Azaa

what in the

Now, somehow, their entire mental health is based on the continued life and happiness of this fairground goldfish that they picked up.

Neither of you know the first thing about how to care for even a healthy fish. This fish has been poorly cared for, has multiple diseases and the person who handed it over explicitly didn't expect it to live nearly as long as it already has.

You're frantically googling how to set up a fish tank, where to buy fish food, can you even take a fish to the vet? Your partner wants you to know that they're happy they made it home and survived their horrific ordeal, but also that if anything happens to the fish then they're going to kill everyone on this planet and then themself.

You're honestly wondering if you're even helping the fish, or just prolonging its suffering, but your partner will only accept medical help for their many injuries or engage in basic self-care once they're confident that the fish is being looked after.

So you get a tank. You set up a filter and all that stuff. You learn way more than you ever wanted to know about water temperature and ph and nitrate levels. The fish is safe. You start to develop some affection for the little guy. Your partner begins to recover. The fish begins to recover.

Which is when you learn that in its 'healthy' state, the fish regularly refuses to sleep when tired, keeps begging for food that is obviously unhealthy for it (and struggling to eat the food that you do provide because “it tastes gross”), and continually tries to persuade your partner to take it out of its nice safe tank so it can go explore the wonderful world of Outside, where the slightest mishap will kill it instantly.

I'm imagining a PHM AU inspired by all of those soulmate AUs, only instead of it being the name or first words of your destined soulmate, everyone gets the name of the non-immediate-blood-relation who will have the most influence on their adult life. This could be in a good way - a best friend, a mentor, a spouse (it's considered the height of romance to find out that you and your romantic partner both have each other's names). But it could also be in a bad way - the cop who has someone falsely arrested and sent to prison because of racial profiling, a politician who cut someone's benefits, the con artist who stole someone's life savings, etc. 

It's a taboo to show your name in public, and most people keep it extremely private, only revealing it to people who are very close to them (or only to the person itself). 

But when Eva Stratt is talking to scientists about who she should recruit for the project, she immediately recognises the name Ryland Grace when it gets mentioned, because it's on her body. She takes that as a sign that he will have a major contribution to the project, so she immediately goes to recruit him. 

When the Hail Mary launches, a group of the project scientists are sitting around, watching the news footage, and speculating about whether it will be successful, one person, drunk enough to break taboos, announces that they're confident it will succeed, because they have Ryland Grace's name as their most influential person, and they don't feel like the amount of interactions they had on the boat could possibly justify that, so they are certain he will find a solution to the astrophage problem and send it back to Earth, and that's how he's going to influence his life. 

And one of the other scientists admits they've got Grace's name too, and then another. They do a quick vote and about a third of the room have Grace's name, with it skewing heavily towards the younger people present - i.e. the ones most likely to survive the 30ish years it will take for Grace to get to Tau Ceti, find the answer, and send it back. 

Scientists being scientists, they want to know if this is a wider pattern, so they create an anonymous poll that they post to social media where it immediately goes viral, asking people to put their age and whether they have one of the Hail Mary's crew as their name. The results are overwhelming - about a quarter of the people pick Grace's name and everyone else picks the "anyone else" option. No one is picking Yao or Ilyukhina. Looking at the age breakdown of the results, the younger someone is, the more likely they are to pick Grace, with the vast majority of people in their early twenties picking Grace's name. 

The world takes this as proof that the Hail Mary will be a success, which helps keep people hopeful despite the struggles and keeps the governments cooperating instead of immediately falling into fighting over resources - which some people argue might be how Grace is being so influential. Just his existence as a beacon of hope is keeping things calm and helping people's lives in the process, regardless of what happens on the mission but, if that's the case, no one can explain why Yao and Ilyukhina aren't listed. 

Meanwhile, Grace has lived his adult life without having a name. He doesn't have anyone's name written on his skin, but he does have a weird collection of bumps and ridges where he might expect the name to be, but they don't look anything like real letters. He has always wondered why he doesn't have a name. Is he so lonely and disconnected from people that the universe decided he wasn't going to be influenced? Is he just fundamentally broken in some way? He keeps the lack of name secret because it's weird and uncomfortable because he's never heard of anyone else not having a name. 

When he starts regaining his memories on board the Hail Mary, he wonders if his lack of name is because he's alone, and the biggest influence on him is going to be the loneliness he has to face for the rest of his life. 

Then he meets Rocky. They start to communicate, and build up a bit of a vocabulary between them, but it's a little while before Rocky has enough words to ask the question that's been bothering him since he got close enough to Grace to "see" him properly, because he can see through the clothing that hides the marks. 

"Why how Grace have Rocky name on arm question?" 

"so their default form is-"

Momo showed up the moment that Aang saw the status of previous avatars, and also led him to the final resting place of Gyatso before joining The Gaang on their quest to save the world. This theory doesn't change the story in any way, but it does help Aang accept the loss of his people and move on (in addition to episodes like The Storm and The Northern Air Temple) and helps him accept his destiny. I like the idea that Gyatso, or a reincarnation of him was there with him throughout his journey, a piece of his past helping in the present (and Momo DOES help a lot over the series) to achieve their ultimate goal of balance and stop the Fire Lord.

The biggest significance of this theory imo being that Momo was the only one present with Aang when he met with the Lion Turtle and learned spirit bending, and only left him right before he faced the Fire Lord. Gyatso being present when Aang learned of his death, throughout his journey, and right next to him right up until his big showdown "final battle"? Yeah, affects nothing of the plot but means everything in subtext.

“And we loved it, we were all having a great time, but then he saw my sister and I, and he just got this - this look in his eyes, and then-”

She hesitated, worrying the coarse material between her fingers. “Things got pretty bad after that,” she muttered. “I know it’s silly, but I try to keep - her - comfortable. We don’t know if she can still hear us, or see us, or if she’s even still in here, but I like to think she is. I talk to her when I can, I leave music on when I’m out of the house. I tried to convince my parents to bring her with us when we went to Disneyland, but they didn’t - didn’t really take that well.”

Xoxo

-Designer

Bear, aged 8, was the leader of this particularly chaotic takeaway. I overheard them pretending to phone another customer - customer order 125 - and explaining that their delivery would be delayed by approximately fifteen minutes due to a “rockslide.”

“Hey, wait a minute, what was that?” I asked.

“Are you order number 125?”

“No, I’m order number 165.”

Bear said severely, “we don’t give information about other people’s orders.”

“That’s very professional,” I said, “but what was that about a rockslide?”

Bear said, “that’s not your order.”

“Sorry,” i said, justly chastened. “Was it a big rockslide? Is it on the news?”

“If you need information about your order, you will get it.”

My pretend phone then pretend rang, so I had to answer it. It was the takeaway.

“Number 165? Your order will be delayed by five minutes.”

“Oh,” I said, “why?”