🚗🔨⚒️💥

Unleash me from your hand

And I will lance the light for you

I'll cut a swordblade on the wind

And pennant it with flight for you

To signal I am yours

If you will free me to be true to you

Unleash me from your hand

And I will mock the sky for you

I'll pull the anger from the air

And make the breezes sigh for you

To show that I am yours

If you will free me to be true to you

Unleash me from your hand

And I will jewel it bright for you

I'll hunt the treasures of the wind

And pluck them into sight for you

To show that I am yours

If you will free me to be true to you

0, cast me from your hand

That I may show my love for you

And throw me to the wind

That I may know my need for you

All darkness on your hand I'm hooded, pinned, and held by you

0, give me back my wings

She’s the first person Grace remembers from his past. He remembers her before he remembers he’s a teacher, before he remembers Stratt, before he remembers HIS OWN NAME.

He mentions no other people who he’d consider a friend that he’d hang out with.

The first thing Grace tells us about her is that she and him have steak and beer together every Thursday at the same time at the same place, at the same TABLE because the staff immediately recognize them every time and know their orders.

They met in grad school because Marissa dated Grace’s roommate for three months. They have no inkling of romance between themselves at all.

They’ve known each other for TWENTY YEARS.

She works at the DOE and learned about the Petrova Line absorbing the sun’s energy before Grace did—she’s the one to tell him about it. The information weighs on her enough that she drinks four whiskeys.

Every other named character calls Grace “Grace,” “Dr. Grace,” or presumably “Mr. Grace” in the case of the students. But Grace calls Marissa by her given name (doesn’t mention her surname), suggesting she’s the only character who would call him Ryland.

The dialogue in their one scene together suggests Grace is used to joking around with her without feeling judged

The book never brings her up again after this one scene. This makes me feel CRAZY.

WHY did Weir make them seem so close only to give Marissa one singular scene? Her only tangible role appears to be to give Grace exposition about the Astrophage Problem, but there’s plenty of ways to write a scene like that without specifying that she’s also apparently his closest human friend?

Did Grace ever call her to explain why he can’t show up to dinner anymore? Did he have cell signal on Stratt’s Vat? Did Stratt LET him call people after signing him onto the Project? She seems to have taken care of his job, but she wouldn’t have any reason to know about Marissa and the Thursday dinners unless Grace and Marissa left evidence on social media or something.

What happened to her after her one scene? Presumably she kept doing her job at the DOE and having a harder and harder time due to the crisis, maybe she worked on trying to get energy to warm people’s homes.

Did Stratt know about her at all? Did anyone know she was Grace’s friend, did anyone know she had dinner with him every week, did anyone know she would miss him?

Petrova Taskforce Guys: Oh yeah Grace is a loser he has no family or friends to miss him

Me: DO THEY KNOW

How did she feel hearing that Grace became the science officer of the Hail Mary? Without telling her, without saying goodbye?

Did she think Grace just suddenly cut off their friendship, or did she get suspicious of the government and Stratt because she knew Grace wouldn’t just do that to her?

I see posts sometimes of people being like “oh Grace didn’t have meaningful relationships before meeting Rocky,” and I feel like I’m waving the book around like DOES ANYONE WANNA TALK ABOUT MARISSA HELLO MARISSA THE GRAD SCHOOL FRIEND SHE EXISTS SHE’S REAL

these are images from a 1930s pamphlet that endorsed kudzu, entitled "stop gullies: save your farm"

What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?

What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?

What if the rainforest ADVANCES?

What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?

What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?

What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?

What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?

What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?

What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?

What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?

What if we win?

The condors are back. The whales are saved. The sea turtles are no longer endangered. The cranes are back. The bees are recovering. The air in LA and Tokyo and London is clean again. The aquifers in the LA Basin are refilling.

Children are kinder than previous generations. Parents are stopping the abuse cycle. Being trans and queer is more acceptable than ever on a ground level.

It's hard to see if you're young, if you don't know how to step back from social media and the news. But remember--bad news sells, and the algorithm knows despair keeps you scrolling. It's a skewed lens.

We are fighting and we are winning against this adminstration's bullying. We are coming together against the bullies and they are running away scared because they don't understand that we will do that.

People are working hard every day to find ways to make sure fewer animals get hit by cars and planes and rockets.

Maker spaces are more common than ever. Solar and wind are more common than ever. Coal plants are shutting down every day.

Unprecedented numbers of acres are being bought back or given back to their rightful stewards, and the world heals because of it. People are working hard every day to learn how to help a forest recover faster.

We are not at zero. We are at decades of effort to heal the world. We've come SO far.

In 1982 there were only 22 California Condors left in the world. In 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with its public and private partners, began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. In 2001 the first wild nesting occurred in Grand Canyon National Park since re-introduction. In 2002 there were only 8 pairs of wild nesting birds population-wide. In 2008, for the first time since the program began, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity. Today there are nearly 500 – more than half of them flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico.

When I was born, there were no condors in the wild. I'm 37 now, and there are over 250 condors flying free.

When my mom was born in 1955, there were days when she wasn't allowed to go outside to play, because of the air pollution. When I was born, that never happened anymore.

When I was born, humpback whales were critically endangered, and people thought they were going to go extinct. Today, they've recovered to exceed their recorded numbers. Other whales too!

We fixed it.

Since 1990 extreme poverty has decreased worldwide by over HALF.

When age, gender, location was censured like profanity in the name of protecting kids?

But suddenly the Only Way to keep children safe online is to make sure that they have 0 privacy?