Miriam⁷

Dark eyes meet under the sky The stars are out, we're alive in the night

It's because knowing what's canon is complicated.

See, Ulysses Bloodstone is a character from the 70s. He existed for three years, died, and only ever came back for flashbacks.

Then in the late 90s, we're introduced to his daughter Elsa Bloodstone in the series Bloodstone.

Then, she appears in the comedy series Nextwave, which intentionally wrote characters out of character for comedy.

Nextwave becomes massively popular, and Nextwave!Elsa is now the canon Elsa Bloodstone going forward.

Nextwave!Elsa is a completely different character to Bloodstone!Elsa, even down to her backstory: Bloodstone!Elsa only learned her father was a monster hunter years after his death. Nextwave!Elsa was trained from childhood.

We later get a brother, Cullen, who was also trained from childhood but got trapped in an alternate dimension he was sent into for training when Ulysses died before he could retrieve him.

So Elsa's origin story is now clearly not canon, but also nothing is given in it's place.

Until 2015, where a miniseries gives us a new, Nextwave!Elsa compliant backstory. Trained from childhood, Cullen mentioned, even explains her going from a blonde to a redhead. It does seemingly change elements of Ulysses' death, but broad strokes are similar enough.

Only problem is, this miniseries takes place on Battleworld during the Secret Wars event. With very few exceptions, and all of them specifically being on a specific spaceship which Elsa was not, everyone on Battleworld are not the Earth-616 versions of themselves. They're different variants from across the multiverse.

So this shouldn't be the backstory of 616!Elsa, Nextwave!Elsa.

However, during the miniseries, Elsa loses a hand and makes a new one out of a bunch of Bloodgems a variant of Ulysses has been collecting.

And ever since, 616!Elsa Bloodstone has had the Bloodgem Hand.

So that was the canon Elsa Bloodstone somehow.

elsa bloodstone commission

its just so nice that the film sits there and says ‘ryland graces job as a teacher is important’, because its very common in these kinda films that the protagonist starts off as a teacher purely to give a bit of exposition before the government person shows up and goes ‘youre the best (insert science here)ist in the world, and we need your help to save the world’ or whatever, and i assumed at first that thats what this film was doing as well

but its not

grace starts the film as a teacher, he goes through the film as a teacher, and he ends the film as a teacher. he is a teacher to his students. he is a teacher to the astronauts. he is a teacher to rocky. and at the end of it all, he is a teacher to his students.

the martian is the story of one man stranded on mars with barely enough food and supplies to last him a calendar month, let alone the 14 that it inevitably takes to bring him home.

mark watney's rescue means millions of dollars in unplanned expenditures, cooperation between multiple nations that frankly have no stake in the life of one american astronaut, and risking the lives of 5 of his crew members. it is a story that makes you tackle the fundamental question of: "how much is one human life worth?"

the answer, the book (and its equally well-executed movie adaptation) offers, is everything.

they could have simply called it a day and told him that it was untenable, that they cannot possibly be asked to risk the lives of the rest of the ares iii crew. but they did not. they did not, because they deemed that no cost was too high if it meant that there was even a snowball's chance in hell that they could bring that one man home.

project hail mary, on the other hand, is a complete 180.

here, the fate of an entire planet's survival rests upon the shoulders of one rather unremarkable man. ryland grace is a middle school science teacher, whose only claim to fame is a controversial research paper. it is a story that forces you to confront the question: "how much do you personally owe humanity when its fate hangs in the balance?"

once again, the answer is everything.

ryland is not the brightest person on the planet, nor is he the bravest. he doesn't choose to be involved in saving earth, and he certainly doesn't choose to be sent on a suicide mission away from it. in project hail mary, one man has no choice but to shoulder this burden for the sake of humanity. and, it turns out, he's not the only one carrying this responsibility.

somehow, both books provide the same answer and message, only in somewhat different ways. they both serve to convey that life, no matter the scale, is worth preserving.

that when it comes to one man stranded 140 million miles away, no cost is too high, no risk too big, because his life matters. he matters. and he matters not just because he volunteered to go up there, or because it wasn't his fault, or because they know he's out there. he matters because he exists, and that is more than enough to do everything possible to bring him back.

or that no personal cost is too high to pay if you are the one person that can actually save humanity. the people may be faceless, nameless crowds to you, but their lives are worth saving simply because they exist. they exist, and that is plenty reason to doom yourself to certain death if it means that there is even a single chance in hell that you will save them. you don't have to be talented, or remarkable, or necessary to matter.