We Dance To Remember

It isn’t perfect, but following the initial post I assigned each timezone one sun deity, so travelers know who they might pray to while exploring the world.

Petrova

wordle in 2: misleading. you may think that this is the highest achievement, but it suffers from the same disappointment of a lucky guess that wordle in 1 causes. your second guess is a strategic choice, but ending the game this early just isn't interesting

wordle in 3: the peak. your starting word gave you some information and then your second guess contextualized that information into a solvable position. your sharp intuition and restraint is what truly separates you as above average.

wordle in 4: statistically average, par for the course, the baseline against which all other wordles are compared.

wordle in 5: you're sweating. you made a mistake at some point, or your starting word was effectively useless, and it took an extra guess above average to close things out. wordle in 5 comes as a relief.

wordle in 6: crushing humiliation. you have technically succeeded but at what cost. your thirty square grid will stare back at you like barrels of a firing squad. a failure in all but name.

We NEED to talk about this scene because it shape-shifts when you watch the movie a second time???

On your first viewing, when Grace leaves the party to join Stratt on the deck, you’ve been following Grace's POV for the whole movie. You can feel how he's trying to break the ice and connect with Stratt via humor: "Permission to come aboard, captain?🫡"

And Stratt being Stratt kills the joke immediately: "You’re already aboard." And by killing that joke she also kills his attempt at connecting with her. That's her thing. You feel it in the knock-knock scene and you feel it here because Grace is feeling it. He stammers and he's nervous ("Talk too much, that's my problem, like right now"). His attempt at human connection is painfully unrequited (again).

When you finish the movie, you learn, however, that that is not true at all. You hear Stratt's voice crack when she has to do what she has to do, and you realize how her carefully constructed armor fractures because of him. He is not nothing to her.

And when you (inevitably) watch the movie again, and your POV is not limited to Grace's anymore but you can shift your view to Stratt ever so slightly, then suddenly the whole connecting-via-jokes business drops away to make room for the metaphorical meaning of "coming aboard".

"It is okay to be in your space? Am I allowed to be closer to you?"

And her answer?

He is already in her space, behind her defenses, and he doesn't even realize it (blissfully unaware about SO many things in fact). He is asking to be allowed inside the house while standing in the damn living room.

Of course watching a movie a second time will always deepen your understanding of the characters, but it's remarkable that Stratt's answer does not just gain a more differentiated level of meaning. Instead, it is transformed into it's opposite, from a very clear "I am not letting you in" to an equally clear "You've come in uninvited a long time ago", and both can be true at the same time!

Because Grace is human.

He's temporary.

Rocky isn't.

One day, whether it's ten years or fifty, Grace is going to get older. His hair will turn grey. His hands will shake. He'll move a little slower. And Rocky—Rocky will still be Rocky.

The same friend who crossed the stars with him. The same friend who risked everything for him. The same friend who never once hesitated when he needed saving.

And Rocky will notice every change.

He'll notice when Grace needs new glasses. When he starts forgetting little things. When he can't climb stairs as easily as he used to. When he needs help carrying things that used to be effortless.

And Rocky will help him every single time without complaint, because that's what friends do.

But eventually there will come a day when Rocky realizes there aren't many days left.

A day when Grace is old. A day when Rocky understands that this is what humans do.

They die.

And for the first time since they met, there won't be anything Rocky can fix.

No atmosphere problem. No engineering solution. No impossible calculation. No desperate rescue mission.

Just his friend reaching the end of a life that was always going to be far too short.

And Rocky will stay. Of course he will stay.

He'll sit beside Grace until the very end because leaving was never an option.

Because Grace saved Erid. Because Grace saved Earth. Because Grace was friend.

And afterwards, Rocky will have to learn how to exist in a universe where Grace doesn't.

And then one day Rocky would have to tell the story.

Rocky mocks Grace when he says that Rocky is distracting him by starting complex conversations while he's Trying To Do Science. "Human brain have to stop activity just because talking question? Useless! One track mind!"

Then Grace is on hour six of his "trying to recreate skittles" hyperfocus and Rocky is like What The Fuck. Statement.

grace is farsighted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he only needs glasses in order to do close up work y'all hes always looking over the edge of em like at students in back of class or across the leisure deck on the ship at eva singing, and when they're on they enlarge his eyes bc they're convex lenses

the pads of the glasses get caught in your hair if you push them up on your head like a majority of glasses users do so you. dont do that. you don't because it hurts to yank em out and also you break the nose pads of your glasses.

sensory issues. brother sometimes the weight of my glasses on my nose and cheeks physically IRKS me. like the equivalent of lowering the radio to see better when driving type of sensory issues when I get annoyed /overwhelmed those puppies have to come off.

if he took them off fully he'd lose them. adhd or whatever aside, hes moving a mile a minute. but bulk why doesn't he just put them on his shirt? the man who wears collared shirts and ties to work ?? he cant put them on the collar of his shirt so the habit evolved. to. well this