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skyabyss · 3 years ago

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Pairing: Dainsleif/Albedo

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Rating: Explicit

Title: Dream Bliss

Summary:

The morning after the dream, Albedo offers coffee and Dainsleif makes a simple sweet promise.

Little does Albedo know it comes with one of life's greatest miracle and creation, his magnum opus... A baby.

Or, a self indulgent mpreg fic featuring two very gay alchemist and bough keeper—with some plot!

Chapter 1:

Albedo walked cautiously to the kitchen, grabbing one mug at first then a second one for his unexpected guest.

"Coffee?" The question floated oddly in the air, the space so unused to idle chatter.

His hands automatically busied themselves in preparation for instant brew. The beauty of being an alchemist means you have the ability to make fancy tech for self-indulgent purposes.

It made him think of Sucrose as he loaded the coffee machine with caramel-flavored coffee. Sucrose specifically engineered the coffee flavor to a higher degree of sweetness, depending on the taster's blood sugar levels. The girl is simply brilliant, far exceeding beyond his initial assessments.

"A cup will be good," Dainsleif replied.

He stared at his hands as the mug filled with steaming liquid, the scent of the fresh morning coffee calming him. The lines in his palms look just the same as it ever did, and he didn't think of a reason why it should change now. Maybe he should take Mona's readings of him more seriously. It was she and the Traveler who solved the mystery of the fallen star after all.

"Something big will happen to you, a premonition or a vision in your dreams..."

And true to her word, a man appeared and took over his dreams.

Once it was ready he set the mug down in front of his guest, his eyes set at the pine wood table. He couldn't bare to look at him directly at the moment.

His own mug still needed tended to, which borrowed him time to compose a decent topic starter. None seemed particularly good enough.

So it was, that he sat down opposite the man he's recently only been rendezvousing with at night, if he could call it that.

Dainsleif took a sip of his coffee, once he tasted his own, and gave a slight approving nod. It finally gave him an idea of what to talk about.

"Sucrose, my fellow researcher at the lab, made the flavor profile of this coffee. Its caramel flavor heavily takes inspiration from the Fontaine dessert, crème brûlée, which I think she's achieved quite well. To say nothing of the fact that it also complements the glucose level present in your body seconds after ingesting it, without much compromise to its taste."

(Somewhere hunched over a book was Sucrose, letting out a sneeze that could have frightened a small mouse. She fixed her glasses and sneezed twice more.)

With that said, he barely glanced at his companion, odd that it was to realize that this may truly be the first occasion in seeing him out in the real world. Not much differed to note of, and he couldn't help but notice Dainsleif held the same aura his master did. Both are all-knowing and just within knowing. He has no doubts in his mind that the two of them are connected somehow.

"To think alchemy has such mundane uses under the hands of prodigious wielders, and yes I agree that it does indeed emulate the taste of crème brûlée, of course tasting the authentic dessert is incomparable itself."

Albedo's interest piqued at the mention of tasting a real crème brûlée, his train of thought sharply turning. He sipped more of his dose of sweet caffeine, pleased that the temperature was perfect enough to warm his senses.

"Have you been to Fontaine? I've heard that there's plenty more desserts just as wonderful as crème brûlée there like éclairs, macarons, and custards."

"I've been to Fontaine in a few occasions, the culinary arts is indeed top notch, and I'm sure you'll find the gadgets they have there to be well made and innovative."

Albedo drank more than half of the contents of his mug, still a few hours before he was to make an appearance in the lab.

"If only I wasn't tied to the Knights of Favonius I would perhaps have more liberties to travel here or there. As it is, I'm quite content where I am in the present with the people around me."

"You don't need to be tied to the Knights of Favonius any longer, I will prove that I will take care of you from now on."

Dainsleif stood up not a second later and bowed down on one knee in front of him, the transition seamless for a man that seemed hellbent in traumatizing him not so long ago. But...this man before him now had no such intentions, he could sense that.

Last night had been a whirlwind of sensations, floating somewhere in the back of his mind like a drifting cloud. He tried to distance himself from it, separating that moment of temptation aside. For all he knew, Dainsleif barely regards their sex as nothing more than a means to an end. He didn't know why it bothers him to think of it like that, maybe the problem itself is thinking of it in the first place. It was rather odd for him to feel emotional at all.

"Keep what you promised me, that's all I ask." His voice shook slightly, slender fingers clenched at his knees. He couldn't even glance his way now.

He heard Dainsleif shuffle just outside of his peripheral vision and before he realized it, the man had his chin tipped up with one of his big fingers and was leaning down to kiss him.

Their lips, warm and tasting of caramel coffee, inevitably touched, and Albedo could feel his heart swell and his stomach flip. It felt so good, better than any of what he felt in his dreams.

So he isn't going to leave, he's going to stay with me...

Small, almost imperceptible tears prickled out of his closed eyes, catching in his eyelashes. Tension left his mind and body and he almost fell limp had Dainsleif not held him in his arms.

Yes, I made a promise that I will keep as long as I am here. He replied in his consciousness.

That jolted him somewhat, and before he could separate from their kiss, Dainsleif kissed him all the harder and slipped his tongue inside his mouth.

Only his master had been able to read and respond to his thoughts like that. There was no one else until Dainsleif arrived.

Such upwelling of strong emotions is rare to him, but he will be forgiven for crying over a lost figure that has mentored and taught him all he knew.

Don't think about them—the Destroyer.

Albedo startled at the mention of that word.

Destroyer?

Yes, for now you need not worry about it.

Their mind link ended as soon as their lips parted, all spit-shined and tender.

"How did you do that?" Despite still feeling floaty from their touch, Albedo scrutinized the man before him with renewed intensity.

"I know you have questions and seek answers, but I simply cannot tell it to you in one day."

"Only my master has ever done that before—linked with my thoughts and have conversations with me without ever having the need for the movement of the tongue..." Albedo closed his eyes. He briefly recalled the voice of Rhinedottir, ever so present in his mind, as they taught him the ways of the Universe through Soil and Chalk.

Lost, so lost... Everyday I struggle and still find myself at a loss whether you left me or found something else to pass onto.

He realized soon after that he never really knew who his master was; as much as they were a fountain of wisdom, there also lies an abyss of secrets unknown to him—secrets that were now haunting him and in which Dainsleif held to his chest closely like a deck of cards. He wonders truly the extent of the Khaenri'ahn's omniscience.

"I know what I am and you know what I am—the Destroyer."

"You are not a Destroyer, but they are." The man held him tighter as his body trembled uncontrollably.

"But is that not why you came to me in the first place? You know what I am going to become. The reason I accepted..."

"I know, I know. My intentions may not have been completely benevolent in the beginning... But they are different now. I see that you are not the monster I had envisioned you to be... I um—" Dainsleif looked away, hesitance infringing in his tone. "May have jumped to conclusions faster than I should have."

"What changed your mind then?"

"Watching you draw and research for hours, it is as simple as that, and I grew more attracted to you. Not only that but I eventually switched my mind about you. Now I want you safe from this corruption, instead of solely fighting the source of it."

"I would warrant a highly probable guess that your time is far better served elsewhere than observing me."

"Oh, but you would be wrong. I always make the most efficient use of my time, such as claiming a Homunculus for myself."

Albedo blinked slowly, his eyes humorless and just a touch too shiny. For a few seconds he looked up at the taller man, undisturbed until a soft hue of pink bloomed from his pale cheeks all the way down to his neck.

A touch of spring upon winter's frost.

Dainsleif caressed Albedo's smooth, life-like skin. He was absolutely perfect and he was not going to deny that it still disturbed him somewhat. There's a person out there that can create living and breathing replicas of humans out of dust, free and unchecked.

And here was one such person right now underneath his palms.

"Well, after all you do what you want to. You just stringed me along to your strange machinations." Albedo looked away from the man's crystal-eyed stare, unable to hide his ability to turn even more crimson.

"It is not so strange when you are aware and familiar to it, no?" The Khaenri'ahn leaned in ever so closely, their nose tips brushing.

"I do not know where you picked up the idea that I was comfortable being vulnerable in an abyssal realm and be subjected to your dark whims."

"Dark whims?" Dainsleif chuckled. "Yes, and I formally apologize. It shall never happen again, unless of course it becomes a part of our repertoire." A sultry smirk replaced his amicable expression.

"I beg your pardon?" Albedo made to sit up, evidently having had enough of further embarrassment.

"No, please, I'm being serious. Tell me what it is you need and I shall deliver it, whatever it is. I'm extending an olive branch to you for the ways I've done wrong to you."

Albedo paused to gauge Dainsleif's apparent sincerity and suddenly thought of an idea for his reparation. He wrapped his fingers around the coffee mug.

"Give me a crème brûlée..."

Maybe he should have asked for more answers, but it will eventually unfold at his feet as it must, whether he wants it to or not. Dainsleif is proof of that.

"That is it?" Dainsleif queried, slightly puzzled. Albedo keeps surprising him at every turn.

"Yes, I want to taste an authentic one."

For now he wants to enjoy the small things he can for as much as he can.

"Then you shall have it." A kiss to the alchemist's lips sealed his sweet promise. "And many more."

End Note: AO3 is the main site where I post and where the story is most up to date. I don't know yet if I'll cross-post all the chapters here, let's see how it goes. I just wanted to try and promo a little bit because Dainbedo is a pairing that's worth everything!

#dainbedo #dainsleif #albedo #genshin impact #ao3 #self promo #new at this promotion thing #doesnt hurt to try I guess #dainbedo fanfiction #genshin impact fanfics #slash fanfiction #my fic: dream bliss

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 4 years ago

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Chapter 48: To The Secret Lab!

Becoming The Mask

Stephan's footsteps echoed more loudly than usual in the base's deserted hallways. He was tempted to change his gait, to step lightly so he'd make less noise, but on the other hand it wasn't smart to sneak up on a Changeling you weren't planning to fight. Anyway, the bag of canned goods he was carrying would clank no matter how he carried it.

"Bernie? It's Stephan," he called when he neared the laboratory. The doors were standing open.

"Excellent timing, I need some fresh eyes."

Stephan gulped. He was pretty sure Bernie meant 'a new person to look over things, because fresh perspective can catch something an older, more tired perspective missed', but it was also possible the Alchemist actually needed eyeballs for something.

"There's goggles by the door," Bernie continued.

Stephan put on a set, and after a moment's thought grabbed a hairnet as well.

His hair wasn't long enough to tie back easily but it was long enough to potentially get caught on something. It felt a bit silly to put goggles over his mask, but the lab safety rules were clearly displayed by the goggle rack – goggles and close-toed shoes were mandatory for entrance. There were some modified goggles and plastic booties for use while troll-shaped.

He left the grocery bag on an empty shoe-rack. It would be out of the way there.

"I wasn't sure what your food situation was, so I brought some stuff. Canned tuna, mostly." Cans were shelf-stable and could be eaten in troll or human shape.

"Thanks, Stephan. I'm well supplied, but it was thoughtful of you." Bernie was currently human-shaped, surrounded by neatly sorted rubble and writing something on a clipboard. "Xe/xir at the moment, by the way."

"Is that with an X or with a Z?" asked Stephan, not sure if there was a significant difference, but ready to believe there could be since Bernie was bothering to bring this up.

"An X. You know, you're one of maybe five people who've ever asked me that."

"Okay. Cool. Uh, he/him for me, still."

"Got it." Bernie made a decisive last pen stroke, clicked the pen, and turned to xir guest-slash-assistant. "I've been sorting pieces, checking to see if anything's recognizable. As you can see," gesturing towards on grouping of stones, "the hooves, legs, and loincloth can mostly be identified, as can the claws," indicating another, pointier collection. "But I can't seem to find Bular's horns or face. I keep recounting the skulls from his belt and checking our video footage of him to make sure I didn't mix him up with one of them somehow."

A set of skulls, on the table in front of Bernie beside the probably-legs, were either surprisingly intact or mostly reassembled.

Stephan was suddenly, vividly reminded of his early days on the surface, sorting jigsaw puzzles with his Familiar's family. His youngest sister in particular had had a knack for seeing which edges ought to match up.

"Do I need gloves?"

"Wouldn't hurt. I haven't been using them. They don't switch over properly." Bernie crackled blue, and the tall, hefty human became a tall, hefty troll – still small compared to a Gumm-Gumm, but probably quite respectably sized for whichever group xe'd been taken from – and held up xir hands to demonstrate.

Stephan could see why Bernie might have trouble with gloves. Xir hands were bigger now, for one, which would stretch out the latex if xe carried the gloves over through the transformation rather than having different gloves on as a troll, and then xe would have to change xir gloves once they changed to human – plus, Bernie had four-digit rather than five-digit hands as a troll, so the extra glove finger would either flap loose or need to be taped down, which would also increase the odds of the gloves being damaged after shapeshifting back and forth.

It was a lot of trouble to go through when you weren't working with something caustic or reactive to the oils in human skin.

"Why are you wearing … that, though?" Stephan asked, gesturing up and down.

Bernie's lab coat had carried over between forms. It was loose on xir as a human, and now fit better. The lime green coat, with neon pink and yellow flowers printed around the hem and on the cloth-covered buttons, had looked odd on a human and even stranger on a purplish-blue troll.

"Oh, I keep a bunch of colourful ones in stock, in case I'm ever running tests on someone who's had a bad experience in a lab and doesn't like the white coats. Attempted vivisection, usually. Gets people all mixed up, conflating Mad Scientists and Evil Scientists."

Bernie shook xir head.

"Vivisection is the stupidest starting point for a xenobiological study. Surgery is complicated. Aside from risk of infection and the complications of dosing anesthesia for an unknown organism – since they'll definitely die of traumatic shock if you don't anesthetize – looking at organs only makes sense if you already know what you're supposed to be seeing."

Xe paced around the lab, gesturing with the clipboard.

"At best, you'll set yourself up for confirmation bias about any superficial parallels between the new and the known, and at worst you'll have no idea what you're looking at and kill off your test subject. I mean, I understand if it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to commit torture for the sake of torture, but as a scientist that offends me for other reasons."

"… So, why are you wearing it now?" Stephan looked around, suddenly wary. "Do you have a live test subject down here?" How restrained are they? How vengeful are they?

Bernie seemed startled at the reminder xe was having a conversation rather than talking to xirself.

"Oh – no, I just got bored of how monochromatic the base is. Plus changing how I'm dressed helps keep the days from blurring together."

"Ah."

Stephan made a mental note to visit more often.

He started looking through the shattered remains. He didn't shapeshift. Stephan had a lot of protruding teeth in troll form, not just tusks, and it could be a challenge not to drool on things. His mask would catch some of it if he kept it on, but then he's be stuck in a slimy mask when he changed back.

He picked up each stone, one by one, and turned it this way and that. Sometimes he found an identifiable feature – an elbow spur, a shoulder ridge – and pointed it out to Bernie. That got part of one arm put back together, or maybe a smaller percentage of both arms. If Stephan didn't find anything distinct, he would carefully put the stone back exactly where Bernie'd had it before, and move on to the next one.

"It's weird that his swords aren't here," said Stephan after a while.

"He could've been disarmed in the fight."

"Yeah, but then Stricklander would've brought the swords back along with the body. And if they'd turned to stone with him, there should be – some sheets, or plates, or something. Flat rocks matching up to the blades. Those things were huge."

Unless …

"Unless the Trollhunter took them, after killing him," Stephan said slowly. "You know, battle trophies." His eyes were drawn to the row of skulls Bular had worn to show off his own battle prowess. "Hunting trophies … What if the reason we can't find his head, is because the Trollhunter has it?"

"Well, that would probably narrow down the cause of death to decapitation," said Bernie, in a detached, academic sort of tone. "Although that can also be done post-mortem, it would be more difficult to remove an intact head, since the stone is more brittle once it dies."

"Which could explain the state of the rest of the body." Stephan shuddered. Gunmar was going to be so angry …

+=+

After two searches through Bular's remains, Stephan could barely tell the stones apart anymore. It looked like there should be more than enough to rebuild Bular, but jigsaws always looked bigger than they were when the pieces were all spread out, and Stephan and Bernie still couldn't find Bular's head.

Stephan was leaning on his 'hunting trophy' theory. There had to be a reason their greatest enemy was called the Trollhunter, right?

Something beeped. Stephan, more tightly wound than he'd realized, jumped and turned trollish in a flash of silver.

He was dark grey, as a troll, with a crown of stubby lighter grey horns instead of hair. His mask got pushed away from his face by his overlong teeth. His goggles clattered to the floor. His ears went back at the additional noise.

"It's okay, Stephan," said Bernie, gently, as though to a spooked animal. "That just means it's break time. Come on." Bernie reached out as though to pat Stephan on the arm, though they were on opposite sides of the room. "I'm going to meditate. I'd rather not leave you alone in the lab, no offence."

Stephan blinked a few times and tried breathing slow and deep, to settle his heart rate.

"Okay. Yeah. Let's go."

Both of them changed to human form as they left the laboratory. Bernie sealed the blast doors and herded Stephan to the next floor up, to a small square room with a gramophone in the center and low white benches around the walls.

Stephan picked the bench opposite Bernie's, both Changelings with their sides to the door.

The record was moving slowly, though the needle wasn't touching it and neither Changeling had wound the crank on the side.

Bernie seemed entirely at ease, waiting, listening for the Pale Lady's voice.

Stephan tried to let go of the resentment that kept bubbling up inside him.

For all Bernie had seemed to be lonely and pining for conversation when Stephan first arrived, xe certainly didn't seem to need Stephan around anymore. Stephan had hardly proven his mettle with how he'd overreacted to a harmless alarm. Helping with the 'rebuild Bular' project was the one thing Stephan could do for the Order right now, and he had barely contributed.

He didn't know how to help.

He just wanted to help.

Please … he begged Morgana in his mind. My Queen. Your Ladyship. Mother. Tell me what you need of me. Let me know how I can help you.

A side compartment of the gramophone table opened. A drawer slid out.

Both Changelings got up and leaned in to look without touching anything.

The drawer held an orange crystal, faintly glowing. The room hadn't changed temperature or décor, but somehow felt more comfortable. Bernie got out a pen and touched the crystal with the button end. Nothing happened.

"Is this …" for us? Stephan couldn't quite say out loud. "Are we supposed to take it? Do something with it?"

"I think it's Heartstone." Bernie touched it with a pinkie finger this time. Again, nothing appeared to happen.

Stephan backed off and sat back down. Heartstone? Really? Here? How? That stuff was legendary. He'd only half-believed it was real.

Bernie turned trollish and touched the stone with xir last finger, to no visible effect, and then picked it up. The drawer closed itself and the compartment shut over it.

Bernie held the crystal out to Stephan and urged, "Touch it."

Stephan got up and followed Bernie's lead, transforming and tapping the crystal cautiously with one finger. He staggered back and sat again.

"Whoa."

If Heartstone was a thing, that was definitely what this thing was. Stephan had been overloaded with a sense of safety and contentment. It was actually kind of scary to think about once he wasn't touching it anymore – he would have let his guard down entirely to bask in whatever the stone was radiating.

Maybe it was actually some kind of trap?

Except a trap – if it was a lotus-eater type trap – the trap would logically drain his energy, and Stephan felt invigorated. He wanted to do something. He felt like he could do anything.

"It's supposed to enhance a troll's life force, somehow," said Bernie, waving vaguely with xir free hand. "Possibly like how reptiles need warmth to regulate their metabolism, or how humans need sunlight to produce Vitamin D. Or it could just be a stimulant."

"I heard Lord Gunmar was born from the first one," said Stephan. "Maybe that was a metaphor and trolls need … Heartstone radiation … to be fertile? That would explain why we aren't."

'We' meaning 'Changelings'. Although, if Stephan was right, maybe that meant Changelings could … become fertile? Probably not from a brief touch of a small stone, but, in the future, with regular contact?

Bernie was still holding it.

"If it feeds trolls, maybe it eats them as well," xe speculated. "Feeding troll remains into it could make it grow. Like how plants do best if there's decaying animal matter in the soil."

Stephan nodded. He'd skimmed an article in a gardening magazine a while back about using blood meal to grow better roses.

"There's some connection, I don't know what exactly, but I know it's there." Bernie turned the stone over with a thoughtful expression. "I wish I had more to experiment with. Ideally five. A control group with nothing, of course, one fed with analogous minerals that weren't sourced from a troll, one fed with Changeling dust –"

"You have –? What am I saying, of course you do."

"– one with Grave Sand, and one with Bular's remains."

Wait, what?

"I don't know if Otto would like that."

"That experiment would have to wait until after the autopsy," said Bernie, reminded once more that xe wasn't just talking to xirself.

"… Do you think it could bring him back to life?"

"Unlikely but possible."

Stephan had never encountered the undead, to his knowledge, but he made a point of bringing garlic-rich food into work at the crematorium, and keeping a box of salt in his desk. (He'd read somewhere that, if a zombie tasted salt, they would remember they were dead, go back into their grave, and resist further attempts to summon them.) He probably wouldn't have much to worry about in his troll form, but his coworkers did not share this advantage.

"You know," said Bernie, "if this is emitting anything, I could probably adjust a Geiger counter to pick up on it. Let's get it back to the lab."

+=+

Bernie's first step was to scan the Heartstone with every instrument the Janus Order had and record its exact dimensions. Stephan was more of a witness than an assistant for that part.

He felt much more useful during the Geiger counter modifications. Bernie needed an extra pair of hands for some steps, and neither of them were a troll type with more than two arms. Stephan did have a prehensile tail, but it had broken a few times back in the Darklands and he couldn't flex it very well anymore to deal with things in front of him.

The alterations to the machine were more magic than tech. Bernie opened up a few sections and moved things around, extracting wires and inserting crystals and writing tiny cramped symbols here and there. Stephan held things out of the way that weren't being fully removed, and balanced pieces while Bernie attached them, and moved the Heartstone around the room for Bernie to recalibrate various settings.

Bernie put in something like a compass below the dial, so the holder couldn't only see how strong and close the Heartstone's readings were, but also which direction it was in. The compass was a sphere of rutilated quartz, with the gold-coloured acicular inclusions all going the same way. The sphere's mounting let it indicate directions in three dimensions.

It took four tries and six hours to cobble together a working model. Short-range only. Despite the Heartstone's properties, which did not seem to fade after prolonged contact, Stephan was barely keeping his eyes open.

n a surprising show of trust, Bernie let him nap in the apartment connected to the lab while Bernie typed up a report on today's findings.

Well, maybe it wasn't so surprising. Stephan, asleep, would be in a far more vulnerable position than Bernie would be from allowing another Changeling unsupervised in xir private space. If Stephan tried to leave some sort of trap, or go snooping while tired and set off a trap Bernie had left, well …

Bernie was also the Changeling primarily in charge of making any poisons the local Janus Order branch couldn't get through human channels. Stephan taking advantage of Bernie's trust would end far worse for him then it would for xir.

In any case, Stephan accepted the risk and took the nap, not wanting to drive home while tired. Bernie woke him half an hour later, and they went together to return the Heartstone piece to the gramophone room and to drop off a report in Otto's office.

Stephan carried the Geiger counter so Bernie could get a better idea of its range. It lost track of the Heartstone piece once they were most of the way down the hall. Bernie's hands were occupied with paperwork and a set of lockpicks. It was funny to see lockpicks carried so openly.

"Do you often break into the offices?" asked Stephan.

"I'm nearly certain I've been in every room of this base at least once."

"Recently?"

"I have been living down here. It's in my interests to double-check the security systems."

Stephan kept his eyes from rolling too obviously, but felt his mouth twitch in a small, brief grin.

When Otto's door opened, the Geiger counter – Bernie said xe was going to rename it, xe just hadn't yet – began beeping up a storm. The Changelings looked at each other and followed the compass needle to a bookcase, then a specific shelf, and finally behind a book.

"Well," said Bernie, "now I can double-check all my readings. I'll have to revise my report."

"How many more Heartstones are hidden around the base?" Stephan wondered.

"We should do a sweep. It'll probably take a couple of days. When do you have to leave and when can you next be here?"

"I have this week off. I can stay until," Stephan checked the date on his phone, "nine tomorrow evening before I'm expected anywhere." He and some work friends were planning to go to a bar for trivia night.

"Alright. We'll head back to the lab and you can take another nap while I do the scans and report revisions, and once you're awake we can sort out the order of the sweep."

"I should be good to go for –"

"You can't collect accurate data while sleep deprived."

"When's the last time you slept?"

"I woke up about ten minutes before you got here."

That explained why the laboratory had smelled of coffee.

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Previous Chapter (Shattered King backstory, as commemorated by the Quagawumps)

Table Of Contents

Next Chapter (Jim gets Gunmar's Eye)

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Becoming The Mask chapters #Changelings #original character #rocks minerals crystals and gemstones #There are many names for Pale Lady Morgana Argante Baba Yaga Mistress Of Shadows The Eldritch Queen #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (134/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

King Rehval would die, very soon. As Luffa led her fleet of warships to his new home, there were a multitude other thoughts running through her mind, but she made sure to focus on her sole objective. Rehval. Must. Die.

Her grudge against him went back to the beginning. Her mother was an anti-monarchist who left the Saiyan Kingdom before Luffa was born. Eventually, Luffa's mother entered into a mercenary partnership with Orij, Luffa's father, and the young family roamed the stars in search of adventure. When Luffa was ten years old, Orij betrayed her mother. He was jealous of his wife's power, and planned to exploit her, until he realized that their daughter had inherited the same potential.

Orij's plan went into effect when Luffa was nineteen. By then, Luffa had taken a mate of her own, Kandai, and Orij conspired with him to betray Luffa to the alien Tikosi. Their ghastly experiments would seek to reverse-engineer the secrets of Luffa's hidden power, and then they would share their findings with Orij. When the Tikosi learned Luffa was pregnant with Kandai's child, they simply removed the fetus, as it impeded their research.

The horrors Luffa experienced during that awful nineteenth year pushed her body through a harrowing transformation. Eventually, Luffa would recognize herself as the Legendary Super Saiyan, a once-in-a-millennium warrior. At the time, she thought she had become a monster, too horrible for even herself to contemplate. The power was satisfying while she took bloody revenge against her tormentors, but it never really went away. Even when she transformed back into her "normal" self, it was still there, that ever-present thing lurking just beneath her skin, eager to shine its terrible light on the universe once again.

Super Luffa was great for slaughtering Tikosi, and for making easy money in the mercenary business, but the power wasn't very helpful for tracking down her treacherous husband, who had gone into hiding when he learned that she had survived. One of the main reasons Luffa founded the interstellar Federation was to expand her contacts through the galaxy. The Federation's member worlds were happy to have her on their side; in return, their spies gave Kandai fewer places to hide. But when she finally caught up to him, he revealed that when the Tikosi removed their unborn child from her body, they had given it over to him. He had sold the remains to King Rehval, who apparently had his own interests in the Tikosi's research.

And Super Luffa wasn't much use in unraveling that mystery either. It only made sense that the King of the Saiyans would see her as a threat to his rule. It also made sense that he might hope to find some weakness by studying Luffa's offspring. What Luffa hadn't expected was the sheer depth of Rehval's treachery. She had never respected the man. Any Saiyan who called himself "king" was a fool in her book, but even setting that aside, he was a statesman, desperate to turn their people into some nation-state with a place among the galactic powers. He wanted the Saiyans to assimilate with the rest of the universe: lop off their tails, dress in alien finery, and pass themselves off as well-behaved citizens of a wider community. The thought of it sickened Luffa, but it was even worse than that. Rehval was an alchemist too. Instead of testing his might in combat, he relied on magical drugs and secret potions to enhance his power. "Rehval" wasn't even his real name. He simply assumed the identity of his older brother, then usurped his father's throne when it suited his purposes.

Rather than face Luffa directly, Rehval tried to seduce and deceive her, leading her into a trap that would strand her on an uninhabitable planet. To keep her occupied until the trap was sprung, Rehval revealed that the fetus he had purchased from Kandai had survived. Rehval was a proponent of gestating Saiyan infants in life support machines, and somehow he had managed to bring her son to term. He then aged the boy to adolescence, and trained him to be his staunchest defender and Luffa's sworn enemy. But the gravest insult, in Luffa's eyes, was that he dared to give the boy a name-- "Xibuyas". It was sacrilige. By Saiyan custom, the right to name a child belonged to the mother alone.

But what did King Rehval care for Saiyan custom? To him, it was just another tool, to be manipulated or discarded when it no longer served his purposes. Xibuyas was uncommonly strong, though Luffa had no way to tell if he had inherited her Super Saiyan strength, or if he was given alchemical enhancements to make him a better enforcer. Rehval wasn't satisfied with merely ruling over the Saiyans, he wanted to control their destiny, their culture, even their very genome. He envisioned a world where Saiyans would be bred like livestock, mated to produce hardier offspring, and her son was simply the stud he had chosen to sire his grandchildren. The very thought of it made her blood boil.

She had escaped his trap, and so he evacuated his throneworld of Saiya, fearing (rightfully) that she would return and destroy everything he had built. Luffa expected to find him cowering in some remote hideaway, but instead he launched a new plan, the Jindan Cult. Assuming the name of Trismegistus now, Rehval recruited Saiyans from all over the galaxy, promising them a potion that would magnify their powers. All he asked in return was absolute control over every aspect of their lives. Really, it wasn't all that different from the plans he had as the ruler of Planet Saiya, only now he wasn't bothering with diplomatic niceties or expensive suits.

The only thing standing in his way was still Luffa, so he launched a series of invasions into her Federation, designed to exploit her compassion for its people and to wear her down. It might have worked, too, except she had help from the fortuneteller Dotz, who predicted his strikes before they took place, and from Rehval's own daughter, the Princess Seltiss. Disillusioned with her father's misrule, the young Princess formed her own Saiyan alliance to serve as an alternative to Rehval's government. Luffa didn't trust her, but they had a common enemy, and Xibuyas was loyal to Seltiss, so at least they had the power they needed to fend off the attacks.

Just when it seemed that there would be no end to the war, Guwar arrived at her doorstep, offering to lead her to Rehval's new base on Nagaoka. A Saiyan mathematician, Guwar had joined his cult, only to realize that Rehval's "leadership" would only get them all killed, or at best, reduce them to a slave species. His defection only proved that Rehval was truly mad, and that his plans were rotten enough that even his own henchmen couldn't accept them.

And so, very soon, Luffa would destroy him, utterly and finally, for the defense of the Federation, for the freedom of her own species, and for herself.

"Five minutes before we drop out of superluminous," she said from the captain's chair of her yacht's bridge. "No one's reported any unusual sensor activity. What about you, Katem?"

"Nothing," Xibuyas said, visibly irritated by the name she used to address him. Luffa would have preferred to have him aboard her own ship, if only to keep a closer eye on the boy, but the Saiyan Free Company had its own fleet, and her attack plan would require him to take up position on the opposite side of the planet. Spending time with her son would have to wait for another day. For now, she would have to settle for the image of his face on the viewscreen.

"Rehval raised you, boy," she said. "Any idea what this means? Guwar told us there wouldn't be much in the way of advance defenses, but I thought we'd see more than this."

"Rehval's servants raised me," he said with a sneer. "And he expects secrecy to be his greatest defense. He believes that no one knows where to find him, so he probably has no idea that we're on our way to kill him."

"Or he's got some escape route set up on the planet," Luffa said. "All right, we'll stick to the original plan. Group A takes the northern hemisphere, Group B takes the south, Group C covers our backs. Carpet bomb the whole thing, and we'll see what they can do about it."

"Pointless," Xibuyas grumbled. "Destroy the entire planet, and they all die in one stroke. I could do it easily, and so could you."

"Too easy," Luffa said. "He'll be prepared for that. I want to see what his preparations are. Let him think he's dealing with a conventional attack before we reveal our true strength."

"If you're so afraid that he'll flee--"

"He seems to be convinced that this planet he's on holds some sort of special power for him," Luffa explained. "If that's true, then he won't give it up without a fight. I want to lure him into thinking he has a chance. We might even be able to get a siege going."

He sighed and sank into his chair. "Fine, have it your way," he said. "There's no arguing with you. We'll send word once Group B is in position."

He signed off, and Luffa made a bloodthirsty smile as she switched the viewscreen to display the Nagaoka system, which was rapidly coming into view. Her son hated her, but he was alive, and soon she would repay the bastard who tried to take him from her. Her wife, Zatte, was in the engine room, making last-minute preparations for the battle. Zatte had elaborate dreams that this battle would mark the beginning of a new era for Saiyan-kind, and maybe she was right, though Luffa never cared for the idea of herself as a Saiyan messiah. It didn't matter. For once in her life, everything was going perfectly.

She gripped the armrests of her seat and leaned forward in anticipation.

*******

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Planet Nagaoka was devoid of intelligent life, save for the Jindan compound, a mostly subterranean facility. Aside from the shipyard and a few other surrounding structures, the planet would have seemed deserted. A thick cloud cover concealed the surface completely, but Guwar had provided the coordinates of the compound. As Zatte escorted him to the bridge, he saw part of the planet on the viewscreen, and he knew the compound lay directly below.

"I thought you'd want to see this," Luffa said as the doorway closed behind him. She never took her eyes off the planet. "They're about to strafe the surface."

"You're just going to blow it up from orbit?" he asked.

"For starters," Luffa said. "If anything survives, we'll go from there. Something wrong with that?"

"I just... I thought you were going to send in ground troops on the far side," he said. "Advance on the compound from the surface, and fight them all hand-to-hand."

Luffa looked at him curiously. "I've had my fill of fighting with these clowns," she said. "There's enough of them down there that even I would have trouble, and I'm not going to send troops down there to die for no reason. If you wanted suicide missions, maybe you shouldn't have switched sides. Rehval would have sent you to your death soon enough."

"I... I had friends down there," he said. "Rehval's the only one you're after, right?"

Luffa turned and spit on the deck. At last, Guwar had her full attention, and he instantly regretted it. He had seen her transform in front of him earlier, when he was first brought aboard her ship. That had been frightening enough, watching black Saiyan hair glowing like molten iron. But she was in her normal form now, or at least as normal as she ever could be, and as she glared at him, he felt that the grim look in her eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Now you listen to me," she said. "I don't give a damn about your 'friends'. The moment they joined forces with that bastard, their fates were sealed. Don't pretend you thought this was going to turn out any other way."

Guwar's throat went dry. "You're right," he said. "Just get it over with."

Luffa returned to her work, as if he hadn't spoken at all. He looked over to Zatte, the blue-skinned woman who seemed to serve as Luffa's entire crew for this ship. It was ironic to look to an alien for empathy, but he had hoped that she, at least, might appreciate his mixed emotions about this moment. If nothing else, he expected her to be somewhat horrified at the idea of bombing an entire planet to wipe out a single installation. But instead, Zatte had a curious sort of glow in her expression, not unlike the warriors in the Jindan Cult just before they were sent off to their deaths. Guwar had no idea what sort of hold Luffa had on Zatte, but she was fully committed to this action, come what may.

Luffa pressed a button on the console mounted near her left arm. "All ships, fire at will," she said.

A moment later, they did. Gawar watched as hundreds of orange streaks emerged from the edges of the viewscreen and converged on the planet below. It looked like most of the fire was concentrated in a single spot, which he assumed was the compound. But that was only part of it. There energy blasts raining down across every part of the planet that he could see. He could only guess that there were ships positioned on the opposite side covering that hemisphere too.

"There's... there's only the one complex," he said looking back at Luffa. "You're just wasting ammunition, shooting at nothing."

"And you really think I would trust you that far?" Luffa said with a snort. "Even if you have been honest with me, Rehval could still have other bases set up that he never told you about. It all burns. Today. And don't worry your pretty little head about our ammunition, Guwar. I made sure we brought plenty."

Guwar swallowed hard and turned back to face the viewscreen. He could sense the ki energy from the planet dropping as the bombardment continued. Were the cultists unable to fight back? Had Luffa taken them completely by surprise? Or was this Rehval's endgame all along? Maybe he knew all along that it would end this way, and he had led his flock to their doom. For a moment, he wondered if Rehval had been waiting for Guwar to betray him, if perhaps he had wanted Luffa to come to this place and rain fire upon him.

And then he noticed that the ki from the planet wasn't dropping anymore, and that the planet itself didn't look any different than it had before the attack began. Glancing back at the captain's chair, he saw that Luffa had noticed too.

"Scan the planet," Luffa said to Zatte. "Something's wrong down there."

"Life sign readings haven't changed since we started attacking," Zatte said.

"I told you about that," Guwar said. "They have a device to scramble sensors so you can't tell there's any humanoid biopatterns. That way if a ship drops by, they'll think Nagaoka's uninhabited and move on."

"Yeah, I know," Zatte said. "I'm not scanning for humanoids. I'm talking about trees, grass, everything. Nothing's dying down there. It's like we haven't put a dent in it..."

"You didn't say anything about a force field," Luffa said to Guwar. The look on her face was one of accusation, but not surprise.

"As far as I know, they didn't have one," Guwar protested.

"They don't have one," Zatte said. "I don't know what's going on here, but it can't be a force field generator. To cover the entire planet, you'd need an enormous power source, way too big to hide with a cloaking device. I should be able to detect a power signature for something that big, and there's nothing like that on the surface! I don't know what this is... I...!"

She continued tapping keys on the tactical console, and Luffa rose from her seat. "I'm going to the cargo bay," she said. "Get ready to open the bay door for me."

"You're going to attack them yourself?" Zatte asked. "But what if--?"

"Hail the rest of the fleet," Luffa said. "If I'm right, I can punch a hole in... whatever this is... then maybe we can land some ships, play it the way Guwar had in mind. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Guwar?"

He didn't answer, as he really didn't know what to say. Luffa grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the lift.

"Come on," she said, "you can watch."

*******

The cargo hold was mostly empty. Luffa and Zatte had moved most of the supplies to other parts of the ship, leaving only a small, one-person craft.

"Like it?" Luffa asked. She patted the hull of the craft with her gloved hand as they crossed the bay. "My wife captured it from some felinoid raider who tried to impersonate a Saiyan. He thought he could bluff his way to an easy plunder--" She pointed at the bridge of her nose and bared her teeth-- "but all he got was a plasma bolt between his eyes. She's a crack shot."

"Y-your wife?" Guwar asked. "You mean that blue lady on the bridge--?"

"Felinoid!" Luffa growled, ignoring his question. The brown fur on her tail was standing on end, and Guwar suddenly became very aware of his own tail being missing.

"I see that crap all the time, you know? People mistake any humanoid with a tail for one of us," she said. "So weaklings and cowards try to use that to their advantage. Trade on our reputation as a fearsome warrior race. Except we're not so fearsome, are we, Guwar?"

She went to a cabinet mounted to the wall and removed a pair of masks. "Put this on," she said as she shoved one into his hands. He strapped it to his face, letting the flexible hose attached to it dangle from his chin.

"The Saiyans are afraid," she said. "My mother was afraid of the kings, and my father was afraid of my mother, and I was afraid of my father for a while. You and your cult buddies were afraid of me, so what did you do? Run to the biggest coward you could find and beg him for some snake oil. And now he's hiding under his rock, and they're all hiding with him. Makes you wonder what they're so afraid of."

She pulled out a gas cylinder and handed it to him, then found a second and started connecting it to her own mask. As she worked on the fittings, she transformed, suddenly illuminating the bay with a preternatural golden glow. Startled, Guwar took a step back, but Luffa barely reacted at all, as if she hadn't even noticed what she had done.

"I think we're afraid of ourselves," Luffa said. "I know I am. I turned into this thing for the first time and it scared the hell out of me. It still does sometimes. But all I am is stronger. Angrier. More eager for battle. I'm just like you Guwar, only more. Why'd you cut your tail off? Was it because he told you to? So you could fit in better with polite society? Or was it because you were afraid of what the tail means? Of who you really are. Inside?"

She paused her work long enough to tap her fist against her chest, and gave him a knowing look. "Felinoids try to impersonate us Saiyans, and meanwhile we Saiyans are doing our best to disguise ourselves as anything else. We're ashamed of ourselves for being ashamed of ourselves. That's how I see it. I started hanging out with aliens, and I started to notice how crummy Saiyans can really be to people. I never gave it much thought before, but we're all pretty rotten, aren't we?"

"What are you talking about?" Guwar mumbled, but not loud enough to be heard over the steady pulse of Luffa's golden aura.

She pointed at her gleaming yellow hair. "So does this mean I've risen above all that rotten stuff?" she asked. "Or does it make me the worst of us all?"

She didn't wait for him to reply. Instead, she put the mask over her face and tapped the communicator on the nearest wall panel to call the bridge. "We're ready down here," she said, her voice muffled by the mask. After she shut off the channel, she looked back at Guwar and shrugged.

"I can't talk to my wife about this sort of thing, you know. She thinks I can save the Saiyans, but me? I think I'm just part of the problem."

Guwar could hear her voice even more clearly now than he could before they put the masks on. Then he finally realized she was speaking to him telepathically. Most Saiyans had the ability to communicate this way, but they rarely used it. They couldn't read minds-- only Luffa seemed to know how to do that, and only then by making physical contact-- but they could talk to other people with their thoughts. So why didn't Saiyans use that ability more often? Was it fear? Was Luffa right about them? Maybe every Saiyan could read minds like she could, and no one else had the courage to try.

As he pondered this, the cargo bay door opened, revealing the grey clouds of Nagaoka below. Guwar was suddenly reminded of Salziff, the Saiyan who had led him to the Jindan Cult. Salziff had been kicked out of the order, and his Jindan power had been withdrawn, leaving him weaker than he had been before he joined. In his desperate attempt to regain what he had lost, Salziff had turned to performance enhancing drugs, and ravaged what was left of his health. He begged Guwar not to search for Jindan, and said that Guwar would rue the day Salziff told him how to find it. The gloom over Nagaoka looked very much like the pallid complexion of Salziff's face. Guwar wondered if the poor wretch was still alive. Guwar wondered about his own life expectancy, now that the Jindan power had been withdrawn from him as well.

There was an invisible force field that kept the air inside the bay while the door was open. It flickered beautifully for a moment as it deactivated, and Guwar felt the air rushing out into space. Weakened as he was, he still had more than enough strength to keep his footing, but he still grabbed hold of a handrail to be safe. The temperature dropped rapidly inside the bay, but his ki was strong enough to protect him from the cold as well. The great irony of his life was that he was considered a weakling by the standards of his own species, and yet he had so much power compared to most beings in the universe. He felt completely helpless as he watched Luffa stand at the edge of the bay, raising her hands to attack an entire planet.

He could hear her screaming, in spite of the wind, the sound of her aura, even the muffling effect of her mask. Her hands glowed so brightly that it hurt to look at them, so he focused on the air tank she had slung over her shoulder. For a brief moment, he wondered if he could burst the tank and knock her out of the ship quickly enough for her to asphyxiate, but decided that this would be suicidal to attempt. Even if it worked, he would still have to contend with her wife on the bridge, and her fleet around the planet, and the cult on the planet itself. Guwar didn't know about other Saiyans, but Luffa was right about him. He was afraid, because it seemed like no matter what he did, what side he chose, he would always be under someone else's power. At least Luffa's side could save the universe from Rehval's madness, but that wouldn't improve Guwar's prospects much.

At last, she brought her hands together and launched a spectacular beam of golden energy from her hands. Guwar watched it shoot down to the planet like some impossibly straight bolt of lightning. He had never sensed such an amazing power before. It was beyond anything he had ever imagined. It was enough to destroy a dozen planets. And then, when the beam of irresistable light reached the dismal clouds of Nagaoka...

...it dispersed. The energy spread across the clouds and vanished, like so much milk spilling onto a napkin. The clouds parted, revealing a tiny section of Nagaoka's surface, but there was no explosion, no damage. Soon enough, the clouds drifted back together, and the surface was hidden once again.

Luffa stared out of the bay in disbelief, and then after a few seconds, Guwar noticed a yellow glow on the edge of Nagaoka's disk. A second later, he could sense it, too.

"What... what's happening?" he asked. He hoped that this was somehow part of her technique, but the way she moved her tail told him that she was just as confused as he was.

Finally, beams of yellow light started shooting out from the clouds from every direction. It seemed to Guwar that the planet had somehow absorbed her attack, divided it, and fired it back out into space. For a moment, he worried that this was a counterattack from the cult, except the beams didn't seem to be aimed anywhere in particular. He reached out with his ki senses and quickly determined that most of the fleet was nowhere near the paths of these beams. Even so, he did sense a few power levels that winked out of existence as the deadly energy connected with their ships.

Angrily, Luffa stormed to the bay door controls and restored the force field. Air rushed in to repressurize the hold, and she moved on to the wall panel to call the bridge. "What's going on?" she shouted over the thrum of the ventilation system.

"Six ships are reporting heavy damage!" Zatte's voice called back. "One completely destroyed! I... Luffa, that was your energy it shot back at us!"

"I know that!" Luffa snapped. "How does a force field reflect that kind of power?!"

"I told you, it's not a force field!" Zatte said. "It's too big for that, and too... It's more like when I... oh no. Oh, Providence, no."

"What's wrong?" Luffa asked. For every second that passed without a reply, she grew more agitated. Finally, she dug her fingers into the wall and ripped the comm panel out entirely.

"We're going back to the bridge!" she shouted as she tossed the torn panel to the deck. But Guwar didn't move. He was too busy looking at the planet.

"Well? What are you gawking at?" Luffa demanded as she shrugged off her air canister and mask.

"I think you need to see this," Guwar said ominously. A mathematician by trade, he preferred not to give such vague answers, but in this case, he simply couldn't find the words.

"See what?!" Luffa said impatiently as she shrugged off her mask and air cylinder. And then she finally turned to face the bay door, and saw it immediately. The clouds on Nagaoka had shifted, swirling into an unnatural pattern. They were still moving, but it was clear that they were forming an image of a face, and even before that image had come into focus, there was no mistaking whose face it was.

"Hello, Luffa," said the voice of King Rehval.

He was speaking into their minds, just as Luffa had done before. What made it even stranger, Guwar thought, was that the lips on the cloud-image moved as though it were speaking the words.

"I'm so glad that you've finally arrived," the cloud-Rehval seemed to say. "Now, at last, we can put all of this to an end."

NEXT: The Thrice Blessed Who Will Transform the Universe.

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #guwar #zatte #trismegistus #xibuyas #nagaoka

3 notes · View notes

loopy777 · 5 years ago

Note

You've got me curious now as to what anime youve seen, enjoyed and why.

Oof, I don’t track that type of thing. I’ve been asked about anime I like previously, and I feel like I always forget something. I suppose I should start a MyAnimeList one of these days, just for reference.

So let’s list everything I can remember, as well as a pithy reaction.

Baccano!This one is just so much fun. It’s violent and crass in a classy way, it’s funny in a weird way, and it’s a great example of a non-linear narrative. I love it.

Code Geass (Season 1)Ugh, I only watched this one because people solicited my opinion on it. Well, my opinion is that it’s not as smart as it wants to be, there’s too much contrived melodrama (and considering the wild premise, that’s saying something), and Kallen would be a wonderful and interesting character if she wasn’t always being demeaned for fan-service. I quit when the first season finale kicked off, because I felt things were just getting too contrived. I hear it really fell apart in the second season.

Cowboy BebopI found this a bit pretentious. It had good episodes and bad episodes. The production quality is good. But I'm not sure why it's legendary. Still, I liked its sense of humor, and enjoyed it when it wasn’t trying to be super serious. My favorite character is Ed.

Demon SlayerI'm mainly watching this because my brother wanted to give it a try on Toonami, but I kind of checked out when it unceremoniously removed everything difficult about the sister being a demon and made her into an order-following sidekick that fits in a suitcase. Now the latest episode introduced a loud annoying side character, so we may quit. I have no idea why this one is so popular.

Fullmetal AlchemistCovered

Gatchaman CrowdsI was asked to watch this one, as well, but it went a lot better than Code Geass. It’s a bit weird, and I think it's naively optimistic about the internet in many ways, but I still found it's exploration of Internet-age superheroes to be interesting, and it's the best, most mature take on the Power Rangers-style ‘sentai’ genre that I've seen. I don't know how well it matches up with its Gatchaman legacy, but as its own thing, it's pretty good.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (including 2nd Gig)This is another legendary one that I think is good but a bit over-rated. It's a good piece of modern Cyberpunk, but it's very talky, and very jargon-filled. I'm almost convinced that the viewer is not meant to follow half of the conversations, that they're just part of the ambiance. I tended to like the stand-alone episodes better than the storyline episodes. Still, it’s a very smart series, and probably the best thing in the franchise, from what I’ve heard.

Log Horizon (first season only)I’ll tell you what- I think it’s possible to make a good anime with the premise of people from the modern, real world entering a fantasy realm (either another dimension or a VR video game). Log Horizon did not end up being that ideal. The main character is a Gary Stu, his romances with girls who are either ten years old or just look like they’re ten years old are creepy, and it got boring seeing the protagonists’ plans always succeed without much of a hitch.

Lupin III (series 4 and 5)I like this franchise when it's being clever, when it's springing a twist while playing fair. Sometimes, though, it doesn't play fair with its twists, leaving me underwhelmed. And while the regular cast is amusing, they're fairly shallow characters; this isn't always a bad thing, as that allows them to slot into all kinds of genre fare, but does limit the storytelling ambitions. It’s fine.

Macross franchiseSuper Dimensional Fortress MacrossI still like the original, despite how dated it is. It's probably the best possible implementation of 'soap opera in space.'

Macross PlusI'm not sure why this one is so revered. I feel like it doesn't play fair with its mystery, despite being such a short story, and whole thing with the killer popstar AI just left me cold.

Macross 7I like the music, but the story really drags for the first half with a formula that’s repeated far too long, and then falls apart in the end. The love triangle isn’t resolved, and in fact I’m of the opinion that two of the participants didn’t even know they were in competition. The bad guys are allowed to sail off into the sunset, forgiven, despite still inhabiting the bodies of kidnapped humans. But this isn't a series you watch for the story; this is a series you watch because you like the idea of a rockstar flying into space in a transforming mecha, controlled by an electric guitar, to sing at alien invaders. Personally, I think the idea is dumb. Plus, this ruins the premise of the original series by adding in what is effectively magic.

Macross ZeroThis is pretty good and has the best dogfights in the series, but it has one of those weird arty endings that anime sometimes likes to do where no one can tell what actually happened and we need to find translated interviews with the creative team to get it explained.

Macross FrontierBy this point, I was wondering why everyone is so eager for the Macross franchise to get American distribution. It’s better than Macross 7, but feels like a first draft of the intended story, and the creative team lost track of their own subplots. The two AU movies do a more satisfying take on the same basic story, but sometimes they come across like an abridged recap of the series, so you really need to watch everything to get a satisfying experience. That said, the final experience was indeed fairly satisfying, making this the second best thing in the franchise for me. Still, I wouldn’t say it lives up to the original in any way.

Macross DeltaBoy, this one was dumb. Everything wrong with Frontier is worse here, with none of the good stuff.

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaI still want an ending for this, despite nothing worthwhile coming from it since 2011. It wouldn't even be hard to pick it up again; set it in modern times, and explain the fact that everyone has smartphones now to be a result of some weird off-screen Haruhi antics.

Mobile Suit Gundam franchiseMobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded OrphansI've only ever experienced the Gundam franchise because my brother wants to get into it and he keeps trying to find a vector. This was my first experience with it, and I found it very 'teenage boy,' in both tone and story. I was underwhelmed.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096Another case where the storytellers reached the end only to have forgotten the rest of the story. Why does that happen so often in anime? And I think it assumes the viewer is familiar with the whole rest of the franchise, because there was a lot that just went straight over my head but didn't seem like it was supposed to. Nice animation and art style, though.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red CometEverything I said about Unicorn, only more.

My Hero AcademiaCovered

NichijouThis thing is still hilarious, even after a rewatch. Stick with the sub, as the new dub's voice-acting doesn't have the same range and power of the original, losing a lot of the humor.

Outlaw Star I'm struggling to remember a lot of this one. it’s another I watched because my brother was interested in it. I do recall that it was a fairly standard Space Western that ends in a way that's more like serious science fiction, and that for some reason a Japanese swordswoman in classic clothing was part of the cast. Now I wonder if that was an homage to Lupin III. Or maybe Japan just really loves throwing classic samurai into everything, regardless of setting or genre.

Pokemon (part of first series)I was in high school when this franchise first came to America, and for some reason all the geeks in my high school thought it was the greatest thing. The games were good, yeah, but the anime? I don't think it's bad for a kiddie cartoon, but it obviously has no greater ambitions than pleasantly occupying the kids for 22 minutes. Personally, what I really want is a series about Team Rocket done in the style of Cowboy Bebop.

Princess TutuCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I forget who asked me to watch this, but I owe them.

Puella Magi Madoka MagicaCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I still haven't bothered with anything but the original series, and I continue to be happy with that choice.

Samurai ChamplooI liked this better than Cowboy Bebop, but only because its ambitions were lower. It leaned more into its genre, had fun with its style more even when being serious, and as a result became more enjoyable. I overall liked going on a journey with these rascals, but I think it ended at a good point. I don’t need more.

Spice & Wolf (first season)I watched this on someone's suggestion, and found it a little underwhelming. What I really appreciated were the two main characters, especially that they seem to be into each other, romantically and sexually, and aren't freaked out by it while at the same time not being in a hurry to become a couple. It was just a kind of, "Yeah, this could really be something if we ever find the time." It was so amazingly mature and real. Too bad the main Economics plotlines just wound up being tepid.

Tekkaman BladeMy thoughts haven't changed on this.

Tiger & BunnyI'm still fond of this one, and I'm actually kind of curious to revisit it in light of My Hero Academia.

Transformers ‘Unicron Trilogy’These three cartoons are true anime, produced by and for Japan. (The other cartoons in the franchise were written, and sometimes animated, in the west.) It's garbage that assumes its child audience are morons, and on top of that the first two series wound up with laughably bad dubs. How this trilogy revitalized the franchise, I have no idea, and thankfully I'll never have to worry about it.

Volton (original)Either this or Robotech/Macross was my first anime; I was too young to say which I discovered first. I'll admit that the original Voltron isn't good, despite the toy being neat, but I have a soft spot for it. I tried the Netflix reboot, watching the first three episodes, and found it to be vacuous junk. Maybe some day a version of this will come along that will do justice to the toy.

And I think that’s it. If I remember anything I left off, I’ll reblog with the addition.

#Anonymous

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nocleansocks · 5 years ago

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Jacquard: 14, 49. Sticks: 8. Florian: 91. Cutlas: 81. Echo: 19. Fouro: 62. Glancer: 98. =)

TRANSFORMERS. ROBOTS IN DISGUISE.

14. Has [Jaquard] character ever been in love?

HOO BOY This question hit me in some sorta way I’m not sure why. I think Jaquard is absolutely a pining romantic. I mean, he basically looks like the incognito mode icon, so. I think he’s the kind of pining romantic that can slip into Jane Austin mode at the flick of a switch. He hasn’t just dwelled on the concept of love in the regards of loving another but also in the sense of love itself. Love for the past: he’s romanticized the life he wasn’t apart of, Asteriniolians’ life, perhaps even Asteriniolian himself. But is that a familial love, or maybe a selfish love? Are they the same person? Different? With that being said though, he’s also dwelt on the concept of love as appreciation, for the present, for family, general thanks. Love for what you do: he has a lot of love for the arcane, for history, for hobbies and function. And of course, love for intimacy. There’s definitely an overwhelming love towards Fouro, something that’s wavered from friendship to interest to respect to family back to confusion. Something unspoken and, again, in his Jane Austin submerged mind, something that’s maybe even more beautiful unexplored.

49. What colors are associated with [Jaquard]?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWAGLkyxQG0

8. What location encountered in the campaign has [Sticks] felt the most “at home” in, or just generally liked the most?

I think Sticks specifically has taken very well to Colkirk. As one of the younger ones, a lot of their formative years were with everyone else in hiding and running, and now they have this big new city to explore full of new people and new opportunities, yet it still has all the familiarity of the city to the east. In all honesty, they’ve been at home each and every time the warforged are all together. They were the most lost in the absence of Fouro. They loved the tower when he was there, because everyone was there! But now, in Colkirk, not only are all of the warforged there, but there’s so much else to explore, too.

91. What is [Florian]’s guiltiest pleasure?

Eating dirt Florian absolutely enjoyed the fighting. The pits in Stormhelm were corrupt and dangerous and the conditions he was fighting under (staking his life to try and free his family) were deplorable, but somewhere inside, the moments between the start of the fight and the end of the fight where the only thing you could focus on was yourself and the person in front of you... he enjoyed that escape. He’s still a pacifist, he can never support violence for the sake of violence, but mutually agreed combat with established limits? Definitely something he never expected to get a rush out of.

81. What does [Cutlass]’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose [Cutlass]’s name?)

Answering the second question first, I obviously chose names for all of the warforged inspired by their respective envoy tool. Jaquard - a fabric - for the weaver; Florian, a riff on florist, for the gardener; Os - Osmium - for the alchemist, etc etc. Cutlass was more-so a riff on Cut, focusing on his jeweler’s abilities, and then I settled on Cutlass because he was actually supposed to have Glancer’s personality, originally. Defensive, sharp... all the things that Cutlass himself ultimately turned out not to be. The first session the warforged were all introduced, when they were all in a big room together and we went through introductions like it was the start of a murder mystery detective game, so many of the warforged’s personality came out of nowhere. I had sat down beforehand to give myself a rough idea of how they all would act. I think I remember messaging my players that I was coming dangerously close to homestuck territory, making ten characters and assigning each a zodiac. I can’t remember what I had settled on for Cutlass, but regardless, he was definitely supposed to be more fiesty. Then he started talking in-game, however, and the lovable coward was born. So long story short, what does his name represent to HIM? Something he wishes he could be; a heroic adventurer, weapon in hand, saving the day. But little does he know he shines in just as good a way.

19. Where in the world does [Echo] most want to visit?

Echo isn’t much of a geographer and hasn’t extensively studied the world map, not even Laerakond’s really, but she has definitely heard tales a plenty from Seabor. If she were to make a trek somewhere new, she’d want it to be entirely new. Everywhere in Laerakond sounds too similar. No, if she were to travel to new lands, she’d want it to be an entirely new continent. She’s a bit too hipster for Faerun, though, that’s too popular. She hasn’t dwelt on the idea too much, but Osse sounds perfect for her: far to the southeast on Torillian maps, it’s almost on the other side of the globe from Laerakond. It has just enough mystery and distance to pique her interest.

62. What is [Fouro]’s greatest achievement?

Protecting his family. He’s created a ton of impressive tchotskies. He created a bauble that was able to double the size of a building, for goodness sakes! And if you had asked him this question years ago, yeah, he could’ve given you a list of the magic items that he’s proudest of. But now, his greatest achievement is the fact that nine other warforged are alive and thriving in a big city. Every time he’s able to bring them together in any way it’s a new greatest achievement for him.

98. What advice would [Glancer] give to a younger version of themselves?

It’s funny, cause “younger version” in this case almost even means “two-months-ago-self”. Glancer would give themselves a lecture on reciprocity. You get back what you give out. Whatever you put out in the universe is what will come right back to you. Shroud yourself in illusion? You’re gonna have a hard time with trust. Surround yourself with art, though, and your world is going to light up. Selfless acts actually are worth it, in the end.

#long post #ask meme #soc

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ohmytheon · 7 years ago

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The Definition of a Hero (FMA x BNHA, 7)

Notes: Izuku’s friendship with Edward and Alphonse is so important to me. I also thought it was time for him to meet Winry. Also, as usual, I’m going to force Bakugou to learn some lessons if it’s the last thing I do. Ya boy ain’t getting any breaks.

The Definition of a Hero friendly: kind and pleasant

It turned out that Ed and his brother Alphonse had had to move into the dorms upon their acceptance into U.A. since they weren’t from around here. It made sense. Students from all over the country, maybe even the world, fought their way into the high school. It had the top hero program out there. Izuku happened to be lucky that he lived in the city where it was located. Actually, in retrospect, he felt like he’d been lucky all around, even if All Might had assured him that he’d worked hard for this.

Because the two brothers lived in the dorms though, Alphonse admitted that they had been eating junk food for the most part. They missed having a home cooked meal. Izuku had invited them over for dinner without a second thought and then remembered that he had to ask his mom. Of course she’d said yes. He thought she might have even cried, as embarrassing as that was. Neither one of them could remember the last time he had had any friends over.

Izuku tried not to think of that though. Being quirkless had affected not just his dreams, but the way other kids had looked at him. He didn’t want to think that Ed or Alphonse might not be friends with him if he didn’t have a quirk. They seemed like the kind of people that wouldn’t be like that, but… He would never know.

“Aizawa is really scary!” Alphonse exclaimed as they walked to Izuku’s place. “I thought for sure that he was going to really expel someone.” He gave Izuku a relieved smile. “I’m glad it was just a trick.”

Ed was clearly the more doubtful of the two, the one that questioned things more. “He doesn’t seem like the type that would lie about that though.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the sky. “He doesn’t seem like the type that would lie about anything.”

“It did force us to produce our best results with our quirks,” Alphonse pointed out.

Still, Ed shook his head. “Not all of our quirks are suited for physical tests though. His certainly isn’t.”

“That’s why he had to cultivate other skills as a hero,” Izuku said, thinking back to the way Aizawa had restrained Bakugou from attacking him while canceling out their quirks and lecturing them at the same time. The look in his bloodshot eyes had been piercing. He had to fight the urge to shudder. The number one hero wouldn’t do that. He was going to have to get a hell of a lot tougher if he was going to do this. “He built them around the kind of hero he wanted to become.”

“The kind of hero he wanted to become…” Ed repeated thoughtfully, as if he’d never considered it before.

Izuku had known in his heart what kind of hero he had wanted to be since he was a child. He wanted to become the greatest hero that ever was, even (especially) if it meant surpassing his idol. He wanted to become the number one hero. And as much as he screamed and fought, Kacchan did as well, just in his own way. To him, there was nothing less than becoming number one. He had been that way since Izuku could remember. It was number one or that was it.

Honestly, it was a shame that they were opposite of each other when they were on the same side and Izuku really did want Kacchan to accomplish his dreams despite his horrible behavior and antagonistic treatment, but…

That number one spot was Izuku’s to claim.

“Why did you two apply for the hero course?” Izuku asked.

Alphonse clenched one of his hands into a fist and gave him a determined look. “I want to save people from disaster and protect them!” He then unclenched his fist and smiled shyly. “I guess that’s kind of basic.”

“No way!” Izuku replied. “It’s very honorable. So would you want to focus on rescue, like Thirteen?”

Clearly relieved that Izuku didn’t think him dumb, Alphonse nodded his head. He looked down at his unclenched hand and raised the other to join it. “My quirk gives me a lot of protection. In my armor form, I’m a lot stronger and I can take a lot of hits without any repercussion. I also have endless endurance. I don’t get tired while in it so I can keep running for miles without taking a break.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Ed interjected. “He’s not joking when he says he’s stronger. In all honesty, he’s a better fighter than me.”

“Really?” Izuku asked. Alphonse blushed, but nodded his head. “Wow, that’s cool. Your quirk would work for both rescue and combat if need be.” He turned to Ed. “What about you?”

Ed pondered the question for a while, his hand still sunk in his pockets and his shoulders slumped. Izuku had noticed him thinking about it since he had brought it up. This was clearly that he hadn’t thought about directly. He wanted to be a hero, no doubt, but what kind? Why? Everyone thought that was an easy question, but it really wasn’t. Of course Izuku wanted to save people and protect them. Of course he wanted to give hope and bring peace. But becoming a hero was more than that.

Becoming a hero was his very being. It was who he was -- who he had been denied upon being born quirkless. It was just him.

So what was Ed truly trying to accomplish by coming to U.A.?

“I guess,” Ed finally said, definitely sounding like it was more than just a guess, “I want to keep people from suffering or dying pointlessly.”

“You value life,” Izuku said gently. It reminded him of how Ed had dealt with the robots during the entrance exam. Everyone else had been busy destroying them to earn points while Ed transformed them into something else. In a sense, he hadn’t killed them. They had lived on in their own ways, just unable to do harm.

Ed nodded his head. “Hm, yeah.”

Knowing that it was a good idea to change tracks and he was curious, Izuku asked, “So what did you think of Mustang’s class today?”

As predicted, Ed scoffed. “He’s the worst. Who thought it would be a good idea for him to become a teacher?”

“You have to admit that he’s really strong,” Alphonse said in a tone that suggested he was used to calming down Ed whenever he was riled up. It kind of reminded Izuku of dealing with Kacchan, but no, Ed wasn’t mean. He just had a lot of passion and it got the better of him. “And he knows what he’s doing with his quirk.”

“I really wasn’t expecting that lesson from him,” Izuku added. “His quirk seems so…” -- he waved his hands in a large circle -- “grand. You know?”

The little ball of fire that had startled Ed had been little more than a huff from Mustang and while his destruction of the baseball had been small it had been incredible. Heroes with quirks like his -- people like Kacchan -- typically relied on large displays of power. To see something so large do the exact small amount of damage that he desired was unique. When Izuku had realized who was teaching them, he’d expected more of the same as Aizawa: pushing themselves and their quirks to their limit. Mustang was known for being loud, cocky, and brash.

It made Izuku think that perhaps he had been looking at Mustang all wrong the whole time. All those times he had fought a villain and won, had it been a tightly controlled use of his quirk? If so, was he capable of more?

The fight that they’d talked about during class came to mind. It had come out in public, but no actual footage had surfaced. If any had been taken, they were smart enough to know not to publish it online. That kind of control over a quirk was something to think about. Izuku wished more than anything he had it. If he could control his quirk even an inch without breaking himself, he’d be grateful. As of now, forcing All for One into a single finger was all he had.

“It must be due to his time working with Hawk’s Eye,” Izuku decided.

Ed gave him a look. “You think anyone can get through that ego of his?”

Izuku laughed. “If he lets them, sure. Flame Alchemist and Hawk’s Eye are probably the most well-known duo in the hero world.”

Because the Flame Alchemist had moved back to the area five years ago, Izuku had started paying more attention to him. Izuku had even seen one of his fights in person. It was imprinted in his mind. The only thing that he could compare it to was when Bakugou had been captured by that sludge villain, but even then, it hadn’t been so messy. The fire…. It had looked like it was alive .

“You sure do know a lot about pro heroes,” Alphonse noted.

Red immediately overtook Izuku’s cheeks. “I, ah--” He laughed nervously. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? Studying their styles and techniques? It’s a good source for ideas.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Ed said with a chuckle. Izuku was used to being called a nerd, but normally it was an insult. He never would’ve known the difference if not for Ed. The other boy said it so differently, like it was a good thing, and it made Izuku smile. “No wonder we get along.”

No wonder indeed.

After school, Bakugou spent too much time gazing down at his right hand, but he couldn’t help but feel as if it had betrayed him somehow. His quirk didn’t fail him. It was amazing. The only other time that he had felt let down by it had been when that sludge monster had captured him, but he would’ve gotten away eventually. He would have saved himself without any help from Deku. His quirk would help propel him to the top and no one would stop him.

The moment his explosion had missed the ball, it had felt like he had been punched in the gut. Bakugou wasn’t stupid -- he knew that a distance shot with his quirk would be difficult -- but he hadn’t thought that he would fail so obviously. He couldn’t do it. He’d realized it in that second that he couldn’t and for a few seconds he had watched in horror as the ball went farther and farther out of reach. On the ground, he couldn’t do anything, so he had shot into the air like a rocket.

It had felt good to explode the stupid thing in the moment, but when he had come back down, he had been hit by the fact that he had blown up himself. That wasn’t typically an issue. He had never been self-conscious about it before because anyone else’s opinion didn’t matter. Except he hadn’t just been around his classmates or any old teacher. The Flame Alchemist was right there, watching his every move. Bakugou had never once in his life felt the need to explain himself, but it had started to slip out of his mouth before he managed to catch himself.

“My quirk--”

Yeah, his quirk. The one that had so clearly not been compatible with Mustang’s third lesson for the day. The ease with which Mustang had followed through with the example was awesome, but Bakugou had been too busy steaming over his misstep to truly appreciate it. When their hero costumes came in, as long as they followed his design ideas, he would have a way to use his quirk for long directional explosions, but they would still be massive. That had been the idea and he still really liked it, but he wanted to be capable of everything.

When they had talked about that particular hero and villain fight, Bakugou had noticed that Mustang had appeared kind of… Well, it looked like he’d been uncomfortable, like he didn’t want to talk about it, but then he hadn’t stopped them, not even when the rest of the class had begun muttering amongst themselves about it. If Bakugou didn’t know any better, he would’ve said that Mustang wasn’t proud of what he’d done.

That was ridiculous though. He’d done what needed to be done. That was what heroes did. That was what he would do. Who cared about what other people thought? People’s opinions didn’t defeat villains.

“Still mad?”

Bakugou spun around and saw Mustang standing there, leaning against the wall of the school. He looked around and realized that he was still standing outside of the building. Clenching his hand into a fist, he dropped it to his side and ground out a simple, “No.”

“If you came in here thinking that you’re already the best,” Mustang pointed out idly, “you’re never going to grow.” He shrugged his shoulders casually, like none of this mattered even though it meant everything to Bakugou. “You don’t have to, of course, but even the top heroes have room for improvement.”

“Is that why you’re not the number one hero?” Bakugou shot back.

Mustang didn’t take the bait. Frustratingly he smiled, but not in the kind, understanding way that teachers usually did that pissed Bakugou off. It was the type of smile that said Mustang knew something Bakugou didn’t. It was unpleasant. For some reason, it made Bakugou feel a little more at ease, because this was the hero that he knew. The kind of hero that was unforgiving and unflinching, the kind that he wanted to be.

“I can always stand to grow some more and there are a lot of reasons why I’m not the number one hero,” Mustang replied, “but that isn’t one of them.”

“Why aren’t you then?” Bakugou asked. The thought had crossed his mind before. Mustang’s hero ranking sat steadily at number four no matter what he did. Every time Bakugou was certain that the Flame Alchemist would rise further, he didn’t, even though Bakugou knew that the hero was better than that. It was as if he had hit some sort of ceiling and couldn’t go any higher.

Mustang looked at him, the smile gone from his face, replaced with an unreadable expression. It was like he was trying to figure out what to say, if he could say anything. For a moment, Bakugou thought he might not get an answer and he was prepared to demand one when the hero finally said, “Because I can’t.”

It was an unexpected answer said so simply and it took Bakugou aback. He had thought that Mustang might try to give him some bullshit lesson or maybe an excuse or an explanation that he would be the number one hero in the future. Never give up or something like that. But it wasn’t that at all.

“You can’t,” Bakugou repeated. Something in the way Mustang said those words didn’t feel right. It didn’t sound like he was saying that he couldn’t become number one because he wasn’t strong or smart enough. He sounded fully confident in his abilities. It sounded more like he couldn’t because it was truly impossible -- like he wasn’t allowed, which no sense. The thing about heroes was that they made the impossible possible. They made the possibilities limitless.

As quick as the moment came over them, Mustang changed the mood, rubbing the back and putting on a sheepish grin. “Ah, I wouldn’t make a good symbol of peace anyways,” he sighed flippantly. “I’m much too restless.” He pushed away from the wall and walked past Bakugou to leave the school. “Don’t cause too much trouble.”

Bakugou put a faint scowl back on his face. Damn teachers, always trying to parce off advice. Still, he could and would get stronger. That was the point of this place, was it not?

“Oh, your class looks so different from mine!” a girl’s voice came from inside the room.

Izuku hesitated for only a second before stepping inside. The girl had been very loud, her voice carrying outside the room and down the hallway, but what he noted was her astonishment. When he peered inside, he saw that there was an unfamiliar girl in the room. Had they gotten a new classmate last minute? They already had the max amount of people in 1-A. Unless….

Unless someone had been booted out.

Izuku did a quick look around the room, counting everyone in his class. His heart leapt into this throat when he noticed one person missing. He opened his mouth to ask about them when someone bumped hard into his shoulder, almost knocking him down face first, and growled, “Move it!”

Panic flared in him briefly, but then relief washed over him, the two contradicting emotions leaving him to feel confused in the end. “Kacchan!”

All he got was a sharp glare from Kacchan and then he slunk to his chosen desk. He walked right past the blonde-haired girl as if he hadn’t noticed her in the slightest. Did he truly not see that there was a stranger in their room? Did he even know that she wasn’t a part of their class? Sometimes Kacchan acted like he was the only one in the class besides his rivals.

“Hey, Midoriya!” Ed called out. Izuku made his way over to them. The girl was talking with Ed and Alphonse, sitting atop Ed’s desk in a way that was making Iida twitch on the other side of the classroom. “This is my friend, Winry. She’s in the support class. She came to see what all the fuss is about the hero course.”

That made sense. Izuku held out a hand for her to shake and smiled. “Support class? So you build gadgets that help heroes use their quirks to the top of their abilities?” He had seen some insanely brilliant ingenuity when it came to creating support pieces to help heroes. It was really clever. Many of them had quirks that helped them build their gadgets. He was so lost in thinking about all the different tech that he briefly forgot that he was talking to a girl.

“Oh yeah,” Ed said with a laugh, “she’s a huge tech freak.”

Winry smacked him in the arm. “Shut up, you dork.” She turned back to face Izuku with a bright smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Ed told me about you. He says you have a crazy strong quirk!”

Blood rushed to Izuku’s face and he turned as red as a tomato. Ed had talked to his friend about him? Whenever Kacchan had told people about him, it was usually about him being a quirkless nobody. “I, uh, well, it’s not, um, yeah, ha--”

From his seat behind his desk, Ed laughed again. It was at Izuku, but it didn’t sound mean . It wasn’t like Kacchan, who made jokes and barked insults at his expense and then laughed at Izuku to make him feel small. Ed’s laugh sounded more like an inside joke with him. “He’s so modest,” Ed said.

Winry hopped off the desk. “You could stand to have a bit of modesty. Your ego is gonna get you in trouble.”

“It’s not ego,” Ed countered. “It’s confidence.”

“Could’ve fooled me with that big head,” Winry threw back.

Before Ed could fire something in return, a tired, flat voice asked, “Did you switch classes, Rockbell?”

All three kids spun around to see Aizawa standing in front of the classroom. Well, standing was kind of a relative term, seeing as how he was still zipped up tight in his yellow sleeping bag. He was watching them with the kind of look that said he would rather be in bed than here but what could he do?

Winry jerked straight as if she’d been shocked and shook her head, “No, sir.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Leaving, sir!” Winry didn’t even spare them a parting glance before rushing out of the room with a speed that came close to matching Iida’s. Izuku turned to look at Ed, who gave him a shrug of his shoulders, and then Izuku sat down behind his desk.

It was strange, but it had never occurred to Izuku that they could have friends outside of this class. There was the other hero course, 1-B, and then also support, business, and general studies. Izuku was so absorbed by his own class that he’d forgotten about the rest. It would be a good idea to know people in the other classes, especially someone in the support course. The kids in 1-A weren’t his only competition for the number one spot.

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happypastelponies · 6 years ago

Text

Analyzing Earth Ponies

Earth ponies are mud horses. They’re uninteresting. They have the weakest abilities out of the 3 races and tribes. For a long time through the history of Friendship is Magic, Earth ponies have had a sort of negative stigma placed upon them by the fanbase, who see this race as being the lowest class. On the other hand, the fans tend to lean to the perception that Pegasi rank in the middle of the class system, with unicorns being the superior of the three.

I’m here to say BUCK THAT!!! And turn everything you guys knew about Earth ponies upside down and inside out.

So what do we know about Earth ponies? While many people in the MLP:FiM fandom have looked at this race from a mere surface level, they can probably tell you that they’re the hardiest of the three races; strong and study like the earth that they’re connected to, and...good farmers? And that’s about it.

But what if it’s not? What if being strong enough to smash boulders into pebbles with their hooves and durable isn’t all there is to the good ol’ Earth pony? We’ve seen in numerous episodes, such as “Cutie Mark Chronicles” and “The Maud Couple” both literal and figurative analogies to Geodes- a plain and unordinary-looking rock on the surface, yet having abundant crystals and gems within their core once they were broken apart. I think that Earth ponies are like these geodes and just not enough people are willing to to truly crack them open and see them for what really lies within.

1: Alchemy

I believe that Earth ponies may, in fact, be the original founders of magic. Now, you may be thinking I’m crazy, but just hear me out. Take a look at creation- the common theory that whether by a Big Bang or divine creation, the earth- our earth- came about through through means of massive, unfathomable forces. Millions of years of microscopic space rock and dust colliding together at full force, and pulling in on each other, fusing, and becoming one giant rock floating through space to become our planet. Where am I going with this? It all most likely started with something small; one microscopic piece of space dust or rock, and elements within that binding throughout millions of years with other debris, and changing into something large over time. A sort of transmutation, if you will.

And what is known to be the art of transmutation itself? Alchemy. This is a practice that aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects into chrysopoeia. For example, the transmutation of base metals into ‘noble’ metals, such as lead into gold. Earth ponies by nature are the one race most connected to the earth- it’s in their name, and doubtless, in their D.N.A. This is seen in their ability to tend the land so easily, to determine whether soil is fertile enough to grow crops, to tell if a geode is a geode by its exterior alone, to punch through rocks and turn them to dust…..

But let’s look a little deeper. Alchemy is all about transmutation, right? Well, in what do we find the microscopic materials that are needed for elemental transmutation in real life? Earth! It offers the building blocks of transmutation that are most likely needed for earth ponies as well. The planet Earth itself has been transmuting itself- base minerals into ‘noble’ gems, like diamonds, golds, geodes and more, under extreme pressure, intense heat, and a careful selection process of the building blocks of matter long before humans walked its face, and also, as it the case for Earth ponies.

What do we find regarding Earth ponies and the art of transmutation/ alchemy in “Hearth’s Warming Eve” episode? Applejack being shown holding a clump of soil in her hoof and being able to progress the development of a seed into a sprout within mere seconds. The earth, in and of itself, is the ‘great, natural alchemist’, with plants naturally transmuting sunlight and nutrients from the soil into a valuable energy source for themselves; and- as said before, the earth taking rocks and minerals in its layers and transforming them into sought after precious metals and gems. The talents of most other Earth ponies, from what we’ve seen, lies in the field of farming and also manipulating the aging process of the organic lifeforms of their fields. Much like how Avatar’s Earth benders learned the talent from nature itself, such as the mole badgers, this could prove to be the case for Equestria’s Earth ponies being the first to pick up on transmutation from the earth.

2: The father founders of magic?

Since I already brought up the art of transmutation through alchemy through the earth, and by extension- Earth ponies, we know that alchemy, at its core….is nothing more than chemistry. Chemistry, at its core, is nothing more than science. This is extremely telling, because ironically, while pretty much every fan theorist and analysis found in the FiM throws Earth ponies into the mud (pun intended), they continually hold unicorns at a much higher regard. But let’s look at unicorns for a second. What connection do they have with alchemy, i.e, science? Everything!

In Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, the very earliest that we see of Twilight’s teachings in the studies of magic is “Amending Fences”, where she’s in a classroom with Moondancer, showcasing just how much she knows of the building blocks of the Periodic Table of Elements. From her dialogue, we learn than substances such as sodium chloride exist in Equestria, as they do here on earth. It’s of no mere coincidence that Unicorns study chemistry in Canterlot, where they also study magic. A Youtuber by the name of Cavatina theorized that younger unicorns are taught to study science (basic alchemy transmutation) before they learn magic. This is most likely due to safety reasons, if magic in itself is nothing more than combining elements and compounds that exist in the ponies themselves or in their enviorns, and being able to channel them properly through a conductor- such as a horn.

If magic is nothing more than the combination of elements within the self and the world around them, that the very youngest unicorns learn and advance from there, then perhaps….just maybe…..Earth ponies could, in act, be called the originators of magic. Perhaps not in the more advanced form that higher leveled unicorns have polished and practiced the craft, though. But if Earth ponies have been transmuting the elements of earth and their environs, before any unicorn ever had abilities of any sort, then it wouldn’t be too farfetched to assume that the base level of what Earth ponies could do by way of elemental reconfiguration and chemical bonding is being picked up and taught to unicorns. Being a race who hold themselves ‘holier than thou’ for millennia, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that they would’ve taken the base magic acquired and learned from Earth ponies, and just pushed it to its limit, which led to the crafting of “spells”.

3: Spiritual

Alchemy- the art of transmutation from an esoteric and Hermetic standpoint, is fundamentally spiritual. Zosimos of Panopolis was one of the first alchemists to highlight the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul. How does the spiritual connect to Earth ponies?

From a religious, Christian viewpoint, one would draw the conclusion to make the case that it was divine will for the sentient creatures born of the earth- that being humans to have been made a little lower than the angels; crowned with God’s glory and honor (Psalms 8:5), have in subjection the lesser creatures of the land, and that their (human’s) purpose, after being created and put in a garden of God’s own creation (Genesis 2:8), was to tend/cultivate the land and extend its borders (Genesis 2:15). I think this is significant as to why most Earth ponies have a job that makes use of their talents in performing that task in Equestria, and also showing that from as far back as “Hearth’s Warming Eve”, this one race was responsible for growing and distributing all of the food to the other races order to keep them from going extinct.

In addition, in Genesis 3:8 shows that humans once had a close fellowship with the spiritually divine (God) while in the Edenic garden that was His, and direct access to His presence, as spoken of when He would ‘walk’ about in during the breezy part of the day.

Could this not be the case with Earth ponies? It seems all too coincidental for this race to be traditionally farmers and caretakers of the land, and basically have in subjection the races of unicorns and pegasi who depend on them for food lest they go extinct; much like how humans, by divine order, were tasked with the job of tending God’s gardens, maintaining the earth, and having the lesser ranked creatures to them in subjection and taken care of.

Furthermore, in delving deeper on the topic of the spiritual aspects and connection of and to Earth ponies, one need only look at the finest example, which is Tree Hugger. While this pony is looked at as a parody of Hippies by the FiM fans, and just as overlooked and disregarded as the earth pony race as a whole, I have no doubt that this one pony is the open book that we need to truly understand what Earth ponies are capable of.

I bring it up in greater detail here: https://happypastelponies.tumblr.com/post/172160703223/past-lives-and-present-possibilities, but in short, TH’s frequent mention of chakras and energy leads me to believe that, in spite of her appearance, mannerisms, and speech, she has been able to tap into the greatest ability that can be found within Equestria, which is the link to the spiritual, the azoth as it is known in alchemy. I believe that this is something that only Earth ponies would be able to obtain and have access to; though with great difficulty.

It could be that perhaps Pinkie Pie, Maud (and Cheese Sandwich) have a limited access to the azoth, given what we’ve seen of her abilities in her inherent ‘Pinkie/ Cheese/ Maud sense’ and awareness of other dimensions that she can gain access to, through, but it comes and goes, as it was said in “Feeling Pinkie Keen”.

In conclusion, though this is all pretty much speculative, I believe that Earth ponies are not to be looked down upon, and possess more abilities than we are made aware of. Perhaps they may be the highest race of the three tribes; perhaps higher than the Alicorns, even! We may not know everything that they’re truly capable of, nor do we have to, but the show has dropped breadcrumbs for us to take and interpret however we choose. Don’t give up on the earth ponies and take them at mere surface value. After all, at the very least, they were able to keep two entire races from vanishing off the face of the earth during turbulent times and threat of an eternal ice age!

See Also: Ascending to Earth pony would be the Avatar State? https://happypastelponies.tumblr.com/post/172772457998/mlp-g5-alicorn-ascending-to-earth-pony-would-be

Past Lives and Present Possibilities https://happypastelponies.tumblr.com/post/172160703223/past-lives-and-present-possibilities

#mlp #mylittlepony #pony #little #theory #pastel #horse #earth #scien #alchemy #spiritual #science #transmutation

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storywars-r · 5 years ago

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6/8 - Never Is Far Too Long For Your Luck To Hold Out

(Almond Goddess)

Chapter 1 by R

She was never very good at it.

The whole thing, the job, she'd never gotten good. It was fun, and interesting, but she didn't exactly have the skill to be an adventurer, much less a hero. Even fighting humans took it's toll on her, and she'd never been able to face even the smallest monsters alone.

That didn't matter, now. It didn't matter how good or bad she was at the job, at fighting, the lifestyle. Skill, talent, dedication, it all fell short next to this, this monster.

Even the greatest heroes failed and died, fighting the creatures from beyond. Her mentor lay bleeding out in the water, unable to stand. She stood, all alone, facing the greatest, incalculable evil which loomed over her, uncaring, unblinking.

She was never any good at being a hero, but for this fight it didn't matter. She was going to die anyway.

Why not leave the biggest dent she could?

Chapter 2 by Nathan.N

She took her master's sword and began to cast an enchant on it.

"Force of the wind!"

In a split second, the snake cyclop threw its head at her ready to eat her whole. She dodged thanks to her wind enchant raising her ability by 3 folds and stroke her sword on its scales.

Xshhhh!

"Take this!"

The hit landed but the shock made her fall the instant the blade touched the steel monster. It glanced at her and used his body to slam it on her. Water surged amidst the fight and took her over by surprise. She crushed a bead of protection and a barrier formed just in time to protect her.

She, in the spheric barrier, rocketed through the air and hit in a frightening boom a cliff behind her. The barrier didn't even last ten seconds before being reduced to nothingness.

"Dang it... crazy monster."

She didn't even have time to catch her breath that it slippered as quick as lightning in her direction. The fight now in its latter steps, the snake's body was out in the open.

She looked at the monster with this one dashing at her with all its might. Its maw wild open glinted by the poison covering them.

Just as it was ready to bit her she crushed another bead and threw a petrification potion into its throat.

Dodge this for me

For one moment the scene of her jumping back with the snake on her was worthy to be painted. But this fight, no one would ever see it.

In a time it took for a spark to die her jump using all her mana managed to make her dodge death. Only for a few seconds but enough to accomplish her goal, albeit with sweat.

At the same time, the petrification potion activated and numbed the monster enough to make it unable to raise its head and bit her. While at it, it crashed on the soil, its face planting its teeth on it.

Xshhhhh!

It wasn't luck. Only years of silent training showing off at a crucial moment.

While in the air and still going up she stuck her sword in the rock to slow her fall coupled with another wind spell. Her grinding teeth resonated with her sword.

She was ready to let the monster tastes a sword strike but the cliff she was in cracked and fell with her. The snake's shock having weakened it, it escaped her quick forecast.

The cliff, in one-millionth of a second, showed thousands of other cracks and a boulder rain poured on the Lirata snake with her in the midst of all.

Chapter 3 by Nathan.N

"Hell..." In a scream of angst and pain, Lishena and the Lirata snake respectively escaped the rocky jail.

One was bleeding green and the other red.

One had eyes filled with fury and the other with tiredness.

Why does it still live?

In front of her, the snake showed a mangled jaw with teeth of stone and half of the head transformed in rock. Its pride, its teeth were now in shamble and the slippery human who did this to it was still breathing. Madness was easy to call its state right now.

Lishena patted her pouch realised that it leaked. All her potions were crushed.

"Looks like that's the end..." Her face showed frustration. Until now all she did was seamless. Her master would have been happy. "Master, I really did my best." Even her didn't know how she did all of this. Maybe, in front of such a big demon her instinct to live made her survive.

The truth was that after years of fighting against heroes the snake never fought an alchemist. Lishena was only good at this, alchemy and... resourcefulness.

Even now she didn't realise what strange effects her mixed potions were unknowingly doing in her pouch.

#sw unfinished

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alltimebestbooks · 4 years ago

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Top 25 Books

1. Originals: How Non-Conformists Change the World

Author examines how people can drive creative, moral, and organisational progress—and how leaders can encourage originality in their organisations.

How can we originate new ideas, policies and practices without risking it all? Adam Grant shows how to improve the world by championing novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battling conformity, and bucking outdated traditions.

Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt. Parents will learn how to nurture originality in children, and leaders will discover how to fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent.

Told through dazzling case studies of people going against the grain, you’ll encounter an entrepreneur who pitches the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who challenged secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees who don’t criticize him, and the TV executive who saved Seinfeld from the cutting room floor. Originals will give you groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and how to change the world.

2. The Alchemist

A special 25th anniversary edition of the extraordinary international bestseller, including a new Foreword by Paulo Coelho.

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

3. Man's Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust

16 MILLION COPIES SOLD

'A book to read, to cherish, to debate, and one that will ultimately keep the memories of the victims alive' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living. Viktor Frankl’s rediscovered classic, Yes to Life, In Spite of Everything is also available to pre-order now

4. Leaders Eat Last Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home feeling fulfilled.

This is not a crazy, idealized notion.

Today, in many successful organizations,great leaders are creating environments in which people naturally work together to do remarkable things.

In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek, internationally bestselling author of Start With Why,investigates these great leaders from Marine Corps Officers, who don't just sacrifice their place at the table but often their own comfort and even their lives for those in their care, to the heads of big business and government - each putting aside their own interests to protect their teams.

Sinek argues that this is what it means to be a leader and asks are you a leader?

'As refreshingly simple and easy to follow as it is thought-provoking' Management Today

5. Tuesdays With Morrie: An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague?

Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it?

For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?

Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

Praise for Tuesdays with Morrie:

'This is a true story that shines and leaves you forever warmed by its afterglow' Amy Tan

'A moving tribute to embracing life' Glasgow Herald 'An extraordinary contribution to the literature of death' Boston Globe

'A beautifully written book of great clarity and wisdom that lovingly captures the simplicity beyond life's complexities' M Scott Peck

6. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future

South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior.

The personal tale of Musk’s life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties.

He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk’s marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life ...

Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

7. Deep Work

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

'Deep work' is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Coined by author and professor Cal Newport on his popular blog Study Hacks, deep work will make you better at what you do, let you achieve more in less time and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from the mastery of a skill. In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive economy.

And yet most people, whether knowledge workers in noisy open-plan offices or creatives struggling to sharpen their vision, have lost the ability to go deep - spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realising there's a better way.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories -- from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air -- and surprising suggestions, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored.

Put simply: developing and cultivating a deep work practice is one of the best decisions you can make in an increasingly distracted world and this book will point the way.

8. Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of Abdul Kalam

Every common man who by his sheer grit and hard work achieves success should share his story with the rest for they may find inspiration and strength to go on, in his story. The 'Wings of Fire' is one such autobiography by visionary scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who from very humble beginnings rose to be the President of India. The book is full of insights, personal moments and life experiences of Dr. Kalam. It gives us an understanding on his journey of success.

Dr. Kalam by narrating his life journey evokes the reader to identify with one’s inner fire and potential, for he was of the firm belief that each one of us was born with the strength and potential to make a tangible change in the world. How he inspired himself to achieve dreams and how he went about accomplishing so much is what the book captures nicely.

The book recollects many anecdotes and stories from childhood, his time at school and college. The time spent at the Langley Research Center, NASA and Wallops Flight Facility gets a lot of attention.

Personal tragedies have not been left out. The time when he lost his father and how he felt when conferred with many awards like the Padma Bhushan have been written in much detail.

The second half of the book deals with Dr Kalam, the scientist who made a significant contribution in developing the countries guided missile program, a pioneering effort for the security of the nation. It's not with reason that he was nicknamed as the 'Missile Man of India'. The book also contains 24 photographs at various stages of his life.

Authored by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and Mr. Arun Tiwari, the 180 page book 'The Wings of Fire' was first published in the year 2000. Mr Tiwari is a well-known missile scientist who has worked with Dr. Kalam. Having become a bestseller, the book has even been translated into thirteen languages, which includes Chinese and French.

9. Delivering Happiness

Pay brand-new employees $2,000 to quit Make customer service the responsibility of the entire company-not just a department Focus on company culture as the #1 priority Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business Help employees grow-both personally and professionally Seek to change the world Oh, and make money too . . .

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure at Zappos, the online retailer that's doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually. After debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer in Fortune magazine's annual "Best Companies to Work For" list in 2009, Zappos was acquired by Amazon in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

In Delivering Happiness, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh shares the different lessons he has learned in business and life, from starting a worm farm to running a pizza business, through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Fast-paced and down-to-earth, Delivering Happiness shows how a very different kind of corporate culture is a powerful model for achieving success-and how by concentrating on the happiness of those around you, you can dramatically increase your own. #1 New York Timesand Wall Street Journal bestseller

10. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions

Why do smart people make irrational decisions every day? The answers will surprise you. Predictably Irrational is an intriguing, witty and utterly original look at why we all make illogical decisions.

Why can a 50p aspirin do what a 5p aspirin can't? If an item is "free" it must be a bargain, right? Why is everything relative, even when it shouldn't be? How do our expectations influence our actual opinions and decisions?

In this astounding book, behavioural economist Dan Ariely cuts to the heart of our strange behaviour, demonstrating how irrationality often supplants rational thought and that the reason for this is embedded in the very structure of our minds.

Predicatably Irrational brilliantly blends everyday experiences with a series of illuminating and often surprising experiments, that will change your understanding of human behaviour. And, by recognising these patterns, Ariely shows that we can make better decisions in business, in matters of collective welfare, and in our everyday lives from drinking coffee to losing weight, buying a car to choosing a romantic partner.

11. 5 Love Languages

A New York Times bestseller for 10 years running.

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?

In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today.

The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.

Includes the Couple's Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.

12. How to win friends and influence people

'How to win friends and influence people’ is a self-help book which is the pioneer of this genre. Written by Dale Carnegie and published in 1936, it has sold over 30 million copies. It has been edited and re-printed several times. This is the 2004 edition of this book. It was on the Time magazine’s 100 most influential books list in 2011. This book is a guide in improving a person's aura in the world. It is about changing how the world views and treats you by changing your own behaviour. That means that if you change the kind of energy that you emit, what comes back to you is also different. This is one of the most influential business and communication skills guide. This book teaches you how to market yourself and generate more clients. This book has been acclaimed by many known figures around the world. This book tries to get you out of a mental hell and provides you with ambition and goals. It enables you to be friendlier and seem a positive person to others, it helps you become a popular person who is liked by the majority and in business terms, it enables you to win new clients. it increases your earning power by helping you use your potential to the fullest and it helps you to become a better public speaker and to be liked by mass audience. If you read the book carefully and follow majority of the tips, you can learn to be friendlier and more presentable as a person. You can become a person who emits the positivity that is inside the heart. You can become a person people trust and want to be associated with. As long as you have good friends and good business associations, you will probably stay strong in personal as well as professional life.

13. Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking

Quiet by Susan Cain will change how you think about introverts forever

A Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller

Our lives are driven by a fact that most of us can't name and don't understand. It defines who our friends and lovers are, which careers we choose, and whether we blush when we're embarrassed.

That fact is whether we're an introvert or an extrovert.

The introvert/extrovert divide is the most fundamental dimension of personality. And at least a third of us are on the introverted side. Some of the world's most talented people are introverts. Without them we wouldn't have the Apple computer, the theory of relativity and Van Gogh's sunflowers.

Yet extroverts have taken over. Shyness, sensitivity and seriousness are often seen as being negative. Introverts feel reproached for being the way they are.

In Quiet, Susan Cain shows how the brain chemistry of introverts and extroverts differs, and how society misunderstands and undervalues introverts. She gives introverts the tools to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths.

Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with real stories, Quiet will permanently change how we see introverts - and how you see yourself.

'I can't get Quiet out of my head. It is an important book - so persuasive and timely and heartfelt it should inevitably effect change in schools and offices' Jon Ronson, The Guardian

'Susan Cain's Quiet has sparked a quiet revolution. In our booming culture, hers is a still, small voice that punches above its weight. Perhaps rather than sitting back and asking people to speak up, managers and company leaders might lean forward and listen' Megan Walsh, The Times

'Quiet is a very timely book, and Cain's central thesis is fresh and important. Maybe the extrovert ideal is no longer as powerful as it was; perhaps it is time we all stopped to listen to the still, small voice of calm' Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times

Susan Cain is the owner of The Negotiation Company, a firm that trains people in negotiation and communication skills. Her clients include Merrill Lynch, Standard & Poor, University of Chicago Business School and many of the US's most powerful law firms. She previously practiced corporate law for seven years with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons

14. Thinking, Fast and Slow

The phenomenal international bestseller - 2 million copies sold - that will change the way you make decisions

'A lifetime's worth of wisdom' Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics 'There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Thinking, Fast and Slow' Financial Times

Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book reveals how our minds are tripped up by error and prejudice (even when we think we are being logical), and gives you practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking. It will enable to you make better decisions at work, at home, and in everything you do.

15. Atomic Habit

THE PHENOMENAL INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER – 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD

Transform your life with tiny changes in behaviour – starting now.

People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions – doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.

He calls them atomic habits.

In this ground-breaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy

16. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

'A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person thinks about the world around him' Michael Lewis

In this brilliant and original book, Malcolm Gladwell explains and analyses the 'tipping point', that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviour cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire. Taking a look behind the surface of many familiar occurrences in our everyday world, Gladwell explains the fascinating social dynamics that cause rapid change.

'Hip and hopeful, THE TIPPING POINT is like the idea it describes: concise, elegant but packed with social power. A book for anyone who cares about how society works and how we can make it better' George Stephanopoulos

17. The Laws of Human Nature

Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defence.

18.The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich

A new, updated and expanded edition of this New York Times bestseller on how to reconstruct your life so it's not all about work

Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan - there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.

This step-by step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:

* How Tim went from $40,000 dollars per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per MONTH and 4 hours per week * How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want * How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs * How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist * How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent 'mini-retirements'.

This new updated and expanded edition includes:

More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled their income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point * Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating email, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than £5 a meal * How lifestyle design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times * The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either.

19. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Have you ever found yourself struggling with information overload?

Have you ever felt both overworked and underutilised?

Do you ever feel busy but not productive?

If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is to become an Essentialist.

In Essentialism, Greg McKeown, CEO of a Leadership and Strategy agency in Silicon Valley who has run courses at Apple, Google and Facebook, shows you how to achieve what he calls the disciplined pursuit of less. Being an Essentialist is about a disciplined way of thinking. It means challenging the core assumption of ‘We can have it all’ and ‘I have to do everything’ and replacing it with the pursuit of ‘the right thing, in the right way, at the right time'.

By applying a more selective criteria for what is essential, the pursuit of less allows us to regain control of our own choices so we can channel our time, energy and effort into making the highest possible contribution toward the goals and activities that matter.

Using the experience and insight of working with the leaders of the most innovative companies and organisations in the world, McKeown shows you how to put Essentialism into practice in your own life, so you too can achieve something great.

20. Nice Girls Don't Get Rich: 75 Avoidable Mistakes Women Make with Money

If you have outstanding balances on your credit cards...don't have assets in your own name...are saving instead of investing, then chances are you're not rich and not living the life you want. Without your awareness, behaviors learned as a girl are preventing you from becoming a woman who is financially independent and free to follow her dreams. Now, with the same frank advice and empowering information that made Nice Girls Don't Get the Comer Office a bestseller, Lois Frankel tackles the 75 financial mistakes that keep women from having the wealth they deserve. She isolates the messages about money given to little girls that little boys never hear. Then she helps you discover the financial thinking that is keeping you stuck in old patterns, dependent relationships, and jobs where you earn less than you deserve. Once you get to the root of the problem, Frankel helps you solve it-with fabulous results. Her coaching tips help you take control of your finances and make more money than you ever thought possible. Do you make these "nice girl" mistakes? * Mistake #4: Not playing to win. Being polite, quiet, and fair to a fault is playing the financial game "like a girl." * Mistake #10: Choosing to remain financially illiterate. Knowledge is power. Learn to manage your major purchases, investments, and banking. * Mistake #20: Spending as an emotional crutch. Understand your emotions; don't make purchases just to lift your spirits. * Mistake #45: Saving instead of investing. Fear can keep your funds in low-interest accounts. Get educated about investing. Get wealthy. Frankel gives you the financial savvy to change negative behaviors, make smart money choices, and embrace the life you want sooner than you think.

21. The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses

Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable.

The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that's being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It's about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it's too late. Now is the time to think Lean.

22. Miracle Morning

"Hal Elrod is a genius and his book The Miracle Morning has been magical in my life. What Hal has done is taken the best practices, developed over centuries of human consciousness development, and condensed the 'best of the best' into a daily morning ritual. A ritual that is now part of my day." -Robert Kiyosaki, bestselling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad

What's being widely regarded as "one of the most life changing books ever written" may be the simplest approach to achieving everything you've ever wanted, and faster than you ever thought possible.

What if you could wake up tomorrow and any-or EVERY-area of your life was beginning to transform? What would you change? The Miracle Morning is already transforming the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world by showing them how to wake up each day with more ENERGY, MOTIVATION, and FOCUS to take your life to the next level. It's been right here in front of us all along, but this book has finally brought it to life.

Are you ready? The next chapter of YOUR life-the most extraordinary life you've ever imagined-is about to begin. Buy the book and WAKE UP to your full potential!

23. Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth

What I want to achieve- what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years- is self-realization, to see god face to face, to attain moksha. In this classic autobiography, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi recounts the story of his life, entwining memories of his childhood, marriage, experiences in South Africa and later with the freedom movement, with his constant struggle to attain absolute truth and his quest to be one with god.

Narrated in Gandhi's simplistic prose, An Autobiography is a glimpse into the life and mind of the man who would lead his country to freedom and be hailed as the greatest figure of the twentieth century.

24. Emotion and Relationships

2 Books in 1

Book 1: Emotion: The Juice of Life

“One can make any emotion into a creative force in one’s life.” – Sadhguru

It’s not just poetic license that allows us to refer to emotions as “juicy”. In a literal sense also, emotions are a chemical cocktail that course through our bodies. But while we have no problems with pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions are the source of much angst in our lives. In Emotion: The Juice of Life, Sadhguru looks at the gamut of human emotions and how to turn them into stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.

Sadhguru is a yogi and profound mystic of our times. An absolute clarity of perception places him in a unique space in not only matters spiritual but in business, environmental and international affairs and opens a new door on all that he touches.

Book 2: Relationships: Bond or Bondage

“If you enhance yourself into a very beautiful state, everyone will want to hold a relationship with you.” – Sadhguru

Human beings constantly make and break relationships. Unfortunately, relationships can make and break human beings too. Why are relationships such a circus for most of us? What is this primal urge within us that demands a bond – physical, mental, or emotional – with another? And how do we keep this bond from turning into bondage? These are the fundamental questions that Relationships: Bond or Bondage looks at as Sadhguru shares with us the keys to forming lasting and joyful relationships, whether they are with husband or wife, family and friends, at work, or with the very existence itself.

25. Mindset

The updated edition of the book that has changed millions of lives with its insights into the growth mindset.

After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.

In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset. She also expands the mindset concept beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations. With the right mindset, you can motivate those you lead, teach, and love—to transform their lives and your own.

#top 25 books #best 25 books #best books

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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Crunchyroll All-Stars: LJ Collier on Naruto's Ability to Overcome

Anime fans come from all walks of life and in all shapes and sizes. Some are students, some are scientists, some are doctors, some are artists, and some are even nationally-recognized professional sports figures! Crunchyroll All-Stars is a series of interviews highlighting elite professional athletes who harbor a passion both for their sport and for anime.

Today’s profile is on LJ Collier, an NFL defensive lineman and recent 1st round pick for the Seattle Seahawks. Starting his anime fandom with Dragon Ball Z, Collier wears his anime fandom proudly on his sleeve (and even his cleats). We spoke with Collier about Naruto's heroic journey, spreading the love of anime within the Seahawks locker room, and much more!

(clickthrough for full size)

When did you become an anime fan? Was there a specific moment that affected you or changed the way you felt about something?

Always a fan of Dragon Ball Z growing up, but where I lived out in the country it only showed in certain towns but I knew about it but couldn’t really watch it that much. When I was a senior in college though, I found a website to watch it and I haven’t stopped since. I started by watching the entire Dragon Ball Z series. It was maybe the 5th episode when Goku and Piccolo were fighting his brother Raditz and Piccolo punched through Goku’s chest to kill him?! Man, that was it for me. I was hooked! Then when Goku fought Vegeta on Planet Namek, that was one of the livest fights I’ve ever seen! But I’ve watched so many anime at this point. I’m hooked!

Are there any ways you engage with your favorite anime series or characters aside from watching them?

I’m getting some Dragon Ball Z and Naruto cleats made for this year. The skate shop, Primitive, did an anime collaboration and I got a bunch of Naruto shirts with him and Sasuke, so many Dragon Ball Z shirts with Freiza, Goku, Vegeta, Trunks. I’m definitely on that, and excited about the cleats I’m getting this year.

Have you ever bonded with someone else over anime?

A couple of my teammates on the Seahawks are really into anime. I was watching Fullmetal Alchemist and one of my teammates came up to me like “why are you watching this? You gotta watch Attack on Titan, One Piece, Death Note, etc.” and then we just started talking anime. At the gym I go to now, we talk a lot about anime and what we’re watching. One of my all time favorite animes I think is so good from beginning to end is Fairy Tail. My Hero Academia — I’m watching the 4th season now — from the moment you watch it, it’s breath-taking. It gets serious, it gets raw. Anime just goes into depth on everything: family, friends, death. It’s what makes Naruto so great: it answers every question. It went into depths on the Uchiha Clan and what happened to them and then some! It’s just so impressive.

What’s your favorite anime series of all time?

Dragon Ball Z. It’s where it all started. The storylines. The way you see the characters grow. Each fighter, it takes them to the depths where it looks like it can’t get any worse and it always gets worse. The transformation with Vegeta and how he becomes a loving father. How he really loves Goku and how they push each other to be great. The character development, the fighting, it pushes them to the brink, even past death. It’s definitely an all time favorite.

Who’s your favorite anime character of all time?

I mean Goku, Luffy, Naruto...this is tough...I’ll say Deku from My Hero Academia. His character arc. He already was a superhero and took so many notes on people. He was actually good and he saved the day every time when it came down to it even though he was tearing himself apart. Honestly, Naruto is a favorite too. He was so hated. He was alone and had no one and overcame everything. He’s the definition of speaking things into existence. Still became the greatest. Becoming hokage? It was beautiful.

Who would you rank as the top anime hero ever?

I got to give it to Goku. He chose to let himself be gone to avoid destruction from coming and had to almost kill himself to do it. He truly cares about his family and friends. He was always joking but when it got serious it was time to go. He was the greatest and unmatched.

Who would you rank as the top anime villain ever?

Wow...Orochimaru is up there...Kaguya Otsutsuki from Naruto is up there...Freiza’s up there...One for All in My Hero Academia...Father in Fullmetal Alchemist too. Orochimaru killed the third hokage! But Kaguya Otsutsuki performed the Infinite Tsukuyomi. She was the ultimate; unbeatable.

Have you ever taken any elements or learnings from (an) anime and implemented them into your daily life?

Absolutely. Goku teaches you to never give up, to push your limits and there’s no telling how far you can go. I really like what Naruto’s about: he’s alone and people hated him but he stood his ground firmly and knew that he wasn’t in the wrong; he was just like everybody else. I like what he stood for, and he triumphed in the end. Watching Naruto was one of the best experiences ever. There’s so much to tell, the story arc, what everybody went through and came out of it. The fact that Kakashi can still smile and hold love, still able to help Naruto after everything he’s been through. There’s a lot to learn from anime.

It feels like more and more athletes are showcasing their love for anime — what’s anime fandom like in the NFL? And what do you think it is about anime that attracts athletes?

At one point last year, three of my teammates were watching Dragon Ball Z at the same time. I had a great Dragon Ball Z backpack last year and my teammates all noticed and it sparked us to all talk about it. One of my teammates just texted me and we were talking about the new Dragon Ball Super game. If you’d go into an NFL locker room you’d be surprised at how many guys would come up to you and talk about anime. It came up a lot when we were all growing up. It still has a big impact — we have the custom cleats, we talk about our favorite characters, our favorite shows. Who doesn’t want anime cleats?!

What would your message be to someone who recently discovered anime and was thinking about getting into it?

Don’t knock it till you try it. Have to give it at least 10 episodes. Let the character development happen. Get to know the characters, their friends. You’ll realize why so many people today are going crazy over it. The My Hero Academia movie, the fight between All Might and Deku — it’s mindblowing. Naruto gives you crazy fighting plus one hell of a storyline. It gets raw! It’s crazy, people don’t always understand just how great anime is.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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maier-files · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on The Maier Files

New Post has been published on http://the.maier-files.com/the-philosophers-stone-appeared-in-de-nederlanden/

The Philosopher’s Stone appeared in de Nederlanden

At the present time, our materialistic science derides alchemists as misplaced mystics who pursued a dream of finding a chemical compound that might transform base metals into gold. Indeed, they recognize that much scientific breakthrough was achieved through these pursuits, but they throw out out the goal of the alchemists as simply a fanciful or impossible plan and fantasy. However, there exist fascinating incidents, a few so deeply curious that the mind can barely cope with the outcomes, and they are instantly thrown away as far too fantastic for serious consideration. Let’s recount some of them here so that the reader who is unfamiliar with the literary works might be sufficiently intrigued to do research on his/her own.

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But first, a quick discussion of the “Philosopher’s Stone”. This is the quest of the Alchemist; a fabled material which could not just transmute metals into gold, but might cure any specific disease, banish all sickness from a person’s life, and award a prolonged lifespan, if not immortality, on the body. At least, that is how it is depicted. That may or may not be a “cover story”.

In an anonymous 17th Century alchemical text, The Sophic Hydrolith, this process is described as “purging the mineral of all that is thick, nebulous, opaque and dark”, and what would be left would be a mercurial “water of the Sun”, which had a pleasant, penetrating odor, and was very volatile.

Portion of this fluid is set aside, and the remainder is then blended with a twelfth of its weight of “the divinely endowed body of gold”, (regular gold won’t perform because it is defiled by every day use). This mix then forms a strong amalgam that is heated for a week. It is then dissolved in some of the mercurial water in an egg-shaped urn. After that, the leftover mercurial water is added slowly, in seven portions; the urn is sealed, and held at such a temperature as will hatch an egg. After forty days, the urn’s ingredients is going to be black colored; after seven additional days compact grainy bodies similar to fish eyes ought to appear.

After that the “Philosopher’s Stone” starts to make its physical appearance: first reddish in color; then white, green and yellow like a peacock’s tail and then stunning white-colored; and afterwards an intense glowing red. Finally, “the revivified body is quickened, improved and glorified” and is found in a ravishing purple. This as well as some similarly difficult to understand and weird appearing scripts are the bulk of Alchemical Literature. Maybe these texts were a code, and we must persist in reading many texts of this kind and searching for clues there and in the stories of the alchemists themselves. Now when you read the anecdotes about so-called Alchemists, something very mysterious is going on …

For instance: In 1666, Johann Friedrich Schweitzer, physician to the Prince of Orange, writes of having been visited by a stranger who was “of a mean stature, a little long face, with a few small pock holes, and most black hair, not at all curled, a beardless chin, about three or four and forty years of age (as I guessed), and born in the northern part of the Netherlands.”

Before finnishing the story, it must be highlighted that Dr. Schweitzer, who was the author of a number of medical and botanical books, was a cautious and also objective observer and was an associate of the philosopher, Baruch Spinoza. Schweitzer was a skilled scientific observer;a respected medical man, and not given to frauds or even practical jokes. However, his story is, in modern comprehending, impossible.

Now, what happened was that the stranger made small talk for awhile and then, more or less out of the blue, asked Dr. Schweitzer whether or not he would recognize the “Philosopher’s Stone” if he saw it. He then took out of his pocket a little ivory container that held “three ponderous bits or small lumps … each about the size of a small walnut, transparent, of a pale brimstone colour.

The stranger informed Schweitzer that this was the very substance hunted for such a long time by the Alchemists. Schweitzer held one of the bits in his hand and questioned the stranger if perhaps he might have just a tiny part. The man rejected, but Schweitzer was able to steal a tiny bit by scraping it with his fingernail. The visitor left after ensuring to come back in three weeks time to show Dr. Schweitzer certain “curious arts in the fire”. Well, the instant he was gone, Dr. Schweitzer ran to his laboratory where he melted some lead in a crucible and added the small piece of stone. But, the metal failed to transform into gold as he expected. Instead, “almost the entire bulk of lead flew away, and the rest transformed into a mere glassy earth. Three weeks later, the mysterious stranger was at his door once again. They conversed, and for quite a while the man refused to allow Dr. Schweitzer to observe his stones again, yet, finally Schweitzer said “he gave me a crumb as big as a rape or turnip seed, saying, receive this small parcel of the greatest treasure of the world, which truly few kings or princes have ever known or seen”.

Schweitzer must have been a real complainer and crybaby because he recounts that he protested that this was not sufficient to transmute as much as 4 grains of lead into gold. At this, the stranger took the piece back, cut it in half, and casted one part in the fire, saying: “it is yet sufficient for thee!” At this point, Schweitzer confessed his theft from the previous visit, and described how the substance had behaved with his molten lead. The stranger began to laugh and told him, “Thou are more sly to commit theft than to apply thy medicine; for if thou hadst only wrapped up thy stolen prey in yellow wax, to preserve it from the arising fumes of lead, it would have penetrated to the bottom of the lead, and transmuted it to gold.” The guy leaves at this point and promises to return the next morning to show Schweitzer the correct way to perfom the transmutation but, the next day he came not, nor ever since.

Schweitzer recounts:

Only he sent an excuse at half an hour past nine that morning, by reason of his great business, and promised to come at three in the afternoon, but never came, nor have I heard of him since; whereupon I began to doubt of the whole matter. Nevertheless late that night my wife… came soliciting and vexing me to make experiment… saying to me, unless this be done, I shall have no rest nor sleep all this night… She being so earnest, I commanded a fire to be made – thinking, alas, now is this man (though so divine in discourse) found guilty of falsehood… My wife wrapped the said matter in wax, and I cut half an ounce of six drams of old lead, and put into a crucible in the fire, which being melted, my wife put in the said Medicine made up in a small pill, which presently made such a hissing and bubbling in its perfect operation, that within a quarter of an hour all the mass of lead was transmuted into the … finest gold.

Baruch Spinoza, who lived close by, came the following day to examine this gold and was persuaded that Schweitzer was telling the truth. The Assay Master (officer who assays or tests gold or silver coin or bullion) of the province, a Mr. Porelius, analyzed the metal and pronounced it authentic; and Mr. Buectel, the silversmith, subjected it to additional test that confirmed that it was gold. The testimony of those men survives to this day. Hence, either they all are lying, or Dr. Schweitzer really did have a strange experience precisely as he describes it. The fascinating thing is that other people have described comparable visitations by strange men who proclaim to them the truth of the alchemical process, demonstrate it, and then mysteriously disappear. It has happened sufficiently often, in widely enough separated places and times to suggest that it is not a collusive fraud nor a delusion.

Twenty years earlier, the Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician, Jan Baptiste van Helmont, who was responsible for several important scientific discoveries, and was the first man to realize that there were other gases than air; and who invented the term “gas”, wrote: For truly I have divers times seen it (The Philosopher’s Stone), and handled it with my hands, but it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its powder, yet weighty, and shining like unto powdered glass. There was once given unto me one fourth part of one grain [16 milligrams]… I projected [it] upon eighty ounces (227 grams) of mercury made hot in a crucible; and straightaway all the quicksilver, with a certain degree of noise, stood still from flowing, and being congealed, settled like unto a yellow lump; but after pouring it out, the bellows blowing, there were found eight ounces and a little less than eleven grains of the purest gold. Sir Isaac Newton studied alchemy until his death, remaining convinced that the possiblity of transmutation existed. The great philosophers and mathematicians, Descartes and Leibnitz, both were convinced that transmutation was a reality. Even Robert Boyle who wrote a book entitled The Sceptical Chymist, was sure until the end of his life, that transmutation was possible … Weird or what?

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#alchemie #alchemy #chemist #Gold #Nederlanden #Schweitzer #the Netherlands #van Helmont

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alltimebestbooks · 4 years ago

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