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victoriadrwrites · 3 years ago

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You Are Made of Stardust

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars.

The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

The first generation of stars formed from this material. There’s so much heat and pressure in a star’s core that they can fuse atoms together, forming new elements. Our DNA is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. All those elements (except hydrogen, which has existed since shortly after the big bang) are made by stars and released into the cosmos when the stars die.

Each star comes with a limited fuel supply. When a medium-mass star runs out of fuel, it will swell up and shrug off its outer layers. Only a small, hot core called a white dwarf is left behind. The star’s cast-off debris includes elements like carbon and nitrogen. It expands out into the cosmos, possibly destined to be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. New life may be born from the ashes of stars.

Massive stars are doomed to a more violent fate. For most of their lives, stars are balanced between the outward pressure created by nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. When a massive star runs out of fuel and its nuclear processes die down, it completely throws the star out of balance. The result? An explosion!

Supernova explosions create such intense conditions that even more elements can form. The oxygen we breathe and essential minerals like magnesium and potassium are flung into space by these supernovas.

Supernovas can also occur another way in binary, or double-star, systems. When a white dwarf steals material from its companion, it can throw everything off balance too and lead to another kind of cataclysmic supernova. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study these stellar explosions to figure out what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion.

This kind of explosion creates calcium – the mineral we need most in our bodies – and trace minerals that we only need a little of, like zinc and manganese. It also produces iron, which is found in our blood and also makes up the bulk of our planet’s mass!

A supernova will either leave behind a black hole or a neutron star – the superdense core of an exploded star. When two neutron stars collide, it showers the cosmos in elements like silver, gold, iodine, uranium, and plutonium.

Some elements only come from stars indirectly. Cosmic rays are nuclei (the central parts of atoms) that have been boosted to high speed by the most energetic events in the universe. When they collide with atoms, the impact can break them apart, forming simpler elements. That’s how we get boron and beryllium – from breaking star-made atoms into smaller ones.

Half a dozen other elements are created by radioactive decay. Some elements are radioactive, which means their nuclei are unstable. They naturally break down to form simpler elements by emitting radiation and particles. That’s how we get elements like radium. The rest are made by humans in labs by slamming atoms of lighter elements together at super high speeds to form heavier ones. We can fuse together elements made by stars to create exotic, short-lived elements like seaborgium and einsteinium.

From some of the most cataclysmic events in the cosmos comes all of the beauty we see here on Earth. Life, and even our planet, wouldn’t have formed without them! But we still have lots of questions about these stellar factories.

In 2006, our Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth containing tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away – the first star dust to ever be collected from space and returned for study. You can help us identify and study the composition of these tiny, elusive particles through our Stardust@Home Citizen Science project.

Our upcoming Roman Space Telescope will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies, all while exploring many other cosmic questions. Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

#it's written inspiration

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victoriadrwrites · 3 years ago

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Tokyo Babylon: Where vice trumps over virtue as identities are born and challenged

What follows is an analysis of meaning and its messenger and how the protagonist drives the premise (Chapter 17 exercises from David Corbett’s The Art of Character).

In this analysis I will be looking at:

Sumeragi Subaru and Sakurazuka Seishiro from Tokyo Babylon

Tokyo Babylon--A Save for Tokyo Story

Sumeragi Subaru

What makes him a protagonist?

Subaru is presented as a 16 year old teenage boy who also happens to be the 13th head of the Sumeragi Clan, a clan of Onmyōji that has protected Japan for many generations.

The events in Tokyo Babylon revolve around his every day experience as an Onmyōji as he solves supernatural cases around Tokyo as part of his duty as the 13th head of the Sumeragi Clan.

The scenes in the story all serve the purpose of revealing his character to the audience. For example, his deep empathy, pathological compassion and low self-esteem.

What is most striking about Subaru is that, given his exalted role as the most powerful head of the clan in its history, Subaru does not perceive himself as someone special. True to the “chosen one” trope, Subaru is a reluctant hero who was given a role and power he did not ask to be given.

One of my favorite scenes from the manga is Subaru telling Hokuto that the moment he finds an Onmyōji more powerful than him, he will ask him to take on his role as the 13th head of the clan. And I just feel like going up to him and telling him: “honey, there is no such Onmyōji. You are, literally, part of Team Apocalypse. You are chosen af.”

What is at stake for Subaru?

Subaru’s “hero’s journey” does not follow the traditional pattern to a T but does have some of the classic markers. For example, by the time the audience meets Subaru, he has already taken the call to adventure (becoming an Onmyōji out of duty) and is immersed in his every day life as an Onmyōji. Meeting Seishiro in the train station is what ushers the transformation that Subaru will have as a character as it forces him to learn about what his heart desires.

As Hokuto says, Subaru is so busy with his duty as an Onmyōji that he’s forgotten his heart and doesn’t know what he truly desires. And as noa says, having a wish/desire = having a sense of identity in CLAMP.

Subaru realizing what he desires is partially him becoming a person in his own right--not Hokuto’s reflection or dress up doll, nor the 13th head of the Sumeragi Clan, but Subaru, the person who loves Seishiro and “selfishly” cares about what Seishiro might think of him.

By the time this realization happens, by the time Subaru becomes aware of his own person and his desires, however, the rug gets pulled from under his feet by the very source of his desire, Seishiro.

Thus Subaru’s identity moving forward revolves around feeling rejected by Seishiro, his conflicted longing for Seishiro, his hatred for Seishiro, and the guilt he carries from Hokuto’s death.

Subaru is thus initiated into the world in the cruelest way possible. His innocence is taken from him, and his awareness of the person he is becomes tainted by the cruelty of the world he lives in. In Subaru’s eyes, to dare to wish, to dare to allow himself the privilege of desire means tragedy for himself and others.

Sakurazuka Seishiro

What makes him a protagonist?

While Seishiro does not get as much air time as Subaru, Seishiro is one of the characters affected by his meeting with Subaru. In a sense, Tokyo Babylon revolves around the bet Seishiro makes with Subaru and how this decisive event impacts the both of them.

What is particularly outstanding about Seishiro’s role as deuteragonist is that his heart is the direct inverse of Subaru’s--or at least he thinks so. Ironically, he is also presented as someone who understands Subaru on a very deep level, thus earning Subaru’s trust and affection.

To complicate matters further, Seishiro’s last name, Sakurazuka, is associated with the Sakurazukamori Clan, a clan of assassins that works in the shadows and use their powers as Onmyōji to kill. This set up loosely uses the trope in Romeo and Juliet in which the two mc’s from opposing clans fall in love with each other. In Romeo and Juliet, however, romantic love is thought to trump all challenges.

But over all, what Sei does for Tokyo Babylon is that he introduces the Yin (Sakurazukamori works in the shadows) to Subaru’s Yang (the Sumeragi work in the light). His assassin persona is presented as a hidden opposing force in Subaru’s existence that challenges everything from his morality to his kind and gentle heart.

What is at stake for Seishiro?

Seishiro is so complex. On the one hand he says he is unfeeling, and yet, some of his actions reveal otherwise.

On the other hand, Seishiro’s main motive in Tokyo Babylon is eventually revealed to be finding out whether Subaru can make him feel something, anything, through a bet he makes with Subaru.

If he lost the bet and being exposed to Subaru’s kind heart changed his, then Seishiro would let Subaru live. If on the other hand, Seishiro’s heart remained unmoved, then Seishiro would kill Subaru.

The irony in all of this is that, just the way Seishiro presented a conflict to Subaru, Subaru created a conflict in Seishiro’s mind. The mere fact that he found a reason to let Subaru live was proof enough that Seishiro had felt something, anything.

Seishiro saw in Subaru a reflection of his own kind heart that he had probably buried deep within himself for self-preservation purposes. We don’t know much about Seishiro’s backstory, but the idea that Seishiro has some kindness to him, however small, is consistent with the symbolism of the Yin and Yang used in Tokyo Babylon.

In a sense, Subaru created a split in Seishiro’s identity the way Seishiro tainted Subaru’s. Seishiro found that he was not so unfeeling after all, and to admit this to himself would run counter to the defense mechanisms his ego mind had erected.

And as we see at the end of Tokyo Babylon, Seishiro chose to turn his back on Subaru and disappeared from his life after killing Hokuto. In the end, if he had truly won the bet, he would have had to kill the one person whose heart touched his. But to loose the bet would mean he had to accept the one thing he rejected about himself: his deeply kind, feeling self.

Psychologically speaking, Sei would not have been able to recognize Subaru’s kindness if it didn’t already exist within. There is a lot more to it than this but I am not going to go into it right now. Point being, believe it or not, Sei has a kind heart buried somewhere deep down in there.

The premise

Ok, this was actually really hard! I did not want to read the official premise so that it would force me to try to figure out the premise based on what I wrote for both Sei and Subaru.

So here goes my botched up interpretation of the TB premise:

Tokyo is the only city on Earth that can enjoy itself along the path to destruction. But for Sumeragi Subaru, the 13th head of the Sumeragi clan, the people he meets as part of his job as an Onmyoji are all worth saving.

One of those people is Sakurazuka Seishiro, a veterinarian with a mysterious background who, little does young Subaru know, harbors a secret identity as the Sakurazukamori, an assassin who uses his Onmyoji powers to kill.

Tokyo Babylon is a story where vice trumps over virtue as identities are born and challenged. Above all, it is the tragedy of two individuals who, unable to bridge their differences, become victims to their fate and turn their backs on their hearts.

Ok that was painful and horrible. Don’t ever try this at home.

The ways of life in opposition

To Subaru...

Everyone matters: Everyone is special and worth saving even if it means harming himself for their sake. One of the most poignant examples is when Subaru is willing to let Yuya’s stab him so that she can take out her pain on him. Unfortunately this leads to Seishiro loosing one of his eyes

Tokyo is a place full of special people who experience very human problems: In this example, we see Subaru taking the time to listen to people and their stories time and time again. He is highly compassionate of these characters and always tries to understand them and their suffering

His Onmyoji powers are meant to help others: Subaru uses his powers to protect others like in the “Call” chapter where he puts himself in harm’s way to protect one of the girls from a poorly-executed curse

To Seishiro...

No one matters: Everyone is equally worthless and to put himself in harm’s way for their sake would be to go against his instinct for self-preservation. Near the end of Tokyo Babylon, Seishiro is revealed to see Subaru as no more than an object that he can destroy if he so pleases

Tokyo is a place where people betray each other all the time: The obvious example is Seishiro revealing his true identity to Subaru. This betrayal completely breaks Subaru who had come to love Seishiro after spending a year with him

His Onmyoji powers are meant to kill others: Unlike Subaru, Seishiro uses his powers to kill and desecrate, which is consistent with his complete disregard for others as beings of value

The premises in terms of the individual characters

These were actually harder than the overall premise and I might come back to rewrite them. But I just wanted to get this over with so here it is:

Sumeragi Subaru

To Subaru, the 13th head of the Sumeragi clan, using his Onmyoji powers to protect other people (even if at his own expense) and his interconnectedness to them are what motivate his identity--or rather, lack thereof.

When he meets Seishiro, however, Subaru is at last confronted with his personal budding desire for Seishiro, something that is initially incomprehensible to him precisely because of his collectivist identity. By the time he becomes aware of said desire, Subaru is confronted with yet another challenge--the object of his desire is a psychopath with little regard for others and human life, including his own. To make matters worse, Subaru’s twin is killed by Seishiro as she risks her life to bring Subaru back from his catatonic state.

Thus Subaru’s identity as a person becomes tangled up with the idea that his personal wishes and desires will bring him and others misfortune. In that sense, Seishiro managed to change him.

Sakurazuka Seishiro

For Seishiro, the world is a cold place devoid of emotion. In his eyes, he can’t differentiate people from objects and is thus able to use his Onmyoji powers to kill indiscriminately.

That is until he meets Subaru whose kind heart awakens in him something. Thus, rather than killing Subaru, Seishiro makes a bet with him and lets him go until destiny should being them together again. When that happens, as part of the bet, Seishiro will profess his love to Subaru and act accordingly. If Subaru is unable to persuade Seishiro’s heart to feel something after a year, then Seishiro will kill him. If, on the other hand, Subaru is able to change Sei’s heart, then he will honor their bond.

Thus, Seishiro spends a year in company of Subaru and his twin sister and finds himself fighting his desire to kill Subaru until the bet reaches its conclusion. Once the bet ends, Seishiro declares he is unchanged. But is he really unchanged if he’s let Subaru go once again?

Personal notes

In conclusion, coming up with a premise is a bitch.

Anyways, and with anything CLAMP, as always, I feel like I am only scratching the surface of what is happening. I normally consider myself a “deep and insightful” person but not when it comes to CLAMP.

Nop. Just straight up not smart enough for CLAMP.

But that’s exactly what makes their manga such great subject matter for literary analysis.

I’ve been reading David Corbett’s The Art of Character for some time now but had not gotten around to doing any of the exercises in the book. But since I am stuck without a plot outline for my wip novel, It’s Written, I thought “why not give chapter 17′s exercises a shot since premise and plot are related?”

And that’s just what I’m doing here. And like... how this is going to help me? I don’t know yet, but maybe if I do more of these analyses it will make more sense?

We’ll see.

#writing exercises #manga literary analysis

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