#this would be a really interesting way to expand on the radicalization that leads to the possession

[the-owl-tree]

First of all I’m always thinking about different ways leafpool could leave the clans because if there’s one thing I love it’s leafpool and if there’s one thing I hate it’s clan culture as written in canon. 

Most of the time I imagine her becoming more and more miserable while expecting, just the amount of suspicion and hostility she’s subject to + the whole “Starclan berating her for the thing they made her do” leading to her running away from the clans for a second time- I go back and forth on who if anyone might go with her but I’m partial to Mothwing because holy shit Mothwing has to do so much to prove herself just to be allowed the privilege of a serving a clan that would turn on her in an instant if they knew her secret, it makes sense that she’d also consider leaving the clans for good even if both would have a lot of complicated feelings over it - I also think about squilf going with her after considering the idea of raising the three as her own and realising that the amount of fear she has around brambleclaw is,, bad.

second idea is simpler, Leafpool just,, gets an abortion (herbal remedies can be really unsafe but come on it’s warrior cat) and Starclan is fucking scrambling to figure out what to do now that their favourite toy has ruined fate, the three end up being completely different cats more distantly related to Firestar OR things go in a completely different direction now that the prophecy is broken

another thing I think about is leafpool having the kittens in thunderclan, maybe they come early and she’s taken by surprise, and I think it’d be interesting to see how being raised in this environment where they’re very susceptible to discrimination and watch their mother be mistreated by some of her clanmates (and also kittypet xenophobia would be involved, ie “this is what happens when you let a kittypet lead a clan” type arguments). I just like the idea of Jay, Holly, and Lion developing very different ideas of the clans and having to contend with the way they can be harmful, and I’ve got like one million ideas for how to do so

lightning round: leafpool joins windclan instead of her and Crowfeather running away but it’s very quickly apparent that they’re not in love and Crowfeather is almost repulsed by her when she’s a real person and not an idealised love interest (this one has nightleaf in it, somehow), leafpool goes to live with a kittypet and nothing bad happens ever so there’s no story, squilf raises leafpool’s kits but Brambleclaw knows and is shitty about it, any scenario where leafpool is a loner alongside a character who doesn’t get enough screentime and becomes disillusioned with the clans

(all of these are bad I’m sorry)

these aer NOT bad these are all incredibly fun, i love the idea of her just hitting da bricks in the first one. if it sucks, why stay!! run away with your gf if the vibes are rancid. i'm a softie for Leafpool running away.

you're so right leafpool would invent cat abortions. most pro-choice cat to ever exist.

i'd love to see you expand on some of these!! they really aren't bad, a lot of them seem super fun and ripe with juicy gossip (that brambleclaw knows one...little tweaks like that that radically change the story are super fun).

[onaperduamedee]

Notes on The Great Hunt

Very strong beginning rife with political intrigue and stealth break-in. Also, you cannot get a stronger opening than with the arrival of the Amyrlin Seat herself.

Siuan must be the most imposing character I have read in a while. She radiates such intelligence and power, it's the most incredible experience. I was also really looking forward to her reunion with Moiraine and it did not disappoint, particularly with how they are written as conspirators. And were ready to blast Verin out of existence. I don't think I grasp yet how much of radicals Moiraine and Siuan are within the White Tower. Although their actions do not lead to systemic changes, it's fundamentally rebellious and extreme.

Smart move on the show's end to move the Horn's theft to S1. It builds anticipation and allows more room for the power dynamics shifting around Rand in early B2 and that were exemplified by this unspoken tug-war between Shienar and Tar Valon for influence over Rand.

The white cloaks and Bayle Domon chapters... I keep thinking these books need more thorough editing and these are strong arguments in favor. Bayle Domon is a fun character and I enjoy the way he is used as a very external point of view character who wants little if not nothing to do with the plot. Which is a fine cool concept, but it seems a tad contrite to me in the context of such a breadth of POV characters. At times, it felt like arbitrary switching between POVs to show how it looked from a different angle and create tension.

Am unexpectedly annoyed with Lan, who managed to fall down to the bottom of my favourite character's list after this book. I do not like how he acts with Rand, Nynaeve, even Moiraine. I loathe manly superhero hypocrisy and he has it in spades: he's no more helping Rand than Moiraine is, just shaping him into a warlord, a future ally in his war against the Shadows. A whole other meta is in progress about Moiraine and Lan as two contrasting mentor figures in this book and how Rand uses parts of their teachings, but I have just an epidermal reaction to how he is written. It doesn't help that he seems to be leading Nynaeve on. I preferred him when he was barely talking.

On the other end of the spectrum, I cannot wax enough poetry about Siuan. Going into the books, I was sure I could not love her more than her show personification and I was so wrong. She is the very definition of a force of nature and to witness her fine mind clicking like a well-oiled delicate clock is a privilege. I adore how Robert Jordan makes you feel the power of her mind and the way she weighs and turns people. I will need to mourn for a week if the Amyrlin casually dropping off to teach Nynaeve and Egwene, then getting slammed against a wall because she successfully angered Nynaeve into using her power is not included in the show. I will be distraught.

Thom dropping by to go "lol, I hate you guys, you were the worst experience of my life, I am never helping you ever again" was funny.

The Lan/Moiraine scene was super interesting for reasons I will maybe expand on another time, but what struck me most is that not that long ago, Aginor mopped the floor with Moiraine. Truly, beat her so brutally they had to carry her on a stretcher, and neither Lan's presence, nor strong channelers' like Nynaeve or Rand, was enough to spare her. Her decision has been strongly driven by the brutality with which she was reminded of her own mortality, of how weak she is compared to the new players. Her death - a debt for the quest she had accepted to pay a long time ago - is very much about to be paid and in a way that she might have not suspected would hurt so much.

Was disappointed in Nynaeve's Accepted test and Moiraine's fight against the Draghkar. The former came much too soon after the girls' arrival to the Tower, to the point where I didn't get why Nyn was even going with it and why she should care, or worse, why the reader should care. The latter was downright expedited. This was the first time we were seeing from up close those truly terrifying creatures and it was just over in an instant.

Verin was everything the fandom let her out to be. I love that sly old fox who is far more observant than she lets everyone believe but is also absolutely in the clouds.

Loved the venture into the parallel universe and the steading most. These books are never better than when they turn into travel journals, except in odd and magical realms. Same with the description of that monstrosity being unburied that Rand passed by. Have you ever heard of nuclear waste Chekhov's gun ? Because that's how it felt.

Padan Fain is a self-serving bastard and I love him for that: soft retconning the first book helps discard the more classist aspects of his character as well.

The hunt in itself was really engrossing. Because of the title, I was somehow expecting a Wild Hunt from European folklore to turn up but technically we get two! One in the form of the Trolloc party, the other with the Seanchan. Which means the heroes are following the steps of a Wild Hunt rather than fighting or fleeing it. It's a nifty twist on the archetype. And it pays off stunningly when the horn is blown and an army of the dead rises to fight the Seanchan.

Despite knowing Ingtar was a fan favourite, I found him extremely suspicious from the start and the narrative didn't exactly spare hints to show he was obsessed with the horn. So, when the revelation came, it was a) expected but good, b) trying because Rand shows FAR more sympathy toward men doing bad things trying to do the right thing than women.

The description of the battle over Falme itself was impressionistic at best, so like the Ways and TEotW, I bet people are going to complain about the screen adaptation, no matter how obviously unadaptable to the screen it is. I don't care. It was so enjoyable in the books and it'll be good but different in the show. I was really looking forward to it and it went beyond my expectations.

Now the Seanchan... I've got to admit I had to stop reading for a few days after encountering Damane for the first time. On one hand kudos to Jordan for creating antagonists who are genuinely abhorrent and terrifying. Like one hundred percent, bloody hell, hats off, I was not expecting that level of cruelty and political commentary. On the other hand, I have now sizeable concerns about how well a white American author can handle writing about slavery where the victims are so far in the books mostly white. In the same vein, I am very concerned with how it will translate to the screen given the numbers of black and brown channelers involved. If you add on top the fact that this violence seems suspiciously gendered... I am afraid.

Nynaeve and the Seanchan though, hell yes. Everything about that encounter was breath-holdingly good, from her righteous fury to her ability to hold it back not to kick someone who was already down and would get her punishment anyway. It almost makes up for the fact the girls fell for such an obvious trap.

Egwene and the Seanchan too. It honestly hurts too much to think about what she went through and how it will impact her development as a character. She's going through too many traumatic experiences in the span of a few months for it not to leave painful scars.

Oh, the chills I got from the sounding of the Horn of Valere. Seriously. Chills. Beyond that, I am In Love with the concept of the heroes of the horn, the idea of great warriors and heroes from the past walking the world again, some more legends than history. Reminds me of the myth incarnations in Mythago Wood.

Overall, this book was a little frustrating. Frustrating because I knew this was the book where the story was really supposed to pick up the pace and expand lore, so I was looking forward to getting a taste of the series onwards. And it started off really well - Rand, Mat, Perrin and Loial on the hunt, Nynaeve and Egwene on their way to the Tower, Lan and Moiraine doing research, and then it petered out into nothing much. Oh, things happened, but among everything that was set up, only Rand's path was really fleshed out in the middle. I was expecting much more of Nyn and Egwene at the White Tower, and it was treated as a sort of palate cleanser between swaths of Rand chapters. Mat and Perrin didn't have anything to do. Even Lan and Moiraine got more done in the few chapters they were in.

I guess Mat was there as an incentive for Rand and Perrin got to use his powers in a way that would make him feel less monsterized which was actually quite neat, but it's pillow fluffing compared to how much of the story was Rand's.

Even when the girls finally got to do something it was entirely driven by Rand. I get he is the main character and I truly enjoyed his journey across worlds and cities, but part of what spurred me to read the book was the promise of an ensemble, with the characters each having their own story. So far, this doesn't cut it.

THAT said, despite the soft middle, the finale was incredible, much like TEotW. The pacing increased drastically in the last chapters, as well as the tension. It felt like a series finale more than a book finale. I'm starting to see a pattern in Jordan's writing: intriguing steady start, meandering middle and bombastic finale. I am not entirely sure the frustration of the middle part justifies the payoff for me because those are long books, but Robert Jordan knows how to set all the fireworks to make sure the lasting images are the biggest, loudest finale you can imagine. Overall, I did enjoy this one more than TEotW, but less than NS.

Edited: I completely forgot to add I really like Hurin. Much like Loial in TEotW, he gets the archetypal anti-hero treatment from Jordan, and with a lot of benevolence and honesty. It's kinda heartwarming. For his interest in chosen ones and exceptional heroes, Robert Jordan shines most to me when he writes about average people.

[sarasa-cat]

A Nano Compromise

Since my very first attempt at NaNoWriMo in either 2008 or 2009 (cannot remember), I had difficulties reconciling how the structure was not for me but the sense of Doing A Big Writing Thing All Together in one month was very much inside my realm of interest.

The other problem I had -- which actually kept me out of NaNo for a few years before trying it and made my participation spotty -- was that November was a giant NOPE for me. I used to joke that it was National Science Foundation Grant Writing Month. But November usually overlapped with international/transoceanic travel. The month was overbooked and couldn’t handle more.

Even during years I managed to swing NaNo between all other things on my calendar, I deeply disliked like the “no plot, no problem” approach because I would end up with a Big Mess that really just turned me off and made me never want to look at it again. All these years later? Yep. Not for me.

Now, obviously, there is the “Planner and Outliner” approach where you do lots of planning and outlining but NO DRAFT WRITING leading up to Nov but ... ugh ... That actually is *NOT* how I write either.

With the rare exception of an outline dropping out of the sky, my success with writing only occurs when I alternate between exploring by writing test scenes and doing outlining and planning. 

I guess that makes me a plantser.

Thus, whenever I used NaNo in the past to give me a writing boost, I would sign up as a NaNoRebel and just work on whatever the hell I felt like, usually stuff I was already working on. If i wanted to work on something “newish” I would just write fanfic because it usually required less planning.  

As for this year, I had an idea that actually gets back to the spirit of “no plot, no problem” but with a Very Useful Twist:

It is still Nov 1 where I am and when I last left off (before many hours of adulting) I wrote ... uh ... 226 original words that make a vague attempt at sketching out the entire plot for a potential story.

What method am I using to pull a plot out of thin air?  Something from the NaNo planning 101 -- this very first resource for Developing an Idea.

When using that worksheet (page 1) over coffee during the afternoon I wrote out one paragraph each for three different existing narratives (not mine) that I enjoyed and want to steal inspiration from and then I attempted my first pass at making something unique but got interrupted. So, that’s the 226 original words plus lots of other words that I won’t be counting in my total.

Once I went off to do other things (adulting for a handful of hours) I had time to think about PROCESS and how to make NaNo work for me as a plantser who hates editing and doesn’t want a big mess of words -- when I have a big mess I’d rather just move that mess to some other folder and start from scratch based on what I remember.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Here is the important thing for me: When I make Good Outlines, they tend to be very thick and read like an overly detailed abbreviated story -- like detailed plot summaries on wikipedia or fandom wikia, but with way more white space and way more info. My outlines contain prose descriptions, key snippets of dialogue, random exposition, etc.

It is common for my outlines to be 1/3 the length of a finished story. 

SO. My outlines are often drafts. Just really flimsy drafts. But that is actually a good thing because my drafts make it is easier for me to reorder, cut, expand, or otherwise change these meaty outlines. When I have a big mess of scenes? Well, I just have a big mess.

That said, I usually need to write scenes, dialogue, and exposition-dumps in order to figure out the story and the outline. That’s the plantser part.

Often a lot of the scenes, dialogue, and exposition I write early on ends up getting radically rewritten or tossed out (or used as a spin-off story, especially when for fanfic). But writing those scenes helps me fill in my outline, especially when the scenes try out different possibilities. This process is very back and forth. Plantser.

Once I have my complete (or near complete) outline, I tend to be good to go. At that point, nearly every scene I write from there on is close to final draft. BIG WIN! NO MESS! Easy to edit! whoo-hoo!! \o/

And, in the past, NaNo just felt too cumbersome to fit into my process.

BUT THIS YEAR FEELS DIFFERENT FOR REASONS.

I’ve taken a long ---- very very very long ---- break from fiction writing of any kind and I feel a need to do something very “workshoppy” in which I just dive in with zero expectations and bang for a bunch of weeks. 

Also, 30 days really isn’t that long in the scheme of things. If I end up tossing all that I write this month into the bin on Dec 1, who cares? I don’t. I just want to get writing and feel that pressure of Write Write Write. Well, for fiction (I have been writing mostly nonfiction and research for hairy fiction projects).

SOOOOOOOOO. Here’s my plan that, afaic, isn’t really “cheating” (isn’t full NaNoRebel) and it also gets back to the old spirit of “no plot, no problem!” -- in 30 days I hope to complete the following:

1.  COUNTED WORDS for NaNo: Up to (and no more than) 50,000 words for a single story idea that is split up as follows:

- Up to 25,000 words of detailed story outline, preferably as a clear defined main story conflict with a beginning-middle-end, plus one or more interwoven sub-stories/side-stories with their beginning-middle-end. This outline needs to feel like a good first draft.

- Up to 25,000 words of test scenes, dialogue, and epic exposition dumps as suggested by or inspired by the outline ... or to test out ideas that I’m not sure about because I need to make a choice. This collection of test scenes can try out alternatives (which is my normal mode of operation) and do not need to cohere entirely.

I expect that the first few days will be slow (mostly uncounted words -- like filling out worksheets and coming up with ideas) but that I will “catch up” during week 2, 3, and 4.  Also, no requirement to hit 50k because I don’t want a big mess.

2.  UNCOUNTED WORDS during NaNo:  Normal side-planning that goes into anything vaguely long: analysis of themes and ideas, worksheets for ideation and planning, character sheets, setting sheets, timelines and flow charts, maps, research notes, etc. But, with two big exceptions: 

- If anything that I want to research takes more than 15-20 minutes, I make a note of what needs to be done and I put it off until after Nov 30th. 

- Any kind of careful organization of notes, plot charts, etc., needs to be put off until after Nov 30th. Luckily, I have a lot of infrastructure I can use but making things tidy is too much work for right now, especially when I need to bang words.

---

While I literally showed up to Nano this year with nothing but a steaming mug of coffee in my hand, I am not starting from absolute nothing. There is a world I have been meaning to build that might get used. But it might not. TBD.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

All I know is that I need something fresh and shiny and new with no pressure and lots of limits.

Also, the big dark just set in and I probably won’t see the sun again for a while. The weather is rapidly turning nasty. And I won’t be going anywhere this Nov so, time to write (and game and do other things too).

Okay, back to finding a potential idea to play with and expand!

[tacticalhimbo]

grandson band via twitter || image of band lead, jordan edward benjamin, via twitter

Transcript, emphasis added by me:

Recently I was approached, along with a handful of other artists, to gauge my interest in performing at a Biden re-election rally in 2 important swing states. This was quite an opportunity for me, as I have dedicated much my career to encouraging and empowering fans to participate however they can in making their community, city, or country more reflective of them, of us- more inclusive, more just, and yes, more progressive. It also would have given me a larger platform to denounce the corrupt, hypercapitalist, misogynistic, undemocratic, climate change denying, fundamentalist religious platform that serial liar and convicted felon Donald Trump, and ultimately an entire faction of American politics too scared to challenge him, has been pushing for.

However, after the past decade spent on empty rhetoric, after consolidating power towards the center and edging out real progressive change, in the face of ongoing war machine efforts to fund and arm horrific atrocities in Gaza, coming up short on issues like student debt forgiveness, transparency around insider trading and term limits on sitting congressmen, getting money out of politics and elections, Supreme Court reform, climate change adaptation, marijuana legalization, for-profit healthcare reform, or heavier taxation on the ultra rich, I cannot in good conscience attach my music to this current administration. If Democrats were at all in touch with us and really cared about the advancing of their values and stopping Trump, Biden would step down tomorrow for someone with more energy, charisma, and conviction for how to actually make this country better for working people.

Where does that leave us? I'm scared that my silence, or active denouncing of being a democrat, helps create the conditions for a second Trump presidency, a thought that repulses me and many of the people I talk to about it. I support many policies from The Green Party, but I remember the feeling of disappointment watching Trump and his corrupt cabal sworn in, wondering as I looked around at my friends that voted third party, or didn't vote at all: are we responsible for this?

Ultimately, while I don't feel comfortable endorsing a candidate at this time, I do just want to say that our voting block-young, progressive, online, with some amount of radicalization through what we see and read on the internet- is not represented in politics proportionately to our outrage because we simply don't actually leverage our feelings at the ballot box. Our turnout rate is always lower than old, scared television watchers from the past generation. The system will largely maintain its power and expand the empire regardless of who is the "commander in chief", and so my focus is on civic engagement and participation beyond the narrow scope of President.

Our attitude towards the future in this current system will be taken seriously through our participation, by supporting grassroots, young candidates locally, and influencing change through the many candidates, referendums and measures that appear on ballots in midterms and elections. When we get closer to the election, I will be working with progressive voting guides to make it easy to decipher what is at stake in November and how to make your voice heard in ways outside of just choosing which of these geriatric, unfit, for-sale men deserve to be President.

[tim-mcnamara]

My Rust Nation 2024

I've finally had a chance to pause after getting back from London. An immeasurable thank you to Ernest Kissiedu for the invitation to present.

Because I suck at selfies, but selfies are extremely popular, here is a selfie of me not looking at the camera:

A real business

Seeing my logo next to many others definitely made me take a breath and realise that I have created something meaningful. So many people have supported Tim Clicks, via financial contributions and positive messages during difficult times.

For people who have been following me for a while will know that my Rust consultancy, Accelerant, is less than a year old.

I decided to use the flagship Tim Clicks brand as the logo and it looks amazing. The branding work for Tim Clicks is all done by John at Underscorefunk Design and I recommend them wherever I can.

The conference began for me before the conference

If you're interested in podcasts, you should consider listening to the recording of the Twitter Space that I recorded with Ernest in the lead up to the event. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to chat about Rust and the opportunity that Rust offers the world:

Four talks in a week (including a full day workshop)

Rust London

Giving an impromptu lightning talk at Rust London was a fun highlight. I was able to rehearse a few lines from my talk, which was a nice bonus.

Rust in Enterprise workshop

I wasn't too sure what to expect when Ernest pitched the idea of hosting a workshop for the conference. I was already quite busy and overworked. In the end, it was a really incredible day.

Photo: Rust Nation via LinkedIn.

Talk: Unwrapping Unsafe

I spent weeks on this. Possibly more than 100 hours of research. After all of that time though, I decided to change the focus of talk radically to focus on explaining unsafe for the audience. It's strange to see that condensed down to 30 minutes or so. But there's bound to be another talk or two on this topic in the future.

Talk: 4 levels of error handling in Rust

Unfortunately, a speaker had to pull out. I offered to step in and am quite happy with the result.

The conversations are the best part

The talks are amazing, but the best part of a tech conference is the ability to shake hands. It was also really wonderful to connect with many people who I have only met online.

Possibly one of the most exciting points was to agree to start a partnership with Ben Wishovich, co-maintainer of Leptos, to provide full stack web development to clients.

Reflecting on a year

[Content warning: mental illness]

Flying home, I spent lots of time writing in my diary. Lots of that time spent coming back to my guilt at missing many deadlines for projects, such as my in-progress courses, which are very late. Suicidal thoughts have been a near-constant part of my background noise as an adult, and that background noise is much louder when I only have my own head to listen to.

Travel also imposes a large cost on my kids. I am almost constantly worried about my impact that my trips have on my girls. But I also know that we have lots of wonderful time together. I tend to work from home most the the time as well, which means that I get to spend more time with them than most Dads.

Connecting with me

I want to keep the discussions going, whether that means helping you with Rust or something else. Here are a few links:

Join my Discord server, CLICKS LOUNGE. This is the best way to keep a conversation going.

Find me on LinkedIn. If you would like to add me as a connection though, please send me a note rather than sending an anonymous request.

Support me on Patreon.

At some point, I would like to expand this into a fuller post but I've promised myself to time-box this one and make progress on some other tasks.

Wishing you all the best!

[cursezone]

i was informed that apparently people think julius is homeless for whatever reason? richter didnt completely disappear for a year to not have a similar fanon

[ariesjupiter]

Astro Notes 4 💫

these are just my observations!

• those with natal aspect mercury square midheaven may have issues with communicating and have trouble expressing what they really mean. words and meanings get misconstrued easily. this could get them in trouble if they don’t think carefully about what they want to say.

• taurus in the 3rd house tend to be homebodies and would rather stay inside than go out and explore their local area/go on day trips. on the other hand, with sagittarius likely being in their tenth house, they really enjoy traveling (and might have to for their job), but prefer to go farther away from home. they could be the type to only post on social media when they’re traveling/on vacation.

• aquarius venus has been gotten a bad rep online but i really adore this placement. they’re much more romantic than the way they’re described. with venus in aquarius, love is invention. often those with aquarius venus write really beautiful, poetic love songs (think taylor swift, hozier, kim taehyung, harry styles.) this makes sense being that aquarius is an air sign which is all about communication. when they love, they love hard & they’re very loyal. aqua venus’ are so authentically themselves and they’ll let you be yourself without judgment. they treat their lover like their best friend (if they call you their best friend that’s the highest compliment...also they might be in love with you lol).

• you’re likely to spend more money than you usually do when the moon is transiting your 8th house. if you don’t mind spending, i’d suggest going shopping then bc you’ll probably find lots more cute stuff than usual.

• pluto in the 10th people are brutally honest and really good at comebacks. if you come at them they’ll drag you, so i wouldn’t suggest doing that. they can come off somewhat harsh/intimidating online.

• virgo mercuries are really good at doing impressions. they notice details so they pick up on the little things that people do & they’re skilled at mimicking other people’s voices, actions & behaviors.

• also libra placements love to mirror people they love or admire but it’s more subconscious than virgo.

• we don’t talk about how similar pisces and libras are. libra is ruled by venus and pisces is ruled by neptune and those planets are pretty similar. both signs are passive and want peace. they’re both hopeless romantics and have a deep desire to connect with people. both are very indecisive, probably because they’re people-pleasers but also because they see the positives in every option. they look for and find beauty everywhere. aesthetic and artsy. people may think they’re ditzy but they’re just fun-loving. even though libra is an air sign and they love to talk, they’re also in their head a lot & so are pisces.

• capricorn moons love to learn about a variety of topics. they’re the type of person that would win a game show because they can recite a bunch of obscure facts from memory.

• you can look really good in a certain color depending on which house venus is transiting in your chart at the moment. For example, venus transiting your 8th house—you would look especially nice wearing black. Venus transiting your 1st house—you would look amazing in red. I’ve noticed this personally and it’s interesting because I normally don’t look good in that color. Perhaps the color resonates with you more during this time.

• sun in the 12th people tend to walk quietly. they’re the type of people who unintentionally scare someone bc they walked into a room without being noticed or were hanging out somewhere and other people didn’t even see them until they started speaking.

• i don’t mean to scare anyone but pluto in the 6th in the solar return chart could possibly indicate that you could get very sick or injured while working at your job that year. be aware of some sort of change in your daily routine, health, and/or workplace.

• sun, jupiter, or north node in the 8th might discover that they were good at something all along without knowing it. they find their talent, grow, and expand their luck through private moments. taking time to do research on topics of interest (perhaps psychology?) and getting to know yourself on a deeper level will help you improve/shine.

• not having any planets in the 6th house might indicate that you’ve never had a pet before.

• aquarius midheaven may have been ostracized/excluded or isolated at a point in their lives. they want to be known for rebelling, creating change, and being unique but this often leads to harsh criticism from the public & in some cases online. they could be known for or associated with a group, another person, a persona, or a major achievement of theirs. they just want to break free and be able to express themselves authentically, especially in their career. many celebrities with this placement may be viewed as controversial or the public opinion of them has radically changed over time. on a lighter note, people with this placement have the ability to change the world and make a name for themselves in their respective career choice. future & goal-oriented.

[dmsden]

Folk of Cliff and Challenge - Personal Plot for Goliaths

Hullo, Gentle Readers. For this month’s Personal Plot episode, we’re going back to the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion to visit a race that got a big boost in popularity thanks to a certain podcast - Goliaths. If you still need a copy of the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, you can find it for free download at https://media.dnd.wizards.com/EE-Players-Companion_0_0.pdf

The Goliaths hit the scene with their particular look and personality in 3E with the “Races of Stone” book. It can be argued, however, that their origins really come from 2nd edition’s Dark Sun Campaign Setting. That boxed set gave us “half-giants”, who share so much with the goliaths in general that, when 4E’s Dark Sun came along, they just said to use goliaths as is for half-giants. The personalities of Dark Sun’s Half-Giants are very different from the Goliaths...but the personalities of most Dark Sun races are different than the standard...Dark Sun halflings are tribal cannibals, for example. In recent years, the presence of Grog Strongjaw, goliath barbarian, as part of the Vox Machina campaign of Critical Role has certainly contributed to them gaining some prominence, and it’s been nice to see some new miniatures appearing of them.

The personalities of goliaths have been shaped by their mountain habitation. They live in often frigid, dangerous cliffs. They are reclusive from other folk, and they know they must be self-reliant. Those who cannot benefit the tribe are exiled, especially if their physical skills are in declined. This reminds me of old, now disproven stories of wolves being driven out of their pack when they can no longer fend for themselves. In terms of personality, this tends to lead to a race of risk-takers and competitors, a people who will also be marking how they compare to you.

There’s a lot of story to come out of this. If there are competitions in your world, like an Olympics, or even fighting pits, it’s easy to imagine that a goliath would want to be involved. This could lead to a story where a goliath climbs the ranks of an organized fighting club. It could also lead to a story where a goliath finds their beloved games are rigged. Would a goliath leave the games in shame, feeling they hadn’t earned these accolades, or would they seek to destroy the corrupt system and replace it with something more honorable? Either one could make for a interesting story.

The description of a goliath’s constant need to prove themselves and improve upon their deeds is a built-in mechanic for DMs to expand story. Let’s say a goliath fighter is known for slaying a smaller local dragon at low levels. It’s easy to imagine them needing to prove their Wyrmslayer reputation by seeking out increasingly dangerous dragons. What happens if they then meet a dragon much too powerful for them to face? This could certainly lead to some interesting role-playing, as the goliath comes to terms with the possibility of their failure.

Goliaths traditionally live high in the mountains, and it’s easy to imagine this puts them in competition with other creatures that enjoy mountaintop lairs. Dragons, of course, like to perch on high mountains, but wyverns, perytons, gryphons, hippogryphs, yeti, dwarves, and aarakocra might also claim these lands. If it’s a dangerous creature, it’s a natural move to go and fight it to remove it, but what if it’s a race like dwarves or aarakocra? This could make for interesting diplomatic situations if the challenge isn’t best solved with axes.

I think that, of many races, the goliath is the most natural to have a rival. Maybe the PC goliath and another goliath set out at the same time. The DM could have the PC occasionally hear of the other goliath’s deeds. This could naturally spur the PC to seek out more dangerous situations, more powerful foes, and more amazing treasures. If the rival is a darker shadow of the PC, so much the better. Maybe they’ll become a lieutenant of the major villain of the campaign, giving the goliath a personal stake in why they seek to undo the villain’s ultimate plans.

Another way to have a “Rival” might be to have a goliath hero, maybe even an ancestor of the PC, part of the background of your campaign. The PC might wish to measure up to their hero’s deeds, and, ultimately, to surpass them, coming a legend in their own right. Perhaps there’s one challenge the goliath hero couldn’t overcome, like slaying a specific beast, or plundering a specific dungeon. If the PC can accomplish what their ancestor could not, it would bring great honor to them and their family...perhaps even restore honor that was lost when the ancestor failed.

One element I remember from 3E that I thought was really cool was that the lithoderms - the dark, stone-like markings on a goliath’s skin - were supposed to contains elements of prophecy that presaged a goliath’s destiny. If the goliaths in your campaign believed this, imagine if a goliath’s lithoderms suddenly radically altered. An entire campaign arc could be built out of this idea.

I hope that this article has given you ideas to help a goliath PC in your own campaign. They’re a really interesting race, and I’m happy to see them sticking around in the game’s lore. Next month, we’ll return to the Player’s Handbook to seek out the wisdom of the Sage. Until then, may all your 20s be natural.

[taurustony]

The True Mighty Bison - Season V edition.

Some weeks ago, I had a very productive discussion on twitter with Steven Mane about the subject of this essay, and he brought up very good points, an alternative theory (not as out there as mine) and reminded me I haven't actually added the ACTUAL Seth info from his story and Arcade endings to this text. Now that even Rose is on the game (although she didn't bring new info on this front), Let's update this very wild theory about our favorite psycho powered dictator. For the day you discovered the truth about M. Bison was the most important of your Street Fighter fan life. But for them, it was only Tuesday. HEAVY SPOILERS FOR SETH'S SFV STORY MODE AND ENDING. and in a lesser intensity, Rose's. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is M. Bison. Bison is one first class A-hole who runs the biggest crime syndicate on the world (Shadaloo), wants to spark global destruction if not given global domination and has a tendency to kidnap 16 year old girls.  Bison also wields something called Psycho Power. Through profane rituals (more of this in a bit), He is the biggest source/receptacle of it. this power is also destroying his body, which leads to the only thing he likes more than kidnapping 16 year old girls: Body Swapping. The body in the picture is not his original body, not even his first, but is the... model we are most used to see him using. This is how you would imagine him if one mentioned M. Bison. In SFV he finally got grey/white hair, but originally this body had black hair.

however...

These are Ed and Falke. They are CLONED Bodies of Bison, They are both spare bodies for M. Bison, created in a attempt to build a body strong enough to hold his power. They are both of the most recent attempt, the newer models so to speak. As far as we know, they are all biological (a point that will come up later) and since CAPCOM use the word CLONES, they share the same DNA as Bison. Physically speaking, they are around their late teens, although being much younger actually (both suffered from accelerated aging). They escaped Shadaloo due to the fact that an older model ended up destroying the base where they were being held. speaking of the Devil....

These are Seth and Abel.  Also, spare bodies of Bison. But (un)fortunately, they developed a conscience and independence. While Abel ran away and joined the french army, Seth created a splinter cell from Shadaloo called S.I.N. and planned a hostile takeover of the syndicate. One interesting fact is that both Seth and Abel are the SAME MODEL of bodies, but Seth installed the upgrade of the Tanden Engine on his body. So Seth was once like Abel and if given enough time and the proper modifications, Abel could become like Seth.  One recent release on Street Fighter V revealed the Seth was always more machine than man. If that is plainly due the Tanden Engine modification and what this means to Abel, its still unknown. both (Abel more than Seth) still have Bison’s DNA on them. Also, Bison considers this batch of clones a FAILED experiment Seth was the final Boss of Street Fighter IV, and Abel was the protagonist of that series. but, the older models are the more interesting ones.

These are Cammy and Decapre. Both are the oldest clone models player knew until recently. They are also fully biological and the first successful vessels for Psycho Power. Decapre is actually a “ Cammy Alpha“, a first attempt to create Cammy herself. Being fully biological, they ALSO carry Bison’s DNA. While Cammy became independent and joined the British Army, Decapre stayed brainwashed and a weapon for Shadaloo until recently (SFIV). Both Decapre and Cammy were part of a shadaloo project call “The Dolls project“: Most of the Dolls were the kidnapped teenage girls mentioned before, who were also test beds for Bison’s mind control via psycho power. There were 12 Dolls (Decapre and other 11), with Cammy being a 13th, codenamed Killer Bee. As of now, you probably noticed: 3 males, 3 females. We might be onto something here. But remember that profane ritual I mentioned? One of the results was this lady here...

This is Rose. In order to get full access to Psycho Power, Bison had to EXPEL ALL THE GOOD ENERGY FROM HIS SOUL. No joking. the good half of Bison’s Soul incarnated on a young Italian GIRL who was being born that moment and who grew up to be a incredible psychic and fortune teller ,plus the most powerful user of the SOUL POWER, the opposite to Bison’s Psycho Power. so Rose is the REINCARNATION of Bison’s soul, or at least half of it. After the events of SF Alpha 3, Bison even used Rose’s body as a vessel, to hide himself from the authorities. How she was freed and what happened to her during SFII is still unknown. Street Fighter V didn't really expanded on the relationship between Rose and Bison, as much as confirmed that as of the end of A Shadow Falls (SFV general story mode), Bison's is truly gone, at least as definitive as Rose can sense. Let's also remember that, until the interference of Rose herself, Cammy/Killer Bee was considered a succesfull attempt at creating the perfect body. If Rose hadn't freed Cammy's mind, which was as close to a blank slate and receptive as possible, its highly probable that Bison would be using her body instead. Still with me? STREET FIGHTER V: ARCADE EDITION added another point on this list: SETH was released in 2020 as a playable character, part of Season IV. HOWEVER, the FORM he appeared is quite the surprise.

THIS IS SETH! YES, THAT SAME SETH!! (a name tag on SFV confirms this is number 15, the seth that was at the center of SFIV events) After having all of his bodies destroyed during SFIV, his brain was placed by Juri on an old body known as DOLL UNIT 0. The interesting thing here is that Jury is doing this in behalf of a third party, identified only as voice on phone. This voice expected a male body, while Juri didn't even noticed (or cared) that Seth or DU0's had a gender. Doll Unit 0's body accepted Seth's biological brain without a problem. Seth's mind however, is on turmoil. When integrating with the DU0' original personality, something went wrong and Seth went completely batshit crazy. He only sees Psycho Power, and mistook Ed and Falke as being Bison himself, due to their Psycho Power energy. Some lines, such as this Seth is true perfection hints on a ongoing attempt of accepting the new body. The Arcade mode ending and an extra Seth on his Critical Art during his V-trigger 1 also hints that Seth's true power lies in the INTEGRATION with this new body. ALL OF THESE, ALL OF IT, are just canon facts from the SF series lore.  now for the speculation. Bison is not using the original body. And psycho power, specially the levels Bison desires, requires quite the strong one, which factors on why his current body is failing these days. why he had to abandon his original body? My only guess is that the profane ritual either destroyed it in the process or damaged it beyond repair. but at this point, Bison already had gained the power to posses other bodies. Doll Unit 0, the prototype for the perfect vessel, is female. Bison’s soul incarnated on a female body and until very recently, when his clone technology developed enough to create more radical deviations, the clones were all female. While there is several attempts of male bodies they are a late development and not only there is only one almost successful male body, it is the one that requires constant replacing AND Bison is trying to upgrade from, because it's not enough. But, the creation of a male body is stiil on the table and being attempted. Considering CAPCOM’s own words, that Seth is more machine than man, we can guess that Abel is probably just the biological basis for Seth, who is mostly the Tanden Engine and a biological brain. This is what was implemented into Doll Unit 0, who was completely female at that point, maybe even fully biological since Cammy, the earliest successful clone so far is fully biological as well. If we compare to real world cloning technology, cloning someone of the same gender is easier and more direct than altering the gender. Then there is the not-satated-but-extremely-obvious-fact that DU0 was the true first attempt at the tech that would produce Cammy, meaning, Shadaloo’s cloning tech was tested with HER. This also means that Doll Unit 0 IS EXTREMELY SIMILAR, IF NOT IDENTICAL, TO BISON'S ORIGINAL BODY. in conclusion: Bison’s original body is FEMALE and something close to this:

Thanks BbbSFXT from Deviant Art for the Mod and the picture. On the last version, I considered Mistress Bison being blonde, but thinking it through, it was more wishful thinking, trying to make them close to Cammy. Clones being a blonde is probably a side effect of DNA manipulation. Blond hair is recessive, and putting on the simplest, almost insulting way possible, it means blonde only happens if both sides of the DNA have the same code for hair. Since Bison is using the same DNA over and over, it makes sense clones would end up blonde. This also fits with DU0 being a very early prototype, with almost Bison's entire DNA intact, including the code for them hair. And now let's talk mysticism: There is the whole Yin/Yang theme surround everything Psycho Power, explicitly shown in Seth's design, but it was already there, at least as early as the Alpha/Zero series. In the balance of the Yin/Yang symbolism, Yin, the black part, can represent a “feminine principle” and also, can be a suffix/preffix meaning shadow. While Yang, the white part, can represent a “masculine principle” and also can be a suffix/preffix meaning light. these are parts in all living beings, be them male or female.

Psycho Power, the shadow, is feminine. Soul Power, the light, is masculine. There is a inversion of the symbolism here, with Bison, the male body, using the yin and Rose, the female body, using the yang. But the catch is: Rose is not a traditional reincarnation of Bison (obvious reasons) but received Bison's yang, on top of her natural one. This counts on why Rose is so powerful with Soul power. And while she doesn't seem to suffer a physical instability like Bison, as fortune teller and psychic, seem to be incredibly sensitive to strong emotions and energies around her (How the mind of G affected her on SFV being a exemple), I would argue that this extreme sensitiveness is the side effect of that extra yang energy. Let's also consider that while Bison wants MORE shadow and went way beyond what his natural body could hold, Rose stayed pretty much at her natural levels, as far as we know. So Bison's instability can be accounted as using insane levels of pure feminine energy inside a male body. Seth, the genderless one, will only find harmony in accepting his female body. Rose, the female body, is the only of them to have any kind of control and estability. This all points towards Mistress Bison, and that's the hill I'm dying on. this also ties to the idea proposed by Steven Mane: Psycho Power is closely related to the feminine and can't function properly, or at all, with men. Bison forcing that is the base reason for the physical instability. Which leads us to... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steven Mane's alternative theory of Psycho Power

The main gist here is that there isn't really any indication that Bison's OG body is any different from the one he uses today (which is true. There isn't a single line about it on the canon sources). The initial lack of male clones is accounted simply as that we haven't seen enough male clones, and they might have existed since Killer Bee's times. In his views, everything so far points to Bison desiring a male body. However, Psycho power works better with women, or was meant to be used by women. There is another fighting game with a similar plot, Skullgirls, in which the main McGuffin for that story is a mystical artifact that only works with women, which is why most of the cast of that game is female. And after Rose's SFV ending, I wouldn't put behind CAPCOM to lift another game's plot point for their own, specially one that would fit well with the already stablished canon. However, Steven Mane's best argument for this comes from SFA3 itself, or rather, the PSP version of SFA3. But before we get to that, let's go down on the memory lane and remember the facts.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, also known as Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper in Japan, is so far the last version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 released and it is an exclusive of the Playstation Portable console. The Alpha/Zero Series is the main focal point when talking about Bison and Psycho Power, as it's the series where Rose first appeared and in Alpha 3, we have the only canon appearance of Cammy as Killer Bee (on the intro of her first fight against Rose) and the first playable Dolls, Juli and Juni. SFA3 MAX is also, up to the publication of this, the only game in the series to have a guest character (the jury is still out on SFV last season V character). "Wait, Tony" you ask "Don't you mean 4 guest characters?" Eagle and Maki are not guests: They were always part of the Street Fighter franchise, and are contemporary to the events of the game . Yun makes a non-canon appearance which is explained by time travel (in his own quotes), since the events of Alpha series happen way when he was nothing but a toddler. But he is still part of the franchise, so not a guest, per se.

Ingrid, however, is a conundrum wrapped inside a enigma and kept inside a locked puzzle box missing some of its pieces. That is inside a cave inside a volcano under the pacific ocean. On the mariana trenches.

Ingrid is from a failed, unreleased CAPCOM game called CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars. Her first playable appearance is the ill-received crossover game CAPCOM Fighting Jam, known in Japan as CAPCOM Fighting Evolution.

In All-Stars, she was kind of a regular fighter, with a special importance to the plot and final boss. The very little we know about the plot hints on her being something beyond human. She carried a code Isis, is nicknamed the Eternal Goddess, and is said to posses the power of longevity.

On Fighting Jam, she has to solve some issues she had with Pyron, the final boss of that game and an alien who is basically a living sun and is hinted to be what ended the dinosaurs (i swear this is Darkstalkers Canon) Her ending there is... weird.

I brought this up because it adds a tiny little bit of context to her SFA3 MAX ending.

Ingrid claims ownership of the psycho power. Notice that its the power itself, not the Psycho Drive Bison's uses. And Bison is aware of that. Roses recognizes both as users of Psycho Power, even though she doesn't recognizes Ingrid. Also note at 00:59 that the focus point of the psycho drive carries Ingrid's Seal, the same one on the cups on her head AND the one she summons on her Fighting Jam ending. Oh, and she is capable of time travel. but no mention if she was the one who brought Yun to SFA3 time, though. What this all mean? Speculation time: According to Steven Mane's theory: With Ingrid being the creator of psycho power, Psycho power works better with women. You can even explain Bison's obsession with 16 year old girls: They are the ones who closely resemble Ingrid, who he knows is the original source of that power. This also explain why Bison's desire of a male body directly conflicts with psycho power: It was never meant for such body. and why there is so much female clones: It simply the result of experiments to see what fits better. But Bison is trying to get around this: He has been experimenting on both, noticing that male bodies deteriorate way faster, confirmed that female ones fit better, but for reasons only known to himself, this was not enough. The genderless Seth, a sentient machine build to gather psycho power, was Bison's latest attempt of circumvent the body type limitation, but it still didn't work (as stated by Bison himself) This is where Steven Mane's theory ends. But from that, we can jump to other conclusions: Ingrid is a goddess and is the source of Psycho Power energy. Notice that she is not the source of soul power though, so behind her innocent face, behind those red eyes, lies something sinister and evil. (Or maybe, Soul Power is simply Psycho Power with another name? Rose might be the one hiding something...) [Small June/2021 update: After a lazy Sunday re-reading the SF30th's bios, its is clear that Soul Power is not just Psycho Power with a different name. So if you want to follow this line of thought through, you have to consider that Ingrid is EVIL, or at least deals heavily with negative energies (closer to Akuma than Bison). and it opens the possibility of a God/Goddess of Soul Power somewhere out there on the SF Universe. but that is speculation for another time.]

Ingrid is time-travelling to specific points in time to collect parts of her power. Bison was one of those who stole it. Pyron probably did it too, and in 201X, Ryu has something to do with it.

Oh, extra fact: SFIII, the last game on the timeline, happens in 1999. SFV, the game that was released on the 10's, canonically happens during 1998. So the Ryu she is supposed to meet next is YET to appear (maybe in SF6?).

And because she is a time travellng goddess, not a dimension hopping one this means a direct connection between the worlds of Darkstalkers, Street Fighter and Red Earth, the three franchises from CAPCOM Fighting Jam: Darkstalkers' Human World could be considered to be Street Fighter's Earth, and Red Earth is literally another planet on the same universe, hinting a bigger CAPCOM shared timeline then we expected. We can also speculate that Bison ultimate goal would not be just global domination but to replace Ingrid as god/goddess of psycho power. And she took Yun to 1989 just for the LuLz. Why I didn't mentioned Ingrid up there in MY theory? because of CFN Portal. The Capcom Fighters Network Portal is essentially the final word on who is canon in Street Fighter. Released together with SFV, its a well documented, weirdly organized and deep source of any street fighter or final fight character you can imagine. Those 2 guys fighting on the intro of SF2 got bios there. As well as Hakan's daughters and Elena's Family. Heck, CFN Portal is the place that finally settled Chun-li's father name as Dorai.

There is also relevant guest characters and characters who appeared in other games but that CAPCOM consider part of the franchise and canon, such as Blade from the Street Fighter: The Movie game (now part of the North American operations of Shadaloo) and... Ruby Heart from MARVEL vs CAPCOM 2 (a version of her actually, before the events of that game). Ingrid is clearly shown as a guest character and NOT part of the street fighter franchise, as she does not have the SF franchise standard background. the only ones who this happen are special guests from, such as the ones from Street Fighter EX and Street Fighter 2010. Ingrid is also described there with her bio from CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars, rather then her own story on SFA3 MAX or even CAPCOM Fighting Jam, in a way making her role on SFA3 MAX similar to Evil Ryu's: A what-if non-canon scenario of the events of the game, that has no bearing on the main plot. Evil Ryu's ending are always Ryu kills everybody and wants more blood, never really explaining anything. Evil Ryu is more important as a visual representation of the dark side of Ryu rather than a character itself'. and because of that precedent, when CAPCOM itself gave her non-canon status, it's better to err on the side of caution and not consider her direct influence and acts when speculating about the plot and lore, unless they are the only source of some kind of hinted information. And there is one very canon character who has a situation like that. Killer Bee. As I mentioned before, the ONLY time Cammy acts as Killer Bee in canon is on her SFA3 arcade/story mode: In her intro against Rose, her very first fight, She initially starts under control of Bison. Rose actually recognizes Bison's Power and frees her, even before the fight starts. The fight itself is actually framed as a violent reaction to being freed. but there is a game where we can see Killer Bee Cammy in all her brainwashed glory: X-men vs Street Fighter. Released before Alpha 3 and the first game where Cammy is shown with her Alpha design. Her quotes there shows a profound reverence to Bison AND some are mechanical in nature. Goddess Ingrid (to differentiate a bit from Code Holder Ingrid) could be one of these instances: Canonically speaking, we know very little about Bison: What are his motivations, why he desires such levels of power or anything that would elevate him from one dimensional antagonist. Sagat started as that and became one of the most developed characters of the franchise. Gill is from the straight go good intentions that will end up bad. Seth is the whole reason of this essay, so I don't need to show you anymore how he turned out a interesting character. and there is G, who is either a suicide cult leader still looking for followers, or the savior of mankind. Not to mention that most players thought as a good guy until Rose's ending. like, holy psycho powered cow... Bison is still just the dictator who wants to rule the entire world. And the only character that deals with Psycho Power in a way that is not just evil power for the evil dictator is a character that, as far as CAPCOM is concerned, is not even acknowledged as the relevant version.

[autolenaphilia]

My thoughts on the 1989-2010 BBC Radio Drama adaptation of Sherlock Holmes with Clive Merrison

Michael Williams and Clive Merrison

The Sherlock Holmes BBC radio drama series starring Clive Merrison is known to be the first adaptation to adapt every canonical story. It is also in my opinion, the best adaptation.

But let’s start with the basic facts of this radio series. There were technically two series of Holmes adaptations, both starring Clive Merrison as Holmes.

The first was the complete adaptation of all 60 of the canonical stories. They were broadcast from 1989 to 1998. They starred Michael Williams as Doctor Watson. They were made in two formats. The short story adaptations were about 45 minutes long, and were broadcast from 1990 to 1995 in the order the original stories are in the book collections (probably the first adaptation to be that systematic about it, earlier adaptations did them out of order). Each adaptation of the four longer stories are in two parts, each one hour long. The first two novels were first broadcast in 1989, the latter two in 1997 and 1998.

The 45 minute format for the short stories matter because while Holmes has often been adapted to radio before this BBC series, it had seldom or perhaps even never had a regular series of this length. Most adaptations for radio of the stories until that point were just 30 minutes long. That was what Rathbone and Bruce had to work with in their radio series (even less actually due to the commercials), and also that was the episode length of the Gielgud/Richardson series and the Carleton Hobbs/Norman Shelley series. The 45 minute format meant that the stories had time to breathe but also meant that especially the shorter and simpler stories had to be expanded upon.

The adaptations are still largely faithful, the basic plot and characters of the original are still there in the radio dramas, but they all have extra scenes to work out in the 45 minute format.

This extra material is technically filler, but doesn’t feel like it. Instead of just taking up airtime, the writers actually try to add something to the canonical story being told. The radio plays dramatize what is only talked about in passing in the original, try to add emotional depth and motivations to characters, or even outright try to fix faults in the original story.

To name some examples, we get to hear the dramatic backstory actually be dramatized in “The Crooked Man”, Violet Smith gets to confront Carruthers about how he played cards for her in “The Solitary Cyclist”, a socially awkward Holmes tries to invite Watson to spend Christmas with him in “The Blue Carbuncle” and we learn who the mysterious Mrs Turner is in “A Scandal in Bohemia” (one of Conan Doyle’s many continuity errors, where he forgot Mrs Hudson’s name and called her Turner. This gets elegantly solved solved by making Ms Turner someone Mrs Hudson hired to fill in for her when Mrs Hudson was ill.)

The results are overall brilliant, thanks to the quality of writing. The adaptations of canonical material is generally well-done, with the expansion of the stories strengthening the episodes instead of just being filler. The writers varied over the series, even if the most prolific was Bert Coules, who wrote the scripts for all four of the novels and 24 of the short stories. Yet the radio series feels quite tonally coherent and the quality of the writing is overall high.

The adaptations of the great stories in the canon never let down their source material and are overall well-done. Practically all of my own personal favourites, like “The Copper Beeches”, “The Naval Treaty”, “Charles Augustus Milverton”, “The Bruce-Partington Plans” and “The Illustrious Client” (to just pick one from each collection, I have several more favourites of course), get solid adaptations.

The adapters are able to find the merits of even the odder stories in the canon and make good use of them in their adaptations. A good example is “The Engineer’s Thumb” (odd because Holmes and Watson largely don’t do anything and just listen to their clients story), which skilfully turns the suspense of the original story into suspenseful radio.

At its best, the radio dramas actually improve on the original story being adapted. “The Dying Detective” is not a bad story, but the radio drama is actually better. The original is a rather short story and there is a lot of extra story material needed to make it work as a 45 minute radio play. And the script by Robert Forrest uses all this free airtime to expand Culverton Smith’s character into something more complex. Here we get to hear scenes depicting the lead-up to his nephew’s murder, and Smith’s reasons for committing it. Smith is more sympathetic in this version, the nephew is depicted as a foolish rich racist snob, even if the flashbacks come from Smith’s own monologue, making him potentially an unreliable narrator. The expanded adaptation also gives Holmes more to do in his role as a dying and raving man, and Merrison makes the most out of it.

“His Last Bow” is another radio episode that improves on its source material. The original is a thin story, a simple propagandistic spy story notable really only for being Holmes and Watson’s final adventure in-universe.  The script for the radio adaptation makes it feel more epic by depicting the lead-up to the central scene in the original story in detail. It imagines Holmes’s personal reasons for retiring (something left unexplained in the canon) and makes Von Bork into a far more formidable foe worthy of Holmes’s attentions.

Probably the adaptation that most improves on its source material is probably “The Lion’s Mane”. If I would rank all the stories, I’m pretty sure “The Lion’s Mane” would end up towards the bottom, and I think most fans would agree with me about that. Yet the radio drama adapted from it is one of my favourites from the series. The adaptation radically re-imagines the story and is odd even by the series’s own standards.  The events of the original story are already past, with Holmes already having solved the mystery when the radio drama takes place. Instead it takes place when Watson later visits Holmes in his retirement. And during that visit, Holmes tells him about the mystery he experienced and invites Watson to solve it himself for fun. It has an odd structure for the series, where there is no supporting cast or characters, no dramatized flashbacks to the events being talked about, only Merrison’s Holmes and Williams’s Watson. The entire episode is a series of dialogues between the two. And it works wonderfully. The repartee and general chemistry between Holmes and Watson is one of the strengths of this radio series, and this episode is full of that.

Let’s talk about Holmes and Watson in this series.

Merrison has a remarkable resemblance to Sidney Paget’s conception of Holmes

Clive Merrison’s Holmes is outstanding. It is a performance filled with manic energy, eccentricity and theatrical flair. Holmes is energetic when interested, bored with life when he can’t divert himself. Occasionally rude (especially against the upper class) and socially awkward, he also is capable of great kindness, has a drive for justice and a close friendship with Watson. If this description sounds exactly like the Holmes of canon, it is because Merrison’s Holmes is exceptionally true to the text. It is a great voice actor doing his utmost to bring the Holmes of the page to life using his voice. It is an immense achievement and Merrison is my favourite Holmes. Whenever I imagine Holmes’s voice, it is Merrison I hear.

Michael Williams played Watson in all of the canonical adaptations, and he is equally great. Watson is an equal partner in these adaptations, not any kind of comic relief side-kick and Williams plays him accordingly. Williams’s Watson is a strong, intelligent, courageous and warm-hearted man. He is the embodiment of Victorian virtues, the “normal” antipole to Holmes’s eccentricity.

He is tolerant, yet naturally exasperated with Holmes sometimes. Watson often verbally spars with Holmes, with them bickering with each other like an old married couple. Yet there is always a strong sense of the love, friendship and undying loyalty in their relationship. Again, if Williams’s Watson sounds like the canonical Watson it is because he basically is. It is a great performance, and like with Merrison and Holmes, Williams’s warm voice is what I imagine the character of Watson to sound like.

Merrison and Williams are the only constants in the series, but they are far from the only good actors. The acting in this series is of the highest quality all the way through.

Recurring characters are sometimes re-cast but it seldom proves jarring. John Hartley is a good Myrcroft, very soft-spoken but sharply intelligent. Mrs Hudson is sadly under-used, but played very well by Joan Matheson especially (Matheson was the most frequent but not the only Mrs Hudson). Judi Dench (who was married to Michael Williams) also appears in the role as a special guest in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”.

Unlike other adaptations, the radio series has the sense to not over-use Lestrade and they don’t put him in stories where he did not appear, instead having a variety of inspectors like in the canon. Still Donald Gee and Stephen Thorne both do an admirable job of portraying the police inspector.

Of course the Holmes stories are just as much about the people Holmes and Watson meet during their adventures as it is about them. There are many well-known actors which fill those roles like Brian Blessed and Denis Quilley, yet also relatively unknown actors like Imogen Stubbs. The quality of the acting however never wavers and is overall very fine indeed.

The quality of the acting attests to the overall high production quality of this radio series. The direction, largely by Patrick Rayner and Enyd Williams who between them directed and produced most of the series, is excellent.

The sound design and effects are very well-made, and create the kind of convincing atmosphere that great audio drama is so good at. I forget that I’m listening to actors in a studio, and instead get a vivid impression of the environments they are in through the sound design.

The result is perhaps the greatest of the many Sherlock Holmes adaptations. It is the first to adapt every story, but the radio series is not just complete, the quality of the adaptations in writing, acting and production is excellent.

If any adaptation is definitive, this radio series is it. I love and respect the Granada series, but the BBC radio series is more consistent in quality and did actually finish adapting the entire canon. The only reason it isn’t more well-known I suspect is the popular prejudice against audio drama as a medium. Audio drama is seen as outdated and suffers from invisibility compared to tv and film. It is an unfair prejudice and the BBC radio Holmes adaptations is more than proof of that.

After the entire canon was adapted, the popularity of the shows led to the decision to continue the series with original scripts, all written by Bert Coules. This new series was called “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”.

It consists of 16 episodes, all around 45 minutes long, and aired in four series from 2002 to 2010. The final series was one story in two parts as a grand finale for the whole venture, making 15 stories overall.

Clive Merrison continued to star as Holmes, but the unfortunate death of Michael Williams after he had finished the complete adaptation of the canon led to the role of Watson having to be re-cast.

  Andrew Sachs and Clive Merrison

The new Watson for “The Further Adventures is Andrew Sachs. Most well-know for playing Manuel in Fawlty Towers, he had an extensive career in radio drama and appeared previously on the show playing the King in “A Scandal in Bohemia”.

Hearing Merrison as Holmes with Sachs as Watson is admittedly a bit jarring at first after being so used to Williams’s portrayal. But I soon got used to him and the fine qualities of the performance became evident. This Watson is similar to Williams’s Watson in his intelligence, capabilities and compassion. The most evident change is that Sachs’s Watson is more soft-spoken. This changes the tone of the dialogue between Holmes and Watson, with Watson less often directly expressing anger and indicating his disagreements through subtle uses of wit and sarcasm. Yet the love and loyalty of the relationship between Holmes and Watson is still very much evident. The “old married couple who bicker but love each other” feel of their relationship is perhaps even stronger in their arguments now, with Watson almost literally going “yes, dear” in response to Holmes’s outlandish actions. It is an excellent performance.

The new stories written by Coules are based on references to untold stories in the canon. We get to learn about Colonel Warburton’s madness, the peculiar prosecution of John Vincent Harden, the Abergavenny murder, who “Merridew of abominable memory” was, and in the finale, “the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant“.

The scripts are in general very good and present several enjoyable mysteries with strong characterizations. Some of my favourites are “The Singular Inheritance of Gloria Wilson”, “The Abergavenny Murder” and “The Remarkable performance of Frederick Merridew”. There are some lighter episodes, but the tone overall is noticeably dark, with Coules having the goal of exploring subjects that Conan Doyle wouldn’t because of the time he was writing in. We thus get episodes involving child murder and suicide.

The new episodes feel like a natural continuation of the early canon adaptations. The style is of course not a direct pastiche of the canon, but rather of the earlier BBC radio adaptations of the canon.

This form of auto-pastiche succeeds thanks to the production values being of the same high standard as before. Patrick Rayner, one of the main director-producers of the original series of canon adaptations continues his work here as the sole director-producer with similar great results. The sound effects and design are just as immersive in this series.

The acting is once again superb. Merrison continues his great performance as Holmes and Sachs is an excellent replacement for Michael Williams. The supporting cast is made-up of the same high quality actors as before, with famous names like Tom Baker and Toyah Wilcox having guest star roles.

“The Further Adventures” is overall a worthy continuation of the BBC’s adaptations of the Holmes canon. The high standards of the original series in writing, acting and direction are once again fulfilled and anyone who has enjoyed the canon adaptations and wanted more stories with Merrison as Holmes made by the BBC will probably be satisfied with “The Further Adventures”.

In particular, “The Marlbourne Point Mystery” is a worthy finale to the great undertaking that the BBC series starring Merrison has been. And the final scene, with Holmes and Watson reflecting on how Watson’s stories have made the two immortal is extremely moving.

I must also mention the book “221BBC” by Bert Coules, which is published by the Wessex Press and available from their website.  This book is a personal account of the making of the BBC series, with information on every episode Coules was involved in. The book is well-written and the anecdotes and information in it is highly interesting for any fan of this radio series. The book can be a bit pricy if international shipping is factored in, but very much worth it.

Other resources worth mentioning are the semi-official site about the series. There are also some podcast interviews of people involved that are well worth hearing, like The I Hear of Sherlock everywhere podcast interviews with Bert Coules and Clive Merrison. Coules has also appeared on the Baker Street Babes podcast.

The radio series can fairly easily be found online, both legally and otherwise. And if my fan-girly ramblings haven’t made it totally clear, I fully recommend you to listen to it if you have any interest at all in Sherlock Holmes.

[somerpmemes]

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist S1 Starters

Change as needed. More under the cut.

“Quick question: do you always have to play and sing your music that loud?”

“Why are you up so early anyways?”

“Oh, I didn’t go to bed.”

“So, you’re ready for this?”

“I just really don’t wanna screw this up.”

“Keeping it lean for the ladies.”

“I need to expand my horizons.”

“It was literally all you.”

“Now is not the time to be modest.”

“Let’s face it, the woman’s a narcissist.”

“Work your magic, feel the glory, in it to win it.”

“Well I’m not really comfortable with anything.”

“Alright, who wants some freshly delivered, slightly cold, mediocre pizza!”

“Could we maybe open a window or something?”

“They’re not that scary.”

“Are you sure this isn’t an elaborate teleportation device that will take me to an alternate universe?”

“I just wanna get this over with.”

“Is this supposed to be happening?”

“That sounds really sad.”

“Why are you singing right now?”

“Why would I sing to you? You don’t even like me.”

“Can I get you anything? Water? Vodka? Xanax?”

“Quick question: did you recently imbibe or inject anything that came from a “medicinal” type shop?”

“But I’m an open-minded person, I’m willing to roll with this.”

“Maybe you’re operating on a higher plane than the rest of us.”

“Child, I’m completely baked. Ain’t nothing going on in my head right now.”

“This is the first thing that I find remotely interesting about you.”

“Will we ever have joie de vivre?”

“My mom left me when I was young and my whole life has been a series of rejections from the opposite sex.”

“You sure you don’t hear that?”

“Let’s party like it’s 1978!”

“And you should really take everything I say when I’m high with a grain of salt.”

“That song is real dark.”

“Good music can make you feel things you can’t express in words.”

“Hey, not that I’m keeping tabs or anything but that’s like your fourth cup of coffee today.”

“That’s a whole lot of tmi I just spewed on you.”

“Who knows what other people are really thinking, right?”

“I’ve found in general death and dying tend not to be the best conversation starters.”

“If I show you something can you promise to keep it only between us?”

“This is the only thing that I can hold onto.”

“I’ve become a real expert on bottling my shame and pain and hiding it from the world.”

“Listen, I’m not an expert on this or anything but you can't just keep it in.”

“I should’ve been the one this happened to.”

“I think we’re just gonna have to stumble through it together. The blind leading the blind.”

“If you had the power to know what was going on in other people’s heads, do you think you’d feel guilty?”

“I’m going to be uncharacteristically honest with you so don’t get used to it.”

“I notice everything.”

“I just feel like everyone’s against me.”

“Two more hours and I would’ve gotten it, just saying.”

“There’s gonna be good days and bad days, remember? Let’s chalk this up to one of the good ones.”

“Mama needs an update.”

“No, no, don’t be flattered.”

“I view you more as a social experiment, like a rat running through a maze.”

“Sounds bougie, I’m in.”

“I'm not in trouble, am I?”

“Bottom line, please?”

“You’re yelling, bro.”

“I’m acting weirder than normal?”

“Believe it or not I didn’t really play any sports growing up.”

“This power is wasted on you!”

“Is this weird? This feels weird.”

“I gotta say, I am loving the energy.”

“I’m pretty sure nobody cares.”

“Any desire to tell me what this is all about?”

“Of course I know that song, it’s a very famous song. Do YOU know that song?”

“With great power comes a lot of nasty stuff don’t nobody wanna do.”

“I’m not NOT mortified right now.”

“Please tell me your day was better than mine.”

“Do I need to hide all of my breakables?”

“I can’t cook. You should see the inside of my fridge.”

“I guess we’ve just breezed right past the whole “knocking-and-waiting-for-the-other-person-to-answer” phase.”

“When I get inspired no doors will stand in my way.”

“Creative. Absolutely terrifying..”

“Could be cool. Could be confusing. Could be both. Let’s see.”

“And I’m kinda obsessed with you.”

“Door’s always open, honey.”

“So could everyone please act as if they care?”

“I haven’t breathed outside air in over forty-three hours.”

“Why did we come up with this stupid, stupid plan?”

“Dolly Parton is my spirit animal.”

“There are lots of reasons why people are unsatisfied, ___. 80% of it is sex related.”

“Do you just make these statistics up?”

“I’m gonna keep this one simple.”

“The only place I’m comfortable dancing is in my bedroom… closet.”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“First of all, that’s terrible grammar.”

“I was a drum major in high school and that mess would not have been tolerated.”

“I have always found it helpful to vent when I’m feeling dissatisfied.”

“I don’t vent, I scream into a pillow.”

“You dress like a docent at a folk art museum.”

“Wow, we’re still talking about this?”

“___, are you growing as a person?”

“And the good news is I’ve been banned from the grocery store.”

“There’s been a radical shift in the way I perceive the world, you wouldn’t understand.”

“There is nothing in the world that I love more than your smile. But not if it isn’t real.”

“Don’t make this into a thing right now.”

“That term hasn’t been used in well over a decade.”

“I can see your side eye.”

“You can take the fifth and stop telling me about it.”

“Do you know anything about faith at all?”

“I think we might be vibing again.”

“Are you sure that everything’s okay with you because I feel like maybe it’s not.”

“See, that whole “leap of faith” thing really doesn’t work for me.”

“Empathy is a wonderful gift to have.”

“I have faith. You should too.”

“I recognize your tiny footsteps.”

“Okay, that’s enough gaping at the shut in for one day.”

“I swear this is the last one.”

“Why so secretive?”

“I am very aware of what a duet is.”

“Why do I even answer the phone this early?”

“My brain does not like functioning until night o’clock.”

“What’s the good of bad news if you can’t share it?”

“I love barely meeting expectations!”

“Is it great? Feels not so great.”

“I think you’re crushing it, that’s all that matters.”

“You two would be great in a female cop show.”

“Something’s going on with you, I can tell.”

“How do you do that? Really see me. No one else has the ability.”

“I’m just not used to negative feedback.”

“Care to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Can I take a picture? I’m gonna take a picture.”

“Uh oh. Don’t tell me you’re depressed too.”

“My body’s doing all sorts of disgusting things to me like making liquid appear in my eyes.”

“It’s too gutless, it’s too passive-aggressive. I like aggressive-aggressive.”

“I just feel like I’m failing.”

“Why do you put so much pressure on yourself?”

“Wow. I just got a window into your soul and, baby, it is not a place I wanna visit.”

“Did you know I once stared at the ocean for literally seven hours?”

“How about you lead the way and I’ll just holler if I need any medical assistance?”

“You’d tell me if you weren’t good, right?”

“So, tell me some good news please.”

“Thank you for not trying to fix me or make me feel better. Thanks for just being real.”

“Why are you smirking?”

“Sometimes I just feel like I can’t do anything right.”

“Someone sounds like they’re in a good mood.”

“The world is waiting, so am I.”

“I have no interest in hanging around a bunch of 20-somethings talking about artisanal beer all night.”

“___, this is a classy affair. Of course they’ll be pigs in a blanket.”

“Now it’s time for a makeover which is literally my favorite thing to do.”

“No matter how hard I try I just never say the right thing.”

“At least let me help you accessorize.”

“I gotta admit this is kinda fun.”

“Now they just taste like water.”

“Who do we know with a hot tub?”

“You are super fun. Like sloppy, dance on a bar fun.”

“I might also be drunk.”

“I’m a mess… and emotional… also vodka.”

“Life doesn’t always go as planned. It just doesn’t.”

“Is it weird that I want one of those?”

“Yeah, nothing good happens after someone sings that song.”

“I hate when people assume I know their names.”

“So, you’re attractive and talented.”

“I can’t believe that happened, and how quickly…”

“If there’s something going on I’d love all our friends to hear about it.”

“You should probably leave this party before you burn something else down.”

“That’s almost funny.”

“I need that thing more than you’ve ever needed anything in your entire life and I’m ready to fight you for it if you make me.”

“I wouldn’t trust myself to ride that thing sober let alone now still halfway drunk.”

“The last thing I want to hear from you is another apology.”

“I really need to be mad at you right now.”

“Are you crying?”

“What? I’m not allowed to get emotional at a superhero movie? Lives were lost, ___. Ethical questions were raised!”

“He only responds in one letter. ‘K’? Who does that?”

“Just— let’s talk about you.”

“It’s hard to accept that I can’t do this all on my own anymore.”

“Wouldn’t peg you for a food court guy.”

“We are gonna be ultra professional from now on.”

“What’s the crisis? Did I cause it?”

“Can you believe it?! ...apparently you can and perhaps already knew?”

“___, are you okay? You look paler than usual.”

“You okay? You look shaken.”

“But I feel great and I’m gonna be totally fine.”

“Can you google that for me?”

“Are you seriously hiding from me?”

“I listen to true crime to calm myself.”

“Look, we both know I’m not good with feelings or emotions.”

“Mad respect for your pun game.”

“Men don’t check on men in bathrooms, it’s not a thing.”

“Well now I know you’re telling the truth because no one would ever lie about doing something that heartless.”

“Were we ever even friends at all?”

“Real friends have hard conversations. They owe it to each other.”

“I’m gonna get deep for a hot second so bear with me.”

“Stuff like this has been going on for a while now. You wanna tell me what’s up?”

“You’re starting to seem like a liability, man.”

“What’s the point of rising if we can’t do it together?”

“Here to pour salt on my wounds?”

“It’s all coming from a place of love.”

“It is not exactly what I expected but I’m rolling with it.”

“Watch how fast I nail this.”

“Are we talking witchcraft or just shameless career advancing?”

“I’ve got a super chill brain that never needs calming, so…”

“Was I just singing out loud?”

“Am I going crazy? I feel like I am. I mean, I don’t know what crazy feels like but I feel like this is it.”

“That’s… bad.”

“Are you fine? I mean, I know you’re not fine but…”

“Can you schedule your nervous breakdown for another day?”

“In solving one problem I’ve created another.”

“I… I don’t know why that happened.”

“Okay, yes, I’ll admit I’m in a good mood but it’s for completely unrelated reasons.”

“Okay, this is getting worse by the second.”

“I apologize in advance for whatever’s about to come out of mouth.”

“I'm really sorry. Just know, it’s not me, it’s my body.”

“That’s such a strange way to phrase that.”

“There you go, now you know. Hey, that rhymed.”

“I will go to the supermarket… one day.”

“I ruined my entire life yesterday.”

“I just call that uninspired.”

“Honestly, I think I’m broken.”

“What exactly is going on here? A creative inspiration or a massive cry for help?”

“I’m broken and I’m gonna die alone.”

“How do you go through all that suffering and not let it break you?”

“I don’t know what to do. And it’s tearing me up inside.”

“Hurt people hurt people.”

“I think it’s best if you don’t look at me or worry about and focus on what I’m thinking or feeling.”

“It can be challenging sometimes, knowing the right way and the wrong way to care for somebody.”

“Well, it’s the almost-thought that counts.”

“That’s a terrible surprise face.”

“I think it’s finally time I focus on my own happiness for a change.”

“I don’t want to talk. Lord knows that we’ve done enough talking.”

“I’m exhausted. And exhilarated. And thoroughly depleted.”

“Stay aloof, reveal nothing, keep small talk down to a minimum.”

“You’ve been there for me, I wanna be there for you.”

“Don’t smile at me, I don’t wanna look at your sad, appreciative eyes.”

“What? He’s hot, I’m weak, you do the math.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a hoodie before.”

“This would be a great place to murder someone, huh?”

“So, who’s ready to talk about death?”

“It doesn’t have to go down like this, ___.”

“You can only postpone the inevitable for so long.”

“In moments like these sometimes you have to haul out the big guns.”

“Someone better be dead or dying, I’m not in the mood.”

“I am worried. This is how I compensate.”

“I find you charming and disturbing, like a Pomeranian wearing a tutu.”

“I go big or go home.”

“Death is hideous and ugly and grotesque and wildly, wildly unfair.”

“Believe me, I’m not doing well but I’m not doing that badly either.”

“I guess we gotta face the music sometime, right?”

[jbuffyangel]

Something To Live For: Arrow 1x10 Review (Burned)

I’m back! 

There’s a significant time difference between my 1x09 review and this review. No, I did not take a six year long holiday break. It just became too difficult to complete the Season 1 reviews the summer prior to Season 4. So, I decided to complete Season 1 and Season 2 reviews once Arrow was off air.

This means I have not watched 1x10-1x23 in eight years. I nearly forgot everything. Is L*urel still in this show?

She sure is.

“Burned” is the first real snoozer of Season 1, which kind of sets up the tradition of episode 10-15 slumps Arrow suffered nearly every season.  This has less to do with Arrow and more to do with it being a twenty three episode series. There’s gonna be some filler.

This episode still holds significant meaning to me though because it contains the SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR speech. This is my favorite John Diggle speech, which is why I named my blog after it. It is also the first time Arrow declares their mission statement.

Let’s dig in...

Oliver and Diggle

The bad guy plot is the worst part of “Burned,” so let’s just cut to the chase. There was a terrible fire in Starling City years ago. The fire chief recalled his unit but one of his men, Garfield Lynns, insisted the building could be saved. The chief refused to send in any more men and as a result Lynns died. Except, this is Arrow and nobody stays dead. Lynns is alive, ticked, insane and burning firefighters, which leads to Joanna’s brother (a firefighter) getting killed.

Cool? Cool. Moving on.

Oliver is having difficulty coping with the fact the Dark Archer kicked his ass all the way back to the stone age. It was a somewhat embarrassing loss and Oliver’s body wasn’t the only thing bruised. We are gifted a very lovely training sequences of a half naked and very sweaty Oliver Queen to show he is recovered, so his hesitancy isn’t physical. It is mental.

Source: @olivergifs​

Oliver is having a crisis of confidence and is avoiding suiting up like the plague.

Diggle: This guy, the other archer, he got in your head. He took something from you … he took whatever’s in your heart that lets you jump off buildings and take down bad guys.

Oliver worked for every skill he has. It was not gifted by a bolt of lightning. He does not come from an alien planet. Oliver is a weapon honed over time, which includes his superpower. 

Oliver Queen does not fear dying. 

That’s the “whatever” in his heart which gives him the confidence to jump off buildings. This superpower was honed after five years of fighting for survival. Oliver almost died so many times he’s built some kind of emotional immunity to it. It doesn’t freak him out like it would the rest of us.

The darker side of this superpower is Oliver doesn’t care if he lives or dies. Season 1 Oliver Queen is very fatalistic. He’s not suicidal, but he’s accepted death is the price he may have to pay in order to complete his mission. More importantly, he is drowning in guilt and believes death is the ending he deserves.

There’s rigidity in everything about Oliver – from his beliefs to even the way he moves. His posture is rod iron straight and there’s very little movement in his upper body and arms. It’s a physical manifestation of his PTSD. It’s like he’s encased in a brick wall, a tomb of suffering, which makes it difficult to breathe or move. It’s like the act of living is physically painful.

The problem is - Oliver came home and it is having an unexpected emotional impacted on him. He’s been laser focused on this mission, but bit by bit, the feelings he’s long since buried are resurfacing.  Moira, Thea, Tommy, Diggle, Laurel (AND FELICITY) are chipping away at this brick wall. Oliver didn’t adopt this machine like persona because he doesn’t feel anything. It’s because he feels so much, which means even the small holes in this wall are having a profound impact on him.

This all leads to the greatest John Diggle speech in history! Yes, I say that knowing full well Diggle has spectacular speeches throughout the series, but this will always be my favorite because it’s such a universal theme. 

We all must have something that makes life worth living.  This “something” is not limited to romantic love. It can be family, or work or a cause – basically whatever makes you get out of bed every day. It doesn’t have to be just one thing either. In fact, I hope you find many things/people to live for because that means you are living a full and connected life. By that same token, if you don’t have something to live for then you’re not really living. You just exist.

Or in Oliver’s case - survive. He’s known nothing but survival for the last five years. I think he absolutely cares for Yao Fei, Shado and Slade, but that’s exactly why Oliver shut down. He did care for people and it led to nothing but heartache, betrayal and loss. So, Oliver decided to be done with all that and has worked very hard to keep his loved ones at a distance ever since returning home.

He’s been extremely successful at it in many ways because Oliver refuses to share who he really is with anyone outside of John Diggle. So, that’s why it had to be John Diggle to tell him that it was okay to feel again.

Oliver: I’ve been close to death on the island more times than I can remember and I never feared it. Because I had nothing to lose. But when that archer almost killed me, when I stared death in the face then, I thought about all the people I’ve let into my life since I’ve been back – my family, Laurel, Tommy. And that made me afraid. Afraid of what would happen to those people if they lost me. Again. And for the first time in so long I had something to lose.

Oliver may not fear death, but he does fear what his death will mean to those who love him. Like I said earlier - Oliver is not suicidal. If that was true he wouldn’t have fought so hard to survive the island, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to live. He’s far from it. But this is the first time in a long time Oliver cared whether or not he died. And that scares him.  

Diggle: Maybe you’ve got it backwards Oliver. You think the people you’ve let in have taken your edge. I think it gives you one. Maybe a stronger one even. You can stare down death with something to live for or not. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR is better.

That’s endgame folks. Oliver’s story is about a man learning to live again. He will collect more and more people/things that he cares about as he walks this road, which means there is more to lose. Losing his life is far preferable than losing someone he loves again.  Oliver can tolerate a great deal of physical pain. It’s the emotional pain that scares the crap out of him. This is why he fights tooth and nail to keep emotions at a distance. It just hurts too much.

Opening our heart to others often means opening our hearts to pain, but that’s not the only side of love. It brings happiness and contentment too. You take the good with the bad. Diggle is trying to open Oliver’s heart to the good.

Is Oliver alive? Or is he just breathing? The answers to those questions make all the difference in the world. A difference Diggle knows will make Oliver an unbeatable weapon.

Lynns: I'm not afraid to die

Oliver: I know. You're afraid to live.

COULD IT BE A PARALLEL?

Methinks yes. It’s interesting “Burned” revolves around fire. Fire is where Oliver’s story began. Lian Yu was about purification, but it was also a rebirth. 

A rebirth we see expanding as Oliver opens up his heart. A fire is lit from within our hero and it’s growing beyond penance, justice and retribution to hope, passion and enlightenment. Oliver Queen is finding reasons to live again. And it will make all the difference for his survival.

L*urel L*nce

If you sense I have less patience with L*urel’s character in Seasons 1 and Season 2 than I did in Season 3 and Season 4 then you’d be right. My opinions on this character changed radically so I’m coming into Season 1 and Season 2 reviews with a Season 8 perspective on L*urel.

Tommy wants a drawer. That’s all. A drawer. Tommy Merlyn is a simple man. Doesn’t take a lot to make him happy. He even wrote a list explaining all the reasons he deserves and needs a drawer. We never see the list, but I’d imagine it looks something like this:

I AM HUMAN PERFECTION.

I did not sleep with your sister.

I am asking for a drawer rather than run screaming to the North China Sea with above referenced sister.

I make you omelets.

I make your character moderately tolerable which is a miracle in of itself.

I could continue, but you get the idea. What’s absolutely ludicrous is OLIVER gives L*UREL relationship advice.

Oliver: Well we're friends.

Me: Oliver, my son, NO YOU ARE NOT. 

At least she had the common sense to scoff at Oliver’s friendly attempt to intervene on Tommy’s behalf. (Seriously, dude just stay out of it. This is wildly inappropriate.)

L*urel was ready to move in with Oliver (even though she knew he cheated on her regularly), but freaks at faithful Tommy requesting armoire access. JFC this woman is a dating disaster zone.

L*urel: I don’t take things slow remember? I close my eyes and I jump just like you. 

My initial reaction to this speech is to call it nonsense. 

I thought this was a case of Arrow telling rather than showing with L*urel’s character. However, upon further contemplation I have reversed my opinion.

L*urel may be a pragmatic attorney on the surface, but we have watched her run the gamut of human emotions week to week. So much so it’s difficult to get a read on the character the writers are trying to construct. (Spoiler alert: they don’t know what kind of character they are trying to construct). One week she loves Oliver. The next week she’s condemning him to hell. L*urel L*nce’s feelings definitely control her.

She has been reckless too, working outside the law, by contacting the vigilante for assistance. A relationship she resumes after telling her father in 1x09 that The Hood is a killer with no remorse. See what I’m saying about the ever changing emotional spectrum?

I’m not saying L*urel having emotions and expressing them is bad. That’s a healthier reaction than what Oliver is doing, but she has been all over the map. It’s less about who L*urel is as a character and more about the writers needing her to react a certain way to make the episode work.

Oliver likes to present himself as a cool cucumber, but he has a rather unpleasant temper too. It may seem like he’s emotionless, but that is just a façade. It’s a cover for the torrent of emotions he keeps at bay.

Laurel: I think that’s why we spooked each other. Our feelings, our fears, they control us. Not the other way around.

L*urel’s “spooking each other” statement is a big line of bull, which we’ll find out later in the season. L*urel was not spooked by Oliver. She was the furthest thing from spooked, which is why she asked him to move in with her.

Oliver wasn’t spooked either. Anytime I reflect on L*uriver I’m reminded of a scene from Sex in the City. Oliver isn’t freaked out by his feelings. He’s just not that into you, L*urel.

The process in which we get OLIVER to realize this and admit it to himself will take much longer, but I can be patient. It’s time will come.

But do I think these two characters are similar? YES. They are too similar in fact. It’s one of the main reasons they don’t work as a couple. This is exactly why Tommy and Felicity are perfect for L*urel and Oliver.  They need someone steady to temper their emotions. 

They need someone happy to balance out their anger. They need someone with a bright light in order to find their own.

It’s also worth noting that Tommy was ready to run into a burning building to save Oliver so GIVE HIM A DAMN DRAWER L*UREL.

Stray Thoughts

Flashbacks were kind of boring. Fyers kidnaps Yao Fei. Oliver saves his own life by accident. Meh

Thea calling Moira out was long overdue. This kid needs a parent ASAP.

Everyone's fall clothing is really adorable.

JUST UNBUTTON THE FRACKIN BUTTON OLLIE.

Merlyn kidnapped Walter right? Or Moira? I seriously don't remember. I don’t think I care either. lol

L*urel: I am not the best example of healthy grieving.

LL has a rare moment of self awareness, which is lovely.

Oliver: I heard what you said to your father. That I'm a killer with no remorse.

L*urel: Do you?

Me: You impertinent little snot.

I like Joanna much better than L*urel and I wished she stayed, but removing Joanna from the show is the first step the writers took to limit L*urel's role. The shift is upon us.

  Not to be unsympathetic, but Moira is starting to rack up the dead husbands.

Thea fantasizing that Walter is cheating on Moira with a stewardess as the hopeful pitch is YIKES. Goodness this show could be dark.

Musings of the Kiddo  

Kiddo: Yeah! He's actually putting his family first!

Me: Settle down. It doesn't last long.

Kiddo: I thought L*urel was gonna find out.

Me: Oh my sweet summer child.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

[realisaonum]

book meme

thank you, jen @det395​ !! i feel like this meme got away from me a bit, but no shame! i love talking about books and writing so onward ~under the cut~

1- how many books are too many books in a series? 

mhmmmmm i guess it depends on the objective of the series, right? is the plan to have x number of books in the series and if so, when we finally get to the end will it be satisfying considering all the books we’ve read leading up to it? OR is the objective of the premise / characters just to exist doing whatever? both can be done well. i would say a lot rides on how much i trust the author.

2- what do you think about cliffhangers?

so this is meant for cliffhangers in a series like between books? i don’t really care if there’s a cliffhanger as long as i have the next book sitting right next to me. otherwise uh, only if the wait between books is tolerable, because at that point you need to know that the author can clear this mess up, right? there’s this other thing, like you know how if the entire series was already written, then they might release the books a month apart or a quarter apart - that could be alright too. but years in between? not especially a fan. is anyone a fan?

3- hardback or paperback?

jen, you and me are complete opposites here. paperbacks stress me out. i will go out of my way to buy a used hardcover if given the choice. of course, there are some publications i don’t mind in paperback —thinking poetry and super indie books that don’t have a hardcover release OR books where the spines are thin enough they won’t break and i won’t be holding them long enough for them to wear. hardcovers are sturdy and i don’t have to worry i’ll accidentally bend the cover in some damaging way. I am invested in keeping my books nice to the point that i create covers for my books out of kraft paper or brown grocery bags while i am reading them. this is something i started when i was in college and didn’t want these books i was hoping to probably resell get thrashed coming in and out of my bag for all these classes. My home library is probs more half and half paperback/hardcover but if given a choice usually it’s hardcover.

4- least favourite book?

i think it’s good to at least attempt to meet a book on its level. there are lots of books i didn’t like, but i wasn’t meeting them on their level and i know that so we’re ignoring those. i do however have a shelf on my goodreads dedicated to books that i have beef with so i’ll just go off on two of them.....

tana french’s the likeness for being plagiaristic shit. it is essentially poorly concealed alternate universe OC insert fic of the secret history. you’ve got french’s dublin murder squad folks and then this group they are investigating who bear a STRIKING resemblance to the greek students in tsh 🤔. this would be one thing. it is pretty well acknowledged that nothing is original and there are enough changes to The Likeness that MAYBE i could let it slide if not for this other thing: french’s book, the likeness, has lines that are just basically reworded quotes from the secret history and french positions these lines so they are said by the counterpart (essentially same!) character that gave them original life in tsh. i cannot stress this enough: you can HEAR how similar the sentences are and their core intent is always the same. it’s thinly veiled theft! it astounds me that French hasn’t been sued frankly. it is one thing to want to capture some of the genius that tartt’s debut novel holds, but it is completely lazy and disgusting theft to go about it in the way French did with this book. and YES the secret history was published before french’s book. if i could stomach how fucking goddamn boring the likeness was to read it a second time and cite every one of these offenses i would, but that’s yet a third strike against it—it’s too boring to be worth it. 

T. Kingfisher’s second book of the Clocktuar War duology : The Wonder Engine. this is a book that i feel violated the contract between writer and reader. the first book feels almost like a YA book. the stakes while described as very high are treated, as actions unfold, as very low. nothing truly irreparable happens until the climax of the second book and the fallout of that action is so off-tone of everything that came before i felt deeply betrayed. no, like, completely betrayed as in it ruined the rest of my afternoon, i am still viscerally angry eight months later, and i will never trust this author again. sure, maybe none of those actions that led to the climax were out-of-character, but there was nothing NOTHING in the proceeding action that even came close to that level of consequence. it’s a pity because right up till that point i was having a really good time. the entire vibe of the rising action to the climax of book one all the way through the rising action of book two was just a quippy fun version of roadtrip/quest - it felt like a comfort read. the abrupt tone shift had all the subtlety of dropping a graphically, brutal murder into Blue’s Clues. you don’t do that - this is a basic tenet of a writer / reader relationship. i’m not touching this bitch’s shit again.

5- Love Triangle, yes or no?

not so much. i like jen before me will scream ‘just be poly.’ love triangles that lead into poly relationships? yes, awesome will be glad i read. but i am at a stage in my life where your standard will-they-won’t-they-love-triangle is just fucking pointlessly frustrating to me. an example: i read a Nic Stone’s book Odd One Out a couple years ago and something about the synopsis or the hype made me think that it would resolve the love triangle that way, so when that did not happen i was incredibly frustrated and immediately wanted to resell the book. it’s the potential of the thing. stone’s book could have been the perfect vehicle for opening up the concept of polyamory to a ya audience but instead just really squandered that potential with weak floundering — in my opinion!

6- the most recent book you just couldn’t finish

uhhhhh i’ve got two and i’m not sure i’ve entirely given up quite yet buuuuuuuut 

fucking dune. i got really pissed off with this book. So just…setting aside the whole vaguing at a pedophilically inclined queer coded villain - it’s done so poorly, that it's almost funny? like it doesn’t (as of half way through) actually have any consequence on…anything at all and is tacked on like an afterthought to the end of his scenes. honestly it all could just be cut out entirely with no recourse to the larger story. So my actual beef with this book is the pacing is ATROCIOUS. like yo, not only do you expect me to give a shit about these Atreides cunts, when we just met them and we spend the same amount of time with them IF NOT MORE with the antagonist? but you also expect me to believe Paul was able to just convince the leader of the Arrakis people —the leader of an entire planet!!— with a single fucking sentence??? yeah, not so much. it was not set up for me to believe that Paul could do that! maybe if Kynes hadn’t died immediately after—or at least not died at that moment? baring the fact I thought he was by far the most interesting character, IF he had been convinced by Paul in that scene, it would have been great to see some actual work done around that - with a transfer or a liaise of power between Kynes and Paul and the Fremen. By not having any substantive scene that does it - it begs the question of what the fuck was the point of the character in the first place? unplumbed potential!!! over all there seem to be some key scenes missing to get the reader to where the narrative expects us to be? but the choices made of the characters we spend time with and the moments we see with them, the benefit to the larger story…is not always there. hey herbert, these words you have written aren’t doing what you want them to?? i feel like i should finish it but i reaaaaallly don’t want to :) the only thing i can say is it looks like from the trailer, villeneueve is giving space to these moments so that the viewer can foster a genuine connection with the characters? radical concept.

our lady of perpetual hunger - i started this one optimistically bc i like chef memoirs, but i am at the point where she has just given birth to her son and honestly DON’T CARE. i still haven’t officially given up on it yet since i actually fucking bought it like a dope. i certainly would not have if i knew how much NOT about working the line this was gonna be

7- book you are currently reading

Aside from the failures mentioned above, I am working on the second book in B. Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, The Erstwhile. Also very close to finally finishing Iain Sinclair’s The Last London - there’s a review of his work from the LA Times that goes “One of Sinclair’s greatest skills has always been his ability to take diverse if not chaotic source material and refashion it in a way that sometimes seems downright alchemical” which captures some of the wonder I experience when reading his work. His style and how he creates atmosphere and setting is just unique and astounding.

8- last book you recommended to someone

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Before that I told my brother to read Eat a Peach, as we both love Anthony Bourdain and David Chang talks about him a bit here, plus it’s just a fucking great book. any book that gives insight into Chang’s methodology and paradigm is worth a shot.

9- oldest book you read

I think it might have to be Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (which apparently according to wiki premiered on the stage a whole four months before Hamlet so that’s what we’re going with) and if plays don’t count, I don’t care. I think they count and that’s what we’re going with.

10- the most recent book you read ?

Given the previous question, the most recently published book, right? It’s gotta be the one I just finished: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic - Revised and Expanded edt., which like just came out this summer. I watched Jessica Hopper’s promo zoom, curtesy of my local indie bookstore, and went ahead and bought it. This was a great decision! It was just what I needed to read these last couple of weeks. i love there’s lots of short pieces that made the read quick and the fact that it’s non-fiction so there was no pressure of a plot or the emotional weight of character investment when I had a lot of big stressors dragging me down irl -it was such a relief. Hopper’s criticism is fun to read and there’s some real art in her appreciation of music here.

11- favourite author?

These are the top in a kind of order but not really: Donna Tartt, Jeff VanderMeer, Megan Whalen Turner, Flannery O’Conner, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain

Other faves very much worth mentioning: Emily O’Neill, Richard Siken, Brandon Sanderson, Warren Ellis, Nathan Englander, Stephen King, Eddie Huang, Carl Hiaassen, Anne Carson, and Iain Sinclair.

12- buying books or borrowing books?

Depends on if my library has it, of course! I nearly always see if my library has a copy first if i have never read it or the author before. If i’ve read the book before or trust the author, I’ll buy it. Like I’ll straight out buy new stuff from Jeff VanderMeer even though with him it’s either this-hits-exactly-and-is-my-new-fave or i-really-disliked-this-but-admire-the-boundaries-you’re-pushing-my-dude - so it’s always a gamble but a worthy one.

12- a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love

a little life (just bc it's torture porn elevated to art doesn’t negate the fact that it’s torture porn. Yanagihara’s project here is repugnant and the fact that this book is lauded as moving lgbt fiction makes my skin crawl)

sharp objects (good writing, compelling story, BUT typographical scarification doesn't work like that - i am not going to get into it but i know from first hand experience how Flynn described it is not accurate)

nesbø’s the snowman (what kinda dumbass detective would think THAT when a woman finds her missing father’s corpse? absolute idiocy - so obviously reverse engineered with that end in mind)

the raven cycle (fuck ronan lynch to start and then fuck him to end as well - there’s some other stuff but mostly he’s a total CUNT and if i don’t say that once a day i have probably died)

14 - bookmarks or dogears?

Bookmarks and sticky notes. Then I can place it pointing directly to the paragraph I last stopped on.

15- The book you can always reread?

This is my question because I reread all the time. ALL THE TIME. Books I reread often: The Secret History, Medium Raw (especially chapter 17 The Fury), Crooked Kingdom, The Violent Bear It Away, and The Goldfinch. Every year like clockwork (since it came out apparently) I will reread Stephen King’s The Outsider.

Other books I feel the urge to reread: VanderMeer’s Acceptance, Englander’s Dinner at the Center of the Earth, Frazier’s Nightwoods, Fresh Off the Boat, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, the Peter Grant Series (which is queued up for another go here soon I think), any of the stories from A Good Man is Hard to Find, Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne Mistborn books, simon vs the homosapiens’ agenda, and there are two of Alan Morinis’ books on Mussar that I am technically always revisiting—when i need a reminder, i’ll jump around and read specific sections to get centered again.

16- can you read while listening to music?

Yes, but only ambient or near ambient (only usually one track on repeat) or a soundtrack I am extremely familiar with. No new music. I do usually need some audio stimulation or my mind will wander terribly.

17- one POV or multi POV?

Multi pov can certainly be done well (looking at the soc duaology and VanderMeer’s Acceptance) but working a multi-pov means there are more plates spinning, it’s more of a challenge, and some authors pull it off better than others.

18- do you read book in one sitting or in multiple days?

I don’t really do this anymore. that might have something to do with me picking up thicker books? but also i have a full time job now and let’s be real the book has to be hella good if i don’t want to put it down. the last book i attempted to shotgun was the final installment of my favorite series and it still took me two days so....i can get through a lot of books but none of them are ever in one sitting anymore.

19- who to tag:

@sybilius​ @mouth-rainboy​ @iwonderifthatisart​ @phereinnike​ @magnificentmoose​ @wambsgangs​ @moriarteaparty​ and anyone else if you feel so inclined!

Bonus Question: What’s on your to-read shelf? 

As for me, I am excited about one i just picked up, Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines, which i might start tomorrow and I will be taking Paul Madonna’s Come to Light on my trip to see my brother this coming weekend. 

[fatehbaz]

On soil degradation and the use of non-native plants as weapons to change landscapes and sever cultural relationships to land; and on the dramatically under-reported but massive scale of anthropogenic environmental change wrought by early empires and “civilizations” in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and ancient world (including the Fertile Crescent, Rome, and early China): I didn’t want to add to an already long post.

This is a Roman mosaic, from when Rome controlled Syria, depicting an elephant (presumably the Asian species, Elephas maximus) interacting with a tiger (the Caspian tiger, a distinct subspecies of tiger, lived in Mesopotamia, the shores of the Black Sea, and Anatolia up until the mid-1900s). This mosaic is striking to me, because I guess you could say that this is clear evidence of the higher biodiversity and more-dynamic ecology of the Fertile Crescent in the recent past, until expanding militarism and empire led to extensive devegetation. After all, does the popular consciousness really associate elephants and tigers with the modern-day eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia? Not really. But for the majority of human existence, lions, tigers, elephants, and cheetah were all living alongside each other in Mesopotamia. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I wanted to respond to this:

Which was in response to a thing I posted:

Pina: Thanks for the addition! I don’t know much about the technicality Rome’s devegetation of the Mediterranean periphery, but - like you - I’ve read some cool articles about it, and then forgotten to bookmark them. (I know that I have at least one good article in print form, about Roman devegetation; I’m going to try to find it.) I’m glad you mentioned it!

The first image is in the public domain and depicts a rhino-shaped ritual wine vessel made of bronze, from about 1100 to 1050 BC, during the Shang era. (The piece is housed at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.) The second image is another bronze wine vessel from a site in Shaanxi Province, this time inlaid with gold and hailing from later in history during the Western Han period, about 205 BC to 10 AD. (Photo by Wikimedia user Babel/Stone.) The rhinos in both of these pieces are depicted with two horns, meaning that they likely depict the Sumatran rhinoceros; this is corroborated by the existence of fossil remains of Sumatran rhinos from across China prior to 1000 AD.

On devegetation in the ancient world:

Yes, it feels like the ecological effects of empires prior to the Middle Ages are not just “under-discussed,” but dramatically overlooked. Some “quintessential and iconic African fauna” like lions and cheetahs lived throughout the Fertile Crescent, until devegetation during the late Bronze Age and, a few centuries later, the ascent of Rome. Caspian tigers (a distinct subspecies of tiger) also lived nearby, in Anatolia, the Caucasus, the shores of the Black Sea, and Persia - right up until the 20th century, in fact! (Other iconic species present on the periphery of ancient Mesopotamia were Asian elephants; leopards are still present.) Aside from the devegetation of the Fertile Crescent and the later landscape modifications of Rome, I also don’t see a lot of popular discussion (there is academic discussion, though, obviously) of ecological change in Zhou-era and early imperial China, either. While early Mesopotamia is famous for the amount of social prestige ascribed to irrigators and engineers, who were evidently essential to maintaining the domesticated crops so important to “hydraulic civilization,” early China (apparently) also revered irrigators and engineers. At least according to folklore and written histories, before the Han period, seasonal floods, especially in the Yangtze watershed, would regularly destroy human settlements. Also, there far more tigers, leopards, rhinos, and elephants present; rhinos and elephants lived as far north as the Yellow River until empire really expanded, and the animals lived as far north as the Yangtze River into the European Renaissance era. So, those people with the technical expertise to “tame the wilderness” by damming rivers or calming floodwaters were given prestige and sometimes treated as folk heroes. [Chinese history is not a subject that I really know a lot about. I’m just relaying the observations made in one of the better books on environmental history in East Asia, which is Mark Elvin’s The Retreat of the Elephants - 2006.]

------

On empires’ use of soil degradation to “sever connections to land” and “indirectly” destroy alternative or resisting cultures:

Seems that empire uses ecological degradation to enact a “severing of relations” (in Zoe Todd’s words). Basically: If you destroy somebody’s gardens, then they have to come to you to buy food. Furthermore, destroying someone’s connection to land will also harm their cultural traditions rooted in that land, eliminating a threat to the imperial cultural hegemony and erasing “alternative possibilities and futures” from the collective imaginary. (And destroying the imagination doesn’t just harm the invaded cultures, it also prevents the relatively privileged people living in the metropole or imperial core from “achieving consciousness” or whatever, wherein someone living in 150 AD Rome or 1890s New York City might imagine an alternative system and potentially dismantle the empire from within.)

It’s violence; destroying soil, cutting forests, it’s violence. But when empires destroy soil, they get to maintain a little bit of plausible deniability: “Ohhh, it’s not like we outright killed anybody, we just accidentally degraded the soil and now you can’t grow your own food. Damn, guess you have to rely on our market now, which also means you have to assimilate/integrate into our culture.”

Europe, the US, and the World Bank did this in West Africa after “independence.” They said “oh, yea, sure, we’ll formally liberate you from colonial rule.” But since the palm and sugar plantations were already installed, and many of the ungulate herds of the savanna had already been killed, what were new West African nations supposed to do? Miraculously resurrect the complex web of microorganism lifeforms in the soil? So what the US and its proxies are essentially doing is saying: “If you want loans, you have to keep the plantations and also install supermarkets to sell Coca-Cola.”

Todd: “The Anthropocene as the extension and enactment of colonial logic systematically erases difference, by way of genocide and forced integration and through projects of climate change that imply the radical transformation of the biosphere. Colonialism, especially settler colonialism – which in the Americas simultaneously employed the twinned processes of dispossession and chattel slavery – was always about changing the land, transforming the earth itself, including the creatures, the plants, the soil composition and the atmosphere.” [Heather Davis and Zoe Todd. “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” ACME An International Journal for Critical Geographies. December 2017.]

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On the use of non-native plants as a sort of “biological weapon”:

The use of non-native plants and agriculture to enforce colonization and empire is the whole focus of this influential book from Alfred Crosby. (I have some issues/criticisms of some of his work/theories, but his work is generally interesting.) Crosby popularized the term “neo-Europes,” and he proposes that European empires attempted to subjugate the native ecology of landscapes in Turtle Island, Latin America, Australia, etc., while attempting to introduce European species, cattle ranches, pastures, dairy farms, gardens, etc. in an effort to “recreate” a European landscape.

-----

Speaking of Rome’s devegetation of the Mediterranean: One of the famous cases of Roman devegetation that made the rounds recently was that of silphium. A couple of excerpts:

[From: The Original Seed Pod That May Have Inspired the Heart Shape This historical botanical theory has its roots in ancient contraceptive practices.” Cara Giaimo for Atlas Obscure, 13 February 2017.]

Silphium, which once grew rampant in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene, in North Africa, was likely a type of giant fennel, with crunchy stalks and small clumps of yellow flowers. From its stem and roots, it emitted a pungent sap that Pliny the Elder called “among the most precious gifts presented to us by Nature.”

According to the numismatist T.V. Buttrey, exports of the plant and its resins made Cyrene the richest city on the continent at the time. It was so valuable, in fact, that Cyrenians began printing it on their money. Silver coins from the 6th century B.C. are imprinted with images of the plant’s stalk -- a thick column with flowers on top and leaves sticking out -- and its seed pods, which look pretty familiar: 

[End of excerpt.]

Silphium is extinct now. There is a lot of conjecture about what, specifically, caused the extinction. But it looks like the expansion of Rome across the North African coast of the Mediterranean, and Rome’s development leading to soil degradation, is a likely cause.

-----

Thanks @pinabutterjam​  :3

The scale of ecological imperialism’s effects ... planetary, no escape. It’s exhausting.

[flickeringart]

Existence

Life is undoubtedly a setup. It’s obvious if one looks at it from an astrological perspective. One is born and destined to play out the patterns dictated by the natal chart, one can’t separate the self from the dynamic energies represented by the planets or the characteristics represented by the signs. They are one’s primary blueprint so to speak, with inbuilt challenges and blessings. One goes through different phases where certain natal planets are triggered and affected and one enters into relationship with other people who’s natal planets causes awareness of aspects of ourselves. It’s thrilling and exciting to dig into the symbolism and psychology of all of it, but it’s also a bit uncomfortable – because it reflect things so accurately and it maps things out so clearly – even the confusing and diffuse dimensions of experience. It appears to explain certain things but it really doesn’t, it merely reflects what is going on and nothing more. It can be used as a tool for increased awareness about things that aren’t spelled out in concrete terms in one’s life, or to put it more accurately, is not noticed even though it’s spelled out clearly enough. What I find is most valuable is to increase my understanding of myself and people, to be able to see what they’re striving for, what they value, what they need and how they communicate. But also what their weakness and defenses are, what wounds them or how they assert their will. It makes me feel safer, to know that everyone is patterned differently and it’s just the way things are. It makes me more ok with the badness and the goodness and all the in between – in myself and in the world. It helps me suspend judgement.

Astrology is so rich and complex and as already stated, a gold mine for anyone that’s interested in the exploration of existence. However, I don’t think astrology or existence should be taken too seriously. Planets are like deities and will behave in their particular fashion. They are like empty vessels with a certain purpose. They’re not self-creating, they are only expressing energy in the way they’re designed to. They’re all separate agents and belong to the thought system of separation, to the part of the mind that is anti-unity. Even Neptune, the planet of return to ”universal bliss” is not a symbol of true reality. All planetary forces and symbols are anti-life as they are separate components playing parts that are designed to not go beyond their specific function. For example, Mars’ function is to assert, to radiate potency, to promote direction and movement. There’s nothing that Mars can do that will make him different than he is. His function is to fight and face resistance and he will go no where beyond that state. To use another example, Jupiter’s function is to bring energy and life, to expand, to explore and stimulate excitement. Jupiter is on a continuous high of ”what’s next?” and won’t ever arrive beyond that state. In a sense, one could say that planetary energies are dead principles with no active creative factor other than their inbuilt complex patterning. It’s like this with everything in existence I imagine, everything seems to be creative, but really it’s just a complex programming that is categorized as ”creative”. Humans are designed to have an element of mystery and unpredictability as is demonstrated by Neptune and Uranus in our charts – however it’s the planets’ fixed function to generate the experience of inspiration or insight. There’s no genuine creativity at work stemming from the divine – it’s all just a part of the game.

I picture existence to be a bit like Plato’s cave metaphor. Shadows made by puppets should not be taken for reality. The puppets in my meaning would be the thought system that is the foundation for separation – the shadows would be the various forms in our world of separation. The thought system itself is not reality, it’s a defense against it. Images of reality are not reality but a replicas – imitations that have no real resemblance to life, yet is taken for life in the mind’s confusion. The fake reality is not evil per se – it’s nothing when the mind is returned to it’s natural state, it’s nothing in reality. But, when the mind is deeply invested in the shadows on the wall, caused by a thought system that is a defense against the truth, there will be pain and suffering – and there will be evil. In reality, freedom that has no opposite is all abiding. In this world of shadows, freedom is the distance in time and space from imprisonment, which is not real freedom. Existence is an attack and a denial of truth. Distance from threat means safety here. Distance from war means peace. Yet, threat and war is the constant actuality and it can’t be transcended. Or can it? I ask because some people actually try and some claim to have succeeded. Then there’s the pressing philosophical question of who is trying to transcend the world? Who or what is the self that sets out on such a mission? Is the self even real? One starts to go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole...

People like to come up with all sorts of solutions to existential pain. By existential pain, I mean the overall setup of life as we perceive it through separation and contradiction. Some try to deny that there’s any problem with the way things are. They take an attitude of radical acceptance and seek to embrace the good with the bad, seeing the necessity in both polarities. This is a coping mechanism that establishes illusion as reality and upon facing the cognitive dissonance of it, the person tries to glamorize it to live somewhat happily in a world of pain. Some try to numb their senses, some try to actively escape or compartmentalize the good and the bad in order to not be overwhelmed by the gloom and doom of it all. Some try to project the picture of perfection into the future, keeping hope alive but never really arriving at a place of completeness. There are millions of ways to cope and keep defenses against reality intact under the guise of wanting freedom. In my experience, nothing that is attempted to undo something that one think is real ever works because the mind can’t destroy something it depends on for security. If one has a hard time deeming this world evil, it’s because one thinks that certain bits and pieces are bright and good. Not many are willing to paint their precious world black, but they fail to see that it is already black – unforgivingly pitch black.

Through complete realization of this, there’s real peace. I’m not sure a realization of truth can be pursued because it can appear in a instance and be gone the next. The process of becoming is futile, because there’s only darkness and light, no stages in progression from dark to light. There’s nothing that can be gained in darkness that will lead to the light. The progression that is perceived to be made over time is an illusion, a setup of events from start to finish that mean nothing in reality. Yet, I’m sure that most people experience instances of completeness. In fact, all instances are complete, but as time and space seems to enter, salvation is temporarily cancelled out and one is thrown back into existence. It’s rediscovered again, when suspension of judgement takes place spontaneously for some curious reason. We’ll all release and be released in time, when time is seen to not be needed anymore.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

photo credit Jim Huylebroek for the New York Times

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Michael J. Tallon

“I've been thinking about Afghanistan over the past few days, as many of you have, as well. It's obviously a crazily complex and chaotic system right now, and it would be hard to predict how things play out in the coming weeks or months. There could very easily be a confrontation between Taliban forces and US/Coalition forces in Kabul. That really depends on unit cohesion and chain-of-command durability on the Taliban side - with the big question being, "How far can we push them during the evacuation?" 

After a hideous day or two at the airport about a week ago, it seems that something like an orderly evacuation is in process. Sure, it's crazy. Sure, there are thousands of people outside the airport, desperate to get in. But no one is flushing onto the runways. That happened in an understandable panic when the Ghani government fled (with hundreds of millions of dollars in their luggage), and the Taliban emerged from all over Kabul. Note this: You never saw video of an army triumphantly marching on the capital city. Why? Well, eerie as it may be, it's because they were already there. 

As of two days ago, C-130 flights have been leaving on the hour, and we're clearing about 5000 people a day. Given that we've set a schedule of last-wheels-up for August 31, that means we'll move about another 50,000 allies and vulnerable families out of the country, and to make sure we are maximizing those efforts, it appears that some forward actions have been taken. French forces went and grabbed some of their people two days ago from a house in Kabul. Yesterday, a Chinook helicopter hopped over to the Baron Hotel, a few hundred meters from the airport to grab some folks. More of that will likely happen, which might - just might - cause a reaction from Taliban forces on the ground. That could get very ugly, very quickly, and I'd imagine there are lines of communication open between Taliban leadership and US military leadership to prevent that from happening. Oddly, as politics make strange bedfellows, the Biden Administration, the US Military, and the Taliban all want the same thing right now. They want the US out of Afghanistan, and can likely be marshaled in that direction. Still, near-term chaos could ensue if someone on the ground gets pissy. 

That stuff is all really unclear. But blow the perceptual lens out a bit - to the next few years - and things get a little clearer. 

1) Very soon, western military forces will be gone from the country, at least in sizeable formations. Never doubt the penetrative capacity of US Special Forces, but the force presence will likely be down to dozens, rather than thousands. 

2) The Taliban will need to figure out how to run a country. They clearly have some capacity for taxation and enforcement, but the rest of it - maintaining a power grid, providing water and electric infrastructure, some semblance of healthcare - will be an enormous challenge. Also, as they'll be attempting to fund a state, they'll need significantly more resources than they have required so far for the support of an advancing army. The 2019 GDP of Afghanistan was about $20 billion dollars. For comparison, the GDP of New York State is $1.5 trillion. So, it's not a rich country, and for the past 20 years, a sizable percentage of that wealth came in from US military largess - and most of THAT got siphoned off to a corrupt cadre of elites who managed to be such awful people that their countrymen would rather have the Taliban in charge - and that's something. 

The GDP of that troubled nation is going to take a massive hit this year, on top of which, the Biden Administration has recently frozen about $10 billion dollars of Taliban funds that they had secured in US banks - which is mindblowing in and of itself. 

So, how do they get that money back? How do they entice other foreign investors to provide the needed resources? How do they do that in a region of the world where there are predators on all sides? It's gonna be mighty tricky, but one potential way forward would be to TRY and reform their most brutal of practices.

No one has any illusions about the Taliban becoming liberal adherents of Enlightenment principles, but maybe there will be a push for fewer public execution festivals in the town football pitch? Maybe rather than banning all women and girls from reading, they'll keep the schools open, but demand the girls dress in burkhas. I don't know if that will be the case, but there are at least some early signs that some "moderate" Taliban will lean that way.  This leads to the next likely scenario a year or two out. 

Civil War. 

3. Go back through your history of radicals taking over as governing forces. The French Revolution is the most commonly used example of what happens when purists are put into the position of actually running a state. Though you could also look to Ireland in 1922-23. This is admittedly analogy as history and might be completely wrong, but my sense is there's a real possibility of the Taliban fracturing along "reformist" and "purist" wings. IF the Taliban leadership tries to live inside the rules of the community of nations; if they try to moderate their practices to encourage investment and growth, THEN you might very likely see the rise of a revanchist faction who really, truly believes the world should be returned to the fashion of seventh century Saudi Arabia. 

Add to that potential chaos the reality that small fiefdoms of well-armed local leaders with significant self-interest in controlling the flow of limited resources will emerge all over the country, and these past years could end up looking rather peaceful by comparison - which would bring us to the next point - Afghanistan is in an ugly, ugly neighborhood for geopolitics. 

4. Afghanistan is bordered by four major geopolitical forces. Pakistan to the south, Iran to the west. China to the east, and Russia (under its regional proxies, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) to the north. For the past twenty years, the United States has been on the ground, and that served to limit (but not stop) their influence in the region. Of the four major players, Pakistan has been particularly active in supporting the Taliban and allowing them to have cross-border safe-havens which made defeating them practically impossible. 

But how in the hell will those four power centers resolve the coming decades in what will likely be a very chaotic, poor, corrupt, and broken land? Russia and China will both be working hard and brutally to blunt the spread of militant Islam on their borders. Pakistan will now need to deal with its violent attack dogs as a neighboring government, potentially destabilizing the political reality of Pakistan itself. As to Iran . . . my Lord, I have no clue. All I know is that the Taliban are Sunni and the Ayatollahs are Shi'a - and that's its own 1000-year-old can of worms. 

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I've been writing this now for an hour or so. I do that sometimes just to try and think through the complexities, and I end where I began. No matter how ugly these past few days have been, I think that Biden both made the right choices, and is doing a pretty damn good job, all things considered. The pressures on Afghanistan are brutal - the poverty, the corruption, the geopolitical crucible in which it sits, the religious divisions, the tribal rivalries, the forces of modernization and radical revanchism, the international finances. Ugh. 

Back in 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Holmes. The subject was the Missouri Compromise which threatened to destabilize the nation by expanding slavery to the West but kept it whole by allowing Maine to join in the East - thereby balancing the interests of Northern free-staters, and Southern slavers. He understood that slavery ultimately would provide to great an internal pressure to keep the country whole - and he feared the day those forces would eventually tear us apart. He wrote of slavery that "we have the wolf by the ear, we can neither safely hold it, nor safely let it go." 

That's been the case with Afghanistan since we first invaded nearly 20 years ago, and as the fourth President who had to make this choice, Joe Biden finally accepted it was time to make Afghanistan someone else's problem. Yeah, he got bit by the wolf. Yeah, a lot of people are going to suffer. But when you look ahead at the absolute horrorshow of Central Asia in the next fifty years, my sense is that history will determine he made the right terrible choice.  

Love to you all.

Thanks to Michael J. Tallon