#Port continued this tradition with his own wards

[reallunargift]

Romanisation, or "I don't always headcanon Port as having met Rome, but when I do it’s bc Rome would deffo teach a kid swear words in latin" (mildly connected to this)

[page-doctor-bekker]

First Encounter - Lymphoblastic!au

(A/N) First fic for my lymphoblastic!au! Enjoy! This is really just setting up for the rest of the fic, so it's not the most interesting thing ever. It sets up the dynamic though!

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"So here's my digs right now," Ava chuckled, showing the FaceTime camera the full span of the room, "This is my first time in the new Oncology ward, the room is nice, the view is shit, and everything..." She pointed and zoomed in at the door handle, then at an unstable chair, "Is suicide proof."

Connor laughed, "Well, you can't say it's for no reason!"

Ava's brief stint in the psych ward at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center was proof of that.

"Well, yeah, it's nice that they thought of that," She rolled her eyes, and sat back down on her bed, "The new mattresses are comfy."

"They're some fancy memory foam or something," Connor shrugged, sipping his coffee, "They splashed out on them. I guess a chief complaint of Oncology patients is lack of sleep."

"Maybe that would improve if they didn't shine flashlights in our faces all the time. I would like to die in peace."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"It's a joke, Connor," She said, weakly, "Laugh."

Connor gave a forced laugh, and Ava started to laugh herself. Connor's laugh grew harder, and more real.

"Hey, I've gotta get to work," Connor said, through his laughter, "I'll pop up and say hello when I get the chance."

Ava glanced out the window, "Alright," She said after awhile, "I'll see you then."

They hung up soon after, and Ava was alone with her thoughts, and her seemingly endless headache. She pulled off her wig, something she hadn't had the chance to do since she got to the hospital. She peeled each piece of wig tape off, wincing as it pulled at her skin. She never bothered wearing a wig in the hospital, even as a young teenager.

She collapsed into bed, pulling her weighted blanket over her and sighing.

Any time she was admitted she always brought her own blankets and pillows. They helped her feel at home. And every admission brought a significant risk of death, and if she was dying, she was going to die under the comfort of her own blankets.

Call it childish, but she brought her own stuffed animal too. A bear her mom bought her when she was first diagnosed.

She hugged the bear close to her chest, and curled around it. Her head pounded, and she felt a pang of... Something, an emotion, deep in her chest.

There was a knock on her door, and it was opened seconds later. Ava never understood why doctors knocked if they were just going to open the door anyways.

"Hey, you're going to have a roommate in the next few hours," A nurse that Ava recognized from a few admissions ago, spoke, "Please, please be nice. I obviously can't tell you anything, but just keep in mind what your first admission was like for you."

That stuck with Ava.

"Mama," Ava's voice shook. She widened the bathroom door, letting light spill into the room. Her now-bloody hospital gown hung off of her, and the light jolted her mom awake.

"Avie? What happened?"

"I don't know," Her voice heightened in fear, holding the blood-soaked tissue to her nose, "Can you call the doctor please."

Ava's mom put her glasses on and looked around, "Moeder van God, what happened to you?"

"My nose," Ava sniffled, spitting out blood from her mouth. There was blood everywhere - Her gown, her hands, her face, the floor, her bed...

"We need a doctor!" Ava's mom called out, pushing the call button on the wall and rushing to her daughter, "Quickly!"

A nurse came in a few minutes later, "Page Dr. Sal," The nurse yelled out into the hall and flicked the overhead light on, "It's okay sweetie, we're going to get you cleaned up."

Ava was sobbing at this point, shaking at the sight of her own blood, "Why isn't it stopping?"

Sarah was wheeled into the room at around lunch time, at the same time that the meal cart came around. The meal cart nurse set Ava's lunch down on her bed tray, and set Sarah's lunch on her side table.

Sarah looked pale, and thin. She had a big, ugly bruise on one of her arms, and a second smaller bruise on her opposite hand. They had her IV line on the thumb-side of her forearm, and a saline infusion running into it.

"Ava, your chemotherapy will be set up in..." The nurse bringing Sarah glanced at the clock, "Half an hour? Probably as soon as you're done eating. I'll come back in just a minute to give you your pre-medication, and then we'll start once those meds kick in."

Ava nodded, opening her food. Ah, breakfast for lunch. Two mildly soggy pieces of french toast with strawberries, a little cup of syrup, a cup of apple juice with a foil lid creatively labeled "Apple Juice", and about half a cup of scrambled eggs.

One thing she'll reluctantly compliment Gaffney on is the food. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly. For the most part this hospital frustrated her to no end and if she never came here again she would be thrilled, but the food was not terrible. Which was a glowing review, as far as Ava was concerned.

Ava snapped a picture and sent it to Connor's Snapchat. A tradition, to send him her hospital meals before eating and then send him a rating when she finished.

"Is the food here okay?"

Ava looked up at Sarah, who was now inspecting her food.

"Ah, it's not terrible, but hospital food is never great."

"I wouldn't know," She laughed weakly, "I've never even been to a hospital before," She confessed.

"Lucky you," Ava announced, "The french toast is easily the best out of all of the meals. I think I've tried almost all of them," She paused for a moment, poking her straw through the foil lid of her apple juice, "I've also tried the nearby restaurants that deliver here. Some of them throw in free delivery if you tell them you're in the oncology ward. Cancer kid perks," She joked, and Sarah sat in uncomfortable silence.

They ate quietly.

The nurse showed back up a few minutes later with several syringes in hand, "Ready Ava?"

Ava nodded, and fished her brand-new triple-lumen PICC line (the doctors really hooked her up with the good line) out of her blankets, "Ready as I'll ever be."

The nurse pushed Benadryl first, which made Ava's head feel heavy. She always felt like she had to consciously remember to breathe when she had IV Benadryl - It hit so much harder than oral Benadryl.

Zofran came next. She felt tired, but she really wouldn't be able to gauge the effects until her infusion started.

"We'll run the antibiotics through the port so they hit the bacteria directly, and we'll run your chemo and anything other than the antibiotics through your PICC," The nurse explained, "We want to eradicate this bug but we're concerned about the mass in your brain... We don't want to stop chemo and give it a chance to grow bigger."

Ava nodded, watching the nurse finish off her line, "When will my infusion start?"

The nurse looked at the clock, "Probably about one o' clock, about half an hour from now."

Ava nodded, and continued to eat after the nurse finished using her line.

She finished right before the nurse came back in to start her infusion, a clear bag with a bright yellow label, "CHEMOTHERAPY DRUGS", with a radioactivity symbol. Out of the corner of her eye, Ava saw Sarah pale at the scary label.

"Have fun," The nurse joked, and Ava rolled her eyes.

"Thanks, I'll try."

Sarah watched the medicine flow into Ava's line, and almost felt an urge to cry.

"Would you stop gawking at me?" Ava snapped.

"Sorry, sorry," Sarah squeaked, moving her eyes back to her phone.

"What's your diagnosis?" Ava pried, curious as ever.

"Leukemia."

Ava sighed, annoyed at the lack of specificity, "What kind?"

"I don't know, does it matter?"

Ava huffed, "Of course it matters. They're different."

"What are all the types? Maybe I'd recognize it when I hear it?"

"I can't list every single type of Leukemia," Ava rolled her eyes, "Is it acute or chronic?"

"What's the difference?"

"Nevermind," Ava muttered.

"I'm sorry that I'm not a doctor," Sarah replied, sarcastically, "I mean, what do you want me to do? I was diagnosed yesterday. I spent the night in the emergency room. Do you want me to become a doctor while I'm laying in a pool of my own blood?"

Ava felt a pang of guilt.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bekker, your daughter has Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a type of blood cancer."

"Sorry I just..." Ava's voice grew small, "I didn't know."

"Yeah, whatever. It's fine. I'm going to take a nap."

"Okay."

[benjimirthursby]

“Alliances Tempered.”  The Book of Thursby: Scions of Numenor [SB]

*Intended originally to publish as one work under the FFXIV Write event.  But I couldn’t get past the half-way mark before the deadline.  So I trimmed the post to the epigraph.  The full work is posted now as a non-entry. “Truth is a sacrament of lies, proffered by ministers of fear.  It is an exercise in asserting control, not the betterment of the soul or wisdom.  People seek truth to gain comfort and in doing so drive away fear from uncertainty.  Control gives comfort of an insidious sort.  Control breeds a craving to flee the fear of losing control which comes with it.  Those who hold sway over one will seek many and ever greater comfort to sate this fear.” 

~Loxonica Omber, “Observations through the Dark Crystal.”

A mechanical lift in Ul’Dah seemed almost out of place to Benjimir.  It was one of many things that seemed utterly in contradiction to each other.  An ancient citadel illuminated by flame and wick with lifts such as this.  Airships hoisted aloft by bags of gas docked alongside others of high craft using forces of nature to defy gravity.  Winged beasts of burdon toting people and goods hither and yon along roads traveled by flying mounts of metal and technocraft.  No singular craft held sway over these lands.  There was a seamless, unlikely harmony to all of it however.  

From the Dapper Mainer these details were rendered unnoticeable by the height the dinning room held above the lower levels of the city.  Brightly decorated with white painted alls and tapestries of airships, it evoked the theme of travel by the vessels which docked and departed from the port a few levels above it.  Even as Benjimir and his brothers were taken to their table from the matre’d station a rotund airship, slung under great beige bags of Ceruleum infused gas descended across the view of the main bay of windows.  The ship cast a shadow which for a moment left the room to the light of candles and lamps already lit about the tables and walls. For this moment the room shifted from the light orange hue of the setting sun to white.  The trim from black to a rich green hue.  Even the tapestries seemed to change as if they were created in matching palettes.  As the ship continued on and unsheathed the sunsets light again the room resumed the richer color scheme.

“Brilliant.”  Benjimir said as he took his seat.  

Tinifalas looked about and smiled.  “Unique in Ul’Dah, pity it is not open to all.” he said as he picked up the single panel menu.

“Whom has access?” Benjimir asked.

“Select passengers aboard airships, officers of Grand Companies, select Free Companies and those with ties to airship industry and trade.”  Bondermir said and looked about the room.  As yet it was early for the dinner hour, no passengers vessels were docked, and their guests were only now debarking the large airship-of-the-line which they arrived aboard.  As such the room was unoccupied as yet.  Soft orchestral music played over a device near the kitchen door.  “So you’ve both met our guest before, tell me something of what to expect.” Benjimir asked towards his brothers as the lift’s works stirred to life.

“The admiral is no diplomat but has a practical and even handed approach.  She has a seafarers eloquence but speaks plainly as a rule.” Bondermir offered.  Tinifalas agreed.  “She and T’subaki are surely kindred spirits, if cut from different cloth.”

“Not much of Aubreen’s sort of cloth to cut from anymore.” Benjimir lamented.  The lift’s works paused their action.  Aubreen T’subaki was of the long lived races and the most trusted source of council to the House of Thursby since time out of memory.  She had taught generations of Thursby’s and fleet officers over ages as the eldest authority on nautical traditions and warfare.  She was Benjimir’s oldest friend and mentor “up well.” Her race bore time well, scarcely suggesting their age in appearance.  Her sharp sloping ears suggested she was of the Elezan race native to Eorzea, though she was well shorter and femininely curved than any example to be found.  

Aubreen had gone “down well” at Benjimir’s behest after the first reports from Tinifalas arrived five years earlier.  Bondermir was sent to take on the role of master of spies and business, it became clear freedom of movement and commerce across Hydalen would require more than wagons.  Her task was to lay roots for a merchant marine, along with protection for ships, crewing needs, and at sea, a means to guard against threats on it.

Maelstrom being as near to a formal authority at sea as could be found, had common interests with the Thursby Company.  These were in restoring commerce, checking raiders at sea and shore, and an economy of scale of having common services made an effective partnership.  Aubreen parlayed a single ship’s service into friendly relations and eventually alliance between Maelstrom and the Thursby Company.  Much had been bore of that relationship.

Aubreen took brought with her a cadre of promising officers to her task.  Now, most were commanding their own ships or stations.  Training Maelstrom officers had itself become a means to furthering favors and relations with the Grand Company.

The previous years saw Aubreen lead Maelstrom and Thursby ships alike in combat and to victory.  With victory came trust.  Old tonnage bought and leased from the Grand Company, a concept new to them.  Calamity wrecked ship yards were negotiated into the fold of the Thursby Company.  Much of this was guided by Benjimir from afar.  His name and seal near even as he was years from Ul'dah.  

The lift’s works stirred again and soon stopped.  The doors parted and out of it emerged a pair of crimson uniformed guards who took posts on either side the doors.  Next came forth a tall, stately, fetching woman, with silver hair and porcelain hued skin.  Her red epaulets displayed her rank insignia on a pitch black uniform jacket which bore a modest sum of chest and cleavage.  Knee high polished leather boots and twin pistols left no question of her identity.  Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn of Maelstrom.  

From behind Bloefhiswyn emerged Aubreen, clad in a deep navy blue uniform jacket akin to the admirals.  This, to Benjimir’s surprise, shared the display of cleavage new to any who knew her before coming to these shores.  The jacket skirted higher on her legs however, exposing traditional white slacks tucked into matt black cavalier style boots.  Her skin bore a traditional hue of flesh that did not reflect the suns hours on it.  Her snow white hair made and few slight lines on her face gave the only hints of age. 

“A most striking couple.” Benjimir thought aloud and unintentionally.  Bondermir suppressed a grin.  “Strikely surely, but not a couple.  The commodore has taken up with another.” he said to Benjimir as Aubreen led the admiral across the room.

“Eh?” Benjimir said.  Tinifalas tipped his head toward his brother and whispered. “Captain Vaunter.”  Benjimir’s eyes flared and head turned involuntarily.

“No...really?” he said, extending the last syllabi, almost unable to contain his voice.  He smiled and shook his head.  “Wouldn’t have thought it, but these are new days we live in.”  Aubreen had not taken a partner in anybody's lifetime and Katryn Vaunter was an unlikely pairing, especially being an officer under her and as Benjimir's protege.  But these were not past days.

Aubreen and Bloefhiswyn stood before the Thursby brothers.  As a flag officer here at Aubreen's invitation Benjimir greeted the admiral first and offered seats to them. 

Orders place and drinks in hand it was Bloefhiswyn who opened the discussion.  “Five years, much blood and gil, what brings you to shore now?”  she asked.

“I row slow,” Benjimir replied prompting a smile from Bloehiswyn.  “More an inspection tour I think it is best described as.  I think it is becoming prudent council to take-up a presence in the flesh, guide our families works nearer than at sea.”  He concluded.

Bloefhiswyn nodded slowly in acknowledgement and sipped the wine she ordered.  “And of matters our mutual concern and the future?  What comes next?” she asked.

Benjimir sat back in his chair and drank.  “It is our way to ply our trade and seek the betterment of those whom we can aid.  And the safe keep of our people and interests, that means having an eye on the future, preparing for dangers unseen.  For now, we will see through to the completion our joint work”  He explained to Bloefhiswyn.  She absorbed it all.

“But what comes next and what dangers do you foresee?  The sea lanes are soon to be secure, the fighting at large has abated for now.  Do you have plans for the fleet you have assembled, men you are training?”  Bloefhiswyn pressed.

“We’ve no ambitious to statehood or governance if that weighs on you mind.  Not our way as I know the Commodore and master Exidines have made clear.”  Benjimir remained relaxed in his chair, sipped his drink again.  “There are answers important to me, to our people, which we must divine.  As well as our mandate to stand against shadows where ever they show themselves. As it happens, they’ve shown themselves here.  As to future dangers?” Benjimir started, unconsciously slipping his hand to the Dagger of Warding on his belt.  “They’ll make themselves apparent in due course.  I believe our victories aside they’ve not abated since before the fall of Dalamud and their greatest challenge has yet to present itself.”  

Bloefhiswyn assumed a relaxed posture in her own chair, listening intently and nodding as Benjimir spoke.  “You suggest we are only seeing the start of troubles then?”  She said, lending forward.  Benjimir nodded.  “What course shall we set them mister Thursby?” She asked.

Benjimir sipped once more.  “Prepare in what ways we can to oppose what we are able too.  For now, you and I alike can only speculate what that might be.”  With that all at the table drew themselves up as the meal arrived.

Aubreen looked on silently.  Her gift of foresight was of no use to her on these shores.  She could only sense an approaching destiny with no shape or hue and a need to make peace with it.  In such times her thoughts turned to the young captain aboard the Andustar.  

*******

[brooklynislandgirl]

✸ Tell us about any NPCs on your blog. Who are they to your muse? What do they contribute to your blog?

Munday Munday! || -

Etienne Devereaux || EMT- New York

Etienne is a Euthanatos Mage, part of Beth’s former {or current, depending on verse} cabal. He was born in the bayous of Louisiana, as what some people might consider ‘poor white trash’. He was raised by his grandmother until the age of 12 when she died a long, slow, lingering death after falling down the stairs of their rickety home. Etienne was traumatised by the incident, and later, during college where he was studying to become a doctor, his avatar awakened and reminded him of how terribly powerless he felt unable to save the woman who was his only family. He dropped out and moved to the biggest city a bus ticket could get him, and went to work as a paramedic. He eventually met Beth and then the rest of the Latch Key Saints, and formed a new family with them.Etienne is often Beth’s favourite partner in crime/companion, the most non-judgemental person she knows.~*~

Father Vincent Dafaux, SJ || Catholic Priest- New YorkVincent is a Celestial Chorus Mage, founder of the Latch Key Saints. They are a cabal of disparate Traditions working together to help the Five Burroughs stave off the contributing factors of despair and disbelief: poverty, homelessness, abuse, sickness, drug-abuse, domestic violence, etc. He believes in a vision that even the smallest act of kindness and charity, preformed as a duty to your fellow man, can help elevate them to a better state, and that eventually enough such acts can ennoble even the dimmest spirit.He’s Beth’s confessor and leader, and he’s vastly amused sometimes by her ideas of sin. He’s banned her from the confessional for six months, until she has something to ACTUALLY atone for.

~*~

Dmitri Woźniak || Conspiracy Theorist, Black Market Importer/Exporter- New York

Dmitri attended the same group grief counselling that Beth did, and has always believed that her brother’s death wasn’t an ‘accident’. He also felt that she was a little too naive for her own good so he tends to watch out for her. When she needs supplies for her clinic that she can’t get legally, he provides…for a price.

Jimmy “Bag of Donuts” Riley || Longshoreman, Pack Leader -Sept of the Green, New YorkEveryone has a cousin Jimmy.Somewhere along the family tree.

Beth’s cousin Jimmy is a longshoreman who works for the NY Port Authority {Brooklyn Port Authority Marine Terminal comprising the Brooklyn Piers and Red Hook Container Terminal in Red Hook, Brooklyn}. He’s mild mannered, with the family’s predilection toward sarcasm, and proud of the Irish blood running through his veins.

And…so what if Jimmy drinks a little too much and picks a fight now and again…What isn’t common knowledge is that Jimmy also happens to be leader of “Nine Waves”, a pack comprised entirely of Fianna Garou. He’s not thrilled that his cousins are caern-raiders {doesn’t matter that Beth’s never actually raided a caern a day in her life}, but she is family. He keeps her up-to-date on where not to be and when not to be there. He makes sure she respects Garou law and doesn’t get into too much trouble where the other werewolves are concerned.

Sebastion Phoenix || Bartender, Cultist of Ecstasy -New York

Sebastion was born and raised in New York. Given up for adoption at birth, he spent his life in and out of foster homes. He was always able to use his magic, though in his younger years it wasn’t very strong or very refined, and this often got him into trouble. He was quickly labelled a troubled kid and was more than willing to play up to the label the adults had stuck him with. His troublesome nature actually helped him stay under the Technocracy’s radar because he was never in one foster home long enough to be found.  Sebastion was a smart kid but was completely untrained. He tended to use his magic to help him shoplift which led to bigger things, like stealing cars and B&E. At sixteen he ran away from his foster home and, using his larceny skills, made himself a life on the streets. He squirrelled away the money he made, and generally kept himself under the radar as much as possible but he got caught after a job went south. He was given an assignment that involved a little B&E on a mage’s home, not that he’d known at the time. That mage turned out to be an older Cultist who immediately recognised his potential and took him under wing instead of handing him over to the police. Sebastion was a fast learner and the Ecstastics’ ethos fit well with his view of life. He traded B&E for a job as a bartender at Dante’s Inferno, a known mage safe-house hidden behind the front of a popular night club. His mentor trained him both in magic and in the mundane affairs of running the club, signing it all over to him when he turned 21. Once the club was in his name, Sebastion’s mentor left New York. Sebastion began work on the club, changing it to suit his desires, and the club’s popularity only grew. Sebastion is a hedonist who believes in living life to the fullest. He enjoys exploring all aspects of what that means but is particularly fond of exploring pleasure and pain in sex. The club still fronts as a mainstream club but for those who have interest, there are private floors dedicated to exploring taboos or kinks of all sorts.  He also continues to maintain the club as a safe haven for mages and works with others to keep the place well secured. He has never been known to turn any mage who requests haven away. Because Dante’s is the primary haven, most mages who come to New York will have met him. Sebastion is easy going, charismatic, and generally likeable. He is more than willing to teach his magick and his beliefs but never pushes them on the unwilling. Consent is the rule of his actions.

Sebastion views Beth as a grail of sorts, and he continually offers her temptation when he calls on her to help tend the various club kids, junkies, and wounded mages that make their invariable way to the Inferno. In return for her services, he often repays her with ‘donations’ to her clinic, or helping one of her Sleeper pet-projects back onto their feet. And he always accepts her refusal to succumb to him with gracious smiles and a resonant laugh.

Count Aloysius Flyte of the Duchy of the Delta Crescent, Kingdom of the Willows, Sluagh grump of the Seelie Court || The Long Finger Man 

“Why did you come here to my attic and disturb my rest? Are you here to find something from long ago? Be careful you don’t open something you can’t close….Oh. You have questions about the Prodigal then. I hope for your sake that you brought more than your curiosity to barter with. Yes, that will do nicely. Very nicely indeed. Tut-tut. Pour the tea and mind that cup, it has a chip in it.”

She isn’t sure he’s even real, the Long Finger Man. But he’s real enough that she respects his advice and his aid, and maybe fears the old Fae more than she’ll let on. She lets him retain his rooms in her clinic, and for her graciousness, Aloysius keeps an eye out for her when she’s busy, and strangely, there is no vampire presence in her ward.

New Orleans is a part of the Kingdom of the Willows, and the Capital of the Duchy of the Delta Crescent. It is currently under the control of the Unseelie Duchess Lisette Levay of House Balor, and one of Aloysius’ chief rivals. The self Stylised “Voodoo Queen” holds court in a freehold called the “Spirit Hall” south of the City, within the Swamp. He’s pleased now that she has to contend with the little Verbena witch, her Husband the Incarna, and several new friends.Due to the high presence of Cold Iron for some reason, the local Fae suspect that New Orleans acts as the headquarters of an active group of Dauntain. Levay also holds contact to several other unsavoury supernatural forces, like Black Spiral Dancers, and the Followers of Set.This means Aloysius is more than content to protect the Witch’s properties and occasionally slips her JUST enough information to ruin Levay’s nefarious plans.

[caddy-whump-us]

🔬 lab rat + your choice

Lab Rat + Will

Special thanks to Outlast and Gravity’s Rainbow for helping with this one. I know, it’s kind of weird, but that’s because it’s a remix of sorts. Also it’s from the whumper’s POV because that’s just how it came out.

Also: so many many many appy-polly-loggies for taking so long to get these prompts answered. Life, you know?

One by one they are being picked off below him: in his small pool of candidates the ratio slowly grows top-heavy, more ghosts, more crowding beneath the eaves, and fewer living. And with each one, he thinks he feels patterns on his cortex going dark, settling to sleep forever, parts of whoever hes been now losing all definition, reverting to dumb chemistry.

What should he have done then, gone down to Psi Section, asked Eventyr to get up a seance, try to get one of them back on the line? Or go back to the dogs? But he renounced them in favor of these untried human subjects. Don’t think he hasn’t doubts as to the validity of this scheme at least. As for the dogs, Lamplighter has deftly picked the locks of their awareness. They have no secrets. He can drive them mad, and with bromides in adequate doses he can bring them back.

But now with Will in it–sudden angel, thermodynamic surprise, whatever he is–will it change now? This immature intellect ripe with plasticity perhaps less inclined to eventual unraveling of telemeres and cross-contamination, less inclined to the lead pellets that would well up in the brains of the others? So the Pavlovian dithers about his office, feeling restless and old. And Will down below, waiting, 416832 tattooed behind his ear, like some studbook dog. Dead on paper and a ward of the state before that, buried in the potter’s field, but in truth buried in the bowels of the mountain, down in the cold guts of the mountain, among the servers and systems–and he will not die.

In two hours, Will will be woken. The white door to his white room unlocked, Will still stretched on his bed with nine-point restraints but still trembling. He’s young but he’s no fool. And getting stronger, which may rearrange the schedule of the experimentation going forward, unless it’s speed that fucks up the genetic code, makes metals pool in the brains of Defective Candidates, and finally kills them with splitting headaches. Hence, in this iteration: younger, weaker, smaller.

Still, it’ll take four or five staff beyond Lamplighter to convey him down to the very heart of the mountain–a dead volcano’s heart now frozen but so very alive. It’s a veritable hive of activity down there. And all for you, Will. All for you. The monitors, the sensors, the specialists, the technicians, the equipment, the doctors, the records–it’s all for you.

But what does will think, lying flat on his back as they wheel him along, with the lights flicking overhead in their steady-ready tick-tock pattern? He used to scream. He used to cry. He used to beg and plead. Now he’ll look to Lamplighter when he’s spoken to, but he has retreated somewhere behind those pretty blue eyes. And when they ensconce him at last at the heart of the mountain? What will he think then?

But that is for the future. For now, it’s another exposure dose and readings from those results, which means full alert down in the White Visitation. No sirens, but lights to be sure. And lockdown in the asylum up above–poor Will, a little anxious, a little sad, a little in-patient therapy, and suddenly you’re the precious center of this magnificent experiment that’s sent so many to their graves (and Lamplighter knows that someday he himself will be alone, in a black field lapsing to isotrophy, to the zero, waiting to be the last to go–but he has to try, he has to survive, to try for the Prize, not for his own glory, but to keep a promise, to the human field of seven he once was, the scientists who didn’t make it and then, of course, the subjects too).

The upper levels in the cored-out mountain, with all their catwalks and scaffolding staircases are Terminal Alpha, Terminal Beta, and Terminal Gamma. Each to their own purpose, looking down on the central purpose of this entire underground laboratory. But the top level and the bottom level were named, nicknamed, each Terminal Dogma–the door to this Hall of the Mountain at the bottom and the highest observation deck at the top.

Will is brought in by that lowest door with Lamplighter at his side, one hand resting on the rails of the bed on which he is laid, and for a moment there is silence inside the mountain (such as there can be), with all eyes down on Will and his racked body. A dozen whirling yellow lights announce his arrival. He is here, he is here.

He has been refusing food. He barely sleeps, save when medically induced. His results are appropriately abnormal but not within dangerous levels. His scans are still clear. There is still time. Perhaps he will, at last, become the Angel of the Mountain, the one who can, at last, break open the last gates.

Old Kevin Spectro did not differentiate as much as he (Lamplighter) between Outside and Inside. He (Spectro) saw the cortex as an interface organ, mediating between the two, Inside and Outside, but part of them both. “When you’ve looked at how it really is,” he asked once, “how can we, any of us, be separate?”

But there is to this enterprise a danger of seduction. Because of the symmetry. He’s been led before down the garden path by symmetry: in certain test results, in the handedness of certain chemical structures, in assuming that a mechanism must imply its mirror image (“irradiation” for example and “reciprocal induction”–and who’d ever said that either had to exist?). Perhaps it will be so this time too. 

Signs and symptoms—was Spectro right? Could Outside and Inside be part of the same field? Certainly, there was documentation that mirror-images Inside could be confused. Ideas of the opposite. But what new pathology lies Outside now? What sickness?

And so, he had designed this modest experiment, to seek the answers at the interface, at the cortex–indeed, in the cortex of Will, lying here on this table. The boy will suffer–perhaps, in some clinical way, be destroyed–but how many others will not suffer thereafter? For pity’s sake, every day great minds are weighing and taking risks that make this seem almost trivial. Almost.

Of the seven tanks surrounding the central monitoring systems and life support, two are filled with black sludge and two are filled with blood. These are the recent failures in the traditional sense, but left intact until they can be deemed failures in the scientific sense. For the black sludge may be a primordial soup. For the blood may be like the blood of the womb. Of the three tanks left, two are empty. One, which is Will’s, is filled with clear salt water, the water of the womb (if one will). 

First the mask, fitted onto and into his mouth and nose, down the passages of his throat. He’s still restrained, but he doesn’t thrash anymore as he did at first and Lamplighter notes this as the technicians and specialists glue the mask to his skin–it’s only spirit gum, but it does the trick. Then the tube, seagreen and soft, dropping down from Terminal Alpha and their air tanks, clamped into place. But, and Lamplighter catches their eye on their high balcony and signals (no radio communication for the moment, no beeping signals) to keep the air restricted. Because, Will, and we’ve been over this before, if you misbehave, you will suffocate. And he had learned–that’s just orthodox Pavlovian right there. Simple as pie. And now they can unbuckle the restraints, strip him down and out of the hospital gown so he stands small and shivering, clipped into his breathing tube, on the concrete floor.

There are samples to be taken, the port in his arm to fill with saline and with sedatives, electrodes to paste to his chest and wrist and forehead. He stands still and patient, sucking at what air is given to him by the grace of Terminal Alpha. (Soon, soon, perhaps he will need none of it.)

Then the swing dropped from Terminal Gamma. Lamplighter and his assistants can clamber up to the top of the platform on central system by any number of ladders, and they do. But Will must be hoisted in his hammock and brought carefully over the narrow mouth of his tank (all life came of the sea and it is in our blood and so we shall find our way beyond by way of the sea; mankind has forever sought to go over that great sea). Terminal Alpha opens the locks on his mask and Will breathes deep and shuddering at last as he and all his cords and lines and equipage are lowered into the water. He is their fish in their bowl.

Will’s panic registers immediately in the upper Terminals and radio silence is broken immediately with chatter within and between the Terminals. It happens every time. Heart rate and breathing are increased but he is within acceptable limits. Will hangs in the middle of his tank, breathing, blinking. He used to paddle and try to swim for the surface; now he floats in neutral buoyancy as they collect his lines and close the lid of his tank.

Lamplighter lets Will’s empty bed precede him as he walks to the elevator to which he and precious few others have keys (hasn’t he always had the keys to such rare things?) so he can rise to his place in Terminal Dogma.

The lights flicker into awareness as he approaches, trailed by his entourage of forgettable and interchangeable assistants. They join the radio chatter and Lamplighter takes his place before the monitors (video, audio, medical). Will is swinging his head gently under water, self-soothing. Like as not, he would do the same outside the laboratory were he not kept restrained. A frustrating situation that he would become so woefully institutionalized. But no matter, if the stimulus continues to prove successful.

Lamplighter begins the countdown. The non-essentials make their exit, retreating to staff rooms and crowded offices under the patient and precise voice counting towards zero, forever counting towards zero. 

The screens over the Terminal balconies begin to grind toward closing, blocking the stimulus from the sight of those who need not see it. The madness, the headaches, the tumors–perhaps it was worth it to some of them: Spectro, Pumm, Easterling, Dromond, Cherrycoke, Contigo… But the fallacy of endangering one’s own life for the cause of research–well, here’s a medium shot, himself backlit, alone at the high window in the Grand Hotel Stockholm, whisky glass tipped at the bright subarctic sky and Here’s to you then, fellas, it’ll be all of us up there onstage tomorrow; Allen Lamplighter just happened to know how survive, that’s all. Publish or perish nothing.

The video feed shows Will face on, from above the stimulus. He’s still swaying in his tank. Eyes opened or closed, it hardly matters. The patterns and optics of the stimulus function either way (that was proven well enough after 987241 gouged out his own eyes–but the optic nerve was sufficiently intact).

The grinding screens wheel shut, sealing off the balconies from the ring of tanks and tests below them. The lower Terminals can see only what they must. It is Lamplighter alone who sees all (and nothing; but this must work–he must seize now or be doomed to the same stone hallways whose termination he knows). 

And now the end of the count comes, opening the realm beyond the zero.

There is silence. For 90 seconds, there is silence, and Lamplighter watches the faint and inverted flickering of the stimulus projected on Will’s eyes. Soon, if all goes well, this will be his world, his life. He will exist within his container, his tank, breathing as he must and living as he must, but he will expand immensely, ceasing to exist solely within his body and moving forever outward–small steps at first, perhaps, but soon stepping across mountains and seas, unstoppable and untouchable, something too swift and too transparent to touch, unencumbered by physicality, a ghost perhaps–but more at an angel, in this world but not of it.

The stimulus session ended and the screens creaked towards opening again. Radio silence was broken with readings and recordings, duly noted up top in Terminal Dogma. Lamplighter did not listen. Will would float in his tank for the evening for observation, then be dried off and put under the EEG again and be considerably atypical as usual: spikes off the temporal lobe, delta-wave shapes off the left frontal, subdued petit-mal spike-and-wave alternation, whatever shape it might take this time. It’s all a matter of process and progress.

But that the change proceeds, and successfully–that is what matters, that is what the records of spike and wave matter. That this one might be the interface between worlds.

When he rises again to the surface of the world, Lamplighter looks out beyond the mountain where the sunset thunders in primal red and in yellow purer than can be found anywhere today.

But out at the horizon, out near the burnished edge of the world, who are these visitors standing, these robed figures–perhaps, at this distance, hundreds of miles tall–their faces, serene, unattached, like the Buddha’s, bending over the Rockies, impassive, indeed, as any angel come that day neither to destroy nor to protect but to bear witness.

What have the watchmen of world’s edge come tonight to look for? deepening on now, monumental beings of cloud, stoical, on toward slag, toward ash the color the night will stabilize at, tonight–what is there grandiose enough to witness?

That night, when the storm breaks, Lamplight collects his notes:

We may all be right and so may be all we have speculated and more. Whatever we may find, there can be no doubt that he is, physiologically, historically, a monster. The thought of him lost in the world of men fills me with a deep dread I cannot extinguish.

We must never lose control.

[silvertonguedslavicwitch]

Πειρασμός | Peirasmós

Chapter 6 : Dangerous Waters

A/N : Again, all the gifs belong to respective owners.

Erika woke up early, as usual, and made herself to the Great Hall where the thralls had already prepared the table for breakfast. Today, the forces that were being assembled by the brothers were finally arriving from all of Norway. Forces from Denmark, Sweden and Norway alike were filling the center and port of Kattegat. It was almost refreshing to see so many who admired Ragnar but it caused an uncertainty within her, seeing as it would mean she would have to have a face off with the people she cared for, presumably Aethelwulf and his sons. Hvitserk did not return home last night at all, she noticed that. She had her suspicions but she'll have to settle for an answer while they have breakfast. She was playing with the necklace sent my her brother as wedding gift, even though it won't be until they have defeated King Aelle. But then again, it would not take long to finish it as it wasn't going to be much on an event since most of the guests that day will consist of the Vikings. Her brother however, did promise to attend and she hoped he would not forget that.

It was her mother's, which was also her wedding gift by her sister. So it held a much more meaningful significance to her. Slowly, the others started to occupy the room and took their respective seats by the table. “I assume you had an eventful night last night, Hvitserk.” She decided to start off the awkward morning with an equally awkward conversation. Was she trying to embarrass him? Not really. They are, after all, ‘vikings’. Nothing bothers them. “He surely did.” Sigurd snickered and she had already confirmed her suspicions when the males of the family smirked. “How are you not jealous, Ubbe?” The raven haired princess found herself asking the elder brother in genuine curiosity. She still has a lot to learn on their tradition and ways.

“And please don't say it's because you're Vikings. You said it as if it's supposed to bring a whole new other meaning.” Before Ubbe could have the chance to speak his turn, she had already cut him off, giving off this brief statement. That was when he did not reply, affirming her thoughts of their answers for almost everything. Which was ‘it's because we're Vikings'. “Aren't you supposed to be territorial? How are you able to share so easily?” Ubbe shrugged, sipping his ale before answering. “He's my brother. I don't see why not. Both of them like each other-” Sigurd had thrown a piece of food towards Ubbe who was taken aback. He forgot the one asking was his future sister in law who was going to wed his youngest brother soon. That was when he decided to clamp his mouth shut. “Why were you asking, princess? Does this not exist in your culture as well? It's all good relations.” King Harald spoke, sitting just across her as he expressed his genuine curiosity.

“I would not ask if it was a normality, King Harald. I wouldn't know. Our traditions are very distinctive between each other. I'm not a Viking, so I don't share. We have strict laws in marriage. Only the King can have concubines. They don't have second wives and whatnot.” It was clear that she had given a sort of warning towards Hvitserk to stop messing around after their marriage. It was not an issue of jealousy but it was more on the issue of respect. She wasn't going to be made out a fool in this marriage. It was a sacred union and she intends to keep it mild and justifiable. “And what would you do if your husband are caught cheating?” Halfdan continued. Shrugging it off casually, the Russian born woman placed her spoon on the side after finishing her meal. “In our good faith, fidelity is the most admirable trait for a wife. So there's no real repercussions to the said punishments. But, there are always other ways to deliver it.” She grinned innocently which caused Hvitserk to shift uncomfortably in his seat as he struggled to finish his food, for the very first time.

While that caused a proud feeling to swell in her, she did not wish to condemn him into a loveless marriage. Despite being the cold hearted abrasive person she was, she was not that cruel. She believed in good will. Perhaps, one day, they will find it in both of them, to make good use of the marriage. Although she was not hopeful to receive a happy ending, a decent path could be more than enough to suffice. In attempts to push the awkwardness filling the air of the morning, she decided to tell them the plans for their upcoming battle. It would definitely pique their interest and successfully evade the situation earlier. “Bjorn, do you have a map on England?” It was important for them to have one if she was going to properly administer every tactical points. The Ironside nodded and gave her a scroll of which she identified to be the map. It wasn't that big enough for her to explain but it would suffice for now, until she presents them with the real one she had saved under her cabinets in her former room at Wessex.

Everyone stopped their eating and soon the table was cleansed off everything. What remained was the empty spot and space for her to draw the map. Erika spreads the map out that covers only a quarter of the table, with Bjorn's help. She was handed a quill by the thrall so she could draw on the map. It was the quill she has been using for years whenever she needed to make tactical strategies. For someone who grew up under the supervision of King Ecbert, it was not a surprise to see her so advanced towards such practice. She came from a broken kingdom that was struggling with power and the English King wanted her to be ready for everything, if it comes to the day she will return. Unfortunately for him, every single one of his teachings would end up being his upcoming demise. Circling the three capital cities of each three kingdoms in England; Northumbria, Wessex, and Mercia, she drew a line to connect all three.

“There are three kingdoms in England. We have two kings as of now. King Aelle of Northumbria and King Ecbert of Wessex and Mercia. Your main and primary target is King Aelle, who rules Northumbria. That is an easy pass, considering Northumbria is a- perhaps, the smallest kingdom against the the other two. It’s far from the sea too, which means you will be able to access the kingdom at its foot. The same way Ragnar did when he led the first raid there. Through the sea coastline. It will take them at least a day to finally find out what was occurring since they only send out patrolling guards twice every week. I'm sure that will somehow change now. I told you, your advantages. The sea, and the fact that you can outnumber his army easily since the alliance between both kings are no longer being held on. But, you are also at a disadvantage because King Aelle knows you're coming. He will be prepared. The patrolling guards will be sent out a lot more frequently than before, perhaps. The security will be heightened. But they are a small kingdom and there is only so much they can do. Your possible route to engage in the battle would be here— the field. This is where he would be waiting for you. It depends on either side on who gets there first. My conclusion is that you will be able to defeat King Aelle easily as he will not have soldiers fortifying anywhere, which means you can come from all corners. He doesn't have the number and due to his ignorance, he will underestimate you.”, she said, writing off Northumbria from the map.

It was until then, Ivar pointed at the other side of the kingdom to another one, Wessex. “What about the one here? We will defeat Northumbria, but what of Wessex?” The youngest Ragnarsson averted his steely cold blue eyes from the map and to the princess who was a bit taken aback by the question. “You want to take on Wessex as well? I thought your retribution is only with King Aelle?” The Russian questioned carefully, her eyes searching for everyone in the room to answer her question. She did not want Ivar to answer it. “Ivar said our father asked us to avenge him towards King Ecbert just as well. I can understand why. He did give up our father to King Aelle in the first place.” Ubbe pointed out, clearing his throat briefly as he explained. She was left battling with her own self. ‘Should I tell them. I should.. My brother asked me to aid their every need. But I would be betraying Aethelwulf..’ When she did not answer, Bjorn's roaring voice interrupted her own train of thoughts when he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Dove? What should we expect from King Ecbert.”

With her hand slightly trembling under the tremor of her own voice betraying her, she drew an x on the three main corners of Wessex. However, she stopped halfway and looked at them. “King Ecbert is the King of two kingdoms now. Wessex was already vast in the first place as an independent kingdom. So was Mercia, as it was the richest kingdom of all England. Now combined and joined together, there was no doubt it would have been more prosperous than before. Even Repton had quite the number of security,” she mumbled, biting her bottom lip as she tried to reason with them. “Is it because you're one of them? Huh, lille ild? You grew up with them. Of course you would try to save your Christian people-” Ivar had a tendency to rile her anger and temper, and now it was slowly fighting its way out. “Yes. Is that what you wanted to hear? Then I will say it. King Ecbert was my ward. He took me when no one else would, in fear that they would be killed off by the ones who sought out for my death. But I couldn't care less about the old man. Who I truly care about is his son, the commander of his army, Prince Aethelwulf. He raised me up and groomed me to be the person I am today, and I raised his sons. I would be facing them off in the battlefield, betraying him after he had nurtured me with every knowledge possible about the kingdom. So yes! I wouldn't want to have to tell his sons that I killed their father. Not physically, but mentally. Consider him dead the moment I stabbed his trust by betraying him and aiding his enemy. Using the armies we posted at their kingdom for you to go against him, instead of using them to honour our alliance and friendship!”

The sudden outburst from the petite foreigner had shocked everyone in the room. The rage she felt was almost sympathizing. Loyalty and fidelity seemed to be everything in her code of honour. And they could respect that, but at the end of the day, what they cared was how to crush their enemies. “We will use the army you have dispatched at all three kingdoms. We'll rendezvous with the vanguard in Repton. We will configure out the rest after we have breached every possible fort they have available.” Hearing the words coming out from Bjorn made Erika clench both her fists as she listened to every plan they had. It was as if nothing had changed. She can't wait to go back to England. But then she would be coming face to face with her friend that she had betrayed silently.

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“How do you do it so easily..”, she croaked out, her voice feeling a little bit off and scratchy after the mental outburst she had the moment she came back to her room. She was now leaning against the bench, staring out into the fjord when she saw Bjorn coming out from the Great Hall. He stopped on his tracks when he heard her voice. “It doesn't get easier. But you will have to make it get easier. If you don't, you'll lose. And in our world, if you lose, you're as good as dead. You didn't deserve to be put on such spot, but it was what must be done.” Sighing in the distance, she closed her eyes briefly before fluttering it back open. The night was hauntingly beautiful. The moon was gloating at her and she wanted to do nothing more than to strike it down. “I will be departing back to England tomorrow at first light. You will see me off, would you?” Bjorn gave her a nod before going off. Somehow, she sees him as an older brother figure. She felt familiar and similar to whatever he was doing. He reminds her a lot of Ragnar, despite not knowing so much about the latter. But she knew, she could always trust her instincts. Like he said, it won't get easier. She best make it get easier.

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She could not sleep a wink last night. Not after what Bjorn told her so late in the night. She kept thinking of his words since then. He was not wrong when he said she needed to get herself used to it, if she wants to survive in the new world. Despite looking hollow about it, she knew better than to display or showcase her state to anyone, especially them. It was a weakness. When she was overseeing the preparations done on the ship that was to take her back to Wessex, she was shortly joined by Hvitserk. It didn't seem like he was with any other company. “Here to bid me off? Aren't you an exemplary husband material, Hvitserk.” She chuckled as the raven haired princess teased the flaxen haired prince's presence. “I should be, shouldn't I? If any of us were going to set a good example.” The answer caught her off guard but nonetheless, the princess offered him a smile that was almost betraying herself.

The facade she was wearing over her other mask was devastatingly beautiful. “It's a hard choice you had to make.. But you made it nonetheless. I hope you see it as a strength rather than failure. To aid us in avenging our father despite getting nothing out of it— truly it's- we are thankful.” Weirdly enough, his tone indicated he was trying to ease her worries and guilt. “I follow whatever my King tells me to. I intend to be the most loyal subject and devoted to both my family and King. He's all I have left. It would be absurd for me to disappoint him.” She breathed in the cold air of the morning before turning to face the tall prince. “Thank you nonetheless, Hvitserk.” She tilted her head slightly in a sign of lowering her sight to respect him. As the others joined together at the port to bid her farewell into a fair journey, Hvitserk had a smile adorning his features until Ubbe noticed but did not say anything until she was well off from any sight. “I'll see you when you arrive in Northumbria, your Highnesses. I await your arrival.”

Ubbe nudged his younger brother who then was shaken by the sudden push. “Why you smiling about, brother? Did she say anything to you privately? And why did you come here earlier than any of us? Hoping to establish a standing point of relationship with your future wife?” The elder Ragnarsson kept bombarding him with questions he did not bother to answer and dismissed it off aimlessly. Hvitserk noticed he was absentmindedly liking when she calls or regards him using his name rather than using their abysmal nicknames. By the time he returned to the Great Hall, Ivar was spouting nonsense about Erika. Was it really nonsense if he had every right to be suspicious of her?

“I'm telling you. She might betray us the first chance she gets. Why did you send her off earlier?” An almost animalistic growl stretched out from his youngest brother's throat. It was so feral-like. “Because we need her to prepare the forces there. No one would follow us if she didn't have a say in it. She knows the kingdoms better than any one of us. It didn't seem like she could serve a better agenda and purpose being here, either. So I suggest you shut up, Ivar, for this is a serious matter and I do not need your useless temper tantrums to ruin what we have established with the Ruriks.” Bjorn warned, his striking blue eyes gleaming with annoyance as his tone dripped in venom. It was a caution for the cripple, not that he would care less. Ivar knew to get his way most of the time and that terrifies Hvitserk and the others utterly. Even when they would not show it.

It was more than clear to everyone, that Ivar held a particular distaste towards the Russian princess. Whether it was due to her personality and fiery self who never ceased to throw Ivar’s words back around to hit the owner, or her heritage of being a foreigner and a Christian, no one was really sure. But the fact that he was so adamant into convincing others to push her off the board as soon as possible was burdensome yet very suspicious. Hvitserk did not want anything to befall the cranky royal, as he found himself wanting to establish a better standing on their current status. He didn't like the idea of settling down so soon as he was still young , especially with someone he barely even knew. Unfortunately for the prince, he, more than anyone knew fully well that it would be suicide for him to cause any trouble in their matrimonial union. As long as she wields the upper hand in their organization, she was untouchable. And for him, as long as his wife could wield a knife properly, that was more than enough reasons not to test her. She bested him once during a sword fight. There was more to her than she would let others know and he was sure, that he was not the only one who finds her enigmatic.

But one thing is for sure. Erika was playing with dangerous waters, and she knows it. How well she cultivates her circle is entirely up to her, and the third eldest brother had his suspicion that she will turn them over without flinching. And the worst thing was, they might not realise what she's threading up her sleeves.

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[ayellowbirds]

Seventh night of writing! At 12,600 words, the first week is done with the target beaten. 

i’m currently only able to work for 14 hours a week; donations to support this are welcome! Feel free to let me know when you’ve donated, I’ll see about including a tribute of some sort to you in the text of the story:

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Click the Read More to continue, or click here for the previous part (now with corrected formatting), and here for the first part!

She noticed Eciurtal looked frustrated about something, though. Probably that she wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking of…” V. tried to think of an appropriate lie, “...my last solo mission. Would you mind repeating that?”

Chief Nurse Eciurtal had the distinction of being half-Icosan, and half-Rastra—a far western nation that had, thus far, opposed Icarian rule. In particular, her parent had been from a population of the people of the land found in one of the largest Rastriyan ports, a notorious thief known only as Silver Dhanukkar. The special scandal of Firoza Ciurtal’s parentage was not her mixed heritage, but that nobody would admit to who was her mother and who was her father. Silver Dhanukkar’s gender was a mystery as great as anything else about the burglar, and whether they had borne a child by the eldest son of the noble Eciurtal family, or sired one on that same son’s twin sister, it was unknown. The Eciurtals were notoriously private, eccentric, and possessed of a strange code of pride that excused Firoza’s existence while at the same time keeping nearly everything about her life secret.

Perhaps that was the reason she was attached to the Corpse as Chief Nurse.

“I said that you need to remember to keep your emblem on you, or else you won’t resurrect,” she said to V., sighing as she rubbed her own, an abstracted likeness of a squirrel with its tail curling around its body.

“Oh, of course,” V. said, reaching into her collar to pull out the animal symbol she kept on a chain so tight it might as well have been a choker. She was used to it being there, in spite of never having liked it or wanted it, like so much else in her life. “I never forget it.”

ONCE AGAIN, TEN YEARS BEFORE THE PRESENT, I KNOW IT’S CONFUSING

“Again, after your emblem is cast, never forget to keep it on your person. These charms will contain a portion of the very same immortal essence as our beloved Emperor, his personal gift to you as members of his Corpse,” intoned the Witch General, lifting one of the small bars of metal that would soon be reshaped into the likeness of an animal through powerful sorcery. It was aluminum, a precious metal that itself required powerful magic to process from ores, and was ordinarily reserved as a possession of Icosans.

L. raised his hand.

“Yes?” the Witch General asked, barely glancing in L.’s direction at the far left of the assembly.

“What’s an emblem, anyway?” the small, pale boy asked.

The Witch General—whose name was a matter of national secrecy, and in fact was rumored to be regularly and according to randomized timing replaced by a new Witch General in order to further confound enemies of the state—opened his eyes wide. Even from the floor below the podium, V. could see that he was so regular a user of the medicinal compounds that even the whites of his eyes had a bluish tone to them. Nobody in the audience seemed to offer any more understanding than L. had.

Those eyes darted towards the assembled instructors, who coughed and shuffled as if they were children themselves, caught having neglected a chore.

The Witch General sighed, and began, “as your trainers ought to have informed you well before now, an emblem is a personal symbol of profound significance in the likeness of an animal, monstrous creature, mythical beast, plant, or on some occasions, a type of person recognized by trade or other category.”

He handed the tray of aluminum bars to an assistant at his side, and gestured grandly to a brooch on his breast. Suddenly, a phantasmal image grew from it, a large white bird with a black mask over an orange beak. “A mute swan, the symbol of the office of the Witch General of the Icarian Empire; as an appointee to this office, I have been assigned this as my official emblem, and shall surrender it for another in the event that I am retired.”

The bird began to gesture with its wings and move its long neck along with the Witch General as he continued, “it is perhaps more traditional that an emblem be assigned either in recognition of a great deed of the recipient, or else on the establishment of a family or clan; this is considered by some to be a tradition originating amongst the Amoric nations—”

Doctor Flastbic, the instructor in magical arts, coughed audibly into his palm. The Witch General gave a brief glance in his direction, before continuing. V. felt as though there was something a bit more dangerous in his expression, now.

“—there is no substantial evidence for this, and it is well-established as a practice original to the Icarian Empire in recognition of the virtues embodied by our citizenry. Most significantly,” he said, now leaning forward and and enunciating in an annoyingly deliberate manner that V. was certain was covering the podium with spittle on each hard consonant, “an assignment of an emblem that most accurately encapsulates the character and potential of an individual may allow them to effect greater works of magic by focusing on this image.”

There was some shuffling and half-murmuring from the crowd. Doctor Flastbic had only just begun to teach them more than elementary wizardry, after having spent a great deal of time on theoretical, historical, and cultural matters, with special emphasis on the flaws in foreign and Amoric magical practices. On top of supposedly making them immortal, this promise of the emblems was akin to an offer of bonus points on their assignments.

“Owing to the significance of this, and in recognition of your age and the degree to which you have advanced in your training,” the Witch General said over the rising noise, smirking as he saw his audience become excited at his words, the phantom swan puffing up its breast, “the Emperor himself has authorized me to determine suitable surnames for each of you, based upon the emblem you receive.”

The rising chatter turned to silence for just a beat before gasps and the like of “did he?”, “what?”, and “really?” began to break out like birdsong at dawn. V. was stunned. A surname assigned with the authorization of the imperial authorities meant full citizenship. It meant that they would not simply be orphan wards of the state, but would be able to own land, have influence in local governance and perhaps even become members of the lower house of the Parliamentary Congress, and make all kinds of purchases and conduct business that they had only dreamed of. Once they had retired from the Corpse, of course.

So it was that V. was half-dazed as the assignment began, the Witch General personally divining their emblems, starting in the first row with A.—a barn spider, and thus the surname Aranya, matching her letter-name. The aluminum bar rose in the air and turned into something like a spoked wheel, before the Witch General’s assistant threaded a fine chain through it and presented it to A.

So it continued with the rest of First Row. V. was at once in a fog, and paying close attention. R., the gray fox, Renar. K., a wild mare, got the name “Glesb” from the Witch General’s more guttural pronunciation of the letter as “Go” instead of the familiar “Ko”. Making two canines in the same row, C. got the coyote, Koyot.

It was starting to get V. excited. Ideas were forming about what kind of animal would be right.

Second Row was much the same. E. gave a considered nod as he was assigned the book scorpion, and given the translated surname Ekdish. Þ’s was a more supernatural creature, the little beast of the near-eastern timberlands that was called a Teakettler. P. was granted Palomba, her emblem taking the shape of a mourning dove. M.’s was a little black field ant, and so she became M. Murashke.

Maybe something more monstrous, then, or magical? No, V. had a pretty good idea.

In the Third Row, O. was given the name Onza, after the Witch General identified her with the oddly vague “catamount”, without specifying which of the several animals that name described was her emblem. H. was named Hayfish, after being divined to have the tiger shark as his emblem. F. became Ferdbin, for the yellowjacket, while D. was identified with the razorbacks of the hill country, and was named Djavali.

V. was practically ready to say the animal’s name aloud along with the Witch General, but it wouldn’t do to interrupt. Especially not now that the Fourth Row’s turn had come, and—V. couldn’t understand it. That couldn’t be right.

The little metal charm was dropped into V.’s hands, and a name was assigned based on the animal in question. As B. was brought over, V. continued to mouth the name of what was most certainly the right animal, the correct emblem.

For whatever reason, the Witch General had given all of them names from the languages of the people of the land. Flastbic had been growing more and more clearly frustrated the entire time, and V. was dimly aware that the old wizard was now in the corner having a coughing fit.

It would have made sense—the Witch General had even pronounced V.’s name as the “vuht” that rang more true than the usual Icosan accent. But, why that animal? It just seemed so obvious, after all. They had even just been reviewing recent papers on the right one in their natural history studies.

Why not a wolf?

...and why did V. feel more comfortable naming that “Velfikhe”* instead of the masculine “Volf”?

* She-Wolf.

[lechevaliermalfet]

Pistols at Dawn: A Look at Doom and Marathon

In the mid-1990s, the first-person shooter genre was born with Doom. It wasn't the first game of its type.  Games like Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold preceded it.  Catacomb 3D came before either of those.  And you can trace the lineage further back if you like.  But it was Doom that saw the kind of runaway success most development studios live and die without ever attaining.  That success spawned imitators.  It was the imitators and their imitations – some of them using the very same engine – that made it a genre.  It's how genres are born.

It was interesting to watch that happen in real time.

But that's the PC side of history.

If you were a Macintosh user, you were probably sick to death of your PC-owning friends crowing about Doom, all the more because it wasn't available for your system of choice. Doom would eventually make its way Mac-ward... after its own sequel was eventually released for the system first.  Absurd as this sounds, it didn’t really matter too much.  Story, and the importance of continuity between games, wasn't exactly a big concern in Doom.

But Mac users had little reason to despair.  Because although Doom was and is rightly remembered as a classic, Mac users were privy to a game nearly as good – probably even equal, maybe even better, depending on who you talk to.

That game was Marathon.

More below the cut.

It's hard trying to justify comparisons between Doom and Marathon, because despite their similarities, they aren't really in the same league.  It's hard to compare any game that became the jumping-off point for a whole genre to its contemporaries.  But as much as I lionize Doom, and as much as everyone else does the same, it's perhaps helpful to think that this is done with the benefit of hindsight.  Today, in 2018, we've had nearly two-and-a-half decades of Doom being available for almost every single thing that could conceivably run it.

Remembering Doom in its time, it would have been hard to predict that it would go on to achieve quite the level of adulation it's garnered over the years. It's not that Doom doesn't deserve it.  It's more that any game attaining this level of success both in its time and in the long term is basically impossible to predict.  Doom was much talked about, it was wildly popular, you heard rumors of whole IT departments losing days of productivity to it in network games, but...  Well, it was just one game.  Later two.  It was perfectly valid to suppose, in the mid-90s, that some developer would surely supplant it with something even better.  That's just the way things worked.  It's just that Doom was well-made enough, well-balanced enough, that "something even better" didn't come around for a long time.  

Still, the Macintosh is not where I would have expected to look for real competition for Doom.

The Mac wasn't actually a barren wasteland, game-wise.  It's just easy to remember it that way, especially if, like me, you grew up playing PC games.  Most of the games we think of as being influential in the realm of computer gaming tended not to come from that direction.  Mac users made up a smaller portion of overall computer users at that point.  PCs (still often referred to as "IBM/PC compatibles" at the time) being the larger market and thus a source of larger potential profits, that was where the majority of developers focused their attention.  The hassles of porting a game to Mac, whether handled by the original developer or farmed out to somebody else, were frequently judged not to be worth the potential profit.  At times, it was determined not to be profitable in the first place.

There were a few games – Myst comes immediately to mind – that bucked this trend, but most Mac games only became influential once they crossed over to PCs, like...  Well, like Myst did.  The Mac ecosystem just wasn't big enough for anything that happened in it exclusively to influence the wider world of PC gaming.  

Actually, let's go with that ecosystem analogy for a minute.  

Mac gaming in the early 90s was sort of like Australia.  It's a tiny system that only accounted for a small percentage of the biosphere. It had its own unique creatures, similar to animals occupying equivalent ecological niches elsewhere in the world.  But on closer inspection, these turned out to all be very different from their counterparts, often in fundamental ways.  And then you had some creatures with no real equivalents elsewhere.  There was a lot of parallel evolution.  

Case in point: Marathon.

Being released a scant eleven days after Doom, you definitely can't accuse it of being one of the imitators.  It didn't happen in a vacuum, though.

Its creators, Bungie, were a sort of oddball company whose founders openly admitted that they started off in the Macintosh market not because of any fervent belief in the superiority of the platform, but because it was far less competitive than the PC market at the time.

They started off with Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, a multiplayer-only (more or less) first-person maze game, and followed it up with Pathways Into Darkness.

Pathways was meant to be a sequel to Minotaur at first, until it morphed into its own thing over the course of its development.  In genre terms, it's most like a first-person shooter.  Except there are heavy adventure game elements, nonlinearity, and multiple endings depending on decisions you make during the game, which are pretty foreign to the genre.  It also features a level of resource scarcity that wouldn't be at all out of place in a survival horror game.

Incidentally, I would love to see a source port of Pathways Into Darkness. It is its own weird, awkward beast of a game, and I would dearly love to be able to play it, after having seen only maybe ten minutes of gameplay at a friend's house one time when I was about twelve.

They followed this up with the original Marathon.

Doom is largely iterative.  It follows on from a tradition of older FPS games made by its developer, like Wolfenstein 3D and Catacombs 3D. Like those predecessors, it relegates the little apparent story to pre-game and post-game text, and features a very video game-y structure that relies on discrete levels and fast, reflex-oriented play.  It adds complexity and sophistication to these elements as seen in previous games, introducing more enemies, more weapons, and more complex and varied environments, then layers all of this on top of an already proven, solid gameplay core.

Marathon, by contrast, simplified and distilled the elements of previous games by its developer.  It opts to be more clearly an FPS (as we understand it in modern terms) than any of its predecessors, shedding Pathways' adventure elements and non-linearity while increasing the player's arsenal.  However, it's still less straightforward than Doom's pure level-by-level structure.  Marathon presents itself as a series of objectives given to the player character (the Security Officer) by various other characters to be achieved within the level.  These can range from scouting out particular areas, to ferrying items around the level, to clearing out enemies, to rescuing friendly characters, and so on.

Marathon's story, unlike Doom's, is front and center.  Where Doom leaves the player to satisfy themselves that they are slowly progressing toward some ultimate enemy with every stage, Marathon gives the player concrete goals each step of the way, framing each objective as either a way to gain advantage over the enemy, or to recover from setbacks inflicted by them.  Doom's story is focused on the player character and their direct actions. For narrative purposes, anything happening beyond your ability to observe is irrelevant.  Marathon instead opts to give the player a feeling that although they are the one making crucial things happen in the story, they are not directing the action themselves.

Which brings me to something interesting about Marathon's story.

The player character, the Security Officer, has surprisingly little agency within the narrative.  At a guess, I'd say that's because it would be almost impossible to express his own thoughts and emotions with the way the plot is relayed.  It's true that most games -- especially in the FPS genre -- tell you what to do.  Rescue the princess.  Save the world.  Prevent nuclear catastrophe.  Etc.  Etc.  But this is normally done in an abstract sense, by presenting you a clear goal and some means to achieve it.  Even open-world games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have an overarching goal that you're meant to be slowly working your way toward.  

But while your actions in a given game are generally understood to be working toward the stated goal, the player is usually presented in the narrative as having a choice – or perhaps more accurately as having chosen prior to the beginning of the game proper – regarding whatever path the game puts them on.  Mario has chosen to go save Princess Toadstool.  Link has chosen to go find the pieces of the Triforce and save Princess Zelda.  Sonic has chosen to confront Doctor Robotnik.  Even the Doom Guy has chosen to fight the demons infesting the moons of Mars on his own rather than saying "fuck it" and running.  The reasons for these choices may in some cases be left up to the player to sort out or to apply their imagination, but the point remains.  These characters have chosen their destinies.

The Security Officer from the Marathon trilogy, by contrast, does not.  Throughout the games, he is presented as following orders.  "Install these three circuits in such-and-such locations".  "Scout out this area". "Clear the hostile aliens out of this section of the ship". And so on, and so forth.  Even in the backstory, found in the manual, the character is just doing his job, responding to a distress call before he fully realizes the sheer scale of the problem.  The player, as the Security Officer, is always moving from one objective to the next on the orders of different AI constructs who happen to be in control of him – more or less – at a given time.  The Security Officer is clearly a participant in events, but he lacks true agency.

In fairness, it must have been hard to figure out how to tell a compelling story within the context of a first-person shooter back in the early 90s, which is why so few people did it.  

I'm not enough of a programmer to be able to explain it well (understatement; I'm not any kind of programmer), but the basic gist of it is that games like Doom weren't technically in 3D.  The environments were rendered in such a way that they appeared in three dimensions from the player's perspective, but as earlier versions of source ports like ZDoom made clear, this was an illusion, one that was shattered the moment you enabled mouse aiming and observed the environments from any angle other than dead-ahead.  The enemies, meanwhile, were 2D sprites, which was common in video games of any type for the day.

This was how Marathon was set up as well.  It's how basically every first-person shooter worked until the release of Quake – and some after it.

The problem is that this doesn't lend itself very well to more cinematic storytelling.  Sprites tended not to be very expressive given the lower resolutions of the day.  At least, not sprites drawn to relatively realistic proportions like the ones in Doom and Marathon. So you couldn't really do cinematic storytelling sequences with them, and that left only a handful of other options for getting your story across.

You could do what I tend to think of as Dynamic Stills, a la Ninja Gaiden on the NES.  At its best, it enables comic book-style storytelling, but that's about as far as it goes.

You can do FMV cutscenes, which at the time basically involved bad actors in cheap costumes filmed against green screens or really low-budget sets.  CG was relatively uncommon (and likely prohibitivesly expensive) even in the mid-90s.

You can do mostly text, interspersed throughout your game.

You can just not have much story at all.

Doom opted for option four.  John Carmack has been quoted as saying that story in video games is like story in porn.  Everybody expects it to be there, but nobody really cares about it.  

I disagree with this sentiment pretty vehemently, as it happens.  There are some games that aren't well served by a large amount of plot, and Doom is definitely one of them.  But to state that this is or should be true for the medium as a whole is frankly ridiculous.

There's something refreshing, almost freeing, about a game that has less a story than a premise. Doom starts off on Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, which has been invaded by demons from hell.  They've gained access by virtue of human scientists' experimentation with teleportation technology gone horribly, horribly wrong.  The second episode sees you teleported to Deimos, which as been entirely swallowed up by Hell, and which segues from the purely technological/military environments of Doom to more supernatural environs.  Episode 3 has you assaulting Hell proper.  Doom II's subtitle, Hell on Earth, tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the setting and premise of the game.

That's it.  There are no characters to develop or worry about.  It's just you as the lone surviving marine, your improbably large arsenal, and all the demons Hell can throw at you.  Go nuts.

Bungie, meanwhile, took a different approach.  I can't seem to find out which of their founders said it, but they have been on record as basically being diametrically opposed to Id Software in their attitude about story.  "The purpose of games is to tell stories."  I wish I knew who at Bungie said that.

Marathon is very much a story-oriented game.  Of the aforementioned methods of storytelling, they opted for option three: text, and lots of it.

Marathon's story is complex and labyrinthine, especially as it continues through the sequels (Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity), and is open to interpretation at various points.  Much is left for the player to piece together themselves.  Aside from the player character, the story mainly centers on the actions of three AI constructs: Leela (briefly), Durandal, and Tycho.  Their actions, in the face of an invasion by a race of alien slavers called the Pfohr, drive the story.  

Their words and actions are relayed to the player by way of text at terminals scattered throughout the game's environments.  Some of these take the form of orders and objectives given by the AI to the player character, the Security Officer.  Some of these are more musings or rants (two out of the three AIs you work for over the course of the Marathon trilogy are not exactly all there), which serve to flesh out events happening beyond the player's observations, and help build the world.  Some of these are seemingly random bits of background information, presented as if they were being accessed by someone else (often an enemy) before they were distracted by something – usually you, shooting everything in sight.  

Design-wise, there are some interesting differences.

Doom is old-school from a time when that was the only school, with levels that strike a nice balance between video game-y and still giving at least a vague sense that they were built to be something other than deathtrap mazes.  But what makes them old-school, at this point, is the fact that they're levels, with discrete starting and ending points, where your goal is to move from the former to the latter and hit the button or throw the lever to end it and begin the next one.

There's no plot to lose the thread of, no series of objectives for you to lose track of if you put the game down for a week, or a month, or longer still.  It's extremely pick-up-and-play, equally well suited to killing twenty minutes or a whole afternoon, as you like.

The appeal (aesthetics aside) of Doom is also at least in part its accessibility.  It has a decently high skill ceiling (which is to say, the level of skill required to play at an expert level), but a surprisingly low skill floor (the level of skill required to play with basic proficiency), which has lent it a certain evergreen quality. And Id Software has been keen to capitalize on this.  Doom is one of a small number of PC games (Diablo II is the only other one I can think of off the top of my head; what is it with games that have you fighting demons from Hell?) that have been commercially viable and available basically from the day they were released.  In addition to DOS on PCs, Doom was rejiggered for Windows 95, and also (eventually) saw release for Mac.  Also, it's been sold for multiple consoles: the Super NES, the Sega 32X (regrettably), the Atari Jaguar (also regrettably), the PlayStation, the N64, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox One (the 360 version again, via backward compatibility).  And source ports have kept the PC version alive and kicking, adding now-standard features like mouse aiming, particle effects, and support for widescreen displays.

The result is a game that, if you don't mind pixelated graphics, is as ferociously playable today as it was twenty-four years ago (as of this writing), and has enjoyed a kind of longevity usually not seen outside the realm of first-party Nintendo classics.

Marathon by contrast is somewhat less inviting.  

From a technical standpoint, Marathon is more or less the equal of Doom. The environments throughout the series are rendered at a somewhat higher resolution, but the enemies are less well animated.  Marathon also introduced the idea of mouse aiming to the FPS genre, and allowed the player to use that to look (and aim) vertically, which hadn't been done before either.  Even Doom, though it also introduced more vertical gameplay, locked the player's movement to the strictly horizontal; vertical aiming was accounted for automatically, although source ports have modernized this. Marathon leans into its verticality a little more as a result, and level layouts are more complex, bordering on the impossiblely convoluted without the aid of your automap.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that Marathon would classify as a survival horror game, there are some elements of that genre in it.  This is almost certainly unintentional, and I'm identifying them as such retroactively (the genre hadn’t really arrived yet). Still, they exist.  Ammunition is more scarce than in Doom, forcing the player to lean on the lower end of their arsenal far later into the game than Doom does. Some weapons also feature alternate fire modes, which was a genre first.  

Health packs are nonexistent; instead, the player can recharge their health at terminals designed for this purpose, usually placed very sparingly.  Saving is also handled at dedicated terminals – a decision better befitting a console game, and somewhat curious here.  In addition to health, there is also an air gauge, which depletes gradually whenever the player is in vacuum or underwater, and which can be difficult to find refills for.

Marathon also marks the early appearance of weapon magazines in the first-person shooter genre.  Doom held to the old design established by Wolfenstein and older games that the player fires their weapons straight from the ammo reserves.  If you have a hundred shotgun rounds, then you can fire a hundred times, no reload necessary.  The reloading mechanic as we would most readily recognize it seems to have been added for the genre with Half-Life, for reasons of greater realism and introducing tension to the game.  

Marathon's version of this, as you might expect for a pioneering effort, is pretty rough.  There is no way to manually reload your weapons when you want.  Rather, the game will automatically cycle through the reload animation once you empty the magazine.  It does helpfully display how many rounds remain in the magazine at all times so you know how many you have left before a reload, and can plan accordingly. But it still exerts the familiar reload pressure, just in a different way.  Rather than asking yourself whether you have the spare seconds for a reload to top off your magazine, now you have to ask yourself whether it's wiser to just fire the last few rounds of the magazine to trigger the reload now, when it's safe, so that you have a full magazine ready to go for the next encounter.  Marathon's tendency to leave you feeling a little more ammo-starved than Doom makes this decision an agonizing one at times.  

Id's game is pretty sparing with the way it doles out rockets and energy cells for the most high-powered weapons, true.  But the real workhorse weapons, the shotgun and the chaingun, have ammo lying around in plenty.  Past a certain early point in any given episode of Doom or Doom II, as long as you diligently grab whatever ammo you come across and your aim is even halfway decent, you never have to worry about running out.  Marathon, by contrast, sees you relying on your pistol for a good long while. Compared to other weapons you find, it has a good balance of accuracy and availability of ammunition.  

The overall pacing and difficulty of both games is also somewhat different.  

Both games are hard, but in different ways.  Doom has enemies scattered throughout a level in ones and twos, but most of the major encounters feature combinations and larger numbers.  But the plentiful ammo drops and health packs mean the danger of these encounters tends to be relatively isolated, and encourages fast maneuvering and some risk-taking.  If you can make it through a given encounter, you usually have the opportunity to heal up and re-arm before the next one.  Doom is centered around its action.  It gives you the shotgun – which you’ll be using for most of the game, thanks to its power – as early as the first level if you’re on the lookout for secrets, and by the second level, you really can’t miss it.

Marathon, by contrast, paces itself (and the player) differently.  Ammo gets doled out more sparingly, and health recharge stations are likewise placed few and far between (rarely more than one or two in a stage, at least so far as I’ve played, and small enough that they can be easily overlooked).  Save points are likewise not always conveniently placed, and the fact that the game has save points means that you can’t savescum, and dying can result in a fair amount of lost progress.  The result is that, unless you’re closer to the skill ceiling, you tend to play more carefully and conservatively.  You learn to kite enemies, stringing them along to let you take on as few at a time as possible.

The tactics I developed to play games like Doom and later Quake didn’t always serve me very well when I first started playing Marathon. The main danger in Bungie’s game is the death of a thousand cuts. Where Doom attempts in most cases to destroy you in a single fell swoop, Marathon seeks to wear you down bit by bit until you have nothing left, and you’re jumping at shadows, knowing that the next blow to fall may be your last.  It encourages more long-term thinking.  Similar to a survival horror game, every clip spent and every hit taken has meaning, and can alter your approach to the scenario you find yoruself in.

In short, if Doom is paced like a series of sprints, Marathon is, well... a marathon.

Another interesting difference is how both games deal with their inherent violence.  

As games which feature future military men mowing down whole legions of enemies by the time the credits roll, violence is a matter of course. It becomes casual.  But both games confront it in different ways.

Doom was one of the games that helped stir up a moral panic in the U.S. in the early to mid-90s (alongside Mortal Kombat, most notably).  While I don't agree with it, it was hardly surprising.  Doom gloried in its violence.  Every enemy went down covered in blood (some of them came at you that way), some of them straight-up liquefying if caught too near an explosion.  This is to say nothing of all the hearts on altars or dead marines littering the landscape to provide the proper ambiance.

The idea was simple: You were surrounded by violent monsters, and the only way to overcome them was to become equally violent.  The game's fast pace and adrenaline-rushing gameplay only served to emphasize this.  Doom isn't a stupid game by any means – it requires a certain amount of cleverness and a good sense of direction in addition to good reflexes and decent aim to safely navigate its levels -- but the primary direction it makes you think in is how? How do I get through this barrier, how do I best navigate through these dark halls, how do I approach this room full of enemies that haven't seen me yet?

Marathon asks those questions as well, because any decent game is constantly asking you those questions, because they are all variations on the same basic question any game of any kind (video games, board games, whatever) is asking you: How do you overcome the challenges the game throws at you using the tools and abilities the game gives you?

The difference (well, the narrative difference, distinct from all the rest) is that Marathon also talks about the violence seemingly inherent in human nature as one of a variety of things in its narrative.  

To be fair, Marathon brings it up pretty briefly in its terminal text.  But one of the terminals highlights Durandal's musings on the Security Officer, and humankind in general.  

Organic beings are constantly fighting for life. Every breath, every motion brings you one instant closer to your death. With that kind of heritage and destiny, how can you deny yourself? How can you expect yourself to give up violence?

Indeed, it may be seen as not just useful, but a necessary and essential component of humanity.  Certainly it's vital to the Security Officer's survival and ultimate victory in the story of the games.

And yet, on the whole, Marathon is a less violent game.  Or at least, it glories in its violence less.  Enemies still go down in a welter of their own blood, because that happens when you shoot a living creature full of bullet holes.  But it's less gory on the whole – bloody like a military movie, bloody as a matter of fact, in contrast to Doom's cartoonishly overwrought slasher-flick excess.

And yet it's Marathon that feels compelled to grapple with its violence, to ask what motivates it, not just in the moment, but wherever it appears in the nature and history of humankind.

On the whole, I think I come down on the side of Marathon, personally.  Its themes, its aesthetic, and its characters are more to my liking.  True, part of this is simply because Marathon has characters. Doom has the player character and a horde of enemies.  Even the final boss of each installment has no narrative impact to speak of.  They simply appear in order to be shot down.  They're presented as the forces behind the demonic invasion, but aside from being bigger and stronger than all the other demons you face, there's no real sense of presence, narratively.  And that's fine.  But on the balance, I tend to prefer story in my games, and Marathon delivers, even as it's sometimes a bit janky, even as I get the feeling that Bungie's reach exceeded their grasp with it.

I can recognize Doom as the game that's more accessible, and probably put together a little better, and of course infinitely more recognizable.  Id still sells it, and generally speaking, it's worth the five whole dollars (ten if you want Doom II as well) it'll cost you on PSN, or Xbox Live, or Steam.

Bungie, meanwhile, gave the Marathon trilogy away for free in the early 2000s.  It's how I finally managed to play it, despite never owning a Mac.  There are source ports that allow it to be played on PCs (or Linux, even).  About the only new development in the franchise was an HD remaster of Marathon 2: Durandal for the Xbox 360.  In the same vein as the remasters for Halo or Halo 2, this version changes nothing about the original except to update the graphics and adapt the control scheme for a 360 controller.

I'd love to see a remake of Marathon with modern technology, even though I know it's extraordinarily unlikely to happen.  Bungie's occupied with Destiny for the foreseeable future.  The most we've gotten in ages is a few Easter eggs.  343 Guilty Spark in the original Halo featured Durandal's symbol prominently on his mechanical eye, which fueled speculation for a little while that perhaps Halo took place in the same continuity.  There's another Easter egg in Destiny 2 that suggests two of its weapons, the MIDA Multi-tool and the MIDA Mini-tool, fell out of an alternate universe where Marathon's events occurred instead of Destiny's. But that's been it.

The tragedy of Marathon is that it wasn't in a position for its innovations to be felt industry-wide.

Doom had the better overall playability and greater accessibility.  If you were to ask where a lot of FPS genre innovations came from, the average gamer would probably not point to Marathon as the progenitor of those things.  Quake would probably get credit for adding mouse aiming (even though it wasn't a standard menu option, and had to be enabled with a console command), or else maybe Duke Nukem 3D. Unreal would most likely get credited as the genesis of alternate firing modes, while Half-Life is probably the one most people remember for introducing the notion of reloading weapons.  I'm not totally sure which other FPS would get the nod for mainstreaming the greater presence of story in the genre – probably Half-Life again.

But since it's free, I would strongly recommend giving the Marathon trilogy a spin.  It's a little rough around the edges even judged by the standards of its time, but still eminently playable, with a strong story told well. And if it seems at times like the FPS That History Forgot, well, that's because History was mostly looking the other way at the time. It's part of the appeal for me, too.  It feels at times like a "lost" game.

Let that add to its mystique.

[bdfanfic]

On His Mane’s Secret Service - Chapter 8

The next days were a whirlwind of activity around the palace. For her part, Ra’Jirra mostly just tried to stay out of the way. She spent a lot of time with the other concubine princesses and found them to be significantly more industrious than her imaginings of a bunch of beautiful khajiits laying about amidst pillows, bathing and snacking on exotic foods all day.

In fact, most of them had been assigned administrative duties and were quite a bit more important in the running of the countries’ major departments than she would ever have believed. At the behest of Em, Ra’Jirra herself had been tasked with assisting the local security forces and police, under the direction of the head of the Mane’s local security.

She’d been surprised when she found out that the head of it was, in fact, another of the Mane’s concubines - an older khajiit woman called Lady Ree. In the early days of her tenure under Lady Ree, Ra’Jirra found herself mainly preoccupied with dashing messages back and forth from the bayside port’s security detail to the palace, but as the days counted down to the big meeting, she found herself more and more providing her own suggestions on questions of security - both the security of the Mane and the palace where the meeting would take place, but also of the emissaries’ planned housing outside the palace grounds.

As much as she detested the Dominion, she still had to help provide for their security amidst the bustling throng in the city. Her knowledge of magic, however, was limited and she was pleased to have been given some training in warding by some trusted magic users who helped her to erect what magical protections they could around both the Dominion’s embassy and the hastily-commandeered house that would serve as the Histess’ dwelling should that mysterious person arrive as the Dominion claimed.

At last the day arrived when the contingents from the Altmer and the Argonians were expected, though the actual meeting was still two days away. As it happened, she was on hand when the Dominion ship was spotted sailing up the bay towards the city. She frowned at the impressive, golden and mast-less galleon which was obviously propelled by magical means in a showy and grand entrance.

She breathed a deep sigh of resignation and joined the delegation assigned to greet Number One and his retinue.  The ship made a grand show in the Torval harbor as it sailed past the dock and wheeled about, then began to move directly sideways towards the dock, a move that was unnervingly unnatural for such a vessel.

When it finally arrived at the dock and ropes were thrown, they fell into the water uncaught as haughty Altmer sailors eschewed the traditional means of anchorage and a large walkway emerged of its own accord, complete with golden handrails and steps, from which the Altmer delegates descended.

Neither the Mane, nor Devline, his figurehead, would meet with these directly until the official meeting, but his prime concubine, Isdra, was the first to greet them as they arrived. Ra’Jirra stood nearby in the greeting line, dressed in the Raba as tradition dictated. She saw the tall, thin figure of Number One emerge from the ship and step down haughtily. He spied her and smiled with a nearly imperceptible nod before greeting the prime concubine and the other khajiit dignitaries.

Her blood boiled, but she kept her cool externally - which wasn’t hard considering that Isdra had convinced her to leave the underwear behind this time. Yet when Number One finally greeted her, she found herself unable to sheath her claws and knew her tail was lashing uncontrollably and furiously behind her.

“Ra’Jirra,” he said calmly, and she offered her hand reluctantly. He took it, not flinching from the sharp nails. She longed to extend the too-cool smile up his cheeks and down his neck with them as he ritually kissed the back of her hand.

“The naked spy is more beautiful than I’d supposed! But, like the rose, the most beautiful creatures always have their spikes. Have you become the Mane’s concubine then? I had heard as much, but somehow I couldn’t imagine you… thus.”

“Welcome to Elsweyr, Number One of the Dominion,” she said, dutifully ignoring his pleasantries. “We have an escort that will take you to your embassy. The meeting will begin the day after tomorrow. Until then, you are free to visit the city. However, we do require that you be escorted by a security detail that will be available outside whenever you might feel the need.”

“So formal! Will you be a member of that detail?”

“I sincerely hope not,” Ra’Jirra said calmly and politely. “I might not be able to guarantee your personal safety. There are those who might wish ill of you here.”

“Oh? Then I should be cautious I suppose,” he said with a wry smile.

“Like me,” she said, continuing her statement as politely as she could muster.

The smile disappeared, but before he could come up with another witty response, she went on.

“Is the Histess with you?”

“No. She will be arriving shortly though… in her own… mode. I believe her delegation is no more than an hour behind us.”

Ra’Jirra nodded as Number One passed on to greet the next person in line.  For her part, she duly nodded and extended her hand to the rest of the Altmer until they had departed, their baggage having been transported to their embassy ahead of them.

When they had gone, Ra’Jirra issued a command to a runner to deliver a message to the head of the security force assigned to the Argonians that they should expect them to arrive shortly. Then she was informed that Isdra wanted to speak with her, and she found the Mane’s prime concubine nearby.

“You wanted me?”

“Oh, Ra’Jirra! Yes indeed. I understand the Argonians and the Histess are due shortly. You are nearly the only person in the palace that has actually been to the Black Marsh, and I understand you speak Jel.”

“Not well, I’m afraid. But yes. Passably.”

“I wonder if you might know of a proper formal greeting I might give in Jel? I’ve no idea what to expect of this Histess, but most people do like to hear others speak in their native tongue. I should have thought of this before now obviously.”

“Certainly!” Ra’Jirra smiled, happy to be able to assist. While Isdra might not exactly be a Queen, functionally she was as close as the khajiits had to one, so Ra’Jirra was delighted to give her a crash course in Jel.

She was just finishing that, as they walked to the next pier where the Argonian ship would dock, when a shout was heard of a new ship having been spotted.  They all turned to look, but were confused by exactly what it was they were seeing traveling up the bay and towards the dock.

By all appearances, it was a tree, grown horizontal in the water, yet it was obvious that it had been groomed for such use. It had in no way been cut, but was a living specimen that looked as healthy as any tree on land. The limbs sprouted from only one side of the enormous, hollow trunk however, and there was no clear “top” or “bottom” of the thing, the roots apparently extending under the water line rather than from any “bottom”.

Under what power of propulsion it moved, she couldn’t guess until it had come much closer. Then she realized that the leaves of the tree itself shifted purposefully - if slowly - to catch the breeze and move the thing gracefully towards the dock. However, she could see no Captain nor other means of steering. It was as if the ship itself knew where to go.

When finally it came to a halt near the end of the dock, she watched in fascination as one long branch moved of its own accord down deep into the water, serving as its own anchor when it had touched the bottom far below. While this was happening, another large, flattened branch slowly lowered itself until it came to rest at the end of the dock and served as a gangway.

But unlike the the Altmer ship and Number One’s large retinue, only three passengers disembarked from the amazing tree-ship. All three were female, as styled by the Argonian’s own reckoning of gender, but it was clear which was the fabled Histess. The close-fitting clothing worn by the other two seemed to be made up entirely of vines, intertwined closely and woven clearly in imitation of a elderly tree with its myriad epiphytic companions.

As for the Histess herself who departed the tree-ship last, she was unmistakable. On her head she wore a wreath of sorts, green and apparently very much alive with verdant tiny leaves that sparkled almost like emeralds on her head. Below, she wore what appeared to be a thin layer of moss that continued from her feet to her shoulders and down her arms, yet the moss did not cover her breasts nor between her legs. Besides the brown of the moss and the green of her wreath-crown, the Argonian herself was a muted orange color, but her belly scales were of a green that matched her natural crown. Overall, though regal, her face looked kind and surprisingly young for what Ra’Jirra had supposed - likely little older than herself.

On anyone else, the whole effect might have seemed like a bikini in reverse and been laughable - but the Argonian held herself with such regality that it didn’t even enter Ra’Jirra’s mind. This was a person the likes of which Ra’Jirra had never encountered before, and she found herself wanting to kneel in her presence as she stepped from the limb onto the dock.

Ra’Jirra stood in awe of the Histess, for reasons she couldn’t quite define, but she saw Isdra step forward and recite the greeting she had been taught so recently. Yet the Histess only glanced at her, nodded, then walked on directly towards Ra’Jirra, the large orange eyes fixed apparently directly at her.  Ra’Jirra felt somehow unworthy to continue looking directly at the Argonian, and found herself instead looking at the moss-covered Argonian’s feet when the Histess stopped directly in front of her.

“You are her,” the Histess said enigmatically. It was not a question, just a statement.

Ra’Jirra was unable to respond.

“Look at me, khajiit-mother. What is your name?”

As if freed from her own self-imposed stasis, Ra’Jirra looked up at the Histess. It came as a small surprise that, in fact, the Histess was not much taller than herself. Somehow she had seemed so at first. The large orange reptilian eyes that looked into hers now seemed somehow more mortal and less… godlike.

“I am Ra��Jirra, Histess,” she said, not sure what etiquette was proper in this situation at first.  But the answer came to her in a flash somehow. She knelt on one knee before standing again. It… felt right.

“She honors you in the Argonian way!” said one of the Histess’ partners, obviously surprised herself.

“Thank you, Ra’Jirra. But please, don’t call me Histess. I had a name before the Hist honored me with… all this. I know you mean well, but I think we may get to know each other much better in the next few days, khajiit-mother, and that honorific doesn’t seem right.”

“Why do you call me khajiit-mother? I’ve never even been pregnant!”

“No?” said the Histess, and knelt in front of Ra’Jirra, pressing the side of her head to Ra’Jirra’s lower abdomen, surprising Ra’Jirra with her instant familiarity.

“Oh!” said the Histess, embracing Ra’Jirra with strong scaled hands around her back and pulling what passed for her ear even further against Ra’Jirra’s womb. Ra’Jirra let out a little squeal as the Histess lowered her ear even farther into regions perilously close to being too personal to allow, Raba or no Raba! Fortunately the Histess desisted before Ra’Jirra had a chance to protest, and stood again before her.

“Oh, that is a shame,” said the Histess. “Still, you have been mated at least. Your day will come, khajiit-mother. Your tides have just not yet matched his, Ra’Jirra. The Hist is not wrong in such things. Would you accompany me? We have much to discuss!”

Ra’Jirra shot a look to Isdra. This was not going as expected at all!

Isdra shrugged. “Go ahead, I guess!”

Ra’Jirra looked back to the odd Argonian. “Well, I suppose I can go with you, Histess.”

“Good!” said the Histess happily. “Very good!”

Ra’Jirra fell in beside the Histess and began to walk alongside her. She was surprised when the cool scaled hand took hers, but somehow it felt right. As much as she had begun in awe of this strange creature, she was rapidly beginning to like her.

“Now then, please stop calling me Histess. Though the title is correct, my friends don’t call me that. My name is Quill-Weave, and you will be my friend while I’m here, khajiit-mother Ra’Jirra.”

[oliveratlanta]

The Beltline Lantern Parade turns 10 on Saturday: Everything you need to know

The glowing procession marches between O4W and Inman Park. | Curbed Atlanta

Before heading out for 2019’s procession, be prepared to navigate this very popular—and quite magical—annual tradition

For many Atlantans, it’s the most magical night of the year, and 2019 marks the even-more-special 10th anniversary.

The forecast, for now, calls for clear skies and temps in the low 80s by nightfall Saturday, when the annual Art on the Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade steps off, expecting to drawn 70,000 (or more) onlookers, tailgaters, glowing ghosts, marching musicians, comical creations on stilts, ensorcelled children, and more.

The Lantern Parade’s come a long way since a few hundred creative souls marched in 2010 with LED lanterns down the dirt railroad corridor that’s become the Eastside Trail.

As a result, navigating the area has become a logistical challenge. So take note of these tips to make the most of what’s always an enchanting September evening:

Curbed Atlanta

A much smaller procession in 2013—the first parade year the Eastside Trail was completed.

Pre-party

The merriment actually kicks off way before dusk.

Beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday, find live music, lantern-making activities, food, drink, and more at the Old Fourth Ward Fall Festival, which takes place alongside the Eastside Trail near the skatepark.

New this year: Art on the Atlanta Beltline artist Cannupa Hanska Luger will be building on his current body of work with an interactive station at the festival.

Festivities continue until 11 p.m.

Get there early

Lineup for the parade begins at 7 p.m. at the Irwin Street entrance to the Eastside Trail.

But starting at 6 p.m., Irwin Street will be closed between Sampson and Krog streets, so consider MARTA, a ride-hailing service, biking, or walking for travel to and from the site. (The closest MARTA stations are Inman Park/Reynoldstown at the south end of the parade route, and Midtown at the north end).

The parade steps off at 8 p.m., and will travel north on the trail to Piedmont Park. It usually lasts between an hour and 90 minutes.

Joining the procession

Everyone is encouraged to bring their own lanterns and participate in the parade. However, flying lanterns, as always, are not permitted.

Participants must have a lantern to walk in the parade. Also, bikes and pets are prohibited. It’s a free event, and no registration is necessary.

Yield to the bands

Four marching bands will participate in the parade, joining hosts Chantelle Rytter and the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons, and they’ll naturally have the right of way.

Musical marchers this year are: Seed & Feed Marching Abominables (celebrating their 45th year in 2019); Black Sheep Ensemble; Sabor Brass Band; and ATL Freedom Band.

They will step off from the staging area in approximately 10-minute intervals. Each time a band heads out, parade marshals will open the gateway to let parade participants join the procession.

Officials can’t stress enough: Please be patient and wait for these intervals.

Don’t turn around, y’all

The parade is a one-way event, which will head north to Piedmont Park. Do not walk against the flow of the parade. Anyone needing to stop or turn back should exit the trail before doing so.

For more details on logistics—and the location of things like port-o-lets and water stations—check out this map of the parade route and the Old Fourth Ward Festival:

Atlanta Beltline Inc.

Parade logistics, mapped.

Post-party

All parade-goers are encouraged to join the bands, lantern-toters, and the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons at Park Tavern following the procession.

As Beltline officials note: “This is an ideal chance to take photos with the Krewe’s giant puppets!”

source https://atlanta.curbed.com/2019/9/17/20870933/beltline-lantern-parade-2019-atlanta-details-what-to-know

[afutureancient]

The last post for Caribbean Heritage Month is a mix between Space:Queens and Art of This World segments, featuring three visual artists whose work I’ve seen in Queens — Reginald Rosseau and his exhibition, Unmasked — Embodiment of Spirits, at Seed Capital Cafe; Nari Ward and his G.O.A.T., Again exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park, and Fritz St. Jean who lives in the southeast Queens area and whose daughter I met a few months ago at the Queens Council on the Arts grant awardees ceremony.

Reginald Rosseau

“Reginald “Big Art” Rousseau is a Haitian-born and Harlem-made working artist whose artworks are generating a lot of buzz, in the hood and beyond. In addition, he is the founder of the Reginald “Big Art” Rousseau: Harlem Art Projects, a creative space located in a funky storefront which serves as part working art studio, part art gallery and part retail art store, for him to create, promote, exhibit and sell his artworks. The creative space also serves a physical space to connect with the community, collectors, curators as well as galleries.

His artistic style, which he affectionately, coined “Neo-Haitian Expressionism”, is derives from a radical fusion of Haitian Art, African Art, Street Art, POP-Art, Folk Art, Stained Glass, Pointillism, Art Nouveau and Modern Abstraction. His work, which explores multi-ethnicity and multicultural identity, are based on his own personal experiences as a Haitian, a Blackman and an Immigrant with a Haitian heritage encompassing a unique blend of African traditional customs, mixed with contributions from the French, Caribbean, Latin, American and indigenous Taíno culture. His signature work, encompasses curvilinear black lines, vibrant colors, flatness of forms, jeweled pointillism, multi-layered textures and bold patterns.  On a recent interview, when asked to describes his working process, Reginald responded ‘My working process, is like jazz, with an eight-bar theme, you start it by the “T” and improvise as you go to generates rhythmic accents and beats as well as conveys emotion and power’.”

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Nari Ward

Via Socrates Scuplture Park: Jamaica-American mixed-media artist Nari Ward “recasts tropes of outdoor structures – the monument, the playground, lawn ornaments, architectural barriers, and the advertising sign – into surreal and playful creations. Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again examines how hubris creates misplaced expectations in American cultural politics. This exhibition also brings new insight into the artist’s exploration of identity, social progress, the urban environment, and group belonging.

G.O.A.T. is an acronym for Greatest of All Time, a phrase commonly used in American sports, made famous by Muhammad Ali, and in hip-hop, most notably, as the title of Queens native LL Cool J’s best-selling album. The title alludes to the African-American experience and political theater – common themes in Ward’s work.

The figure of the goat features prominently in Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again as the artist’s articulation of social dynamics, conjuring the animal’s attributes and symbolic connotations, from an ambitious climber of great heights to an outcast. A flock of goats cast from lawn ornaments traverse the landscape, both in groups and as solitary individuals, manifesting the show’s title. The appropriation of the word goat, turning an insult into a moniker for excellence, demonstrates the power of wordplay, while the modifier again implies historical repetition. Scapegoat, a forty-foot long hobby toy further develops the goat metaphor and highlights another strand of the show: the satirization of virility, masculinity, and monument…”

Nari Ward’s exhibition is the first single presentation of an artist in the park’s 30-year history. Read the New Yorker feature about the exhibition.

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Fritz St. Jean

“Born in Port Au Prince, Fritz St. Jean emerged as one of Haiti’s most illustrious self-taught artists. Initially, his style consisted of painting animal and jungle scenes on canvas. However, in 1980, St. Jean broke away from the staid pastoral themes to memorialize his hopes and dreams for Haiti through his paintings. Being widely viewed as socio-political commentaries on the dichotomous realities of Haitian life, St. Jean’s paintings transport the viewer to scenes of mysticism, idealism, and humanity all in one. He is noted as a master in color and detail as his works are continuously punctuated by the use of bold colors and fine lines. Often, his paintings celebrate Haiti’s religious culture in Voodoo and encapsulate its rich history. Paying tribute to a country that was once called La Perle des Antilles (The Pearl of Antilles due to its natural beauty and countenance), St. Jean’s paintings are artistic love notes to his homeland.  Suffice it to say, Haiti continues to be the source of St. Jean’s inspiration.”

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Astro-Caribbean: Return The last post for Caribbean Heritage Month is a mix between Space:Queens and Art of This World segments, featuring three visual artists whose work I've seen in Queens -- Reginald Rosseau and his exhibition, …

[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: Super Saturday

RATHER important Saturday coming up. Going to be on for young and old in Mayo, Longman, and at Yarra Park as well 

It’s going to be as big in the Adelaide Hills between Xenophon’s mob and the daughter of the country’s longest running Foreign Minister as it will be between two suburban tribes at the MCG, the reigning premier against one of the very finite group of contenders.

My tip? I reckon Sharkie gets her seat back.

 1.       Yep, the Giants are coming. The Cats dropping games to the likes of the Bulldogs, the Power losing to Freo, Hawthorn losing to Brisbane, all these have given the Giants a fast path up the ladder to ominously now be in the race for the top four where a month ago just making the eight seemed a challenge. They sit half a game off fourth, which is held by the Swans, a team they are definitely better than and they’ll have the chance to frank that when they host the next local derby in a few weeks’ time. The Demons in the last round looks the only real chance for a slip up for the Giants on the way in, so their form into September will be as cherry ripe as any. Big threats.

2.       The midfield quintet of Shiel, Ward, Whitfield, Kelly and Conglio is the best group of five mids in the comp by a street. Remember, this is a team that late in the third term on Preliminary Final day last year was only two kicks off the eventual premier, and had lost Dylan Shiel early in the game to concussion. With Jeremy Cameron back in a week, if they keep this all going as planned, the Tigers wouldn’t be as thrilled to dance to a deep September tune with the orange tsunami again this time round.

3.       Mind you, we’ve been lucky so far given the danger we were warned of years ago, that the Giants or Suns for that matter haven’t saluted on Grand Final day for the scenes post-match would be just weird. No noise from the crowd, no romantic story to fuel emotion, a lap of honour with the cup to a largely empty stadium; yeah let’s avoid that if we can for a little while yet please?

4.       Melbourne. Round 23 last year, then a number of occasions this year, they are a good footy side without the results to back it up. But geez, they are stiff, if nothing but the Geelong losses in themselves – the Dees would be top four with a bullet, the Cats would be on the slide despite their favourite sun returning. Sliding doors much?

5.       Still on the Cats – lucky they are in the eight really. Yes, let’s acknowledge the missed opportunity against the Dogs after the siren, but it’s not clinical for Geelong in 2018. Saturday night Gaz had 31 but Selwood was squeezed out a little, well held, but it seems he is having less influence on matches because of the presence of Ablett. And for mine, if we isolate duos only, Selwood and Dangerfield in the middle looks better than Ablett and Dangerfield, despite the two-time Brownlow medallist’s last term helping get that win no doubt.

6.       Big tick to Travis Boak this week, wearing his old number 10 and not 1 as per the tradition for the captain at Port Adelaide. Why? Boak gave the honour of wearing the 1 at Alberton to cancer sufferer Henry Mickan, who was the nominal captain on the day. Great gesture, well done Boak and the Power, just grouse.

7.       Rising Star watch, yep, Stephenson kicked three for the Pies whilst Ronke didn’t trouble the goalscorers. But Alex Witherden in the narrow loss to the Crows, 31 touches and 12 marks. This form continues and he’ll pip them at the post for mine.

8.       The Swans have lost their midfield. Yes Kennedy had 33 but looks sore, Parker had 29 and kicked two, nice, but after that, what? Jake Lloyd has been industrious all year in the middle but after that it’s mega thin. Heeney has been brilliant but quiet of late, you can’t ask too much off Florent, it’s all looking a bit dire at Sydney.

9.       Their run home too is awful. Of the five games left, right now, you’d have them favourites in maybe two of them, and even those odds would be anything but short. They’ll still win their fair share and all will not be completely lost, but they could so easily lose more than they win and their grasp on a top eight spot could go just like that.

10.   If there’s smoke, there’s fire – mega legend of Australian netball, Sharni Layton, retired from the sport this week, only turned 30 this year, looks destined now for a stint in AFLW. She did play football as a junior, that’s the key, it wouldn’t just be about publicity Usain Bolt Central Coast Mariners-style, but the girl has got the skills and would probably be stellar. Keen to see her have a go if she so wishes.

11.   Quick one on rule changes, I don’t want to be a broken record on this but bloody hell the footy has been good since the bye rounds, leave it alone would you please? Remember when flooding was ruining the game 15 odd years ago, we didn’t legislate the game to eradicate that and who even mentions the word these days? Seriously before the boys got stuck down the cave in Thailand, I hadn’t heard flooding mentioned since watching a Terry Wallace-coached Bulldogs all those years ago.

12.   Unconvinced on where the Pies stack up compared to not just their rivals but also their ladder position but to defeat a decent side in North by 66 points is one thing, to have the ball more (+29) but then win tackles 83-47, bloody hell that’s some discrepancy. As impressive a stat for the Maggies as alarming for the Roos.

13.   Ben Cunnington, who is just a truck, and Jed Anderson had 12 tackles between them, so that’s 35 tackles made by 20 of their teammates. Five of those 20 didn’t register one all day. Whereas the Pies had nine players register five or more.

14.   Port Adelaide had a busy offseason, brought in Rockliff as a free agent, traded for Watts and Motlop, got Thomas and Trengove in as mature-aged recruits for the rookie list. Specifically the first three to be fair, as they are senior-listed players, have they made any real difference? Aside from Motlop’s winning goal in a Showdown, I’d say non grata.

15.   Meanwhile, Essendon, further down the ladder, but all three big recruits are wins for mine. Saad looks great down back, Smith’s amongst their most important mids already, and Stringer will look even better next year, win them a few games off his own boot like he did for the Dogs a few years ago down forward. Just the bad losses holding the Dons’ progress back, lots to like about them but you can’t forget they’ve handed Carlton their only win for the year.

16.   Also, Orazio Fantasia is close to the best small forward in the comp – he plays a full year next year he kicks 50 plus easy.

17.   Ryan Schoenmakers. He may be judged really stringently by the Hawks match committee but gee he looks a rock solid CHF for 2018. 14 touches, 8 marks, two goals on the weekend, 27 years old, a great mark, a reliable set shot, those sorts of big blokes are worth their weight in gold. He’ll probably stay loyal at year’s end if the Hawks don’t secure Tom Lynch but for those other clubs who might be in the race for Lynch and miss or just could use a new target up forward one could do a lot worse.

18.   Hawks play the Cats in Round 21 and that’s probably an early elimination final. Loser will be relying on results and maths whereas the victor is probably safe bar a shocking loss in the final fortnight. Always a big game between those two, this will be another chapter in that story.

19.   As for big games, how we have 1st v 3rd on Saturday afternoon at the MCG not on free to air is awful. Did we notice that Channel Seven, who always had four games a round dropped down to three when there’s no Thursday night or special game to cover? I know we can’t move the game at last minute to prime time, but we are getting the Dogs-Power balltearer from Ballarat Sunday on Seven. Can’t we send that game to Fox Footy and get Seven to take the Tigers-Pies instead the day prior, surely that’s a better result?

20.   And finally this week, Francis Leach. Why? Well its to do with the fact four or five blokes got in a decent shove on the Kardina Park terraces Saturday night. Not good, it is a problem with scuffles in the crowd, not dire but not great, so I’m glad its being picked up and hopefully addressed.

But Francis, heads on to the ABC Sunday morning and cynically said “that’d be a page one, two and three of the Herald Sun for the next three days (if it happened in the A-League), that’s not going to be on the front page the next three days”.

Firstly, the Herald Sun did make it front page the next day, it’s still in the press as of today, and we had fan segregation columns and everything. Sure, not three front pages, it wasn’t Thai boys getting stuck down a cave lets be frank. And yes, the Murdoch press has been unkind to the round ball code over the journey no doubt, but who has the tabloid industry missed, often unfairly, over the journey? Ask any African living in Melbourne at the moment, Francis?

But then too stop worrying about appropriate media coverage when the sport you’re needlessly comparing too, soccer, is pushing an Olympic sprinter as the saviour for the upcoming domestic season, not because he is a genuine onfield talent but because he is a novelty who might put bums on seats that otherwise are attracting cobwebs. That sounds like the exact recipe for a circus. If Kevin Muscat wears a red wig and face paint on the sidelines this season I call Bingo, Gin and Yahtzee.

The narcissistic, precious soccer society needs to stop worrying about Usain Bolt, stop demanding a Royal Commission for the lack of playing time Tim Cahill got in Russia, and stop critiquing whether an incident in a completely different code has been adequately covered by the media and start worrying about getting the world’s most loved sport working in this country again, because right now the way it’s going an unfair and undesirable bit of publicity again on a Tracy Grimshaw program would actually be a good result.

Francis. Take the lemon out of your gob and try and smile. To deflect the real issue onto sorrow into soccer looks as good as your haircut.

(originally published 24 July)

[servicedesignwdka2017]

Research

by Nathalie Snijder

Together with M4H entrepreneurs, district companies, educational institutions and partner DUO / Europass, the application and use of Open Badges are discussed. Open Badges are digital certificates for informally gained experience in the learning pathways or obtained through formal modules at knowledge institutions. Meanwhile, badges are being awarded through the Bouwkeet and FutureSkills to young people.

Openbadges___________________________________________________________What do Open Badges mean?

Badges may represent many different types of achievements and claims:

Hard skills such as proficiency in a programming language

Soft skills like collaboration

Participation

Official certification

Authorization

Community involvement

New skills and literacies not recognised by traditional education providers

Because the system is based on an open standard, recipients can combine multiple badges from different Issuers to tell the complete story of their verifiable achievements—both online and offline. Open Badges can be displayed wherever recipients want them on the web, including on social media profiles and through services that store and display badges. Badges can be shared for employment, education, or lifelong learning. Badges can be used to set goals, motivate behaviours, connect learning environments, and communicate achievements across many contexts.

Open badges questions: https://openbadges.org/faq/

Why issue Open Badges? Open Badges provide a flexible way to recognise learning wherever it happens, in and out of formal education and the workplace. They can represent any achievement from simple participation to evidence-backed competency development. Benefits of issuing Open Badges:

They can be used to recognise any kind of achievement in any setting, across the different stages of an individual’s life.

They can be used to build pathways to support individuals to work towards learning goals, provide routes into employment and nurture and progress talent within organisations.

They are based on an Open Specification which enables badges to be issued and transferred across the web and other digital exchanges, across different learning providers and across borders.

They have already been adopted widely across a range of sectors and are being used to recognise both accredited and non-accredited learning in formal, informal and non-formal settings.

They provide a new way to identify talent based on competency and attitude, helping employers and educators better match individuals with non-traditional experiences to relevant opportunities.

Open Badges support individuals for whom the traditional education system hasn’t worked. 

Different openbadges organisations: Open badges bestr: https://bestr.it/about# - timeline: http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/388116/Open-Badges-in-2014/ https://www.surf.nl/kennisbank/2016/whitepaper-open-badges-en-microcredentialing.html Het financieel dagblad; https://fd.nl/morgen/1205364/geen-diploma-maar-een-badge West practice_________________________________________________________ Locals Willem Beekhuizen and Duy Ngo organize excursions across different locations in the district and in the M4H area. Discover the most special and fun hotspots, book an excursion via Willem (info@beekhuizenbindt.nl) or Duy (smile@miisohappy.com)

Delfshaven Cooperatie_________________________________________________ Connect local initiatives with government and business | social entrepreneurship | cooperative area development | glue between the joints

Who is Delfshaven Cooperative? Delfshaven Co-operative started in January 2015 as a foundation and works for a cooperative where people with involvement and interest can work together at Bospolder-Tussendijken. 

The Delfshaven Co-operative works as a glue between the joints in different roles and in cooperation with neighbourhood partners with the following projects: Getting things off the ground is important, but more important is its lasting value. The Delfshaven Coöperatie believes in entrepreneurship as a success factor of Bospolder-Tussenendijken. This is the right combination of people: residents, entrepreneurs, investors. We want to strengthen the energy and involvement of people in the neighbourhood. Delfshaven! Renewal and experimentSam you reach more than just. But how do you get that? And: How does innovation and experiment get a place? The Delfshaven Co-operative, originated from WIJK BV, connects local initiatives in Delfshaven to government and business. Our goal is economic development and resilience in Delfshaven. The goal is value development of the place and its people in the long term. For example, because residents live by themselves.

Next economie_(westpractice)__________________________________________ Ten (and counting) partners from Rotterdam West join forces to jointly perform an ecosystem and accelerator function for young entrepreneurs in the district. Street level, focused on maker movement, design, street culture and social entrepreneurship.

Why? No next economy without next entrepreneurs. The city needs the entrepreneurship of its city residents, because the economy becomes more flexible and decentralised. Technological innovation and sustainability also focus on the skills of the individual entrepreneur. For the high potentials, the landscape is now beneficial, ranging from hip breeding to hardcore innovation programs. But grassroots, in the neighbourhood and on the street, about 98% of the Rotterdammers have to save without mentors, boat camps and business angels.

What are they going to do? They build there own ecosystem, accelerator and business cases. Simply continue working together. Up to twelve parties form a consortium to get young creative entrepreneurs from a current portfolio into a new world economy. Together, they cover the entire range of scouting, coaching and training, through real estate, networking and technical capabilities to guidance in launching new markets. 

Flexible but complete support structure for young entrepreneurs in West;

Unique collaboration of bottom up initiatives with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and business development;

Developing (parent behind the) brand, market position and external appeal for young makers from Delfshaven;

Link between social and cultural entrepreneurship in the wards of West and the economic strength of the Innovation District, in particular M4H.

Convert the pride of West (long-standing) into external attraction through own production from (youth) culture. partners

Delfshaven Co-operative Program and Investment Fund of Residents, Entrepreneurs, Rabobank, Ports and Towns;

Hiphophuis - years of experience with street level entrepreneurship, including own coaches and trainings;

Mark Bode with the Creative Business Map Strategy Development and Business Development of Small Creative Entrepreneurs, will roll out in Rotterdam this year;

BouwKeet - Dutch first social creator space, hosted by Far Mountains;

Winne - rapper, coach and entrepreneur, deliberately raises his mind;

Madein4 ports - bridal and workplace (M4H) connecting designers and neighbourhoods;

Marconia - test site for experiments in public space, before and through the district;

Stroop - already a collection point for business owners in the neighbourhood, run a program vacancy management;

Jessica Curta - social entrepreneur and business coach;

Transformers - social designers, with a view on the whole chain.

M4H___________________________________________________________________ M4H has an excellent location and is therefore an attractive workplace. Rotterdam is a city with many young inhabitants. There are many good schools at all levels. And the renowned universities Erasmus University Rotterdam and Delft University of Technology attract medical, technical and economical top talent. So in the region you will find future staff without problems.

Goal As entrepreneurs, we join hands to boost M4H. In M4H we aim for an optimal business environment for entrepreneurs who want to go ahead. As an investor, you can count on a high level of service, quick procedures and a customer-oriented organisation from Rotterdam and Port of Rotterdam. The M4H entrepreneurial network aims to be the driving force in the area. Together we create technological innovations and tackle commercial opportunities. Good for you, the port and the city and its residents.

Source: https://openbadges.org/community/
https://bestr.it/about#
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/388116/Open-Badges-in-2014/
https://www.westpracticerotterdam.org/blog/2017/10/4/meeting-informeel-leren-en-open-badges?rq=open%20badges
http://delfshavencooperatie.nl/m4h-botu/ http://wijkprofiel.rotterdam.nl/nl/2016/rotterdam/delfshaven/delfshaven/ http://www.nexteconomy.nl/prototyping/west-practice/

Questions_____________________________________________________________

Are you currently looking for a job? or have you in the past? if so, what were the troubles finding one, how did you feel about that?

Did you get enough help from your organisation?

What can the organisation change so that they can help you better?

Are you familiar with the idea of open badges?

Do you think the ‘open badges’ can help you with a job or an internship?

What do you hope to achieve?

Assumptions__________________________________________________________

Why only the younger people? Do young people want to work with the open badges? Why only in Rotterdam West and M4H? Is the point system not a bit childish? Does this really can fix the problem?

Threats and opportunities______________________________________________

Threats: No renewal The young people have no motivation They are not waiting for help They think life is fine the way it is They do not want to "work" with local businesses

Opportunities: An opportunity to develop themselves An opportunity to find work An opportunity to learn different skills They are working on improving their lives instead of chilling at home The chance to connect with the local people in a good way

[johnjankovic1]

Protestant Transnationalism

The US’ knowledge economy sophisticates man-hours of production more so than other developed nations, and though scale (van Ark et al. 2008:25), technology, and know-how hurriedly export productivity and competitive advantage at joint costs of zero to foreign affiliates it is also the ethics of American free market capitalism from corporate parentage having no equal as to why Silicon Valley exceeds its nearest rival by 129 percent, or generally why its multinationals dominate world markets. A stoic and spartan culture informs American productivity, less vacations, more hours, and later retirement for social security encapsulate the shibboleth of the economy occasioning an incentive for promotion-seeking workers whereby 1) a positive correlation prevails between hours and distribution of earnings, 2) more probable is retainment during recessions, and 3) greater productivity results from expected future income (Bell & Freeman 1995, 2001:181). This fruitful ideology, albeit begets inequality in earnings which is otherwise an important function of capitalism, rewards productivity with larger marginal changes up the corporate hierarchy for workers, and the polar opposite of socialist mores in European countries or Japan’s karoshi fail to generate comparable efficiency (Nishiyama & Johnson 1997:625). Such productivity measured by GDP per hour worked in a comparison between the US, Germany, Japan, and G7’s average, obtrusively shows the variance in incentives between the variegated forms of capitalism.

US capitalism as the lodestar in the eschatology of economic models maximizes production and freedoms of society when the superpower remains the only developed one devoid of state interference of paid vacations or public holidays under legal compulsion (DoL 2016). From its Puritan heritage one day of rest a week on Sabbath was conceived to be sufficient and befitting of industrial society as opposed to the numerous holy days designated by the Roman Church (Hill 1982:83).1 Workplace identity, the omnipresence of digital office space, and the connection to it via smartphone technology, what Fraser (2002) labels the travesty of a white-collar sweatshop, invariably fuels the American ethos of competition in the country, this work ethic imported from Europe’s Protestantism which Puritans revived in New England was historically regarded the ‘highest form which moral activity of the individual could assume (Weber [1905] 2009:Chp2)’, and it was Lutheran and Calvinist biblical interpretations of predestination which associated a vocation to ‘a calling’ (Beruf) of the work God requires of us whose fruits of labour humble mankind (Wogaman 2011:122). Economic sociologist Max Weber who (1904:Chp9), ascribing hard work to Protestantism as did Calvinists, dilated on moneymaking as a virtue and as  salvation for humanity which ‘in practice means God helps those who help themselves’. It has been the inheritance of material wealth in accordance with the Protestant work ethic, more pronouncedly in the Quaker tradition, that has spurred America’s modernization, expansion, and rationalization in order to ‘economize time, money, and activity (Tolles 1963:55)’. This form of capitalism was constructed upon such ideas begotten by the merchant activities in the Quaker and Puritan traditions (Henretta 1991:41).2

From the moral fibre of frugality, thrift, and efficiency of a bygone time, the US’ post-industrial and knowledge economy now missionizes its form of capitalism according to dictates of Calvinism via its multinationals. Absorbed in economic life as a tribute to the divine, contrasted with the joie de vivre of France’s eudaemonistic, hedonistic, and bourgeois indulgences, modernization sprung from the wellspring of the Reformation in which Montesquieu acknowledged how the predominantly Protestant English ‘had progressed the farthest of all peoples of the world in three important things[,] in piety, in commerce, and in freedom’ which was later transplanted to the New World. The prototypical form of capitalism in the US valued making money and condemned its expenditure whose canonization according to this interpretation in the Bible reads, ‘Seest thou man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings (Proverbs 22:29)’. The superiority of this ecclesiastical form of capitalism found no facsimile in other parts of the country other than in the Massachusetts Bay Colony which later edified neighbouring colonies to assimilate identical practices and precepts into their own breadwinning endeavours (Weber [1905] 2009:Chp2). Long ago then was enshrined into the collective consciousness of American society how esteemed hard work offers an escape from insecurity, how indolence draws derision, and how standardization of best practices creates the greatest value (Altman 2005:332). The taproot of America’s manic pace of innovation, business, and spread may be sourced in its sacerdotal taproot of Protestant patrimony that was widely believed to be a precondition to modernization.

Over a century later the classical system of capitalism, scientific offshoots of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, was imported to privilege social efficiency of full employment and of parsimonious use in resources and capital. Though unchanged was the work ethic, aggregate competition became a bedfellow of capitalism as a yoke to the avarice and predatory pricing of ignoble merchants wherein ‘the price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got…the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken’.3 Such economic theology, initially from an amorphous state under the ward of religion, thus slowly materialized indicative of America’s fledgling economy until the beginnings and emergence of big business which would imply ‘in principle the American [would be] controlled, livelihood and soul, by the large corporation (Galbraith 1956:110)’. Steamships, pneumatic conveyors, transcontinental railroads, telegraph systems, and telephone communications inspired corporate expansion abreast of commercial cultivation, and with the proper skeletal structure in place from technological wizardry the operation of transnational firms proportionally increased which all originated from Puritan John Winthrop’s notion of building a ‘shining city upon a hill’ in adverting to the Book of Ezekiel and Apostle John’s prophetic visions of a New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12).

This Puritan crusading spirit, that other nations should duplicate the country’s spiritual and material development as a universal model towards prosperity, galvanized the world into accepting the American brand which was bestowed a new faith for its progressivism. Heralding a seemingly utopian age as a ‘promotional state’ until WWI, espousing the thought of a providential purpose, and manifesting in the nineteenth century a triumvirate of Christianity, Smith’s division of labour coupled to the invisible hand, and Ricardo’s comparative advantage on societal and economic norms, the US’ market rationality promised abundance, wisdom, and social integration in tandem with the private sector’s diffusion of Americanism beyond their continental borders akin to multinationals today when long distances assured greater profits to areas of scarcity which created more value for a basket of diverse goods. Protestant productivity perfected by innovation, marketing, and transportation came to export not only surpluses of capital and consumer goods to new markets overseas, but also ideals. In 1875, at the request of the Japanese government, an enterprise was engineered to spread both American Christianity and agrarian productivity methods in Sapporo spearheaded by the Massachusetts Agricultural College at a time when technology transformed the Great American Dessert into a breadbasket (Rosenberg 1982:18). This evangelical sort of economic activity, simultaneously invigorated by the copious missions of Protestant missionaries and the Youth Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), principally found converts in port cities whist foreign producers sought the synchronization and mechanization of human labour with machines by the scientific management and mass production methods of Taylorism and Fordism.

Libertarian values of Protestantism disavowing central authority textures the growth and expansion of American capitalism and its multinationals. Dissidence from curiosity, sedition, and revolution from this thinking, an atavism of the Scientific Revolution when Galileo assailed Catholicism’s geocentric model, uproots conventional wisdom in favour of reason which, in ancient times, beleaguered Latin curriculum and clerically-ruled universities. Cowboy multinationals similarly, with westward, then hemispheric, and now global expansion, countervail times of industrial atrophy by summoning this vaunted iconoclasm and frontier spirit indigenous to American history in jousting with the status quo. The freedom of thought, the questioning of authority, and the self-awareness indoctrinated by colonial Puritans colour business, family and faith still to this day, and its stylistic worship extends from the Church to the workplace whilst from the crucible of the Puritan revolution, birthing modern science, entrepreneurialism, and innovation, American power and hegemony continues to attract conformity. In this way the messianic complex of Americanization universalizes free markets as much as the ethics of Christianity. Such is the history of protestantism, as the study of God’s wisdom in the universe, as the pursuit of knowledge, and as the preference for practical arts and activities which informs the development, technology, and expansion of US firms abroad.

From its overthrow of traditional authorities, when a transference of power from pontiffs to merchants and to artificers replaced knowledge by rote with reason, the Protestant Reformation whose values migrated to the US offered a new purpose in all ventures of life. For the acolyte of Protestantism, and especially applicable to Puritans, capitalism entailed the search for profit not for pleasure,  nor for gain, but simply for its own sake, for the love of work, for the intensity of it since the practice of such asceticism, pursuant to Reformer John Calvin, summoned Christian virtues more so than wealth (Sée 1959:63). Profligacy for the early American was execrated, so too were Sunday sports, Kings James and later Charles sanctioned this day for recreation as opposed to strict abstinence to mute any political or religious sedition from men discussing philosophy and religion outside of sermons whose traditions yet continue  (Kearney 1967:84). Protestants then were marginalized, prohibited to serve in public office and liberal professions, and thus became conversant with the craft of business, spiritualizing it which in their interpretation rested upon money, trade, and industry as a form of divine worship and approval in the form of profit (Troeltsch 1959:21).

Protestantism’s intelligentsia in the beginning, what was a minority of well-educated urban men intellectualizing religion, sought to do away with the Roman Church’s superstitions, to substitute thought for the iron cage of ideology. Ultimately, Protestant theology rationalized capitalism differently in New England away from the already developed continental Europe whose fallowed lands, virgin resources, and prospects of growth remarkably synthesized religion and work so that production was an end in itself rather than consumption and profit (Kearney 1967:8). Religion instead of Catholicism’s ritualistic propitiation became a genuine, pragmatic, and quotidian type of love for God through long and hard labour, humanizing industry which this Protestant work ethic irrevocably changed. New orthodoxy of economic theory from the Reformation made honourable the work for proper comfort which the proviso of asceticism mitigated if excess appeared. Monied interests for the acquisition of individual wealth, and especially from usury by money lenders, the Protestant clergy preached was anathema and an antithesis to the denomination’s liturgy (Hill and George 1967:11), the lay and secular world of capitalism with the ‘economic’ or ‘organization’ man did not conform to its values when the desire for opulence recalled the villainous betrayal of Judas (Matthew 26:15).

Linkage between religion and economics found common enemies in the Papacy, Europe’s feudalism, and English monarchy, the precociousness of American industry under the Protestant conscience zealously fought these influences coincidentally with the independence of the nation. The forward-looking and counterculture of Protestants, whose inspiration derived from Calvinism as intellectually superior to Europe’s Catholic societies by the end of the Renaissance which feted individualism, conspired to industrialize and modernize the world to overtake Catholic Spain, Italy, and Flanders. By the mid-seventeenth century, the elite of Europe were Protestant entrepreneurs, France’s honeypot was its Hugenot population (Kearney 1967:176), and England with its naval forces, expeditions, and empire mobilized commercial activity so efficiently to consolidate its majesty that when this work ethic migrated to the inhabitable wilderness of a new continent in its womb a stronger species of capitalism incubated. Though the Calvinism of Protestants did not create capitalism this premium ideology did create industry and its export to the New World inaugurated modernity (Trevor-Roper 1967:35). Specifically, Protestantism rationalized religion as much as it did capitalism (Kearney 1967:74), until then doxa severely restricted both, the emphasis on thrift and time, on efficiency and productivity was the unintended economic rationalism produced.

American multinationals like their forefathers are inherently Protestant by nature. From the enterprise of Calvinism, if not the parent then the handmaiden of modern capitalism, arose industry (Hudson 1959:56; Neighbur [1927] 2010:98). In American Puritanism the ideology of capitalism found, writes Tawney (1936:226), ‘a tonic which braced its energies and fortified its already vigorous temper’. ‘The Puritan shopkeeper was not encouraged to reinvest profits in his business’, Kearney (1967:162) examines, ‘but if he had to live a sober, moderate life, what else could he do?’ Investment, rationality, thrift, and productivity, the very constitution of this denomination, and for Puritans especially the squandering of time spoke to sin,4 remains a scion for multinationals as a derivative of this Christian ethic. Religion unambiguously affects social and economic institutions of society despite the separation of Church and State, and although this impact lessens today borne from growing secularism, the autonomic nature of the American saga yields the scientific and technical advances of present multinationals, their growth of revenue, foreign investment, and innovation is a by-product of Protestant instruction. As a foil for Catholicism, empirically the expansion of this segment in a pluralistic society depresses the rate of economic growth based on little technological advances (Lenski 1967:205), no Roman Catholic State, including Argentina, Brazil, France, Italy, Mexico, or Venezuela invent prolifically as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, South Korea, the US, or United Kingdom whose predominantly Protestant population or heritage lionizes the disruption and creative destruction of the mainstream.

_______________________________________________________________________

1 On the etymology of holiday the word derives from the old english word of holy day. 

2 A variance between Puritans and Quakers was the former disdained poverty as the product of idleness and vice, the latter still looked charitably upon their brethren despite socioeconomic differences. 

3 See SMITH, A. 1937. Wealth of Nations, New York, Modern Library, pp. 116-7

4 On the externalities associated with idleness, slothfulness, or the blithe regard of time, the Protestant writer R.T. (1675) explains: ‘I shall instance in those sober and civil conventions, as at coffee houses, and clubs, where little money is pretended to be spent, but a great deal of precious time lost, which the person never thinks of; but measures his expences [sic], by what goes out of his pocket nor consider what he might put in by his labour, and what he might have saved, being employed in his shop…For these clubs and societies (how civil soever they appear to be) it is impossible in any such meetings, but some of them are given to vice; and it is probable, the greatest part. By this means are introduced gaming, foolish wagers, benching, swearing and other debaucheries. And usually at parting, or breaking up of these clubs, they divide themselves according to their several inclinations or dispositions; some go to a tavern, some to a convenient place for gaming, others to a bawdy-house; by which means the family is neglected, and not governed as it ought to be; the wife (though possibly a very virtuous and careful housewife) exasperated by the extravagances of their husband, and foreseeing poverty and want attending her, and her children, grows desperate; and, it may be, yields to some temptations which are too common in these days.