Parker - Blog Posts

Request dump 1, 2, and 3!

I have thought about drawing the characters of Mr meaty in human version

:3

Parker Solar Probe is Go for Launch

Tomorrow, Aug. 11, we're launching a spacecraft to touch the Sun.

The first chance to launch Parker Solar Probe is 3:33 a.m. EDT on Aug. 11 from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Launch coverage on NASA TV starts at 3 a.m. EDT at nasa.gov/live.

After launch, Parker Solar Probe begins its daring journey to the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona, going closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history and facing brutal heat and radiation.

Though Parker Solar Probe weighs a mere 1,400 pounds — pretty light for a spacecraft — it's launching aboard one of the world's most powerful rockets, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy with a third stage added.

Even though you might think the Sun's massive means things would just fall into it, it's surprisingly difficult to actually go there. Any object leaving Earth starts off traveling at about 67,000 miles per hour, same as Earth — and most of that is in a sideways direction, so you have to shed most of that sideways speed to make it to the Sun. All that means that it takes 55 times more launch energy to go to the Sun than it does to go to Mars. On top of its powerful launch vehicle, Parker Solar Probe will use seven Venus gravity assists to shed sideways speed.

Even though Parker Solar Probe will lose a lot of sideways speed, it'll still be going incredibly fast as its orbit draws closer to the Sun throughout its seven-year mission. At its fastest, Parker Solar Probe will travel at 430,000 miles per hour — fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second — setting the record for the fastest spacecraft in history.

But the real challenge was to keep the spacecraft from frying once it got there.

We’ve always wanted to send a mission to the corona, but we literally haven’t had the technology that can protect a spacecraft and its instruments from its scorching heat. Only recent advances have enabled engineers to build a heat shield that will protect the spacecraft on this journey of extremes — a tricky feat that requires withstanding the Sun’s intense radiation on the front and staying cool at the back, so the spacecraft and instruments can work properly.

The 4.5-inches-thick heat shield is built like a sandwich. There’s a thin layer of carbon material like you might find in your golf clubs or tennis rackets, carbon foam, and then another thin piece of carbon-carbon on the back. Even while the Sun-facing side broils at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the back of the shield will remain a balmy 85 degrees — just above room temperature. There are so few particles in this region that it's a vacuum, so blocking the Sun's radiation goes a long way towards keeping the spacecraft cool.

Parker Solar Probe is also our first mission to be named after a living individual: Dr. Eugene Parker, famed solar physicist who in 1958 first predicted the existence of the solar wind.

"Solar wind" is what Dr. Parker dubbed the stream of charged particles that flows constantly from the Sun, bathing Earth and our entire solar system in the Sun’s magnetic fields. Parker Solar Probe’s flight right through the corona allows it to observe the birth of the very solar wind that Dr. Parker predicted, right as it speeds up and over the speed of sound.  

The corona is where solar material is heated to millions of degrees and where the most extreme eruptions on the Sun occur, like solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which fling particles out to space at incredible speeds near the speed of light. These explosions can also spark space weather storms near Earth that can endanger satellites and astronauts, disrupt radio communications and, at their most severe, trigger power outages.

Thanks to Parker Solar Probe’s landmark mission, solar scientists will be able to see the objects of their study up close and personal for the very first time.

Up until now, all of our studies of the corona have been remote — that is, taken from a distance, rather than at the mysterious region itself. Scientists have been very creative to glean as much as possible from their remote data, but there’s nothing like actually sending a probe to the corona to see what’s going on.

And scientists aren’t the only ones along for the adventure — Parker Solar Probe holds a microchip carrying the names of more than 1.1 million people who signed up to send their name to the Sun. This summer, these names and 1,400 pounds of science equipment begin their journey to the center of our solar system.

Three months later in November 2018, Parker Solar Probe makes its first close approach to the Sun, and in December, it will send back the data. The corona is one of the last places in the solar system where no spacecraft has visited before; each observation Parker Solar Probe makes is a potential discovery.

Stay tuned — Parker Solar Probe is about to take flight.

Keep up with the latest on the mission at nasa.gov/solarprobe or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

Spilling the Sun’s Secrets

You might think you know the Sun: It looks quiet and unchanging. But the Sun has secrets that scientists have been trying to figure out for decades.  

One of our new missions — Parker Solar Probe — is aiming to spill the Sun’s secrets and shed new light on our neighbor in the sky.

Even though it’s 93 million miles away, the Sun is our nearest and best laboratory for understanding the inner workings of stars everywhere. We’ve been spying on the Sun with a fleet of satellites for decades, but we’ve never gotten a close-up of our nearest star.

This summer, Parker Solar Probe is launching into an orbit that will take it far closer to the Sun than any instrument has ever gone. It will fly close enough to touch the Sun, sweeping through the outer atmosphere — the corona — 4 million miles above the surface.

This unique viewpoint will do a lot more than provide gossip on the Sun. Scientists will take measurements to help us understand the Sun’s secrets — including those that can affect Earth.

Parker Solar Probe is equipped with four suites of instruments that will take detailed measurements from within the Sun's corona, all protected by a special heat shield to keep them safe and cool in the Sun's ferocious heat.

The corona itself is home to one of the Sun’s biggest secrets: The corona's mysteriously high temperatures. The corona, a region of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, is hundreds of times hotter than the surface below. That's counterintuitive, like if you got warmer the farther you walked from a campfire, but scientists don’t yet know why that's the case.

Some think the excess heat is delivered by electromagnetic waves called Alfvén waves moving outwards from the Sun’s surface. Others think it might be due to nanoflares — bomb-like explosions that occur on the Sun’s surface, similar to the flares we can see with telescopes from Earth, but smaller and much more frequent. Either way, Parker Solar Probe's measurements direct from this region itself should help us pin down what's really going on.

We also want to find out what exactly accelerates the solar wind — the Sun's constant outpouring of material that rushes out at a million miles per hour and fills the Solar System far past the orbit of Pluto. The solar wind can cause space weather when it reaches Earth — triggering things like the aurora, satellite problems, and even, in rare cases, power outages.

We know where the solar wind comes from, and that it gains its speed somewhere in the corona, but the exact mechanism of that acceleration is a mystery. By sampling particles directly at the scene of the crime, scientists hope Parker Solar Probe can help crack this case.

Parker Solar Probe should also help us uncover the secrets of some of the fastest particles from the Sun. Solar energetic particles can reach speeds of more than 50% the speed of light, and they can interfere with satellites with little warning because of how fast they move. We don't know how they get so fast — but it's another mystery that should be solved with Parker Solar Probe on the case.  

Parker Solar Probe launches summer 2018 on a seven-year mission to touch the Sun. Keep up with the latest on the Sun at @NASASun on Twitter, and follow along with Parker Solar Probe's last steps to launch at nasa.gov/solarprobe.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Why Won’t Our Parker Solar Probe Melt?

This summer, our Parker Solar Probe will launch to travel closer to the Sun than any mission before it, right into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona.

The environment in the corona is unimaginably hot: The spacecraft will travel through material with temperatures greater than 3 million degrees Fahrenheit. 

So…why won’t it melt? 

The Difference Between Heat and Temperature

Parker Solar Probe was designed from the ground up to keep its instruments safe and cool, but the nature of the corona itself also helps. The key lies in the difference between heat and temperature.

Temperature measures how fast particles are moving, while heat is the total amount of energy that they transfer. The corona is an incredibly thin and tenuous part of the Sun, and there are very few particles there to transfer energy – so while the particles are moving fast (high temperature), they don't actually transfer much energy to the spacecraft (low heat).

It's like the difference between putting your hand in a hot oven versus putting it in a pot of boiling water (don’t try this at home!). In the air of the oven, your hand doesn't get nearly as hot as it would in the much denser water of the boiling pot. 

So even though Parker Solar Probe travels through a region with temperatures of several million degrees, the surface of its heat shield will reach only about 2,500 F.

The Heat Shield

Of course, thousands of degrees Fahrenheit is still way too hot for scientific instruments. (For comparison, lava from volcano eruptions can be anywhere between 1,300 to 2,200 F.) 

To withstand that heat, Parker Solar Probe is outfitted with a cutting-edge heat shield, called the Thermal Protection System. This heat shield is made of a carbon composite foam sandwiched between two carbon plates. The Sun-facing side is covered with a specially-developed white ceramic coating, applied as a plasma spray, to reflect as much heat as possible.

The heat shield is so good at its job that even though the Sun-facing side of the shield will be at 2,500 F, the instruments in its shadow will remain at a balmy 85 F.

Parker Solar Probe Keeps its Cool

Several other designs on the spacecraft help Parker Solar Probe beat the heat. 

Parker Solar Probe is not only studying the Sun – it's also powered by it. But even though most of the surface area of its solar arrays can be retracted behind the heat shield, even that small exposed segment would quickly make them overheat while at the Sun.  

To keep things cool, Parker Solar Probe circulates a single gallon of water through its solar arrays. The water absorbs heat as it passes behind the arrays, then radiates that heat out into space as it flows into the spacecraft's radiator. 

It's also important for Parker Solar Probe to be able to think on its feet, since it takes about eight minutes for information to travel between Earth and the Sun. If we had to control the spacecraft from Earth, by the time we knew something went wrong, it would be too late to fix it. 

So Parker Solar Probe is smart: Along the edges of the heat shield's shadow are seven sensors. If any of these sensors detect sunlight, they alert the central computer and the spacecraft can correct its position to keep the sensors – and the rest of the instruments – safely protected behind the heat shield.

Over the course of its seven-year mission, Parker Solar Probe will make 24 orbits of our star. On each close approach to the Sun, it will sample the solar wind, study the Sun’s corona, and provide unprecedentedly close up observations from around our star – and armed with its slew of innovative technologies, we know it will keep its cool the whole time. 

Parker Solar Probe launches summer 2018 on its mission to study the Sun. Keep up with the latest on the mission at nasa.gov/solarprobe or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tools of the Trade: How Parker Solar Probe Will Study the Sun

Our Parker Solar Probe will get closer to the Sun than any spacecraft has ever gone – it will fly right through the Sun's corona, part of the Sun's atmosphere.

This spacecraft is full of cutting-edge technology, from its heat shield down to its guidance and control systems. It also carries four suites of advanced instruments designed to study the Sun in a multitude of ways.  

1. Measuring particles

Two of Parker Solar Probe's instrument suites are focused on measuring particles – electrons and ions – within the corona.

One of these particle-measuring instrument suites is SWEAP (Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons). SWEAP counts the most common particles in the solar wind – the Sun's constant outflow of material – and measures their properties, like velocity, density and temperature. Gathering this information about solar wind particles will help scientists better understand why the solar wind reaches supersonic speeds and exactly which part of the Sun the particles come from.

One instrument in the SWEAP suite is the Solar Probe Cup. Most of the instruments on Parker Solar Probe stay safe and cool in the shadow of the heat shield, but the Solar Probe Cup is one of the few that sticks out. That's so it can capture and measure particles streaming straight out from the Sun, and it had to go through some intense testing to get ready for this position in the Sun's incredibly hot corona.  

Credit: Levi Hutmacher/Michigan Engineering

The ISʘIS suite (pronounced EE-sis, and including the symbol for the Sun in its acronym) also measures particles. ISʘIS is short for Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun, and this instrument suite measures particles that move faster – and therefore have more energy – than the solar wind.

These measurements will help scientists understand these particles' lifecycles – where they came from, how they got to be traveling so fast (these particles can reach speeds more than half the speed of light!) and what path they take as they travel away from the Sun and into interplanetary space.

2. Taking pictures – but not of the Sun's surface.

WISPR (Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe) has the only two cameras on Parker Solar Probe – but they're not pointed directly at the Sun. Instead, WISPR looks out the side of the spacecraft, in the direction it's traveling, looking at the space Parker Solar Probe is about to fly through. From that vantage point, WISPR captures images of structures within the corona like coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. CMEs are clouds of solar material that occasionally explode from the Sun at millions of miles per hour. Because this solar material is magnetized, CMEs can trigger geomagnetic storms when they reach Earth – which, in turn, can cause effects like auroras and even, in extreme cases, power outages.  

Right now, our observations of events like these come from satellites orbiting near Earth, so WISPR will give us a whole new perspective. And, scientists will be able to combine WISPR's images with Parker Solar Probe's direct particle measurements to get a better idea of how these structures change as they travel.

3. Studying electric & magnetic fields

The FIELDS instrument suite is appropriately named: It's what scientists will use to study the electric and magnetic fields in the corona.

Electric and magnetic fields are key to understanding what happens, not only on the Sun, but throughout space, because they are the primary driver accelerating charged particles. In particular, a process called magnetic reconnection – when magnetic field lines explosively realign, sending particles rocketing away at incredible speeds – is thought to drive solar explosions, as well as space weather effects on Earth, like the aurora.

FIELDS measures electric and magnetic field at high time resolution, meaning it takes lots of measurements in a short amount of time, to track these processes and shed some light on the mechanics underlying the Sun's behavior. FIELDS' measurements are precisely synced up with those of the SWEAP suite (one of the sets of instruments studying particles) so that scientists can match up the immediate effects that electric and magnetic fields have on the material of the solar wind.

Parker Solar Probe launches summer 2018 on its mission to study the Sun. Keep up with the latest on the mission at nasa.gov/solarprobe or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Meet Parker Solar Probe, Our Mission to Touch the Sun

In just a few weeks, we're launching a spacecraft to get closer to the Sun than any human-made object has ever gone.

The mission, called Parker Solar Probe, is outfitted with a lineup of instruments to measure the Sun's particles, magnetic and electric fields, solar wind and more – all to help us better understand our star, and, by extension, stars everywhere in the universe.

Parker Solar Probe is about the size of a small car, and after launch – scheduled for no earlier than Aug. 6, 2018 – it will swing by Venus on its way to the Sun, using a maneuver called a gravity assist to draw its orbit closer to our star. Just three months after launch, Parker Solar Probe will make its first close approach to the Sun – the first of 24 throughout its seven-year mission.

Though Parker Solar Probe will get closer and closer to the Sun with each orbit, the first approach will already place the spacecraft as the closest-ever human-made object to the Sun, swinging by at 15 million miles from its surface. This distance places it well within the corona, a region of the Sun's outer atmosphere that scientists think holds clues to some of the Sun's fundamental physics.

For comparison, Mercury orbits at about 36 million miles from the Sun, and the previous record holder – Helios 2, in 1976 – came within 27 million miles of the solar surface. 

Humanity has studied the Sun for thousands of years, and our modern understanding of the Sun was revolutionized some 60 years ago with the start of the Space Age. We've come to understand that the Sun affects Earth in more ways than just providing heat and light – it's an active and dynamic star that releases solar storms that influence Earth and other worlds throughout the solar system. The Sun's activity can trigger the aurora, cause satellite and communications disruptions, and even – in extreme cases – lead to power outages.

Much of the Sun's influence on us is embedded in the solar wind, the Sun's constant outflow of magnetized material that can interact with Earth's magnetic field. One of the earliest papers theorizing the solar wind was written by Dr. Gene Parker, after whom the mission is named.

Though we understand the Sun better than we ever have before, there are still big questions left to be answered, and that's where scientists hope Parker Solar Probe will help.  

First, there's the coronal heating problem. This refers to the counterintuitive truth that the Sun's atmosphere – the corona – is much, much hotter than its surface, even though the surface is millions of miles closer to the Sun's energy source at its core. Scientists hope Parker Solar Probe's in situ and remote measurements will help uncover the mechanism that carries so much energy up into the upper atmosphere.

Second, scientists hope to better understand the solar wind. At some point on its journey from the Sun out into space, the solar wind is accelerated to supersonic speeds and heated to extraordinary temperatures. Right now, we measure solar wind primarily with a group of satellites clustered around Lagrange point 1, a spot in space between the Sun and Earth some 1 million miles from us. 

By the time the solar wind reaches these satellites, it has traveled about 92 million miles already, blending together the signatures that could shed light on the acceleration process. Parker Solar Probe, on the other hand, will make similar measurements less than 4 million miles from the solar surface – much closer to the solar wind's origin point and the regions of interest.

Scientists also hope that Parker Solar Probe will uncover the mechanisms at work behind the acceleration of solar energetic particles, which can reach speeds more than half as fast as the speed of light as they rocket away from the Sun! Such particles can interfere with satellite electronics, especially for satellites outside of Earth's magnetic field.

Parker Solar Probe will launch from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Because of the enormous speed required to achieve its solar orbit, the spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy, one of the most powerful rockets in the world.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks to learn more about Parker Solar Probe's science and follow along with its journey to launch. We'll be posting updates here on Tumblr, on Twitter and Facebook, and at nasa.gov/solarprobe.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Our Sun is More than Meets the Eye

The Sun may look unchanging to us here on Earth, but that’s not the whole story.

In visible light – the light our eyes can see – the Sun looks like an almost featureless orange disk, peppered with the occasional sunspot. (Important note: Never look at the Sun directly, and always use a proper filter for solar viewing – or tune in to our near-real time satellite feeds!)

But in other kinds of light, it’s a different picture. The Sun emits light across the electromagnetic spectrum, including the relatively narrow range of light we can see, as well as wavelengths that are invisible to our eyes. Different wavelengths convey information about different components of the Sun’s surface and atmosphere, so watching the Sun in multiple types of light helps us paint a fuller picture.

Watching the Sun in these wavelengths reveals how active it truly is. This image, captured in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light at 131 Angstroms, shows a solar flare. Solar flares are intense bursts of light radiation caused by magnetic events on the Sun, and often associated with sunspots. The light radiation from solar flares can disturb part of Earth’s atmosphere where radio signals travel, causing short-lived problems with communications systems and GPS.

Looking at the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light also reveals structures like coronal loops (magnetic loops traced out by charged particles spinning along magnetic field lines)…

…solar prominence eruptions…

…and coronal holes (magnetically open areas on the Sun from which solar wind rushes out into space).

Though extreme ultraviolet light shows the Sun's true colors, specialized instruments let us see some of the Sun's most significant activity in visible light.

A coronagraph is a camera that uses a solid disk to block out the Sun’s bright face, revealing the much fainter corona, a dynamic part of the Sun’s atmosphere. Coronagraphs also reveal coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which are explosions of billions of tons of solar material into space. Because this material is magnetized, it can interact with Earth’s magnetic field and trigger space weather effects like the aurora, satellite problems, and even – in extreme cases – power outages.

The Sun is also prone to bursts of energetic particles. These particles are blocked by Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, but they could pose a threat to astronauts traveling in deep space, and they can interfere with our satellites. This clip shows an eruption of energetic particles impacting a Sun-observing satellite, creating the 'snow' in the image.

We keep watch on the Sun 24/7 with a fleet of satellites to monitor and better understand this activity. And this summer, we’re going one step closer with the launch of Parker Solar Probe, a mission to touch the Sun. Parker Solar Probe will get far closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has ever gone – into the corona, within 4 million miles of the surface – and will send back unprecedented direct measurements from the regions thought to drive much of the Sun’s activity. More information about the fundamental processes there can help round out and improve models to predict the space weather that the Sun sends our way.

Keep up with the latest on the Sun at @NASASun on Twitter, and follow along with Parker Solar Probe’s last steps to launch at nasa.gov/solarprobe.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

Craving some summer Sun? We're inviting people around the world to submit their names to be placed on a microchip that will travel to the Sun aboard Parker Solar Probe! 

Launching summer 2018, Parker Solar Probe will be our first mission to "touch" a star. The spacecraft - about the size of a small car - will travel right through the Sun's atmosphere, facing brutal temperatures and radiation as it traces how energy and heat move through the solar corona and explores what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles.

Send your name along for the ride at go.nasa.gov/HotTicket! Submissions will be accepted through April 27, 2018. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Sad News, David Graham has died, voiced Parker, Brains and Gordon Tracy in Thunderbirds and voiced Parker again in Thunderbirds are Go.

Sadly that's everyone from the original Thunderbirds show has gone now.

RIP David Graham

These are so great 😂

... I don't know if anyone's made any of the Barbie posters yet...

... but this is the result of a sleepless night.

I tried my best with the captions, but I'm still not keen on all of them.

OH MY GOSH THESE ARE SO GOOD!!!

Thunderbirds are Go + Posters [2/?]

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Spies Newly-Discovered Comet NEOWISE by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

Agggh just so excited, Redbubble just got my Christmas 2060 family portrait licenced, thank you Official TAG, thank you so much👍😁♥️😁👍

https://www.redbubble.com/i/laptop-case/Tracy-Family-Christmas-Photo-2060-by-maggieDAS/60212354.2U5KG?utm_source=rb-native-app&utm_campaign=share-product&utm_medium=android

Hardison: Don’t worry. We’ll watch your back.

Client: Oh yeah? Who watches yours?

Parker: *smiles*

Eliot: *appearing out of the shadows*

Eliot: *hair flip*

Eliot: *looks really cool*

Eliot: *another hair flip*

Eliot: That… would be me.

i am occasionally reminded that parker knows how to shoot/handle a gun competently in redemption s1e3 and it's like, eliot, mr. "i dont like guns", why are you teaching people this.

(i am aware parker has a handgun in s1e1 but i dont think the skills are transferable to shotguns and its never really established if she can actually hit anything and also i doubt archie would train her in it bc its not a gentleman thief skill and by the same logic i doubt parker would teach herself bc its not particularly thief-y)

anon, this ask was like an early christmas present for me. i love when people are "wrong" in interesting ways, or if not wrong then... take a different view to what i do. so, parker and guns. i can't believe i've never made a post about this.

(heads up, i've stolen vast swathes of this post from conversations i've had with both @ghostlyarchaeologist and @aardvaark. words are all mine but ideas are mutually borne, so thank you both for being sounding boards at various points in the past. everyone go follow heather and adrian cos they're better at this than i am.)

right, let's talk about the pilot, becuase parker can absolutely hit things with that. both eliot and nate know immediately that hardison isn't a real danger, but the second nate hears the safety beng turned off there he whirls around and matches her threat; that's what you do when you know someone's not making pointless bluffs.

also, boiling this back to it's utter basics, what's the main skillset you use in order to handle a pistol competently? hand-eye coordination. which is something we know for sure parker has in spades; she's a master pickpocket and she learns fast.

we need to remember, also, that parker's initial sense of morality is completely fucked. or... not morality, exactly, but sense of what does and doesn't count as wrong, what does or doesn't count as harm? because there's that scene in homecoming, right, where everyone's protesting the concept of eliot having to do the thing they hired him for, and parker weighs in with "i never hurt anyone." except... like, the FIRST thing we know about parker is that she blew up a house as a child. it's canonical that the parents survived, but parker also spent six months in juvie and has broken out of prison multiple times and lived on the street for god knows how long and stork job shows she can fight pretty well pre-leverage, too. i'll come back to all this in a minute.

her being a crack shot with a gun is... not really incongrous with who she was pre-leverage. archie describes her when he found her as "a danger to herself and to others" and like YEAH no i buy that. i buy that completely.

next up, what about things that aren't pistols? well.

that's a fucking sniper rifle.

that's a fucking sniper rifle.

that is, and i cannot stress this enough, a fucking sniper rifle.

so yeah, i'd say that those skills are transferrable. she can take out an armed gunman and tie him up with duct tape, without causing a scuffle, and re-aim the gun. with enough consistency that nate knows for sure she'll manage it in less than three seconds. sure, we can chalk some of that up to parker at this point having had four seasons of eliot here's-how-you-take-out-thugs-with-guns fight training, but... i think at this point it's pretty fair to say that (regardless of the provinance of her skills) parker's kinda a good shot, actually.

okay, let's revisit that point about morality, because there are kinda a bunch of really important touchstones here.

so, john rogers once said that "parker is the second most dangerous person on the team, and eliot would argue first most dangerous." she's the team member with the least qualms about hurting people, always, and that's a detail that tends to get brushed over.

she would have killed tara here. she makes that extremely clear. i can't listen to that "Bye, now." and not get shivers.

talking of shivers.... "I want to do the right thing."

because, look, parker's not eliot. she's not thawing ice all the way through, and yet we're shown again and again that, despite that, "She has the nuclear winter inside her." there will always be a part of her who's first instinct is to jump, to hide, to run, to kill, to not care because caring hurts. but there's also a part of her that is softer than any of the team, that is a child who'll never grow up and yet grew up too fast. she grew up beaten, bruised, neglected and starved yet she's something wonderful - but she knows she's broken, she knows they all call her crazy, and it hurts. she wants to do the right thing, make the right choice, but she hates that it'll never be her first instinct. and the thing is? that's okay. she went through hell and back and turned out someone strange and weird and at times unkind, but... the team like how she turned out. hardison likes how she turned out. and that's worth the world - she just needs to remember it and believe it and use HER skills instead of trying to be something she's not. that is what parker and eliot's conversation in the ice cave is about, if you strip it back to it's bare essentials. parker doesn't want to be normal, she just wants to be normal enough for her friends.

has parker ever killed someone? i don't know. i don't know if she even thinks like that, in such clear terms - as i already talked about, parker's definition of 'hurt' is not the same as anyone else's.

so let's talk about broken wing job for a second, because absolutely everyone overlooks the reason why parker does the job in the first place - "You brought a gun? To my bar?"

because. yeah.

"Those guys are gonna rob this store, right? Which is fine. I don’t mind robbers who aren’t robbing me, or my friends, or kids or… But they brought a gun to the party, and that changes all the rules."

this is season five. she investigates the theives because she's bored - but she only decides to stop them because they brought a gun. that's the kind of very specific morality you only get after being the good guy for a very long time, and i do think that hanging around eliot probably helped affect that a bit.

actually, fuck it, look at what else she says about this whole thing in the broken wing job.

"No cops. No cops. That will actually increase the chances of people getting hurt. [...] Seeing a uniform in the middle of stealing something could cause you to panic, make bad decisions..."

"These guys aren’t that good, which is actually another reason why we should do this, ‘cause sooner or later, they’re gonna make a mistake. Someone’s gonna get hurt."

so. yeah. on the one hand, this is weapons safety 101, for someone in parker's position. "[The Leverage crew] don't use guns because - when guns come out, people die. This attitude very much comes out from traditional American crime literature, and also from talking to our professional criminal friends. Guns are messy, when they show up things escalate, you take a longer, harder fall when doing a crime with a gun - professional criminals are pathologically averse to carrying weapons." i'm quoting john rogers here, because i can, but you'll hear similar in any training manual, and it's especially relevant to parker's actions both here and elsewhere in the show.

on the other hand, mix up all those statements and it definitely implies parker has fucked up badly in the past. again, i don't know if she's ever killed someone. but.

well, for funsies, let's look at the rest of JR's above statement about gun safety (i'm quoting from his blog on the gone fishin' job, in case you wanted to find the source): "You do not point a gun at anything or anyone you are not willing to kill. [...] I had that drilled into my head at an early age. A gun has two settings - holstered and murderous. 'Wounded' is an accidental condition. Eliot in particular is aware of this, and one of the many reasons he does not use a gun is because he is trying to, well, not kill people anymore. Hardison is magnificently awful with weaponry. Although Parker is probably a fine shot, she's trying to play nice by the new rules, and only brought a weapon to the meet in the pilot because she wanted to get paid."

and all that is, more than anything else, the core and crux of everything i'm saying here. factor in how broken parker is, how we know she's made mistakes in the past, throw in archie's "a danger - to herself and to others" line, think about the tara rooftop incident... there's a picture emerging here. it's not a nice one, but it's unpleasantly clear.

so. where does that leave us?

well, it at least leaves me extremely certain for a vast number of reasons that eliot didn't need to teach parker how to shoot a rigged game.

proving myself i can draw different faces pt 2

the Nostromo crew

Mwhehehehe 😏 What yall got?

Fandom OC Ask Meme

⟢⋱⟡☾ a collection of asks for OCs belonging to specific fandoms

How does (canon character) feel about your OC?

How does your OC feel about (canon character)?

Has your OC ever made (canon character) laugh? / What about cry?

Do your OC and (canon character) ever cross paths?

Which canon character annoys your OC?

What canon character gets annoyed by your OC?

Which canon character respects your OC most? What gained that respect?

Which canon character doesn’t respect your OC whatsoever?

Which canon character does your OC respect a lot?

Which canon character does your OC not respect at all? Why?

Which canon character is pissed off by the general presence of OC? (we all have those people)

Does your OC have a crush on anyone?

Who would probably have a crush on your OC?

Who would your OC most likely to get a puppy-crush on? (but it can’t be the cc they’re actually shipped with!)

Who would your OC say is their best friend?

Who would call your OC their best friend?

Who has brought your OC to tears before?

Who has your OC made cry?

Is there someone your OC didn’t like at first, but then got along with later?

Is there someone your OC liked at first, but then grew to dislike?

Who does your OC hate?

Who does your OC love? (platonic)

Who does your OC love? (familial)

Does your OC love anyone? (romantic)

Has your OC ever had to let a canon character down easy?

Has your OC ever been rejected by a canon character?

Did your OC bear witness to anyone’s full character arc?

What is the worst thing your OC does in their story?

What is your OC’s ‘‘darkness moment’’ in the plot?

What is your OC’s redemption moment?

Is there a canon character that your OC needs to ask forgiveness towards?

Is there a canon character your OC needs to forgive?

Is there anyone who your OC would die for?

Is there a canon character who would die for your OC?

I didn't see you'd already answered the first one 💔

More asks: 🥯🍸😖🎂

You’re fine don’t worry and Thanks again Proxi for the questions! ✨

🥯- what does your oc's typical breakfast look like? do they usually eat breakfast?

Answer: They usually don’t eat breakfast or usually eat , they mostly just eat toast.

🍸- what is your oc's favorite alcoholic drink, if they can drink?

Answer: They love Wine or an Italian cocktail but now they can’t drink anymore alcohol because of their surgery.

😖-is your oc an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert? do they let people in easily, or are they more reserved?

Answer: They are a bit of an introvert or an ambivert if they are with someone they love or like but have extreme trust issues with people who they don’t know ,but if you test their patience in a snap of finger they will cut you out like you don’t exist to them.

🎂- when is your oc's birthday? how old are they? what are their sun, moon, & rising signs (if known)? what about their tarot card, ruling planet, & ruling number (if known)? do they fit the typical traits of these sun, moon, & rising signs?

Answer: Their birthday is December 25, 1980, they are a Capricorn Sun they don’t know the other two , Tarot card: The Tower Meaning, The Devil Meeting, The Hanged Man Meaning, yes they do fit these signs most parts lol.

For the OC ask, 💛💙🖤

Thank you Proxi for the question (Luv u pookie and your page 🫶✨)

💛- how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

Answer: Since it’s the same question I can say it again, They can speak English, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and French.

💙- does your oc have any cool/special powers and/or abilities? how are they with magic, if it exists in their world?

Answer- None they are quirkless, but if I ever thought of a Fantasy AU I thought of they can use their magic for their tailoring business it be sick not gonna lie.

🖤- has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

Answer: Yes they did, they done it one time when they used to be an “entertainer” and the man was being too much to them inappropriately and they killed him, and for broken someone’s trust yes with their friend they used to talk to, their friend warned them of how dangerous Valdo is but they didn’t care and cut them off until now.

🍔 🍎 😞 🤍

Thank Kyu for your question ✨ (Big Fan of your Oc 🫶❤️)

🍔- is your oc good at cooking? are they good at baking? which one do they prefer?

Answer: They are really good baker, Kamille be the one doing the cooking while they do the baking they can make one mean Tomato Focaccia and a Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti.

🍎- where was your oc born? do they still live in/around their place of birth or do they live somewhere else? how do they feel about their birthplace?

Answer: They were born in Venice, Italy they don’t live in that area anymore but moved to Rome for their Tailoring, they left home because their family didn’t accept them of their sexuality, they felt alone and unwanted there.

😞- does your oc attract others, or do they tend to be left alone?

Answer: They tend to be left alone or with Valdo because certain people that attract tend to make them uncomfortable of their well being than treat them like a person

🤍- what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

Answer: They have neutral for Trusting people because of their history that lost their faith, meaning they won’t believe it till they see it, or have to get to know you and being touched it took awhile for Valdo to touch them till their ready for him to be trusted.

🎮🎶🍃💛🍝🤔

Thank you so you so much for the question! 🫶✨@artcatscaninaemore

🎮 - what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

Answer: Their hobbies they really love to read books in the Library, they really love dark romances like Beauty and the Beast to Phantom of the Opera to Romeo and Juliet, they always cry to the endings

🎶- what type of music does your oc like? do they listen to music very often?

Answer: They really love slow Italian music, helps them calm and relax or a bit of a Tango type of feel too.

🍃- what is/was your oc's favorite subject in school?

Answer- Fashion Designing, they used to be in college to focused more of their work ,but they couldn’t afford so they decided to drop out and make it more as an hobby.

💛- how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

Answer: They can speak English, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and French.

🍝- what is/are your oc's favorite food(s)?

Answer: They love to eat since they couldn’t afford food, but their absolute favorite is bow tie pasta, funny part they made an bow tie that looks like the pasta as an prank at Valdo (obviously he loved it XD)

🤔- what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms?

Answer: They are Quirkless they have none, but they’re mannerism they can be quiet or shy or a bit serious if they’re are with people that they don’t know, or to care and lovable to Valdo

While I’m getting a new apple pen Tuesday since mines is broke anyone got some questions for Parker :)

DETAILS ABOUT OCS !

send an emoji/description of emoji to learn more about a writer's oc! many of these are taken from my munday asks meme, because i thought it would be fun to make a version for characters too! the prompts are categorized by emoji type and given descriptions in case anyone can't see the symbols. can be used for roleplayers and any general writers alike! for roleplayers, these can also be used for your interpretations of canon characters if you so desire as well!

𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒. 💭 THOUGHT BALLOON — what is your oc's MBTI, enneagram, and/or other personality aspects (if known/interested in)? 🚗 CAR — does your oc have a driver's license? can they drive/operate any automobiles/machinery besides cars? ✈️ AIRPLANE — does your oc like traveling, or do they consider themselves a more homey person? 🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies? 💍 RING — does your oc have any piercings? do they want any (more) piercings? 🖊️ BALLPOINT PEN — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos? 📚 BOOKS — what level of education has your oc most recently completed/is currently in (GED, undergraduate, grad school, phd, etc)? 🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)? 🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities? 🩸 DROP OF BLOOD — what is your oc's blood type?

𝐒𝐘𝐌𝐁𝐎𝐋𝐒. 🎶 MUSICAL NOTES — what type of music does your oc like? do they listen to music very often? 💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know. 💤 SLEEPING SIGN — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits? 🔱 TRIDENT EMBLEM — can your oc swim? do they enjoy swimming? 🔺 RED TRIANGLE POINTED UP — does your oc know how to use any weapons? 🔶 LARGE ORANGE DIAMOND — does your oc know cpr? do they have any other medical expertise? 🚫 PROHIBITED — does your oc drink/smoke? do they do it regularly, or is it more on occasion or for special events?

𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄. 🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc's sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use? 🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc's favorite holiday? 🐶 DOG FACE — does your oc have any pets? 🐈 CAT — does your oc prefer a wide circle of friends or a few close friends? 🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal? 🐉 DRAGON — what is your oc's favorite mythical creature? 🍃 LEAVES FLUTTERING IN WIND — what is/was your oc's favorite subject in school? 🌴 PALM TREE — does your oc have a green thumb? do they enjoy gardening? 🍎 RED APPLE — where was your oc born? do they still live in/around their place of birth or do they live somewhere else? how do they feel about their birthplace?

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒. ❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits? 🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits? 💔 BROKEN HEART — what are three of your oc's negative traits? 💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them? 🧡 ORANGE HEART — does your oc tend to prioritize family or friends? 💛 YELLOW HEART — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any? 💚 GREEN HEART — does your oc prefer being inside or outside? 💙 BLUE HEART — does your oc have any cool/special powers and/or abilities? how are they with magic, if it exists in their world? 💜 PURPLE HEART — what is your oc's ancestry/genetic background? 🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐒. 🎂 BIRTHDAY CAKE — when is your oc's birthday? how old are they? what are their sun, moon, & rising signs (if known)? what about their tarot card, ruling planet, & ruling number (if known)? do they fit the typical traits of these sun, moon, & rising signs? 🍝 SPAGHETTI — what is/are your oc's favorite food(s)? 🍰 SHORTCAKE — what is/are your oc's favorite sweet(s)/dessert(s)? 🍦 SOFT ICE CREAM — what is/are your oc's favorite ice cream flavor(s)? 🍔 HAMBURGER — is your oc good at cooking? are they good at baking? which one do they prefer? 🥯 BAGEL — what does your oc's typical breakfast look like? do they usually eat breakfast? 🥪 SANDWICH — what does your oc's typical lunch look like? do they usually eat lunch? 🍛 CURRY AND RICE — what does your oc's typical dinner look like? do they usually eat dinner? 🍸 COCKTAIL GLASS — what is your oc's favorite alcoholic drink, if they can drink? ☕️ HOT BEVERAGE — does your oc prefer coffee, tea, hot chocolate, milk, water, or some other drink? how do they like to take this drink (ex. coffee with milk, hot chocolate with whipped cream, a specific kind of tea, etc)?

𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄. 😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life? 😖 CONFOUNDED FACE — is your oc an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert? do they let people in easily, or are they more reserved? 🤔 THINKING FACE — what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms? 🧐 FACE WITH MONOCLE — is your oc more logical or emotional? 🤓 SMILING FACE WITH GLASSES — is your oc chatty or quiet? are they at ease in social situations, or are they more shy? 🤩 FACE WITH STARRY EYES — is your oc a planner, or are they more spontaneous in their actions? 😥 SAD BUT RELIEVED FACE — is your oc prone to getting stressed out, or is it easy for them to keep their cool? 😓 DOWNCAST FACE WITH SWEAT — is your oc open-minded or stubborn? are they inquisitive or do they prefer to keep to their bubble of knowledge? 😞 DISAPPOINTED FACE — does your oc attract others, or do they tend to be left alone? 🤒 FACE WITH THERMOMETER — does your oc get sick easily? 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 FAMILY WITH MOTHER, FATHER, SON AND DAUGHTER — how many people are in your oc's immediate family? how many people are in your oc's extended family? do they have aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc? who in their family are they closest with? are they close with their birth family, or do they have a found family?

Aftermath

Saw this nice pose and I thought of Parker during the aftermath

*plus show u what their sternum scar looks like*

Part 1

Pop Shop feat Parker Jones

*Original next slide, doesn’t belong to me*

====

First OC insert and not gonna lie I’m proud of it

Part 2

Would you by their merch I would lol

Also who are they staring at and who let them wear that outfit? 😏

Concept:

[Late] Valentines 2025

*I havent posted here or everywhere in a while lol*

——

This year I wanted to give love to my favorite couples that been my fixation

Parker & Dark Might

Almira & Noburu

Kuria & Satoshi

Parker Jones

Age: 45

Gender: Androgynous

Nationality: Italian

Quirk: Quirkless

Backstory:

Was once an Entertainer as an Full-time job to get some money to keep, but dealing with an aftermath of Cancer in their sternum, they have to quit and did more of their Tailoring and now became one of best Tailors in Italy