captainleo🥭

but my actual interpretation of the scene is eva's belief in god is rooted in the same thing as her belief in the hail mary. hope. because if she doesn't believe this will work, if she doesn't believe some higher power is looking out for them, then the reality of the situation can be crushing. and while typing this up, i realized it's also possibly a call back to her earlier line-

"the alternative is to just do nothing and to starve and to kill each other and watch everything on this planet go extinct, including us."

when she says "beats the alternative", it could double in meaning as believing in god and in the hail mary's success is a much more comforting thought than the alternative of it failing.

also we have to acknowledge that with the circumstances of grace and rocky's first meeting, they literally had no one else to cling to but each other. there IS romance in that. a very good romance, actually. but their strong bond was very much forged under extreme conditions.

that's not to say grace and rocky have a toxic relationship. toxic =/= unhealthy, and even then i would be remiss to say that their love for each other manifests in unhealthy ways. but i do think it's a point of contention that we ought to explore more; it's very interesting!

this is why i'm quite surprised when people say they have a healthy relationship and also call them codependent in the same breath. by definition, codependency is unhealthy! it's not an ideal situation to be in. still, this is exactly what makes their dynamic so compelling!

to me, the entire point of gracerocky is that, even stripped down to their barest and most vulnerable parts, people WILL find each other. it may be ugly and awkward at first, but love can blossom under the harshest circumstances. like a flower growing from a crack in concrete.

yes, gracerocky has questionable ethics. yes, gracerocky has unhealthy circumstances. yes, gracerocky falls under social taboo. remember: interspecies relationships with non-humanoid beings is still widely considered weird and out of the ordinary by most people.

and those. are. okay! those things make their relationship unique and interesting! gracerocky isn't entirely sunshine and rainbows, because they are complex characters that have been put in an extreme situation. that's something i feel we should acknowledge more.