i was kidnapped by martians three months ago, and iāve just managed to escape their claws.
thanks to them i now have a psychological trauma (or maybe even a lobotomy, HAHA), so that cheerful laugh-out-loud girl is gone. she died under the weight of the martian crimson storms... anyway, i feel pretty awful right now ā earth feels foreign too, and iām out here looking for my venus. are you my venus?
lmao okay, thereās gonna be a lot of nonsense here, like when you talk to a friend half-asleep at 3am and youāre both so emotionally bare that tomorrowās shame is guaranteed. will i feel ashamed with you? i donāt know.
iāll draw and talk, talk and draw ā you might not like either. and thatās exactly what i enjoy about it.
also, if you thought iām all alone on my venus, youāre so wrong! iāve got a loyal guide ā a messenger between your earth and my planet ā giving you a chance to become the face of this very venus, so both of us can feel good about it...
so yeah, i didnāt reach B2 english yet, donāt get too excited. but i found a fun way to connect with you anyway: chatGPT isnāt just a dry translator, itās a rather sensitive helper. or at least i hope it catches my tone and moods well enough. either way, i just wanted to warn you: iām me, the real me ā the AI only helps with the words. and if you didnāt notice that, then itās doing its job right. :)
I'm always so genuinely confused when Bylers say they wouldn't treat thier friends that way. I love platonic Byler, i love all forms of platonic love. Why is intimacy such an inherently romantic thing to you guys?
You wouldn't spend a week looking for your best friend against others opinions ?
You wouldn't support him during his hospital visits and trauma?
You wouldn't hug him when he needs it? Take him to a quieter spot?
You wouldn't stick by him in the face of bullies? You wouldn't spend the night when he's scared?
Yall are lame friends them. I baked my best friend a cake every year on thier birthday, I've made valentines and shouted at thier soccer games that I'm thier biggest fan, given them flowers, gone to doctors appointments with them, gave them a place to stay when they needed. Oh and yeah I hug my best friend, even press a kiss to thier cheek cause I love them and thier my best friend. And I let them and everyone know that's my best friend.
Cause if i say always turning intimacy romantic is why men are afriad to be intimate with thier friends then what? Making every nice gesture out to be some insane devotion of romantic love is exactly why male friendships lack this want to get to know someone and be there for them.
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to enter space. Youād be hard-pressed to find someone ignorant of this fact. The knowledge of his feat seems almost universal, the Soviet cosmonautās name inseparable from history.
Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon. Perhaps an even greater feat, this milestone is probably what cemented the USA as the winner of the Space Race. Like Gagarin, the Statesian astronaut is destined to be remembered forever in the collective human consciousness.
And though he raced to the patent office on the exact same day, it is not Elisha Gray who is credited with inventing the telephone. That would be Alexander Graham Bell, whose patent was approved first.
People always remember the first of everything. The first man in space, the first man on the Moon, the first who invented the telephone, such and such. All firsts cease to be men the day they fulfill their legend. They become myth. No matter what, their status can never be taken away. Never repeated. Nobody cares about the second guy who achieved something. Nobody cares about the second inventor of the telephone.
I begin putting on my undergarments. First the sweatpants and sweatshirt, then a specially made bodysuit with built-in ventilation and cooling. Already got my diaper on, though I donāt have bowel problems. Always better to have one than not. Just in case.
The suit I slip into is specifically made for environments that donāt allow traditional cooling, like space. To minimize sweat, water-filled tubes line the inside of the costume to cool the wearerās body. Additionally, little vents are built in to exhaust moisture that may appear as a result of exhalation.
I wonder how much harder this might have been all those years ago. What were those men feeling when they put these on for the first time? How about when they put them on before their fateful accomplishments?
Was there anxiety? Excitement? Fear? Wonder? There must have been all that and more, but tied to something never before experienced by anyone. Something that can never be accurately imagined, only really felt. Something that happens for the first time ever. No person prior found themselves in the same position as you: the first. No person after will ever be able to say they were the first. Itās all you and that very moment.
Do you know who the second man that went to space was? Alan Shepard. Okay, maybe you did know that one. But what of the third? The fourth? The fifth? At some point a thing ceases to be so amazing and becomes another occurrence. At some point, you stop keeping track of the numbers. But you still remember the first. Who remembers the 825th?
What about the second man who stepped on the Moon? Buzz Aldrin, right. Back when I was a kid, I was a total geek about space. Whenever the Moon landing came up, Iād always give Aldrin his due credit. Instead of āNeil Armstrong was the first man to step on the Moonā, Iād make sure to say āNeil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to land on the Moonā. That way, both men would get recognition.Ā
I donāt say that anymore. Life is not a participation trophy. They may have indeed landed at the same time, but there is only one who was the first to step out. That manās name is more than immortal. It is etched into the very fabric of human achievement. The second guy to step on the Moonās surface is just about as important as the 825th guy to go to space.
After putting a cap around my head, I slide on the heavy bottom half of the bulky white spacesuit. I then float through the air effortlessly, slipping into the top of the gear. I attach everything together, gloves too. The huge suit isnāt as heavy as you might imagine. There is no gravity, after all. The helmet is the final component. I slot the piece over my head, the barrier between me and my surroundings becoming palpable. I find myself contained in what is essentially a glove for the whole body.Ā
Itās nothing I havenāt done before.
Iāve achieved more than the average man can ever dream of. Something that was inconceivable for the majority of history. Not just human history. All of history. Only a century ago this would all have been beyond the realm of imagination. You already had people theorizing what was out there, but thereās a big difference between the real deal and what people conjure up.
Even this great triumph is now a commodity. 825. What a fucking joke.
As I grew up, I figured Iād just kick the can down the road until I got to my own first. Like the pieces would fall into place on their own. I breezed through university. Hardened myself through the rigorous training. Now Iām here, and Iāve never felt emptier.Ā
Iāve never wanted to live. That doesnāt mean I wanna die. I donāt want either. I donāt really care to be honest. Donāt wanna live, donāt wanna die. I have nothing to live for and no reason to die. Itās quite odd, and I never realized that until I went up here for the fifth time. I just donāt want it all to have been for nothing. To have done all this just to be a footnote in a history book. Just to have a Wikipedia page with a hundred or so paragraphs (Iāve counted but it tends to shift). Iām not some ant to be rolled over by the march of history. Once humanity becomes fully spacefaring, what difference will there be between the 825th and the one billionth?
The airlock closes behind me and the air flushes out. The doors open into deep outer space. Endless black void for eternity, an incomprehensible space filled with an incomprehensible amount of celestial bodies scattered around. Not my first spacewalk.
The first men to die in space were the three Soviet cosmonauts of Soyuz 11. Georgy Dobrovolsky. Viktor Patsayev. Vladislav Volkov. They fully boarded the first ever space station, Salyut 1, and spent a total of twenty two days in the craft. A valve ended up damaged due to no fault of their own. The men died of asphyxiation in less than one minute. Their bodies were recovered upon landing.
The crew perished 68 kilometers above the KƔrmƔn line, the boundary between space and Earth. Thus, they were the first to die in space. If only the valve had failed 68 kilometers lower than it did. If only it had failed below the KƔrmƔn line. If that had been the case, the first death in space might still have been up for grabs.
Itās not the end of the world. Iām nothing if not adaptable. I crawl my way over to the panel weāve been instructed to repair. The tether hangs onto me despite me cutting it earlier. If I really floated away, I assume it would just gently slip away with me. Right now it just hasnāt experienced enough movement.
Donāt worry, theyāll remember. Everyone who ever set foot in space thought of Gagarin. Everyone who ever set foot on the Moon thought of Armstrong. Thatās the way itāll be for all of eternity. Men larger than life. Synonymous with the future of our species. Men who it will be impossible to forget.
Using controlled bursts of nitrogen I launch myself away from the panel I pretended to fix. Launch myself at the other astronaut whose tether I also sabotaged. Whose thrusters I damaged before we went outside. Rookie mistake for him not to check his equipment more thoroughly.
For centuries to come they will talk of me. For millenia. I will be in the back of every astronautās mind. During every spacewalk and every psychological evaluation. My name forever known. My achievement mine and only mine. I will be here. Inseparable from humanity. No matter how far they go, they will all be aware.Ā
There wonāt be a soul who wonāt remember the first murder-suicide in space.
my friend said long ago there used to be fruits there, but then they became blossoms, because the trees grew old. old trees...their age is so beautiful.
And why did Elliot and JD even have to get together for one episode just to realize they were never meant to be? š
Honestly, I was really enjoying their maleāfemale friendship until the romantic drama kind of ruined it for me. Friends-with-benefits actually fits their dynamic quite well, but dating? Shoot me in the eye, I do not want to see that. Theyāre not Turk and Carla, whose relationship grows deeper and more serious with every season. At least these two figured it out quickly and went back to being good friends. :^
paul, late at night: hey chani would you love me if i was a worm
chani, whose dad was an ecologist: well, worm brains don't always produce hormones to induce love. a better question would be whether or not you would love me if you were a worm.
paul, who keeps having worrying visions of a worm-man hybrid: don't play with me right now please just answer the question-
I feel like the answer to the question posed in Dune Messiah, i.e. 'Who's the best pick for bearing the heir to Paul's empire?' was always Jessica, and that's why she's not in the book lol.
I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed.
Thinking about District 11, Rue, and their signal birds, I suddenly imagined how poor composers there might write music not on staff paper, but through living, ringing throats.
No paper, no ink ā what luxury would that be? They have mockingjays: one line sings the treble clef, another the bass.
To share a composition with a friend, the invitation isnāt to a house, but into the forest; the reading of notes happens not by candlelight, but under the night starsā¦ isnāt that lovely?
