#Multiverse Planetarium

[typing-catastrophe]

Stanford Pines love language headcanons

💕 fluff

that man is touch starved as fuck

after 30 years alone and on the run through the multiverse, he sure isn't used to positive touch anymore

let alone that he wasn't before, not having a lot of experience in the relationship field and all

it will be a bit too much for him at the start and pda is out of question, but give him time and he will get used to the casual soft touches and will learn to love them. even seek them out

he doesn't realise how much he missed out on until he meets your touchy ass

soft brushes against his arm, your head on his shoulder, the first time you run your hands through his hair

let me tell you, he melts. every time.

it just makes his mind go quite immediately. the moment he feels your fingertips on his scalp, the way you lightly scratch at the back of is neck, the way you softly caress his silver hair...

it's his most favourite sensation ever

so on the rare occasion he does not fall asleep at his desk, while cuddling before going to sleep, he will lay his head on your chest, a silent plea for you to run your hands through his hair again, to make his mind go quit, to allow him to fully relax

he does try his best to get better at not overworking himself

taking breaks and going to sleep regularly, taking time out of his day to spend with you

because honestly, he could never forgive himself if he doesn't appreciate every second with you

quality time with him would consist of reading together silently, cuddling, watching movies and shows he missed out on and more private dates like stargazing, dinner at home and visiting places like national forests, parks, a planetarium or aquarium

also playing ddnd if you're into that as well

he will teach you if you're interested but never played before, don't worry

actually sooo thrilled to find someone to play with him, he will loose himself in planning the perfect campaign

he will most certainly put his abilities and fascination of creating and inventing things to use while making little gifts for you

feels very appreciated and fuzzy when you let him ramble about whatever has his attention at the moment and actually listen and respond with question, just being as invested as he is in something

is a bit clumsy with talking to other people but loves being the receiver of words of affirmation and praise

-------------------------------------------------- thank you for reading <3 reblogs are appreciated

[firstelevens]

palm kiss, sam/bucky!! god i have so many emotions about the intimacy of all forms of hand kissing

When Sam comes to find him, Bucky has been by the viewport in Danvers' ship for almost an hour. Somewhere down below, he can hear the sounds of his team talking to Sam's, but at some point on this trip to the end of the universe, it had struck Bucky that he was literally in outer space, and if the world was going to end, maybe he could catch a glimpse of the solar system first.

Sam lets out a soft whistle as he comes to stand beside Bucky. "Shit," he breathes. "I guess this tops that time we took the boys to the planetarium, huh?"

Bucky shakes his head. "I liked that trip."

"You literally had to carry AJ around for the entire last hour that we were there."

"It's not his fault he sprained his ankle," says Bucky, with a shrug. "Besides, he weighs like, nothing."

"Yeah, yeah," says Sam, and it's only when he waves his hand dismissively that Bucky realizes he's got his gauntlets on.

He turns to face Sam properly and catches his hand in mid-air, gently moving Sam's arm down so he can fiddle with the straps on the wristpad.

"You never do this up tightly enough," he says, more to Sam's forearm than anything else. "You know if this thing flies off your arm, you're not gonna be able to talk to your robot birds, right?"

"They're not robots," says Sam, but he obligingly holds out his other arm once Bucky's done with the first.

If he squints, Bucky can pretend that this is any other mission, that they're flying out on the quinjet to take out some alleged supervillain with a stupid name and they'll be done in time for Bucky to halfheartedly pretend that he has somewhere to be before he ends up at dinner with the Wilsons.

Bucky swallows and shakes his head, pulling Sam closer so he can check the fastenings on the wingpack. He doesn't know how much vibranium-enforced leather will really do, if this Kang guy sets his mind to hurting Sam, but if it holds out for an extra second, that's an extra second for him to get the heat off Sam, so he'll take it.

Eventually, Bucky runs out of buckles to fiddle with and fastenings to test, his hands flitting from one part of Sam's suit to another as he tries to find something to adjust. He doesn't know how long it's been since they've spoken, but when Sam's hands settle over his own, he feels his entire brain go quiet.

"Buck," he says softly, uncurling Bucky's fingers from where they rest on the harness, "it's gonna be okay."

"Oh, you're basing this on the last time we tried to avert an apocalypse? 'Cause that went so great?" Bucky hears himself ask.

Sam is unfazed. "That was an apocalypse; this is a multiverse-ending event, so technically we haven't failed at it."

Bucky glares at him, but Sam just smiles back.

"This isn't the end, Buck," he says, taking both of Bucky's hands in his. "I'm not going to let it be."

Part of Bucky wants to pick a fight, wants to push back and tell Sam that's not an option, but then Sam turns Bucky's right hand over and raises it to his lips, eyes locked on Bucky's as he presses a kiss to Bucky's palm.

(He'd make a crack about staring problems if his heart wasn't lodged right in his throat.)

When Sam does the same to Bucky's left hand, he just about stops breathing.

"You're not gonna let it be, the end, either," says Sam, still holding Bucky's hands in his own.

"And how do you know that?" Bucky manages to say, his voice embarrassingly hoarse.

"Because neither one of us is about to let that be the only time I kiss you," says Sam, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," says Sam, and grins at him for real this time.

From below, someone calls out for the two of them, and Sam drops Bucky's hands with one final squeeze.

"Suit up already, Barnes," he calls over his shoulder, as he turns to leave. "We have a multiverse to save."

[samueldelany]

For Ytasha Womack, the Afrofuture Is Now

The writer and filmmaker discusses the blend of theoretical cosmology and Black culture in Chicago’s newest planetarium show.

Ytasha Womack, a screenwriter on “Niyah and the Multiverse,” currently playing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, is the author of numerous works including “Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration."

By Katrina Miller, New York Times, March 16, 2024.

On Feb. 17, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago unveiled a new sky show called “Niyah and the Multiverse,” a blend of theoretical cosmology, Black culture and imagination. And as with many things Afrofuturistic, Ytasha Womack’s fingerprints are all over it.

Ms. Womack, who writes both about the genre and from within it, has curated Afrofuturism events across the country — including Carnegie Hall’s citywide festival — and her work is currently featured in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Afrofuturism is perhaps most popularly on display in the “Black Panther” films, which immerse viewers in an alternate reality of diverse, technologically advanced African tribes untouched by the forces of colonialism. (In 2023, Ms. Womack published “Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration,” Marvel’s reference book examining the films’ influences.)

But examples of the genre include the science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Star Trek character Nyota Uhura and the cyborgian songs of Janelle Monáe. Some even envision the immortality of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were taken without consent for what became revolutionary breakthroughs in medicine, as an Afrofuturist parable.

Ms. Womack was one of the scriptwriters for “Niyah and the Multiverse.” She spoke with The New York Times about what Afrofuturism means to her, the process of weaving the genre’s themes with core concepts in physics and how the show aims to inspire. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How do you define Afrofuturism?

Afrofuturism is a way of thinking about the future, with alternate realities based on perspectives of the African diaspora. It integrates imagination, liberation, technology and mysticism.

Imagination is important because it is liberating. People have used imagination to transform their circumstances, to move from one reality to another. They’ve used it as a way to escape. When you are in challenging environments, you’re not socialized to imagine. And so to claim your imagination — to embrace it — can be a way of elevating your consciousness.

What makes Afrofuturism different from other futuristic takes is that it has a nonlinear perspective of time. So the future, past and present can very much be one. And that’s a concept expressed in quantum physics, when you think about these other kinds of realities.

Those alternate realities could be philosophical cosmologies, or they could be scientifically explained worlds. How we explain them runs the gamut, depending on what your basis for knowledge is.

Which Afrofuturist works have influenced you?

I think about Parliament-Funkadelic, a popular music collective of the 1970s. As a kid, their album covers were in my basement. A lot of artists during that era — Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Earth, Wind & Fire, Labelle — had these very epic, Afrofuturistic album covers, but Parliament-Funkadelic sticks out. There’s one depicting Star Child, the alter ego of George Clinton, the lead musical artist, emerging from a spaceship. That sort of space-tastic imagery was abounding for me as a kid.

“The Wiz,” a reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz,” was on all the time in my house growing up. It had this fabulosity to it — a heightened dream world that reflected 1970s New York. You had the Twin Towers in Emerald City, the empty lots Dorothy walked through with all the trash, the Wicked Witch running a fashion sweatshop, representing the garment district. The film took an urban landscape and made it fabulous, tying in this theme of Dorothy coming into her own through her journey.

Those are images that had a very strong impact on me. As I matured, I got into house music and dance, and began to see relationships between rhythm, movement, space and time. It’s not always something I can give language to, but it’s certainly become a basis for how I talk about metaphysics, in a physical kind of way.

What inspired your team to create “Niyah and the Multiverse”?

We wanted to tell a story about a young girl named Niyah, who wants to be a scientist and who is figuring out who she is — not just on Earth, but also in the universe.

Niyah looks for insight from her grandparents, who explain some of the symbolism of the African artwork in her home. She thinks about concepts she has learned from her science teacher. And she even meets her future self, who is a theoretical astrophysicist. Together, the two explore some of the more popular multiverse theories that scientists are looking at today.

Which theories are those?

Niyah learns about the many-worlds theory, which is this idea that all of your choices evolve into different universes. The choices you make create new paths, essentially creating multiple existences of yourself.

She learns about bubble theory, which says that after our Big Bang, more universes sort of bubbled off, each with their own laws of physics. Niyah also explores the idea of shadow matter, in which particles get reassembled as similar entities in mirror universes.

So there’s this parallel between Niyah learning about the multiverse and also exploring her own identity through her ancestral heritage.

Right. Because both of these are paths of meaning, different ways of understanding who we are. Afrofuturists tend to think in a way that is accepting of a lot of different realities anyway, so it was a pretty seamless experience to weave the physics and other aspects of the genre together. There’s already this intergenerational, or interdimensional, element to the conversation and the art that comes out of it.

The show is presented in the planetarium dome, which has a 360-degree screen, so it’s very immersive. Stepping into the space and watching the show feels like an interdimensional experience of its own.

The first audience to see it had a very emotional response. Some people were crying. There were Black women in the audience saying they always wanted to see this kind of imagery, that they had wanted to be scientists at one point in time. Others were deeply touched by the vibrancy of the show, of how it was able to bring these multiverse theories to life.

It’s impressive that these physics concepts, which can be difficult for people to understand or relate to, are made so accessible with examples that are not only imaginative but very rooted in Black culture.

Right. And it wasn’t difficult for us to do that, because as Afrofuturists, we operate in that space. It’s just about mirroring a way of being that we have always been immersed in.

I think “Niyah and the Multiverse” expresses that we all have different relationships to space and time. We are all looking to understand who we are, where we come from and where we can go in this broader space-time trajectory.

And maybe for some, the show normalizes the idea that there are kids who are Black who dream and are curious about the world. That curiosity can take them in the direction of becoming an artist, or becoming a scientist.

What challenges did you face in tackling the multiverse?

In trying to write some elements of the story, we had to push our own imagination to come up with what a universe might look like if you’re not using the laws of physics that exist in this one. Like, what does it mean to have your particles reassembled into something else? Sometimes we’d come up with ideas for different worlds, and our science consultants would say that already exists.

For me, this shows the beauty of bridging art and science. Artists can give visuals and narratives to ideas that scientists come up with. Or it could happen the other way around: Artists imagine something, and scientists think about what might be needed to support a universe that looks that way.

Image

[mcltiples]

@countlessrealities sent; Mortimer gently but firmly led his counterpart along a ill lit corridor, one hand heavily resting on his lower back. He had insisted that the other kept his eyes closed the whole time, saying that he didn't want the surprise to get spoiled.

In truth, he was merely doing it for his own amusement, since he could have easily just portalled them to the exact location without putting up all that fuss. He had already programmed the coordinates that led there in the memory of the other president's portal gun, so that his counterpart would be able to go back whenever he wanted, but he wanted to play this little game for their first visit.

"Almost there," he whispered, in his other self's ear, as they finally reached the door set at the end of the corridor.

He opened it and, once they were both fully past the threshold, he finally removed the blindfold. They were standing in the entrance of a vast space, shaped like the dome room you could find in planetariums. The difference was that there were no rows of seats, but just a console set in the very middle of the floor.

"This is nowhere as exceptional as what you built for me, but I hope that you'll still appreciate it," Morty said, leading his counterpart towards the console. "I think it's something you'd enjoy playing around with."

The transparent touch screens came to life as he brushed them, revealing a complex board of settings. His fingers danced on a few icons, moving them across the glass and inputting numbers and commands on another.

The dome above them came to life, showing firstly the map of the pocket dimension the Citadel had been built in, and then the stars from a faraway galaxy.

"I coded it myself. It contains all the data and visuals of the parts of the multiverse explored by Ricks," he explained, reaching out to hit another couple of holographic buttons. "You can use it to explore or..."

His voice trailed off as his next command caused on of the suns to go nova, wiping out the planets that had been revolving around it.

"Get a taste of what playing God means and reshaping the whole universe to your liking."

[[ My E-Morty for your E-Morty !! ]]

Being blindfolded wasn't what Morty had been expecting when his counterpart said to follow him. Though he trusted the other and if he wanted to play this game, then he would allow it.

Trust wasn't something that he gave to just anyone, but with his other self. That's all he felt. Complete and utter trust. Which, if he were being honest, terrified him but it also set him free in a lot of ways.

Once they were to the location, the blindfold taken off, it took some time to adjust his eyes on what he was seeing. His eyes widened at the look of the place. So big. And the holographic buttons and screens were all pristine. It must've taken a while to craft something like this.

And for that reason, he was already appreciative.

"And you'd be right, this is the kind of thing I see myself spending weekend afternoons playing around with," And a lot more than just that. "I like it, no, love it,"

He came to stand behind his counterpart, hands onto his shoulders. "Why don't we both test it out? Explore some parts of the universe together, what do you say?"

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

A lot of the vr “communities” you hang out in are very second life like I went into their multiverse planetarium and it is like really reminiscent of second life or like, Mario 64 with the paintings

[ailtrahq]

Both games incorporate Web3 innovations such as self-balancing tokenomics and dynamic guild warfare systems, giving top guilds the power to influence in-game resources and rewards. In an announcement during the ongoing Korea blockchain Week (KBW), which started on September 4, Planetarium Labs, a leading Web3 gaming company, has unveiled two innovative blockchain games that promise to redefine the gaming experience for players. The first game, Verse8, is an open-source, decentralized rogue-like RPG protocol with a rich multiverse backstory, adding depth and excitement to the gameplay. According to a press release shared with Coinspeaker, Verse8 is designed with moddable games that bring together multiplayer experiences, vibrant gaming communities, and virtual economics. Planetarium Labs to Redefine blockchain Gaming Experience The new game is armed with powerful and intuitive tools for world generation, distribution, and monetization. The company said that creators can launch evolving virtual worlds of their own on Verse8 while leveraging community hubs to reach audiences, Market their offerings, engage with users and partner with like-minded brands and players. Planetarium Labs also previewed Immortal Rising 2, a Web3 competitive idle RPG game, during the 2023KBW blockchain event. According to the company, Verse8 and Immortal Rising 2 are built on the success of Mine Chronicles, the company’s first fully on-chain idle RPG game. However, Immortal Rising 2 is an upgraded version of Immortal Rising 1, which generated over $15 million in revenue. The game was launched exclusively in the Korean Market. Planetarium Labs said the new game was built with enhanced gameplay and features to surpass its predecessor. The blockchain game developer aims to significantly impact the Web 3 gaming sector with both Verse8 and Immortal Rising 2.  Its co-founder and CEO, JC Kim, said the game has the potential to redefine the industry. “We’re incredibly excited to announce our upcoming titles and aim to impact the Web3 gaming scene in 2024 significantly. After months of diligent development and design, we’re thrilled to finally publicly announce our vision for Verse8 and Immortal Rising 2 to the community. Our upcoming lineup holds the potential to redefine the industry, addressing long-standing expectations,” said JC Kim. Both games incorporate Web3 innovations such as self-balancing tokenomics and dynamic guild warfare systems, giving top guilds the power to influence in-game resources and rewards. Planetarium Labs Collaborates with XLGames During the 2023 KBW event announcement, Planetarium Labs revealed that the first game, Verse8, was created in collaboration with Jake Song, the CEO of XLGames, a video game company headquartered in Bundang-gu, South Korea. Song believes the game’s innovative open UGC protocol ensures content creation is not monopolized. “Verse8 is more than a game; it embodies the ethos of decentralization. The game’s innovative open UGC protocol ensures that content creation isn’t monopolized by the few but democratized for the many,” explained he. Alan Lau, the chief business officer of Animoca Brands, also shared the same sentiments as Song for Immortal Rising 2. He noted: “We are entering a new era defined by collaboration, immersive gameplay, and community-driven content, and Animoca Brands is thrilled to be actively engaged in this pivotal phase of the blockchain gaming revolution.” Animoca Brands was one of the major venture Capital companies that invested in the company last year during its Series A funding round. At the time, Planetarium Labs raised $32 million to build community-focused games. Thank you! You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

[m0ralitycore]

Fuck it, writing blurb for the AU. Gonna call it Planetarium.

These guys don't ever interact with canon characters. They just. Exist. Minus one but. She accidentally made the third line so-

Anyway. Feel free to ask. I encourage it. I swear this makes sense. I'm just messing with ideas and existing concepts.

The place they've found themselves is not a kind one. It's not truly a place at all. Just a plane in the void between fate, death, life, and gravity. In this place, where the souls tethered to life and legacy go, the woman paces their lines between the strings, stars, and lights.

"You know you can rest, right. There's nothing to do."

"Jordan." She acknowledges the man. Turning to look at the center, the entangled rope of a line and all those connected.

"Still worried? You can watch if it's this bad." He steps over a wayward string.

"Not... Worried. Just... Fascinated. Look how my little string grew." She gestures to a slightly blue one in a sea of white. It snakes along the others, intertwining and entangling, branching off into a proper mark on the fate-crossed.

"You know it's a fluke, Neruu. This is just one in... an infinite amount. If we take a damn step off this place we're as good as dead and..." He trails off, the dark greenish outline of something wisping into existence temporarily to comfort him.

"We'll get noticed. I know. I'm just... happy. To see what happens. How will it change, how it will grow. The infinite threats of a false Heaven and powers galore can't put that damper on me anymore. I know it still affects you two, but..." She spreads her arms, looking up at the central mass of entangled fates and lives.

"Even if it is a fluke. I will play this story until its end. I'll see them all through. All this from one errant choice." She laughs. It's not kind, laced with madness and bitterness.

"Let them find us once the story concludes. Once all the lives are spent and the game is over. Heart of Nova will defend you and Jovan until the multiverse finally breaks."

[the-lost-glove]

Some things I like in no particular order:

collective nouns, crows, learning to really see things, geometry, nostalgia, children's book illustrations, childhood summers, autumn at any age, marking the seasons, Monarch butterflies, the scent of old books, annotations, footnotes & marginalia, ampersands, craft, color theory, aesthetics, fountain pens, notebooks, bookstores with comfy chairs, the French style of cursive, the color blue no matter the hue or shade, rainy days, lit up windows seen while walking down the street at night, receiving & sending handwritten letters, hearing music & laughter faintly through an open window, dressing up, that first sip of a cocktail before dinner at a nice restaurant, plum blossom trees in February, desert thunderstorms, wildflowers, melancholy, leaning back in the dark of a planetarium, Stendhal syndrome, museum gift shops, Mexico City, the multiverse theory, the simulation hypothesis, maladaptive daydreaming, paracosms, hyperphantasia, romantic crushes, that second sleep after waking up too early, juniper trees blown into the shape of the wind, coastal forests, Big Sur, words that have no equivalent in English, the concept of the fatal flaw, bittersweet things, strange things, haunted things, rituals, talismans, ghosts, Greek mythology, owls, witches, the time right before sunset through to when the stars begin appearing at dusk, ephemera, synesthesia, the scent of basil, old haciendas, the Yucatán Peninsula, learning the history of a place, irreverent people, eccentric people, dark humor, hope, being curious & fearless

in the face of dread

in the face of grief

***

Inspired by a post by @ciaran.

[fiberslut]

Apparently the multiverse is real

Chapter 7: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Masterlist

previous | next

Pairing: the avengers x reader

Disclaimer: English is not my first language so you may find some funny words/sentences or broken grammar in here. I'll say sorry in advance but I've tried my best.

Summary: You accidentally travel to Marvel universe(not earth-616), but luckily you've got your phone with you. You may ask what do you mean luckily, just read this fiction.

Warning: spoiler of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

'Where r u?' I decide to text Pete since I'd waited for him for 30 minutes

Lately, Tony was working so hard, not about technologies, but about matchmaking me. He tried to set me up with Franklin Richards, Harry Osborn, and Kate Bishop just to make me forget about Bucky. This week it is Peter Parker's queue. Tony didn't set me up with Pete but Pete asked me himself, so that is why I'm waiting for him in front of his dorm at Empire State University.

'I'm coming' Pete finally texts me back

5 minutes later

"I'm so sorry, Y/N, I had to help my professor recalculate the equation, and then we forgot to add more variation so we had to recalculate it again but then we realized that we actually did it right in the first place so we had to go back to the same equation" He tells while he's panting

"Oh that sucks" My brain just went blank since he said the first 'equation' so I just pretend to enjoy his conversation

"So I'm thinking we should go to the planetarium after the movie, what do you think?" He asks nervously

"Yeah whatever" I just really want this day to end

"OK, let's go, um, where is Happy's parking anyway?"

"Just follow m-" Before I can finish my sentence, there is a glowing portal that appears in front of me.

"Hi I'm Doctor Stephen Strange, are you Y/N?" He asks me

"Yeah, and what do you want from me?"

"I just got back from the dark dimension, and Wong told me everything about you"

Oh, I totally forgot about that.

"You have to go with me" He tells me and starts to create a portal

"Hey sir, she has a date with me" Pete tries to intervene

"I'm sorry Pete, but I think it's important" I don't know if it's important or not but I'm surely not in the mood for a date tonight

Yeah. Instead of going on the 4th date of the week, I decided to jump into a portal with a total stranger.

The portal opens to an old library somewhere.

"I guess this is Kamar-Taj"

"Yes. And you must tell me about yourself so I could try to find a way to send you back" Stephen wastes no time and cuts to the chase

"Woah woah, we just met and the first thing you try to do is get rid of me?"

"Yes" He answers with an emotionless face

"Ok, first of all, I don't have any interdimensional diseases, I'm just stronger, faster, and just can heal myself"

"How long have you been here?"

"About 2 months""Wait, did you just spend 2 months in the dark dimension?" I just realize that

"Yes and it didn't feel that long, dark dimension doesn't have time"

"So you just went there just to be with Clea?" I tease him

"What? NO! Why would I want to be near that creature?"

"I thought you and her are a thing"

"Nope and never. She is Faltine and she rules the dark dimension"

"Oh. My bad. Where I'm from you guys are a couple"

"Oh. So what am I like in your universe?"

"You're hot, I mean hot mess, like you just used the darkhold and caused an incursion"

"Yuck that Stephen must be super reckless"

"It's just a bad writing, I guess"

"What do you mean?" He asks curiously

"Like you're just a character in movies and comics"

"So there is no magic in your universe? But how did you get here?"

"That is what I'm trying to find out"

"Ok. Let's try this"

He then pulls one of my hair and tries to create a portal with it.

"Nope it's not working" He shakes his head as there is no portal coming out of my hair

"Yeah. Even America Chavez couldn't find my universe"

"As a sorcerer supreme, I am sorry to tell you that this is out of my hands"

"It's ok, I'm kinda getting used to it now"

"Let's get you home"

"NO!"

"What do you mean NO?"

"Please. If I go back now, I have to go on a boring date, do you have any place to go or any mission to do? I can tag along, I won't be your burden just don't let me go back on a date"

"Actually I do have a mission"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We're back in New York. At some random street. People are running away from an alley.

"My friend there needs some help, you stay here ok?"

"Ok" Actually I have no intention to stay still. So after Doctor Strange flies away from me, I run to that alley. (And yes, I reach there before him) There is a giant web and a giant spider-person. He is trying to attack Ghost Rider.

"I said stay there" Stephen finally reaches the alley and sees me

"That is Spider-X" I tell him

"How did you kno- anyways what should we do?"

"We need electrical energy so we can explode him"

"Do we really have to kill him?"

"That is the only way" Or in this case, that is the only solution that I read from Midnights Sons Unlimited Issue 3

"Ok fine"

"Oh we should tell all your friends to retreat"

"Ok"

Then Doctor Strange creates a portal to teleport Ghost Rider and John Blaze. After that, he creates a portal above Spider-X and drops a big electric generator on it. And bam! It explodes and kills that thing.

"That was convenient" John Blaze turns to talk to Stephen

"Thanks to you. I almost run out of ideas. That thing somehow managed to flee from my penance stare" Ghost Rider admits and thanks Stephen

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Ghost Rider and John Blaze went home. Stephen decided to take me home (in this case, Stark Tower).

"That was amazing, thanks by the way" He says

"You're welcome" I smile back at him

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME AGAIN?!" Tony shouts

"Did you just ditch Pete to go out with another middle age man?" Tony still mads

"Hi dad" I smile apologetically at Tony as I remember that I forgot to text him

"Hi Tony" Stephen says "Your daughter really help me with the team today, she is really smart"

"You went on a mission?!" Apparently, that makes Tony even madder

"Yeah dad, but everything's fine"

"I gotta go now" Stephen clearly flees from the situation

"Did you hurt? What happened?" Tony seems to calm down after Stephen left "See? This is why I made you a suit"

"Nothing happened to me Tony, I finally use my comics knowledge to help people"

"That's great but next time just don't ditch Pete, that boy was devastated enough already"

Taglist

@ayoelouise

@potatopfft

@welconme-notreally

@niccino-apino

@emily-roberts

@local-mr-frog

[nativenewyorkerposts]

What is the origin of life on our planet?  What was around before the Universe?  Is the Universe actually one of many in a multiverse?  The solar system exhibition, on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof garden, reminded me of a museum on the other side of Central Park.  The “Dark Universe” space show, at the Hayden Planetarium, had me thinking about many fascinating questions!  Why is there something rather than nothing?  (Photo taken on July 15, 2019)

[weannewashere]

Sofar from my comfort zone

I almost didn’t go. Something had come up and my friend couldn’t make it and now I had two tickets to a Sofar concert at an undisclosed location with undisclosed artists. So I put up posts on different NY-based facebook groups, telling random strangers from the void that I have an extra ticket and would anyone like to come and we don’t even have to talk, I just don’t want the tickets to go to waste. But that didn’t work, and as I started to message a few friends to ask them instead, I realized something... tonight, I actually wanted to just be by myself. So I did.

I almost didn’t go but I’m glad I did. It was magic, just sitting there in the dimly lit floor beside everyone else, being serenaded by artists just three feet in front of me, in a rooftop setting so cozy even their parents were in the small audience. The dreamy Tavonna Miller and her jazzy, soulful voice sang about the delirious happiness of being in love. Elizabeth Moen blew me away with her country rock angst and the story behind “Planetarium,” an upbeat, weirdly comforting song about the multiverse, and how one can hope that in some other reality, things had gone better. And then there was Bailen the Band, a sibling folk act and their encore of “25,″ a softly sung love letter to oneself about growing up and looking back at the path you chose to take in life. 

I almost didn’t go but I’m glad I did. I listened to musicians who couch surfed in Ireland for two months and lived out of their car so they can play their gigs. I made friends with an actress who moved to NYC when she was 18 and now stars in a comedy web series that I am now definitely going to follow. I was so intrigued by their tales and the adventures life had taken them on, and when they asked me about myself and I started babbling about moving to New York and wanting to work in Syria or Pakistan or Sudan someday, I realized... hey, my own story’s not so bad too. I’m interesting too. 

I almost didn’t go but I’m glad I did. And I almost didn’t move to New York but I’m glad I did. Last week it brought me to the hallowed walls of the UN where I was reminded of why I want to do the things I do. And this week, it brought me to a tiny room in the middle of the city where the music made me realize that it’s okay and it’s beautiful to be vulnerable or angry or sad or sorry or hopeful or happy or human. I was reminded of how exciting we can make our lives be, and how even though there are pockets where I’ll sometimes find myself stuck in a mundane routine, there will also be nights when I’ll find myself being swept away by music in a rooftop miles away from home, by myself, being myself, in a room full of fascinating strangers, realizing that in a city where people relentlessly pursue their passion, I belong too.

[jerimystoltzcreations]

Feb 22, 2022 Creative Multiverse presents: Black History month celebration Neil deGrasse Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson (US: /dəˈɡræs/ or UK: /dəˈɡrɑːs/; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003. #CreativeMultiverse #blackhistorymonth #art #artwork #artistofinstagram #artist #artistforhire #Custom #create #drawing #drawingaday #draweveryday #illustration #pencil #sketch #ink #colordrawing #Sketchcard #fabercastell #copic #twitchstreamer #scientist https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca_dpXvMalE/?utm_medium=tumblr

[jakebainarcadgame]

Hugh Everett,  Max Tegmark,  Brian Greene,  Neil DeGrasse Tyson,  Stephen Hawking

Hugh Everett III was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which he termed his "relative state" formulation. he stated that with every decision we make in this universe could have an effect of parallel universes. Hugh Everett III was born in 1930 and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. Everett's parents separated when he was young. Initially raised by his mother he was raised by his father and stepmother from the age of seven.

Max Erik Tegmark is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. Tegmark was born in Sweden to Karin Tegmark and American-born professor of mathematics Harold S. Shapiro, with his father's surname. While in high school, Tegmark and a friend created and sold a word processor written in pure machine code for the Swedish eight-bit computer ABC 80, and a 3D Tetris-like game called Frac.  The Mathematical (Level IV) Multiverse propagates the view that the Universe can be thought of as a mathematical structure and that all mathematical structures exist in form of parallel worlds.

Brian Randolph Greene is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician, and string theorist. Greene was a physics professor at Cornell University from 1990-1995, and has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008. Greene was born in New York City of Jewish background. His father, Alan Greene, was a one-time vaudeville performer and high school dropout who later worked as a voice coach and composer. After attending Stuyvesant High School, Greene entered Harvard University in 1980 to concentrate in physics. Type one – Quilted Multiverse. Type two – Inflationary Multiverse. Type three – Brane Multiverse. Type four – Cyclic Multiverse. Type five – Landscape Multiverse. Type 6 – Quantum Multiverse. Type 7 – Holographic Multiverse. Type 8 – Stimulated Multiverse.  Type 9 – Ultimate Universe. these are the nine universes Brain Randolph Greene believes to exist 

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. Tyson was born in Manhattan as the second of three children, into a family living in the Bronx. His mother, Sunchita Maria Tyson, was a gerontologist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and is of Puerto Rican descent. DeGrasse Tyson’s theory on the Multiverse is that the laws of physics are set in the very earliest stages of a universe’s creation.  Different universes could in theory have slightly different laws of physics meaning things could form differently there, life could be different, there may be no stars or there might be different elements.  He thinks the differences there could be are endless - anything is possible.

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking. Hawking's mother was born into a family of doctors in Glasgow, Scotland.  Hawking had a theory in the 1980′s which suggested that the Big Bang would have created not just one universe but an endless supply of them, some would be like our own with Earlth-like planets similar to ours whereas others may be different, maybe dinosaurs were not wiped out, for example.  Other universes would be entirely different, maybe without stars or with different laws of physics.  Hawking was not happy with this chaotic theory though and so did further research and using string theory decided that there can only be universes with the same laws of physics as ours.

[finlaylawesarcadegame]

Week 1 Multi Verse Work

What is a multi verse?

A multi verse is where there is a replicated version of our world in a parallel universe. There could be other versions of ourselves living completely different lives than what we’re living in now.

The Cosmological Multiverse

The Cosmological Multiverse: The idea that the universeve expand in a super fast speed of a fraction of a second after the big bang. After this happend there were quantum fluctuations that caused sperate bubble universes to pop in existence. Each one of then started inflating itself  and creating more bubbles. These universes were no longer connected with one another so they were free to develop in different way’s.

String Theory

String theory is one way physicists have attempted to unite the universe under one set of very complicated rules. However, it requires some serious theoretical reimagining of reality to make it work and it predicts a frankly ridiculous number of universe, 10 to 500 or more, all slightly different physical parameters. The calculations make sense in theory, but it’s notoriously difficult to test these ideas in reality.

The Quantum Multiverse

Hugh evertt created this theory that quantum effects cause the universe to constantly split. it could mean that decisions we make in this universe have implications for other versions of ourselves living in parallel worlds.

The Backwards Universe

The big bang might have actually created two different universes - one made mostly matter -that’s us- and one made mostly antimatter. If this theory is correct, it predicts that there should be new type of particle called a right handed neutrino. Now two observations from an experiment in antarctica may have seen one. Alternative explanations have been put forward to account for these observations, but all of them have been ruled out. What’s left is a theory suggesting a topsy- turvy universe was created in the same big bang as our own exists in parallel with it. Mirror world. In this mirror world, positive is negative, left is right, up is down and time runs backwards. It could be the most mind-melting idea ever to have emerged from Antarctic ice-but it might just be true.

Blog posts on scientists:

Hugh Everett (Many worlds interpretation): 

Fifty years ago Hugh Everett devised the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which quantum effects spawn countless branches of the universe with different events occurring in each.The theory sounds like a bizarre hypothesis, but in fact Everett inferred it from the fundamental mathematics of quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, most physicists of the time dimissed it, and he had to abridge his Ph.D. thesis on the topic to make it seem less controversial. Discouraged, Everett left physics and worked on military and industrial mathematics and computing. Personally, he was emotionally withdrawn and a heavy drinker.He died when he was just 51, not living to see the recent respect accorded his ideas by physicists.

Max Tegmark (Four Levels theory): 

According to MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, there are four levels of parallel universes: Level 1: An infinite universe that, by the laws of probability, must contain another copy of Earth somewhere. Level 2: Other distant regions of space with different physical parameters, but the same basic laws.

Brian Greene (Nine types theory): 

Dr. Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963, New York City, New York) is a Columbia University physicist and string theorist known to the general public for popularizing physics with his books The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos and Icarus at the Edge of Time, as well as related television specials.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City

Stephen Hawking:

In the 1980′s Stephen created an idea that the big bang didn't just lead to one universe but to infinite universes, each different from the other. In parallel universes things like dinosaurs could still be alive, people could be living different jobs e.t.c but the difficulty with that is that if all things are possible there’s no way to predict what the laws of physics should be in out own universe. but after drawing on new mathematical tools hawking's showed that in fact there aren't infinite variety of universes. In fact they’re not as weird and wonderful as he first thought, rather the multiple universes are similar to our own and so the laws of physics are the same.

What do you think about the idea of the Multiverse? Do you think it's real? Or not? Does it matter?

I personally think that given the information I have read there could quite possibly be a multiverse but I cannot not be entirely sure because I am no scientists so I don't know every detail behind this theory to make a proper decision.. But where ever or not it matter’s I don't think it’s something that matters too much because even if it was real we couldn't connect with that multiverse so our life's wouldn’t be affect too much. 

[stikleryte]

[dulcidyne]

Escape Velocity (707/Saeyoung Choi x MC)

Fandom: Mystic Messenger.  Summary:  He woke up on the wrong side of the multiverse somehow, traveled through planes of spacetime in a wormhole wink to wake up in a universe where he doesn’t belong--a universe where everything is comically, disastrously wrong. Word count: 2510

[Angst/Hurt/Comfort. SFW. 707 route spoilers. After ending spoilers.]

A slice of city skyline slips through the blinds, striping diffuse streetlight glow across the face of a boy just emerging into consciousness. It’s the first thing he sees when his eyelid flutters open--the amber flare of sodium vapor in blue dim--and he winces when the brightness drives a cold scalpel-edge of pain directly into his optic nerve.

“Oh--” another voice says, half swallowed by his reflexive hiss, but distinctively feminine. By the bed, an ECG readout shows the stuttering thump of his heart with a jagged green spike. Despite the pain and the worried chirp of the machines hooked into him, he has to bite back his laugh. It lingers in his mouth like a morphine lollipop, giddy and sweet enough to make his head spin. She never ever listens.

“You’re still here? I’m starting to think you really do just like that chair,” he chides.

But when he opens his eyes again, the concerned face that comes into view stops the rest of his lecture short. It’s not meant for her and he’s not sure if he’s relieved or dejected. Happiness evaporates off his tongue.

“Luc...Saeyoung. It’s--well, I’m sure I’m not who you expected to see...”

Jaehee tucks mussed hair back behind her ears but the effort does little to restore her back to factory standard. She’s as human as he’s ever seen her with her wrinkled dress shirt and her finger-combed hair sticking out in wild wisps. He spots her suit jacket discarded over the back of the chair like an afterthought. On anyone else, disheveled at this hour is nothing extraordinary. But Jaehee doesn’t spend her nights with her nose in a bottle of soju, hand wrapped around a karaoke mic. She doesn’t stumble home after shouting her goodbyes across the street to her coworkers, tottering heels tapping off-tempo staccato onto the pavement. On Jae Hee, disheveled is fundamentally wrong. A negative where a positive should be. An antiparticle. Anti-Jaehee.

The machine beeps come faster and louder. Any second now, this crumpled, grief-smudged doppelganger is going to collide on a molecule of sensible, unflappable Jaehee reality and annihilate everything.

Hospital air, reeking of antiseptic and IV drip, barrels into the room with a rush of dimmed fluorescent light from the hall and he looks up to see Jumin take a pause, hand still on the door handle.

“You’re awake then.”

He offers a perfunctory nod and enters the room without another word. In one hand, there’s a styrofoam cup with a cloud of steam condensing off the top but he makes no move to drink it, set it down, or pass it to his exhausted assistant. Styrofoam. Nothing Jumin owns is designed to be disposable. Not his diamond-inlaid pens, not his porcelain dinner plates, not his silver-plated dress collar stays. His world exists outside of plastic shrink-wrapped convenience. In a corporate heir’s world, things gleam and glow forever.

It’s like a game in a kid’s magazine--the half educational, half distraction ones they stock in the hospital waiting rooms. Circle the thing that doesn’t belong: tailored three-piece Ermani suit, Verragamo tie, sterling silver tie pin, and one disposable cup. If Saeyoung had a pen (just a regular, chewed-up Bik), he’d circle the air around the cup over and over, pressing harder and harder until the cheap nib tore through the page.

“Did you bring that for me?” Saeyoung settles back into the pillows and directs the question up at the ceiling in wonderment that he only has to partially feign. “Oh my, Mr. Chairman-to-be’s tender, caregiving side...”

The cup still niggles at the corner of his eye like a jittering artifact spliced into reality through clumsy video editing. He grins a 707 grin as if nothing in the world can ever bother him and sits up to look at Jumin.

“Oh! Is this what it feels like to be Elly?”

He preens as best he can with one arm hooked to IVs and machines and the other wrapped in layers of gauze. Tubing clatters. He pays it no mind. “Nya~ong. But Mr. Caregiver, do you mind switching out whatever that is for a-”

“It’s not for you.” Jumin interrupts, lips compressed down as if he’d like to say more but thinks better of it.

“Saeyoung, you’re feeling better then...” Jaehee says before her eyes meet Jumin’s across the room. A whole conversation scrolls in the empty space between them. They don’t have to take out their phones and type it up in the RFA messenger for him to know that it’s about him. And. That. It’s. Serious.

Saeyoung taps the pulse oximeter clipped to his index finger against the bed rail as if it were a mouse button and a steady, reassuring clicks fill in the gaps between the machine beeps.

“I am. Nearly 100% better. Maybe 99.00001% better. All I need for that last .99999% is a Ph.D Pepper, and some Honey Buddha Chips,” he counts each off with a tap of his fingertip, “and a Miss Cutie body pillow and matching limited edition collector’s blanket, a Zet Box and a Grey station for when I get frustrated with the Zet Box and a widescreen TV. I think then, I’d feel totally, completely, 100% better.”

His eyes sweep the room until he spots the red of his phone case on the nightstand. Should he call her and see if she got to the apartment safely? Or...would he just be interrupting the first real night of sleep she’s had in days? A restless ache catches him in the ribs. All his nagging for her to go rest at home and the second he wakes up to find someone else in her chair, the whole universe feels off-kilter.

“You…” Jaehee starts then stops, concern in every weary line around her eyes and a frown that says this is hardly the time for jokes. “You do remember, don’t you? What we told you before...”

She’s so serious. He laughs. “Why are you looking like that? Is this a drama?”

Saeyoung pauses for effect, taking a moment to compose his expression into something more drama-worthy--with little success, he keeps laughing despite himself. “Do I…have amnesia? Have I swapped bodies? Am I actually an alien from another planet and the doctors are keeping me for testing? Do I have cancer?”

Anti-Jaehee does a spot-on impression of regular Jaehee exasperation for anything nonsensical. Jumin holds the cup that isn’t for anyone in the room and does a spot-on impression of a man in the middle of a board meeting.

Unlike Jaehee, hospital despair hasn’t left a single visible mark on Jumin. If anything, he’s too Jumin...too business as usual. It’s as if something has distilled him down into a condensed cocktail of emotional detachment, wealth, and cat obsession and poured him back into his suit. But the focused intensity of him is hyperrealistic to the point of artificial.

“You don’t have amnesia or any of those other things,” Jumin says. “But, clearly, you are in denial.”

Matter-of-fact words clipped into precise syllables. They drop to the linoleum like a tray of needles, their metal points ricocheting. “Haha, alright. Disappointing choice, given the alternatives.” His pulse oximeter taps louder and faster and his smile is starting to hurt his cheeks so he lets it fall while he glances back at the phone. Softly, he asks, “What were the writers thinking with this script?”

“You’re being tiresome,” Jumin informs him, his free fingertips pressed against his temple. “I have a headache and there was no wine in the hospital cafeteria due to some strange oversight. I intend to inquire--”

Anti-Jaehee cuts to the point. “V’s death is a shock to all of us. I know you weren’t on the best of terms in the end but that doesn’t...it doesn’t erase years of friendship. You don’t seem to be taking the news seriously...to be making jokes right now--”

V’s death.

His head is shaking, a bubble of suppressed laughter expanding in his lungs. V’s death--that’s just...impossible. Ridiculous. It’s worse than the wrinkled shirt and the styrofoam cup and the wrong person in the chair by the bed. He really should’ve caught on earlier. It’s not like him to be so slow on the uptake. Some genius he is. The bubble in his chest pops against his sternum with one long, shuddering exhale that warps his laughter until it sounds breathy and helpless. V’s death. Anti-Jaehee. The cup. The chair.

He woke up on the wrong side of the multiverse somehow, traveled through planes of spacetime in a wormhole wink to wake up in a universe where he doesn’t belong; a universe where everything is comically, disastrously wrong.

A shiver in his chest maps cold in his veins like contrast dye and numb follows. It isn’t the ‘count backward from 10’ and wake up to find the girl he loves asleep in the chair beside his bed, her hands wrapped around his kind of numb . This numb is frostbite and flash freeze, it’s the cold and shadowed gaps of space where starlight cannot reach.

“Saeyoung. Saeyoung, are you even listening?”

V’s death. Anti-Jaehee. The cup. The chair. He’s still laughing--shallow, gasping chuckles. Above him, the ceiling panels are starting a slow, teetering revolution around an invisible axis.

“No. Why would I? I’m not staying here. I don’t even belong here.”

“What are you even saying? You’re not staying here? In the hospital?”

His head shakes even though, technically she isn’t far off. “In this universe.”

Watching the ceiling makes him dizzy. Saeyoung screws his eyes shut and brings his fingertips down hard on his eyelids. Static pinwheels up from black, rippling like space dust caught in a gust of solar wind. Even with his eyes closed, he can still sense the orbiting room pick up speed. Or maybe he’s the one moving. For some reason, he thinks of the ‘black hole’ donation funnel at the National Science Museum planetarium. He thinks of wobbly coins accelerating away from the flared rim, faster and surer until they’re nothing but a flickering line of zinc curving around the vortex. This universe is wrong. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t want to stay here.

Space dust is accumulating beneath his shut eyelids but he doesn’t dare open his eyes to blink out the grit and the moisture wicking up his eyelashes. V isn’t dead. He isn’t shelved away in a metal drawer in the hospital morgue with a bullet lodged in his chest. V is a liar and a traitor but he’s alive.

An image flashes up before he can stop it, some hypoxia-addled memory. It’s ice cream running cold rivulets over his knuckles--blue, too bright to be anything less than artificial, staining and sticky, turning his hands and tongue a different color. Rika’s laughter echoes up into the museum archways.

“Luciel--here, just use my handkerchief first.”

There’s a borrowed ₩10 coin in his hand, still warm from V’s pocket and sticky from his own hands. He’s laughing too. It doesn’t feel like a goodbye even though it is. Now that he’s with the agency, who knows when he can sneak out to see Rika and V again.

There’s no air left in his lungs and they’re burning, the moisture is evaporating off them and flash-freezing in his chest. He’s floating, spinning in the vacuum of space and he can’t--he can’t--

He can’t breathe.

Metal coins sucked into the dark. Black holes made out of plastic. He’s orbiting around the funnel rim, pulled towards the gravity well, forces shearing him away ten won at a time to slip through bubbles in quantum foam and appear on the other side of the multiverse.

Something wraps around his fingertips and jerks his hand away from his face. Without the pressure of his fingertips, his eyes open by reflex.

She’s there, bangs mussed, cheeks flushed, chin obscured by the thick red wool plait of her scarf. Undeniably real. Undeniably right. Amber flecks in her eyes glimmer brightly through a sheen of unshed tears like constellations in gold leaf and he wishes he could spend the entire night, lying on his back, gazing up and counting each beautiful fleck. He wishes he could feel the warmth of her hand. He wishes he could banish the tears welling up in her eyes and see her smile. But his wishes are truncated and flat, severed away from feeling and emotion so that they exist more in the realm of abstract theory right along with Petri nets, Chomsky hierarchy, and finite automata.

“Stay. In this universe. Stay here with me.” She’s right in front of him but she sounds far away--a signal with spotty quality beamed from another orbit. He can barely hear her over the static crackle of interference and when he finally does, the message has an odd, aged quality to it as if time is dilating in the centimeters between them and the words are already centuries old by the time they reach him.

Stay. He can’t. It’s too late. Whatever tethered him to her world has already snapped and now he’s just drifting and disconnected, ephemeral and insubstantial in between universes, there and not there at the same time. Schrodinger’s Saeyoung.

Tears spill up, curving down her cheekbones but she makes no move to duck her head or wipe them away. She doesn’t take her eyes off him and he can’t pull his away from hers even though she’s asking the impossible. Instead, his numb fingers tighten around her hand until he can almost feel it--almost.

She grants half a wish right there and smiles despite the tears still coursing freely to drip off the delicate curve of her jaw. If he could stay for anything, it would be that smile. Breaking eye contact, she examines the loose fringe of her scarf before finding a trailing red thread that she pulls away with her free hand.

Somehow managing not to release his hand, she winds it clumsily around his index finger and gives it a gentle tug to make sure it will stay put. It does. She meets his eyes again.

“You do belong here, for better or worse,” she tells him and this time the words are perfectly clear. Fragments of glowing city skyline dance a dozen brilliant colors in her eyes. “But if you have to leave for a bit, I’ll just make sure you can find your way back.”

She tugs the thread again. “Astronauts always have safety tethers right? This can be yours.”

Something lights across her face and she yanks free another thread from her scarf to tie it around another finger.

“And another one for Saeran. You belong with both of us, so you need two.”

There’s grief bitter bright in her eyes but hope too. He looks down at their clasped hands, at the red threads entangled around his fingers, and feels an echo of the emotion in her eyes fissure up from the dark, numb hollows of his heart. Grief, but hope too.

Her hand is warm.