images related to lgbtfest story
I was thinking through a longer arc for the story that would involve Chris and Kent meeting at conferences and other academic functions over the years. In my imagined future, Chris continues to work with lasers and gets into inertial confinement fusion research - but in hopes of providing clean energy, not weapons applications. He likes teaching, and is a dynamic lecturer, but like a lot of very bright people, is sometimes impatient with people who can't keep up with his mental processes. He's known as a great mentor for students who work in his lab, and because of this, employs a high number of women considering the field. I'm pretty sure he ends up in a committed relationship, but it's a little later in his life (late 30s/early 40s) and may be open or polyamorous. Here's him in one of his early faculty positions, around 1990.
Kent also takes a while to find himself, attaching himself unhealthily to his grad school advisor in the same way he was hooked on Hathaway. When Kent is in his late 20s (early-to-mid 1990s), an out gay man living with AIDS joins the research group in the next lab over, and he won't take "straight" for an answer. Kent eventually comes to terms with his sexuality, and I think his friend persuades him to go to therapy to deal with the thing(s) in his life that made him so needy and repressed. Kent does form a committed relationship with another man, and ends up with a long career at a smaller undergraduate college, where his earnest efforts to connect with his students earn him regular teaching awards and great satisfaction. Here he is in the classroom sometime recently.
Source for upper image: CC by-nc-sa Jenn Mau and an old publicity photo of Kilmer.
Lower image hacked from a classic photo of Richard Feynman and a screenshot of Prescott in a recent movie.
Kent also takes a while to find himself, attaching himself unhealthily to his grad school advisor in the same way he was hooked on Hathaway. When Kent is in his late 20s (early-to-mid 1990s), an out gay man living with AIDS joins the research group in the next lab over, and he won't take "straight" for an answer. Kent eventually comes to terms with his sexuality, and I think his friend persuades him to go to therapy to deal with the thing(s) in his life that made him so needy and repressed. Kent does form a committed relationship with another man, and ends up with a long career at a smaller undergraduate college, where his earnest efforts to connect with his students earn him regular teaching awards and great satisfaction. Here he is in the classroom sometime recently.
Source for upper image: CC by-nc-sa Jenn Mau and an old publicity photo of Kilmer.
Lower image hacked from a classic photo of Richard Feynman and a screenshot of Prescott in a recent movie.