#plus the acorn from an oak of course :^)

[cheesebrainz]

A five-year-old winterheart In a place called home Sailing the waves of past

Partially referenced from a Simona Rossi & Eon illustration.

[thehiddendooronserpentinesteps]

THE BLACKWATER BATTLE

SANSA’S AND SANDOR’S EMOTIONS TOWARDS EACH OTHER

PART 1.

Hi there!

I started my blog with the Hound and Cersei’s relationship: this is, where Sandor’s character starts in the books. Then I moved on to my unkiss theory. And now I’d like to talk about what Sansa and Sandor feel for each other. Well, for that, I’d like to give a deep analysis of the Blackwater battle scene (ACoK, Sansa VII.).

This is a rather disturbing scene that divides the fandom. It starts with a rescue attempt, and ends with a terrible turn. We – again – cannot see the Hound’s inner thoughts or feelings, and Sansa is too young to fully comprehend his intentions. But still, I think this scene includes almost everything, we need to know about their feelings for each other. To prove this, I’m gonna use my beloved parallels, for I think they’re great to give a different light on what’s happening. I’ll cite a part from the scene, and then give a parallel. And I break the whole analysis in two, for it again became hella long…

Not all of the thoughts here are new, of course. But I don’t have much time to search the internet, so if you can give me sources of similar thoughts and theories, I would be grateful! Now let’s begin!

“LITTLE BIRD, I KNEW YOU’D COME.”

“Sansa said, "I knew the Hound would win." (The Hand’s tourney, AGoT, Eddard VII.)

I’m terribly sorry, I cannot remember who wrote it, but nevertheless, that fan was right. Sansa of course didn’t know, that the Hound was gonna win. What she really meant is that she wanted the Hound to win. Similarly what Sandor really means is "Little bird, I wanted you to come."

“HIS EYES GLOWING LIKE A DOG'S IN THE SUDDEN GLARE.”

I find Sansa’s description of his eyes in this scene stunning, because in their previous scene on the top of Maegor’s Holdfast she says this:

“The scars are not the worst part, nor even the way his mouth twitches. It's his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger.„ (ACoK, Sansa IV.)

Arya never describes his eyes as angry. She rather says: dark eyes. Some people think it is a sign that he had changed after the Blackwater battle. Well, maybe he did, but the change on his eyes are not an example of this, in my opinion. To shed a better light on it, let me bring some… yes, parallels.

This one is from Sansa’s wedding night with Tyrion:

„She kept her eyes on the floor, too shy to look at him, but when she was done she glanced up and found him staring. There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more.

"You're a child," he said” (ASoS, Sansa III.) 

As I interpret it, it means that Tyrion wanted to have her… and at the same time he was angry at himself for it. It is something he shouldn’t want. As he himself states it, it scares him. And maybe makes him angry at the same time.

I think something very similar happens with Gendry. He’s quite an easy-going, good-mooded guy in the beginning despite everything that happens to him. But after ASoS Arya IV….

"I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns."

"Nice, though. A nice oak tree." He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. "You even smell nice for a change."

They wrestle on the ground, get themselves dirty, and after this chapter, Gendry slowly starts to be angry. When he helps out Arya in the Peach, claiming she’s his sister, and Arya asks:

"Why did you say that?" Arya hopped to her feet. "You're not my brother."

"That's right," he said angrily. "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high." (ASoS , Arya V.)

The same triggers him with Edric Dayne, who’s at the same age as Arya, plus high born too:

"I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall."

Behind them, Gendry groaned. "Lords and ladies," he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. (ASoS , Arya VIII.)

Why I recited this all? Because, I think, Gendry realises that he likes Arya… the way a boy likes a girl, and realising that they’re not equal, that it’s a never-can be case, well, that makes him angry… and I think the same happens with the Hound and Sansa…. But now, his eyes have changed. Why though? A hidden scene, as I suggested could be an explanation to that. He became Sansa’s dog.

"IF YOU SCREAM I'LL KILL YOU. BELIEVE THAT."

"If you ever tell anyone," he finished, "I'll kill you." (the Hound after the Hand’s tourney, AGoT, Sansa II.)

„Arya didn't think he'd really cut her tongue out; he was just saying that the way Pinkeye used to say he'd beat her bloody. All the same, she wasn't going to try him. Sandor Clegane was no Pinkeye. Pinkeye didn't cut people in half or hit them with axes. Not even with the flat of axes.” (Arya on the Hound, ASoS, Arya XII.)

"The boy saw you," Tyrion pointed out.

"He was a child. I could have frightened him into silence." (Cersei and Tyrion in ACoK, Tyrion XII.)

Many people suggest, that his threatening is a sign of self-defence. Or the sign of his brutality. I think, neither. It is a technique of a man, who knows he has a bad reputation, that people fear him, and he uses that to frighten them, in order to get them to do what he wants: basically being silent, about something, or being silent at all. :) Sansa is young and naive: I’m not surprised, he uses this method in her case. This threatening and the one on AGoT, I’m sure not real ones… But the third one….we’ll get to that later.

„HE WAS SLEEPING IN MY BED. WHAT DOES HE WANT HERE?”

„It was Ser Amory who brought me the girl's body, if you must know. He found her hiding under her father's bed, as if she believed Rhaegar could still protect her.” (Tywin to Tyrion on Rhaenys’ death in ASoS, Tyrion VI.)

So, I think poor Rhaenys wanted her father’s physical presence… physical closeness. And the Hound wanted the same from Sansa.

“Where will you go?"

"AWAY FROM HERE. AWAY FROM THE FIRES. (…) NORTH SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE."

 “He could buy a donkey with the coin he'd saved, and he and Rosey could take turns riding it as they wandered Westeros. (…) That would be enough, he told himself, so long as I had Rosey. Rosey was all that he wanted in the world.” (Pate on running away with Rosey in AFfC, Prologue)

Sandor has just lost all, as he says… he leaves, he doesn’t know where, all he knows… Yes, allow me to say: all he knows is he wants to take Sansa with himself, and take care of her. Very similarly like Pate wants to take Rosey with himself… it doesn’t even matter, where they go… as long as he has her.  

From here, the scene continues with the song pattern, and it stays almost ‘till the end, so I have to cut it here. Hope, you’ll stay with me for part 2., for I’d like to know your thoughts!

Part 2:

My previous topics:

[dandelionjack]

‘maebh arden’ name meaning — she who rules the forest…

why i ever let people tell me this was a bad episode? sure it’s not outstanding, and people dislike it in comparison because it’s surrounded by whoppers, but the premise itself is pretty cool! and i don’t mind children appearing as supporting characters, they’re not even that annoying. plus, there are some fantastic lines of dialogue here!

• “trees don’t communicate” “you don’t need cellphones to communicate — i haven’t texted my mum but i know she’s worried about me!”

• “a tree is a time machine. you plant an acorn in 1796, and in 2014 you’ve got a great big oak tree with a tiny little bit of 1796 tucked away inside” what a brilliant fucking idea and also 100% true

• “you find yourself in the woods with a rather compelling masculine figure” “any minute now we’ll come across a gingerbread house with a cannibal witch inside it” (note how twelve says masculine figure, not ‘man’. that’s because he’s a butch lesbian. slash aitch jay.) (interesting continuation of eleven’s fairytale theme! darker fairytales this time: hansel and gretel face a more serious threat than peter pan and wendy)

• “she’s lost someone — people who’ve lost someone, they’re always looking, always listening, always hoping, so they notice more, they hear more” explains why he’s like that then

• “stars implode, planets go cold. catastrophe is the metabolism of the universe” and “that’s how this planet grows. a series of catastrophes” everything eats and is eaten time is fed, etc. twelve would love adrianne lenker

• “i can save you” “i don’t want you to.” “what, you don’t want to live?” “of course i want to live, i—” “you what?” “don’t make me say it. doctor, i don’t want to be the last of my kind.” “then why did you bring us all here?” “because it’s the only way to get you back to the TARDIS. make you believe you’re saving someone. this time the human race is saving you. make it worthwhile.” “this is my world too. i walk your earth, i breathe your air.” “and on behalf of this world you’re very welcome. now go, save the next one.” SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP????

• “the trees are not your enemy, they’re your shield. they’ve been saving you since forever, protecting you from everything that space can throw at you.” aaaand we have this episode’s doctor foil. it’s the fucking forest itself

• “i am doctor idiot.”

• “you’ll all forget it ever happened” “we are not gonna forget an overnight forest!” “you forgot the last time. you’ll remember the fear, and you’ll put it into fairy stories. the human superpower: forgetting. if you remembered how things felt, you’d have stopped having wars and stopped having babies.”

sure, the sister bit didn’t make any sense. to be honest nothing to do with maebh’s psychic powers made any sense at all. but none of that matters because look at everything else!! also, they put that fucking tiger there just for the william blake reference. commitment to the bit

[mobius-prime]

247. Sonic the Hedgehog #178

House of Cards (Part 1 of 2)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

Well, this already looks bad from that cover page. Indeed, the very first page of this issue begins with Nicole playing back some footage from earlier in the day which depicts Amadeus Prower leading an angry crowd through the streets of the city toward the castle, calling for freedom from the monarchy. Nicole has brought Rosemary, Tails, and Sonic together to show them this footage, wanting them to know why Amadeus has been arrested.

Nicole chides Sonic for being a bit thoughtless in his comment, but Sonic sticks by it, thinking Amadeus' actions are insult to Tails if anything considering his history in fighting for the right for the monarchy to exist at all, given Robotnik's takeover and all. Nicole is concerned, pointing out that things have been a bit distant between Tails and Sonic not just since Knothole's destruction, but ever since Sonic returned from space in the first place, but Sonic brushes it off with a comment about how they're like brothers before rushing out to find Knuckles, who it turns out is leaving the city today. Julie-Su and the rest of the Chaotix are confused and even (in the former's case) a little hurt, thinking it's a bad idea for him to just go off alone while insisting the rest of them stay here, but Knuckles insists it's the right thing to do and that he can handle things solo.

You know, I will say that I actually agree with Knuckles on this one for the most part. I don't think it's a good idea for him to leave everyone else behind - it would be much more prudent for him to take at the very least Julie-Su with him - but going back to Angel Island to check on things and try to repair things with his father is a good call, especially considering how bad things have gotten for the echidnas there. Sonic offers for him to take the gray Chaos Emerald back to the island, but he refuses what with the whole Dark Legion civil war plus dingoes thing going on there, not wanting it to get stolen in all that mess. With that, Knuckles uses the guiding star gem to teleport back to his homeland, leaving a worried Julie-Su behind. Shortly thereafter, King Elias heads to New Mobotropolis' jail to speak with Amadeus, though he's initially heckled by Sleuth, Nack, and Bean from behind the other cell doors. Mogul irritably tells them all to shut up, allowing Elias to ask Amadeus exactly why he incited a riot earlier that day.

Again, I agree with him! He's put into words a lot of the same opinions that I've previously expressed about the monarchy, and while certainly not everything bad that's happened in the past twenty years has been their fault, the sheer fact that this nation is led by a hereditary monarchy at all has led to a lot of really bad calls over the course of this comic, not to mention some outright abuse towards the heirs. When Sonic finds Elias later, he's sitting under a tree on a bench in the garden, Amadeus' words clearly having found their mark. He admits that he actually would like to give up power and give it to the people, but something else is holding him back. Or rather, someone, someone who has just been wheeled up by his wife, in fact.

Aaaand this is exactly the reason the monarchy should no longer be in power. I've already voiced my many, many criticisms of Maximillian, so I won't go into them yet again, but suffice to say that he represents everything wrong with the current state of the government. I get that he's pretty sick at this point, and he's dealt with a lot of awful things in his life that have led to his mental state not exactly being the most stable, but his views are still a problem, and he's not a good influence on his children. Alicia wheels him back to the castle for some rest, with Elias reluctantly following, leaving a confused Sonic wondering what exactly is going on here. Unfortunately, things are about to escalate pretty quickly. That night, Tails flies his mother into the boundaries of the jail and begins hacking his way in. When Nicole pops up to warn them away from trying to break in, she's momentarily shocked when she sees just who is leading the break-in, before Tails wordlessly yanks some wires and causes her to disappear from the immediate area. The two make their way into the jail, and Amadeus is shocked to see them, trying to warn them away so they don't end up jailed as well, but they both assure him that they support his mission and think that now is indeed the best time to act, for the stability of the city. Meanwhile, Nicole pops into Sonic's bedroom to wake him up and tell him that there's currently a break-in going on at the prison, but he rushes off before she's even able to tell him who's breaking in at all. By now, Tails and Rosemary have Amadeus out of his cell, and as Rosemary assures him that she's determined to free him due to her having a hand in writing the speech that got him here in the first place, Sonic shows up. Tails quickly hides in the ceiling vent, while Sonic walks forward, trying to talk Rosemary and Amadeus down from their plan.

Very, very bad move, Sonic. Tails furiously blindsides Sonic with a punch and yells for his parents to run while he holds Sonic off. Rosemary is against the idea, but Amadeus drags her along, reminding her that Tails is technically a war hero and can handle himself. They rush outside and quickly formulate a plan to infiltrate the castle and get Elias to step down from the throne before anything else happens, while Tails continues to attack Sonic in the prison. Sonic tries to get Tails to stop, but is clearly angered by the attack from his friend, and only becomes further agitated when Mogul mocks him with the comment that his only two choices from here are to either be the guy who got beaten up by a kid, or to be the guy who beat up a kid. And so, Sonic and Tails rush at each other, ready for a fight… but why, exactly? If you're starting to think all this seems a little contrived, you wouldn't be the only one. However, I do have a defense of all this. Remember, Tails is still a little kid - a highly intelligent and accomplished one, but a little kid nonetheless - who only just got his parents back. He's so enamored with the idea of having his very own parents now that he's much more susceptible to being roped into whatever plans they may have, even illegal ones (though it is worth noting that illegal obviously doesn't mean immoral here, as again, I agree that the monarchy needs to go). At the same time, he and Sonic have had some tension between them lately, and when Sonic shows up seeming to want to keep Tails' father in jail, and not only that but then speaks flippantly of Tails' own ability to decide right and wrong for himself, I think it's not too surprising that he'd end up doing something like this. There is one more component to this conflict, but it's covered next issue, so that's when we'll tackle it.

Before this issue ends, however, we have one more thing to look at - namely, several diagrams and maps of various buildings in New Mobotropolis, as well as a map of the city itself! There are no dimensions or statistics given, so none of the fun we've had in the previous cases of looking at maps, but it's still interesting to see a layout of where the heroes live now. The comic covers Freedom HQ first, both the outside and the inside, going over its two entrances (the front entrance and the Great Oak Slide) and a few other technical notes. It's still located on the edge of the ruins of Knothole and still suffering from the damage of the attack, but apparently still slated to be in use as a home-away-from-home for the Freedom Fighters as well as continuing to serve its role as a decoy target away from the main city. Next we have the library, which is stated to be full of information that Nicole was able to preserve. It seems that it holds the books that were able to be saved from Robotropolis before its destruction, as well as the ones that weren't in the form of raw data that was reconstructed by Nicole. Then there's the civic center for social gatherings and the marketplace, and then we get to Castle Acorn. Interestingly, I can only assume from the information we're given about it here that this was meant to be included in the next issue, since some of the info contains some pretty obvious spoilers, talking about including space for the "Acorn Council" after "the revolution." Wow, I wonder how this arc is going to end! Finally, we're given a layout of the entire city, which I'll show here.

This is truly a lovely city everyone has ended up in! The layout makes a lot of sense too, with the center being the castle and seat of the government, surrounding it the commercial areas and other public buildings, and around the outskirts, a residential district, bordered by a "Faux Forest" which is presumably made out of nanites. And of course, now that the city is protected by a forcefield, surprise attacks from Eggman are no longer nearly the dire concern they once were in Knothole. Knothole was certainly a nice village, and it's a little sad to see it gone after so long, but New Mobotropolis is absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful new setting for plots to come! That is, if the government even survives… DUN DUN DUUUUNNNN! I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

[fashionsizzleus]

What to know about New York Fashion Week 2020 (September)? A review

This year's NYFW (New York Fashion Show) held in September did not reach the height of its predecessors. Still, it gifted us with a lot of beautiful designs and designers. 

Every year, New York Fashion Week (NYFW) gives us some of the best collections, looks, and more. This year was no exception either. Despite all the restrictions, NYFW managed to do what it does best, inspire people. The event was held both virtually and live, however, the number of attendees was reduced significantly due to COVID protocols. 

It was held between September 13 and September 17, each day filled with tons of events and entertainment. The overall fashion show reviews in New York for it were positive. A lot of brands and their owners attended the show, either in-person or digitally. These are: 

ADEAM

Aknvas (new)

Anne Klein (new)

Badgley 

Mischka 

Bibhu Mohapatra 

Bronx and Banco 

C+ plus series 

Chloe Gosselin 

Chocheng 

Christian Cowan 

Cinq a Sept 

Claudia Li

Christian Siriano 

Concept Korea 

Colleen Allen 

Dur Doux (new)

Faith Connection 

Frere (new)

Jason Wu 

Jonathan Simkhai 

Kim Shui 

Lavie by CK 

Libertine 

Marina Moscone 

Maxhose Africa 

Monse 

Nicole Miller 

Oqliq 

PHS

Private Policy 

Proenza Schouler 

Rasiavanessa

Rebecca Minkoff 

RVNG Couture 

Studio One Eighty Nine 

Tadashi Shoji 

Tanya Taylor 

Tiffany Brown Designs 

Veronica Beard 

Victor Glemaud 

Vivienne Hu

Eckhaus Latta 

Imitation of Christ (new)

Oak & Acorn (new)

VenicW (new)

Duncan (new)

Wiederhoeft (new)

Wolk Morais (new)

Despite some big and some new names that appeared on the show, some big brands were missing. These designers instead chose to launch their collections digitally and privately. These are: 

Tommy Hilfiger 

Michael Kors 

Marc Jacobs 

Gabriela Hearst 

Oscar de la Renta 

Proenza Schouler 

Tory Burch 

Prabal Gurung 

Jason Woo and Rebecca Minkoff hosted live shows in limited physical viewership. These were live streamed too, and thousands of people around the world watched models walk on the catwalk wearing those designs. A new platform was introduced earlier this year, Runway 360. This AR (Augmented Reality)/ VR (Virtual Reality) platform has features like 360-degree viewing capacity. Using this technology, designers can organize fashion shows, live streams, press conferences, etc. Brands, media personalities, and consumers can make use of this technical feature.  

On 13th September, Harlem's Fashion show hosted the 13th Annual Style Awards. The main hosts of this event were Kimberly Goldson, Kristian Loren, and Rich Fresh. This was made publicly available on September 19th, with lots of behind-the-scene actions, and Q&A's. Designer of the Year award was awarded to Kerby jean-Raymond (from Pyer Moss). 

Some other notable changes were also made, with a focus on gender-fluid and menswear designers. 10 of them were noticed during this event, which is a preview of the fashion industry's changing dynamics and preferences. These designers are mentioned below: 

Apotts 

Carter Young

David Hart 

Future Lovers of Tomorrow 

Ka Wa Key 

Official Rebrand 

Stan 

Teddy Vonranson 

Timo Weiland 

Wataru Tominaga 

Of course, the NYFW was not as grand as it could have been due to obvious reasons. But still, it received positive fashion show reviews in New York and the rest of the world. We have to take a look at this year's top looks and designs in the next article. Until then, take care and stay in the know.

[thecoleopterawithana]

Just wanted to say I love your blog! I am like you, only fairly recently got into this fandom and am so intrigued by the Lennon/McCartney partnership. I think I’ve read about anything that could have possibly attributed to the ending of their partnership. But, just today I read that Paul had secretly been buying shares of Northern Songs in 1969 which (understandably) angered John when he found out. It puts the “nobody hurt john like paul” in a different light.. do you know what happened?

Hey there! Welcome to the fascinating story that is Lennon/McCartney! It truly is a very intriguing relationship, and I’m happy if my blog has aided your explorations in any way! 

I want to thank you a lot for your question. In truth, I’ve been focusing more on the emotional dynamics, but ignoring the business conflicts becomes somewhat faulty if they made it personal. So I’m grateful that you made me dig into this side of it, so that I can get a more complete picture. 

Now, like I said, I’m very new to this facet of the story and my knowledge in business is extremely lacking, but I’ll do my best to give a somewhat informed opinion. 

First, let’s go over what is Northern Songs and how it came about, so that we can better understand how they get to the point of losing it in 1969.

In 1962, Brian Epstein was advised by George Martin to look for a good publisher, as the latter felt EMI’s publishing company had done little to promote “Love Me Do”. One of the suggested names was Dick James, as he was trustworthy, England-based, and “very hungry”, meaning he would work very hard to promote the songs. He indeed won Epstein over by getting the Beatle’s latest single, “Please Please Me”, a spot on a very prestigious TV show at the time.

On February 1963, James makes the suggestion to create a separate company for Lennon/McCartney compositions. Thus, Northern Songs Ltd. is born. And even though John and Paul thought they were getting their own company, they ended up with a 20% share each, Brian with 10% and Dick James and his partner, Charles Silver, with 50%. James was to be the manager for the next 10 years (earning 10% of the gross receipts), while Lennon and McCartney agree to give the company full copyright of the compositions published in the following 3 year period.

John and Paul would later feel as if they’d been ripped off, that the rates were unfair. In truth, at the time, it was perfectly unusual for songwriters to be so involved with the publishing of their songs, happy just to give them over for 50% returns. But for John and Paul, the attitude was completely different. Their songs were their babies, not something to be bought, sold and exploited. In their innocence, they didn’t even realize that songs could be owned!   

In May 1964, John and Paul form a private limited company to which their share of the resulting royalties can go, Lenmac Enterprises. John and Paul own 40% each, Brian the remaining 20%.    

In February 1965, a lot of things happen that would prove determinant in the future course of the Lennon/McCartney song publishing business. 

First, despite the first agreement not expiring for another year, Northern Songs is given full copyright of every Lennon/McCartney composition, created together or apart, for the next 8 years (February 1973), with the two composers having to provide a minimum of 6 songs/year. Also, the resulting royalties (50% as of 1965 and increasing to 55% for songs written after 1969) would be sent to a new company, Maclen Music, owned in 40% each by John and Paul, with the remaining 20% belonging to NEMS (Brian Epstein’s company, of which he owned 50%, his brother 40%, and each of the Beatles 2.5%).

A week later, Northern Songs is made public, to reduce the income tax burden. James is appointed managing director, with his partner functioning as chairman, an together they held 1,875,000 (37.5%) of the shares. John and Paul each retained 750,000 shares (15% each), and George and Ringo 40,000 (0.8 %) each.

On April 1966, a fatally flawed decision is made. Maybe hoping to free up some money, John and Paul sell Lenmac Enterprises to Northern Songs for £365,000, effectively relinquishing their rights to the direct royalties from their first 56 compositions. This includes every song from 1963 to 1965, those associated with peak Beatlemania. 

Around this time, Dick James starts to get proposals from his old friend Lew Grade, from Associated Television, who is keen on buying the Beatles song catalogue. But for now, Northern Songs is doing too well for him to consider selling it. 

It was only after Brian Epstein’s death, in August 1967, that the Beatles were forced to manage their own business. It was during these explorations of their contracts that John and Paul first realized what exactly they were getting from all their songs. They were not happy.

They wanted to renegotiate their deal with James, and in the summer of 1968, they saw the perfect opportunity to force his hand. Inviting him to an Apple Records meeting, they made their proposal for increased royalties, while filming the encounter. 

‘It was in those days when we taped and filmed everything and we thought: that might be the thing to do, let’s get Dick to come round. And we happened to have a film crew there; we thought we might just force him into doing something. On camera, he can’t really say no.’

Paul recalls their approach to Dick James and the slightly reluctant response.

‘Hey, Dick, I hope you don’t mind this being filmed…’ Paul said.

‘Well, all right then,’ Dick replied.

Paul: ‘Look, we’d really like to ask for a little bit more [percentage royalty from their songs’ income]. We’ve been more successful now than any songwriters have been for any publisher. And we’re on a not awfully good deal, as you and we know. It’s not bad… but couldn’t you see your way to giving us a raise? That’s really all we’re doing, asking for a raise.’

Paul says now: ‘We have been asking for a raise ever since to whoever has been in charge [of Northern Songs]. And now, of course, I am a long-serving, thirty-year employee, when even the lowliest of people get raises. But Dick said: “No, I can’t alter it. I’m in this with Charles Silver. It would be absolutely impossible for me to change the terms of the contract.”

‘We said: “Why?”

‘I now know, running a business, you can change it at a stroke of a pen. You can say: I hereby revoke that contract. I’d like to give these wonderful people a bit more. They should have 5 per cent more each. It would’t have been difficult; Dick took on a lot of stress which he possibly didn’t need. You can only have so many meals a day.’

‘That was what we were trying to say: “Look, you’ve done great. From being the guy who sang ‘Robin Hood’ to becoming the publisher of the Beatles.”’ Paul and John pointed out that Dick had accrued a great reputation and consequently plenty of extra business because he had the prestige that came from being the Beatles’ music publisher.

‘John started to use an analogy of an acorn and an oak tree, and it was very good, a smart thing. He almost got Dick over a barrel on this one. He said: “Look, Dick, it was an acorn and it’s grown into an oak tree and it’s even taken over the whole bloody garden now.”’ Dick responded to the effect that he owned the original acorn and he now owned the oak tree and there was ‘nothing to be done’.

— Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1996)

This confrontation significantly soured the relationships between James and the two Beatles, who he now saw as stubbornly arrogant ‘in-grates’.

Of course, trouble was brewing within the Beatles themselves. The previously united-front of Lennon/McCartney was fracturing. Paul had met Linda, John had gone out with Yoko in conceptual art demonstrations which were ridiculed by the general public, and they hardly knew how to take care of their newborn Apple. Paul’s efforts to cut back expenses were thwarted by the other Beatles, and by January 1969, John was telling Ray Coleman that Apple was ‘losing £50,000 every week and if it carries on like this we’ll be broke in six months’.

The report went around the world and the music industry smelled blood. One of such sharks was Allen Klein. But that is another story.

Alarmed by the tensions between the partnership of Lennon and McCartney and wounded by their behaviour the previous year, Dick James is looking to jump ship. And so, in March 1969, seizing the fact that John and Paul were away on their respective honeymoons, without further notification, James sells his shares of Northern Songs to Lew Grade. With James’ and Silver’s shares, plus those acquired during the public purchase, ATV now owned 35% of the company, with plans to buy the remaining 15.1% necessary for its control. 

John and Paul first find out what happened when questioned by journalists looking for a reaction. While Paul could not be reached, John confidently answers for both of them that “I’ll be sticking to my shares and I could make a pretty good guess that Paul won’t sell, either.” Indeed, Paul later confirms that “You can safely assume that my shares are not for sale to ATV.”

But the betrayal was huge. Even old friends or music industry people that respected Dick James, such as George Martin and Roger Greenway (a prominent figure in the world of music publishing who was also signed as a songwriter to Dick James Music), where enraged by the dirty move. But none were more hurt than John and Paul.

[Dick] James, in fact, was quoted as saying that at the time ATV took over Northern Songs “the wolves stopped baying”. He firmly believed that it would have been wrong to sell Northern Songs to either Lennon or McCartney individually but, even so, he admitted that when he met the two songwriters at McCartney’s St John’s Wood home: “Paul was annoyed* but John was inconsolable, he was hurt and I was very sorry.”

However before Dick James met up with Northern Songs’ two main creative sources, he had to face the wrath of the other Beatle who was signed to the company. Harrison apparently visited their song publisher in his central London office to make clear his own feelings about the proposed sale and when James, explaining that it was important he moved his shares quickly before the price fell, said it was a very serious matter, Harrison reportedly screamed back at him: “It’s fucking serious to John and Paul is what it is!”

According to NEMS director Peter Brown, the songs in Northern Songs represented something very special to the two main composers. “To John and Paul, Northern Songs wasn’t just a collection of compositions, it was like a child, creative flesh and blood and selling it to their business antagonist Sir Lew Grade was like putting that child into an orphanage.”

— Brian Southall, Northern Songs: The True Story of The Beatles’ Song Publishing Empire. (2006)

*Of course, it is only James’ reading that classifies Paul as merely ‘annoyed’ by the happenings. From what little I can glean from Paul McCartney, it strikes me as more likely that he was hiding how wounded he was while trying to keep a cold grip on things. He wouldn’t still be fighting for his and John’s songs to this day if he didn’t care. And considering Paul’s net worth, it isn’t just about money either.

The Beatles gathered arms and consulted with their lawyers and accountants to see if it was still possible to wrestle for control. It became clear that the Beatles still controlled only 30% of Northern Songs among them. 

It was also while looking at these figures that John realized Paul had 751,000 shares (worth around £1.4m), while John had 644,000 (£1.25m) plus another 50,000 as a trustee. 

This caused conflict between them. John suggested that he and Paul had made a verbal pact to keep their ownership of the company on an equal footing. Paul later explained that he was investing in both himself and John and that, in his memory, he had told John about it and they had often agreed that investing in their own work was a good principle.

— Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1996)

We’ve finally reached the point of your question. 

First, just by looking at it, it seems to me as if it was not really Paul buying more shares as it had been John selling his, as they initially had 750,000 each. This means that the difference was created by Paul buying 1,000 more shares (0.02% of the company), while John sold more than 100,000 so that he could set up a trust fund for Julian at the time of his divorce with Cynthia. 

Now, do I believe that John didn’t understand this and would take it as a personal betrayal that there was an unbalance in the financial holdings of their partnership? Yes. Especially at a time when the toxic combination of drugs, people whispering in his ear, and personal insecurities were making him extremely paranoid of anything and everything that Paul did.  

Do I believe that Paul was trying to take advantage of him and secretly get ahead? No. I do think he genuinely believed he was looking out for both of them under John’s consent. And how ahead could he get with 0.02%?

This all seems just like another instance of miscommunication between them, quite similar to what happened with “The Family Way”, in which Paul asks for a go-ahead, with John answering “Yes” while internally expecting Paul to read his mind and see “No”, and then getting hurt when Paul goes ahead and does it (like they’d agreed). I can even see a business-conscious Paul trying to discuss the subject with an easily-bored John, who just agrees out of disinterest, without really knowing (or caring to know) what that entails.

But getting back to your question, I don’t know that it puts the “nobody hurt John like Paul” in a totally different light. I mean, this sure added to the pile of resentment and distrust, but I don’t see this episode as the Big Hurtful One. In my head, I reserve that spot for Paul’s announcement that the Beatles were over and that there would be no Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership in the future. 

Because, until that point, all of John’s antics were at their core a cry for Paul’s attention, trying to force his hand into acting by threatening the thing Paul held most dear: the Band. So after getting hopeful following Paul’s negative reaction to his divorce announcement in September 1969, where he urged John not to make any permanent statements and left the room crying, he was devastatingly hurt when Paul finally broke it off in April 1970.

Of course John, in his usual manner, forgets that in the early months of 1970, he, together with Klein and George, had stepped over Paul twice. Not only had Lennon given the Let It Be recordings to Phil Specter, who had smothered them (especially Paul’s songs) in over-production (with Paul requesting changes and Klein claiming it was too late), but they also tried to force back the original release of Paul’s solo debut album, McCartney, from April to June, to make room for Let It Be, sending Ringo as the messager. And even if they relented at Ringo’s urging (after he was tossed from McCartney’s house, and saw the true extent of his hurt and anger), it proved to be the last straw for Paul. 

But it was the fact that Paul left him that hurt John like nothing had done before. He even tells us that that’s the one thing he will never forgive him. 

And it’s not merely a matter of pride or jealousy, it’s not that it was Paul who made it public when it was his band. It’s not that Paul left him, it’s that Paul left him. He made true the biggest fear John had: being abandoned and rejected.

That’s what I see as John’s biggest wound, what he sees as the biggest betrayal. Nothing that happened with the business could surpass that. Sure, like I said, it added wood to John’s raging fire of paranoia and resentment. But he would have understood and ultimately forgiven that too if Paul had connected with him in the way he needed.

But just to finish the story of Northern Songs, by September 1969 ATV had managed to buy the remaining shares so that it controlled 51% of the company.  Defeated, both John and Paul sold their shares, effectively relinquishing the rights to around 250 Lennon/McCartney songs, their own music.

-

Sources:

Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today (1996).

Brian Southall, Northern Songs: The True Story of The Beatles’ Song Publishing Empire (2006).

The Beatles | The Beatles Companies | Northern Songs. Accessed on: http://www.rockmine.com/Beatles/BeatleCo.html (14/03/19).

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 12]

Can we beat the game using Nuzlocke rules and only battling against trainers?

The current answer is leaning towards no. Still, we shan’t give up or in.

Four badges in. Next stop?

Uh. Haven’t decided yet.

So things did not go what I would call according to plan with the Grimer. Ideally, it would have been a higher level than 30. It wouldn’t need me to hold its hand through a bunch of leveling. It would immediately be an asset. Life would be beautiful. Nothing would hurt.

Only it’s level 30.

I have a Ground, Water, Electric, and Normal Type in rotation. Grass has historically been a problem, but it is much less of a problem with a Snorlax. Oak isn’t always the most useful, but he’ll be receiving a huge power boost come Surf collection.

Bark and Trunk are going to be wanting all the Attack EVs I can feed them. Sap is going to want Attack as well. And HP.

Its move pool is a huge plus, and I would be happy to have it available, but to make it available, a lot of switch training would have to happen. When Sprinkle went through that, experience gain dropped to a slow crawl. Sprinkle was only level 25, and at an even later stage in the game, but the approach taken with this round was intended to be geared towards a minimum of pokemon.

Other things to consider would be that in the first run, I lost two pokemon, and a lot of work went into making up for that. The two runs can’t be compared fairly with what levels to expect further down the road. ...I. think.

By the first Elite Four fight, Po was level 46. My highest level pokemon was 49.

It did not go well.

I need this one to go better.

Does it go better with Sap, or does it go better with maxing the heck out of the other four.

I really, really want to use Sap.

Having a status-reliant choice instead of a pure powerhouse makes me more comfortable with everything else. Minimize is good. Screech is welcome. Sludge Bomb is welcome. Acid Armor is welcome. Muk is a kickass thing to have available.

But I’m not sure splitting the exp is going to do me any favors this late in the game. Silph offers a lot of lenience, I guess, but. Cycling Road is going to go to Trunk. So is a lot else, and what doesn’t should help out Bark.

Five pokemon starts to be a lot.

Fuck.

I’m trying it out.

Sap, welcome to the team. Don’t die.

In happier news...

Good job making it this far, buddy.

Route 16, what are we catching here today?

Doduo!

Sap, prove your worth by failing to kill it.

Damn it, Sap. +123 to you and Bark. -_-

Siiiiiigh. I need 30 pokemon for the Itemfinder.

Now Trunk is just going to claim. As much of Cycling Road as possible. Bark will help when possible. ...Or do I want to go deal with Silph? Hey, past me, wtf is the best way of doing this nonsense?

..hm.

I’m going to do Silph for the sheer heck of it, I think. I don’t want to get as far as my Rival yet, but. I don’t know. I’m just not feeling Cycling Road right now. Video games are supposed to be fun, right? Let’s chase some damn fun.

And I don’t think I ever got my Route 7 thing. Let’s do that, too. Hi Growlithe.

SAP WHAT THE HECK. WE WANTED THAT.

Did I misremember how much damage Sludge does???

...

Oh.

Yes.

Yes, I did.

I very much did.

...+130 to Sap and Acorn. -headdesk-

With that in mind, actually, Sap, you and Bark want to try your hands on the dojo next door to Sabrina? Trunk can’t touch any of those guys thanks to the Super Effective problem.

..And Bark can barely touch any of them thanks to her low Defense.

Yeeeeeah, after that short experiment, we’re just gonna go straight to Silph. Where the Rockets are not a thing to be too afraid of.

Beautiful building.

Hellscape place.

...

I don’t wanna do this, either. Uh. South of Lavender, maybe?

Out of order ALL the things.

Route 13, let’s catch a thing.

The thing is a Venonat! We now wait and watch to see if it will end up dead like other recent catches for totally unpreventable reasons.

Caught!

Its name is Oak.

Route 14, in the middle of all these trainers we’re beating down largely out of order.

...Gloom’s technically not viable because Oddish and species clause, but screw it, it’s not going to be used, I’m too lazy to look up what else is here, and I just want this part done and over with. I know that’s really bad form. but. I am not a rules lawyer. once, maybe. not anymore.

Caught. Its name is Oak.

So far with trainers, the way I’m keeping my sanity with exp division is that the Bikers go to Trunk, and Bark and Sap get the Bird Keepers.

It is slow and tiresome. I do not care for thinking when I am playing my video games.

We’re in Route 18 now, and doing the same nonsense to a Raticate. This is it. This is the point. This is where I stop caring about any of the rules except the no grinding thing. Everything else is irrelevant.

Bark ffs. Stop. Sigh.

+414 exp. Route 18 officially dead.

(Also, this looks like I should have known that she would kill it, but Bark still knows Mud Slap. It does as much nothing as anything on my team can. Still not enough nothing when critical hits are involved.)

Good Rod get so that Fuchsia might have a happier ending.

Back in the realm of completely legal catches, we have a Poliwag!

Throwing a Great Ball proves the best strategy. In that it works. Poliwag get! Its name is Oak.

In other, trainer-related news, Sap hits 34 and learns Acid Armor.

We have also cleared out the section of trainers that is not Saffron and not Cycling Road that comes pre-Koga. Naisu.

-time passes-

So, post-Cycling Road, Trunk is level 41, Bark is level 42, Sap is 35, Oak is 37, and Acorn is 40. I think what makes the most sense in terms of safety is to go clear out the Silph building, then deal with the dojo and assorted Gyms.

Unfortunately.

I hate Silph Co.

So, so deeply.

Deep breath time.

Oh, wait, I want Oak to have Surf first. Never mind, we can still delay this party!

Let’s do it.

Hey, and while we’re at it, we have a chance at a Parasect!

-gasp-

We caught it!

Its name is Oak.

I don’t remember if it was me or someone I knew, but as a child, I have distinct memories of the timer flat-lining just a handful of squares away from talking to this guy. It filled me with enough sadness that I think maybe I was the one having the issues.

The Safari Zone is a lot harder when you have no idea what you’re supposed to do or where you’re meant to go.

Oak learns Surf!

We also give the Warden his teeth back, so Strength get.

I’m gonna see about catching a Route 19 thing. Due to it being something I can do that doesn’t involve the Silph building.

Yes, a Krabby. As we learned from Heero’s run, they make for excellent HM slaves.

Caught!

Its name is Oak. Sadly, I think it will be replacing Oak in the party.

Sigh.

I think we’re. back to the sad part.

(Route 17 option: Doduo. Status: caught. Name: Oak.)

UGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Granted, it’s much easier without having to record every single fight, but the memories of the most recent time I did this are harsh and painful and I don’t like them.

Several floors later, yeah okay, this isn’t so bad.

I still hate it.

However, I can safely say I know who the best character in the Pokemon multiverse is.

Best. Girl.

She’s on floor 9, future self. Sorry about your life.

Because there are so many vitamins hidden around the building, I’m starting to really panic about how my team is going to handle the final parts of the game. I of course love all my children equally, but losing the first team was rough, and I can’t imagine that I’ll continue to engage with my pokemon on any level if things consistently fall to pieces in the very last sequences.

In a funny way, I think the EV training I’m softly tripping through might be hampering things a little. The balance is more sideways than my usual in-game teams have, because I’m focusing a lot on who’s fighting what. There are no random bursts of Defense being distributed, for instance. Oak is the closest to balance, and that’s because Oak had to do most everything before we had a real team (no offense buddy, you rock).

I don’t know. I’m paranoid. Things did not go well with Heero and friends. I think I want to invest in some of the X [stat] items, you know, like the way of the speedrunner, but the way I usually play these games involves brute force.

Full stop.

I can’t repeat enough how little I enjoy thinking in my video games.

But what that means is that I’m not used to using X items. And spending a turn on something I haven’t spent years of background noise thinking about could have disastrous consequences.

The disaster is something I fear. Clearly.

Sigh. There’s not helping it right now, so. Silph.

LOOK MAN, CONSIDERING THE NUMBER OF TRAINERS I HAD TO BEAT TO GET UP HERE

I kind of love that your Rival doesn’t appear to do anything at all about Team Rocket. He just shows up because hey, Red will be doing the hero stuff over there! Time to throw down!

Then he loses and just goes back to worrying about his League quest.

He’s almost like a real ten-year-old.

Acorn thank you for existing.

Wait. Crap, what deals with the Venusaur? Did I decide to just throw Trunk at that? Because that’s what I’m doing?

Yeah, fine, that works.

I got a Lapras.

Its name is Oak.

Sprinkle, I miss you.

Oh whoops. Acorn’s still in front. I don’t think I want that.

Kangaskhan without a Fighting Type is weird. Not a problem weird, because yay, Trunk exists. But weird. I keep expecting to have something super effective against it.

One Master Ball for me. Yay.

Now off to the dojo.

Where I’m going to try not to get Sap killed by letting him have this fight for great exp. I trust Sap’s moves. I trust the concept of their usefulness. Then I see critical hits and tragedy everywhere.

Sap.

Do not die.

Does my hat look black to you.

Level 37 Hitmonlee.

You know. I have the post that says this involves a level 37 Hitmonlee open in another tab. And yet. This still comes as a horrible shock and my brain is already playing taps for Sap.

!

The pain of one Hi Jump Kick. Not bad. I think we might make it, little guy.

We won!

And no one died!

Yay!

I guess that means it’s time for Koga.

Boo. But we’ll let Trunk punch through. Maybe with Bark, too.

Or Oak can eat a Kadabra. That works.

Trunk makes it through all the pre-Koga peeps with little trouble, and we move on to the man himself.

-gasp-

Awesome. More awesome is how everyone’s still alive. Oh happy day before we go forth and fight Sabrina.

Toxic get.

Trunk is level 46, as seen above. Bark is 44. Acorn is 42. Oak is 41. Sap is 37.

Oak’s job is to eat Sabrina. With any luck, Oak will continue to be a help with Blaine, though Bark and Sap will want some of that sweet exp too.

...Basically, what this all means is that I’ve stopped worrying about most of what’s going on with my team. I’m now just watching the levels and letting my dread run the show.

Dread and Oak. The dream team. Oak’s hit 44. I have faith.

.....Ooookay things are going awry because a Calm Minded Alakazam packs a wallop with Psychic, so I’m switching in Acorn under the assumption that he can survive one Psychic and will outspeed the thing.

Pictures taken just before disaster, fyi.

Houston, we have a problem.

Trunk wraps things up.

But. Uh.

Gyarados damage control is gone.

Acorn is gone.

What even is life without Acorn.

That critical hit would have been the end of Oak. Your oldest friend. I know we both wanted things to go differently, but I’m sure you understand why this is the end result.

I will miss you.

So much.

The lack of your warm presence will be a loss for us all.

I also no longer have something on my team with Thunderbolt, so. The script is no longer clear. I guess I can be less worried about levels, but. This right here might be the end of this round.

With a heavy heart, we head to the oceans where Acorn should have reigned supreme.

And stop Sap from evolving so he can learn Sludge Bomb at 43. Hopefully doing that won’t lead to another unfortunate accident, but if it does happen, I’m sadly resigned to it.

I don’t know how many times Sap has hurt himself in confusion in this fight, but it’s too many.

Then the Tentacruel comes in when this is finally over, and Sap hurts himself in confusion.

Yeah.

Sap’s just eating every single confusion problem of the entire run. He’s taking it all for himself.

But. we. get. through. it. As a family.

Hit Route 20, and now I have a level 8 Tentacool. Its name is Oak.

Supersonic is hitting everything and it is absolutely miserable.

Seafoam Island gives us.... Golbat! Apparently we already had a Zubat, so whoops, but in any case, its name is Oak. And needs to be moved from the D E A D box because whoops.

Does Oak want to learn Fly and help greatly with things not being awful?

Boy howdy do I.

And I am at 30 pokemon in my Pokedex, so it’s time for me to go grab my Itemfinder and Leftovers.

...Oh. Golbat doesn’t learn Fly. Well fine then. Another Oak will help me.

After all.

He is

Oak’s Aide.

Got one Leftovers. Two Leftovers. Awesome.

-many minutes later-

Sap gets Sludge Bomb! Do you know what that means?

Sap! We’ve done it! We’ve kept you alive! You’ve made it through your trying times as a Grimer!

Now let’s go into that non-haunted mansion that makes up most of Blaine’s island’s real estate.

I’m just going to shove Bark in front and. idk. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m just waiting for Victory Road, the day of reckoning, and. Maybe better than last time.

Growlithe caught in the mansion. Its name is Oak.

Secret Key get.

Blaine, why must you be so sketchy.

Okay, so for this Gym, I think I’ll be using Sap more than expected. Bark and Oak will deal with a lot of Giovanni, because they don’t have to worry about Ground really causing an extra problem. That makes this a better place for Trunk and Sap to level up. Agreed?

Yeah sure, whatever.

I guess the other thing to consider is if Bark will really be a help in this endeavor.

She’s very, very fast, and will learn Earthquake naturally. But she can’t take a hit, and with the loss of Acorn, I’m thinking what I have to do is just have Trunk, Oak, and Sap tank everything; lots of X items, lots of Full Restores.

Most of the time, Bark can’t afford to take a second hit of anything.

If I really want to optimize, Cutting down to three out of my four might be the better call.

Ugh, that’s such a dangerous number, though.

Sap has an amazing move set. I really could just...

Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, Lance, Rival.

Trunk could probably handle Lorelei. Sap could do the Fighting half of Bruno, and the other half isn’t really a problem. The plan with Agatha was always to teach Po Shadow Ball, but then Zaft needed Thunderbolt, so I couldn’t afford it. Lance is hell, but not one a Dugtrio is likely to improve by much.

I have no idea what to do for Oak.

But if I can set Sap up, a lot of problems become manageable. I can’t brute force this. I keep saying that, and I keep ignoring it because that’s not how I play these games. I need better strategies. Bark’s Attack stat isn’t up to being a glass cannon. She’s a glass rifle, maybe. Fantastic, but eating up resources without serving an extra purpose. She’ll be just as dead in two hits if I keep on giving her exp. Leveling could remove that weakness, but I don’t have anything to work with there.

I have to focus on three.

Damn it.

For now, let’s finish Blaine, shall we.

Got the badge.

Bill Gaiden?

So he says.

So ends the post, because I just can’t.

[huntingtreestand-blog]

Hunting Tree Stand. Deer Hunting Tree Stands.

Why You Need a Hunting Tree Stand

For those who don’t want to or physically can’t spend hours and hours doing the oldtime walk and stalk hunting, hunting tree stands are a great alternative.  

Tree stands allow the hunter to sit or stand for long periods of time and watch for game with a bird’s eye view of the lands below.  Properly placed, they allow the whitetail hunter to find a good spot and just wait for the game to go by and take his best shot.  

Long before commercial meat raising and slaughterhouse operations, man was no doubt dependent upon hunting the local environment for food. 

 For centuries, he used whatever tactics available to succeed at bringing home dinner, including climbing trees to hide and watch for prey.  In the 1970’s, technology caught up with what hunters had always done and the manufactured tree stand hit the American market.

Portable hunting tree stands quickly made random and risky perching on tree branches a thing of the past.  Several decades later, improvements have made prefab hunting tree stands a convenient (and if used responsibly, safe) way to bag a trophy whitetail.  

All it takes is a little understanding of whitetail behavior and the patience to adhere to a few simple rules of the game to successfully use a tree stand.  There are now so many makers and styles in different price ranges that any whitetail hunter has access to the stand of his or her choice.  

This has been a great boon for the last few decades of whitetail hunters and stand hunting has become almost an art.  As with any other part of this great sport, the years of trial and error have led to a lot of wisdom out there among hunters.

Where to place Tree Stand

The first and most obvious thing to learn when using a tree stand is that

it must be placed near a spot where deer are likely to be.  It doesn’t do any good to just pick a nice tree and set up shop.  

At least a couple of weeks ahead of time (and a month may be better), the hunter needs to go out and scout for a good location and determine the usual wind patterns.  

Ideally, placement should be where there are obvious trails or funnels or nearby feeding spots such as acorn laden oak trees, corn fields or other crops, water sources or bedding areas. 

Choosing a juncture of several trails naturally increase the hunter’s odds as deer may approach from several directions. Since whitetail are fairly predictable in their habits, it’s not overly difficult to determine their path from bed to feeding or to follow trails of buck scrapes to determine their usual pathways. 

 All that’s left for the hunter, when placing his tree stand, is to make sure that he is downwind enough to avoid being scented (and realize that savvy bucks will usually skirt a bedding or feeding area from several yards away downwind to test the area before making their approach) and to place it within an appropriate shooting range for his weapon. 

For a bow hunter this would likely be as close as possible, say from 15 to 25 yards, while a rifle could allow for distances of 50 to even 300 yards, depending on the marksman’s skill.  

Of course, it’s also important to have a fairly unobscurred line of sight in order to have a clean shot.

Safety Considerations 

The condition of the tree stand needs to be carefully inspected prior to each use.  A little practice at ground level in the backyard is a great idea before taking a new stand out – not only will this familiarize the hunter with it before it’s 15 to 25 feet in the air, but it will also reveal any squeaks and rattles that need taken care of beforehand.  

Reading the manufacturer’s instructions is not just for wusses – it’s just common sense to get to know a piece of equipment that’s made to hold a couple hundred pound hunter a few stories off the ground.

 Equally important, the tree stand needs to be carefully set up once it’s in country in order to allow for a safe climb. 

 Far too many hunters have been injured, disabled or killed by one careless moment – tree stands are not for anyone who is shaky, intoxicated or afraid of heights.  (Even a common cold or sinus pill can affect balance and alertness – things that are vital to anyone climbing to these kinds of heights.)

If using tree pegs, they shouldn’t be placed more than a foot apart and should be double checked to see that they are secure.  Ladder stands need some concealment to hide the steps but this can’t be so thick and close that the climber will get tangled up in it. 

When possible, setting a ladder stand up a few weeks prior to a hunt will enable it to blend in both scent- and sight-wise plus give any nervous deer time to get used to its presence. The platform needs to be secure, without any wiggling, and the hunter should be able to climb up and lower himself instead of attempting to drag his body up over the edge. 

 The hunter should not attempt the climb burdened down with gear.  Guns should be unloaded, arrows secured and all equipment should be fetched up to the tree stand via a tow rope once the hunter is in place.  Common sense says the six pack should left back at camp.

Stands should be securely strapped to a sturdy, healthy and straight tree preferably where there is a little cover from surrounding trees. It’s good to position the hunting stand so that there is a little flexibility in order to see deer approach and leave and to be above the trail enough to minimize detection from sight and scent.  

This will give better odds than just a straight on view or allow a chance for a second shot if it’s needed.  Intruding branches can be carefully removed to allow for good vision; this can be done from the ground with a long-handled pruner if it’s easier.

 Removing enough branches to give two or three shooting lanes will help also. It’s a balance – there needs to be enough cover or a blind so that an alert whitetail deer is less likely to notice any movement from the hunter but the hunter obviously wants to be able to see in as many directions as possible.

At any time when climbing or sitting in the stand, the hunter should wear safety straps, preferably a fall arrest system/full body harness approved by the Treestand Manufacturers Association, a group that has done its homework on tree stand safety. (A lot of great information can be found on their website at www.tmastands.com.) 

 It’s also not recommended that anyone use the old fashioned homebuilt wooden stands.  They are too subject to weather damage, rot and loose ladder rungs, etc.  Wood, left out in the weather can also grow a treacherous slippery layer, not to mention get a frost film that makes footing dangerous.

  It’s not worth the risk to life and limb to maybe save a few dollars with the do-it-yourself route when there are so many safer and tested options on the market.

Once the hunter has gotten and inspected his stand, learned how to use it safely and picked what’s hopefully the perfect spot for it, a final precaution that he should take before the hunt is to let someone know where he’s going.  

Tree stand hunting with a buddy is great but if this isn’t possible, the smart hunter will notify the game warden or let family and friends know where to look for him if he doesn’t return on time.  Even with a harness, a person can die hanging from the tree if no-one knows where to find him.  

Communication devices like walkie talkies and cell phones are a good extra precaution if hunting in range of signals. At the very least a good whistle is better than nothing.  

These items need to be carried in a pocket or secured to a belt where they can be accessed in the event of a fall – they won’t do any good if they are ten feet above on the platform while the hunter is dangling from the tree.

  Accidents can happen, even to the most experienced hunter – it’s only smart to be as prepared as possible to get out of a bad situation.

Benefits of a Hunting Tree Stand

Hunting tree stands can give the hunter a great vantage point to watch for the big ones, a real bird’s eye view of the surrounding terrain and deer hiding spots.  

They allow sitting or standing in relative comfort instead of tramping through wet woods and snow covered fields all day loaded down with gear. 

Properly used, knowing both the gear and the prey, tree hunting stands can mean the difference between bagging that trophy buck and returning to camp with nothing more than cold feet and a bad attitude.

[msgtporkins]

Dealing With The Elephant’s Foot

I sit at my computer, writing this as sweat pours down brow and the back of my neck due to the medication that is helping me fight this bacterial demon of epic proportions. The scare first started on Saturday night after I had a late workout session. It was light duty stuff to help bring my corpulent frame in something more manageable then get back into the brawny young man I was in high school. The thought of once more being able to see my penis excited me as I walked 3 miles on the treadmill then proceeded with some light free weights then the bane of any fat guy's routine - the sit up.  I cranked out 20 (the most I could do without pushing myself) and felt good about doing so. I'd been doing the same routine nightly for two weeks and dropped an impressive 3 pounds. That may not seem like much but to me, it was a clear goal. 

  As I head home for a much needed shower and sleep, I awoke the next morning to go to church to help out in the kitchen on the first of the month but my right calf had a slight burning sensation as if someone was pulling a frat house prank on a drunk guy by holding a match under bare skin. I stretched it out and thought nothing of it until I got home. While sitting down in my office chair to do some quality video recording, I felt a weird lump in the crease between my thigh and groin area. At first I thought it some sort of fatty mass because when you're as big as me, you tend to have areas like that but something was off. It was a hard mass and it was in the lymph node area, thinking that during the cold season it may have clogged up and sometimes they will do that. During the summer time, the ones in my throat will do so due to allergies so I shrugged it off...until a few hours later.  The mass grew double its size and I began to worry.  I showed my wife and we got onto Skype with her father, who has been a male ER nurse for 40 plus years. He has seen things that Indiana Jones would dare to discover and it was only proper to ask his advice. After some cross-chat and prognosis, we figured it to be DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) or lymph nodes swelling.  CaffienatedTigress, my wife, went down to the store and picked up some low-dose aspirin to help thin the blood some to see if that would help.  It did but not in the way we thought it would.

  I woke up the next morning to a mass that had spread to my genital area, causing a slight painful swelling that was looking to overtake everything down south. I wasn't panicked or anything but I figured it was more lymph node thing until I moved. The burning sensation came back full force and it felt as if you had slept too close to a campfire and your sin was all painfully burning because you were slightly cooked. Over the next couple of days, the swelling had gotten worse and my right testicle was about the size of a grapefruit and had the appearance of Quasimodo and Sloth made a baby during some animalistic argument sex. Now it was time to go see a doctor. We made our way to a Primary Health Non-Emergency clinic a.k.a. Doc-In-A-Box and awaited to be seen. Apparently, the doc was let out of his cage that day and only a Physician's Assistant was available. They asked if that would be okay. I said of course but in turned out not to be. A young man who reminded me of Paul Reubens yet looked perfectly suited for a prison ward looked me over. He was oddly reluctant at the fact that I was not timid about becoming naked in the time it takes for Rosie O'Donnell to demolish a honey ham during the holidays. After a quick look over, he announced that I could have a hernia. Great. I spend all this time trying to be careful and taking it easy, only to be side-tracked by the one thing I didn't want. He referred us to an actual hospital where actual doctors could do actual examination with actual accuracy. Once again, we were off like my boxers. 

  We arrived at St. Luke's where we were wonderfully greeted by a mousy, young gal that reminded of Jennine Melnatz, the receptionist from the movie, "Ghostbusters". That's a good thing because we saw lots of her as she apologized profusely throughout of visit because Pee Wee forgot to send over the paperwork and when he finally did (I can assume we were waiting for Mailman Mike or Captain Carl to deliver it from Puppet Land), it was a jumbled mess of letters, sentences and paragraphs that was even worse than what you are reading right now. After a couple of hours of sorting through it all, we were brought back to the ultrasound room to see if the mass that was growing like The Blob was indeed a hernia. While Tigress watched from a mere six feet away, my groin region was fondled by a mid-30's blonde gal whose touch were like silk for over an hour and afterwards she even gave her coffee. My penis did nothing the entire time, not even poking out of its now flesh bunker like the gopher from Caddyshack. It was stoic and unwavering like a mighty oak...er...acorn. As she was sending over the result, apparently, the computer was having a hard time trying to send over the information of my newly-lubed genitals to the radiologist to view. She had to take a screen shot with her phone to send enough over to him and ended us sending me home because it wasn't an emergency from what they could find. They told me they would call the next day and I would hear the bad/good news. 

17 hours later... 

  I get a call from Pee Wee because I can safety assume that he had gotten a new tin can for his phone after Cowboy Curtis shot the old one. He told me that there was 'dead and dying tissue so I needed to go to the ER'. Well shit... We loaded up into the Tigress-mobile and headed off to the place I should of went to first. This was another St. Luke's but the one I knew better. I was born in this one. Everyone in the Pork Platoon helped raised money for the Children's Hospital there. I should of used better judgement and went right to where I knew that I would of had this problem solved without the sketchy medical practices of Puppet Land and faulty ultrasound machines. (I would of missed out on a good fondling so it wasn't all bad) I was immediately brought in, stripped down and put into a room within five minutes of arrival. So far, so good then walks in the hero of the story. The male ER nurse that came to save the day had a battle-harden look about him. He had the physical attributes of Mr. Clean and the cut-straight-through-the-bullshit feel of Cable from the Marvel comic. In the next two minutes, he man-handled my junk as if he was engaged in hand-to-gland combat. He knew exactly where to strike and get the job done. He asked if there was an ultrasound and I told him, "Yes, sir.". Within a minute's time, he disappeared and came back, having gotten the results from the other hospital and told me that I had a bacterial infection most commonly found on gym equipment. He had saved the day in record time and ravished my body in a way I have never been loved before. 

  Rewind back to that Saturday night. 

  The on-site gym in the apartment complex I live it isn't exactly the best in the world but it does what you need it to do. There are free-weights, treadmills, stationary bikes and some sort of machine that even in all my years of workout, I've never seen before and probably equate it to some sort of Slavic torture device that was used by Spetsnaz for interrogating Western spies and now was bought on the cheap by this housing company because 'it looks like gym equipment'. There is only one bench in the entire place that has the ability to be able to use it for sit ups and free weights. The one I used quite often, every day in fact. I'm the kind of person that cleans up equipment afterwards because I wouldn't want anyone sliding around on my body sweat because Tigress does that and I even feel bad for her for doing that. That gal is the greatest wife in the world. Apparently, I was naive to think others would do the same but in this hustle-and-bustle world of staying glued to an iPhone and not giving a damn about where you sling your body fluids, I can only imagine the genital sweat left behind by all the men and women living there. One can only guess by what slimy smegma-covered hot dog or Sarlaac pit mixed with the bacterial contents of a Chipotle food service line have laid across this bench and not been wiped up once. I was the one who fell victim to such vile nastiness and my groin nearly paid the ultimate price. 

  The antibiotics are working great yet they are causing me to sweat because my body is warming itself up to fight off the foreign invaders.  It's just natural and happens normally but since I'm a naturally warm-bodied person, the kind of heat I produce is liken to that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and I'm laying on top of the covers while my still swollen testicle sits their like the infamous Elephant's Foot, only can be viewed by someone for a few seconds because keeling over and dying. At least I'm feeling better. 

I'll see you all on the next battlefield! 

Deuces, 

Wayde "MSgtPorkins" Andazola

[jeanjauthor]

This is a link for writers who have ever stopped to consider where their characters get their daily bread, and more specifically, their daily flour for their daily bread.

This can be useful for “homemaker” type characters in a modern setting, for villagers or cooks in historical settings, and even for post-apocalyptic survivors who have successfully harvested and threshed and stored a crop, and now have to figure out how to turn those hard kernels of wheat (aka wheat ‘berries’) into nice soft easily mixed and manipulated flour.

It gives a quick overview of thevariou  tools used in the past to grind various kinds of grains and legumes into flour, whether it was wheat, rice, corn, oats, barley, millet, wild rice, peas (yes, peas were used for bread flour!), lentils, beans, or whatever, and goes over the plusses and minuses of stone versus steel plates, so on and so forth.

When I was a teenager, I grew a bit of wheat in our back yard, in a little patch only a few feet on each side.  I weeded it, harvested it, carefully hand-threshed it, and then my mother got out her hand-cranked meatgrinder, put on the grain attachment, and had me try grinding up grain.  I was a kid, so...it didn’t go very well.  After a bit of laughing on both our parts, she and I took the grain to the house of one of her friends, who had an electric tabletop flour mill.

In the end, I managed to get just enough whole wheat flour out of the batch to make 20 shortbread cookies, and they were tasty...but I remember how much work it was to try to hand-crank the meat grinder, how it shifted because we hadn’t clamped it tightly enough to the counter...  It gave me a real appreciation for our modern conveniences, and a lasting impression on “the daily grind,”  which is a turn of phrase that literally comes from having to grind, day in and day out, that day’s amount of flour for bread, thickening for gravies, crust for pastries, and so forth.

If you blithely assume your character just magically has bread in their cupboard...it’s best to have a realm of magic where bread can indeed just “magically appear in there”...though a good number of your readers are going to be wondering how the magic words, and if it’s conjured, is it real, or is the character going to feel full for an hour, but be literally starving by the end of the day?

And no, you don’t have to show your characters in a Classical Age or Medieval era setting hand-grinding their grain, nor do you have to show them lugging sacks of grain to flour mills and sacks of flour back home again.  If they live near a market, and if they have an income, they can buy what they need, either bread outright, or pre-milled flour.

...The one thing you really shouldn’t try to do--even if it’s literally a paleo-era, pre-agricultural setting--is try to convince your readers that primitive man didn’t need grains to survive.  Carbohydrates are a vital part of one’s diet.  While you can survive for a while on a ketogenic (high protein) diet, your character will lose a lot of weight.  (Zachary Fowler, winner of Alone season 3, lost 72 pounds in 87 days, on an extremely high protein diet...but then he also was eating not quite one whole fish--and I do mean the whole fish, bones and scales and everything--perr day.)

Grains (milling them into flour to make them easier to chew and digest) are the easiest carb around.  Other sources include acorns and pine nuts, both of which need to be “leached” or soaked in running water for several days after being shelled and cracked, to reduce the bitterness. (Tannins for oak acorns, and pine resin for pine nuts.)  Taro roots, potatoes, yams, and winter squashes (not like zucchini, but like butternut, acorn, pumpkin, those kinds) are also a source of carbs, though they don’t have to be milled.  Cattail roots are also a will-known source of starch, while the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest actually ate several varieties of fern roots, with certain species being both revered and highly prized as the most starchy and nutritious.

Other carbs can come from fruits, nuts, and berries, plus of course the ever-popular honey.  If you live in a warmer cilmate, cane sugar can be extracted from those plants, but if you live in a colder climate, you can tap various species of maple and birch trees to make syrups.  I was surprised to learn recently that bigleaf maples, which are found locally here on the West Coast, can produce the same ratio of 40-to-1 sugars in their sap as actual sugar maple trees! That means 40 gallons of sap will boil down to 1 gallon of syrup.  (You have to boil it down to at least that thick to get it to the point that bacterial will not grow in it; otherwise, it wills poil.)  Birch was more like 60-to-1 or even 100-to-1, depending on the species.

There is evidence that even back in the Stone Ages, paleolithic people put a lot of effort into harvesting things like hazel nuts, acorns, berries, cattail roots, so on and so forth, all in the pursuit of collecting and storing carbs to last them the year.

And yes, they’d take the hand-harvested grains of millet and so forth, and grind them between rocks to break up the coarse outer coating, to make them easier to bake and chew and digest.

I honestly don’t see the far distant future abandoning the need to mill or otherwise have the means to process flour for our daily bread, either.  It might get super fancy in how they do it, but it’ll still be a human need.

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

As promised... outdoor plant updates! Woo!

(All updates will be under the photos. It's easier that way. For me anyway.)

Alfred Pennyworth the plumeria is doing FANTASTIC now that I've started fertilizer for blooming tropicals once a week. That second pic is actually the part that blooms come from growing. SO FUCKING JAZZED. My boy is gorgeous.

Pink Jasmine Estates namesake, Princess Jasmine, has just gone apeshit. She has loads of new growth, but these dudes are the most impressive bit as they've outgrown the trellis. I'm interested to see where they scamper off to.

Sherry the Red Cherry tomato plant is putting out ripe babies left & right. For the last 3 or 4 days, we've had ripe tomatoes to harvest. These guys aren't quite cooked yet. The plant itself got attacked by some sort of caterpillar, so I've had to prune a lot of dead or ultra damaged bits.

I also got 2 new varieties of cherry tomatoes, Sun Sugar & Black Cherry. Unfortunately I don't think black cherry is going to make it because when I went to pot her when we got home, she was so overly saturated & ober watered that despite being incredibly gentle, the bottom 2/3 of her roots just straight fell off back into her og pot. But I'm still trying.

Those bulbs The Spawn got me are doing really well. We even got 3 blooms from them. I didn't even know they bloomed. Neat. She's very proud of herself for "picking good bulbs".

That's really it. Everything else is more or less the same. The entire wildflower bed is gone. Everything either ran its course, was vandalized, or was choked out by Texas Live Oak root suckers. I think over fall/winter, I'm going to build a raised bed (think a similar structure to Jasmine's but with a solid bottom, with drainage holes duh, & propped up off the ground by the flowerbed bricks) to prevent having to deal with root suckers next season.

I did a ton of research & because they aren't 'sprouts' like from a seed or acorn, but are actually part of the tree that the tree puts out when 'stressed', I can't do much besides trimming them back every now and then without killing the tree. And we don't kill trees. Plus that's Stephen's tree.

Also, we got dope outdoor cameras to deter or catch any future vandals. Hahaha.

[geraltcirilla]

acorn hall flirtations;

One thing that you really need context for to understand the full gravity of the statement is, “A nice oak tree.”

Before I read the books, I saw many people quote that statement for their Gendrya edits and didn’t think much of it. All Gendry did was say Arya looked nice. How could that be explicitly romantic? It’s a cute quote, was all I thought, but proves nothing about Gendry’s feelings for her. Plus, wasn’t it teasing anyways?

And then I began read the books and finally understood Gendry’s character and what that statement meant coming from him.

(More under the cut.)

Gendry strong, loyal pragmatic, a survivor, and stubborn. A little bit arrogant when it comes to himself, which comes off more as funny than annoying. He’s a good looking guy and he knows it, he’s big and strong and he knows it, he’s smarter than most people and he knows it.

“Want to fight?” she asked the Bull. She wanted to hit something.

He blinked at her, startled. Strands of thick black hair, still wet from the bathhouse, fell across his deep blue eyes. “I’d hurt you.”

“You would not.”

“You don’t know how strong I am.”

[...]

“Arya froze in her steps. “I’m not a girl!”

“Yes you are. Do you think I’m as stupid as they are?”

[...]

“You’re the eunuch.”

“You know I’m not.” Gendry smiled. “You want me to take out my cock and prove it? I don’t have anything to hide.”

But he’s also bashful, shy, and awkward. Especially when it comes to women.

When Gendry finds out Arya is a highborn lady, he’s genuinely frazzled. In the show they played it off as more mocking, but Gendry was genuinely distraught. He was raised to be respectful of highborns and know his place.

“Arya.” She raised her eyes to his. “My name is Arya. Of House Stark.”

“Of House . . .” It took him a moment before he said, “The King’s Hand was named Stark. The one they killed for a traitor.”

“He was never a traitor. He was my father.”

Gendry’s eyes widened. “So that’s why you thought . . .”

She nodded. “Yoren was taking me home to Winterfell.”

“I . . . you’re highborn then, a . . . you’ll be a lady . . .”

Arya looked down at her ragged clothes and bare feet, all cracked and callused. She saw the dirt under her nails, the scabs on her elbows, the scratches on her hands. Septa Mordane wouldn’t even know me, I bet. Sansa might, but she’d pretend not to. “My mother’s a lady, and my sister, but I never was.”

“Yes you were. You were a lord’s daughter and you lived in a castle, didn’t you? And you . . . gods be good, I never . . .” All of a sudden Gendry seemed uncertain, almost afraid. “All that about cocks, I never should have said that. And I been pissing in front of you and everything, I . . . I beg your pardon, m’lady.”

“Stop that!” Arya hissed. Was he mocking her?

“I know my courtesies, m’lady,” Gendry said, stubborn as ever. “Whenever highborn girls came into the shop with their fathers, my master told me I was to bend the knee, and speak only when they spoke to me, and call them m’lady.”

Of course, he gets over it pretty fast because at this point he knows Arya quite well, and she’s not some stranger highborn lady, she’s Arry. They’ve survived certain death together. She’s saved his life, he’s saved her life. But even then he’s concerned:

When she glanced back over her shoulder, he was watching her with that pained look on his face that meant he was thinking. He’s probably thinking that he shouldn’t be letting m’lady go stealing food. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now.

Gendry is also a good looking guy, and that is not lost on women. 

He’s described by Ned Stark as looking just like Robert Baratheon, who Ned himself described as being a “maiden’s fantasy” in his prime. Bella, a tavern wench, (and another one of Robert’s bastards, although Gendry at this point had no way of knowing she was his half-sister) approached Gendry in ASoS attempting to seduce him, and he rebuffed her rather rudely.

“I’m named Bella,” the girl told Gendry. “For the battle. I bet I could ring your bell, too. You want to?”

“No,” he said gruffly.

“I bet you do.” She ran a hand along his arm. “I don’t cost nothing to friends of Thoros and the lightning lord.”

“No, I said.” Gendry rose abruptly and stalked away from the table out into the night.

Bella turned to Arya. “Don’t he like girls?”

Arya shrugged. “He’s just stupid. He likes to polish helmets and beat on swords with hammers.”

So basically, although Gendry could have his pick of women if he desired, he isn’t interested. Flirtation visibly upsets him. Gendry can be awkward and weird around women, which can come off as rude. Gendry in general can be “bull-headed”, as Arya describes him. Tossing around insults (at Lommy, Hot Pie, Edric Dayne, etc). And he rarely compliments a person, if ever. Certainly not girls.

So him calling Arya a “Nice oak tree” isn’t just a toss-away statement. Gendry doesn’t freely hand out compliments. Although Gendry has been known to tease Arya, historically he doesn’t do that with fake compliments. It’s not his style. So that comment was a real, genuine thought.

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”

Arya obviously picks a fight with him and wrestles him to the ground after he says this, because she assumes any nice thing said about her is a tease, and even if she did believe him she was too awkward to know how to accept a compliment. Later on Lem starts scolding Gendry for picking on someone half his size, and Arya comes to his defense saying:

“I started it,” said Arya. “Gendry was just talking.”

So it could be she did believe he was being genuine, as she took full responsibility for the fight. If she thought he was trying to be mean she wouldn’t jump to his defense.

So awkward, grumpy, sour Gendry said something nice to Arya. A huge step for this boy. And returning to the dining hall where Tom is singing Featherbed (a song about a wild, free women and her lover) is a giant blinking neon light for anyone who missed the subtly of his statement. And if you still couldn’t tell that the song Featherbed was about Gendry and Arya, Tom winks at Arya before continuing the song. And later, Lady Smallwood (their host at Acorn Hall) tells Arya:

“I have no gowns of leaves,” said Lady Smallwood with a small fond smile.

Which is a direct line from the song. (“I’ll wear a gown of golden leaves,”)

Acorn Hall is the beginning of the love story between Gendry and Arya, and Gendry’s compliment “A nice oak tree” was flirtation.

[samwpmarleau]

can you explain to me why everyone in westeros is always referring to lyanna as very beautiful when her counterpart (arya) is referred to as "horseface", is it because lyanna is being described by the people who loved her or maybe it's because arya is still very young? i'm not hating or anything is just that this too descriptions always seems to clash for me

Well, because that’s what we’re told of Lyanna:

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

“You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert,” Ned told him. “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath.”

Where was the beautiful Lady Lyanna that King Robert had named in honor of the maid he’d loved and lost?

The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled, though however bright a torch might burn it could never match the rising sun.

That comes from Ned, Arya, Robert, Davos, and Kevan, plus whoever the “everybody” in Arya’s statement is. The only times we hear something slightly off from that is with Barbrey Ryswell’s “centaur” comment and the world book’s “by all accounts [Lyanna] was a wild and boyish young thing with none of Princess Elia’s delicate beauty.”

Taking biases into account, I would say Kevan and the world book’s descriptions are most accurate, that she was pretty but in a striking, intriguing way like a Visenya Targaryen or Ellaria Sand. She wasn’t an Elia, Ashara, or Catelyn who were unequivocally gorgeous and turned heads, but there was something about her that drew the eye. That said, apart from Ned, the only time any of those people saw Lyanna was at Harrenhal (and Davos never), when she would have been prettied up and told to act in a more reserved, ladylike manner. Only Ned would have known the way she normally was, sparring with Benjen in the godswood with sticks.

As for Arya, she’s a child, only barely 11 by the end of ADWD, and the “horseface” comments came from Sansa, Jeyne, and Theon who liked to pick on her. We know that the Stark “look” consists of a long face, which those three I mentioned who very much do not have the Stark look and who are bratty (pre) teens, would poke fun at. Arya does the same thing to Sansa, only she pokes fun at Sansa’s preoccupation with true knights and love of traditionally feminine interests. It’s a two-way street.

There’s also the fact that Arya doesn’t act like a typical lady which, in the very patriarchal society of Westeros, causes people to look down on her and color their opinions of her. If she’s caked in mud, with a ripped dress, twigs in her hair, and dirt on her face, of course “beautiful” is not going to be the first word that comes to anyone’s mind, especially Sansa or Jeyne. In fact, we see this very phenomenon with Gendry when Arya gets cleaned up and put in a new dress:

Gendry put the hammer down and looked at her. “You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”

We also have the Kindly Man:

“Or would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty? Speak the word, and we will send you to the Black Pearl or the Daughter of the Dusk. You will sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when you walk, and great lords will beggar themselves for your maiden’s blood.”

And the priest:

“The city watch is looking for a certain ugly girl, known to frequent the Purple Harbor, so best you have a new face as well.” He cupped her chin, turned her head this way and that, nodded. “A pretty one this time, I think. As pretty as your own.”

So we do have several sources that say she’s pretty in one way or another, or at least that she cleans up well.  As I mentioned above, this is likely exactly the scenario with Lyanna. Normally she may not be considered beautiful, but when she makes an effort, such as at the Tourney of Harrenhal, she’s quite striking. Arya, however, has youth working against her. Most children go through awkward phases, especially when they’re close to entering puberty, so there’s that.

I should also point out that just because someone looks like someone else, that doesn’t mean they’re identical. For instance, I think my sister is far more beautiful than I am, but you can still tell we’re sisters. Very likely it’s the same with Arya: even if Lyanna were gorgeous and Arya ugly, that doesn’t preclude there being a resemblance between the two.

Additionally, while it’s true that the child of two very attractive people is not always attractive themselves, Jon is said to be plain on more than one occasion. Which, considering Rhaegar very much wasn’t and that Jon takes after Lyanna in every way, could lend some credence to her being comely but not breathtaking.

(Not that it matters. Arya’s entire personage is an example that you don’t have to look beautiful to make a difference — we see a similar arc with Brienne. This as compared to someone like Cersei, who is beautiful yet who is often quite sinister.)

[wallpapernifty]

The Five Secrets You Will Never Know About White Magnolia Flower | White Magnolia Flower

The bounce actuality has been air-conditioned and dry. Despite the algid weather, we were blessed to see that robins, red-winged blackbirds, hummingbirds, orioles, Carolina wrens, catbirds and rose-breasted grosbeaks had returned. Friday and Saturday nights were frosty. We wondered how the hummingbirds fared, but they were aback at the feeders in the morning. We got a acceptable division of an inch of rain on Saturday. A rain/sleet/snow mix chased us central while we were pruning the angel orchard on Mother’s Day.

The aboriginal bounce brief flowers are actualization a bit late. Dutchmen’s breeches, bloodroot, rue anemone, accepted dejected violets, featherlike chicken violets, Virginia bluebells, trout lilies, bounce beauties, agrarian amber and hepatica and a few trilliums are out now. The absolute appearance will activate with a bit added baptize and some balmy days. Phlox, agrarian geranium, jack-in-the-pulpit and Solomon’s allowance will blossom soon, to be followed by the backward bounce and summer annual show. The copse are starting to blade out now. They will anon adumbration the backwoods floor, shutting bottomward the bounce brief flowers for the season.

Many copse and shrubs blossom afore or during leaf-out. Our basin becomes ambrosial with aroma from apple, agrarian plum, agitation aspen, and agrarian blooming blossoms. A abutting watch of any of those copse on a balmy day appear squadrons of pollinators. In accession to calm honeybees, a array of bumblebees, abate agrarian bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and beetles appointment the beginning trees.

Smaller flowers accept their own beauty. A accumulative bottle helps to see the smaller-scale world. Bur oak leaves the admeasurement of a mouse’s ear are accompanied by continued clusters of blooming macho staminate flowers. The changeable flowers anatomy abreast the ends of twigs and anatomy acorns afterwards actuality pollinated. The average and active backyard edger bit-by-bit charlie has an affected vase-shaped pink-purple flower, clear-cut with darker stripes like absolute glass. We see honeybees foraging for ambrosia and pollen on the bit-by-bit charlie blossoms. Agrarian cherries accept finger-sized bunches of baby white flowers. Red osier dogwoods, accepting kept some blush about all winter on their red stems, action annular bunches of baby white flowers amid their growing leaves.

The chichi flowers on these plants are all about allure — not for others of their own affectionate but to allure workers. Unlike pines and grasses that absolution pollen that is broadcast by the wind, best beginning plants await on insects or birds to blend their flowers. Flowers are chichi and action up alimental ambrosia and pollen in adjustment to allure pollinators. Abounding flowers are adorable to bees because they fluoresce in ultraviolet light.

The adorned bit-by-bit charlie annual has hairs central to besom pollen off visiting baby bees. Tiny agrarian blooming flowers accept stamens

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The spiders in Grounded are gorgeous but they’re absolute menace • Eurogamer.net

Please be warned that there are images of spiders in this article.

My dad had a spider in his shower for months and he named it Boris, and when one day the spider was no longer there, he seemed genuinely upset. It seems they’d formed quite a bond. I must have inherited his befriend-a-spider gene because I rather like them, like having them around the house. They’re my household security against other pests. When I see occupied corners and windowsills I consider the room well fortified because nothing stands a chance against them. They’re beautifully efficient, wonderfully designed.

Grounded

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Publisher: Microsoft Studios

Platform: Played on PC

Available: Out now in Steam Early Access (£25) and on Game Preview for PC and Xbox (included with Game Pass).

But not everyone likes them, you might be surprised to hear. When I try to tell my girlfriend it’s good to have them around she doesn’t seem to understand. “Can you get rid of it? Don’t pick it up!” She doesn’t even care if it’s a house spider and it’s supposed to live here! She wants it evicted, how heartless. Mind you, one did crawl across the duvet onto her neck so I suppose that’s a contributing factor.

At least the spiders have me, their friend, around to displace them kindly. I hear horror stories of people vacuuming them or stamping on them, tearing around their houses causing spider genocide just because these things tried to make a home there. What a nightmare for spiders we must be. If only the roles were reversed, then we’d see!

Well what a coincidence, now they are. Welcome to Grounded, a Honey I Shrunk the Kids backyard world where you are the size of a paperclip, struggling to keep yourself fed, watered and alive among an ecosystem of things you never really noticed before: gnats, mites, aphids, all of which are now the relative size of a cat.

It’s a base-building game like Minecraft where you gather materials from the tiny-big environment around you, felling blades of grass the size of trees for example, and then turn them into a wide array of different things. The more materials you analyse at a research station, the more options you unlock, and there seem to be a lot, from stuffed mite pillows to slime sconces and mushroom gardens.

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This is a montage of me playing. There are spiders.

But Grounded, unlike Minecraft, has a more scripted world, with a story to providing structure and a path of sorts to follow. You’re essentially trying to find out what the hell is going on and why you’re so small, and why there are tiny research bases here. There’s not a lot of story implemented at the moment but what’s there shows promise, especially when you find a quirky robot with a moustache and dialogue options and daily quests. Here, Obsidian’s RPG hallmarks are plain to see.

But when I said Grounded is a world of things you’d never noticed before, of batteries and baseballs and juice boxes lost in the grass (quite a messy backyard actually), that’s not entirely true, because living here, of course, are spiders, and they’re magnificent. The care and attention Obsidian has lavished on them warms my heart. It’s in the way they move, the way the legs come up and over as they feel their way forward, eerily gliding along like a scrunched up horror hand, or in the way their legs tuck close while they rest. And the size of them: my god they’re big. They’ll make you feel like Frodo facing Shelob. There’s no mistaking who’s boss here.

Spiders are the menace of Grounded, and there’s an arachnophobia mode that reduces them to friendly floating blobs if you’re totally not OK with that. They patrol around their nest, barging great blades of grass aside as they go (if you see grass-forests swaying, you know something big is on the move), and if they catch sight of you, even from a fair distance away, they will roar and rear up at you with their front legs held high, in the spidery way they do, and charge. And gee whizz can they shift! Because of course they can, they’re spiders – have you seen how quickly they shoot across your bedroom floor? They pack a punch too. Don’t think about fighting one, trust me. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been pounced by a roaming orbweaver while absent mindedly smashing acorns around the oak tree, and how many of my stuffed backpacks now lie around the trunk there.

But it was another spider encounter that really stuck in my mind. It all started when I needed to get out of a base under the oak tree because I was perishing from hunger and thirst. It was night time and I didn’t have a torch, and I knew what folly it would be to tear out into the dark knowing what could be there, but what choice did I have? It was then that I heard a noise, a kind of guttural growling.

I decided to investigate and poke my head out of the doorway and the moment I did, I heard a roar and the drumbeat of combat and darted back inside. “ALERT: Threat Engaged,” the game told me but I couldn’t see what it was. I waited, regained my composure and poked my head out again. Something moved and then a giant head with many glowing eyes and two huge fangs span to face me. That’s no orbweaver!

I bolted back inside to watch horrid thick, black legs feel around the entrance for a way in, but the beast was too big and couldn’t get in, or so I thought. Emboldened, I edged forward with my puny-looking spear and poked it and, to my surprise, it backed off. I waited, stared at the door, nothing happened. Did it go?

I edged forward again. Roar! No it hadn’t gone! And this time when it roared something unexpected happened: it jumped into the hallway with me. A wolf spider. A tarantula-looking spider the size of a car was now blocking the only exit from the underground base I was trapped in.

I mean!

That moment terrified me. Even watching the footage back now gives me chills (it’s included in the montage embedded here, be warned). But it was thoroughly exciting. When I reloaded the same encounter and played it a different way, waiting and then dashing madly for the water as soon as I saw a hint of morning, I ended up on a leaf floating in the middle of the water watching the morning sun sweep across the garden to chase away the dark and light a new day, and I tell you, it’s one of the sweetest sunrises I’ve ever seen, and all because of the terror of the night before.

All the same, I was starting to get a bid fed up of dying to spiders. My experience of Grounded had been dominated by them and I wanted to know what more was there, so I set about studiously avoiding them. I knew roughly where the orbweavers patrolled (I had no idea where the wolf spider came from) so I steered well clear of them, choosing to stay close to the starter area where I would build a home.

Now, I’ve been around that starter area a lot and I have never had any trouble there, except for the time I punched an ant and then it steamed into me with a load of its mates and I learned the hard way not to mess with ants. But otherwise, no trouble. So imagine my surprise one evening when, while putting up some grass walls, I heard another bone-shaking roar and another – or maybe the same – bloody great wolf spider leapt into the base with me.

Somehow, by kiting the herculean nightmare around my research lab and then hiding inside it, I avoid those fangs, and then I cheated a bit by building a “lean-to” bed within reaching distance and slept the night and spider away even though it was standing right next to me (nothing like bending the rules in a tight spot is there?).

I recovered, and then bit by bit I began making the progress I was after. I made an acorn breastplate to go with my cloverleaf armour, and I finally found a thistle plant to collect spikes from for my spiky club, and to make arrows. I was still steering well clear of orbweaver patrol grounds, still being super cautions, and it was paying off. Until guess what I heard? You guessed it: Roar! And stampeding through the grass like an elephant through a jungle came the bloody wolf spider again. Why me?! What have I ever done to you? I helped your friends when I was big – why won’t you let me be?

Gulp.

But now there I am, holed up in a fizzy drink can with an apparently furious wolf spider trying to get in, even though this time it really can’t – fizzy drinks cans, folks, they’re great base fodder. No matter how far the spider wanders out of sight, the moment I step outside it comes barrelling back over the horizon to get me, so I’m pinned. I’m not entirely sure the spider is working properly, to be honest, but in some way I don’t mind because it seems appropriate I’m helpless before this wonderful beast. I’ve become slightly obsessed with it, with the idea I might one day stand up to it, and then what – I become king of the jungle?

Plus, I imagine, this is what it’s like for all those spiders around people’s homes who are hunted for no other crime than trying to exist. Maybe this wolf spider is taking the collected pain of its species out on me. Silly thing. Doesn’t it realise I’m a friend? My dad knew Boris.

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Seasonal Considerations for Hikers and Campers

Part of the reason it is so fun to spend time in the great outdoors is that every trip into the wilderness is different. You may witness deer feeding on trailside vegetation one day, spot a row of recently bloomed wildflowers the next, and observe a recently fallen tree the day after.

The forest (or field, desert, swamp or any other habitat you may visit) is constantly changing, and each trip will yield new and interesting sights, sounds and smells.

But while some of these changes occur randomly, others are related to natural seasonal cycles. It behooves hikers and campers to familiarize themselves with some of the obvious (and not-so-obvious) changes that occur as the calendar advances. This will not only help keep you safe, it’ll help you maximize your time in the great outdoors too.

Winter

Winter is undoubtedly the best time for those seeking solitude to head outdoors – you’ll share the trail with relatively few hikers and campers during the coldest months of the year. There are obviously exceptions, but most wildlands outside of the sunbelt are pretty empty during the winter.

But there’s a reason that relatively few people take to the trails during the winter: It’s cold.

The frigid temperatures of December, January and February certainly pose challenges. Frostbite and hypothermia are common threats on winter trips, and it is hard to get warm while you’re living outdoors for an extended period of time. It can also be extremely challenging to traverse icy or snowy terrain (although good trekking poles can help), and it’s often harder to do simple things because your fingers are constantly cold.

However, there are a few really neat benefits the winter provides. You’ll have to decide if they outweigh the challenges posed by the cold temperatures, but every outdoor enthusiast should give winter camping a try at some point.

For example, you can see much farther into the forest in the winter. Most of the deciduous trees will have shed their leaves, which opens up sightlines and vistas that are obscured for most of the year. In some cases, this may mean that a campsite that doesn’t provide much of a view throughout the warm portions of the year will suddenly afford beautiful views of the surrounding lands.

Additionally, you won’t have to battle many biting bugs during the winter. Most mosquitoes, ticks, spiders and other creepy critters die off or hibernate during the winter, so you won’t spend the evening slapping at bugs and checking your body for ticks. Additionally, most dangerous snakes spend the winter snoozing underground, so you aren’t likely to step on one sunning on the trail.

Spring

Spring may be one of the most beautiful and exciting times to explore the great outdoors. The new leaves on the trees and deciduous shrubs make the entire world look green, wildflowers provide color everywhere you look, and bird songs will usually form the soundtrack for your trip.

And best of all, you get to enjoy all of these things before many of the warm-weather problems present themselves. In fact, the early spring presents a number of the same benefits that winter does.

If you hit the trail early enough, you won’t have to contend with many bugs, and most of the poison ivy (and poison oak) leaves won’t have blossomed yet, which will reduce your chances of suffering an itchy rash. However, all of these threats will become factors by the middle of spring (depending on the local climate), so it is often wise to schedule spring camping trips as early as possible.

Spring can present a pretty significant challenge though, as the entire landscape will be covered in pollen. This can make allergy sufferers miserable and force them to spend much of the trip hiding inside their tent while taking antihistamines. But there are a few ways to limit the problems caused by pollen, and we discuss several of them here.

Trails and campsites occasionally become crowded during the spring, but the earlier you venture out, the smaller the crowds will be. However, you’ll need to be prepared for a wide variety of temperatures during spring camping trips, as the difference between the nighttime lows and daytime highs will be particularly exaggerated.

Cold snaps are also a perpetual possibility in the early days of spring. These can be dangerous if you aren’t prepared for the cold weather and icy terrain, so it is important to make sure you still have all of your cold-weather gear anytime you hit the trail in the early spring.

Summer

Because most kids are out of school during the summer and many adults schedule their vacations for this portion of the year, summer is usually the most crowded time of year for most popular trails and campsites. This isn’t necessarily a problem for all outdoor enthusiasts, but those who prize peace and quiet may want to head to particularly remote locations during the summer.

Summer presents campers with all of the standard warm-weather challenges. Snakes, bugs, poison ivy and other familiar threats will be at full strength, afternoon thunderstorms are often common, and high temperatures will often persist through most of the day and night.

Those trekking in high mountains or northern latitudes may not experience uncomfortably warm temperatures, but campers and hikers in most places will suffer through daytime temperatures that climb into the high 80s, if not further. This’ll make you sweat throughout the day, and it can increase the likelihood of blisters, rashes and friction burns from clothing or backpack straps.

You can partially mitigate these factors by wearing appropriate clothing and changing your socks immediately, anytime they become damp. But there are still times in which you’ll be unable to escape the heat very easily, which can stoke tempers and fray nerves. You’ll just have to do your best to stay cool, and obviously, make sure you remain hydrated.

On the plus side, summer is the best time of year to enjoy most types of aquatic recreation, including everything from kayaking to fishing to swimming. In fact, the warmest days of summer are often the only times it is fun to go swimming in cold-water streams.

And while you’ll always need to keep food safety in mind while hiking or camping (especially if you are using perishable, fresh foods), it is wise to remember that food will spoil more quickly during the summer than any other time of year. Be sure that you keep hot foods hot and discard the remainder in an appropriate way to avoid attracting bugs. Eat everything you can (enlist the help of your companions if need be), but you can throw the last spoon’s worth or so in the fire.

Fall

A lot of people enjoy hiking during the fall, but the season is largely underappreciated among campers. That’s a shame, as there are a number of great reasons to pitch a tent during the season, including the amazingly gorgeous red, gold and orange colors of the canopy.

But while the changing leaves are certainly enough reason to get out and spend some time in the forest during the fall, the season offers a number of other benefits too.

For example, the fall is a great time to view wildlife. Most of the mammal and bird populations will be at or nearing their peak, and many of the adults will be accompanied by their young. Squirrels, jays and other animals will be busy collecting acorns, while bears will amble about looking for tasty berries, bugs and trash.

The temperatures during the fall – at least the early portions thereof – are usually pretty comfortable too. The days often continue to get warm enough for you to wear shorts, and the nights aren’t usually perfectly suitable for sitting around the campfire. Additionally, fall, in many parts of the country, is the driest of all the seasons. This will allow you to enjoy hiking and camping without having to worry about rain ruining your good time.

Of course, fall does present its share of challenges too. The increased contact with wildlife will also include bugs and snakes, whose populations will also be nearing their peak during this time of year. Additionally, a few common allergens tend to bloom in the fall when the humidity drops, which can make allergy sufferers miserable.

On balance, the fall is clearly one of the best times to enjoy the outdoors, so make sure you get outdoors the next time it rolls around.

As you can see, each season presents unique opportunities as well as challenges. Just try to incorporate the tips provided above and prepare for the difficulties described, this will let you make the most of the opportunities available to you and minimize the effect of the negative aspects of each season.

The post Seasonal Considerations for Hikers and Campers appeared first on Montem Outdoor Gear.

from Montem Outdoor Gear https://montemlife.com/seasonal-considerations-for-hikers-and-campers/