sylandri gave the elves immortality but took their bodily autonomy.

I would speculate that all of the Shapers (except Azgra) offered the different races boons in exchange for devotion. The Hall of Mercy says non-Shaped beings that are "devout" enough can plead their case for a Shaper afterlife, so devotion does seem to be part of it.

Azgra, ever honest and also terrible, probably did not promise the Orcs anything & simply exerted dominance and that was that. But every other Shaper? Perhaps they did something akin to Sylandri and they all exacted a price for those gifts. (Tansul explicitly called for human sacrifice to create at least one of his constructs, so maybe all of his celestials were created that way)

I'm back from vacation! And one of my stops was a short stay in NYC where I saw Sylvia on the Met stage. Schvenko was scheduled for the 7/9 performance, but she was replaced by Misseldine! What a unexpected treat! Apparently, she and Royal had very little rehearsal time, but you'd never know it.

After having recently attended Houston Ballet's Sylvia (choreography by Stanton Welch), I can definitely say that I prefer Ashton's version, especially for the way he creates a clever and loving tribute to 19th century spectacle ballets with a wink to Orientalism. It's like a Faberge egg in ornate, antique scenery and characters, but well-formed and succint. It's easy to take in, clocking in at one hour and fifty-two minutes over three acts, which mercifully provides enough time for an early dinner beforehand and a decent bedtime aftewards.

Misseldine is a gorgeous dancer….there is really nothing to critique, although I've read that other ABT dancers are better storytellers in Sylvia. This was my one and only, so no opportunity for comparison. My only critique overall is that the female ensemble in Act 1 could have been more in sync.

The other big event this summer was the MIBC, which I felt rather ambivalent about at the beginning, and even more so by the finale. I'm just not a competition person. The highlight for me was seeing Tereshkina, Kim, and Shakirova perform the slightly different Mariinsky version of Legend of Love on the Bolshoi stage as the special kick-off performance for the competition. Talk about three dancers who are at the peak of their artistry and craft! Of the three stars, Tereshkina was…INCREDIBLE. She just turned (I think) four-four, and she just keeps getting better. What a goddess! I beleive the clip below if from the July 2 performance at the Mariinsky…not from Moscow but the form and feeling are so close.

As for the competition itself, I think the MIBC is trying to regain its global relevancy and not really succeeding. I had hoped that there would be more corps/corphyee dancers from the Mariinsky, Bolshoi, Perm and European theaters who wanted to try and grab the brass ring, but that didn't really materialize. Asian participants seemed to dominate, especially the Koreans. It's fine. They churn out a lot of excellent dancers who need to find work elsewhere. But with the political situation being what is in Russia, I imagine the competition in four years will have a similar make-up. [Added later] But Crystal Huang willing gold in the juniors division left me feeling….blah. Her dancing and stage presence just feels so disingenuous to me. Everything is calculated to the millimeter and I don't enjoy it. She's got the floor routine of ballet down pat.

With discussion going around about Buck dealing with some 'feelings', which will most likely be his feelings of being left behind and abandoned, which feels a little like rehashing old stories yet again....But putting that aside, I've seen some people concerned and that's fine it's normal but honestly I'm feeling pretty good about the idea of Buck tackling his abandonment issues head on for a change. Based on O Stark's recent interview (his jumble of words should never be taken too seriously though) it seems like even he is shocked they are going to potentially make actual headway on Buck dealing with these issues finally.

As a bucktommy fan I don't think it's a bad thing either, if it goes where my thoughts/opinions are (which could be entirely off course) they are taking advantage of Eddie having to go away to fix things with Chris and JLH having to take a little time away for other projects that have been mentioned in fandom, so Maddie being a bit asbent after the kidnapping arch which would make sense for her recovery....they probably pivoted really quickly into the bucktommy breakup once JLH'd schedule became apparent to line up the 'alone buck' story. It would seem callous for Tommy to break up with him once his sister has been kidnapped so hurried the breakup up to make the leaving of Maddie and Eddie hit harder. Just like adding in 805 to make the breakup hit harder. We know they did a lot of pivoting with shoots and storelines, including breaking up Buck and Tommy earlier than originally planned. They are going really hard on piling one thing on top of another for Buck!

like amazing very happy, aaron & robert are the ed supercouple, as much as i love the dingles, the sugdens are emmerdale and rob and vic are the legacy characters rn. love all this focus on them.

watching the episodes from the last couple of weeks, i'm seeing a real chance that robert knows about the listening device already. "are you saying we've both been fighting feelings this whole time?" rob has made no effort to fight any feelings here so is this a clunky line to transition them into the next part of the convo or is it for the eavesdropper's benefit?

rob remembers what john said to him to get him to snap with the prison comments, he knows that john told ross about the weed. yeah there were other people around when he made the sale with ray but ray spoke to him about it in keepers cottage. his therapy calls and his visit from liam which are the only times he's talked in detail about his trauma were in keepers.

plus he fully told john he would take him down by any means necessary and i'm convinced the robert at johns hospital bedside was an absolute con.

when someone discovers a secret like this on ed, usually i'd say they show it on screen rather than do this sort of bait and switch. however: the writers at the moment have form since we saw kim and joe deal with their own psycho blackmailer with offscreen scheming.