Agent Rouka's Blog @agentrouka-blog - Tumblr Blog

king in the north

i don’t believe for a second that Naerys actually liked Melissa Blackwood. i think she’d prefer if Aegon didn’t publicly favour any of his mistresses but with Melissa she only had daughters for a while so less of a threat and Melissa was also not very obviously trying to take her place so it just made her easier to stomach being around.

You’d think if Naerys was friends with any of the women A4 allegedly slept with, it would be her cousins Daena and Elaena, who she knew from likely their infancy and couldn’t just be dismissed from court. Poor Jeyne Lothston was just 14 years old and no real political threat, and she was utterly humiliated in her dismissal. I give her not being friends with Bethany a pass because of Bracken bias (not doing anything to stop her unlawful execution though? Possibly complicit in it? Massive L for Aemon and his lover and son) and it’s fairly obvious to me she predeceased Serenei. Megette wasn’t a threat, neither were her daughters, and her fate was heartbreaking (justice for Megette and daughters). The Butterwell girls were clearly used by their father to get a dragon egg, and A4 impregnated all of them but we don’t know what happened to them or their children, but Naerys knew if she was still alive. Why is it only Melissa of all these women who gets the favor of Naerys, Aemon, and D2, when plenty of them were harmless and suffered at A4’s hands? It’s because the authors (because ElioLinda wrote the friendship in, not necessarily GRRM, so hopefully it gets retconned) likes her self-righteous war criminal family for some reason, so they have to warp what little characterization Naerys had as a pious Sevenite to shill Melisue and her obnoxious authorial favorite son BR.

#naerys targaryen #anti melissa blackwood #anti blackwood #that one always confused me too #need the beleagured wife's blessing to erase all flaws from the character? Meh

whispering-radiance

Your honor I like her a normal amount and definitely don't have around 50 edits saved on my tik tok

#phm art #eva stratt #the red petrova halo <3

cedardivine

but it'll be over soon, you wait

[Image ID: A simplified sketch of Eva Stratt from Project Hail Mary, impliedly leaning on the railing of the aircraft carrier, her cheek propped in one hand and looking exhausted, holding a lit cigarette.]

#i like this style #phm art #eva stratt

raceyoutomars

I’ll be in the cell next to you

started off as a silly doodle, but I quite like how this turned out, actually.

I don’t know what to say now. Normally I have at least a couple sentences of yap to put in.

uh…send me phm doodle requests and I’ll do them? I’ve said this on another post but it wouldn’t hurt to say it again lol. They’d probably be in a similar style to this piece.

#phm art #eva stratt #the time will pass anyway

sundewpockets

I know it may seem like I’m betraying you, but really, this is me believing in you

#ooooh this is all movement #phm art #eva stratt

c1metz01

Brush test

#phm art #eva stratt #mycoffees

l4dy4edd0fc01dh4rt

Alayne and the little lord alone in The Eyrie

#rouka queue #asoiaf art #sansa stark #sweetrobin

whispering-radiance

Mama Stratt and little Grace (oc)

It was supposed to be a quick doodle but it took me longer than I expected — anyways, next post will most probably be about Strattland again

#omg this is so cute #my eldest did the same thing i am melting just looking at this #the cut of eva's coat is so gorgeous she has such an eternal energy here #lovely #eva stratt

astrotheyge

'IT’S MADE ALMOST ENTIRELY OF WATER' PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026) COLOR PROJECT + BLUE

#phm art #i love how the pairs interact with each other <3 #phm movie #project hail mary

cedardivine

not doing wip weds game this week so instead for wednesday you get one (1) snippet of a wip:

“Wait!”

Stratt pauses, turning slightly towards him to look him up and down. The guards walking alongside her stop and do the same. He’s pretty sure he isn’t imagining the way a couple of them put their hands on their weapons, but he tries not to let it visibly shake him.

“What do you want, Dr. Grace?”

“That’s it? You’re leaving?”

She shrugs. “At the school, you said there were thousands of people more qualified than you. I’ll go get one of them.”

“But—But what about me?”

“Are you appealing to my sense of sentimentality?” Stratt turns fully towards him then, her eyebrows arched just so into an expression of disbelief. “I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for ego. You know what I have time for, Dr. Grace? Dozens of heads of state and university presidents, begging me for samples for their labs. Each of them will only get three or four cells as is.”

“I can do more for you than them.” I’m your soulmate! he thinks incredulously. Or at least, she’s his soulmate.

“Can you?”

“Yes! I’m—I have research experience no one else does. You said it—everyone knew I could have led the field of astrobiology if I hadn’t left. No one else is like me. No one else has the models of novel lifeforms that I do.”

She looks bored.

“I can recreate your expertise elsewhere. You have been out of the field for some time. I can shape another scientist to be what I want.”

Oh, god, she’s going to make him beg. Grace squirms. He wants this. It’s embarrassing how much he wants this, but he does.

“I—God, Stratt. I want to be on the project. I want to work with Astrophage. I want to—I want to help the world.” He takes a deep breath. “Please, let me stay on the project.”

Her hairline is a high aspiration but her eyebrows are reaching for the stars.

“I left you three cells.”

Grace’s stomach flips immediately. He can stay—oh, god, he can stay. This is the most important thing he’ll ever do.

Then her words catch up to him.

She left him three cells.

She already left him Astrophage! He didn’t have to beg at all! She just let him do that for fun!

“Three cells,” he repeats, a little flat. She tips her head to the side, briefly, a sharp movement of equivocation.

“Plus the one you killed.”

Oh, god, he hates her. Grace groans and puts his hands over his face, and he’d swear he sees the corner of her mouth raise in a mean little smirk.

“Why’d you let me talk so long?” He moans through his fingers. She huffs—he thinks it’s a laugh. It’s not fair for it to be such a nice sound when it’s at his expense like that.

“You seemed like you needed to get it off your chest,” she says, and tosses him something. He catches it. It’s his Earth beanbag. She freaking nicked it. “Get to work, Dr. Grace. I’ll leave the lab up. Now that you’ve promised me you can give me what no one else can, I expect results.”

Without waiting for an answer, she turns, ducks into the SUV (someone opens the darn door for her!), and is driven off.

#phm fanfic #hehehehehe #strattland #snippet

acanfullofspiders

yada yada wearing your dead wife's clothes

#phm art #she looks like she solves crimes in denmark #eva stratt #yellow raincoat (phm)#<- it's its own character at this point no?

agentrouka-blog

Of all of Eva's team, the one she trusts the most would undeniably be Carl.

He's who walks up to stand beside her when recruiting Grace. A seamless team. "I need you to come with us."

He's in the observation room with her and all the other important officials, watching Grace make first contact. He's privy to that pivotal moment. She must think he's entitled to partaking of it. Because this is his mission too.

She trusts him to oversee Grace's experiments with three (and a dead) invaluable astrophage cells. How he does it is up to his own judgment. With an expense account and plenty of leeway for how to use it, no questions asked. He's entirely confident in the authority he wields in her name. "Which government?" "All of them."

He's in the room at Baikonur when they present Grace with his role as replacement science officer. He knows. Of all people she thought would be appropriate to have there, the flight team, the lead scientists who have worked with Grace all this time... he's there. Shaking his head in disappointment. Expressing what Eva doubtlessly feels beneath her ever so calmly presented arguments.

He's doubtlessly the one she calls from her office to let him know they predicted correctly and the final stretch of corralling their wayward savior will be up to him. He'll do it right. He'll do it.

Just... unspoken, implicit trust and faith in his ability to do his part in their greater purpose. She believes in Grace but can't fully trust him. Carl? Zero doubt.

I want to be a fly on the wall during the job interview. Must have felt like two kindred spirits meeting. Sun's dying? Not if we can help it.

specialagentartemis

Ooh, yes. This is definitely something interesting the movie seems to present—Grace never felt like the whole project’s second-in-command, because we never really see him do anything on the legal/political/management side of the whole ordeal. Grace was clearly the project’s lead scientist and worked closely with Stratt on even the scientific aspects he wasn't personally an expert on (as seen in the centrifuge scene), but Carl was probably the project’s administrative deputy. Grace was Stratt’s #2 when it came to any of the science and engineering aspects, making sure everyone knew what was going on and she knew what was going on with it. Carl was Stratt’s #2 on the legal, administrative, management, and security aspects of the project. It was a huge project, she’s not putting all of that on the guy who’s also in charge of the science, let alone the guy who seems to believe he’s not important and moreover doesn’t want to believe he’s important. She’s making sure the legal and logistical elements are the responsibility of someone whose commitment to the project she has unwavering faith in.

So anything regarding astrophage or the ship or space goes through Ryland, and that means he is constantly working with Stratt to make sure all the many moving parts of getting the Hail Mary in the air keep moving. But it’s Carl who the lawyers and accountants and security report to, whose sphere is making sure payments are processed, supply management and delivery to the ship stays on track, authorization to enter national waters or national airspace is obtained, background checks are performed, security threats are handled, political threats to the project are monitored, and who joins activities like springing useful embezzlers out of prison and Stratt’s copyright trial excursion. She has two deputies to cover different aspects of keeping the project running and she thought she chose them well based on their stated willingness to go all in on the task to save the world but as the project goes on only one of them seems to really understand what they’re all dealing with here.

(And so after DuBois and Shapiro die in that explosion, Carl is the one Stratt sits down with to say, “You know it has to be him.”

Carl gives a long sigh and is quiet for a few heavy seconds before he says, “Yeah, I know. Does he?”

“I hope so,” says Stratt, and she sounds like she genuinely does hope he’ll understand, that he’ll see what has to happen now, but the fact that Ryland Grace is not here discussing this with them belies the true answer.)

agentrouka-blog

Stealing your tags, as well:

#Project Hail Mary #it was definitely ambiguous what Carl's role in the project was. Chief of security? Grace's handler? Administrative management? #It's also interesting to read that ambiguity as an intentional choice on Stratt's part to not leave a paper trail of the project hierarchy #so when shit hits the fan she's the only one who takes the fall #And just like Grace has no official title #Carl is officially on paper employed as Stratt’s bodyguard #So when the ship has launched and the consequences come she can say ‘what? Oh don’t arrest him he’s just my bodyguard. Leave him out of it’ #So until it’s time to break her out of prison there’s someone she trusts free and leading Phase 2 #(Ryland and Carl were supposed to do that together. But. Well.) #long post. lots of thoughts. anyway yes more about Carl.