Retracts My Posting Tendril Into My Body Swiftly

I can't remember where I first saw this information, but apparently Rocky's aim was to make the wall to the tunnel out of many different materials to find out which one Grace is able to see through easiest, not based on opacity - like a human or something that evolved to see light does - but based on acoustic impedance. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's a way of measuring how easily sound passes through a material - usually used in ultrasound scans. Therefore, for a species who uses echo-location, he's working out which material is easiest for Grace to see through - and from what I can tell he just got lucky with the clear Xenonite. I'm also fairly sure that he was completely unaware about species that see through light waves rather than echo-location, based on his reactions to Grace in the movie.

Basically, Rocky wanted to make things as accessible as he could for any alien that he could come across with the limited knowledge that he had of how different species see things. He is essentially setting himself up to be as accessible as he can for anyone he could possible meet out there. Whether its due to desperation for connection, or just because he's Like That, that's why I think he's so neat. His first interaction with Grace is just him trying to make Grace as comfortable as possible.

“Black people existed”, the whole concept of blackness is so new, mentioning it is anachronistic.

And the whole “north africa” argument. North africans were considered white until 2 years ago when the US decided Arabs are not white anymore. Stop it with your fake “inclusion” as if people only exist when they step onto your continent. Write your damn fic in africa. Write about actual african characters, and actual asian characters, they don’t have to step in america/europe to exist.

People who believe that north africans and indians are interchangeable cause “both brown” are telling us to “celebrate the inclusivity”. We are already in our media, we didn’t stop existing cause western media didn’t have “people of color” or whatever other ridiculous term you want to throw at 80% of the frickin globe population.

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If it’s fantasy explain how this reality is different from the one we’re living in. If it’s “historical” then have it make sense in the historical context. You can’t just have characters “happen to be an ethnicity from a different continent”. That shit was not the norm. Some places in africa still freak out if they see a white person, most chinese people haven’t seen a black person, and you think 18th century Europe was “open”?

Anyway, history exists, read on it or decide to go with a whole different reality and it would be nice to see why in that reality Africa wasn’t plundered by europe and why europeans in that reality considered them equal, or whatever the race situation is in that fictional work. Whatever else you’re doing is a cop out and dumb.

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I’m gonna stop here cause that whole is so ridiculous.

Octavia E Butler wrote about a time traveling black woman who found herself a century ago and guess what, she was taken as a slave. Cause that’s the fuckin context of history.

Ok stopping now.

you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. you are simply incorrect. there were Black Ethiopian Christian monks in the middle ages. there were Black people in medieval Scandinavia. there were Black people in Ancient Greece and Rome (attested in literature). There were Black people in al-Andalus. there was regular contact with both Black and Arab populations in Africa, and there were Black and Arab people traveling to Europe, prior to the inception of chattel slavery, which you seem to think is when Black people started existing.

"the concept of blackness is new" "read something prior to the 1930s" okay! I have! I am a fucking medievalist who is nearly done with a PhD, I have read more premodern literature that includes Black people and POC in it, including FROM AFRICA, than you probably know even exists! the concept of Blackness is not new, actually! nor is the concept of race! there is a whole field of premodern critical race studies which, in my field, has done a lot of work for DECADES to illustrate how the concept of Blackness functioned in medieval European literature. there are Black knights in Arthuriana. there's a Black Magi and also the Queen of Sheba in religious literature. there are Black knights in a variety of medieval Arabic epics from all over the fucking place. fuck's sake, Black people show up in Isidore of Seville and Pliny and allllll sorts of encyclopedic literature! maybe check out some work by Kim F. Hall or Cord Whitaker or Rachel Schine, etc., etc., so you're not just talking out of your fucking ass!

From Mokumokuren’s official Bsky account

The AROACE element in the manga is intentional!

EDIT (June 6, 2025):

PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE TAGS OR REPLIES ABOUT THE POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS OF HIKARU BEING AROACE AS AN INHUMAN CHARACTER ON MY POST. I AM AN ASEXUAL WHO READS A LOT OF MANGA, INCLUDING TITLES WITH ACE REPRESENTATION. THIS POST IS TO CELEBRATE THE AROACE REP IN HIKARU DIES BECAUSE I LOVE HORROR.

And honestly? I feel doing so is quite insensitive given the context that Mokumokuren was venting in their now deleted posts about people ignoring the aroace elements in favor of just the gay elements when Gayness and Asexuality are BOTH IMPORTANT to this manga. Never forget that!!

Now, take these manga recommendations of titles with Ace representation involving normal humans:

Shimanami Tasogare by Yuhki Kamatani

I Want to Be a Wall by Shirono Honami

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki

Catch These Hands! by Murata

Mine-kun is Asexual by Isaki Uta.