Alternity ficathon

[synecdochic]

1) One of the things we talked about at the cast party was doing an Alternity ficathon, for people to submit prompts and write prompts. (Not a gift exchange -- leaving a prompt does not commit you to write something, and you aren't assigned somebody to write a story for -- but rather, modeled after the Bujold Ficathon, where people can leave prompts and then anyone can pick a prompt and write to it, with stories being accepted at any point.) I'd been hoping to get the prompting part open by Bonfire Night for a Twelfth Night de-anoning, but unfortunately I ran into AO3 problems and couldn't get it worked out by then, so the whole schedule's gonna get pushed back. Sorry! I'm still trying to make it work, and watch this space for further details.

2) We have been tweaking the Cards Against Alternity deck, and with luck should have a playtestable version soon!

3) Apropos of nothing, I was listening to my choral playlist today, and realized I don't think I ever shared this: one of my great regrets about the Alternity timeline and what we did to the UK is that it almost certainly means John Taverner never composed the Funeral Ikos (or if he did, it probably didn't make it past the UK), because boy would Tosha have been all over it. (The text is from the Russian Orthodox rite for the burial of priests: I am parted from my brethren; all my friends do I abandon and go hence.)

I've been through YouTube dozens of times looking for a good performance of it, and haven't really found one -- my favorite is the one recorded by my ex-gf's college choir -- but even though almost everybody does the dynamics and/or tempo wrong, here, have a recording:

"choir of king's college cambridge - tavener - funeral ikos" (Watch on YouTube)

Why these bitter words of the dying, O brethren,
which they utter as they go hence?
I am parted from my brethren.
All my friends do I abandon, and go hence.
But whither I go, that understand I not,
neither what shall become of me yonder;
only God who hath summoned me knoweth.
But make commemoration of me with the song:
Alleluia.

But whither now go the souls?
How dwell they now together there?
This mystery have I desired to learn,
but none can impart aright.
Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them?
Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them
and make the song:
Alleluia.

We go forth on the path eternal,
and as condemned, with downcast faces,
present ourselves before the only God eternal.
Where then is comeliness? Where then is wealth?
Where then is the glory of this world?
There shall none of these things aid us,
but only to say oft the psalm:
Alleluia.

If thou hast shown mercy unto man, O man,
that same mercy shall be shown thee there;
and if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion,
the same shall there deliver thee from want,
If in this life the naked thou hast clothed,
the same shall give thee shelter there,
and sing the psalm:
Alleluia.

Youth and the beauty of the body
fade at the hour of death,
and the tongue then burneth fiercely,
and the parched throat is inflamed.
The beauty of the eyes is quenched then,
the comeliness of the face all altered,
the shapeliness of the neck destroyed;
and the other parts have become numb,
nor often say:
Alleluia.

With ecstacy are we inflamed if we but hear
that there is light eternal yonder;
that there is Paradise,
wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth.
Let us all, also, Enter into Christ,
that all we may cry aloud thus unto God:
Alleluia.

One of these days I will share the playlist I used for writing Tosha. Unsurprisingly, it has a lot of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov on it.