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aiweirdness · 5 years

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How to begin a novel

Last year for National Novel Writing Month I trained a neural net called torch-rnn on 10,096 unique ways to begin a novel. It came up with some intriguing possibilities, my personal favorite being “I am forced to write to my neighbors about the beast.” But many of its sentences used made-up words, or had such weird grammar that they were difficult to read, or meandered too erratically. (“The first day of the world was born in the year 1985, in an old side of the world, and the air of the old sky of lemon and waves and berries.”) The neural net was struggling to write more than a few words at a time.

This year, I decided to revisit this dataset with a larger, more-powerful neural net called GPT-2. Unlike most of the neural nets that came earlier, GPT-2 can write entire essays with readable sentences that stay mostly on topic (even if it has a tendency to lose its train of thought or get very weird). I trained the largest size that was easily fine-tunable via GPT-2-simple, the 355M size of GPT-2. Would a more-powerful neural net produce better first lines?

One of the parameters I can tweak when I’m getting a trained neural net to generate text is temperature - this controls whether the neural net chooses the most likely next bit of text as it writes, or whether it’s permitted to use its less-likely predictions. At a default of 0.7, a relatively conservative temperature, the neural net’s first lines not only make grammatical sense, but they even have the rhythm of a novel’s first line. This is DRAMATICALLY better than torch-rnn did.

I am, or was.

At the mid-day meal the sun began to set and the quiet dragged on.

There was once a man who lived for a very long time; perhaps three thousand years, or perhaps a thousand million years, maybe a trillion or so, depending on how the scientists look at it.

He had the heart of a lion, and the fangs of a man-eater.

"I am Eilie, and I am here to kill the world."

The old woman was sitting on a rock near the sea, smoking a pipe.

I have just been informed, that the debate over the question 'is it right or wrong to have immortal souls' has been finally brought to a conclusion.

When I was a boy, I was fond of the story of the pirate god.

He had a strange name, and he was a very big boy indeed.

The purple-haired woman came to the clearing in the plain, and without looking up from her book, said, "It's too late to be thinking about baby names."

The village of Pembrokeshire, in the county of Mersey, lies on a wide, happy plain, which, in a few years, was to become known as the "Land of the Endless Mountains."

I don’t think the neural net plagiarized any of these? They are so good that I’m suspicious. But others of the neural net’s lines are even weirder, yet in an effective way that opens with an intriguing premise.

The moon had gone out.

I was playing with my dog, Mark the brown Labrador, and I had forgotten that I was also playing with a dead man.

The black stone was aching from the rain.

The short, dirty, and dirty-looking ship that weighed three tons and was three feet in diameter landed on a desolate and green plain.

How many times have I had the misfortune to die?

The first black dog in the park had been captured alive.

Behold the Sky Rabbits!

In the belly of the great beast that was the bovine Aurore there lived, upon the right hand of the throne, the Empress Penelope; and she had, as it were, a heart of gold.

The moon stood on its own two feet.

The reeking maw of the blood-drunk ship, the enemy's flagship, was silent and empty.

The first day I met my future self, I was aboard the old dirigible that lay in wait for me on the far side of the moon.

The child of two cats, and a tiger, a clown, a horse, a bird, a ship, and a dragon, stood on either side of the threshold of the Gatehouse, watching the throng of travelers who came in from all around the world, before he had any idea what was going on.

I think it’s probably doing this accidentally, stringing likely words and phrases together without understanding what any of them really mean. It’s not that it’s good at science fiction or magical realism; it’s that it’s trying and failing to predict what would have fit in with the usual human-written stuff. Some of the neural net’s first lines really betray its lack of the understanding of the laws of physics. It really likes to describe the weather, but it doesn’t really understand how weather works. Or other things, really.

The moon was low in the sky, as though it had been shipped in from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The first star I saw was a blue one, which became a scarlet one, and then a gold one, and green, and finally a yellow one, which for some years afterwards seemed to be an ebony one, or even a bubbling mass.

The sun rose slowly, like a mighty black cat, and then sank into a state of deep sleep.

The sea of stars was filled with the serenity of a million little birds.

The great blue field was all white, swept away by the blue-gold breeze that blew from the south.

The sky was cold and dark, and the cold wind, if it had not been for the clouds, would have lashed the children to the roof of the house.

The morning sun was shining brightly, but the sky was grey and the clouds aching.

The night that he finally made up his mind to kill the dog, the man was walking home from the store with his wife and child in the back seat.

Arthur the lion had been pretty much extinct for some time, until the time when he was petted by Abernathy the old woman, and her son, Mr. Popp.

One of the disadvantages of having a neural net that can string together a grammatical sentence is that its sentences now can begin to be terrible in a more-human sense, rather than merely incomprehensible. It ventures into the realm of the awful simile, or the mindnumbingly repetitive, and it makes a decent stab at the 19th century style of bombastic wordiness. I selected the examples above for uncomprehending brilliance but the utter tediousness below is more the norm.

The whites of my eyes shimmered, as if my mind were dancing.

I once went to a party where the dress code was as strict as a chicken coop with no leggings and no boots.

A black cloud drifted by, a mottled mass of hydrogen, a black cloud of hydrogen, with the definite characteristic of being black.

I say I am at sea, because I am standing upon the ocean, and look out across the barren, vast throng of the sea.

It is, of course, a trifling matter in the ordinary course of things, if a certain writer were to write a novel, which is a book of stories, which is a book of characters, wherein every detail of the story is stated, together with a brief description of the theme which it concerns.

There was a boy with blue eyes, with sandy hair and blue eyes that looked at all times like he had been pushed through a million compartments.

The Sun, with its rolling shaft of bright light, the brilliant blue of the distant golden sun, and the red glow of its waning corona, was shining.

The man who was not Jack the Ripper had been promoted four times in the last two years.

Felix the Paw was sitting at the table of his favorite restaurant, the "Bordeaux" in the town of Bordeaux, when his father, Cincinnata, came in to say good-by to the restaurant.

It, sir, gives me the greatest pleasure to hear that the Court be not too long in passing away: but that I may have leisure to prepare a new work for the publication of my friend and colleague, the renowned Epistemology, which is now finished; and in which I shall endeavour to show, that this very point is of the highest importance in the subject of the philosophy which I am about to treat of.

It was a rainy, drizzling day in the summer of 1869 and the people of New York, who had become accustomed to the warm, kissable air of the city, were having another bad one.

Repetitiveness is also common, especially at this conservative temperature setting. Once the neural net gets itself into a repetitive state, it doesn’t seem to rescue itself - it’s a problem that people have noticed in several versions of this algorithm. (It doesn’t help that I forgot to scrub the “title” that someone submitted to the dataset that consists of the word “sand” repeated 2,000 times)

The sky was blue and the stars were blue and the sun was blue and the water was blue and the clouds were blue and the blue sky was like a piece of glass.

At the end of the world, where the tides burst upon the drowned, there exists a land of dragons, of dragons, which is the land of the dragons.

It's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, you're dead.

There was once a land of sand, and sand, sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand

Increasing the temperature of the sampling would help the repetitiveness problem, in theory, letting the neural net venture into more interesting territory. But at a temperature of 1.0 the text tends to venture out of everyday surrealism and into wordy yet distractible incomprehensibility.

The praying mules on the top of the hills sounded the final klaxon, lifting their spiked front hoofs as they crept the last few feet of desert landscape past the crest of the enormous swathe of prehistoric sand.

In the glen of the Loch is a ladder that winds way up through a passage to a ledge with soft, moss-laden environmental standards.

Someone whipped a dead squash gibbet across the room, like some formidable war lord unleashing a heavy hunk of silver at home.

One blue eyed child stood up and cried out: "Douay, saurines, my Uncle – Fanny Pemble the loader!"

Jud - an elderly despot, or queen in emopheles, was sitting across the table from the king, looking very thoughtfully into the perplexions of the proceedings.

Oh, you're a coward little fool, as if you couldn't bear to leer at a Prunker or white-clad bodyguard quickly emerging from a shady, storm-damaged area of the city.

Hanging presently in his little bell-bottomed chamber on the landing-house, early in the morning, the iron traveler sat on a broad-blonde sandbricksannel blanket outside the gate of a vast and ancient island.

Long, glowing tongues trailed from your mouth as you listened to what was being said across this kingdom of ours, but growing a little more somber since the week that caused us to proclaim general war.

The night I first met Winnie the Pooh, I had sat in the Tasting-House and heard the Chef unpack the last of the poison upon his quiet dinnertable.

There is, of course, no perfect setting at which the neural net churns out sensible yet non-repetitive first lines. There are just varying shades of general awfulness, interspersed with accidental brilliance.

No matter how much you’re struggling with your novel, at least you can take comfort in the fact that AI is struggling even more.

I generated all the neural net sentences above using a generic “It” as the prompt that the neural net had to build on (it would usually go on to generate another 20-30 sentences at a time). But although the sentences are independent in my training data, GPT-2 is used to large blocks of text that go together. The result is if I prompt it instead with, say, a line from Harry Potter fanfic, the neural net will tend to stick with that vein for a while. I've included a few examples as bonus content for subscribers.

Update: I now have a few thousand unfiltered examples of neural net-generated first lines at the GitHub repository where I have the original crowdsourced dataset. Themes include: Harry Potter, Victorian, My Little Pony, and Ancient Gods.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

#neural networks #you look like a thing #nanowrimo #gpt-2 #writing #first lines #gpt-2-355m

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amomentintimeblackcattales · 3 years

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A Moment in Time - Descending in The Darkness

Chapter 0003

- Now, I want to find a way to hide all that money. "Bruce said.

Anyway, i don't know what you're going to do. "Bruce said.

- What are you going to do with all that money? " Asked Azazel.

" I'm going to buy my company back. "Bruce said. And save that money. "Bruce said. And hide in a way that Joker and no one else can find. "Bruce said.

Come on, let's go, let's go. " Trigon said. "You have a good eighteen hours to figure out where to hide that money.

You caused it. "Bruce said.

I'd be happy to. "Neron said.

- Let's go back to betting together. "Bruce said.

So you're going on a trip? " Asked Nekron.

It's in the package, isn't it? You questioned Bruce.

- I was killed and i went on a date with the bet host. "Bruce said. Of course I do.

- Am I going to bet with you again? - Questioned Nekron.

I intend to. "Bruce said.

It's better. " Trigon said. " You took a step to meet with the bet host. " Trigon said.

After hours of organization, and a helping hand of demons, treacherous, Bruce took the phone, called some negotiators, and set up a meeting with shareholders, investors, all within sixteen hours, he bought his company back, and promised to fire Lucius.

He took a notebook and made wrote some messages, he asked Phantom Stranger to deliver to each of them, he took his backpack, he went traveling, being taken by each of his fellow bets, promising to return after a year.

He had plans, and so he would do it after they got back.

Where do you want to go first? " Asked Neron.

- For a trip to the 1000th century, and coming back later during the time, in which I will discover the secrets of the universe. "Bruce said.

- Then go back wards. "Bruce said.

Bruce discovered some well-kept secrets in seven keys.

Love pain desperate and lost lands

It was thousands of years

Before the wars between planets... And before the birth of Krypton...

You were in the back.

An ancient planet that was badly destroyed by wars and the devastation of nature for some who worshipped their planet.

Knowing that in their destroyed and bitter ancestors an immense devastated plain of destruction and a field of war of ancient Ragnarok gods,

Among these war camps a red silhouette of a slender and powerful cosmic entity, long denied by barbarians on a planet that fell into monstrous wars.

Whose name of this planet was, Astron was lost because of successive wars the progressive devastation, there was no time to save many peoples, it was in its total the majority.

As for the few that were left were of an ancient religion venerated the goddess primates gradually regressing they prayed every day to ancient millennial gods

They were forgotten times and long wars of eternal proportions.

While wars followed at distant times, in an immense ancient constellation, old worlds when they still existed.

Were those who ruled solar systems existed in their dark and smelly civilization destroyed amid the chaos.

In bygone eras of Krypton when they were just drinking crawling amid their birth in their pre-industrial civilization.

It was past eons before the fall of the ancient gods there was a civilization, but it was much older that venerated ancient and righteous gods who received rewards when they were venerated

The ancient scientists of this world were nothing more than priests lost in the midst of desolation and thus swearing amid ancient prayers invoking ancient names rival to their beliefs.

Even though in the course of what happened, in which then before their own destructions and their cataclysm, minutes before the real collapse amid the light that arose amid a flood of lava that rose, and when they isolated themselves underground.

While the remnants of skeleton life scattered on the surface an arid land of a white dwarf, and putresaves remnants of life existing, of their planet praying and despair among the most adults.

What happened, in the last moments of life at that very moment the grief of those who abdicated their beliefs and the end of a life, and their gods them at this instant of the time of destruction.

Happening to what were in moments of time when everything changed in the impending catastrophe than moments and remnants of civilization destroyed seconds before their imminent deaths and lava covered their bodies from the implosion of the solar system and what was left of it...

While all this changed the deaths lurked and the final seconds before the destruction the destroyed layers and the ascending flames and those remnants of rocks the parts of asteroid rocks and constellations.

It was in their investigations that they were in the next few seconds in the midst of destruction when all lost their hopes the cosmos extinguishing rocks and comets and asteroids approaching the destroyed orbit a whirlwind and destruction engulfed in lava flames and lights.

All this, was what when what left of frozen seas breaking and rising evaporating with lava that climbed the lava the center of the earth moments before bodies evaporating and destroying itself along with the center of gravity that was undoing the stars going out and with lights and in this solar system.

The one that became something different, when the white dwarf that was once a sun and now the black hole that sucked the nearest stars and sucking like ever existed a star and rising the clouds of poisonous gas.

When they were in these cosmic substances and at that time when the children were engulfed in flames and their planet destroyed all embraced.

In imminent seconds of their dead and the flames eroding everything around them spreading along with destruction when..., when seconds before, when everything was about to end...

They were tears in the faces of children shremed in flames lavas and destruction when in an instant of time with his imminent death everything stopped a noise of shrill and deafening broken glass was heard...

All those who turned around even embraced among them tearful ness of pain and saw sledgemins of a rounded barrier in their companions around them...

Above their heads like long red hair flames a light incandescent and long strong legs and whose thighs were thick.

Her nude silhouette with just a ribbon-only fabric a veil covering her arms and her slender body long arms and breasts rounded her eyes equally red

With her eyes and raising her hands, she pointed forward and wrapped in power capsules were teleported and so they saw around her.

When they saw the legendary and immense ship called the ship from the beginning, it was if not the first ship created with the power of the first goddess among the kings gods brothers outside the system.

Thank you heard one of the children say while being taken away by sentient energy and electricity and the red queen was omniscient.

And his powers were cosmic and his energy was the union between alpha and omega power and its structure between body physical form and not fully spiritual and energy physics...

More than a million years ago before the birth of Krypton the legendary mothership called the early ship had the great war power of immense proportions was 10 times the size of the earth's sun.

Discovering that this was the ship born of the stars and the cosmos that generated its own energy and had its own core it was home to the cover gods to create their own dimension and lead to other worlds.

The ship was inhabited by beings of incredible intelligence coming from the cosmos and without physical body and being able to connect to any form of life and the collective consciousness of the ship, energy.

As for the superior forms and made of immaterial and psychic energy, exclusively mental powers.

They were sent from them and angels without sex procreating by partenogenesis, and flames their bodies could crystallize and harden.

They had no form of their own or physical bodies, but they created cybernetic technology through psychic and supernatural energy, and all those who operated the ship were queen's children of their descendants and traveled through the cosmos.

His forms seemed humanoide and whitish bluish in color and his hair could alternate between blues in the present memento and red in combat, his eyes were red when his hair was blue and orange.

All this, when they were red, and had crystals at their ends of their bodies, which connected with their skin and could communicate with other beings, but were not entirely immortal.

In their transformation, when their physical bodies had a time limit they were not degradable and so they could connect and restructure as if connecting and recreating their bodies through host bodies the ancient bodies did not deteriorate.

Immediately, when they crystallized and returned to a form of marine blue crystals to their essences alone they chose a new host and could share with another sentient and conscious being and another alter a technological hybrid form, causing and inducing an evolution.

Even with this, it was causing a fusion of consciousnesses and the more using the host body the more the ancient losing consciousness and being absorbed by them and thus becoming a complete being.

All this, while he thought that his time, ended, he abandoned that body that in turn crystallized and occupied a form technology.

That was a kind of mineral crystal with electrical properties that could be used as technology and was part of the ship as a mechanical part.

It was a precursor to krypton's pre-destruction, they were alive and their technology was aware since one day they were living beings the technological part disconnected and disconnected from the mental.

Those who could separate weapons and not weapons were the same things and were aware since one day they were beings of flesh.

First they were born of meat then gradually they would lose their physical form gradually evolved if they joined the technology and lost their physical form and thus divided themselves forming two life forms and sometimes lost and used other hosts ...

Among them were zariel's smartest chief scientist and daughter – The red queen, whose name was, well the studies didn't say much, but as soon as he got more data would know...

The millennia of the beginning ship had the purpose of bringing technology and knowledge wisdom and saving those who needed to be saved it had in its structure black and white crystals and long, pointed and long wings.

All this, in which his coming could be heralded as the haste of the beginning of both destruction, but still its interior greater than the outside was a world within a ship, formed by energy crystals.

As for this energy comes from the gas stars of the entropy universe only energy flowing from its interior and so were for generations its commander.

The one who was called the meaty queen coming from another world a goddess who used the form of red energy queen of the energy fields of the red rivers.

One of the daughters born of energy by partingenesis this creature was called Za-ol.

To what was the apparent female with blue hair and low even though at this time more than twenty thousand years had the form of a child with long hair as if spiky and scientist clothes.

When it was at this moment that it began that you took these children to a distant planet next to a scientist and an ancient race that came by hitchhiking from another solar system.

To which he who also saw that it was destroyed and these were the Vosh, this one with his own scientist called, Bertron, mesm what at that time was his assistant and is girl in charge of teaching the art of science.

They didn't know anymore when they left both Zaol and the children and scientists on this little planet and would come back later they would be doomed...

Current days

Present moment earth zero.

Somewhere else...

It was very interesting to know about the future, as much as it was interesting to know about the past, trips with cosmic beings learn more when you have great teachers.

Now, he had returned for a while, by the time of the journey had not passed the present of Gotham, at least more than six months, but in reality, Bruce traveled through eons by the multiverse.

During the trips, Bruce learned about the plans that came to fruition, so the man planned, made countermeasures, and this included even Darkseid and each of the villains and heroes.

In the meantime.

It was one of Gotham City's suspected villain bars, in which some villains gathered to set up, among them, the common plans of each of them, to end Batman.

That was possibly the annual plot encounter against Batman, it should be commonplace, the plots of each of them, against Batman.

So, what's your plan today, Joker? - You questioned Riddler.

They were gathered playing cards around a table with countless villains around, tables drinking and playing pool, and in their case, playing cards, smoking and drinking.

I had a plan. "Said the clown around the table. But it failed. I said.

Hands on each side of Joker's shoulders, lowering and looking at him, with a smile full of pointed teeth, hands of thick fingers, and pointed nails.

Everyone panted when they saw the man appear.

- I propose a deal between us, gentlemen. "Said a man with a red lion face, was tall, goatee chops and red eyes like blood.

He had leonine hair like fiery red lion manes, on top of his head, which were loose and voluminous, with ripples and looked like a huge blanket of red hair.

I have a plan; I'd like to know...? You questioned him.

Everyone but Joker has walked away, who knows, fear or apprehension.

Seeing that he had vertical pupils, and a third eye on his forehead, if they suspect he was not human, they were sure, everyone observed.

The one who was a man in a red suit, and goat horns, twisted on each side, a satin suit, sleek shoes.

It was in the face that at no point would a man normally, and normal, who knows would do any business with someone like him, that only a madman would agree to propose a deal with.

Tell me what you're proposing. " Said Joker.

That was the madman who took the deal. Tell him I want to hear it. "Said the clown.

- I propose to lure and accost use Bruce Wayne as bait, and surround them, can be in wayne tower, and insert my serum. He said. "This would attract each of the members of the justice league, and would neutralize each of them with the serum. He said.

What does this serum do? " He questioned the clown with complete confidence as to the man more than I suspect.

- He would make them have a crazy cheap, have hallucinations, and you could do whatever you want with it, the man would stand still, docile and would be a little lamb. He spoke.

- I attack Wayne tower, you surround Bruce Wayne, the man, you use him and his shareholders, and each of them, they would be used as bait, in addition to getting rid of Bruce Wayne for a few hours.

Then you can beat and neutralize the justice league that would be surrounded and drugged, you would be neutralized by good two weeks of hallucinations.

That's a good idea. " Joker said, that without realizing it, everyone there was walking away from fear, the man had a demonic syrup of a demon, and that syringe had a shiny silver material, and it seemed something that should not be a simple hallucinogen.

- Do you want to participate...? You questioned the clown.

No, I’m not. "They said each of them, they turned away as if the devil flees from the cross.

In those two days in a row, Joker gathered a large number of henchmen and gun, sent a warning letter toward gotham police station threatening that he would attack Batman.

They didn't listen, because after all, he always did it, as if it was commonplace and usual, the bat always got away with it, solved the problem, and none of them.

Acid paint, paralyzing daisies and bursts of hallucinogenic confetti, these were his new weapons, light bombs that were machine guns of piercing pins, in addition to normal bullets, Joker, prepared a party.

It was rare this sort of thing, no one paid much attention, after all, nor worried about the other warning that would attack Bruce Wayne, they thought that somehow, Bruce Wayne was well protected.

If you want something wrong, repeat, the same thing, because you know no one would pay attention.

Anyway, Bruce received a letter, ignoring with all his might, he was leaving his cooking class, and heading towards Wayne Tower.

He had a meeting, he himself did nothing at first, when at last he took for himself a way to ignore what would happen.

Anyway...

That same week, Wayne tower was attacked by Joker, the clown prince of crime invaded with all wayne tower in the middle of a meeting, climbing each of the floors that in turn used the gas to kill those who opposed in his way.

They weren't alone, there more than a thousand employees were taken hostage, they came in with everything destroying everything around them, their hooded henchmen dressed in black with black shields and shirts.

They were bulletproof clothing, wearing vests and masks and makeup with protective clothing while to alternate, machine guns, which they used to break into wayne tower, shooting everyone who tried to stop it.

At the end of that hour, when the henchmen in colorful clown clothes, who killed around 10 security guards, before breaking into the 15 floors of that building, and proceeding to the presidency meeting, with Joker making everyone hostage.

Joker came in with his maniacal beast smile, he looked full of confetti with an entrance throwing acid ink bombs, his new batch of jokes, nothing funny.

Before they could climb up to the top floor, where the meeting was taking place, the noise of machine gun cameras firing, was enough in Bruce's opinion to call, not just security, but the police, and breaking the line of justice.

The henchmen, arrived first, each of the floors, many died throwing acid paint, stun light bombs and Bruce made his cue to run towards counteras other shareholders ran, Bruce ran down the corridors, being chased and heading toward the staircase, by the exit of fire.

The man was pursued, and while he was using his communicator at that time, he made a more than urgent call toward Superman.

- If any time, it was now. "Bruce said. "This was the right time. "Bruce said.

If that was the cue for you, to come, there is no better time, this is the time, that I need you most. "Bruce said.

- Kal. - Bruce cried. - At that time, anyone would serve, as long as he arrived.

Apparently, the other heroes didn't arrive just in time.

At that hour, between descending flights of stairs, and being chased by clown henchmen, he was cornered and chased, falling with a shot and a stunning daisy on his back, and being picked up and then taken toward the elevator and being thrown toward

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. "Said the clown. "I have come to bring the grace of my presence and beautiful company. I said. Now, let's see how long the justice league gets here.

There were just over 15 survivors who were taken towards a corner of the 15th floor, then tied up and made of bait, it seemed.

- You don't have to die unless I change my mind. "Said the maniacal clown.

You don't have to have them here. "Said Bruce putting himself forward, stunned, when he stood as the voluntary bait.

- Oh, Mr. Wayne, I have a special gift selected for you, I'm going to give you a new drug that will make you more susceptible to my dreams, we're going to be the same in kind, I'm going to have a little brother. He spoke.

What he said, in reality, is totally part of reality, as to what happened next, Bruce knew that nothing good would come out of suspicious drugs, that was a big long, thick syringe.

To what had a perolate and brilliant liquid, it was too strange to think, that something good would come out of there, none of that would come out less than suspicious of the substances created by Joker, and being the crazy brother of a clown, was out of the question.

When you need the league, when you don't have it at the right time?

Bruce tried to resist, fought as best he could with those henchmen, that he was disarmed and subjugated by ten men, such his struggle.

As promised to him that all this was just a lie, everyone there was deceived by promises, and happiness did not come as they said it would come, pressed when Joker, came before him and stuck it to his horror, in his chest directly into his heart.

What was supposed to happen, it was totally what happened, he was..., the clown and the campaigns let him go, embraced by Joker, Bruce was stunned, seconds and in the middle of two minutes of stunning, which followed whether it was too late, too late or not, it happened one after the other.

Joker lost his smile, Bruce choked turned his face toward the ceiling and spat blood, choked would be the least, he spat, regurgitated and toward the clown who had his face covered in blood, Bruce staggered back, was at that moment between the near loss of consciousness.

That's not what he promised. Bruce began spitting more blood, his eyes, ears and nose filled with blood when his pants wet, it was a hemorrhage, anyway, when Bruce staggered back, his legs lost strength, faltered and falling back.

It was too late anyway, being late, it was when Superman, emerged breaking a wall, Bruce fell back, feeling his heart stop, one of the other heroes Bruce saw was Flash.

Everything disappeared, the sounds disappeared and everything around him darkened, before consciousness caught him, he was caught by the arms of the man of steel, distant echoes, were heard, but the darkness until finally caught him.

In the end, Bruce had fifteen cardiac arrests, as fast as Superman could, and took him to gotham hospital and took the syringe to the hospital to study.

They were committed to finding out what substance that was, Joker was taken to the police station, and the interrogation.

The clown was relatively, docile, unbeknownst to the justice league had already surrendered the joker henchmen, but there were over a hundred people inside the building all of them were employees.

What among his historical laughs, in which he himself could not say, who made the substance, since he himself had not produced, simply as he said toward a police officer.

Between the interrogation, the substance was unknown, no substance or raw material known to man, at least currently, which was promised a cheap madman toward his victim, wanted to attract Batman and the league of justice.

The doctors had to intubate the man, clean up his genetic material, Bruce was intubated, not breathing and did not regain consciousness for the past few weeks.

It was called specialists, in addition to a biochemical doctor and geneticist who was spending a few seasons in Gotham, Bruce Wayne in addition to intubated, his lung, heart were compromised, were 89% of the kidneys, collapsing, the bronchioles were compromised.

His lungs and compromised heart, needing to connect to the devices in order to be kept alive, it seemed that the substance was connecting to every cell phone.

The bladder stopped functioning, compromising the functioning of his body, several organs were having massive hemorrhage, which had to be kept connected to machines, had to clean the lungs, and the trachea that closed.

Superman, Flash, every member of the justice league who heard the distress call but arrived late, couldn't stop it from happening.

There was a community burial of more than a hundred people, among shareholders, businessmen and employees who were inside the building of the twenty security guards, fifteen were killed in the attack.

Ebraim Heinrich, was one of the best specialists in biochemistry, who were one of the best specialists in biology, organic chemistry and by chance was there, then.

At that time, they were volunteering for the position to do tests and research the substance that would somehow compromise and poison Bruce Wayne's organism.

Alfred did not know this, through Amasteus, his traveling colleague kept him busy, away from any international news, so he did not know in the meantime.

That moment, Amasteus who kept control of Wayne's companies and had a way of controlling Bruce's finances also kept bruce's children away at the time.

There were tests and experiments of studies of the substance, which were somehow adapting and binding the cells and the deterioration of the organism, Amasteus and Ebraim kept secret of justice and kept secret out of all the environment.

Bruce Wayne actually died, around 12 times, his heart had a stop of five minutes at a time, to be restarted, Ebraim, was overloaded, each time, turned on respirators.

In addition to probes, catheters and oxygen hoses, intubated and with food and nutrient probes, which kept him alive.

At that time, Ebraim was studying and researching the substance i had barely discovered what she would do, its effects were unknown, since it did not seem known at all.

Which made it difficult to discover a countermeasure or a vaccine or a serum, which left him connected to the apparatus, without breathing and bleeding that all his main organs were compromised.

Ebraim remembered a similar substance long ago, when he was still in concentration camps, he was one of the few survivors of nazi camps, he was one of the Holocaust Jews who survived in the camps.

At least until the second order, in which he was now, was dealing with the same substance, but due to the implications, he could not tell what they were.

As for what he discovered, there were too many issues, which would lead to the situation in which he could not say how much he knew, and where they would take them.

The substance was taken to his laboratory by Amasteus, who chose him to supervise and stay ahead of the treatment, just as he seemed to know the origin of the substance and that of volatile chemistry.

As to how his idea came, and who had led it towards joker, there were only two people alive, who knew its real effects, and what would be its results if they knew, Ebraim, arranged some excuse to isolate him in a more remote place.

To which all for which he said to be contagious, then, he took him in a remote wing directly in his supervision that it would not be good for the substance to act alone.

Those were the most troubling two weeks of his life, because everything depended on his organism.

By trying to fight a substance that could kill him, and that strange chemistry, that foreign body that in case Bruce wasn't able to connect in his cells and his body couldn't resist, he could die if he didn't adapt.

In the midst of this, each of the members of the justice league entered secretly, without them knowing that they were monitored and recorded.

Then he visited them, Ebraim and Amasteus saw each of them, weeping over a body on top of a bed,

Knowing that there was the stabilization time, whoever did it would leave everything prepared, for the right time and due to their knowledge, that would be kept under seven keys.

I was committed to anyone being frightened by the effects that would last a while, all so that until the substance connected to the organism.

In which everything happened until the body stabilized, until then, it seemed that it would actually die, due to the struggle of the organism in its attempt at resistance.

Now, thinking about it, it was over a hundred years ago that he didn't see his symptoms, results and effects, yes, it could go wrong, but it could work if he couldn't take the true meaning of the moon of the day.

He was studying under the microscope the effects of the substance, until someone, a smart-ass paparazzi, he learned that he entered the room, apparently with the help of an intern, or employee, taking pictures of a man on a respirator, unconscious and connected to braces.

Those were his most troubling weeks, if the body didn't adapt or fight, Bruce would die...

Leaked to several newspapers around the world for a while, Wayne's stock plummeted, which the American stock market was down there.

Bruce Wayne's sons tried to get in, so they were expelled, and they weren't allowed to stay there.

Joker, managed to invade the place, to see a man connected to machines, as he realized was used to kill or make an experiment with a home that in the end, stayed in a bed, the verge of death, if one day he returned to the world of the living.

The one he saw, almost at the end of the week he told, he saw progress, slow, but that's what he was expecting, when the compromised organs were adapting and recovering, returning to their full strength, and their full biological capacity.

Those were the longest three weeks of his life, until when all the organs returned to normal, and took out the breathing hose, so that he stood by his side, waiting for the man to wake up.

Well, then. "Did the man beside you say, sitting in the chair, is his name Bruce Wayne, or Edward Parks? "He questioned him, with his legs crossed, to see the man wake up.

For a man in a bed, his smile was well skewed, and happy.

- For a Nazi who stole a Jew's body, do you think you could hide that secret forever? You questioned Bruce.

Are you going to turn me in? - Questioned Ebraim.

No, i'm not. "Bruce said. If you don't turn me in, did I use fake I.D. to hypnotize you? You questioned Bruce.

- So you have nothing against Nazi experiments? You questioned the man.

- None of us can deliver the other one. "Bruce said. "Certain things have to be forgotten and buried. "Bruce said.

- Did you discover the Führer's hideout? - Questioned Ebraim.

One way or another. "Bruce said.

- Could you tell me where your Führer hid the Nazi gold. "Bruce said. "I find a way to take you and share it with you, without anyone being able to claim it. "Bruce said.

So we forgot that? You questioned the man.

I could do better. "Bruce said. – I know in a way, place and where you could keep your experiments hidden and how to keep doing without getting caught, or had a limit. "Bruce said.

What's your interest in this? You questioned the man.

- I could enjoy your inventions and your skills. "Bruce said. " We can be partners. "Bruce said.

"I'm interested in your abilities. "Bruce said.

"I could keep you secret of your experiments. "Bruce said.

- So, helping me, keeping secret that you spy on other Arkham interns, plus internal contact. - Said the man.

Okay, I'm going to take it. He said. "Let's have a drink for the beginning of a great new alliance and friendship. "Said the man, delivering a plastic cup of water.

They both had dirty secrets that should be kept hidden.

Bruce recovered, and leaving the next day when he was not approached, and kept hidden from the justice league, the next day, coming out in tabloids, and news, paparazzi, newspapers.

Bruce, in turn, at that time, was returning to work, which he was just abusing and using the weakness of each of the heroes in not showing up, or having the courage to see him.

Four weeks before...

Bruce was going toward some investigations, they said that some villains like Joker, was plotting against him, which he decided to investigate, but there were other things more important than a villain, from Gotham to get his attention, he had his contact, which was Ellis.

In the end, he convinced one of his allies that they lost a bet to deliver the serum of the souls of the Jewish philosopher's stone.

Bruce was kind of pushed in that direction when he was warned about schemes, which he should follow.

At that time, Bruce had some clues given by demons that sent him to the other side of the world, more precisely in Europe, he was walking.

All this for what he discovered to be a former concentration camp, one of his arkham asylum allies, had said about a session with a man named Ebraim.

Knowing that he was a Jew who had a crisis, and needs private treatment, because of a crisis he had, he was a doctor for years, which in turn.

When he pp sat for torture and was there when his family was murdered, having a wife of 69 years, and a daughter of 33 years.

Anyway, he didn't know, but even if he received a letter, of an alleged attack on Batman about a trap that was forwarded to Gotham Police Station this week.

3 weeks before...

This was a city that few knew it was off the radar of Nazi hunters, if the history of Auschwitz and other camps, under the direction of Dr. Eduard Wirths, the detainees were subjected to various experiments.

These experiences would supposedly help in the war, but few knew about the ghost towns well off the radar, in the interior of Germany, which few knew according to the records.

Again, from a Nazi camp that does not exist, and whose involved doctors who did not exist.

What were hidden from the projects that were hidden that they said, should be hidden and burned.

One of the inmates at Arkham Sanatorium, a doctor who took care of a patient, who had a conversation, who at first believed to be a delusion of a surviving patient.

Knowing that one of the doctors, he told Bruce a treatment of a 79-year-old man who suffered from sbuts that survived Hitler's pressure, and of what was once one of the scientists who worked for the Führer.

Among his investigations, what he discovered in records that were kept secret from justice, this traumatized man was part of the Paper Clips project during a period of the Cold War.

Bruce researched him, knowing that he was one of the Jews who were forced to work for Hitler, in that period from 1940 to 1945, he was sent.

There were documents and records that he said he discovered were from a Jew and German who according to records at various sites for experiments, one of them was Auschwitz and other camps, would be another doctor.

His name was Ebraim Heinrich Dannenberg Dupelgunger Fiodorentch, son of German Jewish parents, in his youth, he was blond.

By Hitler's German standards, he was an anomaly, of all anomalies, that came in one in a million.

- You won the lottery, Ebraim. "Said Hitler, who was there in front of him.

They were surrounded by their soldiers who brought him there in front of the Führer.

When Bruce learned that he was one of the scientists, and that he did not do it because he wanted, to which he knew that he was the youngest of 18 brothers, large family of more than 30 people.

Those rich men and ram, but their riches were not able to save them from extermination, concentration camps and the holocaust.

On the contrary, his rich money were confiscated, the bride of Ebraim, was killed according to reports on the operating table, he was obliged, as others, like him, made of those who loved, he make her, the personal mouse of experiments.

At first, Ebraim tried to flee, protect the family, tried to save them, but in a trap, in his escape, in the midst of one of his relatives, who handed them over and betrayed them to the Führer.

When Hitler turned them in with spy, the good side, was that the Führer, also did not like traitors, in the midst of surrendering his relatives, Batchenko was taken directly to the concentration camps and never left, at least alive.

Ebraim's professor, Wernhen Duremberg Von Dostoivsky Petroviano, was one of the best scientists, some said, that he was the preferred scientist.

Discovering in the records that he was hitler's personal friend, he was Adolf's anthropology professor, and Ebraim, it is known, that Ebraim was Hitler's colleague in college before his ways changed.

But in his investigations, what he said, not everything was true, he stayed with the wealth of his whole family, with the end of all this, when the allied armies.

When the armies accused them and many committed suicide, which made it impossible, due to the experiment of Ebraim and Wernhen, which made them indirectly immortal, they would have no way back to, seeing

To which Ebraim did everything to try to save, Ebraim that Wernhen tried to convince him to ally himself with Hitler, and thus save those who remained, between the beginning of madness, he allied himself with Dostoivksy.

While both were forced to work with the other doctors, which during the time, and the request for exile and the help of the Americans, they never managed to save a single relative, served as a guinea pig in the concentration camps.

He called it life-time absorption, which had an effect, when they couldn't go back, and watching his whole family die in front of him.

There were more than 30 people, and his fiancée made him susceptible to suicide, that's what Wernhen used to take ebraim's life time.

To which he had grandparents and great-grandparents, who would be alive, if it were not for the intervention of the Nazis, and the constant threats, according to records, they had to flee, and that they, in fact, they were persecuted, between the escapes.

In the midst of his request for help to the U.S. government, near the end of the first world war, like him, others were part of the Paperclip program.

To which he was one of the Reich's allied doctors who was forced to work or die, to be able to resist, until his family was killed one by one in front of him.

In exchange for not killing his family, he worked directly to let them know about reported some data regarding secrets that were left behind.

It was in a developing new weapon, helping in the recovery of the military who had been wounded, and for the advancement of racial ideology supported by the Third Reich, it was a concentration camp of a Nazi camp.

Starting to build through Austria, and traveling through each of the abandoned coal tunnels, they were supposedly tunnels that would be abandoned by the constant collapses.

Taking advantage of the fame of haunted and ghost towns, they propagated that the place was inhabited by ghosts, cursed ancient tourist fields and Viking cemeteries, to which with the imminent threat that they could not make it through the place.

All this, due to the proper earthquakes, and earthquakes, that place was kept away from the curious, due to the fragile structure that was not used to be traversed, and would not have people who could observe and enter that place.

To which they were sent and he forced many to work in the secret camps, to which he had secret services and reinforced by nazi engineers and builders.

Those who were used as labor were just the ones they called disposable, who were entire Jewish rich families, who could have their money confiscated.

It was in that place that it was called vergessene stadt, there were documents and papers, to which these cities, which were hidden, between frozen rivers.

To which were between the snowy forests, mining field abandoned caves of ores and coal, and underground tunnels and aqueducts.

In one of three cities that were formed before all this, hidden and funded for the creation of an experimental serum, which he discovered serve for a specific purpose.

To which he focused off the radar on an old making near abandoned coal mines, unlike the others, those hidden fields and underground labs.

To what was built in the basements, and the closest to Hitler was there, never to report, was the call of Nimmerland

All this was done by the Third Reich, were ancient excavations, which simply, when he discovered, that that site was not just a simple mine abandoned a network of underground tunnels.

It was not just on paper, which he discovered were tunnels that ran between Denmark and Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Greece.

All of them were made, with buildings, which were during occupations, they were not only simple caves, but were coal and diamond mines.

To which they were disabled, with the excuse of collapses and tremors, then their entrance was in Belgium, between a cave between the mountains.

He can see that they were kilometric, running through the place, he can see that those places were so hidden that they supposedly could not be discovered, between the forests and Austria was one of the localities where Hitler invaded.

Going through his tunnels looking at the local quele was hidden, where he can only go towards Vienna, when the Führer hid them, his greatest plans, there were cameras.

Among the cameras and tunnels were photos and documents hidden between rooms and more file rooms, there were tunnels of underground and old rails that were there, not only stored documents and reports of tests and experiments, but the gold stolen from the Nazis.

That was the wealth, the treasure known to all the prisoners of the Nazis, the money the wealth of all the Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Where he knew now, it was that place, where he had hidden all the riches of all the Jews who died in the concentration camps.

The reason that was not found until that time, was that on a hypnosis session where, Bruce disguised himself as a doctor, he went to the doctor's country house.

As for his mind, after the hypnosis session, where Bruce reminded him of the secrets he didn't want to remember so much.

Now, recorded were his, what he would do with all those riches, the gold in wagons, he would have to see how far the train tracks would take him.

All to know where it ended there, besides going through underground and caves among abandoned coal mines between the mountains of Austria, which went beyond and after that country, traversing the forests that were once used for invasions, and that their underground were excavated.

If he ever talked about it, he would raise complicated questions about a man who didn't want to remember his traumas, and how unethical he would be.

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earthstory · 5 years

Video

vimeo

Original caption:

It all has to do with Senja’s location in the world. It’s quite close to the North pole, which always tilts towards the Sun in the summer to offer 24/7 day light! Being within the Arctic Circle (67 degrees north) means that in the summer, people living exactly at the line get at least one night during which the Sun doesn’t set at all. Now being two degrees North of it, Senja gets one and a half months with the Sun always up day and night (roughly from late May till the beginning of July).

Night time offers complete darkness so it is of course the preferred condition to observe the aurora. During astronomical twilight you get a thin light on the horizon with a smooth orange gradient but most of the night sky remains very dark with a lot of stars and the milky way still visible thus allowing a very good view on the northern lights, should they appear. At nautical twilight the Sun is still below the horizon but starts getting higher and giving off more light. The brightest stars are still visible and you get a brighter twilight sky with beautiful colors. The aurora can still be viewed if it’s strong but it becomes washed out by the brightness of the surrounding sky. When the sun gets even closer up to the horizon the sky becomes too bright and you can kiss the aurora goodbye even if it’s up there in the sky! When the sun is up, just forget it and enjoy other activities!  > The goal of this short film was to show Arctic Norway right at the close of aurora season. The colors brought by the continuous twilight during the few hours of solar midnight illuminate landscapes still covered in snow. From the cold fjords to the desolate plains, the northern lights still shine quite bright and reflect their lights. Take a deep breath and enjoy the last lights of the season while impatiently waiting for the new one!

All was shot with the Sony a7s and the Canon 6D Baader modified and a variety of bright lenses ranging from 14mm to 150mm. For motion control I used the Syrp 3-axis Genie I system and also the Vixen Polarie. All post production was made in Lr with the special timelapse plus plugin, Sequence for mac, TLDF, and final production was made in FCPX. I hope you like the movie as much as I liked shooting and processing it and I thank everyone of you for your support. All content is of course copyrighted AMP&F (except sountrack licensed through Epidemic Music), and no footage can be used in any way without the author’s permission. Please contact me for media and purchase inquiry. Please share and comment if you liked the video and follow me for more videos like this one! More at nightlightsfilms.com

#Senja #norway #timelapse #aurora #aurora borealis #arctic #video #vimeo #travel #light #sun #the earth story #midnight sun challenge

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7r0773r · 4 years

Text

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite? We don’t know. Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise. (Heaven and Earth in Jest, p. 10)

***

I am an explorer, then, and I am also a stalker, or the instrument of the hunt itself. Certain Indians used to carve long grooves along the wooden shafts of their arrows. They called the grooves “lightning marks,” because they resembled the curved fissure lightning slices down the trunks of trees. The function of lightning marks is this: if the arrow fails to kill the game, blood from a deep wound will channel along the lightning mark, streak down the arrow shaft, and spatter to the ground, laying a trail dripped on broad-leaves, on stones, that the barefoot and trembling archer can follow into whatever deep or rare wilderness it leads. I am the arrow shaft, carved along my length by unexpected lights and gashes from the very sky, and this book is the straying trail of blood. (Heaven and Earth in Jest, p. 14)

***

When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam. (Seeing, p. 35)

***

This is the sort of stuff I read all winter. The books I read are like the stone men built by the Eskimos of the great desolate tundras west of Hudson’s Bay. They still build them today, according to Farley Mowat. An Eskimo traveling alone in flat barrens will heap round stones to the height of a man, travel till he can no longer see the beacon, and build another. So I travel mute among these books, these eyeless men and women that people the empty plain. I wake up thinking: What am I reading? What will I read next? I’m terrified that I’ll run out, that I will read through all I want to, and be forced to learn wildflowers at last, to keep awake. (Winter, p. 44)

***

When I was in elementary school, one of the teachers brought in a mantis egg case in a Mason jar. I watched the newly hatched mantises emerge and shed their skins; they were spidery and translucent, all over joints. They trailed from the egg case to the base of the Mason jar in a living bridge that looked like Arabic calligraphy, some baffling text from the Koran inscribed down the air by a fine hand. Over a period of several hours, during which time the teacher never summoned the nerve or the sense to release them, they ate each other until only two were left. Tiny legs were still kicking from the mouths of both. The two survivors grappled and sawed in the Mason jar; finally both died of injuries. I felt as though I myself should swallow the corpses, shutting my eyes and washing them down like jagged pills, so all that life wouldn’t be lost. (The Fixed, p. 56)

***

Nature is, above all, profligate. Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once. This is what the sign of the insects says. No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque. If you’re dealing with organic compounds, then let them combine. If it works, if it quickens, set it clacking in the grass; there’s always room for one more; you ain’t so handsome yourself. This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent. (The Fixed, p. 66)

***

This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. I am opaque, so much black asphalt. But at the same second, the second I know I’ve lost it, I also realize that the puppy is still squirming on his back under my hand. Nothing has changed for him. He draws his legs down to stretch the skin taut so he feels every fingertip’s stroke along his furred and arching side, his flank, his flung-back throat. I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feeling save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator—our very self-consciousness—is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends. I get in the car and drive home. (The Present, p. 80)

***

My mind branches and shoots like a tree. (The Present, p. 90)

***

If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring’s center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood. . . . (Intricacy, p. 127)

***

What if God has the same affectionate disregard for us that we have for barnacles? I don’t know if each barnacle larva is of itself unique and special, or if we the people are essentially as interchangeable as bricks. My brain is full of numbers; they swell and would split my skull like a shell. I examine the trapezoids of skin covering the back of my hands like blown dust motes moistened to clay. I have hatched, too, with millions of my kind, into a milky way that spreads from an unknown shore. I have seen the mantis’s abdomen dribbling out eggs in wet bubbles like tapioca pudding glued to a thorn. I have seen a film of a termite queen as big as my face, dead white and featureless, glistening with slime, throbbing and pulsing out rivers of globular eggs. Termite workers, who looked like tiny longshoremen unloading the Queen Mary, licked each egg as fast as it was extruded to prevent mold. The whole world is an incubator for incalculable numbers of eggs, each one coded minutely and ready to burst. (Fecundity, p. 169)

***

I have to look at the landscape of the blue-green world again. Just think: in all the clean beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death. I have to acknowledge that the sea is a cup of death and the land is a stained altar stone. We the living are survivors huddled on flotsam, living on jetsam. We are escapees. We wake in terror, eat in hunger, sleep with a mouthful of blood. (Fecundity, p. 177)

***

Either this world, my mother, is a monster, or I myself am a freak. (Fecundity, p. 179)

***

Is this what it’s like, I thought then, and think now: a little blood here, a chomp there, and still we live, trampling the grass? Must everything whole be nibbled? Here was a new light on the intricate texture of things in the world, the actual plot of the present moment in time after the fall: the way we the living are nibbled and nibbling—not held aloft on a cloud in the air but bumbling pitted and scarred and broken through a frayed and beautiful land. (The Horns of the Altar, p. 230)

***

I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down. Simone Weil says simply, “Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love.” (The Horns of the Altar, p. 245)

***

I stood at the window, the bay window on which one summer a waxen-looking grasshopper had breathed puff puff, and thought, I won’t see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. (The Waters of Separation, p. 265)

#annie dillard #book quotes

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elijaheva · 5 years

Text

Episode 00

All was darkness and desolation. No matter what direction you were looking at right now, the only things on the horizon were nothing but debris of worlds and lifeless bodies. Desolation reigned supreme as the glow of the very last star waned. The universe that would later be known as the Anteverse was in its immediate decline.

This sad fate was the result of an unprecedented event. Long before this horrible nightmare, the Anteverse was composed of different living more or less in harmony until one of them decided to attack others for the most infamous reason: greed. Indeed, each of the planets constituting this universe possessed a more or less abundant quantity of magic or mana. The latter was part of their daily lives and allowed them to travel from one planet to another via specially designed spacecraft.

The first major conflict for the monopoly of this precious resource took place among humans. On their planet resembling the earth but being several times bigger, the latter causes hundreds of millions of deaths. One people dominate the others largely because of the atrocities committed. Sparing only those for whom they bore a certain morbid interest, they massacred any person in their path without distinction as to age, sex or social class. As soon as these people had total control of their planet, they began to exploit all the magic that their world could offer them.

After several years of exploitation, the reserves of their planet arrived at a critical stage. Not being able to wait until the magic is renewed in a natural way because of their ever-greater needs, they launched themselves in a vast conquest of the neighboring worlds. By using the magical connections linking each planet, solar system, or galaxy, they managed without difficulty to find planets brimming with magical energy.

After several hundred years of conquests marked by bloodshed and atrocious experiences, the entity governing the Anteverse had no choice but to intervene. While bloody clashes were taking place on various planets all further away from each other, a strange point appeared just above the main belligerents. Gradually, cracks originating from the latter appeared. All of a sudden, pieces of the sky began to fall before disappearing, leaving behind only a dark horizon.

The different camps stopped temporarily to observe the enormous phenomenon that was taking place above them. It may have been the first time they all saw this kind of phenomenon, but each of them knew it did not sound good. Cold sweat ran down the forehead of those who still had a normal human body. All of a sudden, a humanoid shape appeared in the portal. A teenager dressed in white armor emerged and landed just in the middle of the two camps.

No matter what angle each of the actors of this conflict looked at him, the young man in front of them was nothing ordinary. A phenomenal amount of magic emanated from his whole being. As soon as he turned to the invaders, the other seemed to see a glimmer of hope as those he watched shuddered with uncontrollable fear. Of the ten crystals floating in a circle behind him, one approached his right hand and then turned into a very long sword with a purple blade and on which were found strange characters. He grabbed her and lifted her over her head. One of the opposing generals who followed the movement immediately warned his men screaming. "- Deploy the shields!" His soldiers obeyed quickly enough and extended their palms forward. This will hinder an immense magic barrier of a thickness of several hundred centimeters.

Unfortunately for them, it was not enough. With a vertical gesture, the long sword that was larger than its owner fell to the ground. A huge wave of concentrated energy was sent forward. When she met the barrier, it was totally pulverized, as well as all those who were in his line of sight. The damage was considerable. An enormous gulf, the origin of which was the point of the army, had been formed over several hundred or even thousands of kilometers. In front of such a spectacle, the light of hope grows even more. Cries of joy echoed among the defenders. It was however before the one appearing as their savior suddenly turns against them

In a circular motion, he turned his weapon against those behind him. He made the same gesture and decimated again all those who were within his radius of action. Hope suddenly turned into a hope deeper than the deepest chasm. Fear reigned in the gaze of everyone watching this young man. Some could not even move so much they were paralyzed.

Suddenly, huge balls of fire fell on the young man. The impact caused powerful explosions. Just after that, the sky darkens. Large, very threatening black clouds made their appearance just above the place where it was from the sky. Without warning, several ultra-powerful lightning strikes hit the same spot as the fireballs. The soldiers had taken advantage of the fact that his back was turned to balance all they had as offensive spells. It was like attending a manifestation of hell. There was nothing more than a dome of flames continually struck by lightning. Everyone followed suit and swayed everything he had. Spells all the more powerful against each other fell on the young man. A huge rock the size of a mountain was even swayed.

As events seemed to turn in favor of the attackers, unprecedented pressure suddenly appeared. She was so strong that she immediately paralyzed everyone. Several rays of energy emerged from all directions and struck everyone in his wake. Cries of pain and agony rang out from all directions. One of the soldiers looking in the direction of the flames caught the gaze of the one who was issuing all these attacks and did not come back from what he saw. This one whose eyes were totally white showed a huge smile. He seemed to enjoy doing what he was doing.

The young man raised his sword again above him. The latter had shrunk to a reasonable size now had flames of the same color as the blade. At the same time, two strange luminous spheres had also appeared behind him. As everyone followed the movement of the weapon with one of the eyes filled with despair, the tip of the blade stopped a few millimeters from the ground. The young man stopped abruptly and began to look up at the sky. All the pressure he exerted so far also disappeared. All of a sudden, he began to speak with an invisible being. "- What? .... Of course, I'm going to perform .... I was just having a little fun ... Ok, I'll do it right now ..," These were the words he uttered during this moment.

After he had finished talking, the young man looked back at the attentive observers at the slightest of his movements. He dropped his sword turned into crystal before taking his place in his back. He then brought his hands closer than ten centimeters apart. A sphere of red energy appeared just after. The latter later became yellow before turning white. One of the surviving generals who observed the phenomenon immediately understood what it was. Therefore, he ordered the retreat of all the soldiers on the field. "Everyone, run away immediately if you want to live," he cried out loudly. The soldiers hardly had time to think and did so immediately. The adversary side, which also observed the movements of the young man and the invaders, did the same thing as the latter.

Everyone was running either towards the spacecraft or as far as possible from this dreadful thing that was coming. For its part, the preparations were over. He removed his hands and the sphere began a slow descent to the ground. Another portal opened a few meters behind him. The young man finds himself, walked towards the gate and cross it. It closed just after he borrowed it.

Meanwhile, the white sphere continued its course towards the ground. The movement was so slow that many invaders had time to rejoin their ships and begin the take-off phase. Unfortunately for everyone present, it was already too late. When the ball touched the surface of the ground, a huge explosion took place and a wall of pure white light dispersed uniformly in all directions. A soldier who ran for his life was caught in the middle and was totally disintegrated while uttering cries of pain and agony. The energy spread first over the entire surface of the planet, destroying and killing men, women, children, buildings, and even spacecraft. Nothing survived there, not even the planet itself. The phenomenon continued to expand exponentially to the entire solar system, destroying at the same time the rest of the fleet that had not been warned.

Identical phenomena occurred on every planet invaded by these corrupted humans. Each time, it was the same thing. A kind of human sometimes with several pairs of wings appeared on the battlefield and destroyed everything without distinction. In the end, all the invaders and invaders were annihilated. When there was no longer any human coming from the people, the entity governing the Anteverse took a radical decision. In order for no other such event to happen again, she simply decided to destroy the Anteverse. She ordered her envoys to retire before carrying out her plan. A huge surge of magical energy took place in the center of the Anteverse. The latter spread at unprecedented speed to the confines of this universe. All without exception was destroyed in its path, leaving only debris and a dying star. As soon as it was extinguished, the cold of desolation and death fell.

A long-time passed since this tragic event which cost the lives of all life forms of the Anteversa. The darkness and the cold had imposed their reign. Suddenly, a spark springs out of nowhere, followed by an explosion. A new big bang had just happened and announced the birth of a new universe: the Alphaverse. This time, in order to make sure that the mistakes of the past did not happen again, the regent decided to set up surveillance systems and a special faction to intervene when necessary.

Hundreds of billions of years after the revival of everything, our story began on a certain planet with a certain young man. It was the beginning of an adventure through joy, pain, and sadness.

#magic #writing #english #vs angel #fight #war

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