Heroes of the Storm: Malfurryman Build

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Fanfiction

For all ya'all who don't know, I love me some Avatar: The Last Airbender.  If I'm honest, I think I like Legend of Korra better, but a part of me bows in respect to the origin of a series that has matured many-fold into such a beautiful creature.  I'm not here to compare though.  I'm here to talk about fanfiction.  ... I like fanfiction.  No judge, plox.  

My favorite type of fanfiction involves the act of changing one or two small details that change EVERYTHING about the characters and how they interact.  The best truly try to archive these alternate realities with as much integrity to the source material as they can.  It's a wonderful mental exercise and I truly believe that young people echo participate in this exercise, be it about Master Chief or just straight slashfiction, will grow greatly in doing so.  

You know what's coming next.  An example.  Here we go.  Let's try to create a new universe out of the Avatar universe.  What if we just swapped air with fire?  What if the fire benders were the peaceful, nomadic benders and the air benders were the army republic?  "Everything changed when the air benders attacked."  This begs the questions then: how are the air benders to match the destructive force that the fire benders were in the show and how are the fire benders going to make sense as pacifist nomads?  

Air benders could be brutal if they were not pacifists.  Air benders could be flying dervishes of lethal pressure blades, they could launch others sky high and let gravity take care of business with all the ruthless efficiency of physics, an air bender could even suffocate their foes if they simply did not let them breathe.  Good villains?  Check, but we will have to modify the respective characters to fit their new world.  Perhaps Zuko's father severed his hand instead of scarred his face.  How would this change his attitude and his legend?  

In the third book, Aang learns that fire does not need to be about rage and destruction, but instead can be seen as the primal fire of the heart-- the spark of life that animates the clay of our bodies.  Perhaps fire benders in this fic practice pacifism to align their lives towards this belief.  Their flames would shine like the heavens as they defended.  A touch could draw that life force away to stun or even to radiate to revive and revitalize.  Pursued far enough, I believe the flame of a fire bender could solely sustain the human body, allowing these nomadic healers to never need to eat (they'd drink a lot though and need to pee all the time).  Aang's whole journey and struggle for nonviolence remains intact with this small detail switched, but all the details change.  Who teaches Aang the gentler side of the ruthless air bending?  What kind of children would he and Katara had?  How would this new historical legacy of fire mesh with the existing spiritual mythos of the story?  

These questions and the details they reveal are the keys that make this exercise so powerful.  Every question is an act of creation.  You take a young and imaginative mind and just start getting them to ask these questions and explore in the endless universe fountain of their imagination about whatever it is that interests them.  Be it a book or a movie, a video game or a garden, this exercise is not only fun, but also intense training in a skill that is absolutely necessary in the dire straights my generation is in.  

So yes.  That, dear readers, is why fanfiction is the national pastime of my brain.  Have a nice day with that.

Tea on a Tortoise

A poem...  I know it's not my usual bus, but it happened, so here ya go.

Sipping tea

on the back of a great green tortoise.

In the morning, I chop away at sprigs of lemongrass

I would say it is a pain in my ass

But that would rhyme too well

And conflict with the feelings

In this most pleasant dell.

I chop chop away

Focusing on my form

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

Lemongrass and ginger

Boiled in water

Brews a simple winner

So from my leftover shreds

I brew and as I said

Sip this simple tea.
On the shoulders of giants
On the back of a great green tortoise

How happy am I to be

Chopping away in this most pleasant dell.

My thoughts roam as my hands follow their duty

Oh my tortoise would be 

so proud of me

O how I wish he could see

His child

So free

My hands so steady

My heart so at peace

My form as he taught me

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

So I sip my simple tea

As my tongue cleans the slyest twigs and slipperiest grinds

The stars fall down around me

They bow in grace for the sun

The sun which brings the hunger of the new day

A hunger welling up in my half awake brothers and sisters

Half submerged in caffeine 

Half submerged in whispers

Screamed silently into their ears

Yet the light pours over me and I bathe

The whispers of that hateful society so far below me

For here I sit

Sipping my simple tea

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

What supports the great green tortoise?

My thoughts demand this answer

As they guide my hands to cut and my tongue to clean and my brain to enjoy 

The whales, of course.

The tortoises of yesteryear are whales now, 

lifting 

so that he can lift you.

We cannot see them

Until we look deeper inside

From our perch atop a tortoise with a mouthful of tea

On the shoulders of generations

Tea on a tortoise

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the tortoise of tomorrow 

Held up by our memories

Of the tortoise today

Tea on a tortoise

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the whale of tomorrow

Living on in memory

Holding up the shoulders of giants

Holding up a great grey tortoise that is yet to be

Tea on a tortoise take three

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the water of tomorrow 

Lost to all memory

Yet the foundation of all that holds up 

The whales

The tortoise

And the tea drinker

Tea on a tortoise to the heavens

May we yet be

May we ONLY see

We are the exploding star of tomorrow

The birth of the earth 

The birth of the water

The birth of the whales and the tortoises and the tortoise toppers

We will yet be.

So sip nobly on your tea

As you chop lemongrass 

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise

Blessed are the cracked

I'm not sure where I first found this quote, but I know it's so good I had a professional poster made of it for my classroom back in the day.  "Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."

The quote says that those broken by this world are blessed because a mysterious gift is granted to the broken.  A reverence for peace is given to the war torn, an enduring strength is given to those who have fallen-- callouses grow over cuts, bones calcify after a break, muscles grow following destructive use.  One must be damaged in order to grow.  Therefore, BLESSED are those who are broken, for they will gain more than they lost-- for that is law in the twilight zone of Life.

Cynics of this mindset will ask about those who lost a limb or died from being cracked.  Surely they have not gained more than they lost, they might say.  I can't speak for all cases, only for the possibilities.  For now, I'll give a single example before finishing what I came here to write.

A woman who lost both her legs in an accident spoke on TED.  She now makes a living and a life out of pushing the boundaries of prosthetic science.  When going to parties she gets to ask herself whether she wants to be 5'8 or 6'1 that night.  When she goes out to exercise, she gets to ask herself whether she wants to break human speed records with special legs or turn her exercise into research data that will propel the world forward.  She lost what most of us take for granted.  She looked around her and saw a world full of people who didn't have to think twice about going to get a glass of water.  Her lack of legs lead her to SEARCH for legs.  That search for improvement never really ended and may never end for her.  What broke her open, instead opened her up.  What she gained by losing that much was more than what any of us have never lost, for we have never needed to seek.

This trend continues into the deepest depths of all human sufferings.  While I know not the words to explain to you that I know this, I assure you.  With my heart, with my eyes, with my body, with my soul, one simply has to search to find the light hidden within every darkness.  The more broken we become, the more light we let in.  Therefore, blessed are those who have lost, for they find the courage to seek.  Blessed are those who suffer, for they find the strength to console.  Blessed are those who lack, for they find the desire to create.  Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.  

Many consider death to be the ultimate human problem, the source of all of our suffering.  If suffering in these human bodies is akin to cracking out cup, then death is akin to annihilating our cup into nothing. I do not fear death because once my cup is annihilated, there will be nothing left but light.  This is not to say I wish to die, for that much light would surely blind me with how dull and ignorant I am.  As I age, I seek to crack open my cup more and more and accustom myself to the light that lies beyond.  This is not to say that I seek suffering either.  Firstly, I definitely don't need to search very far to find suffering, but more importantly, there is enough light and joy to blind me like death right in my backyard.  I need but empathize with the weeds or flowers as they extend upwards like groupies towards the concert stage of the performance of their lives.  I need but breathe in the air and know that my diaphragm creates a current that pulls on the hair of lovers in Argentina.  Simply see with eyes unclouded and there is no need to seek out suffering.

There is only a need to see the good that suffering will bring, if you only but open your heart to it.  Blessed are the cracked.  Blessed are you, dear reader.

Order and Chaos

I like to say often that the universe of life is a metaphor reflecting the universe of things.  As usual, this has been said before.  "As above, so below."  If you'll sit with me, dear reader, I feel this will be one of the more intense posts I'll ever write.  I could be wrong.

In today's world, we hear the words "good" and "evil" thrown around a lot.  Light and darkness, fire and water, the names change, but the concept remains the same.  Today I will be expanding on these themes by calling them instead "order" and "chaos" respectively.  The balance between these two forces, much like the good and evil stories of our culture's youth, shift the fate of the entire universe as we know it.

Chaos on the physical plane manifests as entropy, the tendency for the universe to break down.  My cod example here being the vase breaking; once broken, it is never whole again from that point in time forward.  Those aligned with this physical nature believe in impermanence and the one fate that connects us all: death.  This is not "evil", it is simply a physical reflection of the metaphor of entropy.  Scientists speak often of the end result of entropy.  If entropy is to win out, the universe itself will continue to expand until everything is ripped apart.  According to this theory, as matter spreads, gravity will not be able to overcome this emptiness and universal temperatures will drop.  Eventually, all matter in the universe will exist only in black holes, but entropy will eventually break those down too, for her immeasurable depths envelop all.  At some point further than any of us can fathom, all matter will eventually reach zero Kelvin, a metric invented to denote absolutely zero kinetic energy; no movement, no life, forever.  This is one possible death of the universe and it is the reflection of chaos reigning supreme over order.

Order on the physical plane manifests as the anti-entropic force of life.  If entropy is the breaking down, anti-entropy, now synonymous to love and order in this post, represents the tendency for life to join.  Love is an experience of two, who were once one as we all were at the Big Bang, attempting against all law in the universe to join together again.  Love is two pieces of a broken vase attempting to become whole once again.  If love were to flourish in this world, all life would begin to mix back together and form a singularity of individuals who act as one body greater than the sum of their parts.  Mankind would walk among the stars with the same chaotic grace of a body comprised of a billion cells walking through a grocery store.  This is not "good", it is simply a reflection of the metaphor of this anti-entropic mindset.  This is currently not the projection of scientists, but if order were to win out over entropy, the entire universe would eventually become one being.  "Man will impregnate the universe with knowledge and eventually matter will become mind," as someone really cool once said.  Gravity, in this case, would eventually begin to pull the entire universe even closer together.  If man can indeed master the universe, our great love will weigh on this universe with immeasurable mass and pull things closer.  Andromeda and Sol would be as connected as I am to all of you-- and eventually closer.  Closer still that this gravity would grow and grow until the entire universe would collapse in on itself and truly become one once again.  This fate is called "the Big Crunch" by physicists, and it too is a definition of how the universe might die and it is the reflection of order winning out over chaos.

Address your attention to the one common force here, gravity.  Gravity is the Tao of the universe.  Like tides, the universe as a whole flows towards order and chaos and back maintaining the life of the universe itself, for as long as neither of these forces wins, the universe will neither expand nor contract.  If either becomes too powerful, the end result is only death.  The largest cycle I can fathom (which is but a grain of sand compared to our universe) is the relationship between Sol and Serius.  These stars dance with each other in the heavens and that gravitational force astrologically creates the great Mayan cycle of awakening and falling asleep in our world.  These cycles on every level, from sub atomic particles to galactic interactions, are the very BREATH of the universe.  Breathing out into chaos is just as necessary as breathing in into order.  The Tao of gravity knows this, although gravity does not "know", it simply is.

Therefore, do not despair if you see the world through entropy-tinted glasses.  You are simply a reflection of the universe breathing and are as necessary as the brightest soul.  For that soul cannot bring breath into this world without the lack of it.  If your glasses are order-tinted, do not despair at the great battle of attempting to become one.  Revel in that struggle and commit to it because you MUST bring life and breath into this universe for it is what the lion in your heart demands.  All beings have purpose and it is only when we all do our part that the universe will live.

And death is not the end.  The Big Crunch will be followed by a Big Bang.  Life would not be able to live in that confined space for long.  As one, it would create another universe just as ours was created. The heat death of the universe would also rip apart, for the unstoppable force of entropy meeting the immovable moment of zero Kelvin would surely rip open the dimensions in a way that there are no words yet to describe.  This cycle of death and rebirth, is but one more cycle that macroscopes to every level of this universe with perfect consistency.

When I hear the words, "as above, so below", I picture a human awakening.  A state of enlightenment is reached wherein balance simply becomes.  This human's spirit becomes aligned and as above, so too their body rights itself into a state of perfect being.  As above, so below.  I would like to end this post by taking this just one step further.  I see the entire universe as one being doing whatever the hell universes do in the land beyond our many dimensions.  All of us, all of THIS STUFF, is but a metaphor for what lies above.  Take some time to reflect on those words.  As above, so below.  The universe is breathing.  Listen to that breath, dear reader, and you will know fear no more.

Flattered beyond compare

I have never been flattered more than just recently.  I told someone about Veiled and she made me a fanart of the ONE thing I have drawn for it.  I just can't even say how proud and happy getting the  appreciation and pure honor of this fanart.  

http://i.imgur.com/ddZrWHC.gif?1

The Alchemist

This book by Paulo Coelho never fails to amaze me.  I have not read it yet this year as I usually do because I have been lending it out to people constantly.  I was at a friend's house uninvited and my copy sat bookmarked in front of me.  Having already cleaned the place, I scooped it up and opened to the bookmark.

"

'An army is coming," the boy said.  'I had a vision.'

'The desert fills the hearts of man with visions," the camel driver answered.

But the boy told him about the hawks: that he had been watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself to have plunged into the Soul of the World.

The camel driver understood what the boy was saying.  He knew that any given thing on the face if the earth could reveal the history of all things.  One could open up a book to any page, look at a person's hand; one could turn a card or watch the flight of the birds ... whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment.  Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetrating the Soul of the World.  

"

There is so much more I want to copy here, but I will restrain myself.  Read it again, dear reader.  It will surprise you every time with entire chapters you never remembered it to contain.