Kyanite Hoarding Dragon

I would frankly read an entire second novel about these kinds of shenanigans, statement.

Also, I have a small headcanon that Grace - eventually, maybe even very very very eventually - clocks that his Eridian care team did not, strictly speaking, all sign on as volunteers. Cue flashbacks to the wild old days with the Petrova Taskforce...

Grace describes it as best he can, but all he can really manage to get across to Rocky is that he was surrounded by small floating lights.

Later on, Grace is talking about the stars and how important they've been to human cultures for millennia. “What do the stars look like, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, y'know, they're a bunch of small floating lights.

There's a disco ball on the Hail Mary. Grace says it's there because it “makes me happy”. “How does it make Grace happy, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, it creates the illusion that he's surrounded by small floating lights.

Rocky begins to do some research.

Glitter: a substance invented by humans to make things look like they're covered in small lights.

Human jewellery: mostly involves gemstones or polished metals, designed to reflect small lights.

Christmas lights. Candles. Lanterns. Fireworks. Glowsticks. Glow in the dark paint. Rocky is beginning to notice a pattern here, statement.

It takes Grace a fucking while after getting to Erid to notice that a lot of the gifts he's receiving from grateful Eridians are either a) sparkly, b) incredibly shiny, or c) fitted with lights.

While the last one is obviously a concession for his human light sense, he's confused about the former two. Are Eridian materials usually this shiny? Is there some quality about sparkly or highly polished surfaces that makes them sound better? Or is there something about Eridian geology/metallurgy that makes their materials like this?

He asks Rocky about it.

“Simple. I tell people humans like lots of small lights. Humans are easy to make happy.”

Grace kind of wants to protest that humans are much more complicated than that.

But honestly… it fucking works. Like yeah the polished gemstones, shiny metals and glittery rocks are beautiful. Yes those Christmas lights you put up around the house did markedly improve my mental health, Rocky. Thank you, I hate it.

And then there's a bit right at the end of the story as the wife and the husband are walking out of court:

Jill turned abruptly. "What is your name? Your real name."

The man's gray eyes flickered. He smiled a little, kind, gentle smile. "I'm afraid you would not be able to pronounce it. The sounds cannot be formed..."

Jill was silent as they walked along, deep in thought. The city lights were coming on all around them. Bright yellow spots in the gloom. "What are you thinking?" the man asked.

"I was thinking perhaps I will still call you Lester," Jill said. "If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," the man said. He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. He gazed down tenderly as they walked through the thickening darkness, between the yellow candles of light that marked the way. "Anything you wish. Whatever will make you happy."

And I. God. There's something there. A soupcon of monsterfuckery. To tell your partner in a moment of intimacy that yes, you're something so inhuman that the lips you're stealing can't speak your actual name. You're a parasite that not only had the ability to burrow under this man's skin and take over his life, but you were so desperate to escape a dead, dry, blasted planet that you did.

I made another omg

Jean-Paul Sartre, from No Exit and Three Other Plays; “The Flies"

I think part of what is making young people lonelier, in discussing why they're increasingly isolated, is that they're so afraid of meeting someone who doesn't hold their same beliefs, and instead of being just core beliefs it is kinda ancillary shit.

It's actually okay to disagree even on social topics! Even on some political ones! But I mean, online you can start with "i love this mutual but they have a really bad/uninformed opinion about x media"

I know this is IMMEDIATELY going to be taken in bad faith, and yes babygirl, you are so right, I DO want you to go make best friends with both the KKK grand wizard AND your nearest nazi leader.

But seriously, as someone who has spent two decades doing community organization: finding ways to connect with different people is so so so important. There are people i follow here who ate 80% smart and their brain falls out of their head 20% of the time and that is GOOD FOR MY MENTAL ECOSYSTEM AND GOOD FOR LEARNING HOW TO BE A PERSON

Sure!

......

Theo tasted blood. Thick, coppery, and mixed with mucus, it coated her mouth until she spat it into her handkerchief.

There wasn’t much time left. The consumption was eating her from the inside. She thought she’d feel despair when the time came. She’d been so afraid at the first sign of red droplets on her pillow. That first taste of blood on her tongue. She had cried, and then she’d screamed all her anger and hot indignation.

She couldn’t have screamed now even if she’d wanted to. The infection in her lungs had crawled up her throat, stealing her voice from her like one of the fair folk from her old Nan’s stories.

“Where’s my faerie gift in exchange, eh, Nan?” she rasped, every word costing her more of her precious little strength.

Theo was too tired to perform anymore these days, and with no voice left to sing, she’d been turned out of the music hall. With no place left to go and the damp, cold night air settling in, she knew she wouldn’t see morning.

It was so cold now. The gas lamps were turning on, and the streets were clearing of people, all except the ladies of the night and the ragged workmen who came out at night to light the lamps, sweep the streets, catch the rats, and make the world soft and clean for the creatures who inhabited the day.

She passed a chimney sweep’s apprentice curled up by the stoop of a house he’d either freshly cleaned or was waiting to be let in. A small boy of no more than six, he was sleeping black as workers of his profession often did, with his dirty soot bag clutched to his chest. Theo wouldn’t have minded going to sleep herself. A heavy weight had begun to set in her limbs, and her breath was becoming more labored. She fished into her thin trouser pocket and pulled out a few coins. It had been meant to buy her one more supper, but she wasn’t hungry. Would never be again, she figured. She dropped them next to the child without waking him.

Theo walked on; she didn’t know where she was going. At length the leaden feeling in her limbs slowed her, and another wave of bloody sputum worked its way out of her aching body. She sank down until her cheek pressed against rough cobblestones. The lamplight overhead flickered and encircled a looming shape over her, an orange halo framing the head of a kneeling figure.

How funny, she thought.

Then she was gone.

…..