let us lie in the sun

grace is fundamentally at the behest of paternalistic benefactors who consider his existence kind of cute and interesting. this is a very scary position to be in: if, say, funding ran for his biome, what would he do? i know weir (and, by proxy, the film) glosses over this by making eridians a sort of utopia, but andy weir also doesn't give a single shit about things like "linguistics" or "culture" so i dont trust that guy

he is already atticwifed because presumably there is lots of stuff going on outside on erid and he's unable to participate in it. for example, we know on earth grace lacks friends; does he have friends outside of rocky on erid? can you be friends with a team of zookeepers hired solely to keep you alive? can you, as a human, be good friends with your primary care doctor? and even if you can---can you trust your doctor to be honest with you both as your doctor and your friend?

beyond that, what is grace's status? is he a citizen? do they even want him there? surely there is opposition to his existence. if erid is neoliberal democratic, is he given a right to vote? if they're anarcho-syndicalists (my preferred choice, for what is a thrum if not a union) is he a member of a union to be able to bargain for his rights? is he able to join a union without a thrum? does he even have any notion of the political situation? or is that something designed to keep him safe?

what i appreciate about The First Jasmine is that in the very first episode Ye Li outsmarted her wicked stepmother and won back her dowry, and i was like, oh! she's a master of domestic intrigues! she's going to be winning the household wars!

All three of them

Moonwatcher in the panelka

Turtle in the elektrichka

Winter in Vorkuta