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frozenartscapes · 4 years ago

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Ghost - FE3H OneShot

“We need to talk.”

Dimitri’s eyes snapped open, hand immediately reaching for the dagger he kept near the bed.

“Don’t. It’s just me.”

“That’s the concerning part.”

He let out a long, tired sigh, hand massaging his head as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He sat up in his bed, normally shared with his beloved wife. But she was off on a diplomatic mission for a few days. It was when he was alone that certain people tried to talk with him.

“How did you even get in here?” he groaned with exhaustion. He honestly thought he was done with this. He honestly thought he had made peace with his past.

But she existed to prove him wrong.

“Should I even dignify that with an answer?” she countered dryly. She stood tall and proud, decked out in all her Imperial Regalia. Certainly not an outfit built for stealth, but then... It didn’t need to be.

His eyes drifted away from her face, to the gaping hole in her stomach. Blood seemed to seep unendingly from it. But she went unfazed.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Edelgard scoffed. “Well, someone is a tad short tonight,” she observed with a roll of her eyes.

He could make a joke about her height. But he didn’t bother. He didn’t need her annoyed with him. She’ll go away sooner if she’s in a good mood. Instead, he sighed. “You haven’t visited in a while,” he said, “I assume this is for a good reason? Or are you bored?”

“I can’t say being trapped in this purgatory exciting,” she stated, a grimace forming on her face at the thought, “However I do have a good reason for bothering you tonight.”

“You sound so apologetic,” Dimitri commentated, before rolling over and burying his head with his pillow, “Could this not have waited until the morning?”

“Dimitri.” He peeked at her again. That tone was serious, and more so than usual. This wasn’t a night she had chosen to merely bother him. Satisfied that she had his attention, she continued solemnly: “They’re still out there.”

He let out a long, tired breath. “El,” he began sternly. They had had this conversation before. So many times, in fact. “We took care of them. We have not seen hide nor tail of them since the war ended. Even if they are still out there, they are no longer a threat.”

He flopped back down on the bed, intent on ending this conversation. But the rattle of chains in the dark room forced him to stay invested. “Don’t,” he muttered, “Don’t do this now.”

He could see the Dead. Only those he had known in life, it seemed. Family and friends, rivals and enemies - one thing bound them in similarity and that was that they always appeared as they did when they died. Glen with a hole in his chest. His father with a thick, bloody line across his throat. Patricia almost a skeleton, beaten and broken.

Edelgard was different. When challenged about it one day, the best response she could give was that she had died four times in her life.

He sat up again, looking down on a small, pitiful girl who looked not unlike her mother. Broken chains dangled from shackles that dug too deep. Black, infected blood oozed through the tattled rags of clothing that did little to hide the horrific scars and bruises. She was stick thin, filthy, her ghastly white hair falling in messy tangles in front of her face.

She looked like the girl he once knew in childhood and not all the same.

“Dimitri,” she insisted desperately. He winced, even her voice had changed. Far too young and delicate, but raspy and exhausted from all that time spent being tortured. “They did this when no one thought they were a threat.”

He swallowed roughly, feeling a lump of guilt settling uncomfortably in his throat. Discovering this part of her past still burned his soul like a red-hot blade. He would never forgive himself for not realizing, for not pressing. He knew something was up but he never questioned her. His damn chivalry and politeness left him in the dark, and ultimately led to her dying alone on the floor of Enbarr’s throne room.

This ghost form was his least favourite that he’d seen.

“You know I have informed my allies of their nefarious practices, and I have established a National Guard specializing in searching out such atrocities. So far, they have found nothing,” he stated as confidently as he could.

For such a small child in such a sorry state, she sure had a scathing glare. “They murdered ten Imperial children right under the noses of the entire continent,” she growled, “They did so in part because those who knew kept quiet.”

“My allies are not like the nobles of the Empire,” Dimitri countered, “I trust them to tell me if something is wrong.”

“My father trusted his allies, too,” she said darkly.

“So what will you have me do?” he demanded, “Our resources are stretched thin as it is, and the peace on the continent is fragile. If I start out on a mad search of an enemy hidden in the shadows all because a ghost told me to, it could ruin everything we’ve worked for!”

He blinked, and her form changed again. This time she looked no different than she did as a student. There were no outward signs of trauma, or any injuries to speak of. When she was in this form, it often became difficult to remember she was dead.

“You cannot continue to surge forward in the light alone,” she reminded him, “One of these days you will have to set foot in darkness, and if you are not prepared for it the monsters lurking there will devour you.”

“I’ve spent plenty of time in the darkness,” he grumbled, “I’ve worked hard to drag myself out of it.”

“Commendable, I will admit,” she relented with a sigh, “But delving into the darkness to flush out its monsters is different than being tossed in to suffer with them. You cannot ignore this, Dimitri.”

“I’m not ignoring it!” he snapped, “In case you haven’t noticed, El, but I’ve had my work cut out for me ever since the war ended. Byleth has had her hands full, too. It’s almost like starting an all-out war has done more damage than it fixed.”

She said nothing at first, merely glaring at him. Her form shuddered, only for a second. A blink and he would have missed it - missed the burned skin, the deadly teeth, the glowing red eyes.

“You chose to fight me,” she reminded him in a low, dangerous voice, “You won the war. But not all victories lead to showering peasants with gifts and children clambering into your lap. It’s your responsibility to protect your people.”

“And you would have done things differently?”

“The reason I started the war was for things to have been done differently!”

She was the Emperor again, her own blood once more pooling at her feet as her school uniform shifted into crimson armour. Her horned crown seemed to sprout out of her skull.

“I never would have risked so many lives and thrown this continent into such a precarious state if it wasn’t warranted, Dimitri,” she told him firmly, “You know why I did what I did. You’ve found my old journals and letters of correspondence to Hubert. After ransacking the Palace, you know everything.”

“I didn’t ransack-”

“Regardless, you know.” She held his gaze, the fire of the Crest forced onto her burning in her lilac eyes. “Those Who Slither in the Dark are still out there.”

“I killed their leader.”

“You lobbed off one head of a hydra: more have already grown back.”

“How are you so sure?”

“How are you so sure they haven’t?”

He let out a long, frustrated breath. “You aren’t going to leave me alone tonight, are you?” he groaned as he pressed his hands to his temples.

She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “That depends,” she challenged wryly, “Are you going to let your mind rest? Or will you continue to let this guilt eat away at you.”

He sighed again, keeping his face buried in his hands. “How did you cope with this feeling, El? Surely you had guilt of your own?”

Her answer was frustratingly simple and complicated all the same: “I’m sure I did, or else I really would have been a monster. But don’t know. I never wrote it down.”

Dimitri slowly lowered his hands from his face, meeting her considerably softer gaze. “I really don’t have a choice, do I?” he asked slowly.

“Of course you do,” she replied, “But it’s rarely an easy choice.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” he began hesitantly.

“I left you some clues,” she reminded him. She levelled him a knowing look, her stance every bit as regal as it was when she was Emperor. “You’ll never find peace if you allow these thoughts to fester,” she told him sagely, “Just as you seem to think I will never rest until my enemies are defeated. You’ve always had a strong sense of justice, bending to the will of the ghosts in your head because you somehow think granting them justice through revenge will grant them peace.”

Her form flickered, and she was a schoolgirl once again. “Sothis knows I understand that pressure,” she sighed, “To be the only one left capable of doing anything to avenge the lost, and for it to never be enough. You shouldn’t let their demands control your life, or else you will lose it before you can ever call it yours.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a small grin. “So why should I even be listening to you?” he challenged, his voice feeling more vulnerable than had been in quite some time.

Her form shifted one final time, back to the girl who never left the dungeons under the Imperial Palace. “Because I’m not urging you for myself,” she said quietly.

Dimitri blinked, and she was gone. And he was alone in his darkened room.

---

AN: I had this idea concept in my head for a while now. Dimitri’s ghosts are representative of his trauma, his guilt, and his intrusive thoughts. I wanted to put a bit of a spin on it for Post-AM, in which there is a new ghost who visits him.

I personally headcanon that Dimitri and Byleth find things Edelgard left behind. I also headcanon that, even in AM, she intentionally leaves things behind. Clues, mostly. By the time the Kingdom Army is at Enbarr’s gates, she knew she was going to lose. Granted, Dimitri did unknowingly take care of a few things - killing Thales and Cornelia bring big ones. But I highly doubt an ancient civilization that survived thousands of years by hiding in the shadows and working its way into every corner of the continent would topple by killing a couple high-ranking members. The Agarthans strike me as a group with a whole host of people all scrambling to be the one on top. They might need time to recover, but I doubt they’re gone. And I think Edelgard is painfully aware of this when she dies.

So in her study, she keeps a journal. It’s hastily written, like it’s more of a memoir than a day by day log. Just the key points, what she is able to remember, what will get her motivations across. She writes letters she never intended to send to Hubert and her other supporters, all filled with hints and clues about her backstory, her plans, and where to push forward. And then she leaves it all out on the open on her desk, moments before walking into the throne room to become the monster of her nightmares.

Dimitri discovers these things, learns about what truly happened to her, pieces together missing information from what he knew or guessed. But it’s too late for her by the time he gets any of this and the guilt just eats away at him. It’s not long after the revelation that she starts appearing to him.

Only it’s not really her. It will never truly be her. He will never be able to ask her a question he doesn’t already know the answer to. He will never be able to tell her how he truly feels and know that she understands. He will never know if she is actually at peace.

But he does come to realize that he needs to finish what she started.

(Also I do have a reasoning behind her different forms, but I’m interested in what you guys picked up on before I explain myself.)

#fe three houses #fanfic #edelgard #dimitri #i'm messing around in post-azure moon stuff #bear with me i'm in unfamiliar territory #i haven't written much dimitri #i'm still trying to get his character down

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amazingdriverfics · 4 years ago

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Crowned by the devil - ch. 12

Summary: you knew that you had to talk to Kylo, but you also knew that it wouldn’t be pretty.

Warnings: Kylo is a dick, child abuse mention, slavery, trauma

A/N: it’s been a hot minute since the last time I update this and it makes me feel bad, I really like this story and to hera your feedback, but College has been really intense and working things out has been hard.

Despite that, I really do hope that you all like this, just beware of the warnings as usual and be safe. Love you all.

My masterlist

Previous Chapter

You woke up in the warm bed, but this time it almost seemed cold when compared to the boiling guilt pumping in your veins and making your stomach hurt. You opened your eyes to discover that Kylo wasn’t laying by your side anymore and the fact made you feel relieved, the last thing you were looking for was the knight prying on your confused mind once more before trying to convince you that everything was fine.

Everything was most certainly not fine, he wanted to own you and you had given into his wishes the previous night, you who promised that the only owner of yourself would be you for the rest of your life. No matter how much Ren could please you, it shouldn’t be enough for you to betray everything you had become in your life and everything you had fought for.

The problem with the realization was how you would make him understand, you knew that Kylo always had his way, after all, he ruled most of the Galaxy, and you were also aware that it wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation since both you and him had a temper. And so you decided that for the time being you would enjoy your time without Kylo.

After you sort of figured things out, getting ready for your day was surprisingly easy, you were actually excited to work with Mitaka in the project, excited to show your side of the story to the powerful old man sitting in chairs while deciding who deserved to live and who deserved to die. Even if you and Kylo didn’t work out, you would leave your mark in the Order, you would represent the millions ignored by their politics.

Determined, you walked through the halls, passing troopers and other workers as you headed to the meeting room where Mitaka would wait for you before heading to the library, it was research day.

When you finally got to the room, you saw the lieutenant, seeming as excited as usual, sat at the table, his face holding a gentle smile as his eyes turned to you.

“Miss y/n” his voice echoed through the empty meeting space and it caused you to smirk, his usual formality towards you seemed funny.

“Good morning, Mitaka. Quit the miss as I said please, we are friends now” as he assimilated the words you could see redness spreading and staining his light coloured face.

“Thank you, y/n” he said your name with a certain caution as if he was testing it in his tongue, almost like it was a foreign word, something entirely new. “Are you ready to head to the library? We have a full day ahead of us”.

You nodded still amused with his reaction, it wasn’t very often that anyone would treat you with such respect and kindness and you admired his capacity to do so.

Once again, you followed him through the endless amount of halls in the Steadfast, walking past empty bucket faces and hoping that you wouldn’t be found by or find Kylo, knowing that the encounter would ruin your day.

With a bit of anxiety, you kept on following the man watching as he paid his respect to some of the other officers and as they ignored you just as much as you ignored them.

Your anxiety, however, dissipated as Mitaka stopped, the library coming to view and the thousands of books, archives and documents taking your breath away. It was the first time you had ever seen something like that and in your wildest dreams you would have never imagined that so many books even existed.

In your astonished state, you failed to realize that Mitaka was already inside the library and waiting for you with a look that seemed sad and you knew it meant that you were staring too hard at the books. Ignoring his pity, you followed his lead trying to act as if nothing had happened.

——————————————————————————

He watched his Empress drowned in the paper with the lieutenant he didn’t bother to get the name.

Seeing her in such a different context and yet with the same amount of hunger to achieve and conquer what she wanted made his buried heart beat faster.

It scared Kylo how much he liked her, how each day the number of hours he spent thinking of her increased, how the sheer thought of seeing her made him nervous and yet excited. The worst part was that the knight knew that she still wasn’t ready to be his, she had shown sometimes that she could give into her feelings like in the tub the previous night and in his room when he cooked breakfast, but it didn’t take her too long to doubt his intentions and her feelings.

It wasn’t like Ren imagined that it would be easy, when he decided to get her, he already knew that she was a fighter and she would fight him at all costs, but then things took a turn in the hospital after he decided to show her a little bit of how much he cared about y/n and when she finally surrendered to what she wanted, to what her body begged and to what she consciousness hated to even imagine. These turning points gave him a sense of hope.

Another turning point happened in the tub, when Kylo won the unannounced battle over control, when he proved to her that her body responded to him and wished to belong to his, when he made it clear that no one would ever please her like he would and when he showed her that her mind could not avoid her body showing her true wishes.

But he knew that things wouldn’t be as smooth as he longed to be.

For the time being, he could be satisfied with watching as his Empress discovered new sides of herself.

——————————————————————————

Through the thousands of pages that you and Mitaka could find about slavery, you saw yourself and your life, you read about your own abuse through the pain and writting of others and it was trully overwelming.

Mitaka kept looking at you, trying to figure out if you were okay through his own pile of paper as he also tried to get some useful information in whatever he was reading.

What truly hurted you wasn’t even the amount of abuse and pain you had been reading through, it was the fact that this information, that watching millions being abused and having their lives torn apart wasn’t enough reason for the men in power to abolish slavery. You knew that they had to have economic and politic reasons to spare their lives, to imagine them as beings deserving to be their own owners and to be free.

——————————————————————————

“Where did I come from, master?” you asked Kreat, fear already in your veins.

The question filled your mind constantly, but the courage to ask him never accompanied the need to know. You weren’t that clueless, after master taught you how to read you found some books here and there and you heard people talking, so you knew that Kreat couldn’t be your father.

The first evidence was that he never treated you like one of his blood, the second was that you didn’t look like him at all and lastly there wasn’t a woman that he had a relationship with.

Kreat never told you how he found or bought you, you weren’t sure which one was the case, all he ever said to you was that you owned him loyalty and love because he took care of you when no one in this Galaxy wanted to do so, that he gave you a warm home and food when you were supposed to perish in the hot Tatooine’s sand and he didn't even ask too much of you.

“Oh Angel, I was starting to wonder when you would ask me that, you are twelve after all” the man said with the sweet voice he used with you whenever he wanted something or when you had pleased him enough. “But I regret to inform you, that you are here because your parents could never love you and so they gave you to someone that could do that” he took his hand to your face, gently caressing your skin.

——————————————————————————

You entered your quarters tired, more emotionally than physically, but it all added up in a gigantic ball of stress spreading through your body at a speed never seen before. You knew that the research had to be done in order to achieve - or try to - a greater good, this motive and Mitaka were the only things keeping you motivated.

All the excitement you had felt in the morning as you walked towards the meeting room vanished as your traumas, one by one, were brought to the surface, feeding your internalized fears as a hush of adrenaline kept on pumping in your veins. This self feeding system with no apparent end happened all day and as you lied in your bed, not bothering to take your clothes off, you still felt the results on your mind and body.

And when you believed that the cycle couldn’t get worse, the door opened, revealing the same tall figure that had paid you a visit the previous night, his dominant energy filling up the room.

You immediately sight, the frustration you had been dealing with quickly increasing followed by anxiety. All the guilt you had been able to pull away also mixing with the rest of your overwhelming emotions.

“Kylo, I really want to be alone” you informed politely, doing your best to disguise your feelings, but your request didn’t seem to be enough reason for the knight to leave, since you could still hear his footsteps getting closer.

“And why is that?” his deep voice resonated and unlike the last time you heard it, all it did was increase your discomfort.

“Not in the mood to talk, leave” you stated your request one last time, taking your head off the bed and staring at his emotionless brown eyes.

“I can feel your unease about me” he said, still ignoring your request and doing whatever he wanted, as usual.

The action caused you to close your hands in fists, feeling your nails touch your skin, the small gesture helping you to keep it together, the last thing you needed was to fight with Kylo.

“Not now” you tried once again, but he ignored your needs once again and in that moment you knew it was a lost battle.

“You are still holding on, let go” you heard him as he towered your figure on the bed, his eyes still not leaving yours as he studied you.

His request did nothing but anger you further, it wasn’t like you expected him to be any different, but his level of selfishness and his complete difficulty to understand that you just couldn’t give away everything that made you who you were kept on surprising you. He was truly an infuriating man.

“Why should I do it? Give me one good reason to betray everything that I am Kylo when you can’t even respect one simple request” you spitted the words and you could already see his body tensing up as he assimilated what you had said.

Despite his tense posture, his voice didn’t come up harshly, it almost seemed broken as he tried to make you understand, trying to convince you once again to give into his needs, to give into his needs.

“There are plenty -” he started.

The way he spoke wasn’t enough to stop your outburst, however, as you walked towards the other end of the room, getting away from the bed you had been seeking comfort on and away from Kylo, you allowed your doubts to finally be said out loud.

“Are they? I don’t even know you Kylo while you know everything about me. You know things that I wouldn’t want anyone to know, you are in my fucking head all the time, but you never show me a piece of yours”.

Closing the space between you and him, his face allowed you to see his feelings perfectly, his twitching chin, his frown and lips in a furious pout were enough proof of his anger.

“You know everything you need to know about me” he said, abandoning the soft tone in which he had spoken to you just moments ago.

His statement made you laugh dryly, in fact his audacity to even suggest that you already knew enough as a whole did.

“You must be insane. You want me to marry you, but you can’t even bring yourself to tell me about your family, about your story. Where did you grow up, Kylo? Are your parents alive? Are they nice people? What did you want to be as a child? Because there’s no fucking way for you to have been the Supreme Dick of this place since you were born” you didn’t exactly think before speaking, you never did when you were angry. However, as soon as his face changed to a much darker expression, you knew you had crossed a line and, for the first time since you got kidnapped by him, you were genuinely afraid of what he could do to you.

“I will not stand this kind of insolent behavior, I will tell you what I wish to tell you. You have no right to do any requests, you are just a no one I saved. All you really need to know is that no one gave a fuck about you a few months ago, if you died, no one would even grief over you. All you need to know is that at least now you have someone who cares about you, and that someone is me and I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

His words echoed through your head mixing with the fresh memory of what Kreat had said to you many years ago. All the anger you had been feeling vanished as disgust took over, disgust of his behavior and, most of all, disgust of yourself for getting in this situation with a monster.

Closing your fists as tears streamed down your face, you punched his chest still so close to you with as much strength as you had, hoping and begging any greater power that it would be enough for him to leave you alone as you screamed the word ‘leave’ as loud as you possibly could. You never wanted to see him again.

#crowned by the devil #kylo ren #kylo x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren x reader #kylo x you #supreme leader kylo ren #first order #mitaka #star wars #adam driver

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carolinelayt · 7 years ago

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Hearing about Sam Newman’s rant a fortnight ago where he demonised Caitlyn Jenner by referring to her as an ‘it’ on the AFL Footy Show highlights how far we have come and still have to go before transphobic comments disappear from sports shows and the like forever.

We have made progress, as people are now airing their disgust and calling out these narrow minded and blinkered views such as Newman’s for what they are. That is progress in itself.

What Newman said reminded me of a TV host who negatively said disparaging remarks about transgender people playing women’s state of origin (women’s interstate rugby league challenge) almost a decade ago.

I sat there gobsmacked, as I watched the rugby league expert say on his sports programme while watching footage of Mauresmo playing tennis and calling her transgender. He followed his attack of Mauresmo with, “That’s all we need is more transgenders like Mauresmo playing women’s State of Origin rugby league.”

My ears pricked up as I watched – disbelieving at the audacity of this fellow… I mean Mauresmo is not even transgender, but he was in full swing, as the audience laughed along at his cheap shot… my shoulders slumped as I realised he was not only talking about Mauresmo, but also about me.

I felt terrible, as I was still in the closet, although I had transitioned some 15 years before. My whole reason of being able to represent New South Wales in rugby league and Sydney in rugby union was the fact I had kept my transgender status hidden.

More honours would have adorned if I wasn’t clumsy and self disclosed to someone whom I thought was an ally at the time.

When I first returned to sport post-transition (which by the way included hormone therapy, psychiatry sessions and surgery) after my gender tests – where my oxygen levels were well within the female range via the max vo2 test run by sports scientists and a sports doctor. A non-invasive physical was also required.

I was immediately cleared to compete against other women in sport as a masters track and field athlete, as I was found to have no advantage playing women’s sport.

Less than a year later I wanted a new challenge, so I decided to play rugby union again, a decade after I had last played as a male athlete.

When I informed my club coach I was transgender, he told me to keep my mouth shut or I would never be selected in representative teams despite being cleared by Athletics NSW according to my test results, which were governed by IOC guidelines and protocols at the time.

That was 13 years ago and not surprisingly I followed his instructions and achieved selection and played in the national tournament winning Sydney Women’s rugby union team that year.

Prior to transition I hid my female self and now post-transition I had to hide the first 30 years of my life, all because of views like the fellow had aired on his show.

I thought to myself how can he get away with demonising others? Even though I had achieved playing women’s rugby league and union, I was pretty obscure as women playing either code was an after-thought a decade ago and by that very definition, how could I even defend myself against this multi-media star?

I sat there feeling powerless and angry, as I had actually “met” this fellow a year or so before.

I had decided to help my women’s rugby league coach out, who doubled as an NRL Development Officer. I was in between jobs at the time, so I voluntarily put my hand up to help out with canteen duties for the kids rugby league day.

Said sports show host was in attendance as his kids were playing. When he looked my way from a distance, I smiled as I recognised him straightaway. He gave me a deadpan look and then a look of trepidation and fear. He was scared out of his wits… it was as though I was covered in spiders.

I don’t know how the sports show host knew about my trans status, as I am not obviously read as trans and don’t walk around with a sign on my forehead, but he appeared to know all others same.

Whatever the reason, he made me feel like absolute rubbish when I briefly locked eyes with him and again when I heard his rhetoric during his show approximately a year later. It may not even have been aimed directly at me? He may have had a problem with women rugby league players in general, due to their not fitting his ideal of how a woman should look, act or be? You see, in this fellow’s eyes, women should be submissive and are seen as objects.

What is even more disappointing is people who are seen as role models – ie sporting stars appear to be some of the most homophobic and transphobic people around.

It’s usually feminine qualities which are targeted as they are seen as lesser than and the perception is all gay men and transgender women are stereotyped, soft due this scapegoating of femininity. It’s a one fit for all from the conservative and far right wing commentators.

I know this myself, as when my transgender status broke playing women’s sport, some people went out of their way to antagonise me on the sporting field.

I’m aware contact sport is about getting over the top of your opponent. It’s competitive by nature, but the underhanded stuff I never took part in. But obviously some did and still do once retired from the playing field.

Which brings me to Sam Newman. He and his rugby league equivalent appear to view women in a certain manner and Justin Smith wrote as much in his article in Rendezview, “It showed that people no longer copped this kind of bullying. And it just added to Newman’s image of a person who seems to think if you’re not watching footy, playing footy, talking footy, or you’re a sheila to shag, then you’re an “it”.”

My Representing Sydney Australian Rugby Union national women’s championships 2006 Photo supplied by Paul Seiser SPA Images: http://www.spaimages.com.au/search.php?clearSearch=true&searchPhrase=Caroline+Layt

Former NRL player Ian Roberts, who is the only gay professional footballer in this country to be out echoed a similar sentiment in his 1995 autobiography, Finding Out, ‘ “I think concepts of manliness and femininity are warped. There are strengths of character and weaknesses. Why is femininity such a dirty word anyway? All men have qualities you could call feminine. It’s a pity a lot more guys aren’t allowed to be in touch with that side of themselves. The world would be a better place. And I’m not talking about men doing womanly things. I’m talking about understanding, sensitivity, gentleness. Not being so emotionally stiff.” ‘

AFL player Pat Dangerfield was quoted by Smith as calling Newman on the AFL Footy Show “irrelevant”. Newman fired back he was “not understanding the era of political correctness we now live in”.

Well Sam this former transgender athlete says get with the times buddy, as your rhetoric causes so much grief and forces transgender people to go underground. Which means the only way we can succeed in life is to hide who we truly are … I’m 51 now and so over that approach.

Anyway if that type of rhetoric was aimed at your lived-life, would you refer to it as political correctness? I sincerely doubt it. I’d say you’d act all indignant.

Fortunately Newman’s views and Margaret Court’s for that matter are now starting to be seen as other and old school, rather than the norm, as people are becoming more educated about LGBTIQ issues due to people standing up and holding their views to account.

There seems to be a groundswell of people understanding and having empathy of being able to walk in our shoes and that is a great thing, as more and more transgender and gay people come out of the closet due to there being wider acceptance in mainstream society.

As for Caitlyn Jenner, well Newman may say nasty things about her, but I thank her … if it wasn’t for her I may be still in the closet, as she gave me the courage to come out to 600 Facebook friends. Since then, my life has for the most part been great (save for losing a few friends who thought I should not be so vocal) and I’ve drawn a line in the sand, as I’ve decided I’m never going back into that closet again.

As much as life is positive for me, Safe Schools statistics reveal four per cent of the population is transgender or intersex. The rhetoric aimed at the kids among this group is simply not on, as they should be able to grow up in a more enlightened world.

As for Newman and Court, one lives in hope they may one day change their ways and views, due to their being held to account, where their views are seen as old, stale and outdated.

Caroline Layt to the best of her knowledge is the only transgender woman to have played in the women’s Interstate rugby league challenge, representing New South Wales during the 2007 season. She was selected again during the 2008 season, but she reluctantly withdrew from the team due to injury – bone bruising.

She also won four ARU national women’ championship titles representing Sydney in women’s rugby union.

Prior to transition – Caroline briefly played Shute Shield (first grade) rugby union for Eastern Suburbs when she was 20 during the 1986 season and first grade for Oakdale – Group 6 Country Rugby League 1991.

Caroline is now a journalism student at Macleay College.

A transgender sportswoman’s take on Sam Newman’s rant against Caitlyn Jenner Hearing about Sam Newman’s rant a fortnight ago where he demonised Caitlyn Jenner by referring to her as an ‘it’ on the AFL Footy Show highlights how far we have come and still have to go before transphobic comments disappear from sports shows and the like forever.

#NRL AFL transgender

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ds4design · 8 years ago

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Polymath Stephen Wolfram Defends His Computational Theory of Everything

Stephen Wolfram seems to see himself as Newton upgraded with programming chops and business savvy, but it’s not hubris if you back it up. As he points out on his website, he published papers on particle physics in his mid-teens, earned a Ph.D. in physics from Caltech when he was 20 and won a MacArthur “genius” grant at 22. In his late 20s he invented and began successfully marketing Mathematica, software for automating calculations. Wolfram contends that Wolfram Language—which underpins Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, a knowledge engine he released in 2009—represents a “new paradigm for computation” that will enable humans and machines to “interact at a vastly richer and higher level than ever before.” This vision dovetails with the theme of Wolfram’s 2002 opus A New Kind of Science, which argues that simple computer programs, like those that generate cellular automata, can model the world more effectively than traditional mathematical methods. Physicist Steven Weinberg called the book an interesting “failure,” and other scientists griped that Wolfram had rediscovered old ideas. Critics have also accused Wolfram of hyping his computational products.* Yet Wolfram, when I saw him speak last fall at “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” exuded confidence, suggesting how Wolfram Language might transform law and politics. We recently had the following email exchange.–-John Horgan

Horgan: Can you summarize, briefly, the theme of A New Kind of Science? Are you satisfied with the book’s reception?

Wolfram: It’s about studying the computational universe of all possible programs and understanding what they can do. Exact science had been very focused on using what are essentially specific kinds of programs based on mathematical ideas like calculus. My goal was to dramatically generalize the kinds of programs that can be used as models in science, or as foundations for technology and so on.

The big surprise, I suppose, is that when one just goes out into the computational universe without any constraints, one finds that even incredibly simple programs can do extremely rich and complex things. And a lot of the book is about understanding the implications of this for science.

I’ve been very happy with the number and diversity of people who I know have read the book. There’ve been thousands of academic papers written on the basis of it, and there’s an increasing amount of technology that’s based on it. It’s quite amazing to see how the idea of using programs as models in science has caught on. Mathematical models dominated for three centuries, and in a very short time, program-based models seem to have become the overwhelming favorites for new models.

When the book came out, there was some fascinating sociology around it. People in fields where change was “in the air” seemed generally very positive, but a number of people in fields that were then more static seemed to view it as a threatening paradigm shift. Fifteen years later that shift is well on its way, and the objections originally raised are beginning to seem bizarre. It’s a pity social media weren’t better developed in 2002, or things might have moved a little faster.

Horgan: Can the methods you describe in A New Kind of Science answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing?

Wolfram: Not that I can see so far.

Horgan: Can they solve "the hard problem"? That is, can they explain how matter can become conscious?

Wolfram: One of the core discoveries that I discussed in the book is what I call the Principle of Computational Equivalence—which implies that a very wide range of systems are equivalent in their computational sophistication. And in particular, it means that brains are no more computationally sophisticated than lots of systems in nature, and even than systems with very simple rules. It means that “the weather has a mind of its own” isn’t such a primitive thing to say: the fluid dynamics of the weather is just as sophisticated as something like a brain.

There’s lots of detailed history that makes our brains and their memories the way they are. But there’s no bright line that separates what they’re doing from the “merely computational.” There are many philosophical implications to this. But there are also practical ones. And in fact this is what led me to think something like Wolfram|Alpha would be possible.

Horgan: The concept of computation, like information, presupposes the existence of mind. So when you suggest that the universe is a computer, aren't you guilty of anthropomorphism, or perhaps deism (assuming the mind for whom the computation is performed is God)?

Wolfram: The concept of computation doesn’t in any way presuppose the existence of mind... and it’s an incorrect summarization of my work to say that I suggest “the universe is a computer.”

Computation is just about following definite rules. The concept of computation doesn’t presuppose a “substrate,” any more than talking about mathematical laws for nature presupposes a substrate. When we say that the orbit of the Earth is determined by a differential equation, we’re just saying that the equation describes what the Earth does; we’re not suggesting that there are little machines inside the Earth solving the equation.

About the universe: yes, I have been investigating the hypothesis that the universe follows simple rules that can be described by a program. But this is just intended to be a description of what the universe does; there’s no “mechanism” involved. Of course, we don’t know if this is a correct description of the universe. But I consider it the simplest hypothesis, and I hope to either confirm or exclude it one day.

Horgan: What's the ultimate purpose of the Wolfram Language? Can it fulfill Leibniz's dream of a language that can help us resolve all questions, moral as well as scientific? Can it provide a means of unambiguous communication between all intelligent entities, whether biological or artificial?

Wolfram: My goal with the Wolfram Language is to have a language in which computations can conveniently be expressed for both humans and machines—and in which we’ve integrated as much knowledge about computation and about the world as possible. In a way, the Wolfram Language is aimed at finally achieving some of the goals Leibniz had 300 years ago. We now know—as a result of Gödel’s theorem, computational irreducibility, etc.—that there are limits to the scientific questions that can be resolved. And as far as moral questions are concerned: well, the Wolfram Language is going in the direction of at least being able to express things like moral principles, but it can’t invent those; they have to come from humans and human society.

Horgan: Are autonomous machines, capable of choosing their own goals, inevitable? Is there anything we humans do that cannot—or should not—be automated?

Wolfram: When we see a rock fall, we could say either that it’s following a law of motion that makes it fall, or that it’s achieving the “goal” of being in a lower-potential-energy state. When machines—or for that matter, brains—operate, we can describe them either as just following their rules, or as “achieving certain goals.” And sometimes the rules will be complicated to state, but the goals are simpler, so we’ll emphasize the description in terms of goals.

What is inevitable about future machines is that they'll operate in ways we can't immediately foresee. In fact, that happens all the time already; it's what bugs in programs are all about. Will we choose to describe their behavior in terms of goals? Maybe sometimes. Not least because it'll give us a human-like context for understanding what they're doing.

The main thing we humans do that can't meaningfully be automated is to decide what we ultimately want to do.

Horgan: What is the most meaningful goal that any intelligence, human or inhuman, can pursue?

Wolfram: The notion of a “meaningful goal” is something that relies on a whole cultural context—so there can’t be a useful abstract answer to this question.

Horgan: Have you ever suspected that God exists, or that we live in a simulation?

Wolfram: If by “God” you just mean something beyond science: well, there’s always going to be something beyond science until we have a complete theory of the universe, and even then, we may well still be asking, “Why this universe, and not another?”

What would it mean for us to “live in a simulation”? Maybe that down at the Planck scale we’d find a whole civilization that’s setting things up so our universe works the way it does. Well, the Principle of Computational Equivalence says that the processes that go on at the Planck scale—even if they’re just “physics” ones—are going to be computationally equivalent to lots of other ones, including ones in a “civilization.” So for basically the same reason that it makes sense to say “the weather has a mind of its own,” it doesn’t make any sense to imagine our universe as a “simulation.”

Horgan: What's your utopia?

Wolfram: If you mean: what do I personally want to do all day? Well, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to set up my life to let me spend a large fraction of my time doing what I want to be doing, which usually means creating things and figuring things out. I like building large, elegant, useful, intellectual and practical structures---which is what I hope I’ve done over a long period of time, for example, with Wolfram Language.

If you’re asking what I see as being the best ultimate outcome for our whole species---well, that’s a much more difficult question, though I’ve certainly thought about it. Yes, there are things we want now---but how what we want will evolve after we’ve got those things is, I think, almost impossible for us to understand. Look at what people see as goals today, and think how difficult it would be to explain many of them to someone even a few centuries ago. Human goals will certainly evolve, and the things people will think are the best possible things to do in the future may well be things we don’t even have words for yet.