#he's pretty and I'm mad about it

[invinciblerodent]

oh you know you're fucked when you see a screenshot of a fictional man, and your first reaction is to fucking smile like you're looking at a picture of your long-lost sweetheart in a goddamn heart-shaped locket

[dead-girl-tells-stories]

DP x DC Prompt: The Watchlist

Batman has a watchlist. A list that contains every individual who could become a rouge and a contingency plan for if they did.  

And while they, his children, often make fun of his paranoia and him for having it, they totally understand why he did. They lived in Gotham, for Christ's sake. Where everyone’s just a pin drop away from being the city’s next big villain, forcing the bats to scratch their heads while playing cat and mouse with a sicko for a good few weeks. And while they won’t admit it, the list has helped them a few times. 

But that won’t stop them from making fun of any of the list’s new developments. Because you see, there was a new list. And it wasn’t just a watchlist. No, no, no. It was The Watchlist.

It was a new development after he and Robin went on an out-of-state mission to investigate some town in bum fuck nowhere Illinois. And it was under some pretty tight security as well, so they were expecting something good, like mad scientists or evil mayors. Not profiles of the kids who lived in the town. And while there were a few metas and vigilantes that made the list interesting, by the end of it all they just seemed to be teenagers. 

Until they saw Damian. They hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission with B. He looked tired. Like ‘Tim hasn’t slept in a week and is surviving on just coffee beans’ tired.

“Ah, I see you all have found it. Good. A few of them will be arriving next week as they’re a part of Gotham Academy’s student exchange program. At least three of them will be staying in the manor with us. Father will need you all to be on standby and to be ready for any possible scenario. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not encourage them in any way, shape, or form. And please do not dismiss them either. The outcome of doing that will be much worse. Is there more that I should add? Yes. Will I? No, because you won’t understand. Not until you've seen what I have.” 

The demon child sighed, then looked them dead in the eyes. “Godspeed to us all.” Then walked away.

Okay, they were scared now.

[flootzavut]

Joey please

[mollysunder]

Viktor's Sources of "Inspiration"

The hexcore is incomplete. Currently Viktor only has the runes of Precision, Domination, Sorcery, and Resolve. To complete the hexcore and unlock it's true potential he'll need Inspiration, but where will he find it?

Viktor could find Inspiration through Sky. The most noteworthy possible hint was in Sky's last scene. Sky's last words to herself were how Viktor inspired her, and in that moment we get a glimpse of her notebook. Some have speculated that the emblem on the cover of her notebook resembles the Inspiration rune itself.

Sky also left a series of notes from her undisclosed research project. From the quick shots we get of her notes we can assume Sky was researching methods to stimulate plant growth. Her research may be in a similar vein to Viktor's research where he experimented with how the hexcore reacted to organic plant matter and stimulated its growth in turn. Could Sky's research be the key that will help Viktor stabilize the effects of the hexcore on organic matter like plants (and people)?

Even in death Sky's character could serve to reflect the theme of inspiration that Viktor desperately needs...

Except the Inspiration rune does represent the literal definition of the word "inspiration". In Runeterra, the Inspiration rune is meant to symbolize the ability to "Outwit mere mortals". In-game the Inspiration path gives players a set of tools they can use to apply unconventional strategies to outwit their enemies. And the one character that demonstrates those traits the best in Arcane is Jinx.

The first time the Inspiration rune's meaning was applied correctly in a sentence was when Viktor was describing the design of Jinx's chomper grenade. And it's true, thematically Jinx's chomper grenades and they way she uses them align with how "inspired" tools work.

Jinx was able to pull off a 3-in-1 trick with her chomper. The grenade was the bait and the snare against the enforcers, the distraction Jinx used to steal classified technology and info from Piltover, and the means that Jinx would use to frame the Firelights in her crimes. Technically she's gotten away with it all so far. What Jinx with her tools does isn't just outwitting her enemies, she's running laps around them.

Another possible clue that could mean Jinx will help Viktor discover the Inspiration rune is that her champion tag was disguised as a rune within the hexcore in Viktor's Magician tarot card. The same tarot card that gives us a brief shot of the Machine Herald's silhouette.

Maybe this all leads to Viktor working with Jinx next season, even learning from her to the point where he'll even end up taking a page out of Jinx's playbook. Viktor's set to be banished from his research bubble in Zaun, in a time where allies will be hard to come by and enemies will be easy to make.

Sky and Jinx are two very different characters that manage to apply the term inspiration in two very different ways. I want to think that was on purpose by the writers. But who knows for sure though, we can only see how things turn out next season.

tldr: Sky represents the traditional definition of inspiration, while Jinx better embodies the Runeterra's definition of the actual Inspiration rune. Sky's death may also be a weird rune pun.

[miabrown007]

the summer after finishing university in New York, Marinette gets invited to a camping trip with Alya and Nino and his best friend. which, honestly, is for the best. at least she has more time than the four years she's already had to figure out how to reach out to her one-time superhero partner, with whom she fell out of touch after the reveal.

only, it's Adrien Agreste waiting for them on the meeting point, beaming so hard at her that it's blatantly obvious they know each other well. in her panic, what is Marinette supposed to tell Alya and Nino to protect their identites, if not that they used to date?

(fake exes AU x there was only one tent)

[starry-bi-sky]

in 1 side we have Massive Angst of Talia and Bruce

on other side we have Okay normal life Clone Talia, Himbo Danny and Damian. Wait that is just Spy x family but Clone x Family.

No kidding. I can't say much for the angst between Talia and Bruce because I don't know their dynamic that well beyond that in one run they were supposedly in love with one another (and still are to some extent) but they're on such ideological opposites that it's never gonna work in the long term. And in another run Talia is just seducing Bruce (which iirc came about from post 9/11 hatred towards the middle east, and resulted in Talia's character being butchered by some asshole).

BUt on the other end we have Nasra, Danny, and Damian. Who I don't think ever really take on a traditional nuclear 'familial' dynamic since Danny and Damian agreed to both be brothers first and foremost - they're not seeking out a father-son relationship with each other, even with Danny occasionally being parental from time to time. And Nasra and Damian would still have an almost sibling-like rivalry towards each other as well (honestly I think it'd be very Tim and Damian-like), I think. That with a mix of "rivalry between little sibling and their older sibling's partner" too. Either way its def not mother-son like in the slightest, but still familial. Even if unorthodox

But either way they are still family with the additions of Sam and Tucker and Jazz! I like to imagine that Nasra and Damian both are actually pretty into art. Damian uses spray paints as his medium, however, and Nasra gets into charcoals and watercolors, and they compare different art mediums when they start tentatively getting along.

OH also unrelated but more on clone^2 but - danny in clone^2 like, killed like three guys when he was 17 because they attacked him and damian and nearly killed them both. Imagine being Bruce and finding that out

[phoenixcatch7]

Reading loz/lu fics and it's just so interesting how wide the spectrum is of their personalities.

Sometimes it's got an in universe reason (different past (usually gender or species change), recent or ongoing traumatic events, a spectacularly bad first meeting), but sometimes (often) the characters are just... Weirdly angsty or peppy, there's no in between!

And I'm beginning to think less people have played more than one game than I thought XD.

Not that it's anyone's fault! One game is more than enough to be part of it all, and loz is exclusive to Nintendo consoles - and all the older stuff is frustratingly hard to get hold of. Heck, I'm still looking for wind waker, and that was really popular! And then you have to play it! They're not small games!!

But could people writing wild please ease off just a tiiiiiny bit so he can be a semi functional member of society pretty please XD? He's just as much a polite boy as any other member of the chain! He won't even run in shops! He can't attack npcs! He talks to every single person he's ever seen and remembers every single name. Yes, he's three quarters woodland creature with a hefty amount of trauma but he's also a fashionista who managed to avoid accidentally taking sides in a mayoral election and that's not easy!

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Ok do the thousands of Bethyl shippers realize it means they're headcanoning Daryl as a pedophile or

[skooorch]

Our star setter!! Iwaizumi is still trying to figure out how to make a rubber band star

[monsterkirbo36]

💚🍄

[morethanwonderful]

Out of all of Wei Wuxian's traits, one of the ones that fascinates me the most is how incredibly casual and chummy he is with corpses. All the other cultivators are a bit desensitized to the dead by nature of their profession, yes, but Wei Wuxian in particular treats the dead very much the same as he treats living people, and I think it's simultaneously one of his best and most concerning attributes.

On the good side, the way Wei Wuxian treats the dead is absolutely an extension of his overall goodness and empathy. He stands on the side of those that are looked down on, and nobody faces more discrimination that the dead. He treats the dead like people because they are people, and they deserve to have their voices heard. That's what Empathy's for, and that's why he revives Wen Ning to stand as witness to his own murder. Wen Ning is not a thing! And even when Wei Wuxian is raising armies of dead Wens to fight on his behalf, we get illustrations of him giving a helping hand to a weak old corpse that can't stand on its own.

Wei Wuxian is painted in very deliberate contrast to Xue Yang, who treats the dead as tools and deprives them of agency. His closeness with them is a symbol of his kindness.

However, beyond treating the dead decently and like people, there is a point where his chumminess with them starts to get unsettling, and that's the point where it becomes a reflection of his loneliness and trauma. In particular, I'm thinking of his cuddliness with the ghosts he uses to torture Wen Chao and the corpse girls he's hanging out with when he invites Lan Zhan to drink with him. Because treating the dead with respect is a very different thing from having a corpse lay in your lap as you stroke its hair. And fierce corpses by definition do not have personalities (with Wen Ning as the exception that proves the rule), so treating them as companions to socialize with is rather concerning behavior.

So why is he like this? Isolation and trauma!

It's easy to understate the trauma of Wei Wuxian's three months in the Burial Mound, especially given that we don't see them play out but do get details about so many other horrible moments. But those three months? They Fucked Him Up. In particular, beyond the trauma of the near death experience (or presumably many many near death experiences in a row), he spent the better part of three months without seeing a single other living human. People are not meant to do that.

So what is a person gonna do when he spends three months in Worse Solitary Confinement? And when that solitude is spent on Fierce Corpse Mountain? He's gonna get really weird about corpses. He's gonna turn into the kind of man that would let a murderous ghost he's controlling lay in his lap as he strokes her hair, because for an extended period of time, that is the closest thing to human contact he's had access to.

And later, post-sunshot-campaign, Wei Wuxian does regain access to living humans and society, but he's still incredibly isolated. Just about everyone besides his siblings and Lan Zhan hates and/or is scared of him by the time we hit the scene of him and the fierce corpse girls throwing flowers, so it's no wonder he's hanging out with dead people. He already picked up the habit of replacing company with corpses once, so of course he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe they're there as bodyguards, maybe he's just extremely lonely and doesn't have any human companions to drink with him, or maybe (probably) it's a mix of both. But in any case, it's a pretty clear expression of a horrifying degree of both past and present isolation.

That's why, though he doesn't lose his respect for the dead or his desensitization to touching corpses, we never see him just Hanging Out With Mindless Ghosts in his second life. It's a substitute for real companionship, not a healthy behavior, but lack of company is no longer an issue he has after being resurrected.

He doesn't need an entourage of corpse girls, because this time, when he wants company, he's always got Lan Zhan.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

I found a transcript of the Jan 98 Q interview but it won’t let me post a link

https:// groups.google .com/g/rec.music.beatles/c/7clhNbsz3jE/m/stFmXJnzJSMJ

Maybe see if you can view it by removing the space between google and .com. If not I can screenshot and send you pictures

Oh wow, amazing!! thank you so much! this is an old usenet post from December 1997 and the user named Alison Fiddler kindly typed it up 27 years ago :)

I'll post the full transcript (and a bit reformated for legibility) below the cut for everyone.

Paul McCartney Interview for Q Magazine, January 1998 edition

Q. When you first wrote a song with John Lennon, did you realise you would play one of the biggest parts in rock 'n' roll?

(Michael McConnell, Crawley, West Sussex)

Q. If John Lennon could come back for a day, how would you spend it with him?

A. Obviously not. But even with all the so-called "historical" events that followed, you're just too inside it all, too busy doing it to realise anything's "historical". You just get on with it. I'm not a great ponderer. Some people would say that's a mistake but it's just the way I am. It's quite cool not to always get the overall picture because it leaves something to be found out. The musicologists get paid to discover the differences between me and John. I'm only just beginning to see it now, based probably on their analysis. So John is often one note, I'm often more melodic. (McCartney is thinking especially of Ian McDonald's book Revolution in the Head, where he describes the ace partnership in contrasts: Lennon's method is "harmonic, dissonant", McCartney's that of the "natural melodist".) It might sound amazing but we never spotted that when we were writing. We just did our thing. But it is kind of apparent when you bother to analyse it.

(Mark Wilson, Deeside, Flintshire)

A. In bed.

Q. Were you ever envious that Brian Epstein didn't fancy you?

(Nick Gibson, London)

Q. What were the last records you bought?

A. No, I didn't mind. We just used to go to these clubs at night and wonder why there were so many men. It was OK. Brian was very cool about his side to things. I think the nearest any of us got to it was the John-going-to-Spain thing (it inspired the movie, The Hours And The Times) and I'm not sure what the strength of all that was. I think it was power play on John's part. But Brian kept his private life aside. He kept it out of our faces (pause, possibly for effect). He kept it out of mine, anyway.

(Chris Timms, Harrogate)

A. The Prodigy's The Fat Of The Land, Radiohead's OK Computer and Chopin's Nocturnes.

Q. How do you feel about all the animosity between you and Oasis right now?

(Christina Vellano, Syracuse, New York, USA)

A. There is none as far as I'm concerned. What happened was I'd said, Good group, good singer, good songwriters. But people asked me about it so much that one time I decided to take it further and say that they don't mean anything to me. I am not related to Oasis. I wish them good luck and everything. But my kids mean something to me, John Lennon means something to me, but Oasis ....

Q. Who would you pick to play with in your dream six-piece band?

(Alan Thatcher, Essex)

A. Dream? So we're into fantasy, aren't we? Ringo, John, George, that's three. Me. Jimi Hendrix. That makes lots of guitarists, so Little Richard on keyboards.

Q. With Wings, did you feel pressurised to live up to The Beatles?

(Andrew Williams, Neath)

A. Yes, it was a case of "follow that!". Impossible to do. Looking back on it, it's a lot better than I thought, though some of it is just not PLAYED as well as The Beatles. My son (James, co-worker on McCartney's last pop album, Flaming Pie) plays a lot of Wings, so I'm re-listening, and there's good shit that I'd forgotten about. A lot of the lyrics were off the wall, drug stimulated. Things like "Soily - the cat in the satin trousers says its oily". What was I on? I think the answer is stimulants.

Q. Do you still support the legislation of cannabis?

(Grahame Woods, Northwood, Middlesex)

A. I would make a distinction between legalising and decriminalising. I'm in favour of the latter. The problem is that jails are stuffed full of kids doing what a lot of people do. Why stuff the jails with young kids? Plus it's one of the best places to score. I remember when I got busted in Japan, nobody made the slightest effort to rehabilitate me (laughs). Just stuck me in a box for nine days. Obviously you come out and you are fairly resentful.

Q. Do you roll a wicked joint?

(Steve Kline, Bury)

A. I have nothing to say in answer to that question, m'lud. I wasn't even at the venue.

Q. The critics have been harsh on your solo work. Did this ever

discourageyou?

(Robert Hemauer, Madison, Wisconsin, USA)

A. Yeah, sure, but you don't let it kill you. It's a difficult one, because it's never cool for someone to tell you you're shit. Many people through history were damned by the critics of their own time - Cezanne, Van Gogh, Stravinsky, all great painters! Ha ha!

Q. We'd like to see your paintings but can't get to the exhibition in

Germany (McCartney unveils his work for the first time in Siegen, Germany, next year). Any thoughts about putting your paintings on "tour", or publishing a book of them?

(Kathy Goodman, San Diego, CA, USA)

Q. You've done so many things - classical, films, music, art, drugs - is there anything left you might have a go at?

A. A difficult one. If you're a so-called celebrity - like Bowie, Anthony Quinn, Tony Curtis - and you exhibit any art, inevitably, people are not going to think of you as a real painter. Gallery owners come up to me and offer to give me exhibitions. I say, You haven't seen my pictures, and they say, It doesn't matter. Well, it does to me. Otherwise, it's just trading on the name. However, this guy from Germany came over, looked at all my paintings, seems to like them. He's telling me what they're all about.

(Tim Bowler, Swansea)

A. The thing is how reluctant I've often been to have a go. I think we were brought up pretty repressed. Brought up to be seen and not heard, to stay in your place, particularly a working class thing. And I think - I hope - with The Beatles, we got rid of a lot of that. With the painting, for instance, it was Willem de Kooning who liberated me. I used to go to his studio, took in one of my paintings, said, Hey Bill, I hope you don't mind but can you tell me what it is? (Affects American drawl) "Oh, looks "like a couch." Well it looked like a purple mountain to me. And he says, "Well, whatever." Here's one of the greats, his works go for one million, and it was great to see how little bullshit he was bringing to it all. It's really important to explode these myths that surround the arts, music, painting. It's Wizard of Oz time - so many myths, and it's often just a little man behind the screen. The paraphernalia that surrounds them gets in the way. Often you meet leaders in their field and they have none of that. I remember asking a great painter - Peter Blake, maybe - for some advice once, and he said "Just paint a lot". Similar to my approach to music.

Q. How do you know when a song's finished?

(Joyce Slavik, Palatine, Illinois)

A. It's full up. You've answered all of your questions. Normally, I start following a thread: "Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice ... " The thread might come out of nowhere, and I follow it and complete it, like crossword puzzle. When the crossword is full up, the song is finished.

Q. What's more embarrassing: writing Hi Hi Hi or Say Say Say?

(Tien Vu, Costa Mesa, California)

A. (Weighs up pros and cons). Say Say Say.

Q. Why did you give such extensive interviews for an authorised biography (Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now) instead of writing an autobiography?

(Deena Hochberg, Southampton, Pennsylvania)

Q. I'd like to know if Sir Paul sings in the shower, and if so, what does he sing?

A. I don't think I'm a writer. I've never been moved to do it. You have to have a pretty big fire in the belly to do something as big as that. I fancy music more. I'm happier writing in songs rather than in prose, or poetry. Though I wrote something that was never published about the time I got busted in Japan - for my kids. Because I knew one day they'd say, "Hey dad, what was it like, nine days in a Tokyo jail?". So I had a mate of mind, who did all our printing, knock up a few copies, one for each of the kids.

(Jennifer Nash, Bursville, Minnesota)

Q. As a kid you used to play pranks at school by throwing balloons filled with something "worse than water". If you had one of those balloons right now who would you like to hit with it?

A. It's normally the bath. I prefer a good bath. And the answer's Firestarter - "I'm a firestarter, de-de-de-de-dera."

(Brett Yuskiewicz, Leipzig, Germany)

A. Jonathan King. He's a prat from way back.

Q. Which football team did/does each Beatle support?

(WC Chan, Maryland, USA)

A. None of us were big footie types. We weren't very sporty, unlike other groups who were always having knock-arounds. My dad was an Everton fan, which I was most of my life. But then Liverpool started playing well, and Everton didn't, so I took the unprecedented move of supporting them both. It's not allowed, I know, but there you go.

Q. For years, you've claimed it's you in the Walrus costume in the Magical Mystery Tour film. But watching the footage shows that for it to be you, you and John would have had to exchange all your clothes. Are you winding us up, or have you not watched the film in 30 years?

(Dorothy Northcutt, Tucker, Georgia)

Q. What is the quality of each of the other Beatles that you like(d) the best about?

A. The big one. Very good question. I tell you what it was. In the stills we had taken, I was the one with the Walrus head on – in the film it's different. So John then immortalised it in Glass Onion, "I've got news for you all, the walrus was Paul". Obviously at the time you don't care, it's just a Walrus head. You don't realise years later people like our friend from Georgia will analyse it.

(S. Breggles, Richmond)

A. All of them – musical talent. All of them – honesty. Ringo – funny, and kind-hearted. George – straightforward and open. John – witty with a soft centre, or maybe hard with a soft centre.

Q. Do the copulating beetles on the sleeve of Ram (1970) stand for F**k The Beatles?

(Luc Van de Wiele, Wemmel, Belgium)

A. It happened to be a picture Linda had taken. We couldn't resist it just because of the way it looked. She'd caught these two beetles f**king, and then the significance hit us. We saw that pun, yeah, thought why not?

Q. Was there ever a third Lennon song for Anthology 3?

(Jake Lennington, Rush City, MN, USA)

A. There was, but George didn't like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn't do it.

Q. I have a Beatles t-shirt which I bought from The Grapes (celebrated Liverpool pub). I was told the band are pictured in their favourite seats - adjacent to the Ladies where you would often catch a glimpse of the girls changing for an evening at The Cavern. True?

(Alan Tomkins, Goring, West Sussex)

A. I hope so. It SOUNDS true. Had there been an opportunity to spot the girls changing, I'm sure we would have sat there.

Q. If you hadn't been a musician, what do you think you would have been?

(Tony Carter, Manchester)

A. The only thing I could have probably qualified for was teaching. So I might have been an English teacher.

Q. Does it do your head in - stuff like the handwritten lyrics to Getting Better selling for $249,000 at Sothebys?

(Peggy Robinson, Trinant, Gwent)

A. It's the price of fame - literally. You scribble them on the back of an envelope, and it gets to be famous. People want it, so it becomes a desirable object. Like Mozart's bog paper, which is another highly desirable object, apparently. More valuable obviously if it's been used.

Q. What is the inscription on the ID bracelet you wear?

(Rachel Hyland, West Harford, Connecticut)

A. It says Paul - for when I forget who I am.

Q. How does it feel to have a star named after you (the christening courtesy of American astronomy fans)?

(John Sales, Barry, Glamorgan)

A. Really cool. The good thing is that as you get on, your fans get on too. And some of them are pretty swotty. Like the people who started Apple, they were just Beatles fans, hence the name. You don't sit around looking at the sky, trying to find it, but it's like getting a very nice birthday present. I'm not religious, I don't believe in any one system - I sort fo think the universe is basically benevolent and we f**k it up - but I am spiritual. I saw Stephen Hawking on TV the other night, and he was saying that we are made of the same stuff as the stars. Which is great. We are all stardust, luv.

Q. What do you want written on your gravestone?

(Tom Mangold, Exeter)

A. Here lies Gracie Fields. Anything to keep people away.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i think the diamond dogs should play improv games just bc it would amuse me, an ex theater kid, specifically

[angelsdean]

ruthlessly deleting old 2021/2022 posts (not by me) from my dean studies tag like *click* un-incorporating that from my beliefs system! also the way SO many posts have me like ok uh-huh good aaand then say one completely wrong thing that loses me. it's so many posts.

[sysig]

Shapes never felt so good (Patreon)

[une-sanz-pluis]

What do we know about the relationship between Edward III and Henry IV? I find it quite intriguing that he was inducted into the Order of the Garter together with Richard II ( and in fact were the last two people to be admitted by Edward III) while he didn't bother to do the same for Thomas of Woodstock so this should imply some special fondness which Edward had for Harry. But on the other hand, Richard lost his father and elder brother quite early so Edward may have thought that there is a real likelihood of the same happening to Richard which would have ensured that Henry would become king in the future ( through John of Gaunt) so his knighting could reflect Edward wishing to knight someone whom he deemed had a viable chance of succeeding him. And this is why I am so curious about the relationship that Edward III had with Henry Bolingbroke.

Unfortunately, we don't know know anything about their relationship beyond the fact that Henry was knighted in April 1377. It's impossible to say what kind of contact they had before then, the evidence just isn't there. Edward III seems to have relied on John of Gaunt in his later years and both Edward and Philippa of Hainault seemed to have had a close relationship with Henry's mother, Blanche of Lancaster. According to Chris Given-Wilson, Henry spent his childhood in the Blanche, Lady Wake's household, then at Tutbury and then in the future Richard II's court. It seems possible that there was some contact between Edward and Henry before the St. George's day festivities but it's impossible to say for sure if there was or what kind of contact there was. I think there was probably very little contact due to Henry's youth and Edward's declining health. I think it's likely Edward thought fondly of Henry, even if he probably knew very little about him.

I'm afraid that I'm very resistant to the idea that anyone had any serious expectation Henry would one day be king, mainly out of spite at Ian Mortimer, lol. I think there was an awareness of the possibility - Edward's only brother died when he was young, he had several children predecease him - but I think the only people who seriously believed that Richard would die and Gaunt or Gaunt's son would become king were those who thought Gaunt was planning to murder Richard. Hell, Henry was Gaunt's only legitimately born son who lived to see 1377 so Edward could have harboured fears that Henry might drop dead just as much as, if not more so, than Richard might. The Order of the Garter had a strictly limited membership: no more than 24 members (plus the monarch and Prince of Wales) - Richard was likely stepping into his father's place as the new Prince of Wales, which meant only one slot was available. Why Henry and not Thomas of Woodstock? Beyond the fact that Edward seems to have neglected Woodstock's public career (he was knighted very late in life compared to his brothers, he had to wait until 1385 for a dukedom), inducting Henry into the Order of the Garter may have been a gesture of support or gratitude for Gaunt, given that Gaunt was basically running the country for Edward and bearing the brunt of public hate.