#and then coercing laurence into following his plans

[deliverred]

Fool's guilt

TW for: domestic abuse between siblings, nonconsensual drug usage, nonconsensual body modification in the form of scarification

Lukas isn’t sure why he allowed himself to be lured into town by Laurence.

His brother had called for a celebration in town on the heels of sentencing Lukas to whatever fate awaited him within the Deliverance's ranks. He had seen the smug, triumphant look in his brother’s eyes when he got his way; knew that whatever Laurence had planned in town, it was hardly to be a celebration for the great honor being bestowed upon him, and yet Lukas had not fought it. 

Perhaps it was the lingering numbness, the finality of his father agreeing with his brother that he should join the Deliverance and fight on Zofia’s behalf. Ever since he was a child, Lukas had been aware that his path was set out to be one of knighthood and bloodshed, and yet faced with the very real prospect of war, some part of him had still been crestfallen at how easily he was being sent to the frontlines by his father.

Perhaps he was finding it difficult to care when no one else seemed to.

The town was not lively when they arrived. Lukas was not the only young man marching south to join the cause, after all, and it left a somber mood in the streets. They were close to the border with Rigel, they above all others knew the strength and endurance of the north; there would be many families worrying after their loved ones gone off to war.

He doubted there would be anyone worrying for his sake.

Juxtaposed to those they passed in the streets, Laurence was downright chipper. As far as he was concerned, he'd contributed what he needed to the war and he could now wash his hands of the matter.

Lukas follows him into a pub, the air heavy with pipe smoke and the hearth fire, and is immediately assaulted with the hollering of his brother’s friends. He notices that a couple are missing, but that the two present aren't the most difficult to get along with. Most of his brother's friends were the sons of other nobles, but some were from the more well-to-do among the towns and villages from the surrounding area. They tended to cling to his brother's coattails for a taste of higher life, either in denial or ignorant of the way his brother fed it to them bit by precious bit like one would a treat to a passingly amusing dog's tricks.

They made a great deal of noise as they got settled in, heaping on praise they didn’t mean for a choice Lukas did not make. They go on and on about wishing they could do the same, but someone had to stay and tend to things here.

Laurence smirks and Lukas smiles, and drinks are called for.

Lukas relents to one drink, much to the chagrin of the others who attempt to coerce him into more. Surprisingly, it is his brother who steps in to call them off: citing that he needed to be off early in the coming morning, and it would hardly look good for House Archosech if they sent their promised son to the Deliverance, tripping all the way like a drunken fool.

It, admittedly, seems to catch their whole table off guard.

Laurence had never been the sort of brother to look out for Lukas, even at the times where they’d been able to get along, but his friends seem to recover quickly and bluster on about how they can still have a fun night.

And perhaps it was foolish to think that this was Laurence wanting to send him off well despite everything. Lukas had never understood his brother, not really, but for all their clashes they were still brothers and he had only ever desired a connection with him.

So he did not trust the doubts he’d harbored earlier, did not listen to that little voice whispering in his ear that sending him off had been Laurence’s wish, and this could only be some part in his personal pleasure at that fact. And he did not see when one of his brother’s friends slipped something into one of the drinks that made its way to their table.

The night carries on, and for a time, all seems to go strangely well.

They talk and laugh as if they are good friends, jovial with drink and company. Lukas sticks to his one, but he finds that it hits him rather harder than he was used to and by the time he’s drained it, he feels loose-limbed and fuzzy. Teasing comments are made about his fortitude, and before Lukas can muddle his way through a response, he finds himself being hauled up and out of the tavern by Laurence and his friends.

It had gotten quite late, and it was time to go home, Laurence laughed in explanation as Lukas tried and failed to make sense of things. He was held up between the other two young men, who were loudly singing as they all stumbled after Laurence, following the road back up to the estate.

Bed sounded good to him right now. He felt woozy, and even supported as he was by other hands, Lukas found putting one foot in front of the other to be dreadfully exhausting and difficult. One last, good night of rest in his warm bed would surely…set him…right…

They do not go back to the manor house, but towards the stables. There is firelight flickering somewhere it ought not to be at this late hour, and dulled as he is, Lukas knows something is not right.

But he didn’t fight it before, and he cannot fight it now.

“I do hope you’ve been enjoying your celebration, Luka,” Laurence says, greeting the missing couple of his friends as they enter the small, attached forge that was used by the farrier. “I couldn’t let you go off without a little gift to remember home by, you know.”

Lukas frowned at the nickname, started to pull himself away from the others who had been keeping him upright, but was brought down to the floor by their combined strength as soon as he began to struggle. His body felt heavy and slow to react, unable to put up much resistance against the hands that held him down, slurred words on his tongue frustrating him as he tried to speak.

There’s a hand at the crown of his head now; long, thin fingers winding into his hair in an almost gentle way before their grip tightens and forces his head up at an awkward angle. The light from the stoked coals in the small forge dance in the green of Laurence’s eyes as he stares down at him with an indecipherable expression.

“Father has such pride for you,” he says, voice smooth like smoke, "I was firstborn, and yet if he ever deigned to look my way, it was only in this damnable place and if I was hanging off his every word like a fool." Laurence gestures around them, to the stables, to their father’s legacy. “I am his heir, and yet still, he raises you above me! You! His bloody bastard! And for what? Because little Luka is so strong and clever? Little Luka can march around like a good soldier, and do as he's told?"

He hears the scrape of metal, the soft crackle of hot coals collapsing into themselves.

"I never understood it, since the day he brought you home and into our lives, and I can abide it no longer."

Through the dull confusion, there is indignant anger sputtering to flame and the cold drip of guilt settling in his gut -- though it was not his choice to be born under these circumstances. It was the choice of his father, his mother, to bring him into this world with so little care to those that already occupied it. Yet they did not care, and it was not fair to Laurence or the Lady Archosech, just as it was not fair to him. It had colored their entire lives from that point onward, and there was no changing it.

Lukas struggles, tries to pull away from the hold on him – his brother’s grip on his hair, the hands at his arms and the knee pressed into the back of his leg – but his strength is dulled, his thoughts muted and scattered and he can do little more than squirm and huff out a low noise like a caught animal.

"I am his son and heir, for what little it’s worth to hold such a title, and I want you to remember..."

Someone tugs his shirt up, presses more weight atop him until he goes still.

“I want you to remember that no matter what glory you find, whether you live or die, if you distinguish yourself on the battlefield…It will not change what you are. You will always be the illegitimate son, you will always be found wanting in one way or another, and any accolades you earn are not meant for you but for House Archosech.”

Green eyes meet red once more, and with a flippant gesture, searing heat is pressed into Lukas’ flesh just above his hip. It does not hurt, but he knows Laurence is aware that it won’t, and he rather thinks it was not intended to harm him physically.

The stink of burning skin fills his nostrils as Laurence pushes his face into the stone floor before releasing the hold on Lukas' hair.

"Father sends all of his prized war horses off to battle with the family mark, so may it serve as a reminder to you every day of your place in this world, brother.”

[katyahina]

Healing Church and Byrgenwerth used to be the one! (sort of hidden lore?)

Oh boy, I am really happy I got this ask! Will answer in a legit post if you don't mind. Yeah, this one is a little hard to unravel, but in fact plenty of the hints are here. So, we are bouncing from this bit about Alfred's dialogue:

(I will be using retranslations excerpts from Last Protagonist's document ( x ) as usual)

However it is important to notice that those who delved in the dungeons THE first are Willem, Dores and the gatekeeper! Something you can only learn if you pull an unlikely parkour in the Forbidden Woods and get an obscure item:

So from now on we enter the ‘blink and you'll miss it’ territory! 1 - ‘Eye’, the rune that is indeed a voice of Ebrietas, was also a symbol of the research for the Arcane Truth (eyes on the inside) that Willem pursued. 2 - Meanwhile, Isz Chalice that resulted in Choir finally meeting Ebrietas is a cornerstone of the Choir. 3 - MEANWHILE, Choir happened after Research Hall (in fact, happened on its ‘ruins’) - whereas Research Hall was something that belonged to the Healing Church... *takes deep breath* MEANWHILE, in early days of its existence, Healing Church was pursuing research for the arcane and eyes inside IN the Research Hall!

1:

2:

3:

As for the Choir forming where Reseach Hall once was, it is also obvious enough from THE game - Orphanage in ‘reality’ is exactly where Lumenflowers Garden in Hunter’s Nightmare is, and you can see the entrance from the balcony too - one that had beds in the Nightmare version, but no longer has it in ‘reality’!

Okay, you get the drill! So this is what we can conclude with the most probability:

Willem, Dores and the gatekeeper delved into the dungeons (ones that were not sealed yet, for one reason or another) and discovered signs of the cosmic Kin, Ebrietas most specifically. Caryll was able to decipher the sound from one of them, as they ARE linked to Ebrietas herself, thus Eye rune was discovered and the start for seeking eyes on the inside began! This might or might not been exactly what given the hunch to seek Fishing Hamlet (since they are some ancient Pthumerians leftover secluded civilisation), but in either case they got curious. After Fishing Hamlet, Research Hall happened and the patients started to dive deeper (figurally and literally lol) which resulted to closer connection to the cosmos/stars!

❗ A small interruption; Kos (or some say Kosm) isn’t necessarily FROM the cosmos; her actual Japanese name is Gos ( ゴース , Gōsu) as in like, ‘ghost’. Ebrietas, however, is properly called Daughter of the Stars (Hoshi no Musume), not ‘cosmos’. But ghost in reference to Kos’ actual name most likely refers to the phantasms. My headcanon is that Kos has something to do with the folks that DID initially abandon Ebrietas after she, so to say, gave them everything they needed, so helped them to ascend:

A potential explanation of her humanlike face?

Back to the Healing Church history!!! So, patients try to reach for the stars/cosmos for salvation, ok? (Interesting pair with the fact that pointy hats of Keepers of the Old Lords are said to look upwards as a proof of some sin) For one reason or another, Research Hall as it is known gets re-purposed, and instead they decide to teach orphans! My guess is that children - PARENTLESS children specifically - are the easiest way to summon Great Ones since Great Ones do want to find a (surrogate) child. So they will more likely speak with the kids that seek a parent, right? But Choir already exists as they decide to find Ebrietas already, and they do!

Still existing connection with Willem is also likely because petrified spider Ebrietas weeps at is most likely Rom herself! Byrgenwerth is said to be floating between Nightmare, making Rom guarding the lake her astral body, but her second body is in the dungeons! Queen Yharnam is, likewise a character who appears in the Lake (astral plane, and Nightmare too) as a peaceful person, but is hostile in the dungeons! So I think whatever happened to Rom split her in two, and perhaps similar thing happened with Queen Yharnam! But Byrgenwerth does have like... half of Rom at least... you know?

(Translation from here ( x ))

Winged God, Voice and Terror probably being Wet Nurse, Oedon and Flora respectively! Either way first Ebrietas cares about Rom to cry over her fate (?) later, then Rom is retracted in Byrgenwerth by Willem, but Ebrietas interacts with the Choir, which IS upper echelon of the Healing Church, so by the logic of what most likely happened to Rom, Willem was able to interact with the Choir, and very closely so, not just ‘hey remember that old man that once taught us stuff, lets copy his hat’.

Speaking of the hats!

Here is this guy right? And the whole altar seems to depict the process of the Blood Transfusion like what happens to Paleblood Hunter at the very start - there is a dream about beast, so they already had a hunch as to why Old Blood should be feared! Naturally, this statue could’ve been depicting Laurence rather than Willem, but... Not only that’d be a little off brand as Laurence is clearly more interested in what advantages Old Blood can give (moreso than ‘eyes’ it seems), but here is also a very interesting detail about Laurence’s status:

(Note from this ( x ) article, same I took Ebrietas’ real title from)

So basically, Laurence is unambigiously titled with the status that means ‘a person who REPLACES the person who is an ACTUAL leader of the church while they’re off duty’! So there MUST be an actual pope/bishop! And... honestly, I see no potential figure other than Willem - and Laurence is his vicar. Maybe Willem was also the first pope... but also the last. My personal headcanon is that Laurence’s last display of respect to Willem was to prohibit ever appointing another pope/bishop so now everyone in charge are ‘vicars’.

I will also bring up this bit:

(I talked about nature of Frenzy a bit more detailed in this ( x ) post, but TLDR; Frenzy is tied to the thirst for blood and hunt hence it resulting in one’s blood solidifying in literal spears (weapons), and even scholars aren’t safe from it - notes like ‘Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones.’ and ‘Three Eye Cords’ in Byrgenwerth suggest they got a hunch that they need to kill Great Ones to get their infants’ cords for eyes inside. Pretty much this is why consuming blood helps to calm Frenzy.)

So yes, in my opinion Occam’s Razor suggests that Byrgenwerth started to research for the eyes inside, that was causing Frenzy here and there, and they invented blood-based medicine, which inspired Laurence to become more interested in Blood Ministration than ascension through Arcane! Willem though, knew it was a dangerous path, as Byrgenwerth + early Healing Church established the adage.

Also, in this post about Frenzy I bring up that the prayer Amelia reads is also read by a white hunter in Research Hall (and by a hunter in black garb but only in Japanese), however Research Hall version MISSES ‘seek the old blood’ bit - it is JUST ‘beware of fraility of men’ sentiment, nothing about the power consuming the blood will give you.

So yeah! In the conclusion. Seems like Healing Church became a thing - and blood ministration too, as it proven to be effective against the Frenzy people who perceive too much Arcane enlightenment face, but Willem with his ‘inner eyes’ idea has been around - at least until Ebrietas herself was found and formed the bond with Rom! My theory as to how Laurence split from Willem is the moment where Healing Church deems Byrgenwerth a forbidden place!

So as we know, Alfred is a deluded fanboy of Logarius and Healing Church (not a protege as translators made it sound, he simply follows his teachings), so he believes whatever they say! We remember that Maria affiliatee of the Healing Church and Byrgenwerth herself is a subject to the weird vilebloods’ blood/fire magic (however she doesn’t like it), we also remember this shit:

And we ALSO remember that armours very similar to those from Cainhurst knighst but lower on polygons are in dungeons:

(Makes me think these losers kept trying to reclaim their lost heritage from Pthumeru until Gehrman finally informed them that beasts are too fast for heavy armour and showed these losers how to do trick weapons and proper attire - perhaps Maria was the first, and those who remained in Cainhurst stole her new drip... But I sidetrack.)

Either way, it makes no sense Healing Church is in enmity with Vilebloods, right? It makes me think that nourishing animosity towards Cainhurst was a planned action of Healing Church in order to justify Cainhurst massacre, and under guise of ‘purification’ steal the cord of Great One infant Annalise was pregnant with - the cord that served to conjure Hunter’s Dream! I talk more about this theory in this ( x ) post but tldr; Annalise was a redhead whose hair is now demelanized whereas Arianna’s hair turn from more vivid yellow blonde to white after she gives birth, both are vilebloods, also Annalise now has to hide her face under mask whereas Flora who has open guts and is implied having lost a baby has terribly distorted face, so perhaps GO infant being aborted results in the face horribly distorted by grief! Nevermind this bloody trail leading to under her skirt...

(I also heard that in earlier versions of Bloodborne before patches/DLC, the cord you pick in Abandoned Workshop actually WAS said to be brought by Executioners from Cainhurst and later that description was cut out. So if anyone has a visual proof of this - please, please, PLEASE I am BEGGING you, show it to me!)

So they needed to explain why Cainhurst was bad? And perhaps it went like this:

- Uhhhh hold on but why Cainhurst is bad because of using blood, were not YOU Byrgenwerth guys who discovered the blood to begin with?

- E-eeerr... Someone betrayed us!

So Byrgenwerth became a scapegoat to blame, massacre happened (possibly after Maria’s death, I doubt she’d allow Healing Church to do THAT), and now they needed to deal with the ‘traitors’ to save the effect of ruthless ‘salvation’ of Healing Church - at the cost of Laurence betraying Byrgenwerth, however Willem was also there when the plan of Hunter’s Dream was made.

And we ended up having three factions of the Healing Church - the ‘normie’ Healing Church that specifies on blood ministration (led by Laurence and currently, by Emilia) and two upper echelons of it that still pursue ideas of ascension through eyes on the inside (Choir and School of Mensis).

Yeah, we kinda came from more or less solid evidences to more vague/speculative ones, and to get the idea better I needed to turn to other, connected ideas but that’s the beauty (the pain) of Bloodborne lore - everything is connected! It is basically me gluing shards of a once whole object Miyazaki scattered because he drinks tears of lorediggers but yeah… I kinda throw such points casually because for me all this thing is already a no-brainer and internalised xd

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Required Reading

Seoul-based designer Sukwoo Lee designed the medals for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which will take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The jagged front are based on the letters of Hangul, the Korean alphabet that dates back to the 15th century. More images at Dezeen. (via Dezeen)

Bendor Grosvenor writes about museum image fees and how they’re out of whack:

But for ‘old’ art the situation is very different. Many museums will have you believe that because they are licensing newly taken photographs of, say, a Hogarth, then they have copyright over that photograph, and can therefore charge what they want for it. But this is not the case. There are variances, but essentially in both US and UK law a straightforward photographic reproduction of an old painting does not generate any new copyright implications. For a new photograph of a Hogarth to have any copyright vested in it, it must in some way be original (ie, amended, added to, written over, distorted). So don’t let museums tell you that what you’re paying for is the right to legally reproduce their photograph of their painting. They’re not. In fact, all they’re doing is hustling you.

The designer of the Papyrus font justifies his invention after SNL lampoons it:

“I designed the font when I was 23 years old. I was right out of college. I was kind of just struggling with some different life issues, I was studying the Bible, looking for God and this font came to mind, this idea of, thinking about the biblical times and Egypt and the Middle East. I just started scribbling this alphabet while I was at work and it kind of looked pretty cool,” Costello said.

He added, “I had no idea it would be on every computer in the world and used for probably every conceivable design idea. This is a big surprise to me as well.”

Curator Andrew Hunter explains why he quit the Art Gallery of Ontario:

I have always been concerned about the role art museums play in the wider world, about how truly engaged they are with the critical issues of our times. I’m fortunate to be able to teach regularly on museum and curatorial practice (currently in the graduate program at OCAD University). We often begin with the origins of the contemporary museum, which was born out of the private collections of wealthy Europeans who had built their fortunes on the extraction of resources, and people, from the most vulnerable nations in the world.

Out of this dubious practice evolved public educational institutions, or so they self-described. Really, they were outward displays of power that reinforced class division and validated the corporate and colonial systems that had made their founders rich. From wealth came power and then cultural dominance: museums set social rules, coercing the broader public toward shared values they deemed to be “acceptable.”

Saudi king’s gold escalator gets stuck (no comment):

Saudi King Salman's travel companion, his gold escalator, let him down during his historic visit to Russia http://pic.twitter.com/xgTaqV8WWG

— TRT World (@trtworld) October 5, 2017

Is the internet changing time? Laurence Scott writes:

The computer scientist and cyber-philosopher Jaron Lanier, who coined the term ‘virtual reality’ and who has written with both optimism and despair about the trajectory of the internet, believes that digitisation’s prodigious memory will be key to a sustainable global economy based primarily on exchanges of information. In Who Owns The Future?, he outlines a possible world in which data is the central commodity and all of us are properly remunerated for our contributions, conscious or involuntary, to the profitable crunching undertaken in Big Data’s storehouses. A simple example is that if you and your spouse meet on an online dating site and eventually get married, then you will receive a ‘micropayment’ every time two other people in the future are successfully matched up based on algorithms of compatibility to which your own happy coupling contributed. Lanier argues that since the data you provide – interests, profession, goals, politics – continually refine and improve the dating site’s ability to pair people, then you should own a share in the efficiency that your information nurtured. In this system, our digital pasts, archived across the network as data, resemble an actor’s filmography or an author’s back catalogue, an ongoing source of royalties. Such a model echoes Airbnb’s desire for everyone to ‘build a history’ online. Here the past is privileged in the way of all valuable things, as unforgettable as any personal treasure. Lanier’s design proposes an economy of remembering, whereby not even the smallest link in a lucrative data chain is forgotten. There is zero tolerance of structural amnesia in this system. As Lanier remarks, ‘Cash unfortunately forgets too much for an information economy.’

You know those orange-handled scissors that are in homes around the world? This is their story (I love design history.):

According to Jay Gillespie, Fiskars’s current VP of marketing, the company decided to vote on what color the final scissors design would be before it went into production. At the time, Gillespie says, colors like orange and lime were very popular, so they decided to stick with orange. “An icon was born from [that vote],” he says.

Nina Burleigh of Newsweek takes a look at Trump’s relationship with God:

Trump’s long and sometimes confounding spiritual journey started in Jamaica, Queens, at the bite-sized First Presbyterian Church, and later, at the WASPy Marble Collegiate Church on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, where prosperity prophet Norman Vincent Peale preached that you could think yourself to success. In 1952, Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking, a New York Times best-seller for 186 weeks that sold more than 5 million copies and was translated into 15 languages. That tome and his hailstorm of follow-up titles trained a generation of Americans to grin and fake it all the way to the bank. His theology was well summarized by the mantra Fred Trump pounded into his boy, Donald: “You are a killer. You are a king.”

That nugget may have been as close as young Donald ever got to Scripture. During the recent presidential campaign, he called the biblical book Second Corinthians “Two Corinthians,” a transgression on par with referring to the Holy Trinity as the Three Amigos. He has called Communion “my little wine” and “my little cracker.” More alarming for the truly pious, he couldn’t come up with a favorite Bible verse when asked during the campaign, except to say he liked the Old Testament’s “an eye for an eye.”

This investigation by Buzzfeed gives very credible evidence for the close relationship between alt-right troll Milo, Breitbart and lots of other figures (including Peter Thiel) with the white nationalist movement. This is a must-read:

And the cache of emails — some of the most newsworthy of which BuzzFeed News is now making public — expose the extent to which this machine depended on Yiannopoulos, who channeled voices both inside and outside the establishment into a clear narrative about the threat liberal discourse posed to America. The emails tell the story of Steve Bannon’s grand plan for Yiannopoulos, whom the Breitbart executive chairman transformed from a charismatic young editor into a conservative media star capable of magnetizing a new generation of reactionary anger. Often, the documents reveal, this anger came from a legion of secret sympathizers in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, academia, suburbia, and everywhere in between.

In case you wondered what equivalent climate regions around the world were for the US, this map is interesting:

US climate with equivalent cities from around the world [OC] [1513 x 983] from MapPorn

Mona Kareem writes about popular fascination with fiction by Arab dictators:

The news of this new release provoked me, specifically because it reflects a demeaning western approach to modern Arabic literature. Back in 2003, Saddam’s novels were widely discussed among Arab intellectuals exchanging accusations of writing for dictators for money, or under threat. It was an exhausting and embarrassing battle, but nevertheless necessary. At least in these debates, no one claimed to be “politically neutral.” Political neutrality is the discourse of the dominant, they who take their individuality for granted and in such they assume that their actions can be abstract, ahistorical, and isolated of all contexts.

The interest in “Saddam Hussein’s world,” as one Iraqi novelist once described it, was a serious western fetish after the Iraq war. Despite the fact that the man ran a bloody and exciting life, in all impossible ways, the scale of horror and violence was not satisfactory for western eyes. They needed play-cards, movies, novels, video games, private recordings, and all sorts of things to complete a picture of the enemy. It was the best way to abstract the mass destruction of Iraq as something far, far away, on another planet, in Saddam Hussein’s world.

If you buy a US flag made in the United States, there’s a good chance it was made by a prisoner:

I was born and raised in California and certainly took my fair share of California history classes from elementary school through college. In high school, I marched in protests against Proposition 21, the 2000 ballot initiative that made it easier to prosecute young people, and I was educated by the types of teachers who gave extra credit for attending demonstrations in downtown San Francisco against the Iraq War. But even I was surprised to learn that our country’s symbols of freedom were made by women who had none.

What should Canadian Twitter users with the new increased character count? Well:

All true Canadians know there is only one proper use of the new 280 character limit on Twitter. | Tous les vrais Canadiens savent qu'il n'y a qu'une bonne utilisation de la nouvelle limite de 280 caractères sur Twitter.

— Matt BB-8 (@tederick) September 28, 2017

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

The post Required Reading appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2yRVNUV via IFTTT