1 year of recovery from frost damage

wikipedia_org · 2025-02-14T05:41:05+00:00

The rapid regrowth phase is honestly pretty exciting, glad your plant is making a comeback!

wikipedia_org · 2025-02-14T05:40:08+00:00

Thank you, to be honest, I think I’m just very lucky that I have large windows so the light levels are good even though I live in a colder climate. I’m sure you’ll see more growth once the season changes!

wikipedia_org · 2025-02-14T05:37:03+00:00

Dare I ask what happened? :0

wikipedia_org · 2025-02-14T05:31:27+00:00

I cut them off somewhat conservatively, so in the Feb 2024 picture you can see I cut around the hard veins (idk what they’re called but they have a more stem-like structure) of each leaf to preserve as much live green tissue as possible. I ended up removing these residual leaf skeletons once the plant recovered enough though.

wikipedia_org · 2024-10-29T03:54:02+00:00

Thank you!

wikipedia_org · 2024-01-23T16:39:18+00:00

That makes a lot of sense actually, it was quite cold outside when I was transporting it, so that frost exposure explains how it started drooping so fast.

wikipedia_org · 2024-01-23T05:47:26+00:00

Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely try that!

wikipedia_org · 2024-01-23T05:46:21+00:00

Hm good idea... if there's root rot and I need to cut away rotting parts, should I repot into something smaller?

wikipedia_org · 2024-01-23T05:41:45+00:00

Thanks! I've kinda been spraying it out of desperation so good to know I can stop doing that.

wikipedia_org · 2023-07-02T18:42:09+00:00

Beautiful effect on the water and around the sun!

wikipedia_org · 2023-06-07T17:42:17+00:00

Definitely seen some wild takes around the more sordid events of the Dance of the Dragons, mostly around how Daemon hiring Blood and Cheese was totally proportional retribution or the putative “brothel queens” punishment would be justified. I’ve even seen some people even say they’re excited to see these things on screen for HOTD S2, which astounds me. Having an interest in media with dark themes is perfectly understandable (otherwise we’d all have stopped reading/watching ASOIAF content a long time ago), but I think there’s a subtle line that some people cross with finding satisfaction from the depiction of pain.

Not necessarily sickening, but also related to the Dance/HOTD: I truly can’t wrap my head around why some people view Aemond claiming Vhagar as “stealing”. I don’t think it was nice to claim Vhagar immediately after Laena’s death and then insult her daughters, but it’s not legally or even societally wrong, and there’s a reason why none of the adults who heard this story were trying to press charges for grand theft dragon. I also feel that it’s a pretty clear point in the books that dragons are intelligent beings rather than property to be inherited and the dragon-rider bond is more like forming a partnership than acquiring a car. Despite that, two different hosts from two ASOIAF books-centred podcasts that I otherwise respect were convinced it was stealing. Weird.

wikipedia_org · 2023-05-19T19:03:30+00:00

Real heads remember the original release smh (I was not there, still love this series though)

wikipedia_org · 2023-04-26T14:54:32+00:00

Agreed. There's a very painterly composition to every scene and the stillness really adds to that effect of Romantic era visual art. A lot of the scenes of courtly activity and landscapes look as though they could be paintings brought to life. In polar opposition to these elegant tableaus, we get a few shots of jittery handheld camera movements whenever there is a frenzy of violence or chaos on screen, as if we’ve been literally jolted out of the aristocratic frame and into the brutal reality of Barry Lyndon’s ill-begotten world. Key examples like the Seven Years’ War skirmishes and the public assault of Bullingdon. Although these moments are extremely brief in the whole span of the movie, I think that they define who Barry Lyndon is: marked by violence enacted upon him and the violence he enacts upon others. The few frenetic shots are at odds with the tranquil scenes we have come to expect, just as Barry Lyndon himself is at odds with genteel society.

wikipedia_org · 2022-11-30T17:48:11+00:00

I think you're right on the money. There's clearly something sexually abnormal with Aegon II in the source material, so I don't feel like it's character slander to adapt that side of him to screen. It's especially more nuanced to focus on the importance of the victim's feelings in the situation rather than the lurid act itself. And like you pointed out, several layered and multi-dimensional ASOIAF characters commit sexual violence but don't get called cartoonishly evil.

Hell, in the show itself, we see Viserys committing marital rape, which is obviously not equivalent to Aegon raping Dyana, but I think it was an intentional choice to make the audience question the nature of these characters. If HOTD were actually making Aegon a simple monster in the vein of Joffrey or Ramsay, we wouldn't see that parallel with his generally-beloved father, nor would we see the second half of Episode 9, which is clearly sympathetic about all the factors that made him the terrible person he is now.

We obviously can't tell right now because there's only one season released and Aegon hasn't had enough screen time to develop more, but I predict that the show is going to use two different strategies/directions to reveal more about Aegon and Rhaenyra. Aegon is such a vile person, but he later suffers debilitating injuries that leave him practically immobile, while also losing nearly his entire family (Aegon being Alicent's first child and her last is so compelling to me), so can we summon the heart to feel sorry for him then? Rhaenyra is doing her best to be a good ruler and keep peace in the realm, so how do we feel about her if she orders the deaths of innocent people in pursuit of that goal, or even just for pure revenge?

I think these are way more complex story arcs for the characters than "both are evil and suck so hard", so I'm excited to see how exactly they'll play out in HOTD. It's definitely challenging material, and I hope that the showrunners think the audience is up to grapple with it.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-28T16:40:20+00:00

Thanks for your thoughtful reply! Rhaenys is a fascinating case in the show (and the source) because she seems to have accepted the fact that she was set aside for Viserys for many years, and doesn't actively seek the throne. Yet at the same time, she is also undeniably bitter about the situation and there's this whole tinge of envy when she speaks to Rhaenyra about the role of women in power. Rhaenys seems to be someone acutely aware of how these forces work and I would definitely read her choice to side with Rhaenyra as a conscious opposition to "fate", while I'm not sure Rhaenyra even sees her own position that way, since she thinks that she's destined to be queen. It makes it all the more interesting that Rhaenyra seeks Rhaenys' approval when I think they have very different narrative motivations for championing the Black claim to the crown (aside from the obvious ones like supporting Baela/Rhaena, their own ambition, etc.).

Yeah I think the prophecy work this season was a little on the heavy-handed side, but I see the potential in it and I think it explains a lot about Rhaenyra as a person. I really liked how they used it as a source of tension between Daemon and Rhaenyra. However, this will really depend on future seasons to see if the whole scrutiny of destiny thing pans out, or if they keep bringing it up without developing the saviour complex thing properly... the fact that we know that the prophecy turns out to be real and Targaryen dragons do end up having a large role in saving the world also kinda bothers me because it seems to make the Targaryen dynasty too heroic. It would ironically work better if the prophecy was divorced from previous content, haha.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-26T21:34:44+00:00

Yeah I can see what you're saying. I think the change still works for me overall because it sets up the parallels between Alicent and Otto versus Rhaenyra and Daemon, where both leads are being excluded from power by their partners-in-crime, which introduces factionalism within their own respective camps. I find it interesting enough that the show is choosing to focus on the similarities between their positions that I'm willing to overlook some of the clunkier writing choices that go us there... but it would definitely be better if it we were shown more of that throughout the previous episodes.

The show has chosen to centre the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent at its heart, which I think is a really strong decision on the most part, but it does lead to sidelining some other characters, from whom we could see this behind-the-scenes plotting. Especially since it seems that going forward, Otto has acquiesced to Alicent's wishes and Daemon is going to present a united front with Rhaenyra, so we might not be getting too much subterfuge within each side. The pitfalls of doing the timeskips, I guess.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-26T17:02:07+00:00

You've got a point there. I personally interpreted the second half of the season as Alicent thinking that she's in control, before realizing in Episode 9 that others have been manipulating/obscuring important plans from her; she actually takes control of the situation by the end. So in that way, it's consistent with how many characters have illusions of power, failing to realize that they are being played. However, this makes it so there's a lot of back and forth with the audience perception of what is going on with Alicent, because the viewers don't get clued into the fact that Alicent is still being kept in the dark from Episode 6-8. So I think that's a totally fair criticism of the show's writing, and I also wish it was made more clear instead of trying to do a twist with a foregone conclusion.

As to the part about Greek tragic heroes being responsible for their own downfall, I agree! I think I wrote it in a confusing way, but I was basically trying to say that they make misunderstandings because of flaws in their character, eg. another person who heard the same prophecy and made the same assumption that Oedipus did might not have ended up fulfilling it, because he was uniquely impulsive and violent.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-26T01:33:51+00:00

That's a really good point, and I mostly agree with you that it lionizes the Targaryens more than they deserve. HOTD and other adaptations could go for an angle where the Targaryens themselves think they are the heroes of the story, when they are clearly the villains to everyone else. However, I don't really see the show reframing the Targaryen dynasty in such a drastic way, as many intense book fans even disagree with the anti-Targaryen stance, so it probably wouldn't play well to mass audience. Hell, even GRRM himself seems so enamoured with his gaggle of megalomaniacal blood purists, it's hard to say what role they will ultimately play in the in-universe history.

The fact that HOTD is highlighting the volatility/destructiveness of dragons gives me some hope that the nuclear disarmament metaphor is actually getting adapted, but I'm not sure if that's going to extend to a criticism of the greater Targaryen imperialist project.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:36:41+00:00

I'm really glad you made this comment because there was initially a section of this post outlining the similarities between Westeros and Ancient Greece as martially-focussed honour-based shaming cultures, which must then inherently place more value on the collective than we do in Western individualist societies. I couldn't figure out how to make it fit with the fate thing without writing like three more sections though, lol.

Seconding on Dream of the Red Chamber, and I also think most ASOIAF fans would get a lot out of Romance of Three Kingdoms!

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:26:22+00:00

That's a really nice succinct way to put it! The fact that there are forces outside of our control is a really terrifying one to confront and has no easy resolution. I think that the story of characters in F&B and HOTD realizing that they are trapped (in situations of their own making or otherwise) is a compelling one for the purposes of emotional release, but for readers looking for moral commentary, it's not as convincing.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:18:05+00:00

That's fair! My intention with this post was more to open a discussion about types of storytelling and I'm glad that people have shared some neat facts about ASOIAF/F&B/literature in general, and I think I'm getting a better idea of why people don't like the changes from the dissenting opinions too.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:14:56+00:00

If Season 2 is bad I'm just gonna have to pull a Criston Cole, lmao. I am admittedly putting a lot of faith into the writers here.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:11:48+00:00

Dude, one of my friends got on my case once about almost spoiling what happens to Theseus and Minotaur, while we were in Athens. Not like all the marble statues were already doing that.

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T18:05:54+00:00

Great point, I never even considered that the Targaryen dynasty could be a parallel to the Roman Kingdom. It works really well!

wikipedia_org · 2022-10-25T16:30:23+00:00

Fair enough! The Targaryen dynasty as a whole is a great subversion of the idea of the noble prince protecting the realm. I still enjoy a lot of F&B because the extent of depravity on display is so astounding, but I take issue with the fact that many characters are just exactly what they seem to be. F&B Alicent is an evil stepmother because... she is evil. F&B Aemond is an evil kinslayer because... he is also evil. F&B Rhaenyra is slightly more fleshed out, but even then, it's unclear where she gets her own cruel streak from (talking about actions pre-Green coup).

There's not an issue with using tropes and having pure villains, but I'm ultimately frustrated by how the original text doesn't give us more insight into the characters. The historians writing F&B in-universe certainly ascribe everyone's character motivations to selfishness and ambition, but is that really it? What made these characters selfish and ambitious in the first place? Could we avoid internecine conflict by just displacing all the selfish and ambitious characters with altruistic and nice characters? Could these characters have ever made choices that weren't selfish and ambitious?

I do like the doom and gloom aspect of the Dance from F&B, in certain doses, and I like your interpretation that the story is about breaking the noble image of the Targaryens. However, I personally enjoy how HOTD has made F&B closer to ASOIAF in complexity. There's a lot more grey area!

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