cmifw-blog

[cmifw-blog]

...but isn't this the first proper draft of Aetheric?

So, I'm probably retaking part of my Philosophy course and then continuing with the degree instead of going onto the creative writing course (for predominantly financial reasons - it's really hard to get a job at the moment, especially as an relatively unqualified Philosophy undergraduate) and I'm swamped with work for that, so there probably won't be much on this blog for a while.

However, before I became swamped with work, I finished writing this: Aetheric, the first short story for a collection of short stories about the fantastical life of Sir Isaac Newton, had he only discovered what is effectively magic instead of the scientific advances he actually discovered. I'll be putting up more details of the book and the ideas behind it as I continue to write it, as I'm determined not to neglect it despite having six essays to write for mid-August (note for any prospective Philosophy undergraduates out there: regardless of workload and your opinion on the relative subjects contained within said workload, don't let your opinions get in the way of keeping on top of the work and handing functional essays in. It leads to problems like six essays in two months if you don't.)

Comments and constructive criticism are, as ever, appreciated.

Aetheric

I met my first aetheric in the summer of 1669, and nearly died as a result of it.

My frantic casting about for something to relieve the interminable boredom of a lazy London gripped in the literal heat of political speculation had availed me naught up till now. Elder readers of these memoirs will recall that Roux de Marsailly, the supposed Huguenot assassin, had been openly and demonstrably tortured in Paris. I knew better of course, but my misadventures in France fighting the terror of the Iron Mask and his doppelgänger is a tale for another memoir.

I lay secluded in my chambers in Cambridge, switching between flicking through and fanning myself with the correspondence I had yet to read, when I chanced upon a letter. It attracted my attention as it was entirely unlike the bills yet to be paid and the invitations to soirées I had frankly no intention of ever attending which made up much of the rest of said correspondence. Nor was it a part of the uninteresting but necessary paper that I was composing slowly that summer, partially out of academic necessity and partially because I owed John Collins (an intelligencer and loan shark of my acquaintance) a small sum of money and had promised him the exclusive scoop on it.

The first point that aroused my curiosity was nothing to do with the contents of the letter within, but that which it was written on – very delicate and very soft vellum, in a creamy shade quite unlike the darker calf-skin parchments I was typically inclined to. The second point which recommended the beige message to me was the crimson wax seal of the Anglicans. Accompanied by the name 'Roger' scribed in a bold hand next to it, it provided me with a name to a face. Roger Ecclesby was a moderate (a Trinitarian, unfortunately) Anglican Vicar and an irregular correspondent of mine own. His views on alchemy and my peculiar theories about the Aether and the Infinite Series varied between the idea that they were blasphemous or sometimes just preposterous, but he was quick-witted in discussions on theology so I indulged him on that count by deigning to reply occasionally with refutations for his arguments.

At this stage of my life I was possessed of a peculiar habit of carrying a carven and whetstone-sharpened letter opener in a small thong on my belt. I had always entertained the notion that it made me look daring and scholarly to be carrying a potentially deadly if very small knife on my belt. I had never received a formal letter sealed in such a fashion from him, and therefore hurriedly drew the blade and cut the seal open to get at the surely intriguing contents within.

My dear Isaac,

The most wondrous event has occurred. An angel – a literal, honest to God in his Heaven angel – has appeared and spoken to me! Yes, I know, you now think me bereft of my wits. But, I implore you, consider my account and judge me by it rather than dropping the matter and my letter immediately and without sympathy.

You may remember my aside in the penultimate letter about poor Mr Conduitt (the local beggar?) and how he had turned to prophecy?

If I recall correctly – and I believe I do, although I cannot for the life of me find the blasted copy of the letter I made – I scorned his supposedly prophetic turn, and you counselled me in return (perhaps with tongue in cheek) that “since truth can apparently come from the mouth of babes, perhaps it can issue forth full-grown from the tongue of madmen”.

Well, Isaac, you were right and I was wrong. I made a simply dreadful mistake in decrying in the man from the pulpit, and have been forced to eat my words for it. And now, now you must come to Pendle with all haste.

I must set down what has happened. Something tells me it is imperative for you to know all I have seen, for what I have seen is wondrous and mad.

I was working in the chapel cemetery, as is my wont given our lack of undertaker, when it seemed to me a brilliant light all the colours of the rainbow veiled my eyes.

My sight recovered in but a moment, and I raised my gaze heaven-ward from the grave I had been digging. I beheld the great oak tree, in all its glory, and a shimmering unclothed man leaning on the trunk. His stare, his eyes connecting with mine, sent shivers through me. Melodramatic, yes, but I am sworn to God's truth.

The man was none other than Mr Conduitt.

He then spoke to me of wonderful things. The truth of Eden on Earth. The romantic notion of Heaven in Nature. He even spoke of your Aether (albeit in different words). I knew then that I must write to you about it as soon as I could.

His Name is John now – the better to spread the Word.

He showed me the true revelations and that which I must do to bring them about. When the village heard the good news – I confess I may have 'shouted it from the rooftops' – they joined me immediately in rapturous celebration of God's gift to us. You must witness this for yourself, Isaac, and aid me to speak the Word as I am bound by He to. You must come here, and right swiftly.

Roger

Well, perhaps our relationship was little more informal than I have described. Certainly Mr Ecclesby read more into it than was actually there, but I should assure you, readers, that I was nothing but proper in my replies to his entreaties.

Nonetheless the combination of remarkable occurrence, divine or not, and my terrible boredom caused me to seize upon this as my figurative salvation. I threw myself off my bed (scattering papers everywhere in a most unsatisfactory fashion) and placed a few instruments I might require in a bag while calling uproariously for Christian Bunkum, my manservant at the time, to bring the carriage round and gather provisions for a long journey. The good Vicar, I slowly recalled, presided over the village parish of Pendle, so it was to Lancashire I must go.

The journey itself, while not brief, was somewhat uneventful. The summer haze was soporific in its humidity, and I must confess that despite leaving Cambridge with my mind abuzz with speculation I fell into a fitful sleep for much of the time. I was awoken hours later only when we entered Lancashire proper, by a gigantic summer storm boiling around and swirling over Pendle Forest. Bunkum's cursing (of the horses, the weather, himself and me respectively) and the din of precipitation rattling on the ceiling of the carriage prevented meaningful sleep from that point onward. I spent the latter stage of the journey observing the clawed branches of the forest scrape the misted windows as I looked for a cessation of the journey that went ever up Pendle Hill.

Just as suddenly as it began, the squall ceased. We had, coincidentally it certainly seemed at the time, arrived.

From Roger's letters, I knew he lived in the chapel he administered itself rather than a separate vicarage. I now saw the chapel through my aforesaid narrow grated window, and slammed my fist on the roof twice to instruct Bunkum to halt the horses. After he did so and came round to open my carriage door, I stepped down into the...refreshing... country mud track that served here as a road, and looked up at the chapel itself. Roger's church was built in the new Presbyt style – all simple arches and locally quarried stone – but I spared it only a few more glances (noting with unease the large chain and crude smokehouse lock securely fixed to bar entry to the main front doors as I did so) as my immediate attention and running feet were taken by two sounds resonating from behind the out-of-village chapel.

As I ran down a sharp gravel path, I could hear a clearly-untrained chorus of voices, singing mostly in the deep burr of the Lancrastian accent, singing a hymn I did not recognise which spoke of 'all things bright and beautiful'. The second sound, however, was the reason for my indecorous haste. I rounded the small chapel and vaulted the low-set cemetery gate as the piteous screams of pain combined with exultation rang as clear as church bells in my ears again.

The scene I greeted with my sight was monstrous strange. A well-kept, English green cemetery full of country folk – cattle farmers and their families I guessed, considering their simple dress – who formed a ragged semi-circle around an ancient and towering oak tree. In front of the oak, which seemed to glitter in the dying sunlight of dusk, a man knelt facing east. He was stripped to the waist, and scourged his broken and bloodied back with what appeared to be a broken fragment of tombstone knotted into a rope, punctuating every line of the disturbingly unknown hymn with a whip-crack of thudded pain (and an anguished cry to accompany it). A fallen dog-collar next to him bespoke his identity as Mr Ecclesby. But these facts were as so much terrible background to the being that strode towards me now as I stood, stock still and staring with slack jaw at the edge of the cemetery. The gaunt, albino, red-eyed fiend of a man who now stood in front of me speaking.

“Sir Isaac Newton, I presume?”

Roger did not exaggerate his gaze. His eyeballs continually rolled around in their orbitals, but just as consistently flickered back to me every second or so as if checking I was not only still there, but that I still existed. In the circumstances, therefore, it is understandable that some of the surprise I felt at being addressed in such an incorrect manner.

“No. Not sir. Not yet. Not now.”

His tongue – long, pink and lascivious it seemed at the time – flicked out and licked what certainly looked like a blood droplet hanging from the end of a scraggly beard hair. There was a patina of it and grass stains, I realised with a slight start, decorating his body like so much rudimentary paint.

“Potentially... Never.”

This last remark brought my intellectual curiosity to a peak of excitement, although some of that may have been due to my peripheral vision registering the villagers turning to regard the newcomer as I was with a non-too-friendly gaze. Vicar Ecclesby, even, had ascended to his feet and was spinning and whirling the rope in complex patterns adding up to one threatening conclusion.

“Wait! Stop, just a moment-”

I only realised I had cried out after the fact, but I was disgusted with myself for doing so. The plaintive high-pitched voice I had assayed with was not a tone I was accustomed to using, and while the situation somewhat explained my fearful manner and my roiling stomach, the sensation was definitely unwelcome. I resolved to overcompensate, then, and fired off a staccato-flurry of pointed questions in the hope of distracting the obviously homicidal aetheric's attention.

“Who are you?”

“J-John. John Conduitt. John the Baptist.”

He was delusional. Good. It tallied with my thesis. Best not to question why Mr Conduitt thought he was the Lazarus of the day, though.

“...What are you?”

John's eyes brightened at this question. He took a half-step back from me, then abruptly perched himself on top of a tombstone which yawed forth crazily from the ground as if the Rapture had come but the dead had encountered problems rising.

“I am Egypt's last warning. I am a nephilim.”

OXFORD GAZETTE

JUDGEMENT?

Village wiped out ~ Corpses horribly burnt ~ “A Light from Heaven” ~ New Sodom?

By Thomas Brown

This “Oxford Gazette” journalist has today witnessed the surest confirmation he has seen yet of the coming of the end as foretold by the Calvinists in righteous Scripture. After reports by local farmers of “A Divine Light Atop Pendle Hill” [visible from Manchester Central and leagues away generally in all direction] this journalist's curiosity was aroused, and his person undertook to travel to Pendle to ascertain the Truth of these rumours. Given the propensity of the working classes to drink and fabrication in equal measure, this humble journalist was sceptical, for his sins, but the repeated and uncannily similar reports combined with the interest and speed of his erstwhile colleagues led with all haste to the hiring of a most disagreeable carriage up to the top of Pendle Hill. Be thankful that he did, dear readers, for the horrific devastation that greeted him upon the summit Cont’d Page 5...

“So you do claim to be an angel then?”

“No. I am a humble messenger with a divine point to prove – nothing more, nothing less.”

As I had hoped, my engagement with his personal delusion was focusing his probably-fractured mind and preventing mania from setting in. I had my own somewhat sketchy theories on what prolonged aether exposure would do to a healthy mind, let alone one which was damaged to this extent. Suffice it to say, the galvanic currents which run through the brain tend to atrophic destruction over time, and the disjointedness of thoughts this can cause in a person made me wonder, in a surprisingly calm fashion given my predicament, for my own safety.

Mr Conduitt, meanwhile had been shaking his head for the duration of these thoughts, looking for all of England like a mannequin with a few precise strings recently cut. His followers were also muttering disturbingly similar noises of negation. My hypotheses (irksomely unconfirmed as they were) had taken into account the concept of 'aetheric influence' – the very concept of aetherics such as John here being essentially a hyper-producer of aether, which would ripple out from him and influence in a similar emotional fashion all in the vicinity.

I found myself shaking my head also, and a spasm of fear gripped me. I must confess, dear reader, this moment of human weakness only made me angrier at this mortal in front of me. Regardless of his state of mind, the heresy his point of view represented at least to me was intolerable, and I told him so.

“It seems to me that you have made your point.”

A quizzical glance at my face, with barely visible golden eyebrows raised.

“Your point being, of course, that you are a raving madman seduced by actual power but only delusions of grandeur, when in fact you deserve to be put down like the common canis lupus familiaris when it contracts the frothing disease and bites at it's master.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I may have been a little more affected by his aetheric emanations than I believed at the time. I was angry with John Conduitt.

Really, truly and genuinely angry.

With no regard for scientific interest or more personal curiosity as to whether the aether could, for instance, allow a person to foretell the future, I glared at him for the split second after this statement of what I for my part considered absolute fact rather than emotional subjective opinion. In that microcosm of time, I was unsurprised to see my own face and feelings reflected back at me in his watery crimson eyes.

Ecclesby then stood up, hunched in an aggressive bestial posture with hands forming clawed shapes at his sides. The villagers appeared to have mirrored this pose exactly, though I could not be entirely certain so fixated was I on staring down Conduitt. Truly I only noticed Roger at all due to his swiftly-paced advance to Conduitt's back. I hope he will forgive me for that when I meet him after death.

John spoke through clenched teeth which broke apart into a howl on the last word:

“You will be an excellent follow-up point.”

In my opinion, the phrase “everything seemed to happen at once” is overused. There was an exact sequence of events that happened next, though whether my memory of it is accurate Bunkum at least has a few doubts.

Mr Conduitt sprang for me, putting deed to words with a snarl most unlike his claimed angelic status.

Bunkum – having been concealed behind a gravestone this entire time – dropped John mid-leap into a crunching grapple. They crashed down very near to the gravestone that Mr Conduitt had perched upon only a few moments before, and fell to struggling with one another in deadly contest.

Being rather useless in a melee, I fell and stumbled back a few paces, fumbling for the nearest weapon at hand. Dear reader, I had not yet developed the blade of concentrated light and crackling spirit I am now known for. As such, my only recourse it seemed was my sharpened letter opener. I drew it and felt very sorry for myself.

The villagers, bar one, had frozen in place. They seemed to quiver and twitch with spasmodic anger as Bunkum and Conduitt fought, and shuddered as if rocked by a stiff breeze each time Bunkum landed a solid blow. Christian was a strong man in his early thirties at this point, but even I could see the fight going against him.

The only native that hadn't frozen in place was Roger. He advanced slowly upon me, uttering a low moan that seemed to come from the very depths of his diaphragm and thudding the sharp stone knotted at the end of the rope into the ground with every pace taken.

To this day, I am uncertain as to how I survived my first encounter with an aetheric. I can offer only a contrived hypothesis, and frankly detest even contemplating that much given how little data I have available.

I moved to interpose a gravestone between myself and Roger, with an eye to evading him and moving to aid Bunkum when the moment presented itself. It may have been at this point I started shivering.

Manipulating aether, as I have previously mentioned, has a peculiar effect on the galvanism of creatures. I would not go so far as to state as fact that aether is the 'primum movens' Aristotle spoke of, but it certainly appears to be something of the sort. It operates as a radiated extra-normal kinetic force that everyone (designated aetheric or no) produces simply by living, and influences most lives in subtle ways. I have oft since observed with my optics speculum that particularly charismatic people often create and manipulate more aether unconsciously, but perhaps effect comes before cause and those who have a better unknowing influence on aether are consequently able to make others perceive them as more charismatic.

Roger's eyes were rolling back in his sockets as he advanced implacably upon me.

I do not know, as I am not a Cartesian man. I am fallible and as vulnerable to outside physical influences as any man alive, including and perhaps especially the influence of aether.

The chunk of rock was digging into the ground so hard now that it was throwing up pieces of sod and stalks of grass.

Performing actions allows the spirit of lightning to inhabit a person; Descartes observed this in his experiments on frogs and so we know it to be true.

I tripped backwards over a sunken memorial as I evaded Roger's first whipping strike with the tomb-rope, which cracked over the gravestone I had just been trying to skirt around.

What Descartes did not observe, with his incorrect emphasis on the ordered clockwork universe, is that living beings also move aether at a distance, which causes others to move and the effect to spread like ripples in a pond where the people are the proverbial stones. Normally, this has little to no effect. The ripples are lost in the white noise of humanity and nature.

I felt the rope catch round my neck and pull taut as I scrambled round to my feet to flee. I could hear Christian crying out in pain, but it seemed quiet in comparison to the dull pound of my heartbeat reverberating through my skull.

If humans are small skipping stones with relation to aether, then aetherics are large boulders – they cause splashes which destroy the noise around them and bend the surface of the pond to their weight. Every aetheric I have interviewed and subsequently had cause to dissect has, without exception, shared two traits in common: significantly damaged brain chymistry and personal or social obsession with a goal (the latter is often associated in the subject's mind with some previous mental trauma, like the loss of a loved one). Over time, those affected by aetherics begin to manifest this same appearance in the brain – increased resistance to and conductivity of galvanic current – so perhaps the condition is contagious.

My hand was so slippery with sweat that the knife nearly slipped from my grasp before I could use it. I stabbed backwards hurriedly and was ...rewarded... with a grunt of pain from Roger. I later found that I barely scratched him, but perhaps the pain allowed him to concentrate enough to throw off John's control for a second or two. That is, at least, what I tell myself when I wish to have a night's worth of peaceful sleep.

The slackened rope allowed me precious true air again, and I fell to my knees atop the grave we had been struggling over, gasping for breath.

Bunkum tells me that it was around about this point that he tackled John's head into a gravestone. I have been told he played sport, so I do not doubt him upon this specific point.

What emotional turbulence John Conduitt had suffered to make him so I could only speculate wildly about, so I shall not. The fact of his explosion and consequent spontaneous combustion, however, I can begin to tentatively explain: the loss of concentration caused by the sharp powerful slam to the head Bunkum administered caused a massive spike of galvanic currents in his brain of a kind often observed before death by interested and intelligent surgeons. With Mr Conduitt's ability to create aether came therefore a price. He created too much and it literally blew him apart, and the excess galvanic currents set him on furious fire.

Certainly I had to roll a number of times to prevent any more than my clothes and the hairs on my head from burning (to this day, observant readers will have noted that I wear a wig), and those Mr Conduitt affected were unfortunately likewise affected to a lesser degree by his violent death. Many suffered strokes and burn injuries from the explosions, dying there in the graveyard with John.

Bunkum was shielded mostly by a tombstone, he tells me, and only lost his fine frock coat. I bought him another, and gladly.

I still miss him.

The coach and horses were shielded from the blast by the church, which itself now bares the end of the scorch mark cast by John's dire end. Seeing that the horses were merely a little skittish, and that Roger himself was in a bad way, Bunkum and I lifted him into the back seat of the carriage, covered him with the blankets I had previously used to sleep on during the journey here and departed post-haste.

This action afforded me no small amount of guilt and annoyance later. The scientific information I could have gained from a vivisection of one of the dead villagers would not have been insubstantial, and some were still alive and in need of help when we left, but the likelihood of a successful explanation to any authority who thought to investigate the column of multicoloured light that was apparently visible from miles around atop Pendle Hill was slim indeed. Neither Bunkum nor I especially wished to go to prison for mass murder, given the authorities lack of other obvious suspects or indeed witnesses.

The survivors, as it turned out, were perhaps better off dead. All were possessed of horrible alterations to the brain, and many died swiftly afterwards, biologically unable to deal with the radically different spirit which inhabited their minds. Others suffered less alteration, but were rendered catatonic for the rest of their days, needing constant care and attention. Roger is numbered amongst these latter, and may God forgive me on Judgement Day for ever sending him those letters and including him in this sorry business. Mr Ecclesby now resides at Bethlem Hospital, and will probably remain there the rest of his drastically shortened days. I see to it that he is comfortable, but visit only on occasion.

He thought to herald an angel, but was all but destroyed by a false prophet instead.

God is just, it seems, but not merciful.

[cmifw-blog]

...but isn't this a two-page story that I submitted for my creative writing interview?

And I got a place on the course, too :)

I met my first aetheric in the summer of '69, though I did not recognise it at first. Elder readers of these memoirs will recall that Roux de Marsailly, the supposed Huguenot assassin, had been openly and demonstrably tortured in Paris. I knew better of course, but my misadventures in France fighting the terror of the Iron Mask and his doppelgänger is a tale for another memoir.

In any case, my frantic casting about for something to relieve the interminable boredom of a lazy London gripped in the literal heat of political speculation had availed me naught up till now. I lay secluded in my chambers in Cambridge, switching between flicking through and fanning myself with the correspondence I had yet to read, when I chanced upon a letter. It attracted my attention as it was entirely unlike the bills yet to be paid and the invitations to soirées I had frankly no intention of ever attending which made up much of the rest of said correspondence.

The first point that aroused my curiosity was nothing to do with the contents of the letter within, but that which it was written on – very delicate and very soft vellum, in a creamy shade quite unlike the darker calf-skin parchments I was typically inclined to. The second point which recommended the beige message to me was the crimson wax seal of the Anglicans. Accompanied by the name 'Roger' scribed in a bold hand next to it, it provided me with a name to a face. Roger Ecclesby was a moderate (a Trinitarian, unfortunately) Anglican Vicar and an irregular correspondent of mine own. His views on alchemy and my peculiar theories about the Aether and the Infinite Series varied between the idea that they were blasphemous or sometimes just preposterous, but he was quick-witted in discussions on theology so I indulged him on that count by deigning to reply occasionally with refutations for his arguments.

I had never received a formal letter sealed in such a fashion from him, and therefore hurriedly broke it open to get at the surely intriguing contents within.

My dear Isaac,

The most wondrous event has occurred. An angel – a literal, honest to God in his Heaven angel – has appeared and spoken to me! Yes, I know, you now think me bereft of my wits. But, I implore you, consider my account and judge me by it rather than dropping the matter and my letter immediately and without sympathy.

I was working in the chapel cemetery, as is my wont given our lack of undertaker, when it seemed to me a brilliant light all the colours of the rainbow veiled my eyes.

My sight recovered in but a moment, and I raised my gaze heaven-ward from the grave I had been digging. I beheld the great oak tree, in all its glory, and a shimmering unclothed man leaning on the trunk. His stare, his eyes connecting with mine, sent shivers through me. Melodramatic, yes, but I am sworn to God's truth.

He then spoke to me of wonderful things. The truth of Eden on Earth. The romantic notion of Heaven in Nature. He even spoke of your Aether (albeit in different words). I knew then that I must write to you about it as soon as I could.

He showed me the true revelations and that which I must do to bring them about. When the village heard the good news – I confess I may have 'shouted it from the rooftops' – they joined me immediately in rapturous celebration of God's gift to us. You must witness this for yourself, Isaac, and aid me to speak the Word as I am bound by He to. You must come here, and right swiftly.

Roger

Well, perhaps our relationship was little more informal than I have described. Certainly Mr Ecclesby read more into it than was actually there, but I should assure you, readers, that I was nothing but proper in my replies to his entreaties.

Nonetheless the combination of remarkable occurrence, divine or not, and my terrible boredom caused me to seize upon this as my figurative salvation. I threw myself off my bed (scattering papers everywhere in a most unsatisfactory fashion) and placed a few instruments I might require in a bag while calling uproariously for Bunkum to bring the carriage round and gather provisions for a long journey. The good Vicar, I slowly recalled, presided over the village parish of Pendle, so it was to Lancashire I must go.

The journey itself, while not brief, was somewhat uneventful. The summer haze was soporific in its humidity, and I must confess that after leaving Cambridge with my mind abuzz with speculation I fell into a fitful sleep for much of the time. I was awoken hours later only when we entered Lancashire proper, by a gigantic summer storm boiling around and swirling over Pendle Forest. Bunkum's cursing (of the horses, the weather, himself and me respectively) and the din of precipitation rattling on the ceiling of the carriage prevented meaningful sleep from that point onward. I spent the latter stage of the journey observing the clawed branches of the forest scrape the misted windows as I looked for a cessation of the journey that went ever up Pendle Hill.

Just as suddenly as it began, the squall ceased. We had, coincidentally it seemed at the time, arrived.

From Roger's letters, I knew he lived in the chapel he administered itself rather than a separate vicarage. I now saw the chapel through my aforesaid narrow grated window, and slammed my fist on the roof twice to instruct Bunkum to halt the horses. After he did so and came round to open my carriage door, I stepped down into the...refreshing... country mud track that served here as a road, and looked up at the chapel itself. Roger's church was built in the new Presbyt style – all simple arches and locally quarried stone – but I spared it only a few more glances (noting the large chain and padlock securely fixed to bar entry to the main front doors as I did so) as my immediate attention was taken by two sounds resonating from behind the chapel.

I could hear a clearly-untrained chorus of voices, singing mostly in the deep burr of the Lancrastian accent, singing a hymn I did not recognise which spoke of 'all things bright and beautiful'. The second sound, however, was the reason for my indecorous haste. I rounded the small chapel and vaulted the cemetery gate as the piteous screams of pain combined with exultation rang as clear as church bells in my ears again.

The scene I greeted with my sight was monstrous strange. A well-kept, English green cemetery full of country folk – cattle farmers and their families I guessed, considering their simple dress – who formed a ragged semi-circle around an ancient and towering oak tree. In front of the oak, which seemed to glitter in the dying sunlight of dusk, a man knelt facing east. He was stripped to the waist, and scourged his broken and bloodied back with what appeared to be a broken fragment of tombstone knotted into a rope, punctuating every line of the disturbingly unknown hymn with a whip-crack of thudded pain (and an anguished cry to accompany it). A fallen dog-collar next to him bespoke his identity as Mr Ecclesby. But these facts were as so much terrible background to the being that strode towards me now as I stood, stock still and staring with slack jaw at the edge of the cemetery. The gaunt, albino, red-eyed fiend of a man who now stood in front of me, speaking.

“Sir Isaac Newton, I presume?”

Roger did not exaggerate his gaze.

[cmifw-blog]

If it needs a two-part episode to make the plot better, then they should've done something else for this episode :P

The Sonic Screwdriver is an established piece of Applied Phlebotinum, just like the T.A.R.D.I.S. and the mop he uses to great effect in The Big Bang Two. It's a basic premise of the show that the Sonic Screwdriver can get into anything (with the possible exception of wooden doors and 'deadlock seals') and as such, it doesn't break my immersion in a show for it to do wonders, because I've already accepted that it can and find it more enjoyable than frantic tapping too.

Gah.

This really, really, REALLY rustles my jimmies.

Just finished watching the new episode of Doctor Who (it’s good, and this will be a non-spoiler-article) and there was an instance of ‘hacking’ in it.

Except, as usual, it wasn’t.

I should really reveal an important fact at this point - I’m…

[cmifw-blog]

...but is this a good personal statement to apply for a creative writing course?

This is the personal statement I've just submitted for a creative writing course. I'm changing course, see, and am really hoping I get into this one since my ultimate goal in life, I've decided, is to be the best damn writer like no one ever was/to write stories is my real test/to craft fiction is my cause... *starts humming* As such, constructive criticism is very welcome, and any advice on other courses or places to look for help with creative writing will also be very much appreciated... :)

Why I Want To Study Creative Writing

My main reason for wanting to learn from and complete the applied-for Creative Writing certificate is simple and somewhat cliché – I enjoy writing. More specifically, I enjoy reading good writing and wish to learn how to write well myself.

Throughout my life, I have studied subjects that have required me to write, and write a lot to boot. I've studied English Literature (getting an A* at GCSE level and an A at AS level) and had fun reading and writing about the classical stories and poetry necessary to complete said courses. The analysis of said material, though, was always secondary to me. What was important was the craft of writing itself, either through the characters of the stories themselves or the improvement of the essays I wrote.

I've studied History (getting an A at both GCSE and A Level) and what always fascinated me the most in History classes were the stories of history, the characterisation of powerful figures throughout history and the myths and legends that surrounded them, the historical narratives that – being so far removed from current reality – seemed to me to be the most fantastical stories because of their essential grounding in reality.

I've studied Government & Politics at A Level (getting an A) and again, much like History, the policies of politicians interested me less than the way they were presented, either through their own writing and the media that surrounded them. It's fair to say, probably, that I've always been fascinated by the relationship between writing and reality itself, and how a good piece of writing (fiction or non-fiction) can influence the reality of a situation, and vice-versa. I strove in my own essays in the subject to present, essentially, characters of the politicians I wrote about and narratives to make consistent the ideologies.

My interest in the study of Religious Studies (getting an A* at GCSE and a B at A Level) is simply understood, I think: the mythologies and stories that are part and parcel of religions across the world were always the things that interested me most. Doctrine was and is relatively unimportant to me (especially since I'm an atheist) almost universally. It was the stories that humanity invented and believed in that interested me, and the different forms of writing that were used (sagas, hymns, poems) to create archetypes of fantastic gods and the fears of humanity given super- or sub- human forms that we might understand them better.

The common connection between my formal study choices, I have come to realise, is my desire to both emulate and create myself stories comparable with (perhaps in quality eventually) the amazing fictions I have read of in both my formal studies and outside in my spare time. I am an avid reader and have been accused of devouring books in my eagerness to experience and witness things outside normal life, and I wish to be able to create and write of such things myself. One of my main hobbies is playing computer games of all varieties, with the only real qualification necessary for my enjoyment of them is that they have a good plot. Another is role-playing (playing and running games such as Dungeons & Dragons) primarily because they are imaginative exercises in communal storytelling, and the writing and preparation I need to run a game successfully allows me to enjoyably exercise my own imagination.

I've tried my hand at writing at various points before, but have never been able to create the same sort of quality that I've enjoyed so much in books made by more skilled hands and minds than mine. For this reason, I gave up my ambitions of being a writer for a long while and made to study a degree in Philosophy, mistakenly believing that it was the moral choices that people made in both fiction and life that actually interested me. However, I came to realise over the course of the second year of the degree what a mistake I had made – it was still the writing itself that interested me. I am interested in the craft of writing and the making of imaginative narratives, rather than the dry and stultifying formality of the whys of Philosophy. Certainly, I wish to learn the skill of creating myself, rather than analysing others (no matter how worthy they might be). The time I spent attempting the degree has not been entirely wasted, I believe, as the relatively decent 2:1 average I passed with in the first year taught me that I could, if I put my mind to it, study at a higher education level – and the second year helped me re-evaluate my life and get back on course to fulfil my goals.

So, I guess, the main reason I wish to study this subject is because I want to learn how to write creatively. This is somewhat obvious given the course title, but I hope this personal statement has conveyed both my fascination with writing and my reasons for wanting to write creatively – I love stories, and wish to learn how to tell them better.

[cmifw-blog]

...but isn't coffee better than other equivalent hot beverages?

Warning my research for this post is entirely based on my own bias and the Wikipedia page for Coffee. This post is entirely tongue-in-cheek :P

Coffee is better than tea.

No, I am not just basing this on the fact that I like coffee much more than tea.

Mostly.

No, coffee is better than tea for a number of important and amusing reasons, as follows:

1) Coffee was invented by a magical sorcerer who could heal the sick. Tea was not.

2) Said magical sorcerer is remembered for inventing coffee, not for the aforesaid miracles. Coffee is that badass.

3) The Battle of Vienna was clearly fought for the supplies of coffee captured from the defeated Turks.

4) The British Royal Navy was so desperate for coffee that during the Age of Sail we used burnt bread and hot water as a substitute. Needless to say, it wasn't as good - but the sheer psychological power of coffee clearly led to the naval success of the British Empire.

5) The conditions Haitian slaves were kept in on coffee plantations led to the Haitian Revolution - clearly, without the coffee industry oppressing the slaves, the momentous and freedom-filled events wouldn't have happened. Therefore, coffee facilitated the fight against slavery.

6) Coffee is, apparently, a cash-crop. Cash + coffee = better coffee. Better coffee = more awesome.

7) Nine different animals treat coffee as a mortal enemy. You know why? Fear.

8) Coffee is roasted at around 200 degrees celsius, showing that coffee can stand the heat and does not need to get out of the kitchen.

9) Actual quote: "Coffee percolators and automatic coffeemakers brew coffee using GRAVITY." (Emphasis mine :P )

10) You can combine coffee with any variety of alcohol, and it only becomes more awesome.

11) Coffee is so desirable that we need to be able to possess it instantaneously.

12) Coffee actively resists study, and employs confusing Jedi mind tricks to prevent useful and conclusive studies into whether it's beneficial (the answer: it doesn't need to be, it's awesome).

13) Coffee literally makes you happier (and acts as an acute anti-depressant). It also alleviates headaches.

14) The health risks for coffee can be avoided if you follow one simple rule: like most good things, the amazing thing that is coffee should not be drank in excessive amounts.

15) Every political or philosophical revolution begins in a coffee shop somewhere, because of coffee's distinct anarchist leanings. Coffee also fuelled the world's first encyclopaedia, so that coffee could have an entry under "E" (for exquisite).

16) Coffee is the national drink of a country.

17) Coffee has been considered blasphemy by many crazy religious sects, indicating that it is likely the opposite.

18) Coffee bushes are planted on the graves of powerful sorcerers by the Oromo people. This is clearly a warding measure to prevent the sorcerers from rising from the dead as an undead monstrosity - the secret weakness of all sorcerers, we can unreliably deduce from this, is coffee.

19) During 1830, in Brazil, coffee was worth more (pound for pound) than GOLD.

20) Coffee is my favourite hot drink.

Checkmate, tea-drinkers!

[cmifw-blog]

Interesting post.

It's certainly a no-brainer to say that a vital aspect of most communities is that there is a moral framework that people are *meant* to both share and follow, but whether or not people actually have to or even do follow consensus-based morality, or whether it is even necessary I'd have to contest...

The idea of the world being a horrible place and that we need a shared code of moral values that we follow strictly to prevent said horror is a common one in philosophy - arguably the most famous variant coming from Hobbes' "Leviathan"  - but I'd also contest that most people probably wouldn't rape, kill or enslave people even if there weren't specific moral rules against it, if only for fear of retribution. We need morals, I'd argue, to prevent the strong from overcoming that fear of retribution and taking advantage of the weak, and to explain why (despite the power gap) it is *still* wrong to exploit those beneath us in life.

Can it still be home if we have differing ideas about morality? I'd say so - if all those living together have good reasons to live together and the only difference is their differing views on morality, then I'd say it'd be more likely that either a compromise is reached and that all participants learn from the experiences, or that morality just becomes a taboo subject and doesn't have any influence on 'home life'. I am, however, only working off of conjecture and my own experiences when I make these assumptions :P

I'd also contend that it is rather that most religions were the products of proto-morals mixed with a healthy dose of superstition and lack of knowledge about the world, relatively speaking. Religions were the early philosophies, created to explain why people shouldn't do the bad things in life, in ways that the said people would understand at the time.

The problem of the Golden Rule, however, is one that really does plague a particular theory of morals (utilitarianism) based as it is indeed on Judeo-Christian values and with mainly Christian original thinkers.

Also, we do change our beliefs based on events that happen in our lives, but I wouldn't go so far as to claim that our individual moralities are entirely determined by said events. I think a better explanation of why our morals change due to life events is that more life = more experience = more information, and we make moral choices based on the information we have/do not have at the time of the choice (hence the phenomenon of thinking that we know best now, and then regretting our choices two years down the line :P ).

But we are also capable of thinking longer-term than just based on our current experience of life, especially if we've previously trained our long-term-thinking ability in some fashion or other. Bad people can make good (morally-speaking) choices despite a terrible life, and otherwise good people can do horribly evil things despite an excellent and genuinely happy life...

Ultimately, feeling 'at home' is less about a communal moral code and just about, well, getting along with the people you live with. Getting along with people is complicated, and agreement on what is best in life :P definitely helps, but disagreement can also foster relationships instead of destroying them thankfully :D

You should be the final arbiter of your own morality, but a lack of total accord can be helpful, and relying only on yourself for moral judgements  lead to a narrowing of perspective. If morality is truly based on experience, then other people's experiences can be very useful for improving your own - or at least, it's certainly be useful for me! :D

I was thinking about my assertion that home is the place where we find others of like mind. To me, ‘like mind’ suggests a set of shared values and ideals- a moral code if you like. It’s a bit of a no-brainer to say that moral codes are a part of living in a community. Without ‘morality’ we...

[cmifw-blog]

1) The speed or otherwise of the hacking, though, could surely be a plot point? It'd also be a nice realistic break from the normal trend...

2)

a) I wouldn't put it past the Sonic Screwdriver... But yes, it would be difficult - but that just means that they should use a more sophisticated plot, not just handwave it.

b) See above.

3) But it isn't beyond them to have slower-paced episodes based on investigation (with a finale pay-off at the end) and, while I understand that hacking like that can keep the pace going, it seems silly and crude compared to the other techniques and monsters used to enliven the pace. Compare frantic tapping to, for instance, using the Sonic Screwdriver to do, well, anything - it's much more interesting, provides more acting potential and allows for funny faces from Matt Smith.

You're right. Using modern technology right is easy to relate to, instantly more interesting and much better at retaining a sense of immersion than the 'fake hacking' used in many TV shows, even if it is more difficult. Maybe CSI can get away with it, but I can't help but feel that Doctor Who should be held to a higher standard.

Gah.

This really, really, REALLY rustles my jimmies.

Just finished watching the new episode of Doctor Who (it’s good, and this will be a non-spoiler-article) and there was an instance of ‘hacking’ in it.

Except, as usual, it wasn’t.

I should really reveal an important fact at this point - I’m…

[cmifw-blog]

This is exactly what I mean! Grah! KHAAAAAN! xD

[cmifw-blog]

...but isn't the popular perception of hacking negatively impacting public knowledge?

Gah.

This really, really, REALLY rustles my jimmies.

Just finished watching the new episode of Doctor Who (it's good, and this will be a non-spoiler-article) and there was an instance of 'hacking' in it.

Except, as usual, it wasn't.

I should really reveal an important fact at this point - I'm not a particularly computer-literate person. I've picked up some of the lingo from the media and idle reading of Wikipedia when I'm bored, but I leave the complicated stuff to obliging friends :P

But, despite this, it never fails to annoy me whenever an otherwise-clever show decides to patronise it's audience by dumbing down any interaction to a computer to the level of frantically tapping keys. Or the tendency of MS-DOS to appear whenever anyone 'hacks' anything - I'm looking at you, NCIS.

It's insulting to my intelligence.

I get it, honestly - many people find anything to do with a computer difficult to understand and even uninteresting. An explanation of the intricacies would be unnecessary, and I wouldn't want them to ruin the pace of a good show just to pander to those in the audience who would indeed understand what they are going on about.

But I can't help but feel that there is an interesting and happy medium between 'really complicated computer procedures that no one understands' and 'typing randomly really fast as figures scrolls across the screen'. Not only that, but I feel that establishing 'hacking' as something that's easy to do and cool to boot (although everything the Doctor does is cool <- potential bias detected) is probably a bad thing (TM) to convey to a younger audience such as might be watching Doctor Who...

Hell, using media terminology that's already bandied about like it's open season such as 'DNS attack', 'spoofing' and the like would be better.

I don't know, though - I'm not clever enough, currently, so that's up to you people!

Are there ways to easily explain 'hacking' to people without confusing them/boring them to tears? Do you think shows can/should do so, instead of using it as a plot device without regard to the intelligence of the audience?

[cmifw-blog]

I think expecting people to not only conquer most of the world but *also* somehow ensure that said empire lasts the test of time before we can consider them merely 'great' is perhaps a little unfair. All this is doing, however, is making me a) want to play Total War: Rome II more and b) claim that in fact the person who most deserves the title of 'the Great' is good ol' Gaius Julius Caesar.

Ludwig Erhard would also probably learn a fair amount from Osbourne, although I'm not sure West Germany would want him to...

I'm all for genuine ideological conflict. I just don't agree with the current government's ideology :D

I'll buy you some different varieties of coffee the next time I see you so we can settle this once and for all!

I sincerely doubt that the people who run Youtube are just 'resting on their laurels' as you so eloquently put it. It simply isn't in their own interests to 'break stuff' because while there isn't currently much competition, the more they alienate their users the more likely competition will appear! It's a difficult balance between adding and experimenting with new features (a necessity for any website for two reasons: 1) to bring in new users and 2) to improve - or give the impression of improving at least - the experience for existing users) and retaining the specific features that current users value.

This is a response to the Alarm Clock Project’s post, as I can’t find how to reblog properly…

Gah. I cannot into Tumblr.

1) To clarify: I think the Pope Francis is very unlikely to change or modify significantly the Roman Catholic stance on the popularized media issues (abortion,…

[cmifw-blog]

Yes, but both Alexander and Genghis accomplished far more in their lifetimes (and enjoyed life far more) than, say, Alfred. It feels somewhat unfair to blame the failure of their legacies on their policies in life instead of, ya know, blaming the inferior squabbling nobles who split their empires after they were dead...

Darius, on the other hand, probably wasn't Zoroaster reborn - but I like to give the man kudos for the pair of giant Persian balls it must have taken to claim such a thing. He effectively said Darius = TRUTH, and then made that the founding principle of his empire...

You'd notice, though, in said "Economic Miracle" the methods used were not the deficit cutting we are currently suffering through - quite the opposite in fact. While I acknowledge that economies take time to recover, and that risks are often necessary in the pursuit of a successful economy, I'm not challenging that. Rather, the current method of 'economic recovery' the dominant parties espouse I don't just consider ill-advised, but also actively damaging to certain areas of the economy that, in the example you gave, were *crucial* to said recovery (the public sector generally) and as such I don't believe that the cuts to these areas are being done to 'cut the deficit' but for ideological reasons instead.

Have you tried different types of coffee? 'cause I don't like expressos - they're too bitter - but I do like flavoured lattes. Can we agree, then, that hot chocolate is better than tea? :P

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't hackers (not sure if that's the right term, but still) get through Steam Guard recently like a hot knife through butter? I agree on the EULA though - hell, that was the first main controversy surrounding Origin - and the chronic lack of games in the Origin library. I own one game on Origin (Mass Effect 3, and only because I had to) and want precisely one game on Origin (Dragon Age II, and if I can get a CD copy instead I will). I disagree, however, on your pessimistic assessment of the game supply economy. The fact that Steam and Youtube have a 'monopoly' as you call it is because, well, they're better than the other competitors. If anything, it's an example of a healthy economy working right - it wasn't too long ago that Steam was the underdog, and it's rise has been meteoric due to good customer service and a willingness to engage with the gaming community in a positive and meaningful fashion.

This is a response to the Alarm Clock Project’s post, as I can’t find how to reblog properly…

Gah. I cannot into Tumblr.

1) To clarify: I think the Pope Francis is very unlikely to change or modify significantly the Roman Catholic stance on the popularized media issues (abortion,…

[cmifw-blog]

Response (The Only Way I Know How)

This is a response to the Alarm Clock Project's post, as I can't find how to reblog properly...

Gah. I cannot into Tumblr.

1) To clarify: I think the Pope Francis is very unlikely to change or modify significantly the Roman Catholic stance on the popularized media issues (abortion, contraception, homosexuality, the exposure of priests engaged in paedophilia to secular justice to name but a few) and as such will not represent a great departure from the previous Pope.

He is, of course, a different person - has an amazing prior name (Jorge Bergoglio) for instance - and it'd be nice to think that such a tradition-rooted organisation could change radically on the whim of a progressive thinker, but... I don't think it's likely.

2) Funny anime, worth a watch if ya have the spare time and like anime.

3) Well, I looked up a list, and immediately a few people stick out as genuinely 'great': Alexander of Macedon (size of empire), Darius of Persia (set himself up as the embodiment of an elemental force of good and truth), Genghis Khan (accomplishment award), Ozymandias (best name, best inspiration for villain).

4) Glad you agree :D

5) It's an easily memorable (and catchy) and still devastating argument, and have yet to see a convincing argument against it.

6) Infinite's out and been reviewed. I've played 1 & 2, and while I enjoyed the story, the gameplay was meh (the atmosphere helped) and Infinite happens to be set in my kind of wacky clockwork+magic+politics setting. We'll see, I guess.

7) We should be judging *right now*. An economy isn't a cake - you don't throw the ingredients, stir and leave it to rise for a while - it's full of people, and people get hurt by distanced, calculated, cold economic 'experiments' that the cuts effectively are.

8) I think I'm going to write a post devoted to this clearly very important issue :P, but briefly: at least coffee tastes of something, it has less caffeine in it and is thus better for you, and was invented by an Arabian sorcerer.

9) See 2)

10) I've answered this in a separate post, but (as I said there) frankly I'm not qualified/knowledgeable enough to compare them. What are the technical differences?

[cmifw-blog]

What makes you so sure that steam is better than origin? While origin is completely useless and shit, that doesn't definitely mean steam is better.

Personal experience (mostly with Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, admittedly - if I wanted more conclusive evidence I'd have to try it with other games, but Origin doesn't have anything I want at the moment...) has led me to believe that a) Steam is more stable than Origin and b) has a better library of games. If ya can provide me with technical reasons for/against these beliefs, please do :D

[cmifw-blog]

WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?

Coffee. You?

[cmifw-blog]

Coffee is better than tea? For real?? 1) "If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you." (William Gladstone) Whereas coffee will only make you feel a bit sick, taste bitter, and make you look like a sophisticate (and even then, only with cigarettes). 2) "Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world" (Tien Yiheng) whereas coffee shops only add to said 'din'. :P

But "Coffee is... a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self"! :P

[cmifw-blog]

An offer you can't refuse

"You can't be sceptical about everything, it just isn't practical."

Everyone, everywhere, everywhen talking about scepticism.

Hi.

I'm mdltt, and I'm a sceptic. This basically means my initial reaction to pretty much anything new is to question it somehow. I think this helps me learn things and grow as a person.

I am, however, frequently wrong. Not just about some things, like things I know nothing about (although I'm wrong about that too).

Like, wrong about everything.

And the everybody I possibly misquoted above are partially right. It's quite difficult to be sceptical about everything. Most of us have beliefs we cling to, or ideas that seep into our brain and behave like a particularly stubborn stain - difficult to get rid of, and after a while just becomes unquestionably part of the furniture.

That's why I'm writing this blog. I'm biased, especially about what I typically consider the ideas that make up my 'personality' or 'psyche' or whatever. So I'm going to post my beliefs (especially the odd and wacky ones, the ones I don't really have grounds for believing or are very subjective) and you people-

You people are going to be sceptical about them.

Sometimes I'll post short beliefs, sometimes long. Sometimes about current affairs, history, anime, games, or anything I find myself wondering to myself:

"Why do I think that?"

Sometimes I'll post your strange and weird beliefs that you've submitted through the 'Correct yourself!' question.

And this way, we can all be sceptical about everything, and have talk about interesting things.

Won't that be nice?

So, to start us off, here's a short list of beliefs I have little to no evidence for:

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but..."

1) the new Pope will be just like the last one;

2) Hayate & Hinagiku (of Hayate no Gotuku fame) should totally get together already;

3) Alfred the Great wasn't all that great;

4) Tumblr is full of crazy people;

5) the Euthyphro dilemma is still the best reason for God not existing;

6) Bioshock Infinite is going to be better than 1 & 2 combined;

7) all these economic cuts aren't necessary;

8) Coffee is better than tea;

9) Fate/Zero is objectively better than Fate/Stay Night;

10) Steam is better than Origin.

Now start being sceptical already!