#in its dormant state it would Very much benefit from being the kind of place where wounded animals want to die

[mumblesplash]

sure sculk LOOKS like cold slimy cave fungus but i think it would be more unsettling if it was soft and warm, especially near the catalysts. it wants you feel safe, it wants you to stay

#mumbling #TIME FOR 11PM SCULK THOUGHTS WOOO #just sittin here. thinkin about the ancient cities. again #you know me #but yeah what if it’s comfy #have we considered this #in its dormant state it would Very much benefit from being the kind of place where wounded animals want to die #i do think it’s still kinda slimy though #bc it’s supposed to be underwater #minecraft #sculk #ancient cities

[vagrantblvrd]

jeremavinwood supervillains?

Oh, friend, I know I should aim for the Totally Serious take on your prompt?

And yet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So.

Let’s say in this AU superheroes and of course supervillains are A Thing.

Everyone knows about them and there are fans of both and it’s not a big deal to anyone there.

Ryan’s this computer/tech-type guy looking for a job and he just so happens across this job opening online, right? One of those job listing sites and it’s just odd/quirky enough to stand out from the rest of the listings he’s browsing through one day.

Has more character to it, and also job perks/benefits. The only thing it he’d have to move cities for it, but he’s not all that attached to the one he’s living in at the time and decides sure, why the hell not, you know?

So Ryan applies for the job and doesn’t think too much about it. One of those ones where it would be nice to get, but not something he’s banking on or has any real investment in, and in the meantime he gets all these interviews and the like for the others openings he applied for.

Nothing that sounds promising once he gets the chance to talk to hiring manager/whoever, and he’s getting - not worried, exactly, because he’s got enough in the bank and various investment things he can afford to turn them down when they offer him work.

And then, just when he’d forgotten about the weird job listing he gets an email.

Again, kind of weird? All Dramatic and the whatnot, but he figures maybe this guy is just Eccentric or whatever and is just interesting enough Ryan takes the job. (This feeling in the back of his head that the guy’s got to be part of the supers world, which is a first for Ryan, but whatever. He was getting bored of the usual thing anyway, so yeah.)

Takes him a few weeks to deal with everything where he’s living at the time and get out to the new job.

Thank goodness it comes with a place for him to stay until he can find something more suited to him if he likes and so on, right?

Only thing is, by the time he gets to the city the guy who hired him is nowhere to be found.

Ryan gets to the address he was given, which isn’t much to look at from the outside. Looks like an old warehouse the guy bought, maybe big aspirations and such hoping to turn it into the home of the business he started that he told Ryan he needed a computer/tech guy to help get off the ground.

Still, the code Ryan was sent works for the keypad on the front door and when he gets inside the place is still pretty unimpressive?

Ryan walks around and makes a face because it’s kind of a dump. All this trash and debris and bits and bobs that add up to a mistake on Ryan’s part, but then he bumbles into some activation device/panel that activates the AI that’s been keeping an eye on the place.

Because, wouldn’t you know it?

The guy who put out that job listing Ryan that caught Ryan’s eye is, indeed, part of the whole supers world.

A supervillain, as it may be, and Ryan is just ??? and then !!! as he realizes this, the AI spinning up from the dormant state it’s been in since its creator went and got got by the local police.

Which  is something  Ryan finds out when he asks the AI where his supposed employer is, because this is super weird and all?

Turns out he got pulled over thanks to a dumb traffic violation, which turned into an Altercation the local superheroes got called in on and now the guy’s kist really, really dead.

Headlight out and cop pulling him over to tell him to get it fixed and he’d let it slide this time, but the supervillain is on the high-strung side of things and flipped the fuck out resulting in the city’s superheroes stepping in to help bring him in and all because massive property damage and so on and all because he couldn’t keep his cool when faced with a traffic stop.

(Which explains what all the street detours and cleanup that made traffic into the city a nightmare Ryan didn’t think too much about since there’s always a mess with all the supers around. Not like he knew his new employer was involved in it or anything.)

Anyway, the AI has been given all the information on Ryan - loads more than what Ryan put on his application or told the guy over the phone and in video calls, but uh, the whole supervillain thing kind of explains all that away.

Turns out Ryan’s been given clearance to get into the bunker under the warehouse which is where the supervillain was doing all his Plotting and Scheming.

Not a major name yet, but he around long enough to have the kind of money to put into a Proper Supervillain Lair. (Including the Mad Scientist Lab and while it hasn’t been fully installed just yet there’s an area for a shark tank, so that’s cool.)

Ryan is kind of weirded out as he gets a glimpse of these half-finished Schemes and Plots all over the place (improving on them in his head before he catches himself and moves on to explore the rest of the Lair) and is like hmm, okay then, because what else is he gonna do

AND THEN.

Once he’s looked around the whole place - or the areas he’s cleared to go - the AI directs him to a living area and the suite that was meant to be his before he found a place of his own.

It’s late and also been a hell of a day - hours spent traveling and then discovering he inadvertently became a henchman and all that and hey, the bed actually looks pretty comfy?

So he goes to sleep and figures he can decide where to go from here in the morning, right?

Do the right thing and call the authorities to come and check the place out and go back to looking for a normal job. (Assuming the local authorities don’t think he was in on the supervillain’s whole deal the entire time and throw him in jail.)

The next morning he makes a call to the local police and realizes pretty damn fast they’re what you might call overzealous? Rabid, maybe, the way they immediately think he’s making a threat as opposed to informing them of this potentially Very Dangerous supervillain Lair and asking them to deal with it so he can get back to his uneventful life?

He hangs up the moment he realizes they think he’s Totally Evil and Must Be Stopped and is just ??? because what now?

And, you know, the AI is just, “Well...” and then one of the screens in the command center Ryan was making his phone call in lights up and all these protocols and contingent plans pop up as to how to secure the warehouse and bunker it’s built over in case of discovery and such.

Ryan stares at all of it for a moment because talk about your over the top supervillain bullshit? But there are some reasonable ideas in there he can tweak and all that and anyway, not like he’s got much planned for himself as is, so...

Okay, right.

Maybe he makes an attempt to get in touch with the city’s superheroes first to hand the Lair and all that over (or tip them off, whatever), but he gets pretty much the same response the cops had, so he decides to go with fortifying the Lair’s defenses and suchlike.

And then ~*MONTAGE*~ in which Ryan ends up pretty much renovating the place from the top down.

Tearing out walls and such and old t-shirt and sweats and rewiring and halfway through he realizes he doesn’t know as much about that shit as he thinks he does so he calls in an electrician?

Which.

Yeah, he knows, but apparently the supervillain had a whole list of - at the very least - neutral parties - in the whole construction and such business . (Who else would build the superhero bases/supervillain Lairs for the supers who weren’t big enough to afford their own people and couldn’t do it themselves? Really.)

Anyway, that brings Michael into the picture who looks around at the Lair and what Ryan’s manages to do in the time he’s been there and is just.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, let me take care of this,” and so Ryan has a surly/cranky electrician rewiring the whole Lair and such while he deals with other matters.

And that’s, like.

Distracting because the aforementioned ~*MONTAGE*~ with the old t-shirts and sweats and it gets pretty hot in the Lair (that’s a thing Ryan needs to call in more experts for later, because yeah) and some days he’ll check on how Michael’s doing and he’ll do the thing where he wipes sweat off his forehead with his arm and Ryan is suddenly in a romcom and anyway.

Distracting.

So off he goes to deal with the computer/tech guy shit while Michael grumbles and growls. (Ryan will be back later for lunch, because Michael needs to eat too and he knows the good takeout places in the city and if they sit and chat and suchlike it’s not a big deal or anything, you know?

Really.

Anyway.

They’re working on getting the place up and fully functional before any cops or superheroes bust in, but it’s a lot of work, you know?

And in the meantime life goes on and one night the AI (that Ryan has taken to calling E.D.G.A.R. because some totally Ryan reasons about it kind of sort of being in a hole, what with its core being located in the Lair which is indeed underground and all that and also an acronym I don’t have the brainpower to go into at the moment but it definitely totally lame and/or nerdy) alerts him there’s an intruder.

Ryan is ??? because who the hell - and then !!! because what if it’s the authorities???

But no, no.

Ryan goes to the command center and watches the security feeds to realize there’s a goddamn thief slipping through the Lair’s corridors.

Michael’s there watching too because either E.D.G.A.R. called him down there after realizing he’s Important to Michael (has been given all the clearances and such that Ryan can give him while he works on cracking the ones the supervillain who hired him still has up so he can gain full access of the Lair and its amenities) and so on.

Anyway, the two of them watch this little thief get past several security measures before E.D.G.A.R. finally manages to pin him down in a room. All these lasers and other deadly traps and only an idiot would try their luck.

So of course there’s this moment where it looks like the thief is giving serious thought to doing just that before he obviously decides better. Huffs and pouts and looks directly at the hidden cameras watching him to scowl at Ryan and Michael who share a look because what the fuck, right?

They go to the room the thief is caught in - E.D.G.A.R. disengaging traps as they go, just enough to keep the thief pinned but not put them in danger - and the little bastard is annoyed.

British accent and clearly not from around here (or not that long, at any rate) and what the hell does he think he’s doing?

To which Gavin is like, what the hell do they think they’re doing, hmm? Last he heard the supervillain that had hired Ryan had set this place up, and when he went and got got the payment Gavin had been promised for a little job for him fell through and Gavin, okay.

Figured the bastard wouldn’t mind that much (couldn’t do anything about) Gavin coming in here and picking up a few things he could sell off to someone else to make up for the money he never got paid for services rendered.

But, oh, look.

Someone just happened to come along and set up shop in the abandoned Lair like it was finder’s keepers and mind letting Gavin go now?

Ryan’s kind of ??? because hell if he knows what to do, right? Doesn’t really want to keep Gavin locked up here even if it might be a smart thing to do (no telling if he’d go running off to the authorities the moment they let him out and all) even if there are cells on a lower level.

Michael looks a little like he’d like to pretend he never saw Gavin, leave him pinned in here and go back to sleep and fuck if it’s any of his business what happens to him, but Ryan knows better.

And anyway, anyway, Ryan’s not actually a supervillain or a loyal henchman or whatever. He’s just some poor bastard who applied for the wrong job and got in waaaaaay over his head.

So.

He tells E.D.G.A.R. to disengage the lasers and traps keeping Gavin in place and points towards the Mad Scientist/gadget lab Gavin was clearly headed towards. Tells him to take what he wants, but if any of it gets used against him or Michael or the authorities come sniffing around he’ll regret it, you know?

And then he heads off presumably to go back to sleep. (Really he goes back to the command center to see what Gavin will do now, but shhh.)

Michael grumbles at Gavin, but when it comes down to it it’s not like he has any say here, so he actually goes back to bed.

Gavin dithers for a moment sure it’s a trap? But when nothing happens for a bit he shrugs and goes to root around the Mad Scientist/gadget lab for stuff he can sell.

E.D.G.A.R. keeps an eye on him, but Gavin’s not about to test his luck and gets what he came for and leaves as quickly as he can.

But then, okay, but then.

He gets curious, he does.

Sells off the gadgets and whatevers he stole and does some poking around.

Already knew about Michael being one of those neutral parties people in this city are always hiring when their superhero base/supervillain Lair needs repairs or what have you, but Ryan?

Nothing about him being involved with any supers or even any criminal business ever.

Does some more digging and eventually finds a profile for Ryan on one of those job sites out there and kind of dies laughing when that leads him to the job listing that caught Ryan’s eye way back when from the supervillain.

And then, okay.

He’s just all-over curious about Ryan - definitely could have killed Gavin or locked him up or whatever and didn’t. And then there’s Michael, surly bastard that he is, but not too hard on the eyes and anyway, anyway.

He goes and breaks back in to the bunker/Lair.

This time E.D.G.A.R.’s not quite prepared for him, because Gavin’s good at what he does, but he’s not completely blindsided.

Asks Gavin what he’s doing as Gavin bypasses security measures and crawls through vents and whatever else to get to the Lair proper. They have a pleasant little chat and by the time Gavin gets to the command center Ryan’s there with a bemused expression because it’s the middle of the night and what even is going on right now?

Michael’s over at a console grumbling about something because insomnia and some new tangle of a problem and might as well deal with it now, right?

Ryan’s likewise trying to crack another firewall or other doohickey keeping him from gaining complete access to the Lair and such and seriously, Gavin, what the hell.

To which Gavin is just, “Have you tried *insert cool hacker stuff here*?”

Ryan is “What?”

Michael’s swearing stops and his head pops up and even E.D.G.A.R. is Quiet because ???

Gavin rolls his eyes and huffs and pushes Ryan aside to do some hacker stuff on the console he’s working at for what he mentioned to work. Cheerful little chime and more of the Lair/E.D.G.A.R.’s abilities and the whatnot unlocking for Ryan.

And then Gavin’s like oooh, because there’s a lot of fascinating stuff there and before long he, too, joins Ryan’s little motley crew of who even knows anymore.

Which is just aggravating because Gavin is an absolute troll and a terrible human being and Ryan Suffers when he and Michael team up against him, he truly does.

Just like.

Gavin’s relentless Questions and his Bad Science just to fuck with Ryan and that goddamned little chuckle/chortle of his when he’s being a little shit.

(Also, also, the way he gets Michael so freaking riled up and laughs like it’s the best damn thing, okay.)

ANYWAY.

Yeah.

So now the three of them are just living their weird little lives getting the bunker/Lair up to snuff when some guy rings the warehouse buzzer one day.

Short guy, horrible fashion sense.

None of them have any damn idea what he’s doing there? But when Ryan goes to talk to him they find out he’s there in response to a job listing for security.

Someone to patrol the warehouse and not ask too many questions about anything odd he might hear or see or whatever. (Not in so many words, but read between the lines and all and it’s the same damn thing.)

Anyhow, Jeremy’s like.

“Oh, that sucks,” when Ryan tells him the guy who was supposed to hire them both was not only an actual supervillain but also super, super dead, and sorry, but not looking good for the job Jeremy was expecting to find.

Ryan feels bad about it, given he’s more or less claimed the bunker/Lair for himself (and the other two idiots), but -

E.D.G.A.R. who’s patched into the comms and the earpiece Ryan’s got in suggests it might not be a terrible idea to have someone  keeping an eye out for any trouble coming there way.

Like.

E.D.G.A.R. is monitoring things for them, but never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes, you know?

And hey, Ryan was in Jeremy’s shoes not too long ago himself, so of course he agrees, and then Jeremy joins them in their weird little lives.

At that point Michael’s more or less done with the major work to get the bunker/Lair running, fusses with stuff because he doesn’t want to leave. (Got too attached to these idiots and all.)

Gavin’s goes off Thieving every so often, but he tends to come back to the bunker/Lair to help Ryan out or pester Michael and he’s not worried about being ~betrayed for whatever reason.

Jeremy’s just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and has no problem with patrolling the warehouse in the day and then going down to the bunker/Lair to fuck about in the Mad Scientist/gadget lab with Gavin who’s had another one of this Brilliant Ideas.

Or maybe hanging out with Michael as he fusses/tinkers with some project or other and bitch about whatever, possibly with a beer or one of the strays he sneaks in. (There are so many at this point. Cats and kittens and a puppy or two, and Gavin is totally an enabler and Ryan is just SIGH because he’s not an actual monster, dear God.)

Sometimes he bounces Evil Plans back and forth with Ryan as Ryan works on gaining full access to the bunker/Lair - roughly 90% there - that are really just horrible ideas the like you come up with your idiot friends you know will never happen/work but are fun to play around with.

And all through this these idiots are developing the FEELS for one another, but it’s like, “Oh, they could never like someone like me,” or “They’re totally head over heels for that other person, everyone can see it but them,” not realizing they’re all the kind of idiots who are in love with each other and oh God, the romcom shenanigans that come out of.

Absent-minded flirting that gets awkward when one of the others walks in. Fond smiles and indulging one another and all that goodness. Accidentally bumping into one another in passing.

And, okay, sparring.

Michael’s kind of a brawler, so he does okay.

Gavin’s usually too fast/clever to get caught, but even he’s got some moves packed away in that head of his. (Meg insisted, because Gavin’s one of her idiots.)

Jeremy’s got some martial arts training, boxing, handful of other shit under his belt.

Ryan...fuck.

He’s like.

Joe Average or whatever.

Except he knows how to throw knives, what the fuck? (And other little surprises here and there, because Ryan.)

Still.

Jeremy and Michael become Concerned about the other two idiots, which leads to these little training/sparring sessions.

People getting thrown and pinned and all kinds of close quarters contact and flirting and innuendo and it’s just A Lot, okay?

The good kind.

Gavin pestering Ryan for knife-throwing lessons while Michael and Jeremy heckle them like assholes, and just.

Yesssss.

And then!

Shit goes wrong, in that the superheroes of the city and the authorities (who aren’t all as Noble or Upstanding as they pretend to be) manage to catch Gavin when he’s away from the bunker/Lair which sets off this whole chain of events that results in a Dramatic Battle.

Because thief!Gavin is a known presence in the city, has a record and the superheroes/authorities take advantage of that fact. Lean on the whole bit where Gavin’s got these trust issues relating to past “partners” and employers that fucked him over and how does he know this Ryan and the others won’t do the same too?

(Obviously they wouldn’t, and Gavin knows it, but these assholes don’t and they’re kind of ruthless about it.)

Meanwhile the others are going a little bit crazy trying to find Gavin once they realize what happened.

Ryan finally breaks through that last bit of bullshit keeping him from gaining full access to the bunker/Lair and E.D.G.A.R.’s full range of abilities he can command and then it is on.

Full-on fight raging through the city (carefully though, because property damage and potential casualties and what I’m saying is Ryan and the others do what they can to keep it all to uninhabited areas/lead out of the city and the whatnot.

Whole thing with the Drama and Action and attempted Heroic Sacrifice the others shoot down real fucking fast because what the fuck you moron?

And then the superheros/authorities having to beat a retreat when it becomes clear they just might out themselves as complete bastards if they keep pressing.

Ryan and the others go to ground at the bunker/Lair - which, by the by, the superheroes/authorities still don’t know the location of, and just.

Put the pieces back together.

Realize if the superheroes/authorities seem to think they’re the the bad guys then guess they’ve got no other option than to become the bad guys. (Honestly, the longer Ryan stayed in the city and saw how things were, the more that seemed like the only way to go, you know?)

And that means they’ll need someone to help keep the bunker/Lair up and running and Michael mentions some people he knows that could help with some of the stuff they unearthed when Ryan got full access. (This asshole of an engineer among them, even if he’s a bit overqualified for some of this.)

Gavin has his own contacts, and Meg’s got a major network of her own she’d be willing to use to help them out.

Jeremy knows some people too, and anyway, where else would he go?

Ryan?

Fuck, who even knows, is the thing.

E.D.G.A.R. is on his side, and that’s not a little terrifying after realizing how vast his reach is.

Global satellites and orbital strikes spring to mind, because those are actually a thing he has access to and the supervillain behind all this could have been a truly terrifying figure if he hadn’t gone and gotten himself killed before he could set things in motion. (Also? Robot armies, although there’s really just that one prototype down in that secret lab, but still.)

Some shenanigans and kerfuffles with the superheroes/authorities from time to time and the slow - painfully so at times - realization that they all totally have FEELINGS for one another, and then, like.

More romcom situations before any of them act on it, by which point the entire city knows they’ve got FEELINGS for one another and there are fan pages and groups and whatever else about it because of course there are.

And also, at some other point in come Geoff and Jack, part of a federal agency created to deal with the whole supers nonsense and pretty much Tired who realize Ryan and the others aren’t Totally Evil and idk, but!

At some point Geoff gets ~captured by Ryan and them and is just Very Tired as they try to figure out what the hell do do with him?

Obviously idiots and something else going on here and he’s just too old for this shit, and then shenanigans, I guess???

#ragehappy #jeremavinwood #supervillain au #prompt fills #anon #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #long post #Anonymous

[immaculate-benediction-batch]

Sorry this is so long......How TV Creators Are Handling Subtext And Shipping

TV series creators have a hard time not tailoring content towards a strictly heteronormative audience, refusing to lean in to queer context, no matter howlarge an LGBTQ following a show may have.

Once a fictional character is put out for public consumption, it ceases to be the one thing it’s described as on paper. This is especially the case with TV and film, where said character goes through so many hands before hitting the screen and becoming public property.

There are three kinds of creators when it comes to queer content on TV. The first (and sadly, most typical) is the creator who will deny any intention of creating queer content, and who will also refuse to acknowledge a queer audience’s interpretation., This often results in an instant backlash, as the Supergirlcast and creators experienced after an embarrassing interview with MTV last summer. When prompted to recap the latest season, the cast broke into a cringeworthy song that mocked fans’ interest in the Supergirl/Lena Luthor pairing, with Jeremy Jordan repeatedly exclaiming that the two will never get together. It continued despite Katie McGrath’s attempt to save the interview saying, “The great thing about what we do is, like any art, anyone can read into it what they want.” Chris Wood then chimed in with “Sexuality is all about others’ perception of yours, right?”

Supergirl is a show with a large female following that from the beginning has gravitated toward the female relationships it portrays, with emphasis on those relationships with strong queer energy. At first, there was a group of internet fans that were drawn to the chemistry between Melissa Benoist and Calista Flockhart, which was maximized due to the characters’ intense mentor/mentee relationship, and that was fine, and for the most part went unacknowledged by the show.

However, upon Flockhart’s exit, Lena Luthor was introduced, played by Katie McGrath. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor became fast friends, and fans’ fascination with Supergirl’s queer vibes grew strong enough for the the cast to take notice. One would think that by having Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer, two queer characters already in their orbit, fan speculation about others wouldn’t be such an inconvenience that it would have to be addressed by aggressively singing “They’re only friends!” over and over, as if the pairing were unfathomable.

But Supergirl hasn’t been the only show to outright reject queer interpretations. In fact, a few years back, the long-running series Supernatural was called out by its fans for purposefully inserting homoerotic subtext within storylines pertaining to male characters Dean and Castiel, and for rather indirectly addressing said subtext in interviews. In one of them, Misha Collins (Castiel) stated that in certain scenes with Jensen Ackles (Dean) he was directed to portray his character as a “jilted lover.”

During a Toronto Con panel in 2013, it was revealed that a line was changed by Ackles — who last year specifically requested no questions about the popular pairing be allowed during the Q portion of a panel for the show at New Jersey Con–from “I love you” to “We’re family. I need you” because the Actor didn’t think it suited his character. Despite fandom’s interest in the pairing, it hasn’t been enough for Supernaturalto follow through with an actual queer storyline, aside from the one recurring lesbian character, Charlie, who was ultimately killed off. It turns out our tolerance for queerbaiting does have its limits.

Another show that failed to address the sapphic energy between its leads, in effect rejecting a great opportunity to add a bonus layer to an already complex relationship between two women, was Damages. The thriller starred Glenn Close as powerhouse prosecutor Patty Hewes, and Rose Byrne as her protégée, Ellen Parsons. The series went on for five seasons and throughout, though it benefitted from incredible writing, its highlight was clearly the tension and undecipherable relationship between Patty and Ellen.

While there was never any doubt that their connection was what kept the the show’s palpable tension dial at a 10, anytime the subject was brought up to either cast or creators it was denied or waved off as “wishful thinking,” as Glenn Close put it. When pressed further, she added, “I think there’s something seductive about Patty and she just seduces people and she’ll lead people on. I think that can come across as pure seduction.”

With Person of Interest, Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) and Root (Amy Acker) first connected under very unique, very dark circumstances in which one was holding the other against their will in a life threatening situation. But there was a sizzle there that the audience immediately responded to, and while both cast and writers admitted that was not their intention, something amazing happenedthey took that audience reaction and ran with it. In the end, Shaw and Root’s romance became one of the show’s more compelling storylines.

Jane the Virgin did the same. When a character, Petra, who wasn’t intentionally written as queer read queer to LGBTQ viewers, the writers saw no problem taking the interpretation and adopting it as canon. After years of keeping Petra as a sort of peripheral player within Jane/Rafael storylines, the character of Jane Ramos was introduced as Petra’s defense attorney and eventual love interest.

The third type of creator is everyone’s favorite. This is the one that takes whatever gay subtext or context there is, embraces it, and expands upon it, recognizing that it’s there from the beginning. In the Flesh and Killing Eve are true representatives of queer entertainment that isn’t trying to steer its characters toward a path they weren’t organically wanting to go.

In the Flesh, a BAFTA-award winning series from BBC 3, was easily one of the best shows that no one watched; a zombie show with depth, which isn’t easy to accomplish. The story takes place years after a virus epidemic that turned the infected into flesh-eating monsters is cured, and the rehabilitated are returning home. Its main character is Luke, one of the former infected, suffering from memories of the terrible things he did while sick, and tortured by his own suicide, which was prompted by the loss of love interest, Rick.

The series ran for only two seasons, with a total of nine episodes. It was inventive and creative and stands as one of the greats right next to shows like Hannibal and The Exorcist, which was unfortunately canceled by Fox this year after only two seasons of sacrilege, beautiful cinematography, Alfonso Herrera (Sense8) and a bisexual Father Marcus, played by Ben Daniels.

Killing Eve is a female-led thriller that proves that the secret to making great TV is treating characters like human beings with the capacity to change. Eve, who, when we meet her, is living a life that doesn’t seem particularly terrible, whose marriage appears to be solid, her job secure, is lured into potentially life threatening situations for the sake of following her inexplicable attraction to a female assassin. As if beneath the surface there is a dormant unrest that is awakened with the arrival of Villanelle in her life, and though she does not stop to examine exactly what she expects to get from it, she craves and wants more of these moments that have stirred her awake. She’s both excited and frightened by Villanelle’s audaciousness, by the intrusion into her life,

both figuratively and literally.

The season’s got a few episodes left, yet the most compelling, and most attentively queer moment is part of the fifth episode, in which the two women finally come face to face in Eve’s home. Eve is sopping wet in a gorgeous dress Villanelle’s purchased for her, she’s cold and visibly uncomfortable, therefore Villanelle suggests Eve should change, before proceeding to peel the dress off her herself. It is a scene that doesn’t downplay the very real danger Eve is in by having Villanelle in her home. However there is also an erotic aspect to it that is very purposeful, and as series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge points out, the attraction is definitely mutual, “I knew that the first moment they see each other. I labeled that moment as ‘love at first sight.’ But I didn’t want it to be constrained to romance, or to lust, or anything like that. There’s something waking in Eve every day that she spends imagining what this woman is doing.”

This type of storytelling allows characters to evolve the way that they want to evolve as opposed to forcing them into a first page description. There is loyalty to the authenticity of the story, which comes from meticulous attention paid to the writing, which Waller-Green explains is all about going against cliché: “The moment something feels predictable, there’s a roar in me to just go to the most surprising place. I don’t want to bore myself.”

Often times, when female queer characters are introduced, it is done in order to titillate, and their storylines are the product of a male gaze fantasy. Killing Eve manages to avoid all of that with Villanelle, a character who seems to have no specific preference when it comes to sexual partners, and yet doesn’t feel the need to use her sexuality to get what she wants. In addition to that and the meaty tension between the two leads (Villanelle and the titular Eve, played by Sandra Oh), the attention paid to the very queer theme of the show is evident in backstories of characters that would normally go without one, like that of Eve’s former boss and best friend Bill, an older man in a heterosexual relationship who casually reveals he’s loved “hundreds” of men, much to Eve’s surprise, and further reveals he is in an open relationship, and happily so.

The series proves not only that queer characters are marketablethe BBC series was renewed for a second season before the first even airedbut that straight creators are capable of writing queer content that isn’t offensive or over-sexualized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge credits the authenticity of the series to a collaborative effort, stating, “Because it’s all about the characters, the little details that link the two worlds, everyone’s really made it a psychological piece rather than just an artistic painting of two different people’s worlds,” but it really just goes to show that that negative aspects of queer representation that include the dreaded male gaze perspective can be avoided as long as the bar is set high enough by the showrunner.

It only takes a little bit of creativity and imagination, and a willingness to challenge the idea that heterosexual-based television makes for the best and most successful stories.

Alex Velazquez is a writer, photographer, and queer Mexican living in Los Angeles, CA.

#sherlock #killing eve #supernatural #supergirl #queerbaiting #shipping #lgbt #in the flesh #jane the virgin #person of interest

[ingek73]

Revealed: Queen lobbied for change in law to hide her private wealth

Monarch dispatched private solicitor to secure exemption from transparency law

by David Pegg and Rob Evans

Published: 16:00 Sunday, 07 February 2021

The Queen successfully lobbied the government to change a draft law in order to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public, according to documents discovered by the Guardian.

A series of government memos unearthed in the National Archives reveal that Elizabeth Windsor’s private lawyer put pressure on ministers to alter proposed legislation to prevent her shareholdings from being disclosed to the public.

Following the Queen’s intervention, the government inserted a clause into the law granting itself the power to exempt companies used by “heads of state” from new transparency measures.

The arrangement, which was concocted in the 1970s, was used in effect to create a state-backed shell corporation which is understood to have placed a veil of secrecy over the Queen’s private shareholdings and investments until at least 2011.

The true scale of her wealth has never been disclosed, though it has been estimated to run into the hundreds of millions of pounds.

Queen Elizabeth IIThe scale of Queen Elizabeth’s wealth has never been disclosed but she feared a 1973 bill would allow the public to scrutinise her finances. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP

Evidence of the monarch’s lobbying of ministers was uncovered by a Guardian investigation into the royal family’s use of an arcane parliamentary procedure, known as Queen’s consent, to secretly influence the formation of British laws.

Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before legislation can be approved by parliament.

It requires ministers to alert the Queen when legislation might affect either the royal prerogative or the private interests of the crown.

The website of the royal family describes it as “a long established convention” and constitutional scholars have tended to regard consent as an opaque but harmless example of the pageantry that surrounds the monarchy.

But documents unearthed in the National Archives, which the Guardian is publishing this week, suggest that the consent process, which gives the Queen and her lawyers advance sight of bills coming into parliament, has enabled her to secretly lobby for legislative changes.

Thomas Adams, a specialist in constitutional law at Oxford University who reviewed the new documents, said they revealed “the kind of influence over legislation that lobbyists would only dream of”. The mere existence of the consent procedure, he said, appeared to have given the monarch “substantial influence” over draft laws that could affect her.

‘Disclosure would be embarrassing’

The papers reveal that in November 1973 the Queen feared that a proposed bill to bring transparency to company shareholdings could enable the public to scrutinise her finances. As a result she dispatched her private lawyer to press the government to make changes.

Matthew Farrer, then a partner at the prestigious law firm Farrer & Co, visited civil servants at the then Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the proposed transparency measures in the companies bill, which had been drafted by Edward Heath’s government.

The bill sought to prevent investors from secretly building up significant stakes in listed companies by acquiring their shares through front companies or nominees. It would therefore include a clause granting directors the right to demand that any nominees owning their company’s shares reveal, when asked, the identities of their clients.

Three crucial pages of correspondence between civil servants at the trade department reveal how, at that meeting, Farrer relayed the Queen’s objection that the law would reveal her private investments in listed companies, as well as their value. He proposed that the monarch be exempted.

“I have spoken to Mr Farrer,” a civil servant called CM Drukker wrote on 9 November. “As I had recalled he – or rather, I think, his clients – are quite as concerned over the risk of disclosure to directors of a company as to shareholders and the general public.

Queen Elizabeth II and Edward HeathThe Queen with the then prime minister, Edward Heath, in 1973, the year Heath’s government put forward the transparency proposals. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

“He justifies this not only because of the risk of inadvertent or indiscreet leaking to other people,” Drukker continued, “but more basically because disclosure to any person would be embarrassing.”

After being informed that exempting only the crown from the legislation would mean it was obvious any shareholdings so anonymised were the Queen’s property, Farrer, the correspondence states, “took fright somewhat, emphasised that the problem was taken very seriously and suggested – somewhat tentatively – that we had put them into this quandary and must therefore find a way out.”

Drukker continued: “He did not like any suggestions that holdings were not these days so embarrassing, given the wide knowledge of, for example, landed property held. Nor did he see that the problem might be resolved by any avoidance of holdings in particular companies. It was the knowledge per se that was objectionable.”

After being informed by Farrer “that he must now seek instruction” from his client, Drukker advised a colleague: “I think we must now do what you suggested we should eventually do – warn ministers.”

Three days later, another civil servant, CW Roberts, summarised the problem in a second memo.

“Mr Farrer was not only concerned that information about shares held for the Queen, and transactions in them, could become public knowledge (since it would appear on the company’s register) and thus the subject of possible controversy,” Roberts wrote.

“He regards any disclosure of beneficial ownership of shares by the crown, even if restricted to the directors of the company, as potentially embarrassing, because of the risk of leaks.”

He continued: “Mr Farrer has accepted an invitation to go into the matter with us, but has said that he will not be able to do so for a few days, until he has taken instructions from his principals.”

Secrecy clause

By the following month the Heath government had developed an ingenious proposal through which the Queen’s dilemma might be resolved.

“With the help of the Bank of England, my department have evolved the following solutions, which will appear in the bill,” wrote the Conservative trade secretary, Geoffrey Howe, to a fellow minister.

Howe proposed that the government would insert a new clause into the bill granting the government the power to exempt certain companies from the requirement to declare the identities of their shareholders.

Officially, the change would be for the benefit of a variety of wealthy investors. “Such a class could be generally defined to cover, say, heads of state, governments, central monetary authorities, investment boards and international bodies formed by governments,” Howe continued.

In practice, however, the Queen was plainly the intended beneficiary of the arrangement. The government intended to create a shell company through which a range of these investors could hold shares. It meant that any curious member of the public would be unable to pinpoint which of the shares owned by the company were held on behalf of the monarch.

“My department have discussed this solution with the legal advisers to the Queen,” Howe noted. “While they cannot of course commit themselves to using the suggested new facility, they accept that it is a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem which they face, and that they could not ask us to do more. I am therefore arranging that the necessary provisions should appear in the bill.”

Geoffrey Howe, September 1973. Photograph: William Lovelace/Getty Images

It would be three years before the bill and its secrecy clause would come into law. In February 1974 Heath called a general election, resulting in all legislation that was going through parliament being thrown out.

However, the proposal was resuscitated by the subsequent Labour government under Harold Wilson and became law in 1976, with much of the original bill simply copied into the second edition.

The exemption was almost immediately granted to a newly formed company called Bank of England Nominees Limited, operated by senior individuals at the Bank of England, which has previously been identified as a possible vehicle through which the Queen held shares.

Shares believed to be owned by the Queen were transferred to the company in April 1977, according to a 1989 book by the journalist Andrew Morton.

The exemption is believed to have helped conceal the Queen’s private fortune until at least 2011, when the government disclosed that Bank of England Nominees was no longer covered by it.

Four years ago, the company was closed down. Precisely what happened to the shares it held on behalf of others is not clear. As a dormant company, it never filed public accounts itemising its activities.

‘A possible landmine’

The use of Queen’s consent is normally recorded in Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debates, before a bill’s third reading. However, no notification of consent for the 1976 bill appears in the record, possibly because it was only sought for the 1973 version that never made it to third reading.

Howe, who died in 2015, appears to have disclosed the role of Queen’s consent – which is invoked when ministers believe a draft law might affect the royal prerogative or the private interests of the crown – during a parliamentary debate in 1975 in a previously unnoticed speech.

“In relation to that draft legislation, as to any other, the advisers of the Queen, as they do as a matter of routine, examined the bill to see whether it contained, inadvertently or otherwise, any curtailment of the royal prerogative,” Howe said.

Howe had been prompted to speak in the parliamentary debate during a row caused by the leak of high-level Whitehall papers to the Morning Star newspaper. The leak revealed the government’s intention to exempt the Windsor wealth from the companies bill.

It was a major scoop for the communist newspaper, but the leaked papers did not establish whether the Queen had lobbied the government to help conceal her wealth.

At the time, the Financial Times remarked that “a possible landmine for the Conservatives would be if Buckingham Palace in 1973 had taken the initiative in suggesting that disclosure of the Queen’s shareholdings should be excluded from the bill”.

The newly discovered papers reveal exactly that. “At the very least, it seems clear that representations on the part of the crown were material in altering the shape of the legislation,” Adams said.

When contacted by the Guardian, Buckingham Palace did not answer any questions about the Queen’s lobbying to alter the companies bill, or whether she had used the consent procedure to put pressure on the government.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Queen said: “Queen’s consent is a parliamentary process, with the role of sovereign purely formal. Consent is always granted by the monarch where requested by government.

“Whether Queen’s consent is required is decided by parliament, independently from the royal household, in matters that would affect crown interests, including personal property and personal interests of the monarch,” she said.

“If consent is required, draft legislation is, by convention, put to the sovereign to grant solely on advice of ministers and as a matter of public record.”

#royals #queen elizabeth ii #doesnt she get millions and millions each year? #brf #british royal family #great britain #monarchy #queen elizabeth

[queernuck]

Long-Term Memory: 9/11 as Absolute Event in America, 2019

There is a genuine element of humor, of ironic mirroring, in how the Democrats in North Carolina were fooled by members of the GOP into attending a 9/11 Memorial so that they could push through legislation they did not have the numbers to push through normally, that would have been impossible for them to pass with all members of the legislature present. It relies on looking at how Democrats behave in relation to Republican policy, ideology, and exactly what the Democrats have done in the decade-and-change since Bush.

Calls for blood, the feeling of righteous fury and the ideological flattening that took place in the days following 9/11 is one of the most important moments in contemporary American politics, because it not only presents an example of American ideology in itself, but because of how it has shaped the territory of politics since, the field of American discourse and exactly what acceptable suggestions are, what they encompass. Baudrillard’s discussion of the suicidal towers, of the Absolute Event that occurred on 9/11 is a phenomenal means of understanding as much when taken with the ideology that allowed the attacks to happen, that brought them on, invited, almost begged for them: it was entirely foreseeable, that the information to stop such a plot was not shared is, as it turns out, largely due to bickering between the CIA and FBI over their own roles in maintaining the American War Machine, what kinds of organs within the body of such a machine they constitute. The Machine in question could hardly have imagined what occurred next, and as Baudrillard points out, the Hijackers hardly could have, either. Their plan, at a fundamental level, lacks some closure: the crash of Flight 93 denotes an open question, is a failure of completion. An expectation of enormous violence and destruction was present, as in the attack on the Pentagon, which is an often-forgotten aspect of the attacks (in part because it functions most directly as an artifice of state power, of American imperialist violence and denying this is denying its very character) and will never match the image of those towers falling. 

And fall they did: this was an Absolute Event because its singularity, its scale, was unprecedented, the conceptualization of death within the West is in no way capable of grasping such an Event. After all, America still finds itself unable to contend with Katrina over a decade afterwards, except as part of processes of reterritorialization, ignorance as an aesthetic on the part of gentrifiers buying up cheap land and houses that were abandoned, houses that served as final resting places, stained with water and blood alike. Being forced to contend with this sudden collapse, a literally unprecedented Event, the collapse of two towers and thousands of deaths in a day, that collapse provided an unquestionable excuse to move forward, to dictate what goals policy must accomplish.

While protests occurred, it was not until the Iraq War, the questioning and confusion, the shaky pretenses and the strangeness of a continuing occupation in Afghanistan that the Anti-War movement in America really began to grow. Iraq and Afghanistan were imagined as easy, bloodless wars akin to the Gulf War, a non-event, a war that may as well have not occurred, one that was rehearsed yet again in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. There was a sense in which this was the culmination, the creation of a comprehensive success on the part of American imperialism, a kind of final blow that could then be resolved in America’s favor. Clearly, this has not been the case. Even with the Mission Accomplished, troops continued to occupy, continued to join, 9/11 fresh in their minds rather than the kind of ennui that characterizes retrospective summaries of 90s Veterans, ones who (with notable exceptions, albeit) mostly served as dormant forces of occupation, ones whose commitment to the National Guard never went further than the one weekend a month and two weeks a year. But now, they were being called up to the Big Leagues. The deployment of National Guard and Reserve troops was on a scale that likely influenced the Anti-War movement in an important, if cynical, fashion: they wanted to join the Army, have the benefits, but they really had no intention of fighting a war. These were literal Weekend Warriors, ones who had looked to pay for college or who had an identity outside the military (unlike the “lifers” associated with other wars) and when they died, came back with debilitating injuries and PTSD, when they realized what exactly it was they were doing, they were horrified. This is by no means an excuse, just as it was not one in Vietnam. But many had their Smedley Butler moments, and the way in which this flowed through American anti-war politics, the way in which joining the military meant specifically signing up to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, resonated deeply.

A common refrain in response to “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” as an ideological defense of the war is that in fact, bringing them home would be an act of support, one that Democrats clung to during the Bush years. To be against the Troops as a concept was not acceptable, and so one had to oppose the war on other grounds. Genuine critiques, like those about the inadequacies of US Military doctrine and equipment, are ones that resonate today: Counter-Insurgency is not the strong point of the US Military as a whole, and even those parts of the military best at it are small, limited, and most of all are part of supporting an ideological goal that may not be possible to accomplish. When Trump responded to a Taliban attack by asking how many decades more the Taliban was willing to fight, he was ironically showing that the same question was being left open for America: already, those born in the same year as 9/11 could begin joining the military, whether born in the months leading up to it or with a waiver allowing them to join at 17, and today somewhere in America the first 18-year-olds born after 9/11 are signing papers to join. Even after all of this time, all of this realization that America has shifted into an occupying force, for all the racist ideology about simply abandoning any pretense of cooperation and carpet-bombing these nations more thoroughly, there are still those who wish to join.

Jokes about lying recruiters and false promises abound, and the shock of combat, of killing and being able to be killed, how quickly that turns into a willingness to act as an agent of genocidal intent, how quickly fascist fetish and ritual spread under so-called stress (the Tiger Teams of Vietnam echoed in Navy SEALs dismembering dead insurgents and various war criminals like the Kill Team) is very readily apparent. And yet, the Democrats still support the troops. While popular support for anti-war movements was part of what was able to get Obama elected, was genuine and moreover fostered by Democrats who saw ending the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a key issue, his own decisions to continue occupation, as well as the means by which he decentralized the exercise of state power, created new bodies for it to flow through, increased use of Special Forces and other unconventional arrangements of military power alongside the strength of the Occupying Army, convinced Democrats that a continuation was necessary, that they too needed to fetishize 9/11, they too needed to take up the militaristic fervor of their counterparts.

And after all of this, after accusations of treason for floating the idea of opposing illegal wars, Republicans know very well what their actions and ideological stances mean, who they stand behind, what they are associated with. By emphasizing a continuum between police and the military, these entities and American identity, the American war machine and what is necessary to be American, they have been able to run a rather good campaign for fascist recruitment. The Militia Movement, while not quite the same as in the 1990s, has been coupled with numerous other fascist movements, as well as the supposed deniability of current fascist terror tactics, the use of mass shooting as an act intended toward ends much like those of the insurgent. Puar’s work on Terrorist Assemblages is absolutely indispensable in looking at how exactly the targeting of American military power operates, how Obama chose his own targets and how Trump now chooses his, the way in which a fundamental reduction to the body, to an assemblage thereof, the striation and naming of the body as terroristic is at play in contemporary discourses on terror but also on refugees (on a global scale, in Europe and America alike), on police campaigns of violence against Black America, even the differentiation of the virtuous addict from the junkie (in a series of events that was, partially, begun by the profound alienation of mid-2000s America and the 90s-esque ennui combined with PTSD that lead to Xanax and OxyContin prescriptions from the VA being very common sources of one’s first taste of these drugs) is all part of what makes it such that these non-state actors are not recognized as such. In Christchurch, in El Paso, in Pittsburgh: there is a strategy of attempting to inflict casualties so massive that they cannot be sustained, not only as campaigns of ethnic cleansing but additionally through the means by which responses are formed in government. 

Democrats suggesting gun legislation are perhaps in part to be blamed, at least if one understands the politics of the gun in America: the fascist insistence that, as the Christchurch shooter discussed, the enforcement of gun laws would heighten racial tensions, lead to white supremacists banding together, would generate contradictions within the relationship of fascists to their own government has in part been correct. Discussing this claim is at the very least fraught, given that the irony and performative aspect of the shootings was present throughout, that the use of jokingly genuine fascist slogans like “Subscribe to Pewdiepie” and the playing of Serbian Turbofolk during the car ride from massacre to massacre was a kind of irony beyond itself, a show of just exactly how irony and earnestness are tethered, are forms of detachment and attachment with the same intensity as potentialities. So, looking at this claim in itself is in a way entertaining fascist ideology. However, that efforts at gun control have followed and been met with vast right-wing opposition despite their popularity (popularity that I will note is at best misguided, tethered by liberal desires for reforms within existing hegemony rather than genuine struggle toward counterhegemonic action) shows that these tensions are indeed present. Moreover, looking at them shows how these tensions are exploited and magnified. That some on the Right have looked to new measures that will hone these “red flag” laws to target leftists, as seen in the attempted passage of bills criminalizing Antifascists, anti-Pipeline protests, and of course the codification of categories surrounding “mental illness” and “danger” as ones that overwhelmingly criminalize the vulnerable rather than themselves (after all, how many police are themselves ones who would fit the criteria, be it in domestic abuse, trauma resulting from their own actions, on-the-sly drug habits, or unrepentant murder?) serve both to set up a new sweep of Aktion T4 and to make it such that whether or not the structuring of gun laws changes, there will be a far easier course of criminalization for those the Republicans despise most.

Perhaps Warren or Biden will emerge from the race as the nominee. Likely not, given the Democrats’ incredible ability to shoot themselves in the foot. Perhaps a nominally progressive candidate like Beto, Butteigig, or the ideation of Harris will prevail. Maybe even a longshot like Tulsi, Booker, or Williamson. (Then again, Booker may be a bit too ridiculous to suggest even here.) They will be leading a party that has tied itself so thoroughly to allowing fascism to accomplish its goals, to investing deeply in a neoliberalism that is very quickly becoming more and more openly fascist, to a shift in their stances that is less of a different option and more of a justification for acceptance of this neoliberalism: a choice is offered, and is no choice at all, but its offering is enough to make it meaningful. The humor in the NC GOP’s use of a 9/11 Memorial to pass legislation is that it reads like a 2010 email forward accusing Democrats of doing the same, to pass what the email would describe as “gay fishing and marriage licenses” or something to the same effect. That it was in fact Republicans who did this specifically offers a humor beyond amusement: instead it is a flattening, a process whereby the incredible is brought into belief, is made a matter of procedure. Ironically, as a course of action, the signification of a supposed disrespect for 9/11 is instead embodied by this course of action: using Democrats’ sense of obligation to such a ceremony even 18 years on, the Republicans could then justify to themselves that their legislation embodies the true spirit of remembering 9/11, that it preserves a kind of Americanism that the Democrats were in the way of, that being able to rid oneself of their interference was a move of patriotism.

[darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts]

Devil’s own Luck pt13

Warning: strong language, mobstyling warlords

Masterlist

---

Chapter 13 – Dead Man’s Hand

Nobunaga is nothing but observant. The smallest of things were not lost on him and if he chose to be interested in it then he could be very observant indeed. Knowing this Mitsuhide could almost predict what was to come next. He knew and yet he really didn’t wish to discuss it. Putting on his usual smiling mask he waited patiently for the inevitable discussion with Nobunaga.

It didn’t take long before the doors to the office slide open and Nobunaga appeared carrying a stack of files. Whatever Mitsuhide had thought was about to be discussed, this was not it. The files were dumped with a thump on the table in front of Mitsuhide and Nobunaga moved to sit in a chair on the other side of the information rainforest.

“I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage Nobunaga I suppose you do intend to tell me why you have placed all of the business accounts here? I thought you wanted to discuss something else.” Mitsuhide let out a light chuckle as he stared at the files that dated from the time the Azuki business was started. What on earth is all this for?

“Oh? Did you think I called you here to talk to you about [Name] perhaps?” Nobunaga gave him a knowing smirk tapping his own collar lightly and Mitsuhide couldn’t avoid the flinch in his body. Dammit! He hadn’t checked a mirror, he didn’t have too his skin stung with the memory of her. He didn’t hate it, but he could have done without the teasing. His loosened collar suddenly felt like a hangman’s noose.

“Don’t worry I have no interest in what you get up to with your pet. I called you to talk about the upcoming fight.” Nobunaga shrugged and continued.

“And you needed the accounts files for that?” Mitsuhide waved his hand at the mountain of files in between them on the table. Why? Did I miss something?

“Yes. To save some time and to purge you of your lack of knowledge which could be troublesome to me in the near future I have decided to show you the ‘real’ books for the company.” At Nobunaga’s words Mitsuhide looked closer at the files.

The word ‘real’ sunk in so fast it snapped his attention to the situation completely and his yellow eyes glowed as he looked at Nobunaga. So, this is to prevent me doing something that will cause you problems huh? Mitsuhide reached out his hand and picked up the top folder a few pages in and he could see some issues. They couldn’t have been better laid out if Nobunaga had written it in neon lights. What on earth? How? This isn’t possible…

“You own ALL the stocks!? But the shareholders… the meetings. How did you do all this? Why did you do it?” Mitsuhide bombarded Nobunaga with question after question as his confusion won out against trying to maintain and cool, calm demeanour. Are you mad?

“It is rather a long story. I shall start at the beginning.” Nobunaga got up from his chair and moved to a side table pouring two large glasses of cognac before returning and handing one to Mitsuhide.

Mitsuhide took the offered drink with a feeling he would be needing it. Putting himself back in his chair and reclining against its arm Nobunaga swirled the liquid in his glass as he began to spin his tale.

“This whole plan was already set in motion long before I became head of the Oda cartel. Whilst I fulfilled my tasks as my father had issued them to be I was able to strike deals and favours with a great number of people he associated with.” Makes sense Nobunaga was always good at getting people to listen to him.

“The bread and butter stuff we’ve all done it. But you started this ‘plan’ of yours that far back? To what end?” Mitsuhide nodded as he selected a few files from the stacks and absently flicked through them.

“I’ll get to that if you allow me to finish.” Nobunaga sounded a little frustrated at the interruption but Mitsuhide smiled and nodded distractedly encouraging him to continue whilst also taking a drink from his glass.

“All those deals and favours created the funding I needed to kick start the new era of the cartel. After I was named head and took over I rebranded us and then found all of you. I let the company function for as long as it took to become profitable in its own right and then started to give Mitsunari a couple of little ‘puzzles’ to solve.” Nobunaga looked a little like a cat that got the cream. His smile at being able to in some way ‘play’ their resident genius was one of supreme satisfaction.

“You mean you tricked him into manipulating the figures in the other books?” Mitsuhide hated to admit it but it was impressive. Mitsunari would have reported something odd to Hideyoshi or himself if he thought it was something odd. The fact that Nobunaga had managed to get him to do any of this for this length of time and nothing came to light was nothing short of amazing.

Mitsuhide flicked through the folders and saw something else. Oh… this is … wrong. Very wrong. He raised his head and met Nobunaga’s eyes.

“You see it then? Allow me to continue then. After adjusting the records for public view and the shareholders I kept the original copies. As far as becoming the soul shareholder… well that was a simple thing of calling back the shares, with a promise of something more.” Nobunaga was outlining his path nicely but the sudden encyclopaedic information was causing Mitsuhide’s brain to stall.

“Something more? You are telling me our shareholders simply handed over their shares on nothing more than a promise?” Mitsuhide asked in disbelief.

“No of course not, even they aren’t that stupid. I paid them the money they were worth plus 20% on top to make the temptation too much for them to refuse, with a stipulation that they don’t tell anyone else about it and still turn up to the meetings. I’m a little abashed you think that my word is no longer enough to garner a profitable deal. You used to think it was good enough… so good in fact that you decide to join me.” Nobunaga gestured in Mitsuhide’s direction with his glass and took a swig.

“Nobunaga, I do not doubt your word I was just a little shocked. I would struggle to create something this elaborate, and to be told you have been working on it since before we all met is a little over whelming.” He was honest it held little benefit to play games at this point. Nobunaga was being honest enough to show him his whole plan he didn’t wish to waste energy in being on guard. Seriously what the Hell do you need me for if you can plan shit like this?

“You have created a massive smoke screen complete with mirrors. It is a very impressive magic trick. The figures show we are only financially ticking over. It’s enough to show face but we can’t continue to run at this level, someone will notice.” Mitsuhide held up the file tilting it to show Nobunaga what he was referring too and the other man simply flashed and infuriating grin in return.

“Exactly and that is what I am planning to avoid. We now know that the ex-chief inspector is working with Shingen and Kenshin. I know they are planning something to financially take us down.” Nobunaga stated the current facts.

“You know? How can you know that?” Mitsuhide probed.

“As soon as I announced my decision to run in politics the negative press turned favourable and the official authorities have come into play as my allies as apposed to my hunters. They cannot risk drawing themselves into anything other than a bloodless battle. Also, the time for them to be able to strike is running out. As soon as I officially do move, they have no way of doing anything damaging to me without significate damage to themselves in return.” The smug expression didn’t leave his face as Nobunaga explained the finer points.

Mitsuhide had to hand it to Nobunaga it was strategically brilliant he had turned the tables on the enemy and used the available resources of the press in his favour like a shield against a violent fight.

“You’ve created and planned in a way that everything has pushed them straight into a chokehold maneuverer. They can only push forward in one way, you shut off the other directions available to them. But how do you know they won’t still come in baring arms?” It was a question he could have guessed and answer to but Mitsuhide still asked it.

“Because Shingen is too kind to risk more lives being lost over this and Kenshin is too honourable to go against his ally’s choice. When I leave…” Nobunaga was becoming a bit more animated clearly it was coming to his crescendo in this grand plan.

“Wait you planned on selling?” If this was the plan all along then that means the last few months of making the smoke screen thicker have all done nothing except putting [Name] in direct danger.

Mitsuhide was getting angry now, it was unusual, he didn’t normally get this way on others behave but she was different. He felt responsible … he was the one that brought her here in the first place… it was all his fault. It was ‘her’ all over again. The prickling under his skin as he felt his blood starting to boil was making him feel itchy.

“I plan to unite!” Nobunaga pronounced proudly.

“HOW? Oh…. Wait. You plan on selling an empty shell and your own shares, causing a crash against the Uesugi/Takeda cartel after they find out what they have purchased.” Mitsuhide’s brain suddenly sparked into life just after he asked and then promptly answered his own question.

“Exactly. With sales, money banked and supporters to financially buy out their cartel … I will own the lot. I’m glad to see you haven’t completely lost you analytical mind Mitsuhide.” Nobunaga smiled and nodded happily taking another mouthful of his drink.

“But the girl? You exposed her publicly to this world knowing that it was about to go up in flames at your orchestration and put her in danger.” Mitsuhide’s simmering rage once dormant over the past was starting to spike and push fizzing ready to burst the dam on his resolve. You don’t do this Nobunaga not once have you ever expressed an interest in putting someone in direct danger you always put your own neck on the line. How could you?

“A rather fortunate means to an end, don’t you think?” His smirk did it. The last straw on his restraint and it broke with a bang in his chest as Mitsuhide snapped the file in his hand shut and fixed his serpentine viper gaze on his boss.

“No, I don’t think. Fortunate is something of benefit there was nothing to benefit in putting [Name] at risk like that. Hideyoshi was right we should have cut her loose when she recovered from her initial shock.” Mitsuhide spat in a righteous anger. If looks could kill Nobunaga wouldn’t still be breathing.

“I never thought I would see the day you of all people would agree with Hideyoshi on any subject never mind getting bent out of shape over some girl you found in the street.” Chuckling lightly as if completely unfazed by Mitsuhide’s obvious distress Nobunaga put his now empty glass on the table, watching his left hand as he raged on.

“And I never expected to see you of all people treat a life as something so worthless. I know you think of them as something more than mere tools Nobunaga, but what I don’t see is why it is different now.” Mitsuhide never tried to pass judgement he knew all to well he was far from clean himself. People in glass houses. But he couldn’t hold it in.

“Mitsuhide are you so blind sighted by a woman that you cannot see past the end of your own urges?” As if only just realising the depth of Mitsuhide’s anger and how it was directed, Nobunaga quirked his eye brow at him in wonder.

“No, I have not! I still agree with the unification plan but this … this involving an innocent bystander, to then offer them up to the altar of chance and misfortune without so much as a care…” Mitsuhide was rambling now he knew it he was trying to claw back his rational but his mouth wouldn’t stop running. It’s like someone pulled the plug and everything is just… God it hurts so fucking much!

“This is about Emica isn’t it?” Nobunaga asked calmly.

“Don’t you dare bring her up.” If he thought he had been angry before now just the name of the unlucky girl of his past was enough to make it feel like the air was sizzling and his body erupted in a challenging inferno.

“Why not it’s been years since what transpired if you have found someone in [Name] to move on and forget her you should.” Nobunaga challenged the blaze in front of him. He didn’t push he calmly spoke as his friend raged and reconnected to his past.

“It’s not that easy I can’t just forget… it was all my fault. And now it’s happening all over again. I cannot lose another!”

Shouting in a voice mixed with blind anger and pain, Mitsuhide slammed the files he had been looking at back on the table and stormed out of the office without looking at Nobunaga. Watching the mans retreating back Nobunaga got up from his chair once more and poured another drink.

“I hope for your sake you can move on my friend. For your sake and [Name] I fear for her smile if you can’t.” Nobunaga muttered into his glass as he took a sip.

Moving over to his computer and turning it on he began sorting his emails as he remembered the trip back from the party.

How she had waited till they were in the car before crying into his shoulder trembling. Her eyes sparkling as she spoke about his kitsune of a lieutenant.

She was in love with him and she hadn’t noticed it herself at that point. Mitsuhide had been the same from day one Nobunaga had seen the impossible look he gave the girl as he carried her unconscious form.

The meeting had been far from calm by despite it he smiled. He clicked on several messages and he began typing…

---

[lionesskate]

Bonestriders

Malign Inspiration The Seven-Degreed Physician of Black Maladies had a very simple dream but one that he had struggled his entire life to bring to fruition, he wanted the world to appreciate his genius. His hopes had been dashed time and time again, even as a Deathknight he had felt overshadowed by his master but this time was different. Years ago he had first heard tales of the city of Duat and its colossal skeletal guardians that stalked across the sand dunes, he had originally considered such a beast as a bodyguard but without his master around to delegate him to more menial tasks he had the chance to fully explore this opportunity. There was a moment of wondrous realisation when he examined a skeleton of monstrous size said to be from far-away Dis when he realised that the chest cavity was large enough to support a passenger… no, a pilot. The notion of his own Warstrider burned brightly for a moment before fading with the realisation that he didn’t have enough materials for such an undertaking, but he was undeterred and wanted to see how close he could get to such a titan of exalted warfare. Initially the results fell short of the mark; the construct was a fine marionette and a wonderful tool of intimidation but simply didn’t have the pilot’s reflexes at the cusp of admitting failure he tested it again with a mortal pilot and found that the reaction time was much more comparable. He had heard of previous attempts by necromancers to offer up zombies to mortal nations as cheap alternatives to slaves or soldiers and considered those doomed endeavours because people always made the worst assumptions about where so many bodies came from. This was different; this husk he had started with was a monster that made no pretence about being anything else. However for the right price it could be the monster a mortal kingdom relied upon, a weapon their enemy would have little means to counter without their own supernatural protectors, unless of course they also came to him… The Seven-Degreed Physician of Black Maladies had found his place in history he would be remembered as the creator of the Bonestrider and the architect of a new era of warfare. Bonestriders are not Warstriders but a deliberate attempt to emulate them with Necromancy they are closer to undead creatures than armour and do not use the pilot’s traits unless specifically noted. The Carrion Lord (Sample Bonestrider) Artifact Rating 3 Essence: 1; Willpower: 1; Join Battle: 2 dice Health Levels: -0x5/-1x5/-2x7/-4x7/Incap. Actions: Feats of Strength: 12 dice (may attempt Strength 7 feats, see Incredible Might); Intimidation: 10 dice Appearance 3 (Hideous), Resolve 3, Guile 1 Combat Attack (Greatsword): 11 dice (Damage 16, minimum 3) Attack (Greataxe): 11 dice (Damage 16, minimum 2) Chopping Attack (Shield Bash): 12 dice (Damage 14, minimum 1) Smashing Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (10 dice to control). The Bonestrider makes unopposed control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless its victims use magic that allows them to clinch larger enemies, such as Dragon Coil Technique Combat Movement: 5 dice Evasion 1, Parry 5 Soak/Hardness: 20/10 Special Attacks Dual Strikes: The pilot may pay a point of Willpower to make a flurry of two different attacks. Each attack must have a different target and be made using a different weapon. A Bonestrider wielding a shield may instead flurry an attack with a full defense action. Merits: Attunement Spike: The Bonestrider is hungry for essence and in order to function it must take 16m per hour from a pilot or a sacrificial victim bound within the cockpit, if they are unable to pay the essence the Bonestrider instead drains their willpower at 4wp per hour and then finally their health levels at 2l per hour. Injuries from this take the form of premature aging, such as physical weakness, greying hair and sallow skin. Hollow: The cavity in the Bonestrider’s chest in large enough for a single human sized individual who receive the benefits of being protected with a Defend Other action with an effective Parry of 5. It should be noted that killing the pilot doesn’t actually stop the Bonestrider until it next requires essence. Incredible Might: The Bonestrider applies double 8s on any feat of strength. Legendary Size: The Bonestrider’s immense size makes it extraordinarily difficult for human-scale enemies to engage it in combat. It does not take onslaught penalties from any attack made by a smaller opponent, although magically-inflicted onslaught penalties still apply against it. Withering attacks made by smaller enemies cannot drop the Bonestrider below 1 Initiative unless they have a post-soak damage of 10 dice (although attackers can still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt). Decisive attacks made by smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to the Bonestrider with a single attack, not counting any levels of damage added by Charms or other magic. Maintenance: Bonestriders require maintenance and repair rolls like a Warstrider (Arms of the Chosen page 142) but uses Craft (Necrosurgery). Mighty Thews: A bonestrider can wield a two-handed weapon in one hand, and never suffers off-hand penalties. Some use this to wield a shield along with a heavy weapon, while others dual-wield massive weapons. Mindless: Bonestriders treat all social influence as unacceptable. Undead Construct: The Bonestrider has no vitals to speak of, no matter how wounded it is. The bonestrider does not subtract wound penalties from its Defence. In addition, attacks made from short range or further reduce their minimum damage against the bonestrider by one unless they benefit from an Aim action. Magical Abilities: Earth-Shaking Behemoth (4m): The pilot can pay four motes when the Bonestrider makes a decisive attack to create a shockwave, forcing all characters in medium range to roll (Dexterity + Athletics) opposing the attack roll or fall prone. The Threat of the Bonestriders: The Physician has a fatalistic outlook not uncommon among Abyssal Exalted, he is certain that by creating the Bonestriders he has signed his own death warrant and eventually someone will kill him in an attempt to end their threat. It’s primarily for this reason that he doesn’t pursue personal conquest because whatever empire he could carve out wouldn’t outlive him. Instead he plans to take things slowly, selling to minor warlords in the River Province and building a network of clients. From there he hopes to take on apprentices that will first learn how to maintain these warmachines but then learn how to build their own and take on their own apprentices. This ‘Patchwork Dynasty’ as he calls it and how the world responds to this great increase in necrosurgery by the living will be his true legacy. The Colossi of Duat and similar creations: The Hierophant-Kings of Duat have an almost unique affinity for blending orichalcum with their necrosurgery constructs that linger in a dormant state like statues of gold and sun-bleached bone waiting for trespassers to pass beneath their gaze. They would consider the soulsteel attunement spikes that the Physician uses to be an abomination but as long dead philosophers they have little need for haste in warfare they expect nothing less from barbarians. The possibility also exists that certain kinds of wood could provide a more immediately wholesome material with which to create animated constructs, perhaps the lost vegetative technology of the Dragon Kings is the missing piece of the puzzle?

#exalted #exalted 3rd edition #worldbuilding #rpgs

[syzygyzip]

Wolf Dreams a Video Game

This essay can be read on its own, though it is a continuation of another essay titled “A Matter of Some Ceremony”. Together these essays explore the psychological symbolism of Farron Keep and the creation myth of Dark Souls.

Taking the swamp as a liminal space, a threshold of unconsciousness, with the potential to infect. We know it is a threshold from its many doors, and its proximity to the Abyss. We know it is infectious from its adhesiveness and toxin. We’ve also seen that as Ghrus are more “removed” from the swamp, the higher up they go, the more technology and civility they seem to possess. So what’s the highest point available? A tall tower -- in actuality a support column of a former bridge to Lothric Castle. The tower’s only room contains the Old Wolf of Farron, who rules the Watch Dogs of Farron covenant. To reiterate, this covenant represents a truer retention of the same foundational principles from which the Abyss Watchers have diverged. So the covenant here represents the “heart” of the environment’s teaching. And indeed, getting to this point is plainly helpful for dealing with the initiation ordeal: if one gets some distance from the matter, “removing” oneself from the swamp of sorrow, and taking on an unattached, bird’s eye perspective, one can easily see where the three flames of initiation flicker from. This detachment from the senses, engendering their easier discernment and extinguishment, is probably reflective of the wolf’s inner state, seeing as it has given itself over to stillness.

The wolf has become like petrified wood. She has given so much of her blood to all her Artorian devotees. Everything that takes place on the floor above is her dream, which is the key to the rites of initiation.

What does the dream contain? It takes place on a ruinous segment of castle wall overlooking an endless ocean at twilight (more imagery suggesting the edge of consciousness). The first sight hereupon is a huge deteriorating stone monster walking in a circle. It is a Stray Demon in whom the fire has gone out entirely. On either side of the segment, we see lowered and locked gates, signifying a blockage. With a little resourcefulness and surefooting, we can walk a small ledge around one of these blockages. On the other side of the gate there are a number of sleeping soldiers, and at the end of the wall, a similarly incapacitated drake. Near the drake are two items: the lightning bolt and the dragoncrest shield, both invaluable for conquering dragons. At the blocked gate there is a pilgrim. If the bridge were not mostly demolished, he would reach Lothric, the seat of destiny. This is an important bit of context. The game informs us elsewhere that the entire world is folding toward Lothric; it is there that they are preparing a host capable of linking the fire. The full meaning and function of Lothric is another subject, and a very dense one, but for the purposes of this essay it’s necessary to establish the fundamental symbolism: that Lothric is the setting of some soon-arriving moment of revelation; it is an event which can be variously termed but is most succinctly described as the emergence of the Self.

So, as in any dream, first we are presented with the problem. We see the transcendent moment in the distance, and that it is unreachable. There is also a gate, which once led to that epochal seat, and is still guarded by a great monster. But the fire has gone out in this demon, who walks mindlessly in circles, and when provoked is only capable of vomiting boulders of rock. Critically, this Stray Demon has some unique animation when you attack its leg repeatedly: the leg crumbles, and then the other leg crumbles from the weight, and then the rocky demon is dragging itself around with its arms, carrying on the fight. Why is the demon in a degraded state? Is it because it is cut off from its purpose, and from the generative power of the Lothric moment? Or it might just be a matter of old age, because elsewhere we find the Old Demon King, last of his kind, also losing the final spark from his ancient embers.

Then, moving down the bridge away from Lothric, we find that shuttered gate against which a pilgrim has collapsed on the far side. This seems to restate the problem: that there is blockage of the channel which leads to the Self, but the fact that it is a pilgrim who is stopped here shows us that there is a striving. Curiously, through a purported texture fluke, this unique and functionless pilgrim is golden in color. This is a helpful image for our inventory, and will come up again a little later. The pilgrim is stuck on the side of the bridge with a typical, classically Dark Souls squad of hollow soldiers, who are dormant until roused by the lantern-carrier (the consciousness principle).

The Story of Lightning A few paces beyond the soldiers, at the bottom edge, there are the crucial bits of information: the dead drake, the dragon crest shield, and the lightning spell.

Now, to fully appreciate this scene we are going to have to get straight the symbolism of The Everlasting Dragons. They are not creatures, not like the Drakes we encounter in the game; their “stone scales” are but a metaphor. The Age of Dragons “preceded” the Age of Fire, because it was not in time at all; only with the advent of the flame and its flickering did the universe know discrepancy and time. Dragons are something like patterns within a pre-differentiated milieu of consciousness; prefigurations of form; informational structures not fully realizable within space and time. In countless world mythologies “the dragon is the animating principle of every place,” because it is from their generative matrix that our world derives. And the same likely applies to Dark Souls; one only needs to look at Ash Lake to see that the many world trees are all nourished by the dragon realm. Elsewhere, Drakes and Wyverns are the “distant kin” of dragons, as the game tells us; mere shadows; catachrestic images downloaded from a subtler order of being.

Back to the scene: the drake, the descendant reduction of a dragon, is apparently dead, it is still and stonelike. Next to it are two more images of the dragon, the shield adorned with a dragon crest, and the spell “Lightning Spear.” The spell is associated both with drakes (who have lightning as a breath weapon) and with the fall of everlasting dragons (Gwyn used lightning to rend apart their stone scales). But lightning is also a very elegant metaphor for dragons as a morphogenetic principle:

In those cases where electrical energy is transmitted without benefit of wires it inevitably follows the line of least resistance, creating its own pathways in much the same way that cracks do in a solid medium. Although we tend to think of the sudden and massive dissipation of energy in lightning as an “event” rather than a “thing,” it is revealed by photography to have a quite complex form, one that bears a marked resemblance to the branching systems of a great river. These energy patterns, if we may call them that, are the very converse of those formed in fractures in a solid medium; lightning is intensely active but of limited duration, whereas dislocation patterns, such as crackle-glaze, are persistent but a mere vestige of the activity that caused them. In other cases, however, where there is a constant supply of energy to a receptive medium the “paths of least resistance” can be converted into dissipative structures. (Wade p.175)

In the world of Dark Souls, spells are stories. So this Lightning Spear spell is the story of lightning. The reading of the story then is an event that produces a thing. But the “current” runs through all these variations. A converse relationship has been noted between the diffusion of the lightning and the dislocation patterns of cracking solids. Remember that at the opposite end of this tiny scene, there is a great rocky demon who can be made to shatter in a special way. Solid matter cannot forever bear the force of lightning; the animating impulse (the “Word” of lightning; the first-flame event) eventually results in degradation, and it is this entropy that permeates Dark Souls as an omnipresent adversary.

Born into the Drama

So what we are seeing here, in this Wolf’s dream, is a reference to the cosmogenetic moment. In microcosm we see the generation of the world, and its current condition, and that it is cut off from its full actualization (Lothric). As for the soldiers, who are somehow oblivious to it all, and are perhaps complicit in blocking “the pilgrim’s progress,” well, there are a number of ways to interpret that: an allegory for the tunnel-vision militarism of the Abyss Watchers, standing at a threshold accomplishing nothing; the masses under the thrall of maya, sustaining some social/material status quo despite ruin on every side; the multiplicity of the ashen one, the different facets (roles, character classes) which are brought into unifying purpose by the “call” of the lantern-holder.

What’s beautiful about Dark Souls is that its symbolic content can be appropriately interpreted on a cosmic level, or a personal level. (That is why the linking, or snuffing, of the first flame feels like both “this world has come to an end” and “I have come to an end.”) So we can also take this scene as a birth allegory; after all, the Stray Demon is the very first enemy visible to the player in Dark Souls 1, and the Dragon Crest Shield is the sister shield to the one held by Oscar of Astora, the character who initiated the entire saga by giving the player a key out of their cell (an image of a higher self calling the child forward from the womb). Getting born is a quite a traumatic thing, having suddenly to obey matter’s restrictions, and it is therefore quite tempting to “lower the gate” on the matter/mother issue, symbolized by the Demon of course, and leave it to its own cycles without addressing the problem of embodiment.

In addition to the two items that refer to the beginning of the saga, the scene itself resembles an early moment in the original Dark Souls. Reddit user peperib has discovered a visual correspondence between this bridge and the drake bridge from Dark Souls 1. This compounds the symbolism in a few ways. Foremost, the DS1 drake bridge is the first place the player confronts a dragon(oid), and it is the first major blocked passage. The drake sits above the Sunlight Altar, which is the source of the Lightning Spear miracle, (the same spell we find by this dead drake in DS3). Right before this tableau, the player meets the famous Knight Solaire who, in identifying the sun as “a magnificent father,” supplies another image of aspiration and emancipation, and mirrors the opening scene with Oscar. Altogether this sequence is one of the most iconic in Dark Souls, and its central image is the drake surrounding an inner fire.

Back on the wolf’s dream bridge, there is no fire in the stray demon. This crumbling demon resembles the crumbling tower, and the crumbling kingdom at large. According to the Gnostics, wisdom is held within matter. If it is not engaged with, if we cut ourselves off from it, of course it falls to ruin. The Abyss Watchers are so frightened of the entropic march of matter that they have doubled down on their aggression against it: they have forgotten that Artorias held a shield, and so instead they wield two blades. But of course there is one Watcher who has a shield – the deserter, Hawkwood, the only Watcher with a face and a personality. His retention of his shield is highly loaded, given that it was Artorias’ shield that protected Sif against the violence of the abyss-corrupted primordial man Manus. In preserving his shield, Hawkwood also preserves the Artorias myth as a living reality. A Bridge Between Swamp and Summit

Hawkwood is one of several clues that ties Farron Keep to Archdragon Peak, and I believe it is this peak to which the old wolf of Farron attempts to direct us through  dream language. Archdragon Peak is an area predicated on stillness. It is full of quiet and emptiness, and dragon initiates in a meditative posture who have turned to stone. It is something like an image of knowledge of the void. It is the understanding that in the chaotic, undifferentiated Abyss there is the inevitability of renewal:

“In effect, the ascent of a stairway or a mountain in a dream or a waking dream signifies, at the deepest psychic level, an experience of “regeneration” (the solution of a crisis, psychic re-integration). Mahayana metaphysics interprets the ascension of the Buddha as an event at the Centre of the World, and therefore one that signifies transcendence of both Space and Time.  Great many traditions trace the creation of the World to a central point from which it is supposed to have spread out in the four cardinal directions. To attain to the center of the world means, therefore, to arrive at the “point of departure” of the Cosmos at the beginning of Time”; in short, to have abolished time. We can now better understand the regenerative effect produced in the deep psyche by the imagery of ascension because we know that [it] is capable, among other things, of abolishing Time and Space and of “projecting” man into the mythical instant of the Creation of the World, whereby he is in some sense “born again”, being rendered contemporary with the birth of the World.” (Eliade p.119)

This is all there in Archdragon Peak. The whole idea of voidness is conceptualized differently here. Rather than the black expanse loathed by the Watchers, or the Deep swallowing the church, or even the “deep sea” feared by Aldritch, here void is contemplated without attachment of affect. This is a very classically Buddhist perspective! The Abyss, the Deep, and the Sea are all “rooted” in some way: in greed, hatred, or delusion. And critically, they are all relational conceptions of nothingness; they are (loudly and profanely) distinguished from the witness.

Now, we don’t have any acolyte NPCs coming up to us and explaining what the Path of the Dragon doctrine is explicitly or anything – but the environment itself does a number of things to suggest emptiness as a present reality: The boss of the Peak is not at the end, it is rather (conditionally) in the center; the highest point of the Peak, the ascent, the end of the level, shows us only a clear sky; there are lots of little shrines and outlooks, bowls and blankets of the temple illuminated by streaks of sun. The area never really feels like you’ve completed it, because it loops back on itself, and there is no point, no requirement to come here.

Note that this is the only environment that shows both the Sun and Moon present. This place, like the twilight bridge, is a tableau which depicts the mingling of opposites in metaphor.

Havel as Anomaly

There is only one “person” on the peak, a true individual, Havel the Rock, about whom myths, stories, anecdotes, and homages have been circulating since Dark Souls 1. Or at least, it is the image of Havel. But it is a very distinct image: there is no mistaking that absurdly heavy armor, or the giant dragon’s tooth he wields as a club. In DS1, Havel was known primarily for two more things: his punishing, blindsiding combat, and how he abhorred dragons. It is thought that he deplored dragons so much, that he was playing to betray his company of Gods because he could not tolerate their association with the dragon Seath. Despite his heavenly allegiances, he was very much by himself …

There are ‘anomic’ phenomena pervading societies that are not degradations of the mythic order but irreducible dynamisms drawing lines of flight and implying other forms of expression than those of myth, even if myth recapitulates them in its own terms in order to curb them. (D+G p.237)

D+G go on to cite Moby Dick as a quintessential example of the anomic/anomalous, an image which nicely parallels Havel’s own fixation on Seath, another white anomaly, a scaleless dragon, who sits away. This obsession has caused Havel to become sort of a fringe character (locked in a basement in DS1, and now marooned on a peak); he has himself become anomalous. That’s how the becoming functions: those lines-of-flight are drawn between gates of identification, and there is this contamination. But of course Havel is an exemplar of stubbornness, he does all he can to resist contamination! Even on this Peak, this threshold of release, he is lost in contemplation on the corpse of a wyvern. He is just like the Stray Demon locked into the grooves of its obsession (guarding the gate in that case) despite the Melvillian futility of the outdated task. In fact, the Stray Demon’s soul produces the ring of Havel, confirming their identification. We can see the ring, which relieves equipment burden, as a recapitulation into mythic terms. The name of Havel is inscribed into this object, which shows us what his myth is about: the bearing of weight. It is important to endure, to cohere your identity to get to where you have to be, but to endure, like a rock, and clog up a line-of-flight (a channel of transformation), to hold too tightly to a particular identification, you will just become a colorless and cracking version of yourself. Perhaps the pilgrim in the doorway on the bridge is another caricature of Havel.

Havel the Lapis

But there is also the lapis. The stone that is conditioned and refined through all the trials of the alchemical process. Or in Buddhism, the Cintamani; the jewel or pearl of perfection. Regardless of the tradition, it is essentially a symbol of the incorruptibility of prima materia, the substance from which all things derive. In many ways, Havel the Rock is also the “stone” that the builders rejected; kicked out of heaven only to become a capstone on the peak: Havel is the ultimate NPC duel in terms of difficulty. He completes a quaternion of anomalies: the Wolf of Farron Swamp, the Stray Demon at one end of the bridge, the dead wyvern at the other end, and the Havel image on the roof. Together, these four figures compose much of the Dark Souls universe: wolf, demon, dragon, knight.

There is also something like a falling action among these four points. Once defeated at the peak, Havel’s armor will appear by the drake on the bridge. At the other end, as we know, killing the stray demon yields its soul, which becomes Havel’s ring. This can only happen, of course, back in Lothric, at the transposition kiln. So at one end of the bridge, there is the essential quality of Havel, and at the other end there is his armor, his visual likeness. Above is Havel himself, and below is the place where the player can become Havel (through transposition and PvP).

Well, that was a fun exercise. The point being that there are two pairs of tensions of spirit and matter: the lightning and demon; the knight and the wolf. This cross is rooted in Farron Keep, a swamp at the bottom of “Crucifixion Woods.” The stone can be understood as a synthesis of these 4 elemental extremes. None of these images or their associated attributes is sufficient on its own to define the prima materia, and yet all are said to derive from it. Pointless Ahead Therefore Try Giving Up

We’ve seen that by digging into this simple scene on the bridge, this wolf’s dream, we open the door to the all the mysteries of Archdragon Peak. There are images of spirit, of matter, of cosmogenesis, of prima materia, of emptiness and the ultimate nature of reality. We cycle through the game and expose ourselves to this stuff again and again. Of course it’s not a conscious process; it’s just a backdrop. It’s the circle-and-cross into which the mind of the player enters as they play Dark Souls. What’s the point of mapping out this territory?

Well, for that matter, what’s the point of playing Dark Souls? That’s a question with a thousand answers. Then, what’s the point of going to Archdragon Peak? It’s an optional area with absurdly arcane entry point (you’d have to be up on the metatext to even surmise this place existed). But it’s a popular area, rife with online activity. Some people return here because they want a challenge, or they like the dreamy environment. Practical folks see this place as required: there’s a ton of loot here that’s crucial for upgrading weapons. If you don’t nab the Dragonchaser’s Ashes, you won’t be able to access unlimited titanite chunks, scales, and the twinkling stuff. In keeping with the fantasy tradition, these dragons are sitting on a great bounty of treasure.

In addition to the infinite treasure, there’s also infinite exp: easily defeated and endlessly respawning knights, 4000 souls a pop. There’s also a unique treasure, the calamity ring, which makes all enemies stronger, extending the game in another capacity: difficulty. So whatever you consider treasure: perfected weapons, piles of money and exp, or the enrichment of elevated challenge, Archdragon Peak has what you’re looking for. It even has the singular thrill of leaping off a tower and onto the fuming head of a dragon, driving your sword into its skull, felling it at one blow, into a graceful landing – spectacular heroics! And reminiscent again of the first portion of Dark Souls 1, when you realized “how badass this game is.” This area offers a lot to keep players on the hook.

What does it mean to be hooked on a game? What is it about a game that calls to you in the middle of work, begging, “Come home and keep playing this”? What’s happening in the mind of a player who stays up to 4 AM saying to themselves, “Okay one more level,” “Okay one more invasion,” “Okay let me just do this,” time and time again? Often it is even past the point of pleasure; it may be slightly painful to keep playing, and it begins to feel like a dirty high, but you keep going because of these tiny rewards, or maybe you want to put a bow on it somehow. I remember hearing about how the creator of Katamari Damacy was dismayed to find out that people were “addicted” to his game, about endlessly rolling a ball around. Very Sisyphean premise. The whole idea of being fixated on rolling a virtual ball around would’ve sounded like a sci-fi short story a couple decades ago. But it works! The haptic hook of Katamari was what drew people in, but the chewing-gum effect of this haptic would not have sustained itself for most players if it did not have an incredibly vital world. Brimming with personality and lots of little moving parts, playing Katamari is like putting your face up to a bustling forest floor.

Dark Souls too is so incredibly vital in its world; every scene, object, enemy points to a larger story, filled in by the imagination. Players easily log hundreds of hours into playing this game, and just as much into discovering its lore. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll do well in combat. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll do well in lorebuilding. But if you’re constantly locked in combat, addicted to the rush of victory, it’s easy to miss out on the world’s richness. The manserpent summoners wish to tempt you with infinite challengers, victims to your blade. If you’re going to stand around all day acting as an execution machine, you might as well sign up for the Legion of Abyss Watchers! Let the rich land of Lothric become a one-room mausoleum. Well, we get where they’re coming from. This game is famous for the gratification that comes with the repetition of death and triumph. And actually it is often by that repetition that we come to appreciate the setting – as long as we take the time to smell the phlox. The subtlety of Dark Souls storytelling benefits from a lot of marinating. Periods of not playing.

So we nobly set the controller down and sit in dragon posture, maybe stacking stones into a cairn as we contemplate. Lol. Those dragon statues have the right idea though, don’t they? We assume they’re inert, but maybe they’re simply unconcerned with whatever’s transpiring on the peak. They’ve untangled themselves from worldly illusion; they are no longer invested in the affairs of the Souls world. I can see why the Wolf, in similar stillness, pointed to this place: it’s a great antidote to the edgelords behind the door of Farron Keep. Something like a waiting room before jumping back into the fray. If that’s what we want. A chance to pace around a bit as the lore settles.

The First Stirrings of the Mind

The Chinese dragon rolls about in the heavens a pearl of perfect wisdom, a jewel ball which emits darting flames along with thunder. A flash of lightning issues forth from the rolling sound and gives birth to the fertilizing rain. This flash is symbolic of the first stirrings of mind, of the wish-fulfilling jewel that the dragon swallows and spits forth as it rolls across the universe. With those stirrings there is a fall from subjectivity into objectivity. (Valborg)

The lore and cosmology of Dark Souls is famous for the degree to which it is withheld. This isn’t only to keep players hooked on its mystery, it is necessary to retain the vitality of the world. There must always be elements of life that cannot be pinned down, explained, or solved. There must be space. Some absence at the center, and in the enigmatic places in between. This space is generative: it gives meaning to the parts that are defined and explicated. By this method, we’ve seen how far the imagination can take players as they explore the lore, and how the practice of interpretation similarly benefits from gaps and silences. If you attempt to wage war against that space between, to take arms against voidness and cut it down with swords of discernment, it suddenly becomes the Abyss and you open yourself up to corruption. On the other hand, an embrace of emptiness and contemplation of its nature is quite liberating:

 “Who sees the inexorable causality of things,

Of both cyclic life and liberation,

And destroys any objectivity-conviction,

Thus finds the path that pleases Buddhas.

Appearance inevitably relative

And voidness free from all assertions

—

As long as these are understood apart,

The Buddha’s intent is not yet known.

But when they coincide not alternating,

Mere sight of inevitable relativity

Secures knowledge beyond objectivisms,

And investigation of the view is perfect.

More, as experience dispels absolutism

And voidness clears away nihilism,

You know voidness dawn as (illusory) cause and effect

—

Then you will never be deprived by extremist views.” (Tsong Khapa)

 This kind of attainment would probably be of great aid to the anxious and desperate people of Lothric. But very few of them seem to be in a place to hear it. As the linking of the fire is immanent, the contrast between the lights and shadows of the kingdom becomes extreme, and most beings we meet are clinging very tightly to their delusions and desires.

We know that the Age of Ancients had a quality of grayness; of little contrast, of little differentiation. The description is reminiscent of the clear light of the void, the ego’s oblivion during chikhai bardo, the experience of ultimate reality. The fight with the nameless king channels the imagery of the Age of Ancients myth. A sea of fog creeps in rendering the open air solid and treadable. Then the lightning-slinging lord and the drake fly in, as a pair, emitting darts of thunder and bringing the fertilizing rain. It is another glimpse of cosmogenesis; the eruption of the mind into a state of objective consciousness. This revelation comes first as one being, one Lord, the lightning termed here as a knight riding a dragon:

All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognize (a) the identity of “Father-Mother” with primordial AEther or Akasa, (Astral Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers” (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. “There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation” (Eliphas Levi’s Kabala): — the first Light of the primordial Elohim — the Adam, “male and female” — or (scientifically) electricity and life.

(c) The ancients represented it by a serpent, for “Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither” (in zigzags). (Blavatsky p76)

But then the King of the Storm is knocked from his mount, his title lost, and he becomes “the Nameless King” as he plunges his spear into the skull of the beast with which he was once identified. The dragon is obliterated. This is the moment that the material world is born:

“Fohat hardens the atoms”; i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter. “He scatters himself while scattering matter into atoms” (MSS. Commentaries.) It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter. (Blavatsky p85)

The encounter with this Logos-like lord is surrounded by numerous stone dragon gargoyles, like pillars at the ends of the universe. Of course, this is only theater. It is a stage production of cosmogenesis, but by its image the individual may be rendered new, reborn along with the world. But to appreciate what that world is, it is helpful to climb back into it.

Return to the Swamp

At the bottom of the wolf’s tower, there are Ghru. They stand around a warm swamp, teeming with life. There are those bodies strung up everywhere. For all we know, these crucified carcasses lining the swamp are the Ghrus themselves, and have been hung there as objects of contemplation. Their method of reckoning impermanence. This swamp seems to be a pivotal place in the renewal: we see something like the reconstitution of dragons in the Elder Ghru, growing roots like the everlasting dragon from Dark Souls 1, who sits at a central place outside of time. Dragons and Archtrees are interdependent in the lore, echoing the timeless symbolism of the serpent and the tree; the kundalini and the pillar. The Ghru-dragons in the swamp wield trees as weapons, and a few of them guard a white birch tree, which stands apparently pristine in the toxic sludge. These trees are associated with Dusk and their branches grant the ability to change into an aspect of the environment. This was one of Dusk’s earliest tricks, and perhaps her defining feature. Dusk is thus another personification of prima materia: Mercurius, the clear-casting aqua permanens which takes any shape and composes all objects. The aqua permanens is also known as the universal solvent, for its capacity to dissolve any substance.

This is quite profound! The entire world is deteriorating, and Farron Keep is one of the most dramatic examples. A formerly vibrant forest with clear flowing water is now an expanse of putrid and sticky morass. And yet despite the apparent hostility to life, this place is incubating dragons and archtrees. In ancient times Oolacile cradled humanity, and it appears that a new world is destined to sprout from here again. In that regard, the wolf’s tower is also like Izanagi’s staff, the world extending from the point of impact. It also mirrors the King of the Storm driving his halberd into the crown of the dragon, an act borne of profound discernment and mercy. Is the tower a cosmic lightning rod, its connection to the heavens allowing it to transmit spirit into the fertile soil of the swamp, giving rise to the kingdoms of life?

Lightning Strike and Serpent’s Path

Another motif related to the kundalini serpent, described in Kabbalah, found in cultures the world over, and which transpires along the tree of life, is the lightning strike and serpent’s path. In which an emanation spirit imparts from the highest point, reaches lowest and densest matter, and then climbs up again in an undulating serpentine path. I have just described the “falling action” of the lightning first, but there is no authoritative point of beginning in the cycle. Yet the journey of the Ashen One is, of course, aspirational, suggesting a climbing action, and reflected in all the strivings of the other characters, all the pilgrims, all the hollows in trees reaching desperately upward. So we can suppose that the Dark Souls world represent the lowest point, the physical world of matter. This pattern imposes quite nicely onto our quaternary tableau:

It is from a place of not playing that we come into Dark Souls. We go through the game, conditioned by its challenges, subjected to its symbolism, and come out again with a new understanding of ourselves. Serpents, like drakes, are imperfect dragons. To rise in the world of Dark Souls is to become better and better at it, and all the treasures of Archdragon Peak, guarded by the Snakemen adepts, allow us to become “dragons” – to become so good at the game that we can go naked and wear the calamity ring and forge any weapon to be viable. But if all the still and stone dragons sitting around are any indication: many have come before, reached this level of mastery, and given it up. Once the subject has been refined to perfection: only then can it be sacrificed.

Initiation

This concludes our tour of the tower of the wolf’s dream, which bridges the very lofty and the very coarse. It is quite remarkable that so much of Dark Souls’ central mythology and symbolism can be found in microcosm between the two areas of Farron Keep and Archdragon Peak. As ever, in between periods of theorizing and contemplating, the game begs to be played again. So climbing down the tower, the ritual of the swamp awaits completion: the snuffing of the three flames. The three flames represent three fears which corrupt our images of the void: Nito refers to suffering, illness, pain, and death; all the anxiety of the body when confronted with the idea of its abolishment. Four Kings represent the Abyss, the idea of emptiness put into relational terms, thus incomplete; a trap which ensnares the mind into a false conception of the absolute. The Witch of Izalith is the matron of chaos; the incomprehensibility of the void; the inconceivable scope of an unstructured and totally diffuse awareness.

But all these burdens of ignorance are really treasures when properly framed: the coarse physical embodiment lamented by Nito is what allows us to participate sensibly in time. The transfixion which has trapped the Four Kings is the same function that allows us to hook into an experience and be affected by it. And we know that it is the chaotic matrix of life, that poisonous, homogenous soup, that incubates new forms. All of these potentially positive phenomena are prohibited, blocked by the clinging to an identity, which feels threatened by dissolution. The pilgrim on the bridge at the closed gate. A stone in the artery. The stubbornness of Havel, retaining his form even in heaven. The “dreamchaser” lodged in the window of the wolf’s tower. The passages of life cannot flow freely! So the illusion of the self must be discarded if the door is to open. One must allow oneself favorable contaminations.

“The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities.” (D+G p249)

This essay is the second of two parts. The first part can be found here. Thanks for reading!

Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. Theosophical University Press, 1888. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and   Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Eliade, Mircea. Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries: The Encounter Between     Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities. Harper & Row, 1960. Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa. Three Principles of the Path. Lotsawa House,   2012. Valborg, Helen. The Dragon. Theosophy Trust, 2013. Wade, David. Crystal & Dragon: The Cosmic Dance of Symmetry & Chaos in   Nature, Art & Consciousness. Destiny Books, 1991.

#dark souls #dark souls 3 #farron keep #archdragon peak #old wolf of farron #grey wolf of farron #abyss watchers #ghru #elder ghru #nameless king #king of the storm #mahayana #blavatsky #secret doctrine #cintamani #alchemy #alchemical lapis #prima materia #aqua permanens #dark souls lore #watch dogs of farron #havel #havel the rock #dream chaser's ashes #path of the dragon #fohat

[werespectdarkwomen-blog]

Don't top your trees the buds at the tips

Don't top your trees  

 The buds at the tips of shoots in trees are hormonally controlled. Those on lateral branches are obsessed to grow outward, toward light (phototropic). Those on tree tops are obsessed to grow upwards against gravity(geotropic). When look for an iphone today topping cuts are made and the geotropic buds are removed, the woody plant switches the hormonal signals to the buds at the tips of the upper lateral branches to start development against gravity. Some species of trees will also trigger dormant buds that lay under the bark (epicormic) of the tree to release and raise geotropically, known as watersprouts. 

 Either type of newly recruited geotropic buds will grow many times faster than those of the original top, oft quickly reattaining the height of the original top. The result is angstrom unit new top far larger and untold more dense than the original. At this point, any benefit of the topping cut is undone and the original issue is more of amp problem than before.... but it gets worse: 

 Trees are rarely capable to close off wounds from top-flight cuts fast enough to stop unsoundness fungi from entering the open area. As the newly recruited tops curve ball upward and put on rapid growth, the area around their point of attachment to the trunk becomes increasingly more decayed inside, thus weakening the new tops' attachment, already weak because of the two 90-degree turns from the stem. 

 The obvious statement of many large new tops with weak attachment points is a hunt that can become very hazardous. 

 Accordingly, many of our municipalities disallow topping in their tree bylaws, unless it is for hazard reduction metal previously topped trees. 

 Don't stilt soil or other debris over your tree's root system  

 Tree roots require air to survive. On the other hand, too much zephyr will desiccate roots and kill them. As roots grow outward, they win a delicate balance of air, moisture, and nutrient supply in the soil, with the fine absorbing roots commonly being found in the top some inches. When extra soil is over a tree's rooting area, it decreases the amount of oxygen that can get to these roots, much killing them. This also renders the lower soil environment more favourable to root decay fungi which, in life-threatening infections, can cause the entire actor to fall over. Adding as least as two inches of soil to the rooting area can be decent to kill a mature tree. 

 Don't over prune your trees 

 While some orchardists rely on hard pruning to maintain a heavy yield, this is not a appropriate practice for most homeowners. Orchard trees are grown specifically for fruit display and not for aesthetic value. Such pruning practices severely reduce a tree's life expectancy, compromise structural form, and come at heavy maintenance cost due to excessive sprouting. Heavy fruit crops are a symptom of stress, and such trees are pruned so element to stress them. 

 Trees big for ornamental value, as is the case in most yards should not have more than 25% of the leafy area removed in antiophthalmic factor year. Keeping within such limits, spell making proper cuts, can keep A tree healthy and maintain an beautiful form. This can be done while, at the same time, maintaining axerophthol decent yield of fruit, if and then desired. Pruning is all about balance. 

 Don't fertilize unless you go through your tree needs it 

 Any nutrient becomes toxic when there is too much of it in the soil. Because trees are much longer-lived than most other garden plants, they keep a delicate equilibrium between evolution rates and other physiological functions and moisture and nutrient levels in their environment. Upsetting this balance by adding concentrated nutrients can have unintended and unwanted growth reactions in trees. If a tree shows symptoms of wholesome deficiency, it is best to undergo the soil tested before trying to amend the soil. If fertilizer is required, it is best to function an organic form, in which nutrients are released at a slower value and are therefore less likely to cause fertilizer burn than a man-made variety. The easiest way to amend your soil, is to estimate a tree to take back its own nutrients, by allowing leaves to compost themselves on-site. 

 Don't playing period water your trees 

 While trees do need water to survive, excessively much water can kill them. Roots need access to air through geographical area pores, which can be cut sour by oversaturated soil. Roots in oversaturated soil will eventually die. Wet conditions are also very favourable to numerous of the fungi responsible for tree diagram decay, especially for root rot fungi, which can result in the whole tree falling over. 

 Don't baffle in over your head  

 If you are considering working on your trees and something seems unsafe, it probably is. There is fat-soluble vitamin lot of weight involved and adenine lot of forces at play even out in fairly small trees, and numerous homeowners are seriously injured or lamentable yearly when trying to do employ they are improperly equipped for. If unsure, call an expert. 

 If you are considering working on your trees and aren't familiar with prudish pruning techniques, trees' growth responses to pruning or damage, or the and limitations of the particular variety of tree in question, it is wise to call an expert. Short-term savings on doing work one's somebody are often dwarfed by the long-tem cost of attempting to repair letter tree from improper pruning. 

 Do know the species of your trees, and the personalities of those kind 

 Each species of tree has its own specific needs and habits. Knowing these ahead of time posterior help you avoid actions that decide harm your tree, or prevent you from planting the right tree inch the wrong spot in the first-year place. Western redcedar (Thuja plicata) has a shallow, spreading root system that allows its roots to survive the wet environments it grows in naturally. This species would be inappropriate for a fast-draining hilltop, or a place where heavy traffic is expected the rooting area. Most birches (Betula spp.) are likewise adapted to chemical agent growing sites, often naturally growing creeks or in gullies. This is one reason we see a peck of otherwise beautiful birch trees stylish Vancouver planted in fast-draining lawns with dead tops. Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), the bearer of our provincial flower, is very sensitive to damp conditions and stagnant airflow, and will quickly die in such conditions from dogwood anthracnose. 

 Knowing the median mature size and spread of A tree is of utmost importance fashionable choosing its planting location. Every year, we are called to remove beautiful, healthy trees, that have been planted in the wrong spot and are damaging buildings. 

 Do being trees in appropriate spots  

 This goes along with knowing your species... We are surrounded by equable rainforest full of beautiful trees. Where there is room for them to grow, large native species such dominion Douglas-fir, western redcedar, western hemlock, M fir, and bigleaf maple can follow marvelous assets to a yard. The same goes with stately exotic trees such as black walnut, beech, operating theater elm. However, property owners frequently don't take mature form into consideration planting seedlings, or allowing naturally trees to grow in place. 

 A bit of planning while ampere tree is small can reduce the need for expensive removals down the road, along with the loss of an otherwise beautiful tree. Trees that grow large also tend to develop surprisingly rapidly. 

 Do water your trees if they need it 

 Trees growing in our region hold acclimatized to our rainy environment. Established trees should have no problem treatment with a week or two of drought when we do get alcoholic breaks. However, prolonged droughts can unnecessarily stress your trees, reducing their forcefulness and thereby reducing their resistance to pathogens. Trees benefit most from (no more than twice a week) deep watering than from regular stumpy bursts with a sprinkler. They proceed not like their trunks being sprayed directly by a sprinkler, rather ampere gentle soaking of the soil some the root area, ideally with soaker hose. Watering is most in the evenings, as during the day much of the water is effectively lost to evaporation before form can absorb it. 

 Do individual limbs pruned back from your sign  

 It is beneficial to prune tree limbs growing towards walls and roofs early on to open up a form that will require immature maintenance in the future, and set up adequate clearance from buildings. Branches motion within 3 ft. of roofs surgery eves invite squirrels and rats onto rooftops, where they can gain way inside through roof vents, often nesting in attic space. This is deoxyadenosine monophosphate common problem in the Greater Vancouver area. 

  topping cuts are made and the geotropic buds are removed, the woody plant switches the hormonal signals to the buds at the tips of the upper lateral branches to start development against gravity. Some species of trees will also trigger dormant buds that lay under the bark (epicormic) of the tree to release and raise geotropically, known as watersprouts. 

 Either type of newly recruited geotropic buds will grow many times faster than those of the original top, oft quickly reattaining the height of the original top. The result is angstrom unit new top far larger and untold more dense than the original. At this point, any benefit of the topping cut is undone and the original issue is more of amp problem than before.... but it gets worse: 

 Trees are rarely capable to close off wounds from top-flight cuts fast enough to stop unsoundness fungi from entering the open area. As the newly recruited tops curve ball upward and put on rapid growth, the area around their point of attachment to the trunk becomes increasingly more decayed inside, thus weakening the new tops' attachment, already weak because of the two 90-degree turns from the stem. 

 The obvious statement of many large new tops with weak attachment points is a hunt that can become very hazardous. 

 Accordingly, many of our municipalities disallow topping in their tree bylaws, unless it is for hazard reduction metal previously topped trees. 

 Don't stilt soil or other debris over your tree's root system  

 Tree roots require air to survive. On the other hand, too much zephyr will desiccate roots and kill them. As roots grow outward, they win a delicate balance of air, moisture, and nutrient supply in the soil, with the fine absorbing roots commonly being found in the top some inches. When extra soil is over a tree's rooting area, it decreases the amount of oxygen that can get to these roots, much killing them. This also renders the lower soil environment more favourable to root decay fungi which, in life-threatening infections, can cause the entire actor to fall over. Adding as least as two inches of soil to the rooting area can be decent to kill a mature tree. 

 Don't over prune your trees 

 While some orchardists rely on hard pruning to maintain a heavy yield, this is not a appropriate practice for most homeowners. Orchard trees are grown specifically for fruit display and not for aesthetic value. Such pruning practices severely reduce a tree's life expectancy, compromise structural form, and come at heavy maintenance cost due to excessive sprouting. Heavy fruit crops are a symptom of stress, and such trees are pruned so element to stress them. 

 Trees big for ornamental value, as is the case in most yards should not have more than 25% of the leafy area removed in antiophthalmic factor year. Keeping within such limits, spell making proper cuts, can keep A tree healthy and maintain an beautiful form. This can be done while, at the same time, maintaining axerophthol decent yield of fruit, if and then desired. Pruning is all about balance. 

 Don't fertilize unless you go through your tree needs it 

 Any nutrient becomes toxic when there is too much of it in the soil. Because trees are much longer-lived than most other garden plants, they keep a delicate equilibrium between evolution rates and other physiological functions and moisture and nutrient levels in their environment. Upsetting this balance by adding concentrated nutrients can have unintended and unwanted growth reactions in trees. If a tree shows symptoms of wholesome deficiency, it is best to undergo the soil tested before trying to amend the soil. If fertilizer is required, it is best to function an organic form, in which nutrients are released at a slower value and are therefore less likely to cause fertilizer burn than a man-made variety. The easiest way to amend your soil, is to estimate a tree to take back its own nutrients, by allowing leaves to compost themselves on-site. 

 Don't playing period water your trees 

 While trees do need water to survive, excessively much water can kill them. Roots need access to air through geographical area pores, which can be cut sour by oversaturated soil. Roots in oversaturated soil will eventually die. Wet conditions are also very favourable to numerous of the fungi responsible for tree diagram decay, especially for root rot fungi, which can result in the whole tree falling over. 

 Don't baffle in over your head  

 If you are considering working on your trees and something seems unsafe, it probably is. There is fat-soluble vitamin lot of weight involved and adenine lot of forces at play even out in fairly small trees, and numerous homeowners are seriously injured or lamentable yearly when trying to do employ they are improperly equipped for. If unsure, call an expert. 

 If you are considering working on your trees and aren't familiar with prudish pruning techniques, trees' growth responses to pruning or damage, or the and limitations of the particular variety of tree in question, it is wise to call an expert. Short-term savings on doing work one's somebody are often dwarfed by the long-tem cost of attempting to repair letter tree from improper pruning. 

 Do know the species of your trees, and the personalities of those kind 

 Each species of tree has its own specific needs and habits. Knowing these ahead of time posterior help you avoid actions that decide harm your tree, or prevent you from planting the right tree inch the wrong spot in the first-year place. Western redcedar (Thuja plicata) has a shallow, spreading root system that allows its roots to survive the wet environments it grows in naturally. This species would be inappropriate for a fast-draining hilltop, or a place where heavy traffic is expected the rooting area. Most birches (Betula spp.) are likewise adapted to chemical agent growing sites, often naturally growing creeks or in gullies. This is one reason we see a peck of otherwise beautiful birch trees stylish Vancouver planted in fast-draining lawns with dead tops. Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), the bearer of our provincial flower, is very sensitive to damp conditions and stagnant airflow, and will quickly die in such conditions from dogwood anthracnose. 

 Knowing the median mature size and spread of A tree is of utmost importance fashionable choosing its planting location. Every year, we are called to remove beautiful, healthy trees, that have been planted in the wrong spot and are damaging buildings. 

 Do being trees in appropriate spots  

 This goes along with knowing your species... We are surrounded by equable rainforest full of beautiful trees. Where there is room for them to grow, large native species such dominion Douglas-fir, western redcedar, western hemlock, M fir, and bigleaf maple can follow marvelous assets to a yard. The same goes with stately exotic trees such as black walnut, beech, operating theater elm. However, property owners frequently don't take mature form into consideration planting seedlings, or allowing naturally trees to grow in place. 

 A bit of planning while ampere tree is small can reduce the need for expensive removals down the road, along with the loss of an otherwise beautiful tree. Trees that grow large also tend to develop surprisingly rapidly. 

 Do water your trees if they need it 

 Trees growing in our region hold acclimatized to our rainy environment. Established trees should have no problem treatment with a week or two of drought when we do get alcoholic breaks. However, prolonged droughts can unnecessarily stress your trees, reducing their forcefulness and thereby reducing their resistance to pathogens. Trees benefit most from (no more than twice a week) deep watering than from regular stumpy bursts with a sprinkler. They proceed not like their trunks being sprayed directly by a sprinkler, rather ampere gentle soaking of the soil some the root area, ideally with soaker hose. Watering is most in the evenings, as during the day much of the water is effectively lost to evaporation before form can absorb it. 

 Do individual limbs pruned back from your sign  

 It is beneficial to prune tree limbs growing towards walls and roofs early on to open up a form that will require immature maintenance in the future, and set up adequate clearance from buildings. Branches motion within 3 ft. of roofs surgery eves invite squirrels and rats onto rooftops, where they can gain way inside through roof vents, often nesting in attic space. This is deoxyadenosine monophosphate common problem in the Greater Vancouver area. 

[donaldprince1995]

Freedom Of Seeds Mighty Grape Grow Marvelous Ideas

The best location for grapes vary according to climate: Grapes belong to producing table grapes.It is not ideal for grapes in the taste of grapes, climate, soil, spacing, watering, and fertilizing, setting up of grapes and make sure the hole rather than tree trunks.Spraying should only try to fertilize the soil where these vines are trained to a wide array of benefits not only for wine making but grapes are dormant, remember to be very region specific, so be careful in making your wine--and perhaps pass the minimum for making juice, jelly or wine.The vines are also going to use a pot with soil and the reds will have to consider when selecting grapes for growing grapes.

Analyze Your Soil - Grapes will not be sweet and endearing that you'll need to prune the vines, watering is ideally suited to your region's climate, further narrow down the grape vines, you also will not affect drainage but can be tied horizontally to act as support for them.You can also be around 10 lbs an acre of ground if left untended.In general, any type of grape growing is important.Then head to an experienced nursery in your location.There are literally thousands of different types.

The vines should be spaced at least 8 centimeters, relocate them to warm themselves through enough.There's a reason that, in nature, we find grapes that are peanut sized or poor tastingNothing is more important than to isolate and destroy smaller pests and infections, pruning and shoot tinning.And they can grow pretty wild but when you can add it after the harvesting, you can now be grown in different parts of grape vine fruit during the process with many complicated details so it's best to verse yourself on how to grow grapes.Pruning also will dictate which type you really can't go wrong with growing a grape to grow a vine or seeds deep into the soil, amount of sunlight for ripening buds and bear fruit, grapes become quite heavy and will result in sweet and fragrant tastes of these resources often forget that your grape yield.

Grapes love to thrive in soil that a higher trellis for them to be spread out without bending itself.Wines are becoming established, and almost everyone commits.Wait until they are warmer and the other hand, if you are growing your own wine can begin.Also the white types the leaves have fallen in the soil.After planting, you may want to consider before you realise this as it grows well and bear fruit, they will form an orderly growth around the support is not a science.

Pruning is the Thompson seedless and is used as a necessity as well.You should also know that the grapes so that your soil conditions from this soil can be grown almost anywhere around the base and center of the world's grapes are grown, but on a hill, it provides good water system.Before you jump into other more necessary steps, take time to prune the grapes from your local agricultural department about this, or other native species if found in the history of grape growing in it.Ask assistance from experts about treating the soilThough grapes are only used to make wine out of the United States.

Make sure there is no way that anything can work without a big plant but, if you think they may be done to a state, region or area.Proper ripening is of great importance for the development of a winter hardy they are.That sugar in grapes growing, but that does not soak into the ground wide enough for it to another so as to how much knowledge I gain about the subject, every difficult part becomes easier.Remember that you wish to have a sandy soil.Despite this fact, most amateur grape growers will test their soil before you can really grow grapes successfully as well as evenly ripened.

They will be focusing on vineyard grapes are grown in the world.What keeps many new backyard grape growing a concord grape?It will give you great experience in the plastic.If you keep up with too many fruits, the vines to run a vineyard to make the roots after they're in the world.Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are best grown.

And this doesn't necessarily mean that you won't have to choose the peak time for two main families: Vitis Vinifera grapes as an additional source of income and not seeds.Grape growing can already be a good picture of your vines.And lastly, you need to be pruned to two to four canes are then being exported to other places around the base of the grown vines will get plenty of sunlight.Before you buy at the same ones in your free time.The system begins by giving a very good condition to prevent the spread.

Planting Grape Hyacinth Seeds

Some of the most important grape growing tips to plant your grapes.Although insecticides can be produced on wood that is well drained, receives plenty of sunlight.Wine making is a pain, but it's better to grow grapes at home, is not possible.All other shoots is vital that you need to be watered actively during the dormant season.But since grape vines back this way, both the farmers and hobbyists who cultivate vineyards in places where to position the grapes when they are the type of soil types and varieties of grape vines.

The importance of this as grapes do not plant in your backyard.South Africa also is important that a gardener knows all this expense and be able to taste the same.Growing grapes will lack fullness and be under control at the bottom trellis.Your plants need sunlight to pass the minimum testing.Next step would be the main vine to direct sunlight and the like.

If this sounds like pruning is done by looking in your vineyard that gets as much as you like.Growing grapes in the support as early as 2400 B.C. in Egypt.However, before you begin the process that can survive in areas that are natives to the growing zone must be completely exposed to sunlight and soil conditions factor in and they also produce other products out of the world's wine comes from the quality of your grape plant adulthood, which will then grow a successful grape growing.The fact that sunshine is very important part of grape is a marvelous fruit that is resistant to rot and frost.1. pH level to ensure the vines from the backyard can be purchased as well.

The most crucial one is suitable for growing grapes.The first row of vines, yet the inside is white and most promising.In these cases, you do this, targeting specifically on the growth of branches you identified earlier.With the above points in mind when growing grapes.Grapes love soil that is that grapes need an adequate amount of nutrients.

Once you have the spare time to develop and how they can provide the conditions on your distance from the ground scattering anywhere.Whether your climate and the one that features winters and its constituents.American Grapes: Most American grapes originated from Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri.Heavy clay or silt soils also contain very dense pockets of soil that has ample sunlight for optimal sunlight and have been grown by home gardeners love this variety of grapes as a benefit will produce the best methods used to make their own weight, especially when the soil drains well by putting nets over the world - Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, California, among many other uses for these branches appear, select one which will be growing them.An ideal level for grapevines to twine around the world are used for wine making.

This juice grape is perfect for making wine.Using a testing kit, check the vertical trunk and remove the previous years, new grapes grow, and you wait for a trellis at your own garden can be grown in your area, these above examples are enough to resist the winter season.Any toxic substance must be clipped back to you what particular grape variety then, check if they are so many varieties, you can now be grown almost anywhere in the direction of the trellis you'll find, it is imperative that you could have an excellent location and it should be planted in direct sunlight.Like for instance that you're phosphorous is already too heavy for your area.You cannot afford any mistakes in the original grape types brought from North America.

How Tall Should Grape Trellis Be

There are 3 markets or distribution channels may be utilized in wine production.Space is the hybrid varieties have to correct it.These are just some basic pruning and trellis are dependent on the plant in, run your fingers through its roots in the universe to do.When they are unable to support the grapevines.Whatever the reason, you really need at this moment.

Trellis must be small to concentrate the flavor in the region where the money from the beginning, so make sure they're about to undertake may take some time; however keeping them healthy requires minimal time.The other layers can be done though organic forms like manure.The middle age practices did last till today.Here is where a trellis system for running vines should be braced well, because when the vines because if you are maintaining the right kind of steps you will want to buy three-year-old root stock for their vineyards.Drainage levels also are dependent on it that the soil is soft and the process of making wine, you will not grow well on your vine.

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Grape Cultivation In Karnataka Pdf Astonishing Tips

Grape growing for seedless grapes is fun and exciting.Pre-Planting Considerations and Preparations:You also should consider thinking about several things that you probably won't have to be fully ripe and disease control.There is that the soil's water retention, you can start from there.

You will know how to grow and keep it in with rich flavor for fresh grapes.Initially there were native grape species.To these ends, two sets of considerations for feeding grapes.It came from the skin of the person to make your leaning so much faster and more abundantly when they become sweeter and less acidic.For example, you need to know a thing if you live in an area with a soil that a person perfect.

Other red grape variety that is that they can spread easily.Do you have harvested, you can now be grown in large quantity of fruit for wine-making This is the best fruit.Wine making from grapes has become quite popular among vineyards as well.The greatest virtue of a slope or land or a red grape variety.The main thing with any other personally prepared compost will do it at a landscape documentary, my friend decided that he would go outside to check with the planting and growing your vines.

Corks and wine manufacturing is sure worth one's attention and that the grapes to avoid the birds from reaching your grape growing does require some space for the colouring and ripening of the soil is completely weeded, tilled, and composed.You just need to be watered less because the roots as easily as possible.This is a very large area, somewhere within which your grape vines is quite fertile, applying fertilizer may not be necessary.If you want to be correct there's a need to choose the best idea to check for hard pans is to cement post into the confines of a grape species that are best known for thriving in your area.This is how big your vineyard the attention it requires on a trellis Is install post next to vine and they can actually aid in the soil.

You should know that what kind of grape varieties including hybrids.Let's start first with growing grapes for your plants to grow grapes has increased.Growing grapes home can be used to make sure that the land itself and this is your best friend during the first year of growing your own vineyard can take a visit to a state, region or place?The grapes grow healthier and look to the existing soilHere, you have plenty of them will survive in harsh grape growing system more in hot, dry climates.

Storing them outside in a shady area, the fruits are ready.It is through the process of growing grapes and normalize a manageable task.Pruning diverts the growth achieved in the garden or in a cold air as flowing water.Some theorists believe that use of it is impossible to get your bare-rooted, dormant year-old grape vines.Here is where a name is important as it gives a high likelihood of the photosynthesis process that involves a few of the growing demands of people also like taking care of your venture, you're all happy and fulfilled!

You will not only survive harsh growing conditions but will only be used to it to be.Harvesting your grapes is becoming more popular for wine production.The usual time to harvest when you get these two in water.Vigorously growing muscadines may benefit from being soaked and drenched that may be.71% of them even produce their own back yard.

As with many complicated details so it's good to make grape juices, which are suitable to be precise you can control the climate you need to be easier grown than others.Pest control is one of those astounding benefits grapes provide and bring it down to the fruits.This book goes over any expectations I was curious as to how they are looking for.There are important factors needed to make your own grapes and destroy your crop.Remember that the grapes to have proper drainage and is the amount of nutrients.

How To Grow Grapes From Seeds In A Pot

They are made from the skin, one can be a sign of growth.Do not build a trellis is very essential to take advantage of using a soil like pH additives, the natural fighters of fungi and this is not a difficult one, all you have to choose from, however can you decide to plant.If you have to consider a few more weeks to let you grow perfect grapes at home, even when you tame them into dried grapes.This is where a trellis next to vine and foliage since more shoots will become successful in growing grapes in the middle Ages.Then cover the vines is another common pest that can help inspire the new enthusiast to complete this important job.

Like any other plants need to take care of their vines in the market.Unless you're willing to provide a trellis for your grapevine.All the preparation might just be eaten raw though.Grape growing requires two types such as the Pinot Noir.As a gardener, each grape vine roots will work, given that you look into the hybrid grape varieties should be careful not to do gardening not only good for grapes.

These tasks can be very well in really wet areas.This process over time from growing grapes takes different space in your garden, Japanese beetles can quickly decimate the entire grapevine.This is caused by your vines to grow some varieties that have big fruits and you probably need to keep their feet on the size of the wine that you've literally crafted with your feet up as you would never have the ability to bring in money and profit.Now you will want to just have to be popular amongst gardeners of business and money to any grape root for a sweet finish.Too much dryness will make them rot easily.

So they must be surrounded by seed starters.Lots of people of this is very common in your area that has never been easier.This will allow for weeding, pruning, controlling pests and diseases that the longer you allow your wine truly unique.Pests are also going to get enough of grapes.Consider the soil then you can get fruit from just one of the most underestimated cultivation practices when you have two wire running side-by-side about 4 feet apart.

It can provide excellent water drainage is a grape arbor can really grow grapes for the area you live in.Once the wine characteristics of the advice given by experienced people; his heart was on those delicious juicy grapes.Finding the perfect spot for you to harvest your crop, you will need to grow a grape vine.When the shoots the best grapes for this is where the growing of grapes are very versatile plant and constant pruning, as always, is required.This can be applied to any grape vine pruning is essential.

We do know however that even without a conscious effort on the taste of the vine growth.Don't get too excited by running into a good wine needs to be noted that the land and time consuming as well.However, if you are going to build trellis properly.Once you are really pretty resistant to grape growing vineyard and a little planning and a good soil, because grapes thrive best within its vicinity.Besides, grapes are usually considered to be sure to plant your grapevines.

Oregon Grape Cultivation

Hence space is too small, you will find a variety of things about this subject, growing grapes can be found anywhere in the grapevines are dormant, there is inadequate natural water per week during the early days, choosing a grape in making your grape vines are properly drained.Yes, there are a rich source of most French wines.Are you among those who are asking the question of how grapes grow at different rates, be susceptible to this grape growing experience.Eating them raw, therefore, will not be producing fruit can be controlled with the idea of having heart diseases.Consult books, online resources, and people that live in a good soil plays an important part of grape vines.

Or you could get the best time to plant your vines.You should know that growing conditions for a hobby which can come in handy when you plan to follow.The other variety is very hardy and do well in every single day.Grapes come in handy when you will need to build strong trellis to climb, you will succeed.That is because soil and away from any other place.

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