Creation Tale Part 2

Here's Part 2 of my creation tale.

But the very nature of the Substance is growth, and growth leads to mutation, and mutation is unpredictable. The power of each God sprang from the strength of their followers faith and the number of their followers, whereas some Devils were cut off from the energies of mankind's beliefs. These Devils were the closest to the Nothing, which abhorred the aberration that was the first world, and so the Devils and Nothing conspired against Substance. The Devils created a leak in the atmosphere of belief and magic that surrounded mortals and Substance, and so the residual build up of magical energies pooled in the Nothing, and from this pool arose a new race of Gods. The Major Gods. The Major Gods are not by any means more powerful than the Minor Gods that the mortals followed, they are major in that their strength is independent from Mortals, they do not need belief or followers to be powerful. The absence of reliance on belief makes their power levels unpredictable, as well as their morals. If a Minor God descended in the eyes of it's people it becomes a Devil, but a Major God can be Malevolent and remain a God. It is not possible to kill a Minor God, but if all of their believers were killed, their power would wane so low as to be less than that of a mortal, and they would no longer truly exist unless belief in them began again. Only an immense amount of power can kill a Major God.

While these Major Gods were still but infants in the ethereal pool, the Nothing latched onto them, denying them of any choice or moral independence. It commanded them to attack the First World, and destroy all Substance. And so the Major and Minor Gods warred upon, above, and below the First World, causing great destruction to the world and great amounts of death among Mortals. Truly, the Hells and Heavens ran full.

The Substance grew desperate by this war, for even if the Major Gods lost, the destruction of the war could very well destroy it's beautiful world. It went to the two beings closest to it, two Minor Gods that chose not to fight. These two Gods were beyond love, their bond was greater than anybody ever knew. In desperation and sadness, Substance asked something of them that only they could do. In grim acceptance, they settle on their task. They pushed against one another. They fought against each other in a manner that included blows and weapons, but went far beyond that. Their love and aggression and hate and passion pushed and pushed against one another, until the two opposing forces crumpled upwards, and a magnificent, tall mountain peak was formed at the highest plain of the First World. This magical Mountain Peak was powerful enough to breach the division between planes at it's highest summit, allowing access to Time itself.

That's the end of Part 2 of my creation tale. Bye.


- By Ashton

Creation Tale Part 1

Hello. I've always loved fantasy and myths and legends, and almost every myth has a creation tale. All creation tales share key elements from culture to culture, and here's one I've written.

In the beginning, there was only the Nothing.

Out of the Nothing, in a spontaneous event, the first world came in to being. There was Nothing surrounding the Substance.

Substance craved to thrive, to grow and create, and so from the surface of the empty world sprang life, and there were Mortals on the Substance, surrounded by Nothing.

As the Mortals themselves grew, they developed beliefs. Mortals believed in Gods, like those that lorded over the weather, or the forests, or war. The beliefs of the Mortals blossomed into reality and so there was the Substance surrounded by Nothing, and Mortals and their Gods upon it.

These Gods could create heavens, ethereal places for the weak spirits of Mortals after their passing. But with Heavens, comes Hells. Some of the Mortals Gods were malevolent and lorded over their hells, but some became true Devils; cut off from all positive energies towards mankind; and some Devils sprouted out of those evils themselves. And so there was Nothing, Substance, Mortals that ruled the World, Gods that ruled the above, and Devils that ruled the below; the below and the Devils being the closest to the Nothing.

And so became two planes, the Material, and Immaterial. Up until this point, the only creatures that lived and died in the universe were Mortals. When a Mortal died, if he did right by the universe and his God, his soul moved on to his God's Heaven. If a Mortal did wrong by the universe, or was corrupted by a Devil, their soul moved on to the great Hells. Mortals that worshipped no God or Devil also moved on, if they were rightful they became Heavenly energy, or if wrongful, Hellish. Heavenly energy could be used by any being of Substance, as a powerful magical fuel. Heavenly energy is never destroyed, and if it is expended on either plane, it is merely transported back to the other plane, to be drawn on again when needed. Energies also flow freely between the planes, like great rivers. Heavenly energies brighten everything. Grass grows greener, the air is sweeter, and water is cleaner. It helps to rise the sun and keep the seasons turning. It's also possible for Heavenly energy to coalesce into a being, normally as a result of more than one Mortal soul finding common bonds in one another, and becoming a new being. These beings are very powerful, but cannot stay long on either plane before they are swept back away with the tide. Only the most powerful of souls can coalesce on it's own from it's energy source. Some choose to dally in the events of Mortals, while some retire to a Heaven, finding their own small place to rule. These beings became known as Vitans. Hellish energies could also coalesce, as the result of a large amount of evil souls binding. They become Greater Demons, more powerful than Lesser Demons that sprout from the Hells themselves, or are created by Devils. Hellish energies bring great darkness to worlds on the material plane. Fire is a neutral element between Substance and Nothing, but Hellish energies often corrupt it into a force for Nothing. Hellish energies cause many destructive forces, and are drawn upon by Devils and Demons and evil Gods or Mortals.

That's the end of the first part of my creation tale, there's more to come. Bye.

-By Ashton

Music

Hello. Today I'm writing about music.

I love music. I listen to it all the time, most of the time with my earbuds while I'm doing some sort of task. I also play music on the cello, which I do for school. I like pretty much every genre of music, although I like rap and country the least. My favorite bands are probably Twenty One Pilots or Panic! At the Disco. Currently I only have Twenty One Pilot's album Blurryface and Panic! At the Disco's Death of a Bachelor, but I plan on buying their other albums when I get a chance as well. It's been a while since I had a favorite band that was still making music, so it's exciting to have favorite modern bands like this. Panic! At the Disco is unique in that their songs have an old fashioned quality to them, that's mixed in with the new. One of my favorite songs by them is called Impossible Year and that is very much like that. Interestingly enough even though rap is one of my least favorite music genres, Twenty One Pilots incorporates rap into almost all of their songs and is definitely an example of having a very unique style. Their musi. Could be considered a mix between rock and rap and some of my favorite songs by them are Tear in my Heart and The Judge.Their music is considered alternative but I also listen to pop, rock, and symphonic.

My favorite symphonic pieces are almost all written by Michael Giacchino. Michael Giacchino writes soundtracks for movies, most often working with J.J. Abrams. The soundtracks he's written that I listen to most often are Star Trek 2008 and Star Trek Beyond. I also love the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Soundtrack, that's composed by Daniel Pemberton. One symphonic piece I like to listen to in particular is Hans Zimmer's finale, written for the finale of the Lone Ranger movie. It's ten minutes long and is based around the William Tell Overture. Another soundtrack I have get is the score from the Transformers movie. It's written by Steve Jablonsky, and it's very good.

I also really like to listen to rock music from the nineties and early two thousands. My favorite band from that time is definitely My Chemical Romance and I own everything they've written so far that's available on iTunes. Twenty One Pilots and Panic! At the Disco may be my favorite bands right now, but My Chemical Romance has been my favorite band for a long time and I always come back to listening to their music at one point.

Those are my main musical interests. Bye.


- By Ashton

Chapter 18

Julia and Carson began walking the remaining distance back to the tram station. Carson was of a medium height and build with scraggly hair that looked like it would have been just as messy before all this. Julia would have been a good bit smaller than him, but in her current state she found herself towering over him and nearly twice as wide. He had brown eyes and a wide smile and did not stop talking. He talked about what things were like before this had happened. He talked about his childhood, his schooling, how he had obtained his position as a programmer here at the installation. He began to mention his wife, a child, before he slowed down and droned off.
"We have to get to them."
"Your family is here?"
"Yes. My wife and I, we didn't want to be separated across so many miles so she works here too, also in IT. She had off today and was spending time with Matt back in 1..."
Julia could see the distress on Carson's face. His eyes were red and his face flushed, and he kneaded at his face with shaking hands.
"He's only four years old. What the hell has happened." Carson looked at her, where her face would have been.
"You're Dr. Summers aren't you? I recognize your voice." Julia kept walking.
"All of this is because of you isn't it. All the shit going on down in that hole. Don't bullshit me Summers I know."
"...we didn't mea-"
"Of course you didn't mean for it to happen. You couldn't have. But my friends are dead. Dead or worse. And that could happen to my wife and child. So what. Happened down there."
"We used the Heliogel. We caught the Dark Node; the experiment was a success. But somehow the dark node changed the Heliogel. It sent out some sort of wave of energy, the whole place started to shake and the containment tank glowed brightly and... Shrieked. There was some sort of explosion and I was knocked out. When I woke up..."
"All your friends were dead? Yeah. The feeling is familiar. And then you put on one of those suits to get out of The Hole and have worn it ever since for protection. Am I correct?"
"Yes." Julia neglected to mention her true situation, about her crushing sense of loss, how she had truly died. She was just a husk now, a program of her former self somehow running inside of a mechanical suit. Just as inhuman as the things she had been trying to survive from.
"Alright well what are we going to do about all of this?"
"First we find anybody else that's still alive. Your wife. Your kid. We don't even know if the Heliogel has spread past 1A .
"Then why has nobody come for us?" Julia had no answer.
"We have to keep looking." Julia and Carson arrived at the tram station without further incident. They didn't see any more creatures, but no more survivors either for that fact. They stepped aboard an empty tram, and were speeded off into the darkness.


- By Ashton

Pokemon Go

Hello. Today I'm blogging about a new iOS game.

Pokemon Go was recently released in the U.S. and a few other countries on smartphones. It's already the most popular app on the App Store and top grossing app on the App Store. I did a blog a while back in anticipation for Pokemon Go, and now that I actually have it, I'm writing a review. I love this game. In Pokemon Go the game tracks your location by giving you an a avatar on a GPS type map. If your phone buzzes while you have the app open, you know that a Pokemon has spawned right near you. The game contains the first 133 Pokemon, the first generation of Pokemon that Nintendo released. Each Pokemon corresponds to an elemental type, of which there are 18, such as water, fire, or grass. The type, CP, and rarity of the Pokemon determine how often and where it's going to spawn the most often. For instance, water Pokemon are most often going to spawn around lakes and rivers, whereas a small town would have a lot of bug and normal Pokemon. When a Pokemon spawns on your map you can tap it to try and capture it. Doing so utilizes your camera, showing you a 3D image of the Pokemon displayed onto real world surroundings, as if it was actually there. You can use pokeballs to try and capture it, and your success rate depends on whether or not you hit the Pokemon, it's rarity, and your timing. You can also turn off the camera which does make it a little easier to aim, but makes it less fun. If you ever see grass rustle on your map, you should make an effort to go to that place because that means there's a Pokemon in that area.

You can also tell what kinds of Pokemon are in your area using the lower right tab. The tab shows the shape of Pokemon near you. If you've seen it before it will be colored in and you know what it is, if you haven't, it's greyed out. Under the shape will be 3 or less footsteps. 3 footsteps means that it is 150 meters or less away. 2 footsteps means less than 100 meters, and 1 footstep means it's 50 meters or less from you. If it doesn't have any, it will probably appear on your map any second. Across the map are small blue towers. These towers indicate a pokestop. A pokestop is a public place such as a gym, church, fire station, restaurant, or monument, that you can stop at to get items. Items include pokeballs, incense to lure Pokemon to you, lures that lure Pokemon to a specific pokestop, and eggs. You can put an egg into an item called an incubator and once you've walked a certain distance the egg will hatch. Every five minutes or so you can use the same pokestop again.

There are also larger towers called gyms. Once you've reached level five you pick one of three teams, Instinct (yellow), mystic (blue), or valor (red). If a gym is the color of your team it means your team has captured that gym and you can fight your Pokemon against the other team of Pokemon controlling the gym, in order to train and level up. If the gym was the color of an opposing team, if you beat all six of the controlling Pokemon, you've claimed that gym for your team until a different team takes it again.

Pokemon Go is an amazing game. It's ridiculously fun, constantly updating, social game with more features and Pokemon on the way. It's also addictive in a way that's actually healthy because the game requires you to get up and walk and some players have walked miles in one day just to play the game and have fun and meet new people. I highly recommend downloading Pokemon Go.


- By Ashton

Dark Souls 3

     Hello.  Today I'm blogging about one of my new favorite games.

     I've gotten a LOT of new games this summer.  I got The Witcher 3, Dying Light, and Rocket League by using some Best Buy cards my grandparents got me.  I'm getting No Man's Sky in August, and I've gotten Dark Souls 3 in celebration of my first job.  There was a period of about two weeks before I got the game where I was researching things about it, like gameplay, tips for beginners, and lore.  I found the lore and the basic story structure of the games the most interesting.

     The creation myth of the world of Dark Souls is very interesting.  In the beginning, there was no heat, no cold, no life, no death, no light, and no dark.  No opposites existed.  Above the ground all was grey, and immense dragons lived outside of the cycle of life and death.  Underneath the ground, unthinking humanoid creatures roamed with no purpose, will, or soul.  Everything changed when the First Flame appeared.  The Fire sprang up underground and four humanoids claimed four powerful Lord Souls from the fire.  The Witch of Izalith claimed the Soul of Life, Nido The First of the Dead claimed the Soul of Death, and Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight, claimed the Soul of Light.  After these powerful Gods left the flame a fourth humanoid appeared, The Furtive Pygmy.  He claimed a unique soul, the Dark Soul.  He split the Dark Soul into thousands of pieces, and each one inhabited a humanoid, creating mankind.

     The three lords ruled over these humans, and before long they rose up to war with the dragons above.  Seathe, a scaleless dragon, betrayed his kind to Gwyn and told them that the dragon's stone scales were the secret of their immortality.  With this knowledge, Gwyn and his knights struck down the dragons with bolts of lightning, and the Age of Fire began, and opposites took form.  Powerful kingdoms rose up ruled by Gwyn and The Witch, and humanity and these Gods were at peace.  This peace would not last, for as all things must begin, so must all things end.  And so the First Flame began to die out.  With the First Flame dying, the power of the God's souls would too, and they would die with the Fire.  Humanity, each possessing a part of the Dark Soul, would come to rule the Earth in the upcoming Age of Dark.  The Witch of Izalith sought to solve this problem by creating a new First Flame, but her experiments in pyromancy were ultimately a failure.  Instead she created the Flames of Chaos, and demons were born.  Gwyn traveled downwards with his knights to the Kiln of the First Flame, and there he linked his soul to the Fire, kindling it once more, and burning him and his knights into oblivion in the process.

     With the Age of Fire extended and Nature's course broken, a horrible curse settled over mankind.  Whenever the Flame would begin to die again, the Curse of Undead would arise.  Humans would begin to be born with the Darksign.  Humans with the mark had the Curse of Undead could never die, and would only reform at Bonfires that had sprouted over the world after the Linking of the First Flame.  The sign was a curse because one could never die, and after dying so many times they would turn into Hollows.  Hollows had no memories of their past lives, and roamed the Earth with no thought or purpose, only to kill those that had not yet became as they were.  Each time this occurred mankind would spiral into Chaos and a knew champion would rise and Link the Flame, averting the Undead Curse for a few more centuries.  This was a twisted cycle, and humanity would never know the true Age of Dark that they were meant to inherit.

     I LOVE this lore of the dark souls series.  In the games, you are the champion called upon to Link the Flame and end the curse, and always there is a decision to make and a struggle to break free from this twisted cycle.  Dark Souls 3 is rumored to be the last in the series, and I'm extremely excited for the end of this game.  I highly recommend purchasing this game if you like RPGs, fantasy, and a challenge.  Bye.

Ocean City New Jersey

Hello. Today I'm writing about our recent family vacation.

Every summer my family consisting of my mom and dad, me, and my siblings Alex and Katie, have a week long vacation in Ocean City New Jersey. We've been having this vacation for as long as I can remember, even though I've been assured that I haven't been there every summer of my life. While I'm there I see my Grandma, Aunt Robin and Uncle Dave, and my two cousins, Andrew and Isaac. It's also a family reunion on my dad's side. Going to Ocean City for vacation has been a long standing annual vacation on my dad's side of the family, so as you can imagine there are many many traditions to uphold yearly. For the most part we always rent out the same beach house. Our current one we've been using for at least three years, and I remember changing from our previous one because it was getting a little small for the growing families. The trip to Ocean City is filled with nostalgia and I find those kinds of car trips very fun when you know you're going someplace fun. We get up a little early and pack up the car with our clothes, beach chairs, and bikes. Among each of our backpacks there are small things to keep us entertained during the quiet moments at the beach house or while sitting on the beach. There are normally many books, but I think I won most books packed this year at seven. We normally stop at a toy store called It's a Toy Store on the way there. It's a house that's been converted into a toy store and almost every inch of the walls and ceilings have been covered in toys or posters or statues, and there are many toy racks in the rooms. It's a very dorky place, and me, Alex, and dad enjoy it the most. Normally we'd eat lunch at a place right next to the toy store, but they were closed so we ate at a large diner a little ways down the road called May's Landing Diner which was very good. There's a bridge that takes you over to Ocean City, which is a peninsula off of New Jersey. I saw the first seagull of the year there, and you could see all of us getting very excited.

We all had a huge amount of fun at vacation this year. We upheld a couple traditions but also did new things that were tons of fun. We went to Atlantic City north of us and went in the Apple Store, where my dad got a keyboard for his iPad. We went to a Red Robin and ate large burgers before going to see Finding Dory, which was very good. I rode rides with my Mom, Alex, and Katie, and they were as exhilarating as they are every year. More than those other things I just enjoyed being there. On the boardwalk. On the beach. In the ocean. At the beach house. But above all of those other things I enjoyed being with my family, especially the ones I only get to see a few times a year.

That was this year's Ocean City vacation. Bye.


- By Ashton