I am never going home

So random Eridian scientists are talking to Grace and are like, absolutely no disrespect intended, but very interesting Rocky overcame the cultural weirdness and sensory disgust of "hugs" and does them despite no benefit to himself because he cares for your needs! Its sweet!

Grace: actually Rocky freaks out if he cant press himself against my lungs and heart through the thinnest xenonite possible until he can hear every muscle cell in my body moving at least once a day.

When the Hail Mary is in thrust configuration:

The gravity is 1.5 g, just enough to make moving around the ship a bit more tiring than usual

The ship is basically a giant tower! Grace has to climb VERY tall ladders to go up to the next room. Climbing those in 1.5 g sounds exhausting. I'm sure he'd build up some good endurance doing that, but anyone who lives in a townhome can tell you how annoying it is to walk down three flights of stairs and then realize you forgot your phone upstairs. I imagine he would probably not wander around the ship a ton when he has to climb ladders to do it.

Related to the ladders, if Grace is in the dormitory and wants to go watch TV in the Don't Go Crazy room, he has to climb up 3 rooms of long ladders to get there

The usable floor space is pretty limited! All the rooms were designed to be used in centrifugal gravity, so in all the rooms the centrifugal floor is now a very, very tall wall. What would be the shorter centrifugal wall is now a tiny floor in thrust config (I'll put pictures at the end to illustrate)

Basically zero lab access! At the very beginning of the movie you can see Grace look up the wall at the lab equipment. It is all at least 10 ft up, totally out of reach and bolted sideways to the wall. The only real things he can use in lab are the white board, some screens, and the chair 4ft off the floor (that says "Not for use in thrust configuration" lol). The lab just straight up is NOT meant to be used AT ALL in thrust config. That's the whole point of having the centrifuge!

I made two versions of this one because I couldn't decide.

Just the way that he’s described as having no discernible character and the fact that that’s a significant part of his professional persona that he’s cultivated. Just that he’s spent time turning himself as much into nothing as anything. That he moves silently, like a ghost, or is so quiet that people forget that he’s there. That he’s expected to listen in to conversations.

Just that so often he’s there in the background, mentioned as standing or sitting while Vetinari speaks.

He’s a ghost when Vetinari requires him to, dry and deadpan when Vetinari pulls him into their double act (especially with Moist), professional and sensible in most capacities.

But then in solo scenes you realise that he has so much character after all. Picking apart grammar in an entirely casual way when faced with a threat (when you say don’t nobody move), almost rude as he cuts off William (I think I don’t have to talk to you), embarrassed after getting stabbed, enthralled with the new steam engines. Even around Vetinari you get scenes like him agonising over misfiling that all show that he clearly *does* have this discernible character.

Just that his artifice has worked so well that it bleeds into everything. His attributes are essentially never described. He has no canon appearance. His discworld companion entry just mentions his lack of discernible character. We know essentially nothing about his life outside of work other than that he lives in the palace. In terms of family, all we know is that he has a singular nephew. Even William forgetting to ask for his age means that we know very little about him beyond him being ‘young’ (and that can’t possibly still be true by the end of the series).

Of course, a lot of that is stylistic, but I still find it interesting.

I also find it fascinating to consider those times that he appears colder. Part of his position involves appearing as a united front with Vetinari and Vetinari acts in certain ways to upkeep public opinion of him as a tyrant or just generally acts in morally questionable ways. This is, of course, half of what I like about him, but I keep finding myself considering Drumknott’s part in that.

Showing Moist the newspaper headline and commenting ‘innocently’, despite knowing that it’s likely going to make him fearful for his life. Arriving at the hanging and delivering the message about the false reprieve, again just toying with Moist. Standing there silently as Vetinari tells Mr Pump to break one of Moist’s fingers.

I’d love to get inside his head in that moment. Of course, Vetinari *doesn’t* break any of Moist’s fingers and I think he might be a different character if he had. But he can be ruthless and I’d love to know what Drumknott thinks about that. I presume he correctly guesses that Vetinari is teaching Moist a lesson.

He is, of course, very loyal and genuinely believes that Vetinari is not a tyrant. Working so closely beside him he is able to see past the persona that Vetinari puts up and in a scene where he is uncertain about Vetinari’s meaning he is described as usually being adept at understanding Vetinari (paraphrased).

I think for me this is a lot of the appeal of Vetiknott as a ship. These are both such deeply odd individuals, couched in layers and layers of artifice but ultimately they both understand each other. They understand putting Ankh Morpork first and devoting yourself to a life where you will never be thanked. Devoting yourself to a city that would much rather spit in your face than acknowledge your efforts. Being deposed and poisoned and shot for your troubles. Even Drumknott gets stabbed just for being there.

This is a dangerous, thankless, unrelenting job but every day they wake up and do it and that’s what I love about them.

I think that a quote from a DictionaryWrites fic sums this up best for me.