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olyia-stories · 5 years ago

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A response to @teasockschocolate ‘s AU about the soulmate AUs in the PJO universe. Since this is a companion piece it doesn’t matter which one you read first, but make sure to check out @teasockschocolate and @demigodsanswer out.

Annabeth hated soulmates.

Ever since her dad met his, Annabeth’s life had just gotten worse. Admittedly, she and her dad hadn’t been particularly familyish, but it had been the two of them. He used to let her fall asleep in his arms while he worked on his thesis paper, he took her out for icecream in the park after his classes, and he would ask her opinion on which human models to put on his battle of the Somme replica. They had been fine on their own. They didn’t need Lori.

The only reason her dad even liked Lori was because the first thing she said to him was written on his arm. And not in the “he tattooed it on because he loved her” thing, but because it was a silly soulmate mark. Annabeth just couldn’t understand why her analytical father would rely on a process for choosing who he loved as flimsy as “the universe decided for us.” And clearly, the universe got it wrong. Lori was awful.

All Lori ever did was complain about everything Annabeth ever did: “Frederick, tell Annabeth to stop playing “science” in the living room.” “Frederick, tell Annabeth to stop drawing on herself.” “Frederick, tell Annabeth to go to sleep.” “Frederick, if you don’t tell Annabeth to stop getting out of bed, I will.” Lori only saw Annabeth as a stain that needed covering up.

Then the monsters started attacking. Of course, they were attacking because Annabeth was a half-blood, but it’s not like she wanted them to come. But Lori blamed her.

“There must be something you can do,” Lori was talking to Annabeth’s dad. Annabeth should have been asleep, but the spiders were too much for her. Lori went on, “Don’t look so shocked, I know you tried to get her mother to take her back, all I’m saying is that maybe someone more like her could take her off our hands.” Annabeth stood very still, she had not known that her dad had tried to get rid of her, she thought he loved her.

“Lori, I don’t know what to do, Athena sai-“

“Athena isn’t here!” Lori cut Annabeth’s father off. “Even Athena didn’t want that girl. I think it would be best for our boys if we found a new living arrangement for Annabeth.” Annabeth didn’t wait around for her father’s response; she knew he would give in he always gave in to Lori.

Annabeth was not going to give Lori the pleasure of sending her away, and she didn’t want to live a moment more under the same roof as her stepmother. Annabeth decided to leave.

She didn’t know where she would go, so Annabeth wanted to be prepared. She grabbed a marker and made a packing list on her arm. With the list on her arm, she quickly packed her backpack. She pulled on a hoodie and snuck out her bedroom window. It was on the second floor, but the window opened onto the porch roof and from there she shimmied down the gutter. And just like that, Annabeth was free.

“Child, in order to be a successful demigod you must be skilled in a wide-range of activities.” Chiron studied Annabeth from where he stood on the porch. Annabeth had come to complain. She didn’t understand why the camp made them climb lava walls, and swing swords at straw dummies. She just wanted to spend time in the Athena cabin’s library. She had never seen so many books, and she wanted to read them all.

“But Chiron, knowledge is power! Therefore, I should spend my time learning as much as I can.”

“Ah but knowledge is power; you must learn as much as you can, which includes being knowledgeable in fighting and survival tactics. Now I believe your cabin is going to the forge for arts and crafts, you should hurry along.” Annabeth thought about what the centaur had said while she walked to the forge. She decided She would start by learning archery. She wrote it on her hand, so she would remember to ask her siblings to teach her later. For now, she was going to create a masterpiece.

Annabeth lived year-round at camp, so she had independent lessons during the school year. Chiron trusted her siblings to educate her, but they quickly realized that she was capable of teaching herself so long as she had the right books. So, they let her alone. Annabeth would read, and write notebooks full of her discoveries, and when she came up on things she wanted to study further she would write a note on her arm to look it up later.

Finally, she met him. The person she had been waiting years for. This boy was who Chiron had told her about. He was going to take her on a quest. Well, he would once he stopped drooling in the med ward.

Percy Jackson would get a quest; Annabeth was sure of it. He was the son of Poseidon, one of the major gods, that was the deal. Chiron told her she would go with him on a quest. She HAD to go with him.

So, when Percy was taken to the big house she was right behind him. She had on her magic Yankee’s hat, a gift from her mother when she made it to camp the hat made the wearer invisible. She listened to Chiron explain to Percy the war brewing among the gods. She watched Percy enter the big house and listened for his footsteps recede up the stairs before she took off her cap.

“Blah ha ha!” Grover yelped. “You can’t sneak up like that Annabeth! You’ll give me a heart attack!”

Chiron sighed, “I suppose you were listening to all of that?”

“Yes,” she respected Chiron too much to lie to him. “I want to go on this quest.”

“Annabeth, you know that it’s Percy’s right to choose his companions,” Annabeth was in the middle of formulating a convincing argument when Chiron added, “But, I will tell Percy that you have volunteered to go, and if he wants to choose you, you may go. Child it will be dangerous, and I would rather both of you would stay at camp and train. I fear, however, that peace will only return to the Olympians when the bolt is returned. The quest must happen.”

Annabeth nodded. Satisfied with Chiron’s promise she waited for Percy to come back down. She was going on a quest

Annabeth still didn’t regret volunteering for the quest. It quickly went up, down and sideways and veered left from there. They have so far blown up a bus, wrecked a statue garden, ruined a national landmark, almost died by mechanical spider, and now they were heading south in the smelliest truck on the highway.

The animal fumes must have gotten to Annabeth because she found herself talking to Percy about her dad. She plucked at her dad’s college ring as she talked. “I guess my dad never really wanted me. He met Athena while he was working his way through grad school. She admired his dedication and helped him develop his thesis. To reward him, she pulled me out of her thoughts. He wanted her to take me back. But he took care of me. Once he met his soulmate, Lori, he decided he didn’t want me.” Annabeth glued her eyes to the ground. She found it easy to talk to Percy, but she couldn’t look at him and tell him what had eaten at her heart since Lori said those stupid soulmate words. “He had her and then they had their kids and they were that meant-to-be family. I was just in the way from them being perfect.” Annabeth stopped. She needed to collect herself, she hadn’t talked about her dad in years.

“I’m sorry.” Just two little words, and yet they made her heart soar. Percy put so much emotion into his voice, it was clear that he had experience with family issues. “My mom had a soulmate, but I don’t know who it was. It’s not my stepdad, that’s for sure. I think it could’ve been my dad.”

“Gods don’t soulbond.” How could he believe in soulmates when his mom had to put up with his stepdad? Poseidon couldn’t have been his mom’s soulmate. She winced, “sorry, that was mean.” She hadn’t meant to be rude, but she struggled to be anything but critical about the soulbond.

Percy shrugged, “S’fine. It’s true.”

Annabeth thought for a second, then asked. “What about you?”

“What?”

“Do you have a soulmate?”

Percy clutched at his wrist. “Yeah, I do.”

Annabeth wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but this confession still surprised her. She looked into his eyes and asked, “Really?”

“Do you?”

“No.” at least, she never thought enough about soulmate marks to check. “What’s your mark? Do you know your soulmate?” Annabeth didn’t know why she wanted to know, she just had to learn all she could.

“Uh,” a blush crept up his face. “it’s a writing one and no. I’ve, uh, never talked to her.”

“Why not?” If it had been Annabeth, she would have found out who it was. Even if she didn’t believe in soulmates, having someone you can communicate with without speaking or technology, that could be useful.

Percy shrugged, “I don’t know…”

“You should.”

“Maybe someday. I’ve got enough going on now.”

“That’s true.” She paused, then added, “I think soulmates are pretty dumb.”

He gave her a strange look. “Why?”

She felt his defenses rise. “Believe in them all you want. But wouldn’t you rather choose who you be with? The universe shows you one person and that’s it. And isn’t it doomed to fail? The expectation of who someone wants their soulmate to be is always going to be so big that they’ll never live up to it. It’s just setting both of them up to be disappointed.” She had thought this argument through more than once.

“But it’s the one person that the universe is saying is perfect for you. I think that’s pretty amazing.”

Annabeth knew she wasn’t going to change his opinion. “Good luck. I’ve never seen a soulbond work out.” Feeling like her last sentence was a bit gruff she offered, “I don’t mean to… discourage you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I mean, that doesn’t encourage me.”

She knew it, she had let her bitterness show. “Maybe the people I’ve seen just haven’t cared as much about it. You haven’t given up.”

He smiled. “I’ll make sure mine works. Even if it’s just so you can be wrong about something.”

Annabeth didn’t think much about that night on the zoo truck. The summer passed, and the school year came. She decided to try living with her dad again. She studied like she was back at camp, writing notes on her arm, reminders, and doodling to pass the time in class.

San Francisco felt calmer than when she was little. Her dad’s house felt normal. No monster attacks at first, but Annabeth couldn’t help but feel on edge. She was just waiting for the bubble to pop.

She was in her Algebra class when she felt it, a burning sensation on her left palm. It felt like she was bitten by a spider. Annabeth yelped. The classmates gave her a weird look, but that was normal. She was the only seventh grader in a high school class.

Annabeth looked down at her hand and saw a little blue dot on her palm. It looked like a pen mark, but Annabeth hadn’t put it there. Annabeth thought back to the summer, when she had shared a hay-filled ride with Percy, and he had shared what his soulmate mark was with her.

Annabeth couldn’t be sure, but perhaps she did have a soulmate. She needed more evidence; a stray pen mark didn’t prove anything.

Perhaps she should pay Percy a visit.

Getting up to Percy’s fire escape was the easy part. Calculating which window was his based on the outside of the building was more difficult. Annabeth climbed the fire escape ladder and peaked into his window, she had her Yankee’s hat on, so he wouldn’t see her watching. She had to know.

Annabeth pulled the cap off her pen and drew a little flower on her arm, while she drew, she watched Percy’s arm. There it was, her little four petaled flower. She smiled. Why did this knowledge make her happy? Percy was her best friend, but she didn’t like him like that… did she?

Stupid! Annabeth that was stupid! Why did she charge the manticore? All she had on her was her Yankee’s hat and her dagger, and she jumped a monster. She should have known better, but when she left the gymnasium and saw Percy there. His shield up and his sword out, she knew in that moment that if anything happened to Percy, she would never forgive herself. She did the only thing she could and distracted the manticore. She didn’t realize that he would simply take her. That Luke wanted her, but he didn’t want her like Annabeth had always hoped. He was using her as bait. She was how he would catch a goddess.

Annabeth needed a plan. But she could barely breath, let alone think. The weight of the sky was literally threatening to crash down on her, and all she could do was kneel under the pressure and hope Luke would come to his senses. She felt a prickling on her arm, when she looked the words were written out in red pen, “We’re coming.” Her arms surged with strength. Suddenly the weight of the world felt lighter. She knew who that was writing on her arm. Percy knew she was alive. He was coming for her. She wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t.

Annabeth knew Percy was in trouble from two blocks away. She could see the smoke billowing up from Goode high school. Annabeth and Percy were supposed to go on a date to the movies, she had taken the LIR from camp into the city that morning to meet Percy after his high school orientation.

Unfortunately, plans were void whenever Percy was around. She saw the smoke and hurried up the block just in time to see Percy jump out onto the street from a window, followed by a red-haired girl. She had freckles everywhere, and paint stains on her clothes. Annabeth wondered who she was while she watched the girl pull a marker out of her back pocket and felt the tingling sensation as the girl wrote her number on Percy’s arm, and Annabeth’s right arm copied it.

She stared dumbfounded at Percy, before turning on her heel and leaving the red-haired girl behind. She hailed a cab and waited for Percy to catch up. She crossed her arms, hoping to hide the thick black numbers. The cab came. They sat in silence.

How could she be so stupid. Soulbonds never worked out. She was a fool for thinking maybe they could overcome all the evidence she had collected saying otherwise.

Percy cleared his throat. “Could I… call my mom?” right, she had probably heard about the fire, his mom would be worried. Annabeth wished she had someone to worry over her. She fished her phone out of her pocket, careful to keep her right arm at her side. He quickly finished the call and handed Annabeth her phone. She again kept her arm close to her side. “Cold?” His voiced broke through her thoughts.

“What?”

“Just… since you’re…” He gestured to her folded arms.

She had hoped to quickly pass the cab ride in silence. “No.” she answered truthfully, hoping to stop the conversation there.

“Oh.” Percy continued. “I, uh, have a jacket in my backpack if you want.”

“No.” she couldn’t let him see the stupid number on her arm, and she didn’t want to talk to him. She turned towards the window and watched the familiar landscape of Long Island to take shape.

As soon as they got to camp she ran to her cabin. And pulled on a sweatshirt. She only hoped the marks would soon be gone, and that she hadn’t been too obvious.

The mountain exploded behind Annabeth. She didn’t let herself cry. Percy was a powerful demigod, and resourceful, and just plain lucky. He would make it out. She was sure.

She made it back to camp on her own. Hoping the whole way that Percy had beat her there. But no one had seen him. She tried not to notice her friends giving her pitying looks and hoped every day to see her seaweed brain crest the hill or walk out of the ocean. It got harder to hope as the weeks came and went. Annabeth pretended she was fine. She led her cabin through their activities always glancing towards the ocean, hoping to be the first to spot him. He didn’t show up.

The day with its tasks kept her mind busy, but the night was hard. She couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, trying to make a plan that would bring Percy home. She decided to write him a note. She put the pen to her hand and tried to think of what to say. But everything she wanted to write down seemed to swirl in her head. She instead wrote, “Hello?” That’s as far as she got before she couldn’t see with the tears welling in her eyes.

Two weeks passed, and still no word. Chiron decided to hold Percy’s memorial, to send him off properly. Annabeth stood at the fire pit and put the green silk cloth on the flames. She choked on the words, “He was probably the bravest friend I’ve ever had.” And the stupidest, “He…” she looked up at that moment and saw the impossible. What she had been waiting to see for weeks. “He’s right there!”

Annabeth vaulted up the amphitheater steps. And hugged him tight. He was alive!

It was August eighteenth. Percy’s birthday. Annabeth paused for only a second before writing out on her arm, ”Happy birthday.” She knew who was on the other end of this connection now, and she didn’t care about her data that said otherwise. She wanted Percy to know, she wanted them to work out.

“Thanks.” Was all he replied, and somehow that was all she needed. She couldn’t wait to see him again; they were going to make it through together.

Annabeth couldn’t believe this boy! How could she have ever liked him. They were standing near the tetherball court. She couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to her about his mortal friend Rachel. Sure, last summer she’d been helpful in the Labyrinth but that didn’t mean that she and Annabeth were friends. “What do you want me to say?” he seemed to put a lot of trust in this Rachel girl. How could he be so ignorant. She was a mortal, mortals don’t have visions. And besides he was just using this as an excuse to run away. She looked him in the eyes and spat out what she was thinking. “You’re a coward, Percy Jackson!”

Why had he never said anything. She was certain he knew, and their world could end any second. Beckendorf was proof of that. Why couldn’t he just talk to her! Why did every conversation turn into a shouting match? Why did she open her heart and let him in, when she knew that soulbonds never work. She couldn’t look at his green eyes anymore, she stormed away towards the strawberries, giving the tetherball a good whack as she passed it.

The war was over. They had won! And Rachel was now the new camp oracle. More importantly, Percy had turned down immortality. She was sure. She wanted to him to be her soulmate. She found him in the pavilion, lost in thought. She got out a pen and wrote out, “Hey.” He looked down at his wrist, then turned around to find her.

“Hey.” He had a little grin on his face, she smiled in return.

“Happy birthday.”

“What?” he looked puzzled.

she silently cursed herself, did she get the day wrong? “It’s August 18, You’re birthday, right?”

He nodded, and she let a breath out, she offered him the misshapen lump of birthday cake. It was delicious.

After a few minutes she couldn’t keep herself from asking what had been on her mind all summer. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“About what?” Annabeth couldn’t look at him, she was too scared. “I… I didn’t know for sure. If I was yours. And then last year… There was just so much else going on.”

Annabeth finally looked at him, she softly said, “I know, I thought I didn’t have one. I mean, I wrote on myself all the time when I was little.”

“I know,” he laughed, “I thought I was going crazy.”

“Why didn’t you write back?” She had to know. “When you said you had one… I thought it was someone else.” She didn’t say all that she was thinking, that she had hoped he didn’t have one, that she had liked him even all those years ago in that truck.

“I didn’t know what to say. But no, it was always just you.” Those words, the same way she had felt. Now she knew, Annabeth through away her caution and kissed him. He tasted like salt.

**Edit: I read the original fanfic on @demigodsanswer‘s blog but the AU “Whatever Souls are Made of” is by @teasockschocolate

#How come I can sit and write 8 pages in a few hours for a fic #but I cant write 1 page for school #its unfair #but I love #Percy Jackson #so much #and #Annabeth chase #PJO #fanfic #@teasockschocolate

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dnd-vigilante · 7 years ago

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Claustrophobic Space Adventure

The construction of Club: MED was complete. During the week Martin’s Metal Death Construct had finally returned from its adventure with the fire Djinn, we had a soft opening with Lady Erochnein and a few other nobles from Bastion, and we had finally had some rest after our adventures with the Ocrait. The rest and relaxation were, of course, going to be short-lived. Summons soon came from Lady Erochnein. We brought her a basket of spa goods. We discussed the Necromantic sect of the Ocrait Magisterium. This new faction was concerning, not only did it seem to frighten the other groups of Ocrait that now resided in Bastion, but it was also simply an unknown to everyone. The only thing Bryce could tell us about the Necromantic sect was that it shouldn’t exist. It was common to receive orders from the council of seven to execute any member that pursued the practice. Finding out that a whole college existed in hiding was not good news. Erochnein informed us she had discovered many useful things inside of the damaged Ocrait city. The O.M. seemed to have been practicing different bindings of demons, devils, aberrations, etc. to different degrees and effects. Several attempts appear to have given results into portal magic. She also let us know that her team had interrupted a group of O.M. members matching the description of the Necrocrait. Erochnein decided that the best course of action was to send MED to investigate the ruins of the glass city we had found months ago. It appeared to be the closest thing near Bastion tied to necromancy. Maybe it was tied to the rumored tower of death, The Umbral Tower. We were to report back to Erochnein if we came across anything on the N.O.M. and return if we found the Umbral Tower. Before we set out, Bryce gave Ereden an amulet with the same symbol for Metal Death as Martin’s ring. Telling us that it may be useful. The city of Necrotic Glass lay beneath us. It was a sore sight, we had not enjoyed our last visit here. Flying towards the city we became too comfortable with the easy travel and didn’t see the two wyverns swoop down on us. Lucky for us, we could all fly in one way or another. Using the magic boots given to them, Matin and June pursued one while the rest of the party fought the other. Leache quickly dispatched the first, making it fall directly onto the glass city. With crackling necrotic energy, the wyvern rose again from the glass. “Oh, shit.” - Everyone. Luckily for us, Leache was not an idiot cleric and used turn undead crushing the creature once again. He then collected part of its remains for further study. Martin and June pursued the other wyvern through the sky, slashing and punching at it as it closed in on them. After a flurry of exchanges, the wyvern fell. Conveniently not on the glass city. We entered the long-forgotten church from so many months before. Looking around and seeing the scars of battle we had left behind when fighting the Vampire. The ring on Martin’s left hand began to glow faintly, as did the necklace around Ereden’s neck. The runes upon the ground lit once more as they reacted to the presence of the ring and now necklace of metal death. It was different this time, one of the large rune arrays glowed more brightly and a different color than when we had been here last. Ereden stepped up to it and it blazed with light, pulling the necklace towards it. Ereden let go. The necklace soared over to the rune diagram, stopping in the center. With the sound of something large being torn in half, a dark purple portal opened in front of us. MED hopped through the portal without a second thought. In an eye blink, they appeared in a circular room with a small pedestal in the center of it. The pedestal was covered in brightly colored holes, two orange, a red, two blue, and a green. A single doorway was set in the circular room. June placed one of her amber gems into the orange hole and an orange key popped out. The doorway also began to move, resting on a doorway with the pairing lock to June’s key. We soon realized we were in a puzzle. The first room was illuminated by green flames similar to the ones we saw in the metal death forge and chamber from weeks before. We found some bodies, they were relatively fresh. On them, we found a blue key and a notebook with missing pages. They had died of asphyxiation, which was concerning as the air around us was a lot heavier. We searched through several other colored rooms once we had their corresponding key. Not finding much else, and really just becoming more confused. Martin stood before a red door. We had no key. Martin knocked. Hard. The door exploded! An alarm sounded, the room was bathed in red light, and Martin stepped into the room. A small burning sensation wrapped itself around Martin. Pushing through the room he grabbed the device making all of the noise and crushed it. Beside the device was another doorway, inside were six large tanks all glowing with yellow light. Martin stepped up to the tank and saw six figures, maybe elves, suspended inside, tubes wrapped around them. Looking around Martin found a console, using comprehend languages he figured out how to drain one of the tanks. He walked over to the elf and shook him awake softly. Martin: “You’re going to have to speak common, cause I don’t speak Elven.”

#Vigilante Gaming #dnd #D&D #swordcoastadventures #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeons #dragons #Martin the Fighter #Martins adventure at vigilante #forgottenrealmsadventures

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years ago

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The famous quote that da Vinci never said

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

This Leonardo da Vinci quote is everywhere — aviation books, magazines, websites, Instagram posts, coffee mugs, tee shirts, several science textbooks and some Smithsonian publications. It’s been repeated by the Washington Post newspaper, the Italian ambassador to the United States, and an executive director of The Leonardo museum. I saw it last year in big painted letters on the wall of a California flight school. It’s timeless emotion from a renaissance master of art and science. A flying quotation from maybe the most diversely talented genius ever to have lived, penned 400 years before the Wright Brothers flew. It’s evocatively magical and achingly relatable.

Yet Leonardo da Vinci never said it; and it’s nowhere close to 500 years old.

Yep, it’s fakey fake! Like, totally busted. Now, it’s still a great line. Maybe the best encapsulation of what pilots feel like when we’re stuck on the ground. As I write this during the coronavirus lockdown my eyes are turned skyward, longing to return. But how did this distinctive line come to be credited to the famous Italian polymath with a fascination for flight? And who actually did write it?

I started questioning the quotation’s authenticity over twenty years ago, while trying to nail down the details for a book I was editing. It was slow sledding. Several big aviation books had the line, but none of them cited a reference. None. I soon noticed it never has a date or even a year ascribed to it. This was back when university library catalogs were giant physical card files, Google didn’t exist, and you dialed into the internet on Netscape.

Since I don’t speak Italian, flipping through photos of Leonardo’s original notes didn’t get me anywhere. Reading English translations of his words didn’t uncover the phrase. Leonardo didn’t write books as such, but rather had observational and inspirational notebooks that he wrote in mirror-image cursive with shorthand codes and extensive sketches. There are in total about 13,000 of these pages, originally loose papers of different types and sizes.

Leonardo wrote about birds and flying, but not that famous quote.

Leonardo certainly was obsessed with birds and flying machines, drawing and writing a lot about them over his entire lifetime. He believed a bird flew into his crib as a baby. He swam underwater to study how fish fins worked compared to bird wings. His aerodynamic ideas foreshadow Newton, Galileo, and Bernoulli. He was the first to draw flow fields. Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says Leonardo was “the ultimate genius,” and that “as scientists and explorers we always looked to him as the model.”

One of his famous notebooks, the Codex on the Flight of Birds, is devoted entirely to flight. It was written at the same time (1505-1506) he was painting the Mona Lisa. It contains aerodynamic understandings not equalled for hundreds of years. Elachi believes this codex is “probably the most important document about flight” on Earth. In 2012, a scanned copy of it flew much further, landing on Mars attached to the Curiosity rover. While close inspection of the Codex on the Flight of Birds reveals it was written over old notes, and contains a grocery list as well as other personal notes, our famous line is not there.

Peter Jakab, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, says Leonardo wrote 35,000 words and drew 500 stretches on flying. His last notebook, Manuscript E (circa 1515), has advanced studies of gliding flight and clearly shows how migrating birds use the wind for long range soaring. By then I think Leonardo had given up on mechanical human-powered flight, after a lifetime of never actually making it into the air in any machine. This disconnect from actually “tasting flight” is part of the magic of the quote, that the great master could voice our primal aerial passion before anybody could have experienced it. The general acceptance seems to be that the extraordinary intellect that envisioned so many mechanical possibilities, and could paint so many human emotions, conjured in his mind what flight would feel like, what lingering sweet taste it would leave in our psyche.

The search was frustrating. What if the quote was never in his notebooks? Maybe he wrote it in a letter to someone else? Or maybe was it a bad translation? Or an extrapolation? Or a misunderstanding? But surely not, as the line was quoted so definitively, so often. The only variations seem to be at the start. Sometimes it’s, “For once you have tasted…” other times it’s, “When once you have tasted…” The body of the quotation is remarkably consistent for something supposedly 500 years old, originally written in Italian or Leonardo’s poor Latin.

I found nothing. Neither did some nice folks I talked with at National Geographic magazine years ago, who had contacted one of the world’s leading Leonardo authorities in Italy as part of a long research project, and were told flat out that he did not write it. They were quite confident it was folklore fiction, and privately they sounded a little smug that a Smithsonian publication had recently printed it. I believed them, but how do you prove a negative? And who originally did pen the line?

The question quietly bugged me for years. The 2007 book Leonardo on Flight by Domenico Laurenza never mentions the line. A whole chapter of the 2008 book Leonardo’s Legacy by science writer Stefan Klein is devoted to da Vinci’s dream of mechanical flight, yet it also never mentions the line. Rather, the book concludes “after thirty years of tireless work, Leonardo’s dream of flying had reverted to what it was in the first days of his research—a flight of the imagination.” And the amazing 2017 biography Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, drawing on the latest research, didn’t include it anywhere in its over 600 pages. So every time I saw the quote on a tee shirt or Twitter it was a poke to a bit of my brain that knew something wasn’t right, that something was unfinished.

Well, finally the mystery has been solved, thanks to several patient detectives connected via the internet, using the vast search tools of Google Books and other electronic storehouses. People reached out to book authors and asked where ideas and narrative came from, while others sat through dreadful old copies of films. It all came together in the nerdy discussion page of the Wikiquote entry for Leonardo de Vinci, and now we can reveal the author was… drum roll please…

John Hermes Secondari. An American TV writer. In 1965.

John Secondari discussing rockets with Wernher von Braun.

It seemed all a bit underwhelming. A TV writer? But a little more research finds a pretty cool cat. He commanded a tank company in combat during World War II. He wrote romantic novels. An uncredited Frank Sinatra sang “his” song that won an Oscar. The New York Times called Secondari “a dominant figure in the field of the television documentary” in their February 1975 obituary. He had won three Peabody Awards and more than 20 Emmys during a career making quality documentaries. And while John was mostly found behind the camera, there’s pictures of him from a 1958 Walt Disney Television show—smoking a cigarette and discussing rocketry with Wernher von Braun. And he had deep ties to Italy.

Born in Rome in 1919, at five years old Secondari sailed with his mother to Ellis Island for a life in the United States. After getting a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University, he worked as a correspondent for The United Press and CBS News. In 1941 he joined the Army and saw combat in Europe. After the war he rejoined CBS and was head of their Rome bureau. John also wrote several novels. The first one published drew on his knowledge and love of Rome with a title referencing the famous Trevi fountain—Coins in the Fountain. The book was turned into the 1954 movie Three Coins in the Fountain. It won two Oscars: best cinematography and best song. The eponymous song was sung by Frank Sinatra.

At the start of the 1960s Secondari organized ABC-TV’s first documentary unit and went on to produce over 80 documentaries, covering serious subjects with award-winning substance. The Museum of Broadcast Communications’ Encyclopedia of Television (2nd edition, 2013) says Secondari “forged a coherent house style that featured a heavy emphasis on visualization and dramatic voiceover narration.” One of his projects was a series called The Saga of Western Man, highlighting key historical events that drove civilization forward. It was nominated for five Primetime Emmy awards. The New York Times said that to make the past come alive Secondari used “sound effects and animated the screen by treating the camera lens as if it were the eye of an actual witness to the event—scanning , zooming or resting on shadows, furniture, silhouettes, ships and other objects. As much as possible he restricted the acting to off-screen voices, using historically authentic dialogue.”

One of the episodes of The Saga of Western Man was “I, Leonardo Da Vinci.” The credits state it was written, produced and narrated by John H. Secondari, with “the voice of Leonardo da Vinci” played by Fredric March. Its copyright date is 1965 and it was released in 1966 by American Broadcasting. At 16 minutes and 21 seconds into the second reel, after the off-screen Leonardo narration urges people to build his flying machines, claiming after any crash “the hurts will be slight,” over gentle visuals of a wheat field panning up into a clear blue sky, the voice says:

And once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you would return.

That’s it. The first recorded version of what became the quote. There is nothing similar in any of the millions of pre-1965 documents digitized by Google or other archivers. It was written by John H. Secondari, channeling the real ideas and passions of Leonardo as part of a TV documentary. This was a serious project, with Professor Carlo Pedretti of the University of California as the consultant historian, but it did present conjectural concentrations of Leonardo’s ideas. Condensing 13,000 pages of notes into a one hour show is hard. Clearly it’s a great line, compelling, ethereal—even if it’s closer in time to Leonardo DiCaprio than Leonardo da Vinci.

As an additional fact check, I talked with Marissa De Simone Day, Director of Exhibits and Learning at The Leonardo Museum of Creativity and Innovation in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was part of the creation of their outstanding Flight exhibit. If anyone should know about the line, it’s her. She stated, “as far as we know, the quote originated in the script of an educational film by John Secondari which is titled I, Leonardo da Vinci. The script is inspired by Leonardo’s notes in his codexes and narrated as though by Leonardo.”

This spoken line is not exactly as we’ve seen it repeated time after time over the last few decades. It lacks the “forever” and the ending is missing the “always long.” Those parts came to be added in pieces later. The first time the line appeared in print was ten years later, in the May 1975 edition of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. It was quoted as a Leonardo epigraph in The Storms of Windhaven, a science fiction story by George R. R. Martin (yes, that’s Mr. Game of Thrones) and Lisa Tuttle:

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, and there you long to return.

Now we have the “long to return.” But where did they get the line? A fantastical lost da Vinci codex discovered in George R. R. Martin’s attic? A personal letter from Leonardo delivered through a vortex time portal? Sadly not. Seems the communication was more down to Earth. According to Lisa Tuttle it was the editor of Analog, Ben Bova, who suggested it. An email to Ben revealed that he heard it in a documentary about Leonardo.

It was perfect for the start of a story of human space voyagers who crash-landed on a planet and constructed mechanically simple gliding machines from their wrecked spaceship. The presented-as-historical-fact quotation was read and spread by late seventies hang glider pilots and sky divers. Five years later, a newspaper story in the The Herald Statesman had the compelling headline Hang Glider Died “With His Eyes Turned Skyward.” By the 1980s the power of the line had caught the imagination of the wider aviation world. And then it started being repeated in books and magazines.

Which is when I first saw it. I joined the echoing chorus by adding it to my lists of aviation quotes. Now it’s almost everywhere. It’s easy to understand why. The line perfectly describes a human emotion about our favorite obsession. It sounds just like what we think Leonardo sounded like. And fact checking the line used to be nearly impossible. But now we have better tools. It might take a while for the quote’s attribution to be changed, considering how common it’s become. I heard it as part of a theme park ride. It even made it to page 135 of the 2008 National Geographic book Leonardo’s Universe: The Renaissance World of Leonardo Da Vinci. Emails to the authors were unanswered.

It’s my speculation that the enigmatic Mona Lisa smile is Leonardo’s reaction to his most famous flying quote turning out to have been penned by a ghostwriter centuries after his death. The great man did enjoy funny prophecy-riddles. His quote that “winged creatures will support people with their feathers” actually refers not to flying machines, but rather “the feathers used to stuff mattresses.” His line “feathers shall raise men even as they do birds, towards heaven” is finished by “that is by letters written with their quills.”

While we have to let his most repeated quote go, thankfully there are many well researched, 100% authentic quotations that match his amazing aerodynamic sketches. Like this one from the Codex Atlanticus:

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, and it is in the capacity of man to reproduce such an instrument. A man with wings large enough and duly attached might learn to overcome the resistance of the air and raise himself upon it.

The post The famous quote that da Vinci never said appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/08/the-famous-quote-that-da-vinci-never-said/

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ouidazeller1101-blog · 7 years ago

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AD 2018: From My Crystal Ball * Naija Latest News ~ 26/01/2018

PULPITS are burning with the fire of predictions. Pentecostal giants are delivering their messages to guide the flock. Necromancers, sorcerers, tricksters, fraudsters and pranksters are also busy. The town is abuzz with predictions - and resolutions -for the New Year.

Now that genuine religious patriarchs and matriarchs have spoken charlatans, who claim to be that voice of the One crying in the wilderness, have been heard and the pandemonium has subsided, it is time for "Editorial Notebook" to weigh in and reveal, for the benefit of the devoted reader, what lies in the belly of the year.

Here then, dear reader, are what to count on in the new year. First, the political scene. Soon after all, lots of have referred to as this the year of politics, in a veiled reference to the run-up to the 2019 basic elections.

The stress on President Muhammadu Buhari to run will be more intense. The army of sycophants, such as some cunning and corny governors, will grow. They will be a lot more vociferous in their Buhari-for-ever campaign. Buhari and the attentive public must ignore them. They are battling to feather their personal nests.

The President ought to ask himself some standard concerns: How properly have I carried out? Can my overall health carry on? Must I just go household and rest? Haven’t I missed my farm so substantially? What will my family’s stand be? Will my wife Aisha (bless a further foray into months of electioneering?) Phrase in brackets not clear. Please review.

Nonetheless on politics: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will continue to threaten to run. His opponents will be asking: Exactly where is he running to? Who is pursuing him? Why? Those are, it must be noted, the soft critics. The harsh ones will ask: is the seat for sale?

Atiku, a man of uncommon zest, will soldier on. He will rally the youth and claim to have an understanding of how they feel. His battle to safe the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Celebration (PDP) will virtually split the PDP. Celebration leaders should pray for its survival. They ought to curse the spirit of deception and obfuscation, the kind that sparked the Ali Modu Sheriff - Ahmed Markarfi leadership war.

Some guys will approach Atiku, asking to be hired at a fortune for a walk from Lagos to Abuja to back his ambition. He need to not touch them with a lengthy pole. They are as fake as World wide web fraudsters.

It will be the year of stunts and stunts males. No much more will critical politicians be happy with devouring in public view corn-on-the cob from roadside vendors numerous will transform themselves into hawkers of groundnuts, garden eggs, candy, telephone recharge cards and all such stuff. They will be screaming for patronage in a manner that will lead quite a few to consider that they are mad. No. They are not. No require to rush at them. It is all in a desperate bid to recognize with the masses.

Rejoice, location fathers and location boys, roughnecks, bouncers, thugs and fake herbalists. It is your season the season of politics, of high priced spiritual intercessions, of emergency publicists, of dubious advocates, of free of charge money and, of course, of free of charge food and drinks.

Senators will continue to resist Ibrahim Magu’s headship of the Financial and Monetary Crimes Commission (EFCC). They will rework the EFCC Act, run a public hearing exactly where Magu will be completely scorned and maligned and, at some point, discover a a lot more suitable candidate to replace him- most likely a senator or a former lawmaker.

There will be outrage. Activists will march. Ordinary folks will scream: "Ah senators!" Some will repeat those unproven allegations against the distinguished senators. They will describe the chamber as a conclave of drug barons, ex-convicts, pedophiles and crooks. But fair is fair who can manage the beat better than a man who has noticed it all?

In Ekiti, the PDP will be divided as Governor Ayo Fayose will insist on fielding his deputy, Kolapo Olusola, a professor of creating technologies. A lot of party chiefs will kick. They will claim to be the finest to keep alive Fayose’s enviable legacies, including the magical vote harvesting formula, stomach infrastructure, that has got every single Ekiti resident sporting chubby cheeks and protruding stomachs, their rotundity the envy of all.

"Who is he?" they will be asking of Fayose’s candidate. Does he possess the talents - tailor, fireman, motorcyclist, cooked food vendor and a lot more - that have distinguished Fayose among his peers? How many titles does he have? How several battles has he fought?

Needless to say, Fayose will have his way, but the main election will prove a really hard nut to crack.

In Oyo, the "ewedu, gbegiri and amala" politics will return, pushing aside the present intellectual bent that has been substantially criticised as elitist and sectional. Why? Several devotees of the Adedibu College have joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), bringing along several years of encounter.

Far more states will attempt to catch up with Imo, which will continue to make waves with its Ministry of Happiness and Objective Fulfillment, erection of statues and demolition of troublesome markets. Unable to cope with the army of individuals from other states flooding Imo in search of happiness and fulfillment, Governor Rochas Okorocha will mount a massive campaign that will be tagged "Imo First" or some thing like that. He will be fighting that all indigenes ought to initially taste of this exclusive phenomenon that is drawing individuals as bees to honey.

Akinwunmi Ambode’s image will keep soaring. The Lagos governor’s ambitious programmes will win international accolades. None shall match him. The opposition will obtain it hard to discover a candidate to confront him. There will be a rash of groups campaigning for his return.

Efforts to unite them will not work as additional groups spring up like mushrooms.

The Federal Government will have to move rapid to quit cows from taking more than our towns and cities, which includes Abuja. The animals have turn out to be the indisputable conquerors of the countryside. Gangsters posing as herdsmen will continue their bloody campaign, killing and maiming. The governors, helpless as usual, will console the bereaved, visit morgues and shed tears. They must wear bullet proof vests on such visits to deny the gunmen of snatching away a major trophy.

Pressed to react, the Federal Government will situation a statement, sympathising with these who lost their loved ones and asking the security agents to go after the "perpetrators of the dastardly act". It will threaten to turn the screw on them and bring "the full weight of the law" upon them. Their backers, the government will pressure, will face the "full wrath of the law". All will be quiet for a although. Then, one more attack a round of condemnation and tears. The old statement is whipped off the shelf, reworked and issued. All will be quiet - until a further massacre.

There will be the temptation to withdraw $1b from the Excess Crude Account to fight the criminals, but some governors, these who kicked against spending such funds on the anti-Boko Haram war and other security challenges, will rise. We really should be cautious as it all becomes a matter of academics and legal gymnastics.

The Super Eagles will be at the Planet Cup in Russia. There will be a huge campaign to make sure that we make history as the initial African nation to win the trophy. The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will get in touch with for prayers - from individuals of all faiths and atheists.

The odds are against our team, but the globe will acknowledge that we have got talents. 1 point: Minister Solomon Dalung should watch his tongue. No additional "we qualified without having conceding a goal" and such empty bathroom talks. In addition to, he should really guarantee that the group is not declared missing (he claimed not to know their whereabouts of our team just ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil).

Frontline entertainers P-Square will be below stress from their heart broken fans, who will be begging them to reunite. Both sides will mount a enormous verbal war. After a when, the twins will announce that in the interest of their several fans, they are back collectively - sturdy and hot.

On the foreign scene, North Korea will continue to get lots of interest. Its leader Kim Jong-un will stay a discomfort in the neck for United States President Donald Trump. North Korea will forge ahead with its nuclear programme, testing extra intercontinental ballistic missiles. Trump, in a series of tweets, will retain saying that the United States will not permit a nuclear energy North Korea. Kim Jon-un will assure all that the nuclear button is appropriate on his table, but he will neither be provoked nor tempted to press it. Trump will reply that his button is larger than Kim’s. And the battle of wits and muscle flexing will go on ad infinitum.

The year will end on a rather busy note. Motorists will be running about like sheep without having a shepherd, hunting for fuel. Fares will rise. Airports will be jammed as harmattan - harsh, dry, dusty and cloudy - impairs visibility. The government will announce with magisterial aplomb that it has found these behind the perennial petrol shortage - blackmailers. They will be warned to pull the brakes on their evil act or face the full wrath of the law for their "unacceptable" conduct. They will not listen.

In all, it will be an thrilling year - all items being equal.

Iron Mike Tyson and his new trade

BOXING good Michael Gerard Tyson has come a extended way. World heavyweight champion - 50 wins (44 by knockouts) and six losses - ex-convict, film star, dad and darling of fans all over the planet. He earned - and blew - $300m.

Like numerous ex-stars, he couldn’t manage his achievement. He went to prison for rape. He lost his daughter and he started begging for roles in movies to prevent dying in penury.

Now the "Iron man" has found a new trade - he has opened a cannabis ranch in California. The 40-acre house is in California City, a town with a population of just 15,000 individuals southwest of Death Valley. The ranch will be researching into clinical advantages of marijuana. Health-related marijuana has been legalised in California in the previous 20 years. Farmers will be taught how to grow the stuff in the Tyson Cultivation College. There are other facilities.

The legend’s grass-to-grace story, which a lot of will not hesitate to describe as zero-to-hero and hero-to-zero, provides a massive lesson to all who strive to excel. To stay a achievement is the real test of a thriving males.

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