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justinhubbell · 1 year

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Our Norway Maple

On Weider Street our house was easy enough to locate, as it stood behind one of the largest trees on the block. The Maple tree towered over the house, at least seventy feet high, and was reliably beautiful year round. They came today to take it down.

Growing up our Norway Maple wasn’t a tree. It was a narrow walkway of sheer cliff side over a great chasm. I made a game of walking on its roots in circles until—inevitably—I’d lose my balance and tumble off. The game never once lost its luster, and I can remember playing it as vividly last week as I did twenty years ago.

I love to balance on things.

In the fall our tree would blanket lawns front and back with a shower of leaves. Its trunk formed a massive hand that was clearly visible depending on the angle you looked at it, with long fingers gently reaching as if to stroke at the sky above. No serious attempt to scale the tree was ever made, as its bark was too rough, with no lower branches, and no real handholds. It was simply a monument to our house and home. It was always like that. Magic. In photos and videos it is there. Looking out a window it was there. It’s possible our tree had admirers a mile away. Coopers’ Hawks perched in it. Squirrels ran up and down it. Carpenter Ants defended it ferociously. An unknown total of lives in the millions knew our tree.

The workman rapped on my front door unceremoniously at 10:30 to let me know he and his crew were here to consume the tree. Today. Now. And could this broken Hyundai be moved, please. Two days earlier a massive tree finger snapped and fell. It destroyed my parents car, and came through our front living room window. I didn’t hear the initial crack, only the sudden explosion of sound and glass that interrupted our quiet morning inside. As they fire up their machines to cut and eat away at my childhood friend, I can’t bring myself to watch. The sound of its destruction vibrates through every room of my house regardless.

Before it all happens I take a few photos, the last photos, and I hug the tree and kiss its bark. What most people don’t know about trees is you can hug them as hard as you’d like. A tight desperate embrace that might injure loved ones, or a pet, is nothing to a tree. You can close your eyes and squeeze and lean in. Trees give everything back.

Over and over I tell myself I can’t watch, I can’t be present for this, but Dad puts a stop to that. He swings by my place and I’m compelled to join him as he watches the tree come down. We stand in our front hallway for a spell, and then he leaves me to take photos from the street. I watch that pumpkin grin streak across his face as he struggles with his camera, and the light. A neighbor rolls up on him, and moments later they’re enjoying a friendly chat. No family but cats can join us for the historic event. I watch from the highest point of our attic.

The work crew bring five large machines, and they make quick work of this being that took one hundred years to grow. Parts of the plant are fed into a giant wood chipper. Logs and beams and branches that could be made into things are reduced to tiny splinters exhaled into a covered truck bed. I am mostly silent, still not believing it. My heart aches for my beloved to be here next to me. Someone to hug or hold hands with. Someone to ease the wrenching of my heart as our beautiful tree is killed for good. During a brief respite I come to collect debris, sawdust, newly formed buds, and the last leaves our tree will ever produce. I run them upstairs to put them in a corked ceramic jar that had always been empty until now.

Saturday something in me knew it was “now or never” when it came to selecting wood to keep. I try to stay conservative but absolutely a large bough of the tree is invited inside to lean against the corner of the room it once smashed into. I hurt my shoulder in the process, and it’s okay. Who cares? I take enough wood for a room accent, a walking stick, a magic wand, another room accent, perhaps a second staff, a natural cross section of a trunk, and a few other odds and ends. If it was only possible, I’d have left the main trunk of this maple to slowly decay for another hundred years. A “tiny library” could be cut into the bark. A treehouse of sorts could lovingly perch atop the remains. Even only just to enshrine what once was, I’d preserve the skeleton of our Maple. Dad says that this is impossible, because he signed a contract. It’d be more expensive to do what I propose. It already cost four grand to remove this tree. Outside the tree is methodically cut into bits. When big pieces crash to the ground it shakes the Earth. The work crew barely speaks, and when they speak they shout.

It is not all sadness that I feel. I think of what tree will come next. I propose a Weeping Cherry, but Dad prefers a Japanese Maple or Ginkgo. The problem—as he loves pointing out—is that neither breed is spectacular until a solid century of growing takes place. He confesses a prejudice against weeping cherries. This makes sense only in that Dad typically objects to the things I love. A magnolia is his concession, and I suspect everyone will go along with it. If I have my way at least the flowers will have color, like a Purple Saucer, or a Yellow Lantern. I’d take a Crape Myrtle or Dogwood too.

Around 12:30 Mom arrives home. At the time of the accident she busied herself collecting as much debris as she could, telling absolutely everyone that she had oral surgery scheduled for Monday. Today. The day our tree comes down. Coming up the stairs and into the house she presses an ice pack to her jaw, and makes an aggravated show of having been told to relax. She caws news of her operation in between complaints of doors left open. I choose to part ways, and smoke weed. What else can I do? I can’t decide if it’s sacrilegious to turn away, or worse to watch the entire execution.

Many hundreds of miles away my brother suffers still yet another headache.

With a growling stomach I fix a bowl of greens. I pop an edible. I smoke and watch videos as our Maple is torn down. There are times I feel totally pathetic, and other times I’m relieved. The cannabis dulls pain and allows me to take in other things. I actually do get lost in the videos. I’m able to pass my time peacefully, rather than in anxious pacing grief. I check in on Mom, and she says she’s doing fine. I think about lighting candles and saying our goodbyes with greater intention. It’s a blur, and then the work crew leaves. The street is silent again. I make my way up the stairs and let out a gasp when I see it. The tree remains. There is a stump. I had believed the entire plant would be removed, and somehow a stump.

The thing is I could cry. I considered this Maple family. I always knew its day would eventually come, but never dared imagine it. There was no discussion of this. No rumors or hushed questions. Two days in a broken state, and gone on the third.

I don’t cry. The sadness has only just moved past my navel, it is nowhere near my eyes. I am stoned now. I move back to the window and it really is gone.

I turn back to writing, and then take a shower. The act of having seen the stump is enough to send me running into hot water. I undress and look out the skylight for the first time without our Maple. It is bright. I bathe. I am joined by Meaninglessness and Purposelessness. I summon the courage to dress myself to go outside. To see our Maple. I step out in a knit gray dress and tights, with bright blue flip flops. My hair is wet from the shower. My mustache is significant. I stand near the stump and take off my shoes. I step onto the exposed roots and make a circle like I always did around the tree. The sadness shoots straight up to my heart and I quickly hop off.

I make my way across the street and take in the new view of Home Without Maple. My sadness rises up to my neck. I can feel it tugging beneath my palate. Neighbors come to take photos. To look in amazement at what has taken place. They speak of how—just the other day—there was once a giant tree here. I stumble over to my Family Shrine and thank my Mother for having left behind a pile of twigs. To anyone else they are only just twigs. The leaves are still yet about to erupt from buds that grow like yellow green flowers. I pick a bouquet of them, and place them in a raku fired vessel my Beloved made in her youth. I will keep them for as long as I can.

Alex comes home and I open my arms for a hug, but she billows past to use the bathroom. We make our way back outside later and embrace over the stump left behind. Mom joins us. I’m still in my flip flops. It is a hollow icy emptiness that I feel inside. I am still processing, still not believing. I rake my thoughts for the silver linings and find enough to keep from sobbing.

There is a new tree coming. Nobody was hurt. A loss like this marks the beginning of a new chapter, and this time I am writing it. Every part of our Maple I foraged will be kept and loved as the original tree was. The broken pieces will become Earth again, and the Earth may yet grow more Norway Maples. That our tree is physically gone does not make it absent. I can feel its bark still on my hands. I retain the memories of looking up to see mornings, noons, and evenings filtering through its leaves. Even though it is not there, it is right there.

And always will be, for me. That is until the new tree outgrows it.

If such a thing is possible.

#jhubbell #jthemthey #transgender #nonbinary #witch #wizard #tree #grief #cartoon #comics

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imafrickinglion · 1 year

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Two days ago I was screaming in my kitchen about how, at 43, every single vote I cast and every tiny bit of activism I can take part in feels like it's never moving the needle in any direction that's going to help *me* because change happens so slowly that I'll be dead before any of the things I really need to see happen in order to survive actually happen

Like universal healthcare, and disability reform and the equality act, for instance

I mean, I still vote, I still take part, I do my civic duty. I keep track of what candidates are actually doing instead of what they're saying. I try to track where the money's coming from

But it can be hard to believe that your vote is making any difference whatsoever, especially as your 'youth' blinks away from you in approx. 30 seconds and you're facing the fact that you've got maybe 20 to 30 years left to make a difference if you're lucky (the women in my family don't do well health wise past 60)

Those 20 years suddenly don't look like any time at all. Honestly, if you're 18, the next 60 you think you have are gonna flash by that quickly, too. And then you'll be 43 and shouting in your kitchen about the next big fight, whatever that may be. I hope it's for something much smaller scale

But look at everything we accomplished this midterm after all. Look at all the fresh faces, people of color, women, under-represented minorities we just sent to places of public office. Some directly to the Senate and Congress

Your vote moves the needle. Look at how close some of these races are. Progress may look achingly slow sometimes but it's still happening. You may think you aren't going to see the changes you need, today or next week or next year, for yourself - but you're still making them, and someone else will pick the torch up and carry it further

Hold onto this historic victory - and it IS historic - and keep on running

And if you voted in this election and you were under the age of 30, thank you so much

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mariacallous · 1 year

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When Anastasiya Burakova fled Russia a year ago, she sought refuge in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Burakova, a Russian lawyer, had been running an organization that gave legal assistance to people facing political prosecution in Russia. After the authorities in Moscow blocked her group’s website, Burakova realized that she herself could become a target of government persecution and moved to Kyiv. Three months later, she was on the run again when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. Like many Russian activists, she found a new home in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

In the early days of the invasion, Burakova was flooded with requests for emigration advice from political activists and journalists in Russia who feared the Kremlin might close the borders and round up critics of the war. The number of flights out of Russia was shrinking as a result of Western sanctions, fueling a sense of panic among opposition-minded Russians. Within weeks of the attack, Burakova founded an organization called Kovcheg, Russian for “ark,” to help those who managed to escape Putin’s Russia. Kovcheg has since grown into an online clearinghouse offering everything from housing and legal advice to psychological counseling, language courses, and job placement.

“We try to help people integrate into the societies where they live because it’s a dead end to live outside of it,” Burakova said. “We try to get them to do what they can from abroad to stop the war and speed up the collapse of the Putin regime. We hope they’ll go back and become the backbone of a democratic Russia.”

The exodus out of Russia came in two waves: The first, in the immediate aftermath of the February invasion, was more politicized and included many opposition supporters; the second, following the Kremlin’s announcement of a partial mobilization in September, was less political, consisting primarily of young men unwilling to fight in Putin’s war. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have emigrated this year, scattering for the most part across Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia. Places such as Armenia and Kazakhstan, former Soviet republics that most Russians used to view as backwaters, suddenly became safe havens.

The new Russian emigration pales in scale to the refugee crisis that the invasion set off in Ukraine, where the United Nations estimates that more than 14 million people, or one-third of the country’s population, have been forced from their homes. But the wave of Russian exiles is significant because it includes some of Russia’s best minds and most politically active regime opponents.

The influence that political émigrés will have on the course of events in Russia remains to be seen. Putin prefers to have his opponents outside the country, where they are likely to lose contact with life back home and see their political credibility decrease as the Kremlin brands them as foreign stooges. In a March tirade, Putin disparaged those who left as “scum and traitors” Russia will spit out like flies in an act of “self-cleansing.”

A number of prominent Russian opposition politicians have refused to go into exile and now all find themselves behind bars: Alexey Navalny, who flew back to Moscow in 2021 after recovering abroad from an assassination attempt with a rare nerve agent; Vladimir Kara-Murza, who returned to Russia from the United States following the start of the invasion; and Ilya Yashin, a fixture in Russian opposition politics who vowed to remain in Moscow.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s most well-known exile, has said that he spends 10 hours a day keeping track of what is happening inside the country from his home in London. An oligarch who ran afoul of the Kremlin during Putin’s first term in office, Khodorkovsky served 10 years in prison before being pardoned and released in 2013 into exile. In recent years, Khodorkovsky supported various media and civil society projects inside Russia before the government shut them down and prosecuted their leaders. After the invasion of Ukraine, Khodorkovsky co-founded the Russian Anti-War Committee, a group of exiled opposition leaders, and helped fund Burakova’s Kovcheg aid organization.

In a new book that has been published online in English, Khodorkovsky lays out his vision for the future, arguing that to avoid a repetition of Putin’s one-man rule and break Russia’s cycle of authoritarianism, the country will need to adopt a parliamentary model and devolve power to its regions. To get there, Khodorkovsky writes, Russians driven into emigration should form a “second front” to help bring down the regime.

“The new political emigrants are giving voice to the opposition because people inside Russia, if they risk speaking up, face serious repressions,” Khodorkovsky told Foreign Policy. He pointed out that independent Russian media, as well as popular YouTube channels run by Putin critics like himself, all work from abroad now. “A significant portion of these people will return. What their influence will be is another question,” he said.

Recent Russian history is full of examples of political emigrants, many dying in exile, a few returning home triumphantly. Vladimir Lenin was undoubtedly the most successful, sneaking back into Russia after the last tsar abdicated and leading the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The ensuing civil war created the first big wave of political emigration from Russia, with as many as 3 million people fleeing the new Soviet authorities.

Still, the current exodus is unprecedented in recent times, said Mikhail Denisenko, director of the Vishnevsky Institute of Demography in Moscow. “We’ve never had such a big annual outflow, not even in the 1990s,” he said, when 2 million people left Russia in the chaos following the fall of communism. Because much of the data on emigration is incomplete or unreliable, and it is difficult to distinguish visitors from emigrants in border statistics, Denisenko’s “cautious estimate” is that 500,000 Russians have left the country this year and not come back.

The case of political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann is illustrative of that ambiguity. When she left Russia after the invasion to take a one-year fellowship at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, Schulmann said she did not consider herself to be a political emigrant. But the Russian authorities have since designated her a “foreign agent,” a status that makes it practically impossible for her to continue her academic work in Russia. From her perch in Berlin, Schulmann has continued giving lively, erudite commentary on Russian politics and now has more than 1 million YouTube subscribers, most of them inside Russia.

Historically, Russian emigrants have been reluctant to form exile communities and have tried to assimilate, Schulmann told Foreign Policy. Large nations typically do not form diasporas, she said, and Russians abroad have been a disparate group lacking common symbols or traditions to rally around. What distinguishes the new Russian émigrés is that they are more homogeneous.

“Many people left in a short period of time. Socially they are very alike, and they left for very similar reasons. We see social structures emerging, but not political ones. Nobody has the political legitimacy,” Schulmann said. “A unifying force could have been Alexey Navalny, were he not in jail.”

Sergey Lagodinsky, a member of the European Parliament for the German Greens party, has known Navalny for more than a decade. “He just couldn’t imagine his work—his active political life—outside of Russia. That’s why he went back,” Lagodinsky said. What Navalny did not expect was that the Kremlin would wipe out his political organization in Russia, Lagodinsky said, effectively making any dissent a criminal offense.

Lagodinsky’s own family left Russia in 1993, when Germany was taking in Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He is now leading an effort to help Russian political emigrants obtain humanitarian visas throughout the European Union.

Russia’s democratic opposition has rarely spoken in one voice, with Navalny, Khodorkovsky, and others representing rival centers of gravity. Because of this diversity of opinion, Lagodinsky said, Russian émigrés do not need a political organization as much as a network that would help them speak to Western leaders. One idea, still unrealized, is for the Kremlin’s opponents abroad to establish an office in Brussels or Berlin.

Whatever splits exist in the opposition, Lagodinsky said their main problem is that the Kremlin has completely isolated Russia’s public space, making it impossible for Russian civil society to effect change inside the country. Therefore, the focus of Russian emigrants in Europe should be to prepare for the time after Putin, he said.

“It will be important—and challenging—to present a viable democratic alternative to a much worse alternative when things will be changing. We do need to take seriously an antidemocratic, worse-than-Putin alternative,” Lagodinsky said. “You need faces—strong leaders and politicians who offer themselves as alternatives.”

One such face may be Lyubov Sobol, a Navalny ally who became a protest leader three years ago after being barred from running for Moscow’s city council. She fled Russia last year when it no longer became possible for her to continue her opposition activism amid increasing pressure from the authorities. “After Navalny’s arrest and until my departure, not a single day went by that Russian law enforcement didn’t contact me, search my home, interrogate, or detain me,” Sobol said. She is aware of five criminal cases against her in Russia.

Long before he was imprisoned, Navalny mastered the use of social media to bypass state-run television and speak directly to supporters, and even now his exiled team keeps his Twitter and Instagram accounts active. Sobol said her job was to turn Navalny Live, a YouTube channel with 3 million subscribers, into the main opposition platform. “Our two goals are to reduce Putin’s legitimacy and increase trust in our democratic movement,” she said.

The political situation in Russia is currently marked by instability, said Schulmann, who foresees a free-for-all once there is a change in regime. “There will be a lot of political turmoil after Putin. Anyone will be able to take part,” she said. “But having the resources of a well-known name, media outlets, and followers is useful.”

Khodorkovsky, who was first jailed in 2003 and is now 59, said his potential role in a future government is diminishing the longer Putin hangs on to power. Khodorkovsky is resigned to the possibility that the Putin regime will endure for at least another three years. He cast doubt on whether he would be physically capable of taking on a leadership role because governing Russia, whose institutions Putin has completely gutted, will be a 24/7 undertaking.

Reforming Russia may very well be the task of a new generation. “We aren’t waiting for the fall of the regime,” said Sobol, who is 35. “We’re actively working toward it and want to get there as fast as possible.”

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f1 · 2 years

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Silverstone offers apology for F1 British Grand Prix online ticket sale chaos

The organisers of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone have apologised and pledged to improve their ticketing system after angering fans with the online process for the 2023 race. Many fans were left frustrated and indignant at both the difficulty in purchasing tickets and the prices rising as they attempted to do so because of the new “dynamic pricing” system. Tickets for the British GP went on general sale on Thursday 15 September. The online system was unable to cope with demand, with customers held in queues for hours on end. Some were then bumped out and had to begin from scratch, while many found the price of the tickets they were attempting to buy had increased by the time they reached the stage of finally purchasing them. Jon Fisher from Calne in Wiltshire, an F1 fan since the 1980s, was trying to buy tickets for £419. After being held in a queue for eight hours he was finally able to purchase them but the price had risen to £489. “It feels like a way for them to make more money, it’s not about fan experience,” he said. “It’s milking the customer, it is profiteering from fans who don’t have any choice to watch F1 anywhere else in this country.” Phil Morris, a Silverstone regular since 2014, experienced similar. He was knocked out of the queue after six hours and when reapplying his price had increased by more than £50. “We are being priced out of attending and this will be our last year,” he said. “There’s no reward for loyalty and pure marketing towards making as much money as possible.” Likewise James Smith, who has enjoyed F1 since he was nine years old, watched his price rise in a system he described as fundamentally unfair on fans. When presented with their opinions the managing director of Silverstone, Stuart Pringle, expressed his regret at what had happened and his determination not to repeat it. “I am extremely sorry for the frustration, upset, disappointment and anger this has caused,” he said. “We are going to do a root and branch review on all of this. I am not closing the door on doing anything differently next year, we will consider anything and everything. Nothing is off the table. We have learned a lot of lessons and we can’t have a repeat of this year.” Pringle cited a combination of factors behind the queueing problems, with the sales handled by a third party provider, Secutix. Its system proved unable to cope with the extreme demand and suffered a payment gateway issue on the same day. The dynamic pricing, used for the first time at a British sporting event, was, Pringle argued, a different issue, however. Silverstone’s traditional model has been to offer the cheapest prices for early purchases. These then increase over months as available tickets decrease in number. This year a similar process was built into the system but he said they were caught unawares by the scale of demand. For the 2022 race it took approximately five months to shift the same number of tickets that were sold in two days this time. The unprecedented demand caused price increases that were expected to be implemented slowly over a period of weeks to be applied in a matter of hours. “Not long ago the issue was whether we could stay in business. To reach a point where we are suddenly into Adele, Coldplay-scale of demand is just unimaginable,” he said. “In light of what we know now, can we use our historic model given the current popularity of F1? We have to look at that. It’s wonderful we have had such a demand but it is utterly regrettable that our fans have been subject to these challenges. We have to sort it out and we will sort it out.” via Formula One | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/sport/formulaone

#F1 #Silverstone offers apology for F1 British Grand Prix online ticket sale chaos #Formula 1

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tnc-n3cl · 6 months

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Castlevania Fic snippet

Well, it might be more like a rough draft of a chapter but...

Anywho, I finally watched the Castlevania (2017) anime series (had been sitting on the DVD's for a year now) a couple weeks ago and the Castlevania brainrot set in.

So of course the fic ideas started brewing, based on some old hypothetical game ideas I had. Don't have a title for this particular project yet, but it's spooky season and I also wanted to post this before I explode with the force of a thousand suns.

So here you go! There's some German in here, mostly from Google Translate cause I didn't learn enough with my two semesters in collage. So if anyone happens to know German and has better suggestions to the dialog I'm open to it.

Content warnings: Graphic violence, blood and gore, monster beheading/dismemberment, harsh language (in German), mentions of historical wide scale destruction, brief mention of nudity

Inside of a modern building a man and woman are hanging a large painting, both of them are of European descent. The woman has long black hair tied in a ponytail and green eyes and is wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and jeans. The man is similarly dressed, but his shirt is grey. He has on a pair of black framed glasses and has short cut brown hair.

After a moment they finish their work and the man says, “Du weisst…”

She turns to him and he continues, “…We could have just had the workers do this in the morning. The exhibition isn’t until 7 PM tomorrow.”

She nods, “Yes, however this is my big debut and I want everything to be perfect.”

Then she pulls the protective sheet off of the painting. It depicts a scene of absolute carnage, monsters rampaging the streets of Graz, Austria circa 2057 AD attacking people left and right. Buildings burning in the background, soldiers desperately holding the creatures back. Her attention focuses on one of the city’s defenders, a pale skinned man with long blond hair wearing a black trench coat of sorts with gold trim and wielding a thin bladed long sword.

She based the painting on what she saw in an old book she found when she worked at the Volkskundemuseum, supposedly it belonged to someone who lived in the city at the time. Whomever it was must have recently migrated to the country, the text was written in Arabic. Most of the text was damaged due to the age of the book, and what survived must be from a dialect that has been lost to time due to the difficulties in translating it.

What was translated, along with the sketches in the book, conjured this scene of nightmarish horror. Beasts from the depths of hell itself rampaging through the city…

“Jana,” the man says, pulling her attention away from her work, “Did you have to pick something so violent?”

She chuckles, “I didn’t know you were so squeamish Oskar.”

The man rolls his eyes in response and she smiles before continuing, “The Horrors of The Cataclysm have been an interest of mine since I was a little girl.”

He scoffs, “And you really believe a bunch of monsters rampaged through the city a thousand years ago?”

She shrugs, “Well something happened. We’ve found overwhelming evidence that nearly half the city burned. Not to mention all the ruins scattered across the rest of the world. The old maps that clearly show the world looked quite different in those days. Then there’s the horribly mangled skeletons… And it was 1,071 years ago by the way.”

He rolls his eyes again, “And yet no monster remains have been found.”

She turns to face him, “True, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there waiting to be discovered. But I suppose that it could have been natural disasters and/or wars like everyone says. Still, it makes for a captivating piece, don’t you think?”

“It does,” he turns to her and smiles, “Now then, it’s getting late and we should be going.”

She glances at her wristwatch, it’s 7:00 PM already! “Damn, she says, we’d better hurry or we’ll lose our reservations!”

The pair hurry towards the exit and grab their coats and lock up as they leave.

Outside, the light of the full moon reflects off of the snow covered ground. Text on the building reads, “Halle für Kunst Steiermark”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Jana remarks.

“That it is,” the man replies, “We should cut through the Stadtpark, it’ll be quicker.”

“Right,” she agrees and the two head southeast down the sidewalk.

This part of Graz escaped The Cataclysm a millennium ago relatively unscathed, most of the destruction was contained to the west side of the Mur River. At the crosswalk, they wait for the traffic light to change, their breath turning to steam in the cold night air. Once its safe to cross they continue on through the park.

As they approach the Wetterhäuschen, a pre-Cataclysm weather station, a heavy thud attracts their attention. The two turn to find a man sized, wolf like beast behind them. A werewolf! Before either of them can react, the creature charges and knocks Oskar down and rips his throat out.

“Oskar!” Jana screams in horror on instinct and the beast turns its attention to her!

“Oh Scheiße!” She manages as she runs away as fast as she can. She doesn’t get very far before beast jumps on her and pins her to the ground. It bites her right shoulder and she screams in agony before she passes out.

A figure lands hard on the ground and the beast turns towards it, a man wearing black clothes under a black trench coat with armored shoulder and elbow pads. He is wielding a large sword with a thick, curved blade in his right hand. The man’s skin is dark brown, his eyes are yellow, and his long, brown hair is tied in a ponytail.

The werewolf predictably charges him and he grips his blade in both hands, lifts it to shoulder height and points it towards the beast. As it leaps towards him and prepares to swipe its claws at him, he flawlessly sidesteps its attack and effortlessly swings his sword down on the beast, cleanly severing both its outstretched arm, and its head, from its body.

The werewolf’s corpse hits the ground with a series of thuds and the man shakes the sizzling blood from his blade with a dramatic swing. The thin layer of silver he coated on his blade has done its job and what’s left of the lycanthrope ignites and slowly reverts to human form as it burns to ash.

Beheading the creature would have been more than enough, but still, one can never be too careful when facing lycanthropes…

The male victim is dead, but what of the woman? He walks towards her and looks her over, and his yellow eyes lock on the blood on her shoulder. He leans down and examines it, and sure enough, there’s a bite mark.

“Damn, wasn’t fast enough,” he mutters to himself as he opens his trench coat and reaches for an inside pocket an pulls out a syringe containing a yellow liquid.

It should prevent her transformation long enough to get her to a Bureau medical center. Lycanthropy can be treated if one acts fast enough, but once the transformation occurs there’s no going back. And with the full moon, there’s not much time… He prepares to inject her with the substance–

“Hören Sie sofort auf!”

“Lass das Schwert fallen!”

He looks back to find a pair of meddlesome police officers pointing their handguns at him. Typical…

He sighs loudly before dropping his sword onto the ground with a loud clang. Exasperated, he says, “Mein Name ist Alexander Cronqvist.”

As he slowly stands with his hands above his head he continues, “I am a Senior Special Agent with the United Nations Special Investigations Bureau. This woman is injured and requires the medical attention I am about to administer.”

The two cops look at each other for a moment before the one on the right responds, “Let’s see some identification.”

“We really don’t have time for this,” Alexander replies as he slowly turns to face them, “But since you insist.”

He slowly reaches into his jacket pocket to retrieve his badge and shows it to the two cops. As they begin to lower their weapons, a sound from behind catches his attention.

“That was fast,” he quips as the woman, now fully transformed into a werewolf, rushes the officers.

Alexander quickly grabs the beast’s left wrist with his right hand and holds her back. She quickly turns to swipe her other clawed hand at him and he drops the syringe and grabs her wrist. The cops are lucky that Alexander is one quarter vampire! No human could ever hope to hold back a raging, freshly turned lycanthrope! Or any raging lycanthrope really…

She wildly snaps her jaws at his face while he holds her in place in spite of her thrashing about. Her hot breath blows through his bangs as he quips, “You’re strong for a cub.”

Predictably, the cops begin wildly firing their pistols into the beast’s back and she howls in pain and rage. Why couldn’t they just run away like last time? It would have made things so much easier…

“Right then, let’s get this over with!” Alexander shouts as he kicks the lycanthrope in the abdomen.

As she grunts in pain, he pushes her back, lets go of her wrists, rushes her, and finally lifts her up. The cops struggle to reload their weapons and Alexander smirks as he tosses the beast at them.

The lycanthrope slams into the cops and knocks them down. She quickly gets up and growls at him. He holds out his right hand and summons his enchanted sword to him. He catches it and grips its black leather wrapped handle tightly. The beast narrows her eyes at him as he grips the blade in both hands like before and points its tip towards her.

As he prepares himself to end this poor woman’s misery, he muses on the irony of slaying lycanthropes with the Crissaegrim. Its ornate hilt is happed like a wolf’s head, with the bade emerging from the wolf’s mouth. Armando Gandolfi’s cheeky little nod to Alexander’s father’s ability to transform into a wolf. Armando had made this sword nearly 900 years ago for him, but he already attached to his own sword and gifted it to Alexander. Not to mention he felt a bit put off by wielding something a version of himself in another world used…

Suddenly the beast puts her arms over her head and shakes her head back and forth as if in pain. Then she begins contorting violently.

He raises an eyebrow as the beast lets go of its head and howls in agony. His eyes widen as the howls shift into human screams followed by a thud upon the ground. He lowers his blade and mutters, “Well that’s new.”

It suddenly gets darker and Alexander looks up to see a cloud pass overhead and it begins to snow. He faces forward and cautiously approaches the woman, now transformed back into a human and unconscious on the ground. The two cops are also unconscious. Good, they can’t get in his way now. Unfortunately, though the gunshots from earlier will likely attract more…

Lycanthropes are unable to revert to human form until years after their initial transformation. Until then they’re effectively just mindless beasts. And given that it’s the full moon she should not have changed back. Even if she hadn’t reverted back before the clouds obscured the moon. And it takes decades for were-beasts to be able to control their transformations.

Unless one or both of her parents were werewolves of sufficient age to control their form… But then she should have been able to fend of the beast that attacked her, and wouldn’t have been affected by the bite...

Alexander sheathes his blade into the scabbard at his left hip before reaching into his jacket pocket and taking an ornate pocket watch with a mobius strip design on the top. He’d rather not use it but he needs more time.

He opens it and channels his magical powers into the relic. The hands of the clock spin rapidly for a moment and then stop and an energy field envelops the surrounding area and beyond it the falling snow freezes in place. The ancient stopwatch is one of several relics that can temporarily alter the flow of time. They’re extremely rare and require great amounts of power to use, but it doesn’t take as long to activate as a time altering spell. Not that Alexander has mastered any…

The watch begins counting down, he’s bought himself an extra 15 minutes. He closes the stopwatch and places it in his trouser pocket and takes a blue oval shaped object and his badge out of his jacket pockets before placing the garment over the woman’s body. He places his badge on his belt and opens the blue object, revealing several shards of magic mirror that coalesce into a transmission mirror. He traces a circle across it and it opens a portal to the armory at HQ.

Alexander unhooks his sheathed blade from his belt and sticks it the portal. The male armorer takes the weapon and places it in the appropriate slot. There will be fewer questions if he’s only armed with the two pistols holstered at the small of his back than if he’s carrying an enchanted sword almost as long as he is tall…

The portal closes and the transmission mirror returns to its case, which he places in his trouser pocket. Then he examines the woman, there’s a strange, circular birthmark on her left shoulder. Well, it’s rather unusual to have a birthmark that’s a perfect circle. In the center, there appears to be the shape of a claw raised up slightly. Then there’s the strange symbols on the circumference of the mark. They appear to be some kind of language, but he’s unfamiliar with it.

Really it looks more like a tattoo… He remembers seeing the remains of a similar circular birthmark on what remained of her right shoulder after the werewolf attack, but there were no marks like this on it. He moves her slightly and notices a larger circular birthmark on her back, also with similar patterns. And a wolf shaped section in the center…

“Hm, I’ve never seen magic like this before,” he tells himself as he stands up.

He takes his flip phone out of the case on his belt and walks over to the two cops and disarms them. Then he takes their handcuffs. He quickly selects the SIB’s Austria Branch’s number and quick dials it and turns on speaker phone as he handcuffs the officers.

As he finishes, the enchantment on the phone finally cuts through the interference of timeshift field and the call connects, “United Nations Special Investigations Bureau, Austria Branch,” the man on the line says.

“SSA Cronqvist, 7035DS, reporting in, with a code 35,” Alexander says as he takes the call off speaker phone.

“Oh, dear! Where are you?”

“I’m at the Stadtpark in Graz, by the Wetterhäuschen between Burgring and Glacis.”

“Ah, good, the Styria branch is nearby, they should be with you shortly,” the sound of the operator clacking away at his keyboard can be heard, “How many bodies?”

“One human male and some werewolf ashes. Two local law enforcement officers interrupted me and will need to get the usual debriefing and NDA.”

The operator chuckles slightly and clacks away at his keyboard. Alexander grimaces, this is the fifth time this month alone he’s had to deal with meddlers. He’s sick of Awande’s needling on his lack of stealth…

He glances at the woman and adds, “Oh, and I’ll also need transport to the local safe house and an arcane specialist. I subdued a lycanthrope.”

Perplexed, the operator responds, “Wait, so it’s a code 47 then?”

Alexander turns fully towards at the woman as the timeshift field fails and, utterly deadpan, replies, “I don’t think we have a code for this one…”

#castlevania franchise #fanfic #writing #snippet #castlevania #lords of shadow #modern setting #more or less #castlevania ocs #my writing #text post #long post #post canon

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chloemarievaughan · 11 months

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May 26th- Amsterdam

We had an early start this morning (for once haha, we’ve been more on the leisurely schedule of waking up and savoring our coffee and getting out and about at about 10). But as I mentioned we had to make advanced reservations for a lot of things in Amsterdam and I had made us a couple reservations starting at 9:15 am.

We grabbed a quick hotel breakfast and espresso and then went the the Anne Frank House first. I made these reservations 6 weeks ago because it is a pretty small museum and sells out, but was incredibly worth it. It was poignant and thought provoking to see the actual annex where Anne and her family hid for two years. It was actually much larger than I was expecting, but of course for 8 people all together for two years it must have seemed so so small. I also knew but was reminded that Anne and her family were so close to being liberated. The Allies had already invaded Normandy and were getting closer and closer, just a few months away from Amsterdam when they were arrested. We got to see the actual diaries too which was incredible.

We then had a big change of pace and went to the Koninklijk Palace which is the Dutch Royal palace where they host state dinners and have royal weddings and coronations. This was another very cool audio tour, with information about the transformation of the palace from the originally planned town hall to a palace in the French style once Napoleon named his brother the King of the Netherlands. There were two options on the audio tour, a brief tour (35 minutes) or a full tour (75 minutes). 90 minutes later we still weren’t down with the full tour but we had afternoon plans so cruised though the last couple rooms. Really enjoyed this visit and was glad we had also booked this ahead, it was all sold out but we had reservations 🙂

We quickly ducked in another church, the Nieuwe Kerke, which is near us and we kept walking past. Sadly it is currently hosting an art exhibit which is blocking like all the views of the church. I think they are doing it to raise money for renovations, but glad it was included in the card and not something I spent money on. We were hurrying so we didn’t really look at much of the exhibit itself so can’t speak if the exhibit was actually good or not haha.

Then we were off to one of the things I was l most looking forward to on this trip- WINDMILLS!!! Zaanse Schans is a picturesque little town about a 15 minute train ride+ 15 minute walk or 45 minute bus ride from Amsterdam. In the past. The Zaan region of Amsterdam had hundreds of windmills and was a heavily industrial region. Over time and with the invention of electricity, more and more windmills were closed down or fell into disrepair. In the early 1900s, the historical society decided to create a historic center with museums and preserved houses to acknowledge this history. They actually moved the windmills and houses from all over the region to Zaanse Schans. We took the train and had a little walk to get there, and happened to need lunch. Of course we passed the perfect place to eat with a gorgeous view of the water and windmills. enjoyed an Italian lunch and cocktails in the sunshine 🙂

We started in Zaanse Schans Museum and learned a bit more about the history and then wandered the town. We visited a weavers house, a cheese maker, a clock museum, and (of course!) a Dutch wooden clog making shop! All real buildings historically used for those purposes, but not in the original locations. We went in one windmill that is still being used to make paint pigments, and a second windmill that was actively sawing logs into boards while we were there. The second windmill was actually an exact replica of an old windmill which had fallen into disrepair about 50 years ago. Before demolishing it the owners made exact scale drawings so that it could be remade in the future and it was built again about 15 years ago! Pretty cool.

we must be nearing the end of our trip…. We are getting pretty tired of the long walking days 😂 tired feet but not ready to be done sightseeing, so we took a tram around the city for about 40 minutes (got into some less touristy areas, still gorgeous and very much styled like the central areas of Amsterdam, only less canals. we only went in the exit only door of the tram once and clearly are becoming European public transport pros, just in time to leave.

Finished up with sharing a fish and chips and a local beer, then finishing up our evening relaxing in the hotel. Tomorrow is our last day 😭😭😭😭

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teacherintransition · 2 years

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On The Road Again…

The second step …a bigger one…a smaller one?

Life changes …it’s all relative.

2022 has been a whirlwind of epic, but satisfying proportions: wife resigns from a position she held for thirty four years in late January; accepts travel nursing position in Alexandria, Louisiana first of February; college girl wrecks my just driven off the lot new car; move to Alexandria and 500 sq. ft. apartment for new job…city and apartment sight unseen February 18th; pay off house and Kim’s car in mid March; we are going to be grandparents for the fourth time; pack up and return to Nacogdoches on May 20th; on May 28th we leave to spend three weeks in Scotland and Ireland: last night in Ireland, Kim receives a phone call with a job offer in Granbury, Tx.; we are home two weeks; July 15th we pack up to prepare to move; arrive in Granbury July 16th; Kim starts her new job 8:00am today July 18th; Scarlet, our golden Pomeranian picks a fight with a heifer while I’m writing and drinking coffee. Did I properly punctuate that sentence or is it the run on from hell. Welcome to Le Chateau du Rich for the next three months!

Truth be told, this move is the realization of a dream on a truncated scale. A few years ago, we dreamed of moving out to the rolling hills of north central Texas. I had received two job offers from Granbury, but circumstances weren’t perfect. Brendan was still in college, the house was still a monthly mortgage bill and the hospital (whose name cannot be spoken) had yet to begin to self destruct under the yoke of a new corporation. Thus, moving west was put on “oh well” list accompanied by winning the lottery, marrying Sara Evans and disappearing D. B. Cooper style. Life can be cruel, but every so often it’ll be known for throwing the dog a bone. Lurking around such bone throwing is the ever present, “be careful what you wish for” caveat. Our adventure in Alexandria was the most daring action we’d ever take. The hospital was HUGE compared to the 200 bed county hospital where Kim had plied her nursing trade. Alexandria was like, a real city, with stories that negative Nancy’s told us trying to create trepidation. Bastards. We loved Alexandria and made wonderful friends. Kim’s professional reputation, higher I didn’t think it could go …DID. Did I mention we had only ever lived in Nacogdoches and Angelina counties? Imagine if you will, Kim spiking the football in the end zone of her first traveling nursing gig, an intrepid reporter coming up to her and asking, “hey Kim, you just kicked some ass…what’s next?” Kim replies, “I’m going to Scotland!” Nosy reporter squeezes in one more question, “and after that?” To wit Kim retorts, “gonna be livin’ the dream in Granbury!”

Silently, drifting among the ethereal realms, a voice whispers, “be…careful…what …you wish for…you might just get it!” High anxiety!!!

Hmmmm, sophomore jinx? It could happen. As I write on the front porch of our new digs for the next three months as my dogs lie about me, I contemplate the fact that the temperature will reach 109° today as it has the last week and for the foreseeable future. In Alexandria, we lived in the city, our haunts were just moments away. In Granbury, things are much more spread out ala’ Texas. Kim’s new hospital is tiny; only a seventy five bed facility. We are an hour away from our three grandchildren! There’s a brewery and winery in town! Rugged hills for small hikes with open skies uninterrupted with the bony protrusions of pine trees. A historically classic Texas city square with antiques, coffee shops, cafes and bars. Too good to be true? Well, this is America and we are working middle class who have “suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or misfortune. Aaaannnd, we are both folks who carry around those nasty little anxiety conditions and have been trained to wait for the other shoe to drop. Is this too good to be true? …. We

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Podcasting "Qualia"

This week on my podcast, I read “Qualia,” my May, 2021 Locus Magazine column about quantitative bias, epidemiology, antitrust and drug policy. It’s a timely piece, given the six historic antitrust laws that passed the House Judiciary Committee last week:

https://doctorow.medium.com/moral-hazard-and-monopoly-42e30eb159a8

The pandemic delivered some hard lessons about quantitative bias — that’s when you pay attention to the parts of a problem that you can do math on, not because they’re the most important, but because you know how to do math.

The most obvious lesson comes from the failure of exposure notification apps, which were supposed to take the place of “shoe-leather” contact tracing, wherein a public health workers establish personal rapport with infected people to help identify others who might be at risk.

Contact tracing is a human process, built on trust: trust enough to talk about the intimate details of your life, trust enough to take advice on how to get tested and whether you should self-isolate.

That’s not what apps do.

Exposure notification apps measure whether a Bluetooth device you registered was close to another Bluetooth device for a “clinically significant” period of time.

That’s it.

They don’t measure qualitative aspects, like whether you were close to an infected person because you were in the same traffic jam in adjacent, sealed automobiles — or whether you were both at the Ft Lauderdale eyeball-licking championship.

And they certainly don’t create the personal rapport that’s needed to understand each person’s idiosyncratic health circumstances and complications — whether they need child care, or are at risk of losing their under-the-table jobs if they self-isolate.

We didn’t want to commit the resources to do contact tracing at scale, we didn’t know how to automate it — but we did know how to automate exposure notification, so we incinerated the qualitative elements and declared the dubious quantitative residue to be sufficient.

It’s the quant’s version of searching for your car keys under the lamp-post because it’s too dark where you dropped them.

It’s not just foolish, it’s also deceptive — quantizing qualitative elements is a subjective exercise that produces numbers that seem objective.

This is where antitrust law comes in. Prior to the neoliberal revolution of the Reagan years, antitrust concerned itself with “harmful dominance,” with regulators asking whether mergers and commercial practices were bad for the world.

Obviously, “bad for the world” is hard to measure. Regulators evaluated claims from all corners: both political scientists worried about the outsized lobbying power of large companies and workers worried about monopolies’ outsized power over wages and conditions got a say.

So did environmentalists, urban planners, and yes, economists, too.

The Chicago School — hard-right conservative economists with cult-like status among Reagan and big business simps — insisted that all this qualitative stuff had to go.

They argued that consideration of qualitative elements left too much up to judges, so two similar companies engaged in similar conduct might get different verdicts out of the antitrust system. This, they said, make a mockery of the notion of “equal treatment before the law.”

Instead, the Chicago Boys — led by Robert Bork, a Nixonite criminal and a sort of court sorcerer to Reagan — demanded that qualitative measures be left behind in favor of a purely quantitative analysis of whether a monopoly hurt “consumer welfare.”

The way you’d measure “consumer welfare” was by checking to see whether a monopoly was making prices go up — if not, the monopoly was deemed “efficient” and thus socially beneficial. Prices are numbers, numbers can be measured.

But that’s not how it worked in practice. When two companies wanted to merge, they could hire a Chicago fixer to construct a mathematical model that “proved” that they resulting megafirm would not raise prices.

No one could argue with this, because Chicago School consultants had a monopoly over building and interpreting these models — the same way court magicians laid exclusive claim to the ability to slaughter an animal and read the future in its guts.

And if the prices did go up? Well, the same Chicago model-makers would be paid to produce a new model to prove that the price-rises were not the result of monopoly, but rather, rising energy costs or higher wages or the moon being in Venus.

Even by their own lights, “consumer welfare” was a failure. Monopolies drive prices up. Amazon Prime is a tool to drive up prices in every store, not just Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

Apple’s App Store monopoly drives up app prices:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-13-supreme-court-apple-app-store-price-fixing-lawsuit.html

Luxxotica bought every eyewear brand and every eyewear retailer and the world’s largest optical lens manufacturer and drove prices up 1000%:

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-glasses-lenscrafters-luxottica-monopoly-20190305-story.html

The highly concentrated pharma industry raises prices every single year:

https://patientsforaffordabledrugs.org/2021/01/14/2021-price-hikes-pr/

What’s more, there’s a straight line from “consumer welfare” to price-fixing.

Think about publishing. A decade ago, the Big Six publishers were embroiled in a bid to force Amazon to raise ebook prices, which led to fines and settlements for harming “consumer welfare.”

Today, the Big Six publishers are the Big Four, because Random House, the largest publisher in the world, gobbled up Penguin and Simon & Schuster. When RH, S&S and Penguin were three companies, it was illegal for them to collude on pricing.

But after their mergers, the three former CEOs — now presidents of divisions within an unimaginably giant company — can meet in a board room and plan exactly the same price-fixing strategy, and that isn’t illegal under “consumer welfare” antitrust — it’s “efficient.”

The Chicago School’s “consumer welfare” was only ever a front for “shareholder welfare,” the ability of large firms to avoid “wasteful competition” and extract an ever-larger share of the take for shareholders at the expense of customers, workers and the public.

The entire business of “consumer welfare” is a fraud, starting with Robert Bork’s insistence that a close reading of the US’s four major antitrust laws will reveal that they were never intended to be used for any purpose *other* than consumer welfare protections.

This is manifestly untrue, a Qanon-grade conspiracy that is refuted by the plain language of the statutes, the statements of their sponsors, and the record of the Congressional debates leading to their passage.

Despite the wealth of evidence that US antitrust is not a “consumer welfare” project, neoliberals have insisted that their project was not “reforming” antitrust, but rather, “restoring” it to its original purpose.

It’s a Big Lie, and they know it. That’s why GOP Senators Mike Lee (UT) and Chuck Grassley (IA) introduced “The TEAM Act to Reform Antitrust Law” — a bill intended to neutralize the muscular new antitrust bills that just passed the House committee.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/06/25/the-plan-to-water-down-antitrust-reform/

The bill does two things:

It takes antitrust authority away from the FTC, sidelining the incredible Lina Khan, a once-in-a-generation antitrust scholar who now runs the agency; and

It codifies “consumer welfare” as the basis for US antitrust law.

That second part is the tell: after 40 years of insisting that any rational reading of US antitrust proved that “consumer welfare” was obviously its sole purpose, they’re now introducing a law to *change* its purpose to “consumer welfare.”

Like the Stolen Election lie, they never truly believed this one. The pose of objectivity that quantizing antitrust allowed was never about creating a truly objective standard for competition policy — it was only ever about neutering competition policy.

The thing is, there is a way to integrate both the objective and subjective into policy-making — as was demonstrated by David Nutt’s 2008 leadership of the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which established the policy framework for a wide range of drugs.

Nutt’s panel of experts rated drugs based on how harmful they were to their users, the users’ families, and wider society. This allowed him to sort drugs into three categories:

Drugs that were dangerous irrespective of your public health priorities;

Drugs that were safe irrespective of your public health priorities; and

Drugs whose safety changed based on whether you prioritized the safety of users, families or society.

Those priorities are a political choice, not an empirical finding. Nutt told Parliament that it was their job to establish those subjective priorities, and once they did, he could objectively tell them how to embody them in the rules for each drug.

This is a beautiful example of how the objective and subjective fit together in policy — and the tale of what happened next is a terrible example of how “consumer welfare” hurts us all.

You see, booze is one of the most concentrated industries in the world. The “consumer welfare” standard let booze companies buy one another until just a handful remain — globe-straddling collosii with ample resources to influence policy-makers.

Nutt, an empiricist, reported just as rigorously on the harms of booze — one of the most dangerous drugs in the world — as he did on other drugs. He was fired for refusing to retract his true statement that tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than many banned drugs.

Thanks to “consumer welfare” antitrust, the alcohol industry is able to choose who its regulators are, and use their political influence — purchased with the excessive profits of a monopolist — to rid themselves of pesky officials who actually pursue objective policy.

You can read the column here:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

And here’s the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2021/06/28/qualia/

As well a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @InternetArchive; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_395/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_395_-_Qualia.mp3

And here’s a link to my podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Image: OpenStax Chemistry: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Figure_24_01_03.jpg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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kuiperblog · 2 years

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I read your post on The Last Duel failing and thought it was really interesting! I read another suggestion for why it failed and figured I'd ask your thoughts: The suggestion was cinemagoers want spectacle when they go to theaters, because that is what only the theaters can fully give them. There are no shortage of brilliantly written things to watch on tv and streaming, but only theater can give them the scale of the big screen and they want to pay for movies that take advantage of it.

This is a good point -- Ben Affleck said in an interview earlier this week that The Last Duel has been "playing well on streaming," (though, let's be honest, that could mean anything and we have no visibility into streaming numbers). But it could very well be that people put The Last Duel into the "watch at home" category of content. After all, Game of Thrones spent nearly a decade training audiences that the ideal place to watch historical fantasy dramas is at home, and that might remain true even if you subtract the "historical" element. (I hear period dramas like The Crown and Bridgerton are quite popular on Netflix.)

I suppose there are two ways to look at the historical shift, which run in opposite directions: on one hand, home theater setups are better than ever (have you SEEN those OLED TVs?). That remains true even for people who don't own a "home theater" with a 5-piece speaker system: the person streaming Netflix on their 24-inch computer monitor while wearing $60 Sennheiser headphones is probably getting a richer audio-visual experience than the person in 1970 sitting 6 feet away from their 23-inch TV with a tinny speaker showing movies cropped for a 4:3 aspect ratio. That means that you can be more selective with which movies you see in theater -- and with movie tickets being as expensive as they are (I think I paid $25 AUD to Black Panther, which at the time was ~$20 USD), you have to be selective with which movies you see, so you're going to save your semi-annual theater visit for the movie with the big VFX that are really going to knock your socks off. ("Dinner and a movie" is no longer the standard for dates, having been replaced with "Netflix and chill," so now the romcoms go directly to Netflix.)

On the other hand, I can see a counterfactual world where the rising quality of home theater setups has the opposite effect: in 1980, you had to see Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen: what are you gonna do, wait until it comes out on VHS and watch the cropped 4:3 version on your 25-inch TV? But in 2019, maybe you decide, "Eh, I could drive over to the local cinema to watch the new Star Wars...or I could just wait until it comes out on streaming and watch it at home on my 65-inch OLED TV and 15-inch subwoofer to make the La-Z-Boy chair shake whenever an explosion happens." If presentation matters, one would think that the improvements to the home viewing experience would hurt the viability of spectacular blockbusters more than it would hurt dramas. It's pretty clear that dramas don't get people to the theater in [current year], and I think the reasons for that are pretty well-understood -- but then why is it that people were willing to hire a babysitter and drive to the cinema to watch a drama 20+ years ago? Maybe it has something to do with the convenience (and zero marginal cost) of streaming a movie at home versus driving to the local Blockbuster and paying $5 to rent a new release: if renting a movie already requires you to get in your car and plop down a few bucks, you might as well spring for the movie ticket and make it part of a dinner date. And as anonymous asker points out, the quality of the home offering has improved not just in terms of convenience, but quality: TV pre-1990 is not the superstimulus that it is now: besides prestige TV, we now have plenty of streaming content that caters to every conceivable niche.

#the last duel #movies

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novantinuum · 4 years

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Intake (SUF one-shot)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (TW: brief discussion of mental illness related topics like suicide ideation and intrusive thoughts.)

Words: 2800

Summary: Steven fills out an important form.

This is set multiple months pre The Future, and is a small glimpse into Steven’s journey to find a therapist.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. AO3 link will be provided in the reblogs. Thank you! <3

____

His leg bounces with a restless fervor as he slumps in the waiting room chair, clutching the clipboard and pencil the receptionist gave him with a white knuckled grip. Gaze hardened, he takes a good long look at the other patients spread across the room, a few of them appearing equally as spent and fidgety as him, and hunches over the intake form so his answers will be conclusively obscured from their view.

He grimaces. Ugh. Why would a place like this lay out their chairs so close, anyways? Why even give people the option of being nosey? He may be stuck seeing this therapist Connie’s mom recommended because he’s all messed up in the head, but it’s not like he wants the whole planet to know about it. Goodness knows all of Beach City and Little Homeworld already does thanks to his little ‘incident’ a month back. That’s bad enough.

His chest almost feeling hollow as he sighs, he scrawls in his name, his birthday, his cell number, address, and an emergency contact (Dad, who left for the car to give him privacy after signing a few forms he can’t fill out as a minor) on the lines indicated. He leaves out his many middle names for once, all of them leaving a bitter taste in his mouth at this present moment. Briefly, he wonders if this will be a problem, as these past few weeks Dr. Maheswaran assisted his dad in finally acquiring legal documentation and health insurance for him, and per those records he’s officially ‘Steven Quartz Universe’ in the eyes of the law.

Eventually he shrugs, figuring the likelihood of there being another sixteen-year-old ‘Steven Universe’ here today to confuse him with is nearing zero.

Okay, what’s next?

He briefly skims over the next few passages— a bunch of legalese about the terms of counselor-patient confidentiality and when they might have to breach that for safety reasons— and signs where indicated so they know he looked over it.

Someone sitting two chairs away coughs. He can’t help but flinch at the sudden noise, and folds himself tighter in his own seat as he flips over the first page of the form and continues to read.

In a few words, explain why you’ve chosen to reach out to us today. How can we help you?

Steven frowns, fingers twitching around the shaft of the pencil as he contemplates how to respond. For whatever reason, the question “explain why you’re here” feels very blunt and antagonistic to him in a way he can’t quite ascertain. Like... in a “give the wrong answer, get booted right out the door” sorta way. He lifts his head, peering at all the humans spread across the room, each and every one with their own story, the central character of their own worlds. Some are texting on their phones as they wait for the receptionist to call their names, others are filling out forms as well. What brought these people here, he wonders? Surely there’s plenty of people having a worse time than him right now. Surely there’s people with real problems, people who are literally struggling just to stay alive from day-to-day. He’s not like that, right? Besides that one little wobble a month back, he’s been handling his problems on his own fairly okay. Hasn’t he? So what makes him selfish enough to think that he’s worth anyone’s time?

In his pocket his phone vibrates, knocking him back into reality. He yanks it out and switches it on to look at the new text splashed across the lock screen:

Dad: Hey Schtu-ball, just wanna let you know that I’m proud of you and love you very much. You’ve got this!

He stares at these words for a good minute, the kind sentiment— despite reading as a little hopelessly over-encouraging— filling the hollow space in his chest partway. Even if his dad’s been a bit overbearing in his affections this past month, it’s clear he means well.

So. Why am I here today, he thinks, reading the question over again. He folds his fingers up into a stiff fist, pulling his thumb across his knuckles. After licking his chapped lips and shoving his phone back in his pocket, he scribbles a hasty reply.

I feel really angry and empty and tense and just want to be better.

The teen pauses, allowing those words to echo over and over in his mind, to truly sink in. It’s such a succinct and to-the-point admission that he suddenly wonders why he ever doubted he was less deserving of aid than anyone else in this waiting room.

His countenance a little lighter now and his shoulders growing less stiff, he moves on to the next section.

To aid our counselors in providing you the best possible care, please rate the following statements on a scale from zero to four, zero meaning “not at all like me,” and four meaning “extremely like me.”

Steven’s eyes dart across the length of the massive table below these instructions, his previous anxiety rushing back into his brittle bones as if it’d never left. Each row is host to a short sentence and five blank boxes, numbered zero to four. Read it and rate yourself, right? Should be simple enough. But as his glance flits over these statements and he understands the sort of personal, probing questions they’re asking through them, he begins to mistrust his previous burst of optimism. Dread floods his system, making his cheeks flush bright pink. Heart pounding at the mere thought of people staring, he drops his head lower, successfully hiding most of his face behind the clipboard until he can coax that betraying glow into fading away.

In the end, this goes to prove that it doesn’t matter if everyone says therapy will be ‘helpful’ for him; reflecting on all this junk is still gonna suck.

Quietly, he takes a steadying breath and forces himself to read on, to crack open the hornet’s nest that is the depths of his crap brain.

1. I am shy around others.

He considers this for a moment. Shy. Historically, this has never been a word people would use to describe him. For years he reveled in the thrill of meeting new people, new Gems. His childhood eagerness to engage in fellowship with those around is half the reason Era 3 even exists. And he’s fine around people he knows. Like, on a rare good day he has no problem playing board games or watching cheesy soap operas with his friends. But to be fair... as of late, his eagerness to meet anyone new feels like it’s all but vanished. Is that being shy? Or is that just him failing to care for anyone beyond his inner circle?

With a small shrug he checks the box for one, and moves on.

2. I don’t enjoy being around people as much as I used to.

Hmm. Probably a three. People are unintentionally exhausting these days. He used to be energized by social interaction, and now it just leaves him sucked dry. Most days he’d rather stick to his room.

3. I feel isolated and alone.

The weight of the diamond embedded in his belly— something he normally barely notices— grows ever more apparent as he marks off a four.

4. My heart often races for no good reason.

Uh, yeah. What happened just a minute ago is a pretty good tell. Four.

5. I have spells of terror or panic.

Another four.

6. I am anxious that I might have a panic attack while in public.

Four once more. He holds his pencil tighter, squirming in his seat as he tries (and fails) not to think about the pale scars spread across his back, hidden in his hairline, and on the underside of his arms, indentations that once marked the base of the crystalline spines that jut out from between his scales.

7. I think about food more than I’d like to.

Steven pauses at this one. For once, he’s not sure he can say this statement applies to him. Truth be told, he only started caring about what he put in his mouth earlier this year, when he cut meat and fish out of his diet. And that’s not... a bad thing? It’s not bad to want to consider the impact your food choices have on the environment? He definitely didn’t choose to do so for self-denying reasons, and that’s probably what they’re asking about. He checks zero, and moves on.

8. I feel out of control when I eat.

He almost checks another zero, but then he remembers that day after the proposal... and the week after his incident. And he decides that even if he doesn’t consciously obsess over the food he eats, there’s still a few occasions where once he starts snacking he finds it difficult to stop. A one it is, then.

9. I have sleep difficulties.

This statement nearly makes him laugh. Does he have sleep difficulties. Hah. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a truly restful night of sleep since he sacrificed himself to Homeworld at fourteen.

A solid four. No question.

10. My thoughts are racing.

Four.

11. I feel uncomfortable around people I don’t know.

Hmm. Two.

12. I drink alcohol frequently.

The only alcohol he’s ever had is a tiny sip of his dad’s with permission at Garnet’s wedding reception, and it tasted terrible. He has no interest in drinking again. Zero.

13. When I drink alcohol I can’t remember what happened.

Zero.

14. I drink more than I should.

Zero again.

15. I have done something I have regretted because of drinking.

Another zero. It almost makes him feel better, just knowing there’s a decent number of lines on this paper that aren’t a carbon copy of his lived experience.

16. I feel sad all the time.

Aaaand back to “the story of his life.” Briefly, he wonders if ‘feeling sad’ is the same thing as feeling nothing at all. But then again, does the difference really matter? He checks the box for three.

17. I am concerned that other people don’t like me.

Three. Although honestly, he’s even more concerned that people continue to like him after everything he’s done.

18. I feel worthless.

Steven nibbles at the inside of his cheek as he reads this statement, memories automatically flashing through the pathetic events of the last few weeks, through all the days he barely crawled out from under his covers, all the days he didn’t even manage to brush his teeth or run his fingers through his greasy, knotted hair, all those awful days he couldn’t so much as play one of his video games without growing tired of it in minutes and taking a restless nap for the rest of the afternoon instead.

Four.

19. I feel helpless.

Two. Everyday affairs are a drag, but at the very least he knows he can fight his way out of danger in a pinch. He wouldn’t call that helpless.

20. I have thoughts of ending my life.

He freezes. Goes back, reads this line again. Reads it a third time to make sure he’s not horrendously misconstruing the prompt he’s been given.

(Tries not to think too deeply about the graphic images that flood his imagination some nights. It’s just stray thoughts, though. He’s fine.)

One, he marks, although his muscles can’t help but twitch as he shifts his wrist, as if deep down he knows he’s underplaying his answer.

21. I feel tense.

Steven gives a small snort under his breath. Yeah, he outright admitted as much earlier in this form. Four.

22. I get angry easily.

His grip tightens.

Four.

23. I have difficulty controlling my temper.

He swallows hard, his mouth feeling abnormally dry. He’s not sure he likes how blunt and probing this questionnaire is becoming.

Four...

24. I sometimes feel like breaking or smashing things.

His knuckles go white around his pencil, and he only barely resists the temptation to snap it in half as he feels a rush of hard light flow the distance from his gem through the veins of his arm. Geeze, it’s not like he means to break things! It’s just that all of his stupid powers are linked with his emotions, and whenever he gets even marginally upset now things start to splinter, crack in half, and inevitably end up broken. Just another sign he’s fated to ruin everything around him forever, and that his intent doesn’t matter. Why do they have to pry into this? He already feels terrible enough for thinking these things.

Three, he checks, his eyes damp, but mostly because he’s too scared what their response will be otherwise.

25. I am not able to concentrate as well as usual.

He takes a deep breath, coaxing his body to return to a baseline state. Eh. He’ll give this a two.

26. I feel self-conscious around others.

His glance skirts over the edge of the clipboard to monitor the four others currently spread out across the room. One’s rhythmically swinging their legs, another is still filling out a form like him, but sitting criss-cross on the chair, and the other two are quietly typing on their phones. Thankfully none of them are pressing an ounce of attention his way, (at least, not right now), but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like an exposed nerve. Three.

27. I am afraid I may lose control and act violently.

The raw memories hit like lightning before he can even think to prepare.

Flashes of Pink. Orange fragments, cold and slick in his palms. Thunder splits the skies overhead, each cacophonous sound manifesting in perfect synchronicity with his erratic heartbeat, with each tidal wave of thoughts gushing like a maelstrom through his head: SHATTERER, I’m a shatterer, I’m—

Feeling almost dizzy from the intensity of his heart’s pulse, he knows with full certainty that his cheeks are glowing bright pink again. All he can do is clench his fists, suck down whatever amount of fresh air his lungs will allow, and pray to the very stars themselves that it’ll fade away before it garners the attention of every last human in this place.

He checks the box for four, pencil marking so hard that slivers of graphite splinter off onto the page, and moves on before he can be cowardly enough to change his answer.

28. I have thoughts of hurting others.

His fingernails claw into the thin denim at his knee, limbs outright quivering as he stews in his seat, as he’s forced to reflect upon all the ugly, ugly thoughts that have flit across his awareness over the past weeks. Thoughts about one Gem specifically. He’s... always been angry, always harbored deep resentment... but ever since his most recent trip to visit Her, he hasn’t been able to shake this awful idea: a vision of him standing over the remnants of her gemstone, shattered, fragments spilled across the otherwise pristine floors of Homeworld. He... he didn’t do it when he had the chance. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

(Orange fragments, cold and slick...)

Would he??

And yet nevertheless, the thought tortures him with its frequency, makes him feel downright nauseous at every turn. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to feel this way at all.

Four.

29. I am unable to keep up with my schoolwork.

Stop. Sharp inhale. Staccato, shaky exhale. Repeat, deeper this time. Repeat.

(He can no longer see neon pink reflecting in the smooth metal clasp at the top of his clipboard.)

Okay. Schoolwork.

N/A, he writes in one of the boxes, arm still trembling from the last two questions despite his attempt at cool-down exercises. Not applicable. He hasn’t even been to school, and dreads the inevitability of this therapist asking about that mess.

30. It’s hard to stay motivated for my classes.

N/A.

31. I feel confident that I can succeed academically.

N/A, once more.

And like that, the questionnaire is over. Steven is quick to hide his answers behind the front page, and slides the pencil through the length of the metal clip. He glances around him, drinking in his surroundings with pinpoint precision. Despite his earlier concerns, no one is maliciously staring. No one’s whispering. He internally wrestled with a few challenging subjects and what do you know, it didn’t end in an embarrassingly public meltdown. He— he wipes a stray tear from his eye with the butt of his palm— he took a solid step forward today.

Coercing his body to move, he pulls himself out of the cushioned chair and crosses the room.

“I finished,” he says softly, proudly, as he hands the clipboard and pencil to the receptionist. She smiles and accepts his hard-fought offering.

For the first time in a while, the smile he instinctively flashes back almost feels genuine.

I want to be better, he thinks. I will be better.

____

Notes:

This fic is loosely based on my own experience of the intake process, and the questionnaire I had to fill out. No two intake experiences are the same though, of course. This is merely one possibility. I also take personal liberties on the way I depict Steven’s struggle with mental health, and acknowledge and respect that no two fans’ interpretation will be the same.

Additional notes: -Steven’s still a minor, so he can’t actually sign contracts. I figure Greg signed a handful of forms beforehand as his guardian, and then left to allow his son a bit of privacy with filling out the questionnaire stuff. Since he's a teen, they're still giving him the full confidentiality clauses to look over so he's wholly aware how that works, though.

-To expand on a brief comment made in the midst of this, I headcanon that Steven cut both meat and fish out of his diet, and thus actually slipped up on his vegetarian diet when he was training with Jasper. I interpret this as further showcasing how the poor kid— due to being mentally vulnerable at the time and thus liable to coercion/unwise decisions— began to take actions that went against much of his established morality. He ended up sacrificing his dietary choices during those days, just like he briefly sacrificed his pacifistic views to fight Jasper.

-I also headcanon that the therapist Steven is going in to see after this isn’t the one he eventually sticks with and mentions as “my new therapist” in The Future. It’s totally normal and okay to try a few different people to find someone who you click with, after all.

Thank you for reading!

#su #su future #steven universe #su fanfiction #my writing stuff #okay the official crosspost #here you go #i keep switching how i post fics here hhh #i LIKE having the ao3 link in the post itself #but when i do that the fic almost never shows up in tags so *shrugs*

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justforbooks · 4 years

Photo

Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus

This storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come

Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture. We must act quickly and decisively. We should also take into account the long-term consequences of our actions. When choosing between alternatives, we should ask ourselves not only how to overcome the immediate threat, but also what kind of world we will inhabit once the storm passes. Yes, the storm will pass, humankind will survive, most of us will still be alive — but we will inhabit a different world.

Many short-term emergency measures will become a fixture of life. That is the nature of emergencies. They fast-forward historical processes. Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger. Entire countries serve as guinea-pigs in large-scale social experiments. What happens when everybody works from home and communicates only at a distance? What happens when entire schools and universities go online? In normal times, governments, businesses and educational boards would never agree to conduct such experiments. But these aren’t normal times.

In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.

Under-the-skin surveillance

In order to stop the epidemic, entire populations need to comply with certain guidelines. There are two main ways of achieving this. One method is for the government to monitor people, and punish those who break the rules. Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. Fifty years ago, the KGB couldn’t follow 240m Soviet citizens 24 hours a day, nor could the KGB hope to effectively process all the information gathered. The KGB relied on human agents and analysts, and it just couldn’t place a human agent to follow every citizen. But now governments can rely on ubiquitous sensors and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks.

In their battle against the coronavirus epidemic several governments have already deployed the new surveillance tools. The most notable case is China. By closely monitoring people’s smartphones, making use of hundreds of millions of face-recognising cameras, and obliging people to check and report their body temperature and medical condition, the Chinese authorities can not only quickly identify suspected coronavirus carriers, but also track their movements and identify anyone they came into contact with. A range of mobile apps warn citizens about their proximity to infected patients.

This kind of technology is not limited to east Asia. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel recently authorised the Israel Security Agency to deploy surveillance technology normally reserved for battling terrorists to track coronavirus patients. When the relevant parliamentary subcommittee refused to authorise the measure, Netanyahu rammed it through with an “emergency decree”.

You might argue that there is nothing new about all this. In recent years both governments and corporations have been using ever more sophisticated technologies to track, monitor and manipulate people. Yet if we are not careful, the epidemic might nevertheless mark an important watershed in the history of surveillance. Not only because it might normalise the deployment of mass surveillance tools in countries that have so far rejected them, but even more so because it signifies a dramatic transition from “over the skin” to “under the skin” surveillance.

Hitherto, when your finger touched the screen of your smartphone and clicked on a link, the government wanted to know what exactly your finger was clicking on. But with coronavirus, the focus of interest shifts. Now the government wants to know the temperature of your finger and the blood-pressure under its skin.

The emergency pudding

One of the problems we face in working out where we stand on surveillance is that none of us know exactly how we are being surveilled, and what the coming years might bring. Surveillance technology is developing at breakneck speed, and what seemed science-fiction 10 years ago is today old news. As a thought experiment, consider a hypothetical government that demands that every citizen wears a biometric bracelet that monitors body temperature and heart-rate 24 hours a day. The resulting data is hoarded and analysed by government algorithms. The algorithms will know that you are sick even before you know it, and they will also know where you have been, and who you have met. The chains of infection could be drastically shortened, and even cut altogether. Such a system could arguably stop the epidemic in its tracks within days. Sounds wonderful, right?

The downside is, of course, that this would give legitimacy to a terrifying new surveillance system. If you know, for example, that I clicked on a Fox News link rather than a CNN link, that can teach you something about my political views and perhaps even my personality. But if you can monitor what happens to my body temperature, blood pressure and heart-rate as I watch the video clip, you can learn what makes me laugh, what makes me cry, and what makes me really, really angry.

It is crucial to remember that anger, joy, boredom and love are biological phenomena just like fever and a cough. The same technology that identifies coughs could also identify laughs. If corporations and governments start harvesting our biometric data en masse, they can get to know us far better than we know ourselves, and they can then not just predict our feelings but also manipulate our feelings and sell us anything they want — be it a product or a politician. Biometric monitoring would make Cambridge Analytica’s data hacking tactics look like something from the Stone Age. Imagine North Korea in 2030, when every citizen has to wear a biometric bracelet 24 hours a day. If you listen to a speech by the Great Leader and the bracelet picks up the tell-tale signs of anger, you are done for.

You could, of course, make the case for biometric surveillance as a temporary measure taken during a state of emergency. It would go away once the emergency is over. But temporary measures have a nasty habit of outlasting emergencies, especially as there is always a new emergency lurking on the horizon. My home country of Israel, for example, declared a state of emergency during its 1948 War of Independence, which justified a range of temporary measures from press censorship and land confiscation to special regulations for making pudding (I kid you not). The War of Independence has long been won, but Israel never declared the emergency over, and has failed to abolish many of the “temporary” measures of 1948 (the emergency pudding decree was mercifully abolished in 2011).

Even when infections from coronavirus are down to zero, some data-hungry governments could argue they needed to keep the biometric surveillance systems in place because they fear a second wave of coronavirus, or because there is a new Ebola strain evolving in central Africa, or because . . . you get the idea. A big battle has been raging in recent years over our privacy. The coronavirus crisis could be the battle’s tipping point. For when people are given a choice between privacy and health, they will usually choose health.

The soap police

Asking people to choose between privacy and health is, in fact, the very root of the problem. Because this is a false choice. We can and should enjoy both privacy and health. We can choose to protect our health and stop the coronavirus epidemic not by instituting totalitarian surveillance regimes, but rather by empowering citizens. In recent weeks, some of the most successful efforts to contain the coronavirus epidemic were orchestrated by South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. While these countries have made some use of tracking applications, they have relied far more on extensive testing, on honest reporting, and on the willing co-operation of a well-informed public.

Centralised monitoring and harsh punishments aren’t the only way to make people comply with beneficial guidelines. When people are told the scientific facts, and when people trust public authorities to tell them these facts, citizens can do the right thing even without a Big Brother watching over their shoulders. A self-motivated and well-informed population is usually far more powerful and effective than a policed, ignorant population.

Consider, for example, washing your hands with soap. This has been one of the greatest advances ever in human hygiene. This simple action saves millions of lives every year. While we take it for granted, it was only in the 19th century that scientists discovered the importance of washing hands with soap. Previously, even doctors and nurses proceeded from one surgical operation to the next without washing their hands. Today billions of people daily wash their hands, not because they are afraid of the soap police, but rather because they understand the facts. I wash my hands with soap because I have heard of viruses and bacteria, I understand that these tiny organisms cause diseases, and I know that soap can remove them.

But to achieve such a level of compliance and co-operation, you need trust. People need to trust science, to trust public authorities, and to trust the media. Over the past few years, irresponsible politicians have deliberately undermined trust in science, in public authorities and in the media. Now these same irresponsible politicians might be tempted to take the high road to authoritarianism, arguing that you just cannot trust the public to do the right thing.

Normally, trust that has been eroded for years cannot be rebuilt overnight. But these are not normal times. In a moment of crisis, minds too can change quickly. You can have bitter arguments with your siblings for years, but when some emergency occurs, you suddenly discover a hidden reservoir of trust and amity, and you rush to help one another. Instead of building a surveillance regime, it is not too late to rebuild people’s trust in science, in public authorities and in the media. We should definitely make use of new technologies too, but these technologies should empower citizens. I am all in favour of monitoring my body temperature and blood pressure, but that data should not be used to create an all-powerful government. Rather, that data should enable me to make more informed personal choices, and also to hold government accountable for its decisions.

If I could track my own medical condition 24 hours a day, I would learn not only whether I have become a health hazard to other people, but also which habits contribute to my health. And if I could access and analyse reliable statistics on the spread of coronavirus, I would be able to judge whether the government is telling me the truth and whether it is adopting the right policies to combat the epidemic. Whenever people talk about surveillance, remember that the same surveillance technology can usually be used not only by governments to monitor individuals — but also by individuals to monitor governments.

The coronavirus epidemic is thus a major test of citizenship. In the days ahead, each one of us should choose to trust scientific data and healthcare experts over unfounded conspiracy theories and self-serving politicians. If we fail to make the right choice, we might find ourselves signing away our most precious freedoms, thinking that this is the only way to safeguard our health.

We need a global plan

The second important choice we confront is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity. Both the epidemic itself and the resulting economic crisis are global problems. They can be solved effectively only by global co-operation.

First and foremost, in order to defeat the virus we need to share information globally. That’s the big advantage of humans over viruses. A coronavirus in China and a coronavirus in the US cannot swap tips about how to infect humans. But China can teach the US many valuable lessons about coronavirus and how to deal with it. What an Italian doctor discovers in Milan in the early morning might well save lives in Tehran by evening. When the UK government hesitates between several policies, it can get advice from the Koreans who have already faced a similar dilemma a month ago. But for this to happen, we need a spirit of global co-operation and trust.

Countries should be willing to share information openly and humbly seek advice, and should be able to trust the data and the insights they receive. We also need a global effort to produce and distribute medical equipment, most notably testing kits and respiratory machines. Instead of every country trying to do it locally and hoarding whatever equipment it can get, a co-ordinated global effort could greatly accelerate production and make sure life-saving equipment is distributed more fairly. Just as countries nationalise key industries during a war, the human war against coronavirus may require us to “humanise” the crucial production lines. A rich country with few coronavirus cases should be willing to send precious equipment to a poorer country with many cases, trusting that if and when it subsequently needs help, other countries will come to its assistance.

We might consider a similar global effort to pool medical personnel. Countries currently less affected could send medical staff to the worst-hit regions of the world, both in order to help them in their hour of need, and in order to gain valuable experience. If later on the focus of the epidemic shifts, help could start flowing in the opposite direction.

Global co-operation is vitally needed on the economic front too. Given the global nature of the economy and of supply chains, if each government does its own thing in complete disregard of the others, the result will be chaos and a deepening crisis. We need a global plan of action, and we need it fast.

Another requirement is reaching a global agreement on travel. Suspending all international travel for months will cause tremendous hardships, and hamper the war against coronavirus. Countries need to co-operate in order to allow at least a trickle of essential travellers to continue crossing borders: scientists, doctors, journalists, politicians, businesspeople. This can be done by reaching a global agreement on the pre-screening of travellers by their home country. If you know that only carefully screened travellers were allowed on a plane, you would be more willing to accept them into your country.

Unfortunately, at present countries hardly do any of these things. A collective paralysis has gripped the international community. There seem to be no adults in the room. One would have expected to see already weeks ago an emergency meeting of global leaders to come up with a common plan of action. The G7 leaders managed to organise a video conference only this week, and it did not result in any such plan.

In previous global crises — such as the 2008 financial crisis and the 2014 Ebola epidemic — the US assumed the role of global leader. But the current US administration has abdicated the job of leader. It has made it very clear that it cares about the greatness of America far more than about the future of humanity.

This administration has abandoned even its closest allies. When it banned all travel from the EU, it didn’t bother to give the EU so much as an advance notice — let alone consult with the EU about that drastic measure. It has scandalised Germany by allegedly offering $1bn to a German pharmaceutical company to buy monopoly rights to a new Covid-19 vaccine. Even if the current administration eventually changes tack and comes up with a global plan of action, few would follow a leader who never takes responsibility, who never admits mistakes, and who routinely takes all the credit for himself while leaving all the blame to others.

If the void left by the US isn’t filled by other countries, not only will it be much harder to stop the current epidemic, but its legacy will continue to poison international relations for years to come. Yet every crisis is also an opportunity. We must hope that the current epidemic will help humankind realise the acute danger posed by global disunity.

Humanity needs to make a choice. Will we travel down the route of disunity, or will we adopt the path of global solidarity? If we choose disunity, this will not only prolong the crisis, but will probably result in even worse catastrophes in the future. If we choose global solidarity, it will be a victory not only against the coronavirus, but against all future epidemics and crises that might assail humankind in the 21st century.

Yuval Noah Harari is author of ‘Sapiens’, ‘Homo Deus’ and ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #COVID-19 #Yuval Noah Harari

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patricia-von-arundel · 4 years

Text

A Grand Gesture

lysissisyl said: I got: “Byleth breaking into Edelgard’s room through their window” It’s so damn in character. 😂

“It’ll just be a drabble,” I said.

“It will be fluffy,” I said.

…It is neither of those things.

Rating: G

Really, in a way, what happened could be blamed on Dorothea and Ferdinand. They were the ones who brought up the opera, and seemed to believe that only certain gestures were the perfect solution for - to borrow one of Dorothea’s phrases - the hopelessly lovelorn.

It had seemed a good idea at the time, asking the two of them for advice. Who else was there, really? And finding them sitting together in the dining hall might as well have been a sign yelling Fate!, because how often had that happened? Byleth couldn’t remember them ever sitting together as students; they’d seemed barely able to stand one another.

She sat across from them, and, after perfunctory greetings, saw no reason not to get to the point: “Do you know why Edelgard keeps locking herself in her room?”

Dorothea raised a knowing eyebrow, but Ferdinand seemed confused: “She was at the council meeting yesterday… Though now that I think about it, she did seem to have rather less to say than usual.”

“And went back to her room immediately following,” Dorothea said. “Hubert was muttering darkly about it. Not that he ever mutters any other way.”

“She painted a picture,” Byleth said - already perfectly aware of Edelgard darting from the meeting room as if goosed, and Hubert rushing to follow. “She got upset when I saw it - but that was two weeks ago. She still won’t talk to me.”

“A painting?” Ferdinand asked.

Dorothea asked the more pertinent question: “A painting of what?”

“Me.”

Her face lit up like a candle. “I knew it!”

“Knew what?”

“I am afraid I must ask the same question,” Ferdinand said - his own expression had gone from confused to thoroughly befuddled.

Dorothea laughed - absolutely delighted. “Of course it’s of you, Professor.” She glanced sideways - not bothering to hide her smirk. “Surely you didn’t miss all of dear Edie’s infatuation, these last five years? Even the horses couldn’t be so oblivious as that.”

“Of course not! It was simply… not the first thing to come to mind.”

“Infatuation?” Byleth asked.

For a long moment, they both simply stared. Byleth stared back - waiting.

“Oh, dear…” Dorothea finally said. “Though I suppose you truly did miss these last five years.”

“Most of it.”

“But… you’ve noticed since? About Edie and… you?”

Byleth considered this. Certainly, there was something she was feeling about Edelgard, and it was one of the strongest feelings she had felt, and it was getting stronger still, but she continued to have trouble understanding any of her feelings, even the simple ones. This one was not simple. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it was certainly not easy to figure out - it was warm, and kind of tingly in her head, and it made her feel like laughing, but it wasn’t funny…?

A very odd feeling.

She certainly hadn’t noticed anything markedly different about Edelgard, except that she looked like and spoke even more confidently as the emperor now. Until the painting - which was why she was here in the first place. And she said as much: “Nothing except the painting.”

Dorothea stared again, then shook her head. “Hopeless. Both of you, hopeless… My dear professor, Edie is head-over-heels in love with you.”

Ferdinand spoke before Byleth could: “In love?”

Dorothea ignored him. “But she’s embarrassed. I doubt our poor little Edie has ever grappled with such tumultuous feelings. Leading a revolution is a far more straightforward matter. Especially for one of Edie’s… disposition.”

“I haven’t either,” Byleth said. Was that what to name the warm-tingly-laughing feeling? Love? She had felt love before - but even as clueless as she knew she was about feelings, she also knew there were many different kinds of love.

Dorothea cocked an eyebrow. “So the feeling is mutual, is it?”

“I…” Thinking of Edelgard - and there was the warmth. Byleth nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

“How romantic!” Ferdinand said. “Will you tell her? And perhaps more importantly - how will you tell her? Over tea? I would be more than happy to assist in acquiring the perfect blend. Something with an infusion of rose, but sweet. Perhaps -”

“You’re thinking like a noble, Ferdie - all tradition, no grandeur. Nothing memorable.”

“I would think the symbolism would be memorable enough, Dorothea. The gift of a blend perfected solely as a gesture of love, the intimacy of a table laid out within a hidden glen, with places only for two… Are you saying such an act is not evidence of devotion, deep and abiding, and promised for all eternity?”

“I never said that. I said it was boring.”

Ferdinand pursed his lips, shook his head. “Not everything needs to be a grand stage production, Dorothea. Life is not an opera.”

“How very deep, Ferdie. You surprise me. But why not something grand and operatic?” She leaned against her elbows on the table, chin resting atop her entwined hands. “What do you think, Professor? A grand gesture, or… afternoon tea?”

“I just want Edelgard to come out of her room and talk to me again.”

“Just to be clear - are you certain it was the painting?” Dorothea asked. “Nothing else you saw? Nothing unusual happened?”

Byleth thought back to that day - to the truncated shout that had taken her to Edelgard’s room in the first place. “I called her cute.” No more details given; Edelgard would almost certainly get even more upset if suddenly everyone knew her deepest fears - even if all those included in “everyone” were her closest allies.

Once more, Dorothea looked absolutely delighted - and this time, Ferdinand did, too. “Did you really?” Dorothea asked - and actually turned to Ferdinand long enough to share a knowing smile.

“Yes.” Had it been the wrong thing to say, even if it was true? Edelgard had gotten flustered, but she always got flustered when she thought she was being teased. Which she wasn’t.

“Hmm… So you called her cute, and then saw the painting?”

Byleth nodded.

“…Poor Edie has probably never in her life fallen into a stew of emotions quite this thick.”

Ferdinand also nodded - a contemplative expression on his face. “I must say, I am rather jealous.”

“When once again, you’ve lost to Edie?”

“Of course not! I speak only in the most general of terms.”

“Mm-hmm - but back to the matter at hand. Edie is in love, Edie is thoroughly overwhelmed by this - and perhaps lingering uncertainty about whether the feeling is truly mutual - and rather than do the sensible thing and speak to someone, as our professor here has done, she has opted to lock herself away, because no one ever told her pining princesses don’t go looking for hidden towers of their own accord.”

“Which begs the question,” Ferdinand said, “of how to rescue the princess from the tower.”

Byleth was confused - and fairly certain that if Edelgard needed rescuing, she would rescue herself - but kept silent. It felt as if some progress was finally being made. Maybe. They had at least moved on from the “in love” aspect, anyway.

“Which brings us back to grandeur,” Dorothea said. “No one ever knocks on the door and politely asks the evil king to please return the princess. And isn’t it always you nobles doing the breaking-and-entering in the name of rescue?”

“I hardly think breaking down Edelgard’s door is a noble idea, whatever the circumstances!”

“It’s a terrible idea,” Byleth said. Edelgard’s aim wasn’t always the best, but in the confined space of the dormitory, that would not particularly matter.

“Metaphor, my dears.” Dorothea was leaning across the table again. “Ferdie says life isn’t an opera, but what is an opera but a grand-scale depiction of everyday life? You’re familiar with the tale of Cremina and Lycaon, are you not?”

Byleth shook her head, but Ferdinand said, “Of course. Cremina was a distant - and likely mythological - relative of House Vestra, and Lycaon the purported father of Wilhelm, founder and first emperor of Adrestia. The story claims to explain the allegiance House Vestra swore to House Hresvelg.”

“Exactly,” Dorothea said. “I always wanted to play Cremina, but wasn’t considered mature enough for the role before I left the opera… but regardless - Professor, you’re sure you are not at all familiar with the tale?”

“I don’t think so.” Her father had not been much for telling stories. Especially about princesses in towers - which was a little concerning, if this was a common occurrence. But that was something to try to figure out later. The library probably had books about it.

“The family of Cremina did not approve of her love for Lycaon,” Dorothea said. “They saw him as little more than a savage, a guard dog of Seiros. They locked Cremina away beneath the grand home in which they lived - they were already very wealthy, while Lycaon had been nobody at all until he proved himself upon the battlefield. He knew where Cremina was being held, but had no means to rescue her.

“There was war all across Fódlan, then - for centuries, if you believe the legends. Cremina’s father was slain in battle, then, one by one, six of her seven brothers. Knowing Cremina was still locked away beneath her family home, Lycaon decided to behave like the dog they claimed that he was - he began to dig. Each day, as he worked, he sang to Cremina - his songs her only nourishment, and her songs sung back the same to him, letting him dig harder and longer with no need for food or rest. When finally he reached her, they swore to love one another for all eternity. Soon after they were wed and had a son, Cremina’s youngest and final brother returned home, having recovered from the grievous injuries he had sustained in battle. As a thank you for what Lycaon had done to save Cremina, the brother pledged his and all his descendants’ devotion to the Hresvelg line, for as long as both should remain.”

“A preposterous story, by all true historical accounts,” Ferdinand said.

“Of course it is, Ferdie. You just said it yourself - it’s a story. A grand story of the lengths to which the hopelessly lovelorn may go. Far grander than any tea party.”

“A tea party is feasible in our current situation, unless you mean to propose the professor should somehow dig her way to Edelgard’s room?”

“Nothing like that. I meant -”

They continued this pseudo-argument, but Byleth was no longer listening. She was thinking about tea, and tea parties, and what might be a grand gesture that was like digging into an underground prison to rescue someone beloved. Something like…

She looked up, interrupting Ferdinand and Dorothea’s bickering: “I have an idea.”

The rope was the first thing - and this part, at least, Byleth was very familiar with how to do. Knotted around her waist, snug, but not so tight it would impede movement, and a loop around the handle of the basket. More rope to tie the heavier things within, so they wouldn’t jostle - and each arranged to serve as weight or counterweight, a trick her father had taught her when they had once moved so frequently from place to place.

She left the basket at the far edge of the dormitory, where it wouldn’t risk hitting the overhang above the ground floor rooms. She needed to get herself up, first.

Her idea had brought a look of delight to Dorothea’s face, and a surprised excitement to Ferdinand’s. He had, as promised, kept up his end of this grand gesture before the week was out. The rest of it was up to Byleth.

She was no hero from some ancient legend, but she’d been climbing trees to scout for her father and those who had worked for him almost as long as she’d been able to walk - or rather, for a long enough time she could not remember having to learn to do either. Now, it was as simple as using a crate to get a height boost, and then shimmying up the column to the overhang - not a completely flat surface, some of the boards warped and loosened with age, but far more stable than a narrow branch ten meters above the ground. She would just have to step carefully. Especially with the basket - even with things tied down, pinwheeling would mean a spill inside, if not without.

She pulled the basket up now, slowly, hand over hand, adjusting carefully at every lean or noticeable shift in weight. Edelgard probably had water in her room, but it had seemed like a good idea to bring some, just in case. The evening was still early; there was no hurry to get the basket up. When it was up, though, she checked the contents - all intact; no spills. Good. She untied the rope from both the handle and her waist, tossing it to the ground to pick up later.

The correct window - she had counted three times, to make sure she knew the one, and had climbed up on the side with the shorter distance to it. She held the basket in one hand, let the other trail against the wall, steadying her as she stepped carefully from board to board. “One,” she said, touching the windowsill. “Two. Three.” She wasn’t likely to be seen - everyone was still at dinner.

Everyone but Edelgard.

There was the window. And there she was.

And for a surprised moment - surprise at herself, at yet another confusing, inescapable, inexplicable reaction - Byleth froze. She stared.

The horns were gone. The crown, too. And the cape, the armored dress. Edelgard was cross-legged on her bed, her hair down, falling over one shoulder. Her dress was simple, almost loose - a nightgown? Bare feet. She was reading a book, and apparently nothing important, because Byleth knew the way her brow furrowed when she was intently focused on a history or military treatise. Now, her face was relaxed, her lips curled ever-so-slightly into something almost resembling a smile.

Warmth. Tingling. A happiness that made her feel like laughing.

Love.

Byleth rapped at the window.

Edelgard jumped - almost sending her book flying - and whipped around, all the easy enjoyment in her expression wiped away in an instant. She looked tense, now, and - of course - more than ready to protect herself.

Her eyes found Byleth. Byleth waved.

For a long time, Edelgard stared. Her cheeks flushed red - anger, or embarrassment? Byleth had no idea. Finally, at a loss, she held up the basket.

Maybe grand gestures befitting an opera had not been the way to go. Still, at least she had brought Ferdinand’s plan as well. She pointed at the basket and said, “Tea!” Even if Edelgard probably couldn’t hear her. It would be a pretty simple word to lipread.

Now there was the furrowed brow. But Edelgard pushed up from the bed and came to open the window.

Bylth tried her best at a smile. She felt like smiling, and just about everyone seemed to think it was the friendly thing to do. In the right circumstances, anyway - hopefully this counted. She held the basket a little higher. “Hi, Edelgard. I brought things for tea. And sandwiches, since you weren’t at dinner again.”

Edelgard’s flush deepened, and she glanced away - roughly in the direction of the dining hall. “Hubert’s been bringing me… Nevermind. Come in before someone sees you. Or you manage to break your neck.”

“I won’t get hurt.” But Byleth did as told, placing the basket on the long shelf that ran beneath the window, then climbing in after it. There was a fire going - that was good. She hadn’t been able to think of a way to keep the water in the basket warm. And besides, if she had, the condensation on the little kettle might have made the sandwich bread soggy. That seemed like the sort of little thing Byleth was supposed to remember other people did not appreciate.

“You might if you ever do that again,” Edelgard said. “What in the world were you thinking?”

“You wouldn’t answer your door. So I asked Dorothea and Ferdinand what to do.”

“Dorothea and -” Edelgard put a hand to her forehead, rubbing as if it ached. “Of course.”

“Do you want tea?”

“I… Yes. I suppose. Let’s… have tea.”

A good sign? Not a rescue from an underground prison, but better than being yelled at through the door. “I brought a blanket.” Opening the basket, untying the ropes holding everything in place. “Like a picnic. Dorothea said that would be romantic.”

She paused in her unpacking and looked up at the sound of Edelgard spluttering. “Romantic?”

“Yes. Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s… no. But… I’m not…” She could see Edelgard tensing, just as she had that day two weeks ago. “This might be a bad time, actually. You should go. We can… we can have tea another day. Perhaps tomorrow. Hubert will be here soon.”

Byleth took her hands off the basket. She looked at Edelgard - at her eyes. Her cheeks were still red, her lips pursed, but her eyes… There was fear there. A naked vulnerability.

She doesn’t understand feelings, either. Not these, anyway. Maybe for Edelgard, love wasn’t warm-tingly-laughing. Or maybe it was, but it didn’t come with curiosity - it came with terror. Byleth felt no pain from it. But Edelgard…

“I’m sorry,” Byleth said.

“You’re…?”

“I shouldn’t have said it like that. I should have just said I miss you. And talking to you, and having tea with you. Which I do. I like seeing you, Edelgard.”

Edelgard’s eyes looked away, but she made a little noise that was almost a laugh. “I’m no good at this. Not with you. I like seeing you, as well. I… I suppose I should be the one apologizing. I certainly know… the pain of missing others. Even when they’re not truly far away. I overreacted. I was…” She shook her head. “Let’s prepare the tea. There are… more things I should have told you quite some time ago.”

It was warm, too, doing it together - not tingly, no laughter, but definitely warm. Edelgard took a careful sniff of the tea blend, making a face. “That’s… different. Ferdinand?”

“Ferdinand.”

…Very, very warm.

Edelgard showed little interest in the food, but did cradle her teacup in her hands. Maybe they were cold - she didn’t have her gloves on. Her skin was pale, and Byleth could catch occasional glimpses of the scars running up her arms, beneath the loose sleeve of her dress. Did that mean something - that Edelgard did not try to hide them; seemed to have all but forgotten them? It felt as if it meant so much more than simple trust.

As did what Edelgard said, looking down rather fixedly at her cup. “You saw it. The portrait.”

“Just for a second.”

Edelgard shook her head. “Nevermind that. I was the one who left it out. I wanted to explain… why. Why I painted it in the first place. I don’t think anyone would ever mistake me for a master artist.”

Dorothea had said infatuation. Dorothea had said love. And still, perhaps she was right - but there were things she likely did not know about Edelgard. Things it seemed likely almost no one knew. There might be infatuation, there might be love, but there was something more. So Byleth said nothing. She drank her tea. She waited, watching Edelgard attempt to gather her thoughts.

Finally, Edelgard took a deep breath, and said, “I forget things.” She swallowed visibly. She was clutching the teacup tightly enough that her knuckles had gone white. “Not so much anymore, but… I’m always afraid that I will. You remember what I told you - of what happened to my siblings?”

“When they…”

“When they were killed. When…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head again. “After, I realized the gaps, in my memory. I had to be reminded of things - things that had only happened days or weeks before. I could only remember the faces of my younger brother and sister as they had been before I left - they were hardly more than babies! - not as the older children they’d become. The youngest was almost nine years old, hardly a toddler - but even now, when I try to imagine him, he’s no more than a tiny, babbling, fat-cheeked thing.” She looked, finally, at Byleth. “You know that I spent several years in the Kingdom, with my uncle?”

“Yes. Not the details, though.”

Edelgard made that almost-laugh noise again, but there was no humor in it at all. “Don’t expect the details from me. I don’t remember that, either. I knew I’d been away from home, but more than once had to be reminded of where I’d been taken, and with whom, and why.”

She took another deep breath, and let it out slowly - almost a sigh. “Like I said, it isn’t so bad now, but… when you disappeared…” She put the cup down, and, once more, her gaze with it. “I was afraid I might forget you, too. Your face. Your voice. Forget… all of it. And I couldn’t stand that. To lose someone else…” Her hands shook - she laced her fingers together, but Byleth had already seen. “I painted before I could forget. And when you came back… I realized all I had already gotten wrong. The length of your nose. The shape of your chin. I found the painting again because I needed to fix it. In case… in case…” Her voice broke, and she pressed her lips together, almost savagely. Forcing away the sorrow. Forcing away feeling.

“Edelgard.” Byleth wanted to crawl closer, gather her up, hold her until it was better. Another strange, insistent, new desire - Edelgard might battle her own feelings into submission, but Byleth had no idea how to do that. But she couldn’t do what she wanted. Not now. Not yet. She contented herself with leaning forward, elbows on her knees. “I’m sorry.”

“As you’ve already said.” Edelgard’s voice was soft and low.

“I’m sorry I was gone.”

A pause - then Edelgard was looking at her once more. “Just… would you be willing to promise me something? I know it’s presumptuous, and perhaps asking too much, but -”

“What?”

Those eyes - those bold, determined eyes. “I know I cannot ask you to promise to keep yourself safe - such is not the nature of war - nor can I ask you to promise to stay by my side.”

“I will, though.”

She almost smiled - not quite, but almost. “Promise me, my teacher… if you ever do choose to leave, or if you must leave… you’ll do me the courtesy of telling me, before you go? I will not try to stop you. Your life, and your path, are your own.”

My life and my path are alongside yours. But as earlier had shown, it was not yet the time for such words. So Byleth just nodded. “I promise.” She cocked her head. “Now you have to promise something, too.”

“Making demands of an emperor and commander of an army?” Edelgard raised an eyebrow, but she was finally smiling. Genuinely smiling. “That’s quite the bold move.”

“Dorothea said gestures should be grand.”

“Dorothea thinks like a minstrel. But go ahead - what would you ask?”

“Promise we can keep doing this.”

“Doing…?”

“Having tea. And talking. And you tell me what’s bothering you. Now, and until the war ends, and after the war ends. I know feelings are hard, but you can tell me about them. I’m trying to learn them.”

Again, for a long moment, Edelgard just stared at her - assessing her. Almost scrutinizing.

Then - a single, firm nod. “Yes. I think I can make that promise. I do promise.”

It was Byleth’s turn to smile - as best she could. Inside her was warm, and tingly, and felt like laughing.

A promise from Edelgard seemed a grand gesture indeed.

#edeleth #edelgard von hresvelg #byleth eisner #dorothea arnault #ferdinand von aegir #tales of the tiny emperor #please excuse typos i'm exhausted #i'll proofread better tomorrow

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ashleyswrittenwords · 4 years

Text

Frogs, Fevers, and Forehead Kisses

My titles are getting more unimaginative by the day.

----------

“Her Royal Highness requested that we test the specimen she found by Death Mountain.”

The princess’s knight attendant looked between the Sheikah scientists with growing confusion, the overly respectful distance only increased his worry. Robbie and Purah inched further away as if he were a grizzly bear still debating whether he wanted to eat them.

“I don’t understand,” his brow furrowed, “Is the princess okay?”

“Oh, yes,” Robbie waved him off. “Mere symptoms.”

His heart dropped, “Symptoms? Of what?”

“Link,” Impa said crisply from behind the two. He couldn’t see her face from behind Robbie, but that sternness was unmistakable. “In the frog, Purah found a strain of the flu that was thought to be extinct.”

“Is,” he tried to swallow the dread in his throat. “Is she in danger?” Hylia, it had to be the frog, didn’t it? After incessant pleads from Princess Zelda, he quickly learned he didn’t have the strength to deny her for long. That night they roasted it over a fire with as much seasoning as he could find, then they shared it and he was bombarded with her scientific analysis.

Did he feel any more energetic? No.

Could he see any better in the dark? No.

Was he ill or queasy? Not any more than one would be when they eat a charred amphibian.

And, if he were being honest, it wasn’t that bad. The spices definitely helped with the taste, though Link doubted he would do it again on his own volition.

“Historically, no,” Purah inserted, adjusting her glasses, “Unless you are a specific subrace of Hylian, the host will only experience common flu symptoms from seven to fourteen days – which is the apparent case with Zelda.”

An itch started in his sinuses and he tried to ignore it.

“And what would happen if that specific person were affected?”

“Oh, I can answer that!” Robbie pointed his chin up, airy in his demeanor. “The Sheikah would experience symptoms such as vomiting, pneumonia, and subsequent death.”

The itching came to a head and Link sneezed loudly into his elbow, leaving Impa to yelp and run down the hall. “Send him away! Goddesses, send the infested child away!”

Purah pursed her lips, “Ah, she means we have to isolate you and the princess.”

---

They had been in the same room for two days now, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. Princess Zelda had been his charge for nearly a year. However, it had never been like this. Neither of them were allowed to leave the room nor interact with anyone that wasn’t already infected – and that was restricted to Link and Zelda.

The room was isolated in the west wing due to the lesser populated halls and, until their isolation, was meant exclusively for storage. A large bed had been moved in for the princess and a smaller cot for her knight. Other than that, the room was barren and the essentials were brought up and left by the door where he was only allowed to open it once the servant had left. It wasn’t long until the castle realized the top physicians were all Sheikah of origin who feared the possible levels of contagion.

Upon his arrival, it was obvious that Zelda had been taking the brunt of the illness. The princess was already burrowed within the quilts of her new bed with a heated fever. So, through the mahogany of the door, it was decided that Link would be her main caretaker and communicate her vitals every morning.

A knock at the door snapped Link out of his daydreaming haze and he approached it.

“Yes?”

The voice was muffled yet unquestionably regal, “How is she?”

Link gave a passing glance to the girl resting in her bed and lowered his voice, “She’s resting now, Your Majesty.”

King Rhoam sighed, “I suppose it is for the better. You’re a decent lad, Link. Look after her.”

“I’ll let the princess know you came by.”

Receding footsteps signified the king’s departure. Link turned to the sleeping form under the quilts. The princess had woken up a half hour ago, shuddering from a cold that wasn’t there. He found himself being drawn to her without needing to be. With the covers drawn to her chin, her hair formed a halo around her in tangled blonde strands. Audible breaths came from her slightly parted lips and her cheeks were flushed pink with fever. Link’s rather sleepy expression upturned.

Gently, he leaned down onto the mattress. With one hand, he smoothed down the short hairs that so often fell in her face and pressed his lips to her forehead.

It was a quick show of affection and as quickly as he had indulged, he moved away to rest his exhausted head on the cot.

After all, he was sick too.

---

Four days into isolation, the princess learned she couldn’t read for long in her condition. With a lantern wicking from her bedpost, her knight had taken up the task by sitting in a chair that looked older than his father. At her bedside, he read through a novel about a milk maid who decided she wanted to travel the world and fell in love with a highwayman. Now they were at the part where she was cornered by ruffians and this masked crusader rides in on his midnight stallion. With one raise of his sword-

“You have a nice voice,” Zelda interrupted him. He glanced up from the book to see her quietly watching him, her cheek flush with the pillow below her.

“It’s the fever talking,” he simply said, caught between the magnifying green of her eyes and the following words of the novel.

She made a small motion, “No, I mean it. I want to hear what’s going to happen next, but at the same time it’s like I’m being lulled to sleep.” Then, almost predictably, she fell into a heavy cough that haunted her when she spoke too much. Link knew it sounded worse than it really was, but it made him wince regardless, “I think that means we should get some sleep.”

A whine came from the bed, “It does not!”

“It’s already late and you need to build up your strength.”

“Link, please?” Zelda paused him as he stood. There was that look again. The look that got them in this mess in the first place. Just as he was going to deny her a final time, she hurriedly said, “I’ll fall asleep if you keep reading. And tomorrow we can read over where I fell asleep so I don’t miss anything.”

Link closed his eyes, relenting and falling back into the chair. “Fine.”

She smiled to herself and briefly he thought that if she stood in the middle of battlefield with that face, she could stop a war.

He read for an hour. The highwayman had revealed himself to the former milk maid and she gasped. It was the blacksmith’s son who she had been betrothed to since they were young. She hadn’t seen him in years and fearing her reaction, he ran from her. Link let his voice trail off.

The princess didn’t budge. Her arm hung off the bed in slumber. Slowly, in case the chair decided to creak, Link rose and set the novel on the seat. He took her forearm gingerly and tucked it into the pile of covers. Although her smile was gone, the relaxed expression she wore affected him all the same. Impulsion took over and he brushed her hair aside and kissed above her brow.

Then, uneventfully, he blew the lantern out.

---

Six days of isolation passes by and now there is splashing water.

“Link, don’t look.”

“I’m not looking.”

“I know, but just… don’t look.”

“I’m not looking!”

The tub was in the center of the room and Link was buried under a blanket. He heard a loud slosh and then water dripping into the tub. Zelda sighed from the other side of the room, finally feeling clean after almost a week. It seemed as if they were on a scale. The healthier Zelda seemed to get; the more ill Link seemed to fall. Some of her blankets were transferred over to his small cot.

“Alright,” she finally said, “I’m dressed now.”

Groaning, he sat up. Link felt every bit as awful as he looked. His hair was in disarray and tissues covered his surroundings. “I don’t think I need to bathe.”

Zelda stared incredulously, “You must.”

“I don’t want to.”

She wore a simple day gown that was so soft that she could sleep in it if needed. “It’ll make you feel better.”

His eyes drooped in her direction, “Nothing can.” Then, he let himself fall to the cot.

The princess crossed the room, eyes rolling but concern glinting, “Don’t be dramatic.” From behind, she pulled him up to a seat and, gods, was he heavy. As she whispered small encouragements, he let her pull him to a wobbly stand and towards the tub. The water was bubbly and he looked at her with absent accusation.

And bashfully, she admitted it, “I prefer bubble baths.”

Link didn’t say anything and simply stared.

“What?” Zelda felt suddenly insecure.

Tiredly, he drew in a breath, “I have to undress, Princess.”

“Oh!” she spun on her heel, face aflame. “Right.”

Clothes were heard being discarded and she could make out his tired voice, “Zelda, don’t look.”

“Oh, shush.”

He laughed and the water moved as he got in. The water was still steaming when she got out and it no doubt felt nice on his skin. And, quite unfortunately, the thought practically returned the thick blush of a fever. Busying herself with the book about the milk maid, she looked through the parts she never got the chance to read herself. He had finished the book for her last night and as she skimmed the pages, she could hear his voice read the words.

“I liked this book,” she said with a passing breeze in her tone. He hummed, “I think I did too.”

A smile played on her lips, “What was your favorite part?”

Link thought for a moment, “When you would grip the covers whenever the highwayman was in danger.”

Afterward, Zelda listened as he dunked his head underwater.

“Zelda,” he sounded frustrated. “I… I can’t reach my head.”

“What?”

“Whenever I try to wash my hair, I feel like passing out. And I really don’t want to pass out in water.”

She blinked at the wall, “Do you want me to wash your hair?”

“You don’t have to. I just don’t want you to yell at me when you see that my hair is still greasy.”

“Can I wash your hair for you?”

A beat of silence went by and then, “… I suppose.”

Zelda took the back of the old chair at her bedside and dragged in over, careful to not look at the tub unless absolutely necessarily. At most, she glanced at the wood. Link sat with his back to her. Thankfully, the bubble bath was an ingenious invention because the only thing she could see was the midpoint of his torso and his knees jutting out of the water. Even if she stared, she probably couldn’t spy anything… not that she would, that is.

“Hand me the soap,” she gently commanded as she sat.

He did and she ran a hand experimentally through a portion of his hair. The locks were wet and free, partially stuck to his neck. She spilled a generous amount of shampoo on her hand and lathered it between her palms. Then she began to entangle her fingers in his scalp and brushed.

“You didn’t touch your soup last night or today,” she stated plainly, “That’s why the heat is getting to you.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” it sounded more like a weak complaint. The princess bit the inside of her cheek and tried unsuccessfully not to look down at the water running along his neck. Admittedly, he was very pretty to look at – from behind, at least. Zelda was a simple woman, she appreciated the male physique, and his back muscles were very appreciable.

Her fingers were tender and forgiving in hair that hadn’t been properly brushed in days. So much so, that he leaned into her touch. When they found a tangled knot, she worked at it without pulling until it came free. Far too soon, she pulled away.

“Okay,” Zelda pronounced. “Dunk into the water and I’ll shake the soap out.”

He nodded, sidling into the water until fully submerged. Tautly, she ran her hands through his hair and laughed as bubbles of soap and his breath came to the surface. Eventually he came back up, breathing in air.

“Thank you.”

She nodded without him seeing and went back to the book while he scrubbed up. Once he was dressed, he allowed her to know and she turned with a question on her lips, “Would you prefer the bed? I wouldn’t mind sleeping on the cot if it meant you were warmer.”

Even then, she watched him shiver out a tentative no.

“You need it more,” Link straightened out the blanket on the cot.

“That’s not true,” she moved to the edge of the bed. “I don’t have a fever anymore. You do.”

He shook his head and croaked out, “I’m fine.”

“We can share it. It’s big enough, Link.”

Of course, he hesitated. It was a large bed with comfortable pillows and a mass of quilts. Not to mention, an inviting princess looking at him with doe eyes. But…

Zelda sat with her legs tucked under her, “The door’s locked. No one would find out.”

He let go of the cot’s blanket and walked to the bed; she smiled and pulled back the covers on his side. Without words, they rearranged the pillows so she wouldn’t hoard them all and Zelda reached for the lantern.

“Goodnight, Link.”

“Goodnight, Zelda.”

For the first time in their isolation, Link didn’t dare continue his routine of sneaking forehead kisses once she was asleep. He was far too tired and the newfound comfort of a proper mattress with all too enticing. Although, as he floating into a dream, he could have sworn someone had cupped his cheek and warm lips kissed his forehead.

#i tried talking myself into making this a smut but i couldn't do it #bc as we all know im a coward #we been knew #ily anon #ashleyswrittenwords #zelink #zelda #link #loz #legend of zelda #loz fanfiction #zelink fanfiction #zelink oneshot

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cecilspeaks · 4 years

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173 - The Hundred Year Play

Quoth the raven: [bird noises] Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, some exciting news from the world of theatre! The 100 year play is about to reach its final scene. Yes, this is the play that has been running continuously since 1920. Written by a brilliant playwright Hannah Hershman, designed to take exactly 100 years to perform. And the tireless volunteer of the Night Vale Players Playhouse have been going through those scenes, one after another, for decade upon decade. There’s little time to rehearse, for each hour brings new scenes and each scene will only be performed once the play moves on, in order to keep up with the tight schedule needed to execute the entire script before a century elapses.

It is a monumental work of theatre, but like all work, it must some day cease. Today, specifically. I will be in attendance at that historic moment, when the final scene is performed and the curtain closes on the 100 year play. More soon, but first the news.

We bring you the latest on the lawsuit “The estate of Franklin Chen vs. the city of Night Vale”. As you know, this case has grown so large and complicated that I’ve not had the time to discuss it in my usual community radio broadcasts. But instead, have started a true crime podcast called “Bloody Laws, Bloody Claws: The Murder of Frank Chen”, in which I strive to get to the truth of just what happened on that fateful night when five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels met Frank Chen, and then later Frank Chen’s body was found covered in burns and claw marks. It’s a confounding mystery. The Sheriff’s Secret Police announce that it seems really complicated and they’re not even gonna try to solve that sucker. “Oh, what?” a Secret Police spokesman muttered at an earthworm he found in his garden. “You want us to fail? You wanna see us fail? That’s why you want us to investigate this case, to see us fail at it?” The family of Frank Chen say they merely want the appropriate parties, in this case the city of Night Vale, Hiram McDaniels and an omniscient conception of God, to take responsibility for their part in this tragedy. The trial is now in its 10th month, and has included spirited re-enactments of the supposed murder by helpful Players Playhouse performers in between their work on the 100 year play. 3 changes of judge and venue due to “some dragon attacks and constant interruptions from a local audio journalist, who hosts a widely respected true crime podcast”. Still, with all this, we near a verdict. Judge Chaplin has indicated she will issue her ruling soon. “Like in the next year or so?” she said. “Certainly within 5 years. Listen, I don’t owe you a verdict, just because you’re paying me to do a job, you can’t rush me to do it. The verdict will be done when. It’s. Done.” Chaplin then huffed out of the courtroom followed by journalists shouting recommendations for episodes of their podcast to listen to.

I was present, you know, on opening night of the 100 year play. Ah, how the theatre buzzed! Of course this was partly the audience, thrilled to be at the start of such an unprecedented work, but mostly – it was the insects. The Night Vale Players Playhouse had quite a pest problem at the time, and still does. It’s difficult to do pest control when there is a 100 year long play being performed on stage at every hour of every day. The curtain opened those many years ago on a simple set of a studio apartment, a kitchen, a cot, a window overlooking a brick wall. A man sits in the corner deep in thought. A doorbell rings. “Come in, it’s open,” the man says. A woman enters, flustered. She is holding a newborn. “There’s been a murder!” she says. “The victim was alone in a room, and all the doors and windows were locked. “My god!” the man says and springs up. “Who could have done this, and how?!” the woman tells him: “It turns out to be the gardener, Mr. Spreckle. He served with the victim in the war and never could forgive him for what happened there. He threw a venomous snake through an air vent.” The man sits back down, nodding. “Aah! So the mystery is solved.” As a playwright, Hannah Hershman did not believe in stringing up mysteries a second longer than was necessary. The baby in the woman’s arm stirs. “Shush, shush little one!” the woman says. The man looks out the window where he cannot see the sky. “It might look like rain,” he says. “Who knows?” Thus began a journey of 100 years.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today’s episode is sponsored by the Night Vale Medical Board, which would like to remind you that it is important to drink enough water throughout the day. Drink more water! Your body cannot function without water. Without water, you are just dust made animate. Water forms the squelching mud of sentience. Try to have at least ten big glasses of water. Not over the entire day, right now. See if you can get all ten of them down. Explore the capacity of your stomach. See if you can make it burst. You will either feel so much better, or an organ will explode and you will day painfully. And either one is more interesting than the mundane now. You should drink even more water than that. Wander out of your door, search the Earth for liquids. Find a lake and drain the entire thing, until the bottom feeders flop helplessly on the flatlands. Laugh slushingly as you look upon the destruction you have wrought. The power that you possess now that you are well hydrated. Move on from the lake and come to the shore of an ocean. All oceans are one ocean that we have arbitrarily categorized by language. The sea knows no separation, and neither will you when you lay belly down on the sand, put your lips against the waves and guzzle the ocean. The ocean is salty. It will not be very hydrating, so you’ll need to drink a lot of it. Keep going until the tower tops of Atlantis see sky again for the first time in centuries, until the strange glowing creatures of the deep-deep are exposed, splayed out from their bodies now that they no longer have the immense pressure of the ocean depths to keep their structure intact. And once you have drunk the oceans, turn your eyes to the stars. For there is water out there too, and you must suck dry the universe. This has been a message from the Night Vale Medical Board.

20 years passed without me thinking about the 100 year play. You know how it is. One day you’re an intern at the local radio station doing all the normal errands like getting coffee and painting pentacles upon Station Management doors as part of the ritual of the slumbering ancients. Then 20 years passes and everything is different for you. Your boss is gone and now you are a host of the community radio station, and there are so many new responsibilities and worries and lucid nightmares in which you explore a broken landscape of colossal ruins. So with all of that, I just kind of forgot the 100 year play was happening. But they were toiling away in there, doing scenes around the clock, building and tearing down sets at a frantic pace, trying to keep up with the script that relentlessly went on, page after page. And sometimes one of the people working on the play would wonder: how does this all end? But before they could flip ahead and look, there would be another scene that had to be performed and they wouldn’t have a chance. So no one knew how it ended. No one except Hannah Hershman, the mysterious author of this centennial play.

Soon after becoming radio host, during the reading of a Community Calendar, I was reminded that the play was still going on, and so decided to check in. I put on my best tux, you know it’s the one with the scales and the confetti canon. And then took myself to a night at the theatre. I can’t say what happened in the plot since that first scene, but certainly much had transpired. We were now in a space colony thousands of years from now, and the set was simple, just some sleek chairs and a black backdrop dotted with white stars of paint. A woman was giving a monologue about the distance she felt between the planet she was born on, which I believe was supposed to be Earth, and the planet she now stood on. I understood from what she was saying that the trip she had taken to this planet was one way, and that she would never return to the place she was born. “We… are… all of us… moved… by time,” she whispered in a cracked, hoarse voice. “Not… one of us dies… in the world… we were born into.” Sitting in my seat in that darkened theatre, I knew two facts with certainty. The first was that this woman had been giving a monologue for several days now. She wavered on her feet, speaking the entire four hours that I was there. And I don’t know how much longer she spoke after I left, but it could have been weeks. She was pale and her voice was barely audible, but there was something transfixing about it, and the audience sat in perfect silence, leaning forward to hear her words. The other fact I understood was that this woman was the newborn from the very first scene. Not just the same character, but the same actor. 20 years later, she was still on that stage, still portraying the life to the child we had been introduced to in the opening lines. She was an extraordinary performer, presumably, having had a literal lifetime of practice. And that was the last time I saw the play, until tonight, when I will go to watch the final scene.

But first, let’s have a look at that Community Calendar. Tonight the school board is meeting to discuss the issues of school lunches. It seems that some in power argue that it isn’t enough that for some reason we charge the kids actual money for these lunches. They argue that the students should also be required to give devotion and worship to a great glowing cloud, whose benevolent power will fill their lives with purpose. Due to new privacy rules, we cannot say which member of the school board made this suggestion. The board will be taking public comment in a small flimsy wooden booth out by the highway. Just enter the damp, dark interior and whisper your comment, and it will be heard. Perhaps not by the school board, but certainly by something.

Tuesday morning, Lee Marvin will be offering free acting classes at the rec center. The class is entitled “Acting is just lying. We’ll teach you how acting is just saying things that aren’t true, with emotions you don’t feel, so that you may fool those watching with these mistruths.” Fortunately, Marvin commented: “Most people don’t want to be told the truth and prefer the quiet comfort of a lie well told.” Classes are pay what you want, starting at 10,000 dollars.

Thursday Josh Crayton will be taking the form of a waterfall in Grove Park, so that neighborhood kids may swim in him. There is not a lot of swimming opportunities in a town as dry as Night Vale, and so this is a generous move on Josh’s part. He has promised that he has been working on the form and has added a water slide and a sunbathing deck. He asks that everyone swim safely and please not leave any trash on him.

Friday, the corn field will appear in the middle of town, right where it does each September, as the air turns cooler and the sky in the west takes on a certain shade of green. The corn field emanates a power electric and awful. Please, do not go into the corn field, as we don’t know what lives in there or what it wants. The City Council would like to remind you that the corn field is perfectly safe. It is perfect and it is safe.

Finally, Saturday never happened. Not if you know what’s good for you. Got it? This has been the Community Calendar.

Oh! Look at the time. Here I am blathering on and the play is about to end. OK, let me grab my new mini recorder that Carlos got me for my birthday. It’s only 35 pounds and the antenna is a highly reasonable 7 feet. And I’ll see you all there.

Ah. What’s the weather like for my commute?

[Shallow Eyes” by Brad Bensko. https://www.bradbenskomusic.com/]

Carlos and I are at the theatre! The audience is a buzz, with excitement yes, but also many of them are the insects that infest this theatre. The bugs became entranced by the story over the years, passing down through brief generation after brief generation, the history of all that happened before. The story of the play became something of a religion to this creepy crawly civilization. And so now the bugs are jittering on the walls, thrilled to be the generation that gets to see the end of this great tale.

The curtain rises on a scene I recognize well. It is the simple set of a studio apartment. A kitchen, a cot, a window overlooking a brick wall. A man sits in the corner deep in thought. A doorbell rings. “Come on, it’s open,” the man calls. A woman enters. She is very old, tottering unsteadily on legs that have carried for her many many years. “Please take my seat,” the man says with genuine concern. “Thank you,” she says, collapsing with relief onto the cushions and then looking out, as if for the first time, noticing the audience. I know this woman. I first saw her as a baby and later as a 20-year-old. It seems she has lived her whole life on this stage, taking part in this play. “My name,” the woman says, “is Hannah Hershman. I was born in this theatre, clutching a script in my arms that was bigger than I was. My twin, in a way. I started acting in that script of mine before I was even aware of the world. I grew up in that script, lived my entire life in the play I had written from infancy to now.” And she rises, and the man reaches out to help, but she waves him away. She speaks, her- her voice is strong, ringing out through the theatre. “The play ends with my death, because the play is my life. It is bounded by the same hours and minutes that I am.” the audience is rapt, many have tears in their eyes. Even the insects weep. “Thank you for these hundred years,” Hannah Hershman says. “This script is complete.” She walks to the window. “It might look like rain,” she says. “Who knows?” The lights dim.

Thunderous applause, cries of acclaim, and Hannah Hershman dies to the best possible sound a person can hear: concrete evidence of the good they have done in the lives of other humans.

Stay tuned next for the second ever Night Vale Players Playhouse production, now that they finally finished this one. They’re going to do “Godspell”. And from the script of a life I have not yet finished performing, Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Many are called, but few are chosen. And fewer still pick up. Because most calls are spam these days.

#welcome to night vale #welcome to night vale transcripts #episode 173 #the hundred year play

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thesevenseraphs · 4 years

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[Bungie Weekly Update is pretty light today but has some neat tech info that makes me very excited for the future of Destiny. I am gonna just post that part here.]

TALKING TECH – PREPARING FOR BEYOND LIGHT

With Beyond Light on fast approach, it’s time to shift our TWAB gears a little. Today, we’ll be talking through some of the back-end changes that will be coming to Destiny 2 on November 10. To guide us through this process, we’re passing the mic to Destiny Engineering Director David Aldridge.

DAldridge: When Destiny 2 launched three years ago, we had no idea that in 2020 we’d announce a new trilogy of expansions (among other 2020 surprises we didn’t anticipate). At the time, we thought Destiny 2’s arc would look a lot more like Destiny 1 – a couple of expansions, and then a sequel. We learned many lessons from the transition to Destiny 2, and from shipping Curse of Osiris, Warmind, Forsaken, the Year-2 Seasons, and Shadowkeep. When we evaluated those lessons, we decided not to pursue a Destiny 3, but instead to reinvest everything in Destiny 2 and make it all that it can be (check out our longer writeup on this choice here). To support that strategy, we’ve made several tech investments to help us sustainably evolve the game for years to come, and some of those investments are arriving in Beyond Light.

Many of these changes are under the hood and won’t affect your experience (except insofar as they help us deliver you more and better Destiny in the future), but some may result in neat improvements, curious behavior differences, or bugs. This means that, on November 10, some places and things will feel a little like Sliders (only 90s kids will get this), so we’d like to give you a rundown of some of the changes and possible side effects.

We shifted our mission scripting model to run on the Physics Host instead of the Mission Host (more details on this split here, in the interview with Matt Segur). In the long run this change will give designers options to create more novel mission mechanics by giving the mission scripting environment full access to the game state, instead of the much more limited access the Mission Host had. For example, the Physics Host knows exactly where enemy combatants are and what actions they recently performed – while the Mission Host only knew how many combatants were alive in a squad and what that squad was generally trying to accomplish. In Beyond Light we’re only launching the foundations of this system, and we look forward to evolving and leveraging it in the future.

What you might notice:

The new scripting environment changed many behaviors in complex ways, and you may see interesting behavior changes or bugs in pre-Beyond-Light missions (and public events, and similar) that were originally built and tested on the previous system. We’ve tested these missions heavily and stamped out many bugs, but some will undoubtedly slip through. We’ll be monitoring and fixing remaining bugs over time. In some cases, these issues were more severe – for example, they caused the Prophecy dungeon to be unavailable temporarily. We’re all excited for its triumphant return, slated for the end of this year!

One other cool new feature in this area is face-to-face joins in social spaces, so you can now fireteam up with Tower friends without a long Tower reload!

We revamped our content building and patching pipeline for speed and install size. With the tremendous size of Destiny, our complete shippable content builds were frequently taking north of 24 hours. We made investments to bring that down to sub-12 hours, which resulted in a bunch of changes to our content and patching formats. We also took on work to allow us to cull content that we’ve upgraded or replaced – our previous patching system had limited capabilities here (due to trying to minimize patch sizes and other constraints), and the current Destiny 2 install has a significant amount of accreted ‘dead’ content (e.g. assets in the base install that were replaced in later patches).

What you might notice:

Due to all these changes, Beyond Light will be a full re-download on all platforms – we know this will be painful for those with slower or metered internet connections, and we’re sorry about that. To help mitigate this, we’re planning to enable Beyond Light preloads sometime in the evening of November 9, Pacific Time, which should give everyone at least 10 hours to download before the gates open.

Destiny 2's install size shrinks by 30-40%: Due to a combination of culling unused or replaced content, install size optimizations, and moving some content to the Destiny Content Vault, Destiny 2’s install size will shrink to between 59 and 71GB (depending on platform), a reduction of 30 to 40%. These improvements should also help us control install size better in the coming years.

We hope to use these much faster builds to accomplish two things:

Help us ship mission-critical fixes faster when game-breaking bugs arise.

Reduce our overall ship pipeline depth, enabling us to work on Destiny releases closer to their ship dates, so we can react to fresher information about what’s happening in the live game. For example, historically each of our Seasons has had to get deep into production before the preceding season launched, preventing us from reacting to learnings from that preceding season. These tech improvements should give us 1-2 more weeks of flexibility on a Seasonal scale, helping us pivot more quickly in some cases.

We rebuilt our character face system. We know that how your Guardians look is important to you, and we’ve long wanted to add more player customization to Destiny. Our original system for player faces had some combinatoric content authoring problems – for example, every decal had to be authored completely custom for each player face permutation. This prevented us from extending this area of the game with more content and features. We’ve upgraded to a significantly more capable system (with e.g. runtime decal projection), which we hope to leverage for more player customization options in the future. As part of this process we reviewed the existing player models with our Diversity Committee and Employee Resource Groups in the studio to make small tweaks to existing player heads. We’re also building a list of Guardian face shapes we should bring to the game in the future in order to increase Guardian diversity in Destiny, with the long-term goal of enabling everyone to imagine themselves as their Guardian.

What you might notice:

Your Guardian’s face may look a bit different.

We relit portions of EDZ and Nessus. During the early stages of Beyond Light production the Lighting and Skies teams had a desire to provide a visual refresh to the two remaining D2 Year 1 destinations, EDZ and Nessus, as they enter their fourth year in rotation. To that end, the teams performed relights and global lighting updates to a number of locations on both destinations.

What you might notice:

Different lighting on existing destinations! The changes are intentional and are meant to bring the visual quality of these spaces up to our current lighting standards, while providing a fresh coat of paint for some of our Year 1 locations. We hope you enjoy these updates to some familiar locations when you explore EDZ and Nessus this November.

#Destiny #Destiny 2 #Destiny 2: Forsaken #Bungie Weekly Update #long post

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