There Is No Such Thing As A Real Name

If it’s any consolation, you’ll be hailed as a hero.

but, due to the fog of the amnesia, then the urgency of the mission plus Rocky's appearance, Grace doesn't fully look through every box until they're on their way to Erid. and that's when Rocky wakes up from sleep to see Grace sobbing over a bunch of letters. students telling him how much they enjoyed his class, actually made learning fun and interesting. got them through tough days. made them feel seen and appreciated. quite a few cite his class as being the spark that got them interested in science as a career. and even those that didn't still consider him the best teacher they ever had. fellow teachers admiring his classroom management and lesson planning, and even so his kindness to every student who walked into his room.

one letter is from the principal. when Dr. Grace's involvement in the Hail Mary Project became public knowledge, there was a push from the community to rename the school after him. after discussions with the school board, there had been a secret agreement to do so, even had a new sign made. they were just waiting for him to be released from the project and return to San Fransisco to surprise him. but, with the recent news of his "noble sacrifice", they'd gone ahead and done it. attached the press release with a picture of the new sign, a bunch of his former students standing around it, beaming. a local artist has been commissioned to add a mural to the front entrance over the summer break. and a final note: "Do your work knowing that it will allow the Dr. Ryland Grace Middle School to continue to educate and inspire students for generations."

And they were like "What?"

And I was like, "Agility isn't the ultimate form of preparedness. Contingency is. Agility still requires you to flounder and figure out a solution in the moment, but if you have a contingency plan, all you have to do is implement it."

And they were like "But you can't make contingency plans for every situation!"

And I was like, "Yeah, you basically can if you just identify all of your basic dependencies and contingency plan around the loss of any dependency," and then I gave a few examples.

And they all stared at me like I'm an alien.

Sneak peek poster for chapter 14 of DitBoW <3

WIP / Alternate designs below:

A lot of the organisms on Erid reside in the atmosphere, so just imagine Grace and Rocky are sitting on the beach one day and there’s a loud thunk on the biodime. Grace looks up and does the iconic high pitched gosling scream. It sort of resembles a human, but its limbs are all weird, its flesh is hard, and there are SO many things wrong about it. But it’s humanoid enough to give him nightmares for days.

“Rocky….what the FUDGE is THAT?!”

“Oh, is Erid flying organism! Name is ♫ ♪ ♫. Sort of looks like Grace, question?”

“Rock, I never want to see one of those again.”

I spent almost an entire work shift drawing this tooth-rotting fluff

As i roar into the sunset you have to swerve* to avoid the small flotilla of hacked Towyota devices trailing behind me

Fist my bump!