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selfblogs · 10 months

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Fitspresso Customer Reviews : (Fake or Legit) Is This Weight Loss Supplement Worth The Hype?

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Name: Fitspresso

Nature: Weight reduction supplement

Definition: Cases

Essential Fixings: Capsicum Annum, Panax Ginseng, Chromium Picolinate, L-carnitine, Milk Thorn, Banaba Leaf

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Ensure: A 180-day merchandise exchange

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Fixings!

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#fitspresso reviews #health

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blockchaincouncil · 1 year

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Why Can You Never Imitate ChatGPT?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made remarkable advances in a variety of fields in recent years, and natural language processing is no exception. People have been obsessed with the LLM chatbot since the release of ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI.

There are users, doomers, developers, and other AI businesses attempting to build their own version. While OpenAI's approach is closed source, several open source models have given developers hope of creating something similar to the best chatbot on the market.

One of the growing low-cost techniques for improving an open-source language model like LLaMa, Alpaca, or Self-Instruct is to fine-tune it on outputs from proprietary systems like ChatGPT, which are stronger models. It may appear to be an effective technique for replicating and strengthening the weaker model's skills to match the stronger model, but it fails.

While some may try to imitate ChatGPT, it is critical to understand why replicating its capabilities is an impossible task. If you want to learn more about ChatGPT, you can enroll in online ChatGPT certification programs offered by reputable institutions such as Blockchain Council.

In this article, we will look at the unique features and underlying technologies that make ChatGPT truly unique in its field.

Massive Scale and Training Data

The massive scale of ChatGPT's architecture and training data is one of the primary reasons why imitating it is practically impossible. ChatGPT is based on the GPT-3.5 model, which has 175 billion parameters. These parameters are fine-tuned using a wide range of data from the internet, resulting in a comprehensive understanding of language patterns, context, and knowledge.

ChatGPT's training data spans millions of web pages, books, articles, and other textual sources, allowing the model to learn from a diverse set of data. This extensive exposure to diverse content enables ChatGPT to generate accurate and coherent responses across a wide range of topics.

Contextual Understanding

ChatGPT's contextual understanding is a result of its sophisticated architecture and the use of advanced natural language processing techniques. ChatGPT is capable of capturing the intricate details and subtleties present in a conversation by using transformers, attention mechanisms, and deep neural networks. It can decipher the underlying meaning of words, interpret the context in which they are used, and accurately predict the speaker's intentions.

This contextual awareness enables ChatGPT to produce responses that are consistent with the ongoing conversation, distinguishing it from traditional chatbots. The ability to understand context extends beyond isolated phrases or sentences to a broader understanding of the entire conversation, allowing ChatGPT to generate human-like and contextually appropriate responses. This extraordinary ability makes it exceedingly difficult to replicate or imitate ChatGPT's intricate interplay between language and context.

Language Creation and Creativity

ChatGPT's language generation capabilities are nothing short of astounding. ChatGPT, unlike rule-based chatbots, generates text dynamically based on the input it receives. It is capable of producing coherent, contextually relevant, and grammatically correct responses that mimic human conversation.

Furthermore, ChatGPT's responses are creative. It can create original content, answer questions, provide explanations, and even engage in storytelling. This creative aspect makes it extremely difficult to replicate the distinct flair and originality that ChatGPT brings to its conversations.

Continuous Learning and Improvement

ChatGPT's development is based on continuous learning and improvement. The model actively collects feedback from its interactions with users, resulting in a feedback loop that allows it to learn from real-world conversations. OpenAI analyzes this feedback and fine-tunes the model's responses, addressing any limitations or errors it may encounter. This iterative process enables ChatGPT to adapt and improve its performance, enhancing its ability to generate more accurate, coherent, and contextually appropriate responses.

ChatGPT remains at the forefront of AI language models by constantly evolving and incorporating new knowledge, making it a moving target for those attempting to emulate its capabilities. ChatGPT's continuous learning and improvement contribute to its unrivaled proficiency and make replication a formidable challenge.

Ethical Considerations and Responsible AI

Ethical considerations and responsible AI practices are at the forefront of ChatGPT's development and deployment. OpenAI is aware of the potential risks associated with AI technology and has taken proactive steps to address them. ChatGPT is built with safeguards in place to prevent harmful behavior, misinformation dissemination, and the creation of inappropriate content.

OpenAI prioritizes the responsible use of AI, ensuring that ChatGPT follows ethical guidelines and aligns with societal norms and values. ChatGPT aims to foster trust and preserve the integrity of AI applications by promoting transparency, accountability, and fairness. These ethical considerations and responsible AI practices are critical in ensuring that ChatGPT is a force for good and that its replication adheres to the same ethical standards.

Conclusion

ChatGPT, with its vast scale, extensive training data, contextual understanding, language generation abilities, continuous learning, and ethical framework, exemplifies the remarkable advancements in AI language models. Its capabilities are the result of cutting-edge technologies and years of research and development.

While some may attempt to imitate ChatGPT, replicating its unparalleled brilliance remains an insurmountable challenge. It is critical to recognize the value that ChatGPT brings to various applications such as customer service, content generation, and language translation.

Rather than attempting to imitate ChatGPT, it is more beneficial to investigate how this technology can be used to augment human capabilities, boost productivity, and open up new possibilities in a variety of domains.

If you want to become a certified chatbot expert, Blockchain Council is a good place to start. Check out the Blockchain Council's website for the recently introduced Chatbot certification and AI courses, both of which are reasonably priced.

#chatbot #chatgpt

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justasimplesinner · 3 years

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Can I get different versions of Riddler with an s/o who is a magician like Zatanna? Like if anyone insults him, they cast a curse spell on the person who harmed him

Arkham!Riddler with a Zatanna-esque s/o hcs:

now, arkhamverse Eddie isn't one to be easily swayed. he is a man of science and doesn't believe a thing like magic exists. he's seen some weird shit in his life, but all of it can be explained. worst case, it's simply alien or from another universe, but can still be researched and at least reasoned by science. and what you've shown him is completely off the rails

at first, he will pester you. surely, this must be some advanced trick? you are a skilled illusionist darling, but now it's time to explain those tricks. once you prove it to him that you quite literally possess magical abilities, he's speechless for a moment. it's really hard for him to wrap his head around it. it's like you suddenly proved to him god existed - it was impossible!

but quite soon, he warms up to your powers and learns to appreciate them. curse anyone who wrongs him, you say... that might give him some ideas. there's a few people that wronged him, sure. although it still irks him a little that there's something in the world he can't understand. he even has half the mind to have you help out with his plans, but doesn't follow through with it because even he finds it unfair to fight against something that has no right to exist. Batman may be a cheater but he's no miracle-maker. if he's to take part in challenges, at least they have to be possible for a human to solve.

Young Justice!Riddler with a Zatanna-esque s/o hcs:

this Eddie has been faced with so much shit in his life, and even more shit during his "stay" at Belle Reve that he isn't even that surprised. he's come in contact with literal Zatanna as well as her father, so he knows that there's something out there he can't quite understand. metahumans and all that are almost explainable, but magic is just beyond human comprehension. and he's okay with that. honestly, he's even a little excited to learn about what you can do

he's very eager to know your abilities and boundaries, what's possible and impossible for you. your horizons are stretch way further than any normal humans and he's immensly curious as to what can you achieve with your powers. and they're really useful, too! it's like you can do anything, and he adores you for it

and learning that you're ready to literally curse the shit out of anyone that even dares to look at him the wrong way really strengthens his trust in you. you make him so confident and smug all the time. whenever someone insults him, he just smirks because he knows you're gonna be on their asses in a matter of seconds. you also make him feel... safe. like you'll always protect him, no matter what

Zero Year!Riddler with a Zatanna-esque s/o hcs:

similarly to arkhamverse, this Ed doesn't quite believe magic exists. everything can be explained and technologically faked, he'd know. he entertained the concept of magic, and was fond of the idea of it in books or games ever since he was a child. but it was merely a liking, and nothing can beat his admiration for what's real and what can be achieved if one just puts their mind into it. or, if he just puts his mind into it. he'd dare to call himself a magician as well, if he didn't feel it insulting to insinuate that his achievements were the result of anything other than his brilliant mind and skilled hands

and then you just pop up and give him a little whiplash. what kind of technology are you using? how advanced can it be to do shit like this? you'll have to be really persuasive to make him believe it's not technology, because at first, he'll think it's a joke and continue to pester you. and as much as the concept is hard to grasp at first for him, soon he just lets the shock die down and accepts it. he doesn't care enough to try and research it. there's so much weird shit happening in the world, magic is probably the least shocking thing he'd encounter

but it's not that he doesn't care about you or your powers. it might seem like it, but you're fascinating. he can't just shrug you off. and he has to admit, the fact that you're ready to hunt down his childhood bullies and curse them into oblivion really gets him hot and bothered under the collar. also, be ready for ridiculous petnames and terrible jokes. also, be ready for him to ask you if you can do this or that based on the games he played, especially dnd. he's a nerd, and he wants to know what you "specialize" in, what's your area of expertise, what exactly can you do

#riddler #the riddler #edward nygma #edward nigma #arkhamverse #young justice #zero year #my writing #headcannons #blue winter queen #sorry its just those three but couldnt come up with more ideas darl #hope its alright

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

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What is Critical Race Theory?

Basically, Critical Race Theory is a way of using race as a lens through which one can critically examine social structures. While initially used to study law, like most critical theory, it emerged as a lens through which one could understand and change politics, economics and society as a whole. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, describes the movement as: “a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.”

Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founding members of the movement, says Critical Race Theory is more than just a collective group. She calls it: “a practice—a way of seeing how the fiction of race has been transformed into concrete racial inequities.”

It’s much more complex than that, which is why there’s an entire book about it.

Can you put it in layman’s terms?

Sure.

Former economics professor (he prefers the term “wypipologist”) Michael Harriot, who used Critical Race Theory to teach “Race as an Economic Construct,” explained it this way:

Race is just some shit white people made up.

Nearly all biologists, geneticists and social scientists agree that there is no biological, genetic or scientific foundation for race. But, just because we recognize the lack of a scientific basis for race doesn’t mean that it is not real. Most societies are organized around agreed-upon principles and values that smart people call “social constructs.” It’s why Queen Elizabeth gets to live in a castle and why gold is more valuable than iron pyrite. Constitutions, laws, political parties, and even the value of currency are all real and they’re shit people made up.

To effectively understand anything we have to understand its history and what necessitated its existence. Becoming a lawyer requires learning about legal theory and “Constitutional Law.” A complete understanding of economics include the laws of supply and demand, why certain metals are considered “precious,” or why paper money has value. But we can’t do that without critically interrogating who made these constructs and who benefitted from them.

One can’t understand the political, economic and social structure of America without understanding the Constitution. And it is impossible to understand the Constitution without acknowledging that it was devised by 39 white men, 25 of whom were slave owners. Therefore, any reasonable understanding of America begins with the critical examination of the impact of race and slavery on the political, economic and social structure of this country.

That’s what Critical Race Theory does.

How does CRT do that?

It begins with the acknowledgment that the American society’s foundational structure serves the needs of the dominant society. Because this structure benefits the members of the dominant society, they are resistant to eradicating or changing it, and this resistance makes this structural inequality.

Critical Race Theory also insists that a neutral, “color-blind” policy is not the way to eliminate America’s racial caste system. And, unlike many other social theories, CRT is an activist movement, which means it doesn’t just seek to understand racial hierarchies, it also seeks to eliminate them.

How would CRT eliminate that? By blaming white people?

This is the crazy part. It’s not about blaming anyone.

Instead of the idiotic concept of colorblindness, CRT says that a comprehensive understanding of any aspect of American society requires an appreciation of the complex and intricate consequences of systemic inequality. And, according to CRT, this approach should inform policy decisions, legislation and every other element in society.

Take something as simple as college admission, for instance. People who “don’t see color” insist that we should only use neutral, merit-based metrics such as SAT scores and grades. However, Critical Race Theory acknowledges that SAT scores are influenced by socioeconomic status, access to resources and school quality. It suggests that colleges can’t accurately judge a student’s ability to succeed unless they consider the effects of the racial wealth gap, redlining, and race-based school inequality. Without this kind of holistic approach, admissions assessments will always favor white people.

CRT doesn’t just say this is racist, it explains why these kinds of race-neutral assessments are bad at assessing things.

What’s wrong with that?

Remember all that stuff I said the “material needs of the dominant society?” Well, “dominant society” means “white people.” And when I talked about “racial hierarchies,” that meant “racism.” So, according to Critical Race Theory, not only is racism an ordinary social construct that benefits white people, but it is so ordinary that white people can easily pretend it doesn’t exist. Furthermore, white people who refuse to acknowledge and dismantle this unremarkable, racist status quo are complicit in racism because, again, they are the beneficiaries of racism.

But, because white people believe racism means screaming the n-word or burning crosses on lawns, the idea that someone can be racist by doing absolutely nothing is very triggering. Let’s use our previous example of the college admissions system.

White people’s kids are more likely to get into college using a racist admissions system. But the system has been around so long that it has become ordinary. So ordinary, in fact, that we actually think SAT scores mean shit. And white people uphold the racist college admissions system—not because they don’t want Black kids to go to college—because they don’t want to change admission policies that benefit white kids.

Is that why they hate Critical Race Theory?

Nah. They don’t know what it is.

Whenever words “white people” or “racism” are even whispered, Caucasian Americans lose their ability to hear anything else. If America is indeed the greatest country in the world, then any criticism of their beloved nation is considered a personal attack—especially if the criticism comes from someone who is not white.

They are fine with moving toward a “more perfect union” or the charge to “make America great again.” But an entire field of Black scholarship based on the idea that their sweet land of liberty is inherently racist is too much for them to handle.

However, if someone is complicit in upholding a racist policy—for whatever reason—then they are complicit in racism. And if an entire country’s resistance to change—for whatever reason —creates more racism, then “racist” is the only way to accurately describe that society.

If they don’t know what it is, then how can they criticize it?

Have you met white people?

When has not knowing stuff ever stopped them from criticizing anything? They still think Colin Kaepernick was protesting the anthem, the military and the flag. They believe Black Lives Matter means white lives don’t. There aren’t any relevant criticisms other than they don’t like the word “racism” and “white people” anywhere near each other.

People like Ron DeSantis and Tom Cotton call it “cultural Marxism,” which is a historical dog whistle thrown at the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement and even the anti-lynching movement after World War I. They also criticize CRT’s basic use of personal narratives, insisting that a real academic analysis can’t be based on individually subjective stories.

Why wouldn’t that be a valid criticism?

Well, aren’t most social constructs centered in narrative structures? In law school, they refer to these individual stories as “legal precedent.” In psychology, examining a personal story is called “psychoanalysis.” In history, they call it...well, history. Narratives are the basis for every religious, political or social institution.

I wish there was a better example of an institution or document built around a singular narrative. It would change the entire constitution of this argument—but sadly, I can’t do it.

Jesus Christ, I wish I could think of one! That would be biblical!

Why do they say Critical Race Theory is not what Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted?

You mean the Martin Luther King Jr. who conservatives also called divisive, race-baiting, anti-American and Marxist? The one whose work CRT is partially built upon? The King whose words the founders of Critical Race Theory warned would be “co-opted by rampant, in-your-face conservatism?” The MLK whose “content of their character” white people love to quote?

Martin Luther King Jr. literally encapsulated CRT by saying:

In their relations with Negroes, white people discovered that they had rejected the very center of their own ethical professions. They could not face the triumph of their lesser instincts and simultaneously have peace within. And so, to gain it, they rationalized—insisting that the unfortunate Negro, being less than human, deserved and even enjoyed second class status.

They argued that his inferior social, economic and political position was good for him. He was incapable of advancing beyond a fixed position and would therefore be happier if encouraged not to attempt the impossible. He is subjugated by a superior people with an advanced way of life. The “master race” will be able to civilize him to a limited degree, if only he will be true to his inferior nature and stay in his place.

White men soon came to forget that the Southern social culture and all its institutions had been organized to perpetuate this rationalization. They observed a caste system and quickly were conditioned to believe that its social results, which they had created, actually reflected the Negro’s innate and true nature.

That guy?

I have no idea.

Will white people ever accept Critical Race Theory?

Yes, one day I hope that Critical Race Theory will be totally disproven.

Wait...why?

Well, history cannot be erased. Truth can never become fiction. But there is a way for white people to disprove this notion.

Derrick Bell, who is considered to be the father of Critical Race Theory, notes that the people who benefit from racism have little incentive to eradicate it. Or, as Martin Luther King Jr. said: “We must also realize that privileged groups never give up their privileges voluntarily.”

So, if white people stopped being racist, then the whole thing falls apart!

From your lips to God’s ears.

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breath-of-the-hobbies · 3 years

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A Return to Darkness Ch. 2

(Chapter 2 of the fan-fic idea I’m playing with. Zelda awakens underground and attempts to find a way out, and Link has a bad day. Chapter 1 here.)

The smell was the first thing to break through Zelda’s unconsciousness. Judging from the acidic yet musty reek and the burning sensation all over her body, she had a bed of malice to thank for cushioning her fall. The darkness was so complete that she had to blink furiously to even be sure that her eyes were open.

She took stock, fumbling at her hip until she found the Sheikah Slate. It lit a soft circle of light at her touch, but the screen fizzed and crackled, displaying only glitched swirls of color. Broken ribs, concussion, sprained knee, she estimated as she maneuvered dizzily to her feet and retrieved her sword from where it lay nearly engulfed in malice some feet away.

“Link?” She whispered, acutely aware of the monsters they had encountered in the past months and unwilling to alert them to her present vulnerability. She swung the slate’s light across the rubble-filled ground, but her companion was nowhere to be seen. Ganon’s corpse was also absent, presumably still lying in the cavern above her.

Recalling her last sight of Link sent a stab of pain through her chest to join the throb of her ribs. The image of his anguished eyes and furrowed brow as he put aside everything to lunge towards her was imprinted indelibly in her mind. Was he still up above? Had the malice— she forced her mind away before she could complete the fatalistic thought. She had watched Link die once already, and the idea of losing him again was enough to make her breath shorten into panicked gasps. Come on Zelda, you held your own against Ganon for one hundred years. You can crawl out of a damn cave. She retrieved and lit her torch, then limped around the perimeter of the hole, leaning heavily on her sword.

It didn’t take long before she was certain that the floor above had collapsed into a nearly exact copy of the one holding Ganon’s body. The geometric carvings on the walls were the same as what she had seen in the moments before everything went wrong, and a single exit led to a path descending away and down. With no clear way up into the abyssal darkness, and no ability to teleport thanks to the malfunctioning slate, she had no choice but to venture into the tunnel, unaware of the eyes observing her retreating form from the darkness beyond her torch’s light.

It was impossible to know exactly how long she spent wandering, but Zelda came to time her rests with the regular shaking of the earth around her. Despite her newfound mistrust of the tunnels’ structural integrity, the walls and ceiling held strong around her. She fell asleep each rumbling with the spirals of the wall etchings spinning behind her eyelids.

After one such rest, she awoke with a sudden revelation dredged from the free association of her dreams. It was a memory, something Impa’s grandmother had told them when they were children. She had spoken of an ancient civilization, the Zonai, that had disappeared mysteriously long ago, leaving only ruins and secrets. Link had already mentioned that the carvings appeared Zonai in origin, resembling places he had seen in his travels, but now Zelda remembered Gran’s words. “The Zonai were not simply to be feared for their fierce prowess in arms. They were also brilliant magicians with technical advances rivaling even our best Sheikah technology. Had they not disappeared, our world would be much changed from how it appears today.” Then Gran had pulled a carved stone out of her sleeve and shown it to the children. She ran her finger along its swirls in a series of swoops, and when she finished, the entire thing began to glow an eye-searing turquoise. The young and bright-eyed Zelda had oohed and aahed, but the rather more battered young woman in the present bared her teeth in a wolfish grin and heaved herself stiffly to her feet, sweeping the light from the sad remains of her torch across the patterns that had haunted her for months.

There! she spotted a central swirl, one that all the others in the area seemed to radiate from. It took a few tries to emulate the pattern she had seen over a century ago, and she began to question herself, her mind inevitably returning to familiar paths of self-doubt. When she was almost ready to give up, the spiral lit. With a flash and a smell of ozone, radiance spread outwards, spilling into every line of the carvings until Zelda was blinded.

The earth began to shake more strongly than ever, knocking her to the ground. She curled into a protective ball as chunks of wall and ceiling crumbled around her, her stomach lurching in equal parts fear and motion sickness. After what felt like an eternity, the world calmed. The bedraggled princess pushed herself to a seated position with a groan, blinking purple afterimages from her sight. The lit carvings had settled into a calmer glow, and because of this it took her a moment to realize that a pinprick of natural light now shone at the far end of the tunnel.

Heart leaping, paying no mind to her shrieking knee, Zelda set off at a run towards freedom, her excited thoughts jumbling with ideas of newly collapsed walls forming impromptu exits. She was so quick that only reflexive bracing of her feet and scraping of her hands on the tunnel walls were able to bring her to a gut-wrenching stop as dislodged stones ricocheted over the edge of an impossible precipice.

Wind whipped her hair as she stared in utter disbelief down, down to the familiar landscape of Hyrule far below. She was in the sky.

***

Link had eaten some pretty terrible food in the past year, but after a week of clumsily cleaned mushrooms boiled with rice, he almost preferred his more dubious gastronomical experiments. At least those had some zest to them.

Although his arm was slowly regaining strength, his dexterity was lagging far behind. Stringing a bow was still out of the question, and the one time he encountered a boar in the woods, he had been mown down in humiliating fashion before he could even swing his blade. The mushrooms and occasional carrot were a far less likely source of embarrassment.

The entire loss of his right arm would almost have been easier to cope with than his present state; the energy pouring into the ancient tech and the rot constantly trying to push onwards through his body made even the shortest climb, swim, or even run into an exhausting task. Swinging a blade with his left hand was one thing: getting knocked out after falling out of a tree was another.

Besides the draining tech and the gnawing corruption, there was a third issue with his arm that Link couldn’t quite piece together yet. He had absolute faith in Purah—despite her eccentricities—and when she told him that she had added the Stasis Rune to his arm, he had no reason to doubt her. However, when he activated the rune to halt the fleeing boar in a last-ditch attempt at meat for dinner, it failed to stop it at all. In fact, the animal actually began running backwards, nearly pummeling a dumbfounded Link a second time.

He wasn’t sure how Purah could have made such a glaring mistake, and he honestly couldn’t picture a time when making his opponent move backwards would help him do more than get a second to breathe. Once he had found Zelda, he would have to go back and ask the scientist about it. Full but not happy about it, Link rolled up in a horse blanket and fell into a fitful sleep.

He was awoken by an agonizing buzzing sensation in his right arm, as though it was being continuously electrocuted. The entire limb, from fingertip to shoulder, was shining turquoise like his own personal monster beacon. His horse whinnied and pranced in distress as Link shook his arm like a man possessed. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied, he would have noticed the ground vibrating beneath him, but by the time the glowing light and electric tingling subsided, everything was calm again.

Now thoroughly awake, the perplexed hero broke camp and led his mount back to the trail in the false dawn. It wasn’t much further to the edge of the Great Plateau, the only thing keeping Link from reaching it the night before being his newly abysmal stamina. But as he trudged up the last rise, he was sure he had gotten turned around in the half-light. Nothing looked right. The ground was churned up and littered with boulders the size of houses, and whole landmarks had shifted and changed.

The sun broke over the horizon as Link crested the hill. He was overlooking the very same vista he had first seen without comprehension or recognition after the healing sleep, yet the view could not have been more different. The plains and forests in front of Hyrule Castle were simply...gone. The ground was carved out as though miners had been hollowing the earth for centuries. After taking in this sight, ice water freezing his heart, Link’s eyes followed the progression of destruction to the foot of the castle itself. At first, the reappearance of malice clouds encircling the base obscured the truly bizarre unreality of the situation.

The entire castle was floating several hundred feet above the ground.

Slowly, unbelievingly, almost unwillingly as though fearing what he would see, Link lifted his gaze to the sky. Far above, higher even than Vah Medoh had flown, floated hulking islands of earth.

He sat down hard, gulping back the frustration that closed his throat. His princess was further out of reach than she had ever been.

#legend of zelda #breath of the wild #breath of the wild 2 #link #zelda #botw #botw2 fanfic #botw2 #botw fanfiction

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varsitycult · 4 years

Text

Shapeshifting: Solaris and True Alienation

In Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel of the same name, Solaris is an alien planet that “materializes physical simulacra”— any members aboard the space station slowly circling the planet will begin to have interactions with figures from their pasts, those figures that left the greatest impact on their psyches. The ocean itself manifests many forms that fall under different categorization, such as mimoids, symmetriads, etc., which arise mostly as singular architectural feats and ever-evolving foamy, stretchy-then-solid, growing-and-shrinking structures that can be many miles in dimension; those that study these phenomena are called solaricists. The study of Solaris developed from a more esoteric theorization of what the ocean actually “is”:

“For some time one popular view, eagerly disseminated by the press, was that the thinking ocean covering the whole of Solaris was a gigantic brain more advanced by millions of years than our own civilization, that it was some kind of “cosmic yogi,” a sage, omniscience incarnate, which had long ago grasped the futility of all action and for this reason was simply maintaining a categorical silence towards us.” (Lem)

This evolved into a decidedly scientific investigation of how Solaris ‘works,’but no matter how many studies were done and how much a desire for First Contact might’ve been present aboard, the ocean didn't attempt to reveal anything about itself — to the crew, it seemingly only sought to essentially conduct psychological experiments on them by creating “empty” doppelgängers of critical figures from their pasts who cannot die.

The book centers around Kris Kelvin, an at times neurotic, at times deeply detached psychologist. In his youth, he knew and was in a relationship with a young woman named Harey, who ultimately ended up killing herself after Kris ended their relationship and implied she was weak. Once Kris begins seeing, speaking and interacting with the simulacra of Harey, he questions his own sanity, and conducts experiments to prove to himself that he is sane — and when in the lab, realizes the other crew members have done the same. We never learn the details of the other crews simulacras beyond an interaction in the beginning of Kris’ stay, and fleeting glimpses of identifiers — but it is implied that they’re haunting enough to drive the crew to madness and suicide, such as in the case of Gibarian, a former professor of Kris’ and fellow crew member who committed suicide right before Kris arrived on the station.

Harey is Kris’ appointed simulacra, or shapeshifter, if you will. What is a shapeshifter? Basically an entity with the ability to change into a different shape or form; It can be the act of a human turning into an animal (commonly seen in creatures such as werewolves, vampires and the like); an animal shapeshifting into a person; a person into a plant or object; and on, including gods turning into clouds, gods turning other gods into any myriad of animals or objects, etc. Shapeshifting is key in shamanic practice and totemism, and entails transformation into a different f o r m, precipitated by an altered state of consciousness within the shaman, aided by substances, rhythmic driving, and the like:

“[S]hamanism and hypnosis … use … the same dissociative state of consciousness, which in shamanism is referred to as the shamanic journey, or ecstatic flight, and in hypnosis is called the hypnotic trance, or simply trance. Neurophysiological and empirical evidence support the view that the shamanic journey achieved without the use of hallucinogenic substances, that is, with the aid of musical instrumentation, chanting, and similar phenomena, elicits the same EEG profile as the hypnotic trance state. In addition, experiential phenomena characteristic of the shaman’s ecstatic flight, such as shapeshifting, contact with imaginal agents, and the like, can likewise be achieved in hypnotic trance” (Walter).

  For this entry, shapeshifting is one conscious entity shifting into another entity who is, by necessity, conscious to some degree. We find shapeshifters from stories that span the world and millennia — such as the character of Merlin from Arthurian Legend:

“In the Arthurian cycle, the wizard Merlin enchanted Uther Pendragon, making him look like the husband of Igraine so that she would gladly sleep with him. Merlin knew through augury that this mating would conceive the child who would later become King Arthur. One tool for accomplishing such shapeshifting was the spell known as fith-fath, used to transform one object into another and also to confer invisibility.” (472, Walter)

(I just really enjoy the word fith-fath)

In the Cherokee tradition, there’s the story of the “Stone Coat,” a monster covered with scaly armor from head to toe who could take human form; Stone Coat ate the livers of his victims while in the shape of an old woman, after puncturing their skulls with a crooked finger (136, Young). Stone Coat took the form of an orphan, who then ate other children’s livers, and was subsequently banned from town. Knowing Stone Coat is approaching, 7 menstruating women lay along the path in wait — he vomits blood crossing them, and, knowing he is dying, asks the people to build a fire and burn him. As he burned, he sang songs, songs that eventually became traditional Cherokee songs; “His death, he said, would unleash disease in the world, but the songs he taught them would cure it.”

In the case of Old Norse, with regards to Berserkers, shapeshifting more closely approximates a shared state of consciousness generated among animal cultists, leading to murder and rape under the influence of rage:

“It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once widespread across the northern hemisphere … To "go berserk" was to "hamask", which translates as "change form", in this case, as with the sense "enter a state of wild fury.”

In Asia, the kitsune (🇯🇵), huli jing (🇨🇳), or kumiho (🇰🇷) are mythical foxes with 9 tails, that are at least 1,000-years old and have attained the boon of shapeshifting. These creatures are known for turning into young women who eat the hearts or livers of young men. In Korea, the kumiho is always malignant, while the Japanese and Chinese variants are morally ambiguous. Across cultures, if a kitsune can last 1,000 days without killing or eating a human, they can become fully human.

There are myriad reasons why Solaris is a unique shapeshifter experience, considering shapeshifting so often relies on either mythical entities with mythical powers, or altered states. With Solaris, we have an “entity” who can never be perceived directly, and we never learn how Solaris does what it does — Lem intentionally chose an ocean as to avoid personification and thus satisfaction of “First Contact.” Solaris creates an experience of True Alienation — because Solaris can “[see] into the deepest recesses of human minds and then [bring] their dreams to life,” but the observer knows that wish-fulfillment is impossible, making the experience of Solaris a deeply disturbing one which highlights the limits of our physical systems and of our human comprehension.

We never come to understand the intent of the manifestations that haunt the crew observing Solaris, though later in the book, Kris ventures out onto the planet itself for the first time ever, after Harey has finally died indefinitely of her own accord; This experience changes his perception of the planet itself, realizing it is actually slightly timid, if not a bit naive, observing and reacting to new information, interacting momentarily with Kris’ hand. In the absence of understanding, there was forgiveness of the planet itself, and the psychological torment endured by Kris and the simulacras.

Often, whether in literature about shamanic rituals or on galaxy-🧠 backwater forums, you will find discussion of shapeshifting paired with possession. Shapeshifting and possession are parallel phenomena, though possession is internal. Harey is both real and not real simultaneously; Harey knows she is and knows she isn’t; and Harey can never be far away from Kris, at least in the beginning. If Kris is not visible to Harey, she will enter a fugue state until she is reunited with Kris again, at times causing herself fatal physical harm to remove obstacles to him — this possession “reveals” Harey to truly be Solaris itself, her body receiving a hard reset via near-death experiences.

In the beginning of the novel, Harey has a truly amnesiac response to notions of “the past” — she quickly creates an excuse for her behavior or her origins whenever she materializes on the station. As time goes on, Harey noticeably becomes perturbed by her inability to know herself and comes to realize that she is not “Harey”at all. As opposed to following the natural progression of a developing consciousness, arguably going from tabula rasa “nothing” to “something,” Harey goes from believing she is “something” to knowing she is “nothing,” a figment created by the parsed memories of another living being, in a way mirroring terrestrial Harey’s timeline.

Solaris functions as the embodiment of what Rudolf Otto called the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans; the numinous, the unknown. Under electron microscope examination, blood samples from simulacras are devoid of electrons, instead being composed of neutrinos, and a specialized machine is ultimately needed to kill Harey at the end of the book because of this. Nothing like Solaris has ever been seen before, let alone conceived of by human minds, and when 106 members of the space station die in one freak accident while exploring a spontaneous formation on Solaris long before Kris ever arrives, humans subject it to nukes in “retaliation”. Humans had a stronger desire to destroy the unknown than to allow the unknown to exist at all. But Solaris was seemingly unscathed, and afterwards, public interest in Solaris waned, and the simulacras began to appear onboard the station.

What makes the unknown of Solaris more exaggerated is its observation, even experimentation, on the crew. It is always learning about You — You cannot learn about It. And we can never know if it is learning from its experimenting, if its experimenting is leading to something, some conclusion, at all. It becomes a true black mirror, reflecting back at the crew that which has psychically harmed or affected them the most to try to understand that hurt, because hurt sticks the most :’ ).

Very often in shapeshifter stories, the concluding action is to kill the shapeshifter because it is deemed malevolent. Shapeshifting is obscure, it is dark, and it is unknowable except to those shapeshifters with access to it. Shapeshifting physicalizes the Shadow, and conceptualizes the existential chicken-and-egg of knowing decay, death and rebirth are inevitable, just maybe not in the ways we’d hoped — bask in the Shadow and temper the compulsion to kill the darkness.

Bibliography:

Lem, Stanisław. “Solaris,” Walker, 1964.

Walter, Mariko, and Eva Jane Neumann. “Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture,” ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Young, William A. “Quest for Harmony: Native American Spiritual Traditions,” Hackett Pub. Co., 2006.

& Wikipedia lul

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scotianostra · 4 years

Link

SONNY LISTON ON SCOTLAND (1963) - "I am warm here,” he said when he was in Scotland "I am among warm people and I feel that and react to it. When I return to the United States I will be cold again, for the people there are cold to me now and have treated me badly in the past."

By Stuart Cosgrove

When Sonny Liston’s dead body was discovered in a Las Vegas bedroom it was already decomposing. His death has never been satisfactorily explained, was he a victim of a random attack, the wrong end of a mob hit or self-imposed drugs overdose. The mystery and Liston’s dark reputation has calcified with time. It is impossible to pick up a book on the history of boxing without Liston dominating the list of fearsome and lawless champions.

What is not in doubt was that Sonny Liston was the most feared heavyweight of a golden era. He was an unreformed street robber, a jailed felon and brute of man who only took up boxing in a penitentiary in Missouri. Liston came to personify the macabre criminality of the ghetto and in a now infamous quote, the Village Voice critic Joe Flaherty once described him as “a blatant mother in a fucker’s game.”

The history of boxing will always contest that Sonny Liston paved the way for Muhammad Ali when he threw a title fight against the then Cassius Clay to satisfy a mafia fix and deliver fast money to the mob. He is now seen as the summit of boxing corruption and the dark side of African-American street life, but what few have ever ruminated on is Sonny Liston’s thoughts on Scotland and his brief transformative experience in ‘Bella Caledonia’.

Liston came to Scotland briefly in 1963. It was a short but hugely memorable visit where he struck up many friendships and was pursued daily by the nascent paparazzi of the day, drinking in Glasgow bars, sampling whisky from distillery vats and most spectacularly of all taking to streets in a gigantic kilt requisitioned form a retired drum major. He had come as part of a boxing exhibition and fought on the under-card of a British title fight at Paisley Ice Rink where Scottish flyweight Walter McGowan defended his Commonwealth title against the diminutive Jamaican Killer Salomon. Liston stole the show by lifting both boxers aloft in either arm, still dressed outrageously in full highland dress and swearing allegiance to the McBeth clan tartan.

One moment that enthralled the Scottish media was when Liston, a rock-hard black man kissed the blonde majorette of the Braemar Girl Pipers, a kiss deemed illegal or immoral in the southern states of Liston’s childhood.

Liston fell in love with Scotland and described it as the friendliest place on earth comparing it unfavorably to his native America where he was reviled as a criminal and where he had been the victim of savage racism, as the child of a sharecropping family of thirteen children in Arkansas. “I am warm here,” he told the Scottish press-pack, “because I am among warm people and I feel that and react to it. When I return to the United States I will be cold again, for the people there are cold to me now and have treated me badly in the past.”

Liston’s hatred of America was in part stoked by the civil rights disputes of the era and the institutionalized racism of the deep south but it went beyond race. When he won the heavyweight championship of the world, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) the most powerful black organization of the era sided with the incumbent champion Floyd Patterson characterizing him as a gentle and articulate black man, and casting Liston as a charmless hoodlum and convicted robber. He had been rejected publicly by his own people.

Sonny Liston’s kilt was promotional schtick and his attempts to play the bagpipes in a Glasgow street were woeful but there is little doubt that Scotland connected with him in ways that his native America did not. He had grown up an obsessive fan of old school R&B music, trained to Jimmy Forrest’s ‘Night Train’ and liked to sip J&B whiskey listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Loch Lomond’, and arrived with a bizarre notion that Scotland was a land of wonder. Paradoxically, his family could trace its tangled and illiterate roots back to slavery and to a Scottish farmer Martin Liston who owned slaves in Choctaw County, Mississippi.

Liston love for Scotland was not short-lived. On his return to the USA he looked into gaining Scottish citizenship (although no such independent identity existed) and tried to adopt Peter (Petie) Keenan Jr. the son of the Scottish promoter, convincing the boy’s parents to allow the boy to travel to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with the childless Liston and his wife in Denver. The young Keenan to America to be treated like their own son, lavished with Christmas gifts and met the legendary Joe Louis who by then was a down and out heroin addict.

Liston arrived in a Scotland where ignorance and racism were just beneath the surface and to a city scarred by its own local pathologies. The Bible John murders were yet to happen but Ian Brady had just left Shawlands Academy and moved south to Manchester where he had committed the first of the Moors Murders. But darkness was easily outshone by a solidarity of well being and a willingness to be open to visitors. Although the myth of Scottish friendliness can be sentimentalized there is no question that Liston felt something special that he had not experienced before in a brutal life at the savage end of violent sport – it was a warmth and humanity.

We have precious few studies of how humanity works collectively but it was there again on the streets of Glasgow during the Commonwealth Games and in the aftermath of the horrendous tragedies at Clutha Vaults and George Square. We only casually understand this lived and welcoming common-weal a power that neither de-industrialization nor austerity has successfully chased away. Apart from fine words from agencies like VisitScotland there has never been a comprehensive audit of Scotland’s deeper values, those underlying characteristics which are not measurable by the price of oil, or by the board of Standard Life. They are the standards of life frequently forgotten when raw politics come into play.

For one week in 1963 the most dangerous and hated man in the world felt he had found his home. When he finally left Scotland, by his own admission he left a better person, determined to return. Sadly, Liston never returned and instead was dragged deeper into the heartless gangsterism of Las Vegas where he eventually died, alone.

#Scotland #australia #boxer #sonny liston #History #world champion

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completely-zucked · 3 years

Text

Kazakhstan: The Greatest Country in the World

I'll readily admit that my knowledge of American history (particularly when it comes to the oppression of BiPOC) is a little sketchy in places. So I conflated Juneteenth (the fact that certain places didn't emancipate slaves for 2.5 years after they should have) with the Tulsa massacre. However, I hope it counts for something (however small) that I at least knew it was something horrific to do with racist and oppressive BS, that noone in their right mind would be so callous or insensitive to wish anyone hapiness/celebration while remembering that. I wonder how many white Americans can honestly say the same. It seems that I am at least one step ahead of them. Most just take what they learned in K-12 and accept it as the whole truth. K-12, though? That strikes me as a class for advanced students. It seems to me that the average American isn't much more intelligent/educated than the average K-9. (It's one of the reasons why I'm proud to not be an American.)

Too Little, Too Late

Honestly, more white Americans know the history today than did a month ago, and more knew last summer than did the year before, which is definitely … something in the right direction?

Yeah, it's fucking sad, and infuriating, though. Your schools don't teach you this shit, or about Tulsa, or about Rosewood, or Rosa Parks, or about the legacy of lynching, or anything much beyond "slavery was really bad and then we fought a war to get rid of it and then it was mostly better and then Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech and made it all the way better". (Sometimes it's even worse. I know someone who had a friend who grew up in the South and though he admittedly didn't pay a ton of attention in history — with no serious repercussions because he's white — it was at least into his twenties before he realized that the Confederacy lost. He thought that they must have been fighting to end slavery instead of keep it! I mean, how problematic and appalling is that?!)

You don't teach kids about indigenous genocide, either. They don't learn about how their government has (sometimes quite literally) stabbed them (and the first nation's people) in the back over and over again. Growing up, I didn't learn about how Lincoln ordered the largest mass hanging in US history, executing 38 people who had fought because they were starving as a result of their lands being stolen (not just their original lands but part of what they had been forced onto, too) — and that a bunch of the names we saw everywhere like Ramsey and Sibley were dudes who were heavily involved in that "conflict", but I was taught the gist of the attrocities committed by men like Custer when the West was lost.

Your shit's fucked up from top to bottom and side to side.

Your whole education system is garbage, not just your History. Your countrymen (collectively) can't spell, have poor reading comprehension, struggle to identify their own country on a map (never mind anyone else's), are still stuck in the 1960 as far as race relations go, have no grasp of basic Physics or Biology, lobby against teaching evolution in schools (as opposed to Creationism), ad infinitum, ad tedium … Yet I, an individual from a Third World country, have a better education (Cambridge syllabus) than the average individual from what is allegedly The Greatest Country in The World™ Hmm … Something doesn't add up here (but then again, my country's Maths literacy is a known weakness). #JustSaying

Honestly, if my country of origin was one that once housed the thousands of minds that successfully worked out and executed the challenge of going from near-Earth orbit to manually landing a craft on the moon and getting it back to Earth without incident in less than a decade (using technology less powerful/accurate than the average pocket calculator, nog al); a feat so statistically improbable as to be practically impossible … to this sordid state of affairs, I would either retreat to the backwoods and whittle while seriously contemplating my ancestors' poor life choices or I would dilligently apply myself to getting a proper education through online courses. I certainly wouldn't run my mouth about how great my nation is when it's clearly appallingly and embarrassingly backward. Only an idiotic, ignorant, arrogant motherfucker does that. This is far beyond something rotten in the state of Denmark. So yeah, I'm very much anti-American and I'm definitely not ashamed of it.

Now, I realise, of course, that generalisations are generally wrong and not every American is an illiterate and poorly-educated backwoods hillbilly, but fuck me, the smart ones are needles in the haystack (and it's a very big haystack).

Perhaps if your government spent as much on mitigating its education, housing, medical aid (health insurance), unemployment and potable water shortage crises as it does on exploring the Universe and persecuting/murdering BIPOC (particularly non-Christian ones) around the world while claiming to be "liberating" them of anything other than natural resources (particularly gold, diamonds, oil and tungsten) and their lives while foisting cheap crap on them, I might not be such a harsh critic. But don't mind me; I'm just an anti-consumerism anarchist with no idea of how the world really works.

Having worked for some morally bankrupt organisations myself, I'm certainly in no position to criticise, but I do think it's at least a little hypocrytical for someone who worked for Baby Killers International to wish BIPOC a restive and peaceful Juneteenth.

The idea that it's made a holiday is all well and good, but the government still allows cops to murder minorities. It's a consolation prize and a hollow one at that. Not teaching why it's even a holiday in the first place is all sorts of problematic, but only in America. The government has been scared to death of its people (all of them) since the 60s (which is a good thing). Now, they're seeing a lot more whites side with BIPOC than did back then. The only thing keeping them safe is their brainwashed right-wing. This is beyond disturbing.

The Greatest Country in the World

"We're The Greatest Country in the World™", you cry? Maybe sixty years ago you could broadly claim it was heading there and maintain a straight face (if you ignore a lot of problematic shit like abusing Oppenheimer's genius in order to commit war crimes). It certainly isn't any more. Why; what the fuck happened to a nation that used to be an inspiration? Well, you didn't just rest on your laurels; you destroyed them. Meanwhile, the rest of the world struggled and persevered to become what you once were. Unfortunately, we bought into the nightmare of consumerism and greed you packaged and sold to us as The American Dream™.

So, in short: Fuck you very much! Enjoy your fucked-up holiday. Coke (which used to containe cocaine), nutrient-devoid cardboard "food" and heart-attack-inducing "energy" drinks white America!

https://vimeo.com/134492436

#juneteenth #USA #us army #your fave is problematic #amerika

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jksangelic · 5 years

Text

defanged (m)

↳ rating: M

↳ genre: smut, fluff, werewolf!au, a/b/o au, pwp

↳ pairing: mates werewolf!reader x werewolf/alpha!hoseok

↳ warnings: explicit sexual content, dom themes, breathplay, knotting, rough play, impregnation kink, overall general ”werewolf” smut themes, personality change, probably an uncomfortable amount of squishy mate talk

↳ summary: hoseok is an easy mate—as such that there are moments you question if he’s just human. so when his sudden spike of aggression emerges, you do your best to keep this unknown man at bay. or, alternatively: young alpha hoseok has started teething and he’s being a bratty puppy about it.

↳ note: ok so if you were with me a few months ago you would know that this is actually a collab fic with a couple other writers but life happens and here we are now *cowboy emoji*. this is really important to me bc they’re such *clench fist* great people and i’m happy i received such an opportunity to collab with them (’: pls make sure to rb/like/visit our collab masterlist if you want to be in-the-know of when they post their parts!

also i wanted to play around with the humorous sides of what werewolves might go thru (-: so, like, short attention spans and hating loud noises and typical big dog stuff. with the teething, just imagine that their growth stages are prolonged because they’re, idk, maybe immortal or something lol

(i…… i’m not used to writing fantasy can u tell)

((gif isn’t mine + his side profile ;-;))

↳ words: 9k+

You could hear every miniscule thread snap and unwind from themselves, a simple task such as painting your nails becoming less relaxing than it should be.

“Hobi,” you mumble once. You swipe down your thumb again, carmine red smoothing over brightly and with utmost delicacy. He doesn’t listen, another squeaking grind of his teeth against the material of his sweatshirt followed by a snapsnap.

“Hobi,” you say a little louder, flinching from annoyance and staining your cuticle with the polish. You curse your discontents, waiting for him to look at you but only meeting a turned neck and eyes still glued to his phone, an I’m listening portrayed by his demeanor but not really meaning it.

He chews hard on the neckline, a solid rip completely tearing several inches down his chest, eyes widening and attention finally caught when his chest is exposed hilariously.

“Hoseok!” you yell, slamming the closed bottle onto the coffee table and meeting his startled eyes, “I just bought that for you!”

He hopes to play it off and shrugs as you swipe it from his teeth, untwined fibers poking out sadly. You smooth your thumbs over the poor fabric, the third victim of his recent gnashing problem.

“Why do you keep doing this?” you ask sadly, a little more bummed about the beautiful sweatshirt than you should be.

He responds simply, “My gums itch.”

You roll your eyes at his childlike excuse, the full-sized man sitting cross-legged and distractedly in his corner of the couch with his phone paused on some game with horrendously annoying music. Was he really your alpha?

“Why don’t you do us some good and go hunting.” You offer, a lame excuse to get Hoseok out of your hair for a bit. It’s what you deserve. He rolls over with a harrumph, shoulder now bare from the growing tear in his clothing. It made you giggle slightly.

“I’m in pain and you’re laughing at me,” he deadpans, body static-still and stubborn more than ever.

Your breath fans his skin as you slither next to him, “I’m sorry, baby. Are you really hurting? Why don’t you go to the dentist?”

Hoseok pouts, taptaptapping away at his screen instead of looking at you, “I don’t want to go to the dentist. They just itch.” Even now, he licks over the burning sensation of his gums, clenching and grinding his teeth to ease the feeling in any way. You can hear the collisions of his canines, your own tingling uncomfortably from the sound.

You shake your head. “Maybe you’re teething,” you suggest in all seriousness. It wasn’t impossible; your kind’s lifespan certainly placing such life stages at seemingly unusual times. In any case, it would simply mean his canines were most likely growing longer and stronger.

He scoffs as if you’ve insulted him, “I’m well over my teething days, Y/N. They just itc—"

“Say that one more time and I’ll neuter you,” you huff. When he lacks a kinder response, you push yourself off the couch to tidy your bedroom instead. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to have a serious conversation with you at the moment, and despite its rarity, you could use your space.

Your mate was in no way irritable; in fact, Hoseok was one of the sunniest alpha’s you’ve ever encountered. His kindness differentiated him from others, bearing his mark (and one day, hopefully, his pups) certainly deeming you quite lucky. He was a soft lover above all, never making you feel as a subordinate or anything of the like.

Perhaps it’s why you two were clashing heads recently, his personality completely contradictory from his true self. Never does he ignore you, let alone snap at you.

Folding your clothes (and purposefully leaving his items in a pile on his side of the bed in spite), you exhale heavily and leave for the living room once again, disregarding your now smeared manicure.

Hoseok beams at the shoe aisle, producing more light than whatever was already lit in the store. Due to his “issue”, stopping by the mall was a given. Two more of his shirts and even one of your necklaces mangled and chewed up like he was the Tasmanian Devil.

Petting his hair fondly, you give him a nuzzle to his cheek, “I’ll be in the next store over, puppy. Come meet me when you’re done.” He nods happily, wide-frame glasses bobbing atop his pretty nose.

You beeline for the department store in hopes of purchasing a few extra things for yourself before Hoseok sniffs you out. It’s immediate heaven when you sift through the dresses, picking a few out and dangling them happily on your fingers before bouncing from rack to rack. By the time you reach the dressing rooms, your arm aches from the pile you’ve accumulated.

“Hey there, you can go ahead and take that first stall right there,” a man directs, tall and intimidating and rather fucking handsome, you think. “My name’s Jaebum. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll go grab it for you.”

You bat your lashes and mouth a Thanks before waltzing into your room, appreciating his kindness perhaps a little too much. Despite your complex and absolute relationship status, it didn’t hurt to peek at what’s on display. It was only right!

You try on more than what you even remembered picking out, velvets and satins and the softest of cottons all hugging you warmly with every piece, a bittersweet happiness when everything seemed to fit you perfectly. The last dress, though, is your only hiccup. Material skin-tight and ending just a little above your ankles; you harrumph. Almost a perfect streak.

Dress still on (at least it zipped), you peek through the door and spot handsome Bum at the front. “Psst, um, do you mind getting me a couple more sizes in this? I think it was near the wall to the right.”

He grins and nods, almost grateful of the fact that you asked him to do so. Why was he even in this section? Should it concern you?

You watch as he leaves, back muscles showcased quite lavishly in his pristinely pressed suit.

Should it be more concerning that it didn’t?

You take a moment to look at the dress once more, smoothing over the velvet that bunched snugly at your waist and checking out your own ass. The fabric might rip if you sneeze too hard but you look pretty damn splendid.

“Found a few more and got you another color as well,” Jaebum says upon return. You almost snap your neck away from the mirror, hoping he didn’t see you ogling your bum. What a speedy fellow.

You politely open the door wider and reach for the hangers, “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Jaebum doesn’t fully hand it to you though, briefly but noticeably skimming over your body, “I think that size is cute on you too. You have a really beautiful figure.”

Maybe it should concern you. You chuckle awkwardly and look elsewhere. Please just give me my dresses, you almost say, now self-conscious in your skin.

“It’s even better when she’s naked. I would know,” Hoseok near growls, appearing out of thin air. He swipes the hangers from behind Jaebum, who is surprised beyond all comprehension of the word, and pushes you back into the room. You’ve never seen him look so enraged, face serious and twitching as if he would shift at any given moment.

“Th-There aren’t allowed to be more than one person in a—,” Jaebum nervously starts from the other side before the door is slammed on his nose.

You didn’t even see Jaebum’s reaction, nor do you ponder it when Hoseok drops your beautiful dresses and thrusts your back against the mirror with his hand to your neck, deliberately making you yelp loud enough for others to hear. You recoil as he bares his fangs, sharp and taunting, threatening to devour you whole and you know this isn’t your Hobi.

He doesn’t get the chance for whatever else he had in store when pure vehemence engulfs you, daring to stand your ground with a low guttural snarl and shoving him off. Your strength is nothing to snicker at, his shoulders nearly hitting the other wall despite his stature.

“What’s wrong with you?” you didn’t even care if everyone in the damn store could hear you, “Don’t you dare touch me!”

Regret instantly arises in his eyes, his hands reaching out to comfort you in any way but hesitant in the warning. He would rather die than hurt you, he was sorry, he was so sorry.

Your body can feel his sorrow and want, itching to touch him in any way but you push it down. The little she-wolf in you whimpers as you struggle out of the dress and leave him alone in the stall, begging for you to go back and forgive him.

Jaebum stands, bewildered, outside of the rooms. He sure did rue the moment he ever made advances on you. Not a word is spoken as you pass by and exit the store.

It doesn’t make it any easier when Hoseok follows you closely. “Baby, I’m sorry. Please.”

“You were going to shift because of some stupid sales clerk! You could’ve gotten us in some deep shit with the order,” you scold, “We’re going home. Right now.” This was a double-edged sword, you didn’t even get to purchase anything. Though your mood is far too foul to continue.

“But I didn’t! No one saw anything. I just lost my cool for a second, I promise. I know better.” Even Hoseok strains to keep up your pace, car already in view and goddamn you walk fast.

“Do you? Are you seriously justifying your actions? You need to uphold your responsibilities, Hoseok. You’re not new to this.” He finds that he despises when you lecture him this way, gums and skin and everything prickly and he wish he could gnaw on something right about now.

It was odd to tell him these things, taking into consideration that his role is considerably higher than yours and that he hardly ever faults as an alpha. If there wasn’t something going on biologically, what else could it be?

He’s obviously straining to keep his composure now, jaw slacked and knuckles cracking in his fist, “How am I supposed to do that now? It won’t happen again. It’s over.”

“Then what about your shitty mood swings? We don’t argue, Hoseok. You’re not mean, you’re not easily agitated, and you’re not a fucking paper shredder. Neither are you aggressive to your own mate,” you throw in his face, unsurprised when he cowers again at the thought. It’s like the man was on his period.

Now that you recall, the last time you’ve ever seen him so angry at you is when you watched Endgame without him, and that should say enough. This was just all so new and unbecoming of someone with his level of reputation.

“You know I didn’t mean to do that. I never want to hurt you…” he leads as you beat him to the driver’s side of the car, watching him over the hood for him to finish his sentence, “I’m just—”

“You what, Hoseok?”

He jostles the door handle a few times, a rep of unsettling clacks making him uneasy.

“Can you unlock the car?”

“You what?” you say a little louder, entirely avoiding his question.

��Goddammit,” he hisses, “Just let me in and we can talk about it when we get home.” You scan his face in search of anything. For the truth. For him to own up to what it is. What you get is nothing.

So you smile, “No.”

He stands cluelessly as you unlock your door and hop in, starting the car with a satisfying roll and opening his window just enough to see his addled facial expression.

“What are you doing?” he deadpans.

“If you won’t admit it then you obviously don’t take me seriously, and if you won’t take me seriously then I’ll take my car home by myself. So, toodles!”

He smirks nervously, slender fingers sifting through his hair, “Y/N, c’mon. Just let me in.” He’s even more staggered when you start reversing out of your spot. Eyes widening hilariously, he cusses under his breath as he walks cautiously towards the door.

“Have a fun run, baby. Better get home soon,” you feign pity, “looks like it’s going to start raining pretty soon.”

“We live an hour away!”

You drive down the row, turning on your signal just in case someone needed to know. Shucks, you were such a good driver, even in the parking lot.

Hoseok thinks otherwise, anger and panic so vivid that you can feel it from this distance. Walking Time Bomb even begins to jog, not willing to risk your bluff.

“Okay! Okay, I admit it. I may be going through something…” his wavering voice trickles into your head. “You’re right.’

You let him catch up to you, eyes shifty and fingers fiddling. “Hi, darling. Can you say that one more time? In person?” His chest puffs.

“I already said it once,” he begs.

Was his pride this important? Did the strangled mutt deep down change your Hoseok for the worst? An impatient car behind you honks and you shrug.

“You’re making people wait. I’m going to leave.”

“Jesus fucking—okay. I think I’m teething. Or something involving my dental state. It’s making me fucking grumpy and it’s painful and I want to punch a fucking wall because it’s stupid that this phase is so late.” You unlock his door mid-sentence, his body falling into his seat before he continues to blabber on.

“Oh, little puppy,” you slide your sunglasses from atop your head down to the bridge of your nose, “Don’t be so sensitive. ‘S like a human adult getting braces.”

The week passes by agonizingly slow. And that wasn't necessarily because Hoseok bitched and complained, throwing temper tantrums when the remote had fallen between the couch cushions or throwing his pants stormily when they would catch on his ankles and make him hobble about like a disabled chicken.

Or maybe it was because of that.

You dare to creak the door to his den (pun intended), having locked himself in such confinement to work through the paperwork that's been piling on his mahogany desk for days. He looks worn around the eyes, long brown hair pushed back with his fake reading glasses. You knock three times as if he couldn't already sense your presence. When he looks at you through his lashes, he nods for you to proceed.

"Hi, baby. How's the work going?" you ask with a honey-dipped edge.

He shrugs, "A lot of affairs from other packs that I have to go over. I should be done soon."

You slink behind his office chair and wrap your arms around his shoulders, "Mm, why don't you take a break and have a nice little bath with me?" He doesn't budge one inch, straightening out a stack of papers before stapling them neatly and tucking them into one of his drawers.

"I need to finish this. I've been pushing it back until the last minute."

Rolling him out a bit, you slide onto his lap and rest on his chest. Your touch always lulls a serene sensitivity from his skin, a natural effect that only you are capable of. But his muscles remain taut. Bones stiff and budging none whatsoever. Stuttering, you try again, "You've been working for hours. I'm lonely. Just an hour--,"

"Y/N. I'm warning you. Get off."

She-wolf unconsciously warns you to stand down upon this statement. Was he being serious? He's warning you? You search his blank face, waiting for him to crack a smile or lift you up and attack you with kisses. When he doesn't, you test the waters.

Your nails scratch the bare skin under his shirt, "H-Hoseokie, we haven't had sex in so long," you whine. Invading his space, however, only sets him off more.

He growls, deep and meant to be menacing. It takes brutal force to push yourself to move, a weight halting your ministrations. His word, no matter how rare it be, was your law. Do you dare defy that?

You unbutton his pants the same time he threatens, "Continue any further and see what happens." He's breathier than normal and that gives you some satisfaction. He was your mate, after all. Eternal fulfillment was your duty.

The feeling of his heavy and growing bulge, nestling in the crook of his thigh, is a success all in its own. You purr and rub your legs together, licking at Hoseok's neck lovingly and waiting for him to give in. "Hobi, you're already--ah!"

Your view spins as Hoseok scruffs you to his desk, cold wood pressed to your cheek and wrists somehow pinned behind you. Yiping in fear, you struggle in his harsh imprisonment.

"You don't fucking listen," he complains, voice balancing on the line between speaking and yelling.

"Hoseok! L-Let me g-go--," you start before he grinds himself into your ass, boner prominent and angry as it prods. He replaces the hand to your neck with his mouth, laving and suckling all the way down your shoulder.

"Can't do that. I warned you and you disobeyed me. You disobey your alpha, Y/N?"

"No, I'm sorry--," you squeak before your dress is thrown over your back and a sharp slap comes down onto your ass.

You don’t believe the sound that comes out of your throat, pressing your thighs together and wiggling the pain away. “J-Jung Hoseok! What is—” Another slap, harder than the first.

The nerves tingle all the way down to your toes as your eyes roll back. You moan once more, unsolicited and without restraint. Hoseok is content with your reaction, not expecting you to squirm so nicely because of your punishment.

"You like this, don't you? I can smell you leaking like some submissive whore," he snarls with an edge of disappointment. You're beyond mortified of how he speaks to you, although not inclined to deny his words. Not when he spanks you once more, with such force that a scream is rewarded and your back arches in euphoric pain.

"Hoseok, no more, please. I'll--I'll cum if you keep, ugh," you blabber over yourself. He thinks you look prettily pathetic drooling on his desk, so close to spilling over the edge from being physically humiliated.

"Tch, so weak," he comments before releasing your wrist and letting you collapse to the floor. "Are you done?" The question both turns you on and pisses you off, emotions swirling into something self-destructive.

Crawling on the carpet and up his leg, you nuzzle into his bulge, "But I still didn't get what I want." You don’t even ponder where this behavior is coming from; slinking out of you like a dog with its tail between its legs. Perhaps his own change of manner influenced one in you.

He could laugh at how easy you were being, wondering when he ever mated with someone who acts like such a sexually-obsessed brat. "Oh?" he prompts, "So you think you get to make the calls here?"

Licking the hem of his boxers in response, he doesn't feel pleased with your lack of words. You perk up when he shuffles his cock out from the confines of his layers. It’s almost instinctual, not wasting any time to pepper kisses and kitten licks to his tip. God, he even smells amazing. You don't care if you look ridiculous, feverish with your actions like he'd take away your precious treat if you weren't cautious.

He snickers at you, petting your hair with an unexpectedly soft touch. Your heart-shaped irises peer up, knowing he loves your eye contact when you suck him off. Watching the blush spread on his face means that you must be doing your job correctly. Besides, not even the Big Bad Wolf can deny when he feels his pleasure.

He almost can’t stand the self-righteousness that oozes off you. If you thought you were in control, you were dead-wrong. "You want my cock that bad, huh, baby?" your love bunches as much of your hair as he can with his fist, "Then fucking take it."

Then his girthy dick shoves to the back of your throat without warning, hips to your nose and thrustingthrustingthrusting as far as he can.

You'd sputter if your mouth wasn't so full, eyes overflowing with tears and throat constricting in hopes that he'll let you go. When he doesn't and continues to grind himself down your mouth, you dig your nails into his thighs and whine on his persistent cock. It doesn’t matter, the digging crescents in his thighs rousing him even further and even hoping those pretty nails of yours leave marks for him. He’d accept no less.

Hoseok thrusts twice more before pulling you off and watching you cough maniacally. The tears that gathered were now running down your face, accompanied with your saliva that leaks from your chin and onto the floor.

You couldn't breathe, you couldn't ask him to stop, and you loved it.

He cocks a brow as you struggle to catch up, "We'll stop here. You're obviously not made for this."

Pitiful is the only word he can use to describe how quickly you paw and beg for him, desperately wrapping your fingers around the base of his member and pumping him just the way he likes it, "No! I can take it, please use me." Your unstable hand massages the cum-saliva mix as well as it can, a small victory celebrated when he bucks into you.

"Mm," his thumb wipes a stray tear from your lip, "You're so beautiful when you cry. Will you sit on the desk for me?"

You don't hesitate to obey, being careful to hop up when your bum is so sore but otherwise eager for him to touch you again. When he places himself between your legs, your body hums.

"I'm... I'm not well, Y/N. I don't want to hurt you," he says, voicing his first concern after what's already happened. With his brows knit in concern and his slender fingers rubbing calmly at your sides, it's almost as if the Hoseok you know has returned. The Hobi that makes your pancakes just a little overcooked like you prefer. Who makes you a blanket nest when you’re feeling down. And will gladly give up his last bite of anything to watch you munch happily even after you’ve finished your own portion.

In some way, this was your same Hobi. Maybe not so sweet and innocent but more on the receiving end. Spending his days tending to you out of pure love and pleasure to see you bloom; it was just your turn to return the favor.

So you kiss him with fervor and mold your chest to his, feeling the scorching heat that emanates from him. He must seriously be straining himself, you think. His canines graze your lips and you know he's trying his best to hold back; to not completely obliterate you.

"I want to help you," you whisper against his mouth. You implore him and he doesn’t hesitate to take your offer.

You extend your legs as he rushes to pull down your thong, throwing it to the side, and embracing you with another kiss, all tongue and pants. Some of his documents get ruffled under your steadying hands and he shoves them off altogether, a rain of really important paper littering the room. He comes in a little too excitedly, slamming a drawer closed with his thigh and even scooting his desk across the floor.

“God fucking dammit,” he swears, your chuckles covering his wet lips. “I’m… a mess… not thinking straight. Need to cum inside you.”

You purr when his head rubs against your sex, an electric sensation tearing through you. “Want you to knot me,” you whisper. A mistake in its own because he’s practically moaning into your mouth when you say such things.

“Yeah, baby? Want your cunt pumped full? Hm?” he asks into your jaw, all the while spreading your legs as far as they can split with his strong hands. His hips begin to circle like he’s stalling as long as possible and that rouses you up in a way.

You nod with sultry eyes and chant, “Yes. Yes, yes.” By the second yes does he all but slam into you, your final confirmation his endgame.

Hoseok was truly blessed in size, something no mere human could ever match. His length alone would make you double over in ecstasy if he allowed you the space to. Squeezing around him only makes him fuck you deeper, both wanting and needing more of each other than you already have. You were made for him, and him you.

You whimper as he pulls out, his head tantalizing your g-spot before ramming back inside and forcing an angelic cry. “H-Hoseokie… Please, your pups. I want to have your pups”

The sounds of his hips against your skin with your moans and the subtle creak of his desk is almost humorous, you were fucking like dogs. Even more so when he pushes you flat against the wood by the front of your throat, his thumb tucked gently on an airway as your tongue flops out in simple bliss.

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” he snarls with a particularly evil drill to your core that curls your toes. “Nothing to me would be more satisfying than to breed you.”

Your throat constricts and you cough, your tiny hands tugging at his fingers while barely being able to pry his grip. You can’t resist moaning through clenched teeth still, even when the prettiest wine red pours into his irises. Hoseok holds back incredibly well, despite having shifting eyes, his total control never fails to astonish you. It was years worth of training and you thank the stars that it was useful in a time where you were literally stuffed with his cock.

“And you’re so willing; so obedient now. You like when I fuck you like this. Just want that beautiful pussy bred until you’re spilling, right?” he chuckles with means to humiliate when your eyes flutter and drool spills from your swollen lips, “What a mate.”

You tighten, an embarrassing amount of arousal spilling and sticking to your love. He doesn’t mind one bit, rather, losing composure for a brief moment, “Ugh, so good.”

His hand suddenly withdraws from your tender neck and you sputter an attempt to catch your breath, a fleeting moment before he wraps his arms under your knees and prompts you to hang onto him when he stands. How quickly he’s able to switch positions is hot in itself, but the thought is also lost when you sink down even further on his dick.

“Oh, oh my god,” you wail pathetically, wrapping yourself around him and trying to lift your trembling body to ease how full you feel, even for just a moment.

“Hm? I thought you wanted this, baby. Wanted my complete, unforgiving love for you. Isn’t that why you walked into my office?” he smirks similarly to how you imagine the devil would. His hands find leverage against the closest wall, also shoving you against it and resuming his pace into you.

This, to whichever persona was hiding deep down in Hoseok, was divine. Incredible. You would die for this man even without the bond. He was literally screwing you braindead.

He pants, warm and sweaty and shirt somehow unbuttoned halfway down (when did you do that?), “I thought you wanted my knot? Not anymore?”

Your pupils blow out as you shake your head, you were so close.

“Ah, then I’ll knot you. I’ll knot you but you have to beg,” he says with a wink. Bastard.

“Please, please knot me, baby. Breed me and let me have your pups,” you sob, “Fill me up until I can’t take it anymore, Alpha, please—”

He jabs incessantly until you’re entirely maxed out, sloppy smacks echoing out further than the den and his growls emanating when you drag your sharp nails down his back, the fabric tearing under your fingers. Hoseok grinds his full length into you, reaching beyond the end of your walls.

“S-Stay,” he orders. He slows as the base of his cock swells and even though you asked for it, it’s always a little uncomfortable. You can’t even fathom how it feels for your mate, his sudden groans and the absolute necessity to lave at your neck only scraping at the surface of any real indication.

Hoseok told you once that it was similar to both being overstimulated and having a sudden spike of energy, which could explain his touchiness. It was cute though, and kinda hot.

Nestled deep inside, you can subtly feel the ropes of semen beginning to pool. You rest your head over his shoulder, buzzing from the intensity of it all and watching as the walls move and shift into the ones of your bedroom.

Hoseok’s hoarse voice surprises you, “Fuck, I’m so dizzy.”

The bed is a heavenly difference from the den’s desk and wall, your heart pounding a little too hardly when he places one of his pillows lengthwise under your back for extra squish. He was so cute.

But then he collapses on you.

“Oof—I’ve never seen you like that before. My ass hurts,” you state dreamily.

“Oh, love. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he asks seriously, lifting his head to study your face in case you lie. The red dissipated long before, his deep brown eyes twinkling down at you like they always do.

“You were a little rough,” you feign, pouting and pushing around his face with paw-folded fists. He thinks you look like an idiot, a cute idiot.

“I’m sorryyyy,” he whines, burying his face into your chest and wiggling around like a fish. His knot moves with him and you wince.

“Hoseok, stay still.”

Being showered in a sudden attack of kisses is what he responds with, not even aware of the task at hand and fake crying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t ever want to hurt you—I—oh no.”

You yipe as semen sloshes down your leg, shoving your palm into Hobi’s (who is undoubtedly back to his usual self) cheek and trying your best to not panic.

“Goddammit, Jung Hoseok! Stay still!”

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project-rebirth · 4 years

Text

Multi-Universe Holy Grail War

Overview

The Holy Grail Wars is a Multi-Universal competition that decides the ownership of the artifact known as the Holy Grail through intense battle royale. While there have been many conflicts over supposed Holy Grails in the past, this term refers to those specifically based around Contractors, usually proficient magicians or magic users, summoning the Contracted, Legendary Spirits brought forth as familiars, and meeting in battle until only one pair is left to claim the Holy Grail.

The Multi-Universe Holy Grail War was designed by three magic families; the Einsworth, the Yukari, and the Knightwalker bloodlines, all as a means to reach the Centre of all existence. it is currently thought to be only a competition for something recognized as a possible Holy Grail. Nine Magicians are chosen by the Grail as Contractors and, with support from the Grail, allowed to summon Nine Legendary Spirits to do battle. The winning pair is supposed to be able to claim the Holy Grail and utilize it to grant a wish for each of them. Its true purpose is to actually utilize the Nine Spirits returning to the Centre of Existence as a way to form a hole directly to it.

At the time there was also a serious flaw in this system, As the Grail required the energy of all Nine Spirits to help activate the Greater Grail and open a hole to CORE, it would mean that all Spirits including the victor Spirit would have to be killed, and since the Grail can only be held by a Legendary Spirit, activating the Greater Grail, let alone retrieving the Holy Grail, cannot be achieved, as Contractors are incapable of doing so without a Contracted Familiar. This flaw made the Grail capable of only granting wishes to Contractors and Contracted.

There has yet to be even one true winner who actually claimed the Grail in all wars up until now, and due to Gaelion being created by the Fallen's Essence and summoned in the Third Holy Grail War, it would be impossible for a winner to have their true wish granted in most cases. The Grail, which is normally "colorless", was corrupted and turned into a manifestation of All the Multi-Universe's Evils. It cannot grant wishes without also causing great destruction, though only the Knightwalkers and Einsworths are directly aware of this fact. Overall, the Multi-universe Holy Grail War is a major event in the Cosmic Side, as it is a conflict that would determine the fate of the Multi-Universe itself. Because of the potential and the high stakes, the grail wars would not only have its main participants and their organizations/parties supporting them, but also third parties getting involved as well for the sake of obtaining the grail, or in some cases, destroying it. As a result, large scale conflicts and disasters have been known to take place on the worlds housing the Grail War event, including major world wars.

Origins

The original idea for the ritual was devised by Darnic Einsworth, who had received a vision that detailed the total annihilation of the Multi-Universe and that its salvation lay in CORE, the theoretical Centre of all Existence. Centuries before the current year of the timeline, Darnic traveled the cosmos, looking for anything that would be able to create a gateway to CORE. The search was long in that he was forced to turn himself into a conceptual existence, one that overwrites the bodies of his descendants. Eventually, he came across PANDORA, a being who was cursed with immortality by an unknown god, and sought her own death, being unable to open the mystical box that she carried around, which she said would open to a realm beyond mortal comprehension and thus, would hold the key to her end. Darnic met Yukari Masato and Zolgen Knightwalker and the three of them created the Multi-Universal Holy Grail War system.

Procedure

It was created for the sake of finding someone who would serve as the Holy Grail and become the sacrifice that opens Pandora's Box upon the Grail's utilization. However, it required nine magic users summoning nine Legendary Spirits to do battle. The person chosen as the grail will have a connection formed between themselves and Pandora's Box, to which they will take in the mana used from the defeated Legendary Spirits to start the progress of becoming the Holy Grail. After all Legendary Spirits are defeated, the winning pair would be obtain the grail and have their wish granted, although the intent of the ritual is for the victor of the war to have their Contracted Spirit commit suicide so that the mana used from the grail would finally open Pandora's Box, which would lead to CORE.

The Box requires 100 years in order to amass enough mana to summon spirits, making the planning period span over generations. If the Grail is unable to utilize its energy, that which is leftover can reduce the time to as little as a decade, such as in the case of the period between the Fourth and Fifth Wars.

The Grail selects potential Contractors anywhere from years in advance to right before the start of the Holy Grail War. It favors those from the three founding families and then picks out suitable magicians through a mostly unknown process. There can be more than nine potential Masters, but only the first nine who manage to summon spirits gain Contractor Crests and the right to act as a Contractor. It is possible for other unchosen people to gain the right to act as Contractors by contracting with Contractorless Familiars.

The Servants can be summoned in advance as well, but more than two months, such as in SOLDIER's case, is an anomaly. They can be summoned far away from the site of the ritual, allowing them to be initially summoned in one world and then brought to the world where the event is held. While played off as only a battle royal where the winner is granted a wish, the real point is to fill the vessel of the Grail with the souls of all nine spirits. Defeated Spirits revert to being pure energy and, while the would normally disappear from the timeline by returning to the Phase of Legends as information for the true Legendary Spirits, the Grail stops that process temporarily and collects them.

It is possible to make a wish upon it with only the power of six Legendary Spirits, allowing it to grant most wishes. It is still incomplete, and will take at least seven to bring it into form. Its true purpose, opening Pandora's Box to the CORE, requires all nine. Once the vessel is filled, the energy of the Legendary Spirits returning to the "Phase" is used by the box in a ritual to open a "hole" leading to CORE. Due to the corruption of the ritual, most wishes will require great destruction.

The Nine Legendary Spirits that are summoned by the Magicians are inserted into nine different classes, which reflects upon the kind of life they lead when they were alive or at a certain period of their lives. The classes are:

KNIGHT

SOLDIER

WARRIOR

MAGUS

DEITY

KILLER

LEADER

BERSERKER

FORGER

There is also an unoffical class called CALAMITY, which represents destruction itself, and Gaelion is the only one to fall into this class.

Wars

First War: The events of the First War are unknown, however it was remarked that the war ended in failure, mostly due to not finding a vessel, in which the defeated Legendary Spirits were simply returned to the PHASE of Legends and thus Pandora's Box was unable to be opened.

Second War: This war is also a complete mystery, though it also ended in failure for one reason or another.

Third War: After two losses and an inconclusive result, the Einsworths and Knightwalkers colluded to cheat the very system they had created. They had tried to summon an entity created by the Fallen's Essence known as Gaelion. A being with such a violent history, they thought that it would help turn the tide of the war, however what they summoned proved to be beyond what they could handle. In the end, the war had spirled out of control wich ended in the collapse of the many civilizations that were on the planet. The monster that was summoned was defeated, however, it took the combined efforts of all of the selected participants and their contracted spirits. In the end, more than half of the main participants were slaughtered, making the war a lot shorter than the previous ones. Pandora's box was unable to be opened still and the energy from Gaelion had caused it to become corrupted.

Fourth War: The fourth war took place 10 years before the current timeline on an unknown world that was important to the Ministry of Science and other interdimensional communities and organizations, and because of it, it was a really big event. According to Rosalia Echidimont, the war had gone on for about 2 months, with multiple governments and organizations siding with the participants and fighting each other over it. The magical and scientific battles that ensued resulted in certain cities being forced to evacuate its civilians. It was also around this time that the Deus Ex Machina Empire had participated in the war and started to heavily occupy multiple countries on that world. The invasion and occupation caused the deaths pof millions and had caused a young Yukari Elise to be separated from her family and be sent to Prime Earth, away from the conflict.

In the later stages of the war, a Magician became the Holy Grail Vessel and manifested as such, however the master of Stacia at the time, had seen the Grail's corruption and had decided to destroy it. The destruction had caused black mud to spill out and smother the planet, destroying most of the life living there and a total collapse to what little of civilization that was functioning. All the organizations and interdimensional superpowers that were invested in the place had pulled out immediately, and the world was left as an abandoned wasteland. Quinella, the DEITY class spirit that was summoned was reincarnated via the dark mud and was allowed to remain in existence from that point forward. The destroyer of the grail had vanished after all was concluded. Because of the many tragedies that occured, it was refered to as one of the darkest moments in Multi-Universal history.

Due to the inconclusive termination of the War, the Grail's failure to grant a wish to the selected victor and the victor's subsequent destruction of the Grail, it resulted in the premature occurrence of the subsequent Fifth Holy Grail War only ten years later rather that 100. The expended magic power accumulated through the elimination of Legendary Spirits was recycled due to the destruction of the Lesser Grail before the Greater Grail could direct the accumulated mana to establish its pathway, thus trapping some of the unused mana within the Grail.

Fifth War: Darnic, now using the body of his descendant, Gideon Einsworth, maintains his contract with Quinella from the previous war and plans to participate in the war once more. This time, he summons the Warrior Class Spirit, Artorias, the Black Knight, while using Vivian Einsworth, as well as Beatrix Ralgris as his primary enforcers. This war is set to take place on Prime Earth, specifically in the nation of Japan which houses Academy City, the Capital of Science and Esper Development. Yukari Elise, now 19, summons MAGUS and participates in the war, to use it to create a world where humans can understand one another. Rosalia Echidimont, who researched the war some point in the past, takes notice of the marking that has appeared on the hand of her significant other, Bowen Chuuno and realizes that he was chosen as a Contractor of the war. The Ministry of Science, having remembered the events of the last war, while not fully understanding it due to fragmented information, sends the two of them to Prime Earth Academy City, where they come into contact with an old alley of theirs. This alley of theirs is of course, Kamijou Touma, who had both fought against and alongside with to save a girl.

Having already formed a treaty from a previous, yet unrelated incident, the Ministry of Science also contacts Aleister Crowley, as well as the heads of the Magic side to inform them of what is coming, and they prepare for the ramifications that such a war would bring. Many organizations from the Magic Side, and Cosmic Side take interest and watch events unfold from both within and outside the city, waiting for the right moment for their involvement. Aleister decides to have Kamijou Touma work alongside Bowen and Rosalia, as well as from some members of Nessecarius to destroy the holy grail and end this series of wars once and for all. The Science/Magic/Cosmic Coalition summons Stacia once again with Bowen becoming her contractor and the battle for the war initiates. This war is still ongoing and the ending has yet to be reached.

In another continuity in a multiverse that had been pruned due to uncertain reasons, an alternate version of this war had been manifested, in which the entire world had been thrown into chaos with the human race and civilization destroyed. This was the very first singularity that the Cosmic Security Coalition detected and had been resolved by none other than Kamijou Touma himself.

Tagging: @tetsuwan-atom @whitecrowns-blackthrones @cantusecho @lawain-dimensional-heroes @breaking-the-boundaries @x-ame-x-damnee-x

#Kinoverse Lore #Read More for length

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carruth00 · 3 years

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The Boy Who Cried Magic by Andi Gladwin - A Review

This is the Ad Copy:

After spending a decade producing more than 100 magic books for some of the biggest magicians in the industry, Andi Gladwin is finally releasing his own book. And it is quite possibly the most highly-anticipated book of the year!

While Andi has released numerous effects and many popular lectures, this is the first time he has ever compiled his very best card magic routines into one comprehensive magic book. Each of the 16 full routines and 15 sleights featured in this book have been carefully crafted over a lifetime of performing for every type of audience in every type of venue.

There is something for every card magician in this incredible book from Andi's amazing rapid-fire multiple selection routine known as "Fireworks" to his powerful thought-of cards across, super commercial "Whack your Phone Effect" and even a practical Triumph routine where the audience helps you mix the cards.

There's also, of course, plenty of material for the most dedicated sleight of hand card magicians, including 15 techniques such as his full work on the Master Pushoff, new moves such as the UnDo Cut and UnDo Shuffle, and a unique take on the Braue Popup that you're going to want to add directly into your Ambitious Card routine.

Beyond its remarkable contents, The Boy Who Cried Magic is quite possibly the most beautiful book Vanishing Inc. has ever produced. This breathtaking hardback book features 250 pages and 240 full color photos, all printed on premium glossy paper. The addition of a gorgeous slipcase will make this book stand out on your shelf.

"The Boy Who Cried Magic is a perfect magic book, written by the best writer in magic. The tricks are world-class performance pieces, and the book itself is stunning. Every magician should own it!" - Dynamo

"The Boy Who Cried Magic is one of the most beautifully-designed magic books in recent memory. It looks and feels like something you'd find in an art bookstore. As for the magic, Andi Gladwin's Undo Cut is a highly deceptive false cut that is going straight into my act." - Steve Cohen

My Thoughts:

The Boy Who Cried Magic is Andi Gladwin's first book of magic. It must be quite a challenge to be in Andi's shoes and know your first publication sets a bar at such an impossible height. I don't know if he is considering a second book, but personally, I'd have to set a spell and soak in all the wonderful reviews of my first one.

This was a much-anticipated publication by a highly respected performer.. and it met all the expectations. Everything from the effects, to the cover, binding, pages, super sharp photos and slip cover coalesced to create a masterful product.

The book features 16 complete effects/routines and 15 sleights in a total of 250 glossy pages. ( I constantly felt as if I were turning two pages..) The 240 color pictures by James Went and George Luck jump off the pages.. creating a complete visual to match Andi's narrative. I could go on and on about the book.. but I think you get the point.. There are absolutely no cut corners and no expenses spared publishing Andi's first book. As the publisher of over one hundred books and ebooks for other magicians, Andi knew exactly what he wanted.. and how to achieve it.

The first chapter of TBWCM is a treatise titled Making Magic Bulletproof. It is an essay of thoughts and tips from the author.. detailing Be Clear, Remove Abruptness, Be Authentic, Be Adaptable, Create Conversation and Adapt To It, Overlap Methods and, lastly.. Study. These are strong thoughts from a full-time professional.

The effects are Andi's. These are effects he uses throughout his performances and are corralled through hundreds of performances over twenty plus years. These are not add-ons or submissions from other performers. These are all directly from his repertoire. To quote: "My repertoire didn't appear overnight. It's impossible to see when you look at the finished product, but every effect in this book has gone through dozens of late-night sessions and incremental improvements. I lost hair over these tricks."

Andi's book is all about card tricks, moves, and effects. No close-up, no coins, no thump tips.. and one cell phone. These effects are not beginner effects, and anyone purchasing this book who doesn't possess at least a good, basic knowledge of cardmanship will probably be lost after the first effect. Everything is not super-complicated.. but it's not beginner magic either. Andi takes a great deal of time to explain several of the sleights he uses, giving everyone ample opportunity to follow.. exactly as Andi would have it. He never tries to get ahead of readers.

Undo Cut, Undo Shuffle and Cull Shuffle Control are all good examples of some of the sleights taught. Cut, Stop, Shuffle, Red/Black To The Future, and Castle Jacks are all some of the 'At the Card Table' effects. Whack Your Phone, Monte Python, and Pocket Mule are three of my favorite 'Close-Up' card effects. And Silent Movie, Supersonic, and Aura are three of the five 'Stand-Up' card effects taught.

Each effect is detailed. The performance and handling are highlighted, along with any and all credits. Much work was put into describing the history of each effect, its first cousins, and Andi's contribution to its advancement.

I could get into describing the various effects individually.. but I don't think it's going to matter. These are first-class routines, made available to anyone willing to part with fifty bucks. The cost is totally justified in all aspects. One of the effects alone is probably worth the cost of the book. Thought Experiment.. based on Edward G. Brown's ' Twelve Card Thought Transposition', can't be described as an 'effect', but more appropriately a 'study' of what Andi considers to be the 'best structured card trick of all time..'. "One sleight makes a genuinely thought-of card appear to travel across the room and you don't need to know the name of that card."

.. And this is only one of the 16 effects.

If you truly desire to immerse yourself in a tangent and intimate world of card magic, THE BOY WHO CRIED MAGIC is your elixir.

$50.00 .. Available at Murphy's Magic and their Associates..

https://www.murphysmagic.com/Product.aspx?id=66402

Review by Rick Carruth for Murphy's Magic & The Magic Roadshow..

#andi gladwin #rick carruth #magic news #magic roadshow #the boy who cried magic

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