#it’s also able to be used to communicate across long distances so hypothetically

[halfyearsqueen]

she has a pair of dragonglass candles she found in the year 114 AC, after taking dragonstone as her own seat.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans Are Space Orcs, “The hypothetical

I decided to go back to and play around with my older style of writing today. Taking a bi of a break from the main plot line for a little bit :) 

As a doctor, I often wonder about hypotheticals. What would happen if my patient was injured in this way, what would I do. Working with humans I find each scenario has to be more outlandish than the next assuming the human is going to do something stupid.

However, in all my time with humans there is one hypothetical that I find most interesting: what would happen if early human/nonhuman communication never happened, and like animals in documentaries, or at zoos we learned about the humans purely through observation.

Humor me for a moment as I write this as I think it could be an interesting thought-experiment for the scientific community. 

I imagine we would see them as a series of logs made by the zookeeper as the humans were captured and placed into their enclosures, not knowing that the humans were sentient.

I see it going something like this.

Day 1 - we encountered the strange creature on a distant planet. We have never seen anything like them before. They tall, though that is only by way of the walking bipedally. Their arms are very long, and their eyes face forward. We were forced to capture them through tranquilization as they were uncooperative. We have a group of them, about six that we released into the enclosure. They are very agitated, and we must do what we can to calm them or otherwise worry about causing them significant stress. I can see them now lying on the ground resting their heads, they do not look well from the drugs, but we hope that the side effects will not last long.

Day 2 - We have yet to determine the genders of the creatures or even if they have any. It is difficult to tell, though there are subtle anatomical differences that we assume might have some bearing on the subject. Luckily for us they ate within the first day, and continue to eat well. As far as we understand their diets, these creatures can eat a large range of food, more than any animal or alien we have ever seen, and this including meat, plants, and plant byproducts.

Day - 4 They have a very large range of vocalizations, in a very complex structure that almost seems as if they are speaking to one another. They grunt hiss click hum, and so much more. As far as we can tell, they seem very social and tend to congregate in a small circle to commune with each other. When they sleep, they tend to sleep in a large group, or within the same general vicinity of each other. It sees they have a strong pack mentality.

Day- 3 we were forced to move them to a new enclosure as, last night one of the zookeepers ran across the creatures scaling the wall of their enclosure using the digits on their hands and feet to hold to the rough surface and pull themselves upward. I and the other scientists are a bit put out as we should have known this based on the anatomy of their flexible toes, and the sockets of their shoulders. These creatures are very good at climbing. For this reason the new enclosure is much larger, it has a pool of water and many tall branches to climb though there is a field around it to keep the creatures form climbing out.

Day 4 - The pool was a good idea as the creatures seem to enjoy submerging themselves in water. We know now that their strangely colored skin is not actually skin but some kind of artificial covering. They take off this artificial skin if they enter the water and put it back on after they leave. We also know the difference between the males and the females now as the males have more defined muscular structures and the females are more rounded with softer angles. As far as we can determine there is no behavioral difference between the two species.

Day 5 - We think they know they are being watched, as they have a habit of obscuring themselves in the furthest end of the enclosure where it is difficult for them to be seen. They have even taken some of the fallen branches and erected a bit of a screen to hide away prying eyes, or at least that is how it seems. Some of our experts assume it was actually in order to build a proper nest though we cannot be entirely sure about that.  

Day 30 - We are worried about one of the females. Her body structure has begun to change over these past few weeks, and her belly is becoming distended. We are worried about some sort of blockage or bloating caused by the misuse of food. The other creatures seem to be worried about her as well. We  might go in and tranquilize her and bring her out to examine her at some point tomorrow.

Day 31 - we had to sedate every creature in the enclosure in order to pull the female out and separate er form her pack. We tried to separate her naturally from them, pulling her to one side of the enclosure, but it seemed as if they knew what we were doing and the other large males and the one aggressive female would not allow her to go. We had to dart all five of the others to capture her, though when we pulled her out we were delighted to find the reason for her distended belly has nothing to do with the food. It seems as if we had inadvertently picked up a pregnant alien creature., which is likely why the others were so protective over her. We worry though because upon examining the internal structures we are concerned that the head of the offspring will not be large enough to fit through the pelvis. We are not sure if this is what the natural progression of their child bearing is supposed to look  like.

Day - 50 we have been doing some tests on our  creatures and have found a few interesting things. Their senses are far superior to our own.  We once thought that their eyes would be adapted to hunting and racking movement, and while that is true in low light situations, they actually have very sharp sense of binocular vision, and are very competent at guessing distances. They seem to be a primary visual creature, and we assume that their vision is even better than ours. There is some evidence that they can even see somewhat in the dark, though based on our examination of their behavior they are primarily a daytime animal.

Day - 61 We think that they can hear us talking outside the enclosure. In fact, we think they have a very sensitive set of hearing organs. They often behave in ways that make us think they might be able to hear us. They always seem to know when we are coming into the enclosure to feed them. They tend to stand very close and watch us very carefully. We are worried that they might attack, but so far they have not. The most disconcerting is the large male and the smaller female. The way they watch some of our handlers unnerves them, and I am going to have to hire new hands to help with this project 

Day 70 - They can use tools! It is an exciting and amazing discovery. But just the other day we say them begin to make things using strips of their own not-skin and some branches. They have tied rocks together and are even using them to smash up bits of food. Their hands seem very capable of doing such things as they are actually quite  delicate in their movements. Each diget can be controlled to the finest degree and the rotational movement of their wrist implies  extreme dexterity. Many of us think that this leaves them on a path towards sentience. Our scientists estimate that they have the intellectual capabilities of a five-year-old child.

Day 90 - great progress has been made! The creatures extreme vocalizations has added to their advantage, in that we have taught them how to speak! The sentences are very rudimentary of course, like a child, but they can ask for food, help, and express their displeasure. However, the problem is, they seem to have discovered greater words of displeasure from the people observing them and have taken to yelling rude slurs at the attraction goers. We think they like getting a reaction. They are very aggressive, and are becoming more so as the days go by. We worry about their health.

Day 100 - two of the large males got into a fight yesterday. We assume it was over mating rites with the remaining female, though that is only a theory. The way the creatures fight is very strange, they ball their hands into fists and then hit each other like using a club. Sometimes they use the hard bony ends of their elbows, or the tips of their knees. A few times they even used their legs to strike at the other. The feat of balance was quite amazing and the power generated from blows like that was scary. Visitors were urged away from the enclosure when wounds started appearing. Both males were covered in blood. We had gone to sedate them but by the time we came back the fight was over and the two males were sitting with each other at the edge of the pool washing their wounds. We think they find the water soothing, though we worry about sickness or infection.

Day 140 - We cannot get to them, overnight and out of sight of our keepers they have constructed a sort of den or nest surrounded by thick leaves and tree bark. There is no way to see in, and there is no way to dart one of these creatures while on the inside. We have been   to get them while they are out in the open, but they always hear when the enclosure or the windows open and have taken to carrying around large shields made of leaves and branches. None of our darts have made it through sticking uselessly into branches. We worry greatly considering the female is coming closer and closer to her delivery day.

Day 170 - We have a plan for sedation, though it will require an enforcement team armed with the tranquilizer guns to preform it. We are worried about the female and the offspring, which we intend to rear by hand. We have no idea how the other larger humans are going to react when the smaller human is brought into the enclosure. They could kill it. We do not want this happening, and besides, we think this creature could be very docile if hand raised by us. 

Day 181 - The mother went into labor last night, and we were called in by one of the zookeepers. We have to act very fast  and are assembling a team. We are worried she might die as the sounds coming from the enclosure has caused us to close down the entire zoo. She seems to be in great pain as we have never heard a creature make that sound before. All of the creatures seem agitated as well, those who are not in the enclosure with them are pacing around outside. They seem very nervous.

The team has been assembled and it has been quiet for some minute except for a distant squalling. The large ales and other creatures are encircling the little habitat as if curious. We are worried the large males will find this as a sign ofweakness and attack.

Day 182 -  please help us. We went into the enclosure as we had assumed with hour weapons ready to take the little offspring away to safer area for cleaning, however as soon as we got close to the den, the creatures attacked. We did not see them camouflaged in the leaves, and they seemed to erupt out of nowhere. Our leader was violently bludgeoned with a rock, and another was strangled manually by the small female. Each one of them was violently killed.

Two of our team managed to make it to the door of the den but as they did, the still blood covered female leaped outward and attacked screaming. She was the most violent out of all of them and practically ripped the limbs off two of our men before killing them. Protecting her young.

The large male carried the sleeping creature fin his arms as the female searched around for any more survivors. There were none and the door had been left open. One of our valiant men tried to go and close it, but he was murdered   as the door was flung open crushing him against the back wall. The child was handed back to the mother and now they are hunting about the zoo in a pack. I have locked myself in this  room hoping they will not find me, but even now I can hear a rattling outside the door.

Day of freedom - Hello you slimy bastards. Didn’t think you could talk did you. Either way you better hope we get back to our home planet, otherwise we will take this one for ourselves and make you suffer till your bones bleach dry under and unforgiving sun.

A little bit melodramatic there at the end I know, but I have spent far to long with humans, and I understand that they would probably be just as dramatic as I am making it sound. Also, I just realized that I technically just wrote some fiction, which means the humans are definitely rubbing off on me

[baritonetcc]

Teacher Crush Would You Rather

Made by @baeby-tc 

1. Be your tc’s age or have your tc be your age?

I would overwhelmingly prefer if M was my age. Less responsibilities and such things. I also feel that this is the age when you spend much more time with your friends regularly, so I definitely would want her to be my age.

2. Have a summer fling with your tc, but never speak again afterwards or be in a long distance relationship with your tc for years, but never be able to meet in person?

Uff, this is a question that I’ve never seen before. I think I would rather be in a long distance relationship with her. I mean, if we were to hypothetically find ourselves in a relationship after I graduate, it would have to be long distance anyway. I think the sentiment is more important than the short-term gratification.

 3. Spend the day with your tc or pull an all nighter with your tc?

While human nature tends to get things kind of frisky as the night wears on...I would rather spend the day with her. Both of us value our sleep and usually go to sleep at a completely normal time. 

 4. Accidentally confess your feelings to your tc while drunk or never confess your feelings to your tc?

I like to think of myself as an honest person, so it would kill me to never tell her. If I accidentally confess, then I don’t have to spend time planning it or feel any anxiety while doing it. It sounds like an ideal situation to me.

 5. Have your tc find out about your tcc blog and read every single post or relive your most embarrassing moment with your tc?

Oh my god, this is a difficult one. I think I would actually rather have her read my blog. Maybe she’ll find it funny. Reliving embarrassment is something that I’m glad I can’t imagine, as it sounds more painful than any sort of embarrassment I’ve experienced.

6. Go to a fancy restaurant with your tc or have a picnic with your tc?

I’m a sucker for a cute picnic! 

7. Fly out of the country with your tc or drive/cycle cross country with your tc?

I would want to fly out of the country! That would be quite memorable. I’m actually supposed to do this next year, if things line up. I have my fingers crossed.

 8. Go to the movies with your tc or go to the museum with your tc?

I’m not a huge movie person. I have a terrible attention span, unless my brain is occupied with an action, which I guess is why I perform but don’t watch. Museums are super fun, and I’m a history person. Oh, M is as well! Museum all the way.

 9. Never speak to your tc again, but still being able to see them out and about or never see your tc’s face again, but still be able to call (not video call, only phone call), text and email them?

Half of the time I’m near her, see her, or am going somewhere I know she’s going to be at, I am planning out what I’m going to say to her. One of the things that hurts the most is when we see each other and she doesn’t say anything to me. I just can’t handle it. I have to have communication, so I’ll definitely go with the latter option here.

10. Completely forgetting about your tc (they’re strangers to you) or feel as though your tc was some kind of ultra-realistic dream (you’re not sure whether it actually happened or you just dreamt it)?

I enjoy holding on to memories, and M is definitely a huge part of my high school memories. I would rather feel as if I dreamt about her. After all, I have remarkably vivid and realistic dreams anyway, so that works out well.

11. In a movie where your tc is the protagonist, be cast as the love interest or the antagonist?

What do you mean, I’m already both. ;)

12. Confess your feelings in a letter or in person?

I think I would do it in person so that I could see her reaction. More than once, I’ve given her a letter and run away, so I need to...not do that again lol.

13. Get drunk with your tc or get high with your tc? 

I’d rather get drunk. I hate the idea of smoking, and I already know that she drinks.

14. Having to social distance with everyone but your tc for a year or having to social distance with your tc but no one else for a year?

I can deal with social distancing with everyone except for M. Social distancing has taught me that being less touchy (not touchy at all) is actually not that bad. I’m enjoying it. Don’t touch me.

15. Get the chance to go through all of your tc’s photo albums or get the chance to visit your tc’s childhood home, current place and every school they’ve ever attended?

I was originally going to say I would visit all those places, as they’re more substantial than just photos. However, photos are literally moments in time that have been frozen. Photos tell individual stories, so I think I would rather look at those. 

16. Share a dorm with your tc for a month or be handcuffed to your tc for 24h? 

I’d rather share a dorm with her for a month. Being handcuffed to her means being right next to her. For an entire day. I’d probably spend half of the day passing out.

17. Date someone with your tc’s face/physical appearance but someone else’s personality or date someone with a different face but your tc’s personality?

I would date someone with a different face but the same personality. If I were to date someone with the same appearance I think I would just get super confused!

18. Relive all of your favorite moments with your tc or have one of your dreams with your tc come to life?

I’d rather have one of my dreams about her actually happen. If you know...you know.

19. Attend your tc’s wedding with someone else or move across the world from your tc and having to say goodbye? 

There’s a little part of me that secretly wants to move to a faraway country, so I’ll go with that one. That way, I won’t just have to say goodbye to M, but to everyone. One of the places I want to go to is a place she loves...so maybe she’ll be compelled to visit if I were to move there.

20. Listen your tc’s playlist with them or go on a movie marathon of their favorite movies with them? 

Go on a movie marathon! She recommended me a bunch of shows and movies I still haven’t gotten around to watching.

This was super fun! @tccinematicuniverse tagged me, and I think @sunomegatc and @whats-the-story-tc should do this if y’all aren’t busy.

[aelaer]

Gonna send this separately so you can choose which ask to answer first and when. So the sorcerers have four main HQs in four different time zones and countries, all of which they can easily travel to in seconds. What do you think that means for the masters, their sleep schedule, and their nationalities? Like, do they have a fairly distributed postings (x number of masters are posted in London and must stay awake when London is, etc)? Or do they just sleep whenever they want?

This is a great question and one I’ve considered it while building out my headcanon for the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Here’s something of an excessive essay through a history of building out the four areas, which I think can help establish what goes on in modern day.

Because I’m a Tolkien nerd, I go overly deep into thinking about how languages come into play. Not only that, but I’m also a huge history nerd *and* I adore geography, so this gets very long and unnecessarily detailed. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.

Hypothetical Early History - Kamar-Taj:

The films established Agamotto was the first Sorcerer Supreme and so he must have established the Sanctums and Kamar-Taj. It’s likely he was either from or very familiar with the Nepal area to establish Kamar-Taj in Kathmandu– but Kamar-Taj may not have necessarily been there since the first Sorcerer Supreme. The Sanctums protect the Earth, but Kamar-Taj is more of a headquarters, and those sort of places can move. I like to think that the first Kamar-Taj in the MCU was actually in Tibet like in the comics and had to be moved centuries ago due to Reasons. However, there is no evidence for this currently and simply remains a headcanon.

A lot of the books Stephen gets are in Classical Sanskrit, according to Wong, once he finishes several books in English as a novice (called The Book of the Invisible Sun, Astronomia Nova, Codex Imperium, and Key of Solomon). Classical Sanskrit’s more recent than Vedic Sanskrit, but it’s still a very old language. It came around about 2500 years ago and was widely used until the beginning of the dominance of Islamic societies about the 13th century. It spread all throughout Asia in its near 2000 years of prominence in learned, literary circles as well as in several vernacular circles. This includes both Nepal and quite a bit of China.

So with Kamar-Taj within Asia (there’s no reason to believe otherwise) the primary language both studied and spoken across several different cultures would have certainly been Sanskrit until the end of the first millennium AD. For any newcomer who was illiterate (of which there likely would be many) it would be the first language they were taught to read and write (and speak as needed). It would serve as the lingua franca across all four locations. But naturally each location would have picked up the vernacular languages in their region as well as other elements.

So let’s take a look at the actual Sanctums and how they would differentiate between each other before going further into how the lingua franca would change over time.

Hypothetical Early History - The London Sanctum

Let’s look at London first. London is a very old city that has history to the Roman era (called Londonium then), established by them in 47 AD. Apparently it had a population of 50,000 by the 3rd century AD, which is nuts; remember that the historical City of London is only about a square mile wide, but in modern day about 500,000 people work in that square mile. So 50,000 people can live in that amount of space easily. It only really started spilling out in the 1600s, too.

Why am I saying all this? Well, I looked up the filming location from the very beginning of Doctor Strange, where Kaecilius runs out of the library to the London Sanctum and to the city. That was filmed on Whitehall Court, which is located in Westminster and about a kilometer away from the borders of the classic City of London.

This means that the London Sanctum was not considered a part of London for some time. Indeed, Agamotto likely established it several hundred years before the Westminster Abbey and the predecessor to the Palace of Westminster were established in the 10th and 11th centuries. Before that? There was no reason for anyone to be there. So for several centuries the London Sanctum was in the middle of nowhere. There was likely an illusion spell over it to prevent any random passerbys from over the centuries to find it unless they were “meant” to find it, or whatever. You know, magic stuff. They’d probably disguise it as a small servant’s house once the village around the abbey and palace started developing (with some sort of suggestive “do not disturb” spells of various strengths depending on the political/religious climates of the decade).

The facade would change with the changing architecture in the village and likely would remain generally undocumented until Westminster became an official borough in the 16th century. With houses getting much closer and less easily able to completely hide their presence, even with subtle “look the other way” spells, this is when I really think they’d have to set aside actual budget for whatever property taxes were set by the Crown. You can hide a building in plain sight with magic if there’s enough empty space, but I don’t think you could hide it if you have buildings on each side of it unless you do the Harry Potter trick of squeezing the space out of existence for all non-magic folk. They clearly don’t do this in the film, and they wouldn’t want someone to try and build something on their very not-empty lot, thus needing to pay property taxes. But generally they’d otherwise be left alone.

Despite it not being part of London until the Greater London area was established in the 20th century, due to its closeness to the City of London I think it would have been called the London Sanctum from a very early point. London/Londonium had been around for a millennium longer than Westminster, so I don’t see them changing the name just because they’re suddenly in a village called Westminster now.

The vernacular language of the Sanctum (not to be confused with the literary language and worldwide language of communication, Sanskrit) would shift with the centuries. First it would be the Common Brittonic with Latin after the Roman invasion in order to do any business in London (which was only a kilometer away, though distance naturally wouldn’t be an issue with a sorcerer). This would eventually shift to Old English at the Roman Empire’s decline, and Latin would be put on the backburner for some time. Old English turns to Middle turns to Early Modern (which is Shakespeare), and Latin’s revival with the Renaissance does spread into the Sanctum if they pick up any well-read, learned individuals in the 16th to 18th centuries.

Hypothetical Early History - The Hong Kong Sanctum 

The Hong Kong Sanctum was built on a set for a street that doesn’t actually exist in Hong Kong so we can’t use the same trick we did for London on precise location. But like London, the area has been inhabited for millennia, with it becoming part of one of the Chinese dynasties (Qin) in 221 BC. It was difficult to find dating for the history of its name and what it was called before it became Hong Kong. From what I can find, the British, once they received the island to colonize in the 19th century, gave the whole island that name, which was the phonetic translation of “ 香港 ”, or “fragrant harbour”.

It’s very unlikely that the Hong Kong Sanctum was actually called Hong Kong for most of its history unless it was directly within the village that bore that name on Hong Kong Island. But we don’t know where the Sanctum is supposed to be; it could be on Hong Kong Island (the original British territory), the Kowloon Peninsula (in the second growth of the colony), or on Lantau Island, another island, or one of the other New Territories north of the peninsula, gained by the British in 1899. Its original name probably reflected whatever area it’s historically located in and it would not have been changed to “Hong Kong” likely until the 20th century.

The vernacular language of the Hong Kong Sanctum would have started with the Chinese/Sinitic language groups of Yue and Hakka (which are considered Cantonese by non-linguists), specifically with dialects local to the area. It looks like another dialect from the Min family also lived in the area, so that could be sprinkled in as well. I would think that sorcerers based within the Hong Kong Sanctum would be expected to speak at least two local Chinese dialects to be able to communicate with as many newcomers as possible, and that the common language across language barriers for all the hundreds of variants of Chinese would be Sanskrit, as that would be the literary and formal language used to talk with people from all around the world. The literary language would eventually change, of course, but we’re not quite there yet in this ridiculous meta.

It’s possible that, since the area was generally not very populated until the 19th century, that the Sanctum was a lot more open in its existence (with less concealment spells and the like) and that they even allowed rumours of its existence to leak out to the local villages for anyone who was looking for greater spiritual enlightenment and knowledge. They may set some sort of obstacles on the way to find the Sanctum, but it wouldn’t be completely off the map like London would have to be for most of its existence. I don’t see anything in Taoism, Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism that would mark the magics of sorcery as “unnatural” or “evil” as many sects of Christianity would have in Europe, but I may be wrong on this topic.

They’d not have to worry about an increasing populace until the 19th century, since Hong Kong Island only had 3,000 people when the British colonized it. The population got a huge influx of people from Canton/Guangzhou once the British took over, which would eventually shift the vernacular from several dialects of Chinese to the one the people of Canton brought with them: Cantonese. Along with Cantonese, there definitely would be an increase in English amongst those speaking the vernacular in the Hong Kong Sanctum from the 1840s onward, just as there was with the rest of the population of Hong Kong. We’ll get more into this development in another part, but first we need to cover America.

Hypothetical Early History - The New York Sanctum

Like Hong Kong, this name is more recent, though not as recent as its sister sanctum in China. Before New York City was colonized, it was populated by the Lenape people, who called their territory Lenapehoking. I imagine that the New York Sanctum was once called the Lenapehoking Sanctum, assuming that the Lenope people were able to hold that territory for the several centuries before the Europeans came over. There’s no recorded history that I could find, so we cannot be certain on that account.

Unlike the London Sanctum (and possibly the Hong Kong Sanctum), it is also possible that the religion of the Lenape people and other local tribes were open to the idea of some individuals having a greater natural connection and unusual, great powers. I think obstacles would be set for those of the Lenape who wanted to leave to find this spot of enlightenment, but at the same time I do not believe it would be viewed necessarily as a negative thing.

If they drew recruits from the local populace, the vernacular would have been largely from the language spoken by the Lenape of what is now called New York City, which is called Munsee (and sadly has only two living native speakers left). They possibly also spoke Umani, the language the Lenape south of New York spoke.

This would have all changed with the arrival of European colonizers. The Dutch bought some of the area in modern lower Manhattan in 1626 from one of the Lenape groups, but the territory only extended to Wall Street; Bleecker Street is about 2 miles north of that, so they’re still in Lenape territory. However, the next 100 years dramatically shifted the landscape. New Amsterdam became New York (and transferred back, *then* back again), and inter-tribal warfare combined with the lack of immunity from the diseases the Europeans brought over cut Lenape populations dramatically in the modern New York area. I could see a potential influx of Lenape individuals who wanted nothing to do with the business of war and disease and looked for the mysterious building that no one could ever map in their territory for sanctuary. And from there, a lot of Lenape sorcerers in the 17th century.

Greenwich Village (which is where Bleecker Street is) started as farmland with some of the Dutch in the 1630s onward. The first black Dutchmen were freed a decade later and given parcels of land there, as well. Who knows: maybe one of them, or their children, became the first black sorcerers as I’m uncertain if such an opportunity would have presented itself earlier in London and I’m not sure if they would pick up random folk who didn’t come directly to Kamar-Taj or one of the three Sanctums. That said, I don’t know what travel from Africa looked like (outside of the countries on the Mediterranean) before the slave trade really got going from the age of exploration onwards. It’s hard to say what the sorcerer recruiting process would be like, especially with the language barriers. And I’d rather not magic all language barriers away, they’re interesting to keep around.

Anyway, the area was first designated as a hamlet on paper in 1713 (as Grin’wich); by the end of the century it was a decent-sized suburb that absolutely exploded in population throughout the 19th century. It would certainly have been during the 1700s that they would have had to established a visible building on record so no one tried to build on top of them (and start paying property taxes on that, too, haha); they probably expanded their property throughout the 1800s as smallpox drove people out of south Manhattan to the fresher airs of Greenwich, then with the immigration and building booms of the rest of the century.

By the 18th century English would have entered the vernacular of the sorcerers residing in the New York Sanctum and would remain the primary vernacular language until modern day. It would likely be renamed sometime in the 1700s as well with the expansion of New York City and the further decline of native settlements.

Hypothetical Early History - Mingling With the Normals Around the World

One reason I favour Kamar-Taj in a more remote region in its earlier years rather than Kathmandu would be for sorcerers from all around the world to easily mingle outside without worry of some central Asian villager getting spooked out of his ever-loving mind for seeing his first European. And it makes sense to me that Kamar-Taj would have a large community of farmers, herdsmen, and the like doing basic things to keep people fed and shod while more experienced sorcerers did the reality protecting part of the job. They simply wouldn’t be able to do their job if they didn’t have people who were keeping the community running. And I don’t think they’d outsource it for much of their existence. I really see Kamar-Taj as a very self-sufficient society that keeps away from the rest of the world as much as possible. That would take a lot of room, and you’d need a lot of land for that. So yeah, I’m favouring Kamar-Taj as a “hidden land” in Tibet as it was in the comics until the world began to enter the modern era. And here they could mingle with anyone they wanted.

When it came to going out to the rest of the world, however, I would imagine caution and secrecy was of ultimate importance. Again, you don’t want to spook the western European villager with seeing a black person for the first time some 2000 years ago. So basically sorcerers avoided any locals as much as viably possible.

On that note, until the age of exploration I imagine that each Sanctum would be very strict with who was allowed outside of the Sanctum to their immediate surroundings. They don’t want to draw too much curiosity and scrutiny lest rumours travel to those with considerable power. This would be especially important in London after the rise of Christianity and the distrust in anything seen as magical. People that didn’t look like you appearing in your little village? Don’t want to scare the illiterate locals.

So for the majority of the Sanctums’ histories, only sorcerers with backgrounds that were native to their location would actually go outside if they needed to and there was a chance they’d come across someone. America would be the most lenient while London the strictest. These rules would be in place for precaution and secrecy.

Even when the age of exploration begins in earnest and you actually start seeing traders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas in London as the centuries pass onward, minority sorcerers still may not want to travel the streets of London due to the possibility that they may be mistreated. I’m not greatly familiar with the history of diversity and how minorities were treated in London, but if it’s anything like the rest of the world, it probably wasn’t great. And the last thing anyone before the 19th century would want is to show magic and be accused of witchcraft. I imagined they just avoided the possibility of problems happening altogether by limiting who went outside the Sanctum in certain parts of the world.

It’s not really until the 19th century that you see stringent rules start to relax a bit; Hong Kong has several European traders and New York and London have turned into much larger melting pots. By the time WWII comes around, these old rules about where people can travel directly from the Sanctums are dropped as the world has become a melting pot.

Hypothetical History Up To The Modern Era

As established, the main language of literary and cross-cultural communication would start with Sanskrit due to its prominence in Asia as a writing system first and foremost when the Sanctums were established (presuming that they were established a few centuries before or after the BC/AD shift; I don’t think the MCU uses the comic canon for Agamotto’s age). Using it for spoken language afterwards just makes sense with so many cultures present.

The lingua franca of Sanskrit wouldn’t change until Sanskrit’s decline; I don’t see it happening immediately, either. Sanskrit started declining in the 13th century, but I think it would remain the lingua franca until sometime during the Renaissance and the years of colonialism that follow. I believe there would have been a large push for Latin to be the main language of literacy and communication between the 16th to 18th centuries, primarily from the sorcerers from Europe. A good number of more complex texts from the London Sanctum would have surely been translated into Latin at this time (while the idea of writing in the vernacular, as spread with the printing press, has certainly caught on and beginner texts there are starting to be translated into early Modern English).

The Ancient One, who is now Sorcerer Supreme at this time, isn’t quite sure yet of that change. She’s getting a lot of resistance from Hong Kong in particular who think Sanskrit has served fine for well over a millennium and can serve just as well in the next. Instead she encourages more translations of beginner books into the vernacular and encourages those in the other Sanctums to learn other vernacular languages of other Sanctums as she can see the world is beginning to shrink and more places are being mapped. She, of course, can speak several languages fluently so she can talk to as many students in their native language as possible. Because the Sanctums are not within Spanish-speaking or French-speaking territories, these two languages are acknowledged as wide-speaking and at least a couple sorcerers learn the languages if there are no native speakers, but they do not come into the running as a lingua franca (just as Mandarin does not, either, as no one near Hong Kong speaks it).

Things remain in flux for the next 200 to 300 years until the New York Sanctum is largely populated by those who immigrated recently to the English colonies. And then the request starts to change: make the lingua franca English. London largely agrees with this (though things get a bit salty between a couple English natives and a couple pro-Independence colonizers at the end of the 18th century) but by the time the 19th century rolls around, there’s a lot of support for this from both New York and London.

Hong Kong doesn’t see why it should change at all, and then the Opium Wars come around, and by 1850, there’s quite a bit of English being spoken by newcomers in their area and almost everyone else is speaking another dialect of Chinese rather than the vernacular they were familiar with. They agree, albeit a bit reluctantly. English becomes the vernacular in the latter half of the 19th century and any starter books that haven’t been translated start to be translated into English.

The Hong Kong Sanctum also works on translating several starter books into Cantonese as they still want to draw from the local populace who don’t speak English; they still have plenty of the local Yue and Hakka dialects made over the last thousand years (with updates made every couple hundred years with shifting languages).

France’s fall from power with the removal of their monarchy and the defeat of Napoleon, alongside the continuous British colonization efforts and the growing prosperity from the new county of the United States, remove French from potentially becoming a lingua franca and solidify English as a worldwide language. This only increases in the 20th century after the Allied success in WWII, even with Britain giving up/losing their colonies throughout the next thirty years. English is still spoken in those territories, after all.

Hypothetical History: The Modern Era

The twentieth century saw the most change in the shape of the world than all centuries previous, and this change is reflected in policy with the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Before the twentieth century, the sorcerers that resided/worked in the various Sanctums were very homogeneous. London was staffed by Europeans and Hong Kong by Asians, especially of southeast descent. New York was the most lenient due to the low population in the area that was constantly moving, though individuals who looked like the indigenous peoples were certainly preferred (no blonds here). Everyone was welcome in Kamar-Taj as it was a completely closed off, secluded community and everyone was used to a very mixed population. As mentioned earlier, while London and New York saw different ethnicities, especially after the Renaissance, I don’t think a lot of people would really want to go out and about in those areas due to the prejudices of the era.

It is possible that some sorcerers came with prejudices as they were introduced to Kamar-Taj, but the amount of discipline and the ability to work together was so imperative to Agamotto, the Ancient One, and other Sorcerer Supremes (however many there were) that anyone who didn’t shed them simply wouldn’t be permitted to continue. Their tight-knit society wouldn’t be able to function if some sorcerers refused to work with other sorcerers because they looked different, practiced a different religion, or was a woman. The Ancient One being a woman of ambiguous religious practices helped get rid of a lot of people.

But as mentioned, a lot of things changed with the twentieth century. Prejudice still existed, of course, as it does today, but it was significantly less than when the slave trade was legal around half the world 200-300 years ago. The invention of photography, radio, and TV alongside WWI and WWII made the world smaller than it ever has been. And as the three Sanctum cities were much more heterogeneous than in centuries past, who presided over what relaxed.

In the 21st century, sorcerers come from all around the world over. Because their numbers are small I think recruitment still remains largely out of being lucky enough to come across a sorcerer who thinks you may be a good candidate, or to hear about Kamar-Taj through word of mouth and travel to Kathmandu (where it eventually permanently located as need for fields and fields of space became unnecessary). Anyone who doesn’t know English well (or at all) is taught to read, write, and speak the language during their novice days. As English is the lingua franca of the business world right now, no one in their right mind would turn that down, either; right now, English remains the most desired language to learn in the majority of non-English speaking countries.

Anyone can now be posted anywhere due to the heterogeneous world. Sleep schedules correspond with the local time of the location; as each Sanctum has an alarm system that goes to Kamar-Taj (and I imagine Kamar-Taj has its own), it would be easy enough to get sorcerers who are wide awake to help with an emergency. There’s probably someone keeping an eye on all locations when the locals are sleeping, even if they’re not physically there.

The majority of sorcerers who don’t have assignments that correspond with the Sanctums would remain in Kamar-Taj, and if they needed to go to any old Sanctum, it likely would be Hong Kong as Hong Kong is only two hours and 15 minutes ahead of Kathmandu. (China is one time zone when it should be at least three, but that’s another conversation altogether). That said, even if the local residents of the Sanctums are asleep, I view the Sanctums as facilities that are open twenty-four hours to the people of Kamar-Taj if they need to reference something that lives within one of the other Sanctums.

I don’t think the permanent staff of the Sanctums in the modern era would be overly large, either; there’s the Master, of course, probably another person to see to the Sanctum’s day-to-day tasks, and maybe a handful of acolytes and apprentices making a certain study of something that lives within the Sanctum or prefer to be within that time zone for some time while doing another job that they could do anywhere (such as the translations I mentioned). But because they do have that nifty alarm system, and the world is much more heterogeneous than it once was, the desire to keep sorcerers assigned to certain parts of the world appearing like people locally from there so as to draw less attention from locals is a custom that has more or less died out. And that has made the assignments much, much more flexible.

So yeah, I think in the modern era there is a bit more flexibility that wasn’t present in former eras because the world is smaller. With the alarm system connected to Kamar-Taj, which would have traffic 24 hours a day more than likely, you have a worldwide system of sorcerers with an eye on each Sanctum as well as a worldwide system of sorcerers that can go wherever they need to go to take care of dimensional issues as they come up.

[dwollsadventures]

TDG Prologue 1 - Coins

Here it is. The revised introduction to the TDG's world. I've been fretting over it for about a week now, but I'm going on a camping trip without the internet for a few days. So, I thought now would be a good time to put it up here, before I can worry about it even more. I have a real problem in that I tend to overthink and over-edit my own work. Chances are I may do that again, or just choose not to read it anymore and hope for the best. Either way, more is to come. After the camping trip though.

In the year 1961 Stan Freberg released his musical comedy album Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One: The Early Years. In one scene the crew of Christopher Columbus argued with their captain over the shape of the earth. They believed it was a flat sort of disc, to which Columbus disagreed. Their argument occurred in musical act titled “It’s a Round, Round World”.

Little did Mr. Freberg (nor Christopher Columbus) know, there were people who whole-heartedly sided with the crew of Santa Maria. The Flat-Earth movement posits that certain models of Earth’s shape, making it like a flat disc with a defined edge, are correct and everything that came after was designed to suppress the intellectual minds of the modern era. At least, some do. Others believe in a more cylindrical shape, or a half-sphere, or a spherical snowball on which the flat disc of earth lies atop. Flat-Earthers have always been splintered and argumentative.

They are also wrong.

Almost anyone can tell you the facts; that very few people from the past really believed in a flat-earth; that the Egyptians accounted for the curvature of the earth in their architecture; that Columbus was not worried about falling off the edge and simply looking for India and that incidentally he was not the first European to discover the Americas and was also a genocidal slave-owner.

Almost no-one talks about the chilling hypothetical of living on a flat planet. That if the earth really were a flat disc, it would be the same shape as a coin. Meaning, if some enormous cosmic hand were to be about the place, it would not be able to resist picking Earth up and flipping it, to see which side it lands on.

Would the Earth make that same, satisfyingly metal sound a coin does as it flies through the air?

Flip, flip, flip.

The one thing the flat-earthers got right was that, regardless of shape, the Earth is like a coin. Like all coins it has two sides and an edge.

On one side we have the world we’re all familiar with. The one we live in, where people go places and do things all the time with no rhyme or reason. Atoms spin around each other and molecules react to one another. The earth is just one tiny dot in the middle of a huge, mostly empty universe. Despite this, money and religion rule it, both fueling the fires of complex political dramas across the world. It’s the world that appears in textbooks, news articles, scientific journals, and before your very eyes.

Then there’s the other side. Other is a good word for it, as some have called it the Otherworld. It bears a resemblance to the one above but is exaggerated: the shadows are darker, the seas are deeper, the earth is older. One might be mistaken and say it is a world of religion; in actuality it is the world where the subjects and objects of religion dwell. The beings that live here are part of the world itself. Most gods are after all anthropomorphic representations of nature. Whereas on the other side humans are insignificant because of its grandness, here humans are simultaneously powerful and powerless. It’s a world of converse realities, where someone can be in two places at the same time or be two different people and one again. Here the rules of physics and reason take a backseat to narrative. If there is a monster (and this world is full of monsters) there will inevitably be a hero to slay it. It is the world of myth and mystery which appears in holy books and ancient poems.

Separation is a part of their nature. No hunter has ever killed a unicorn. No story alone has ever built an empire. The first side is far too complicated. The second is much too unrealistic.

This separation does not define them, however. Neither would exist without the other.

Just as you cannot have a coin with one side, you cannot have thunder without Thor, or Thor without thunder. Were you to isolate either of those sides into a world of its own, it would be a world stripped of meaning.

Why should anyone care about a god of thunder had not thunder existed? Why should anyone care about the concussive sound wave produced by the rushing in of air into a channel at high speeds? No one could live in such a world. Symbols without meaning are just scribbles on rock. Atoms and molecules cannot sustain a world alone. The other world is a reflection of the first; there can’t be an other without an us. The real world can’t exist without the unreal. Or rather, it can, but it would be a world devoid of laws and language, mercy and justice, inspiration and innovation, right and wrong.

Humans may have created the gods, but it was the gods that made them human.

There was a time when these two worlds were as one. It was a vague, ephemeral time. It didn’t exist in the same way, say, the Jurassic Period existed. The Greeks called it the Heroic Age, when gods and heroes walked the earth. The Australians called it the Dreamtime. Other, less concrete timeframes, such as the vague Creation of many stories, or the period in time where Adam and Eve inhabited the Garden of Eden also call back to this time. It was a time when gods and mortals freely communicated. There was no separation of the two. People could go to the otherworld (or the underworld) as they pleased so long as they obeyed the rules. The two sides intermingled and, sometimes, intermarried.

Then, something happened. The two sides became separated by the coin’s edge. This new edge was only as thick as strength of one’s belief. For many it was good enough. For some it was too much. In an age when gods could not be seen, heard, felt, or fought, it was as if they never existed at all.

For all of those on the other side, it was as if a one-sided window was placed between them. They did as they always did, pulling around the sun, visiting vengeance upon neighbors, answering questions and plights, etc., etc. There just wasn’t any response back. So, they worked back into a cycle, as the supernatural is wont to do. Waiting. Some waited for a very long time. Their names were no longer spoken and their people were scattered into the dust. Things from that world never die, not in the way the real world can. All they can do is sleeplessly drift off into an unconscious state and perform the duties they’ve always done. Waiting for the time to wake up.

The two sides drifted farther and farther apart for many years. In some places people never really left their gods and their spirits and demons. With time, they became a very small minority. Now priests can preach their sermons every Sunday comfortably far away from the floods of Noah and Sodom’s fires. Fairytale books are printed en masse in factories free of rickets-infested changelings and worrying encounters deep in the night. A thousand knights slay a thousand dragons on a thousand screens while the audience never loses a wink of sleep over crops turning to black mush, or poison running deep into the wells beneath their feet.

For most the other side is as real as a myth. Which is exactly what it is.

Until it isn’t. As the laws of probability will tell you, given enough time, every coin will come up the wrong side. And so, we get to the end of the world.

Apocalypse narratives aren’t as common as one might think. The ones that did get them got them right though. In beliefs of Judgement Day, according to the Christians, the unbelievers will be thrown together and judged with scrutiny. Ragnarök says that after a final war between humans, the divine war will kill the survivors and destroy the world. A hole in a coin obscures both sides.

The edge is ripped off. Without it, the two sides become one. No longer is there any distance between them, belief no longer determines whether or not the other are real or unreal, they exist regardless. Those few left alive after the war will perish after this final revelation.

[demytasse]

[Shizaya] Coping Mechanism — Ch 4

[Previous Chapter]

     Izaya had spent most of the morning checking for phone notifications — one by one — messages that weren’t coming, yet he almost believed they would blip into existence the moment his eyes fell upon the digital screen. There wasn't much purpose for his action beyond preoccupation, he just couldn't admit how exclusively he waited for the goddamn bedroom door to open for hours that blended into a long minute. It was tiring, the impatience that drained his battery rather than his lack of sleep. Though how could he be patient when he knew Shizuo hadn’t slept more than a few winks; the heavy thump and rustles every time the beast tossed and turned practically broadcasted his inability to reach REM and it was painful just how long the lie that he slept the morning away was kept up.

So when Shizuo finally trudged the distance of his mattress onward to grace his presence, it seemed that everything surrounding the event was a blessing, even the racket of a loose doorknob attempting to initiate its mechanism was enjoyable. Even the extended, nail-biting buildup was accepted as Izaya utilised the extra time to meticulously dress up his nonchalant air for the grand entrance. His legs elegantly tied at the last moment, chin tipped up with a lazy prowess, he propped himself up by sheer will alone. Without further hesitance the door swung open.

    “Good morning, sweetie~!” Izaya twiddled his fingers in a wave.

He exuded expectancy in a fashion that looked as awkward as he tried to hide it — then again Shizuo did the same, despite his groaned out, groggy grumble.

    “You’re still here.”

    “Indeed, but that's what you wanted, right?” he winked.

Shizuo ignored as many pitiful flirts as he could — snuffed out his smile with a huff, and made his way to the kitchen.

He raised a section of his undershirt to scratch an itch just above a stretched-out waistband, every bit habitual as the series of cracks that rolled from his lower spine up to his shoulders. Izaya tilted his head as he spied, the same motion as Shizuo used while he forced his neck to crack with both hands. It was a fair bit of a cringe, given how familiar Izaya was to that particular strength, but knowing the outcome of each of his daily practices it wasn’t a worry that Shizuo might accidentally behead himself or something along those lines. It was a spectacle that lasted up until Shizuo paused his stretches. Curious of something upon the bar-top, he considered what to make of the object with dead eyes — the abnormality of a familiar carton that sat in a puddle of its own sweat.

    “You left the milk out,” Izaya pointed.

    “No fuckin’ shit?”

    “You also left the coffee on the heater. Not sure if you could tell, but the smell of burning mud is quite...pungent.” Izaya’s nose crinkled in jest.

    “And you couldn’t have done anything ‘bout it?” he rubbed at his eyes.

    “It’s not my place.”

    “...like that stopped you before, you damn brat.”

Shizuo went for an affectionate slap upside Izaya’s head, but it was evaded with an anticipated lean backward — a hum and chuckle in tow.

    He commanded Shizuo to stand down with a jab to the forehead. “Are you going to make it up to me?”

The sly tone alone drained colour from Shizuo, the touch did him in; it was technically their first form of physical content in months, though it was without nerves nor fear that his body reacted against his wishes.

    “H-hah?” His hand dropped to his side which directed Izaya to visually follow its course; drew his attention towards something that wished him a better ‘good morning’ than Shizuo had. “Are you serious?”

    “I meant coffee, Shi-zu-chan~. Coffee.” His brow raised, teasingly satisfied, his legs switched which topped.

Shizuo stumbled backward, the sudden lightheadedness worked against his balance, tripped him around the counter to create distance; perhaps hide. To recenter his thoughts he scrutinised the milk rather than face Izaya as they talked.

    “God, I—” he cleared the dry falsetto from his throat, “god, I fuckin’ I hate you.”

    “Tell that to your erec—”

    “DON’T!! Don't start, you asshole!” Red flowed back into his cheeks.

In a burst of emotion, he made a quick decision to prove his might with a pitch of the carton into the sink where it impressively exploded into a mess of white.

    “...what will I do for cream?” Izaya laughed easily.

    “I’m makin’ your damn coffee, just shut up and take what you get!!”

—

    Per usual Izaya fell into observance, this time it was a particular movie of morning ritual, overplayed and overperformed. Even though he wasn’t able to watch the second actor — that is, himself — the strain of rusty muscle memory told Izaya that he too kept close to the script of waiting for his lackluster brew and his unwillingly, willing bartender to join him.

They were lone actors stuck in a loop of endless takes in the midst of a dance around the same rickety set; their awkward passion had, and continued, to disappoint a hypothetical director with a perfect vision they could hardly live up to. It exhausted the couple’s ability to keep at it day-to-day in the past, hence how they both suffered through dry ritual before Izaya inspired a...hiatus of sorts. Time without it made it clear just how bored they had gotten; what rut they’d dug themselves into.

Rewatching it, though, made for good theatre.   

    While he maneuvered, Shizuo looked back and forth between his task and Izaya; off and on, he’d make eye contact only from a side-glance, but grew more and more anxious every time.

    “Would you stop that?”

    “Stop what?”     “Staring at me,” he messed with pre-ground coffee in the bag, “it's annoying…”     “You never seemed to have a problem with it before.”

    Shizuo paused, “funny how things change.” The words appeared unsatisfactory to his disposition, but he slipped back upon the rails to avoid a negative train of thought.     The retired monster further fumbled through setting up the coffee machine again — a round two of what was botched hours back. The cord tangled around his wrist, his frustration crackled as if the coffee had already begun to brew.

It shocked Izaya that he didn’t crush the cheap thing in the process, rather he moved onto scooping grounds with care — only half made it to the filter. What little mess he swept into his hand ultimately made it to the floor when he dusted off the rest on his boxers. With a snap of plastic and a beep the machine began its broken melody.

Izaya could’ve watched Shizuo — his performer — for hours; his own heated cheek lying in his palm, relaxed fingers curled around the arc of his head as it lulled to the side, completely in awe. He felt as if watching the romantic slice-of-life tragedy could make up for lost time — erase what mistake he’d made and perhaps turn it around. In the end, as predictable as the steps had become, no matter how boring they’d grown, Izaya realised he missed this silent film. It glossed his eyes somber.

When Shizuo turned, he was startled out of step; honestly, like he'd forgotten Izaya ever occupied the bar, except he couldn't have forgotten as he'd been impossible to get off his mind all morning. So he had no retort but a harsh intake of air, equivalent to five breaths or more. His chest filled out broad and his shoulders gained height; his long-term depression was corrected by a miracle. Shizuo forgot to exhale.

Once more he followed their tried and true script. Without hesitation he reached over the counter to rest his hand on Izaya's shoulder in trial of what he was allowed to get away with. The blunt laminate edge pushed far into his gut, yet he pressed onward without notice. All he was focused on was how flush Izaya had became as he massaged warmth over his cold shoulder; how his ex-partner melted into the touch and his shoulders rolled forward into a comfortable hang. Their exchange felt like coming home to experience their past.

Izaya eased himself off the chair, smooth and casually — metal scritched across the tile flooring as he moved closer to Shizuo to let him stroke his cheek with a feather touch. His vision closed off the world; he was relaxed enough to finally let his sleep deprivation take over, though was alert enough to will the moment to move faster towards what he wanted.

    "Seriously...” Shizuo hesitated, “...why the hell are you here, Izaya?"

Words waited in queue somewhere on the back of Izaya’s tongue, jumbled with an incomprehensible answer. The failed phrasing was more a stumble through various syllables that he tried to figure out the taste, but only managed a stutter. One language was too much a challenge, but his body puppeted him though straightforward communication; he moved closer and hung just short of them conversing through touch.

His fingers weaved with the golden half of Shizuo's locks and tugged hard at the brown roots. They hiccuped — choked on hot air before they went to steal more oxygen from the other. Only the rough of their lips grazed and only a second delay from an inconvenient interruption — a wail of the coffee machine.

Both men jumped apart; the machine’s alert continued on, as did their stare.

    "Let me get it." Izaya shook off their eye contact. He peeled away with his hand at the back of his head.

    “No I’ll do it.”

    "It's fine."

    “I started the damn pot, I'll finish it.”

    “How about you don’t press your luck, Shizuo,” he snipped, far humourless than his light, snappy tone, “alright?”

    “Luck?! Is it luck that we almost fuckin’ kissed?”     “Please,” he looked pained, “you know it was!”

Izaya regretted his snap judgement as soon as the shock spread wide on Shizuo’s features. The expression — the hurt — made it hard to ignore, how the look of betrayal was similar to one of another accident still shiny and new. What broke them apart and hadn't been addressed due to silent respect that Izaya probably didn't deserve.

Undeniably it was possible for Shizuo to forgive him, Izaya knew it; decidedly it was impossible for him to forgive himself, and he despised it.

    “Fine. Do what you want, Izaya. Leave it burning again for all I care. I need to shower for work.”

    “I need to leave as well.”

    “No! You stay put. We need to talk!” Shizuo bellowed. “So caffeinate yourself or somethin’, but hell, if you leave, the next time I see you I'll bury your smug-ass grin into the damn concrete!”

    “You sure don't look like you want to wait until next time.” He narrowed his eyes, but his voice wavered, “what happened to your controlled temper?”

    “You happened!!”

    “Oh…”

    “Yeah, ‘oh’,” he growled.

    “...”

    "Tch, what happened to your nonsense monologues...” Shizuo muttered as he turned towards the bathroom.

Izaya held his tongue as if he even had any dialogue to hold back. If he actually did, the cry of the door on its hinges would have interrupted the spew anyway. It slammed near to splinters; surprisingly it was more apt to claim it was forced into its cradle, snug and intact.

    “...looks like I will need that drink after all, Shizu-chan.”

AN: These awkwardly stubborn assholes...

[teratoscope]

Repton

The inside of the dome is a hothouse; your optics fog the moment you cut inside. The ground shifts and gives slightly under your feet. Nothing is paved here, except with what you’re guessing is piles of chipped rubber strewn across a concrete foundation. The whole place feels like you’ve wandered into a nightmare version of a playground; a hopeless tangle of brightly-painted metal and plastic, some entirely abstract and some molded in crude imitation of jungle foliage, weaves around and above you. Featureless black domes break up the terrain, some the size of houses. And then there’s the noise, the inescapable wall of sound this place throws at you. Synthetic insect chirring, the hiss and hum of climate regulators, a distant rumble of turbines and churning coolant somewhere far below, and a repetitive, ear-splitting whoop. Which, you’re realizing, is almost certainly an alarm. Your hosts are well camouflaged against the terrain; bright, many-colored scales gleam under the half-light that catches in the heady atmosphere like insects in amber. They dangle from bars and false branches, then drop to the ground and pace tight circles around you, watching the graphics flit across the inner surface of the dusky orange domes fused over their eyes. Some break formation to get a closer look, then flee back into the labyrinthine reaches above. “Are they supposed to be cute?” says Dak. Weapon racks pop loose from hidden chambers in the floor and out of “trees,” clattering into place. The Reptons rush them, squabbling for the prime pickings before some unseen force goads them to break away and take the next gun down. “You tell me,” you say.

HD 1 MV 180’ climb AC 14 AT bite (d4+1) or by weapon Special network

Network—all Reptons are networked to each other and their devices. Unless their comms are jammed, a Repton soldier always has a precise understanding of their distance relative to their squadmates and all Repton-aligned tech, and can communicate with both. Furthermore, all Reptons have access to their network’s algorithmic assistance. If the Reptons in question are in combat with a target that has fought networked Reptons before, they gain +1 to attack and initiative rolls for every one of these prior encounters (up to 6).

1d6 Repton Weapons

1.     Lance caster. 3d3 kinetic, 90’ range, six-shot clip. Semi-automatic magnetic bolt-thrower. Individual bolts are about as long as a human forearm, brightly colored to stand out for easy recovery and reload. Reptons struggle with tracking ammunition in high-tension situations, and also with aiming; lance casters tend to be assigned to top-percentile fighters.

2.     Buddy gun. 1d4+3 heat, 240’ range, battery exhausts and needs to be re-cranked for 1d3 rounds on a max-damage roll. Onboard AI provides procedurally generated moral support. Weapon of choice for the average Repton grunt.

3.     Bughucker. Xd10 explosive, 400’ range, can house and fire up to three shells at once, dealing damage equal to shells fired. Launches a suicide drone resembling an overfed beetle that chases its target using impenetrable precognitive algorithms. The damage from a successful attack roll with a Bughucker “arrives” 2d3 rounds after the round is actually fired. It takes 1 round to arm and load a shell. The definition of a fire-and-forget weapon.

4.     Mega-cuffs. 2d6 kinetic, melee weapon. Allows an extra 60’ rocket-assisted charge in a straight line as part of an attack. Fuel explodes for 3d6 damage in a 15’ radius on a critical miss (Dex check for half for everyone but the Repton wearing it).

5.     Rad-hoser. 30’ cone, 2d4 Rads (Dex check for half). Sprays goopy, luminescent reactor discharge. Widely used to clear ground for development.

6.     Slough cannon. 60’ cone, 1d8+1 damage from abrasion and hemorrhaging (Con check for half). Damage die implodes each round: roll damage at the top of the round and apply if the damage is less than the damage dealt last round; otherwise the effect ends. Deals no damage to targets in airtight armor. Weapon reaches dangerous operating temperatures; on firing the wielder takes 1d3 heat damage. Fires an expanding cloud of nanoassemblers designed to revert living tissue to uncommitted stem cells and package it for future use.

1d8 Repton Devices

1.     Black cylinder the size of a coffee maker held aloft on a dirty yellow repulsor field. Synthesized voice squawks instructions in decidedly un-reptilian but still unrecognizable language in time with strobes of decorative light piping. Neural-network assisted targeting means that each consecutive missed shot grants a +1 to the next attack made by any Repton. AC 8, hp 12, MV 90’ hover

2.     Modular railgun. Takes three dedicated team members and a full round to assemble, aim & fire, hucks anything that fits in the barrel and can hold a charge for 10d10 kinetic damage in a 600’ straight line (Dex check to dodge). All pieces emblazoned with thorough visual aids that walk the user through the assembly process.

3.     Egg-shaped plastic housing the size of a football with a set of neural interface leads coiled around a magnetic support stand. When wired up, user enters a hypnagogic state for six hours, after which leads detach and user wakes with no memory of their state of unconsciousness. For the subsequent 48 hours, user has instantaneous and entirely subconscious grasp of Repton engineering, will service Repton devices without noticing if their hands are not kept otherwise occupied. Reptons will ignore anyone who sticks close to one of these things, and actively assist a user. Continuous use risks permanent nerve damage.

4.     Short brass rod ending in t-shaped prong. So long as it remains aimed at a single biological target, the target’s sensory faculties are greatly reduced (disadvantage to all tests of perception), and pain, fatigue, and sickness register only as a faint, pleasurable itch (so long as effect is sustained, player has no knowledge of their hit point total and is immune to penalties from distraction/pain/morale).

5.     Repton-sized metal pylon ringed with sturdy levers. Interface panel shows map of local terrain and best-fit route from current location to resource-rich zone. Requires a team of ten Reptons (or three to four reasonably strong humans) to open, revealing opalescent, filigreed structure, like a fossil basket star curled around a flickering, barely perceptible mote of solid black. Upon release, computronium seed begins to unfold and put down roots. Surrounding six-mile radius will become a fully functional and populated Repton habitat within a month.

6.     Amoeboid drone; flexile smart-matter body around hard-framed central storage armatures. Absorbs wounded Reptons and deposits them in “care spheres” where internal limbs mend/foam over wounds and dose the patient with combat amphetamines. One round to recover an incapacitated Repton, 2d3 rounds to redeploy with a rerolled hit die and +4 to hit and damage. MV 120’, AC 10, hp 14.

7.     Mobile terrarium. Looks like a Rainforest Café stapled to the back of a mechanical crab. Reptons stationed in one never flee; they defend their home to the death. “Trees” extrude clone mealworm paste and simulation fruit flesh in narcotic, mildly hallucinogenic, and blue raspberry flavors. Guided by competent but nonverbal AI. Personalities tend to be grudgingly servile to overseers, pleasantly exasperated with crew in a way that should be familiar to any cat owner. MV 90’, AC 16, hp 80

8.     Meta-Rover. Modular all-terrain vehicle, top operable combat speed of 300’/round. Like a pile of motorized, armored bigwheels bolted together into a single day-glo abomination, until it separates into a swarm of single-seaters. Vehicles can hypothetically link indefinitely, but for every unit after the 6th there’s a 1 in 10 chance at the end of each round that the drivers fall catastrophically out of sync and the assemblage spins out.

The Reptons were the first species we encountered in the Contact War, and if it had only ever been them, things might have been different.

The average individual Repton is about as canny as an especially dull chimp in most regards. They’re reasonably talented tool-users, but if you were to raise one from the egg, away from their infrastructure, their at-birth implants, and mainline Repton culture, it would take some serious goading to get them to so much as flint-knap.

And yet as a group, Reptons are deadly. They fight tactically, often making unexpected gambits, and they fight with little regard for their individual well-being. They communicate constantly, though no-one has yet been able to decipher Repton script or spoken language; Repton “writing” features six thousand plus distinct characters and counting and doesn’t seem to have any fixed direction you’re supposed to read it. And their war effort is driven by arms and manufacturing tech that is sometimes leagues ahead of what humanity is capable of, or founded on utterly inscrutable scientific principles, even if the interfaces often seem designed for preschoolers.

But nobody has a clear, substantiated explanation for how they wound up with their tech in the first place. A camp in Freestar One’s strategic research division theorizes that they are the leftovers of a species that lost its evolutionary pressures towards sapience; another argues that they are an uplifted species whose patrons abandoned them, died out, or supervise them from a distance. Stranger explanations exist.

What is known is that their computers are frighteningly powerful and all of their machines talk to each other. Their industrial society is kept afloat purely by the power of their algorithms and the constant influx of resources provided by their ongoing conquest of the planet—the Reptons themselves are merely the hands that authorize and facilitate the intricate automatic processes of invention and fabrication that build their domed cities, develop their food, medicine, entertainment, and weapons, grow and indoctrinate their children, and schedule their lives.

They are vestigial components in a vast machine with no capacity to recognize itself or any part within, operating on the sprawling organic logic of a dream instantiated by engineers lost to time.

Anyone who’s been deployed in Repton territory can attest to the uncanny atmosphere they carry with them. No individual part of a Repton crew behaves like a person. But there is something that emerges in the interplay, as they fumble with their devices and their devices fumble with them, that suggests an intellect inherent to neither. If you watch them from the right distance—not too far, not too close—they resolve into something distressingly like us.

[ganymedesclock]

If you could create animals based off of the paladins' personalities, what would they be? What would they look like? Where would they live? What weird traits would they have?

So I guess think of these things as the hypothetical companion animals the paladins would have if they didn’t have the Lions? Along with the Lions? Who knows. I sure had fun.

Lance: Lesser Vaukeeil, AKA River Vaukeeil

Serpentine body about eight feet long and four feet high at the shoulder, eight pairs of short legs. Surprisingly graceful, covered mostly in smooth scales with a short mane and sensitive whiskers. Outer lip features a ‘beak’ intended for grooming but also posses teeth. Prized for the beautiful color of its scales, which can be ground into an expensive blue pigment.

Lives in temperate wetlands, forests and rivers. Unexpectedly good at climbing, strong swimmer, lurks beneath the water’s surface or up in the trees. Omnivorous, primarily eats fish, water plants, rarely will attack and eat something as large as a deer when they’re drawn to its watering-hole hunting grounds. Hunts with sudden lunging movements, striking like a snake and using wolf-like jaws and strong body to drag prey into the water or onto land, whichever is least advantageous to the prey.

Clever, expresses emotions largely through multiple fins nested in its features. Able to learn, understand, and mimic speech and other noises in its environment. Natural sounds are lots of chirps, warbles, clicks, hisses, and screeches. Very vocal. Inquisitive and playful, its inclinations as an ambush predator can easily draw it towards something it’s fascinated by.

A social animal that hunts in solitude but lives communally in packs of its kind, becomes despondent easily if isolated. If its own species is unavailable, will bond readily with people. A fastidious groomer which is only happy when clean, very touch-motivated. If upset for any reason (usually alone, dirty, scared or hungry), quick to turn destructive and dig/scratch at its environment.

Hunk: Kalskapferi, AKA the Common Miner Turtle

Quadrupedal animal about one-and-a-half times the size of a jeep. Boxy head, lacks teeth but crushes or scissors food with a sharp heavy beak. Able to store reserves of food and water inside of its body, a gluttonous creature in times of plenty and thus able to withstand prolonged drought and famine with little difficulty. If its reserves run low, hibernates inside of caves.

Lives in a mountainous, arid, and desert climate, crossing an enormous territory in an attempt to follow habitable regions. Diet is primarily vegetation such as cacti, but has been known to use its beak to crack open rocks for minerals or salt. (Absolutely loves salt. Will go to ridiculous extremes to get at it)

Possesses a long, strong, dark tongue that it uses to manipulate objects. Hardy, has a long history as being domesticated as a beast of burden and transport. Mineral-eating behavior is primarily to maintain an especially durable hide of ‘living rock’ that weighs it down but renders it virtually unstoppable. Tail is crowned with a heavy biological cudgel.

If threatened by predators or frightened, will charge with its heavy, spiked brow. This is dangerous particularly as it has a behavior of planting its feet and the tip of its wedge-shaped snout underneath an obstruction and using powerful neck muscles to fling the intrusion out of its way. Trampling, kicking, biting, or lashing with its tail mace all carry weight to punch through spacefaring steels.

An anxious creature who relies on maintaining a large array of vision, with six eyes. The protective plating on its head gives it a disadvantage, leaving a blind spot directly in front of it. A bit fussy, especially skittish around potential predators. Only when feeling totally relaxed and content will it roll over and allow people to touch its vulnerable underbelly. Communicates in a vocabulary of grunts, whines, snorts, and squeals, similar to a rhinoceros or a boar, becomes very loud if startled or upset. Lives and travels in large herds. Pairs mate for life.

A superb sense of smell, able to track down water or valuable minerals over long distances and is even sometimes used to track down people lost in the vast deserts of its home, which it can do even with a scent several days old. With the short, broad claws on all four limbs, it’s an excellent burrower.

Shiro: Highlands Dragon Shriek

Solitary animal, six feet tall at the shoulder. Dwells in the ‘super-mountains’ of its home planet that protrude to the edge of the planet’s atmosphere, at altitudes that harbor almost no other life. Enormous wingspan, clawed, feathered wings built for soaring. Covered in a dense, luxurious coat of fur and feathers in numerous understated shades of black, gray, and white to insulate it from the bitter cold. Quadrupedal stance balancing on its wings and hind legs.

Thick, translucent horizontal eyelids that serve as ‘goggles’ during dives. A predator that primarily feeds on goat-like mountain animals, also scavenges from corpses. The species is named for the distinctive, high-pitched whistle they produce in a dive. Capable of hunting and killing much larger prey than itself by latching onto the back of the neck and kicking furiously with its hind legs. Cracks bones with its strong beak to eat the marrow.

Vocalizes comparatively little, occasionally witters, chirps, or croons, usually to its offspring or mates exclusively. Mated pairs can be observed to remember each other year after year and return, but offspring are raised solitary by a single parent, and leave the nest as soon as they are fully fledged. Prone to drawing into isolation and hiding if injured or in pain. Have shown the capacity to recognize the bones of their mates or children, even after years of separation.

Highly aggressive in defense of their nests, but anecdotal accounts and folk legends tell of them rescuing frozen travelers lost in the mountains. Considered holy by local peoples. Threatened by heavy poaching that has decimated the species, leaving them incredibly rare and most surviving specimens bearing scars from hunters’ traps.

Slow to trust and equally slow to bond, taking both a very patient and a very stubborn hand to establish any sort of rapport with. Seeks physical contact and affection fairly rarely. Needs regular dust baths to stay healthy and in top condition.

Allura: Vaulleverian Heron

Survived thanks to captive specimens after the collapse of its home planet and were since successfully reintroduced to the wild in several sanctuary planets. Ancient species once revered as a divine messenger. Two legs, four wings, elaborate plumed crest on the head. Piscivore species that dwelt in saltwater marshes and hunted with its needle-like beak. Stands as tall as an average adult human’s shoulder.

Noteworthy for migrating seasonally across a vast ocean. Feathers glow in the darkness, and have an opalescent quality in the light. Lays only one clutch of eggs its entire life, but families live together until death. Its haunting, melodious cry is said to be one of the most beautiful things in the known universe.

Social animal that lives in flocks. Sings to find others of its kind when isolated. Largest members of any given flock fight viciously to defend it from predators, lashing with the spurs on its feet.

Especially fond of eating a particular shellfish that give its feathers that pearly hue, prying the shell open with its feet. During courtship, construct elaborate bowers using colorful objects taken from their environment, causing a bit of a fraught relationship with tourists who come to see them, as they are not remotely afraid of people, or robbing them.

Drawn to unusual sounds and colors. Often regarded as a symbol of opulence and kept by some aristocrats as pets, though its intelligence, dexterity, natural weapons and high energy levels often make it poorly suited for such arrangements. 

Pidge: Gray-Spectacled Kottokh

Medium dog-sized animal native to a broad range of climates. Long, strong, prehensile tail, six limbs, small dexterous paws. Omnivorous to an incredibly impressive degree, able to digest even plastic. Lives in many urban areas. Crepuscular, lives in small communal warrens. Loves sweet tasting foods and fatty, savory foods.

Marsupial that has large litters, does not vocalize outside of high-pitched click-chirp noises. Uses thin, sharp claws to dig for insects or other foods. Highly acclimatized to people, this can make it both easily social and rather dangerous as it is utterly unafraid of them. Possesses a venomous bite.

Body is covered in long, silky fur that, when threatened, it is able to puff up to make itself appear larger. Grows a creamy winter coat, but is reddish brown in summer, with gray speckles, some of which are around its eyes, hence the name of the species.

Uses short whiskers, echolocation, hearing and impressive night vision to navigate its environments. Its venom, rambunctious inclinations, insatiable curiosity, and ability to figure out how to open doors, not to mention its reputation as an invasive urban pest, have prevented people from considering it as a pet.

Keith: Kirriwulv

Horse-sized eight-legged animal that dwells in a volcanic moonscape inhabited only by hardy creatures. Live and hunt exclusively in packs, and sleep in communal caves with one member of the pack consistently sitting outside to keep watch. Highly social, communicates with others of its kind by howling across distances, and vocalizing and bioluminescent posturing in closer quarters.

Black scaled body with a long snout, shaggy mane running the length of the body and plumed tail. Two sets of eyes, needle-like teeth and blunt claws. Can run tirelessly over incredibly long distances. In antiquated times, were used as war steeds by several cultures. 

Underside of the ribcage features three sets of “blast gills” used to draw air into the body and fill a special superheating organ, allowing it to exhale clouds of burning ash, used both offensively, defensively, and as a social display for many reasons.

Becomes agitated and restless if separated from others of its kind. Slow to bond, but once imprinted, ferociously loyal. Legends abound during the time they were used as steeds of specimens that perished by refusing to leave the body of their dead rider.

[sciencespies]

Astronomers Prepare a Mission Concept to Explore the Ice Giant Planets

https://sciencespies.com/nature/astronomers-prepare-a-mission-concept-to-explore-the-ice-giant-planets/

Astronomers Prepare a Mission Concept to Explore the Ice Giant Planets

If you could design your dream mission to Uranus or Neptune, what would it look like?

Would you explore the funky terrain on Uranus’s moon Miranda? Or Neptune’s oddly clumpy rings? What about each planet’s strange interactions with the solar wind?

Why pick just one, when you could do it all?

Planetary scientists recently designed a hypothetical mission to one of the ice giant planets in our solar system. They explored what that dream spacecraft to Uranus could look like if it incorporated the newest innovations and cutting-edge technologies.

“We wanted to think of technologies that we really thought, ‘Well, they’re pushing the envelope,’” said Mark Hofstadter, a senior scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “It’s not crazy to think they’d be available to fly 10 years from now.” Hofstadter is an author of the internal JPL study, which he discussed at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2019 on 11 December.

Some of the innovations are natural iterations of existing technology, Hofstadter said, like using smaller and lighter hardware and computer chips. Using the most up-to-date systems can shave off weight and save room on board the spacecraft. “A rocket can launch a certain amount of mass,” he said, “so every kilogram less of spacecraft structure that you need, that’s an extra kilogram you could put to science instruments.”

Nuclear-Powered Ion Engine

The dream spacecraft combines two space-proven technologies into one brand-new engine, called radioisotope electric propulsion (REP).

A spacecraft works much like any other vehicle. A battery provides the energy to run the onboard systems and start the engine. The power moves fuel through the engine, where it undergoes a chemical change and provides thrust to move the vehicle forward.

(JoAnna Wendel)

In the dream spacecraft, the battery gets its energy from the radioactive decay of plutonium, which is the preferred energy source for traveling the outer solar system where sunlight is scarce. Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Cassini, and New Horizons all used a radioisotope power source but used hydrazine fuel in a chemical engine that quickly flung them to the far reaches of the solar system.

The dream spacecraft’s ion engine uses xenon gas as fuel: The xenon is ionized, a nuclear-powered electric field accelerates the xenon ions, and the xenon exits the craft as exhaust. The Deep Space 1 and Dawn missions used this type of engine but were powered by large solar panels that work best in the inner solar system where those missions operated.

Xenon gas is very stable. A craft can carry a large amount in a compressed canister, which lengthens the fuel lifetime of the mission. REP “lets us explore all areas of an ice giant system: the rings, the satellites, and even the magnetosphere all around it,” Hofstadter said. “We can go wherever we want. We can spend as much time as we want there….It gives us this beautiful flexibility.”

A Self-Driving Spacecraft

With REP, the dream spacecraft could fly past rings, moons, and the planet itself about 10 times slower than a craft with a traditional chemical combustion engine. Moving at a slow speed, the craft could take stable, long-exposure, high-resolution images. But to really make the most of the ion engine, the craft needs onboard automatous navigation.

“We don’t know precisely where the moon or a satellite of Uranus is, or the spacecraft [relative to the moon],” Hofstadter said. Most of Uranus’s satellites have been seen only from afar, and details about their size and exact orbits remain unclear. “And so because of that uncertainty, you always want to keep a healthy distance between your spacecraft and the thing you’re looking at just so you don’t crash into it.”

“But if you trust the spacecraft to use its own camera to see where the satellite is and adjust its orbit so that it can get close but still miss the satellite,” he said, “you can get much closer than you can when you’re preparing flybys from Earth” at the mercy of a more than 5-hour communications delay.

(JoAnna Wendel)

That level of onboard autonomous navigation hasn’t been attempted before on a spacecraft. NASA’s Curiosity rover has some limited ability to plot a path between destinations, and the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) will be able to detect hazards and abort its sample retrieval attempt.

The dream spacecraft would be more like a self-driving car. It would know that it needs to do a flyby of Ophelia, for example. It would then plot its own low-altitude path over the surface that visits points of interest like chaos terrain. It would also navigate around unexpected hazards like jagged cliffs. If the craft misses something interesting, well, there’s always enough fuel for another pass.

A Trio of Landers

With extra room on board from sleeker electronics, plus low-and-slow flybys from the REP and autonomous navigation, the dream spacecraft could carry landers to Uranus’s moons and easily drop them onto the surface.

(JoAnna Wendel)

“We designed a mission to carry three small landers that we could drop on any of the satellites,” Hofstadter said. The size, shape, and capabilities of the landers could be anything from simple cameras to a full suite of instruments to measure gravity, composition, or even seismicity.

The dream spacecraft could survey all 27 of Uranus’s satellites, from its largest, Titania, to its smallest, Cupid, only 18 kilometers across. The mission team could then decide the best way to deploy the landers.

“We don’t have to decide in advance which satellites we put them on,” he said. “We can wait until we get there. We might decide to put all the landers on one satellite to make a little seismic network to look for moonquakes and study the interior. Or maybe when we get there we’ll decide we’d rather put a lander on three different satellites.”

“Ice”-ing on a Cake

The scientists who compiled the internal study acknowledged that it’s probably unrealistic to incorporate all of these innovative technologies into one mission. Doing so would involve a lot of risk and a lot of cost, Hofstadter said. Moreover, existing space-tested technology that has flown on Cassini, New Horizons, and Juno can certainly deliver exciting ice giant science, he said. These innovations could augment such a spacecraft.

At the moment, there is no NASA mission under consideration to explore either Uranus or Neptune. In 2017, Hofstadter and his team spoke with urgency about the need for a mission to one of the ice giant planets and now hope that these technologies of the future might inspire a mission proposal.

“It’s almost like icing on the cake,” he said. “We were saying, If you adopted new technologies, what new things could you hope to do that would enhance the scientific return of this mission?”

This article was originally published on Eos, an Earth and space science news publication.

#Nature

[allebeithloch]

Hypothetical Advice From A Beast

Alle sipped her tea as she looked at Malura across from her. It was strange how they used to never speak, the half elf being only an administrator, and now, Alle could consider themselves friends. “You’re wanting a long term contract so you can travel to meet this… Man.”

“Yes.” Malura said fiddling with her tea cup. Alle wouldn’t call Malura tired, but defiantly on edge. “I’m not sure how big of a price that would be.”

Shaking her head Alle looked around the room. “What is so important about him? We keep walking through worlds to find him and he keeps coming here to find us.”

“He’s an allie, one who wants to be accepted.” Mal muttered. There was an edge to her voice though, so small that it took Alle a moment to relize what she was really meaning.

This man… He was more than just an allie, and his communication was needed. It ticked in the back of Alle’s mind as she looked at Malura. “Explain the situation.”

“I can’t.” Mal murmured looking down at her undrunken tea. “There’s a lot at stake and a lot of people could be hurt.”

Now that caught her attention. “The summoner is dead. What do we have to fear? Has the man who took the consort returned?”

There was a stillness in Malura as if she was in thought. Finally Mal looked at Alle. “How well do you keep secrets Alle?”

Alle paused and watched for a long while. So much of her life was to hold onto information from one deal to be used only years later in another. Secrets were part of deal making. “Speak in vague terms, no names, just the situation.”

“The situation makes it clear who I’m speaking about…” Malura muttered under her breath. She then thought about it. “Have you found Kara yet?”

A small chill ran down Alle’s spine at the sound of the name. “I have located her, I’m just, not sure how to say hello.”

Nodding a little Malura leaned back and finally said. “This is a hypothetical, just for you, no speaking to Vilknar or Dun’Yazad.”

As if to answer Alle got up and closed the door to the study. “Go on. I will not speak a word of it to anyone. If I do I will owe you a deal of minor importance.”

Pushing her tea away and watching Alle return to her seat Malura readied her story. “Lets say, you went to The Forest and came back, no time has passed for you, all your pain is fresh.” She winced looking to Alle, but the noble woman waved for Mal to keep speaking. “You come home and find your uncle’s bastard is alive, but he’s nothing like your uncle. What would you do. Remember, you remember what he did, it would only be a few hours, maybe a few days since it happened.”

Alle tilted her had to the side. “What do you mean by the child is alive.”

“He’s fully grown, has tried making a life of his own.” Malura corrected. “What would you do?”

That was an uncomfortable question and Alle tensed in her seat, her shoulders almost up to her ears. Beside her Cloak twitched in annoyance. Then Alle’s wide eyes locked onto Malura. “What does the child want?”

“Acceptance. From you. As his family.” Mal said her voice light, like she understood how dire of the situation it would be.

“It would depend on… How I was feeling. Does he look like my uncle? How does Kara think of the boy? Does he want to hurt me or not? Will he take my home away?” Alle pursed her lips. “I would be split. If Kara was tormented by the sight of the child I would eliminate him, for no one in the world could love him… But.” She frowned honestly troubled. “If he is as good as you say, if Kara loves him, if someone loves him. I would let him live but he would know I am not giving him my home.”

“The person I have has no one who loves him…” Mal leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

Alle scoffed. “Then his life has been nothing but pain and he should be allowed to rest.”

“You mean kill him.” Mal gasped looking up at Alle. The half elf’s expression was obviously pained by this answer. “Even though he’s been trying to do good?”

“You forget.” Alle said her voice even but there was a sound of age that came through. “I would be just experiencing the monster that created him… I would do anything to be rid of anything that man made. Even if you think the boy is innocent, I would only see his father.”

“But that’s unfair for the boy.” Mal said shaking her head. “You’d kill an innocent.”

“It wouldn’t be an innocent to me.” Alle said her voice hard. “He would be a mistake. You’d be forcing a victim to face their monster head on. That is unfair.”

The half elf paused her eyes wide As she looked to speak she closed her mouth again and looked around the room. “I grew up with so many kids like that, their parents hated them because of how they came into this world. They had to fight for any scrap of love or attention… I. I’m so sorry Alle. I’m so focused on what I know.”

“It’s good to ask questions from those of different walks of life, you helped me understand Uncle’s bastard… And I’m, learning that his father’s sins make him a very different man than my uncle. I’ve had forty years to distance myself.” Alle folded her hands on her lap looking a intently at the half elf. “Speak plainly and I’ll answer what you need.”

Looking around the room Malura tried to think. “I have to convince him to not meet his family… Or wait. But how.”

Alle tilted her head in thought. “No one loves him?”

“None… He’s feared to the point no one touches him.” She muttered.

“We could get alon-“ Alle closed her eyes as if deciding something. “I will offer this because you are willing to listen. And listening means learning. If he will listen to someone who has gone through what his parent has, I will speak to him. I still have nightmares, the wound might not be fresh, but it is deep.”

Shaking her head Mal pulled a pained expression. “I can’t let you experience that again.”

Alle’s eyes were cold. “I ‘experience’ it every time I walk through this house. It’s my willpower that keeps me here and my determination that tells me I can dull those horrors with new memories. And you did not ask. But I have a heavy knowledge, and knowledge must be shared.”

“Thank you… If he agrees.” Malura said, a shiver running down her back. “I still need a deal to be able to see him when he’s needed.”

“Transportation to the other world, unlimited.” Alle said her voice was flat. “That would require my blood and a guide through The Forest at your leisure…” Pursing her lips Alle nodded to something. “I know what I need in return. When you are in the other world, look for some book titles for me. I will provide the coin. That would will have information we do not, and I can keep my collection growing with out having to go there myself.”

“Books?” Malura felt confused. “What would you do with them?”

“Share them with Kiden and keep them safe. Does this sound interesting to you?” Alle said holding out her hand.

Looking at the woman’s hand she worried her lips a bit, only she nodded. “Deal. Do that thing you do.”

“I Alle Beithloch will give you the boon of a pendant of my blood and instruct Nightmare to guide you through The Forest to the world you have visited now four times. While you are there you will buy copies of the books that I will give you titles of.” Alle said in her quiet but firm way. Cloak crawled onto her lap, it’s furry feathered mass twitched as some unseen magic was being done.

When she thought the moment was over Alle smiled. “The shadow born who I spoke to, tell him I have had many battles of wit, and he did a lovely job breaking me down. If it had not be Gavriel, I would have allowed him to slice the mans throat. Also inform him that Kiden do not take kindly to rougher tactics.”

“I, don’t know who you’re talking about.” Mal muttered looking confused, but Alle could tell there was something off.

“Very well. Remember my offer. The boy must know what his family has suffered and must know that taking time or being happy with what he has is the only way he will survive to maybe get his parents love.” Alle then picked up her tea and paused. “And good luck. You are on a rough path, and paths can always be tricky.”

((Mentions: @maluraunderchild, And talking about @lord-methuselah-nishan))

[polotanker6-blog]

How Nicole Chung Wrote 2018’s Most Talked-About Memoir

In her debut memoir All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung challenges the traditional adoption narrative and sheds light on the complicated reality of being a transracial adoptee. How do you find community in a town where no one looks like you? What’s it like to embrace your birth culture years in adulthood? What do you tell your children when they ask about their heritage?

As an Asian American adopted by a white family myself, I related deeply to her experiences grappling with racial identity and heritage—of becoming the poster child for adoption, of feeling too Asian or not Asian enough, depending on the situation. All You Can Ever Know is yet another reminder of how important representation is, both as an exercise in empathy across cultural boundaries and as catharsis for those who have had undergone similar experiences.

With this in mind, I spoke on the phone with Nicole, formerly of The Toast and now the editor-in-chief of Catapult, about her experience growing up as a Korean adoptee and what it was like to write her life’s story.

What was the inspiration for All You Can Ever Know?

I knew I wanted to write this story—I started to publish essays about adoption several years ago. I get a lot of questions and follow-ups from readers, and I was surprised, first of all, that it was a topic of interest. A lot of people didn’t necessarily know a lot about it or had only heard the perspective of adopted parents or maybe adoption professionals, but hadn’t read a lot of work by adoptees on the subject. It started to occur to me that maybe there would be enough interest and enough material for a book. I thought in a book-length project that I’d have the space to tell the whole story and introduce the full cast of characters and talk about it and make room for all the complications and nuance in my story. It’s obviously just one adoption story—it doesn’t mean that it’s representative of all or even most adoptions, but I thought it really needed a lot of pages and a higher word count to get the full story across.

I was thinking so much as I was growing up that I didn’t really ever read adoption stories—and certainly not by adopted people. So again, it started to really strike me that this perspective needed more representation in the literary landscape. And I really wanted to tell the story. Obviously, it means a lot to me and I was hoping that maybe it would mean something to readers and teach some of them more about adoption.

You mention in your book that you grew up in a primarily white community in Oregon and didn’t know any other Koreans as a child. How do you think this has affected your relationship to your heritage and the greater Asian American community?

I really had no sense of a Korean or Asian American community when I was growing up. It was just not something that existed around me. I was young and then came of age when we just started to get internet access. So even in my early years, when I was online in middle school and high school, I didn’t necessarily know to look for a community there, in the sense of Korean Americans or fellow adoptees. I didn’t find that until much later. So I didn’t have a real sense of myself as Korean for many, many years. At least, I knew I was Korean, but didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t really have any models, I didn’t really become close to any fellow Koreans. It was definitely confusing, and I think as a result, I will probably always feel more distance than I wish I felt.

Later in life, how were you able to get more involved in those communities and become more aware of your Korean-American heritage and the adoption community? What was that journey like of finding it as an adult, and how has that affected your understanding of it now?

It’s definitely a work in progress. I don’t imagine that I have discovered or come to understand everything that I will in time. I think it also wasn’t any one event. I was always curious, but didn’t have a way to know or explore my heritage, since there were no other Koreans growing up. I did go to a college that had a large Asian American population, and I made some Korean American friends in college. It’s definitely been a process. It’s something I still feel really insecure about. I think as an adopted person I’ll always feel a little bit insecure in uncontrollable ways about how Korean I am. But I think it started when I made—not just Korean friends—friends with other Asian American and people of color in college.

Reuniting with my birth family was obviously huge. Getting to know my sister and become close with her and find some ways to share my life with her was very important. And doing my own research and trying to learn more. I think too what was huge for me in the Asian American community was eventually the internet and talking about some of these issues.

And also, I volunteer-edited for a publication called Hyphen. It’s a publication dedicated to telling the stories of Asians in America, and that was my first experience editing other writers. That’s where I discovered I really loved editing, and editing essays in particular. I got involved with Hyphen as a volunteer in part just to be a part of that community and as a way to serve it in a small way and get to know other Asian American writers and creators.

You mention in your book that it was constantly reinforced to you as a child that your adoption was “for the best.” How has getting in touch with your birth family affected your understanding of that narrative?

I think even before I got in touch with them, I started to interrogate that word, “best.” The thing I grew up hearing was, “They made this decision because they thought you’d have a better life.” I think the word “better” and “best” are really fraught. They’re loaded words and not words I thought to interrogate closely when I was growing up hearing them. I don’t think of my adoption as a tragedy. I think there were a lot of challenges within my birth family and my adopted family. Neither of my families is perfect—far from it because people aren’t perfect.

I remember one conversation I had with my adopted mother not long after I met my birth father and my sister. My adopted mom was asking if I thought it would’ve been better if they’d been able to keep me after all—if I hadn’t been adopted, basically. It was impossible to answer that question. It’s just a really tough one to answer. I think if anything what I’ve learned is that I don’t necessary think of adoption as mine or anyone else’s in terms of “better” or “best” or “right” or “wrong” or “good” or “bad.” There can be a lot of positives, and there can be a lot of complications too. I guess I don’t find it helpful anymore to think of my adoption or anyone else’s in such stark terms. Learning what I’ve learned, I don’t regret the fact that I was adopted or that I had the childhood I did. I think the book is an exercise in reconsidering that story—trying to look at it very honestly and talk about the things that were good and the things that were really challenging.

How has becoming a mother affected your understanding of your adoption?

I think becoming a mother has affected my understanding of everything. I think I tend to avoid strong absolute conclusions more than ever since becoming a parent, because it is an extremely humbling experience every day. Every single day. You learn a lot about yourself, you learn how little you know, and the work that goes into loving someone and being a family and being there for them unconditionally. It’s definitely affected my overall understanding of who I am.

One reason, as I write in the book, that I did end up searching for my birth family was because I was having a child. I wanted to have something more to tell her about our history, about our heritage. I thought the answers I had weren’t necessarily good enough for either of us. Until I found out I was pregnant and was looking squarely at motherhood for the time as a reality, not as a hypothetical, I hadn’t really had cause to consider the adoption for anyone in my family beyond me. I could see its effects on my parents and obviously on me, and I could think about what it had done or what it had felt like in my adopted family, but until there was another generation to consider—until I was pregnant myself and expecting a child—I couldn’t really think about, in concrete terms, what it would mean for my kids to be the children of an adoptee and what sort of questions they might have as a result or what kind of disconnect they might feel from their history or heritage as a result. It sounds obvious as I say it. Like, of course there was always going to be an impact on them, but until they were real—until my daughter was a real possibility—I never had to think about it that hard.

Certainly, becoming a parent changed my thoughts about adoption, in the sense that it wasn’t just me anymore. There was going to be somebody else in the picture—somebody who I was accountable to, somebody who would have her own questions about our history and about our family, and I really wanted to be able to answer those questions for her. At the same time, I really wanted to be honest about what I didn’t know and what I could only guess at. I wanted to be able to share as much as possible with her. It affected me in every way, but definitely profoundly affected how I thought about being an adoptee and the things that we pass on.

You said that, growing up, you didn’t have a lot of stories about race, but since becoming involved in the literary community, what stories have inspired to think more critically about adoption and race? What writers should people know about?

I remember reading The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka, which is still one of the only memoirs by transracial adoptees. I remember also reading A. M. Holmes’s The Mistress Daughter, and that was one of the first books by adoptees that I read. But neither of these stories is like mine, so I’m not trying to compare my story to theirs. Just seeing adoptees publish stories about these complex issues was definitely inspiring—I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it helped me feel more seen. It made me feel like some things were possible. A lot of writers that have personally inspired me, in terms of Asian American voices, are Alexander Chee, Min Jin Lee, and Celeste Ng. Last night I got to be in conversation with my friend, R. O. Kwon, who wrote The Incendiaries, which came out earlier this summer. Reese has been one of many, many amazing Asian American debut writers this year who I personally feel inspired by. Vanessa Hua, Crystal Hana Kim, Lillian Li—there are just so many this year, it’s really exciting. So I love being in that company.

And then in terms of what’s inspired me to tell adoption stories, part of it is just having the privilege of editing and publishing other adoptees. First at The Toast, now at Catapult, where I’m Editor-in-Chief. I’ve been so lucky to be able to solicit and then publish wonderful essays by adopted writers. Those websites have been so important to me, and they’ve taught me so much. There’s a lot of really good adoptee writing out there, and I hope that there will be more books. Certainly, I love being able to publish fellow adoptees. It’s one of the best parts of my job, and every time I have the chance to, I just feel very fortunate and very privileged. It reminds me of why I also write about this topic. It’s not the only thing I write about, but it’s really, deeply important to me. It’s my origin story. It put my life on this particular path. I really fought hard to  recover some part of my history and some part of the truth that was lost. I think I’ll always find these topics sort of fascinating. I’m probably not going to write another book about it, [laughs] but definitely reading the work of other adoptees is really important.

If you could go back in time and give advice to your younger self, what would you tell her?

I spent so much time as a kid trying to pretend everything was okay when things were really not okay. There were a lot of different reasons for this. Some of it was that I really felt the urge to protect my adopted parents from knowing that this was going on. Some of it was confusion—or youth. I didn’t have the vocabulary, as I wrote in the book, for what was happening. Some of it too was just pride. I think I really felt like if I could present this outward face to the world, then everything would be okay. And the things people were saying to me, or the confused feelings that I had, or the questions I couldn’t answer—that wouldn’t matter. I thought I could really control my story and how other people interpreted it and how they saw me. I wish I’d let that burden go a lot sooner.

I think a lot of adoptees are far from the only ones to have pointed this out in writing that there’s a great deal of pressure sometimes to appear—and not that this is a lie—I felt a lot of pressure sometimes to be “the good adoptee.” You know—happy and grateful and well-adjusted. No issues, no problems. I’m not trying to say this is universal, and I’m not interested in speaking for all of us, but I felt that pressure a great deal and I wish I had let go of that sooner. It really took until my late twenties to even begin to come out of that and to think that maybe this isn’t a burden I should be carrying anymore. Maybe my feelings and my questions and my doubts—maybe these are more important than whatever face I showed to the world.

I should’ve also trusted that the people who loved me would be able to understand that, because they have been. I haven’t been disappointed since I started talking and writing more often and honestly about this. The people in my life care about me, including my parents. They haven’t always understood, but they’ve been supportive and they’ve tried to understand.

So I’d probably go back and tell myself to put down that burden a little bit earlier. It would be okay. And it’s okay to acknowledge that things are complicated. And it’s okay to acknowledge that you have questions. It doesn’t make you appear strange or ungrateful. It’s just human.

NONFICTION – MEMOIR All You Can Ever Know By Nicole Chung Catapult October 2, 2018

Nicole Chung has written for The New York Times, GQ, Longreads, BuzzFeed, Hazlitt, and Shondaland, among other publications. She is the editor in chief of Catapult magazine and the former managing editor of The Toast. All You Can Ever Know is her first book. Follow her on Twitter at @nicole_soojung.

Source: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/10/15/nicole-chung-all-you-can-ever-know-memoir/

[uncleyarn2-blog]

How Nicole Chung Wrote 2018’s Most Talked-About Memoir

In her debut memoir All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung challenges the traditional adoption narrative and sheds light on the complicated reality of being a transracial adoptee. How do you find community in a town where no one looks like you? What’s it like to embrace your birth culture years in adulthood? What do you tell your children when they ask about their heritage?

As an Asian American adopted by a white family myself, I related deeply to her experiences grappling with racial identity and heritage—of becoming the poster child for adoption, of feeling too Asian or not Asian enough, depending on the situation. All You Can Ever Know is yet another reminder of how important representation is, both as an exercise in empathy across cultural boundaries and as catharsis for those who have had undergone similar experiences.

With this in mind, I spoke on the phone with Nicole, formerly of The Toast and now the editor-in-chief of Catapult, about her experience growing up as a Korean adoptee and what it was like to write her life’s story.

What was the inspiration for All You Can Ever Know?

I knew I wanted to write this story—I started to publish essays about adoption several years ago. I get a lot of questions and follow-ups from readers, and I was surprised, first of all, that it was a topic of interest. A lot of people didn’t necessarily know a lot about it or had only heard the perspective of adopted parents or maybe adoption professionals, but hadn’t read a lot of work by adoptees on the subject. It started to occur to me that maybe there would be enough interest and enough material for a book. I thought in a book-length project that I’d have the space to tell the whole story and introduce the full cast of characters and talk about it and make room for all the complications and nuance in my story. It’s obviously just one adoption story—it doesn’t mean that it’s representative of all or even most adoptions, but I thought it really needed a lot of pages and a higher word count to get the full story across.

I was thinking so much as I was growing up that I didn’t really ever read adoption stories—and certainly not by adopted people. So again, it started to really strike me that this perspective needed more representation in the literary landscape. And I really wanted to tell the story. Obviously, it means a lot to me and I was hoping that maybe it would mean something to readers and teach some of them more about adoption.

You mention in your book that you grew up in a primarily white community in Oregon and didn’t know any other Koreans as a child. How do you think this has affected your relationship to your heritage and the greater Asian American community?

I really had no sense of a Korean or Asian American community when I was growing up. It was just not something that existed around me. I was young and then came of age when we just started to get internet access. So even in my early years, when I was online in middle school and high school, I didn’t necessarily know to look for a community there, in the sense of Korean Americans or fellow adoptees. I didn’t find that until much later. So I didn’t have a real sense of myself as Korean for many, many years. At least, I knew I was Korean, but didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t really have any models, I didn’t really become close to any fellow Koreans. It was definitely confusing, and I think as a result, I will probably always feel more distance than I wish I felt.

Later in life, how were you able to get more involved in those communities and become more aware of your Korean-American heritage and the adoption community? What was that journey like of finding it as an adult, and how has that affected your understanding of it now?

It’s definitely a work in progress. I don’t imagine that I have discovered or come to understand everything that I will in time. I think it also wasn’t any one event. I was always curious, but didn’t have a way to know or explore my heritage, since there were no other Koreans growing up. I did go to a college that had a large Asian American population, and I made some Korean American friends in college. It’s definitely been a process. It’s something I still feel really insecure about. I think as an adopted person I’ll always feel a little bit insecure in uncontrollable ways about how Korean I am. But I think it started when I made—not just Korean friends—friends with other Asian American and people of color in college.

Reuniting with my birth family was obviously huge. Getting to know my sister and become close with her and find some ways to share my life with her was very important. And doing my own research and trying to learn more. I think too what was huge for me in the Asian American community was eventually the internet and talking about some of these issues.

And also, I volunteer-edited for a publication called Hyphen. It’s a publication dedicated to telling the stories of Asians in America, and that was my first experience editing other writers. That’s where I discovered I really loved editing, and editing essays in particular. I got involved with Hyphen as a volunteer in part just to be a part of that community and as a way to serve it in a small way and get to know other Asian American writers and creators.

You mention in your book that it was constantly reinforced to you as a child that your adoption was “for the best.” How has getting in touch with your birth family affected your understanding of that narrative?

I think even before I got in touch with them, I started to interrogate that word, “best.” The thing I grew up hearing was, “They made this decision because they thought you’d have a better life.” I think the word “better” and “best” are really fraught. They’re loaded words and not words I thought to interrogate closely when I was growing up hearing them. I don’t think of my adoption as a tragedy. I think there were a lot of challenges within my birth family and my adopted family. Neither of my families is perfect—far from it because people aren’t perfect.

I remember one conversation I had with my adopted mother not long after I met my birth father and my sister. My adopted mom was asking if I thought it would’ve been better if they’d been able to keep me after all—if I hadn’t been adopted, basically. It was impossible to answer that question. It’s just a really tough one to answer. I think if anything what I’ve learned is that I don’t necessary think of adoption as mine or anyone else’s in terms of “better” or “best” or “right” or “wrong” or “good” or “bad.” There can be a lot of positives, and there can be a lot of complications too. I guess I don’t find it helpful anymore to think of my adoption or anyone else’s in such stark terms. Learning what I’ve learned, I don’t regret the fact that I was adopted or that I had the childhood I did. I think the book is an exercise in reconsidering that story—trying to look at it very honestly and talk about the things that were good and the things that were really challenging.

How has becoming a mother affected your understanding of your adoption?

I think becoming a mother has affected my understanding of everything. I think I tend to avoid strong absolute conclusions more than ever since becoming a parent, because it is an extremely humbling experience every day. Every single day. You learn a lot about yourself, you learn how little you know, and the work that goes into loving someone and being a family and being there for them unconditionally. It’s definitely affected my overall understanding of who I am.

One reason, as I write in the book, that I did end up searching for my birth family was because I was having a child. I wanted to have something more to tell her about our history, about our heritage. I thought the answers I had weren’t necessarily good enough for either of us. Until I found out I was pregnant and was looking squarely at motherhood for the time as a reality, not as a hypothetical, I hadn’t really had cause to consider the adoption for anyone in my family beyond me. I could see its effects on my parents and obviously on me, and I could think about what it had done or what it had felt like in my adopted family, but until there was another generation to consider—until I was pregnant myself and expecting a child—I couldn’t really think about, in concrete terms, what it would mean for my kids to be the children of an adoptee and what sort of questions they might have as a result or what kind of disconnect they might feel from their history or heritage as a result. It sounds obvious as I say it. Like, of course there was always going to be an impact on them, but until they were real—until my daughter was a real possibility—I never had to think about it that hard.

Certainly, becoming a parent changed my thoughts about adoption, in the sense that it wasn’t just me anymore. There was going to be somebody else in the picture—somebody who I was accountable to, somebody who would have her own questions about our history and about our family, and I really wanted to be able to answer those questions for her. At the same time, I really wanted to be honest about what I didn’t know and what I could only guess at. I wanted to be able to share as much as possible with her. It affected me in every way, but definitely profoundly affected how I thought about being an adoptee and the things that we pass on.

You said that, growing up, you didn’t have a lot of stories about race, but since becoming involved in the literary community, what stories have inspired to think more critically about adoption and race? What writers should people know about?

I remember reading The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka, which is still one of the only memoirs by transracial adoptees. I remember also reading A. M. Holmes’s The Mistress Daughter, and that was one of the first books by adoptees that I read. But neither of these stories is like mine, so I’m not trying to compare my story to theirs. Just seeing adoptees publish stories about these complex issues was definitely inspiring—I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it helped me feel more seen. It made me feel like some things were possible. A lot of writers that have personally inspired me, in terms of Asian American voices, are Alexander Chee, Min Jin Lee, and Celeste Ng. Last night I got to be in conversation with my friend, R. O. Kwon, who wrote The Incendiaries, which came out earlier this summer. Reese has been one of many, many amazing Asian American debut writers this year who I personally feel inspired by. Vanessa Hua, Crystal Hana Kim, Lillian Li—there are just so many this year, it’s really exciting. So I love being in that company.

And then in terms of what’s inspired me to tell adoption stories, part of it is just having the privilege of editing and publishing other adoptees. First at The Toast, now at Catapult, where I’m Editor-in-Chief. I’ve been so lucky to be able to solicit and then publish wonderful essays by adopted writers. Those websites have been so important to me, and they’ve taught me so much. There’s a lot of really good adoptee writing out there, and I hope that there will be more books. Certainly, I love being able to publish fellow adoptees. It’s one of the best parts of my job, and every time I have the chance to, I just feel very fortunate and very privileged. It reminds me of why I also write about this topic. It’s not the only thing I write about, but it’s really, deeply important to me. It’s my origin story. It put my life on this particular path. I really fought hard to  recover some part of my history and some part of the truth that was lost. I think I’ll always find these topics sort of fascinating. I’m probably not going to write another book about it, [laughs] but definitely reading the work of other adoptees is really important.

If you could go back in time and give advice to your younger self, what would you tell her?

I spent so much time as a kid trying to pretend everything was okay when things were really not okay. There were a lot of different reasons for this. Some of it was that I really felt the urge to protect my adopted parents from knowing that this was going on. Some of it was confusion—or youth. I didn’t have the vocabulary, as I wrote in the book, for what was happening. Some of it too was just pride. I think I really felt like if I could present this outward face to the world, then everything would be okay. And the things people were saying to me, or the confused feelings that I had, or the questions I couldn’t answer—that wouldn’t matter. I thought I could really control my story and how other people interpreted it and how they saw me. I wish I’d let that burden go a lot sooner.

I think a lot of adoptees are far from the only ones to have pointed this out in writing that there’s a great deal of pressure sometimes to appear—and not that this is a lie—I felt a lot of pressure sometimes to be “the good adoptee.” You know—happy and grateful and well-adjusted. No issues, no problems. I’m not trying to say this is universal, and I’m not interested in speaking for all of us, but I felt that pressure a great deal and I wish I had let go of that sooner. It really took until my late twenties to even begin to come out of that and to think that maybe this isn’t a burden I should be carrying anymore. Maybe my feelings and my questions and my doubts—maybe these are more important than whatever face I showed to the world.

I should’ve also trusted that the people who loved me would be able to understand that, because they have been. I haven’t been disappointed since I started talking and writing more often and honestly about this. The people in my life care about me, including my parents. They haven’t always understood, but they’ve been supportive and they’ve tried to understand.

So I’d probably go back and tell myself to put down that burden a little bit earlier. It would be okay. And it’s okay to acknowledge that things are complicated. And it’s okay to acknowledge that you have questions. It doesn’t make you appear strange or ungrateful. It’s just human.

NONFICTION – MEMOIR All You Can Ever Know By Nicole Chung Catapult October 2, 2018

Nicole Chung has written for The New York Times, GQ, Longreads, BuzzFeed, Hazlitt, and Shondaland, among other publications. She is the editor in chief of Catapult magazine and the former managing editor of The Toast. All You Can Ever Know is her first book. Follow her on Twitter at @nicole_soojung.

Source: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/10/15/nicole-chung-all-you-can-ever-know-memoir/

[hudsonespie]

How China Has Overtaken Japan in Naval Power and Why it Matters

[By Toshi Yoshihara]

A major reversal of fortunes at sea has gone largely unnoticed. Over the past decade, the Chinese Navy sped past the Japanese maritime service across key measures of material prowess. The trendlines suggest that China will soon permanently displace Japan as the leading regional naval power in Asia. This historic power transition will have repercussions across the Indo-Pacific in the years to come. It behooves policymakers to pay attention to this overlooked but consequential shift in the naval balance between two great seafaring nations.

The Power Transition at Sea

The growing power gap between the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is stark and will widen at an accelerated pace. China already boasts the largest navy in the world with more than 300 ships and submarines. By comparison, the JMSDF’s naval strength in 2019 included four light helicopter carriers, two cruisers, 34 destroyers, 11 frigates, three amphibious assault ships, six fast-attack missile boats, and 21 submarines. By 2030, the PLAN could have more than 450 ships and close to 110 submarines while the JMSDF will likely not be much larger than it is today.

In aggregate tonnage for principal surface combatants, a rough measure of latent capacity and capability, China surpassed Japan in 2013. By 2020, the PLAN exceeded the JMSDF in total tonnage by about 40 percent. By average tonnage per combatant, a more precise measure of capacity and capability, the Japanese fleet continues to maintain a comfortable lead of about 45 percent over its Chinese counterpart. Japan’s position, however, may not hold for long as China puts to sea more carriers, cruisers, and destroyers.

In terms of firepower, the vertical launch system (VLS)—a grouping of silos that holds and fires shipborne missiles—furnishes a useful proxy for a fleet’s lethality. In this category of naval power, China’s catchup story is stunning. The JMSDF introduced VLS a decade earlier than the PLAN in the early 1990s. Yet, the Chinese quickly caught up and zoomed past the Japanese in 2017. By 2020, the PLAN had 75 percent more VLS cells than the JMSDF.

More troubling still, China’s large arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) outranges that of the JMSDF by considerable distances. In a hypothetical fleet-on-fleet engagement, the PLAN could launch large salvoes of ASCMs that could reach its opponent’s warships well before the Japanese side could get within range to hit back, conferring a significant first-strike advantage to China. It remains to be seen whether Japan will introduce enough long-range ship-killing missiles, including the repurposed Standard Missile 6 air-defense interceptors, to close the range gap.

China’s air force and rocket force further tip the scales in its favor. Chinese airpower and missiles ashore would almost certainly join the fray in any conceivable conflict. The JMSDF’s surface fleet would have to fend off volleys of air-launched ASCMs and land-based anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles as well as missiles fired from ships and submarines. Japan’s maritime service thus inhabits a vexing and inhospitable operational environment.

Beyond Bean Counting

Fleet size, tonnage, and firepower do not provide a full measure of a navy’s combat power. Operational proficiency, tactical elan, regular and extended deployments in blue-water environments, and real combat experience are equally critical, if not more so, when evaluating a navy’s prospects for fighting and winning a war at sea. Even in this qualitative area, however, it is no longer axiomatic that Japan holds a decisive advantage over China.

Over the past decade, the Chinese Navy has proven itself a capable expeditionary service. The PLAN’s various open ocean activities suggest that it has accumulated substantial at-sea experience. Notably, the Chinese Navy has sustained a continuous rotation of anti-piracy patrols in the Indian Ocean since 2009, an impressive feat by any measure. The PLAN has also dispatched flotillas for long-distance transits throughout the Western Pacific and beyond.

Peacetime exercises and constabulary operations may not be reliable indicators of how the Chinese Navy will perform in combat. The well-worn remark that China has not fought a war since 1979 remains valid. Of course, neither has Japan since 1945. The reality is that no one knows for certain how each side will fare until the shooting starts.

It remains unclear how the economic contraction following the COVID-19 crisis will impact China’s investment in its navy. What is certain, however, is that Japan will not escape the economic fallout from the global pandemic and the attending fiscal pressures on defense spending. The momentum behind the Chinese naval buildup, moreover, will likely not slow down enough to reverse the tilting naval balance in Beijing’s favor.

Why the Naval Imbalance Matters

Japan’s eroding naval position not only reduces its ability to defend the liberal international order, but it also weakens the deterrent posture of the U.S.-Japan alliance and, in the process, undercuts American strategy in Asia. Consider the centrality of Japanese seapower to the regional security architecture.

Japanese Navy destroyer Maya (DDG-179) (Japanese Ministry of Defense photo)

In peacetime, Japan’s maritime service helps deter aggression and keep the seas open to all, an essential condition for free trade and global prosperity. Should deterrence fail, the JMSDF would sweep clear the major maritime approaches to the theater of operations along the Asian littorals and conduct operations to obtain and exercise sea control alongside the U.S. Navy. Moreover, the sea service complements U.S. naval strengths, including undersea warfare, while making up for American capability gaps in such areas as minesweeping.

A revisionist China must carefully consider Japan’s still-formidable maritime service when calculating its options vis-à-vis the United States. Beijing would likely think twice about coercion or aggression if it believed that the alliance possessed overwhelming military superiority. Conversely, if Beijing concluded that Tokyo was becoming a crack in the armor, then it might be tempted to gamble.

The bottom line is that it is the combined power of the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed naval forces and the JMSDF that helps to keep the peace in Asia. It is thus imperative that U.S. policymakers perceive the relative decline of Japanese seapower as a proxy for the corrosion of American power in the Indo-Pacific.

If past is prologue, China’s rapid accumulation of naval power—and Japan’s inability to keep up—portends unwelcome great power relations. The most striking historical parallel is Britain’s naval decline during the Cold War. In the late 1970s, the Soviets had far outstripped the British across major measures of naval power just as the PLAN is eclipsing the JMSDF today. By the early 1980s, it became increasingly doubtful whether Britain could defend its own backyard against Soviet designs.  

Britain’s relative decline posed global dilemmas for the United States. If the U.S. Navy were tied down in an emergency elsewhere, there was concern that the Soviets might seize the occasion to test European resolve in the North Atlantic. It was feared then that the Royal Navy’s impotence in the face of a Soviet naval challenge would severely undermine stability, deterrence, and allied cohesion while opening the way for Moscow to advance its aims in Europe.

It does not stretch the imagination to foresee a similar risk today. American global commitments, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, could draw Washington’s attention to faraway theaters. In such circumstances, the United States would likely expect Japan to do much more to deter, if not oppose, Chinese opportunism. The extent to which the JMSDF upholds its end of the bargain would be a major test for the alliance.

Allied Implications

To be sure, any assessment of the Indo-Pacific strategic balance would be incomplete without accounting for the U.S. military, including its forward-deployed assets and its surge forces around the world. The combined naval power of the United States and Japan still outweighs that of China. But that margin of superiority is diminishing as China continues its ascent at sea, pulling even farther ahead of Japan.   

Consequently, the security partnership’s capacity to deter aggression is likely to come under more strain. Equally worrisome, the PLAN and its sister services are already able to project power across and well beyond the first island chain, deliver ample firepower over long distances, and impose heavy costs on U.S. and Japanese forces. These developments are likely to challenge, if not upend, longstanding allied assumptions about escalation dominance and warfighting.

Allied policymakers must recognize that a historic power shift has already taken place in maritime Asia. For too long, defense planners and the broader strategic community have focused exclusively on the bilateral Sino-U.S. naval rivalry while slighting the local balance between China and Japan. In the past, when allied superiority and the JMSDF’s qualitative advances appeared insuperable, it was safe to take Japan’s role for granted.

Yet, today, as the balance tilts increasingly in China’s favor, Japan’s relative decline could emerge as a weak link in the alliance’s deterrent posture. Understanding the extent to which Japan has fallen behind, to include how the Chinese perceive the local imbalance, should assume a far more prominent place in allied decision-making. Such a comprehensive estimate must be integral to the allied calculus about strategy, posture, operations, and competitiveness.

Toshi Yoshihara is senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). His latest book, co-authored with James R. Holmes, is the second edition of Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy (Naval Institute Press, 2019).  

This article is adapted from a new report by Dr. Toshi Yoshihara at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), Dragon Against the Sun: Chinese Views of Japanese Seapower. It appears here courtesy of CIMSEC and may be found in its original form here. 

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/how-china-has-overtaken-japan-in-naval-power-and-why-it-matters via http://www.rssmix.com/

[katesdailyscramble]

Mentor Report - Or, A Conversation with a Friend

~ My first night in Shibuya - (L-R) Kaho (kind student we met), Me, Madeline, Natalie (two of my friends on the trip), and Mari      I have known Mari since 2017 because we took the latter two years of classes for our Japanese major in the same tight-knit class of students - we were together for each term except for when she studied abroad at Aoyama Gakuin University in the spring and summer of 2018. I met her on my first day as a transfer student at North Central, and I have always liked her bright, fun, and real personality and have been impressed by her smarts and ability with Japanese. To be honest, her interactions with Japan and Japanese culture have influenced me a lot, and I look up to her. We shared one memorable experience in particular on the D-term trip last December where she showed me and my friends around Shibuya. She was not on the trip, but staying with a friend in the area, and met us to introduce us to her city. After getting off the suffocating train at 5:30 on a Friday night, we popped out of the Hachiko entrance and were wowed by the neon lights, advertisements, and sheer number of people bustling about the square. Mari guided us across the famous Scramble Crossing, gave us a personal tour of the 109 fashion mall, and led us to an izekaya (Japanese bar/pub) she recommended, all while telling us about her life in the city. Her sense of fashion – bold, punk, and clearly influenced by the street vibe – was something I adored, and seeing Shibuya through her eyes made me fall in love with it. Upon hearing that Aoyama was only a five minute walk from the main crossing, I was more attracted to the area than ever. I met with some Japanese students in Shibuya later on in the trip when we went back to Tokyo, and the amazing time I had with them further emphasized my love for it. I think it was then that I knew I might want to study abroad, that I was capable of doing it, and that I had a good idea where I might want to go.

~ Shibuya 109  (November 30th, 2018)      By the last term of my Japanese class, nearly all of my classmates had studied abroad in different parts of Japan, so I had heard a lot of stories, both good and bad, about living in the country and what it was like. Still, even though I had heard Mari's stories more candidly during throughout the year, it was interesting to interview her in a more concrete way about Japan. She confirmed that it is much like its ratings on various scales labeling it as collectivistic, high-context, and hierarchical – people are very much oriented toward thinking about the group, thinking about how their actions will affect the group as a whole, and how to best proceed so there is the best possible outcome for the group. There is a lot of context from the language based on what is not said in a conversation being more important than what is actually said, and hierarchies between people are honored with degrees of bowing and the level of diction or types of words used to address people (formal language is known as keigo, or respectful language). However, she said there is a big difference between what it is actually like versus how it is portrayed by the media and news. Popular media tends to display 'cool' or 'weird' things from Japan which are extremely technologically advanced or fun, and it becomes defined to the Western world as a magical land where people are all in harmony, live interesting lives, and few things go wrong. In reality, there is a lot of group-behavior and not a lot of conflict, but the lack of conflict and constant focus on efficiency can make it so a lot of people lose their voices and become a number in a swarm of people.      There is also a dark side to the country, specifically with its working culture, which Mari labeled as the thing which surprised her the most about living in Japan. Being out late at night, she would frequently see salarymen stumbling down the road, drunk, or simply passed out on the side of the street from exhaustion. The commute to work may be so hard and the work week so long and demanding that it is simply easier for some to sleep in the middle of road rather than going home only just to leave early in the morning to return. It is the same thing for them everyday, and Mari described seeing all of their faces with neutral expressions, not so much from the politeness and apathy we are conditioned to think of, but simply because they are too tired. These adverse working conditions, demand for loyalty to companies, and difficulty in going home on time due to hierarchy-based social rules makes the Japanese average working individual have a very hard life, and this was something Mari was not expecting to see so starkly during her time in Japan.

     In terms of differences found between Japan and America, Mari named some things that I was aware of and a few things which surprised me. In terms of differences, she mainly discussed how people tend to handle expressing themselves and showing who they truly are. In America we are very open about our emotions, how we feel about certain people or activities, and who we are as individuals. Someone may talk a lot and share very personal things without even being prompted, and this may make others either feel more intimate with that person, or very uncomfortable. I think our eager display of ourselves both has to do with individualism and our need as a low-context culture to always be stating our opinions aloud. Contrastingly, Mari talked about how people in Japan are far more private, specifically citing the Japanese concepts know as tatemae and honne. Tatemae (建前 - composed from the words 'to stand' and 'front') refers to the face we show to the public that does not know us; it is the face which is polite, properly in line with customs, and generally blends in with the rest of the population. Honne (本音, 'actual sound') is our true self who only we and perhaps our most intimate friends and family can ever know. In terms of Jungian theory, tatemae could be comparable to a persona, while honne refers to the self.

     Mari also brought this up when describing the most important thing I should know about Japanese culture – the need for privacy and distance between others (this so vital that I noticed even the kanji for 'I' - 私 - means 'private'). Interactions between cashiers and customers are practically robotic, while here we may compliment someone or strike up a light conversation. People in Japan do not share private information unless they are particularly close, and sharing those types of things can indicate that the sharer feels intimate with the listener. If the listener does not see them in the same way, they can become very stressed from learning this information, which puts pressure on them due to the other person's expectations about the relationship. It seems to be like when you learn someone views you as their best friend when they are only an acquaintance to you. Although this is not directly being said, the Japanese would interpret sharing information of that level as a declaration with equivalent meaning. Mari talked about how Japanese are constantly thinking about what they share affecting others, and so most tend to share minimal or fanciful things that don’t really have substance from a Western perspective. She described it even as being “fake” sometimes, so you may never know what someone actually thinks about you. A person may agree to meet you somewhere, knowing they are not going to go – then, Mari said, they cancel at the last minute, but do not feel bad since they never intended to come in the first place. This seems to be a form of high-context communication where it is easier just to not show up and make an excuse rather than simply telling the person they do not like them or that they do not want to go. They are communicating their message still, but in a very indirect way. I can imagine this being very difficult to handle, especially when making friends, so I will be wary when I go to Japan. I do not want to be suspicious of or think badly of people, but I will try not to get my hopes up too high if plans somehow fall through.

     Along that same line, she discussed how the night life and drinking culture may make it easier to establish relationships – in an informal setting, with your system slightly inebriated, it is psychologically easier to let go of the strict norms on privacy and become yourself. I imagine this is why bosses will go out to drink after work with their employees; it is very much a social monopoly of the worker's time and another part of the job (which isn't the best), but it functions as a way to get to know their coworkers more so than any functions occurring in the actual company building. I have heard from her and other Japanese students that Aoyama especially has a big drinking culture, and so while I don't want to be socially pressured into drinking, I realize I will have to do so (or at least hang out with the students at bars with a glass of water) in order to make closer friends at the school.

     When finding similarities between America and Japan, Mari found it a bit harder to answer, but she eventually decided upon Japanese youth. Although the older generation is very focused on tradition, respect, and all other things typically Japanese, the younger generation is very progressive, open-minded, and ready for new ideas to incorporate into the culture. I think this must have something to do with the globalization of the world through the internet, and while this can be true wherever you go, I think it is particularly interesting in a country like Japan. America is generally (hypothetically, at least) about liberty, free thinking, individuality, and the idea of being able to do whatever you want if you work hard enough, based on the American dream. Older adults (especially baby boomers, nowadays) are more conservative when it comes to things like LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, and other topics, but in terms of ways of thinking about liberty and individuality, I do not think they are incredibly different from millennials – that is, in comparison to the gap between the younger and older Japanese. Japan is so deeply ingrained with tradition, specific ways of doing things, and going along with the collectivist views of the group that I feel young people are jumping a wider gap to get to progressive ideas about individuality and expressing themselves without having to abide by all of those rules and constraints. Mari said these contrasting perspectives belonging to the younger generation will make a great difference for the country in the future, and I am inclined to agree. I see this happening everywhere eventually, but I think Japan will alter greatly within the next few decades as new people come into power. I had not thought of this similarity before, but I still really agree with Mari's thoughts regarding this.

     Although I have gained the same basic classroom education as Mari for the Japanese language since we had our last two years together, meaning that I didn't have much to ask her in this regard, she was able to give me one great tip – don't be afraid! She said that when she first got to Japan, she was terrified of using her Japanese, leading her to not speak it at all. Eventually, when she realized that she was never going to get better if she didn't try, she made an effort to speak it as much as possible, regardless of her fears, and that made all the difference. She advised me to try to speak as much as possible even if I don't know the right words – I should just try to get by and convey as much as I can, making a good effort without being worried about potentially offending anyone. I will get some free passes as a foreigner, and so I should simply try my best at all times. Mari has claimed frequently that the greatest influence on her improvement in Japanese abroad came from talking with people and interacting with others in the city, not from the daily language classes at school, and so I want to imitate that by getting past my introverted fears and really trying to interact with others. Still, she did express that this may be hard at times, especially in terms of how Japanese people view Americans.

     Mari said they have a lot of misconceptions about Americans, generally viewing them as loud and obnoxious (true?) and all about football, McDonalds, and obesity. While she didn't experience any discrimination specifically for this, one interaction she often described was being spoken to in English by employees or cashiers when ordering, and then being complimented on her 'amazing Japanese' after responding back with a simple sentence in the language. Sometimes she would even ask questions in Japanese for them to reply “no English,” which she understandably found exasperating. I think it will be harder for me to just begin speaking Japanese when people try to converse with me in English, but I also know that this is the only way I will improve. Although I think this has more to do with me being foreign and white rather than specifically American, it is an assumption that will usually be placed upon me, one I need to be careful of as I try to live in Japanese society and speak the language. Being a foreigner, I also assume they will think I do not know the rules (which I generally do not), so I am glad that Mari gave me a few pointers there, too. I already knew about actively listening (aizuchi) while others are talking, as well as the social shaming for eating and walking at the same time, but she reminded me of these taboos and social behaviors to follow, so I will reinforce them in my brain before I go.

     In discussing school and Aoyama in general, one thing Mari mentioned made me a bit more sure of myself and my decisions as far as living arrangements. She shared her story of how she was actually supposed to study abroad for a whole year, but once she arrived in September, where she had rented her own personal apartment, she felt incredibly alone, overwhelmed, and needed to come home after just a little while in Japan. Reflecting upon it, Mari advised me to not overestimate myself as she had done – she thought she could live all by herself in a new country without any kind of support system in place. She felt it was better for her to stay in the dorm upon returning to establish that community of international students, so I am happy that I am choosing to live there rather than on my own or in a sharehouse. I can get some privacy with my room, but I am still in a community. The only issue here she raised was that the international students can become clique-y and tend to only speak English with each other – because she really wanted to improve on Japanese, Mari removed herself from them more and more, eventually coming to treat the dorm as an apartment as she gained more Japanese friends outside of school. I do not want to get stuck in a comfortable bubble of only being with other international students, and so while I know I may not be adventurous as Mari or able to put myself out there, I want to make an effort to socialize in other places so this doesn't happen to me. I really want to improve my Japanese skills, and I can't do that if I keep speaking English.

     In terms of Aoyama's school work, Mari described it as very light, with only a midterm and final exam, or equivalent papers. The Japanese language classes are a bit more difficult, but overall it is much less demanding than school in America. From what I know about the Japanese education system, everything is focused on getting into a good university, and as long as you graduate, you will be taken up by a good company where you can earn a nice salary. Job preparation does not really happen in college – once you are in the company, they will spend time training you to do your job. Depending on the quality of the college you go to, the company generally assumes that you are capable of doing the work they ask of you. Thus, one's time in college is typically referred to as ‘the spring break of life.’ Mari said we would be fine and not stressed whatsoever, but I am still a bit skeptical. I am extremely focused on my schoolwork at all times since I associate it deeply (and unhealthily) with my self-image and worth as a person, but I hope that I will be able to change this perspective a bit in Japan. While I do not want to neglect my grades, I am more worried about neglecting the country, cultural experiences, and friendships I will have right at my fingertips. I don't want to be holed up in my room studying each night, and especially since this is my last term as an undergraduate, I want to be able to have that spring break experience as well. As I described before, Mari learned the most Japanese from being out in public with real people, and I want to take advantage of that opportunity as much as possible

     Overall, I really enjoyed my conversation with Mari. There were some things I knew, some I didn't, and some on which she gave me a new perspective, so I am very grateful I got to talk with her. I am not sure if she'll be returning to Japan any time soon, but I would love to meet up with her there again if I could! She's helped me prepare just a bit more for my journey in the spring, and so I am grateful to her as a mentor and as a friend.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Carnival of Aros (May 2019)  [Call for Submission post]

The Intersection of Religion and Aromanticism

Coincidentally, it was deciding to check out a blog recommended to this one (@aroacepagans themself) that led to trawling through different aro blogs and questioning if I actually experienced romantic attraction. [For the sake of saving space, I split the full “I don’t think I’m alloromantic, but I’m not sure if I can pinpoint a specific label” part into a separate post (link).]

Region’s Dominant Religion & Love/Romance

It’s not a shock for the usual blog readers, but I distanced myself from Christianity, particularly my family’s flavor of a certain Protestant branch, when I was younger and coming to terms with being queer. Some people reconcile their connection to Christianity with being queer, but I already had theological doubts and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back in a manner of speaking. In that stance, I was more concerned with the church approved relationship only looking heterosexual, and I honestly wasn’t paying as much attention to the intertwined issue that basically went “God will bring everyone a special someone into their life”.

Depending on the exact environment you’re in, you sort of run into different issues with how Christianity may have played into how you discovered your sexuality, lack thereof, romantic orientation, its lack thereof, etc. I remember a focus on the negative attributes given to sex between two people of the same sex/gender in arguments and an incredibly obtuse inability to see that queer people were capable of anything other than sex in irl interactions. It’s honestly a bit of a clusterfuck trying to remember it; “just friends” could cohabitate for years, might be able to hold hands, and could be physically affectionate until the point of Too Romantic when there were suddenly assumptions about The Gay Sex.

The conflation of romantic and sexual made it easy to fall into a trap of falling back on amatonormativity, especially when you were going up against people who didn’t even agree that non-heterosexual people were capable of love. It was all tied up in sin, and lust, and a confused teen who wants to hold hands with someone of the same gender without hearing how they’re “evil” (and probably going to hell) just isn’t on equal footing with that type of argument to get into dismantling amatonormativity when it sounds like they’re agreeing that they can’t love.

This isn’t to say that someone shouldn’t try to address the amatonormativity in those Christian settings. It would be a lot of years before I even had the terminology to try to talk about that, and I’m looking back and trying to be gentle with past-me for using the limited tools I had against adults who really should have known better. I wasn’t the first queer person to spring into existence, y’know? It shouldn’t have been my responsibility to miraculously Know everything to defend myself against homophobia, transphobia, and all kinds of interconnected types of queerphobia (bi, pan, ace, aro) from adults.

Weddings =/= Marriage

That being said, the shorthand for talking about queer acceptance in Christianity was tied up in religiously motivated opinions about whether “gay marriage” was ruining the sacredness of cisheteronormative marriage that dovetails into having 2.5 kids and the American Dream. I remember different levels of informal and class sanctioned debates on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized, notably a whole class period devoted to it in AP US Gov in high school. (This was before the ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015.)

In the context of that type of discussion (“why can’t the gays just have a commitment ceremony?”) and the related issues of “just partners” in relation to the AIDS crisis (not having the legal rights tied to a recognized marriage), love wasn’t necessarily reserved for marriage, even though “us queer people basically love like you straight people do” was a popular defense, and marriage didn’t exactly mean the same thing to everyone.

Some people, often straight, associated marriage with the big wedding, a priest/preacher in a church setting, and the whole shebang of the reception and stuff afterwards, which is more tied up in having religious recognition and acceptance. The wedding gets turned into romantic shorthand, and I think that’s why I wound up with complicated personal feelings even while staunchly being the person to speak up and support alloromantic queer people’s rights for their marriage to be recognized and their weddings to be held.

Non-romantic Partnering & Marriage

I grew up with an ambivalent relationship to weddings because they were associated with being reserved for het couples, and even though same-sex marriage has been legalized nationwide (and therefore in my state) for almost 4 years, I haven’t really been concerned about having a big blowout, church approved, het acceptable wedding. I don’t mind the idea of romantic coded activity or partnering with someone, which has personally made me a bit wary of claiming an aro/aro-spec identity. (Not to say that these are incompatible. I, personally, just feel like I’m intruding at times in some aro places.)

Partnering is one thing, but it’s a little hard to nail down if I want to legally marry a long-term committed partner. (Having the potential for more than one and being poly-flexible also makes it hard to imagine picking one person unless there were a particular reason for accessing a marriage benefit with them.) I’ve also had depression for at least a decade and have struggled with suicidal ideation on more than one occasion, so I honestly have trouble with imagining anything that could qualify as “long-term”. The future’s just a hazy guess with some blurry sketched in goals. However, I can’t deny that the benefits of a legal marriage do look appealing, and I just can’t say I’d want to restrict it to a romantic partner.

. . . & Minority Religion

I’m a polytheist (sorted under the Pagan umbrella), and usually when I try to look into Pagan weddings, I mostly get Wiccan or Wiccan derived information on handfasting. I can understand wanting personally relevant symbology and scripts that don’t draw on Xtian ones, and I can understand wanting a rite that means something for your own religious community (not everyone just wants to go to the local courthouse and have their marriage license being signed be it).

For a taste of how handfasting has different definitions across time periods and the Neopagan and/or Wiccan wedding commonly thought of now doesn’t actually have some unbroken link to pre-Christian marriage ceremonies: Tying the Knot: Handfasting Through the Ages [link] and Historical Handfasting (Late Middle Ages to Reformation, Reformation to 1940, Historical v Mythical v Neopagan Usage) [link]. This doesn’t mean certain elements wouldn’t perhaps look familiar to certain pre-Christian people in a certain location, but the whole package of binding hands with a cord, talking about the union of the God and Goddess, year and a day ‘trial’ from one Beltane to another, possibly jumping a besom, “greenwood” marriages starting on May Day isn’t an exact carbon copy of a historical pre-Christian marriage ceremony for everyone.

I’m not saying that no one should do any of this or call it a handfasting because the Neopagan definition has been around long enough to become its own recognized thing. Some of it just sounds like “our wedding ceremony is just as legit as a Xtian ceremony because it’s Old”, but I’m not really interested in that. While the aesthetics can certainly be beautiful, moving, and adaptable to commitment ceremonies for polyam arrangements, I just find myself about as ambivalent to the idea of handfasting as a church wedding.

If the stars were to align and I was clear on feeling romantic attraction or I wanted to get married to a partner for legal reasons, I would want the marriage (signing the paperwork) to be separate from any ceremony held for friends and family to attend. I really can’t lock myself into one ‘ideal wedding’ idea, in part, because I would want to take into account some sort of interfaith compromise in ceremony melding. Even though weddings get used for romantic shorthand, there are personally significant connections to culture, ethnicity, and other minority religions within the US in how some people celebrate a wedding, and I wouldn’t want to ignore that for my hypothetical partner.

[quartings-main-blog]

SP Part 6

Ciela stands up and grabs Pyoma by the arm, tugging it. CIELA: Now c'mon! I didn't offer you those flyin lessons for nothin'! You still remember how to do that cool trick o' yours? Pyoma, with an unsure look on her face, tries concentrating for a second before the bright green wings spring from hr back again, though they flicker in and out of existence before finally stabilizing. CIELA: Eh, Good enough. Let's go! INT. KESTER'S AIRSHIP-DAY. High up in they sky, Kester and his men are in pursuit of Ciela and the rest. The inside of Kester's ship is adorned with ornate gold and purple fixtures, and filled with shiny advanced-looking technology. Mona and Symos are handcuffed and standing in the back of the room, guarded by several Arbei soldiers. KESTER Take them down to the holding area. We have more pressing matters to attend to. SOLDIER #1 Sir. There's a squadron of skyrates on course with our ship. Estimated time of approach: six minutes thirty seconds. KESTER Just great...All soldiers at your battle stations! Prepare for attack! Suddenly, Redstar's voice comes out of the radio built into the airship's dashboard. REDSTAR Hello, General Kester. It's nice to hear you and your team are as competent at stopping Ciela Altos as around six or seven of my lackeys. 52. KESTER Get to the point, scumbag. You have twenty seconds to tell me what it is you want before I shoot you out of the sky. REDSTAR Do you think I'd be dumb enough to be there in person?But I'll cut to the chase, "sir". What I want, is to help you get what YOU want. You want Altos dead? My crew and I will gladly lend a hand in that. KESTER And the girl that has been kidnapped by Ciela? Can you promise to ensure that she is given to us safely? REDSTAR (Mildly sarcastic) Girl? What girl? We just want our hands on Altos. Promise that we get to do what we want with Altos, and you guys are free to take whatever else you want. MONA: Don't listen to him! SYMOS: He and his kind cannot be trusted! KESTER Pipe down, soldiers! Now, Mister Redstar, what makes you think I require your assistance when I have the entire Arbei army working with me on this? REDSTAR Because you don't. Otherwise, they'd be with you right now, wouldn't they? No, this looks like a much more private matter. So. Would you like the wonderful opportunity to let us join you, or would you rather I spread the word of how your men are locking up every witness of all that shit that happened in Dockville just now? 53. Kester scowls from frustration and paces around the cabin for a bit. Mona, Symos, and Kester's other soldiers look anxious as they anticipate Kester's answer. Returning to the dashboard, Kester picks up the microphone of the radio. KESTER Hypothetically, if you and your crew somehow were able to secure our target without witnesses, could you promise to hand her over to us safely so we can decide what to do with her? REDSTAR Of course! You can trust me. Kester continues contemplating his options. INT. REDSTAR'S SHIP-DAY A large wood-floored room with many tables and chairs carelessly strewn around is packed with SKYRATES, drinking, CHATTING and LAUGHING MERRILY. A small group of skyrates is seen playing darts. When one of them tries to retrieve the dart they had just thrown, a hatchet attached to a chain flies right into the board, scaring the skyrate. The chain is pulled back by Hobble, whose head it is attached to, and all the skyrates laugh at the one frightened skyrates' expense. Hobble flips a switch on the implant attached to the back of her head, and the chain retracts and coils around it automatically. She snickers at the other skyrate's expense Redstar bursts into the room, and all the skyrates fall silent. REDSTAR Alright slackers, time to get back to work! There's been a slight change in plans. Hobble vaults across several tables to get closer to Redstar, as the rest of the skyrates exit the room. 54. HOBBLE Before we move out boss, would'ja mind defining "Change in plans" for the rest of us? As she stands idly, Hobble twirls her hatchet to keep herself entertained. REDSTAR If you must know, Hobble, the crew and I will continue on to our next stop to meet up with some new friends of ours, your job'll be to find Altos and cause a little "hostage situation". Grab yourself a small crew and a barge. I'll inform you about the rest later. Hobble begins to walk out of the room, but she stops. HOBBLE I...I heard your talk with the general when I was walkin' by your cabin earlier. Are you sure we can trust those Arbei Kingdom blokes? I mean, we've been fighting them for eons. REDSTAR They've promised to give us valuable information on Altos' background, so I took up their offer. I know what I'm doing, so you don't need to question the master of the double cross right here. If the Arbei ever get in our way, I'll be ready. HOBBLE Whatever you say. Hobble quickly grabs her hatchet and playfully flings it at Redstar. Just before the hatchet hits him, Redstar swiftly blocks the hatchet with his sword, knocking it to the ground. REDSTAR What'd I just say? HOBBLE (Laughs) Alright boss, I trust ya. 55. REDSTAR And Hobble? Redstar picks Hobble's hatchet off of the ground. REDSTAR I don't want anymore of these little games, understand? Redstar taps Hobble's robotic arm and leg with his sword. REDSTAR I know they're fun for you, but remember not to go too far. HOBBLE Sure, boss~ Hobble exits the room EXT. SKYLARK-DAY Pyoma, with her bright green energy wings spread out, flies through the sky. She is tethered to the railing on the edge of the Skylark by a rope tied around her wrist. Ciela is standing close by, keeping watch on Pyoma, as she leans against a wall. PYOMA: (Cries with excitement) And you're sure this is completely safe? CIELA: Ya got a rope, don'tcha? Now, remember to keep yourself level! Also-ya wings ain't flappin'. How're ya gettin' any thrust? PYOMA: I don't think the rules of physics are at play right now, since what we're talking about is essentially magic. CIELA: For the last time, magic ain't real! Less talkin' more flying!

But if I gotte be honest, you're actually gettin' pretty good at this! 56. PYOMA: Th-Thank you! I- Pyoma wavers slightly in flight. PYOMA: -Sorry! I think I'm really getting the hang of this! CIELA: (Laughs) Whatever you say! Ventor returns with his results. VENTOR: Hey guys, I just found out that-What the-Um, are you two having fun? CIELA: Oh, hey! I'm helping Pyoma here practice flyin! VENTOR: And you're sure this is safe? CIELA: She's got a rope! How come no-one notices this?! VENTOR: Um, okay, Pyoma? Do you wanna come back down here any time soon? PYOMA: Okay! Just give me a few more minutes to practice! CIELA: Atta girl! Alright Vents, what've you found out? VENTOR: Well actually, I've discovered something really interesting! Turns out one of the main components of the tattoo ink I sampled from Pyoma-is Epheme! 57. CIELA: Huh. That's weird. VENTOR: Yeah! Most people who come into direct contact with Epheme for too long barely last a year. But this girl has had it in her skin for who knows how long! Whatever the Arbei kingdom was doing to her in that fortress must've been way beyond anything we've ever seen before. CIELA: Okay, so do you have any clue on how exactly that can make a kid fly? VENTOR: Um, well, not exactly. Nobody even fully understands Epheme, so we haven't made too much of a step forward. CIELA: (Groans) Well, at least we've gotten somewhere. VENTOR: Hey, Ciela? Can I get a word with you in private? CIELA: Uh, alright I guess?? Ciela and Ventor walk inside. INT. SKYLARK-DAY VENTOR: This girl's abilities are something beyond anything anyone has ever seen before, and the fact that so many people-the Arbei Kingdom no less-want to control it-the chance to control Epheme-means that we're going to have a lot more people after us. Ciela. Are you sure we can trust our clients? 58. CIELA: Vents, think about it. This girl ain't got no family, no friends, no home, and everyone out here's either tryin' to catch or kill her. Whoever our clients are, they're rich, and at least there's a small chance they won't do any messed up shit to her. What, you think she's any better off with us? VENTOR: Well no, of course not, but what other choice do we have? What else can we do that'll make sure she's safe? CIELA: Whatever'll get us paid. Vents, we get in gunfights for a living! You really think we're qualified to make the moral choice here!? VENTOR: I-I guess... CIELA: Look, I know it ain't a pretty situation, but it's all we've got. Now c'mon. I'll let you fly Pyoma like a kite if ya want! I'm gonna fly us down for a break, 'kay? VENTOR: Um, okay? Ciela walks over to the pilot's seat on the Skylark, and takes control of the ship as she sits down. Ventor walks back out of the main cabin, and unties the rope on the railing that holds Pyoma tethered to the ship. Holding the end of the rope in his hand, he shouts to Pyoma over the sound of wind blowing by. VENTOR: Pyoma! It's time to come down now! Ciela's landing the ship! PYOMA: Oh! Okay! Just be patient, if you don't mind. I'm not too experienced at this. 59. Pyoma attempts to fly over to Ventor, but struggles to return to the Skylark, wavering slightly as the strong winds interfere with her flight. EXT. SKYRATE BARGE-DAY Hobble stands on the bow of a small skyrate barge under her command. Ahead of her, in the distance, the Skylark can be seen. Several other skyrates can be seen on the background, adjusting their weapons and mechanical limbs, as Hobble communicates with Redstar via radio. HOBBLE Co-ords they gave were pretty spot on, boss. Looks like the Arbei kingdom really does have eyes and ears everywhere. REDSTAR But of course they don't want to get their hands dirty with this. Remember. Don't hurt the little girl. Kester wants her back without a scratch, so make sure she's in our hands safely before doing anything too crazy, got it? HOBBLE (scoffs) Don't you worry, I've got the whole plan locked down already. INT. STEEMER'S-DAY Redstar and his crewmembers have ransacked the bar, as furniture has been strewn around the room. Redstar holds his sword against the throat of an injured Steemer as he continues talking to Hobble on the radio. REDSTAR Alright, I trust ya. Remember. No matter how bad things get, do not initiate the next phase until I give the order. Exactly. SKYRATE #4: Hey, Cap'n! We used that thing you gave us to hack into the telecom records in the video hub station! 60. REDSTAR Nice work! Knew we could count on that tech Kester lent us. Now we know where we gotta go next. Let's go! Redstar uses his sword to slash Steemer, leaving him on the ground as he and the skyrates clear out of the bar. EXT.SKYLARK-DAY Pyoma has fallen slightly behind the Skylark after the rope around her has been untied, as she attempts to fly back onto the ship. VENTOR: Are you sure you don't need any help? PYOMA: Yes, I-I'm fine! You've no need to worry, I can take care of myself! Pyoma, exerting more concentration, is able to fly herself back onto the ship. PYOMA: Phew! You see? I told you I could manage it. Suddenly a burst of Epheme energy hits the base of the Skylark, shaking it up but not severely damaging it. Pyoma and Ventor are knocked down by this, exclaiming in surprise. Hobble, atop her barge rises to about the same level as the Skylark's deck, holding a bladed revolver attached to a chain in each of her hands. HOBBLE Good mornin' snappers! How're ya doing? Hobble fires one of her guns at Ventor and Pyoma, but it misses them, instead shattering one of the ship's windows. Ventor and Pyoma quickly try to run for cover. Ciela then steps out of the Skylark's cabin, a stern look on her face, revolver in hand. 61.