“In this land, the undead are corralled and led to the North, where they are locked away to await the end of the world.” This was the line that gripped me when I started up Dark Souls for the first time in late 2011. It’s a line I’ve found myself returning to again and again when I try to conjure up the particular quality of Dark Souls’ world that makes it so enticing. Not that enough thought and words haven’t been expended on the series already: over its six year history, which if From Software are to believed marks both its beginning and end, the writing, debates and other games the series can have said to inspired makes for an impressive volume of work. Even the game’s architecture, my subject specialty, feels like it has been dissected from many angles, its gothic arches and vaults often connected to many different histories of horror and the sublime. However, even with all this activity around the series, it feels necessary, with the final DLC of the final game The Ringed City having passed and settled into its place, to write an obituary of sorts for its particular collection of spaces and structures, at least before the predictable resurrection that the game’s financial success and avid fan base will surely trigger.

The reason I say obituary is because for me, the depiction of architecture in Dark Souls orbits around one central theme: death. Let’s go back to that first line: its poetry lies in the idea of the undead not as rampaging monsters, or mystical beings, but as the cursed; those who have been denied death. Without the comfort of inevitable death, there is only one end that awaits them: the end of all things. And what really makes that line stick in my mind is how it combines this erasure of death with a distinct sense of space. The reference to a kingdom or a “land”, the icy, distant presence of the word “North” and the hollow prisons suggested by the phrase “locked away” give an overriding sense of architecture, and its function as a prison, a refuge, or a container for the dead. This line points to the central architectural image of the series: a crumbling edifice in which the deathless wander, meaning sapped by time from both the undead’s decaying bodies and the stones that encase them.

This idea of architecture as a container for the dead has an ancient history. Howard Colvin, one of the great architectural historians pointed out that “architecture in Western Europe begins with tombs” pointing to the neolithic funereal monuments, hewn in rough stone, which have been part of our landscape for more than 12,000 years. However the connection is not only a historical one: Alfred Loos, one of the most influential theorists of Modern architecture, found something essential in the connection between architecture and death, writing “if we were to come across a mound in the woods, six foot long by three foot wide, with the soil piled up in a pyramid, a somber mood would come over us and a voice inside us would say, ‘There is someone buried here.’ That is architecture.”

Here Loos is referring to the ability or architecture to create and change space: a blank field, when filled with headstones, becomes charged with meaning, atmosphere and power. But he is also suggesting that the connection between death and architecture is not just one of pragmatism-that the dead have to be put somewhere, but is instead one of symbolism-the tomb as a structure is both a container of the dead, and an affirmation and symbol of life. It is a marker that its resident once lived. In this sense the tomb is perhaps the mirror twin of the room, a space designed to hold life, but that in its dead, empty, decaying form serves as a reminder of death. As the dying man in Vladimir Nabokov’s short story Terra Incognita realises in his final moments “the scenery of death” is little more than “a few pieces of realistic furniture and four walls.”

Yet in Dark Souls’ world these divisions between life and death have become lost, and so it follows too that the binary of tomb and room might be lost also. The spaces of the Dark Souls series are eternally caught in a state of undeath, between collapse and continuance. Every architectural space in the series seems to oscillate between the state of tomb and room. Take the new Londo ruins, for example, a series of hollow voids above a lake that is later to be revealed to be the container for countless corpses, concealed out of sight. Or the Undead Crypt in Dark Souls 2, a vast funerary complex of monumental tomb architecture that at its heart hides the lands ruler not in the form of a corpse, but as an immortal living being, pacing his own crypt as if it was his throne room, awaiting, like the undead of the first games asylum, the end of the world. Of course, in Dark Souls’ case, the end of the world has already arrived. The Ringed City DLC, which this year marked the end of the series in both a fictional and real sense, invited players to “journey to the world’s end,” to descend into the first and last city. In the game, when we approach the Ringed City itself, we see it circled by a vast stone wall, just like the wall that obscures the city of Anor Londo in the first Dark Souls. And looking on this vast walled city I was brought back once again to my first experiences with the series, experiences that might instruct another way of considering its architecture.

It’s no coincidence that my Dark Souls character is and always will be named Steerpike. As the antihero of Mervyn Peake’s incredible three volume gothic masterpiece, Gormenghast, his was the first name that came to mind when I set eyes on the vast rock wall of Anor Londo and the void below from the crumbling vantage point of Firelink Shrine. In Peake’s world, an impossibly vast castle plays host to scattered generations of royalty and their servants, all locked in senseless rituals that guide them like nomads amongst overgrown halls and abandoned apartments. In his books Peake casts architecture as a weighty burden, a physical realisation of tradition, ritual and history that its inhabitants must try, and fail, to maintain and make sense of. The castle of Gormenghast is a vast undead corpse, returning to nature. Not a corpse of a single human however, but the corpse of an entire civilisation falling into ruin. Take Peake’s first description of the castle itself: He talks of the “shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets” but perhaps the most striking feature is the way he describes the vast central “Tower of Flints” as rising “like a mutilated finger from amongst the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.” This anthropomorphic description isn’t trying to suggest that Gormenghast might be a character in the novel, instead it is presenting it as a body; a voiceless, mutilated, blasphemous body. A body who must await the end of the world in order to truly die.

In evoking the connection of Dark Soul’s architecture to Gormenghast, the Ringed City suggests to me that the spaces of Dark Souls too could be thought of it the same way. They are perhaps the mirror image, not of the tomb or room, but of the bodies they contain. Like the series’ “hollows” a profoundly architectural name for the undead, the architecture of the Dark Souls’ series is, more than a container for walking corpses, and is instead a withering, putrefying, deathless corpse in itself. Its spaces, the cathedrals, castles, caves, sewers, fortifications and forest huts of Dark Souls and its sequels are hollow bodies, locked in processes of organic decay. A descent through the Ringed City only seems to strengthen this idea: it is a structure which at its highest point is drained of color, dry and calcified, but as you descend becomes fetid, waterlogged, sinking into its own fluids. At its base, it is infested with insects and parasites, its buildings pointing haphazardly up out of a congealed swamp. This imagery is something that can be traced through the series: the lowest point of the original game is the Ash Lake, a vast interior filled with branching structures like the interior of a set of calcified lungs, while the depths of Dark Souls 2 hide the Black Gulch, home of The Rotten, a literal living structure of undead corpses. Even when we return to Anor Londo Dark Souls 3, we find it decaying into a putrefied, black murk, as if it was not made of steel and stone, but some organic material that mirrors their properties.

And yet, whether we see the architecture of the Dark Souls series through the lens of both tomb and room, or as a vast decaying corpse, there is a contradiction we must accept. The spaces of Dark Souls, from its cathedrals to its humble huts, are cursed to remain ruins forever. As virtual spaces, these seemingly shattered structures are in fact fashioned as ruins by From Software’s exceptionally talented artists, their collapse frozen in single frames of beautiful decay. They are ultimately without a past or a future. They will never give in to entropy, erosion and time, and be erased from the landscape, and neither can they possess a true golden past, a moment when they were total, complete, unbroken. They were built as ruins and as ruins they will stay, so that in a thousand years we might return to these spaces and find them as we left them, in collapse but never collapsing, gesturing towards an end of the world that has, improbably, both arrived and yet will never come.

In this video I wanted to talk about autistic masking and how to unmask. This video focuses on the following questions:

• What is autistic masking?
• Is autistic masking different from people pleasing?
• What are the effects (positive + negative) of autistic masking?
• How to unmask as an autistic person?

Many people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn to mask their autistic traits by copying neurotypicals, resisting their instincts, scripting, and overcompensating for perceived deficits. And in this video, I share my experience with that, how masking affected my mental health, and what I’ve been doing to unmask my autism.

There were over 1,200 movies released in the U.S. during the 1980s. I figured out which one was the MOST 80s.

Emily Carr University of Art + Design (abbreviated as ECU) is a public art and design university located on Great Northern Way, in the False Creek Flats neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Merging studio practice, research and critical theory in an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment, ECU encourages experimentation at the intersections of art, design, media and technology. According to the QS World University Rankings, ECU has ranked as the top university in Canada for art and design since 2019, and is currently ranked 24th in the world.

The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic faculties: the Faculty of Culture + Community, the Ian Gillespie Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media, the Audain Faculty of Art, and the Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies. ECU also offers non-degree education via its Continuing Studies programs, Certificate programs and Teen Programs.

ECU is also home to the Libby Leshgold Gallery — a public art gallery dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art by practitioners ranging from emerging and marginalized artists to internationally celebrated makers. The Libby Leshgold Gallery serves a broad and varied community that includes the students, faculty and staff of the university, the arts community, the public of Greater Vancouver and visitors from around the world.

The institution is named for Canadian artist and writer Emily Carr, who was known for her Modernist and Post-Impressionist artworks.

Emily Carr is one of the oldest post-secondary institutions in British Columbia and the only one dedicated to professional education in the arts, media, and design.

Formally established as the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts in 1925, the school was renamed the Vancouver School of Art in 1933.

In 1978, ECU was designated a provincial institute and renamed the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in before moving to Granville Island in 1980. In 1995, it opened a second building on its Granville Island campus, at which time it was renamed the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. Around the same year, ECU was granted authority to offer its own undergraduate degrees (BFA and BDes) and honorary degrees (honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.), Doctor of Laws (D.Laws), and Doctor of Technology (D.Technology).

The first graduate program was added in 2003 (MFA) and would later expand to include the Master of Applied Arts (MAA) in 2006, the Master of Digital Media (MDM) in 2007, and the Master of Design in 2013 (MDes). The MDM program was launched through the Centre for Digital Media, a campus consortium of four post-secondary institutions in British Columbia.

In 2017, ECU moved from its longtime home on Granville Island to a permanent, purpose-built campus on Great Northern Way. The new campus sits on a former industrial site within the False Creek Flats neighbourhood in East Vancouver. Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design’s arms, supporters, flag, and badge were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority on April 20, 2007. On April 28, 2008, the Provincial Government announced that it would amend the University Act at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and recognize Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design as a full university, which would be named Emily Carr University of Art + Design. The university began its operation under its current name on September 1, 2008.

The university’s campus is located within a four-storey 26,600 square metres (286,320 sq ft) building in the False Creek Flats neighbourhood of Vancouver. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects and completed by EllisDon in 2017, the building houses student commons spaces, galleries, exhibition spaces, studios and three lecture theatres. The exterior facade of the building has white metal panels and glass reminiscent of a blank canvas, as well as back-painted glass spandrel panels to evoke a sequence of colours and transitions. The building’s colour palette was selected by faculty members in honour of Canadian painter Emily Carr. In addition, several Indigenous design elements were incorporated into the design of the building.

The building forms a part of the larger Great Northern Way Campus, a 7.5 hectares (18.5 acres) multi-use property that is shared with four other post-secondary institutions through the Great Northern Way Trust. Emily Carr University, along with the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Simon Fraser University, and the University of British Columbia, are all equal shareholders in the trust. The Great Northern Way Campus also houses facilities used by the other three post-secondary institutions.

Asperger’s syndrome is now considered part of the autism spectrum. But many people with the diagnosis still see themselves as Aspies.

Asperger’s syndrome (aka Asperger’s disorder or simply “Asperger’s”) was used as a diagnosis from 1994 to 2013. What changed in 2013?

The current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) came out, and according to the DSM-5, Asperger’s syndrome is no longer a standalone diagnosis.

Rather, Asperger’s is now considered part of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

There have been mixed feelings about this change, especially for people who have an Asperger’s diagnosis and feel it describes them best. It’s seen as a controversial removal from the DSM, and some people are advocating for it to be added back into the next version.

People with Asperger’s symptoms — some refer to themselves as Aspies — may have many of the same communication and behavioral patterns as autistic people, but with a couple of specifications.

Asperger’s syndrome was first described by the Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger in the 1940s. He noticed that some children had behaviors similar to autism, but with average intelligence levels and language development.

When the DSM-4 added Asperger’s syndrome, it described the condition as the same as autism with a key exception: people with Asperger’s didn’t have delays in the areas of communication and language.

The DSM-4 criteria for Asperger’s disorder states that the person will have:

• closer to neurotypical language development
• average intelligence
• noticeable differences in social interaction
• repetitive behaviors
• strong, focused approach to certain interests or activities

Asperger’s syndrome tends to be seen as a form of “high-functioning” autism. High-functioning autism typically means that a person’s language skills and development are considered “normal” according to neurotypical standards.

When the DSM-5 was published in 2013, Asperger’s syndrome was folded into autism spectrum disorder.

The specific behavior and communication patterns associated with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s tend to be classified as “requiring support.” This means people with an Asperger’s diagnosis might not need as much support in day-to-day life as other autistic people.

The idea behind ASD is that autism is a spectrum — or range — of persistent communication and behavior patterns.

Support needs also exist on somewhat of a spectrum for autistic people. While some people require significant day-to-day support, others need less.

In 2013, four different diagnoses were combined into autism spectrum disorder. These conditions were:

• autism
• Asperger’s disorder
• childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD)
• pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)

An ASD diagnosis means a person’s behavior and communication skills fit certain patterns. And according to the DSM-5, they must show signs of these patterns by the time they’re 2 years old.

Criteria for an autism diagnosis includes:

• difficulty starting, joining, or participating in conversation
• differences in nonverbal communication (like eye contact or facial expressions)
• sensory processing differences (may react to touch, sound, or light in different ways from non-autistic people)
• preference for routines (may have certain habits or a set way of doing certain tasks)
• focused, strong interest in certain topics or activities
• stimming, or repetitive movements (like repetitive blinking or finger tapping)
• difficulty adjusting to or understanding context in relationships, especially in neurotypical contexts

Some people felt that the DSM-5 took away their identity when it removed the Asperger’s diagnosis. Many websites and forums specifically for people with Asperger’s are still in use today.

One of the biggest differences between the two is that Asperger’s syndrome is no longer an up-to-date, standalone diagnosis.

The other major difference is that people with Asperger’s syndrome are considered high-functioning, meaning they:

• don’t have delays in communication and language
• have a higher chance of not being diagnosed as a child
• may need less day-to-day support
• may find it easier to mask or hide certain behavior patterns

And while autistic children may receive their diagnosis within their first two years of life, some research suggests that Asperger’s diagnoses happened at around 11 years old, on average.

Some “high-functioning” autistic people may not get a diagnosis until adulthood.

People with Asperger’s could also be likely to experience autistic burnout. This is an intense sense of exhaustion that can happen when an autistic person spends a lot of time masking, or hiding, certain behaviors or tendencies to blend in socially.

Autistic burnout can make it harder to handle emotions or do daily tasks. For example, an autistic person who usually communicates verbally (with words) may stop communicating that way during a time of burnout.

If you’re encountering any challenges related to an autism or Asperger’s diagnosis, there are ways to manage.

For parents of an autistic child, many approaches — including social or behavioral therapy — can be helpful during early childhood and beyond.

If you’re an Aspie, resources also exist to help you feel more supported and connected. The Asperger/Autism Spectrum Education Network (ASPEN) and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network are a couple of great resources to get started.

When Asperger’s syndrome was folded into the autism spectrum, some people voiced concerns that this change would make it harder to connect with services and support that fit their needs.

Some of these concerns include that a person with Asperger’s:

• might not meet the full diagnostic criteria for ASD
• might not receive all the support they need because they’re compared to people who need much higher levels of support or care
• may be placed in a learning program that doesn’t meet their needs

Still, other Aspies have embraced being on the autism spectrum as part of their identity.

Asperger’s disorder was a diagnostic term used between 1994 and 2013. People with this diagnosis behaved similarly to autistic people, but they were usually known for being “high-functioning.”

According to the DSM-5, people with an Asperger’s diagnosis now fit onto the autism spectrum and meet the criteria for an ASD diagnosis. Autistic people who identify with the Asperger’s diagnosis may not need as much day-to-day support as others on the spectrum.

Some adults may be autistic but undiagnosed. While it can be harder to receive an autism diagnosis as an adult, it’s not impossible — a diagnosis could also help you find support and understanding.

Asperger’s syndrome is no longer used as a diagnosis, but some people still consider it to be part of who they are. Whether you’re autistic or an Aspie (or both!), there are resources to help you feel accepted and connected.

On 10 March 2022, shortly after 11 pm, a Tupolev Tu-141 reconnaissance drone crashed in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Initially, many citizens took to social media after having witnessed the loud sound of engines and the glare of an unidentified object in the sky above the city, as well as an explosion that was felt kilometers away.

Shortly afterwards an impact crater was found some 50 m away from the city’s largest dormitory which accommodates thousands of students. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, the UAV’s impact on the ground knocked one man off his bicycle and damaged tens of cars parked nearby.

People began to gather around and photos of the debris from the crash site began circulating on social media, finding their way to military analysts who identified the aircraft as a Soviet-era unmanned aerial vehicle. The darkest assumptions thus proved correct, the Russia-Ukraine conflict raging more than a thousand kilometers away, just knocked on their door.

The shocked public began to ask questions: where was it launched from? Who launched it, and why? Is it an intentional act or some mistake? Today, six days later, the Croatian government still refuses to answer any of these questions.

Some twelve hours after the accident, Croatian officials began making their first statements, only confirming what was already known thanks to independent analysts. They announced that it was indeed a Tu-141 drone, and that it came from the direction of Ukraine, without specifying which side launched it.

The only new useful information was that the UAV first entered Romania and flew for 3 minutes, after which, it continued flying through Hungarian airspace for the next 40 minutes and finally through Croatian airspace for the last 7 minutes. All three NATO member states, as well as the NATO Integrated Air Defense System, claimed to have monitored the 14-meter-long 6-ton drone with radar but bizarrely failed to react.

There were no fighter jets being scrambled, no anti-aircraft missiles fired, nor even air raid sirens in Zagreb. The discussion in the following days mainly revolved around who should have reacted. Politicians and the media generally avoided naming the main culprit, but began talking about “a Russian-made drone,” indirectly accusing Russia of having launching it.

It isn’t like Russia lacked a motive for doing so, since Croatia has joined in the imposition of severe sanctions against Russia, obediently following directives from Brussels and Washington, and even sent weapons, ammunition and military equipment to the Ukrainian infantry.

The Croatian media unanimously took a pro-Ukrainian stance, many even jingoistic toward Russia, so public Russophobia is at its peak. Several media outlets praised right-wing extremists fighting in Ukraine as heroic celebrities, and even offered contacts for recruiting new mercenaries.

Russia consequently summoned Croatia’s defense attaché to the Defence Ministry over information that hundreds of Croatian mercenaries had gone to fight in the Ukraine, but the attaché refused to accept the diplomatic summons, claiming that neither Croatia’s Defence Ministry nor any other Croatian governmental institution has any connection to those individuals.

In fact, Croatia proclaimed that it has no intention of stopping or criminalizing such illegal activities. Croatia’s Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, in contrast to President Zoran Milanovic who expressed balanced views on the conflict, openly described himself as “proud to be a Russian enemy.”

Although Russia may be angry at Croatia, as it is with many other countries with similar behavior, it sounds quite unconvincing that as a powerful country it would commit a terrorist-like act on a non-strategic civilian target, only against Croatia, and during the ongoing conflict. Such hostile action, overt or covert, would be of a zero benefit to Russia. Besides, even if Croatia changes its policy and declares itself an ally of Moscow, it would not help Russia in the military, political and economic sense.

As a matter of fact, any Russian involvement in the incident could benefit only Ukraine and its warmonger allies, as it would give them a perfect pretext to establish a NATO-led no-fly zone over Ukraine, something which Ukrainian politicians have been desperately seeking for days. This scenario includes a false flag operation with faked evidence for the world audience, and Croatia as a country devoid of an air force or any credible air defense systems, is an ideal target.

But unfortunately for the perpetrators, things did not go according to plan: the crash landing on a soft green area was relatively soft, enough for the debris with markings to stay preserved, and the appearance of witnesses who photographed them made it impossible for government services to conceal key evidences.

All technical evidence clearly points to direct Ukrainian responsibility. Firstly, the alleged “Russian-made drone” was actually built in the Soviet Ukraine during the Cold War, and today it is in service only with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There is no evidence of Russian use in the last 33 years. Secondly, taking into account the known flight time over the three countries, the cruising speed and the maximum range of 1,000 km, the Tu-141 obviously took off from a mobile launcher at the Vinnytsia Airbase in western Ukraine.

This is exactly 1,024 km away from the Zagreb crash site (see map above). The city of Vinnytsia, which is under Ukrainian control, serves as the headquarters of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, and is known for operating Tu-141 drones. The speculative launch from Belarus, Transnistria or Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine (implying Russian responsibility) simply does not fit into the range and linear flight, and the latter also refutes claims that it malfunctioned and went off course. Furthermore, the fact that the drone did not hit some Eastern European empty fields but the capital of a NATO member state clearly reveals that the strike was intentional.

Another important piece of evidence was inadvertently revealed by the Ukrainians themselves in an attempt to refute their own involvement. On the same day that the Tu-141 crashed in Zagreb, another drone of the same type was shot down over Crimea by the Russian anti-aircraft system.

In both cases the Ukrainians denied that the drones belong to them, arguing that the photos of the wreckage show a red five-pointed star, which was historically used by Soviets and today by Russians, while theirs uses the Ukrainian coat of arms as the insignia. However, a closer analysis of the markings suggests quite the opposite.

As can be seen in many photos of the Tu-141 drones in Ukrainian service, Ukrainians simply pasted their markings over older Soviet stars (middle picture below), and this was done with some cheap material that obviously did not withstand flight or fire. If you take a closer look at the tail of both crashed drones, you will notice the burnt shape of the Ukrainian coat of arms, marked with red circles (left and right image below). In other words, Ukraine lied.

The above-mentioned details have, without a doubt, been known to the Croatian intelligence agencies since the first day, but the government continues to deceive its own nation and the European public by insisting that the main perpetrator is unknown, that the investigation is still ongoing, that facts are still being gathered, and so on, instead of acknowledging that it was a deliberate Ukrainian act, however, politicians and the media prefer to speculate about “drone malfunctions” and “pro-Russian separatists.”

There are two reasons for such spinning. The first being that it is difficult for the Croatian authorities to admit that their dear friend Ukraine, which they supported in all possible ways, committed a hostile act that almost killed dozens of students.

This would seriously shake the pro-Ukrainian government in Zagreb since much of the Croatian public would turn against Ukraine.

The second reason is of a far more insidious nature: it is hard to believe that the failed Ukrainian false flag operation was carried out without the express knowledge and complicity of a major NATO player whose radars and spy planes have complete control of the European skies.

And when the United States tells its puppets to keep their mouths shut, they must obey, or face untold consequences.