The Ride of My Life
Elizabeth Crocker
I remember driving for miles and miles on end. We weren't where we originally intended to be but we were happy. We were happy that it was just us and we were away from where the world could get to us and nothing could interrupt this experience except for maybe... gas. I never knew that making one wrong turn would end up making a memory that I could never forget. This day was August 18th, 2021. It was the day of a memorial service for a fallen classmate at school. The way our fellow classmate had passed brought up a lot of hard memories for both of us but we were determined to go to support our friends who needed it and maybe even secretly get some closure for ourselves.
We were on the road and we turned right onto the highway on accident instead of continuing straight and we knew right when we made that turn that we had made a mistake. Around two minutes later we got calls and texts from multiple people asking us where we were going and why we weren't at the memorial service. Not long after getting those calls and texts we realized there wasn't anywhere we could turn around or stop so all that was left to do was to keep driving on the road until eventually we would find somewhere to stop and head home.
Lucky enough for us we had a decent amount of gas but we were scared that we were going to run out of gas before we found somewhere to stop. Once we dealt with the calls and the texts from our friends and family we decided to turn on some music, throw our phones in the backseat, get comfy and just enough time we were together. We laughed and made jokes and looked at our soundings and at each other in pure bliss. It was peaceful and calming and definitely something we had never felt before.
Eventually, we found a road that led us to a small town and luckily enough for us it had a gas station bc we needed to get some gas or we wouldn't be able to make it home without a call to the parents. We got our gas and some drinks of course and even a little souvenir then switched seats and headed down a road to take us home. After about an hour and a half ride we made it back home. Even though it had been a long day and we were both sad we couldn't have been there for our friends we had a great day and both made it home with smiles on our faces.
We had made a new memory that we both looked back on many times and wanted to go back to. That day with those moments if someone had been able to tell us where we are now we wouldn't believe it. We would have told them that they were crazy because we could never imagine ourselves like that and even though we look back at it differently now we still look back at it as a
good memory because it was a good day. One day we will be able to look back at all those good memories and we won't cry and we won't be sad we will simply smile and be grateful for those times we did have and spend together.
The Science and Mythology of the Marvel Universe
Isaiah Waldrip
Among Marvel fans there is one topic within the fictional universe that the late Stan Lee has created: the real science behind the comics and movies. There is evidence to support the claim that the science in Marvel is based on actual scientific theories on cosmic activity. The beginning evidence starts as one question: how would they have the scientific details to show in the movies if there weren't real pieces of science that it is based off of. This paper will provide explanations of the science explained in the fictional world of superheroes and comparisons of the paranormal aspect of Marvel with myths and legends of the real world.
One of the biggest parts of the Marvel comics and the MCU is time-travel. Many people believe that time travel is impossible, but that isn't entirely true. The reason people say that it is impossible is because of the way it is shown in movies and comic books.
Yes, time travel is possible, but not in the way that the movies express. In fact, we are all traveling through time right now. We are traveling through time at an impressive speed of one second per second. The way that time travel is over exaggerated is by things like what happens in the MCU. After the events of Avengers: Infinity War, we are brought to Avengers: Endgame, where we find out that Thanos destroys the Infinity Stones that he used to wipe out half the population of the entire universe. So, to fix what Thanos did, the Avengers travel back in time and retrieve the stones to fix what Thanos destroyed. But that is over exaggerated to the time
travel of the real world. It is impossible to go back in time, we can only go forward in time.
The next bit of science in the Marvel Universe is probably the biggest concept associated with the franchise and the most controversial concept in real world science: the concept of Parallel Universes. Probably the only marvel movie that taps into this concept is the Oscar winning Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. This is due to the fact that in the movie, all these spider-men from alternate realities come to Miles Morales's reality and have to go back before they are destroyed. For the longest time, scientists have said that the thought of there beingalternate realities in existence is impossible.
Now with the technology we have, scientists from NASA have detected unusual patterns in Antartica that have caused a popular belief that they have detected a reality that is like ours, but in that reality time runs backwards. Ever since this discovery, scientists have been trying to figure out how this alternate reality was created. The popular belief is that it had something to dowith the creation of the universe that we know. Before the Big Bang, everything that we know
was crumpled into a singularity.
Then it started to inflate, therefore expanding. This process is known as Cosmic Inflation. When this process finished, all matter, organisms, and atoms in the universe were created because of the Big Bang. There is actually a quote from Avengers: Infinity War that loosely parallels this situation "At the dawn of the universe, there was nothing. Then BOOM, the Big Bang sent six elemental crystals hurtling across the virgin universe. These infinity stones control an essential aspect of existance." and those aspects are Reality, Space, Power, Mind, Soul, and Time. Not only are these the aspects of existence in the fictional world of the marvel universe,
but it is the same with the non-fictional world. Not only is there science involved with the comics and the MCU, but Marvel also taps
into the Paranormal aspect of myths and legends. Probably the most famous character who is not of scientific origin is the Ghost Rider, famously portrayed by Nicholas Cage in the 2007 film of the same name. The origins of the character are pretty similar both in the movie and the comic. In the movie, a young dare-devil named Johnny Blaze discovers that his father is dying of cancer and becomes desperate.
He eventually meets the devil and sells his soul at the crossroads in exchange for his father to be cured. In the comic book, it is pretty similar. With the only difference being that it wasn't the devil, it was a very powerful demon known as Mephisto. Other characters have also had there run in's with Mephisto. For example, Spider-Man ended up making a deal with the demon when his Aunt May got seriously injured by a gun wound.
Mephisto said that he could cure her, but it would also require his marrage to Mary Jane Watson to be erased from existence. Spider-Man agreed to this deal, and everything that was said to happen happened. There are some real life legends that parallels this kind of scenario. The most famous example is the story of famed guitarist Robert Johnson.
According to the legend, he was a novice guitar player, and one night he got booed from a club in Mississippi called the Juke Joint. He left, and disappeared for a year, then he came back with a guitar. When he played it shocked the entire club, then people started to talk about it. Eventually the popular belief came about saying that he selled his soul to the devil at the crossroads to become the greatest guitarist in the world .
This story has become very famous over the years and many artists and filmmakers have made their own adaptations or have written stories based off of Robert Johnson. For example, in the George Clooney movie O, Brother Where Art Thou, there is a scene where the three main characters are running from the police and come to a crossroads. They pick up a black man with a guitar who claims to have sold his soul to the devil. All the evidence stands before you.
The evidence of the fact that everything you see in Marvel is based off of real world science, Myths, and Legends. In general, Most forms of artl are based off of something else most of the time. This paper is just proving that not everything in fiction is made up. Some of it could be based on real world facts, fictionalized to best match with the context of the story.
The Washing Machine
Armitha Monroe
My mom got this washing machine cause the other had slime and glitter *My bad! Sorry mom!". Anyway, the washing machine works great. Late at night I've been hearing a lot of banging down in the basement. I thought it was normal until I heard a scream.
As I creep downstairs into the basement were the scream and now crunching getting louder. Fear crumbles down my spine, my hands start to tremble, my legs start to feel jello. I finally on the last step the scent of metallic smell gets stronger if that's even possible.
As I start getting closer I saw a trail of blood leading to the washing machine where layed a small child's body covered in blood with a arm missing. I felt a shriek crawling up my throat, my eyes start to glisten, my chest starts to tighten like a hand squeezing my heart. I want it over, I want to be in my bed and believe this is all a dream.
I screamed shooting out of my bed breathing heavily. I ran to the basement only find nothing not a trace of blood not even a body. It was only a dream or was it.
D&D Advice: Improv vs. Planning
Robert Bishop
I am Robert Bishop, and I am here to help you with dungeons and dragons, through this mini-series of advice columns, today, we are going over campaign planning.
For my first point, as a dungeon master DO NOT just make everything up on the spot, you wantto plan out a world ahead of time, and build plot hooks around your players characters. If you try to just make stuff up on the spot, you will go through hell, trust me, I've tried it myself. Now the balance between planning and improv is a double edged blade, as if you try to plan out everything your players can do, you're going to go insane, it's a bad idea. The point I'm making in this small advice column, is that you need to balance the two, every campaign is different, and none of what I say is set in stone, so experiment and remember: the game is what you make of it.