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slut-for-a-good-latte · 5 months

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"i can't wait to read us"

you said.

so, this.

it is thursday. three days before my birthday. i am sitting at an outdoor brewery, the one i keep telling you about, and i am pretending to work. i am not really working; i am, as i do so often recently, thinking of you. writing about you. remembering you. remembering your hands and your mouth and watching you cook in the dim light of your kitchen and you bringing us more wine as we watch supernatural.

it's a very silly feeling. i think at this juncture i may be in love with you. which i will not say to you. i know we promised open communication. but there are, i think, rules to be followed.

i am not distressed by this revelation. it feels as though i am a fish realizing, suddenly, that i am surrounded by water. it is simply where i am. where i thrive. my natural environment, you might say.

i have some suspicions that this might be it. for awhile at least. can't tell the future, of course.

you make me feel smart and like i am worth listening to. you also are so, so, incredibly, beautifully fucking smart. i could listen to you talk about anything. i want to listen to you talk about anything.

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it is friday and you have slept late. i woke up to messages from you about how much you miss me, how you talked about me, how i should be there to warm your chest with my head and watch dumb movies with you. you are the first thing that comes to mind when i wake up now. i am inordinately disappointed i won't be seeing you today.

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evelyn.

i've had that name picked out for a long time. i mentioned it the other night. you seemed to short circuit.

is it odd i am thinking about doing the whole baby thing with you?

while i was in berlin, in the little airbnb we were staying in, i had a few moments alone. i'd walked to the grocery store and hauled a bag of white wine, bread, cheese, and almonds back to an empty apartment. and in my head, i pictured you on the couch with someone small. i pictured music playing softly in the background as you bounced a girl on your knee and kissed her soft blonde head. i pictured setting my bags on the table and asking, how are my loves? did you miss me? and you answering, laughing, of course we did, didn't we, darling? maybe it would be a date night. we'd have a show to catch, or dinner reservations to make. a sitter would be on the way. we'd spend the first part of the evening enjoying the wine and the bread and marveling at this small wonder of a person that is both of us and more than us.

evangeline. cassiopeia. calliope. cassandra. emmeline. lina. olivia.

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it is two days after my birthday and i am exhausted. all i can think about is you. it's a little silly how much i find myself missing you after spending the whole of the weekend wrapped around you.

things i do not want to fade from memory:

dancing at cheers. glancing back to see you filming me. smiling like i am the brightest thing you have ever seen.

cheshire-cat grin as you explain how some guy talked to you at length about fucking me before hurrying away when you told him, "she's coming home with me tonight."

dancing, again, but with you this time. spinning. orbiting. your hands.

kissing me triumphantly at midnight. you beat paetyn.

of course, really, really good sex after we stumbled home.

later, when we met with paisley - you bought me an ice cream in the shape of batman. it turned my tongue blue. it didn't have dairy in it. i could have cried.

listening to you chat with the bartender. i am finding i adore particularly listening to you talk to people with such earnest open interest.

you returning from leaving the table and grazing my back with your hand.

you talked with me about my writing so readily. so excitedly. not because you had to or because i asked or had to fish for a response. you read my work and reread it enough to form wonderful opinions about it and i love that.

teaching me how to shoot pool. "yes, baby!" when i sank a shot.

"too high, drop it lower - good girl."

the uber ride laying in your lap. staring up at you. your eyes shimmered. i was drunk enough i almost let it slip. i didn't. but i thought it, hard, hoping you'd feel what i wanted to say without me saying it. iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou

tuna melts. so incredibly wonderful. made better because you seemed so happy to be making them. and we ate them and fell asleep watching supernatural.

three times the next morning. three times. each time different and lovely and perfect. i want to live all the time with the feeling of you inside me. it is religious.

"you're such a good girl, you take it so well"

three times, not even counting all the other moments where it was just you enjoying me, all eager exploring mouth and gentle hands.

wine walk. discussing our befores. somehow, not uncomfortable.

reading on your couch. tired, tipsy, not feeling much like talking. letting the sound of your voice fill my chest with warmth.

it's a non-exhaustive list. i could, i think, write for hours about each thing you do that makes my heart swell. but for now i need to nap.

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i came by again on a tuesday night, and my sleep schedule is definitely suffering for it. it is entirely and completely worth it.

you wrote about me. i slept next to you and you played with my hair and lips, which i didn't notice, and you wrote about me.

you have an isosceles triangle on your back. your freckles form a perfect right angle. pythagoras, i think, was talking about you when he decided that truth could be found in perfect mathematics. you are perfect. your angles are divine.

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tinned fish in our underwear.

you held my hand while i told you all the ways i am cruel to myself. squeezed it like you understood. showed me dents in your refrigerator that explained exactly how much you understood.

you made us toast points while i spoke very plainly about things i am used to being ashamed of. and you held my hand. flinched when i mentioned how it had happened in the time since we have known each other. (maybe i imagined this part. but to me, it seemed as though you were wincing for the fact that you could not hold my hand then the way that you hold it now. or maybe not.)

i really love tinned fish. and you. you and tinned fish are my favorite combination.

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my thighs are littered in bruises. each are the shape of your fingertips. small. delicate. real, painful little reminders of your hands on me. i am obsessed with them. they are beautiful colorful stunning pieces of evidence that i have not made you up.

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i whispered i love you into your hair this morning while you slept on me.

when i left, i drove past you walking up the hill. i blew you a kiss. you caught it. blew one back.

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i am drinking earl grey tea and sparkling water, eating a panini that, honestly, darling, you could have done much better.

you are everywhere all the time. beautiful days make me think fondly of how much you will love to feel the sun on your face when you leave your apartment. cold breezes and rain make me think of curling up against you and sleeping the whole morning through, reveling in the sound of uninterrupted drizzle and the way your breath feels against my neck as you doze. earl grey tea makes me wish you were here enjoying a cup of coffee with me, nudging my bare leg with your foot.

you are everywhere. i miss you every moment i am not with you. but that is alleviated some by the way that you kiss me with every breeze that brushes across my cheeks and a patch of pure wonderful sunlight is the same as being held in your arms.

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“you can’t hide these marks from me baby. i’m never going to judge you for them. i just want to kiss them.”

i thought i heard you say “i love-“ while you were kissing my chest this morning. i don’t know if you did. but i would like to think that you can’t help but think i love you when you’re inside me with your arms wrapped completely around me. i would like to think we are on the same page about this too.

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we've said it, and i've read most of this out to you, so i suppose there's nothing stopping me from posting it.

it's been three days of existing in your space and i have adored every minute. i adore you every minute. i have never felt peace quite as all encompassing.

i love you. i don't know what else there is to say about it. but there will be more. you keep finding ways to make me need to come on here and spill my love all over a blank page.

i love you, i love you, i love you.

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i've decided to keep adding to this, because i like the idea of a long, never-ending record of all the ways i adore you.

#personal #writing #fox musings #oh darling #i cannot emphasize enough how happy i am that you exist and i can say freely how much i love you #i can't wait to keep adding to this #love #prose

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auromirafilms-blog · 4 months

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The Domain of Creating Lives: Videos that Narrates Stories

The craze for videos is increasing daily, and the affinity that youngsters have for video production is on a trend. There's no doubt that video marketing or production is impacting many lives. Videos are a new source of nurturing the ways for stories to get a medium to get conveyed. Rather than the previous traditional methods, the new technology of video production or marketing is getting more convenient for the audience.

Videos not only produce a great impact on audiences, but it also is a time-saving way to narrate the whole story in a short and crisp method in a short period.

The Process of Bringing Stories to Life on Screen

Imagine embarking on a fantastical adventure where ideas of concepts become vivid realities and the monotonous of daily existence disappears to reveal an endlessly fascinating world.

The art of storytelling, which is as old as time itself, is always changing, it is at the core of this changing process. It's intimidating, but unquestionably exhilarating, like being given a blank canvas and instructed to create a masterpiece. Here in video marketing, creativity is king and imagination is unrestricted.

“The process of turning an idea into a script is an experience unlike any other, until and unless the audience sees the behind the scene hard work of editing, scripting, and all the other elements of production and pre-production, they’ll not have the grasp of hard work it took to make the whole story in a real-life event”.

Video marketing or production is one such domain in the industry that has the ability and capability to create wonders in the form of narrating stories.

Video marketing and production have become a new fair play game in this evolving phase. Video production agencies have become one of the most demanded domains currently, as it has more opportunities and chances for young players who want to be prominent in the video marketing sector.

The field is completely evolving, now is the moment to bring those thoughts to life and transform them into personalities that captivate viewers everywhere and pop off the page.

The Captivating Ideas for Screening

Having a proper strategy and planning is very crucial, no matter what the domain is without having a strategy and planning the process of completion won’t be possible, it will be a completely incomplete process that will impact the audience.

It's the capacity to capture, to trap the imagination, and to take viewers to places they never would have imagined. The best concepts are like magnets, pulling viewers into their orbit and keeping them there.

The most compelling concepts are emotional in nature rather than merely splendid. Their goal is to delve into the most profound facets of the human experience and discover what it means to be afraid of dreams.

It evokes strong emotions in viewers, causing them to laugh, cry, and feel something deeply long after the credits have rolled.

As a video marketing agency, Auromira has always done best for their clients,starting from scripting it-shooting it-filming-to editing it, the pre-production and production are always done in a sequential order for getting and giving a clarifying product to the viewers.

Technology Enhances the Art of Bringing Stories to Life

Technology continues to push the limits of what is possible on screen, acting as both a fearless innovator and a steady ally in the ever-changing storytelling world.

From the early days of films to the digital era, technical developments have elevated storytelling to unprecedented levels, enhancing stories with striking images, engrossing soundtracks, and ground-breaking special effects.

Filmmakers today have access to an array of cutting-edge resources, such as sophisticated editing software, immersive sound systems, and state-of-the-art cameras and computer-generated images, which enable them to create worlds that astonish and engage audiences.

However, technology also helps storytellers to get deeper into the emotional center of their stories, which enables them to deeply connect with viewers. It's not always just about eye-popping graphics and stunning effects.

Auromira: Creating & Changing Perspectives

As creating stories is not enough, presenting it well visually is also the most important one. Auromira has always been the one who has been considered best for its world class delivery of narratives through visually in front of its audience.

The story building and video making procedures are the main factors for any agency to build their impression in front of the clients. Here we do not just help our client to build their strong image but also help them to set and raise their standard high.

Conclusion

Through different perspectives of various clients, the domain of video production is increasing and in this changing phase, producing and promoting videos has become a new fair play game. Currently, one of the most sought-after domains is video production agencies since they offer a wealth of options and chances for young players aspiring to be major players in the video marketing space.

#video ads bhubaneswar #video production company #digital marketing agency in odisha #advertising agency #digital marketing agency in bhubaneswar #corporate video odisha #best videography services in bhubaneswar

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spacenutspod · 9 months

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32 Min Read The Marshall Star for December 20, 2023 Crew-6 Connects with Marshall Team Members During Visit By Celine Smith One week after the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 visited the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center to share their experience during Expedition 69. The event was held Dec. 14 in Building 4316. Expedition 69 began March 2 with Crew-6 flying on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. While aboard the space station, the crew studied the behavior of flames in microgravity, grew cardiac tissue using 3-D culturing, and researched the impact of weightlessness on astronauts’ health. Expedition 69 Crew-6 astronauts smile and hold a banner for a photo with team members from the Human Exploration Development & Operations Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. From left, the astronauts are Sultan Alneyadi, Steven Bowen, Warren “Woody” Hoburg, and Frank Rubio. NASA/Charles Beason NASA astronauts Frank Rubio (flight engineer), Stephen Bowen (flight engineer), Warren “Woody” Hoburg (flight engineer), and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi (flight engineer) answered questions from Marshall team members after viewing a short film summarizing the research done on Expedition 69. Acting Center Director Joseph Pelfrey welcomed Marshall team members, thanking them and Crew-6 for all the effort that goes into making a mission successful. “As we wrap up 2023, I just want to say how proud I am of our team and all the accomplishments that you have helped us achieve this year,” Pelfrey said. “Crew-6 is going to talk about their amazing experience. Marshall is a part of that experience and mission with the work we do here between Payload Operations, the Environmental Control and Life Support System and payload facilities and our Commercial Crew Program support. This is a great time to hear from our guests and celebrate our successes together.” During the Q&A portion of the event, the audience learned about the strides in research being made on the station. Hoburg discussed the growing of human tissue while on the expedition. “One day Sultan worked on heart muscle cells up there and we actually got to see the cells beating under the microscope,” Hoburg said. “We’re doing work in Low Earth orbit to help people back on Earth with potential heart disease. We also did work with the BioFabrication facility where we 3D-printed biological material. We printed the first-ever section of human meniscus.” The microgravity environment of the station provides crew members with the ability to do more intricate work that cannot be done as well on Earth, Hoburg explained. Expedition 69 is particularly important because it marks the longest time an American astronaut has been in space. The end of the mission concluded Rubio’s 371-day stay in space, which began with Expedition 68. “I was excited to implement lessons learned right away,” Rubio said. “With your first mission, you’re learning. You typically don’t get to implement your better self until years later. I got that opportunity much sooner.” From left, Alneyadi, Hoburg, Bowen, and Rubio answer questions during the Marshall team member Q&A portion of their visit. NASA/Charles Beason Rubio also used his experience to detail the effects of prolonged time in space on the body. “You miss microgravity, in the sense that it’s a lot of fun to just fly around,” he said. “It takes 72 hours to 5 days to fully acclimate to microgravity. After two weeks, you’re completely used to it. When you come back to Earth, there’s a lot of aches and pains because the reality is offloading everything off your joints, especially your spine, feels good – specifically for those who are older. Like, for me, it feels like I’ve run a 5k every time I get up because my feet did nothing for a year, but your body does readjust.” Expedition 69 also marks the first time a UAE astronaut has been to the station. Alneyadi spoke about his unique experience when asked about his participation in a culturally based event. “I was presenting to the whole region, speaking Arabic, discussing the International Space Station, and showcasing the importance of its science,” Alneyadi said. “It was very impactful, and I felt honored to be a part of it as well. I see the impact on the students. They ask a lot of questions and have a lot of excitement.” The event concluded with the opportunity for attendees to get their picture taken with the Crew-6 astronauts. “People are the same everywhere, that’s the basics of humanity,” Bowen said when asked what’s the most exciting thing he’s learned from the international aspect of his work. From our perspective, we can’t see borders — it’s one Earth. At the very intimate singular level, people are people. We’re people, and we’re absolutely capable of doing amazing things.” Learn more about Crew-6. Smith, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top Take 5 with Jason Adam By Wayne Smith For Jason Adam, joining NASA wasn’t a career choice. It was a calling. “A calling to push the boundaries of human knowledge, to turn the dreams of a starry-eyed child gazing up at the sky into a reality, and to be a part of humanity’s greatest adventure – the exploration of the universe,” said Adam, who is the manager for the CFM (Cryogenic Fluid Management) Portfolio Project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Jason Adam, manager for the CFM Portfolio Project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, holds a full-size resin model of a Thermodynamic Vent System Injector while standing in front of an Exploration Systems Test Facility within the CFM Laboratory in Building 4205.NASA/Danielle Burleson The project develops key CFM technologies used to acquire, transfer, and store cryogenic fluids in orbit. The project is within STMD (Space Technology Mission Directorate) and develops crucial technologies for STMD and other mission directorates. Adam’s role extends across 12 states and six NASA centers, managing significant contracts and a multitude of complex activities nationwide. Growing up in North Dakota, Adam said he always was captivated by the mysteries of the universe as he studied the night sky. “(I was fascinated) by the endless expanse above, with its twinkling stars and wandering planets, and boundless possibilities,” he said. “This childhood wonder laid the foundation for my journey to NASA. It was here that my dream to explore the cosmos took flight.” Working with projects like CFM enables Adam to live his dream, and he hopes to inspire others as well toward NASA’s mission of exploring the universe for the benefit of all. “Remember your journey at NASA is not just about personal achievements, but also about contributing to the greater goal of exploring and understanding our universe,” he said. “Embrace this opportunity with enthusiasm and a commitment to excellence.” Question: What excites you most about the future of human space exploration and your team’s role it? Adam: Cryogenic fluid management is a critical and exciting area of technology, particularly in relation to the exploration of Mars for several reasons. One of the primary uses of cryogenic fluids in space exploration is as rocket fuel, specifically liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. These cryogenically stored fuels are highly efficient but must be kept at extremely low temperatures. Effective cryogenic fluid management is crucial for months or years-long missions to Mars, as it ensures that the spacecraft has enough fuel for the journey there, operations on the Martian surface, and the return trip. Mars missions are looking into using ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) to generate fuel from Martian resources. For example, water ice from Mars can be processed into liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Managing these cryogenic fluids effectively is essential for this process to be viable, enabling longer and more sustainable missions. Cryogenic fluid management is not only a cornerstone to enable Mars exploration but also a catalyst for broader innovations in space travel and various terrestrial applications. Question: What has been the proudest moment of your career and why? Adam: There have been many proud moments in my 20-plus years at Marshall that originated at Stennis Space Center. Some of those moments include helping the shuttle return to safe flight through testing SSMEs (space shuttle main engines) at Stennis, to flying the Mighty Eagle Lander with a small team in the Marshall West Test Area, to now having the privilege of leading the CFM project with a group of spectacular individuals. In each case, I have been proudest when the team was accountable, authentic, passionate, inclusive, and highly competent. Those are the teams I cherish most and the type of environment I try to create as a leader. Question: Who or what drives/motivates you? Adam: Working at Marshall, my motivation is deeply rooted in the pioneering spirit of technological innovation and the quest for knowledge beyond Earth. Marshall, known for its groundbreaking work in developing systems that push the boundaries of space technology, serves as a constant source of inspiration for me. My drive is fueled by a profound passion for space exploration. The idea of contributing to missions that reach into the unknown, that test the limits of human ingenuity and reveal the mysteries of the cosmos, is what gets me up in the morning. I’m driven by the knowledge that the systems and technologies you’re helping to develop at Marshall will one day make space more accessible and safer for astronauts. This drive isn’t just about the technology itself, it’s about what that technology represents – the human desire to explore, to learn, and to constantly push forward. My motivation comes from wanting to contribute in a meaningful way to this grand endeavor. Each day at Marshall offers a new opportunity to be a part of something larger than yourself – to contribute to a legacy of exploration that benefits not just the present generation but also the future ones. In my role, I’m not just a witness to history in the making; I’m an active participant in shaping it. Question: What advice do you have for employees early in their NASA career or those in new leadership roles? Adam: First, follow your passion. Begin by immersing yourself in a field that truly fascinates you. NASA’s diverse missions span from the depths of the oceans to the far reaches of space, so align your work with what genuinely excites you. This passion will be your driving force and will keep you motivated through challenges. Second, build a strong foundation. Whether your focus is technical, scientific, or administrative, strive to develop a robust base of knowledge and skills. Seek opportunities to learn from different projects and teams. This diverse experience will be invaluable as you progress in your career, providing a well-rounded perspective and a toolkit of solutions. Third, nurture your team. As you advance into leadership roles, remember that your success is intricately linked to the well-being and performance of your team. Invest in understanding their strengths, aspirations, and challenges. Encourage an environment where everyone feels valued and motivated. Strive to create an environment where employees can bring their full self to work. Question: What do you enjoy doing with your time while away from work? Adam: Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family. My wife and I have three children and two dogs. We like to spend time outdoors and enjoy camping around the region in our camper on some weekends. My wife and I also like to watch our alma mater, North Dakota State University, play football. Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top Pamela Bourque Named Chief Counsel at Marshall Pamela Bourque has been named as chief counsel at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. She has served as the center’s acting chief counsel since May, leading Marshall’s Office of the General Counsel team and overseeing the legal practice areas of procurement and contract law, partnerships and agreements, personnel law, ethics, fiscal law, employment law, intellectual property, and litigation. Marshall’s chief counsel is responsible for coordinating a full range of legal operations affecting the center and its organizations. The chief counsel also serves as a senior member of the NASA Office of the General Counsel’s enterprise leadership team. Pamela Bourque, chief counsel at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA From 2022 to April 2023, Bourque was Marshall’s deputy chief counsel, assisting the chief counsel with managing the legal operations of the center. She also supported the NASA legal enterprise on various senior teams, including the Legal Leadership Board, the Ethics Best Practices Working Group, the Deputy Counsel Forum, and participated as a mentor in NASA’s attorney mentoring program. From 2005 to 2022, Bourque was the center’s assistant chief counsel for general law and litigation. She was the functional lead for litigation matters and provided Marshall management with legal advice and representation in the areas of personnel law, federal ethics standards, agreements, and other matters. Under her leadership, Marshall’s Ethics Program was recognized by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics with an Ethics Program Award. From 1993 to 2005, Bourque was an attorney-adviser at Marshall. She has previously served as president of the North Alabama Chapter of the FBA (Federal Bar Association), as well as the chair of FBA’s Labor Law Symposium for multiple years. Bourque has been recognized with numerous NASA awards during her career, including the NASA Office of the General Counsel’s Meritorious Service Award, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the NASA Silver Achievement Medal, the NASA Space Flight Awareness Launch Honoree Award, the NASA Space Flight Awareness Silver Snoopy Award, the Marshall Engineering Directorate’s Service to Engineering Award, and other performance, on-the-spot, and peer awards. She has been profiled in Women at NASA. A native of Broussard, Louisiana, Bourque is a graduate of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command’s Leadership Investment for Tomorrow (LIFT-II) Program, the Simmons Executive Leadership for Women/NASA Fellowship at Simmons College, the Department of Defense Mediator Certification Program, and she is currently enrolled in the Leadership of Greater Huntsville’s Connect Emerging Leaders Program. Bourque earned a Juris Doctor degree from Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she was a senior fellow. She received her honors baccalaureate degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She lives in Madison with her husband, Max Patin. They have two children. › Back to Top Thomas Percy Named Systems Engineering and Integration Manager for Human Landing System Program Thomas Percy has been named as the SE&I (Systems Engineering and Integration) manager for the HLS (Human Landing System) Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The SE&I office oversees the development and verification of requirements, cross-discipline insight into commercial lander providers, and cross-program integration. The HLS SE&I team is also responsible for integration with the Moon to Mars Program in the areas of mission development, general analyses, and requirements management. Thomas Percy, Systems Engineering and Integration manager for the Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA/Danielle Burleson Since 2021, Percy has been the deputy SE&I manager for HLS. From 2020 to 2021, he was the integrated performance lead for HLS, managing the team within SE&I responsible for trajectory analysis, environments, performance assessment, mission development, and metric tracking. From 2016 to 2020, Percy was a space systems analyst prior to his role as chief architect of the Advanced Concepts Office at Marshall, where he supported the formulation of the HLS Program as well as transportation architecture studies for human Mars missions and the development of various robotic spacecraft concepts. Prior to joining NASA in 2016, Percy spent 13 years working in private industry at SAIC as a section manager and support contractor to Marshall and Johnson Space Center. He also was a part-time instructor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville off and on from 2006-2021. His honors include a NASA Group Achievement Award: Human Landing System Source Evaluation Panel; NASA Exceptional Service medal; NASA Silver Achievement Medal Group: Human Landing System Source Evaluation Panel; and a NASA Group Achievement Award: Mars Basis of Comparison Reference Team. A native of Easton, Massachusetts, Percy received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, a master’s in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, and a doctorate in aerospace systems engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He and his wife, Erin, live in Madison. They have three children. › Back to Top Mission Success is in Our Hands: Chelsi Cassilly Mission Success is in Our Hands is a safety initiative collaboration between NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Jacobs. As part of the initiative, eight Marshall team members are featured in new testimonial banners placed around the center. This is the second in a Marshall Star series profiling team members featured in the testimonial banners. Chelsi Cassilly is a planetary protection microbiologist working for Jacobs at Marshall, where she’s been for almost three years. A native of Tennessee, she previously worked at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, as a postdoctoral fellow prior to joining Jacobs. She’s a graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, and of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned a doctoral degree in microbiology. Chelsi Cassilly is a planetary protection microbiologist working at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA/Charles Beason “It’s an honor and privilege to work for Jacobs and NASA,” Cassilly said. “I look forward to work every single day and consider myself exceptionally blessed with this opportunity I’ve been afforded.” Question: What are some of your key responsibilities? Cassilly: I support many different projects at Marshall. Primarily I help projects implement planetary protection. This includes the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which is part of the Mars Sample Retrieval Lander; a mission concept for a Europa Lander; and the lunar Human Landing System. I also manage the Planetary Protection Lab at Marshall, which is a fully functional biosafety level 2 lab. Funded by multiple sources, including NASA ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science), Marshall Cooperative Agreement Notices, Marshall Technical Excellence funding, and Jacobs Innovation Grants, I have both completed and continue to support multiple smaller experiments to determine microbial abundance within materials as well as sterilization methods. Question: How does your work support the safety and success of NASA and Marshall missions? Cassilly: NASA missions must meet the requirements laid out by headquarters. One subset of requirements on some missions is planetary protection, that is, preventing forward and backward microbial contamination. Marshall is involved with several missions where there are planetary protection requirements to meet. I help the center interpret and implement techniques to meet the requirements. I am currently the only point of contact for this discipline at Marshall, so I take seriously the responsibility of helping engineers understand unfamiliar terminology while also ensuring we are compliant with requirements, therefore helping achieve the goals of our missions. Question: What does the Mission Success is in Our Hands initiative mean to you? Cassilly: It means that success is personal. It means every single one of us can contribute in large ways to mission success simply by being ethical and maintaining our integrity as workers and as individuals. Question: How can we work together better to achieve mission success? Cassilly: We can support one another by encouraging safety, ethics, a culture of learning, ownership, and integrity within our teams. We can foster an environment where ownership is lauded and correction is not seen as negative, but rather as learning opportunities and areas of improvement. Benchmarking such progress of both individuals and teams, using mistakes and problems to propel us forward, will serve to strengthen teams, develop a sense of pride in our collective mission, and provide clear trajectory for our long-term efforts and goals. › Back to Top I am Artemis: Bruce Askins Growing up, Bruce Askins was passionate about space and oceanography. His desire to explore other worlds always made him want to be an astronaut. Though he did not become an astronaut, Askins has built a 42-year career at NASA, and, as the infrastructure management lead for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Askins is an integral part for the next generation of explorers. Askins and his team are the gatekeepers and protectors of data and responsible for both cyber- security and physical security for the SLS Program. Under Askins’ leadership, his team ensures all data is stored properly, that information about the rocket shared outside NASA is done with proper data markings, and access is given to those that need it. Bruce Askins is the infrastructure management lead for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA/Sam Lott Askins wasn’t always familiar with the world of infrastructure and cyber security. As a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Askins began his career as part of NASA’s internship program. He considered himself imaginative, or “creatively driven,” which is why Askins originally pursued a career at NASA. “I always loved the design aspect of my early position in special test equipment,” Askins says. “Back then I drew everything by hand with a pencil before eventually transitioning to computers.” His creativity and interest in underwater worlds, along with his scuba diver certification, led him to have a hand in designing early test elements for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, a former underwater training facility at Marshall, Askins interacted with a crew of astronauts supporting Hubble and designed the flight simulation hardware used for crew training on the Canadarm2 robotic arm that is still a part of the International Space Station today. Askins has been a part of the NASA family for almost half a century and is thrilled to be a part of the next era of space exploration to the Moon under Artemis. “To explore is one of the greatest things that we can all do, and with the Artemis Generation the sky’s the limit,” Askins said. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch. › Back to Top NASA’s Tech Demo Streams First Video from Deep Space via Laser NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment beamed an ultra-high definition streaming video on Dec. 11 from a record-setting 19 million miles away (or about 80 times the Earth-Moon distance). The milestone is part of a NASA technology demonstration aimed at streaming very high-bandwidth video and other data from deep space – enabling future human missions beyond Earth orbit. “This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.” Members of the DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) team react to the first high-definition streaming video to be sent via laser from deep space Dec. 11 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Sent by the DSOC transceiver aboard the Psyche spacecraft nearly 19 million miles from Earth, the video features a cat named Taters.NASA/JPL-Caltech The demo transmitted the 15-second test video via a cutting-edge instrument called a flight laser transceiver. The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system’s maximum bit rate of 267 Mbps (megabits per second). Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent “live” to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time. Deep Space Optical Communications, or DSOC, a NASA technology demonstration riding aboard the Psyche space craft, is using advanced laser communication technology to transmit large amounts of data back to earth. DSOC is the latest in a series of optical communication demonstrations funded by the agency’s TDM (Technology Demonstration Missions) program office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “We just demonstrated a highly advanced data transmission capability that will play an instrumental role in NASA’s boldest missions to deep space, and it shows that DSOC is functioning successfully in a relevant environment,” said Tawnya Laughinghouse, manager of the TDM program office at Marshall. “Streaming an ultra-high definition video from millions of miles away in deep space is no small feat.” The laser communications demo, which launched with NASA’s Psyche mission Oct. 13, is designed to transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by deep space missions today. As Psyche travels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the technology demonstration will send high-data-rate signals as far out as the Red Planet’s greatest distance from Earth. In doing so, it paves the way for higher-data-rate communications capable of sending complex scientific information, high-definition imagery, and video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars. “One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles. Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data,” said Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s project manager at JPL. “But to make this significant event more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demo as part of the Psyche mission.” Uploaded before launch, the short ultra-high definition video features an orange tabby cat named Taters, the pet of a JPL employee, chasing a laser pointer, with overlayed graphics. The graphics illustrate several features from the tech demo, such as Psyche’s orbital path, Palomar’s telescope dome, and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate. Tater’s heart rate, color, and breed are also on display. This 15-second clip shows the first ultra-high-definition video sent via laser from deep space, featuring a cat named Taters chasing a laser with test graphics overlayed. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) “Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, the project’s receiver electronics lead at JPL. “In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space. JPL’s DesignLab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology – everyone loves Taters.” There’s also a historical link: Beginning in 1928, a small statue of the popular cartoon character Felix the Cat was featured in television test broadcast transmissions. Today, cat videos and memes are some of the most popular content online. This latest milestone comes after “first light” was achieved on Nov. 14. Since then, the system has demonstrated faster data downlink speeds and increased pointing accuracy during its weekly checkouts. On the night of Dec. 4, the project demonstrated downlink bit rates of 62.5 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 267 Mbps, which is comparable to broadband internet download speeds. The team was able to download a total of 1.3 terabits of data during that time. As a comparison, NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus downlinked 1.2 terabits during its entire mission from 1990 to 1994. “When we achieved first light, we were excited, but also cautious. This is a new technology, and we are experimenting with how it works,” said Ken Andrews, project flight operations lead at JPL. “But now, with the help of our Psyche colleagues, we are getting used to working with the system and can lock onto the spacecraft and ground terminals for longer than we could previously. We are learning something new during each checkout.” The Deep Space Optical Communications demonstration is the latest in a series of optical communication demonstrations funded by the TDM program under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and supported by NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program within the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program under the Science Mission Directorate, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center, managed the launch service. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis. › Back to Top NASA Geologist Paves Way for Building on the Moon By Jessica Barnett For many at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a love – be it for space, science, or something else – drew them to the career they’re in today. For geologist Jennifer Edmunson, there were multiple reasons. Her love for geology dates back to her childhood in Arizona, playing in the mud, fascinated by the green river rocks she would find and how they fit together. As she grew older, her love for astronomy led her to study the regolith and geology of the Moon and Mars in graduate school. Jennifer Edmunson, geologist and MMPACT project manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA That, in turn, led her to Marshall for her post-doctorate, where she studied how shock processes from meteorite impacts potentially affect scientists’ work to determine the age of rocks using different radioisotope systems. On her first day, she needed help from the center’s IT department, which is how she met Joel Miller, the man she now calls her husband. “I met him on April Fools’ Day, and he asked me out on Friday the 13th,” Edmunson recalled. “I knew I needed to get a stable job, so I got a job as the junior geologist on the simulant team here at Marshall. That was back in 2009.” Fourteen years later, they still work at Marshall. He’s now the center’s acting spectrum manager, and she manages the MMPACT (Moon-to-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology) project. Through MMPACT, Marshall is working with commercial partners and academia to develop and test robotic technology that will one day use lunar soil and 3-D printing technology to build structures on the Moon. “It’s phenomenal to see the development of the different materials we’ve been working on,” Edmunson said. “We started with this whole array of materials, and now we’re like, ‘OK, what’s the best one for our proof of concept?’” NASA aims for a proof-of-concept mission to validate the technology and capability by the end of this decade. This mission would involve traveling to the Moon to create a representative element of a landing pad. MMPACT aims to build lunar infrastructure using the materials readily available on the Moon. This process, known as in-situ resource utilization, allows NASA engineers to use lunar regolith, fine-grained silicate minerals thought to be available in a layer between 10 to 70 feet deep on the lunar surface, to build different structures and infrastructure elements. Marshall geologist and MMPACT project manager Jennifer Edmunson, fourth from right, joined several other scientists for a trip to Stillwater, Montana, earlier this year. Stillwater is known to have rocks like those found on the Moon.NASA However, regolith can’t be used like cement here on Earth, as it wouldn’t solidify in the low-pressure environment. So, Edmunson and her team are now looking at microwaves and laser technology to heat the regolith to create solid building materials. After successfully building a full-scale landing pad on the Moon, MMPACT will likely focus on a vertical structure, like a garage, habitat, or safe haven for astronauts. “The possibilities are endless,” she said. “There is so much potential for using different materials for different applications. There’s just a wealth of opportunity for anyone who wants to play in the field, really.” Edmunson hopes to get more lunar regolith first, as NASA is still working with samples from the Apollo missions and simulants based on those samples. She’s also looking forward to Artemis bringing back samples from different parts of the lunar surface because it will provide her team with a wider pool of regolith samples to analyze. “We want to learn more about different locations on the Moon,” she said. “We have to understand the differences and how that might affect our processes.” Knowing this will make it easier not just to build landing pads and habitats but to build roadways and the start of a lunar economy, Edmunson said. Some minerals are rare on Earth but abundant on the Moon. To study how those minerals could be used for building, scientists rely on simulants, like the synthetic anorthite pictured here.NASA “I want there to be sufficient structures there to make things safe for crew, so if we want to build a hotel on the Moon, we could,” she said. “We could have tourists going there, mining districts pulling rare Earth elements from the Moon. We could do that and get a lot of resources that way. I want science to progress, things like building a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. I want more information on more of the different sites around the Moon, so we can get a be`tter understanding of how the Moon formed and the history of the Moon. We’ve only scratched the surface there.” There are parts of the Moon that can only be explored in detail by visiting in person, Edmunson explained, and she’s excited to be working at Marshall as that exploration is made possible. “It’s awesome to be part of this. Honestly, it’s the reason I get out of bed in the morning,” she said. “I was born in ’77, so I missed the Apollo lunar landings. I would love to see humans on the Moon in my lifetime, and on Mars would just be amazing.” Her advice is simple to anyone considering a career like hers: Just go for it. “A lot of it comes down to passion and tenacity,” she said. “If you really love what you do and you get to do it every day, you find more enjoyment in your career. I feel like I’m making a difference, and with surface construction at such an infant kind of stage right now, I feel like it’s a contribution that will last for a very long time.” Barnett, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top Sprightly Stars Illuminate ‘Christmas Tree Cluster’ A new image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights. NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars – with ages between about one and five million years old – in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses. This new image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights.X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and B.A. Wolpa (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA); Infrared: NASA/NSF/IPAC/CalTech/Univ. of Massachusetts; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & J.Major This new composite image enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image. Young stars, like those in NGC 2264, are volatile and undergo strong flares in X-rays and other types of variations seen in different types of light. The coordinated, blinking variations shown in this animation, however, are artificial, to emphasize the locations of the stars seen in X-rays and highlight the similarity of this object to a Christmas tree. In reality, the variations of the stars are not synchronized. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video This composite image shows the Christmas Tree Cluster. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image. The variations observed by Chandra and other telescopes are caused by several different processes. Some of these are related to activity involving magnetic fields, including flares like those undergone by the Sun – but much more powerful – and hot spots and dark regions on the surfaces of the stars that go in and out of view as the stars rotate. There can also be changes in the thickness of gas obscuring the stars, and changes in the amount of material still falling onto the stars from disks of surrounding gas. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. › Back to Top NASA’s 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Test a Success NASA has achieved a new benchmark in developing an innovative propulsion system called the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center successfully tested a novel, 3D-printed RDRE for 251 seconds (or longer than four minutes), producing more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. That kind of sustained burn emulates typical requirements for a lander touchdown or a deep-space burn that could set a spacecraft on course from the Moon to Mars, said Marshall combustion devices engineer Thomas Teasley, who leads the RDRE test effort at the center. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center conduct a successful, 251-second hot fire test of a full-scale Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine combustor in fall 2023, achieving more than 5,800 pounds of thrust.NASA RDRE’s first hot fire test was performed at Marshall in the summer of 2022 in partnership with In Space LLC and Purdue University, both of Lafayette, Indiana. That test produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The primary goal of the latest test, Teasley noted, is to better understand how to scale the combustor to different thrust classes, supporting engine systems of all types and maximizing the variety of missions it could serve, from landers to upper stage engines to supersonic retropropulsion, a deceleration technique that could land larger payloads – or even humans – on the surface of Mars. Test stand video captured at Marshall shows ignition of a full-scale Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine combustor, which was fired for a record 251 seconds and achieved more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. (NASA) “The RDRE enables a huge leap in design efficiency,” he said. “It demonstrates we are closer to making lightweight propulsion systems that will allow us to send more mass and payload further into deep space, a critical component to NASA’s Moon to Mars vision.” Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Venus Aerospace of Houston, Texas, are working with Marshall to identify how to scale the technology for higher performance. RDRE is managed and funded by the Game Changing Development Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. › Back to Top

#space #astronomy #news #science

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the-unknown-writer-of-dreams · 1 year

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Faster than Light- Short Film Review

Written and directed by Adam Stern, Faster than Light is a 2017 science fiction short film that includes stars such as Ty Olsen, Karin Konoval, and Aliya O’Brian. The movie has been nominated eleven times and has won six awards and has a 6.5 review rate on IMDb.

The movie starts with dramatic music to help the audience feel excited when they a man sitting in a spacecraft which is immediately replaced by a piece of pop music telling the audience that this is a safe movie where nothing wrong can happen. The person sitting in the spacecraft is Commander Kane (played by Ty Olsen) who would be trying for the first time ever faster than light spacecraft to reach the orbit of Mars in three minutes. The movie also includes pieces where the commander is trying to lighten the mood of his colleagues specifically Sarah Johns (played by Karin Konoval). As the movie progress, we get to some great CGI effects and graphics where Commander starts the ship and gets ready to be the first man to travel faster than light. Realistic scenes have been shown in the movie where instructions and every second movement have been informed back and forth and the best part was when the audience is made to wait while the spacecraft reaches its destination with ominous music telling the worst is about to come. A moment of happiness arrives when contact between NASA and commander Kane was made after he was in high orbit on Mars. But it would not be a science fiction movie in space without malfunctions and aliens. As Commander Kane was making his way back, malfunction starts to occur and he loses control of the ship, panic surges as he increases his voice to tell the base station but by then the communication has been stopped and he is being pulled into yet another vector and being lost in space. While NASA is trying to figure out what is happening, we see the commander making his first-ever contact with an alien species as they completely eradicate him. In his final moments, we see him reminiscing his days with his wife (played by Aliya O’Brian) and his son (played by John Torrance) where he pushed the fears of his wife about the dangers including space travel, and assured them everything would be fine. His wife and son along the world saw the disappearance of Commander Kane.

Twenty-one Hours later just as NASA is giving up on the hope of a return an anomaly appears that is approximately 2.4 Clicks from ISS and when asked for visuals, we see aliens entering the orbit of Earth right where Commander’s wife and son lived, bringing him back to earth, more like microchipping him back like a hologram showing the alien’s advanced civilization. After the aliens leave life returns in the commander’s eyes as he calls out and says “It’s me”. But that is not where the movie ends, as the reunion was going on we see a glimpse of golden light flicker from the commander’s forehead, leaving the audience with suspense and wanting more.

The movie in the beginning showed the use of dramatic music and then suddenly shifted it to pop to lighten up the mood to shift it back to ominous in order to make the audience stay glued to the seat. There was no visible alien or communication done just as the mysterious moment that was made during the first contact. If we see the first contact from the alien’s Point of View, we could say that they just sent a little alien who ended up in their orbit to their rightful place

This story just leaves you with wanting more.

#Faster than light #movie review #shortfilm #shortfilmreview #sci fi #review recap

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zeninsama-moved · 1 year

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NAOYA ANON IS HERE WHAT HAPPENED WHAT ARE YOU THINKING

I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT MY ANSWER TO THIS ALL DAY (AND EVER SINCE U FIRST RECOMMENDED THE FIC TO ME TBH) AND I JUST... first of all, i haven't finished it yet, i stopped at chapter 11 because i had to sleep so these are my thoughts so far. i may have missed a thing or two but this is the gist.

be warned there will be jjk manga spoilers/fic spoilers also this post is so fucking long i'm sorry

so i made note of the scenes/lines that had me screaming my head off and i will share them/discuss them under the cut <3

starting lighthearted with gojo things i found absolutely hilarious

"damn. by virtue of that, that means that technically-ish, gojo would be the semi leader of the zen'in clan. holy shit. shit's wild, son."

"maybe later he could trot over to lawson's and get himself a nice juice box, then a chocolate coolish ice cream pouch. yeah, that's the shit right there."

"behind you, he could hear your mother speaking with one of the servants in the hallway and he hopes to god she doesn't join in on the conversation. why the hell does she have to be here? fuckin' kris jenner with her bullshit, couldn't she leave her daughter to make her own decisions for herself? what's next, a sex tape to keep you in the zen'in family? shit. caught in 4k, filmed by gojo (and starring gojo)."

"should he pick you up and shot-put you into the distance so that you're like one twinkling star as you orbit? he doesn't know. if you were a dude, he'd definitely do that to you. fine. equal opportunity, it's the twenty-first century, he'll shot-put you."

"he looks nice like this, you think, in a thin white linen button-down short sleeve with cream shorts and... you do your best not to grimace. fucking assistant to the regional manager over here with the birkenstock kicks. at least he's not wearing white socks with them. you'll make sure you don't look anywhere past his kneecaps."

"'you wanna kiss me that bad?' he slaps his palm down onto the table as he chews and swallows. 'i knew it, you can touch me anytime, anywhere you want, babe–'"

GOJO IS A FUCKING MENACE IN THIS FIC! I LOVE THAT HE'S SO EMBARRASSING, IT FEELS LIKE REAL GOJO <3 his dynamic with the reader is so funny too, how she (for the most part) wants absolutely nothing to do with him. how things can be normal and sweet between them and then he says something so painfully cringe that it snaps us back to reality. what a fucking man.

"sometimes, he would dream that your thumb was a sausage and give it a bite. usually you would wake up and give him a bite back on his black, pointy ear."

NOW THIS LINE IS NOT GOJO OR NAOYA RELATED BUT IT'S ONE I ENJOYED NONETHELESS... i love kimi so much <3 the concept of him alone is so cool, being part-shikigami, part-demon or whatever, and how he can morph into different weapons for us to wield <3 also the scene where his paw emerged from the shadows to pester gojo for some salmon LMAO

okay.............. onto the main event i think...... onto naoya......

a lil tw for misogyny/death even though i know naoya anon will be the only one reading this

"a boy, he wanted a boy. he must have a boy. at least two or three. then you could have a girl, he'd gift you with one, he had told you before as you stared up at him with that dumb, fucked out expression. he'd gift you a baby girl after you had done your duty to him as his wife. a baby girl, as a treat. a reward if you're a good little wife."

WHY DID THIS HAVE ME FUCKING SCREAMING!!!

"for now, you would make do with expensive designer items as gifts until you managed to bear him a son. no little girl yet. but you'd work on that, he'd work on that – he'd make sure to work his fat dick into you as often as he possibly could to achieve that goal. he'd tell you he's such a good husband, making sure you get your own little treat."

DECEASED. I AM DECEASED.

"yeah, don't bother. this is too much for yer pretty little head. just go be pretty and dumb elsewhere, lil' baby. go on now, shoo."

"my pretty little girl. right? that's right. yer my baby girl, all mine? tell me, baby girl, who do you belong to?"

"stayed up all night waitin' for me, eh? what a good wife y'are. c'mere'n let me see yer cute face."

JUST... THE WAY NAOYA SPEAKS... THE THINGS HE SAYS TO US. it reminds me very much of touya because it's affectionate for a guy like him but still teasing and playful. these lines had me blushing so hard and kicking my feet and giggling. the use of petnames like "lil' baby" and "baby girl" and him telling you to "c'mere'n let me see yer cute face" ohhhhh my god.......

not to mention, i love his accent very much. country boyyy i love youuuuu.

"'c'mon now,' he mutters, turning his head to the side so he can press a kiss to your temple. 'why didn'tcha say somethin' earlier if it bothered you that much, you dumb baby.'"

this scene really changed everything for me... i will expand on this more later but the connection they have... their loyalty to each other... or moreso their desire to just have each other.

"a man, the man who had humiliated maki's mother many times, spoke hideous things about her children within earshot, is straining to call one of his other cousins because fuck fuck fuck why aren't you answering. his eyes soften and he's not exactly sure if it's because of the sweat in his eyes or the picture that you had just sent two minutes ago, a picture of you and the new lipstick you're trying on. you look so pretty. fuck. he's gonna cry."

I SAVED THIS ONE BEFORE THE SECOND POV CHAPTER THAT WENT MORE IN-DEPTH ON NAOYA'S FEELINGS AND THAT ONE – I WAS ALREADY DYING BUT THAT FINISHED ME OFF! this fic is so well-written that i felt grief for this fucking man. grief for naoya fucking zen'in of all people. it left a hole in my chest and i haven't felt this grief since [REDACTED REDACTED] in csm.

especially later, when reader was remembering her honeymoon in amalfi coast, when they were driving in the convertible and lost her scarf. for some reason that flashback made me so sad.

"'that girl will be your downfall,' is what his father tells him later on that day. naoya wants to believe that. maybe you'll be the one to drag him to hell. that would be nice. he'd be back home. he'll always come home. if that's where you're at, he'll always come home."

WAILING

OKAY... we are almost to the end of it <3

"'wait. oh my god, wait. wait. no way. you... you loved him? you actually loved naoya? naoya? zen'in naoya?'

your eyes sting hot, and you're not sure if it's because he's speaking ill of your very dead husband or because you're taking it personally for having loved the horrible man.

there's something about how you feel when it comes to naoya. defensive, even. you're certain that although love and family had been a difficult, complicated subject for the man, he fucked you like he loved you. like you had been a very fragile thing that he needed to care for – and he did. he always did; had always cared for you in ways that no one else would. or at least, he cared for you in ways that no one else would or could within a fifty-mile radius.

'babe, really?'

for all of his acid and harsh angles and sharp tongue, naoya was someone who took care of you and protected you. he made you feel wanted and safe and cherished and by the gods even if he didn't actually say it, he made you feel loved. that's what mattered to you. now, at least. maybe too much, even."

THIS WAS A FUCKING INSANE MOMENT TO ME reader wondering a few chapters ago whether or not she loved naoya and admitting now that she did, so very much so.

this really resonated with me in particular, not to get all wah-wah pity party but i've dealt with a lot of relationship trauma and all i've got to show for it is a crippling fear of abandonment. this type of love is therapeutic to me. when your person loves you and only you, there's nobody to compete with because they don't give half a shit about anyone else. you're the only one that sees that soft part of them, dare i say the real them.

THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS I FORGOT TO WRITE DOWN BUT THIS FIC HAS CHANGED MY LIFE IN WAYS THAT I CANNOT COMPREHEND AND I AM NOT EVEN HALFWAY DONE.

another thing that made me very happy was seeing a lot of similarities in how the author characterizes naoya & how i've been characterizing him for the menthol prequel. fucking daddy issues central. naoya being a contradiction of himself because he's everything a zen'in should be, and yet he has these haunting moments of clarity where he realizes that's the last thing he wants to be... and yet nothing changes. he will be this way until he dies, and he was this way until he died. not that this man deserves tenderness because he's evil, but like... the care in which the author handles his character. it's everything to me.

trying my hardest but like oh my god it's going to be hard to let myself fall for gojo because the man the author wrote naoya to be. the husband he was. the deep, profound love he had that's even more special because it's all the love he has and it's all for you.

I'M EXCITED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH HIM COMING BACK AS A CURSE... I WILL KEEP READING TONIGHT BUT I FEAR I WILL SOB MY EYES OUT WHEN I FINISH IT <3

#tldr i like it #tldr i love that stupid man and his country bumpkin self #mercury speaks #naoya anon from hell #tw misogyny #tw character death

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imdoingwhateverisnext · 2 years

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Least Effective Suicide Methods (not completed and needing paragraph breaks)

I have seen many botched attempts which have honestly prevented me from ever getting depressed enough to "pull the trigger" so to speak. It is a dark topic, but I am convinced that this knowledge has been valuable to me and might actually be valuable to others as well.

1-Shooting oneself in the head can go seriously wrong, leaving a person damaged, alive, with multiple deformities and brain injury. This story is a strange and graphic one. It started as a man with a self inflicted shotgun blast to the lower face. He had no lower jaw, tongue, was partially blind in one eye, and there was significant damage to his hard and soft palate, bone fragments lodged below his orbital socket, and it was beginning to swell and bulge. He had a gaping neck wound as well. His final words according to his spouse before he pulled the trigger was, "You love that damned dog more than you love me".

They brought him to the closest hospital they could for stabilization, which was ours, and I was pretty green, to put it mildly. A had been a nurse for about 6 months. This was the day I learned what blood smelled like. It smelled like the sweaty palm of your hand after holding pennies for a long time. He never lost consciousness, he was sitting straight up in the bed. We worked on him for one hour (an eternity in this situation) before he was able to be transferred.

I will never forget his eyes. They were huge, blue, pupils dilated as they should have been because he was certainly in as close to panic mode as one ever could or should be. I never thought he would survive. He was a 72 year old veteran. His face had no lower half, it looked like fresh hamburger meat with blood oozing and squirting from the neck. Finding his airway for a cricothyroidotomy was not a simple task. He tried to speak, and each time he did, the two mangled flaps of bloody meat on the sides of the lower half of his face (the area where his lower jaw was supposed to be) would contract and blood would squirt further as he garbled with a wet voice as if he were under thick water. It visually reminded me of the Predator (from the film), how the lower jaw was unhinged. This sight was truly the stuff of nightmares. However, this was a human man, with a family.

Regardless of how suddenly lightheaded I became when the suction catheter had what I thought was a tooth stuck to the end of it (which was revealed to be a shard of jawbone) I had to pull my shit together. This was one of those "all hands on deck" situations, and everything that could have gone wrong certainly did. Equipment was missing or locked away, the person with the keys had to be called from home, it was late at night during winter with poor road conditions. There was no "cric" kit to be found.

This story is tragic, but doesn't end with his immediate demise. I saw the man a few months later being pushed in a wheelchair down the hallway to our rehabilitation section of the hospital. His eyes were unmistakable. I dropped what was in my hand because I thought I was looking at a ghost. We rarely hear the outcomes of these types of situations and are usually left to guess. My guess was he died. I was wrong.

I had the pleasure of taking care of this dear, kind man during his short stay for rehabilitation. He was getting infections and his body was rejecting the hardware and titanium implanted into it. He had no tongue and had to write on notepads. He wrote to me that he had no recollection of the event at all. For which I told him, "Thank God", because I can't and will not ever forget it. I am certainly glad he was spared of this burden.

At his bedside, a fancy photo frame with an 8x10 of a cute little dog. It was the only photo on the nightstand the entire time he was a patient there. The first day he was back, remembering the story of his final verbal uttering, I said, "what a cute dog you have". I wondered if this were THE dog. The reason he supposedly pulled the trigger in the first place.

He wrote "It's not my dog. Its my wife's". He did not look pleased and furrowed his brow. I didn't bring it up again, but during the few weeks I took care of him, she brought the dog every day and they would walk it together outside of the hospital. I then had to wonder what kind of family dynamic that must have been. I never brought the dog up again. I found out that he lived for 2 years after that, had multiple painful and reconstructive surgeries and he ultimately succumbed to sepsis stemming from an infection of his jaw. This is the one and only person with a self inflicted shotgun blast to the face/head I ever cared for, and I am quite okay with NEVER doing it again.

2-Cutting ones own throat with a box cutter might seem to be effective, however the primary drive to avoid pain and protect ones vital organs and arteries will usually cause the neck muscles to tense. One particular fellow slashed both sides of his throat to the extent there were large squares of meat missing. He slashed both sides deeply in the neighborhood of 30+ times. Somehow he managed to miss both of his carotid arteries and jugular veins. He was left with multiple scars as a reminder to himself and anyone who saw him not wearing a turtle neck.

3-A cry for help can lead to organ failure and a painful death. A young man took a bottle of extra strength Tylenol as a gesture thinking it might get the attention of his parents. It left him with permanent liver damage, multiple stents in the hospital which he ultimately did die from years later.

4-Opiate overdoses have left people on ventilators for extensive periods of time while the families have argued and debated what to do and when and if to "pull the plug". Some poor souls have been kept alive for many months and years without the ability to communicate or even breathe on their own.

5-A Fentanyl related overdose left a woman with only one leg, due to an extensive period of time slumped over on it, leaving the limb without circulation. She ultimately never recovered brain function, so the leg was the least of the concerns at the time. This "suicide attempt" was successful, but it was apparently unintentional according to the scene that was left behind and the story of the night before she was found.

6-Medication overdoses can go wrong in several ways, and I have seen some ugly ones. An unfortunate man took too many sedatives in a suicide attempt. He was found face down, having been in the same position so long that his nose began to necrose. He ended up with facial scarring and lost part of his nose due to extensive lack of circulation. He did not die, but he was certainly reminded every time he looked in the mirror.

7-Hanging oneself is not extremely effective, I have seen many survivors of the noose. It can lead to neck fractures, permanent disability, brain damage, and a litany of other long term painful conditions.

8-Cutting ones wrists is a cliche'd and ineffective way to kill one's self. The tendons in the wrist, as with the throat, inevitably will tense and protect the arteries, and frankly wrist veins are very thin and don't have enough blood volume to get the job done before clotting. Side note-I did however see a fellow who passed out with a piece of glass in the center of his palm. He had "miraculously" hit the largest artery in his hand and bled out over several hours. By the time he arrived to the emergency department, he was gray, ashen, and very close to death. He was stitched and transfused and ultimately survived.

#do not read if triggered by graphic descriptions this is my therapy

#not finished with this one #how to fail at suicide #work in progress #graphic descriptions

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zealousbasementangel · 6 years

Text

Thomas Brodie Sangster in short film "Orbit ever after" ❤️

I'M NOT CRYING! YOU ARE! 😭😭😭

#Thomas Brodie Sangster #thomas sangster #newt tmr #tmr #tmr newt #Orbit ever after #short film #tbs #film #maze runner cast #the maze runner #maze runner #Scorch trials

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flareprince · 7 years

Photo

Orbit Ever After (2013) ↠ directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

#starring #MY BOY #THOMAS SANGSTER #I LOVE MY FOLLOWERS #anyways i tried to be extra #i need to stop making gifs of him #my edit #orbit ever after #romance #thomas brodie sangster #newt #movies #short film #scifi #space #idk how to tag this i just make gifs #ALSO THAT HAIR

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the-fiction-witch · 17 days

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Nigel (Orbit Ever After) Masterlist

Nsfw

Arranged - flirty

Not my girlfriend - sweet

Clean - sweet

All Alone… - smut

One Hour A Week - smut

spoil - smut

Space Suit - sexy

You Really Mean it? - smut

Home - flirty

NSFW 30

Earth leave - smut

Tried - flirty

Alien Girl - sexy

Alien Girl P2- sexy

Angelic Song - flirty

Special Present - flirty

diamond - cute

What did you say? - smut

Nigel… - smut

I love when you're horny - smut

Burn - smut

I Don't think where alone - spooky

Humans are weird - sweet

Smitten - sweet

Yes darling? - sweet

Stasis - flirty

The Hosts - horror

Christmas Junk - sweet

Privacy - sweet

Pods - sweet

Tamlanto four 0816 - adorable

Love Bug - flirty

Love Bug P2 - flirty

Snuggles - flirty

Creature - scary

The Tank Test - smut

Zero-G - cute

Visiting - 18 +

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coffeeshannon · 7 years

Video

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tumblr

Thomas in Orbit Ever After got me emotional Nigel + Never Let Me Go

#thomas brodie sangster #thomas sangster #orbit ever after #orbit ever after Nigel #Nigel orbit ever after #nigel #tbsedit #scifi short film #short film #scifi

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bcofl0ve · 2 years

Text

Invisible String (Part 1)

(part 1/9)

ship: austin butler x fem!reader

summary: a summer fling when you were working on the set of the shannara chronicles turned your life upside down with a positive pregnancy test after austin returned to the united states. a pregnancy test, and a daughter that you never told him about. until the elvis biopic found him back in your orbit and forced you to face the music.

word count: 2,600

authors note: yes i know the shannara chronicles was filmed in new zealand but this is my au and i can do what i want so we’re pretending it was filmed in queensland. covid also doesn’t exist in this story, because i said so, hence the filming schedule being one of my own making.

i live for comments and love talking about my writing, pls feel free to pop me an anon anytime!

xxx

April 23rd, 2020

"You interested in working in film again?"

You raised an eyebrow at your best friend sitting opposite you on the couch, pausing short of tossing more popcorn into your mouth from the bowl between you.

"Is there a reason you're asking?"

She chuckled, lowering her voice and leaning over to you, a playful smile on her face.

"A little birdie told me that one of the lighting assistants at Elvis had to resign because of a family emergency and they’re desperate for a replacement.”

Leah was clearly getting a kick out of this, and you wanted to kick her for it. Knowing Elvis was filming in your area and that there was a non zero chance you'd run into Austin on the street was enough of a headache, let alone having to skirt around him on a daily basis.

"I can't work there, you know that." You said flatly, and Leah only shrugged, cocking her head.

"Do I? It's just tech work, not like you'll have to interact with Austin that much anyways."

"That," You started, nudging your head towards a framed photo of you and Cora on the coffee table. It was taken on her fourth birthday, the blue eyed little girl sitting on your knees, head of blonde hair tucked into your shoulder. "happened when I was just doing tech work. I can't Leah,"

It wasn’t that you’d take any of what happened that 2015 summer back, you were quick to tell anyone that your daughter was the best thing that ever happened to you. But some things, her father in particular, were better left in the past.

"How much are you making right now?" Leah asked, pulling out her phone as she talked. "Because this is what Elvis is paying."

Your eyes widened when you saw the salary listed on the email she’d pulled up, nearly triple what you were making at your current gig running lighting for a local news station.

"You go, you do your lighting thing, you come home. If you wear a hat and your bluelight glasses Austin doesn't even have to know you're there."

---

April 30th, 2020

Against your better judgment you inquired about the position, and Leah must’ve been right about how depeserate they were for a replacement because you got a call within a few hours asking for the earliest date you could start.

You followed Leah’s advice of trying to alter your appearance just enough to maybe pass as someone else to Austin, your hair tied up and pushed through a baseball cap, tan rimmed bluelight glasses that you typically saved for long hours on your laptop perched on your nose.

And the get up wasn’t even necessary. You’d spent your first day helping with lights for scenes with Tom Hanks in a conference room setup, overhearing that it was a dance rehearsal day for most everyone else. By the time the day was over ditched the glasses and cap, assuming you were safe from running into Austin at least for the time being as you put equipment away.

"Hey there.”

You could've screamed when you heard his voice from right behind you, flinching and dropping the cords you were wrapping.

Austin was apologizing as you turned around, and you swallowed as you got a good look at him. He looked drastically different than he did four summers ago, his hair short and black as opposed to the blonde waves that used to fall at his shoulders. His face hadn't changed much though.

The blue eyes that matched the photo of your daughter on your lockscreen made you want to bolt, but the window of opportunity for that quickly shut as he kept talking.

"I just," He started nervously, pushing a hand through his hair. "Y/N, right?"

"Yeah, that’s me." You said and forced a smile. Austin laughed.

"Okay good, this would be so weird if it wasn't you. It's been, what, four- five years? Wow,"

He gave you a one over and you hoped the flush you felt wasn’t showing up too obviously on your face.

"And look at you, Mr. Presley himself." You tried, leaning back against the table as Austin let out a breath. "I'm still wrapping my head around it all. But how you've been?"

"Not too bad,”

Your phone buzzing saved you from thinking of what else to say, except the voice of Cora's day care coordinator on the other end was the last thing you wanted to hear right now. Austin was still standing there when you hung up, something you hated because now you were close to tears and could think of about twenty ways this whole debacle could go from bad to worse.

"Everything okay?"

Austin’s voice cut through your panic, and exacerbated it.

"That was my daugher's daycare.”

The words tumbled out of you before you could stop them, heart hammering in your chest as you kept talking, snatching the cords you'd dropped off the floor and putting them back on the table in a frenzy. "She said something about stitches, St. Vincent’s Hospital. My car's in the shop, I need to get a Lyft,"

There wasn't one rational reason you were telling Austin any of this, just that you were a panic talker. You recognized somewhere in the haze of worry that you needed to stop talking before it bit you in the ass, though you recognized it a little too late.

"I'll drive you."

Those three words snapped you back to reality like a rubberband, and you shook your head as you brushed past Austin to walk away.

"You can't do that, you'll get recognized,"

You were already past him, but heard him rustling through his bag and before you could protest anymore there was quiet "No, come on," and he was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, a hand on your back as he ushered you in the direction of the parking lot.

---

The car was quiet as he started driving save for the heavy breathing you were barley managing to get under control. Austin pulled to a stop at a redlight, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he spoke lightly.

"So you have a daughter now?"

"Yeah who apparently cracked her chin open on the playground.”

You didn’t mean for it to come out so bluntly, mumbling an apology that he told you not to worry about. The rest of the drive was silent.

When he pulled up to the hospital you jumped out the second the car slowed enough for you to do so, spotting Cora’s daycare director in the lobby and making a beeline for her. Assuring you she'd only left Cora alone long enough to meet you, she took you down the hall to her room.

And you didn’t notice Austin had followed you in until you saw the other woman’s eyes widen when she brushed past you to leave.

"Hiya," He said, southern accent intact and you'd find it funny if you weren't all standing in the hospital for his daughter that he didn't know existed.

Leaving them both in the hallway, you rushed into the hospital room so fast you didn't bother to shut the door behind you. Cora was groggy from sedatives but reached out when she saw you, tear stains still on her cheeks.

“Mommy, ouchie,”

"I'm here baby.” You said as you scooped her up, kissing her head and pulling back to look at the line of stitches in her chin. "I'm sorry you got hurt,”

"Who's that?"

She interrupted you, pointing a finger towards the open doorway. Austin was still in the hallway, except the coolness he'd had with the daycare director was gone and replaced with a look that you’d spent the last four years terrified of. His pupils were enlarged, hand over the bottom of his mouth. He dropped it when he realized you were looking, but his expression didn't change.

"That's just a friend from work who drove me here," You said through the growing lump in your throat, unable to look back at him. "I'll be right back, okay?"

After setting her back on the hospital cot and covering her back up with the provided blanket you walked out of the room, remembering to close the door behind you this time.

“You don’t have to stay, I have to call someone to pick us up anyways because she needs a carseat,”

You tried to steer away from the inevitable, but Austin didn’t waste any time.

"Y/N, how old is she?"

His voice was tight and you couldn't bring yourself to look at him, staring at the floor like you could will it to open up and swallow you.

“Austin,” You managed to croak out, and the indignation you could feel radiating off of him made your eyes sting.

"You know not answering is an answer in itself, right?"

Forcing yourself to look up, you squeezed your eyes shut and back open, hoping it was enough to keep yourself from crying in front of him. "I can't do this here." You started. "I need- I need to get her home. If your number hasn't changed l'll call you when she's in bed,"

He nodded, giving you a terse “Alright then.” before turning to walk away. When he disappeared around the corner you let a few tears fall, wiping them away and feeling nauseous as you pushed open the door to go back to Cora.

---

Your head was still spinning by the time the doorbell rang at eight o’clock that night. And when you opened it to Austin you cleared your throat, bringing a hand to grasp the doorframe.

"If you're going to yell at me we need to take this outside, Cora's asleep." You said and his eyes widened a little.

"I'm not gonna yell at you."

Your back was to Austin after you let him in, but you could sense him looking around. There was evidence of your daughter everywhere, photos on the wall and toys you hadn't had the energy to pick up given recent events scattered around the floor. When you reached the kitchen and did turn to look at him he was popping his knuckles.

Taking the bar stool you pulled out for him, he sat as you walked to the other side of the counter.

"So she's gotta be four, right?" He started before you could say anything, eyes falling away from you and to a photo on the wall. "And she's-"

"She's yours."

You cut him off, biting the inside of your cheek. "If you want a paternity test we can do one, but that summer, there was no one else."

"Workin' on Elvis, were you just hoping we never ran into each other? I don't get it." He stated, gesturing aimlessly.

"The friend who sent me the application practically had to force my hand, I didn't want to. But the money, this is more than I'm making anywhere else, being able to send Cora to a good pre-school in the fall,"

You hated that your voice was shaking, along with your hands, where you’d clenched a fist without realizing it.

“I decided it was worth taking my chances."

"And when you found out you were pregnant- you didn't think to call?"

The truth was that you had thought to call, briefly. But a tabloid hard launch of Austin getting back together with his ex girlfriend came before you bring yourself to dial his number.

"When I found out I was pregnant you were back in the states and back with Vanessa. What was I supposed to do?" You said, and you would’ve been a lot louder if you didn’t have to worry about waking Cora up. "Hey I know you just left, but you need to leave your girlfriend and fly back across the globe because the techie you had a fling with is pregnant."

"I would've."

You shook your head, shooting back bluntly.

"You wouldn't have."

If he truly did feel differently he didn't argue, chewing on his bottom lip for a beat before he spoke, his voice a degree softer. "You said her name is Cora?"

"Cora Jean. Thought she might go by CJ but she corrects anyone that tries, "I'm not Cee-Jay, I'm Cora.””

You couldn’t help a little smile as you imitated her, and felt your shoulders relax when you saw the hint of a smile on his face too.

"Who's there mommy?"

You turned when you heard the familiar pipsqueak voice of your daughter, your eyes finding her standing in the mouth of the hallway rubbing her eyes.

"Remember my friend from the doctor's? It's just him Cor, you can go back to bed."

Cora squinted for a second to verify that herself, walking a little further into the light. Satisfied with the confirmation, she rubbed her eyes with the hand not clinging to her stuffed koala.

“Night night mommy’s friend,” She said sleepily, giving a small wave.

Austin waved back, and you didn’t know if he’d wanted you to hear the quiet “Goodnight baby,” he said in response but it made your chest tighten either way.

"I don't want to keep you from her," You said when she’d disappeared back down the hallway, looking at your hands folded together on the table. "But having her splashed on the cover of People in some scandal story, paparazzi outside our house, that's a part of why I never told you."

A “part” was underselling the amount of nightmares you’d had from the time Cora was still in-utero about waking up to the fallout of one wrong person finding out about her parentage. You were sure there were people who drew their own silent conclusions , but you’d only told your mother and Leah yourself. The two people who you trusted wouldn't tell a soul.

How careful you’d been didn't stop your heart from stuttering when a stranger's eyes in the grocery store lingered a little too long though.

"I don't want that for her either. We're," Austin said gently, reaching a hand across the counter and laying it over yours. "We're gonna figure this out. You and me."

You nodded, wanting more than anything to believe that that was still possible after all this time.

----

Sleep didn't come easy for you that night, your mind racing as you laid awake staring at the ceiling. Just when you started to feel too tired to physically stay awake much longer, your phone buzzed.

Apparently Austin couldn't sleep either.

If it's not too much could you send me some photos?

You sat up a little, eyes heavy as you swiped open your phone, going to your camera roll and thumbing through the album labeled Cora Jean. The photos you chose ranged from across the years. Cora sitting in her high chair at only a few months old, grinning at the camera through the food covering her face, the two of you in your mom's backyard at her second birthday, a little video of her first dance recital, a photo her daycare had sent you her during art time, paint smeared across her nose.

When you texted the final selections, an ache bloomed in your chest as the gravity of it all finally started to sink in. Tugging the covers over your head, you willed yourself to crash and forget about everything for just a few hours.

xxx

#invisible string by bcofl0ve #future chapters will have some flashbacks to 2015 so worry not if you were wanting to see bits of that #austin butler x reader #austin butler fanfic #austin butler headcanons #austin butler imagine #austin butler imagines #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler

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junkyarddemento · 7 years

Video

ORBIT EVER AFTER

Even in space, parents can put a squash on who you love. That's the premise here with this quirky yet heartwarming short where we literally have star-crossed lovers. Having been killed off in “Game of Thrones”, Thomas Brodie-Sangster (the kid from LOVE ACTUALLY) stars alongside Mackenzie Crook (the pirate who always keeps losing his eye in the Disney films). Watch if you enjoy sci-fi or romantic fantasies, as Hollywood doesn’t make these type of films anymore.

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inkformyblood · 3 years

Text

a soft epilogue

After Fox’s chip malfunctions and he kills Palpatine, Cody and Obi-Wan are forced to reckon with a war that ended far sooner than either of them expected and everything that neither can bring themselves to say.

Pairing: Codywan, minor Quinlan Vos/Fox

Warnings: mild injury

Day 01 Prompt: Fix-It AU

@codywanweek

Cody couldn’t say what alerted him first; whether it was the sudden sense of relief that bloomed in his chest, foreign and fragile, or the immediate starting howl of the alarm klaxons that was suddenly cut off into painful silence.

He tucked his cards — the beginnings of a winning hand — into his chest as he reached for his bracer, every movement deliberate and practiced, projecting a quiet confidence he did not feel as worry twisted through his stomach. They were on leave, had been for three days now, and there had been no communications about planned drills which could only mean…

A single message flashed on the interface, marked as the highest priority in the Command Track Chat, supposedly sent from Fox but lacking his usual typing style. ‘Ignore alarm. All fine.’

Cody felt his heart stop, reading and rereading the message as his mind worked frantically, running over the possible scenarios in an instant. Obi-Wan was meant to be in one of the meditation rooms on the fifth floor, too far away for Cody to reach easily, but if he sent a scout to collect the General—

He ignored the twist of emotion in his chest, pushed it down as he had been doing for years, pulling a deep breath in through his teeth before looking up to catch Wooley’s eye. The other clone's eyes were wide, chewing over the side of his cheek in time with the flutter of his fingers over the edges of his cards as he waited, trying to read Cody’s expression.

The barracks were silent around him, the emptiness of several men waiting for an order, waiting for something to shatter the sliver of peace they were only just beginning to enjoy.

“Wooley,” Cody began, before cutting himself off. He pushed himself to his feet, scooping up the blaster from next to him, turning to level it at the door as it slid open, seconds after the hurried heartbeat of stumbling bootsteps echoed down the corridor.

Fox’s grin as the man stumbled into the room, supported between Stone and Thire, was nothing short of triumphant, the man’s teeth blood-stained and bared. His curls were plastered to his head with sweat, the grey that gathered at his temples more pronounced next to the wild rolling of his eyes.

“What’s going on?” Cody asked, his words sharp enough to cut, and Fox tipped his head back to laugh. It was harsh and broken, like a degraded holo-film, rumbling through him as if he was in his death throes, pulling against Stone’s grip as Thire turned, glancing back down the corridor.

There was a set of footsteps drawing closer, purposeful and clear, and Cody felt the familiar fear of the battleground settle in his chest, the tension the moment before the first shot fired when the entire world stopped.

“I—“ Fox broke off, a spasm rumbling through his body, his hands curling into desperate fists before they flexed out like talons. His jaw clicked shut, a wave of helpless anger passing over his face as a muscle in his cheek jumped. “I—“

Cody felt the horror at his vode’s state settle in his stomach like a stone. What was going on?

“We didn’t know what to do, so we brought him here after Vos brought him to us.”

Cody caught Stone’s eye as the man finished speaking. They were clones trained for war and raised to be perfect soldiers, but the other clone looked haunted, the ghosts of something Cody couldn’t name settling into his bones. His gaze remained steady, boring into Cody’s, even as he shifted to re-balance Fox against his side.

Some distant part of mind whispered the similarities between their current state and that of a drunken shiny, flushed from shore leave, even as his thoughts sharpened, battleplans curling their grasping fingers in readiness.

“Vos is involved?” Cody knew the Jedi well enough through their shared connection to Obi-Wan and the mountains of paperwork his missions inevitably created, but there had never been anything like this. Quinlan had always seemed to care for his men and the other troopers, but Cody had to protect his vode.

“He didn’t— He, no,” Fox ground out, his gaze sharp and his teeth bared. He wavered, stumbling on his feet as he tried to get his limbs underneath him, sagging against their grip. There was bruise beginning to form on his temple with a matching one curved across his cheek, the edges red and muted against his olive skin. “Not him, never— No.”

“Okay, vode. Then who did this?” Cody felt the air grow sharp as every trooper behind him, their previous tasks fully abandoned, focused on Fox’s next words. Fox had paused, however, his head rolling backwards, the whites of his eyes bloodshot as he tried to stare at the door. The footsteps were echoing louder, drawing ever closer. Cody’s hand drifted to the blaster at his hip, his fingers brushing along the empty lightsaber clip and his heart twisted in his chest.

The door hissed open, and Quinlan Vos stepped through — his face bloodless except for the furious colour high in his cheeks — to a fanfare of the clicks of primed blasters. His hands raised, fingers splayed and trembling, but his gaze didn’t linger on the group in front of him, skimming over their faces before settling on Fox.

“Talk quickly, Vos.”

Quinlan took a moment, leaning forward, turning towards Fox like a plant turning towards sunlight, before he caught himself, settling back on his heels.

“I don’t have all the details.” His words ran together as he spoke, and his eyes only flickered back to Cody, watching Fox as if he couldn’t bear to look away from the other man even for a moment. “But it seems like there is dormant programming in some of you, or all of you, I can’t say.”

Fox laughed, the same grating stuttering sound, and Cody shivered, the hair on his arms and at the base of his neck prickling.

Quinlan grew paler, chewing on his lower lip as he swayed in place before continuing. “It looks like it was a Sith plan, to have you turn on the Jedi and kill us, but something went wrong, and Fox’s activated both early and twisted.”

Quinlan paused, a grin twisting over his face despite his worry clouding it. “Saved us a lot of time with investigating.”

Cody’s head span, cold dread mixing with biting horror in his gut, and he forced himself to draw a deep breath in. He couldn’t let himself falter, not without the safety of his helmet and not in front of his men. His free hand crept up to curl his fingers around the empty lightsaber clip once more and felt his heartbeat settle.

“What happened?”

Fox jerked himself out Thire and Stone’s hold, stumbling forward with a snarl, and Quinlan stepped forward, his hands settling on Fox’s hips with an ease that made Cody’s heart ache. They came together so easily, their jagged edges melding rather than crashing against each other.

Cody’s grip tightened on the clip, metal biting in his palm, and forced his thoughts away from the gulf that duty created between himself and Obi-Wan. But they both knew they had a war to fight, so settled back into their own lonely orbits, skin burning wherever the other had touched them that time.

It hurt more than he could say.

Fox leant forward — the slight movement drawing Cody out of his own bitter self-pity — pressing his forehead against Vos’ with a sigh. “The Chancellor is dead,” Fox murmured. His gaze shifted sideways to lock onto Cody’s, burning with a bright feverish intensity. “I shot him.”

Quinlan caught Fox as the clone fainted, his eyes rolling backwards in his skull, his body falling limp as if he had been shot, and Cody couldn’t breathe, could barely think, but he had to stay strong. For his men and his General.

“We’ve got work to do.” Cody turned away from Quinlan, unable to fully ignore the whisper in the back of his mind about the last time he had seen Obi-Wan.

That morning felt like several lifetimes ago. Obi-Wan had hesitated in the doorway to the small meeting room, the datapad containing the final forms to confirm their shore leave for the next few days. His blue eyes seemed clouded, a storm brewing that had only intensified with every accidental brush of their hands, or every time their knees bumped beneath the cramped table.

Cody turned to watch him, feeling the distance between them keener than ever, another knife sliding neatly between his ribs. Obi-Wan had smiled, inclining his head a fraction before moving away, his steps slower than usual as if he was pulling against a tether that was drawing him back into the room, back towards Cody.

“Get the medics. And Wooley?”

Wooley snapped to attention, his hands slamming against his thighs hard enough to draw bruises.

“Go get the General.”

⁂

Cody stopped in front of Obi-Wan’s door. The metal was as carefully blank and featureless as every other door he passed to get here, but there was a warmth about it that was absent, a lingering promise of the man who was waiting on the other side.

He should knock. He should let Obi-Wan know in a tangible way that he was here, but he couldn’t. His hand remained frozen at his side, and he found himself studying the door to try and stem the mounting wave of worry rising in his chest.

It wasn’t as blank as his first glance made it out to be. He could see the faint lighter patch at one edge where it opened that matched the press of Obi-Wan’s hand, stretched out to prolong their parting for a moment longer. His heart twisted in his chest, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Throughout the war, they had both held back from uttering the words that could destroy them both.

The closest they had gotten was one late night amongst thousands of other nights when they could barely keep their eyes open and ran from one emergency to another. Cody had startled awake, his cheek aching with the indentation of his datapad, but he had barely started to shift when he paused. Obi-Wan was resting against his shoulder, his weight warm and grounding, the same way it had been for countless nights before this one. But it was different.

Obi-Wan had stirred, pushed himself upright with his cheeks turning a pale pink that only highlighted the freckles cast across his nose like a constellation.

“When this war is over,” he began, his voice thick with sleep, but his eyes were bright, locked onto Cody’s.

“When the war is over,” Cody echoed, missing Obi-Wan the moment the man moved away.

Now it was over.

Cody shook himself free of the memory as hurried footsteps echoed from behind the door. He had kept his General— he had kept Obi-Wan waiting for too long.

The door slid open at his touch with a mechanical hiss, but Obi-Wan still jumped, turning with his reflexive smile — the one that rang false and hollow and failed to illuminate his eyes, constructed for politicians. It was wiped away in an instant for something genuine, something true, the smile made just for Cody.

Owning things was still new to him, to all of them, but that smile was something he treasured more than he could say.

“Commander— Cody.” Obi-Wan caught himself, his smile softening and ducking his head before he straightened. He wasn’t wearing his usual robes but instead a pale wrap that hung loosely from his shoulders and just past his wrists and was belted around his waist. Beneath it, Cody caught a glimpse of a form-fitting black jumpsuit before Obi-Wan stepped forward, and his gaze snapped back to his face.

Cody tugged at the edge of his own shirt, the black cotton soft and worn-in, and felt a prickle of shame in the pit of his stomach. How could he have ever thought that he would be good enough for the Jedi?

“I’m glad you’ve come to visit me. I know the past few weeks have been busy.” Obi-Wan laughed slightly, shaking his head at his own statement. Now that he was closer, Cody could see the dark circles that clung beneath his eyes like bruises and the pale cast to his skin that spoke of far too many hours spent hunched over a datapad. Cody’s fingers twitched with the urge to try and smooth the other man’s exhaustion away.

“Please, sit.” Obi-Wan gestured towards the small sofa before stepping away. He tucked his hands into his sleeves before catching himself and shifting to clasp them in front of him. “I’ll get us both some tea.”

Cody took the offered place, mindful of the weapon oil that likely still clung to his hands as he perched on the edge of his seat, an immediate ache radiating down his thighs. He let his gaze wander as Obi-Wan stepped away, keeping track of the Jedi’s movements from the gentle sound of his footsteps and the rattling of the porcelain that was quickly replaced by the hiss of the kettle.

He had been in Obi-Wan’s rooms before, but never like this, never with the knowledge that they were equals, and he could look around to his heart’s content.

To one side, a large window was set into the wall, ringed by carefully tended plants. Wooden stakes were tied to some, the twine a pale flash amongst the dark green and brilliant flowers. Amongst the earthen pots, Cody could just make out the flat curves of several stones, some of which he recognised from Obi-Wan’s quarters on the ship. He hadn’t understood why the other man took a moment to slip a stone into his pocket on every planet he could, but Cody had found himself studying the terrain closer than usual, carefully adding his own contributions to the collection on the ship.

Obi-Wan had never mentioned it, but Cody recognised a large dark blue stone that held pride of place on the shelf — its surface shot through with silver veins that gleamed like stars in hyperspace — from their mission before the leave that changed everything.

The rest of the room was as sparse as Cody had come to expect from the other man. A data pad lay on the desk that was tucked away in the opposite corner, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber carefully resting on a stand above it. The sight of the saber in its correct place and not discarded on the churned mud of a battlefield or hanging from Cody’s hip made him bite back a laugh, but he couldn’t disguise the slight hitch in his breathing.

“Your disapproval may finally be influencing me, Cody.” There was a flicker of pride across Obi-Wan’s face, hidden as the other man turned away, his hands perfectly steady on the cups.

Cody looked around the room once more, understanding settling over his shoulders like a shroud. Everything had been cleaned and organised, and re-organised, because Obi-Wan wanted it to be perfect, because Cody was stopping by as a free man, not a soldier, and they were finally equals. He could almost picture Obi-Wan moving back and forth, his steps a frantic beat to a music only he could hear as he second-guessed the placement of every object in the small room.

“Not at all, General— Obi-Wan. Just surprised to see it in the same room as you.”

Obi-Wan laughed, and Cody turned back to him, keen to study the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. He stepped closer, holding out the cup to Cody, a curl of sweet-smelling steam wafting from it.

Their fingers brushed as Cody took it, his blush mirrored on Obi-Wan’s paler cheeks, and the Jedi carefully sat on the other edge of the sofa, his inherent grace making it look effortless.

Cody focused on the cup, taking a small sip of the hot tea and feeling it burn against his tongue. There was a faint lingering bitterness beneath the tart sweetness of the berries infused with it, and Cody rocked backwards with a sigh.

“I remembered that you liked this one.” Obi-Wan wrapped his hands around his cup, but made no movement to drink it, his gaze fixed on the blank wall opposite. The early afternoon sun streamed through the window, illuminating him like he was a work of art, and Cody felt his heart twist.

“How did it go? Your surgery, I mean.” Obi-Wan’s blush deepened as he stumbled over his words, his nails tapping against the side of his cup.

Cody carefully transferred his hold on the cup to one hand — the heat pressing against his fingertips and raised his free hand to trace the faint healing incision on his temple that curved up into his hairline. His hair had been shaved to accommodate the surgery and was rough against his touch. “It went as well as Helix expected it would. They had to remove ours last due as they were implanted differently, and they needed to work out why Fox’s was activated early.”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan set his cup down by his feet and sat back with a world-weary sigh, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes with a grimace. Cody mimicked him, and shifted closer, his knee bumping against Obi-Wan’s, and the man froze before relaxing into the whisper of contact.

“Quinlan is apparently taking good care of him. I don’t think Fox has had to raise a finger for anything in a week.” Cody bit back the rising tide of anger as he recalled the list of Fox’s injuries. The final trigger had been a slap, dismissive and cruel, but it had been enough to spark the chip that had been primed through months of the Sith lord tearing out Fox’s thoughts by the roots, pruning his mind for no other reason than he could.

“I’m glad they have found each other.” Obi-Wan glanced up at Cody, catching his gaze out of the corner of his eye, and paused.

Countless stolen moments and bitten-off confessions, everything they had been unable to say culminated in here and now.

“Given that the war is over,” Cody began, watching hope burn in Obi-Wan’s eyes like a banked flame that grew with every word. The Jedi’s hands were curled into fists on his thighs, restraining himself from reaching out, as, although Cody was free, Obi-Wan couldn’t make that first step himself.

Doubt still gnawed at the base of Cody’s skull, but it couldn’t hold its place amidst the warmth flooding through his chest.

“I would like to kiss you now,” Cody finished, leaning forward a few inches, before he stopped, waiting for Obi-Wan’s reaction.

The Jedi’s cheeks were burning, and Cody wanted to commit the colour to memory, to study the flecks of darker blue in Obi-Wan’s eyes that were nearly obscured by his pupil, dark and encompassing.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan breathed, the word catching in his throat and dissolving into a sibilant hiss against Cody’s lips as he pressed himself forwards. “I’ve waited so long for this.”

Cody laughed, the sound muffled against Obi-Wan’s desperate kiss, his beard scratching against Cody’s lips and cheeks, and broke apart just long enough to press their foreheads together. He could feel Obi-Wan trembling beneath his hands, the other man’s grip on his shoulders almost biting.

“I love you,” Cody whispered, kissing Obi-Wan once more, soft and sweet.

“I love you,” Obi-Wan replied as if it was the simplest thing in the world and pulled Cody up to kiss him again, murmuring half-broken promises against his mouth that rang true and heart-felt, everything they had been leaving carefully unsaid for years.

This was where he was meant to be, safe and loved and by Obi-Wan’s side, and Cody knew that whatever happened, they would face it together.

#star wars #codywan #codywanweek2021 #commander Cody #obi wan kenobi #quinlan vos #commander fox #vox #my writing #fanfic

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

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