#the holy trifecta of little sibling

[stephaniebrownthespoiler]

the little brother possibly ever

[dirtytransmasc]

Hi! I’m really sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you had any Aegon x Helaena x Aemond hcs? They circle my mind all day everyday lol!!

not a bother at all, I would never give up an opportunity to talk about our holy trifecta, as they plauge my mind day in and day out. so here are my Helaegond HC's (most of these are very soft and domestic and have no particular order)

Aemond got dragged into their relationship when Aegon noticed how glum he and hel were after the betrothal and wedding. he hoped letting them be together would make everything easier. it did. what he didn't know what just how much he could love his siblings. it doesn't take them long to realize maybe a three headed dragon was better than a two headed one, so to speak.

Aegon is needy as all hell. when it comes to receiving affections, he needs touch and quality time and words of affirmation, he needs it all the love and his siblings are so willing to give it him. Helaena likes to dote on him, whereas Aemond will 'give in' to his whining and begging (he secretly loves it, he's just an ass to the untrained eye)

Aemond is the most distant when it comes to receiving affections, which his brother and sister will not allow. they find he enjoys quality time the most, but touch is not unwelcome, and they make sure he feels welcome to ask for attention. its an ongoing battle to get that boy to allow himself attention, but they're armed, ready, and down for a challange.

Helaena likes gifts, body doubling, and quality times but in the nuerodivergent ways. gifts could mean giving her boys a pretty rock or a random trinket she found, or being given a new insect or oddity. quality time could be one of her boys heads in her lap as she talked about her latest favorite bug. she does like touch, just at certain times and in certain ways.

the boys keep every gift she gives them and makes sure to put them somewhere that she can see so she knows they care about them. they will also go to great lengths to fetch her bugs.

they are mischeivious, Aegon and Helaena more than Aemond, but he'll play along. they're always exploring the secret passage ways, stealing snacks from the kitchen, or escaping to Flea Bottom cause they're bored. Aemond is the voice of reason and uses his "mommy's favorite" privileges to get them out of trouble.

Aegon and Helaena share a room as they are officially betrothed, but Aemond always sneaks in during the night. Aegon needs to be spooned... by both of them, so he's always squeezed in the middle. he tends to use Helaena as a pillow, while altching onto his brothers arms as they wrap around his middle. Helaena likes to play with the boys's hair as they fall asleep, muttering feather light words that serve as a bit of a lullaby. Aemond, who is perpetually on guard (the other two try and make him less tense, but its to little avail most times) is the last to fall asleep, only after he's sure his siblings are safe and sound in their dreams. he's the one who holds the three together, literally, taking hold of both his brother and sister in a gentle but still vice grip, safely tucked under the covers.

Aegon and Aemond take turns being the insecure sibling. Aegon always doubts himself, his ability to love and be loved, to not let his drinking get out of hand again, that he can be a good brother. Aemond worries he is not enough, that he is invading Aegon and Helaena's marriage, that he was destined to be the second choice, that he will always be behind the others, that his scars are ugly. Helaena is always good at pulling them out of their heads, but so are the boys, at least the one not currently spiralling. those are the nights they stay up late, tangled together in a heap, bathed in moonlight. its not always words that are needed, just softness. other nights they will go over each and every one of their siblings perfectections and perfect imperfections, until all their minds are at ease.

Helaena loves going to Flea Bottom, more than either of her brothers could ever imagine. she loves the colors and the sounds and the vibe of all the people bustling around. she's someone who can see the art and divinity in just about anything, so going to see bustling marketplaces, nude shows, and crowded pleasure houses always leaves her with something philosophical to say that throws the boys through a loop. finding out their sweet sister was not so innocent or naive as she always most to view her was quite a surprise. its even better for her cause she has two guard dogs for brothers who make sure her visit goes undisturbed.

they will evade their duties for a day to go out on dragonback to find somewhere to hide away and have a day in the sun. they typically find a soft prairie to land in and lay out in the grass together until it gets late. they end up playing childish games like tag (normally Aegon starts that game, typically by annoying Aemond) or hide and seek.

most of the public has a sneakign suspicion that something is going on between the three, cause Aemond is always a tad too close to the couple than what is considered "normal" for a brother to be. for example, instead of taking his own seat at an event, he will sit with the pair or stand right behind them, giving them little space. Aegon always seems a little too touchy, too eager to hang off his brother or reach for her hand. Helaena is similar, allowing both of them inter her space when prior to truly falling for aegon, and aegon for her (as their was resentment after the forced betrothal, though not for each other, it took time for them to truly take to one another), she would barely allow anyone as close to her as she allowed the two of them. no one says anything though, for different reasons. many suspect and/or fear they will be a repeat of Aegon the Conquorer and his sister wives, which they are easily amused by.

there mother most likely knows, but also doesn't say anything. she knows if she tries to put a stop to it, they will only double down. if she supports it, they might become even more of a disaster. there's a silent agreement that no one says anything, for all of their sakes.

Aegon calls Helaena 'laena' whereas Aemond calls her 'hel". Aegon typically gets shortened to 'aeg' and Aemond to just 'aem' but if Aegon wants to annoy him he'll call him 'aemy' (he has a death wish possibly)

they all use pet names, but mostly Aegon. he loves to see 'laena smile over being called his dearest wife or love or queen. he likes seeing Aemond fluster over being called sweetheart. Helaena also uses pet names, typically simple things like love and dear. Aemond uses titles as petnames, cause the power dynamic gets him going, "sweet brother" "sweet sister" "my king" "my queen".

the boys being very doting and sweet during her pregnancy, wanting nothing more than to serve her every beck and call. both boys being absolute disasters when Helaena was delivering the babes, pacing her corridor when she kicked them out and holding her hands faithfully when she requests them, both scared shitless.

taking care of the kids is honestly their idea of bonding and strengthening their relationship. adding more little bodies to their cuddle pile at night. getting to bathe the kids together or struggling to make it through a meal without a mess. one of the three reading to both their siblings and their kids until they fall asleep. being parents is so fulfilling and doing it together makes them feel more connected.

Helaena having both her boys on a leash. they both essentially serve her willingly.

Aegon is sweet on his siblings, not always as brash as some would expect of him. he likes to hold Helaena's hand, just cause, or to kiss Aemonds eye when they're in private. he's not against a hug either, longing for intimate closeness that isn't sex.

the boys are experts in bugs cause they love listening to their site talk, so they've just picked up knowledge as times gone on.

when nervous or upset or stressed and on their own at the time, they tend to run their fingers over their wedding scars (they did it themselves without a Maester to help or advise them, and it was a bit of a heart of the moment sort of thing, so they accidently cut a bit to deep or too long, leaving them with distinct scarring between them). Aegon tends to pick at his lip where a little white scar hangs off the edge of his lip, ever so slightly raised. Helaena rubs at curve of her thumb and forefinger where her skin shines in the light. Aemond traces the length of the scar on his palm, back and forth, back and forth. they remember they have each other.

Aegon doesn't like to read but likes being read to. Hel and Aemond are always willing to read to him.

Hel likes to dance and her boys make sure to always indulge her. Aegon's not the best dancer. but the childish air of laughter is always worth it. Aemond certainly less clumsy, but stiff as a bored, which typically turns to playful teasing and childish arguing between him and Aegon.

Aemonds very protective and a bit possessive of his siblings, which gives them scary dog privileges (if he was scary in canon, he's terrifying with them as a throuple).

vaugely erotic sword training in the courtyard between Aemond and Aegon, Hel watching from the grass with her spider friend.

[spice below the cut cause I'm in the mood and have concepts I need to dump out of my head for my own well being]

Sex is frequent amongst them, especially as time passes and they become a strongly woven throuple. Aegon is forever eager, ready to be whatever he's needed to be; submissive, dominant, something in between. he just wants to touch and feel pleasure. Helaena is more reserved, but not against it at all, finding it to be a very sensual and emotional thing that is sacred to her and her brothers. Aemond is again, insecure that he's an intruder, but with a little bit of guidance, finds his confidence.

there is worry of bastards, but that only leads to the discussion of true valyrian marriage between the three of them. lets just say sexy blood rituals comense.

Aegon is easily the most skilled, so for the first couple times he's typically taking a guiding role. he knows all the little tips and tricks to getting his siblings off. he's also the most mouthy and uses his teeth a lot, especially when it comes to his brother. he's softer with their sister and lets himself be commanded around, service dom style. willing to get his hand (and mouth) messy.

Helaana is like a feather, light and soft, fluttering against her brother's skin, making them squirm with ease. she's also really good at dirty talk, but in such a regal and delicate manner. she can be quite bossy, but her boys are well behaved so it normally doesn't take much to get them to listen.

once Aemond is confident in his position he is very... mission focused. he's the one who tends to put Aegon on his back and really cultivates that needy subby side in him that Helaena had only began to uncover by the time he joined the pair. definitely the physically strongest of them all with a whole hell of a lot of stamina. he can take Hel and Aegon a few times before tucking out.

Aegon's loud as hell, gripping the sheets and not holding back a single sound. Hel's a bit quieter, but not silent. Aemond's gotta have all the right buttons pushed to hear a sound out of him (aegon see's this as a challenge)

Aegon cries every time they have sex. its just sorta his thing. its a big emotional release so he always ends up a little teary eyed.

aftercare typically consists of a nice long bath and cuddles.

[septembersung]

A good friend of mine has a graduate degree in art; she’s also a writer. As an MFA (creative writing), I have an appreciation for that complementary formation and we find lots to talk about artistically across mediums. But despite our complementary talents and education, as well as certain ethical similarities, we do not share a common religious conviction. That’s made it difficult to get at what I really want to say when certain subjects come up, notably, the amorality of contemporary art. I almost always write to work out not just what I think, but how and why I think it; ideally after committing this to blog form I’ll be able to explain myself better in conversation...

Under the cut because this became a rambling monster of a post. I’m not great at synthesizing and presenting what, for me, is a cohesive world-view, in clear syllogisms. Practice makes perfect, right? Anyway: the “amorality” of much contemporary art:

The phenomenon of amoral (and therefore, immoral) art I would also call “the ugliness of contemporary art” and “the unartisticness of contemporary art.” These phrases are related but not synonyms; they describe different facets of the same problem.

The most recent example of this unartistic-art subject that came up in our conversation was the widely debated Game of Thrones, as books and a show. I eventually recommended to her, and do the same to anyone reading this, an article called “A song of gore and slaughter.”  It is a fantastic breakdown of the underlying problem of which ASOIAF/GoT is just one example, and situates it within the genre as a whole. The author’s essential thesis is that violence, gore, and all manner of immorality - what he sums up as “splatterporn” - have become the center of the genre, and moved way, way beyond shock tactics to prove a point (a debatable tactic on its own, whatever Chuck Palahnuick says,) but are rather lauded as goods in themselves. In short: GoT and similar works are pornography, in the broad sense that encompasses far more than sex. The article examines praise for one such “splatterporn” series and responds, 

“Stomach-churning, it happens, is a good physiological description of what I referred to above as ‘objective disgust’. Being revolted until you puke, you see, is good for you now: it is something that you ought to want from a book, and if you don’t, you need to be ‘dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century’ yourself. The horrors of the 20th were not enough; Hiroshima and the Holocaust are, like, so five minutes ago. We shall outdo them all, and you shall like it. That is the gospel according to the up-to-date critic.” 

I agree wholeheartedly with the author’s general thesis, and will not reproduce the argument here - really, you should read the whole thing - instead, taking it as a given, what I want to explore on my own terms comes in a paragraph of the author’s towards his conclusion:

The touchstone of Elfland — the most characteristic characteristic of fantasy — is the eversion of symbolism. The One Ring is not merely a symbol of power; it is power. Excalibur is not merely a symbol of kingship; it confers kingship. In these terms, we can say that the recent novels of Martin and Abercrombie (among lamentably numerous others) not only symbolize but are the walls around a concentration camp in Faërie. This is the camp of ‘edginess’, where the gaolers are grimly determined that no memory of sun or moon, tree or flower, stone or sea, goodness, truth, or beauty, shall remain to the inmates, but only the unending, ever-increasing, bloodshot craving for the pleasures of torture and the pornography of pain, suitably euphemized as ‘moral ambiguity’.

The striking thing about the “eversion of symbolism” is that, in less explicit forms, it turns up in all kinds of genres; perhaps because  it has - and I am speaking here as a Catholic - a true, real world, counterpart: sacramentality. (For a fascinating, and non-religious, examination of this concept, see Robert Bly’s The Sibling Society.) And that article even names explicitly the trifecta which contemporary art has anathematized: truth, beauty, and goodness. You can’t have one of those three without the others, and they in turn depend, in art as in the life it imitates, on sacramentality.

To understand my point we need to be on the same page regarding what sacramentality actually is, so we begin with Catholic sacramental theology:

A sacrament is an efficacious sign of grace: it actually is and actually gives what it symbolizes. Bread and wine do not “just” symbolize the body and blood of Christ; at His word (”This is my body; this is my blood”), the bread and wine become, truly and substantially, objectively in reality and not subjectively in the mind or body of the communicant, His body and blood. Baptism does not just “represent” spiritual cleansing or “joining the church”; by the power of God given to His priests (e.g. Mt 28:18-20) baptism removes the stain of original sin (and the personal sins of someone above the age of reason) and truly brings that person into the Church, the New Covenant, into a state of grace. Holy orders is not some kind of graduation ceremony, it does not symbolically “set apart” a man as a leader because he’s studied theology. Holy orders truly makes an indelible (unerasable, permanent) mark in the man’s soul, conferring - kind of like Excalibur confers kingship on Arthur - the threefold reality of Christ on him: priest, prophet, king. He is truly “another Christ” (alter Christus), not merely “like” Christ. All of the seven sacraments can be summed up this way: their materials symbolize what their essence is and confers: grace, that is, the life of God.

Sacraments have both matter and form. What the form and matter are vary from sacrament to sacrament. The Eucharist is a clear example of this principle: the matter is unleavened wheat bread and grape wine, and the form is the words that confect the sacrament, in this case “This is my body,” etc.

Sacramentality forms the weft of the nature of reality in four ways: 

1) Sacramentality is the consequence of Creation in general and the Incarnation specifically. 

We have to unpack this a bit in order for its full significance to become clear in the following paragraphs. Creation means more than just “all this stuff we see around us,” and even more than the flat statement, so apparently unremarkable in our day, “God created the universe.” To put it extremely briefly, Creation is the order of reality, of all that has been made. The Triune God, who exists outside of all things and is complete unto Himself, created all things out of nothing as act of love, and those things are ordered with particular natures and to particular ends. (For an incredible and readable short introduction to the theology of creation, you can’t do better than Pope Benedict XVI’s little book In the Beginning.) Creation in a broad sense is incarnation: literally en-fleshing the thoughts, will, and love of God. The Incarnation is the highest manifestation of this en-fleshing, the “first sacrament” in a sense: God Himself became an enfleshed being, a physical, material person. That which is bigger than all of creation, outside it and above it, became joined to creation, went down into it, and assumed the nature of the created being, a human person. The Incarnation, which began with Mary’s “fiat” at the Annunciation at Nazareth when Jesus was conceived, enervated creation: that which was big and outside, without losing its bigness and outsideness, became inside and little. 

In short, physical, material, created things convey God to us.

2) Reality expresses its sacramental nature the seven sacraments proper, as discussed above, administered through the Church, as the active and physical workings of Christ - that is, grace - in the world. The sacraments are the direct consequence of the Incarnation: they are the continued presence of Christ on earth, the fountainhead of all truth, goodness, and beauty in the world. When speak of the sacraments, we are speaking of the Divine Person of Christ.

3) Reality is “sacramental,” in the technical or theological sense, which means a holy object, blessed by a priest, which has no objective power on its own but has a subjective beneficial power. Sacramentals proper include things like holy water, rosaries, crucifixes, and holy/miraculous medals. Sacramentals do not objectively confer grace in the way that the sacraments do because their efficacy is related to the personal devotion and belief of the person using them. For example: an infant, who is incapable of understanding baptism, nonetheless receives the indelible mark of Christ in his soul, is sanctified and made a member of the Church, because baptism is an act of God, whereas the spiritual benefits of using blessed objects, like a rosary, depends on the disposition (in a state of grace or not) and intentions of the person using them. 

4) Reality is sacramental because is it is full of sacramentals in the analogous sense: material, physical things and actions both describe an effect and help to cause that effect in those who participate in the thing or the action. This aspect of sacramentality exists because of and depends upon the sacramental reality, Christ.

Sacramentality in this fourth sense - as a created thing which describes an effect ands helps to cause that effect in those who participate in it- is, as you may have seen coming, a beautiful broad definition of art. Art itself is (a) sacramental, in this fourth sense of the word. Art only “works,” only has the effect on us that it does, because reality is sacramental: created objects have meaning, in a meaningful universe, and the form that they take is, and is the means of, their communication of that meaning to us; and at root what they communicate is the trifecta at the heart of all that humans aspire to: truth, beauty, and goodness.

Thus could J.R.R. Tolkien, a devout Catholic, described the work of artists (including writers) as a “sub-creation.” We participate in the creative, incarnational work of God when we make art. Truth, beauty, and goodness are both our subject and our goal, our content and the form of our content. 

Thus the creative, incarnational work has the three primary characteristics that describe God himself: it is True, Good, and Beautiful. Art is most successful, most fully itself, when it understands and works with its nature. 

(If your immediate objection here is, “but ugliness and darkness are important/valid/necessary/have a place!” I don’t necessarily disagree with you - but hold off, because that is not the point of, and not in contradiction of, what I’m getting at here.)

But human beings what we are, we often fail to understand the nature of things, and to actively act against our nature.

If art is not simply “whatever we make,” or “whatever I want it to be”; if it has shape; purpose; character of its own; then we must see what passes for much of contemporary art in a whole new light. Where contemporary art is amoral, immoral, ugly, and unartistic, it is so because it is unsacramental, indeed, it is anti-sacramental. Another word for this anti-sacramentality is iconoclastic.

And yet it cannot escape its own nature.

With that said, let’s back up to the importance of the Incarnation within the expressed theology of Creation:

As the Father showed his people throughout the Old Testament his presence through physical signs, e.g. leading them through the wildnerness as a pillar of smoke and a column of fire, or settling His presence as a cloud on the tent of the tabernacle, and later, the Temple (which, it should be noted, is fulfilled in the New Covenant with the perpetual physical presence of Christ in the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament), just so God makes His presence known and effects his will through matter. Most importantly, this began with Jesus, God-made-flesh. The Incarnation is the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament; it utterly changed the world. 

Then, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, revealed his divinity, his presence, and bestowed his grace, through physical works: The touch of his hand brings the dead back to life; a brush of his garment heals the sick; he gives sight to the blind through the medium of mud and spit; he gives us his divine person as the final, actually efficacious, sacrifice, under the appearances of bread and wine.

As the grace of new Covenant and the breaking down of the old walls between Jew and Gentile made all foods lawful and “clean,” so Jesus appearing as the image of the Father, a face to know and love and caress, turned the old prohibition against “graven images” - idols - inside out. Now the danger of idolatry from made things had passed because the Father had given the true, living image of himself, the Son, Jesus, to us to see and to imitate.

The history of Western art (and to some extent Eastern) from the Resurrection up until the eve of the Reformation is the history of Christendom exploring what that means. It is often said that the Gothic architecture of the middle ages fulfilled the word that the “very stones would cry out” in praise of God. 

Christians began creating art, particularly sacred images, even while they were still persecuted; the catacombs are filled with such art. In time, as the Church became, first just legal, and eventually the foundation of society, building Christendom - Catholic culture in nations avowedly Catholic - the developing skill of artists gave us what we see now as the history of art: not just methods and skills, but subjects, purposes. All was for the glory of God. What is true? What is good? What is beautiful? How can we express it? The history of the development of art in Western civilization is the long playing out of the logical consequences of the faith of the Incarnation. 

As the spirit of God was given form in the divine person, the man Jesus Christ, so his truth, goodness, and beauty, and that of all the faith which flows from him, Revelation and its logical inferences, overflows into the creations of his followers, for teaching, praising, worshipping, and evangelizing. This art achieved its glory at the height of Christendom: in no small part, it built the great civilization from which our own culture springs.

And then it all started to go wrong. 

Henri Daniel-Rops gives a great overview of how the secularization of art began, as one of the roots of and/or entwined with the roots of the Protestant Reformation, in his book The Protestant Reformation. What fascinates me, personally, is that the subjectivization of religion led directly to one of the most violent periods of iconoclasm in history, the Protestant image-breaking, which was practiced across denominations. The reasons behind it went far beyond the oft-cited “idolatry” to cut at the very foundation of the Catholic faith: they rejected sacramentality as such. (Yes, some Reformers and their descendants kept some of the language of the sacraments or quibbled over the number, but even they - and of course this is a generalization as they all disagreed with each other - put forth their interpretations as a direct counter to the Catholic understanding of reality and what “sacraments” and “sacramentality” mean.) Denying the sacramentality of reality ends up with denying the Incarnation, and without the Incarnation, there is no Christianity. Without Christianity, there is no art. We are still living with the descendants of those ideas and their consequences. This post is already a novel so I won’t trace that out in detail; another post for another day. But to paraphrase Hilaire Belloc, the revolt against the Catholic faith begins with “just” the Church, but ends in a revolt against reason, human nature, and reality. We are left without form or matter.

While I do not endorse this vlogger in general or his other videos, I offer this short video as an example of the general problems I’m talking about with contemporary art: Modern Art Insults Me. If you want a sense of what I’m talking about beyond “splatterporn,” that’s the video to watch.

Art that is produced by people and a culture that has utterly rejected not just the Catholic Church, but the rational foundations on which the Faith is built, including the sacramental nature of reality - in all senses of the word - is art that is trying to escape its own nature. Art is trying “to art” by being not-art. It’s still a creation, yes, in that it literally has been made, but it denies its nature and purpose; it has nothing to say about, or actively rejects, truth, beauty, and goodness. In many cases it rejects form (as a poet, and a defender of vers libre, I could go into detail - but in another post) and rather than glorifying matter, instead degrades it. I would go so far as to say what most accept as contemporary art is no such thing, but anti-art - a phenomenon more commonly known by another name: iconoclasm. 

Iconoclasm is the opposite of art. Definitions vary; it’s most commonly used to describe the destruction of art and/or the philosophy of people who believe destroying art to be a good thing. Art - that is, a given creative effort - that tries to become destruction in itself, that tries to operate outside of and/or actively rejects the trifecta of truth, goodness, and beauty, is iconoclastic.

In place of real art, we see two primary phenomena today: 1) Self-expression, and 2) Politics. 

Don’t misunderstand me: genuine art can be and incorporate self-expression, and genuine art can, and in some cases should, engage with politics. 

But what we’re seeing across the majority of mediums today practiced as art is not art, but acts of iconoclasm: acts of deliberate unbeauty, untruth, ungoodness - ugliness, falsehood, evil. The concept of revolution has been enshrined as the only “form” which art may genuinely take; and it proves to be no form at all. “Gritty realism” is the banner cry, because this vision of the world and humanity is one that is without an overarching purpose, a fundamental nature that cannot be violated, without the moral compass of a rational, created, universe. Rather than a cohesive, crafted, universe built out of and predicated on communicative love - gift and grace! -we see cruelty, purposelessness, isolation, and fragmentation as the standard; and not only described, but celebrated. In just a few brief years - speaking from the perspective of history - we’ve gone from the glory of “The Waste Land” to “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel.) The “splatterporn” of ASOIAF/GoT is just one popular pernicious example. The sorts of things created in many art programs also qualify; as my friend described what she and her colleagues were creating at one point, “lumpy,” “ugly,” “blobs” of “stuff.” 

I have to wrap this up somehow before it becomes a book. (Give me a few more years; there’s easily a dozen books in this topic.) I’ve made a lot of claims and raised a lot of questions. To pick just two: The “but shock value is so important!” argument isn’t easily laid to rest, even though as noted above, and in that first linked article, it’s actually a separate discussion and far from a certain truth. “But does ugliness and darkness have a place in art?” is the next logical question. The answer is that it does, but again, that’s actually a separate issue from the actual question being considered here, which is: “what is art in its nature and what is its purpose?” My answer is, art is sacramental in nature (and therefore intimately tied to the Catholic faith) and its purpose is to portray and effect truth, beauty, and goodness. Not a novel thesis, certainly, but one that needs a great deal more hearing in a world where the monstrosities that is ASOIAF/GoT is proclaimed “great,” “good,” and - most bitter of ironies - “realistic,” where the actual nature of ourselves and the universe we inhabit is utterly denied - and not only denied, but reviled.

Further reading: 

For a fascinating look at “post-iconoclastic icons,” and the paradox - I would say contradiction - of the Incarnation, the natural and indeed essential art of the Christian faith in the Protestant world founded in large part on the breaking of images, Joseph Koerner’s The Reformation of the Image is a great look at the topic from within Lutheranism. 

Minimalism Gets It Wrong - don’t be fooled by the title; this article gets at the heart of what I’m trying to say.

And finally, go get yourself a copy of the incredible little book Only the Lover Sings by Josef Pieper. The relationship between feast - celebration - and art, and the perequisites of art - love and gratitude - feature prominently. He writes:

[I]f the disposition of acceptance and love is absent, not only can there be no feast, but no song either! C'est l'amour qui chante, love alone knows how to sing.

Also: I’ve written about these issues before in tags like art and catholicism and theological aesthetics.

[jacobhinkley]

A Hands-On Review of the Keepkey Hardware Wallet

Hardware wallets, like the cryptocurrency stored within them, can provoke strong emotions in their owners. Hodlers like what they like, and that’s the end of the matter. If the first hardware wallet you bought was a Ledger, you’re probably Ledger for life. Likewise if you’re in Team Trezor. Keepkey, which completes the holy trifecta of hardware wallets, is less famous than its siblings, but the sleek black plastic device still packs a punch.

Also read: A Review of the Swiss-Made Digital Bitbox Hardware Wallet

Is Keepkey a Keeper?

At Consensus New York, my budget wouldn’t stretch to the €49,000 diamond-encrusted Nano on display, but there was space in my bag and my heart for a Keepkey. At $129, it’s a little pricier than the Ledger Nano or Trezor One, but cheaper than the swish new Trezor Model T. I should probably add a warning at this stage, incidentally: the review you’re about to read is painfully long, which is a reflection of how long it took to get this damn wallet working. But we’ll get to all that in due course. First, let’s start at the start…

Ever since last year, Keepkey has been the property of Shapeshift, who bought up the company, enabling Keepkey users to exchange between cryptos without exposing their private keys online. Keepkey promises “bank-grade security,” whatever that means, and a system so easy that “even your grandmother can protect her bitcoin wealth,” which seems a little patronizing. If gran was smart enough to buy bitcoin, she’s surely got the perspicacity to work a paper wallet.

Beauty Is in the Eye of the Behodler

It’s funny how much form, rather than function, influences our purchasing decisions – even when we’re purchasing a cryptocurrency wallet that’s destined to be consigned to the dark recesses of a safe. Beauty is in the eye of the behodler, but there’s a strong case for asserting that Keepkey’s hardware wallet (they only make one) is more fetching than a Trezor, and arguably smarter than the Nano too, even if it lacks the latter’s brushed metal exterior.

The Keepkey Chrome app.

Visit the Keepkey store and you’ll find just two products to choose from: a single, regular Keepkey and a box of 50 which retails for $6,450. Perfect for the security conscious trader who likes to keep their shitcoins on separate sticks in separate vaults. The lightweight and plasticy feel of the device is somewhat tempered by the quality of the USB cable that comes bundled with it. It feels luxurious to the touch, but it’s here, after installing the Keepkey Chrome browser app, that I encounter my first problem: it has a standard USB connection but my Macbook Pro does not. That’s Apple’s fault, not Keepkey’s, but it’s a bummer when you’re on the road, as I found myself at the time of writing this review, and thus without access to a USB-thunderbolt adapter.

Cables. Cables everywhere.

Third Time’s a Charm

At home, 24 hours later, I plug the hardware wallet into my laptop via the thunderbolt adapter, but there’s no sign of life. I’d expected a USB drive to show up on my Macbook Pro, or for the Chrome app to display a notification and the Keepkey to light up, but nope. Not a peep. Figuring it might just be the thunderbolt adapter, I try connecting the device to my old Macbook Pro, which has a USB port, but still nothing. Then I try my Chromebook, and once again, nothing. In a moment of inspiration I google “keepkey setup” and salvation arrives.

According to Keepkey’s Get Started page, you need to first open the app by “navigating Chrome to chrome://apps/”. This is less than intuitive, but is partly Chrome’s fault for having a crappy UI that conceals extensions and apps behind submenus. This does mean, however, that every time you go to use your Keepkey (if you’re as disorganized as I am) you’ll need to google “keepkey setup” to remind yourself of how you get into the damn thing.

Wait, Not So Fast…

The Keepkey interface is simple but functional.

Having successfully gotten my Chromebook to update the Keepkey, I decide to reconnect it to my Mac and see if the laptop can now detect it. It can, and am prompted to set up my PIN and then write down my 12-word recovery phrase. I’ve written it down once, and am just preparing to jot down a second copy when the device inexplicably disconnects and I’m forced to start the whole process all over again. After re-entering my PIN twice, I begin jotting down the new recovery phrase, when the same thing happens. Keepkey and my thunderbolt adapter can’t seem to get along, so I resignedly reconnect it to the Chromebook.

Eventually I succeed in finding the apps section of Chrome by pasting the URL into my browser, whereupon I’m prompted to hold down the button on the Keepkey and plug it in to update the firmware. When that’s done, I’m presented with a screen showing a BTC wallet set up by default and nothing else. I hit the plus sign to add a BCH address and then scan the QR code from my Bitcoin.com wallet. I select $5 of bitcoin cash and send it to my Keepkey address. The fee is 3 cents. While I’m waiting for the transaction to clear, the Keepkey logo lurches across the screen in instalments. It reminds me of the handheld monochrome soccer game I played as a kid. Anachronistic, but comfortingly nostalgic.

The Bitcoin.com wallet

Nice Device, Now How About Some Altcoin Support?

I like the design of Keepkey, and I like the cable, if it’s possible to have affection for a USB cable, while the software is passable. Is the device capable of challenging Trezor and Ledger? Sure…provided you’re happy to hodl namecoin, doge, and dash. 2016 just called and it wants its altcoins back. In fairness to Keepkey, there is at least BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC support and native ERC20 token support is currently in beta so should eventually arrive. Given some of the ERC20s I’m embarrassed to own, it’s probably for the best I didn’t get a chance to screenshot them in this review.

One Keepkey, now equipped with bitcoin cash.

Keepkey’s biggest weakness right now, as its team are undoubtedly aware, is the shortage of coins that can be stored on it. While the market leaders are pressing ahead with monero support, Keepkey is still way behind the curve. It would be great to have EOS, cardano, zencash and maybe some ripple for the ladies. It’s odd that there’s support for the 295th coin by market cap (namecoin), but room for just six out of the top 20 cryptocurrencies – or top 100 if you wanna make that statistic even more damning.

I’ll certainly keep using the hardware wallet, using it to store any spare BTC, BCH, and ETH I amass, but a device so easy that “even grandmother” could use it? Please. My grandmother could have mined the genesis block and she’d still struggle to connect this thing to her Chrome web app. I’ll keep my Keepkey, but in my heart I’ll be lusting after one of those diamond encrusted Nanos I saw at Consensus. Hell, I’d even settle for a regular one.

Have you tried the Keepkey wallet and if so how do you like it? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Keepkey.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

The post A Hands-On Review of the Keepkey Hardware Wallet appeared first on Bitcoin News.

A Hands-On Review of the Keepkey Hardware Wallet published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

[coin-river-blog]

Wallets

Hardware wallets, like the cryptocurrency stored within them, can provoke strong emotions in their owners. Hodlers like what they like, and that’s the end of the matter. If the first hardware wallet you bought was a Ledger, you’re probably Ledger for life. Likewise if you’re in Team Trezor. Keepkey, which completes the holy trifecta of hardware wallets, is less famous than its siblings, but the sleek black plastic device still packs a punch.

Also read: A Review of the Swiss-Made Digital Bitbox Hardware Wallet

Is Keepkey a Keeper?

At Consensus New York, my budget wouldn’t stretch to the €49,000 diamond-encrusted Nano on display, but there was space in my bag and my heart for a Keepkey. At $129, it’s a little pricier than the Ledger Nano or Trezor One, but cheaper than the swish new Trezor Model T. I should probably add a warning at this stage, incidentally: the review you’re about to read is painfully long, which is a reflection of how long it took to get this damn wallet working. But we’ll get to all that in due course. First, let’s start at the start…

Ever since last year, Keepkey has been the property of Shapeshift, who bought up the company, enabling Keepkey users to exchange between cryptos without exposing their private keys online. Keepkey promises “bank-grade security,” whatever that means, and a system so easy that “even your grandmother can protect her bitcoin wealth,” which seems a little patronizing. If gran was smart enough to buy bitcoin, she’s surely got the perspicacity to work a paper wallet.

Beauty Is in the Eye of the Behodler

It’s funny how much form, rather than function, influences our purchasing decisions – even when we’re purchasing a cryptocurrency wallet that’s destined to be consigned to the dark recesses of a safe. Beauty is in the eye of the behodler, but there’s a strong case for asserting that Keepkey’s hardware wallet (they only make one) is more fetching than a Trezor, and arguably smarter than the Nano too, even if it lacks the latter’s brushed metal exterior.

The Keepkey Chrome app.

Visit the Keepkey store and you’ll find just two products to choose from: a single, regular Keepkey and a box of 50 which retails for $6,450. Perfect for the security conscious trader who likes to keep their shitcoins on separate sticks in separate vaults. The lightweight and plasticy feel of the device is somewhat tempered by the quality of the USB cable that comes bundled with it. It feels luxurious to the touch, but it’s here, after installing the Keepkey Chrome browser app, that I encounter my first problem: it has a standard USB connection but my Macbook Pro does not. That’s Apple’s fault, not Keepkey’s, but it’s a bummer when you’re on the road, as I found myself at the time of writing this review, and thus without access to a USB-thunderbolt adapter.

Cables. Cables everywhere.

Third Time’s a Charm

At home, 24 hours later, I plug the hardware wallet into my laptop via the thunderbolt adapter, but there’s no sign of life. I’d expected a USB drive to show up on my Macbook Pro, or for the Chrome app to display a notification and the Keepkey to light up, but nope. Not a peep. Figuring it might just be the thunderbolt adapter, I try connecting the device to my old Macbook Pro, which has a USB port, but still nothing. Then I try my Chromebook, and once again, nothing. In a moment of inspiration I google “keepkey setup” and salvation arrives.

According to Keepkey’s Get Started page, you need to first open the app by “navigating Chrome to chrome://apps/”. This is less than intuitive, but is partly Chrome’s fault for having a crappy UI that conceals extensions and apps behind submenus. This does mean, however, that every time you go to use your Keepkey (if you’re as disorganized as I am) you’ll need to google “keepkey setup” to remind yourself of how you get into the damn thing.

Wait, Not So Fast…

The Keepkey interface is simple but functional.

Having successfully gotten my Chromebook to update the Keepkey, I decide to reconnect it to my Mac and see if the laptop can now detect it. It can, and am prompted to set up my PIN and then write down my 12-word recovery phrase. I’ve written it down once, and am just preparing to jot down a second copy when the device inexplicably disconnects and I’m forced to start the whole process all over again. After re-entering my PIN twice, I begin jotting down the new recovery phrase, when the same thing happens. Keepkey and my thunderbolt adapter can’t seem to get along, so I resignedly reconnect it to the Chromebook.

Eventually I succeed in finding the apps section of Chrome by pasting the URL into my browser, whereupon I’m prompted to hold down the button on the Keepkey and plug it in to update the firmware. When that’s done, I’m presented with a screen showing a BTC wallet set up by default and nothing else. I hit the plus sign to add a BCH address and then scan the QR code from my Bitcoin.com wallet. I select $5 of bitcoin cash and send it to my Keepkey address. The fee is 3 cents. While I’m waiting for the transaction to clear, the Keepkey logo lurches across the screen in instalments. It reminds me of the handheld monochrome soccer game I played as a kid. Anachronistic, but comfortingly nostalgic.

The Bitcoin.com wallet

Nice Device, Now How About Some Altcoin Support?

I like the design of Keepkey, and I like the cable, if it’s possible to have affection for a USB cable, while the software is passable. Is the device capable of challenging Trezor and Ledger? Sure…provided you’re happy to hodl namecoin, doge, and dash. 2016 just called and it wants its altcoins back. In fairness to Keepkey, there is at least BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC support and native ERC20 token support is currently in beta so should eventually arrive. Given some of the ERC20s I’m embarrassed to own, it’s probably for the best I didn’t get a chance to screenshot them in this review.

One Keepkey, now equipped with bitcoin cash.

Keepkey’s biggest weakness right now, as its team are undoubtedly aware, is the shortage of coins that can be stored on it. While the market leaders are pressing ahead with monero support, Keepkey is still way behind the curve. It would be great to have EOS, cardano, zencash and maybe some ripple for the ladies. It’s odd that there’s support for the 295th coin by market cap (namecoin), but room for just six out of the top 20 cryptocurrencies – or top 100 if you wanna make that statistic even more damning.

I’ll certainly keep using the hardware wallet, using it to store any spare BTC, BCH, and ETH I amass, but a device so easy that “even grandmother” could use it? Please. My grandmother could have mined the genesis block and she’d still struggle to connect this thing to her Chrome web app. I’ll keep my Keepkey, but in my heart I’ll be lusting after one of those diamond encrusted Nanos I saw at Consensus. Hell, I’d even settle for a regular one.

Have you tried the Keepkey wallet and if so how do you like it? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Keepkey.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.