My Middle Name Is Confused

cover letter

Imagine, after decades of your world becoming colder and colder, you are saved. A single Eridian, the only one of twenty three to survive, arrives in an alien ship, accompanied by a creature you can barely conceive.

Everything about the alien is so loud, hinges formed from tissue thumping and stretching in constant movement, even while unconscious. Completely organic, reliant of oxygen and hydrogen. Instead of a protective carapace, it regrows its damaged tissues. It has senses you do not, and technology so unlike your own, both able to utilise a force you have never heard of. The same force that killed almost your entire mission team. Highly adaptable, able to teach itself how to fly its ship in under a week, able to become fluent in the engineer's dialect in less than four years.

And if Erid's best engineer is correct (and there's no reason it wouldn't be), this creature not only managed to breed a predator of the warmth-taker to survive in various atmospheres, including Threeworld's, but also turned around to provide aid when it discovered that the predator could escape xenonite.

And you think: Surely, this creature which protects itself without a carapace, which sleeps so lightly and knows so much and learns so quickly, which saved two planets at the cost of ever returning to its thrum, surely, a creature so extraordinary must have a name to match

And you think: Perhaps it is strength, Mountain-Base or Lonsdaleite-Carapace. Perhaps it is intellect, Diamond-Claw or Lockpick-Mind. Perhaps it is courage, Song-Through-Silence or Path-Carver

And you think: None of these names hold the true weight of what this creature is to them. How do you describe something like that, which aids without expectation of anything in return, which risks its own life for the sake of a species it cannot touch, which performs miracles simply because it was asked.

I mean aside from eating the most vulnerable and trusting situation a Eridian can be in is letting someone watch them sleep. Or sleeping around someone in general— when done right it’s seen as something comforting, rewarding and natural. So to learn someone either forced you to sleep (putting you into a position we’re you had no control over your own body in the most vulnerable state of your physiology.) or learning someone kept you in sleep with out someone to watch you or manipulated you in your sleep with out your consent. That has to be violating on a psychological and even physiological basis for an Eridian to go through.

So I’m really surprised there’s not a lot of fics exploring this cultural and biological response from Rocky to Grace telling him the truth of how he ended up on the Hail Mary.

It would probably be like— Have you ever had the friend that admits they were sexually or physically assaulted and they know it’s fucked up but brush it off with a well it was kinda my fault anyways? Or not that big of a deal? Yeah Rocky just got to experience that first hand and he’s having none of it.

Rocky logically understands humans have different ideas about sleep. But this is his best friend someone he loves and pragmatism/logical reasoning in the face of someone you care for admitting they’ve been assaulted kinda gets thrown out the plate glass in the face of the horror.

He’s been raised in a culture that views forced sleep as akin to the mental spiritual and psychological damage as being raped would in humans. It is physiologically the most vulnerable action a Eridian can do so having it forced upon them or being messed with (out side of a medical emergency.) is considered a vile reprehensible action and psychologically damaging to the point some Eridians have taken their own lives or died because of it.

Like it's really a ship that started in an attempt to give these characters (mostly Simon but in some minor facets Ryland as well) a happy ending. To give them a new connection that will make them happier. Like there was legitimately no other reason to put these two together beyond that + "bc it sparks joy" + the fact that the respective movies were released close together. I'm well aware of crack shipping and how wacky it is, but it's still a wild connection to me, sure it makes sense in hindsight but at the beginning?

People looked at Simon in Iron Lung and his very human plea of wanting to live, and was like 'y'know who understands the horror of being the sacrificial lamb and also happens to have a high-tech spaceship? Ryland Grace. He and his best friend are on their way to save you now. You're gonna have a life, and people that love you like you deserve.'

And people looked at Ryland, who has a loving family (Rocky and Adrian), and a happy ending by all definitions of the word and thought, just in case you ever feel this primal dread knowing you'll never see another human as long as you live, just in case it keeps you up at night that the very last time human hands touched your skin it was so terribly violent, here is a potential human connection for you. One that doesn't replace Rocky or Adrian by any means, but adds something newly valuable to your life. Gentle hands for both of them, when they had so little of that previously.

And I adore the fact that bloodymary doesn't have to be romantic. Like I love the romantic stories, don't get me wrong, but I love the queerplatonic ones too. It's called a ship but it's not 100% about finding either of them a romantic love interest, not really.

And it actually baffles me how well these two universes fit together, like puzzle pieces.

They each have their trolley operators, Eva and Ava, who want to treat Ryland and Simon with humanity, but knows they cannot because of the number of lives that rest solely on their shoulders.

The will to follow through on the task that would save humanity despite being hurt so badly by other people (Ryland Grace continuing his mission until the end even after remembering, Simon retrieving the black box knowing he won't make it out alive).

They each have the religious - specifically Christianity related - symbolism present in their stories. Hail Mary, full of Grace (which is a concept that still makes me giggle btw). The reference to the garden of Eden, with the spaceship name, the cults (unfortunate) beliefs in sacrifice and sin, and the last tree. The incident being called a rapture. While still not being a religious movie, and still being rooted in and true to their respective genres (sci fi vs horror).

The stars dying out vs the stars and planets disappearing. There is so much you could play with in that concept. There's of course the parallel universe thing, the "Simon comes from a future where they failed" thing, and even 'Simon and the other ships did end up in a pocket universe with nothing' thing, like Simon had wondered about. Explanations about what the Light Simon saw might be and how it could be connected to astrophage. So much possibility.

Simon died in a universe that got an unmerciful and indifferent entity pulling the strings, and people outside the story gave a shit enough to create the potential for a gentler ending. One that opens up a world of possibilities for both characters. (Also to be clear I'm not dissing the canon ending to either movie by any means. I adore how Iron Lung and PHM was written - and fanworks don't overwrite that at all).

It almost reminds me of that one quote from Brennan Lee Mulligan, y'know the one. It's somewhat stupid to apply it to a fictional ship but it comes to mind nonetheless.

"In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don't, then it doesn't."

you are a clone. you have all the memories of the original, and think the same way as they do. you are, essentially, a perfect copy of them. now then, if you were to murder the original…

this post is like 11 years old

To quote the book:

"Besides, if I had a nickel for every time I wanted to smack a kid's parents for not teaching them even the most basic things... well... I'd have enough nickels to put in a sock and smack those parents with it."