FlightSporadic

Do you think there came a time when he realized he couldn’t clearly recall the faces of anyone he’d known on Earth and knew with a haunting certainty that it wasn’t from the amnesia drug?

Do you think there were times when he would stare up at the simulated night sky of his biodome and think about how he’d never see the constellations he grew up with again?

Do you think there were days it got to him? The enormity of the distance between him and any other human in the universe?

Do you think he ever compared himself to point Nemo? It’s the farthest away anyone can get from any landmass on Earth, it feels laughable from Erid.

Do you think there were times where he’d miss his own species so badly it burned?

Do you think Rocky ever watched Grace, surrounded by Eridians who loved him, yet painfully isolated in a way no other creature has ever been?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about his decades drifting in Tau Ceti’s solar system and the aching loneliness he felt being the lone survivor of a dead ship?

Do you think there came a day where he looked at Grace and realized that Grace had spent a longer time proportional to his lifetime alone than Rocky did?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about their time on the Hail Mary? Not just the adventure and danger and ‘saving the universe’ parts, but the way Grace’s frigidly cold (to an Eridian) body would press against the outside of Rocky’s xenonite and Rocky would press back like a dying creature just for the contact that was never enough?

Do you think Rocky ever reminisced about how he felt landing back on Erid and feeling another warm carapace against his for the first time in decades?

Do you think he thought back to the relief of feeling his own atmosphere pressing down on him and the lovely resonance of another Eridian’s voice ratting through his body?

Do you think it eats at him? The guilt? The same guilt he’d felt every day during the return trip that he’d retreat in private to eat another one of his endless Eridian rations while Grace starved? The guilt that nearly chokes him every time he savors his mate’s touch knowing that Grace will never get to touch again?

Do you think that Rocky’s sleep cycles are disrupted because he stays up wondering if he damned his best friend by bringing him to Erid?

THANK YOU.

I’m honestly glad I was not the only one skeeved out by this because honestly - I’ve been wanting to say it for years, but I was always terrified that someone would say I was just reading into it too much.

I mean…let’s be frank (especially if we are talking about parallels to rape/sexual assault):

Tony was a playboy - he was not shy about his drinking, sexual history, or lifestyle. He had garnered a reputation for it. While fun loving and a good time kind of guy, he makes sure that consent is present during any liaison.

Here’s Obediah - this huge wall of a guy, acting like a friend and mentor. It gives him an in to be close, touchy-feely under the guise of a friend. Tony trusts him, hence why the closeness doesn’t bother him. That’s just how Obie is! Right? Right….

Tony has a traumatic encounter that changes his entire life….and no one takes him seriously. Pepper, Rhodey, Obediah - they are all guilty of trying to tell him that he just needs to sit back and get over it/get his mind straight/threaten to walk out on him because they think he’s crazy.

Huh….what does that sound like? Sounds like dismissal - a regrettably loathsome reaction many have towards victims of trauma and while not malicious (except for established douchebag Obediah), it can make bad situations worse and gives Obediah the perfect in for Tony’s downfall (the injunction, claiming it’s for his own good, all that jazz…exerting a shit ton of power over Tony and simultaneously trying to strip Tony of what power he has left)

To make matters worse - the scene itself where Obediah assaults Tony: Tony is alone. He is vulnerable. Obediah overpowered him, incapacitated him, but left him fully aware of what was going on. He penetrated him without consent (the mechanism literally punched in and pulled his “heart” out), gas lit him to hell and back by using not only his own past but his father’s past to justify his treatment bring “deserved”…..and then leaving him broken and for dead.

The reason a lot of people didn’t view it that way: we don’t normally see a man - especially an outgoing superhero type - being stripped of his agency in a brutally visceral manner. Its s shocking scene to begin with….but it gradually gets worse when you put it through the lens of a rape victim.

(yes i spent way too much time making that.)

When Tony gets back from Afghanistan, gets out of the car with the burgers, Obadiah has at least one of his hands on him the entire way into the building. As someone else mentions – he buttons up tony’s shirt which - yeah tony has a busted arm, but he unbuttoned it relatively easily – so the creep factor still applies. and then you’ve got the other examples too. Also the fact that they’re business partners//mentor/mentee//father/son dynamic …. and obadiah deadass calls tony shirtless. like i dont know much about grown men but im pretty sure thats not that common even among friends. 

and anyway if we look at the other characters who touch tony in this movie, it’s rhodey and pepper and christine. Tony in this movie doesn’t initiate touch nearly as much – he usually reacts to it (e.g. even though he’s the ‘playboy’ christine is the one who takes the lead in sex. rhodey is the one who initiates almost all of their contact, etc). after this movie that changes. You can definitely see him start to initiate almost all touch, except with pepper and rhodey (e.g. him poking bruce, him slapping steves hand off him, but putting one on steve). this is definitely a way of asserting contol over a situation – idk if the writers did it purposefully…probably not, but it is interesting. one could argue, i suppose that afghanistan/torture is the cause, but….i think him being scarred by obadiah is more likely.  

also, Obadiah used tony’s name. A Lot. We don’t really think about it bc with the Avengers it’s always last name, last name, last name. (the ones who call him tony are easy to notice – fury, pepper, rhodey, sometimes steve). But Obadiah uses Tony’s name a lot more than seemingly necessary. And we all know calling people by their first names is a way of acknowledging them as a person, but also it also indicates familiarity/fondness aka a bond. Someone compiled a video of it. 

I’m actually quite upset with Pepper in this scene because Tony sees Justin approach and whispers to Pepper “Don’t leave me” and she still walks away. 

At one point Justine is literally leaning on Tony and Tony mutters “god that’s awful” as he tries to pull away. Putting his sunglasses on so that no one can see his eyes.

It is only a few minutes later that we see Tony testing his blood for toxicity levels and decides to take over driving his own car in the race. This could just be seen as an attempt to just be reckless, but it is also a desperate need to assert control over something when he just escaped a moment where he was once again stripped of his choices and support by the people around him. 

Cause I’m always shocked when Obadiah calls Tony in Afghanistan, and he’s

half naked

in bed

calling Tony m’boy!

I’m always appalled. This always struck me as flat-out harassment, exactly the insidious kind you don’t know how to report, cause men can be topless, right? and it was a business call? and nothing lewd was said, so I guess it’s not really harassment?

And Tony reacts exactly the way women do, which is playing it off like a joke even though you know it isn’t. “Why aren’t you wearing those pajamas I got you, lol?” It’s funny now, right? He knows I’m uncomfortable and that I sort-of called him out for being shirtless on a business call? That’s surely enough, right?

Obadiah exists in that nefarious little sludge-hole of deniability of harassment, and that’s what makes him such a disgusting—and incredibly significant—character.

An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.

Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.

We watch him through his angsty teen years learning the little things that make him himself -- he likes cilantro, he has muscles, he has a sciencey brain -- but none of that gives him a purpose. He goes into depressed undergrad party mode, in a silly hat, soaked in vodka, asking himself what the point of it all is.

But then he sees the ship's golden wall carved with the mission, the memory of the people before him who worked to get him this far, the children coming after him who are depending on him, and something shifts. His shoulders straighten. He takes a deep breath and tosses the little Earth-ball into the air. He understands very little yet, like a young adult just trying to join the flow of community and history. But Grace has found his adulthood.

And then this from @prof-grace-aspen :

names are our own but they are other people's just as much, if not more so. your tags on the initial reblog with my tags really got to me too:

- open kinetic chain resistance training for joint support (laying down on his back to distribute the forces evenly would do wonders especially since the gravity will make his limbs feel heavier anyways)

- some gentle stretching to maintain range of motion and keep the joints all fed and more lubed up than DuBois was

- so, so much core work. God, all of the core work. Support your damn back, you fuck ass microscope user. I can hear your discs herniating from Earth.

- theraband (or big stretchy xenonite bands idk what the Eridian equivalent to the funny rubber bands are) arm and scapular strengthening for postural support. See above for reasoning.

- balance training. Specifically single leg stance and dynamic reaching stuff since he’s clumsy and will DEFINITELY roll down those stairs like Peter Griffin in that one clip to the beach if his ankles continue to only be housed in converse.

- Walking. Just some nice beach walking alongside the swimming/elliptical/bike stuff OP suggested. For cardiovascular health, yes, but also dear god think of how JACKED this man’s bones could be. 2x the gravity??? Bro the osteoblasts are about to be going CRAZY in his femurs with some light walking. He’ll be a DEXA scan’s wet dream.

What I am saying is; force Ryland Grace to be extremely passionate about Yoga and water aerobics as soon as he feels his first bone spur.

I want this man’s joint surfaces to shine like lovely little pearls. Not become all crunchy and rough like… pebbles. I guess. Rocky would be very confused as to why Eridian children are growing in Grace’s knees. Plus, they haven’t talked about the idea of joint replacements yet I’d imagine. It’ll take him a while to get over the fact that humans purposely take hammers to their bones just to stick some weak-ass metal in each other. Gotta preserve those joints while we can.

Sincerely, a licensed physical therapist (who also co-signs all of OP’s suggestions)

(Bonus! I hope to GOD someone taught Grace which side to use the cane on for support. Especially on those fuckass stairs. Up with the good, down with the bad, Grace, I swear to god!)

So I want to know how many non-autistics with ADHD I can find. To make voting easier, I’ll focus on what you think you have and not on the actual diagnosis (as sometimes there are misdiagnoses, etc., as well).

you can never get a clear listen to him. his primary sense node is covered in "hair" and the part that isn't is hidden by two crystals that refract sound waves in a pleasing but disorienting way. he covers his body in billowy cloth at all times. not snug and sensible and unobstructive like eridian coverings, but loose and layered, draped and flowing.

the most clear part of him are his internal organs. because yes, the alien's carapace isn't sound-proof. his single heart beats insistingly in his core, his lungs exchanging gas constantly, his long digestive tract always bubbling and contracting. his thorax is packed impossibly tight and it's all moving and singing.

and it shouldn't be possible, with how fragile he is, for that internal pressure to maintain. how does the thin membrane of his external organ (another horror that sends eridians reeling) keep it all contained? his "skin" is so easily pierced, cut, bruised, burnt, how does he not split open under his own mass?

when savior rocky first arrived home and described the environmental needs of his alien, the scientists thought he'd made a mistake in his frantic panic to get everything out. it isn't possible this being lives at such low atmospheric pressure, at half the gravity, and in a gas that's nearly double the weight of ammonia. in a gas so dangerous, so caustic. and if it does then how is it obligately terrestrial like rocky claims? shouldn't it fly or float instead? (and then to see it in the water, learning that it can float or sink at will.)

and this alien has come bearing gifts that will not only save your species but launch it into impossible heights of technological and intellectual advancement. he has discovered the solution to astrophage and bred it to thrive on threeworld and translated his instructions into eridian. he has given your people the complete sum of his people's knowledge, advanced in ways the eridians can't believe and behind in ways that seem ludicrous. and he has given his life for your people to have these things.

he knows how your solar system was formed. he knows how the universe started.

his name means beautiful and generous and relieving.

the eridians experiencing cosmic bliss.

Do I miss some foods I can't eat anymore without getting sick? Sure, but that's not what really bothers me. What bothers me is being excluded from a huge portion of human social life of which food is a crucial component. What bothers me is the stress and social stigma of trying to figure out what I can safely eat. What bothers me is the amount of extra work and cost that is required of me to identify, obtain, and prepare safe foods. What bothers me is people treating my needs like a nuisance, as though I chose to be like this - as though their brief inconvenience to check an ingredients list is unreasonable, when I deal with this every day of my life forever.

I don't miss the food that much. I miss not having to worry about what I eat. I miss freedom. I miss when trying new foods and new restaurants was fun instead of a minefield. I miss not having to plan my entire life around the need for safe foods.

After sifting through hundreds of photos... I have realized that every time Simon takes a photo in the SM-13, he's pulling up a frame to a stop motion animation.

And it can be played back as video.

So, I took each black box photo and compiled them together. You can now watch Simon's entire journey from the SM-13's camera like found footage.

You can also gain access to Simon's amazing photography portfolio from my master reference project, as well as the video for yourself.

Please, have a watch. It's terrifying. I feel like a C.O.I. lab tech delving into something I really shouldn't, and it's a blast!

"come again?"

"i learn more from thinking machine. human gender preference. attraction to same gender, means word 'gay.' all eridian same gender." rocky stands straight up. "rocky come out to grace now. all rocky plural gay, statement."

"...wow, that's... rock, i'm not sure it makes much sense to apply human ideas of sexual orientation to a monogendered species."

a long and judgmental pause. then:

"yes!" rocky crows and bounces triumphantly around, giving himself a big round of jazz hands. "yes, rocky do bit! grace always fall for rocky bit!

"yeah, yeah, har-dee-har-har, laugh it up."

rocky, still giggling, "actually, on erid, grace only person not of eridian gender, therefore--"

"don't say it--"

"grace only straight person on entire gay planet!"

"alright i am DEFINITELY not that."

"grace need parade, question?"