Hi

ZUTARA + PARALLELS PART TWO:

Well... Yes and no.

The last time Ryland Grace was CONSCIOUS of any human touch was when he was knocked out. Absolutely true.

But the last human contact he would have had was Yao and Ilyukhina. Who were told that he was scared about panicking during launch and asked to be sedated. Who did all the pre flight checks before the Hail Mary launched. Who would have carefully, gently carried Grace to his bed in the dormitory, made sure he was secure, and initiated his coma procedure.

There would have been love there. Remember Ilyukhina throwing her hands high and saying "welcome to crew!" Remember Yao saying how he hoped Grace would say yes. Remember how much the crew trusted Grace, Stratt's First Officer, the guy who helped them so much, and was so kind to them, and was the one who they entrusted their preferred methods of suicide to. Who thought they were wonderful and brave.

They would have tucked him in. Maybe brushed his hair out of his face. Maybe said something kind to him before initiating their own coma procedures.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

also this is the portrait he chose for the author's note. it's not any higher resolution in the actual ebook

This is a rather big literacy problem. You're talking about Leia. The person who lived nineteen years under a galactic dictatorship. The princess who used her privilege to learn about how it affected others and fight against it. The nineteen year old girl whose ship was captured, all her crew murdered, was tortured, and then saw her planet, her family get blown up before being sent to wait for her execution. The person who was in charge of sending soldiers to their deaths. The woman who saw her friend and partner be tortured, frozen in carbonite and sent to die. Who was put in chains and sexually harassed. Who then learned that the monster who hurt her so badly was her biological father. That Leia.

You think that Leia's anger is irrational? unexplained? biological? misunderstood?

I know I spend more time than most thinking about Leia and have rewatched the OT a bunch of times, but I'm begging you... this is basic media engagement. What are you not seeing?