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sailtomarina · 8 months

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Matching Souls, Luna-style

Hermione didn’t believe in divination. Magic, yes, but fate? Destiny?

Rubbish.

Even though she’d seen the Hall of Prophecies for herself, was best friends with the “Chosen One,” it all seemed self-fulfilling. And true love? Soulmates? That seemed most dubious of all.

She believed in the love built on a firm foundation and grown over time, like the type of love she grew up seeing in her parents. She thought it was the type of love she had found in Ron.

Until it wasn’t.

They said Slytherins were the snakes, when what Hermione should have really been watching out for were the two-faced badgers and sharp-taloned eagles. How dare Susan consult in Luna’s so-called love match reading; how dare Luna offer up Ron’s name as if he wasn’t already taken.

So here she was, sitting on a stupidly comfortable cushion inhaling incense she was certain did more to worsen her headache than open anyone’s “inner eye.”

“I’m so glad you accepted my offer for a reading, Hermione. Your match is somewhere out there, and we’re going to find them, whoever they are!”

She couldn’t help but glare at Luna’s outstretched hands dubiously where they lay palms up on the table. Hermione wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t this. Maybe a crystal ball, perhaps cards, or even tea leaves. How was Luna supposed to see anything—not that she believed she would—just by holding her hands?

“This will only work as well as you allow it to, you know. If you don’t believe, then, well, I won’t see anything.” Luna’s voice was calm in her reprimand.

It was her bluntness that lessened Hermione’s armor. She couldn’t really see what Luna had to gain by pretending. She might not make a lot of sense much of the time, seeing things no one else could, but Luna did make some uncanny observations. Hermione attributed her accuracy to a keen spatial awareness.

Now that she stepped back to view her breakup from a distance, she realized that her and Ron had been doomed from the start, Luna’s involvement notwithstanding. Hermione had just been too close to see all the warning signs. She must have felt at least some of that beforehand to have accepted Luna’s invitation in the first place.

“I just…I mean, this isn’t what I expected. How are you meant to see anything without any tools?”

“It’s an old spell that’s been in my family for generations. I say the incantation, take your sacrifice, and then we see what we see.”

Bells rang in her head.

“What kind of sacrifice?”

Luna’s serene smile was at complete odds with the next words out of her mouth. “An offering of blood.”

“Luna Lovegood! Is this blood magic?” Hermione hissed, infuriated that her friend would even consider dragging her into this. Blood magic was strictly forbidden at Hogwarts.

“Yes, but that doesn’t make it inherently bad. Blood magic is some of the most ancient and powerful magic in existence.” Luna tilted her head as if carefully considering her next words. “I would have thought you would know that given your extensive research and time spent in the library.”

Hermione knew she didn’t mean it as an insult, but it certainly felt like she was being called out by the Ravenclaw. She felt as if her intelligence was being challenged, and Hermione did not back down from any battle of minds.

Luna was right. Hermione had read several texts describing this particular branch of magic as neutral as any other type of magic—what mattered was the caster’s intent. Blood magic could be used to protect just as well as harm. She knew from her own experience that there were regularly used spells that could be just as damaging, like obliviate.

She shoved the warnings about taboos and so-called dark magic into the box alongside all the other rules she’d broken over the years with Harry and Ron.

“Just tell me what to do.”

With a delighted giggle, Luna wiggled her fingers until Hermione placed her hands atop them. Closing her eyes, she muttered a string of words that made little sense to Hermione. She felt a change in the air, though, as if all noise had been sucked out of the room leaving only their own deep breaths and the pounding of her heart.

Luna smiled at the end of her incantation and let go with one hand to pick up her wand. She used the tip to gently flip Hermione’s free hand over and cut a shallow incision along the thumb with another spell. As a bead of blood threatened to drip, Luna pressed her own thumb against it and closed her eyes.

Hermione couldn’t deny the strange pressure surrounding them that she hadn’t felt before. Remembering Luna’s words from earlier, she, too, closed her eyes and wished with all her heart to open herself to the other girl.

“Thank you, Hermione. I’ve seen what I need to see.” Luna blinked heavily, as if waking from a deep sleep.

“Which was?”

“The good news is that your soulmate is here at Hogwarts.”

“They are?” The fact surprised Hermione. She felt like she knew most of the students at the school. How had she not felt anything in all this time?

Luna nodded in a solemn manner before continuing. “He is. The bad news is that he’s in a dark place right now. What I can sense, however, is a passion for knowledge and competitive drive that rivals yours. You share a great capacity for love, though that fire can burn just as powerfully towards hate.”

Hermione frowned at the revelation. There weren’t many students that vied for the top rankings. She wasn’t particularly close to any of them, and a few she either had never spoken to or outright avoided.

“That doesn’t sound so bad, I guess, other than the part about “hate”. When you say “dark”, is that literal or metaphorical?”

Luna nodded approvingly at her question. “Both. In fact, if you make your way up right now to someplace where you can see the stars best, I have a feeling you’ll get to meet him.”

A place where they could clearly see the stars…that sounded like the Astronomy Tower. Hermione hadn’t been up there in ages, not since before Dumbledore’s death. She likely wasn’t the only one. The deck was bound to be deserted at this hour, but maybe…

“I think I’ll test out your theory. Thanks, Luna!”

Hermione snatched up her bag to make her way towards the tower. She was in such a hurry, she missed Luna’s parting words.

“You’re welcome! Tell Draco I said ‘hello’.”

She’d confront Luna loudly the next day over a bowl of creamy oats, the entirety of the Great Hall staring at them with mouths hanging open. Her explosion would earn Hermione the ire of their mutual friends as they rallied to defend the mild-mannered Ravenclaw. What she did not do was actually talk to the true subject of her outburst, who watched everything unfold with his signature arched brow.

It wasn’t until a week later that Hermione and Draco would be forced into a class partnership, and then a month after that they conceded to studying together outside of the library. A couple of months later, Hermione grinded out an apology to the same girl she’d screamed to at the start of the term, with an amused Draco watching nearby.

Through it all, Luna maintained a saintly patience, forgiving Hermione before being asked. She already had her maid-of-honor speech all planned out and had recently gone on a date with her own soulmatch.

But she told Hermione none of these things, nor Draco. She did, however, compliment them on their radiant auras. They were truly magnificent now that they’d found one another—almost as pretty as Pansy’s eyes.

WC 1304

DHR Month Prompt: Week 2 - Bonds, September 8 - Soulmates

Cross-posted on AO3

I almost forgot about this after skipping the freebie day on the 7th (others still submitted, so make sure you check those out), so I felt a bit rushed writing this out late at night. It's rougher than I'd like, but I still hope you enjoy my take on todays theme!

#dramionemonth #dramione month #dramione #harry potter fanfiction #dhr fanfiction #draco malfoy x hermione granger #hermione granger #draco malfoy #luna lovegood

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sartle-blog · 5 years

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Good News from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Last week, Sartle was invited to the Director’s Breakfast at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, held in celebration of Thomas P. Campbell’s first year as director and CEO of the umbrella organization that oversees the de Young and the Legion of Honor. They gave us the scoop about upcoming events, but also shared some exciting news about their latest efforts to better serve their community.

Campbell spoke candidly about the pressure museums are under from various forces, from the politics of patrimony to the consuming, attention-diminishing powers of technology. Museums across the world are being forced to grapple with the question of what the role of an art museum in contemporary society should be. Campbell believes, as he eloquently phrased it, that art museums are “engines of empathy,” and as such, are essential in this time of polarization, identity politics, globalization, and existential peril. Perhaps now more than ever museums need to be accessible to people of all ages, incomes, and identities.

All of this is why the museum has decided to extend free admission on Saturdays to residents of all nine Bay Area counties! Starting on October 19, 2019, general admission to the Legion of Honor and the de Young will be free on Saturdays to those who live in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties. (Just be sure to bring a photo ID or postmarked envelope with your home address when you go.) This is all thanks to a generous gift by Diane B. Wilsey, Chair Emerita of the Board of Trustees.

Furthermore, the museum is pleased to be unveiling a number of new internships for high school students that will be paid. Yes, paid, and with real money! And they are taking steps to make more paid internships in the future. The fact that most museum internships are unpaid has forced only people of a certain economic bracket to be able to take them, thus perpetuating elitism in the art world. It seems this venerable institution, now in its 125th year, is making some serious strides for equality and accessibility.

The Fine Arts Museums also announced their upcoming 2020 special exhibitions, many of which have unique connections to San Francisco, and all of which further cement FAMSF’s reputation as a world-class art institution. There’s a lot of excitement brewing about these shows, so if you’ll be in San Francisco any time in the next year, there’s sure to be something worth seeing.

Upcoming Special Exhibitions

James Tissot: Fashion and Faith at the Legion of Honor (October 12, 2019 - February 9, 2020)

Put on in conjunction with the Musée d'Orsay, this lavish exhibition is the first in the United States in over twenty years to cover the 19th century society painter James Tissot. Boasting fresh scholarship and a full reassessment of his work, this exhibit features over seventy drawings, paintings, and objets d’art that operate as a fantastic lens into Belle Époque society and the artist’s own extraordinary, unconventional life. There will certainly be paintings of debutantes wearing decadent dresses, but there will also be séances and spiritualism, and deeply religious works, too. An artist who can’t quite be placed among the Impressionists (despite his friendship with Degas), but who doesn’t fit squarely into any other art movement, Tissot is thoroughly deserving of the nuanced, fresh take Melissa Buron and her fellow curators have no doubt prepared.

If you can’t make it to San Francisco, you can read all about it in the sumptuous exhibition catalog. (paid link)

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at the de Young (November 9, 2019 - March 8, 2020)

Organized by Tate Modern, this internationally celebrated show promises to be powerful, provocative, and relevant. This exhibit features over 150 works of art by African American artists made between 1963 and 1983, a turbulent time which saw the height of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Over sixty artists will be represented, including Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, David Hammons, Elizabeth Catlett, and Barkley L. Hendricks, and in the De Young’s version of the exhibit, works with close ties to the San Francisco Bay Area will also be included. Long marginalized, the artists on display worked to give a voice to the African American community, promoting self-determination and empowerment for their brethren, and often drawing upon European aesthetic traditions only to subvert them. Giving a thorough, timely analysis of an important part of the American experience, this exhibit will be an absolute must-see.

You can find the exhibition catalog here if you can’t make the trip. (paid link)

Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI at the de Young (February 22 - October 25, 2020)

The de Young will be the exclusive venue of this groundbreaking new exhibition, the first ever in the United States to consider Artificial Intelligence as something other (and more) than just a tool. Examining the way our behavioral patterns are shaped by AI, and questioning what it even means to be human as technological innovations change our identities and societies, this show is urgently needed, particularly in the Silicon Valley area. It brings together the works of contemporary artists like Ian Cheng, Martine Syms, Stephanie Dinkins, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Hito Steyerl, and Trevor Paglen, and also explores AI’s master-slave dialectic and the myth of technological neutrality. So please, Tech companies, PLEASE bring your employees to this exhibit for a field trip. The question is not whether you can afford to go, but whether you can afford not to.

Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving at the de Young (March 21 - July 26, 2020)

In the last few decades, Frida Kahlo has transcended artist and celebrity status and truly become an icon, her image instantly recognizable, heavily reproduced, and everywhere adored. And yet, the Frida underneath it all is continually full of surprises. This new show brings together a variety of her intensely intimate paintings as well as personal items that had been sealed away in her home, La Casa Azul, now Museo Frida Kahlo, until 2004. It will also highlight her connections to San Francisco--where she depicted herself in her Tehuana-inspired attire for the first time, and where she married Diego Rivera for the second time. Viewers can expect to see intimate photographs, clothing and jewelry, and even her orthopedic corsets, which she wore every day to hold her spine in place and which she decorated herself, often with revolutionary and reproductive imagery. The exhibit will offer a glimpse into the ways politics, gender, sexuality, trauma, and heritage affected her creative output. All signs point to this show being colorful, intimate, and very, very popular.

Judy Chicago: A Retrospective at the de Young (May 9 - September 5, 2020)

This exciting show is the very first retrospective dedicated to the work of legendary Feminist artist Judy Chicago. You probably know her from that famously vulvar Dinner Party, which premiered in San Francisco forty years ago next year, but her career has spanned almost six decades and has encompassed a shockingly large variety of themes and media. There will be over 150 works of art (from ceramics and paintings to needlework and performance art) that prove how revolutionary she was and still continues to be. Though her artwork comes in many forms, one thing that can be said about all of it is that it is shaped by a commitment to radical empathy--for women throughout history, for those who suffered in the holocaust, for the polar bears who are losing their habitat, etc. This celebratory show coincides with the one hundredth anniversary of the Women’s Vote in the United States, connecting Chicago’s legacy to a long line of women who broke barriers and defied tradition.

New Acquisitions on Display Now

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco were also pleased to share new acquisitions the museums have recently made. All of these can be seen on the second floor of the de Young.

The Turkmen bag

The de Young’s textile department, which boasts one of the nation’s finest collections of carpet weavings, is absolutely thrilled to be displaying a set of Turkmen Storage Bags. These bags were used by the Turkmen people, who dwelled in the Central Asian steppes for over 10 centuries. Rugs were essential to their way of life, as their nomadic lifestyle did not permit the use of furniture. Instead, they furnished their yurts with carpeting for floors and these portable storage rugs (called chuvals) hung from two slats to hold utensils and other goods. Who needs a cupboard or dresser when you have these bad boys? Chuvals made up a substantial part of a girl’s dowry, along with other woven goods like floor carpets and pouches, and were often made by the girl herself. The de Young’s display of these bags touches upon their anthropological, as well as aesthetic, significance. And while they are very tempting to touch, you probably shouldn’t.

The Turkmen storage bags will be on view now through November 15, 2020.

in Pursuit of Venus [infected] by Lisa Reihana

This seventy-foot-long, animated video installation is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Artist Lisa Reihana, who is of both Māori and British descent, was inspired to create this panoramic vision after viewing a set of 19th century French wallpaper titled Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (Native Peoples of the South Pacific) that depicted Captain James Cook’s voyages in the Pacific and the peoples he encountered there. The original wallpaper (which is also part of FAMSF’s collection and can be seen alongside Reihana’s work) is full of paradise scenes depicting natives prancing about like Grecian goddesses in a Botticelli painting. Reihana challenges the Imperialist viewpoint expressed in the wallpaper by creating her own, animated version of the wallpaper that gently drifts across a large screen from right to left, showcasing vignettes and backgrounds inspired by Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. Only she uses actual Pacific Islander actors engaged in traditional rituals and dances, and the vignettes are not all happy little hula dances -- they drift into moments of violence, of floggings and trade for sexual favors, shedding light on the dark truths behind colonization. This unique work is a must-see, astonishingly well-researched (she read extensively about Cook’s voyages from the point of views of both the Europeans and Pacific Islanders), mesmerizing to watch, and essential to current conversations about imperialism, race, and patrimony.

in Pursuit of Venus [infected] is on view now through January 5, 2020.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by all these wonderful looking shows coming up, don't worry! You're not alone. We're looking forward to them, too. Stay tuned for our exhibit reviews in the coming months, and maybe we'll see you at the museum!

By: Jeannette Baisch Sturman

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gameofthronestldr · 5 years

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Melisandre

“The night is dark and full of terrors, old man, but the fire burns them all away." - Melisandre

Born: 97 BC at Asshai

Hair: Long, burnished copper

Features: Beautiful and tall with unblemished skin. Slender and graceful with full breasts, a narrow waist, and a heart-shaped face.

Culture: Asshai

Lover: Stannis Baratheon

Aliases:

Melony

Lady Melisandre

The Red Woman

The Red Witch

The King's Red Shadow

Lady Red

Lot Seven

Melisandre of Asshai

Allegiance:

R'hllor, the Lord of Light

Jon Snow

Daenerys Targaryen

Stannis Baratheon

House Baratheon of Dragonstone

Religion: R'hllor, the Lord of Light

History

Melisandre is a shadowbinder and red priestess of R'hllor from the distant country and city of Asshai, acting in the service of King Stannis Baratheon. She is also a priestess of the Lord of Light or Red God, R'hllor. She was sold into slavery as a child. Her name was once Melony.

Originally born a slave in Essos centuries ago, Melisandre is a Red Priestess of the Lord of Light, a deity that is not widely worshiped in Westeros. Hailing from Asshai, a country located in the far east of the continent of Essos, she claims to wield powerful magical abilities, particularly the power of prophecy. Melisandre wears a large ruby necklace that seems to glow whenever she performs her magic. Some years ago she crossed the Narrow Sea and came to the court of Lord Stannis Baratheon on the island stronghold of Dragonstone, to preach her faith. Stannis and the majority of his household have now converted to her religion, and she has become a close adviser to Stannis himself.

According to Melisandre, her ultimate goal is to ensure the victory of R'hllor over the Lord of Darkness and Cold, the Great Other, whose return will be heralded by a deep and lengthy winter. Melisandre has the ability to see visions of the future in fire, and concluded that Stannis Baratheon was Azor Ahai reborn, the man prophesied to lead the victory over the Others in this war. To do this he must become the King of Westeros.

After Stannis' defeat at the Battle of the Blackwater, Melisandre claims to have arranged the deaths of Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon and Balon Greyjoy through her magic, although the truth of this is uncertain. Melisandre sees that Davos is plotting to kill her and has him arrested. Davos is freed, but then he arranges the escape of Edric Storm who is one of Robert Baratheon's bastards and who Melisandre wishes to use in one of her blood sacrifices. When Davos Seaworth discovered a long-forgotten message from the Night's Watch begging for aid and warning of unusual events happening beyond the Wall, Melisandre realized this was the beginning of the true struggle and convinced Stannis to sail for the Wall with his remaining strength to prosecute the war from there.

Despite claiming benign motivations, Melisandre is viewed with suspicion from some, due to her extreme ruthlessness. She tries to warn Jon Snow that he is in danger, but he disregards her advice.

After Stannis Baratheon's death at the Battle of Winterfell, she revives Jon Snow after he is murdered by various members of the Night's Watch, believing him to be The Prince That Was Promised, and serves Jon as an adviser until she is banished from the North after the Battle of the Bastards when Jon learns that she sacrificed Shireen Baratheon and countless innocent people while in Stannis's service. However, she later unites the newly crowned King in the North with Daenerys Targaryen, believing they both have an important part to play in the Great War.

Appearance and Personality

Melisandre is a woman of almost terrible beauty. With a mane of dark red hair and pale skin, Melisandre is tall, slender and full-breasted, with a narrow waist and a heart-shaped face. Her voice is deep, with an Eastern accent, and she is rarely ever seen not dressed in flowing red robes. Those who are not entranced by how beautiful she is are very frightened of her. She is never seen without a red-golden choker around her neck.

Melisandre appears to be an extremely powerful individual who can see visions in the flames, and gives the impression of somebody who knows the will of R'hllor, though she admits that nobody can truly know his will in full as she can only see what the Lord of Light allows her to see. She is completely confident in the Lord's power, to a fearsome extent. She is generally serene, dark and mysterious, described as terrible by Maester Cressen. She is capable of anticipating moves made directly against her, but there are certain limits to what she can see. Melisandre is clearly intelligent enough to manipulate other people's perspectives in her favor, so that she remains in a certain position of power.

From the one time in the series her perspective is shown, Melisandre appears to be an insecure individual with a mysterious past and a fear of the darkness that apparently awaits everyone.

Melisandre is best defined by her seemingly unwavering faith in the Lord of Light, which seems to dominate every move she makes. A religious fanatic, she attributes many, if not any, great thing to be done in the world as an act carried out by the Lord; however, funnily enough, she doesn't credit herself with anything she does in the fire god's service, describing herself as simply a vessel for his will. She is extremely intelligent in her own way and appears to have an uncanny understanding of other people, which enables her to either gain their trust or to subdue them in a confrontation without it coming to blows between them, which sets her apart from women like Cersei Lannister and Margaery Tyrell. The latter is a person whom Melisandre especially contrasts with in this regard, because almost everyone feels uneasy around her, in spite of her calm and serene behavior.

Melisandre has a habit of being exceptionally changeable in spite of her absolute faith in R'hllor, which is demonstrated several times. When she meets Stannis Baratheon, she convinces him that he will win the war with great ease on the basis that he is the one true king, and goes to extremely great lengths to ensure that this victory is carried out. When Stannis broods over losing at Blackwater Bay, he actually threatens her and she remains faithful to R'hllor, although she doesn't willingly admit that her god wronged both her and Stannis by causing the loss at Blackwater Bay - a suggestion which Melisandre ought to believe because she is convinced that the Lord of Light controls everything, and seems to have protected the usurping lords who stand against Stannis. She defends herself by assuring Stannis that the war between Stannis and his enemies will be long and costly, but eventually he will succeed.

Melisandre is a woman who is completely aware of her own enigma - in fact, her enigma is something that she relishes. Very little is truly known about her past other than generalizations that she gives other people; she claims that she has been fighting for far longer than Stannis ever has, and is revealed to actually be a ferocious opponent in her own right, as she subdues Stannis when he attacks her by reminding him of how he needs her alongside him. She also frightens Davos Seaworth with her own powers, especially by alluring him in anticipation for what he is about to see. One prime example is when Davos returns to Dragonstone and Melisandre maintains control over Stannis by provoking Davos into attacking her, which leads to him being arrested. In spite of her animosity, Melisandre wasn't above realizing that Davos was still of use to Stannis and that he would be needed in the coming war. Melisandre is also completely able, and adept, at using her own sex to her advantage, seducing Gendry into being a part of her ritual for Stannis - however, when Robb Stark is killed as a result of this ritual, Melisandre scorns Davos for wanting to see the Lord's power, since the ritual still hasn't brought Stannis closer to the Iron Throne, even though Melisandre performed the ritual herself.

Melisandre, although apparently representing a god who is good and true, can deliberately be incredibly ruthless and cruel. She is completely willing to erase hundreds of lives in representation of her faith in the Lord of Light, to the point of outright murdering good men and allies under the assumption that it will win Stannis favor with her god. She saw nothing wrong with burning people publicly, and behaved as if they had been freed from their sinful bodies and become assets to the Lord of Light, comparing it to how a woman screams before she gives birth and is immeasurably happy afterwards - Shireen Baratheon is quick to point out the drastic difference being that women giving birth aren't ash and bone afterwards. Melisandre speaks of the sinfulness and cruelty of her enemies, even though she herself can be cruel and even arrogantly, unapologetically sadistic, shown prominently when she taunts Davos with the concept that the mass-casualties at Blackwater Bay were his fault because Melisandre wasn't there, and how she uses Mathos's own death as an example to this. The worst example of her cruelty by far is when she convinces Stannis to burn his own daughter alive in public, indifferent to the screams of both Shireen and her mother, and the brutal despair that Stannis experiences.

As the War of the Five Kings climaxes and devolves into disaster, Melisandre's faith begins to crack. She begins to lose faith in Stannis as the Battle of Winterfell comes closer at hand, but remains at his side for the most part; however, after the deaths of Shireen and Selyse, Melisandre flees the battle, perhaps in fear of Stannis's rage, and is unable to do anything to help Stannis crush the Boltons in battle, even though she claimed to Davos that she would have eased Stannis's victory at Blackwater. Melisandre's faith is crushed at the news of Stannis's defeat and the concept that she was wrong, and she becomes more withdrawn than before. She seems to transfer her faith to Jon Snow, who actually proves to be the man who would win a great battle in the North, and supports him after she resurrects him. This is a surprising turn for Melisandre because she supported Stannis so strongly under the impression that he was the one true king that would defeat the great evil to come, only to transfer her faith to somebody else. On the other hand, this is an understandable move by Melisandre because she tries to maintain her faith in the Lord of Light, in spite of the misfires and obstacles that come her way. It should be noted that during her service to Jon, Melisandre stops proselytizing her faith and only uses her magic when he commands it, adopting a more subdued approach to her religion and future events and ultimately behaving a bit more like Thoros.

Melisandre's inadvertent cruelty and ruthlessness, as well as her extremely costly faith in the Lord of Light, finally explodes in her face when Davos finally confronts her over the death of Princess Shireen. Having quarreled with Davos over the true greatness of the Lord of Light from the beginning, Melisandre is defenseless when Davos berates her over the wastefulness of her sacrifices and the fact that, in spite of her claims to represent a great god, she purposefully burned a child at the stake on the basis that she had king's blood in her veins. Melisandre is unable to speak when Davos condemns the Lord of Light as evil because of what he 'made' Melisandre do, and has the gall to shame Stannis and Selyse as equivalently responsible for Shireen's death, even though, out of the three of them, Melisandre was the only one who didn't show restraint in the act. She is unapologetic about her own blind faith, and maintains her philosophy that the Lord of Light is influential in the battle between good and evil, and the fact that she committed unforgivably evil acts in representation of good.

Even though Melisandre stakes a claim of superior knowledge about the Lord of Light, she faces several incidents and outcomes which she proves unable to predict or even understand. She is speechless at the revelation that Beric Dondarrion had been brought back six times by the Lord of Light, which she deemed impossible. She is also disappointed at the concept that there is nothing after death, even though she convinced herself and tried to convince many others that death would be a release into someplace much greater than the hell that everyone lives in.

#melisandre #r'hllor #rhllor #the lord of light #house baratheon #house baratheon of dragonstone #ours is the fury #game of thrones #got #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf

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berriestart--lilacsweet · 6 years

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Once Bitten, Twice Shy Chapter 1: Part 2

Picking up midway. If you need a refresher on what happened in the last bit heres a link: https://berriestart--lilacsweet.tumblr.com/post/173970201703/once-bitten-twice-shy-chapter-1-unexpected

When these parts are finalized and put up on FF.NET and AO3 they will be one consecutive chapter.

Its not alot, but a smidgen more for: @wholelottatiffy @marmottine

I have another complete chapter of about 5000-6000 words... but it takes place a bit further in the future, so I’m holding off on posting it until I’m able to write more of the inbetween parts.

----------------------------

SUMMARY: Regis and Evangeline begin to travel together. The two get to know one another a little better.

_____________________________________

"It certainly seems that way at times." She muttered, trying to hide the blush spreading across her face by turning to assess the area around them. The ground was now saturated with a shade of crimson that matched Evangeline's hair.

"We had best gather our things from the inn forthwith and slip away before anyone notices these fellows are missing."

"Good idea." She said turning back towards him, the blush faded from her face. "My horse and supplies are in the stable around back of the inn."

"Mine as well; we should be able to slip in and out unnoticed then."

"Only if we make haste. Let's go." She said walking past him with large steps. Regis nodded and followed her lead.

"Where are you heading from here, if I might inquire?" He asked as he took a spot beside her on the dirt path.

"Why? Are you going to follow me?"

"I thought, perhaps, I should accompany you, for a ways, for my own safety, that is. If any unruly mob came after me, what would I do without your assistance?"

"I suppose having company for once wouldn't be too bad. Someone who can defend themselves is a plus, and..."

"And what?" He asked, a faint smile playing across his thin lips.

"Someone interesting and knowledgeable." She finished, the corners of his mouth turned up more at her flattery. She paused a moment before she continued. "I didn't use magic on that man, but you did."

He groaned and nervously ran his hand up the back of his neck, ruffling his hair. "I was hoping no one would notice that."

"You might be able to hide things from most peasants, but not from me. You should keep that in mind if you're going to be my traveling companion. I know you're hiding who or what you really are." She said holding his gaze.

Regis swallowed nervously and looked away from her. She stopped in her tracks about a hundred yards from the inn.

"You helped me out back there. I owe you a debt now; I won't force you to tell me but be aware that I'm watching you. I will figure it out, one way or another. Don't abuse my trust, Regis, it's something I rarely hand out."

He blinked a few times at her, taking a moment to process her words. "Of course. I thank you for your trust and discretion."

"Enough chit chat. Let's gather our things and be rid of this place." She stated moving alongside the shrubbery, concealing herself as much as possible.

"Agreed." He said following her lead to the back of the inn. Luckily for them no one was around. They took their belongings mounted their horses and fled north, along the byway. The land was lush and fertile, the dirt road lined with plentiful grasses and trees. It was a much better view than the dessert land Evangeline had previously been traveling through, but it also gave monsters and men ample places to hide. She focused her attention to her senses; keeping herself alert for anything that might be lurking in the picturesque scenery.

They rode a distance in silence, the hours passing along from dusk to midnight, before Regis broke their silence.

"You never did answer me."

"Hmm?"

"I asked you where you were traveling to. There can't be many contracts for witchers this far south; considering this part of the world has 'moved on' and most monsters have hunted into extinction by you and your brethren."

"Jobs are sparse but still lucrative. I'm heading to Neunreuth."

"The merchant city. I wonder how much its changed since I was last there..." He pondered to himself before continuing. "Of all places, why there?"

"I received a contract form the merchant guild there. I must get there as quickly as possible; this won't be a pleasure quest. We will ride hard. I won't slow down for you. You'll keep up or I'll leave you behind." She said her eyes forward.

"I see, this must be a contract of some importance then."

"It seems their city is being plagued by a vampire; of what kind I'm still not certain."

Regis tensed at her words. "A... A vampire you say?"

"You can go your separate way before we get there, if you're worried."

"Aren't you? Worried, that is."

She shrugged. "I've battled all kinds of monsters before. It's all I know."

"But... Forgive me for my ignorance, but I've always heard vampires, of certain sorts, can blend in quite well and be a formidable foe, for even the best witcher. Does that not worry you?"

"Yes, and it's true some vampires are more intelligent than others. They also have different abilities compared to their lesser cousins. If this vampire is of the higher kind, which I'm thinking it is, it quite possibly will be the deadliest foe I've ever faced."

"But yet here you are, almost rushing into its deadly grasp."

"I'm a witcher, Regis. What else should I do?"

He shook his head. "Not bloody run off to your death head first."

"Would it bother anyone if I did? It's my job to rid the world of villainous creatures. I've trained my entire life for that purpose, underwent countless mutations to my body to be able to help rid the world of these monsters that plague, not just humans but all races. Who should care if I die attempting my job, other than the people I failed in doing so?"

"I'd care." He murmured, staring down at his hands as they rested on his saddle horn.

"Pardon?" She asked leaning over in the saddle, peering down at him.

"If you died, I'd care." He replied turning his gaze to meet hers.

"We've only just met. Why would you care if I died? You seem plenty capable of fending for yourself; you slaughtered those men to ribbons back there as quickly as I finished off those others, that is quite a feat in itself. You can bend people to your will with magic, something only sorcerers and witcher's can do proficiently. You don't need me to protect you, I'm not so ignorant as to believe that." She stated straightening up in her saddle and casting her eyes forward again.

"Then why did you allow me to accompany you? If you find me so suspicious." He asked cutting her off by pulling his horse in front of her blocking the path.

She bit her lip and looked away. "I told you why already."

"For the same reason you stared me down in that inn? For the same reason you -"

"I'm lonely..." She sighed gazing up into the moon. "I suppose, anyway. It's been so long since I've had someone of any kind of intelligence to talk to, I forgot what it was like. Perhaps, this is my last chance to have some human contact before I die. Because you're right, most assuredly this will be the hardest fight of my life." she finished turning her golden eyes back to him.

Regis swallowed hard and pulled his horse back. "I-I'm Sorry. Please forgive my actions. I don't know what possessed me to talk to you in such a way. I had no right."

"Let's make camp." She said feigning to ignore him, pulling her horse off the path into the copse of trees at the top of the hill. Regis nodded and silently followed her. They tied their horses to a tree a few yards away from a small clearing and dug a fire pit. They worked in silence as they both spread out to gather twigs and branches for their fire.

"You know, although I've heard tales of you, I'm afraid I don't know your name, Fair Witcher." Regis stated, breaking their silence as he lay his catch of twigs and branches into the pit.

"My apologies, I assumed you knew already. It's Evangeline." She said over her shoulder tossing some kindling into the pit

"Evangeline... the bearer of good news. Beautiful name; one seldom heard anymore."

"I've yet to meet another." She said as she kneeled next to the pit casting igni to light the fire. She walked away and gathered her bedroll from her horse and spread it near the fire.

"I thought I might go hunt and forage a bit."

She stared at him a moment contemplating her options; was a safe idea to let him wander the woods, or to turn her back to him this early on?

"I won't wander far or get lost. Promise." He smiled, holding a hand up in the air as if taking an oath.

"Damn, here I was hoping to lose you in the forest like a stray." She muttered with a roll of her eyes.

"I'll be the stray that comes right back, the one you can't get rid of." He smirked over his shoulder as he made his way into the woods.

"Just my luck." She grumbled finding a good tree to prop up against. He chuckled as he faded into the dark forest, leaving Evangeline to her thoughts.

'He's not natural. There's something off with him. He's uncanny. He's not a wticher, obviously not part elf but yet he's not a normal human either... if he is, he's a sorcerer and hiding it somehow, for some reason. Mysterious though, he may be, I still am drawn to him. Could it do any harm to let my guard down this one time? To live in the moment, with him... To let something happen... It's been so long.' She thought to herself as she kept watch. Her thoughts wandered as time went on; contemplating her options and trying to solve the conundrum of the man that accompanied her.

----------------------------

"The hunter returns." She stated as she heard him approaching.

"With a brace of coneys." Regis said holding up a pair of long eared rabbits. "And a few parsnips, onion and mushrooms as well. And I think I have a few good cooking herbs left in my satchel, come to think of it."

"However did you manage-"

"Throwing knives." He said pulling a small knife from his belt. "Another-"

"Trick of the trade?"

He nodded as he began to skin and gut the surprisingly, plump rabbits.

"I'll be damned. We couldn't have this good of a meal back at that inn." She said finding some branches to cut and make a roasting spit as he worked on the meat.

"There's also a small stream nearby; I filled my water-skin full. We can boil the vegetables and then add in the meat and herbs to make a decent stew, if you happen to have a proper receptacle that is."

"I have a mess kit in my bag; there's small stockpot along with some utensils and bowls." She said making her way over to her horse and rustling around in the saddle bag.

"I daresay, that will do quite nicely." He said with a quick smile as he made a mirepoix with the vegetables. "And roast the vegetables in the coals until the water boils." He muttered to himself as he took a large piece of rabbit fat and stuffed it, along with the parsnip, mushroom and onion, into the caul fat of the rabbit's stomachs. He twist the membrane around the vegetables to make a casing and slid it into the coals.

"Keeping you around might be beneficial after all." She joked as she handed him the stockpot and sat the bowls and spoons to the side.

"Just because one is in the woods does not mean one cannot have a decent meal. There are plenty of ways to cook in the wilds, and plenty of food to forage and hunt." He said holding up a finger and wagging it at her. "As long as one knows their surroundings."

"I've been on the path for years and I never eat this good; unless I'm in a city and paying a decent sum for it."

"I shall teach you then. We can eat like this almost every time we camp." He declared pulling out some herbs from his bag.

"Hmmm, I'll hold you to that." She said giving the rabbit a turn on the makeshift spit.

"Why don't you go ahead and get some rest. I'll take watch and finish cooking. I'm assuming you want to leave at first light."

"I do, we need to cover as much ground as possible." She paused a moment and gave him a hard stare.

"What?" He said with a crooked grin. "If you keep staring at me like that people will begin to think things." He said leaning in towards her seductively.

Evangeline rolled her eyes and pushed him away with the palm of her hand on his chest. "Don’t be getting any ideas, I'm only trying to analyze you."

"You doubt my ability to keep watch? Or cook? Perhaps both?" He said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes again. "Wake me up when the food is done, O' Keeper of the Watch." She stated tucking into her bedroll.

"What's this? The witcher is trusting me to do something on my own? -"

"Shut up Regis." She muttered turning away from him and the fire, pulling the blanket up to her chin.

He chuckled. "Goodnight, Evangeline."

She paused a moment, the words feeling foreign on her tongue. "Goodnight, Regis." She said with a slight blush, glad that her back was to him.

#witcher #the witcher #wiedźmin #emiel regis #fanfiction #fanfic #vampire #emiel regis rohellec terzieff-godefroy #my oc evangeline

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its-just-like-the-movies · 6 years

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Tom & Viv (94, C+)

Why this film: Because it lined up so perfectly with this month’s Smackdown! So how could I not?

The Film: Who exactly was the predicted audience for Tom & Viv back in 1994? I don’t mean this exclusively as a dig on the source material or the finished product, but it’s hard to picture that the story of T.S. Eliot’s tumultuous marriage would’ve inspired that much fervor back in the day. The adaptation of the original play began nine years after it debuted on the West End, receiving one Laurence Olivier nomination before getting an off-Broadway run and vanishing from the stage for over twenty years. This lack of fanfare seems even more exasperated by its legacy nowadays, if it can be called that, saved from obscurity by way of two surprisingly high-profile Academy Award nominations that would still only attract those who’re deeply invested in either of the nominated women, Oscar completists who are doing it just cuz, folks who like watching period dramas about unstable women, or T.S. Eliot fans.

Of those groups, I’d imagine that the Eliot fans interested in a portrait of the artist would be the most consistently underwhelmed by the film, if only because his work is kept strictly in the film’s periphery. It’s talked about but rarely read aloud or shown, the focus on the Eliot’s marriage so predominant that his rising success and the income that comes with it is dramatized through their material wealth more that it is explicitly referenced, at least not to the degree of any of their personal lives. In fact, Eliot’s personal life and family ties don’t seem to exist outside of Viv until his fames grows, while Viv’s relationships to her family is one of the film’s central points of tension. The repercussions of Eliot’s fame are certainly discussed, as Viv worries that Tom is replacing her with his new poet friends and having affairs with women in those circles who’re dazzled by his work. There’s also the complication that Viv frequently claims to be his muse, his editor, and his sounding board, demanding credit for having given The Wasteland its name. This is not a hagiography of the artist, but the film’s focus on Eliot’s marriage and interest in Viv’s artistic credentials might keep this from being the deep plumbing of the artist someone might be hunting for.

Then again, an even bigger preclusion for Eliot fans to get into the film is how unfathomably dull Willem Dafoe is in the part. Any potential into getting a portrait of the man alongside or even superseding a portrait of the artist is stopped in its tracks by Dafoe’s soft-spoken, milquetoast take on the part. The man simply comes off as boring and stuffy, never worthy of the intrigue posed by Viv, his fellow poets, adoring fans, or anyone who presumes him to be a worthwhile figure. Dafoe is so passionless in the part, speaking his lines as softly as possible while infusing them with zero emotion, refusing to cling to any sense of intellect or to make his accent sound remotely natural, that there’s simply no believing that he might be having an affair with any of the women Viv is terrified of and antagonistic towards. What on earth could have drawn Viv to him in the first place?

Dafoe’s performance represents one half of the dichotomy of problems that best defines what makes Tom & Viv such a palpably uneven experience. If he stands in for the moments where the film could easily shape itself up more, Miranda Richardson’s energized but dangerously overmannered take on Vivienne Eliot emblematizes the film’s worst indulgences into overstatement. Richardson is more than capable of conjuring an air of instability and roiling inner turmoil, writing our her character’s thoughts through the darting glances of her eyes and jittery movements, but her madness becomes so prescriptive that it loses almost all spontaneity. In her best moments, which see her being more clearly guided by the director or by her costars, Richardson is able to temper herself slightly without sacrificing her tics, though it’s clear in these moments how little modulation is actually in the performance, aside from the moments where she makes a point of showing us that she’s modulating the performance in a lower tempo. True, she genuinely calms down in the film’s last act, but her impact before this point is ultimately limited, her scene-by-scene choices too obvious for them to build in any interesting way.

The film itself seems to follow a trajectory from being too hopped-up on its own, sporadically ostentatious filmmaking techniques all the way to almost dangerously non-cinematic, not so much a filmed play as just unimaginatively put together. This is not to say that the film is ever a showcase for its makers - director Brian Gilbert seems more than happy to slap his actors in period wares and let them carry the picture - but it’s still noticeable when the editing or the score become the primary method for the film to goose our responses. Its earliest scenes are by far the worst, as the almost 40 year old Dafoe is so heavily made up to impersonate a college-aged youth that his face loses any and all distinguishing features. He looks like a doll whose face has had any gendered characteristics smoothed away, as if he were an uncanny valley animation of an androgynous doll. Richardson’s makeup is fine, but she’s forced to pantomime the free-spirited behavior of a young person by running around with her arms outstretched as though she were a plane, galavanting on a lawn with a sign asking passerby not to galavant on it. In the next scene they meet, and in the next they pack their bags to get married. These scenes are relatively calm, something the film compensates for by showing Viv undergoing an abject breakdown, destroying their hotel room and taking a lot of her prescribed medication after an unsuccessful roll in the honeymoon sack, dramatically cross-cut with Tom’s furrowed brow contemplatively paces the shoreline of a beach.

If the establishing third of Tom & Viv is ultimately its shakiest segment, there’s something to be said for the film’s middle third, as all the pieces start sparking against each other in unexpectedly bracing ways. Even if Dafoe is unforgivably bland and Richardson semi-predictable in her brazenness, the shifting textures of their relationship are more interesting to watch play out than expected. It helps that Brian Gilbert’s direction finds an appropriately undemonstrative but still semi-active mode of shaping his story. Neither truly imaginative nor fully perfunctory, he finds the right distance from Richardson’s whirlwinds that they become more impactful as character beats rather than harried actressing. Watching her mix a boiling vat of chocolate, grow more and more vocally irate at a dinner party, draw on a mannequin with lipstick, all these actions are more compelling for how they’re shot. Simple and effective, enhancing Richardson’s work and feeding into the story with unexpected poignancy as we start to grasp how threatened Vivienne must constantly feel by these invaders who can provide something for her husband she cannot, knowing all the while that they know it too and are talking about it behind her back. This is not to suggest too much of a sudden transformation in the film’s overall style or impact - Dafoe is still left to softly murmur on in his scenes, and the cadres of artists and admirers that pop up around him are never as distinct or entrancing as they might be. Especially as he starts to seriously consider kicking Viv in a sanitarium, growing increasingly weary of her behavior, Dafoe’s performance remains as damp and demure as ever. Her fears of adultery never ring as plausible, Dafoe even drags down Richardson and the script with as little effort as possible on his part. A hot-blooded Tom might’ve really tapped in to the script’s dramatic potential, but the sight of Viv fighting so hard against people who could all have a legitimate claim to her husband’s attention, borne from paranoia that doesn’t seem borne from absolutely nothing is frankly more compelling than it has any right to be. There’s clearly a version of this story about an unreliable man sending his unreliable wife to a sanitarium on dubious grounds, one stifled by a weak leading man and half-baked direction but still able to burst through the interpretation we’re getting at odd, unexpected angles.

There is at least one unabashed bright spot in the film, in the form of Rosemary Harris’s subtly affecting performance as the matriarch of the Haigh-Wood clan. Without ever working to undermine Tom & Viv’s leading actors, she nevertheless coaxes stronger, more consistent performances from Dafoe and especially Richardson, stabilizing the latter without forgoing Mrs. Haigh-Wood’s own characterization. The film is at its best when it follows the lead of her perfectly contained but still very palpable anxiety, and is never better than in the uncomfortable sequence of Tom having dinner with Vivienne’s immediate family for the first time. Viv spends most of the meal asking provocative, blatantly upsetting questions of her loved ones. Her family telegraph exhaustion at having had this kind of dinner table conversation too many times already but still irritated by her behavior, before Rose takes her daughter aside and gets her to actually calm down, only for her lucid confession about her feelings for Tom to startle her poor mother. It takes real intelligence to project a stable grasp of her daughter’s neuroses, worrying about her future with this new man while still finding room to be elated and disappointed by both of them without overacting. Particularly in her last scenes, hurt and confused after realizing that Viv tried to stab her - even if it was with a fake knife - but perhaps even more wounded that Tom packing Vivvie off to an asylum has proven how badly this man has failed Rose and her daughter, Harris proves herself an unfussy and emotionally sincere performer within a film less stable than its central marriage.

Harris is more of a face in the crowd in her second-to-last sequence, as one of several family members and doctors present for a verbal test to see if Vivienne is certifiable for sanitarium care. This is surprisingly the film’s weakest stretch, beginning with Tom trying to warn Viv before the doctors arrive as the two engage in unexpectedly romantic talk about the state of their relationship. Here, Richardson is the primary source of that romance, which comes across as sentimental and unearned considering that Viv is suddenly without her livewire physicality and higher pitched emotions. Now she speaks in a soft voice, speaks warmly, but she undermines any of the film’s complications by stating its theses in such a loving way. She’s not wrong to judge Tom for his own lies and put-ons and for not being able to face the music the way she wanted him to, but the fact that the Viv who’s saying this is so radically unlike the Viv we’ve spent the previous hour with undermines these ideas. And yet, her affectations return in an oddly performative key once the doctors arrive, as if she’s a deer caught in headlights and trying to hurl herself at them as the last defense mechanism she has left. That they even bother with the test instead of carting her right off after Viv attempts to stab her mother with a rubber knife is pretty bizarre in itself, but Richardson’s playing strips the scene of any dramatic potential or ambiguity as she intentionally answers one of the questions incorrectly. More than that, the filmmaking is complicit in romanticizing her last act of self-sabotage, as the score swells under close ups of Tom and Viv exchanging meaningful glances before she gives the wrong answer, the scene abruptly ending as if the test actually ended on the second question.

I said earlier that the film transitions from Viv-like over-enthusiasm to Tom-ish stultification, and though the scene above certainly fits that bill, a better description for the last third might be that they simply have no other function except as being the end to a story. Both partners, gracefully made up into middle age, speak of their devotion to each other despite the fact that Tom has not visited his wife or made any attempt to contact her at the sanitarium in ten years. Dafoe’s last scene is almost completely carried by the overwhelming, piano-heavy score as he gives the cold shoulder to an old friend Viv once said wanted to sleep with her. Meanwhile, Richardson finds the right tempo between containing the energy that’s defined her performance for most of the film while suggesting some genuine recovery over the past ten years. She’s relaxed and unsentimental in her final scene, giving a fond yet forceful line reading to “Chin up.”, as her brother tries not to cry, that’s more impactful than a line so blatantly structured as a farewell forever aimed at the heartstrings has a right to be. There’s little here that’s interesting in the way that the preceding half hour was, and Gilbert ranking the volume on that orchestra as the credits roll certified that I was far less moved than he was clearly expecting. If Tom & Viv ends as unevenly as it began, I’m not sure if what painfully doesn’t work is enough to dismiss the moments where it comes to some kind of bracing life. In the moments where Harris shows the pain of a mother watching her child implode, where Richardson’s neuroses click into place and the script’s darker subtexts are able to be furnished show the rich potential that this story ultimately has. Tom & Viv isn’t crying out for any retreads, and I’m not sure how much this story deserves to be saved from the unusual legacy of almost complete anonymity that only pedigreed English adaptations of biographies of poets resulting in two high-profile Oscar nominations can truly earn. But it’s not without its merits, and something this uneven has the kind of quiet but sturdy highs that can stand against its more visible and ungainly lows.

#my posts #my reviews #where were they then?

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stephicness · 7 years

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Taste :: Ravus Nox Fleuret x Ignis Scientia

What have you all done to me? Make me write Ravnis/Fleurentia? I blame you, @birdsandivory. Your headcanons are too good for this world! And you @gudetamazing. You encouraged me to write this too!

FFFFFFFFFFFF-

I have no regrets. I should write more with them. *thumbs up* And write more in general. I’ve been slacking off. D:

But here! This is dedicated to the people who dragged me down this hole. ANOTHER SHIP FOR THE ARMADA!

Word Count: 1761 Pairing(s): Ravus Nox Fleuret x Ignis Scientia Warnings: None. Just alot of sweetness. *finger guns*

“Is it really necessary for you to spend so long on this?”

Green eyes raised themselves upwards, half in a rolling manner and half in exasperation as he caught sight of the silver-haired man before him. Perched elegantly on his seat as usual, the man only seemed to watch with a judging expression. Perhaps not so much as the chef that stirred in the thick brown batter, but more at the batter itself. Lips were pressed together in that usual tensed expression of his, metal scratching against the marble countertop in slight rhythmic movements. He was trying to be subtle, but Ignis always knew. The man was impatient. Too eager to wait for the completed result of Ignis’s culinary endeavors – especially when sugar was involved.

It wasn’t until that heterochromatic gaze met Ignis’s own that it was only verified further. Like an angry puppy eager for attention. Or food. The expression often seemed synonymous with the white-haired man, considering that his expressional range was minuscule. Ignis let out a soft sight, reaching up with his clean middle finger to adjust his glasses frames further onto the bridge of his nose.

“If you keep complaining, I might give up on making this all together-“

“Do not dare threaten me like this, Scientia. This cake is very important to me.”

“Are you sure it’s that important?” Ignis’s eyebrow arched upward, his hand swiftly scooping up the glass bowl of batter. The silver-haired man’s eyes widened in horror as Ignis began to guide the bowl towards the sink. Before he could get up, Ignis snapped his fingers to him. Soon it was followed by point downwards, with the silver-haired man glaring in response before he slowly sat himself back down once more.

“I apologize… It is not as important as you are.”

“I thought so. You know better than to rush me, Ravus.” He gave a firm nod in response before he set the bowl back down in front of him and began to mix its contents once again.

The commander was a frightening force to be reckoned with.

But Ignis was far more terrifying that the commander would ever be.

Yet Ignis wasn’t one who was completely unsympathetic to Ravus. Especially now when he had to bear witness to the furrowed eyebrows and pressed lips as Ravus hung his gaze and held onto his prosthetic arm a bit tighter by the wrist. The usual pouting expression. Another look Ignis had grown quite familiar with.

Ravus’s sweet tooth was rather uncanny compared to the commander’s normal persona, but it was honestly a pleasant thing to find something that Ravus seemed to enjoy and be eager about – to feel at ease around. Each of the others in the party attempted to try making Ravus feel more at home within the group. From chocobo riding, to hunting, to fishing, and even one time attempting to teach Ravus to play poker.

They unfortunately regretted teaching him poker, for he swindled them out of everything they owned and loved. And their clothes.

Ignis, however, had a different idea, for food is universal. All he had to do was conduct his research and prepare the perfect dish that would make even Ravus’s guard lower for just a moment. Of course, he tried almost everything, but Ravus was a challenging contender in the battle for Eos’s most picky eater. He thought Noctis was bad, but Ravus definitely gave the prince a run for his money. He refused to eat anything where the portions were touching, his meat must always be prepared medium to medium-well, he never ever could eat things without at least a beverage with him – there was so many things that seemed to only make Ravus more uncomfortable with eating with the others than anything else.

That is, until dessert was served. The others were used to Ignis often making some sort of pastry by the end of the night, but to Ravus, it was an entirely new concept. Pastries were only ever eating during breakfast alongside a cup of tea. It was part of Ravus’s usual ritual. But to have a pastry late at night with a cup of coffee that Ignis (not-so) willingly gave Ravus? It was as if the others witnessed a new side to Ravus. One where they witnessed the high commander taking the strawberry cake Ignis had made, devour it as if it were his last meal, then actually be polite enough to actually thank Ignis for blessing him with such a delicacy.

Food is universal, and it can work its way into a man’s heart to soften it.

Well, so can being nice in general. Which is what Ignis did. But Ignis also cooks for Ravus, so that made it a bonus.

Nevertheless, Ignis was glad to see such a personality for Ravus, and he only grew more used to the subtly in the man’s expression as time passed. Only he seemed to be intelligent enough to understand Ravus, and that was quite alright. After all, he was content with Ravus’s company and friendship. The commander always had a busy schedule in tending to the group’s training regime as well as mapping out Imperial patrols to help the party avoid encounters with the Magitek infantry, but Ravus always managed to find time to keep Ignis company as he cooked. It was a part of the usual routines and expressions that Ignis memorized about Ravus, and it was something he valued.

Ignis finally let out a soft sigh as he looked at Ravus, speaking in-between tasting the residual chocolate from his fingertips before he wiped off his hands with a wet rag. “If you’re that eager for the cake, you’re more than welcome to try the batter at least.”

Ravus’s eyes seemed to light up, even if he tried his best to hold onto that serious and grumpy expression that always stained his pale skin. And in a quick movement, Ravus was to his feet as he circled to the other side of the counter next to Ignis. His hand reached over, index finger ready to scoop up the batter and taste it for himself.

That is, until Ignis’s hand latched on Ravus’s wrist and a stern expression crossed over his face. “Not with your fingers.”

“And why not?”

“Have you washed your hands today?” He felt Ravus tense under his hold before the commander took his hand away. “The last time someone stuck their hands in the ingredients without washing their hands, Gladio ended up getting petrified.”

“That is not a complicated task, considering he is as dumb as a rock.”

Ignis couldn’t stifle his laughter in time before it escaped from his lips. He cleared his throat before he looked up at Ravus again. “Still not an excuse. Don’t use your fingers to taste.”

“Then I will use the mixing spoon-“

“After Noct came by before and licked it?”

Ravus stopped mid-sentenced and growled a bit. Damn that black-haired little shit… There was no way he would share germs with the likes of him.

“Then perhaps you’ll have to wait until it’s finished. You should have reacted much sooner.”

The commander only grew more desperate in thought, as his eyes wandered to the batter then back to Ignis as the strategist began to pour and scoop out the batter into the tin until the bowl was almost completely cleaned. He almost watched in pain and agony as Ignis discarded the bowl into the sink, and then instinctively tasted the excess of the batter from the spoon before he moved the spoon to the cutting board he had been using. Using a spoon that the prince had licked was unacceptable. And yet, Ignis had already put the cake tin into the oven and began to clean up. Ravus let out a sight of defeat, eyebrows furrowing as his lips curled into a small frown.

Oh, he’d try that cake batter alright. He wasn’t going to lose this battle.

Especially when he eyed the faintest bit of chocolate left on the corner of Ignis’s lips.

Ravus was far from discreet about it as he slipped his arm through the front of Ignis’s apron and over the strategist’s shirt. The action was enough to provoke a gasp, heat turning and only to be secured towards the right as metal gently caressed his cheek. A light scratching, nothing malicious or painful. Ignis shuddered a bit at the cold metal, but he felt a shiver run down his spine as Ravus’s breath danced over his neck, moving up until he felt the commander’s lips press against the corner of Ignis’s mouth.

“Ravus, what in Eos’s name are you doing?”

“Having a taste.” Unable to object further, Ignis found his body being pressed further against Ravus’s taller figure, lips connecting to one another as Ignis was twisted in Ravus’s arms to meet the commander’s gesture. Perhaps it was unprecedented to have Ravus initiate such actions, but it wasn’t unheard of for Ravus to be provoked with annoyance and ultimately react in odd ways. This was perhaps no different. Only verified further as Ravus growled while his tongue ran over the bottom of Ignis’s lips. “You know better than to tease me like this, Scientia. Telling me I should have been quicker.”

“Surprising, since you’re usually the quickest of us both.” Ravus had to pull back from Ignis, looking surprised as such a remark before he glared at Ignis. How dare he bring up bedroom talk during a time like this. But the strategist merely chuckled as he undid the back of his apron, pulling it off so he could turn around and face the high commander with a proper expression, hands leaning back against the counter as he merely tilted his head up and eyed Ravus with a smirk over his lips. “You simply couldn’t wait for the cake to finish just so you can have something sweet?”

Ravus stepped closer to Ignis, hand gently sliding down Ignis’s arm before his fingers laced over the top of Ignis’s hand. “You assume as if the sweetness I desired was the cake.”

“Well, did I assume correctly?” The sideward glance only caused Ignis to chuckle in response. His hand adjusted itself to where he could secure a tighter hold onto Ravus’s hand. “I suppose you can have both sweet things then. Since you were so patient for most of the evening.”

Ravus hummed his lips curled at the corners as he brought his lips down against Ignis’s once again. “I will make sure to enjoy both with equal satisfaction.”

#stephic writings #fanfiction #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ravus nox fleuret #ignis scientia #ravus #ignis #ravnis #fleurentia #this is what hell looks like #sugar sweets and fluff #i have no regrets #must do more with them #ooooh boy

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

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Here's what you need to know about those CGI influencers invading your feed

Human influencers like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner might want to secure their positions in the influencer realm before they get ousted by glorified Sims.

That's right: There are now computer generated images that do exactly what human influencers do. There's a human behind each one — coming up with captions and manually generating the content — though it can be unclear who exactly that person is. The financial threads are equally hazy, but you can be sure that someone is making money off of these "people."

According to CBS, the digital influencer market is set to reach $2 billion in the next two years. The scariest thing is just how convincing these artificial influencers really are: 42 percent of people who were following a digital Instagrammer didn't realize it wasn't a real person, according to a recent study by the media company Fullscreen.

SEE ALSO: 'Alita: Battle Angel' is relevant for cyborgs and humans alike

I set out to understand who exactly these new influencers are, and why they exist. That involved interacting with them — or at least trying to. The feeling of being left on read by people who don't exist is a unique one. It also made me feel like they're hiding something. But here's what we know ... so far.

Rest assured, they'll either save us from the digital malaise we’ve all scrolled ourselves into, or destroy us further.

Lil Miquela, 1.5 million followers

Lil Miquela, or Miquela Sousa, is a perpetually 19-year-old girl from Downey, California. She has all the necessary ingredients for Insta-success: good looks, flashy clothing, a nonexistent yet bottomless bank account, and a passion for activism. It's easy to forget you're looking at a bot when reading her captions, which are sprinkled with witty remarks and relatable musings. "No lie, I wish I’d been assembled in the ’90s ..." she quips, echoing the very human desire to be from another time. It's part of what makes her so popular — and so uncanny.

View this post on Instagram

So am I just going to have crushes on everyone this year? That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Cool, cool.

A post shared by *~ MIQUELA ~* (@lilmiquela) on Jan 4, 2019 at 5:08pm PST

The algorithmic babe was named one of the 25 most influential people on the internet by Time last year, alongside Busy Philips and Logan Paul. (She was the only non-human to make the cut.) It's safe to say the integration of bot personalities into the mainstream has begun.

In addition to being an influencer, she’s also a singer and merch seller. Miquela has around 52,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Not bad for someone who doesn’t exist in the physical realm.

And the merch? Socks from Club 404, Lil Miquela's overpriced swag brand, will run you $30 for two pairs.

But wait a second, why CGI influencers?

Before we introduce more of these new age avatars, it's important to understand how they came to be. Cue Brud. And Cain Intelligence.

Brud is the LA-based tech startup credited with Miquela's existence. It's described as a "transmedia studio that creates digital character driven story worlds," whatever that means. Other than that, it's pretty much a mystery. We do know that it was founded by two people: Sara DeCou and Trevor McFedries, neither of whom could be reached for comment.

Cain Intelligence is even more of a mystery. Founded by Daniel Cain, who may or may not be real, the company is another startup. It describes itself as "the industry leader in Conscious Language Intelligence (CLI), a type of Artificial Intelligence that allows for humans to engage with our specialized robots in free-format, natural language." The website feels bleak and dark, something a villain in a spy movie would create. (It's also pro-Trump.)

If you're reading this and you're confused, that's sort of the point. Lil Miquela and Blawko, another CGI influencer, are characters created by Brud. Bermuda, also a CGI influencer, was made by Cain Intelligence. Allegedly. But wait: Bermuda now has Brud's Instagram page tagged in her own bio, followed by the message "Look closer"; likewise, Brud's bio identifies Bermuda as a client. Seems like Cain was a marketing hoax to launch Bermuda and her right-wing agenda? As a scheme to get attention for the entire CGI universe Brud has created, it seems to have worked.

The only person I was able to get in contact with about these three CGI influencers was Jemma Litchfield from Huxley, the creative agency that represents Miquela, Bermuda, and Blawko. In an email, she said she "looked after Miquela." She said they weren't doing interviews, but she'd fact check for me, if I'd like. She didn't offer any clarification about Brud or Cain Intelligence, but instead shifted some sentences around and corrected my first-draft grammar.

Perhaps the enigmatic nature of Brud and Cain is the reason their influential prototypes have become so successful and so followed. Curiosity today usually leads to a Google search. But when there's no information available beyond what you already know, it can prompt a fascination. Or frustration.

Anyway, meet Miquela's digital squad: Bermuda and Blawko.

Bermuda, 133k followers

Bermuda is a controversial blonde known for stirring the digital pot. She's pro-Trump and describes herself as a "robot supremacist." She also once hacked Miquela's page, which gained followers for both of them, pushing Miquela past the 1 million mark, a milestone that opens up a lot of doors in influencer world, including lucrative brand deals with prominent designers.

Now Bermuda and Miquela are friends who hang out, go to lunch, and put makeup on each other— digitally.

View this post on Instagram

💚💚💚 Decided to give Twitter another try. I’m BermudaIsBae there, too. 💚💚💚 In a great mood today and I hope you all are, too. Mwah!

A post shared by Bermuda (@bermudaisbae) on Nov 12, 2018 at 5:27pm PST

Blawko, 135k followers

Miquela and Bermuda are joined by another Brud-born character, Blawko, whom they both seem smitten with. Just like Miquela and Bermuda, he offers an eerily authentic personality. He plays video games, goes on dates, and doesn't clean his room. As for the bizarre love triangle between him, Miquela, and Bermuda ... Are we supposed to imagine them in compromising positions? Is this a clear representation of CGI flirtation by default? We're not really sure!

View this post on Instagram

heaux heaux heaux

A post shared by 🅱️LAWKO (@blawko22) on Dec 20, 2018 at 3:34pm PST

Aside from the Brud crowd, there are other CGI influencers out there in the digital space.

Lil Wavi, 12.1k followers

If you squint, Instagram user @lil_wavi might seem like just another Soundcloud rapper-looking hypebeast, dressed in the latest streetwear and spattered with tattoos. Upon further inspection, you'll see he's a digitally-rendered avatar in human clothing. His graphics give off an edgy early-2000s Sims vibe. Since he "lives in a computer," he can get his hands on expensive pieces of designer clothing that he describes as "the drip" and cites as his main draw. "I’m all about innovation, encouraging creativity, pushing minds to think out of the shitty boundaries," he — or, rather, the unidentified human speaking for him — told Mashable over email. "I want my fans to be influenced in that way. It’s important to me that I am sending positive vibes out to them all."

View this post on Instagram

Flameboyyyy 🛸🏴‍☠️ yuhhh my $$ fly 💸💸💸 y’all ready for merch?

A post shared by 🛸LIL WAVI🛸 (@lil_wavi) on Jan 28, 2019 at 10:05am PST

Noonoouri, 279k followers

Brand deals and fashion show appearances abound for this influencer. It's unclear how a digital avatar can attend IRL events, but a quick scroll of her page will show her doing just that. Noonoouri takes her role as influencer very seriously. When Vogue Australia asked about her favorite beauty products, she answered, "I love KKW Beauty contour and highlight — they truly work!" Since she's done ads — on YouTube and on Instagram — for KKW Beauty before, it's no surprise that she would plug the products. What's surprising is that a digital persona who looks straight out of a Pixar short is using makeup and getting paid for it.

Joerg Zuber, Noonoouri's creator, spent several years making her before debuting the influencer on Instagram. A visit to her page suggests she was recently in Africa for a number of fashion-related appearances. And she's from Paris, France, according to her Instagram bio. "I am who I am. If I can help or support others I am very happy. I believe in swarm intelligence. In times like these we need to share and not to hold back," she told Mashable via email.

"I have a real soul," says Noonoouri.

Image: Joerg zuber

Shudu, 172k followers

Self-identified as "The World's First Digital Supermodel," Shudu was created by beauty photographer Cameron James Wilson as an art project. She blew up when her image was featured on Rihanna's Fenty Beauty Instagram page. In the photo, she's modeling one of the buzzy beauty line's lip products and smizing for the ... computer? Though she's more model than influencer, her likeness is used to sell, too. Shudu doesn't have a personality, per se, but it's because Wilson hasn't come across a human that could do her justice — yet: "Only someone similar to Shudu would be appropriate to tell her story, and really shape who she is as ‘person,’" he mused to Mashable via email. He supports the movement to create more digital supermodels like Shudu: "It doesn’t matter who you are, if you study art and learn how to use 3D programs, you too can be a 6ft tall virtual runway model!"

View this post on Instagram

Shudu @thesavoylondon trying on beautiful #EEBAFTAs outfits, complete with @atelierswarovski earrings. 6 days to go till she shares #redcarpet looks with you all. . @ee @BAFTA . . #3D #3Dart #digitalsupermodel #worldsfirstdigitalsupermodel #virtualinfluencer #BTS

A post shared by Shudu (@shudu.gram) on Feb 4, 2019 at 11:07am PST

Barbie, 6.2 million subscribers

Here's a familiar face. The uber-popular icon that is Barbie has a digital counterpart, and she's a vlogger. Her first video, in which she introduces herself, went up in 2015. In it, she talks about being from Wisconsin (who knew?) and having a sister. "I've always just been curious about things," she shares earnestly, her huge animated eyes blinking like those of a human YouTuber. Since then, she's uploaded over 75 vlogs, most of which include her sister Skipper and boyfriend Ken, to the YouTube channel owned and operated by Mattel. Barbie is the OG influencer — she's known for doing a million different jobs and having fun while doing them. Why reinvent the wheel?

youtube

Balenciaga's digi-models

While you can't follow these influencers, they're worth mentioning. To show off their Spring 2019 collection on Instagram, Spanish fashion house Balenciaga utilized shape-shifting digital models made by artist Yilmaz Sen. In a series of short video clips on Instagram, the digital models sparked questions about the future of technology in fashion. With cool haircuts and names like Elsa and Ruben, everything about them screams high fashion. However, unlike human models that walk down runways, these models stand in place and distort themselves like they're made of rubber. Because all haute couture should be shown on computer-generated contortionist models!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Balenciaga (@balenciaga) on Nov 14, 2018 at 1:53am PST

What's next, then?

Tapping around on these digi-fluencer's pages provides an exciting, if not unsettling, look at the future of technology and the part it may play in pop culture. Some question the validity, appeal, and purpose of these bots. Perhaps it's performance art. Or maybe it's all just an elaborate stunt to leverage consumer action? YouTuber Shane Dawson has a popular video dedicated to uncovering the identity of Lil Miquela. He even calls her on the phone — only to be met with a clearly auto-tuned voice who's careful not to give anything away, or falter at all.

Liz Bacelar, a tech expert, mused to Forbes that we could potentially find ourselves living in a world in which we all have a digital avatar. And with facial recognition being insidiously installed in mundane places (like gas stations) in order to advertise, secure, and identify us, this may be sooner than we think. Just imagine, we'll be in self-driving cars, scrolling by digitized avatars trying to make us use their discount codes. Or perhaps we'll allow our digitized selves to live for us, like we've seen in futuristic movies like Ready Player One and Wall-E.

Think of your new CGI friends as the pixelated pioneers of a new, formulated frontier. Who knows? Maybe our human selves could be rendered virtually useless. For now, though, we can just keep an eye on Instagram.

WATCH: Dunkin' and Saucony release running shoe ahead of Boston Marathon

#_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_uuid:8b8db620-cdb5-39b6-b9bd-f5de5787ae55 #_author:Harry Hill #_revsp:news.mashable

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neptunecreek · 6 years

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Building the “Great Collective Organism of the Mind” at The John Perry Barlow Symposium

Individuals from the furthest corners of cyberspace gathered Saturday to celebrate EFF co-founder, John Perry Barlow, and discuss his ideas, life, and leadership.

The John Perry Barlow Symposium, graciously hosted by the Internet Archive in San Francisco, brought together a collection of Barlow’s favorite thinkers and friends to discuss his ideas in fields as diverse as fighting mass surveillance, opposing censorship online, and copyright, in a bittersweet event that appropriately honored his legacy of Internet activism and defending freedom online.

Thanks to the magic of fair use, you can relive the Symposium any time by visiting the Internet Archive. Video begins at 48:00.

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After a touching opening from Anna Barlow, John Perry Barlow’s daughter, EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn kicked off the speaker portion of the event:

“To me, what Barlow did for the Internet was to articulate, more and more beautifully than almost anyone, that this new network had the possibility of connecting all of us. He saw that the Internet would not be just a geeky hobby or toy like ham radios, or only a military or academic thing, which is what most folks who knew about it believed. Starting from the Deadheads who used it to gather, he saw it as a new lifeblood for humans who longed for connection, but had been separated.”

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn.

While the man himself may not have been present, Barlow’s connection—and influence—was palpable throughout the Symposium, with a dozen distinguished speakers and hundreds in attendance conversing, delivering remarks, and offering up questions about the past, the present, the future, and Barlow’s impact on all of it. The first speaker (and EFF’s co-founder along with Barlow), Mitch Kapor, told the audience: “I can feel his generous and optimistic spirit right here in the room today inspiring all of us.”

EFF co-founder Mitch Kapor with Pam Samuelson.

Barlow’s genius, said Kapor, was that in 1990, while most Internet usage was research- and military-based, he “absolutely nailed the Internet’s essential character and what was going to happen.”

Samuelson and Barlow speak with with Bruce Lehman, head of the USPTO in 1996.

Pam Samuelson, Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out that Barlow’s 1994 treatise on copyright in the age of the Internet, The Economy of Ideas, has been cited a whopping 742 times in legal literature. But he didn’t just give lawyers an article to cite—Barlow helped the world understand that copyright had a civil liberty dimension and galvanized people to become copyright activists at a time when traditional notions of information access would be shaken to their core.

Freedom of the Press Foundation's Trevor Timm.

Trevor Timm described Barlow as “the guiding light” and “the organizational powerhouse” of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which he co-founded with Barlow in 2012. On the day the organization launched, Timm recalled, Barlow wrote: “When a government becomes invisible, it becomes unaccountable. To expose its lies, errors, and illegal acts is not treason, it is a moral responsibility. Leaks become the lifeblood of the Republic.” His hope was that the organization would inspire a new generation of whistleblowers—and the next speaker, Edward Snowden, made clear he’d achieved this goal, telling the audience: “He raised a message, sounded an alarm, that I think we all heard. He did not save the world, none of us can—but maybe he started the movement that will.”

Whistleblower Edward Snowden talks about Barlow's impact.

The speakers answered questions on Facebook privacy, their disagreements with Barlow (of which there were many, ranging from the role of government overall to whether copyright was alive or dead), and what comes next in our understanding of the web. Cory Doctorow, EFF Special Advisor and emcee of the Symposium alongside Cindy Cohn, answered this in “Barlovian” fashion: “We could sit here and try to spin scenarios until the cows come home and not get anything done, or we can roll up our sleeves and do something.”

EFF’s former Executive Director (and current director of the Tor Project) Shari Steele began the second panel, discussing Barlow’s deeply-held belief in the First Amendment, insistence on hearing opposing viewpoints, and interest in bringing together diverse opinions: “That’s how he thrived...He was always encouraging people to talk to each other—to have conversations where you normally maybe wouldn’t have thought this was somebody you would have something in common with. He was fascinating, dynamic, and helped us create an Internet that has all sorts of fascinating and dynamic speech in it.”

Shari Steele, John Gilmore, and Joi Ito.

John Gilmore, EFF Co-founder and Board Member, invoked French philosopher and anthropologist Teilhard de Chardin, whose ideas Barlow specifically referenced in his writings. Barlow’s interest in mind-altering experiences, like taking LSD, said Gilmore, wasn’t just related to his love of the Internet: it came from the exact same place, an interest in creating the “great collective organism of mind” that Barlow hoped we might one day become.

Steven Levy, author and editor at large at Wired.

Author Stephen Levy, the writer of Hackers, thought that though Barlow may be well known as a writer of lyrics for the Grateful Dead, he will possibly be even better known by his words about the digital revolution. In his view, Barlow was a terrific writer and a master storyteller “capable of pulling off a quadruple-axle level of nonfiction difficulty.” His gift was to be able to not only “explain what was happening to the out-of-it Mr. Joneses of the world, but to encapsulate what was happening, to celebrate it, and to warn against its dangers in a way that would enlighten even the...people who knew the digital world—and to do it in a way that the reading was a pure pleasure.”

Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab.

Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, described Barlow’s sense of humor and optimism—the same “you see when you talk to the Dalai Lama.” Today’s dark moments for the Internet aren’t the end, he said, and reminded everyone that Barlow had an elegant way of bringing these elements together with activism and resolve. His deep sense of humor came “from knowing how terrible the world is, but still being connected to true nature.” Ito also touched upon Barlow's groundbreaking essay A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as a crucial "battle cry for us to rally around," taking the budding cyberpunk movement and helping it become a socio-political one.

The second panel fielded questions on encryption, Barlow’s uncanny ability to show up in the weirdest places, and how we can inspire the next generation of Barlows. Echoing EFF’s mission of bringing together lawyers, technologists, and activists, Joi Ito said that we will need engineers, lawyers, and social scientists to come together to redesign technology and change law, and also change society—and that one of Barlow’s amazing abilities was that he could talk to, and influence, all of these people.

Twenty-seven years later, EFF continues to work at the bleeding edge of technology to protect the rights of the users in issues as diverse as net neutrality, artificial intelligence, opposing censorship, and fighting mass surveillance.

Ameila Barlow reads from the 25 Principles for Adult Behavior.

Amelia Barlow, John Perry’s daughter, thanked the “vast web” of infinitely interesting and radical human beings around the world who he cared about and cared about him. “Never before have you been able to draw more immediately and completely upon him—and I want you to feel that,” she said, before reading his now-famous 25 Principles for Adult Behavior.

Anna Barlow reflects on her father's life.

As Anna Barlow said in her opening remarks, Barlow’s adventures didn’t stop in his later years—they just started coming to him. Some of the most brilliant thinkers in the world showed that this will remain true even while his physical presence is missed. Perhaps the Symposium was one step towards creating the “great collective organism of mind” that Barlow hoped to see us all become. And at the very least, Anna said, he doesn’t have to be bummed about missing parties anymore—because now he can go to all of them.

Cory Doctorow gives parting words on honoring Barlow.

Cory Doctorow closed the Symposium with a request:

“This week—sit down and have the conversation with someone who’s already primed to understand the importance of technology and its relationship to human flourishing and liberty. And then I want you to go varsity. And I want you to have that conversation with someone non-technical, someone who doesn’t understand how technology could be a force for good, but is maybe becoming keenly aware of how technology could be a force for wickedness.

And ensure that they are guarded against the security syllogism. Ensure that they understand too that we need not just to understand that technology can give us problems, but we must work for ways in which technology can solve our problems too.

And if you do those things you will honor the spirit of John Perry Barlow in a profound way that will carry on from this room and honor our friend who we lost so early, and who did so much for us.”

Join EFF

Donate in honor of John Perry Barlow

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