she/her
currently in the trenches of my project hail mary obsession
also posting about dungeon crawler carl, the murderbot diaries, outer wilds, and other stuff i'll eventually remember to put here
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
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Grace knows that Rocky has PTSD after the, well, everything. They've been stuck together for four years. He knows.
He understands.
They arrive to Erid, and one of the first things Grace does is playing for Adrian a little speech he made in Eridian using his recordings of Rocky's voice. And it's just... instructions. Mostly.
"He has a lot of anxiety about people's health and will probably freak out about yours at some point, don't dismiss it and let him see that you are okay."
"He is terrified of being alone, please make sure someone is physically close to him at all times."
"He is scared of falling asleep and will delay it as long as he can, you need to pay attention to his sleep cycle or he'll be hurting himself."
"He downplays everything bad that is happening to him, mental and physical, please keep an eye on him or he'll be ignoring his health completely."
"He never gave up, but I might die very soon and I'm not sure how he will react to it. Please be with him, even when it's not easy. He loves you. He wanted to return to you so badly. Even though he probably has changed, this is still him. Please keep loving him. He needs it more than ever. He'll need it when I am gone."
...Adrian is very annoyed because a) the fuck do you mean by implying that I'll leave him, b) the fuck do you mean by implying you know him better than I do (Adrian does have to begrudgingly accept this one later: Grace is objectively more familiar with Rocky's trauma responses), and c) the fuck do you mean you're gonna die no one's letting you die shut up and get into the lab we have science to do. They become friends fast, bonding over worrying about Rocky together.
(Rocky is not sure he likes it, but has to admit he can finally feel safe with the both of them by his side.)
in the book they were breeding taumoeba to resist nitrogen together but rockys needed more resistance than graces. do you guys think rocky was a little scared grace would leave as soon as he got what he needed for venus
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I love that as long as you have one part of landing gear on the surface, the ship's just going to stay in place, balancing somehow to not fall off even if the rest of it is entirely unsupported. I don't know what slate did to achieve this result, but I for one am very impressed
Rocky what's your favorite alien from Earth media? What's your least favorite?
Rocky love movie Pacific Rim. love giant big glowing kaiju, even if aliens bad bad bad for Earth. Spend many hour with Grace, talk about design big Rocky kaiju alien. Five leg, carapace with engravings glowing kaiju blue, would be huge huge huge! Kaiju Rocky sick as hell, statement!!
(Also then Grace Rocky would have Jaeger, be drift compatible, save Earth save Erid. Grace Rocky decide this many times.)
Not sure least favorite. Human idea of alien all fascinate for Rocky, even when dumb
thinking about eva stratt crafting a coffin for her friends. the very best coffin, full of every piece of pirated media the entire world has to offer. crafted for maximum comfort, this coffin, with every bit of authority available to her, which is all of it.
and then thinking about all the people who call her cold or uncaring or clinical about what she has to do to save earth. eva stratt, who had silly t-shirts and vodka and favorite meals stored in the Hail Mary and treated with the same level of importance as the finely tuned equipment and the centrifuge the entire planet relies on for salvation.
and then thinking about eva stratt nodding and saying, “yeah, I’m pretty awful. that’s why i’m in charge” with a neutral expression and even believing it. as if crafting the most beautiful coffin and homage to her soon-to-be dead friends won’t haunt her always.
thinking about eva stratt being the first person on the “eva stratt is a monster” train, welcoming ryland grace aboard and knowing she believed in him more than anyone else.
it’s fine, really it’s fine and normal and eva stratt makes beautiful coffins for the people and things she cares about.
Something I haven't seen many people talk about in PHM is the fact that Eridians probably don't have the same attitudes towards time as humans do. Think about it: Erid is an inherently dayless place, having an atmosphere that allows no light and thus no concept of day or night. We don't really think much about how our entire lives are structured around this cycle that Earth life has been experiencing for eons. Erid life has no concept of this at all. Eridian sleep schedules are somewhat irregular and not synced to each other (they can't be, not if someone always stays awake to watch). They don't track birthdays like we do, they can't unless they're paying attention to their solar cycle, which I'd expect is a relatively new thing for their culture. Maybe they base age on their near-perfect memories or how many layers their carapace has or how big they are, or experiences/accomplishments. They may have an idea of an Eridian year, if their planet has seasons or something like that, but I doubt it has a whole lot of importance to them.
I'd image having an alien who relies so heavily on cycles and repeated patterns in order to function normally would be mind-boggling to the Eridians. What do you mean it celebrates the exact day of its birth every so often, just because? Wait we need to program a reliable change in light levels to simulate its planet, which has almost no atmosphere? And we have to schedule any interactions we have with it around this cycle? Wait it tracks its age by the scientific year, not by life experience and physical aging?
Constantly being reminded that this guy Rocky brought home that saved their entire planet is, in fact, a complete alien.
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Played Control, I'm Not Coming Back two days ago, and the final scene hit me so hard I knew I had to make something for it!
I've never drawn a spacesuit nor a probe before so this was a huge step out of my comfort zone. I wasn't confident at the beginning that I'd like the end result...
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i have recently finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and thought this scene would look nice as an illustration or a comic page so here it is. more cosmic horrors yaaay, highly recommend
I’m obsessed with the Biologist and Crawler mii’s I made in Tomodachi Life.. their houses are a Southern Reach tent and the tower!! I’m still waiting to unlock the lighthouse decoration item for the final touch
