remember it once - chapter three

Fandom: The Artful Dodger Pairing: Jack x Belle Rating: T (will change) Chapter: 3 / 7 Word Count: 2900

For today's @dodgerfoxweek prompt: love letters/banter

read on tumblr: one | two

The months are long without her. Jack finds himself softening towards Sneed of all people. Following the lifesaving procedure Jack performed on Belle, Sneed has demonstrated a genuine interest in bettering his basic surgical skills and acquiring the more advanced techniques he lacks. He’s still superior, still snide, still essentially Sneed, but now he listens to Jack’s ideas and, occasionally, compliments him on his successful surgeries.

The number of successful surgeries has been increasing steadily since Belle introduced ether and carbolic acid, and with Sneed cooperating, the two doctors are able to work side by side in the theatre on the same patient. This frequently shortens surgery time, which has manifold resulting benefits: decreased blood loss, reduced risk of death from time spent under anaesthesia, shorter duration for Jack and Sneed to endure each other’s presence. Strangely, the situation has become something akin to… training each other. When Prof goes, the hospital’s power structure should actually change for the better, with two capable surgeons sharing their knowledge. Sneed will be Jack’s reliable right hand, and Jack has dreams of bringing in new doctors who will contribute to the pooling of information rather than existing in competition with one another and risking lives in the process.

Of course, it isn’t a completely smooth partnership. Sneed can be awfully Sneedy at times. Whenever he makes a dig about Jack’s reading, Jack urges him to put his own educated shoulder to the wheel to see if he can find the cure for being an insufferable git. Someone really should, he insists while watching Sneed’s mustache twitch with restrained petulance, in this day and age.

Unless he’s tending to his patients, Jack keeps his evenings for himself. He’s trying not to gamble, not to drink too much (admittedly, “too much” is an inconstant measure), not to say yes to Fagin’s more suspicious plans; anything he claims is “foolproof” is particularly to be avoided. It isn’t exciting, but nothing really is without her.

Just once during the four-month voyage that carries Belle to England, a letter is delivered to Jack. Well, it’s delivered onto another ship, to the postmaster in Port Victory, to Government house, into Fanny’s hands, and she turns up at the hospital—to his initial confusion. Since Fanny escaped marriage to the Lettuce, Jack isn’t aware of any renewed interest in Sneed. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing here. When she says she’s received a letter, he imagines the very worst and feels his face drain of blood, but Fanny launches into a description of Belle’s experiences thus far. By her tone, Jack slowly recognizes that this letter was not followed by a note about Lady Belle Fox’s tragic burial at sea. He exhales. Even though Fanny feels that she’s communicated everything, Jack asks her to read the letter. He wants to hear Belle’s words.

Tell Jack I would write to him if Mother was not watching me like a hawk, Belle writes. I forgive her, only because we have been two months at sea and even the pastimes which were initially the most novel have become dully familiar. Without a full household staff to command—and Father, crucially Father—her attention falls heavily on me. She tells me to do my embroidery and study my Latin instead of the anatomy texts she finds “vulgar” and “revolting.” This is most amusing, considering her own pricked fingers and the seasickness that rears its head whenever she attempts to read for an extended period.

“It sounds dreadful,” Jack remarks, crossing his arms.

“But you were in the Navy!” Fanny protests. “Don’t you love the sea?”

“I didn’t mean the sea.”

She may be willfully ignoring the implication that he was talking about her mother.

It is not recommended that I stand on deck, Fanny reads on, but after I had done it once, I was determined to return. Fanny, it takes the breath from one’s lungs. Blue. Everywhere. To be in constant motion, harvesting the energy of the waves. Some mornings—

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

Jack’s vision had unfocused as he listened, reintroduced to the sea he’d made his career upon through Belle’s eyes. He realizes the question is Fanny’s and blinks.

“Which part?”

“All that dreadful… air! The wet!”

“Keep reading.”

Fanny sulks but lifts the paper once again.

Some mornings, I catch the dawn. The sky is the blackest thing you can imagine, and then, suddenly, the ship and all of us onboard are born into the world. I believe we are hardly real between sunset and sunrise. Colours seem to seep up from the horizon as though the paintings you love so much have been washed in the distant water, fleshy pinks and bitter oranges rise and bleed. It is the most vital thing I have ever seen. I only wish Jack were with me. Tell him, Fanny. I can hardly believe I won’t sail from one shore and meet him at another…

“It becomes a bit… romantic,” Fanny explains, not exactly bashful, but certainly aware that she is privy to something Belle and Jack would ideally keep to themselves. “Would you like to read the rest alone?”

Ah. Then it is uncomfortable.

Before he can speak, Jack watches Fanny’s eyes widen as she recalls the disastrous dinner. She’s about to assume (only because Sneed bloody announced as much) he can’t read. He heads her off, quiet and flushed while he explains that it is difficult, not impossible. Easier when words are written clearly with plenty of space, more difficult when someone’s handwriting is cramped and smudged. He can read. It just takes time, but he will spend time on Belle, he will sit with her letter and focus and squint in order to relieve Fanny of her messenger duties.

“But what about when you want to write back?” Fanny asks, eyes searching but kind.

“I’ll ask—” But who will he ask to correspond with his fiancée on his behalf? Fanny is probably the best choice as she’s keen to support their romance, but she’s nosy. He might (he does) want to say things that only Belle’s eyes will read.

“Oh! I have already thought of something much better!” Fanny gushes. Jack hasn’t yet had the opportunity to suggest a single name.

—

“It is the images that I find so very awful,” Fanny explains, supporting this assertion with a grimace as she pages past an illustration of a grotesquely swollen tongue, “but it was the images Belle seemed to like best, of late.”

She’s installed him in her sister’s room. One of Belle’s medical texts is open on her desk, and the pair of them stand over it in contemplation. The Governor is in town and the household staff are either entirely disinterested in what Lady Fanny and Dr. Dawkins might be doing in Lady Belle’s bedroom or else they don’t care a whit. Even if they did care, Jack thinks, what are they to do about it? Most of them probably can’t read any better than he can, if at all. They certainly won’t be writing to Lady Fox to inform her of the young doctor’s latest misdeed.

“What do you think?” Fanny asks.

“I couldn’t overstate their usefulness,” Jack says, turning a few pages himself. “And I suppose they are things of beauty, when done well.” He traces graceful lines of musculature. “The detail shows an interest in precision and care, which I can certainly relate to.”

“Not of the images themselves,” Fanny complains, closing the volume with sudden petulance. “My idea! Drawing to Belle instead of writing to her!”

“I’m not sure I have your… skill,” he states cautiously, recalling Fanny’s very memorable trees. “Not to mention your instruction. You must have had tutors?”

“I did have one, but he was quite rigid. We had a difference of taste.”

“I see.”

“Have you ever drawn?” she wonders.

“A little,” Jack admits. At last, he removes his hat, setting it on the desk. He brushes a hand through his hair. “We surgeons try to keep notes of our surgeries—successful and not. Often, Hetty will take dictation for me, but if she’s busy, or the procedure’s something I did by feel rather than by sight, it can be easier for me to try to sketch what I remember.”

Fanny smiles encouragingly.

“Try, then.”

This is how he removes his coat and pulls up a chair. It is how he casts his eyes over the pencils and sticks of charcoal, the messy potted watercolours, before reaching out to touch the tools with his fingertips. Jack doesn’t notice when Fanny leaves him to it, but at some point, there is a cup of tea on the desk into which he accidentally dips a brush. He doesn’t realize until he fills his mouth with the chalky flavour of diluted paint.

It's his own palm he’s attempting to represent. He curls and opens his hand, studying the toughened skin. In his mind, he peels back time, scrubs away the callouses to peel back his very skin, remembering his palm ripped open from the ropes on the first ship on which he sailed. Jack sketches the ragged edges of the injury, the glow of abrasion. With a sodden brush, he dips into the red, then swipes across the paper, watching the wound bleed as the water spreads. He wrings some of the water out before applying more paint to the spot, getting the colour rich and real and—

Fanny shrieks from behind him.

“How awful! I mean, excellent.” She smiles in apology. “I wish I had never seen it, and I mean that as the most sincere compliment.”

“I understand. I appreciate your opinion.”

“Do you?” She looks genuinely surprised. “I can see why Belle fancies you.”

It really isn’t his place to tell his fiancée’s sister she should expect more than basic respect from any man she’d hope to marry, so he doesn’t. Fanny is much more assured in the advice she gives to him, offering blunt criticism as she points to different parts of his creation. Not unkind though.

“Again soon?” she asks when she’s done and he’s standing to go, realizing he has paint soaked into the sleeves he didn’t roll up his arms soon enough. Unusual. It’s normally blood there.

Jack nods.

—

While he’s still learning, Belle’s letters begin arriving from London. Fanny dutifully shares each one. Now that Belle has more freedom to write—physical freedom, without her mother looking over her shoulder—each letter contains the sentence “Fanny, stop reading.” Jack appreciates the honesty of Fanny reading this line aloud, though she does also frown at being excluded from the rest.

The rest.

It has to be Fanny who explained, and Jack is grateful for it. The remainder of Belle’s letters are written larger, with spaces between the letters, each word cleanly executed on the page. They’re legible, specifically for him, exactly how he told Fanny a letter would need to be to lessen his struggle.

At last, he has an account of her longing firsthand. She doesn’t speak of the engagement—there is still a risk that Fanny would spy the word, even if she weren’t intentionally snooping—but it’s clear she isn’t only writing to an acquaintance, a friend, a fellow student of the human body. That Belle refers to well enough, perhaps dangerously so, but it’s all in Latin. The switch from one language to another stumps Jack at first, but he learns to watch out for it. In Latin, Belle is both formal and erotic, and Jack finds himself angling her letters away from the eyes of Hetty and Fagin, though neither knows the language. While Belle’s sentences are stiff, the parts of the body she employs Latin to address—parts of his body, and hers, frequently imagined together—evoke visceral memories. The dusty old language can be surprisingly sensual, Jack finds, when Belle writes of skin on skin.

He responds with broken bones, chipped teeth, dislocated jaws—drawings of all the latest cases to pass through his ward, everything Belle’s missing. It’s when he’s replicating the twisting line of stitches he threaded into an elbow the other day that he has the idea to embellish beyond paint; Jack pokes through her belongings (sorry, Belle) until he discovers her embroidery thread. After that, his art becomes vivid in a way that almost astounds him, even as he jabs the needle through the page. He lays a skin-coloured wash on an arm, then raises a blue vein down its length. He adds fibre ribs to open cadavers, creeping lines of red to blood-shot eyes. When he gathers both Fanny’s art supplies and his strength to recreate the surgery he’ll remember for the rest of his days, he brings Belle’s aorta to life in crimson before sewing in the noose that ties it off. I love you, he tries his best to say. I love you all the way through.

—

Dearest Jack,

I must tell you immediately, or with as much immediacy as a letter from Britain to Australia can allow, that my mother and I will be home in Port Victory sooner than we had planned. Therefore, do not suspect me of neglecting our correspondence if you do not hear from me with the regularity to which we have both grown accustomed. I may be boarding a ship within the week. I fear my mother is being overly cautious, but as an earlier departure is to my benefit, I was hardly about to protest. The responsibility for her agitated state is mine, as I will unfold.

I’ve told you of my time at the University College Hospital here in London. As access to the hospital was key to my mother getting me here, she has allowed me to maintain a standing appointment with staff. I have observed so much and taken copious notes. Your letters also inspired me to seek out a young nurse here, who I was told had something of a talent for drawing. I’ve paid her to illustrate my notes, so that we might more easily replicate these new techniques on our patients when I am back.

Though I miss you terribly—you know I do, Jack, do not be too jealous of London’s sick and injured, monopolize my time though they may—there has been so much to learn that I was deeply frustrated by the wave of sickness that suddenly swept the city. Before you leap to chastise my response, yes, I know it was a selfish one. You see, at home, you might have called on me to help mitigate the spread of illness. Here, I am an indulged guest. I may be present at surgeries and question patient doctors, but in the case of an outbreak, I am denied entry. Foolishly, I complained about this to my mother. Rather than commiserate with me over the injustice of my being shut out when I have the time, inclination, and very possibly the skills necessary to help, she determined they were quite right to bar me. A mere two days later, she decided we had better leave them to it and sail for home while our own health is still sound.

This does not mean I have seen nothing, and, Jack, I am not so selfish as to hope this illness reaches Port Victory. It appears to be neither influenza nor typhoid. I may have been able to diagnose it with closer study, but such a thing was denied me. At least these male doctors cannot separate me from my books; I have already begun packing my trunks with all the latest literature. I know you will make time for me so that we can discuss things properly. It is an enormous comfort.

It's been more than half a year since our separation began, yet I doubt you have forgotten what awaits us upon my return. My mother will see how you have flourished in your role as Head Surgeon, and she will know how steadfast our love has been. I believe our engagement has lasted long enough. I long for us to be united in all ways.

Yours across oceans,

Belle

—

The months are slower than ever, but not even Sneed on his crankiest day can bother Jack now. When Prof finally stepped aside, as recognition for his substantial contributions to the health of the colony (To the death rate, more like, Jack thought, but resisted impertinence just this once), he was allowed to maintain his residence in the house meant to be passed between head surgeons. Braced for the worst, Jack was surprised that this didn’t mean he wouldn’t be offered the things his predecessor had enjoyed.

Instead, they built him a new house.

The day he was granted his own bed is still clear in Jack’s mind, the day he was given his own quarters at the hospital even clearer. An entire house is so overwhelming that he puts off moving in. He’s afraid of the strange and terrible objects that will fill it—spoons in the kitchen and settees in the parlour. Innumerable trinkets for Fagin to nick, no doubt. Jack will have to pretend to mind, because the best thing that will be in the house will be Belle. He can’t imagine being concerned about much else.

He takes to strolling down to the dock each morning. On one of them, Belle’s ship comes in.

Some thoughts on Cultural Christianity; things I don't often see discussed.

To note upfront: I have lived my whole life surrounded by (English-speaking white) Midwestern US Protestantism. Some of these points will be addressing religious/cultural hegemony broadly, most should address manifestations of cultural & hegemonic christianity in particular, and some may be specific to the flavor of christianity local to me.

Funerary practices // Is it normal procedure to have a memorial event with viewing, songs, and speeches after someone has died? Is it normal procedure to have the interment of an embalmed body, in a coffin, in a graveyard? Is it normal to have little or no private/personal mourning practices (eg no changes in dress, socializing, meals, housekeeping), even for close family? Is it normal to have little or no standard practices for anniversaries of a death, even for close family? // Is it illegal in your area to bury an unenbalmed corpse in the earth? Is it illegal in your area to have sky or sea burials? Is it illegal in your area to create a funeral pyre? Is it illegal in your area to cremate a corpse in a crematorium? If no, have these practices always been legal? Are they normal? // What funerary practices followed the death of your grandparents? What funerary practices will follow your death? Would each of these be considered acceptable to your friends, family, and broader community? Are each of these considered normal?

What religion is // Is it normal for "religious" to mean "believing in (the existence of) a deity"? Is it normal for a religious person to venerate one god, which is probably an anthropomorphic personal male creator god? Is it normal for prayer to just be a way to say "please" and "thank you" to that god? Is it normal for a religious person to want to increase the number of people in their religion? Is it normal for a religious person to think that there is only one "correct" or "true" religion (or subtype thereof)? Is it normal for a religious person to be awaiting a messiah/savior? Is it normal for a religion to have a specific canonical "core set" of written teachings/scriptures? Is it normal for religious teachings/scriptures to present themselves as god-given literally-true recountings of history -- and be considered such by members of that religion? What is the legal definition of "religion" or "religious" in your area? // Did your grandparents identify with any religion? Would you, your family, friends, and broader community describe your grandparents as religious? Do you identify with any religion? Do you consider yourself to be religious? (Are these the same question to you?) Do your family, friends, and/or broader community consider you religious, even if you don't see yourself that way?

Literature & language // Are you familiar with phrases such as "o ye of little faith," "(am I) my brother's keeper?," "fire and brimstone," "doubting Thomas," "an eye for an eye," "man does not live on bread alone," "prodigal son," and "the writing is on the wall"? Did you encounter these phrases from friends and family, before or outside of encountering them in popular media or school? Did your schooling emphasize Greek and Roman/Latin foundations of language and/or literature, maybe even to the extent that it obscured/marginalized/erased other sources and influences? In literature classes, were you expected to understand references to heaven and hell, crucifixion and resurrection, virgin birth, a trickster devil, an innocent walled garden and fruit that transmits knowledge/evil, witch trials, walking on water, crusades, anointing, baptizing, and the general concept of a savior/messiah? Do you use these references and themes when/if you write? Are "goliath," "nimrod," "Jesus (Christ)!" as a profanity, "bedlam," and "pharisee/pharisaical" in your vocabulary? Would you expect that your grandparents' answers to these questions would be the same as yours?

These questions are intended to help you identify whether, and to what extent, your culture & the culture around you are consistent with (US protestant) christian culture. This isn't an exhaustive list, these are just three big topics I think people usually leave out of cultural christianity discussions.

Do note: I am not saying that if you aren't christian, you need to change your end-of-life plans, abandon your literary tradition, limit your vocabulary, and get a degree in religious studies/world religions. I am also not saying that every norm above is unique or exclusive to christianity, nor are all of these norms present in all varieties of christianity. I am not saying that it's bad to be religiously christian or culturally christian! I am saying that many people are unaware of the legal, social, and academic advantages they gain for every degree of similarity with their local religious/cultural hegemony. And I am saying that you should consider the ways in which you may be privileged on this axis, whether or not you are religiously christian.

The Cost of Cremation in Australia

Death is an event that affects us all at some point in our lives. When a loved one passes away, it can be a tragic time that fills us up with grief. This is why choosing how to keep and preserve your loved one’s body can help you feel more in control during a time of overwhelming sadness.  

When one dies, one can choose to be buried in the ground or at sea. But as time goes on, more and more Australians are choosing cremation. Of the 128,500 Australians who die each year, around 70% of those are choosing cremation — a number that is rising by 0.5% each year. In Victoria, more than 65% of people are choosing cremation each year.  

What is cremation? 

Cremation is a well-known and less expensive alternative to traditional burials in which the body is reduced to a fine powder by extreme heat. Unlike traditional burials, which require years for the body to decompose underground, cremation just takes a few hours.  

During cremation, the body is placed in a coffin or casket and then placed in a cremator. This procedure shrinks the body to a few bones. Following that, the residual fragments are ground into a powder usually referred to as “ashes” using a specialised processor. After that, the ashes are transferred to a temporary container or a family-provided urn. 

Types of cremation  

There are two main types of cremation options: direct cremation, and cremation with a service. 

Direct Cremation 

During a direct cremation, there is no formal service or ceremony involved. The family can then just hold a private gathering of their own choice after the cremation. 

With direct cremation, the deceased is collected, then transported to the crematorium for the actual cremation, and then taken back to be stored at their premises until the family decides what to do with the ashes. The cost of cremation without service varies depending on the state that you live in and it can vary between $2,000 to $8,000.  

Cremation with a Service 

Fees included in the cremation 

The cremation cost usually includes all the services needed to carry out a cremation, such as travel, removal, death registration, funeral director services, administration, transfer and care of remains and a basic cremation container (casket). The additional costs can include a death certificate ($69), a memorial book ($40) and flowers ($300). 

Here are some other fees included in the price of cremation: 

Cremation Fee: The fee for the use of a crematorium chapel for service, attendance at service by crematorium staff and the actual process of cremation, including collection and return of ashes after cooling. The cost varies depending on whether you choose a weekday or weekend and whether you require music. 

Doctor’s Fees: These can be anywhere between $150 to $300 depending on the type of doctor’s certificate required, whether they are local or interstate, whether they need to travel to where a person has passed away – particularly if in a hospital or aged care facility – or the person has passed away interstate. 

Funeral Home Fee: This covers administration, staff, and facilities 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Also included is attendance at the place of death (often in hospital) removal from residence or hospital (including any after-hours charges that may apply). 

Please know that these fees are not the same everywhere. They will differ from state to state. 

  Is cremation cheaper than a burial? 

Cremation is more affordable than a burial in most cases. It also presents more options than the traditional funeral, which makes it highly appealing to many modern families. 

​​It’s important to know that the cost of cremation in Australia is not a fixed price. There are a number of different cremation costs that you need to consider. These vary depending on where you live and which crematorium you choose. For example, in Brisbane, the average cost of cremation is $4,600, while the average cost of cremation in Melbourne is closer to $5,000.  

Moreover, cremations in Victoria are government-regulated. They’re regulated by the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2003, as amended by the Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations 2015. Under this law, cremations must be done by government cemeteries, and so the cost of cremation in Victoria is more expensive because they’re from the government.  

Our Process in Cremation 

At Mornington Green, we understand that such a difficult time in people’s lives doesn’t need any more additional hassles. So, here’s our simple process: 

We respect your choice. 

Whatever you decide or wish to do for your loved one, we will listen and support you on them. It’s your decision to make, including specifying the company of your choice for cremation services. It will be up to you.  

     2. Our partner funeral houses 

Our trusted partners for cremation services are Chapter House and Mornington Peninsula Funerals. We are confident that you are in excellent hands with these two funeral houses. At Chapter Houses, the standard cost of cremation is reduced if you choose to infuse those ashes into a Living Legacy Tree at Mornington Green. Please note that we do not take a commission or add any fees for customers who want to go through the cremation process with us, we’re here to help. 

   3. Introduction to our Partners 

If you choose to have a cremation through us, we will begin the process and introduce you to your funeral house of choice. During this process, we can assist you with any forms or information that needs to be submitted. Once you have organised your plans with the funeral house, we’ll liaise with the Funeral Director to ensure a smooth process for you. The next step after this is choosing a tree for the cremated ashes to be planted into.  

What are cremation ashes made from? 

Turn to a Tree and Be a Beautiful Memory 

Cremation gives people the chance to put their friends and family to rest in a dignified way without paying a lot for a traditional burial. If you want to remember your loved ones after cremation, Mornington Green gives you a wonderful and unique opportunity to do so.  

Do you have any questions? Contact us via our contact page or call us today on (03) 9059 4959 to find out more about cremation through Mornington Green. 

When one dies, one can choose to be buried in the ground or at sea. But as time goes on, more and more Australians are choosing cremation. Of the 128,500 Australians who die each year, around 70% of those are choosing cremation — a number that is rising by 0.5% each year.

Things Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Blatantly Contradicts

How ADAM is extracted from Little Sisters.

In Bioshock 1 it is established that ADAM is collected from the girls via inducing regurgitation, or in other worlds vomiting. This is established in Tenenbaum’s Audio Diary Mass Producing.

Mass Producing:  Tenenbaum: “The augmentation procedure is a success. The slugs alone could not provide enough ADAM for serious work. But combined with the host... now we have something. The slug is embedded in the lining of the host's stomach and after the host feeds we induce regurgitation, and then we have twenty, thirty times yield of usable ADAM. The problem now is the shortage of hosts. Fontaine says, "Patience, Tenenbaum. Soon the first home for Little Sisters will be open, and that problem will be solved...”

In Burial at Sea however, during the scene where Elizabeth helps Masha and Leta bond to the Bouncer. Leta jabs her ADAM harvesting needle into Masha’s arm and extracts it from her that way. Something they absolutely wouldn’t do, and wouldn’t think to do, considering they’re trained to only harvest from dead bodies. That’s the whole reason why Jack doesn’t end up stabbed in the gut and harvested by a Little Sister in the first game after he passed out from the pain of splicing electro-bolt.

If the game actually followed established canon. After hearing that the Bouncer needed ADAM, one of the girls would have instead started sticking their fingers down their throat to get themselves to cough, or vomit in this case, up the goods.

But I guess showing an elementary school age bulimic, injecting their vomit into a dying, brainwashed, human experiment victim wasn’t what they wanted for their touchy feely, scene meant to prove that Elizabeth is the smartest person in existence.

But also the whole Big Daddy-Little Sister bonding scene is dumb and contradictory to things established in Bioshock 1. 

The Protector Gatherer Bond:

In Bioshock 1 it’s established that Big Daddies and Little Sisters are bonded by being conditioned to respond to pheromones and other stimuli. All Big Daddies are conditioned to protect Little Sisters, all Little Sisters are conditioned to trust Big Daddies. They aren’t bonded on an individual basis, like how Elizabeth was to Songbird.

That’s why getting the voice modifier implanted was as far as Jack had to go when it came seemingly irreversible medical procedures. Yet could still successfully disguise himself as a Big Daddy and be trusted by the Little Sisters after then just putting on a suit and dousing himself in Big Daddy Pheromones'.

Little Sisters are conditioned to associate a Big Daddy’s physical appearance, vocal calls, and smell with safety and protection. That’s all it was in 1, and all it needed to be to make sense. Bioshock 2 didn’t negate Bioshock 1′s method of getting Big Daddies and Little Sisters to like each other, they just made an alternative process, that canonically failed and was replaced by the method in 1.

Elizabeth’s bond to Songbird has far more in common with the pair bond that is shared between an Alpha Series Protector and their Little Sister. Not as physiologically costly to Songbird, but just as personal and exclusive.

And concerning the method of Protector-Gatherer bonding shown in Burial at Sea. You can say that all Bouncers think Little Sisters are the same Little Sister, and that Little Sisters think all Bouncers are the same Bouncer, and so on for every Big Daddy type. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s true.

Using this bonding method you’d still need to instigate that same bonding response/realization in every individual Big Daddy created. Big Daddies don’t talk or communicate ideas among each other, they think of very little beyond repairing the city and protecting Little Sisters. Little Sisters might be able to spread the idea that Big Daddies are good things to be trusted, but Big Daddies have no way to disperse this message among themselves.

Not to mention you’d have to convince Little Sisters that every new model of Big Daddy was good, the same way they did with the Bouncers. Considering Rosies and Bouncers look dramatically different in stature and silhouette. Bouncer might be friend shaped to Masha and Leta of Burial at Sea, but Rosie is not.

If we follow Burial at Sea’s supposed logic that Elizabeth’s interference is what caused them to get along, this doesn’t solve the greater issue of making Big Daddies protect Little Sisters more consistently at all. Considering no one knows Elizabeth was there or what she did, or how the girls and Big Daddy bonded. Everyone would just think whatever genetic modification variation Suchong was testing worked with a delayed reaction.

Which is indeed what happened in the original Bioshock, considering the fact that Big Daddies and Little Sisters continue to be created after Suchong’s death, using Lot 255. No special Thorn in Lion’s Paw bonding ritual required.

Big Daddies Need Little Sisters To Live:

This is outright made up for Burial at Sea try to help make the bonding scene make sense, but it doesn’t. Because Big Daddies predate the Protector Program. They were originally created by Suchong to help deal with maintenance around Rapture. Rosies to Rivet panels and windows, and Bouncers to Drill deep sea rock to help with construction expansion.

The idea that the Little Sisters produce a unique type of ADAM that Big Daddies need to survive is completely new. Little Sisters were created to increase the production of ADAM from the slug that they were hosting. The girls don’t make ADAM, the slug surgically attached to their stomach lining makes ADAM. Sure if the ADAM produced by the slugs implanted inside Little Sisters was slightly different that would only makes sense, unnatural habitats and all that, but it would also still be all of the ADAM that is commercially produced, because all commercial ADAM is produced via the Little Sister Host Method. But also that’s nonsense, the ADAM produced buy the slugs implanted in the girls is the same as what was produced by the slugs naturally anyways. There’s just a lot more of it, that’s the whole point of using little girls as hosts.

Bouncer’s With Grappling Hook Drills:

Big Daddies are living tanks, their drills are massive. No way no how are they going to be able to slingshot them around, firing a giant drill that has to be upwards of 30 lbs (at the absolute least, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as heavy as 50lbs) with a souped-up air canon. I’m sorry but it isn’t happening. It’s way to heavy, that drill’s not flying anywhere. And it’s most certainly not hauling a Bouncer’s 600+ lbs, partially metal, negatively buoyant at the bottom of the Atlantic, body along behind it.

The Whole thing where the Bouncer Kills Booker-stock and Elizabeth in the Department Store:

They’re killed by a Bouncer for hurting/upsetting Sally. Something that logically shouldn’t be happening considering the Little Sisters and Big Daddies haven’t been bonded yet as far as Burial at Sea is concerned. Suchong hasn’t cracked the code yet [And as far as Burial at Sea is concerned he doesn’t]. Elizabeth is the one to figure out Big Daddy-Little Sister bonding, after this fight takes place.

The only logical explanation as to why that Bouncer would attack them after hearing Sally scream for Mr. Bubbles, or the fact that Sally would scream for help from a Big Daddy at all, is that the relationship between Big Daddies and Little Sisters have already been successfully created.

This scene is only further muddled by the Big Daddy-Little Sister bonding scene in the second episode. In which Leta and Masha refer to the Bouncer, not as Mr. Bubbles, but as Monster. They’re terrified of it, even though they’re most likely supposed to have already gone through mental conditioning considering their disjointed speech, and seeing the Big Daddy as a positive figure who is a beacon of protection is part of said mental conditioning.

This either means that the Thorn in the Lion’s Paw method of boding just happened randomly to that specific Bouncer and Sally, while they were both in the department store. Or it means that the story blatantly contradicts itself in it’s desperation to make Elizabeth the most important person in Bioshock canon.

IDK, but honestly I’m pretty sure it’s the second one.

In event of moon disaster...

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.

Discovered in the archives of the Nixon Administration by the historian James Mann in 1999, the speech was composed by Nixon’s then speechwriter, William Safire, to be used in the event of a disaster that would maroon the astronauts on the moon.

To: H. R. Haldeman From: Bill Safire July 18, 1969. IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER: Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT: The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be. AFTER THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN: A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to “the deepest of the deep,” concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.

‘Heathen Survivals’

“In Scotland, as in other parts of the British Isles, the conversion to Christianity was largely led by foreign saints who were of noble birth or royal descent. They converted the tribal kings who then forced the new religion onto their subjects. For this reason the process was resisted by the lower class, and even by some members of the ruling power elite. The Chronicle of Lonecast recorded that as late as the 13th century Father John, the parish priest of Inverkiething, seduced young village girls so they danced wantonly around an ithyphallic stone idol. He allegedly 'stirred them to lust and [to] use filthy language' while leading a procession around the churchyard holding aloft a representation of 'the male organ of generation' on top of a pole. At Loch Mournie in the 17th century the local minister condemned his practitioners for continuing to practice the pagan ritual of sacrificing bulls. Twenty years later Hector Mackenzie of Mellon, his two sons and his grandson were summoned before a session of the kirk (church) elders to explain why they had killed a bull on their farm "in ane heathenish mannere". In his defense Mackenzie told the elders the sacrifice was an attempt to recover the health of his sick wife. It was not recorded who the animal was sacrificed to.

In 1650 a woman was called to account before the kirk elders for killing and burying a lamb under the threshold of a house, a magical liminal place. She told them she had sacrificed one of her flock of new-born lambs, the healthiest, so the rest would be protected from disease. When Isobel Young was charged with sorcery in 1692 for burying a live ox, her son told the court it was common husbandry practice and nothing to do with witchcraft. In a program broadcast at Hallowe'en 2009 the local radio station on the Isle of Lewis mentioned a letter written by a 17th century visitor to the island calling on the laird and the church to outlaw 'barbaric customs' at that time of year. The writer said he had seen a bull sacrificed and its blood spilt on the earth and ritual bonfires blazing on every hill. (Letter from Linda Fallows to author 31.10.2009)

On the Isle of Mull disease broke out in the herds of cattle in 1767. It was decided to take drastic measures to deal with the outbreak. A need- fire was lit on a hilltop without the use of flint and by friction between two pieces of wood. 'Need' is from the Old English niedfyr and the Old German nieten, meaning 'to churn'. The fire had to be lit before moonrise and during its lighting an old man chanted an incantation. Then a sick heifer was sacrificed and the diseased part of the animal was cut out and burnt on the need-fire. The rest of the good meat was then cooked and eaten by all those present as the fire gradually burnt down.

An ancient druidic cure for epilepsy still practiced in the Highlands at the beginning of the 20th century required the sacrifice ofa black cockerel. A hole was dug near to where the patient had experienced their last fit. The bird was buried alive while an incantation was read out calling on the earth to "swallow the evil". Shortly afterwards the sufferer would recover and, it was claimed, would have no more fits during their life.

In 1909 when a farmer died on Orkney his grieving family sacrificed his prize heifer. This was said to be an offering to the hogboy or hogboon, from the Norwegian haug-bui or haug-buinn meaning 'mound dweller'. This was the Norse term for a tutelary or guardian spirit associated with ancient burial mounds. Sometimes the hogboy was believed to be the shade or earthbound spirit of a former owner of the nearby farmstead or the ancestral founder of the family concerned. They remained earthbound to watch over their property, land and descendants and to monitor the progress of the estate down the generations.

In the 18th century Martin Martin said that the inhabitants on the Isle of Lewis still performed sacrifices to an ancient sea-god called Shoni or Shoney on Hallowe'en (October 31s). They brewed a special beer and after sunset threw cups of it into the sea. Afterwards everyone went to the local kirk and sat in the pews in silence while a candle was lit on the altar. This candle had to burn down and go out before they would leave. The rest of the night was then spent in the fields drinking, eating, singing and dancing. It was believed this ritual would ensure a good crop of seaweed used as fertilizer on the fields and therefore a bountiful harvest for the next year.

In the Hebrides St Michael, the patron saint of horses, horsemen and boats, was spoken of in the 19th century as "the god Michael". On the saint's feast day of Michaelmas (September 29th), a special bannock or oat cake was baked inside a lamb's skin. It was then blessed at a special Mass by the priest and dedicated to the saint. It was also a traditional custom on the same day to hold horse races and, unusually, both men and women participated in these events.

As well as blood sacrifices there was also a folk tradition of making offerings to the genii loci, the 'spirits of a place' or nature spirits, that inhabited the countryside. In 1697 when Martin Martin was travelling through Scotland he said country people still held pre-Christian beliefs. Although they claimed to outsiders that they were God-fearing pious folk, secretly they believed the hills were inhabited by spirits and made offerings to them. These entities could appear in an instant from their natural hiding places whenever they wanted to startle a passing traveller.

In January 1657 at Cullen in Forfarshire Margaret Philp was arrested on a charge of practising witchcraft. Her servant, Isobel Imblaugh, who may have been related to Philp's husband as they shared the same surname, testified she had seen her mistress have dealings with a spirit taking the form of a talking hare. Imblaugh said she had seen Philp put out a bannock, a jug of beer and a piece of meat for the sprite and the next morning it was all gone. On another occasion the spirit-hare had allegedly entered the house through an open window and drank the beer left out for it in a bowl. In the 19th century superstitious Highlanders left offerings of milk at 'fairy hills' (prehistoric burial mounds) and standing stones for the faeries known as brownies.

Aspects of pagan moon worship also survived in folk magic and folk customs. People believed warts could be cured by a simple ritual at new moon. When its crescent was first seen in the night sky a handful of soil was taken from under the right foot of the sufferer. This was then made into a paste using the affected person's saliva and spread over the infected part of the skin. This was then covered with a dressing and left until the lunar disc had waxed to full and then waned again. It was removed when the crescent of the next new moon was seen in the sky. It was said that this procedure was always successful in removing the blemish. Unmarried women also performed a ritual at the new moon to divine who their future lovers or husbands would be. When they could see the lunar crescent in the sky they sat astride a gate or stile without any underwear on. They then recited the following charm:

'All hail to thee the moon, All hail to thee, I privy good moon, declare to me, This very night, who my husband shalt be'

Various wells and springs all over Scotland were visited until comparatively recent times for healing purposes. Many of these places were said to have specific properties to heal diseases and illnesses in a throwback to pre-Christian times. For instance any well dedicated to St Tegla was claimed to be able to cure the 'falling sickness', probably dizziness caused by fluctuating blood pressure levels. St John's Well at Balmanno in Kincardshire was frequented by parents taking their children to be cured of rickets, a once common disease caused by malnutrition. St Kilda's Well cured deafness and drinking the waters of Trinity Well in Perthshire was reputed to be able to cure even the so- called Black Death, or bubonic plague.

St Fillan's Well near Tyndwell in Perthshire was visited by those suffering from mental illness. They were first dipped in the water by their carers and then taken to a nearby chapel. Once inside they were tied up and the chapel's bell was placed on top of their heads. The patient was then left in this uncomfortable and rather undignified position overnight. When their relatives returned the next morning at dawn they were supposed to have been cured.

Another well used to try and cure the mentally ill was situated on the isle of St Maelrubla on Loch Moree in Ross and Cromarty. Near the well was a tree where pilgrims hammered coins into its trunk as offerings to the saint or the spirit of the well. There were also the remains of a stone altar on the island allegedly used by the druids to sacrifice bulls on in ancient times. When St Columba arrived in the area he reconsecrated it to the Christian faith.

People suffering from depression, anxiety, or other mental problems were rowed out to the island in boats. Just before reaching landfall they were thrown out into the shallow water and then dragged by ropes the rest of the way to the shore. Once at the well they were forced to drink the water and a piece of their clothing was cut off and hung from one of the branches of the tree. An offering of a coin was then made by hammering it into the trunk. It was said that the well's healing properties were negated when a shepherd threw his mad dog into it. This apparently caused the spirit who inhabited the well to leave.

Some of the holy wells were only potent at certain times of the year. One example was at Craigie, which only possessed healing properties on the first Sunday in May. Its waters were said to be a powerful antidote to all known diseases, malefic witchcraft and the baleful influence of the Good People or faery folk. Crowds gathered at the well and colored threads and scraps of clothing were hung on the shrubs and rocks surrounding it.Other wells were given offerings of pins, needles or coins in a far memory of the sacrifices given to water deities in pagan times.

The prehistoric megalithic monuments of Scotland still retained their special nature after the conversion to the new religion. An ancient custom of holding legal courts at stone circles for settling property and land disputes survived into historical times. The bishop of Aberdeen held one at the Ring of Peddles and a nobleman called William de Saint Michael was summoned to attend it. He was asked to explain why he had seized some property from the Catholic Church. Forty years later the son of King Robert II of Scotland held a special court at a stone circle and called the bishop of Moray to justify why he was making a claim on some land at Badenoch. This ancient custom also survived in Wales. In the 1980s a man asked a council official to meet him on neutral ground at the Pentre Ifan cromlech near Newport in Pembrokeshire to discuss a longstanding property disagreement.

Following the conversion of the pagan Scots prehistoric sites like stone circles, standing stones and burial mounds were popularly believed to be the meeting places of witches, the haunts of spirits of the ancestral dead, and the habitat of faeries, elves and goblins. One witch was seen to regularly visit a local standing stone for unknown purposes of a magical nature. Another, Helen Rogie of Lumpahana, was accused of building a cairn or pile of stones on a hilltop for the practice of alleged 'devil worship.' She was probably making offerings to, or doing rituals involving, the genii loci.

In 1649 the male witch Andro or Andrew Man was accused of setting up a stone as an idol. He was seen to perform a "superstitious ceremony", taking off his hat to bow to it. In his defense Man claimed it was only a boundary stone marking the edge of his land and the beginning of his neighbor's. This is interesting in itself as in prehistoric times standing stones were often erected for just this purpose, to divide one tribe's land from another's. Such boundary makers were also regarded as having a magical liminal significance. The kirk refused to accept Man's explanation and decided he was performing some kind of “heathenish practice". He was ordered to break the stone into four pieces.

One of the earliest recorded examples of witchcraft in Scotland was in the 2nd century CE when King Natholocus consulted a famous witch living on the sacred island of Iona. The King had just lost an important battle with a rebel army who were trying to overthrow him. He sent a messenger to the witch to ask her advice about what he should do next. Unfortunately after consulting the spirits she predicted the King would be murdered. This dastardly deed would not be carried out by one of his enemies, but by somebody close to him who he trusted.

The King's messenger demanded to know by whose treacherous hand his master would be killed. The witch gave a mocking laugh and replied; "Even thine, so shalt be well known within these few days." The man returned to court in some distress and at first he was reluctant to pass the witch's prediction to the King. He thought if he told the truth the King would put him to death. However, if he kept it secret one of the others present might tell the King anyway. Only one possible alternative was left. Just as the witch had predicted, he entered the King's bedchamber during the night and stabbed him dead while he slept.

St Patricus or Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was a 5th century Romano-British subject allegedly kidnapped by Irish pirates and sold as a slave to the king of the Dalriada tribe in Scotia. However an alternative story says that Patrick was forced to flee from his home country of Scotland to Ireland after being attacked by the witches of Dumbarton. He fled in a boat across the sea to escape them as he knew the dark sisterhood were unable to cross water. 

During the 7th century King Kenneth became so concerned at the widespread practice of witchcraft and wizardry in his Scottish kingdom that he passed a new law condemning its practitioners to death. Three hundred years later King Duffus (who reigned from 962 to 966), the son of King Malcolm I, fell ill with a mysterious malady and began to physically fade away. His physicians could not help him and they began to believe some form of witchcraft was involved in the ruler's dramatic and potentially fatal decline in health.

A few days after the King became ill word reached the court that a number of witches had been gathering nearby to magically bring his death. A young girl who worked in the royal kitchens had been overheard threatening Duffus' life. The governor of Forres Castle immediately ordered her to be arrested and interrogated about the alleged plot. She named her own mother as the head of a witches' coven casting spells against the sick King. As a result of the servant girl's confession several women including her mother were detained. They were caught red- handed in the act of roasting a wax image representing the King over a fire. Once the image had been destroyed and the witches summarily executed the King recovered his health.”

—

Scottish Witches and Warlocks

by Michael Howard

Breaking the Circle - Part 14 1802 words

The marsh wasn’t actually a grave site. People had, however, died there, often through unsavory means such as drowning or dismemberment from the local wildlife. This meant the corpses walking out of the murk were in poor shape indeed, rotted and bloated or missing entire limbs as they clawed after the breath of the living.

“We have no idea what’s causing it. Some of us have tools to detect anomalies - dowsing rods and the like, but no one wants to venture too far from the village when there’s walkers out there,” Cepheus explained as he set out ceramic cups of what looked to be tea. “It’s hard to see them coming, as you can imagine.”

The tiefling’s home was more of a shack than a house: one room with a mattress in the corner and a woodstove crowding a quarter of the floor space. Shelves on the walls housed unfamiliar tools and instruments, some of which ticked and hummed softly in the background. Reynin and Hartline gathered at a rickety table, rapt as Cepheus explained the town’s plight.

“Have the dead reanimated in this area before?” Reynin asked.

In his training, he was taught that restless souls were often individual cases; usually through an intersection of energy and spirituality and hastened by improper burial procedures. If that many people had died in the marsh, it would make sense to see a corpse or two every once in a while, but so many at once was unusual.

“No,” Cepheus said. He pulled a chair back and joined them at the table, curling his long copper fingers around his own cup. “We may not walk the Mortal Coil the same way you do, but we know how to prevent necrotic occurrences.”

Reynin raised his eyebrows. “There are other ways to do that?” A stray gust of wind shook one of the shack’s walls, rattling the instruments on the shelves.

Across the table, Hartline took a sip from their drink, made a face, and put the cup back down.

“There are lots of things you can do without divine intervention,” Cepheus explained, casting an amused glance at Hartline. “Because Oar’s Rest isn’t sanctioned by the church, we don’t have to follow its rules.” He paused to consider their expressions, as if debating whether to continue speaking. “Which means,” he went on, “we can draw power from other sources.”

“Sources like what?” Hartline asked, brow furrowed.

Cepheus waved a hand. “Energy comes in many forms,” he explained. “Water. Wind. Sunlight. If you cast a spell powered by the ocean, some may think they’re blessed by a sea god. Others, like myself, may just see a strong connection with science. It’s arbitrary, and it depends on the catalyst the energy moves through.”

At the mention of the ocean, Hartline flashed an urgent look at Reynin, who nodded. They always had a suspicion the western sea housed a power of its own, but this was their first time speaking with anyone who agreed with them.

“I wouldn’t go repeating that back home,” Cepheus advised as he watched their silent exchange. “I’d feel pretty bad if you were executed for blasphemy.”

“They haven’t done that in a long time,” Reynin said, but Hartline looked skeptical as they sat back in their chair.

“Better not give them a reason to bring it back, then,” Cepheus insisted. “But it’s good you’re open to different ideas. I’m not sure if Telis or Soyinka exist, but if they do, it seems pretty limiting that their power only works in a particular way.”

“They exist,” Reynin couldn’t keep himself from blurting. “Soyinka’s spoken to me. I’ve felt her presence.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Cepheus said, and it sounded like he meant it. He took a slow drink. “But it begs the question: has everyone who’s felt her presence known her by that name? Channeled her energy in the same way?”

“I…” Reynin faltered, pondering. He hadn’t considered that before.

“And if there are people out there who don’t follow the Sisters,” he went on, “does that make those other energy sources gods, or something else?”

Hartline suddenly became very preoccupied with the cuticle of their thumbnail as silence settled in the shack like fog. Reynin thought for a moment, observing the dark liquid in his cup so he wouldn’t have to meet the tiefling’s stormcloud stare.

“At the risk of sounding naive,” he finally answered, feeling out of his depth as he said it, “Soyinka and Telis are all I know.”

Cepheus nodded with understanding. “That’s very honest of you. And if she helps you solve our corpse problem, I frankly don’t care what name she goes by.”

Reynin smiled graciously, but inside he felt a quiet discomfort. It wasn’t that Cepheus’s question made him doubt his goddess; he could feel her unmistakable power in his blood every time he touched his sword. Instead, the idea of his Lady’s influence meaning different things to different people opened a window in his mind, shedding sunlight on a place that once was shuttered. It was a line of thought he hadn’t explored before, and he was wary of touching whatever had been growing there in the darkness. Pensively, he tried the drink Cepheus served them and found it tasted a lot like cinnamon.

Cepheus passed his gaze to Hartline next. They were staring back at him intently, using the dark, penetrating focus they reserved for those they were paying particular attention to. Many faltered under that heavy look, but Cepheus was unwavering as he asked, “And has Telis spoken to you?”

Hartline crossed their arms, eyebrows drawn in warily. “Once or twice,” they answered.

“And how do you know it was really her?”

“Only Telis could be such a massive bitch.”

Reynin coughed and spluttered into his drink. “Hartline.”

Cepheus chuckled. “No wonder Cass said she liked you.” He rolled his shoulders in a strangely elegant shrug. “It’s just a question, anyhow. I’m not asking you to disavow your religion to stay here.” He studied them for a moment longer, considering. “I just hope this isn’t too dangerous for the two of you. You’re a lot younger than I expected.”

“Sorry we didn’t bring a letter of recommendation,” Hartline replied darkly.

“Cass’s recommendation is all I needed,” Cepheus said, ignoring Hartline’s sarcasm. “She can be a bit unruly, but she judges character better than anyone I know.”

Reynin’s eyes were drawn to Hartline on impulse. It was a sentiment he shared deep in his chest - Hartline was slow to trust and quick to dismiss, but as soon as they made a decision about someone, Reynin followed their instinct unwaveringly. Catching his gaze, Hartline raised an eyebrow. Reynin just smiled at them in return.

“Is Cass going to be in town while we’re here?” Hartline asked.

Cepheus shook his head with a small laugh. “I told her to stay in Whitecap with our parents, but she hardly listens to me,” he explained. “You might see her. I hope she keeps her distance, though. It’s not exactly safe for her here.”

“Like it isn’t safe for you to be in Whitecap?” Reynin guessed.

For a moment, Cepheus almost looked angry, but his expression quickly cleared like dawn breaking through clouds. Reynin didn’t know how one person could direct such a captivating presence, even in their dingy surroundings. Perhaps it was just the unusual perspective he posited that made him so peculiar. When he nodded at Reynin, it made his stomach flip all the same.

“If we’re going into the marsh today, I need to get us a ride,” Cepheus said abruptly, rising from his seat. “You’re welcome to rest here in the meantime. There’s… well,” he gestured to the tiny space. “Pick a spot, I guess.”

“Thank you very much, Cepheus,” Reynin said, mirroring him by standing too. “We appreciate your hospitality.”

The tiefling smiled. “Just don’t touch anything on the shelves,” he replied.

Reynin hoped he was the only one who heard Hartline’s tiny scoff as Cepheus shut the door behind him.

---

Keeping watch over Reynin while he slept had become a habit for Hartline. He’d lost count of how many times his paladin slipped into his room in the early hours of the morning, wounded and spent from his missions with The Sword. Ever since Reynin first asked if he could stay, the two of them developed a routine of it. Hartline, with his back to the headboard watching the sky wake up, and Reynin beside him, slumbering close enough to touch only with the edge of an elbow. It was a soft familiarity Hartline had privately come to look forward to.

In Cepheus’s house, it was a bit different; they avoided the strange intimacy of an acquaintance’s unmade bed and settled against the wall instead. Hartline kept an eye on the door, doubtful either of them would get any rest in such an unfamiliar place, but not long after Reynin slid to the floor, his breathing evened out to a restful rhythm. The edge of his fingertips touched the side of Hartline’s leg, a minimum allowable contact without being completely separated.

Reynin was either incredibly trusting or incredibly exhausted. Hartline watched him sleep, guessing it was probably a bit of both. He always seemed to be tired these days. While he covered it easily with a smile, Hartline still noticed the lines beneath his eyes and the way his posture sagged when he thought no one was paying attention. His service to the temple was taking something critical from him, either his soul or his hope or something unnameable Hartline couldn’t find.

Cepheus’s words about deities and energy had Hartline’s thoughts spinning. Was that how Reynin was able to keep his head up even in his exhaustion? Was Soyinka supporting him with her power, or was the burden of her touch weighing him down? Reynin was an extraordinary individual, but he was still mortal, and thinking of his body as a conduit for a god put Hartline ill at ease. Flesh and bone could only withstand so much. They didn’t want to watch Reynin burn out like a dying star.

As the devices on Cehpeus’s shelves tick tick ticked away, Hartline fought the impulse to thread their fingers through Reynin’s hair, to run a hand down his back, anything that might soothe some of the fatigue in their friend’s heart. A few years ago, they might have gotten away with something like that, but now it would mean something different. Hartline’s feelings for Reynin had been swelling in their ribcage gradually, flooding their lungs with devotion until they could scarcely breathe. If they touched him now, it would awaken something far more profound than just the man dozing at their side.

Hartline would be lying if they said they weren’t a little afraid of it.

Two Hundred Fifty Things an Architect Should Know

by Michael Sorkin

  1.    The feel of cool marble under bare feet.   2.    How to live in a small room with five strangers for six months.   3.    With the same strangers in a lifeboat for one week.   4.    The modulus of rupture.   5.    The distance a shout carries in the city.   6.    The distance of a whisper.   7.    Everything possible about Hatshepsut’s temple (try not to see it as   ‘modernist’ avant la lettre).

The Temple of Hatshepsut 

  8.    The number of people with rent subsidies in New York City.   9.    In your town (include the rich). 10.    The flowering season for azaleas. 11.    The insulating properties of glass. 12.    The history of its production and use. 13.    And of its meaning. 14.    How to lay bricks. 15.    What Victor Hugo really meant by ‘this will kill that.’ 16.    The rate at which the seas are rising. 17.    Building information modeling (BIM). 18.    How to unclog a Rapidograph. 19.    The Gini coefficient. 20.    A comfortable tread-to-riser ratio for a six-year-old. 21.    In a wheelchair. 22.    The energy embodied in aluminum. 23.    How to turn a corner. 24.    How to design a corner. 25.    How to sit in a corner. 26.    How Antoni Gaudí modeled the Sagrada Família and calculated its structure. 27.    The proportioning system for the Villa Rotonda. 28.    The rate at which that carpet you specified off-gasses. 29.    The relevant sections of the Code of Hammurabi. 30.    The migratory patterns of warblers and other seasonal travellers. 31.    The basics of mud construction. 32.    The direction of prevailing winds. 33.    Hydrology is destiny. 34.    Jane Jacobs in and out. 35.    Something about feng shui. 36.    Something about Vastu Shilpa. 37.    Elementary ergonomics. 38.    The color wheel. 39.    What the client wants. 40.    What the client thinks it wants. 41.    What the client needs. 42.    What the client can afford. 43.    What the planet can afford. 44.    The theoretical bases for modernity and a great deal about its factions and inflections. 45.    What post-Fordism means for the mode of production of building. 46.    Another language. 47.    What the brick really wants. 48.    The difference between Winchester Cathedral and a bicycle shed. 49.    What went wrong in Fatehpur Sikri. 50.    What went wrong in Pruitt-Igoe. 51.    What went wrong with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. 52.    Where the CCTV cameras are. 53.    Why Mies really left Germany. 54.    How people lived in Çatal Hüyük. 55.    The structural properties of tufa. 56.    How to calculate the dimensions of brise-soleil. 57.    The kilowatt costs of photovoltaic cells. 58.    Vitruvius. 59.    Walter Benjamin. 60.    Marshall Berman. 61.    The secrets of the success of Robert Moses. 62.    How the dome on the Duomo in Florence was built.

Duomo in Florence

63.    The reciprocal influences of Chinese and Japanese building. 64.    The cycle of the Ise Shrine. 65.    Entasis. 66.    The history of Soweto. 67.    What it’s like to walk down the Ramblas. 68.    Back-up. 69.    The proper proportions of a gin martini. 70.    Shear and moment. 71.    Shakespeare, et cetera. 72.    How the crow flies. 73.    The difference between a ghetto and a neighborhood. 74.    How the pyramids were built. 75.    Why. 76.    The pleasures of the suburbs. 77.    The horrors. 78.    The quality of light passing through ice. 79.    The meaninglessness of borders. 80.    The reasons for their tenacity. 81.    The creativity of the ecotone. 82.    The need for freaks. 83.    Accidents must happen. 84.    It is possible to begin designing anywhere. 85.    The smell of concrete after rain. 86.    The angle of the sun at the equinox. 87.    How to ride a bicycle. 88.    The depth of the aquifer beneath you. 89.    The slope of a handicapped ramp. 90.    The wages of construction workers. 91.    Perspective by hand. 92.    Sentence structure. 93.    The pleasure of a spritz at sunset at a table by the Grand Canal. 94.    The thrill of the ride. 95.    Where materials come from. 96.    How to get lost. 97.    The pattern of artificial light at night, seen from space. 98.    What human differences are defensible in practice. 99.    Creation is a patient search. 100.    The debate between Otto Wagner and Camillo Sitte. 101.    The reasons for the split between architecture and engineering. 102.    Many ideas about what constitutes utopia. 103.    The social and formal organization of the villages of the Dogon. 104.    Brutalism, Bowellism, and the Baroque. 105.    How to dérive. 106.    Woodshop safety. 107.    A great deal about the Gothic. 108.    The architectural impact of colonialism on the cities of North Africa. 109.    A distaste for imperialism. 110.    The history of Beijing.

Beijing Skyline

111.    Dutch domestic architecture in the 17th century. 112.    Aristotle’s Politics. 113.    His Poetics. 114.    The basics of wattle and daub. 115.    The origins of the balloon frame. 116.    The rate at which copper acquires its patina. 117.    The levels of particulates in the air of Tianjin. 118.    The capacity of white pine trees to sequester carbon. 119.    Where else to sink it. 120.    The fire code. 121.    The seismic code. 122.    The health code. 123.    The Romantics, throughout the arts and philosophy. 124.    How to listen closely. 125.    That there is a big danger in working in a single medium. The logjam you don’t even know you’re stuck in will be broken by a shift in representation. 126.    The exquisite corpse. 127.    Scissors, stone, paper. 128.    Good Bordeaux. 129.    Good beer. 130.    How to escape a maze. 131.    QWERTY. 132.    Fear. 133.    Finding your way around Prague, Fez, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Kyoto, Rio, Mexico, Solo, Benares, Bangkok, Leningrad, Isfahan. 134.    The proper way to behave with interns. 135.    Maya, Revit, Catia, whatever. 136.    The history of big machines, including those that can fly. 137.    How to calculate ecological footprints. 138.    Three good lunch spots within walking distance. 139.    The value of human life. 140.    Who pays. 141.    Who profits. 142.    The Venturi effect. 143.    How people pee. 144.    What to refuse to do, even for the money. 145.    The fine print in the contract. 146.    A smattering of naval architecture. 147.    The idea of too far. 148.    The idea of too close. 149.    Burial practices in a wide range of cultures. 150.    The density needed to support a pharmacy. 151.    The density needed to support a subway. 152.    The effect of the design of your city on food miles for fresh produce. 153.    Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes. 154.    Capability Brown, André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Muso Soseki, Ji Cheng, and Roberto Burle Marx. 155.    Constructivism, in and out. 156.    Sinan. 157.    Squatter settlements via visits and conversations with residents. 158.    The history and techniques of architectural representation across cultures. 159.    Several other artistic media. 160.    A bit of chemistry and physics. 161.    Geodesics. 162.    Geodetics. 163.    Geomorphology. 164.    Geography. 165.    The Law of the Andes. 166.    Cappadocia first-hand.

Cappadocia

167.    The importance of the Amazon. 168.    How to patch leaks. 169.    What makes you happy. 170.    The components of a comfortable environment for sleep. 171.    The view from the Acropolis. 172.    The way to Santa Fe. 173.    The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 174.    Where to eat in Brooklyn. 175.    Half as much as a London cabbie. 176.    The Nolli Plan. 177.    The Cerdà Plan. 178.    The Haussmann Plan. 179.    Slope analysis. 180.    Darkroom procedures and Photoshop. 181.    Dawn breaking after a bender. 182.    Styles of genealogy and taxonomy. 183.    Betty Friedan. 184.    Guy Debord. 185.    Ant Farm. 186.    Archigram. 187.    Club Med. 188.    Crepuscule in Dharamshala. 189.    Solid geometry. 190.    Strengths of materials (if only intuitively). 191.    Ha Long Bay. 192.    What’s been accomplished in Medellín. 193.    In Rio. 194.    In Calcutta. 195.    In Curitiba. 196.    In Mumbai. 197.    Who practices? (It is your duty to secure this space for all who want to.) 198.    Why you think architecture does any good. 199.    The depreciation cycle. 200.    What rusts. 201.    Good model-making techniques in wood and cardboard. 202.    How to play a musical instrument. 203.    Which way the wind blows. 204.    The acoustical properties of trees and shrubs. 205.    How to guard a house from floods. 206.    The connection between the Suprematists and Zaha. 207.    The connection between Oscar Niemeyer and Zaha. 208.    Where north (or south) is. 209.    How to give directions, efficiently and courteously. 210.    Stadtluft macht frei. 211.    Underneath the pavement the beach. 212.    Underneath the beach the pavement. 213.    The germ theory of disease. 214.    The importance of vitamin D. 215.    How close is too close. 216.    The capacity of a bioswale to recharge the aquifer. 217.    The draught of ferries. 218.    Bicycle safety and etiquette. 219.    The difference between gabions and riprap. 220.    The acoustic performance of Boston Symphony Hall.

Boston Symphony Hall

221.    How to open the window. 222.    The diameter of the earth. 223.    The number of gallons of water used in a shower. 224.    The distance at which you can recognize faces. 225.    How and when to bribe public officials (for the greater good). 226.    Concrete finishes. 227.    Brick bonds. 228.    The Housing Question by Friedrich Engels. 229.    The prismatic charms of Greek island towns. 230.    The energy potential of the wind. 231.    The cooling potential of the wind, including the use of chimneys and the stack effect. 232.    Paestum. 233.    Straw-bale building technology. 234.    Rachel Carson. 235.    Freud. 236.    The excellence of Michel de Klerk. 237.    Of Alvar Aalto. 238.    Of Lina Bo Bardi. 239.    The non-pharmacological components of a good club. 240.    Mesa Verde National Park. 241.    Chichen Itza. 242.    Your neighbors. 243.    The dimensions and proper orientation of sports fields. 244.    The remediation capacity of wetlands. 245.    The capacity of wetlands to attenuate storm surges. 246.    How to cut a truly elegant section. 247.    The depths of desire. 248.    The heights of folly. 249.    Low tide. 250.    The Golden and other ratios.

To: H.R. Haldeman From: Bill Safire July 18, 1969 IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.  These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery.  But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.  They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.  In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations.  In modern times, we do the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home.  Man's search will not be denied.  But these men were the first, and they will remain foremost in our hearts.  For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT:

The President should phone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to "the deepest of the deep," concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

---------------------------------------------

It’s a unique kind of pleasure to look back six or seven years in one’s social media history and discover that one’s younger self posted cool things, had neat opinions about unexpected subjects, and was genuinely the sort of person that one likes.  This was one of my favorite autoanthropological discoveries, although being reminded about Hildegard von Bingen was a close second.

The Unquiet Grave

Ahhhhhh okay so I was re-watching Penny Dreadful on Netflix and wanted to do something with the same dark romantic feel. And after talking to @confessions-of-a-yandere-freak I got the idea to do a Frankenstein thing. Thank you so much CoaYF (follow her she is amazing) Thank you @birooksun for talking with me about it and figuring out more of a direction to go in. And thank you @tara-the-quiet-bookworm-2016 for beta reading for me! Love you guys so much.

Italics are flashbacks 

Summary: Markus creates his monster

Warning: Medical procedures, kind of gory

Word count: 1.6k

The storm was moving in much slower than Markus would have wanted, the entire ordeal taking a greater toll on his mental state than he had anticipated. Even in his own laboratory the anxiety of being caught before his experiment could even truly begin was eating away at him. Hearing thunder off in the distance Markus made a short walk to the window to glance out, hoping to calm his nerves but only able to think of the illegal act he committed not even a day ago.

The shovel was a familiar and comforting weight in his hands as he made the trek through the cemetery, having only the cold light of the moon to illuminate his way.

“A lamp will only bring attention” Markus had told himself, being caught and sent to prison was not something he wanted to experience. Walking as swiftly and quietly as possible he made his way to his destination, a fresh grave.

A flash of lightning in the sky brought him back to the present. Turning to his experiment he made his way across the room quickly, retrieving the tools of his trade.

“There’s still work to be done.”

He placed the tray full of sterile medical equipment next to the body, briefly he mused if using sterile tools even mattered when the patient was already dead. Pushing the amused smile off his face he set to work. The body was in a relatively decent state, no noticeable decay had set in. The eye he had to replace looked almost normal, needing proper healing for it to settle in. As Markus worked on opening the body for the internal examination his mind started to drift again.

The grave was easy enough to find, with the burial being just that morning. The earth still fresh and slightly damp, the soft spoil making a satisfying “thu-sh” sound as he began the task of digging. It should have been a morbid task this grave digging, something that would have made those with true morals shudder at the thought of defiling a final resting place of the departed. To Markus however it was nothing more than a necessity, though maybe it was because he had already buried those thoughts deep within himself this morning as he watched the body laid to rest. It’s in the name of science, surely the poor soul who was under this dirt hadn’t wanted to die so young. A whole life was head of them, a life he could restore.

“Thunk”

The sound of metal scraping against wood snapped him out of his small moral crisis. Tossing his shovel out he moved as much to the side as he could and pulled the lid back.

Rain started to fall against the windows, causing Markus to realize just how little time he had to finish the examination. Truthfully he should have done the exam before now but his work at the local surgery had kept him busy much longer than he would have liked. Then the task of having to find a replacement eye hadn’t been easy, he thanked his stars when he went to the morgue and found a fresh body. He moved swiftly in removing the left eye, it was a different colour than that of his specimen but he supposed a heterochromia wasn’t all that strange. In a way it made it feel more personal to him, almost as if his creation would be more like him.

Attaching the eye into the socket was a simple enough task for someone trained as he, Markus found himself wondering what had caused you to lose an eye at this age. You couldn’t have been more than 23 years of age, he found himself thinking of his childhood stories of pirates and their eye patches. He laughed as he thought of someone as soft and young as you battling at sea, the more likely explanation was that you had simply gotten an infection in your eye causing it to be removed.

A simple incision was made, skin and muscle tissue peeled back, ribs cracked carefully to reveal the chest cavity.

The heart looked healthy enough, no tears or clogged arteries that needed repair. Kidneys and liver fine, intestinal tract intact, reproductive organs healthy. The lungs had a bit of scarring and upon further inspection they looked slightly damaged.

“Consumption, that must have been how you died. A painful death of drowning in your own blood, a shame.”

Inside the casket laid what Markus could only describe as an angel. Your skin almost porcelain in appearance, most likely due to the lack of blood, your hair carefully combed and styled in an appropriate way for a funeral. The only thing that gave away the body before him as deceased was the fact that there was no rise and fall of the chest. Upon closer inspection of the face he could see the left eyelid was slightly caved in, clicking his tongue Markus thought it a pity that a creature such as yourself had to live a life damaged in any form.

“You will do.” Quickly Markus scooped up your body and laid it in the tarp he had brought with him, mindfully wrapping you up for an easier journey home.   

Finished with the examination and pleased with the results he set to placing your ribs back and stitching your chest cavity up. Sutures was one thing Markus had always prided himself on, even in medical school his professors admired him for his steady hand and his tight stitching. Snipping the thread after the final stitch Markus had nothing more to do than to wait for the storm to grow closer. 

Standing to admire his work he was once again struck with anxiety in his stomach, what if this didn’t work all his hard work would be for naught. His sins would weigh upon his soul forever, surely he would be damned to whatever Hell there was for robbing a grave if this did not work. Perhaps even if it did work God had already damned him for trying to do what only the divine should do.

Markus thought back to his adoptive father, the anguish and emptiness he had felt when Carl passed. If he could prevent other hearts from breaking like his own then surely the eternal damnation in hellfire would be worth it. 

Cradling your bony cheek in his hand he begins to imagine what will become of the creature he creates.

“What shall your life be I wonder. Will you know the pain, happiness, and sorrow that life has to offer? Who will you become, a heartless demon of a person like my brother, or someone kind and soft as my father. What wondrous heartbreak is in store for you my dear one, I will be sure to guide you for as long as I can. Be by your side in all your trials and tribulations, documenting them all.”

As he spoke Markus’s hand drifted along your body, down your neck, along your collarbone, further down until he reached your chest. Lightly ghosting his fingers over it he imagined what your skin looked like when it was flush and alive, a loud crash of thunder made him realize that image may soon come to fruition.

Working quickly as the storm grew stronger Markus moved your body into the tub of chemicals. Markus then pulled the lever to open the sky light in the ceiling, running the lighting rod through the opening and anchoring it in place. 

Careful not to slip he runs to the switch, there he waits for a strike. Rain pours over his head and soaking him to the bone, suddenly the air filled with tension and the arm on his arms stood up on end. 

“CRASH”

Bright white electricity runs it’s way down the rod and into the tub, Markus pulls the lever down and the electronics surrounds the vat glow a bright blue. Sparks shoot from the devices causing them to short circuit, shutting the whole system down. 

Frantically Markus moves to the tub, watching as the liquid bubbles and churns around you. His heart beating against his chest so hard he’s sure it would be out of his chest. Lighting a small lamp he watches you closely for any sign of life.

5 minutes 

10 minutes 

The longer time goes by Markus fears his experiment is a failure, heartbroken and on the verge of tears he closes the sky light. Exhausted, he walks to his desk to write down his notes and failures. As tears roll down his face as he sorrowfully writes down what happened. Markus knows he will try again in the future, but that brings him no comfort in this moment. 

Slumping in his chair he absentmindedly watches the ink dry, his silent tears turn into body wracking sobs and wails. So caught up in his disappointment is he that he misses the sound of water moving. He misses the small gaps for breathe as you emerge from the tub. He doesn’t miss the sound of a body slamming into the floor. Alarmed Markus stands his chair falling and ink spilling, whirling around he seeing you. Shivering, cold, trying but unable to stand on your legs as if you are a new born fawn. As he moves toward you he sees you shrink into yourself and look at him with wide mismatched eyes, reminding him again of a fawn.

Shrugging his coat off he drapes it over your shoulders, your pale shaking hands wrap around it and pull it closer to him. Kneeling in front of you he places his hands on your shoulders.

He had done it, Markus was on par with God Himself now. 

“Hello, I’m Markus Manfred. Your creator”

Pre-planning the funeral with the help of Funeral Planning San Diego service provider

Death is the ultimate reality of life, and each individual should be prepared for it. You might be well aware of the funeral procedure and its rates. The funeral process is quite complicated and the costs of the funerals are high. If you pre-plan the funeral with the help of funeral planning San Diego service provider then it will be beneficial for you as well as for your family members. Now you will be assuming how pre-planning a funeral is beneficial. So, here are a few good reasons for pre-planning the funeral that will explain to you the same:

 You can minimize the financial burden

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 You can customize the funeral

 If you opt for pre-planning your funeral with the help of the funeral planning San Diego service provider then you can customize your funeral. If you pre-plan your funeral then you will have a chance to have your say while planning the funeral. You can reveal your requirements and customizations, so the funeral director will note them down, and they will ensure that they are fulfilled while arranging your funeral. You can do any additions while planning your funeral and they will be taken care of by the funeral planning service provider. 

 You can lock the deal at current funeral rates

 One of the biggest benefits of pre-planning your funeral with the help of funeral planning San Diego service provider is that you can lock the deal at current funeral rates. You know that the funeral rates are increasing regularly, so if you pre-plan the funeral you will be paying the funeral charges at the current costs, which will save you a good amount of money. And that’s why more people are preferring to pre-plan their funeral. 

 The pointers mentioned above are a few good reasons that explain why you should pre-plan your funeral with the help of a funeral planning service provider. If you pre-plan the funeral then you will minimize the financial burden from your loved ones, you can have your say, and you can lock the deal at current funeral rates.  

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Which King

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…

“6374 counts of treason, 5674 counts of sabotage and over 3000 of our own craft and Nazgul drones and bombers brought down by your hands and that of your squadron Colonel Pear. There is nothing you could possibly say to your defense to encourage leniency, however we are mandated to ask if you would wish to make a statement on your own behalf.”

Stoically you sat listening to the hours of this useless trial now at its end in the row in front of your equally as stoic squadron’s 20 officers in charge of distributing and enforcing your orders to the 10,000 Elves under your command who had been sabotaging each and every attack Maiar King Annatar had been waging on Valinor and now beginning in Middle Earth. Each and every city had been warned and the night before the attacks whenever possible you snuck out early and emptied as many as would flee to find shelter with written instructions of safe routes under your squadron’s patrols with safe houses and hidden bunkers along the way to allied territories until eyes were turned away and they could return to the charred, and if you were the ones to bomb them, merely spot covered kingdoms in need of some dirt to fill the craters left on their edges.

It had taken an age to gain the respect and title you had earned and when this fruitless war was called on innocents with no rhyme or reason behind it you sought to bring it down yourself however possible. And now you sat in front of the Councilman reluctantly following his own orders once another squadron leader had noticed your blatant lie that the city of Numenor had been bombed while your own carriers were emptying it to Gondor. He refused to kill the fleeing masses himself but he razed the island to cinders and blew the whistle fearing what would happen if he didn’t, far too many witnesses to play the fool.

“Councilman, I have no defense past a request of my own.”

“This should be good, What is your request Colonel?”

“I wish to submit myself for genetic testing for a bone marrow match for King Annatar before I am put to death.” His brow inched up as did those on everyone now in the room both behind you and on the pair of witnessing Corporals acting as jury for both those presenting the case and your squadron to exact swift and neutral justice on your case.

.

Shielded shackles shifted around your skin under the sleeves of your sweater with charged electric belt around your middle to enforce your proximity to the guard guiding you from your assigned van to the Hospital door. Your uniform was not allowed while you were on trial and you were forbidden to name yourself to your true rank. The frigid building meant to handle the King’s medical needs and those of the Nobles dwelling in Mordor as well opened for you and your face should have been well known, had the military not hushed up your actions to keep from supporters sprouting up.

Though the more they dug it wasn’t just your elite squadron to have been breaking their orders, more and more since you had started had been making a farce all their own to save whom they could stunning the world outside now coated in smoke and ash that the soldiers of Mordor weren’t heartless as their King. A glimmer of hope while they tried to balance their shifted kin and those housing them in the remaining kingdoms now ripe with forces to aid on defense by your actions.

Everyone was kind, curious but kind as to why a guard was sent with the stoic young Elleth in the sea of well known Nobles and the best medical staff in all of Mordor. Everyone knew the King was dying, everyone knew he needed plasma and bone marrow and had five failed transplants so far to counteract the poisons he had ingested by the assassination attempt that had killed his latest consort, mother to his publicly claimed, though still openly bastard, sons. Thousands had been tested and none had been matches enough with the procedure too deadly to kill the twin boys barely out of infancy you seemed to be the latest volunteer and the most curious.

It wasn’t until your trial you had removed your standard regulated issue of black contacts and had unwoven the black and red fake fireproof strands in the woven wax topped coating your head disguising your white gold shimmering curls and silver flecked purple eyes. The face was so familiar from the front five Nobles had hit the same column staring at you once they had realized it. Queen Morko, the first wife of King Annatar, disposed of when his arranged union was discovered dissolvable to break ties with Vanyar, one of the first lands he tried to wage war on. He won in his annulment being kept in the dark on his lawful heir by his own council and since then trying to find time when not ordering murders to have a son to sate his council on the matter of heirs.

Sharply the needle jammed into your hip and you bit back your groan reminding yourself this was possibly a way to save the men you had ordered to break the order of the King. Had they been following the orders of the Crown Princess they could be absolved of all blame, which would all fall to you then and they would be restored fully to their well deserved stations while your head fell alone. The hotel across the street would be where you were sent under heavy guard while awaiting the results and with arms crossed behind your back laying on the first bed you had slept on in over seven centuries a smirk ghosted across your lips hearing the guards learning through the walls that you were the King’s child.

Within the hour you were showered and changed into more suitable clothes having been brought to you and loaded up minus the shackles to be taken to the Palace. There was a mandatory 24 hour wait to prep for the procedure and first thing at the crack of dawn the King was set for his latest transplant.

It was almost comical how friendly and instantly the King’s right hand had moved to bring you close to him. A full tour of the now bustling Palace readying to house you as well was filled with wide eyed stares and gasps held in until you were in front of the fiery haired golden eyed King whose face fell in your entrance into the Royal Sitting Room. Up to the carpet, as you were told, you approached then dropped into a deep curtsy, “Your Majesty.”

Inching up in his seat he asked, “Morko did not inform me we had conceived.”

His eyes taking in each detail of your face in the tick of your brow and slight tilt of your head, “Then who’s been sending me birthday cards?”

That had his eyes darkening and brows furrow as you produced from your bags that had been brought from the hotel the box holding cards with simple notes and the forged signature of the King. Each one more infuriating than the last to him making him ask, “Since I seem to have been kept in the dark about my heir’s life what have you made of yourself?”

“I am a Colonel in the Wraith Ring. One of your Nine, heading Angmar’s territories.”

“Ah,” he inched up with a prideful grin, “You mastered the Witch King interface then?”

“I wrote it.” Deepening his grin even more. “Though I seem to have scuffed some elbows and technically am without title and my squadron is on line for guillotine. Donation was my last request.”

Sternly he stated, “I will not lose my best and most loyal,” the guard’s brow inched up only to drop hearing, “You are cleared of all charges as are your men. Any and all duties you formerly bore shall be bound to another while you will learn the ins and out of running our Kingdom. You are my heir, already our forces will honor your orders and now we will get my council behind you as well once I uncover just who has hidden you from me.”

By morning word had exploded through the kingdom and all territories Annatar ruled over, mainly the Dwarf Kingdoms of Moria and those of the Eastern Territories. The King had an heir conceived when the union was legal and born the day before it was dissolved fully. Should the transplant not cure him, in the time bought there was one to continue his reign, but through his enemies the rank and stated previously used protective surname had heads turning and hushed whispers spreading with hope that the Princess and Colonel Pear were one and the same.

.

A painful month came not just with the procedure but with the corseted gowns and constricting hairstyles you were forced into each day. Baths even were far from private moments, with you being dressed, fed and measured for new clothes each week to ensure the finest was worn, not even mentioning the weighty jewels and crown you were publicly donning it nearly had your skin crawling knowing how hungry your people were just outside these Palace gates. A full parade and the passing of Nauglamir now with all three Silmarils dangling from the front to go with your shimmering crown and gown looking like the living embodiment of snow, same as your mother on her wedding day.

Expectations however were made at the safety of your half brothers. A longstanding tradition of your clan being when one rose to power all other heirs were culled. Only with your squadron looking on as you followed the carriage carrying your father’s coffin an order to have the pair taken away never came, and the crying confused toddlers were taken from their nannies, now with baited breath who exhaled with all others at your carrying them and refusal to release them for hours. All through the sermon, burial and back again to your Palace you had gone. Five gunshots were heard and by morning the cremated remains of those most dangerous on the council were culled taking out the last of the council who had first agreed to the war.

Those you trusted were put in their places, those you had served with, and by noon invitations were sent out for the Dwarf Lords along with the Kings of Gondor and Rohan. Envoys were sent to the Elven territories bearing your seal, one with a pear in marigold wax, one you hoped might keep them from burning it straight off.

Out of the Kingdom the shadows were cast, the orc bots you had dismantled and melted down emptying the Palace of your forced shadows greatly easing your days. Those lingering on staff stood in fear at first at your first morning as Queen until they spotted you exiting your apartment suite in jeans and a sweater with bright fuzzy socks and comfy moccasin slippers. The crown was necessary for the rank but through your private breakfast and assuring the twins were well fed and their supplies were fully stocked for the day you got to work.

Into your office you went to start on the first item on your lists, all through the Kingdoms any advancing forces were already flying home, and now you were delving through the finances seeing what else you could cut. In the month of living in this palace with your father you had enough gems and gowns to last you a year for public events so that was an easy cut to ship in the ‘best’ materials and gems to be adorning you. Already that was thousands to shift into productions of food and repairs to housing and living conditions. Hours you slaved through each and every document ticking each and every expenditure of the economy you had a huge part in trashing by destroying so much of the machinery the King no doubt had ordered replaced.

War however was the biggest cut and by Friday the Kings had arrived to greet you formally. The Dwarf Kings all but collapsed as you stated you were releasing your father’s claims over their lands. Instead offering trade deals to continue your alliance on equal footing with a new set of deals to build trust with Rohan and Gondor, the Kings for which heartily agreed at your stating your bond of peace and ceasefire to the Elven Kingdoms. Your words echoing in their ears, “I hear great things of your lands, kingdoms and people. I hope one day to visit and see them for myself, as friends.”

It was a bucket of cold water to the world how simple it seemed. Even your own people did not know what to think of you at taking such ease in dismantling everything your father had built and taken as his own. But none fully understood past the soldiers returning who praised your deeds and efforts to their kin and returned ready to aid in the repairs to the slipping Kingdoms. Angmar was fit as a fiddle under your centuries of watch with your finest in charge there in your absence, Cirith Ungul was a close second leaving Mordor, the capitol the sore thumb in the bunch. Failing health had done nothing to encourage the King to mend anything right in front of him and this was where you would start.

With a Council fully behind you and Silmarils sent off to their true owners and troops drawn back on both sides along with a trading of prisoners all terms of the ceasefire had been honored. And for once your lands had seemed to fall into silence for the rest of the world. All of them timid and cautious not to poke the hornets nest again skirting just beyond the borders when necessary and never looking fully on into the lands once decorated with flaming eyes now traded for pears. That was your extravagance, a simple job to distract right now, each and every flaming eye covered with new banners to hang on the streetlamps.

But day by day eyes had turned to the reclusive Queen as whispers spread. Revenge had been taken, every monument to him once planned now for something new whenever the thought came to you. Ages you had fought and scrambled for safety and now in this silent Palace filled with nothing but expectations and open palms over the cries of the hungry and those in need, you never felt so afraid as when you had claimed your birthright. One truth you held to was the one that echoed through the soldiers under your command, you never signed up to kill babies. It was simple, you needed funds and a roof over your head when your mother had died and with a war being called for you found your place to go. Straight ahead never looking back and becoming the greatest asset to the rise and eventual downfall of the King. Day by day confidence grew at the pantries, number of repairs and services restored did.

.

Praise had come and with a looming date on the horizon a stunning silence from the Palace, while the boys slept through their nap you yourself had put them down for, shifting papers were taken as a plan to celebrate. It wasn’t a day to be missed out on, every kingdom had one, Name Day for their Ruling Family celebrated by all. Expectations however had bubbled and sank as once again through a score of meetings you sat hashing through more pathetic laws to be changed and had secured plans to travel to Rivendell to celebrate the birth of their young Princess, the first of your travels to supposedly enemy territory after your truce. The plans they had all hoped to hear of were for the celebration of your own birth, in true fashion no Noble could fashion a gift until you had openly begun planning it and with a week left there would be little to no time to find anything suitable.

Weeks you had slaved and in your usual fashion once again off the cold floor your cheek rose at the clunk of a bucket, a sharp inhale from you startled the young lady sent to clean your chimney in your study who dropped to a low curtsy. In her try to pretend she didn’t just find the Queen across the floor in a circle of notes in the cusp of a harsh biting winter storm set she stated, “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

Onto your feet you climbed brushing your curls back from your face furrowing your brows in a focusing squint at the clock, “No, no need for that.” To her again you looked and her eyes dropped from catching your glowing pair used to being shouted at by the King for doing so, “Tillie, right?”

Peering up at you she nodded her head with wide eyes wondering how you knew her name, “Yes, Ma’am.”

With a nod you said, “It seems I should leave you to your work, and try to rest before continuing mine. Just,” you sighed motioning a hand over the papers on the floor, “Don’t bother with this, I’ll deal with it later.” Out of the room you strolled and grumbled stretching your arms over your head lifting your baggy sweater a bit exposing the top of the logo on your cut off sweats matching the one on your tall fuzzy socks.

Into another curtsy she dropped stating, “Good night, Your Majesty.” Timidly shifting on her feet ensuring you had turned down the hall and out of her sight before anxiously turning back.

Whispers, steady and murmured was proof of their growing hope for how deeply you cared for your people. Each night found on one floor or chair in room after room. Dropping into sudden naps between meetings or simple meals urging the kitchen staff to add more hearty items to the menu to ensure you had enough to fuel you. All frivolity taken away and down to bare bones you had stripped the Majesty from the Palace, only in their eyes were you Queen glowing radiantly when you sat in meetings or burned at both ends through the night exhausting all you could to ensure the comfort of others. You knew pain and with no one to call your own and guide you to bed at night all they could do was wait and watch for you to ask for help or a break.

Still, every Sunday there was no meeting, no expected trip through the Kingdom to check on repairs yourself often ending with your pitching in and then returning home to play with the boys and see to their care until bed yourself as the rest of the week went. No, Sunday was the most unnerving of all as you wouldn’t even leave your rooms, and stolen glimpses from window washers by accident confirmed the silence was from your sleeping most of the day through. The break was well needed and not without use as you were often glowing more than usual on Monday through whatever was lined up for the day. But Sunday from to Tuesday whispers had grown and entering your dining room the boys were carried into you kissed them both and sat down helping to feed them while waiting on your own meal.

There should have been a parade, bands and banners, balloons and confetti shot into the air while you were paraded about Mordor. And yet the kitchen staff stared at the stack of waffles, sides and omelet you had wanted with a deep clench in their guts. You yourself had remarked on your age going up on this particular day leading up to it so it couldn’t be a misplaced date. This was deliberate, through the streets it flooded and remorseful gazes spread around knowing their Queen had cut her own celebration to ensure they had all they needed. Tears and sniffles at the weight of the sacrifice after all you had done for them grew by the moment and a slipped lit candle into the sliced orange on the side of your meal grated them what they imagined to be the only time you would smile that day.

Chuckling weakly to yourself you thanked the staff for their best wishes and blew out the candle, wishing only for a good spring to follow this harsh winter you had expected then dug in. A noon meeting came after more hours of delving through backlogged papers and records, one that halfway through the echo of distant music had your brows furrowing in a rise to approach the far window. The tearing of spare pieces of parchment from old posters had filled trash cans with homemade confetti and in a haphazard way a band was pulled together and into the main courtyard just outside the Palace gates you watched lanterns being strung up along with final touches.

Pulling on your coat you joined your fellow former officers out into the snow ensuring you had your crown on straight, out through the gates you went only to grin at the sea of people having all made origami swans and flowers with well wishes written inside as their gifts. Music continued and into the growing celebration you gladly spoke with all who wished to and giggled your way through a few dances with some of your officers and a very enthusiastic baker who thanked you so long for bringing his sons home safe to him. By sunset a final city wide singing of the traditional song for a wish for many returns had you holding back your tears that finally broke loose once you had gotten back inside after insisting everyone go home and get warm at the growing snow thanking them heartily.

The smallest ballroom now held the tokens and to bed you went trying to stop crying as you knew you would and had each year since losing your mother. So long you’d been alone and you didn’t need the reminder that you were alone for another year. At least with the boys the topic of heirs could be put off, they could be counted as yours for now until you had settled alliances and considered your options. Even with the war you were decided to choose well and that would be hard given your lineage. Still time could do wondrous things and perhaps your reputation could top his, one day cushioning the search for a Mr.

.

A marigold dress and heels where what you chose and after your secure flight you landed on the outskirts of Rivendell. Eyes were glued to you and those old enough straight away recognized which line you came from, not your father’s but your mother’s. Straight from High King Inwe, who was in attendance and had heard how you had saved those in the smaller territory your uncle ruled over, including him. Straight from the entrance to the mingling hall you went after a brief meeting with the aid in charge of greeting you until Lord Elrond would get to you in the long line of guests to greet himself. Distant relations from the Vanyar broke the silence and gathered around you with those from Gondolin next.

Beside Lord Ecthellion a familiar curly haired blonde Lord stood with a serious expression in taking in your every reaction while Lord Ecthellion questioned you inevitably asking the question they all had been wondering. “It is an honorable thing to have strove as hard as you have to spare as many as you had. However, I must ask why, why would you risk your life to do so? Any other King would have killed you for such disobedience.”

“It wasn’t what I signed up for.”

Lord Glorfindel asked coldly, “And just what did you sign up for?”

Your eyes met his and you said, “I had just buried Naneth and the forces promised shelter, a bed and food. I didn’t sign up to kill babies. He had already taken everything from me, someone had to try and stop him.”

Glorfindel harshly replied, “Some-,”

“From our side.”

Lord Ecthellion stated and drew your gaze, “Your eyes were brighter, of all the forces we interacted with, I doubted I could have ever mistaken them without your contacts. We received your letter of peace, consider it honored. We would cherish a friendship with you, Queen Jaqiearae. And if I may, Queen Morko would be proud.”

Forcing a grin you replied, “No, she would have insisted I forgive him and let him learn on his own without my intruding.”

Glorfindel, “Surely your offer to donate your bone marrow could be taken as forgiveness.”

Your eyes met his again, “One of the other officers turned me in. When my verdict at the treason trial was to be read I was allowed a statement. I requested to be tested for a match to the King before I lost my head.”

Glorfindel’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t follow.”

“Meaning the King had no clue I existed, and only I knew who I came from. When they learned who that was, my officers were following orders of the King’s Heir and would be pardoned from execution.”

Ecthellion, “You expected for him to kill you.” He stated it matter of factly with the shock of the words sinking in as you were approached by an aid you grinned to, “Queen Jaqiearae, Lord Elrond is ready to greet you.”

“Lovely,” In a nod to the others you stated, “My Lords.” Stepping away you felt their eyes on you and between themselves they chatted while you passed through the rest of the whispering Elves and now heavily guarded Lord waiting for you.

Nodding his head he stated, “Queen Jaqiearae, you made good time.”

“Yes, managed to coast on the edge of a storm. Thank you for inviting me, and congratulations on your third child. A daughter is a fine gift.”

That was sincere and that was what puzzled the guards, simple gratitude and a peaceful demeanor. “Thank you. We wished to prove our intentions of honoring your peace treaty and ceasefire, it was this or our Equinox celebration next month.”

“Ah, yes, I doubt I could have made the Equinox,” that made his brow inch up, “Our hail season over our peaks flights are grounded. All the same, I understand your caution and I do hope one day we might find comfort in one another’s company. And I do apologize if my gift is not rather impressive, I have not been privy to many noble celebrations to know what a proper gift for a Princess might be. As it goes my brothers are getting socks for theirs.”

Unable to help it he smirked at your hint of a smirk in amusement at your own pitiful joke and he replied, “I am certain our daughter will appreciate your gift no matter what it is. Just as I am certain your brothers will enjoy theirs. I was led to understand they are named as your heirs.”

You nodded, “I have spent so long in war, I know little else past leading people. Until I find myself guided to another I am content I have a cushion before my new council dares bring up my finding a suitor. As if I would be a catch.”

Elrond smirked replying, “You are more Morko than Annatar, your actions prove it. I trust you will have offers in no time.”

“Patience would be key then, I am terribly dull in warming up to others, in which many have lost interest on the pathway in.”

“True of us all, Queen Jaqiearae.” His lingering grin through the evening calmed a great deal of guests and his fond gazes from afar in your various mini interrogations solidified he had a budding trust for you already soon matched by a small group of others you hadn’t saved. In the pile of gifts a simple wooden box sat and with a grin Elrond and Celebrian inspected it and found the key. With it they opened the lid to see a miniature of Luthien dancing in the circle of rotating rings with Beren on a swiveling path but always obstructed by bushes to the iconic tune of the song in their honor. The gift itself was simple yet as she grew it could house a few simple pieces of jewelry or letters in the two drawers below the mirrored top but hearing you had made it yourself from scratch added to the sentiment of the intentions of it.

Clearly you were trying to be friendly, restraining your remarks from the defensive stance you would be allowed at having to constantly answer to everyone around you and the resolve to do so had worn down quite a bit of those still upset you had been invited. You remained off to the side and kept out of conversations unless invited cherishing the silence while it lasted and ended your first day in the gardens between two of the fountains avoiding another conversation, just staring up at the stars.

Behind you Glorfindel stated, “I misjudged you,” your head turned and his eyes met yours, “And for that I apologize, Queen Jaqiearae.”

“No need to apologize. So many people keep apologizing to me lately. I wish they would stop. I have never been one to demand them. We burned your cities, you owe me nothing, Lord Glorfindel.”

“Technically, you dirtied our cities and blew craters around them.”

The hint of teasing in his voice made your brow flinch a moment, “Careful there, someone might assume you were planning on sending me a cleaning bill.”

Lowly he chortled replying, “No doubt we have ample enough numbers to scrub our own kingdoms. Thanks to you more than half our crops were spared as well. Truly you could be the worst person to have guiding a King through war.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t have one then. Well, either of them.” Another glance up and you said, “I should head to bed before I fall asleep in Lord Elrond’s gardens.”

“Pity,” he teased and you looked him over curiously, “We were imagining some proof for the claims you sleep on the floor.”

“I am here for the weekend, there is time yet. Lord Glorfindel.” You bowed your head and he did the same and watched you turn to head for your assigned guest chambers.

Pt 2

Andros

- Most people only know Andros as ‘that prison planet with the island full of dudes, right?’ This misconception stems from several factors.

- When outsiders first came and visited Andros, what they found was indeed wast oceans and a handful of dry land inhabited by people who to the rest of the magical world looked like men. (Hence the inaccurate descriptor of “andro", as in male)

- Though Andros had it’s own diverse gender culture, it was not very dimorphic to be obvious to onlookers. Through cultural osmosis and their trade with other folk, they adopted many binary gender descriptors and physical attributes that they started to copy, mainly to fit in. A leader became a King, femme and masc presenting people began to predominantly date each other. Many scholars consider this to be the Big Cultural Dilation of Andros and wish to turn back to pre-contact days to restore their innate gender variety.

- But still off-worlders wonder, how is it possible for Androsians to reproduce when we thought all of them were cis dudes and half of them still live underwater? Well Androsian people are the only ones in the entire universe to be born completely magically.

- Androsian babies are born of a mound of birth-soil that is constructed by the couple wishing for a child and prayed to for four to eight weeks, imbued with genuine wishes, hopes, and proof of effort that the family is willing to put into raising the child. The last part is usually demonstrated by little hand-carved gifts from the extended family as well. Then finally, lightning will strike the mound gifting the child its first heartbeat and the couple will be able to dig their baby out of the mud.

- Birth-soil can’t be used twice, but in some families it is tradition to mingle a tiny bit of other beloved family member’s soil in there to strengthen their connection to the child and to honour their ancestors by letting their legacy continue in new life.

- In modern society, children are born with a placeholder name. Most common are Chiddi and Chita - Layla knew six whole Chiddis in her primary school. Them when the child is ready and feels like expressing a binary gender, they chose a name for themselves which the family validates with a small celebration. Layla was torn between ‘Layla’ and ‘Aisha’ for such a long time, that there are still parts of her family who call her Aisha to show support for her almost name, making her feel like she didn’t lose out too much by putting Layla down on paper officially.

- People who chose to be female can medically or magically transition. Equally, if someone changes their mind about their gender after their initial Choice, they can do the same without a hitch. Andros has the highest amount of trans people of all the magical dimension, closely followed by Zenith.

- Because people are born from mud, the concept of intermarrying does not exist on Andros. Powerful families generally preselect spouses for their children at a young age and such couples usually go through a quiet and amicable union as they lack the traumatic aspect that folk with other reproductive habits have. The primary goal of the couple is simply to find a working angle in their relationship so that when the time comes, their wishes and prayers for a child of their own can be genuine. The couple is not cut off from their respective families or social life even when there is a status imbalance between the two parties (in a situation that would be considered “marrying into a powerful family” on other planets). 

 - At the end of a person’s life Androsian funeral practices honour the circle of their existence by returning the body to soil. The process is akin embalming, in which the body gets covered in clay, microorganism rich starters, and seeds. The clay cocoon is then laid to rest in a designated cemetery area. Some people, predominately sorcerers however prefer a water burial, for they believe there will be a need for the physical strength of their body in the afterlife when they pay their magical toll, so slow decomposition is not their favoured way to go. A water funeral is technically a pire funeral, only here powers of the ocean are summoned to instantly degrade the body into fine dust that is then spread by the family in the ocean or another previously designated place that was important to the deceased. Following a burial there is always a celebration of life. Family and friends reminisce about the good times they had with the deceased and engage in festivities that are considered to be the largest exhibition of hedonism in the entire magical dimension. 

 - It is well known that most of the population are merpeople, but it is lesser known that for a long while they were the only humanoid life on the planet.

- Land dwelling life is not native to Andros. Merpeople had always been fascinated by the few islands worth of landmass that was like a forbidden Eden to them. Few had ever set eyes on it as only a handful of merpeople knew how to fly using their lungwings (the protrusion on their back meant for underwater breathing) and even they trained for the task their whole lives. So people turned to a different alternative and used their unique way of procreation to bridge the gap. The first couples built their birth mounds on land and prayed that their offspring may be able to walk on land. Wishes granted it took several generations to make the land habitable, but land-dwellers are prospering since and have now completely split from merfolk, politically and culturally - so much that off-planet people consider landfolk “people” and merfolk the “magical creatures”.

- Land-dwellers struggle with their geographic limitations a lot. They build their cities up to he very edge of tide-swept ocean, utilising the space they have to the last patch for agriculture. Wading through knee deep floods is a small price to pay for food on the table every season. Sometimes they fill the land between islands where the distance is narrow enough, or try to build bridges. However the most reliable form of transport is still by boat, be it transport of products, produce animals or even general public transport. Visiting Andros is not for the easily sea-sick! Seafaring is the lifeblood of Androsian people, it is the heartbeat that keeps industry and social interactions going.

- After establishing contact, Andros had really been only used as a prison planet. When fly-bys over the Omega dimension became too dangerous and too long a mission just to drop off criminals, people looked for a different solution. Just letting them fall from outer space in their capsules wasn’t working either as many shattered upon impact, freezing during the drop rather than combusting, and that challenged a lot of right debates, equating the procedure to ‘an execution by probability’ - not like freezing them in ice was technically a lot different from killing them.

- But Andros had a unique feature, which was the central ocean gate hub. As opposed to the ocean gates of other planets that lead only from the planet into the infinite ocean, Andros’ gate could be used to pass another gate at the same time. Technically this portal could have lead anywhere - and Valtor was using this feature gratuitously- but it was set up by Androsian sorcerers to selectively lead to the Omega dimension in a one way system.

- Other than the sometimes very, sometimes not so much lucrative prison system, Andros supports itself on its maritime based industry. They have several shipyards that design and test sea vessels for customers all over the dimension. Local fish and other seafood is also coveted, as well as sea based minerals such as pearls and high quality fine quartz sand that is commonly used in modern fibreoptics.

- Andros has only grown beyond its main function for the magical dimension recently and has a difficult time shaking its stereotype. It is a newly rising middle class kingdom, it doesn’t command an army of mentionable size and is not part of the Company of Light as of yet.

8,000 Years Ago, a Child in Indonesia Was Buried Without Their Arms and Legs

https://sciencespies.com/history/8000-years-ago-a-child-in-indonesia-was-buried-without-their-arms-and-legs/

8,000 Years Ago, a Child in Indonesia Was Buried Without Their Arms and Legs

Archaeologists in Indonesia have discovered the 8,000-year-old remains of a child buried with the long bones of their arms and legs removed, likely as part of a ceremonial practice, reports Laura Geggel for Live Science.

The youngster’s cheeks and forehead were painted with red ocher, a pigment used in burials in many ancient societies; an ocher-colored cobblestone was also placed beneath their head.

Per Athena Chan of the International Business Times, archaeologists have found child burials in the region before—the newly detailed site is inside Makpan cave on Alor, a 900-square-mile island that lies between the Flores and Savu seas—but they were far more recent than the new find, which dates to the early–mid-Holocene epoch. The team’s analysis is published in the journal Quaternary International.

“Child burials are very rare and this complete burial is the only one from this time period,” says lead author Sofia Samper Carro, an archaeologist at Australian National University, in a statement. “From 3,000 years ago to modern times, we start seeing more child burials and these are very well studied. But, with nothing from the early Holocene period, we just don’t know how people of this era treated their dead children. This find will change that.”

Based on the youngster’s teeth, the researchers estimate that they were between 6 to 8 years old at time of death. But the skeleton is unusually small for a child of that age, instead appearing to belong to a 4- to 5-year-old.

Samper Carro says the team plans to investigate whether this diminutive stature was a product of diet or environmental issues, or perhaps a genetic characteristic particular to people living on an isolated island.

“My earlier work from Alor showed adult skulls were also small,” she adds. “These hunter-gatherers had a mainly marine diet and there is evidence to suggest protein saturation from a single food source can cause symptoms of mal-nourishment, which affects growth. However, they could have been eating other terrestrial resources such as tubers.”

The child’s face was marked with red ocher.

(Sofia Samper Carro / ANU)

Per the study, the removal of the long bones is not a unique finding—but this is the first time researchers in the region have observed the phenomenon in a child’s burial. Archaeologists previously recorded similar bone removals in adults buried on the nearby islands of Java, Borneo and Flores around the same time period.

“We don’t know why long bone removal was practiced, but it’s likely some aspect of the belief system of the people who lived at this time,” says Samper Carro.

As the authors write in the paper, the findings suggest that the people who conducted the burial either postponed initial interment or exhumed “and then reburied [the child] without the long bones,” which were buried separately from the rest of the remains (and have not been found).

To date, researchers have discovered a trove of evidence suggesting that people in many ancient societies modified the bones of their dead as part of burial rituals. At one early Holocene site in the Philippines, a 2013 study led by Myra Lara, an archaeologist at the University of the Philippines–Diliman, found that ancient humans had separated and de-fleshed bones in a complicated procedure. And, as Colin Barras reported for New Scientist in 2016, a group based in central South America shifted burial practices around 9,600 years ago, adopting complex rituals including bone removal and delayed interment.

In some prehistoric communities, funerary practices differed based on whether the deceased was an adult or a child. According to the study, “This has been considered to demonstrate differing levels of social embodiment and personhood, which come with growth and increased biological age.”

Last November, researchers in Salango, Ecuador, revealed a similarly eerie child burial: namely, the skeletons of two infants wearing what appeared to be bone “helmets” made from the skulls of older children.

As lead author Sara Juengst of the University of North Carolina–Charlotte told Newsweek’s Artistos Georgiou at the time, members of the Guangala culture likely outfitted the babies with skulls “in reaction to some sort of natural or social disaster and [to ensure] that these infants had extra protection or extra links to ancestors through their burials.”

#History

After killing ISIS terror leader, U.S. military gives jihadist al-Baghdadi burial “according to Islamic custom”

Jihadist leader received the same Islamic customs (sharia) that the folks at CAIR, Ilhan Omar and Keith Ellison will receive after they pass away.

(dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has given the remains of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a burial at sea and afforded him religious rites according to Islamic custom after he was killed in a U.S. commando raid in Syria on Saturday, three officials told Reuters.

Baghdadi here an Iraqi jihadist who rose from obscurity to declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims as the leader of Islamic State, died by detonating a suicide vest after fleeing into a dead-end tunnel as elite U.S. special forces closed in at the weekend, according to the U.S. government.

The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not disclose where the ritual was performed or how long it lasted. Two officials said they believed his remains were delivered to the sea from an aircraft.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news briefing on Monday that the U.S. military disposed of Baghdadi’s remains “appropriately, in accordance with our (standard operating procedures) and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”

Given the gruesome nature of Baghdadi’s death, it was unlikely the U.S. military followed as complete a process as it did after Navy SEALs killed al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid into Pakistan.

In the case of bin Laden, his body was transported to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. It was washed before being covered in a white sheet, and religious remarks translated into Arabic were read over bin Laden’s corpse.

Baghdadi’s remains were transported to a secure facility to confirm his identity with forensic DNA testing, Milley said.

TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THINGS AN ARCHITECT SHOULD KNOW

Michael Sorkin

 1.    The feel of cool marble under bare feet.  2.    How to live in a small room with five strangers for six months.  3.    With the same strangers in a lifeboat for one week.  4.    The modulus of rupture.  5.    The distance a shout carries in the city.  6.    The distance of a whisper.  7.    Everything possible about Hatshepsut’s temple (try not to see it as   ‘modernist’ avant la lettre).  8.    The number of people with rent subsidies in New York City.  9.    In your town (include the rich). 10.    The flowering season for azaleas. 11.    The insulating properties of glass. 12.    The history of its production and use. 13.    And of its meaning. 14.    How to lay bricks. 15.    What Victor Hugo really meant by ‘this will kill that.’ 16.    The rate at which the seas are rising. 17.    Building information modeling (BIM). 18.    How to unclog a Rapidograph. 19.    The Gini coefficient. 20.    A comfortable tread-to-riser ratio for a six-year-old. 21.    In a wheelchair. 22.    The energy embodied in aluminum. 23.    How to turn a corner. 24.    How to design a corner. 25.    How to sit in a corner. 26.    How Antoni Gaudí modeled the Sagrada Família and calculated its structure. 27.    The proportioning system for the Villa Rotonda. 28.    The rate at which that carpet you specified off-gasses. 29.    The relevant sections of the Code of Hammurabi. 30.    The migratory patterns of warblers and other seasonal travellers. 31.    The basics of mud construction. 32.    The direction of prevailing winds. 33.    Hydrology is destiny. 34.    Jane Jacobs in and out. 35.    Something about feng shui. 36.    Something about Vastu Shilpa. 37.    Elementary ergonomics. 38.    The color wheel. 39.    What the client wants. 40.    What the client thinks it wants. 41.    What the client needs. 42.    What the client can afford. 43.    What the planet can afford. 44.    The theoretical bases for modernity and a great deal about its factions and inflections. 45.    What post-Fordism means for the mode of production of building. 46.    Another language. 47.    What the brick really wants. 48.    The difference between Winchester Cathedral and a bicycle shed. 49.    What went wrong in Fatehpur Sikri. 50.    What went wrong in Pruitt-Igoe. 51.    What went wrong with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. 52.    Where the CCTV cameras are. 53.    Why Mies really left Germany. 54.    How people lived in Çatal Hüyük. 55.    The structural properties of tufa. 56.    How to calculate the dimensions of brise-soleil. 57.    The kilowatt costs of photovoltaic cells. 58.    Vitruvius. 59.    Walter Benjamin. 60.    Marshall Berman. 61.    The secrets of the success of Robert Moses. 62.    How the dome on the Duomo in Florence was built. 63.    The reciprocal influences of Chinese and Japanese building. 64.    The cycle of the Ise Shrine. 65.    Entasis. 66.    The history of Soweto. 67.    What it’s like to walk down the Ramblas. 68.    Back-up. 69.    The proper proportions of a gin martini. 70.    Shear and moment. 71.    Shakespeare, et cetera. 72.    How the crow flies. 73.    The difference between a ghetto and a neighborhood. 74.    How the pyramids were built. 75.    Why. 76.    The pleasures of the suburbs. 77.    The horrors. 78.    The quality of light passing through ice. 79.    The meaninglessness of borders. 80.    The reasons for their tenacity. 81.    The creativity of the ecotone. 82.    The need for freaks. 83.    Accidents must happen. 84.    It is possible to begin designing anywhere. 85.    The smell of concrete after rain. 86.    The angle of the sun at the equinox. 87.    How to ride a bicycle. 88.    The depth of the aquifer beneath you. 89.    The slope of a handicapped ramp. 90.    The wages of construction workers. 91.    Perspective by hand. 92.    Sentence structure. 93.    The pleasure of a spritz at sunset at a table by the Grand Canal. 94.    The thrill of the ride. 95.    Where materials come from. 96.    How to get lost. 97.    The pattern of artificial light at night, seen from space. 98.    What human differences are defensible in practice. 99.    Creation is a patient search. 100.    The debate between Otto Wagner and Camillo Sitte. 101.    The reasons for the split between architecture and engineering. 102.    Many ideas about what constitutes utopia. 103.    The social and formal organization of the villages of the Dogon. 104.    Brutalism, Bowellism, and the Baroque. 105.    How to dérive. 106.    Woodshop safety. 107.    A great deal about the Gothic. 108.    The architectural impact of colonialism on the cities of North Africa. 109.    A distaste for imperialism. 110.    The history of Beijing. 111.    Dutch domestic architecture in the 17th century. 112.    Aristotle’s Politics. 113.    His Poetics. 114.    The basics of wattle and daub. 115.    The origins of the balloon frame. 116.    The rate at which copper acquires its patina. 117.    The levels of particulates in the air of Tianjin. 118.    The capacity of white pine trees to sequester carbon. 119.    Where else to sink it. 120.    The fire code. 121.    The seismic code. 122.    The health code. 123.    The Romantics, throughout the arts and philosophy. 124.    How to listen closely. 125.    That there is a big danger in working in a single medium. The logjam you don’t even know you’re stuck in will be broken by a shift in representation. 126.    The exquisite corpse. 127.    Scissors, stone, paper. 128.    Good Bordeaux. 129.    Good beer. 130.    How to escape a maze. 131.    QWERTY. 132.    Fear. 133.    Finding your way around Prague, Fez, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Kyoto, Rio, Mexico, Solo, Benares, Bangkok, Leningrad, Isfahan. 134.    The proper way to behave with interns. 135.    Maya, Revit, Catia, whatever. 136.    The history of big machines, including those that can fly. 137.    How to calculate ecological footprints. 138.    Three good lunch spots within walking distance. 139.    The value of human life. 140.    Who pays. 141.    Who profits. 142.    The Venturi effect. 143.    How people pee. 144.    What to refuse to do, even for the money. 145.    The fine print in the contract. 146.    A smattering of naval architecture. 147.    The idea of too far. 148.    The idea of too close. 149.    Burial practices in a wide range of cultures. 150.    The density needed to support a pharmacy. 151.    The density needed to support a subway. 152.    The effect of the design of your city on food miles for fresh produce. 153.    Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes. 154.    Capability Brown, André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Muso Soseki, Ji Cheng, and Roberto Burle Marx. 155.    Constructivism, in and out. 156.    Sinan. 157.    Squatter settlements via visits and conversations with residents. 158.    The history and techniques of architectural representation across cultures. 159.    Several other artistic media. 160.    A bit of chemistry and physics. 161.    Geodesics. 162.    Geodetics. 163.    Geomorphology. 164.    Geography. 165.    The Law of the Andes. 166.    Cappadocia first-hand. 167.    The importance of the Amazon. 168.    How to patch leaks. 169.    What makes you happy. 170.    The components of a comfortable environment for sleep. 171.    The view from the Acropolis. 172.    The way to Santa Fe. 173.    The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 174.    Where to eat in Brooklyn. 175.    Half as much as a London cabbie. 176.    The Nolli Plan. 177.    The Cerdà Plan. 178.    The Haussmann Plan. 179.    Slope analysis. 180.    Darkroom procedures and Photoshop. 181.    Dawn breaking after a bender. 182.    Styles of genealogy and taxonomy. 183.    Betty Friedan. 184.    Guy Debord. 185.    Ant Farm. 186.    Archigram. 187.    Club Med. 188.    Crepuscule in Dharamshala. 189.    Solid geometry. 190.    Strengths of materials (if only intuitively). 191.    Ha Long Bay. 192.    What’s been accomplished in Medellín. 193.    In Rio. 194.    In Calcutta. 195.    In Curitiba. 196.    In Mumbai. 197.    Who practices? (It is your duty to secure this space for all who want to.) 198.    Why you think architecture does any good. 199.    The depreciation cycle. 200.    What rusts. 201.    Good model-making techniques in wood and cardboard. 202.    How to play a musical instrument. 203.    Which way the wind blows. 204.    The acoustical properties of trees and shrubs. 205.    How to guard a house from floods. 206.    The connection between the Suprematists and Zaha. 207.    The connection between Oscar Niemeyer and Zaha. 208.    Where north (or south) is. 209.    How to give directions, efficiently and courteously. 210.    Stadtluft macht frei. 211.    Underneath the pavement the beach. 212.    Underneath the beach the pavement. 213.    The germ theory of disease. 214.    The importance of vitamin D. 215.    How close is too close. 216.    The capacity of a bioswale to recharge the aquifer. 217.    The draught of ferries. 218.    Bicycle safety and etiquette. 219.    The difference between gabions and riprap. 220.    The acoustic performance of Boston Symphony Hall. 221.    How to open the window. 222.    The diameter of the earth. 223.    The number of gallons of water used in a shower. 224.    The distance at which you can recognize faces. 225.    How and when to bribe public officials (for the greater good). 226.    Concrete finishes. 227.    Brick bonds. 228.    The Housing Question by Friedrich Engels. 229.    The prismatic charms of Greek island towns. 230.    The energy potential of the wind. 231.    The cooling potential of the wind, including the use of chimneys and the stack effect. 232.    Paestum. 233.    Straw-bale building technology. 234.    Rachel Carson. 235.    Freud. 236.    The excellence of Michel de Klerk. 237.    Of Alvar Aalto. 238.    Of Lina Bo Bardi. 239.    The non-pharmacological components of a good club. 240.    Mesa Verde National Park. 241.    Chichen Itza. 242.    Your neighbors. 243.    The dimensions and proper orientation of sports fields. 244.    The remediation capacity of wetlands. 245.    The capacity of wetlands to attenuate storm surges. 246.    How to cut a truly elegant section. 247.    The depths of desire. 248.    The heights of folly. 249.    Low tide. 250.    The Golden and other ratios. https://www.readingdesign.org/