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lobsters-on-their-heads · 7 years ago

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Continuing Travels of Cophine, Ch. 8

Hey, look, I finally posted something. Entire work still lives here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13525500?view_full_work=true

And of course, I always love good feedback.

*1 week before Clone Fest*

Frigid wind blew trash against the window of Fung's Diner while Sarah and Art met for their weekly lunch. Art had started giving her little mental challenges, based on past cases of his, and sometimes she enjoyed it, but today she just shook her head.

“Okay,” he said, “you gotta tell me what's on your mind, then.”

She pushed her eyebrows up with her fingers and tried to avoid the quasi-command for a minute or so before giving in. “Mostly just the usual bullshit. And Alison wants me to help plan this Clone Fest thing she's got coming up.”

“Clone Fest?!”

“Yeah. It's like, to celebrate all of our birthdays, or whatever, sort of between all the actual birthdays. It's next week.”

“Oh, that'll be nice. Yeah, Beth's birthday is... was right around this time, now that I think about it.” He chuckled, but shook his head. “April Fools Day. We used to laugh about that.”

She put her hand on his forearm. “Hey. It's still her birthday, right? And we're gonna try to do something to celebrate her, something special just for her, plus the party for all the rest of us weirdos. The party's the bitch, though. It's just...” She put the heels of both hands to her forehead, a gesture she'd picked up from Cosima some time ago, and shook her head. “It's just I have no idea what do.”

“What do you mean?”

“For, like, activities and shit. Alison wants to me to come up with 'fun activities' for everyone, and all I can think of doing is going to a club and getting drunk and high and shitfaced in every possible way until you can't remember who you even are any more. That's been just about every birthday party I've ever been to. Well, birthday party for adults, that is. Been going to more kids' parties these days, haven't I?”

Art smiled. “I dunno, Gemma's indoor pool party a couple months ago sounded like a blast. Maybe that's just more my speed these days.”

She took a bite of her BLT and considered that. “Okay, so we can get shitfaced at an indoor pool instead.”

He got that serious look on his face again. “No. Please don't. Sarah...”

“Hey, glow sticks look pretty cool underwater, you gotta admit.”

“Who else is gonna be there, other than the sisters?”

“Fucking, like, everybody, I guess? Cos and Delphine are flying in from wherever the fuck they are, and Scott's taking time off work to be there. Alison and Donnie and Helena, of course. Fe, naturally. You, hopefully. Not the kids, though. Alison's found a sitter to watch them for the evening.”

“What about Colin?”

She rolled her eyes and ate more of her sandwich.

“Uh oh.”

“If you really wanna know, ask Fe. There's some drama, but he's not telling me about it.”

“Well, even if he does come, I don't think he's got a lot of lifeguarding experience, so it answers my real question either way – who's gonna save your ass when one of you falls into the deep end tripping balls so hard you think that you actually fell up?”

“Cosima said she was a lifeguard in college.”

“In college.” When Sarah gave him a So What look, he clarified, “That means more than 10 years ago, and I'm guessing she hasn't been keeping her license up-to-date.”

When she didn't respond right away, he ate quietly and watched people ducking their heads against the wind outside. She knew what he was thinking, and she wanted to slap him for it.

“Look, we can enjoy ourselves for one bloody night, okay?”

“I'm not saying you can't.”

“You're doing everything but.” She stole one of the olives from his salad and mentally dared his forehead furrows to deepen. “Cosima and Delphine have been off saving our sisters' lives in, like, the shittiest places on the planet, so the least we can do is have a decent party for them. And for me and Alison and Helena, too, of course, 'cause our lives haven't been total picnics, but mostly for them.”

“That's funny,” he said, “I got a postcard from them with a picture of a real fancy resort on it. Said they were having a blast.”

“Yeah, I got that one, too, about a week after one that showed the earth splitting open and spewing fire. They move around a lot, yeah? Point is, it's everyone's birthday celebration, including Cosima's, and hell, including mine! You're not supposed to be responsible at a birthday party, Art!”

He made his “okey-dokey-then” face and cleaned the salad dressing from his chin. “Just don't count on me being there if there's anything other than alcohol involved. And I mean anything.”

** The morning of Clone Fest **

Cosima and Delphine both woke early, their bodies still wired to Middle East time. The weather report showed unseasonably warm temperatures, with highs around 18C and clear skies. After checking the weather report, Cosima dropped the phone next to her pillow and contemplated the day ahead. They were having lunch at Sarah's, followed by relaxed family time and then “something super fun” that evening.

“We should go to the market,” Delphine said, rolling over so that her nose almost touched Cosima's cheek. “The one in the park, you know? With all the sellers with vegetables and fruits. I know they might not have much this time of year, but someone will have eggs, I think.”

The mental image of Delphine casually perusing market stalls, in, like, a straw hat and a peasant skirt and carrying a straw basket made Cosima grin. “You wanna go to the farmer's market to get eggs?”

“Yes.” She kissed Cosima's chin and angled her torso above hers. “And anything else that looks good.”

She played with Delphine's fingers, splayed out next to her face, and smiled. “Can I get you, then?”

“Mmmm.... maybe.” There was another kiss, and Delphine threw back the covers, making Cosima yelp. “We'll see.” And with a smile, she sauntered off to the bathroom while Cosima scrambled to cover herself back up.

It was still chilly when they left at 7:30 in hats and scarves, but the sunlight kissing the buildings and the edges of the still-bare branches hinted at the warmer temperatures ahead. Cosima would have sucked up the chill and walked, but a city bus lumbered up as they neared a stop, so they got on and rode the mile or so to the park, where the market atmosphere was in full swing. At the entrance, they got coffee and home-baked muffins from a stall supporting the local children's orchestra, while a bluegrass duo played guitar and fiddle.

“Hang on,” Cosima said as they passed. “Are they playing Wagon Wheel?”

“What?”

She listened more closely, picking through years of memories for the tune. Then the fiddle picked up again, sawing at the chords, and she nodded. “Yup. It's definitely Wagon Wheel. Haven't heard this song since... well, let's just say it's been a while. Only words I remember is where they sing about having a nice long toke.”

“Ah. That's why you remember it. Maybe you can play it for me sometime.”

“Maybe.” She rubbed her shoulder against Delphine's as they made their way through the already crowded pathways between stalls. The muffin was good, if a little light on the blueberries, and the coffee warmed her hands and insides. “If you come out to California with me, I'm sure one of my uncles or cousins will play it on the guitar and we'll all sing along while we're drunk or high. Or both.”

They ducked into a stall selling leafy greens and inspected the wares, and Delphine asked, “If? Is it in question whether I'll go to California with you some day?”

Cosima balanced her half-eaten muffin on her coffee lid and set them on the counter. “No. I hope not.”

“Then why if?”

“I dunno...” She bagged a few handfuls of mesclun greens, tied the bags, and did the same with some kale. “It just doesn't seem that, like, certain, I guess.” Way to be articulate, Niehaus, she thought. The funk she'd been in a few days prior had dissipated with the family meals and the vigorous fuckings, but now it lurked at the edge of her mind again.

“No?”

And then Delphine was rubbing her back, and it was almost okay, but a young woman nearby scolded her child in Arabic, and Cosima remembered they were going to Baghdad in three days.

“It's fine.” She tilted her head to kiss Delphine, and turned back to the counter to pay for the greens.

They took their time exploring the market, sampling mushrooms and honey and pickled everything, and also buying three dozen eggs, a log of goat cheese, a pack of crème fraiche, fresh dill from the same greenhouse the leafy greens came from, carrots, chopped walnuts, and various snacks to take along. By the time they reached the end of the line of stalls and sat down to snack, the sun had risen and they needed to remove their hats and scarves.

Looking out at the park stretched out in front of them, distant high-rises visible over the treetops, Cosima rested her head on Delphine's shoulder. “It's a nice place.”

“Mhm,” Delphine agreed around a mouthful of apricot.

“D'you remember that day we were gonna have a picnic out here...”

“The day it rained?”

“No, the other time.”

“The day you were pissed at me?”

“Was it... wait. Which day that I was pissed at you?” Cosima paused and thought back. She'd been thinking of the plans they'd made, to bring blankets and some hot spiced wine out here, to listen to the drummers and snuggle up together in public. And then they hadn't done that, because...

“You don't remember? The day you learned that that dental pulp came from Kira's tooth.”

“Was that the same day? Maybe. I remember them as two completely separate events.”

“It was the same day. I'd already set my schedule to leave early, but then you overheard me talking to Scott, and...”

“And the rest is history.”

People with dogs and baby strollers passed, less densely here than at other parts. A distant off-key trumpet player honked out “When the Saints Come Marching In,” and the combined smells of grilled meat, popcorn, and weed made the park smell like a fairground.

“We could get married here.”

Delphine had her coffee cup halfway to her mouth, but she set it down again at that. “As a replacement picnic, perhaps?”

“If you wanna think of it that way. We did tell everyone we'd get married in Toronto, didn't we?”

“Yes, we did. I don't think either of us will want to jaunt off anywhere for a destination wedding.”

Cosima's laugh slid into a groan, and she covered her eyes. “I am trying so hard not to think about jaunting off anywhere right now. Today was supposed to be my day off from jaunting.”

“Ooh, pauvre petit chiot...” Delphine rubbed her shoulder and nuzzled her hair. “I'm sorry that I brought it up.”

“Eh, it's whatever. What do you think, though? Of getting married here? We don't need to decide right now, obviously.”

“Obviously. I think it's nice, as long as it doesn't rain.”

“We can have a backup for rain.”

Delphine giggled. “Like one of those giant circus tents?”

“Exactly like one of those. Oh, and there could be streamers that are, like, DNA-shaped coming down from the top.”

“Mmm, maybe. What else would there be?”

“DNA symbols on the cake, obviously.”

“A DNA cake, maybe?”

“Oooh, that's a good idea.”

They finished off their snacks, and just as they were about to rise, a loud boBOOP emanated from Delphine's purse, making them both pause. While Delphine fished around for the clone business phone, it gave off two more boBOOPs in rapid succession, and Cosima's heart picked up its pace. Maybe it was Özlem, and Cosima's suspicions about the coughing were correct. Or maybe it was someone with some information about Malika, finally. Or maybe it was just some doctor, confirming an appointment in Baghdad or Tehran or wherever.

Delphine unlocked the screen and frowned, then smiled. “Look.”

Leaning over, Cosima saw a picture, likely taken by a webcam, of three children – Fatima, Nabil, and Mohammed Al Numery, the oldest of the Yemeni orphans they'd met in Djibouti. In the picture, only Fatima looked directly at the camera, large dark eyes serious under her headscarf while the boys poked each other from each side of her. With a swipe, Delphine revealed the second photo. The boys smiled here, but Fatima did not.

“They are such good kids,” Cosima said.

“They sent a message, too.”

hello dr delphine cormier it began. we are nabl Fatima and Mhmmd in DJIBOUTI CITY DJIBOUTI please you help aunt nooran sister we say hello ehllo

“Oh my god that is so cute.” Cosima wondered if they'd sent it from one of the internet cafés in the city, or if they'd made a friend with a laptop. She wondered if Nooran had told them how much she wanted Cosima and Delphine to take the children away with them.

“We should write back,” Delphine said. “But with what?”

Cosima took the phone from her and turned it to landscape position. “Easy. Smile.”

They strolled down a residential street on their way back from the market, Cosima's arm around Delphine's waist and Delphine's arm around Cosima's shoulders, each of them with bags of goodies slung over their shoulders.

Several blocks away from the park, in an upscale but cozy neighborhood, they saw a house with at least ten balloons dancing in the wind around a multicolored OPEN HOUSE sign. A woman in a burgundy pant suit waved as they approached. “Open house today, ladies! Wanna come take a look around?”

“Eh...” said Delphine, but Cosima stopped and looked up at it. She was fuzzy on architectural terms, but she put the facade around early 1900s, with dark stately brick and those bump-out windows that give the inhabitants a nice cross breeze in the summer. It was three stories, including an English basement, and there was a tiny garden out front with some brave little daffodils poking up.

“We're not in the market, actually,” Delphine said.

“Oh, that's fine!” the agent assured them. “You can still come in and take a look around, get some ideas for when you are in the market one day. Are you two from around here?”

They exchanged a glance. “Not exactly,” Cosima said.

“Well, I see you've done some shopping! We do have a really nice kitchen inside, I have to say. Newly renovated! Come on in! There's free coffee!”

It was such a tacky sales pitch, but another couple walked out of the house and gave them a view of a spacious entry way past a practical mudroom with rain boots set up as props. She looked up at Delphine. “What d'you think, babe? Take a look around real quick, grab some free coffee? It'll give us a chance to put these bags down for a minute.”

Delphine arched her eyebrows and looked down at her with those caramel brown eyes, and Cosima knew it wasn't practical, and that Delphine thought she was being silly, but she didn't care.

“Please?”

“Alright. If you really want to.”

The inside of the house was furnished by the real estate agency in a way that blended Rachel Duncan and Alison Hendrix, but the agent had been right about the kitchen – it was fantastic, although Cosima had to admit that her standards for kitchens had always been pretty low. There was an island with a granite countertop, plenty of cabinet space, and a gas stove. It was easy to imagine having the nieces and nephews over for a weekend and making pancakes for them in this kitchen, or cooking up a romantic dinner with Delphine on a Friday night. A window over the sink and a half-glass door beside the cabinets looked out on a spacious fenced-in backyard where two black-haired little girls ran around with balloons. Cosima thought of the pictures they'd just seen, and imagined Fatima finally being able to relax and run around with her siblings in a yard like this.

“You guys been upstairs yet?”

Cosima turned to see a paunchy man in khakis addressing her and Delphine. “Uh, no,” she said.

“You should check out the balcony. That about sold this place for me, honestly.”

Cosima wasn't sure what to say to that, but Delphine suggested that he put an offer on the house if he liked it so much, and the woman he was with groaned. That set off an argument between the two of them, and Cosima and Delphine scooted away up the stairs.

Upstairs, Delphine wandered into the smaller hall bathroom while Cosima explored the master bedroom. She could see what the guy downstairs had meant. French doors opened onto a balcony large enough to comfortably host ten people. She walked out, ran her fingers over the stained wooden railing, and then rested her forearms on it to look out on the backyard.

The realtor wasn't lying when she said “great backyard,” either. If anything, it was an understatement; the yard was easily three or four times the size of the Hendrix's backyard. The realtor's voice drifted up from below. “Oh, there's definitely room for a swing set! Swing set, sandbox, fire pit, you name it!”

There were maple trees out there, too, with tiny buds giving them a fuzzy appearance. They were just about large enough to string a hammock up between them, but if that didn't work, they could always put a bench beneath them, and sit out in the shade on warm days. They could have cook-outs with the family, or just sit out there together with drinks, just the two of them. She could come home and find Delphine on that sofa downstairs, or in the kitchen making fancy cuisine look effortless. Sometimes she would get home first, and Delphine would come home from work to find Cosima making Kraft dinner or doing a smelly pet science project out on this balcony.

“Hey.” Delphine came up and rubbed her shoulders. “What are you thinking about?”

She smiled over at her, loving the sight of Delphine on this balcony, in her comfy sweater and multi-pocket pants. “Just stupid shit.”

“Ah.” Delphine watched her for a moment. “We can't buy it. You know that.”

Fucking hell... Cosima laughed. “I know that!”

“Okay, just checking. You have that far away look on your face, though.”

“I do not.”

“You most definitely do.” Delphine scooted over to tuck herself beside Cosima, and nuzzled the top of her head. “One more year, if that, chérie, and then we can stay. Not in this house, of course! But we can stay here. Or wherever you want. Back in Minnesota, or California, wherever.”

“I know.”

“We really should be going, though. People are waiting for us, and we have perishables.”

Cosima giggled. “Yeah. Maybe I just like hearing you say perishables.”

On the way to Sarah's house, they passed hundred-year-old maples and oak trees in yards and parks, brown front lawns that would turn verdant in a few months, and all manner of people getting an early start on their weekend. At one corner house, while Cosima and Delphine waited for the light to let them cross, a man and woman looked up at the roof of their house.

“Earliest the contractors can come out is next week,” the woman told the man.

They didn't stay at the corner long enough to find out what the contractors would be coming out for, but all Cosima could think of was We're not even going to be on this continent next week.

She didn't even want a house. They were too much work, with the lawn upkeep and the plumbing and the pest control and making sure the roof didn't cave in. Her parents always said their boat was easier to maintain than any of their houses had been. She didn't want a house.

Once Sarah's house was in view, Cosima's steps slowed. Her sisters were there, and her niece, and she felt as comfortable there as anywhere else, but it wasn't home.

“You okay?” Delphine asked.

And Delphine was several feet in front of her, checking on her, making sure she was okay, knowing her moods before Cosima herself knew them.

“Yeah,” she said, jaunting across the short distance to kiss her lips. “I'm okay.”

#my fic #continuing travels of cophine

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nerdolopedia-blog · 7 years ago

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Worldbuilding Magazine: Mapping Aurora - An RPG Case Study

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTED BY

Volume 2 / Issue 5 : Cartography & Navigation- Visit their site to read the full issue

Mapping Aurora: An RPG Case Study

by Cathy, the Overprepared GM

When I built my world, I started smallish, fleshing out a single culture and lavishing attention on the national map. I took the time to get the scale right, establishing a travel time of ten days as a constraint first. With that number decided, I mixed in my desired historical influences, extrapolated the physical geography, determined the population distribution, and finally set the political boundaries.

I also created smaller maps for specific adventures. The city map for the capital helped the players hunt down a missing nobleman in the campaign kick off session. The hill fort map allowed the players to investigate the mystery at the heart of the first major adventure. The blueprints for the ominous keep organized the dungeon crawl in the heart of the fens. After I had fleshed out all the low-level cartography, I moved outward, firming up the neighboring nations so that they could explore more advanced stories involving international travel, exploration, and politics.

It was easy to figure out what maps to create and what to put on each of them, because traditional maps are such a well-explored space in terms of information design. If my players are traveling or discussing things on the national level, I can just open any atlas and see that the big national maps have national and district boundaries, settlements, natural features, roads, and other points of interest. If my players are adventuring in a settlement, I can look at city maps to see that they have elements like important buildings, streets, districts, and waterways. If they need to see how a building of any size is laid out, I know that it needs to be organized by floor and depict rooms, walls, hallways, doors, and major furniture.

Regardless of scale, maps always serve a few broad functions:

Navigation. They show points of interest as well as navigational routes so that players can plan where they’re going and how they’ll get there. Depending on the scale, the routes and points of interest may be anything from wormholes and planets to hallways and rooms.

Reference. They act as a reference for important locations that the player needs to remember. By displaying it visually, a good map can indicate relationships, improve memory, and give details about what each element is. For example, cities, mountains, rivers, forests, monuments, etc. all have established conventions for how to show them.

Atmosphere. A good map also evokes a clear sense of place. For example, a player will have a sense for terrain when they see that their path takes them through a mountain ridge. They may have to hike through a tumbled set of foothills, scale an inaccessible and ice-capped top of the world, or traverse an unexplored jungle menaced with active volcanoes. Perhaps the players only have to tread a well-traveled trade road with inns and villages along the way. The map helps the group feel immersed in the world and roleplay better. They can look at it and make their own choices about which path to take and what preparation they need to make before setting off. Players can anticipate the types of challenges they’ll encounter and the amount of time it will take. Maps also help me stay consistent with how I present the world to the players.

As long as I only needed to chart a world with geography similar to ours, the cartography remained straightforward. It wasn’t trivial, mind you, but the challenge was in doing it well, not in figuring out how cartography works from first principles. However, my campaign planning for later levels had them traveling beyond their home plane. I needed maps for higher level adventures that filled these same roles in navigation, reference, and atmosphere that blueprints and national atlases had in lower levels.

This expansion into the multiverse challenged my cartographic skills. I wanted the planes to truly feel different from each other, with locations in each world that simply couldn’t exist in the others. But that meant I was creating some really bizarre planes. I needed to start from those fundamental principles of design and figure out how to apply them to new circumstances.

Fluidity

The first issue I wrestled with was the fundamental nature of Aurora, a plane dominated by the goddess of spring, youth, the arts, and inspiration. Since birds were sacred to her, I decided to make it a plane of air with flying denizens. I imagined floating islands with localized gravity whose buildings and streets encircled giant boulders. The roots and branches of epiphyte trees gnarled together to form giant, floating cloud forests. Migratory flocks of alien creatures shaped like blimps and squids and jellyfish traveled long circuits between the cloud forests. In between areas of no or light gravity were sinks of higher gravity, pulling in accumulations of detritus over time. Technological cultures harnessed kinetic energy by using things comparable to waterwheels or windmills. Native species all fly, float, or cling with ease, and even human visitors could float clumsily from place to place. And winding through it all were the jet streams, unceasing wind that would push everything in regular paths. Travel from place to place within Aurora would involve both moving within a jetstream and hopping from one stream to another.

For my players to travel through the fluid space of Aurora, they would need a useful map. I ran into an immediate problem while planning: I wasn’t sure how to draw locations that changed relative to each other. National boundaries didn’t make as much sense in a place where everything moves. How could I depict the political organization of people without political boundaries? I started by trying to find real-world analogs of maps that dealt with air currents and then started thinking about other fluids, hoping to get new ideas.

I found one common approach that I called the colored, vector-lines approach, such as this picture of the Jet stream or this one of ocean currents. It shows location, direction, temperature, and strength of the currents by using colors and arrows. The visual worked and it’s an established approach (so I’d have lots of examples to learn from), but I think I prefer this image created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which uses what I termed the flat-ribbon style. This approach shows location, direction, and temperature, and the simplification makes the overall flow much easier to grasp.

As much as I love JPL’s approach, it still was not quite what I needed. As with all graphics of currents, this one focuses on showing the currents with respect to the landforms around them. This indication is crucial on Earth because that’s how we establish context for location. And location is why we use maps. However, I was trying to depict a world that has no landforms, so I needed to remember that JPL design and keep looking for ideas.

My search lead me to gas giants projections, like this flattened one of Jupiter, which is comparable to a mercator projection of Earth. Unlike with Earth however, it shows that the structure of Jupiter is composed of bands of currents. Jupiter’s winds aren’t influenced by landforms, so their structure is formed by the spherical shape of the planet, the force of gravity, and the Coriolis effect. That made sense to me as a way to envision Aurora. I could see it as a world with disjunct air currents that have rough, turbulence between them. Technologically savvy cultures could set up windmills along the borders, utilizing the constant relative wind as a source of unending energy. I could show each band as a self-contained linear graphic. Political boundaries would take place naturally within bands, but some empires might colonize into nearby bands the way Earth empires have had colonies in different continents.

Seeing the Eye of Jupiter also gave me the idea to put similar giant storms in Aurora. They would form an almost impassable obstacle in a band. The truly colossal ones might push the turbulent boundary outward, compressing everything nearby so that the currents would flow fast and narrow for many layers of neighboring regions.

The bands would travel at different velocities, so if I wanted to set specific speeds for each one, I could figure out the interval between the alignment of each pair. As a GM though, I probably wouldn’t do it. If they needed to go from a place on one band to a place in another band, I would just decide on the spot how long it takes for those locations to line up again, based on where I want the story to go.

With those decisions made, I had an approach for drawing a map (disjunct, flat bands of different lengths that connected east-west) and the list of elements for which I needed iconography:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Cloud forests

Boulders (including those with settlements)

Free-floating settlements

Gravity-induced collection spots (and a way to indicate strength.)

Then it occurred to me that, in a plane of air, points of interest could float at different altitudes. In fact, entire bands could overlap, flowing at different heights and winding among each other like individual noodles in a bowl of spaghetti. And that’s the next complicating factor.

Overlapping Altitudes

The more I considered the problem of depth and altitude, the more I realized I was going to have to deal with it in a number of situations. Normally maps are projections. They take the surface area of a three-dimensional object and spread it flat so you see the entire surface at once, even if you stretch or squish parts of the surface or make cuts to spread it out. Imagine the surface of Earth being a skin, and we just take it off the world and lay it flat, taking the surface of the sphere and spreading it onto a flat planar area. In a typical map projection, we ignore anything above or below that skin.

However, with Aurora I was looking at a situation where I really needed all three dimensions. On any given latitude and longitude, there might be a handful of different points of interest at different altitudes. In a typical world, they’d be above the "skin", and I would ignore them. For Aurora, there was no skin. There were just the immense overlapping air currents piled on top of each other and winding like a nest of serpents. If I flattened it like a typical projection, points of interest would overlap, turning the map into a confusing mess.

So I tried to think of other situations where people dealt with three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional way and ended up finding a lot of different approaches. Some of the more useful image types were blueprints, engineering drawings, subway lines, cutaway views, and exploded view images. Jet stream diagrams helped me understand the height issue as well, because what’s going on in the upper atmosphere isn’t always the same as what’s on the ground.

I got lost down the rabbit hole looking at various images, but eventually I extracted some overarching principles. As far as I could see, people take a few useful approaches when trying to depict three dimensions onto a flat drawing.

First, if there isn’t too much overlapping, draw it like a two-dimensional map, but use color, shadow, or iconography to indicate depth (for example, the Jet Stream example or this graphic of the Norwegian Current). I think this approach works best if depth is the most important thing depicted, and the rest of the information can be simplified. Otherwise, the depth/altitude information becomes hard to notice. If Aurora didn’t have many types of natural geography or had only one or two great currents winding their way through a static airscape, that might work, but I envisioned something a lot more dynamic. So, reluctantly, I let this idea go.

Second, depict it as a 3-D cutaway drawing, such as this drawing of a nuclear reactor or this one of skin. I think if the map were narrow enough that each longitudinal point only had space to fit a couple points of interest, then this would work. Drawing it well would take some serious skills and time on task, which I wasn’t sure I could devote, so I put the idea in my pocket and moved on.

Third, divide altitude into discrete layers and deal with them separately. That’s what blueprints do, such as this one of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, where each story is self-contained. If I divided the currents into layers of different altitudes, I could do a similar treatment for Aurora. The drawback is that sometimes it’s a little tough to see how the layers overlap, a problem I could ameliorate by drawing or printing out the different layers in transparency film. Then, I could look at each layer independently or stack them on top of each other as needed to see how one would line up with another if the player wanted to travel between layers.

The Multiverse

I had a plan for drawing my planes, but then I ran into another problem: how to depict the overall multiverse itself. When my players travel from one plane to the next, they would need to be able to plan their routes. They would need the interplanar equivalent of a roadmap. For a single world, I have a very good idea of how travel works because I do it all the time. I understand what information is useful to have on a map for someone going from place to place. I wasn't sure exactly what would be best for interplanar travel, however. So again, I started with a bit of research, Googling terms like “multiverse map” and “map of the planes” and looking at images those searches brought up.

Most multiverse graphics focused on acting as a cosmological reference—using design to show what planes exist and, if possible, how they’re related to each other. They seemed to be less like geographic maps and more like Venn or network diagrams. This approach seemed useful as a reference and to establish atmosphere, but it seemed fairly useless for navigation. Of course, I couldn’t resist creating a cosmological reference graphic anyway, though I wasn’t sure it would really help my players if they wanted to really understand how to travel around the planes.

Then I started combing through my information design books and websites to see if some other, non-map design might have been applicable. I looked through a cornucopia of graphs, charts, tables, layouts, and designs too specialized to have gotten an official name, but in doing so, I realized I needed to figure out the details of how interplanar travel worked before I tried to conceptualize an information design for it.

Interplanar Travel

After some deep thought, I decided to split interplanar travel into three categories.

Poofing: I call the first category of interplanar travel the poof method, because they go “poof”, just like that. Feel free to refer to this by a more dignified name. Using the poof method, the characters can instantly travel from an arbitrary location in one plane to a location of their choosing in a different plane. I mean, they may experience some time passing, but for all intents and purposes, they just magically teleport. Examples of the poof method include using the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, the Tardis from Doctor Who, or the Gate spell in D&D. If interplanar travel depends on poofing from place to place, then the players only need to have maps of the individual planes and some sort of cosmological reference. They don’t need any sort of map analog to traverse the multiverse.

Portals: Using portals, there are specific places in each world that are connected to specific places in other worlds. They may be called conjunctions, coterminous planes, wormholes, doorways, gates, or some other term. For cartographic purposes, they’re all the same. These portals are part of the plane’s geography. If the portal is open or active, then travel through it is very much like teleporting with the poof method. The key difference is that players need a visual depiction of how the portals connect to each other to help them navigate. In particular, they need to be able to tell where the portals are in their plane of origin and where they connect to in their destination plane. I think flight maps, similar to what airlines have, serve as the best analog in designing a useful atlas for navigation with portals. They show all their flights as curved lines overlaying a world map. The difference is that in a multiverse with portal travel, we’d need lines to connect points on disjunct world maps.

Subspace: In this scenario, characters travel by going into portals, but travel through the portal is not instantaneous. Instead, they enter a different place (I’m calling it subspace) that must itself be navigated in order to arrive at their destination. Subspace can have very different physical rules than the other planes, but all planes are connected to it somehow. Examples might be the Spire from Planescape or the Ena from Andrea Host’s Touchstone series or the Never Never from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Mechanically, this is a special case of portals where the connections all go in and out of a single world. However designing a navigational aid for subspace is a different design problem than doing so for a set of portals. Since everything goes through one area, and that area is not itself a destination, then it’s more useful to use a subway map as an analogy. Players will need a good reference of possible portal stations that connect the other planes to the subspace and enough geographic info of the subspace to navigate from portal to portal. They won’t need a full atlas of the subspace, but have to understand enough to choose routes. Now, subway maps are problematic because they heavily simplify the design. This makes it easier to read,but the increased legibility comes at a cost of geographic realism. Since subway riders only need to know which stops to use, distance and direction can be distorted far more than in regular maps. It’s a design approach that many people will be familiar with, but requires judicious handling.

After some contemplation, I decided to use the subspace approach to interplanar travel. Players enter a separate subspace, Aeon, and have to navigate around that before exiting to a new plane. It can also act as a way to take shortcuts if they’re clever, connecting two places that are distant from each other by a shorter path in Aeon.

Bringing that back to Aurora, that meant that in addition to adding portal locations to the map of Pandora (the original world my characters started in) and Aurora (the plane of air), I would have to create a separate map showing Aeon. It would initially focus on the portals and land between them. I could add lines connecting portals within Aeon to those on other planes. Eventually, if the stations and lines filled enough of the space, it might make sense to make a full Aeon atlas, but it’s more likely that we’d finish the campaign before we got that far.

The Takeaway

You may or may not want to use Aurora. However, if you decide to chart your own multiverse, here are some common lessons to keep in mind.

Cartography and Information Design are fascinating fields developed by smart folks. If you’re creating something new, it’s useful to look around and see what other people have created to deal with similar constraints. Take the time to nail down what you’re trying to show before you try to design for it.

The Purpose of Maps in RPGs can be boiled down to:

Navigation: helping players understand how to get from place to place.

Reference: because looking up all the places and how they relate to each other is easier with a picture than a list.

Atmosphere: to associate qualities or characteristics to places.

Airscape Icons can mostly be the same as iconography from more traditional atlases. Floating cities are still cities, after all, though some features require new icons:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Epiphyte forests

Areas of heavy or differing gravity

Relative wind speed or cycle length (the time it takes a current to make a full cycle through its path)

Vacuum or pressure difference

Fluid planes are ones where the points of interest move in relation to each other. One approach might be to envision them either as jet streams or currents moving among stable points. Another might be to visualize them acting like gas giants with the entire airscape banded by currents moving at different velocities and separated by a turbulent transition. In either case, it’s useful to draw one map that shows all the bands and how they relate to each other physically. Then, draw each band separately as its own graphic (the same way we label cities on a world map) and create separate city maps. Fluid planes may be dominated by air, gas, or water.

Planes with altitude are those where different natural geographies may exist at each two-dimensional point. If there is little overlap, it may be possible to draw this as a more traditional, two-dimensional map and just indicate depth or altitude by color, line, or iconography. If there is a lot of overlap, then this traditional 2-D style is not practical. Instead, the most workable design organizes the world into layers at different depths. For a water world, those layers may include a surface layer, photic zone, and aphotic zone. An arboreal world may include layers like the canopy, understory, surface, and root zones, while an underground world’s layers may simply serve as depth indicators.

Cosmological charts are a useful reference to know what planes exist and how they relate to each other thematically, but they generally do little to help players navigate.

Portal maps show how different planes connect to each other through portals. They are similar to flight maps in the real world. If interplanar travel always goes through a special space that is not a destination of itself, then it may be practical to create something like a simplified subway map to help players navigate between worlds.

Worldbuilding Magazine is a bi-monthly publication which covers a variety of worldbuilding topics. You can visit their website and read full issues here. Make sure to join their Discord or follow them on twitter for the latest news or to talk with the team that creates it. Nerdolopedia is a proud partner of Worldbuilding Magazine.

Cover Image by Tristen Fekete

#Tabletop Gaming #tabletop #fantasy #High Fantasy #Cartography #Fantasy

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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SpaceX Safely Returns Astronauts to Earth in US's Longest Human Spaceflight Ever

https://sciencespies.com/space/spacex-safely-returns-astronauts-to-earth-in-uss-longest-human-spaceflight-ever/

SpaceX Safely Returns Astronauts to Earth in US's Longest Human Spaceflight Ever

SpaceX just returned its first full astronaut crew to Earth, completing the longest human spaceflight any US vehicle has ever flown.

The astronauts of the Crew-1 mission – Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and Mike Hopkins of NASA, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – felt the pull of Earth’s gravity for the first time in six months as their Crew Dragon spaceship tore through the atmosphere early Sunday.

The spaceship, which they’ve named Resilience, protected them as its speed superheated the air around it to a 3,500-degree-Fahrenheit (1,926-degree-Celsius) plasma.

A few miles above the ocean, four parachutes ballooned from the gumdrop-shaped capsule, jerking it into a slower fall. They gently lowered Resilience to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:57 am ET (0657 UTC). The waves were calm and the weather was clear.

This was NASA’s first night-time splashdown since 1968. Thermal cameras on a nearby recovery ship and a NASA plane captured video, below, of the spaceship and its parachutes falling into the ocean.

“On behalf of NASA and the SpaceX teams, we welcome you back to planet Earth. Thanks for flying SpaceX. For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you have earned 68 million miles on this voyage,” a mission controller quipped to the Crew-1 astronauts as they splashed down.

“We’ll take those miles. Are they transferable?” Hopkins responded.

The astronauts’ return to Earth concludes SpaceX’s first routine crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). That’s where Walker, Glover, Hopkins, and Noguchi have been living and working since they launched in November.

SpaceX first proved it could launch and land humans last year when it rocketed NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS for a two-month test flight. Now it has shown that it can carry out full-length crew rotations.

The 11 humans aboard the International Space Station last week. (NASA)

NASA has contracted five more round-trip flights from SpaceX. The next one, Crew-2, already delivered four more astronauts to the ISS last weekend. Walker, Glover, Hopkins, and Noguchi greeted their Dragon-flying colleagues with smiles and hugs.

The football-field-sized orbiting laboratory was crowded with 11 people during the week that the two missions overlapped.

But on Saturday evening, the Crew-1 astronauts said goodbye and climbed back into the Crew Dragon Resilience.

The capsule undocked from its ISS port and fell into orbit around Earth, slowly lining up with a path to its splashdown site over the next 6.5 hours.

“This marks many important milestones, but it really is important for getting a regular cadence of crew to the station and back,” Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s acting administrator, said after the Crew-2 launch.

“What we do on ISS is important not only for the research and technology development that we do for here on Earth but also to prepare for what we’re going to do in the future,” he added. “Our ultimate goal is sending astronauts to Mars.”

Hopkins, Noguchi, Walker, and Glover joining a video conference, 7 February 2021. (NASA)

Having fun and making history 400 km above Earth

Walker, Glover, Hopkins, and Noguchi conducted hundreds of science and technology experiments during their time in orbit. They did a few spacewalks. They also relocated the Crew Dragon from one ISS docking port to another – a first for the spacecraft.

The crew celebrated Glover’s 45th birthday on Friday, their last full day on the ISS. The party featured cake, musical instruments, and balloons.

Happy birthday, @AstroVicGlover ! Live music, yummy cakes, funny videos, & lots of laughter on @Space_Station ！ pic.twitter.com/hl7LVJvWra

— NOGUCHI, Soichi 野口　聡一（のぐち　そういち） (@Astro_Soichi) April 30, 2021

Gratitude, wonder, connection. I’m full of and motivated by these feelings on my birthday, as my first mission to space comes to an end. This orbiting laboratory is a true testament to what we can accomplish when we work together as a team. Crew-1 is ready for our ride home! pic.twitter.com/CC6MajkZ1E

— Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover) April 30, 2021

Glover was a rookie at the beginning of this mission, but Noguchi is a spaceflight veteran. He’s spent more than a year of his life in space and has flown on three different spacecraft. He said after the launch that Crew Dragon was the best.

Hopkins, the mission commander, has had to sleep inside the spaceship for the last five months since the ISS didn’t have enough beds. That gave him the only room with a window 400 kilometers (200 miles) above Earth. The views were “absolutely stunning,” he told reporters last week.

As their departure date approached, the astronauts wondered what the Crew Dragon had in store for them.

“We don’t know quite what to expect landing on the water under parachutes like this,” Walker said. “And it’s just exciting that we get to go home and see our friends and family.”

Their return trip was originally scheduled for Wednesday, then for Saturday morning, but NASA rescheduled twice after forecasts predicted high winds in the splashdown zones.

Akihiko Hoshide, a JAXA astronaut on Crew-2, has taken over the role of ISS commander. He spoke to the Crew-1 astronauts over the radio as their spaceship backed away from the station: “Resilience departed. Have a safe trip back home and a soft landing.”

“Thanks for your hospitality,” Hopkins responded. “Sorry, we stayed a little bit long. And we’ll see you back on Earth.”

Crew Dragon Endeavour landing with astronauts onboard, Gulf of Mexico, 2 August 2020. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

‘A new era of space exploration’

NASA shares its Mars ambitions with Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX. So far, SpaceX seems to be the agency’s first-choice commercial partner in expanding human spaceflight.

NASA recently chose the company’s Starship mega-spaceship to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since 1972. However, work has been temporarily halted after competing firms Dynetics and Blue Origin filed complaints.

“The future’s looking good,” Musk said in a press conference after the Crew-2 launch. “I think we’re at the dawn of a new era of space exploration.”

That era begins in low-Earth orbit, with the six Crew Dragon missions NASA has purchased. So far, this is the only commercial spaceship ever to fly humans – and it’s done so for three crews.

Those missions restored NASA’s ability to launch astronauts from the US for the first time since the last Space Shuttle flew in 2011. The Crew Dragon also gives other space agencies, like JAXA, an alternative to the Russian Soyuz rockets that have dominated human spaceflight for the last decade.

This was what NASA wanted from its Commercial Crew Program, which funded SpaceX to build Crew Dragon and prepare its Falcon 9 rockets for crewed launches. NASA did the same for Boeing’s Starliner spaceship, but that vehicle has to re-do an uncrewed mission to the ISS before it can fly humans.

Crew Dragon Endeavour approaches International Space Station, 2 April 2021. (NASA)

To the moon and Mars

Through the partnerships fostered in the Commercial Crew Program – and using its own mega-rocket, the Space Launch System – NASA aims to put boots on the lunar surface in 2024. Musk has said he thinks this timeline is “doable,” though NASA’s Office of the Inspector General recently determined it is “highly unlikely.”

Whenever it happens, that mission would kick NASA’s Artemis program into full gear. The eventual goal is to establish a permanent human presence on the moon – picture ISS-like orbiting laboratories and research stations on the lunar surface. NASA plans to send human missions to Mars from there.

Musk has his own plans, including building SpaceX’s planned Starship-Super Heavy launch system and using it to build a self-sustaining settlement on Mars. For now, Starship prototypes are still trying to fly and land without exploding.

SpaceX also plans to start launching private spaceflight missions for paying customers. The first, set to launch this year, is called Inspiration4. For that flight, billionaire Jared Isaacman purchased four seats on Crew Dragon Resilience – the same capsule that just splashed down in the ocean. He and three other civilians plan to take a three-day joy ride around Earth.

“I think it’s a good thing for human spaceflight to see more and more people getting up into orbit around Earth. It’s just an amazing experience,” Mike Hopkins told reporters in a call from the ISS last week when asked how he felt about civilians flying in the spaceship he’s been commanding.

“As we look to kind of transition low-Earth orbit to the commercial industry, this is a big step along that way. And then NASA can continue to focus on exploration and getting back to the moon and on to Mars.”

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

More from Business Insider:

#Space

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khalilhumam · 5 years ago

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Five reasons to explore Mars

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/five-reasons-to-explore-mars/

Five reasons to explore Mars

By Darrell M. West The recent launch of the Mars rover Perseverance is the latest U.S. space mission seeking to understand our solar system. Its expected arrival at the Red Planet in mid-February 2021 has a number of objectives linked to science and innovation. The rover is equipped with sophisticated instruments designed to search for the remains of ancient microbial life, take pictures and videos of rocks, drill for soil and rock samples, and use a small helicopter to fly around the Jezero Crater landing spot. Mars is a valuable place for exploration because it can be reached in 6 ½ months, is a major opportunity for scientific exploration, and has been mapped and studied for several decades. The mission represents the first step in a long-term effort to bring Martian samples back to Earth, where they can be analyzed for residues of microbial life. Beyond the study of life itself, there are a number of different benefits of Mars exploration.

Understand the Origins and Ubiquity of Life

The site where Perseverance is expected to land is the place where experts believe 3.5 billion years ago held a lake filled with water and flowing rivers. It is an ideal place to search for the residues of microbial life, test new technologies, and lay the groundwork for human exploration down the road. The mission plans to investigate whether microbial life existed on Mars billions of years ago and therefore that life is not unique to Planet Earth. As noted by Chris McKay, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Science Center, that would be an extraordinary discovery. “Right here in our solar system, if life started twice, that tells us some amazing things about our universe,” he pointed out. “It means the universe is full of life. Life becomes a natural feature of the universe, not just a quirk of this odd little planet around this star.” The question of the origins of life and its ubiquity around the universe is central to science, religion, and philosophy. For much of our existence, humans have assumed that even primitive life was unique to Planet Earth and not present in the rest of the solar system, let alone the universe. We have constructed elaborate religious and philosophical narratives around this assumption and built our identity along the notion that life is unique to Earth. If, as many scientists expect, future space missions cast doubt on that assumption or outright disprove it by finding remnants of microbial life on other planets, it will be both invigorating and illusion-shattering. It will force humans to confront their own myths and consider alternative narratives about the universe and the place of Earth in the overall scheme of things. As noted in my Brookings book, Megachange, given the centrality of these issues for fundamental questions about human existence and the meaning of life, it would represent a far-reaching shift in existing human paradigms. As argued by scientist McKay, discovering evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars would lead experts to conclude that life likely is ubiquitous around the universe and not limited to Planet Earth. Humans would have to construct new theories about ourselves and our place in the universe.

Develop New Technologies

The U.S. space program has been an extraordinary catalyst for technology innovation. Everything from Global Positioning Systems and medical diagnostic tools to wireless technology and camera phones owe at least part of their creation to the space program. Space exploration required the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to learn how to communicate across wide distances, develop precise navigational tools, store, transmit, and process large amounts of data, deal with health issues through digital imaging and telemedicine, and develop collaborative tools that link scientists around the world. The space program has pioneered the miniaturization of scientific equipment and helped engineers figure out how to land and maneuver a rover from millions of miles away. Going to Mars requires similar inventiveness. Scientists have had to figure out how to search for life in ancient rocks, drill for rock samples, take high resolution videos, develop flying machines in a place with gravity that is 40 percent lower than on Earth, send detailed information back to Earth in a timely manner, and take off from another planet. In the future, we should expect large payoffs in commercial developments from Mars exploration and advances that bring new conveniences and inventions to people.

Encourage Space Tourism

In the not too distant future, wealthy tourists likely will take trips around the Earth, visit space stations, orbit the Moon, and perhaps even take trips around Mars. For a substantial fee, they can experience weightlessness, take in the views of the entire planet, see the stars from outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and witness the wonders of other celestial bodies. The Mars program will help with space tourism by improving engineering expertise with space docking, launches, and reentry and providing additional experience about the impact of space travel on the human body. Figuring out how weightlessness and low gravity situations alter human performance and how space radiation affects people represent just a couple areas where there are likely to be positive by-products for future travel. The advent of space tourism will broaden human horizons in the same way international travel has exposed people to other lands and perspectives. It will show them that the Earth has a delicate ecosystem that deserves protecting and why it is important for people of differing countries to work together to solve global problems. Astronauts who have had this experience say it has altered their viewpoints and had a profound impact on their way of thinking.

Facilitate Space Mining

Many objects around the solar system are made of similar minerals and chemical compounds that exist on Earth. That means that some asteroids, moons, and planets could be rich in minerals and rare elements. Figuring out how to harvest those materials in a safe and responsible manner and bring them back to Earth represents a possible benefit of space exploration. Elements that are rare on Earth may exist elsewhere, and that could open new avenues for manufacturing, product design, and resource distribution. This mission could help resource utilization through advances gained with its Mars Oxygen Experiment (MOXIE) equipment that converts Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen. If MOXIE works as intended, it would help humans live and work on the Red Planet.

Advance Science

One of the most crucial features of humanity is our curiosity about the life, the universe, and how things operate. Exploring space provides a means to satisfy our thirst for knowledge and improve our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe. Space travel already has exploded centuries-old myths and promises to continue to confront our long-held assumptions about who we are and where we come from. The next decade promises to be an exciting period as scientists mine new data from space telescopes, space travel, and robotic exploration. Ten or twenty years from now, we may have answers to basic questions that have eluded humans for centuries, such as how ubiquitous life is outside of Earth, whether it is possible for humans to survive on other planets, and how planets evolve over time. The author would like to thank Victoria E. Hamilton, staff scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, for her helpful feedback on this blog post.

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adakaias · 8 years ago

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travelin’

pbb 2017 fic! read on ao3 here

author: me (@bladegays)

beta: @spaceisbeautiful

artist: @beginblu

word count: 12.7k

rating: general

warnings: animal death, homophobia mentions

summary: Dan and Phil were travellers, constantly exploring and venturing off. However, they take a break from their adventures to foster a puppy, and end up looking even more like a married couple, by none other than platonically sharing a bed. You know, because the puppy sleeps there, of course. However, when the puppy is adopted, there shouldn’t be a reason to still share a sleeping space, should there? Turns out they’re both pining after each other but are too oblivious to realize.

read under the cut or on ao3 here

Up, away, off their feet, off the ground, out of town, out of sight, far, far away. It was always time to travel with Dan and Phil. Whether it be a tropical seaside or a busy city, the adventurous duo often found themselves in crazy places. They were a good pair, though. They would have to be to spend so much time together, constantly exploring and searching.

Phil was a youtuber, more specifically, a travel vlogger. He had around five million followers and a loving audience who admired his ventures. When he wasn't travelling, he supplied other videos such as the stereotypical challenge with his own creative twist, or collaborations with friends— most of the time being Dan.

Dan was also a part of the YouTube community, with two million subscribers, however he wasn't exactly a youtuber, and didn't upload to a schedule like his housemate did. His videos weren't set up with cameras and lights in a room, but were instead spontaneous and usually artsy, like two minute footages of a camera drone flying over a canyon, or exotic birds in a neat sanctuary. He appreciated the aesthetic he could keep up, making youtube just a creative space for himself rather than a job.

Now, being the devoted travellers that they were, they spent a lot of time together. Their friendship could be described in a variety of ways, but they were both dependant on each other, and easily would admit it. They'd lived together for nine years, and known each other for a year before that. The special 2009 year, all the way up to the year 2019, and ten years of growing and learning was a lot to take in.

But their everyday lives were not quite similar to this legacy then held up. If that was considered a legacy, at the least. The real, authentic Dan and Phil were just two friends who liked to travel in each other's company.

And even though the adored travelling, seeing new sights and exploring, they loved going home. That one familiar place where they could just rest and relax. Home was where they were headed after a week-long trip in Los Angeles for a Youtube convention and a visit to some of their American friends. They decided to pick an early flight, even though airports were never not busy, but the early hours of the morning had a more tame atmosphere.

They arrived at the airport at three in the morning, checking in by four. They were set for when they were going to fly at four forty-five, so they decided to grab a coffee and head for the terminal. They found the number they were assigned, but it was deserted. Only one young woman was there, sat with a laptop.

Dan glanced at his phone. The time read four fifteen, so the flight was only in half an hour, yet no one was there. “That's weird,” he mumbled to Phil, as he snatched their tickets from the other’s hand and read them over.

“It is kinda strange, maybe there was just less people?” Phil sounded confused as they stood there. “Or maybe they're all at the café? It was busy in there—”

“Phil,” Dan pressed, sounding suspicious. “What time was our flight?”

“Four forty-five?” The black-haired man’s voice edged with confusion. Dan raised an eyebrow.

“This says five forty-five, not four.” Dan passed Phil back his ticket. “How on earth did you manage to mix that up?”

“Oh, shit.” Phil’s eyes immediately filled with panic, accidentally cursing as he double checked. “Sorry, I must have read it wrong, I don't know how—”

“It's fine,” Dan sighed, but sympathized. He likely would have done the same thing. “You're lucky that this airport has a shopping centre, I guess.”

“You're quick to blast money,” Phil snickered, the distress quickly washing out of his gaze. Dan knew how to cheer him up, that was for sure.

“Shut up.” Dan turned away from the terminal entrance, and beckoned for Phil to follow, as they headed down the hall. It was far from what could be considered a travel disaster, and quite like the both of them to mix something up in the rush of leaving the country. “Glad we’ll have a break from airports after this,” he continued as they strolled down the halls of the high-ceilinged building. “No more departure mix-ups, for a few months, at least.”

Dan and Phil weren't great at travelling, surprisingly, but that was due to the fact that neither of them were good at planning things ahead of time. Many of their trips were spontaneous and came out of the blue, and even with all the practice they’d had booking flights or hotels, they often got caught up with new troubles every outing.

“At least we’re finally early,” Phil chimed in, recalling the many times they’d had to sprint across airports to not miss their flights. “You could make a video out of this,”

Dan snorted, his laugh caught off guard. That phrase was one of their many inside jokes, originated from Phil saying the danisnotonfire channel was dead, followed by listing off things that were too dumb to actually make a video about and giving them a dramatic title.

“Yes, the title will be Stuck In Airport For 4 Hours?”

Phil, then nodded. “I sense that it’ll be the twelfth video on trending.”

Two hours later, they had taken off and were on their way home. Phil was asleep, and Dan was on his phone, headphones on with familiar music. The plane was rather quiet and peaceful, mostly packed with older business workers and a few tourists. He felt quite young compared to the group around him at the time.

It was peaceful, until a strong thrust threw the plane forward. About half of the passengers, assumably the ones without their seatbelt buckled, hit their heads against the seat in front of them. Dan was one of those people, as he sat up after the hit of the powerful force in a daze. Most of the sleeping passengers woke up, excluding Phil, who was still dozing off.

Everyone gave each other a nervous glance, silently admitting that it was a rather aggressive slam. After a moment, the seatbelt light flicked on, and the pilot spoke through the overhead stereo, addressing that they'd just hit a bird, but it would be okay and wouldn't slow down the ride.

Dan was a bit horrified by this, and wished Phil was awake so he didn't have to feel slightly alone. Speaking of Phil, how had he managed to sleep through that impact? He knew his friend was a deep sleeper, but the most he'd ever slept through was during a very windy London storm years ago where there was a fire in the apartment below them and they were meant to evacuate. He’d nearly forgotten to wake Phil up to leave. Though how he managed to not hear the blaring alarm would forever be a mystery to his roommate.

Dan sighed. He remembered the first night they spent together, which was basically an all-nighter, laughing and talking until four in the morning. It was one of their favourite memories together, so many years ago. They'd first met in a funny way. Way back in early 2009, Dan was a big fan of Phil’s youtube channel, and had frequently sent the older boy some attention-seeking tweets. Phil tweeted him back about once, not really interested. It wasn't until the summer of that year, they both happened to be on a trip to Sweden and bumped into each other. Dan was obviously, starstruck, which Phil found kind of endearing in person.

Phil was on a family trip and got lost from his tour group, so had asked Dan, an emo-haired stranger, for directions. Dan realized it was the one and only AmazingPhil he was with, and Dan had no idea where he was either. So, Dan just pulled up a map on his phone and started talking. They'd never forget how awkwardly he’d rambled on when he met Phil as a fan, as he’d gushed to his online hero about his aspirations to be a youtuber for a solid three minutes until Phil chuckled and asked for his twitter so they could chat more.

It went from there, in a way. They talked on twitter for a while, got to become internet friends. Phil started tagging Dan in funny cat pictures. That was the true symbol of friendship back then. Then it was Skype calls. Over-the-phone, getting used to each other's voices, growing closer. Then video chats that went from awkward to staying awake until two in the morning, talking softly about everything and nothing. And finally, they saw each other for the first time in half a year. Dan got to hug and hold Phil as a person for the first time. It was nice. They spent that weekend together, barely sleeping, and being so happy. Deep down, in a young love kind of way.

But Dan, ten years later, wouldn't tell himself that. Yes, he loved Phil, and was sure Phil loved him too, but not in the gushy overly-romantic way. Not in any romantic way, perhaps. In a generally appreciative way. A home-sweet-home kind of way. Because they made each other feel at home.

Phil collapsed onto his bed, before even turning on any lights in the house. He was grateful to be home in their cozy old house after a week in America at various parties and events.

Their house was filled to the brim with memories and trinkets they'd accumulated over those ten years together, like rose gold awards and anime plushies. Phil was definitely a useless but quirky souvenir kind of guy, so most of their shelf space was just cute figurines and framed travel pictures. Dan was more of a collect it for the aesthetic hoarder, so his things were mostly pretty sea shells or foreign paintings on the walls.

Luckily, they'd bought a pretty big house just outside of the Brighton town. It looked cute and faded blue on the outside, and was fully renovated and roomy inside. Dan and Phil were literally rich, but didn't intend on making it seem so, besides their house and the expensive clothes Dan bought, so that their fans could acknowledge that, and any new viewers didn't feel like they were watching princesses that only made videos for the money.

The tall brunette dropped his suitcase on his bedroom floor, flicked on a few lights, and filled the kettle. “Want coffee?” He called out, pulling out some cups.

Phil called back a cheery, “yes please,” So, choosing between their endless collection of mugs, Dan picked out his own with a photo of his family's old dog, Colin, printed on it, along with an adventure time mug for Phil.

Phil was still on his bed when Dan brought in his coffee. It was nearing one in the morning, but they'd agreed that they wanted to stay up for a bit longer, since the jet lag had them up anyway.

Dan started scrolling through the assortment of photos he'd taken on their trip, mostly pictures of nice palm trees or selfies with other youtubers. He stopped at one, which was an appealing picture of Phil in the sunlight. His pale tone glowed in the rays and his sunglasses made it look ironic. He showed the picture to Phil.

“Reaction photo?” He queried, smiling. Phil gave him a look, confused, but amused. The picture of Phil was spontaneous and he wasn't looking directly at the camera, more of a distant glance. His expression asked what feeling this picture was supposed to convey. Dan shrugged in response. “Uh, like if you're basking in all your glory? Or like, uh…” He broke off, losing his thought.

“Man, I thought you were the one with artistic dedication and, like, seven years of photography experience.” Phil chuckled. “This is obviously instagram worthy. Almost icon perfect. Think about everyone who'll change their icons to this, Daniel.”

“Fine,” Dan gave in. “You post it, then, if it's so good.” He sent the picture to Phil, and noticed he was looking towards the shelf, glancing through the large assortment of things they owned.

“I think the weird surfboard thing could go there,” Phil pointed towards the bottom shelf. Dan shook his head.

“Nah, that's a true treasure.” He gestured towards the top two spots. “I've never seen anything as great as an antique with a turtle riding a surfboard. Weird isn’t the word I’d use to describe it. It’s… iconic.”

“Yeah,” Phil teased him. “That's why you spent twenty bucks on it, right?”

“Obviously,” Dan sipped his drink. “It was one of a kind, I couldn't miss that opportunity.”

Phil grinned. This was one of the things he appreciated most about his best friend, the fake quarrels and rallying. At the end of the day, Dan didn't really mean it when he screamed “Fuck you, Phil Lester!” across the house because Phil had finished the cereal. It made their friendship stronger, being able to make fun of each other without actually shattering the other one’s feelings. They'd gotten the “compliment” that they seemed like an old married couple a few times now, and they would admit, they were starting to see where they were coming from.

He sighed, grateful. Their home was peaceful, and captured like a moment in time they'd remember forever. The black walls of the lounge, framed art and photos scattered around. Some they'd had since 2011, some they'd just gotten from fans and thought it deserved a place. The velvet sofa that had replaced the iconic sofa crease a year before, because keeping a couch that was slowly ruining your back for 7 years wasn't quite necessary. The window that looked out towards a neighbourhood, and the North Sea in the distance. The roomy kitchen, that had a collection of polaroid photos along the fridge, and the cupboard that was full of their giant collection of mugs. Or Dan’s messy, but messily neat room, where he kept his solid black and white aesthetic strong. Phil’s colourful room, full of the most random items that he could never bring himself to throw away.

Above all, the house, and everything inside, was home. The home they'd had together for years. Though they were new to the Brighton house, living alongside each other for nearly a decade was home. They were simply so cozy with each other, more than their fans could know. They had a million inside jokes and knew each other so very well, which was expected when you spent a solid seventy-five percent of your life together, in fact, they literally hadn't been apart for more than two weeks since 2009. The most they spent not home was a week with their separate families for Christmas each year. Otherwise, they went on nearly all of their trips together, went shopping together, went to events together. In fact, even during events like conventions, they rarely even separated. They were a catch for each other in awkward situations with people, which made the whole crowded experience a bit easier.

So, when they really thought about it, Dan and Phil themselves were home to each other. It didn't matter if they were across the world from their house, they were at home as long as they were together.

Phil felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, as he strolled down a familiar street, carrying a plastic bag. The sky above him was a soft blue, but in the distance, darker clouds were caving in. He checked his phone and saw that Dan had messaged him.

Dani Snot On Fire

ur my knight in shining armor

Phil couldn't help but smile a bit. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Dan had pestered him into walking down the street to buy some almond milk; Dan often had phases where he decided to go vegan for a month or so, and it was one of those months. Phil wanted to go for a walk anyway, thinking there would be a nice sunset, but it looked like it would rain. Phil sent back a reply.

I’m wearing pyjama pants. Also if it rains you're dead to me

Dani Snot On Fire

:”)

Phil continued his stroll, lost into thought. It was funny when he thought about it, their lives had some sort of filter online. He knew everyone had some kind of persona, but things like running out to get your roommate almond milk was one of the things they could share if they wanted, but wouldn’t. Their audience got a very small fraction of their lives.

They used to think they were as open as they could be, but they’d see random comments from people who actually thought they hated each other when Dan often swore at Phil. Even though those comments were uncommon, their true audience didn’t know that much about them either, especially not Dan, as he wasn’t as avid about videos. Though, Dan liked interacting with his fans on twitter. But they only vlogged trips when something exciting was happening, so being active while at home was a bit unlikely.

They learned that it was okay, because most people didn’t share everything with a huge audience, but in comparison to their youtuber peers, Dan and Phil seemed quite mysterious and closed off.

Suddenly Phil had stopped in his tracks in the middle of his thoughts, catching a sound in an alleyway between two small shops. His mind guided him to fearlessly walk down it, as he was swallowed by the shadows. The sound was rather muffled, so it was shocking that he even caught it, and his mind should have assumed it was a mouse and nothing worth following. Nevertheless, a nagging feeling of curiosity led him to instinctively walk further towards the sound.

However, what he saw was certainly worth finding.

Phil found the source of the muffled squeak in a dumpster. There was definitely something alive and stirring in it. Somehow he remained calm, but his hands were shaking.

He cautiously opened the lid of the dumpster and peered inside, and was immediately struck with an anxious pain. After a sharp intake of breath, his heart stopped for a second and immediately began throbbing, because in the dumpster was a soft-looking mother dog nestling three puppies, a number of bloodstains scattered around her. It was clear they were newborn puppies. The mother barely glanced up when Phil opened the lid, letting some light hit them.

Phil immediately reached for his phone, instinctively calling Dan. He felt his chest hollow as Dan picked up.

“I just found,” Phil stammered into the phone. “I-in a dumpster, a dog and t-three puppies. The puppies are squirming. I don’t know if the mum’s doing o-okay.”

Dan barely paused. “Okay, Phil. Deep breath. I’ll text you the animal control number. Where are you? I’ll come, okay? Just call the number.”

“A-alright,” Phil hung up and took a deep breath, calling up the animal control and giving them the situation and location. Dan arrived first, and helped Phil calm down, as the vets came in and carefully brought the dogs to their emergency care.

“Thank you, sir.” One of the vets stopped to speak to Phil. “You and your husband did a great work calling us. We’ll bring them down to clinic, but we don’t think the mum will survive. She’s lost a lot of blood,”

“Will the puppies be okay?” Phil echoed, still shaking slightly. He couldn’t be bothered to correct the vet about Dan being his friend, either.

“They should survive under proper care. And some fostering, soon enough. Look into it, you’ve saved lives today.” The vet turned towards the van, and started driving off,

“You okay?” Dan asked, gently prodding Phil’s shoulder.

Phil let out a long sigh, passing the plastic bag with almond milk in it to Dan.

“Oh,” Dan replied coyly. “Thanks.”

“Dan,” Phil stared off into the distance. “Let’s go home now, but I think we need a dog.”

Phil had visited the puppies every day during the week, with teary eyes and admiration. There were three male puppies, three strong troopers who'd lost their mother. The vet examined them as australian shepherd and bernese mountain dog mixes, and looked like little dwarf rabbits as the newborns they were.

So, when Phil was told the puppies were ready to be fostered for a while, he begged Dan for days. Dan’s only problem with getting one of the puppies was that they had barely any idea of how to care for them, and they'd have to stay home for however long it needed. However, Phil had researched newborn puppy care extensively already. “Eight weeks, Dan, just eight weeks!” He'd repeated that phrase so many times it could’ve been on his tombstone. He did promise on his life that he'd take full responsibility to feed the puppy every few hours, potty train it, and become a dog mom.

Dan gave in after the eighth day of Phil begging. With the okay of his housemate, Phil was out the door within minutes to buy everything he'd need; dog milk substitute, bottles, a gated fence, some comforters, a potty-training pad, about a million other things that were suggested for fostering.

He didn't hesitate to set everything up, then excitedly took Dan and went to the vet. There were three puppies, and it took Phil a solid half an hour to choose between them, since Dan had already given him a flat out no as to taking in all three.

Phil wasn’t just fostering because they were cute anymore. With all the research he’d done, he’d learned that orphaned puppies just needed a whole lot of love. He couldn’t sleep knowing these puppies would have probably died if he hadn’t found them in the dumpster. Also, the vets said it was probably a person abusing their mother that got them there, so he knew he needed to take one in to make up for the terrible human who left them alone.

The puppies were very squirmy, and had soft eyes that they weren’t great at keeping open. Phil got to hold each one, and the look on his face could outshine the sun. What made it funnier, but also more heartfelt, were the tears of joy rolling down his face. Dan took a million pictures, absolutely blessed by the whole scene.

Phil was sold when the final puppy, who was white with gray colour points coming in, reached over his tiny head and licked Dan’s hand. When Phil looked up from the puppy, Dan’s face was full of tears too.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Phil had whispered. Dan nodded in reply, ever so softly.

That was the moment Astro became a part of their lives.

The name choice was easy, as the puppy gave off a starry vibe, and both boys were obsessed with space. Caring for Astro wasn’t as hard as Dan thought it would be, as the tiny creature mostly just slept and got bottle fed. Which meant Phil had to give up a few extra hours of sleep in order to make sure Astro was being fed properly, but it was worth it. Astro was already showing signs of getting stronger within a few days.

It made their home even more gentle, and somehow Phil had already fallen asleep on their couch with Astro snoozing on his chest on three different occasions, which was just the perfect image of peace.

Soon enough, after they’d told their fans about the foster pup and they begged for as many pictures as possible, they took Astro out for a little walk— or more like a carry, as the puppy wasn’t quite strong enough to walk on a leash yet. It was a lovely scene, as sunlight peeked through the trees at their favourite park, and Phil didn’t look away from his puppy’s curious eyes for a second.

“Here, buddy,” Phil bent down to the grass and gently let Astro stumble out of his arms. The weary puppy curiously sniffed the air before deciding to hop out of Phil’s grasp, plopping onto the ground, and his tiny, puzzled eyes gazed out to the world with the twitch of his ear.

Phil gave Dan and enthusiastic thumbs up. “He loves it! Come see!”

Dan cautiously kneeled down beside Phil, lightly letting Astro sniff his hand. The puppy wobbled into the other direction slowly, ears rising, and the sunlight perfectly hitting off of his soft fur. Dan reached for his phone to photograph what seemed so ideally heartwarming. However, he stopped, and let it be, simply glancing between Phil and Astro and appreciating the moment for what it was. It must have looked a bit silly, being two six foot tall men on the grass, gushing over a tiny creature that wasn’t doing much but looking around and tripping. Simple, silly, but a moment they’d surely remember forever.

“You’re positive?”

“I’m always up anyway, Phil,” Dan got a glass of water before flickering off the kitchen light. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Okay…” Phil hesitated. “Run through what you’re meant to do again?”

“Place the bottle in hot water for about a minute, make sure Astro’s on his tummy and not too squirmy, pinch the bottle nip slightly at the sides, and wait for him to swallow it. Then burp him by gently patting his sides and back.” Dan recited the steps perfectly. Phil opened his mouth to protest, but Dan cut him off. “And if he clearly doesn’t want it, let him go back to sleep.”

“Okay.” Phil grinned lightly, giving in. “I’m just a nervous parent, aren’t I? I’m sure you’ll do great.”

Dan grabbed his blanket off his bed and a pillow, as Phil checked on his puppy for at least the twentieth time that night. Dan was noticing that the new pet owner was starting to live off coffee, so he forced Phil to let him stay up to feed Astro at three.

“I’ll set up camp, you get to bed.” Dan joked, as he placed his duvet on the floor of Phil’s room, next to Astro’s sleeping crate.

Phil groaned. “You’re such a handful.”

“Not your handful anymore, not your problem.” Dan replied, as he crawled into his makeshift bed. “Sleep, you rat.”

Phil was still complaining, under his covers. “You’re the rat. Why don’t you get off the floor, it’s pathetic and makes me feel guilty for letting you do this. There’s plenty of space up here.”

Dan stopped for a heartbeat. “Wait, are you kidding or not? I really can’t tell.”

Phil scoffed. “I’ll change my mind if you don’t hurry up.”

Dan rose up, and carried his duvet to Phil’s bed. “I’ll take the offer, but keep your eyes off my phone.” He re-thought his sentence for a moment. “Not that I’ll be doing anything strange, you just need your beauty sleep, real bad.”

Phil turned away from his roommate. “Fine. Don’t kill my dog. Good night.”

Dan turned the other way, pulling himself under his blanket. “Night.”

It was nice, the two rarely shared beds anymore. They used to every few weeks back when they didn’t live together and Dan came down to visit, but once they moved into their first apartment, the novelty wore off.

So when they did end up sharing a sleeping place, it felt like a tribute to the early days of their friendship. However, those early nights usually consisted of them staying up until it was near sunrise— now one of them was off to bed at twelve, and the other staying up for their puppy. Their puppy. Phil had titled himself Astro’s loving mother, but Dan had become just as caring for the puppy and in love.

Dan aimlessly scrolled through tumblr until one, and grew bored and sleepy. He could have just gone to sleep and set an alarm to wake him up at three, but he was scared that an alarm would wake up Phil. He fought the drowsiness with some games on his phone he usually only played on plane rides. Time flew.

He took a break from his screen to take in his surroundings. Phil had turned towards Dan in his sleep, and was snoring quietly, and a small fake candle flickered in the corner, illuminating a small area as the rest of the room pooled into darkness, besides a little red light indicating that Astro’s heating pad was on.

Dan checked the time, and discreetly got up to prepare Astro’s bottle. It was peaceful, sat on the ground by the candlelight, slowly feeding the pup. It was surreal, but in the best way.

One full night of sleep must have cleared Phil right up, because Dan woke up to the smell of pancakes through the house the next morning. Confused, Dan had crawled out of Phil’s bed and met his roommate wide awake, flipping pancakes.

“Go-o-od morning!” Phil sung out, handing Dan a plate. “I really used those extra hours.”

“I can see that.” Dan chuckled, turning to the table. Astro was squeaking in the distance, trying to escape from his nesting crate in the lounge, sunlight flooded the room, and Phil was humming a familiar tune. Dan hadn’t seen a morning like this in a while, especially not one where Phil wasn’t miserably eating instant oatmeal.

“I really wouldn’t mind feeding Astro at night more often, if it means I can get a good breakfast out of you.” Dan took a bite of his pancake. “Cause, man, this is good to wake up to.”

“Really?” Phil sounded grateful. “Hallelujah. He’s only five nights away from being six weeks, then he won’t need to be fed overnight anymore.”

“Alright, I’ll be on the night shift until then.” Dan remarked, smiling as Phil sat across from him at the table with his own plate of pancakes. “You’ve got a deal.”

So, for the following five days, Dan slept in Phil’s bed and stayed up to feed Astro. Phil started staying up a bit later, too, just talking with his best friend. Those moments, wrapped up in their bedsheets, staring into each other’s eyes, and giggling at one in the morning, truly sent a flood of nostalgia regarding their first home together. It was comfy, tying their days together by the ends.

The fifth night was peaceful. Dan left his duvet on the floor for the time, and shared Phil’s covers instead. Then they simply faced each other and talked. They would jokingly call it a chit chat in an annoying high pitched voice, like they were middle-aged moms, but made it a safe, homey place to spill whatever they wanted.

It was nearing one, when Phil would usually fall asleep, and he looked tired, but kept glancing to Dan and chuckling.

“What?” Dan prodded. Phil kept giggling, with a smile stuck on his face due to Dan’s cluelessness, and inched closer. Dan was still lost at what was so funny.

Phil rested his eyes. “Nothing, it’s not that funny,” he paused. “It’s just… really too much like you’re eighteen all over again, isn’t it?”

Dan stopped to think. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

The sixth night? Dan still ended up in his best friend’s bedsheets, even though Astro didn’t need a feeding. However, it went unquestioned, and they ended up nearly entwined with each other during their chit chat.

“I can’t wait ‘til Astro’s big enough to sleep out of the crate.” Dan whispered. “It’ll make things… whole, I think?”

Phil seemed to be caught off guard. “I don’t think we’re keeping him that long, Dan. He does go up for adoption in two weeks.”

“Shit, how’d I forget we’re just fostering?”

Phil shrugged. “I know where you’re coming from. I was kind of forgetting that we’re like, uh, world travellers, usually. Really does feel like ‘09.”

“Yeah?” Dan replied, pulling himself closer, and feeling his cheeks grow warm.

“Yeah.” Phil shifted until their foreheads and arms were brushing. “Good night.”

Dan sobbed like a baby the night before Astro was to be adopted. It was crazy that he’d gone from never thinking he and Phil could raise a puppy, to being a pro dog parent in a matter of weeks. They knew from the start that they wouldn’t be keeping him forever, but they’d gotten so used to caring for the puppy that it was surreal to think of their lives without him.

They let Astro sleep between them that night, and it only took Dan one glance at the puppy to start crying. He laughed through the tears, aware it was silly, but looked up to Phil who was tearing up, too.

“D-don’t look at me,” Dan sniffed between words. “I’m an ugly crier!”

Astro didn’t care about the situation at all, and just went straight to sleep, which made both boys laugh even harder.

“Look, look,” Phil took a deep breath and smiled lightly. “Once we’re old, and done travelling for the most part, we can get our own, proper dog.”

Dan wiped away his tears, rolling his eyes but a grin stuck on his face. “That’s a long time.”

“Wanna hear long time? 2009 was a decade ago.”

Dan choked, shaking his head. Phil had said that phrase many times already that year, mostly to prove a point that nothing is as long as it seems sometimes. Although, he wasn’t wrong.

As autumn crept in, Dan and Phil were ecstatic to travel again. It was there first trip since they’d taken in Astro, and the puppy had been adopted by a nice elderly couple who only lived a few minutes away and promised to supply pictures of Astro as he grew. Now, they hadn’t properly travelled in over two months, and must have forgotten how to, because it took them three hours to pack.

Thankfully there were no incidents having to do with nearly missing the flight like there usually was, and the flight went smoothly. Besides Dan almost stealing someone else’s suitcase when they’d landed, quickly remembering the importance of checking for the Studio Ghibli-themed travel tag Phil bought him, they didn’t run into any other troubles.

Until the slight awakening caused by a note left behind by their hotel room’s maid when they arrived, reading, “We hope you enjoy your stay, Lesters.”

“They probably just think we’re brothers,” Phil dismissed it and plopped down on the bed, stretching on his back. “Plenty of people do.”

“Eh, not sure. People are gay, Susan.” Dan chuckled, as he sat down as well. Alongside Phil. On the bed they were casually sharing.

After Astro left, they were just too used to the other’s company to give it up, though they never really acknowledged it, but the hotel room did have a whole other bed that went untouched, so it felt noticeable. Though, they were far past what would be awkward.

Phil sat up, stopped himself from objecting, and just gave in, sarcasm edging his tone. “You’re totally right. Everyone thinks we’re married.”

They spent most of their first day in Berlin at an art festival Dan had been invited to, where he grew incredibly socially drained rather quickly, and Phil simply nodded along to the photography talk that he didn’t fully understand.

They headed down to a pier as the sun was setting over a calm lake, as they silently took in the scene, side by side.

Dan glanced over his shoulder, cheeks warm. “Did you miss this?”

Phil hesitated. “Miss what?”

“Uh, new places?” Dan shrugged. “New things?”

Phil smiled. “Yeah, guess so. But while we were at home, with Astro, it was a nice reminder that… old things are pretty great too.”

That made Dan stop to think, falling back into silence. Before Astro, both of them were more focused on trying new things and experiences to come, but spending such slow-paced time together rekindled their nostalgic sides.

“Y-yeah.” He checked the time, the evenings autumn breeze sweeping past. “Want a surprise?”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“A surprise, idiot,” Dan gave Phil a light shove on the shoulder. “Still got some energy left?”

“I do, I’m shocked that you still do.” Phil trailed behind Dan as the brunette turned back towards the hotel, now drawn in by curiosity. “I’m not exactly kidding, are you sure you’ve got the energy—”

“I’m not the old man here, and it’s not a party, I’ll live.” Dan grinned softly. “Come on, let’s go get your jacket.”

The boys headed down the streets of Berlin, Phil still unaware of his surprise as they strolled together underneath the yellow-tinted streetlights, mumbling and giggling. Dan suddenly came to a stop in the middle of a bridge, and peered out to the dark water. Phil suspiciously joined him, leaning against the edge, and stayed quiet.

Right when Phil decided to ask what was going on, a single firework flew up and popped over the water, bright blue and green sparks falling in the distance. With that, a chain reaction of lights began and colours filled the sky, as each firework reflected off the water. Phil was hooked in, and even Dan, who usually didn’t care too much for fireworks, was astounded; he didn’t believe the flyer he was given at first, that stated these would be the best fireworks in the city, but he couldn’t see it getting any bigger than what it was now.

Dan couldn’t help but stare at his best friend, who was completely mesmerized by the show, his blue eyes wide and a smile smacked on his face that practically overflowed with joy. It made Dan beam with pride, too.

The sun was rising over the water when Phil hazily woke up, warmth filling his entire body, and he immediately knew he didn’t want to get out of bed. However, his eyes blinked open a few times and he suddenly became aware of his situation— he was completely intertwined with and cuddling Dan.

Nothing felt wrong, or off, but it was new.

Flashbacks to the night before played in Phil’s head. They’d walked back from the fireworks, cold and tired, but when they got back to the hotel room the people above them were loudly playing upbeat latino music, it was too great not to dance to. So they danced, laughing like they’d never broken a grin in their lives, and hands together with a terrible tango performance. Eventually, the music stopped suddenly, likely because of a complaint, and they collapsed on the bed, realizing they were exhausted, but still started to laugh every time they even glanced at each other.

Phil was overwhelmed, a flush of emotions filling him as he began to overthink the context, but he pushed it all away almost immediately. It was still early, too early. He started to fall back asleep, arms still clinging onto Dan.

“Never thought I’d connect so deeply with some teen girl quote that’s probably a good, what, seven years old?”

“And what would that be?”

“Home is where the wifi connects automatically.” Dan tossed his bags on the ground of Phil’s room, and slid out his phone, indulging himself with what he’d missed on twitter. Phil knew he’d be there for a while.

Their weekend in Berlin was extended when their flight home was cancelled, and they decided why not just stay in Germany for a few more days? Nothing was stopping them, so they did exactly that. With their extra three days, they spent some more relaxing time in the quiet city, absorbing the vintage aesthetic. They even went for a ride on what Dan called the most extra-looking boat ride, a candlelit gondola ride going through town.

The extra few days gave them a break from social media though, not exactly by choice, but by the fact Dan was too scared to ask someone working at the hotel what the free wifi’s password was. It felt like a good vacation, a breath of fresh air, but they were glad to be home.

Phil shuffled Dan’s things neatly together, and placed his own suitcase down. That was new, Dan leaving his belongings in Phil’s room, but it didn’t make such a difference.

“I can move those if you need!” Dan called from his spot on the hallway floor.

“No, it’s okay!” Initially, Phil’s thoughts were focused on the fact that they were just sharing a room by now, but he shoved it away and made the best of it. “You’re just a hot mess.”

Dan smirked, not looking up from his phone. “I just need the motivation to clean up my act.”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “If you say so. I’m gonna go edit my video upstairs.”

While Phil was an hour into editing, Dan crawled up the stairs, a tired expression stuck on his face as he plopped on the sofa and wrapped himself with his giant brown blanket. Phil stared at him in disbelief. “You literally slept in until ten, slept the whole flight, and slept on the train home, how are you still tired?”

Dan flipped him off.

Phil turned back to his screen. “Well, if you’re up here, help me out. I downloaded some of my shots of your drone, how long do you think the clips should be all together?”

Dan pulled the blanket over his head and fell back. “Eh, don’t go over twenty seconds. Slow some of them down though.” His reply was muffled. “And try to find a new song to put over it.”

Phil snickered. “You look like a rat that got hit by a truck right now.”

“Wow, thanks so much.” Dan’s voice was flat with sarcasm. “That’s the look I was aiming for.”

Within a few more hours, Phil managed to finish putting together his Berlin vlog and a somewhat clickbaity thumbnail for it. Usually he would’ve let Dan review it first, but his roommate was fast asleep on the couch, so he hit the upload button and turned away from the desk. He figured Dan would be starving when he woke up, so he ordered some chinese delivery and started unpacking some of his things. However, with a lot on his mind, he was disassociating the entire time.

He didn’t really expect to end up sharing a room, but he should have seen it coming, after all the nights Dan had insisted on sleeping in Phil’s bed. Though deep down he appreciated having extra company— not that they didn’t spend every waking hour together already.

When the food arrived, he brought it up to Dan, who had woken up and was sat at the computer, looking distraught. Phil sat beside him, curious.

“Uh, you missed something while you were editing.” Dan was switching between the video Phil had uploaded and the comment section, pointing to the fourth top comment.

‘Go to 5:27, look at the beds. The one Phil “just got out of” is completely still made while Dan’s definitely seems like someone else slept there with him. See the crease in the pillow? Hmm..’

Phil groaned, falling back onto the couch. “I think they call those guys demon phannies or some shit. Sorry. Really.” Dan took a second. The comment only had a hundred likes, surely others would wash it out once the video was out for longer. It wasn't such a big deal.

“Let me look over the video next time, maybe.” He cracked a small smile. “The food smells incredible, let's eat.”

It was a gloomy afternoon, rain pouring down against the windows, as Phil was working on renewing his passport, sipping a cup of tea, and hoping the services would process his application before the film festival in Canada in a month’s time. The rain was getting him down, just a bit. He was aching for everything in the near future, like Halloween, some planned trips, the return of pumpkin spice lattes. But he was stuck filling out boring applications in rainy ol’ England.

Dan was out on a business meeting for a film company, which Phil thought sounded boring, but at least he was out of the house. Phil was on his own. He pulled out his phone, heading to twitter, boredom growing on him as he scrolled through his mentions. One caught his eye. Someone had quote tweeted him a link to someone in London who'd rescued some rabbits from cruelty and needed foster homes for them, and in an instant, Phil felt like this was his job.

He replied to the tweet with a quick “omg” to bookmark it, and quickly his followers told him he needed to foster one. He knew he'd have to ask Dan, but he looked through the rescuers account to make sure it was legit and safe, researching it. The rabbits were all rescued from testing in partnership with makeup company, so all of them were fixed and somewhat up to date with shots, but most of them were traumatized and had slight disabilities. Phil already found his favourite, a golden furred girl with clouded eyes that had most likely been sprayed by perfumes, leaving her partially blind, but she was beautiful. Her name was Honeydew.

He texted Dan a bit of a keysmash that simply said “Dnan i want a fuKcin RABBIT” because he was so excited that he barely gripped onto his phone. Dan replied after a little while.

Dani Snot On Fire

what

Dani Snot On Fire

please wait until im home before you adopt another creature

Dani Snot On Fire

im almost there

Phil pulled up a bunch of tabs about fostering rabbits, Honeydew and how they were rescued, expecting to have to beg Dan for it again. Shockingly, Dan agreed right away.

“As long as you know how to care for a bunny, get a bunny.” The brunette pushed back his wet curls, tumbling onto the bed. “We’re home for a while ‘til you get your passport anyway. It would make you happy.” Phil grabbed his laptop, rushing back to Dan and contacting the rescuer about fostering the honey-colored rabbit. He fell back, landing on Dan’s chest unintentionally, but didn't budge.

“You're literally the best.” Phil trilled, his voice vibrating against Dan’s warm chest. A simple phrase that filled Dan up with emotion, causing him to tear up and laugh, leaving Phil worried he’d done something wrong.

“Are you okay?” Phil stammered, rising from his spot quickly. “What's so funny, did someth—”

“It's fine. I guess I needed to hear some positivity today, just…” Dan sighed. It had been a long day. “Want you to know, you're actually the best.”

As if Phil couldn’t be anymore sure that Honeydew was certainly the rabbit he wanted, the day he got to pick her up, she ran right into his arms. It was like the perfect movie scene to Phil, but to the other people in the room, it was rather anticlimactic; the half blind bunny sort of just sniffed the strawberry in Phil’s hand and tumbled onto his lap.

But Phil had looked up to Dan with the softest smile, wearily nodding, and they knew they were both sold.

Phil was over the moon about having a pet again, instantly falling into the trap of ordering twenty different rabbit outfits on amazon within two hours of bringing Honeydew home. “At least she’ll be in fashion,” he’d insisted. “A different outfit for nearly every day she’s here.”

“You’re never going to make that money back, Phil.”

The rabbit owner was set out to prove Dan wrong, which happened rather dramatically. When his two-day shipment came in, Phil decided to make a Rabbitwalk, unboxing and showcasing the various outfits on Honeydew. He was quite happy with the video, easily one of his favourites, but what was shocking yet hilarious was the fact that the video went up to number six on trending within twenty-four hours, racking up two and a half million views in the timeframe. So, it was safe to say Phil got his money’s worth.

Phil didn’t stop there, either. He took it upon himself to buy a leash and harness for his fuzzy daughter and took her for a walk on the seaside. Dan was reluctant to join at first, but figured it was worth it if it made his best friend happy. Which was certainly the outcome; Phil had a look of pride stuck on his face the entire walk, as children came up to ask to pet the little creature and a few teens took pictures from afar. Dan took a nice picture, too, of Honeydew’s silhouette and Phil’s shadow overlapping, with the setting sun over the water in the background, and as he looked up back to them, he found himself smiling.

As they walked back home in silence, except for Phil whistling and cooing to Honeydew in his arms, Dan felt safe and warm and complete. It was a mystery to him why having an animal made him so wholesome suddenly, but it was working, and working well. He wondered if it was because… He glanced to Phil, who looked so gentle and tranquil holding the sun-dipped bunny, and his heart soared.

He wondered if it was because it felt like he had a family with Phil.

“Another charger?”

Dan held up a shredded phone cord that was covered with bite marks, eyes crinkled as he laughed. “Another charger.”

They’d kind of just let Honeydew become their new dog, giving her free roam of the house, but as Dan and Phil were both awfully forgetful, they’d accidentally left cords where she could reach them and nip at them.

It was a quiet night. They’d been binging a cheesy Netflix drama for a few hours and eating some microwaved popcorn in the lounge while Dan actually cuddled Honeydew for a little while before she got sick of it and hopped off to chew up Dan’s phone charger.

“Sorry,” Phil picked her up off the ground and lifted her into his arms. “Tired?”

“You can go. I’ll come soon.” He searched for an excuse. “Uh, wouldn’t want you to be bothered by my laptop.”

Phil looked like he almost didn’t believe it, but he simply nodded and gently put Honeydew down in her enclosure. He flicked off the hallway light. “Good night, Dan.”

Dan didn’t pull out his laptop at all. He just laid back and let out a sigh, knowing what he was feeling, as much as he wanted to repress it, he was in love with his best friend.

He ached to express to someone how he felt, but anxiety bubbled in his chest, and he’d never be able to tell Phil that he had some kind of feelings for him. Dan couldn’t even root out the feelings yet, whether they were romantic or just full of admiration, but it filled Dan up with butterflies everytime he looked at Phil nowadays. It was nice in the moment, but a heartache at times like these, where his anxiety caught control of him and he started to spiral into a cluster of catastrophic thoughts. What if somehow Phil found out or the fans found out and everyone left him because all he wanted to do was grow old and love his longest lasting friendship and— he stopped.

He rid of the negative thoughts taking over and stood up, flicking off the last light as he shuffled his way into Phil’s room. The eldest looked surprised to see him so soon, but smiled.

“Cold?”

Dan’s heart filled with an assortment of emotions at once, as he shrugged. He knew that phrase meant they were going to cuddle and look like some dream couple while they were doing it and fall asleep in each other’s arms and— shit. Dan realized he was just kind of standing in the dark when Phil’s voice brought him back into reality.

“You okay?” Phil’s soothing mumble filled Dan with peace. If it was okay, cuddling Phil simply platonically, it was worth it. So he nodded, quickly scrambling into the cozy bed, and let Phil wrap his arms around his waist, filling him with warmth. Phil nestled his face into Dan’s shoulder and brushed his leg up against the other’s, humming softly before whispering.

“Good night, again.”

Dan’s thoughts were still a cluster, but he managed to mumble out a soft “sleep well” as he was pressed against his best friend. It took a while for him to fall asleep, but having someone to cuddle with every night was it’s own dream come true.

Dan was sat at the breakfast bar, the morning two days before halloween, when the sky was a dull gray. Phil was on his phone in the lounge, Honeydew munching on strawberries in his lap, when Dan took his own phone and in a split second typed out three words and sent it to Phil; “phil i’m bi.”

He heard the notification sound, but couldn’t dare to look at Phil’s face as he read the message. He didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what he got.

“Dan!” He whipped his head around to face his housemate, with wide eyes of delight. “You’re serious, right?”

“Y-yeah, I guess.” He stuttered on his phrase. “I guess I should explain. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell you, you’re right there and all…”

“Dan, I’m so fucking proud of you!”

That made Dan freeze, Phil rarely ever even said shit, so him full on f-bombing was showing that his phrase was unfiltered and as true as it could get. So naturally, Dan started tearing up, which led to crying, which led to ugly sobbing. Phil got up and gave him a tight hug, quietly reassuring him with little coos and whispers in his ear. Dan hugged back even tighter. He’d never come out before, hell, he didn’t think he would ever end up being bi, but there he was, being fully accepted and praised by Phil.

“I’m s-sorry,” Dan sniffed back his soppy nose, not letting go of Phil. “I would have just said it out loud, but I’ve been trying all w-week, and I couldn’t do it. Everytime I tried to bring it up I fucked up and I’m so sorry that I couldn't tell you cause you’re my best fucking friend in the whole world and I don’t deserve y-you at all and—”

“Hey, hey.” Phil cut him off, pulling him away so they could face each other, but gripped Dan’s arms. “You know I’ll be your best friend no matter what, we deserve each other, okay?”

Dan’s eyes were wary, and his cheeks were wet from sobbing, as he struggled to hold back tears again. Phil saw it in those relieved brown eyes that all he needed was another hug. So he brought him in again, squeezing his weepy friend’s arms just enough to let Dan know he was there for him.

Then Phil started humming again. Dan knew he had a habit of doing so, but it was so incredibly soothing, and Dan finally figured out the tune right at that moment. The tune he always murmured at the right times matched up to the children’s rhyme, you are my sunshine.

The two spent Halloween night trick or treating with Louise and her kids in the moonlight. Phil was a knight, striking a confident pose with Honeydew dressed as a dragon in his arms in one of the pictures Dan took, whilst the younger man was a horse, and probably had the most embarrassing night of his life. At least Louise’s daughters, who had matching Princess Peach and Princess Daisy costumes on, seemed to love that they all had a fantasy theme going on.

“I swear, if you post any pictures of me in that dumb costume—”

“Sorry, love,” Louise giggled, showing the brunette that she’d already tweeted a photoset of Darcy and Dan posing with a number of jack-o-lanterns, captioned “princess peach and her loyal steed.” Dan cringed immensely.

“You’re lucky those are, like, the cutest pictures ever. I’m still going to burn this costume, though.”

The next day they had to give a sad goodbye to Honeydew as she was to be adopted. Phil only managed not to cry when he saw the pure joy on the eight-year-old daughter’s face when he gave her the shoebox full of rabbit costumes, and that made it worth it. He was glad to know that his rabbit would surely be in a good home.

Dan’s thoughts were clouded, after the fact of accepting his sexuality, he had the weight of coming out on his shoulders. No one was asking him to tell everyone, but after only letting Louise and Phil know, he noticed they’d both said something similar.

“I wish you’d told me sooner, I could’ve helped!”

Deep down, he knew they were being sincere, and that they just wanted to comfort him while he was stressing over labels, but were too late. However, what Dan’s mind took from that was guilt for not telling the people he loved most earlier, and he couldn’t help the feeling.

He knew he was going to visit his family soon, and deep down, he had the intentions of coming out, but it was so hard to bring it up. It made him queasy just thinking about it. All he could think about was the little homophobic remarks he faintly remembered his father making, even though they were years back. Time had passed, and there was a chance that his dad already learned to accept identities different from him, but it was still terrifying thinking of coming out.

He couldn’t find the balance of guilt and fear. It was one or the other, and he wanted to get it over with, but he was so awful at talking about his feelings that it seemed impossible. He could talk to Phil, though, and he tried to explain what he had on his mind.

“I mean, I can talk to you no bloody problem,” he traced his hand over the stripes on the bedsheets, sat up and avoiding Phil’s gaze as he continued, “but even with you it took me ages just to text you that I was bi, and you were just in the other room. So it’s gonna be a headache saying it out loud to both of my parents and my family and I don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”

They fell silent, Dan letting out a deep sigh as the moonlight gleamed on his tired eyes. Phil knew him, and knew that his anxiety often took control of his mouth and mind. It took so much out of him just to ask for things sometimes, he’d have the words repeating in his head, pounding at all sides, but he wouldn’t be able to say it out loud, no matter how much he wanted to. It was likely that would happen the entire time he was with his family.

After that night, Phil felt a little useless, so he threw some ideas into the air besides Dan using his words. “A cake? That just says ‘I like boys too’? I could make it.”

“Eh,” Dan smiled weakly. “I’d have a lot of explaining to do after that. It would be kinda… out of character for me.”

Phil pressed his hand to his face. He had an idea, one that started off as just a jokingly put concept, but they might’ve actually been able to pull it off.

“We could… fake date?”

Dan’s eyes flashed with confusion, followed by… relief? Phil couldn’t make out the expression on the younger man’s face, but he could tell Dan assumed it was just for laughs. He chuckled under his breath. “Phil—”

“No, for real, it could work.” Phil tried to piece it together, words spilling out of his mouth without a filter. “You could… uh, break out the news easy that way, and click the point in right away without having to explain it all, and I’d be there to support you, so…”

“In what world is that going to work?” Dan stretched his arms across the counter. He had to admit, the plan wasn’t entirely flawed, in fact, even fake dating Phil was a bonus to having to come out. Phil looked hopeful when they met eyes, because all he wanted was to make things easier for his best friend.

Dan took a second, groaning and finishing with the smallest smirk he could manage, full of fondness. “Fuck it. What’s your plan?”

“We’re crazy.”

The late autumn wind creeped in the air on a particular afternoon where Dan and Phil wound up holding hands on a homey doorstep. They were both bundled up in cozy jackets and had tired eyes when they opened the door.

They were greeted by a dog with soft white fur, long legs, and the biggest snout Phil had ever seen. She sweetly sniffed the two men as they came inside, tail wagging. “Hello, Collie, pretty girl!” Dan’s voice pitched up as he gave the pup a gentle pat. “Look at you!”

“Daniel, if you call Molly Colin junior one more time, I’ll start calling you Jonathan junior.” A short woman with curly brown hair falling just to her shoulders and an apron around her waist emerged from the kitchen, immediately pausing as her eyes went up from her son and Phil’s interlaced hands. A shimmer of shock was in her eyes, partially because Phil was in her house, but mostly due to the boys holding hands. Dan let go to give her a hug.

“Good afternoon, Phil,” she gave Phil a light hug as well, though her phrase sounded more like a question than a statement, “wasn’t… expecting you. How was the train here?”

Dan swept in. “News for you, mum.”

“I presumed.” The surprise was wearing off, as she looked more sympathetic. “I’m happy for you, both of you, how long’s it been?”

Dan was the one in awe now. It certainly wasn’t the first question he was expecting, so it caught him off guard. “Oh… uh, few months. Figured even though everyone already knows Phil, you’d appreciate me telling you. And… dad.”

“Well, that’s one way to do it, innit?” She turned back to Phil, sharp on her heels. “I don’t even need to give you the whole talk, you’re the best Dan could’ve got. You like pork chops? I’m cooking them now.”

“That sounds lovely, thank you, Jennifer.” Phil’s cheeks were warm, as he stifled a small laugh. Dan was wide-eyed as ever, so confused as to how that it was just… that easy.

“Great, dear. Dan, why don’t you go see Colin? He’s asleep in his room. Dad’ll be home soon enough.”

Dan turned to the hallway. “Y-yeah.”

Phil gave him a little shove, as they hopped down a few stairs. “Easier than you thought, I’m guessing?”

“What the fuck just happened.” Dan whispered as he entered a whole room just for the dogs, assorted squeaky toys in bins along with worn out stuffed animals on a big dog bed. Colin was asleep on the smaller dog bed, waking up to Dan petting his little head. “Normally she’ll ask me a million questions but she was just so… fine with it.”

“You’re old enough that she probably trusts that you’re fine.” Phil bent down to the old dog and stroked his side. “Was this your room?”

Dan pushed his curls back, nodding wearily.“Yeah, kinda. Right after I moved in with you they made it Adrian’s room, then when Adrian moved out, they made it Colin and Molly’s bedroom.”

“Goals.”

Dan snickered. “Shut up. Hopefully my dad trusts me too.” Colin’s tail wagged lightly as the brunette picked him up off the bad, placing the terrier in his lap. Dan’s mind was cleared for the first time all day, and it made him feel so much better. He was home, with the man who felt like home to him and his with his family’s embrace.

“I hope so, too. Can we make a dog bedroom?”

The corners of Dan’s mouth turned up quickly. “We don’t have any dogs, Phil.”

“I know, I mean when we’re like, sixty, and have the shiba you always wanted plus a corgi-dachshund for me?” Phil was petting Colin’s soft fur now, too. “We can buy them so many dog toys, oh my god.”

“Yeah? Sure, I guess.”

The smell of the home-cooked dinner filled the house as they sat at the dining table patiently. Molly’s big head peeked over the edge with ease, tail wagging impatiently. Phil was already in love with the borzoi dog within half an hour of meeting her, so naturally, he was at her side. Even though he was focused on the pup, he was holding hands with Dan as well, and sensed him tense up when the front door opened. Dan’s father, John, came in through the kitchen, and had the same shocked face.

“Welcome back, honey.” Jenn planted a kiss on her husband’s cheek when he put down his bag, as he nodded to Phil and their connected hands. It looked as if he’d went through ten emotions within a few seconds, but he seemed to approve quickly. Phil could feel Dan’s racing pulse through the palm of his hands, so he squeezed a little bit more

“Good evenin’ Lester. How are you?” His voice seemed unphased— did everyone expect Dan and Phil to get together, even their parents?

“I’m great,” the black-haired guest felt strangely out of place, but reminded himself this was for Dan. “How’s your day been?”

“I love this house.” Phil stretched out his arms, yawning. Their murmurs filled the dark, yet cozy, room that night. Their secret was safe, both parents buying it in a heartbeat. Nonetheless it still felt risky, as they’d barely thought out the aftermath— they’d have to stage a break up, supposedly, but it would look… strange still living together after the fact if they were ‘broken up’.

They silently chose not to think about it, nor talk about it. Dan focused on the more positive present. “Thanks, for real, my dad took it super well.”

“I’m glad.” Phil’s words were so peaceful and full of endearment that Dan felt his eyes tearing up, just because he felt so extremely lucky to have such a lovely man by his side all the time. Even if the romantic parts were faked, Phil was practically Dan’s soulmate. His other half.

“I’m… glad, too. Glad you’re here.”

The night shifted to sunrise soon enough, and Dan didn’t sleep too long— though that wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. The pair did, however, wake up with a jolt when a little pig-tailed girl burst into their room. “Uncle Da-a-an!” She plopped on top of the brunette, squeezing her small arms around his frame.

He hugged her back, still wary as he rubbed his eyes. “Morning Val, how are you?”

Valerie pressed her hands to her cheeks, clearly more interested in her uncle’s companion. “Who’re you, again?”

“I’m Phil,” he smiled warmly. “Haven’t seen you in a long time, do you remember me?”

“Uh, yes?” She sounded hesitant for a moment. “You… gave me flowers at my recital ‘cause Uncle Dan was broke, right?”

Dan groaned. “You’re right. But he’s here for Nan’s birthday, is that okay?”

“Yeah!” Valerie gave Phil an enthusiastic high five. “Come on outta bed, I’ll show you my doggies!”

The look Adrian gave Dan as they met in the hallway was the most comedic knew it look the older brother had ever seen. Apparently Dan and Phil were the only ones who didn’t see how compatible they were. Sure, it took a whole lot of endearment and tolerability to live together for eight years, but did all of the family members just assume they’d end up all over each other?

Valerie, Adrian’s six year old daughter, was caught up showing Phil her three stuffed animals when Dan arrived into the lounge, her loud, but rather cute voice filling the room.

“And this one doesn’t have a name yet. Woof! But look at her pretty collar!”

“She’s very cute.” Phil was cross-legged with the two ther toys on his lap. “What’s a good name for her?”

“Uh…” she stared at the toy, then back to Phil. “What was your bunny’s name again?”

“Honeydew.”

“Her name should be Honeydew junior, then!” Dan snickered at her response. She hopped off her feet, tugging her father’s shirt. “Dada! I really really want a bunny rabbit! Can we get one?”

“Maybe.” Adrian lifted her off the ground. “What’s for breakfast?”

It didn’t take long for Phil to feel at home with the mis-match known as the Howell family. As more relatives crowded into the old-fashioned lounge, he listened to older aunts and uncles’ stories about the eighties, Dan, or each other, and was on the edge of his seat. It was safe to say that he didn’t feel out of place in the house anymore, though he wasn’t ready for just one of their customs. After howling two rounds of Happy Birthday to Dan’s grandmother and the cake had been generously served, one of Dan’s aunts started a toast.

“To Nan’s new year!”

“To Nan!” The family chanted, wine glasses tapping and the kids lifting their plastic cups enthusiastically.

“To new lives!”

“To Leah!” One of Dan’s cousins, perhaps a second cousin as Phil was starting to lose track, smiled with her newborn baby that they’d tributed to.

“And to new lovers!”

Dan immediately turned a shade of pink, and mouthed the words “you gotta kiss me” to Phil in a jitter. Most of them chanted, “To Dan!” Though a few said “to Dannyboy” instead, and Val straight up screamed “To Phil!” Phil was caught off guard by that, but realized halfway through the toast what was happening.

Dan pulled towards him and their lips met for just a moment. The family cheered around the table and sipped their drinks, Dan drinking his water coyly. Phil felt the need to take Dan’s hand in his own under the table, which alarmed the younger man for a split second as their eyes met again. The alarm quickly wore off and was replaced with relief, and Dan couldn’t keep himself from smirking.

“I love your family so much.”

It was later that night. Val, Adrian, and his wife Mareya were staying in the guest room, so Dan and Phil were sleeping on a blow up mattress in the dogs’ room. Phil was curled up on the side closest to Molly, naturally, when Dan came in after washing up.

“Yeah? Uh, by the way,” He ruffled his hair back as he plopped onto their makeshift bed. “Sorry that I didn’t… warn you about the whole toast. It’s a thing they do and I totally forgot until it, y’know, happened.”

“Don’t worry. Besides, your family is so amazed that you even have a boyfriend.” The black-haired man raised an eyebrow. “A hot one, too.”

“Stop.”

“Come on, babe,” That certainly didn’t roll off his tongue naturally, as he cringed at his own words, but it made Dan laugh, and that made it worth it. “I know, I’m hilarious, aren’t I?”

“Gross, stop.” Dan pressed his hand to Phil’s cheek, pretending to slap him. “Good night.”

“Night, baby.”

Dan sighed, staying quiet. Phil almost thought he’d won before the brunette blurted out, “Nasty.”

Phil couldn’t help but laugh, too.

Valerie clearly liked Phil, giving him a dramatic kiss on the cheek the following evening when it was nearly time to leave. She made her uncle kneel down too, so that she could reach his ear, and whispered, “Can we trade boyfriends?”

“You have a boyfriend?” Dan queried. She shook her head, baffled.

“Of course not! But I know Matthew R. in my class has a big crush on me.” She kept her voice low as she continued, “You’d like him, ‘cause he likes starbucks and youtube and Halloween.”

Dan laughed, causing Phil and Val’s parents to look back to her, confused. The seven year old violently shushed him before he replied. “I’ll pass.” She stuck out her tongue in response, and finally gave Dan a hug.

“Bye, uncle Dan. Bye, Phil!”

As they waved goodbye, Dan grasped Phil’s free hand lightly. “That kid.”

“She’s so precious.” Phil rested his head on the taller man’s shoulder, before turning around to the guest room. While their hands remained linked, he lazily kicked the door behind them and danced around the room. They looked quite clumsy and strange but they were laughing, ear to ear, and that was all that mattered.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine-e-e,” Dan mocked Phil’s habit, but out of admiration. The eldest almost forced himself to look annoyed, but his face cracked a loving smile.

“I hate you.”

“Yeah?”

Phil was reluctant to reply, instead tossing his arms around Dan’s wide frame. “Maybe not. You win.”

“You make me happy, when skies are grey,” the brunette’s voice was out of tune and exhausted, but it only smothered Phil even more. “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you-u-u.”

Phil laughed, as his dance partner held the note terribly, before realizing Dan was waiting for him to finish the lyric. His eyes softened.

“Please don’t take my sunshine away.” He murmured just loud enough, so only Dan could hear, because his best friend was the only person in the world he ever wanted to hear him at that moment. It was tooth-achingly sweet, the way they were tangled up together and simply looking into each other’s eyes. They were both giggling because of how cheesy their situation was, and because they were both too aware of what was bound to happen. After a second of silence, their lips met.

That was just for them, and they both had grins on their faces like the lovestruck idiots they were because of course they fell for each other, like everyone sensed they would. They tumbled onto the bed beside each other, Phil leaning up against Dan’s chest, still laughing softly. “Did you know I love you, Dan Howell?”

Dan wrapped his arms around Phil this time, warmth filling them both. “Don’t think you’ve mentioned it, no.”

They barely slept that night, facing each other and giggling because they were both so oblivious, weren’t they? Phil kept curling his fingers around little bits of Dan’s locks and reciting things he loved about his best friend and his family. Dan cried a few times, unable to express how much he loved the other man, but always ended up smiling. That night could’ve lasted forever, and they wouldn’t have complained.

epilogue

Home sweet home. Where thirty dollar frames from France were hung with possibly the cheesiest honeymoon photo taken inside of it, rings glistening and smiles underneath the eiffel tower. The frame read City Of Love and whilst it made Dan want to cringe to death, as he’d said while buying it, it ended up being hung in the centre wall of their lounge.

They were walking along the shoreline at sunset, hands locked, and talking to each other like always. They knew they were often like film-scene-lovers, but they were happy, and that was all that mattered.

They’d be happy as long as they had each other, they knew that all too well. Whether in Paris eating donuts in a little cafe or growing old in their forever home with a couple dogs, they’d learned to appreciate it all.

They spotted a familiar pair a little way down the path, on the sand, and it only took them a moment to recognize the little fluff playing in the water. “Astro!” Phil called out, and the grey dog came running to them. His owners looked delighted as he nuzzled his long nose into Phil’s arms. Dan bent down to his husband, and realized he was crying tears of joy.

Perhaps most things aren’t new. Maybe they’re just renewed memories, because it was just like the day they brought Astro home— Phil with teary eyes, Dan in love. Not too much had changed, but it felt like everything changed at the same time. Maybe that’s what home sweet home was. Building off of memories.

The waves fell along the low tide, the sky rosy, and it was all okay. Because it was clear now, whether up, away, off their feet or appreciating the life they had a home, Dan and Phil were just grateful to have each other.

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stardustandheart · 5 years ago

Text

A Light in our Darkness

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

4:33PM EDT

They were ready. Were you?

Everybody was ready. All were ready except for one: The one who ultimately runs the show, the goddess Mother Nature.

Yesterday my family and I got in the car and headed to Cape Canaveral for this historic day.

It was a special day, the mark of a new era. For the first time in 9 years after the final space shuttle mission, NASA would launch 2 special and most worthy humans to the ISS, off of U.S. soil. On board the Crew Dragon spacecraft that sits on top of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket were veteran astronauts Doug Hurley (one of my role models) and Robert Behnken. Few words are needed to describe what they were about to feel and achieve.

“Astronauts are the worthy explorers of untouched lands”

But this dynamic duo-crew alone wouldn’t fill the crew cabin because flying with them to the ISS are the dreams of every American and all generations past.

We live in a dark time right now. I think it is so beautiful that even amidst a global pandemic where fear drives our pain and sadness, our innovators and leaders have even so pushed through and manifested our dreams to explore beyond our planet.

And so NASA said “let’s light this candle.” All was ‘go for launch.’

For the last week and a half or so that I had been home, it was storming every day-(typical Florida pre-hurricane season), all throughout the week I was doubtful of the launch but I remained hopeful and so did our astronauts, along with every person working behind the scenes, I truly believe it.

Our entire planet united, rooting for our heroes. Our heroes who would be this light in our darkness.

I woke up yesterday with a hunch that it wasn't going to happen, but I was fighting it. Four hours later when we arrived to the park where we would witness this historical moment, I remember just feeling… {how is this happening}. Feeling concern over our astronauts, fearing a catastrophic mistake wouldn’t be made. I was almost hoping that they would scrub the launch. Having had a near-catastrophic avionic experience, I will never be the same. I really truly believe it in my body and mind that I have developed a “sixth sense” where I can feel and sense danger in the sky.

Right as we walk up the our viewing area, straight across from me I see a lightning strike. And in that moment, I just knew it in my body, it was scrubbed. With only about 10 minutes to liftoff, sure enough it was canceled.

I felt nothing but relief.

The issue was that there was too much electricity in the atmosphere; while every single other exterior and interior condition was aligned perfectly, launch director of the mission feared that the launch of the craft would actually trigger a lightning storm, which could result in catastrophe.

So it was Mother Nature’s call this time. Everything, absolutely everything happens for a reason & I trust the universe with my whole entire being.

The launch has been postponed to Saturday, May 30 with a liftoff time of 3:22PM EDT.

This craft that they are flying to the station is one of the most sleek, modern, safe, and advanced systems ever built, truly a milestone in the space economy, able to fly up to 7 crew members at once to space and beyond. Demo-2 is the final major milestone mission for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions, to and from the International Space Station. This means that if this mission is successful, this craft will be used in future space exploration missions, specifically the Artemis Program which will take our civilization to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. It gives me chills.

There was no launch yesterday, but this is no failure.

Post-launch scrub, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said “It was a great day for NASA, it was a great day for SpaceX. I think our teams worked together in a really impressive way, making good decisions all along.” The scrub yesterday was the best decision they could have ever made in order to keep our crew safe. Safety is the mostimportant thing for our astronauts. Safety is paramount, which leads me to something that I am so passionate about, & that is CRM and the importance of it in aviation & aeronautics safety. CRM stands for Crew Resource Management, and it is “the effective use of all available resources for flight personnel to assure a safe and efficient operation, reducing error, avoiding stress, and increasing efficiency” (Skybrary.aero). The concept was developed as a response to new insights into the causes of aircraft accidents. It is absolutely shocking, from this research, how many fatal aircraft accidents were not causes from technical malfunctions of the aircraft or its systems themselves, but simply because of a lack of effective communication and teamwork on the part of the crew. I see it even when I work my flights- the inability of crews to be able to respond appropriately to the situation in which they find themselves. No situational awareness, or if there is, not voicing this to the other crew members, fearing that it is not important and/or carelessness. All this leading to ultimately a wrong decision or series of wrong decisions that result in catastrophe.

I am so passionate about situational awareness, especially after my own aircraft incident. Not only can I stress how important situational awareness is, but CRM, and being tuned in live during this launch yesterday it was just spectacular to watch and listen to the dialogue between NASA and the crew and see how effectively and composed they worked together to make the best and safest decisions. It always, always amazes me and not only that, but teaches me something new about CRM each time. Invaluable information that I can take with me on my own flights. More importantly than just situational awareness, effective communication, and composed teamwork, really lies the most special and distinctive quality that separates effective CRM from weak CRM. And for me personally, that is the ability of the crew to really tune into this sixth sense as a collective entity. It is almost other-wordly, magical- so to speak. It is when the crew can successfully become a unified force and be able to successfully execute the right decision, but this can only be done as a united entity and with complete collaboration and agreement. Everything has to be lined up correctly. It’s magic, really. Because if you read/watch any real-life emergency experiences from the most famous of events and iconic astronauts/aviation professionals (such as Apollo 11 for example), they will tell you the same thing.

My ultimate icon, Christina Koch said some words at yesterday’s event that I want to share as well:

“So much history … it is really just such a testament to NASA, not only are we pushing the boundaries of knowledge and discovery and exploration but, we’re pushing the boundaries on how we accomplish that mission, we’re bringing in commercial partners, we’re fostering a space economy so we’re making sure that we’re always pushing forward, always taking that next step. I think it’s such a privilege to be part of an organization that recognizes if we’re not actually making steps and innovating every single time we do this, then we’re not truly answering humanity’s call to explore and to push those boundaries.”

And she really just put into words what I couldn’t. For NASA to still be able to push those limits amidst this covid-19 global pandemic is truly what it means to answer humanity’s call to explore our universe. As I always say- and what keeps me moving- “the world must go on.” It’s that “how” factor that Koch points out that marks this event as truly a pivotal turning point- innovation and ingenuity. How we are changing the way we do things, experimenting, pushing our limits. It is what makes the human race a truly incredible civilization.

Today I will leave you with one of my favorite things, an Aesop fable. This one is called “The Astrologer”:

A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars. He called himself an Astrologer, and spent his time at night gazing at the sky.

One evening he was walking along the open road outside the village. His eyes were fixed on the stars. He thought he saw there that the end of the world was at hand, when all at once, down he went into a hole full of mud and water.

There he stood up to his ears, in the muddy water, and madly clawing at the slippery sides of the hole in his effort to climb out.

His cries for help soon brought the villagers running. As they pulled him out of the mud, one of them said:

“You pretend to read the future in the stars, and yet you fail to see what is at your feet! This may teach you to pay more attention to what is right in front of you, and let the future take care of itself.”

“What use is it,” said another, “to read the stars, when you can't see what's right here on the earth?”

And so the message is ~[Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.]~

The weather, yesterday, was our “little thing” in the big picture. We are taking care of it. Our vision and our mission does not cease. And so the countdown to Saturday begins.

Let’s light this candle.

This is strange, dark, and ominous world we live in. Take it one day at a time.

I promise that you will be okay. And remember, my door is always open.

So much love.

And so the world goes on.

Open your eyes, look up to the skies

-Elon Musk

Xx~

Jami

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edwhiteandblue · 8 years ago

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Hidden Histories: The Lesser-Known Aspects of Manned Spaceflight

Manned Orbiting Laboratory

While our favorite space boys were riding around in corvettes and having ticker-tape parades, the Air Force was devising yet another space program of its own with its own brand-new set of astronauts- the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL (pronounced either “mole” or M-O-L). This was highly secretive back in the 60s and even decades after that. And the astronauts who were involved never really knew for sure what it was they were doing.

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Astronauts and Astro-Nots

Unlike NASA astronaut candidates, those chosen for MOL didn’t even know they were being evaluated. The Air Force announced that they would be choosing astronauts, but none of the pilots knew anything about it. In fact, they tested the pilots to see who would be most capable in space without the pilots even noticing the tests were going on. The first roster came out in 1965 and included eight pilots, who later became known as the Magnificent Eight (a nod to NASA’s first class of astronauts, the Mercury Seven). Two other groups would be selected as well; five more pilots in 1966 and four more in ‘67.

Of the seventeen military men selected into MOL over the course of those few years, seven of them actually became astronauts. In 1969, NASA was accepting applications from those still with the MOL program who were laid off. Since the astronaut office at the time was quite full, the Chief of the Astronaut Office Deke Slayton decided to take only those who were under the age of 35 since it would be at least a decade before any of them made it to space. These new seven were Bo Bobko, Bob Crippen, Gordon Fullerton, Hank Hartsfield, Bob Overmyer, Donald Peterson, and Dick Truly. They became the MOL Seven, sometimes informally referred to as the MOL Refugees. Crippen went on to pilot the first Space Shuttle. Truly, who was part of the Magnificent Eight, even served as the NASA administrator from 1989 to 1992. However, two of these men, Michael Adams and Robert Lawrence, died in the line of duty and are therefore officially remembered and honored by NASA. The other seven, however, all went on to have successful careers in the military or as NASA research pilots.

Fourteen of the seventeen MOL astronauts: (top l-r) Herres, Hartsfield, Overmyer, Fullerton, Crippen, Peterson, Bobko, Abrahamson, (bottom l-r) Finley, Lawyer, Taylor, Crews, Neubeck, Truly. Adams and Lawrence were most likely both deceased or had left the program at the time this picture was taken. Macleay is absent as well. This is the only known photograph of all NASA transfers together during the program as well as the largest collection of MOL astronauts at one time.

(l-r) Bobko, Fullerton, Hartsfield, Crippen, Peterson, Truly, & Overmyer in 1969.

To Boldly Go Where No Man has Gone Before

No article on the MOL program would be complete without including Major Robert H. Lawrence. Lawrence had a PhD in chemistry and was one of the best pilots the Air Force had to offer. And they used that to their advantage. He was selected as a member of the last MOL group of astronauts in June of ‘67. But most people who are familiar with his name don’t know it because he was in MOL. Robert Lawrence, aside from Ed Dwight who was with NASA (I’ll cover him in a different post eventually), was the world’s first African American astronaut. (To sum up briefly, Dwight was chosen by NASA to undergo astronaut training but left the program before Lawrence was in MOL.) Lawrence, like Dwight, would wind up spending little time in the space program, but not out of choice. On December 8, 1967, Lawrence was flying with Major Harvey Royer when their F-104 Starfighter crashed at Edwards Air Force Base in California while practicing zoom landings. The plane and its passengers came in too low and crashed into the runway, burned, and rolled over. Royer ejected and made it out alive, but Lawrence was killed since the back ejection seat is naturally delayed to avoid hitting the front seat. If he had survived, it is likely that he would’ve transferred to NASA in ‘69 and would have flown the Shuttle as the first African-American astronaut. As a true spaceflight pioneer, the Astronauts Memorial Foundation remembers him every year on the anniversary of his death and his name is on the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Another Africa-American astronaut would not be selected again, not by NASA or anyone else, until 1978- a whole eleven years after Lawrence was selected. However, the first black astronaut was of Cuban descent and flew as a Soviet cosmonaut in the 1970s.

Major Lawrence in his Air Force uniform

Space James Bond

“We did have a joke in the program that one day, there was gonna be a little article back on page 50 of the newspaper that said, ‘An unidentified spacecraft launched from an unidentified launch pad with unidentified astronauts to do an unidentified mission’. That’s the way it was.” -Dick Truly

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was essentially a spy space station. After the cancellation of the X-20 program in 1962, the Air Force devised another manned space program- MOL. Like the X-20, MOL would be used for space reconnaissance. It derived from the Manned Orbital Development System, which was the Air Force’s Space System Division’s idea to use NASA’s Gemini hardware. MODS was to see Air Force pilots fly together with NASA pilots in order to train for the Air Force’s actual space program, a project called Blue Gemini. When MOL was announced, MODS was dropped and replaced by it. The astronauts would use NASA’s Gemini B capsule to get to and from the station and still have the station remain in orbit. Later on, the laboratory would de-orbit and break up while reentering Earth’s atmosphere. But these single-use labs would get their money’s worth; crews would spend thirty days onboard the spacecraft performing experiments ad taking pictures. Now, when this was announced in 1963, the longest American spaceflight was only about a day and a half. In 1965, scientists and doctors on Earth thought human beings would die after spending fourteen days in space (Gemini 7), nonetheless thirty. During these thirty days, astronauts would primarily focus on military reconnaissance and spying on the Soviet Union. Within MOL would be Dorian, a large optical system developed by the National Reconnaissance Office specifically for MOL. While in space, astronauts would be able to analyze photos captured by Dorian rather than wait for people on Earth to do so. This would allow them to pick out specific targets of interest and focus on them. The laboratory itself was a little less than seventy-two feet long and would be launched by a heavy-lift Titan rocket.

Another big deal for MOL was the AMU, or Astronaut Maneuvering Unit. In order to test it out, they gave it to NASA to use during their spacewalks during the late Gemini program. Some people, however, thought the Air Force had plans in mind other than repairs on the outside of the spacecraft. As NASA’s Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton put it in his autobiography, Deke!, “I guess they thought they might have the chance to inspect somebody else’s satellites”.

Your Story’s So Touching it Sounds Just like a Lie

There’s one very critical piece of information I feel the need to state here. The Space Race was not about science or exploration or the pioneering spirit. It wasn’t Star Trek. The Space Race between the US and USSR was political. The only reason we even bothered to fly in space was because the Soviets did it first and we didn’t want to be second rate. NASA was a political organization. It’s not today obviously, but we’re talking about 1967, not 2017. And the public knew that. They knew that NASA was established as a competitor in the Space Race. Yes, they had their own experiments, but they were mainly about flying to the moon. So who can Congress give the public to perform their science experiments for them? How about a program with the word “laboratory” in its name. So that’s exactly what President Johnson did. Johnson definitely knew MOL’s prime objectives, but he clearly couldn’t tell the public what they were. Instead, he told the people that it would be used to “prove the utility of man in space for military missions”. Just what kind of military missions, Johnson didn’t say. We know today that its primary objective was simply spying on our enemies. But Johnson couldn’t come out and say that, so he twisted the story a bit and announced that it was a military yet benevolent space station that would take care of science while John Young and Jim Lovell flew to the moon in the upcoming years. This wasn’t only to fool the public into supporting it, but also to fool the Soviets. Now, if the Soviets knew that we would spy on them from space, wouldn’t they try to do the same? And if the president of the United States came out and told the country and probably the entire world that the Air Force was planning on sending spies up to space, would the program have been supported by the public like NASA was? Even with a cover story, MOL was very very secretive and the astronauts who were part of it were virtually unknown to the public.

On the Shoulders of Titans

MOL consisted of two parts- a capsule and a space station. The capsule was a modified version of NASA’s Gemini capsule cleverly renamed Gemini B. Although it looked similar to NASA’s, many of the systems were changed for its missions. For instance, the systems were designed for thirty days of orbital storage since the longest NASA flight would be only fourteen days. The cockpit layout was also changed, as well as the type of atmosphere (helium-oxygen instead of just oxygen). Another critical change to the Gemini was its heat shield. In order for astronauts to exit the capsule and enter the lab (and vice versa), they would have to crawl through a hatch. But in order to do this, a hole needed to be cut in the bottom of the spacecraft where the heat shield is located. If the hatch/heat shield was not in place during reentry, the crew would burn up and die. The OPS 0855, also designated OV4-3, was the boilerplate used to test this method. It was attached to NASA’s old Gemini 2 spacecraft, which had already been flown in space, as well as a MOL mockup built from a Titan II propellant tank. To distinguish it from other Gemini spacecraft, it was given the words “US Air Force” on its side. The Gemini 2 and OPS 0855 would together be a prototype of the Gemini B. It launched on November 3, 1966, from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 40 on a Titan IIIC-9 rocket for a thirty-three minute suborbital flight. Fortunately for the program, the test flight was a success and the capsule survived reentry, therefore becoming the first capsule to fly in space twice. However, fate would make this the only flight of the MOL program. The Gemini B capsule is now on display at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral.

The only test flight of the OPS 0855 on November 3, 1966 from LC-14

The Gemini-B capsule on display in the Exhibit Hall of the Air Force Space and Missile Museum. Yeah, it really is that small.

A Picture of Dorian

Because MOL was a military reconnaissance program, it needed an optical system. The NRO’s KH program, also known as KeyHole, launched the first spy satellite in 1960 called the KH-4 Corona. Corona was highly successful...when there wasn’t cloud coverage. The KH-10 Dorian was created specifically for MOL. Unlike the rest of the KH series, Dorian was the only non-satellite. Instead, Dorian was a system installed within the space station for the astronauts to use. It was determined that astronauts were better at finding and capturing targets of interest than unmanned satellites (such as Corona) were. However, the program was cancelled before any operational flights of Dorian could happen. The KH-10 was succeeded by the KH-11 Kennan, which is said to have had a 3-inch imaging resolution and could digitally send pictures back to Earth.

A diagram of Dorian

The Obsolete Man

While the NRO gave MOL its KH-10 Dorian, it advocated for its KH-9 Hexagon. Like the rest of the KeyHoles, Hexagon was a satellite rather than an optical system. Between 1965 and 1969, MOL’s budget doubled from $1.5 billion to $3 billion, and the Department of Defense wasn’t too sure if it could support it anymore. We all know that manned flight is more expensive than unmanned flight. With astronauts, food, water, supplies, life support, etc. is required. None of that is needed for regular satellites. And the NRO was certain it’s Hexagon was better than MOL ever could be, even without the curiosity and skill of man.

A comparison between MOL and Hexagon

Black Tuesday

On Tuesday, June 10, 1969, a little less than six years after its conception, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program was cancelled. NASA was a little more than a month away from landing men on the moon and MOL was still three years away from it’s first scheduled manned flight. There was a joke among the astronauts that the only thing in the program that remained constant was the number of years until the first manned flight. Though it had support within Congress, its cost and risk was were too high. CIA head Richard Helms didn’t support the program because he feared that the death of an MOL astronaut might ground further launches and jeopardize the entire satellite reconnaissance program, at least temporarily (similar to what happened to NASA after Apollo 1 in 1967). Also, the Vietnam War was still pretty expensive and Congress was already making cuts to NASA’s budget. And so it was determined that unmanned spy satellites, such as the Hexagon, could do just as well or even better (as with Kennan) than MOL. But what to do with the unexperienced astronauts? A few months later, seven of them were accepted into NASA’s astronaut corps as the seventh class of astronauts. It would be twelve years before any of them flew in space. As for the rest, they went back to flying or having leadership roles in other military programs. This would wind up being the Air Force’s final attempt to put its own guys into space- a task it had been trying to complete for more than a decade.

Let There Be Light

MOL remained in the dark for forty years. Those who were part of it didn’t talk about it much. Little was publicly known about the program. In fact, at the time, there wasn’t much evidence that it even existed. That is, until 2005. While inside Launch Complex 5/6 on Cape Canaveral, the site of the first two manned American launches, NASA Special Agent Dann Oakland came across a locked room. The lock was so old, that it could only be unlocked by a master key. It was completely dark inside and musty- almost like opening a tomb that had been sealed for a thousand years. He and Delaware North security manager Henry Butler came across peculiar cases with even more peculiar items in them. Their contents were two MH-7 training suits that turned out to be from MOL. They both had three-digit numbers, 007 and 008, on the torsos. 008 also had the name “Lawyer”. We know now that 008 is Richard Lawyer of the Magnificent 8, and it is said that 007 may have belonged to Dick Truly. Ten years later in July of 2015, the NRO declassified more than 800 files and photos pertaining to MOL. They can all be found online below the cut.

An MH-7 training suit inside its case at LC-5/6. What was an Air Force suit doing in a locked room of a museum? And why did it take forty years to turn up- the place itself isn’t that big.

For more information, watch the NOVA documentary Astrospies

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I’m personally a huge fan of this program. I think it’s one of the most fascinating things in all of history and I feel the need to share it with people. It’s interesting to wonder how history might’ve turned out if MOL actually happened- not just in the 70s but even its affects on modern times. Log on next week for the next Hidden History with even more Gemini than you could imagine: Advanced Gemini

(Sourced below the cut)

Titles: •“To Boldly Go...” -opening title from Star Trek •“Your Story’s So Touching...” -lyrics from Nat King Cole’s “Straighten Up and Fly Right”; •“On the Shoulders of Titans” -the title of a book I saw somewhere; •“A Picture of Dorian” -part of the title from Oscar Wilde’s book; •“The Obsolete Man” -episode from The Twilight Zone; •“Let There Be Light” -line from the book of Genesis in the Bible

Sources: Astrospies (PBS NOVA documentary); Into the Black by Rowland White; nro.gov; astronautix.com; nasa.gov

#Hidden Histories #MOL

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micaramel · 6 years ago

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All over the world, there are naturally occurring optical illusions that captivate spectators.

Cloud formations can sometimes make it seem like there's an ocean or a UFO in the sky.

Tricks of light make Yosemite look like a volcano, while water reflections make a bridge in Germany look like a complete circle.

While some optical illusions have gone viral and stumped the internet, others you'll only see when you explore the outdoors.

From an underwater waterfall in the Indian Ocean to a surrealist scene in Namibia, we rounded up 18 naturally occurring illusions and optical phenomena that will make you do a double take.

Take a closer look below and find out how these illusions are created.

SEE ALSO: 34 mind-boggling optical illusions that have stumped the internet

While this sky may look like ocean waves, it's actually a special kind of cloud.

Commonly referred to as agitated or turbulent clouds, undulatus asperatus clouds are fairly new to meteorology. They are typically formed when rising air forms create a widespread cloud cover. This paired with wind and turbulence makes the cloud look like its undulating, mimicking ocean waves.

Meanwhile, these are clouds, not UFOs.

Known for their saucer-like appearance, lenticular clouds are stationary clouds that usually form on the downwind side of a mountain range, given that the temperature is low enough. Under the right conditions, moisture in the air condenses to form these massive, striking shapes in the sky.

Dracula orchids look like a face hidden in nature.

At first glance, this flower appears to be a face, with eyes, a nose, a mouth, and even hair. To some, the flower looks like a monkey face. The bizarre-looking flower is actually called a Dracula orchid, and the "eyes" are just short petals.

The surface of an underwater volcano appears to be a mirror into another world.

When scientists explored an underwater volcano, named the Big Pagoda, 6,500 feet under the Pacific Ocean, they found an awe-inspiring optical illusion.

The Big Pagoda was formed when extremely hot chemicals burst through the ocean floor and ran through the icy cold waters of the Pacific. The result is giant structures that seem to be upsidedown volcanoes, but they actually help life grow at the bottom of the deep ocean.

While the structures themselves are otherworldly, it's the surface that really attracted scientist because it looked like a giant mirror with water simmering against it.

Turns out, the mirrored illusion is actually a result of the cold water and hot chemicals mixing together and refracting light at the bottom of the sea.

This "underwater waterfall" is not what it seems.

Along the shoreline of Mauritius, there appears to be a flowing river underneath the turquoise water of the Indian Ocean. While underwater waterfalls do exist, this isn't one of them. In this case, what looks like water is actually sand getting pushed off an underwater shelf called the Mascarene Plateau.

This German bridge creates a perfect circle when reflected in the river below.

Rakotzbrücke bridge in Kromlau, Germany, was built in 1860 and has earned the name "devil's bridge" among locals, as such bridges were so dangerous or miraculous they were said to be built by satan. It was built purposefully as half a circle so that when the waters are still and the light is just right, it will form a perfect circle with its reflection.

Texas' famous Jacob's Well looks like it's thousands of feet deep, but it's just an illusion.

Jacob's Well in Austin, Texas, is known for terrifying people who jump into this giant watering hole. While it's 25 feet deep, an illusion makes it look like the well is thousands of feet deep. With a trick of the light and crystal clear water, it seems like you're jumping thousands of feet into the earth.

This may look like a surrealist painting, but it's actually a photo of Deadvlei in Namibia.

Located inside Namib-Naukluft National Park, Deadvlei is a claypan dotted with many long-dead camel thorn trees, which have not yet decayed due to the area's dry climate.

The barren landscape, once flooded with water from the nearby Tsauchab River, is now a hot spot for photographers — many of whom have captured the contrast between the claypan's bleached white floor and sun-scorched trees.

Pictures like the one above are typically taken from a very low angle, so that the sand dunes in the distance, tinted orange by the sun, look like a painted backdrop.

This giant shadowy figure is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon.

Known as a Brocken Spectre, this phenomena occurs when an observer's shadow is cast onto the surface of clouds or thick mist. The head of the magnified figure is often surrounded by rainbow-colored rings — another optical phenomenon known as a glory, which is created when sunlight hits tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere and is scattered back toward the viewer.

The undulating patterns in this rock formation throw off your depth perception.

This unique rock formation is known as The Wave. It's located in Arizona, in the Coyote Buttes North area in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. To see this stunning sight in person, however, you'll need to enter a lottery system to get a permit four months in advance.

This salt flat in Bolivia is perfect for creating optical illusions.

Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, transforms into a giant reflective surface when it's covered in a thin layer of water, either from rain or nearby overflowing lakes. Stretching on for miles, completely level, the salt flat also appears to have an endless horizon, allowing photographers to create illusions by playing around with depth and perspective.

Yosemite's Horsetail Fall looks like it's on fire at a certain time of the year.

Every year, around the second week of February, the setting sun hits Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park at a particular angle, illuminating the top of the waterfall. If the fall is flowing and the weather conditions are just right, the illuminated water glows bright orange and red, as if it's on fire.

At sea, objects in the distance may appear to be floating above the horizon.

A Fata Morgana is a complex, rapidly changing form of a superior mirage, an optical phenomenon that is created when light bends as it passes through a layer of air that is warmer than the layer below it.

Made up of several inverted and upright images stacked on top of each other, Fata Morganas appear as warped, often unrecognizable, objects or shapes that seem to float above the horizon.

It's easy to mistake simple mirages for bodies of water in the desert.

Compared to Fata Morganas, inferior mirages are created when air near the ocean or earth's surface is much warmer than the air above it. Light passing through these layers of air bends, producing an inverted, displaced mirage of an object (for example, a distant mountain range or the blue sky) that appears below the object itself.

On hot days, roads sometimes appear like they're wet.

This phenomenon is another example of an inferior mirage. Like sand in the desert, roads hold onto heat and warm up the air directly above it. Your brain then mistakenly perceives an inferior mirage of the sky as water on the ground reflecting light.

The plains of Colorado sometimes look 3D from an airplane.

When a man was flying over the plains of Colorado, he noticed they appeared 3D – almost as if they were an elaborate urban city. But, the Colorado Climate Center said it most likely was caused by the way snow fell in that area.

"Overall, I am figuring that the culprit is mainly due to the wind as the snow fell - coupled with farming practices such as fallowing some sections while growing crops in others - therefore intensifying the places where the sideways-blowing snowfall was blocked from the crops," Noah Newman from the Colorado Climate Center told The Weather Channel.

This isn't a lens flare from a camera.

Sundogs, or parahelia, are created when sunlight is refracted by ice crystals drifting in the air. The result is one or more patches of bright light located around the sun.

This moth has wings that look exactly like a snake's head.

When threatened, the atlas moth drops to the ground and flaps its wings. The tips of the insect's wings look incredibly similar to a snake's head, which allows the moth to scare off predators.

The best optical illusions that stumped the internet

14 riddles and brainteasers only smart people can solve

Viral brain-teasers that stumped the internet — can you spot the hidden images?

from Design http://bit.ly/35f5OeY

#micaramel

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dr-mizmix · 6 years ago

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More than art

(full fic with footnotes)

(without footnotes)

Crowley noticed something. Thought the last few decades some of his feathers had been falling. This was not a problem in the sense that in a few days he had brand new feathers replacing the once just lost but he'd never heard of such thing as a demon molting his wings.

At first, he thew them out of embarrassment but over the course of the years, he'd gotten into the practice of making pillows with them and for some uncomprehensible reason he really wanted to give one to Aziraphale. He thought of doing it in so many occasions, if he recalls correctly in each gifting occasion since it became a thing. Is just that, deep down he knows it's probably not socially acceptable to gift something like that.

But that wasn't the only thing he'd been doing. He wasn't aware of this but his apartment had become a treasure trove for mementos of his encounters with the angel.

He'd gotten into the habit of talking something from the places they met: a chair from the castle he worked on the kingdom of Wessex, an authentic Roman mosaic he placed next to his shower, the horn of the last unicorn, the eagle statue from the nazi church… He also retrieved books during his demonic assignments. His library was filled with rare first editions he knew Aziraphale would enjoy.

Each time he looked at them he couldn't help it but smile. A warm feeling invaded his body as if someone were giving him a hug.

Sometimes he would take some of his his homemade pillows and sleep on the Wessex chair. What was dreamt on the chair, stayed on the chair

Aziraphale always got flustered when he entered his flat. He felt good when that happened though the reason why was still unknown for both.

“I love what you've done with the plants, my dear” he proclaimed “Getting more sunlight does not only benefit your little garden but also adds to the overall atmosphere”

“You see, sometimes you have to be permissive to these little brats so they can reach their full potential”

“That could be said about your too, my dear”

“Hey” Crowley protested

Aziraphale giggled “You know what I mean”

The demon gave the angel a friendly punch as their eyes locked on each other. When these two supernatural beings touch, the greatest power explosion can be felt leaving the room filled with silence.

“Yeah so,your plants.” he cleared his throat “I believe they are contest worthy”

Crowley snapped “Don't say that it will get on their hands”

The angel laughed “I don't think they have heads. Nor ears. Nor brains”

“That's what they want you to think” he protested.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, finding a new teapot in the place where there used to be a blank and white photograph of Crowley hugging Bentley the day he bought it with the caption "Forever yours"

“Did you thow away that picture, dear?”

“Angel, Bently is the third thing I love the most in this world. I could never thow it away” Aziraphale looked down. 3rd thing he loves the most? Where does he rank on the list? “But I noticed you didn't like to have it around so I thought I might as well get a nice teapot so we can have fancy tea the proper way”

“I already have a teapot at the bookshop, is there anything wrong with it?”

“No no no. Of course there's nothing wrong with your teapot. Is just… Is nice having you around the flat” Aziraphale blushed “Don't you dare making a big deal out of this”

As a response the angel giggled “Why don't we put it to use?”

“Well of course”

Crowley gided Aziraphale to some kind of living room. He was about to sit down when…

“No! Don't use that chair” the angel seemed confused “I know you prefer things made by humans than the ones miracled into existence” He brought his red and golden chair “Here”

Crowley acomodated Aziraphale in his seat. “Isn't this Alfred the Great throne?”

“I didn't know it was a throne. But so I suppose. The only decent piece of furniture in all Kingdom of Wessex.”

“That's because it was made for a king to sit on it.”

“We can agree you're a tad bit holier than that”

“Dear, you perfectly know most kings weren't holy at all”

Crowley smirked pulling out his tongue “That's precisely why I am saying it”

He shook his head “You willy old serpent”

“I'm gonna go make the tea, as always feel free to make yourself at home”

Once he left the room Aziraphale's eyes examined the room. Crowley have done several changes since the last time he'd been there. He loved the way the demon decorated his apartment, it felt like all the places they've been together which always puts a smile on his face. His curious instinct lead him to explore the room. Examining the bookshelves he found one that particularly cough his attention: Aristotle book on Comedy.

The kettle whistled “Tea is ready!”

Without thinking it twice, in an impulse, he tried to grab it.

In the distance, Crowley shouted “No! Wait!” as the teaset dropped to the floor breaking into a million pieces.

The book returned to its original position but the bookshelf itself moved like a door unlocking a secret room that seemed to be an art studio with canvases of all shapes and sizes, oleic paints of all colors in the conceivable spectrum and each little thing he'd gifted the demon through the year displayed across pillars in top of what seemed likely homemade pillows. An in the center of the room a pillar slightly bigger that the rest with a tartan pillow displaying the book the was trying to get.

Scanning the room he realized the sketches and paintings on the wall were of him in the most beautiful places of the universe: smiling, contemplating the stars, flying…

It was the most beautiful thing Aziraphale had ever seen

“Crowley… ”

“You weren't supposed to see this.”

“Crowley this is… I'm speechless.”

“I'm so sorry, I know, I shouldn't have done this.”

“My dearest boy, what are you talking about?”

“No one has ever done something like this for me, this is beyond perfection. For it to be perfect it should have achieved some kind of standard but darling, my love, you just redefined what means to be loved for me.”

Crowley approached Aziraphale and cupped his face with his trembling hand “May I?” “Please.” the angel gasped.

Crowley closed his eyes with strength as he surrounded his Angel with his free arm behind his neck. He leaned kissing Aziraphale desperately with passion as if this was the last kiss ever allowed to be had before the end of the world. Aziraphale held Crowley's back as he replied immersed in the intensity of his feelings.

They kept on kissing for almost an hour exploring each corner of each other mouth with the passion and care that should be expected after 6000 years of mutual pinning. They felt how their heartbeats reached a speed never achieved for a human heart.

When they separated their lips they couldn't untangle from a hug. Aziraphale whispered “I should have known. You've told me so many times before. At the glove, in Paris, in my Bookshop, at the church…” “Yet you didn't need to say a word, how can you do it?”

Crowley pulled him closer “Because when I look at you and I see your eyes, your hair, Lord save me! Your sweet sweet smile, my entire body can't stop thinking about how much I love you”

Aziraphale's eyes filled with tears of passion “Oh Crowley, I love you too!”

Crowley smiled turning on a gramophone which for his delight started playing Earth Angel.

Aziraphale offered his hand and so they started dancing.

Earth angel, earth angel

Please be mine

My darling dear

Love you all the time

I'm just a fool

A fool in love with you-ou-ou

And so the angel and the demon kissed for the 2nd time in 6000 years. This time as they knew they had all the time in the world (and more since they averted the apocalypse) they kissed with a whole new different bunch of feelings. Tenderness replaced passion as the magic of forbidden romance invaded the air. And so they kissed and they kissed and they kissed each time giving the phrase I love you a whole new meaning for love wasn't enough to describe all the reasons why they were meant for each other.

“There's something I've wanted to give you, for a really long time.” he shyly handed Aziraphale the tartan pillow. His eyes glowed.

“You made this for me, my love?”

“Well yes the thing is…” He fidgeted nervous searching for the right words.

Aziraphale felt its softness “It's made of you…”

“Is it too weird?”

“My love, for how long have you been nesting?”

“Nesting?”

“My lovely boy, your flat. Look around.” he spinned around himself with open arms.

“I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“You know” he made a wing motion with his arms “like birds do.”

“Oh.Ohhhh. I didn't, I didn't do it on purpose”

The angel giggled “Of course you didn't”

The demon blushed as the angel placed his hand on his chin. He tilted his head pressing against the hand “I love you” The angel closed his eyes then smiled “And I love you too”

Taglist from people who reblog my previous post:

@theineffablewasinevitable

@thegratergood

@neireleldridge

#good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #a/c #go #good omens crowley #crowley #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale

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mitchbattros · 6 years ago

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What Scientists Found After Sifting Through Dust In The Solar System

Just as dust gathers in corners and along bookshelves in our homes, dust piles up in space too. But when the dust settles in the solar system, it's often in rings. Several dust rings circle the Sun. The rings trace the orbits of planets, whose gravity tugs dust into place around the Sun, as it drifts by on its way to the center of the solar system.

The dust consists of crushed-up remains from the formation of the solar system, some 4.6 billion years ago -- rubble from asteroid collisions or crumbs from blazing comets. Dust is dispersed throughout the entire solar system, but it collects at grainy rings overlying the orbits of Earth and Venus, rings that can be seen with telescopes on Earth. By studying this dust -- what it's made of, where it comes from, and how it moves through space -- scientists seek clues to understanding the birth of planets and the composition of all that we see in the solar system. Two recent studies report new discoveries of dust rings in the inner solar system. One study uses NASA data to outline evidence for a dust ring around the Sun at Mercury's orbit. A second study from NASA identifies the likely source of the dust ring at Venus' orbit: a group of never-before-detected asteroids co-orbiting with the planet. "It's not every day you get to discover something new in the inner solar system," said Marc Kuchner, an author on the Venus study and astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "This is right in our neighborhood." Another Ring Around the Sun Guillermo Stenborg and Russell Howard, both solar scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., did not set out to find a dust ring. "We found it by chance," Stenborg said, laughing. The scientists summarized their findings in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal on Nov. 21, 2018. They describe evidence of a fine haze of cosmic dust over Mercury's orbit, forming a ring some 9.3 million miles wide. Mercury -- 3,030 miles wide, just big enough for the continental United States to stretch across -- wades through this vast dust trail as it circles the Sun. Ironically, the two scientists stumbled upon the dust ring while searching for evidence of a dust-free region close to the Sun. At some distance from the Sun, according to a decades-old prediction, the star's mighty heat should vaporize dust, sweeping clean an entire stretch of space. Knowing where this boundary is can tell scientists about the composition of the dust itself, and hint at how planets formed in the young solar system. So far, no evidence has been found of dust-free space, but that's partly because it would be difficult to detect from Earth. No matter how scientists look from Earth, all the dust in between us and the Sun gets in the way, tricking them into thinking perhaps space near the Sun is dustier than it really is. Stenborg and Howard figured they could work around this problem by building a model based on pictures of interplanetary space from NASA's STEREO satellite -- short for Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory. Ultimately, the two wanted to test their new model in preparation for NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which is currently flying a highly elliptic orbit around the Sun, swinging closer and closer to the star over the next seven years. They wanted to apply their technique to the images Parker will send back to Earth and see how dust near the Sun behaves. Scientists have never worked with data collected in this unexplored territory, so close to the Sun. Models like Stenborg and Howard's provide crucial context for understanding Parker Solar Probe's observations, as well as hinting at what kind of space environment the spacecraft will find itself in -- sooty or sparkling clean. Two kinds of light show up in STEREO images: light from the Sun's blazing outer atmosphere -- called the corona -- and light reflected off all the dust floating through space. The sunlight reflected off this dust, which slowly orbits the Sun, is about 100 times brighter than coronal light. "We're not really dust people," said Howard, who is also the lead scientist for the cameras on STEREO and Parker Solar Probe that take pictures of the corona. "The dust close to the Sun just shows up in our observations, and generally, we have thrown it away." Solar scientists like Howard -- who study solar activity for purposes such as forecasting imminent space weather, including giant explosions of solar material that the Sun can sometimes send our way -- have spent years developing techniques to remove the effect of this dust. Only after removing light contamination from dust can they clearly see what the corona is doing. The two scientists built their model as a tool for others to get rid of the pesky dust in STEREO -- and eventually Parker Solar Probe -- images, but the prediction of dust-free space lingered in the back of their minds. If they could devise a way of separating the two kinds of light and isolate the dust-shine, they could figure out how much dust was really there. Finding that all the light in an image came from the corona alone, for example, could indicate they'd found dust-free space at last. Mercury's dust ring was a lucky find, a side discovery Stenborg and Howard made while they were working on their model. When they used their new technique on the STEREO images, they noticed a pattern of enhanced brightness along Mercury's orbit -- more dust, that is -- in the light they'd otherwise planned to discard. "It wasn't an isolated thing," Howard said. "All around the Sun, regardless of the spacecraft's position, we could see the same five percent increase in dust brightness, or density. That said something was there, and it's something that extends all around the Sun." Scientists never considered that a ring might exist along Mercury's orbit, which is maybe why it's gone undetected until now, Stenborg said. "People thought that Mercury, unlike Earth or Venus, is too small and too close to the Sun to capture a dust ring," he said. "They expected that the solar wind and magnetic forces from the Sun would blow any excess dust at Mercury's orbit away." With an unexpected discovery and sensitive new tool under their belt, the researchers are still interested in the dust-free zone. As Parker Solar Probe continues its exploration of the corona, their model can help others reveal any other dust bunnies lurking near the Sun. Asteroids Hiding in Venus' Orbit This isn't the first time scientists have found a dust ring in the inner solar system. Twenty-five years ago, scientists discovered that Earth orbits the Sun within a giant ring of dust. Others uncovered a similar ring near Venus' orbit, first using archival data from the German-American Helios space probes in 2007, and then confirming it in 2013, with STEREO data. Since then, scientists determined the dust ring in Earth's orbit comes largely from the asteroid belt, the vast, doughnut-shaped region between Mars and Jupiter where most of the solar system's asteroids live. These rocky asteroids constantly crash against each other, sloughing dust that drifts deeper into the Sun's gravity, unless Earth's gravity pulls the dust aside, into our planet's orbit. At first, it seemed likely that Venus' dust ring formed like Earth's, from dust produced elsewhere in the solar system. But when Goddard astrophysicist Petr Pokorny modeled dust spiraling toward the Sun from the asteroid belt, his simulations produced a ring that matched observations of Earth's ring -- but not Venus'. This discrepancy made him wonder if not the asteroid belt, where else does the dust in Venus' orbit come from? After a series of simulations, Pokorny and his research partner Marc Kuchner hypothesized it comes from a group of never-before-detected asteroids that orbit the Sun alongside Venus. They published their work in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on March 12, 2019. "I think the most exciting thing about this result is it suggests a new population of asteroids that probably holds clues to how the solar system formed," Kuchner said. If Pokorny and Kuchner can observe them, this family of asteroids could shed light on Earth and Venus' early histories. Viewed with the right tools, the asteroids could also unlock clues to the chemical diversity of the solar system. Because it's dispersed over a larger orbit, Venus' dust ring is much larger than the newly detected ring at Mercury's. About 16 million miles from top to bottom and 6 million miles wide, the ring is littered with dust whose largest grains are roughly the size of those in coarse sandpaper. It's about 10 percent denser with dust than surrounding space. Still, it's diffuse -- pack all the dust in the ring together, and all you'd get is an asteroid two miles across. Using a dozen different modeling tools to simulate how dust moves around the solar system, Pokorny modeled all the dust sources he could think of, looking for a simulated Venus ring that matched the observations. The list of all the sources he tried sounds like a roll call of all the rocky objects in the solar system: Main Belt asteroids, Oort Cloud comets, Halley-type comets, Jupiter-family comets, recent collisions in the asteroid belt. "But none of them worked," Kuchner said. "So, we started making up our own sources of dust." Perhaps, the two scientists thought, the dust came from asteroids much closer to Venus than the asteroid belt. There could be a group of asteroids co-orbiting the Sun with Venus -- meaning they share Venus' orbit, but stay far away from the planet, often on the other side of the Sun. Pokorny and Kuchner reasoned a group of asteroids in Venus' orbit could have gone undetected until now because it's difficult to point earthbound telescopes in that direction, so close to the Sun, without light interference from the Sun. Co-orbiting asteroids are an example of what's called a resonance, an orbital pattern that locks different orbits together, depending on how their gravitational influences meet. Pokorny and Kuchner modeled many potential resonances: asteroids that circle the Sun twice for every three of Venus' orbits, for example, or nine times for Venus' ten, and one for one. Of all the possibilities, one group alone produced a realistic simulation of the Venus dust ring: a pack of asteroids that occupies Venus's orbit, matching Venus' trips around the Sun one for one. But the scientists couldn't just call it a day after finding a hypothetical solution that worked. "We thought we'd discovered this population of asteroids, but then had to prove it and show it works," Pokorny said. "We got excited, but then you realize, 'Oh, there's so much work to do.'" They needed to show that the very existence of the asteroids makes sense in the solar system. It would be unlikely, they realized, that asteroids in these special, circular orbits near Venus arrived there from somewhere else like the asteroid belt. Their hypothesis would make more sense if the asteroids had been there since the very beginning of the solar system. The scientists built another model, this time starting with a throng of 10,000 asteroids neighboring Venus. They let the simulation fast forward through 4.5 billion years of solar system history, incorporating all the gravitational effects from each of the planets. When the model reached present-day, about 800 of their test asteroids survived the test of time. Pokorny considers this an optimistic survival rate. It indicates that asteroids could have formed near Venus' orbit in the chaos of the early solar system, and some could remain there today, feeding the dust ring nearby. The next step is actually pinning down and observing the elusive asteroids. "If there's something there, we should be able to find it," Pokorny said. Their existence could be verified with space-based telescopes like Hubble, or perhaps interplanetary space-imagers similar to STEREO's. Then, the scientists will have more questions to answer: How many of them are there, and how big are they? Are they continuously shedding dust, or was there just one break-up event? Dust Rings Around Other Stars The dust rings that Mercury and Venus shepherd are just a planet or two away, but scientists have spotted many other dust rings in distant star systems. Vast dust rings can be easier to spot than exoplanets, and could be used to infer the existence of otherwise hidden planets, and even their orbital properties. But interpreting extrasolar dust rings isn't straightforward. "In order to model and accurately read the dust rings around other stars, we first have to understand the physics of the dust in our own backyard," Kuchner said. By studying neighboring dust rings at Mercury, Venus and Earth, where dust traces out the enduring effects of gravity in the solar system, scientists can develop techniques for reading between the dust rings both near and far. Read the full article

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burclay · 6 years ago

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Halfway Between

Jenny’s radioed ahead, knows where to land, steps out of her spaceship and checks herself in as a visitor to the planet, and then she steps outside, onto purple grass, and looks around.

And that’s where she sees the ghost, blonde, distant. Only half-there. -- Women the Doctor almost saved, seeing the stars.

AO3

The first one Jenny meets looks like a ghost.

She’s only just set off in her spaceship, leaving the orbit of her home planet, still breathing wisps of emerald-gold light, when she sees a strange blue light through the port side window. She’s moving at thousands of miles a minute, but the blue light seems to be following her, chasing her, keeping pace perfectly.

Jenny can’t stop and take a look, as much as she wants to. She’s going thousands of miles a minute. She can only hope the blue light will follow her to the nearest planet.

Sure enough, as she enters the atmosphere of what her computer tells her is Alethen 2, she sees a wink of blue amidst the flames of reentry. She’s radioed ahead, knows where to land, steps out of her spaceship and checks herself in as a visitor to the planet, and then she steps outside, onto purple grass, and looks around.

And that’s where she sees the ghost, blonde, distant. Only half-there.

“Hello?” Jenny says, stepping closer.

“Hello,” the ghost says. Her face is expressionless.

“Are you all right?” Jenny asks. She’s not sure what to do in this situation. “Are you dead? You know, I am, too, technically.”

The ghost smiles at that.

“Yes,” she says. “I have just enough life to see the stars. I’m flying, you see.”

Grinning, Jenny sticks out a hand, even though she knows the ghost won’t be able to touch it.

“I’m Jenny,” she says. “I’m flying, too.”

“Astrid,” the ghost tells her, and she meets Jenny’s hand with her own. Jenny doesn’t feel anything, but she mimics a handshake anyway, and then she invites Astrid to come with her, on this adventure and maybe some of the others.

It turns out Astrid knows Jenny’s dad. Jenny mentions him offhandedly, her immortal Time Lord father with a title for a name, and Astrid says she’s met him.

“Years ago,” she says. “He said he was going to show me the stars.”

“Never got the chance?” Jenny asks. “Me, too.”

Astrid smiles.

“I can see them for myself now,” she says. “There’s so much to the universe. I’ve been exploring for hundreds of years and haven’t seen everything.”

“I’ve barely got started,” Jenny says with a grin.

Astrid comes with Jenny, inside the spaceship, this time. She dissolves back into a stream of blue light and flies around the cockpit while Jenny, laughing, tries to fly.

They go everywhere. They see everything. Astrid directs Jenny to some of her favorite places, and they discover new ones together. Sometimes Astrid goes off on her own, and sometimes Jenny rockets about without her, but they always meet up again eventually. The

They’re at an amusement park in a galaxy neither of them has visited before when they see it. Neither of them know what it is at first, the strange building with its rounded edges and neon lights. Astrid says it looks vaguely like a sort of restaurant she saw on Earth a few times; Jenny just knows it doesn’t match the sharp angles and bright colors of the park around them.

Of course, neither of them can resist a good mystery. Jenny marches right up to the door, Astrid drifting behind her, and knocks three times. They wait almost a full minute until the door pops open and a woman pokes her head out at an angle, brown hair swinging as she speaks.

“Hello,” she says. “Sorry it took me a moment, I was all the way back in the library. Did you need something?”

Jenny glances at Astrid.

“We were just wondering about your building,” Astrid says. “It doesn’t match the others.”

“That’s because mine is special,” the woman says. She has big brown eyes, Jenny notices, and long eyelashes, and when she smiles, her eyes sparkle and half her mouth quirks up. “It’s not from around here.”

“Neither are we,” Jenny says.

“Want to come inside?” the woman asks.

Jenny and Astrid glance at each other and nod.

The inside isn’t at all what Jenny expected. From the outside, she thought it’d be some kind of restaurant, but instead it looks like a spaceship of some sort, maybe, or a highly specialized physics lab. The walls and floor are white, and in the middle is a huge column surrounded by a 360-degree control panel.

“I’ve only just gotten it,” the woman explains. “Haven’t had time to customize.”

“What is it?” Jenny asks.

“My TARDIS,” the woman says. Something about that rings a bell in Jenny’s head, but she can’t figure out where. “I stole it.”

“What’s a TARDIS?” Astrid asks.

“Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” the woman says. “But between you and me, I think they just needed a convenient acronym.” She winks. “I’m Clara, by the way. Clara Oswald.”

“I’m Jenny,” Jenny says, “and this is my friend Astrid. It’s lovely to meet you, Clara Oswald.”

Clara figures out what Astrid is right away-- something to do with the imprint of a teleport. She says she had an old friend who used to tell her about things like that, who had a library full of books from all over space and time.

“I’m trying to build up my own collection,” she explains. “That’s why I’m here-- this planet has some excellent universities.”

“At the amusement park?” Astrid asks.

“What, a girl can’t have some fun?” Clara retorts with a smile.

Clara joins them at the amusement park-- she and Jenny ride roller coasters together, and Astrid flies alongside them, a streak of blue. Clara is delighted when she sees Astrid keeping up with the coaster-- she’s arguably more excited about that than the ride itself.

The next day, Jenny and Astrid join Clara in going from university to university, looking for new books. Jenny finds a few on genetics and cloning that she buys for herself; she’s been trying to learn more about her own creation. Astrid’s been interested in speculative fiction lately; she can’t hold books herself, but Jenny went to a workshop on one of the planets they visited together and managed to rig up a page-turning device for her that works psychically. So she buys the books Astrid wants, too, and by the end she has two full bags.

Not that she can rival Clara’s collection, of course, which Jenny thinks might just wind up breaking Clara’s back. She has a stuffed backpack and three canvas bags besides.

“Good thing the TARDIS is bigger on the inside,” she says to Jenny and Astrid with a wink.

“How do you mean, bigger on the inside?” Jenny asks.

“I don’t know how it works,” Clara says. “Although eventually I’ll get some books on dimensional engineering. It’s just bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.”

“That’s amazing,” Astrid says, eyes wide.

Clara grins.

“Isn’t it?”

Clara invites them to go along with her, then, in her TARDIS. She can travel in time, she explains, but she’s still learning the controls, so it might be a bit bumpy.

“Although I used to fly with the most experienced pilot there is,” she says, “and he got lost all the time.”

Astrid and Jenny don’t mind getting lost. After all, it’s all they’ve been doing.

It takes them ages to realize that the “friend” Clara is always talking about is the Doctor. It takes them even longer to realize that Clara’s half-dead too, her heart stopped before her final breath. When they find out, they both laugh-- Clara looks offended until they explain why. It’s just such a coincidence, they say. A funny coincidence. All of them have met the Doctor, and all of them are half-dead.

Although maybe it’s not a coincidence-- after all, if you have all of time and space to contend with, you’re bound to bump into others like you eventually.

They go everywhere. They go back to see Astrid’s family on Sto before they died-- Astrid keeps her distance, scattered into blue light, and afterwards she cries on the floor of the TARDIS while Jenny tries to console her. They see the aurora of Broxton Maiora, and they find a planet where half the people have the faces of cats, and they get tangled up in a civil war that reminds Jenny uncomfortably of home.

They sit in the TARDIS, in the space between adventures-- Astrid and Clara don’t sleep, and Jenny doesn’t need nearly as much rest as most humans, so they just sit in the growing library. Clara’s found a sofa somewhere, and usually Jenny lies across it, her feet on Clara’s lap at one end, while Astrid floats nearby, and they talk until Jenny either goes to bed or falls asleep. (Either way, she always wakes up in a warm bed.)

“Do you ever feel like a leftover?” Clara asks one day. Astrid and Jenny don’t know what she means, but once she explains, they both agree.

“We’re what’s left when the Doctor leaves,” Astrid says, her eyes trained on the ceiling, or maybe on the stars.

“Better that than dead because he wasn’t there,” Jenny says. Clara’s told them enough stories by now that Jenny has a picture of what the Doctor does for people. He saves worlds, Clara says. (She hasn’t said it, but Jenny gets the feeling that Clara’s saved her share, too.)

“I wonder sometimes,” Clara says. “I wasn’t ready to die, but I don’t know that I was ready to be immortal, either.”

“Can’t you go back and face the raven anytime?” Jenny asks.

“I suppose,” Clara says. “But it could always be a mistake. I haven’t seen everything yet.”

“Maybe we’re not leftovers,” Astrid says. “We’ve found each other. We’re living for ourselves. I think we’re just travelers.”

“I like that,” Jenny says. “I love our traveling.”

“Me, too,” Astrid admits, a gleam in her eye.

It’s a few adventures after that conversation, on a crowded walkway through a forest of trees bigger around than Jenny’s old spaceship and as tall as anything she’s seen, that she feels something wet brush against her. She looks up, but the sun is streaming through the branches; she looks to either side, but she just sees a crowd of people.

But then she catches something out of the corner of her eye, and she turns. A confused Clara taps her on the shoulder, but Jenny is distracted by the two women right next to her, looking up at the trees with water absolutely dripping from every inch of their skin. Jenny taps one of them on the shoulder-- her hand sort of goes through, like the woman’s actually made of water. But she turns, and Jenny realizes she doesn’t know what to say now.

Luckily, Clara’s picked up on what’s happening.

“Are you made of water?” she asks, her face the picture of innocent curiosity.

“Sort of,” the woman says. “Not really.”

Just then, Astrid, who’s been floating above them as blue light, materializes fully next to Jenny, and the woman raises both her eyebrows.

“What’re you, then?” she asks.

“Teleportation energy,” Astrid says. “I’m sort of a ghost.”

“How’d you get that way?”

“How’d you get to be water?” Jenny asks.

“Who says I wasn’t always?” the woman retorts. “Could be a-- a water alien.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” her companion says, one hand on the woman’s arm, an affectionate note in her voice. “Of course we weren’t always water. We might not always be water, either. That’s what’s beautiful about us. We’re so temporary.”

“That’s a bit deep,” the woman says. “I’m Bill, by the way. And this is my girlfriend Heather.”

Heather smiles. She looks a little like a puzzle, Jenny thinks. She wonders whether it’s on purpose.

“I’m Jenny,” she says. “And these are my friends, Astrid and Clara. We’re all dead.”

“Me too,” Bill says, a smile beginning to form on her face. It’s not necessarily a joyous smile, or a malicious one. It’s more-- a curious smile. An interested smile. A smile Jenny’s seen a million times on Clara or Astrid, but not so much on anyone else. She smiles back with just as much curiosity, and Bill and Heather join Jenny, Clara, and Astrid on their walk.

Bill and Heather turn out to be fascinating. They’ve been traveling together for years, and separately before that, Heather says, and they have all sorts of stories. They’ve been all over the universe. Jenny can’t quite figure out the physics of their travel-- or their existence-- but then again, she’s never quite worked out how Astrid’s ghost thing works, either, or how it is that Clara doesn’t need to breathe.

She knows what’s going to happen before it does. She feels like she shares something with Bill and Heather, the same way she feels about Astrid and Clara. There’s a sort of nebulousness that they all five have, a sort of liminal existence. Hovering between life and death, traveling the stars.

So it’s not a surprise when Bill mentions the Doctor, and it’s not a surprise when Clara asks if they want to join the next adventure in the TARDIS. And it’s not a surprise when Bill and Heather agree.

They go off together, a TARDIS full of liminal women.

And that’s it: the five of them, traveling, seeing the stars together. They all come from different places, they all have different stories, but they love each other like a family. They've all died, or come close, and they're all still dealing with what that means, but they deal with it together.

Eventually, of course, Clara decides it’s time for her to die. Jenny feels herself, ever so slowly, beginning to age. But they pick up more stragglers, more liminal women, all of whom have fantastical stories about almost being saved, and their number waxes and wanes, throughout all of time and space.

#doctor who #dw #writing #fic #jenny doctor's daughter #clara oswald #astrid peth #bill potts #heather doctor who

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writerspink · 6 years ago

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K-12 Words

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anything syllables past describe winter even also eleven moon fruit sand apple women nose solve Math problem plus minus equals stone pants shirt starry thousand divided just train shall held short lay dictionary twelve suddenly mind race clothes learn picked probably raised finished end plaid years bill place hundred different drop came river milk beautiful square lake hole fingers flat sea type over new sound take only little work know live me back give most very after things our name good sentence man think say great where help through much before line right too means old any same tell boy follow want show around form three small

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interest job because such think thirteen subject answer letter meet north length need times divide (by) times table edge soft months present energy point sound log south wide members exercise flowers set found things heart cause site brother teacher live read billion another distance written kept direction developed wall east happy million world must house turn west change well twenty felt put end does large big even here why ask went men land different home us move try kind hand picture again off dress play spell air away animal page mother study still learn should America

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paragraph weather window third believe discovered simple gone paint new store form cells matter follow perhaps cannot good means around line center kind reason move forest sentence return instruments beside represent wild study back farmers sum difference product quotient remainder mother animal land region record summer general caterpillar scratch modern adjust passenger promise equal creak almost croak book dainty song high every near add food between own below country plant last school father keep tree never start city earth eyes light thought head under story saw left don’t few while along might close something seem next hard open example begin life always those both paper together got group often run

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misty poor caution pest phrase life startle squirm alone centaur rise mountain above illustrator footprint temperature decorate country sweat sometimes hair smiled everything began thick compass themselves enough took although splendid crowded second act attach sly talk wonder let’s whirl someone Africa borrow beat belong blink per fasten pain begin drenched bed shell free earth tiny slippery count factors important until children side feet car mile night walk white sea grow river four carry state once book hear stop without late miss idea eat face watch far Indian real almost let girl mountains cut young soon list song being leave family it’s

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drowsy bashful hatch glad copy possible wicked grin sibling shovel run verb sail polish ride young steep case Indian laughed soil appear bolts costume melody narrow behave howl example flee together lot filthy alarm spiral selfish idea conductor fight rolled middle glacier tree dizzy gather sneaky already construct every miss lively metal couldn’t gold plant mask chat nation hear either bundle section near rescue face divide sob celebrate family loosen jealous crash chimney daily own cozy ripe cut son natural serious carry care paper broken cue within body music color stand questions fish area mark horse birds problem complete room knew since ever piece told usually didn’t friends easy heard order red door sure become top ship across today during short better best however low hours black products happened whole measure remember early waves reached

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being instead ache exactly hard speed buy age late artistic close affordable fraction eyes appetite complain sleep seem eat below remove rusty grow glum stormy trust enormous scale open add grab upset weed denied expensive story terrified lead jumped died basket side bear bend list tomb while batch grateful father gleaming dress light sprinkle amount exclaim result yank leave cheat whimper angle outside remain heap champion surprise dodge moment fancy squeeze pretend village shriek city thunder rapid iron striped don’t attitude bell hat tug isn’t applause children honest cross spring freezing listen wind rock space covered fast several hold himself toward five step morning passed vowel true hundred against pattern numeral table north expert slowly money map farm pulled draw voice seen cold cried plan notice south sing war ground fall king town I’ll unit figure certain field travel wood fire upon

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pattern cave hope mile group travel blush killed seed bottom hide important let ticket timid pounds restart silent cranky keep real bright quite curved repeat trip without dart consonant mountains quiet apologize roar grip groan bolt food injury century exhausted cabin atmosphere floor it’s scold transportation delighted giant hill something build fog method rough left everyone obey deserve speak therefore soon french switch until pushed state knob hobby between surround collect fire I’ll arrive road happened certain top order astronomy inches club catch farm nibble color yourself received connect told gaze check wear English half ten fly gave box finally wait correct oh quickly person became shown minutes strong verb stars front feel fact street decided contain course surface produce building ocean class note nothing rest carefully scientists inside wheels stay green known island week less machine base ago stood

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round award crowd slowly yet products, goods, services vowel himself strange whose draw team hold feel flood sent save stood yard notice warn enemy deep please flap coast music wrote safe blast behind island lizard figure famous garden correct whisper listen joined clear share net thus calf maybe cried piece fold seen england decided bank fell pair control clean telescope trouble glass float morning horse produce course hunting rest step statement contain shouted filled zigzag accident cents instrument fly single express visit desert seeds chew dome experiment break gravity against branch size low plane system ran boat game force brought understand warm common bring explain dry though language shape thousands yes equation government heat full hot check object am rule among noun power cannot able six dark ball material special heavy fine circle include built

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mark wealthy row feeling across attention ran map students inside design art mouth ring skill hot during shelter full till log (book) blossom discard bring quickly scientists party town covered wise early cram grain harm goal pause inform heal clue fame freeze badge pimple dim missionary diet dumb rod march agree stick government bulb mall ban greed skiing poison stove image grew fact material dangerous flow gap ago stack explain didn’t strong voice true drawing surface gift corner cloud since king dawn pulled dozen friends greedy burning upon knew insect decimal nervous pay foot weak smooth aware steady serve lost nonetheless beach front atlas questions less cost slight motor banner wire area carefully separate equation local minutes fast table plan fine waves fair sing dive suppose boat thousands shape among toward gas factory birds wait understand sure ship report captain human game history reflect special brave bounce though else can’t matter square syllables perhaps bill felt suddenly test direction center farmers ready anything divided general energy subject Europe moon region return believe dance members picked simple cells paint mind love cause rain exercise eggs train blue wish drop developed window difference distance heart site sum summer wall forest probably

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include cage language base red brain building feast better built demolish excess leap tower ocean plains cold claw information scholar climbed woman worry strand heavy herd common ground damp pack choose president least increase half english invent class measure dash tremble object become doubt became bare wheels continued shiver engine core couple business stars week peak numeral brought nothing touch reached uncle symbols however rumor evening inasmuch (as) force curious heat career system valley dust flock spray robber practice lonely remember luxury warm heard calm rock frighten leader difficulty best gum cheer key support universe stream bit usually fish parade balance money note cliff stand proof you’re pale machine complete cool shown street today shy easy several search unit war power caught settle itself fuel mention fresh planet plane straight period person able direct space wood seal field circle lady board besides hours passed known whole similar underline main winter wide written length reason kept interest arms brother race present beautiful store job edge past sign record finished discovered wild happy beside gone sky grass million west lay weather root instruments meet third months paragraph raised represent soft whether clothes flowers shall teacher held describe drive appreciate structure visible artificial

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afraid absorb british seat fear stretched furniture sight oxygen coward rope clever yellow albeit confess passage france fan cattle spot explore rather active death effect mine create wash printed process origin rose swift woe planets doze gasp chief perform triumph value substances tone score predict property movement harsh tube settled defend reverse ancient blood sharp border fierce plunge consider terms vision intend total schedule attract average intelligent corn dead southern glide supply convince send continent brief mural symbol crew chance suffix habit insects entered nursery especially spread drift major fig diagram guess wit sugar predator science necessary moisture park ordeal nectar fortunate flutter gun forward globe misery molecules arctic won’t actually addition washington cling rare lie steel pastime soldiers chill accordingly capital prevent solution greek sensitive electric agreed thin provide indicate northern volunteer sell tied triangle action opposite shoulder imitate steer wander except match cross speak solve appear metal son either ice sleep village factors result jumped snow ride care floor hill pushed baby buy century outside everything tall already instead phrase soil bed copy free hope spring case laughed nation quite type themselves temperature bright lead everyone method section lake iron within dictionary bargain loyal resource struggle vary capture exclaim gloomy insist restless shallow shatter talent atmosphere brilliant endure glance precious unite certain clasp depart journey observe superb treasure wisdom

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prepared journey trade delicate arrived track cotton hoe furnish exciting view grasp level branches privilege limit wrong enable ability various moreover spoil starve dollars digest advice sense accuse pretty wasn’t industry adopt loyal suggested blow treasure cook adjective doesn’t wings tools crops loud smell frail wisdom fit expect ahead lifted deed device weight gradual respect interesting arrange particular compound examine cable climate division individual talent fatal entire advantage opponent wouldn’t elements column custom enjoy grace theory suitable wife shoes determine allow marsh workers difficult repeated thrill position born distant revive magnificent shop sir army struggled deal plural rich rhythm rely poem company string locate church mystify elegant led actual responsible japanese huge fun meat observe swim office chart avoid factories block called experience win crumple brilliant located pole bought conditions sister details primary survey truck recall disease radio rate scatter decay signal approach launch hair age amount scale pounds although per broken moment tiny possible gold milk quiet natural lot stone act build middle speed count consonant someone sail rolled bear wonder smiled angle fraction Africa killed melody bottom trip hole poor let’s fight surprise French died beat exactly remain fingers clever coast explore imitate pierce rare symbol triumph ancient cling disturb expose perform remote timid bashful brief compete consider delightful honor reflex remark brink chill conquer fortunate fury intend pattern vibrant wit

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capture remark western outcome risk current bold compare resident ambition arrest furthermore desire confuse accurate disclose considerable contribute calculate baggage literacy noble era benefit orchard shabby content precious manufacture dusk afford assist demonstrate instant concentrate sturdy severe blend vacant weary carefree host limb pointless prepare inspire shallow chamber vast ease attentive source frantic lack recent distress basic permit threat analyze distract meadow mistrust jagged prefer sole envy hail reduce arena tour annual apparent recognize captivity burrow proceed develop humble resist peculiar response communicate circular variety frequent reveal essential disaster plead mature appropriate attractive request congratulate address destructive fragile modest attempt tradition ancestor focus flexible conclude venture impact generosity routine tragic crafty furious blossom concern ascend awkward master queasy release portion plentiful alert heroic extraordinary frontier descend invisible coax entrance capable peer terror mock outstanding valiant typical competition hardship entertain eager limp survive tidy antonym duplicate abolish approach approve glory magnificent meek prompt revive watchful wreckage audible consume glide origin prevent punctuate representative scorn stout woe arch authentic clarify declare grant grave opponent valid yearn admirable automatic devotion distant dreary exhaust kindle predict separation stunt

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evade debate dedicate budge available miniature petrify pasture banquet pedestrian solitary decline reassure nonchalant exhibit realistic exert abuse dictate minor monarch concept character strategy soar beverage tropical withdraw challenge kin navigate purchase reliable mischief solo combine vivid aroma spurt illuminate narrator retain excavate avalanche preserve suspend accomplish exasperate obsolete occasion myth reign sparse gorge intense revert antagonist talon aggressive alternate retire cautiously blizzard require endanger luxurious senseless portable sever compensate companion visual immense slither guardian compassion escalate detect protagonist oasis altitude assume seldom courteous absurd edible identical pardon approximate taunt achievement homonym hearty convert wilderness industrious sluggish thrifty deprive independent bland confident anxious astound numerous resemble route access jubilation saunter hazy impressive document moral crave gigantic bungle prefix summit overthrow perish visible translate comply intercept feeble exult compose negative suffocate frigid synonym appeal dominate deplete abundant economy desperate diligent commend boycott jovial onset burden fixture objective siege barrier conceive formal inquire penalize picturesque predator privilege slumber advantage ambition defiant fearsome imply merit negotiate purify revoke wretched absorb amateur channel elegant grace inspect lame tiresome tranquil boast eloquent glisten ideal infectious invest locate ripple sufficient uproar

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apprehensive dialogue prejudice marvel eligible accommodate arrogant distinct knack deposit liberate cumulative consequence strive salvage chronological unique vow concise influence lure poverty priority legislation significant conserve verdict leisure erupt beacon stationary generate provoke efficient campaign paraphrase swarm adhere eerie mere mimic deteriorate literal preliminary solar soothe expanse ignite verge recount apparel terrain ample quest composure majority collide prominent duration pursue innovation omniscient resolute unruly optimist restrain agony convenient constant prosper elaborate genre retrieve exploit continuous dissolve dwell persecute abandon meager elude rural retaliate primitive remote blunder propel vital designate cultivate loathe consent drastic fuse maximum negotiate barren transform conspicuous possess allegiance beneficial former factor deluge vibrant intimidate idiom dense awe rigorous manipulate transport discretion hostile clarity arid parody boisterous capacity massive prosecute declare stifle remorse refuge predicament treacherous inevitable ingenious plummet adapt monotonous accumulate reinforce extract reluctant vacate hazardous inept diminish domestic linger context excel cancel distribute document fragile myth reject scuffle solitary temporary veteran assault convert dispute impressive justify misleading numerous productive shrewd strategy villain bluff cautious consist despise haven miniature monarch obstacle postpone straggle vivid aggressive associate deceive emigrate flexible glamour hazy luxurious mishap overwhelm span blemish blunt capable conclude detect fatigue festive hospitality nomad supreme

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exclude civic compact painstaking supplement habitat leeway minute hoax contaminate likeness migration commentary extinct tangible originate urban unanimous subordinate collaborate obstacle esteem encounter futile cordial trait improvises superior exaggerate anticipate cope evolve eclipse dissent anguish subsequent sanctuary formulates makeshift controversy diversity terminate precise equivalent pamper prior potential obnoxious radiant predatory presume permanent pending simultaneously tamper supervise perceived vicious patronize trickle stodgy rant oration preview species poised perturb vista wince yearn persist shirk status tragedy trivial snare vindictive wrath recede peevish rupture unscathed random toxic void orthodox subtle resume sequel upright wary overwhelm perjury uncertainty prowess utmost throb pluck pique vengeance pelt urgent substantial robust sullen retort ponder whim saga sham reprimand vocation assimilate dub defect accord embark desist dialect chastise banter inaugurate ovation barter muse blasé stamina atrocity deter principal liberal epoch preposterous advocate audacious dispatch incense deplore institute deceptive component subside spontaneous bonanza ultimate wrangle clarify hindrance irascible plausible profound infinite accomplish apparent capacity civilian conceal duplicate keen provoke spurt undoing vast withdraw barrier calculate compose considerable deputy industrious jolt loot rejoice reliable senseless shrivel alternate demolish energetic enforce feat hearty mature observant primary resign strive verdict brisk cherish considerate displace downfall estimate humiliate identical improper poll soothe vicinity abolish appeal brittle condemn descend dictator expand famine portable prey thrifty visual

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stance vie instill exceptional avail strident formidable rebuke enhance benign perspective tedious aloof encroach memoir mien desolate inventive prodigy staple stint fallacy grope vilify recur assail tirade antics recourse clad jurisdiction caption pseudonym reception humane ornate sage ungainly overt sedative amiss convey connoisseur rational enigma fortify servile fastidious contagious elite disgruntled eccentric pioneer abet luminous era sleek serene proficient rue articulate awry pungent wage deploy anarchy culminate inventory commemorate muster adept durable foreboding lucrative modify authority transition confiscate pivotal analogy avid flair ferret decree voracious imperative grapple deface augment shackle legendary trepidation discern glut cache endeavor attribute phenomenon balmy bizarre gullible loll rankle decipher sublime rubble renounce porous turbulent heritage hover pithy allot minimize agile renown fend revenue versa gaunt haven dire doctrine intricate conservative exotic facilitate bountiful cite panorama swelter foster indifferent millennium gingerly conscientious intervene mercenary citadel obviously rely supportive sympathy weakling atmosphere decay gradual impact noticeable recede stability variation approximately astronomical calculation criterion diameter evaluate orbit sphere agricultural decline disorder identify probable thrive expected widespread bulletin contribution diversity enlist intercept operation recruit survival abruptly ally collide confident conflict protective taunt adaptation dormant forage frigid hibernate insulate export glisten influence landscape native plantation restore urge blare connection errand exchange

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feasible teem pang vice tycoon succumb capacious onslaught excerpt eventful forfeit crusade tract haggard susceptible exemplify ardent crucial excruciating embargo disdain apprehend surpass sporadic flustered languish conventional disposition theme plunder ignore project complaint title dramatic delivery litter experimental clinic arrogance preparation remind atomic occasional conscious deny maturity closure stressed translator animate observation physical further gently registration suppress combination amazing constructive allied poetry passion ecstasy mystery cheerful contribution spirit failed gummy commerce prove disagreement raid consume embarrass preference migrant devour encouragement quote mythology destined destination illuminating struggle accent ungrateful giggle approval confidence expose scientist operation superstitious emergency manners absolutely swallow readily mutual bound crisp orient stress sort stare comfort verbal heel challenging advertisement envious sex scar astonish basis accuracy enviable alliance specific chef embarrassed counter tolerable sympathetic gradually vanish informative amaze royal furry insist jealousy simplify quiver collaborate dedicated flexible function mimic obstacle technique archaeologist fragment historian intact preserve reconstruct remnant commence deed exaggeration heroic impress pose saunter wring astound concealed inquisitive interpret perplexed precise reconsider suspicious anticipation defy entitled neutral outspoken reserved sought equal absorb affect circulate conserve cycle necessity seep barren expression meaningful plume focused genius perspective prospect stunned superb transition assume guarantee nominate

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install reticent corroborate regretfully strength murder concise cunning intention holy satire query confused progression disillusion background mundane abrupt multiple enormously introduce emulate harmful pragmatic pity rebut liberate enthusiastic elucidate camaraderie disparage nature creep profitability impression racist sobriety occupy autonomy currently amiable reiterate reproduce cripple modest offer atom provincial augment ungratefully expansion yield rashly allude immigration silence epitome exacerbate somber avid dispute vindicate collaborate manufacturer embellish superficial propaganda incompetent objective diminish statistics endure ambivalent perpetuate illuminate phenomenon exasperate originality restrict anxiety anthropology circumstances aesthetic manufacturing conventional dubious vulnerable reality precedent entity success term critical repair underscore stepmother republican hesitantly classic wary contents prediction immediate invoke notorious implicit excluding input skeptical foster element punish frank humanity profound dessert orthodox substance disappear encourage neighborhood elder superfluous naive ascertain complacent resilient deafening military tend prudent glare acceptance skillfully induce monster beam gullible conciliate vessel petty cantankerous disclose archaeology anecdote disdain electronics substantiate subjective tourism advisable joyful incredible provocative psychological ruins discipline condone indifferent misfortune judgmental industrialize tasty assume astute mission mar protective definitely escape oppress shocked virtual zealous endorse qualification hostile eccentric abstract disparate geographical scrutinize generalization tolerate activity claim dogmatic influential obsolete extol implausible subsequent resource chronic benevolent improve confidential ambiguous seriously dearth perplex hatred throughout dine contemporary evoke essentially economic flagrant obscure alleviate eloquent dreaadful clumsy sympathy victim condemn vigor condescend spontaneous quell reprehensible substantially sleeve equivocal ironic decry errand articulate progressive eradicate refreshments elicit aspiration recently exemplary bribery theoretical disingenuous partisan revere particle nostalgia self-aggrandizement debunk tyranny rhetoric hierarchy warning whimsical venerate commend assert miserable awful vibe constrain undermine explicit differentiate compliment scrupulous contempt erroneous ideal refute imply cynical rash presume insight revival vary delay renounce indignant offensive temperate circumstantial export peep logo advertise suppress distort chunk convoluted denounce overwhelming fertility rigorous acquire arrogant university antagonize profitable indulgent strategic breathing idiosyncrasy profession frugal discern accommodation adversary incredulous disturbance digress social belie roam smug continual pertinent voluntarily elite subtle blame sincerity lick horror censure involvement candid infer futile impetuous exploit bewilder sustain diligent sincere protect sealed musical empathy callous parenthetical insure acorn sarcasm seize sacrificially allege emphatic irrelevant progress diplomatic stunned improvise deride reconcile meticulous deject scientifically incontrovertible pressure justify gloomy depict supplant endurance analogous diary bolster slip contemplate pesticide glow religious advocate negligent creator lament fundamental embrace throne inherent inferior valuable thrive trivial pretense reserved capricious refresh refusal flight boost explanation coherent prevalent tenacious official royalty assassin rub poach delete

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warrant circumscribed somewhat explosive optimistic mandate previously detract opinion intuitive feasible intimate persistent humble simplicity tempt deliberate painful unethical fundamentals discrepancy remorse pessimistic possibility conclusion acknowledge impregnate soberly creation paralyze suitability oblige tranquil medal arbitrate pacify illusory susceptible vibrate vengeance infection democratic stressful grave speculative sample identification stifle obligation revenge organization namely mediocre practical scream weaken consensus affectionate deficient treacherous console isolation ingenious memory melodrama despair awestruck composition regret recommendation celebrity decision devoid opaque ornamentation longevity participate dread restore interrogate aid accordingly mislead embarrassment optimism domestic apt funds virtue geography fundamentally thoroughly press despite horrible chilling rental esteemed disappointment innovative contemplation assign popularize haunt deafen serene percent estrangement suffer extravagant throng estimate comment priesthood mass dreadfully promote periphery animated saying relate clarity triple derivative succeed distortion register suicide improvement discreet inquisition probable curative incident praise convenience baffle covet dreadful genuinely weary undisturbed disgruntled humility renown nonchalant monopoly comedy vague decisive inconsequential announcement fabricated nevertheless vigilant scarce neglectful hushed attainment tedious explode snatch pslm agency sentimental tension adhere meanwhile sacred avert conformity likewise challenger accessible responsibility peril contact event roast fallible catastrophic competitor violate resolute deceive exaggeration discredit intolerable approve paste dimly novelist demeanor norm politician satisfaction obvious vehicle reservation defer involve restoration crush audible assistant backpack attain inanimate commemorate confrontation emigration parasite disperse quantitative laughter policy vulgar occasionally repay effective eulogy starvation empty therapeutic overall immortal encompass inappropriate opportune engagement illustrate turmoil observatory classification expression reminiscence comedian invention depress remedy protagonist gesture texture diplomatic election prolong conducive emotional invigorate curiosity expressive %

K-12 Words was originally published on PinkWrite

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