I dont know how much this can do, I don't have much of a presence on here, but I'm struggling for funds right now and college expenses have bit into my savings like a fucking shark. I set up a GoFundMe because I'm very very far under what I need to actually pursue top surgery, and my insurance wont cover the cost (american south, woohoo🫠), so it'll all be out of pocket. If any of my mutuals or otherwise would reblog this i would really appreciate it, any amount of money spared would be so, so helpful.
My name is Bryn. I'm nonbinary living in the american south, which is a difficult place t… Bryn L needs your support for Help me raise mon
Okay i know this is a hot take but like. Im listening to tma and im on season 5, and listen. Im all ears. Im gonna finish it out, but martins character arc this season legitimately makes me wanna go in 2x speed😭😭😭😭😭 aaaa i just-- it feels really really shallow i feel like they couldve gone a different route that wasnt just self deprecation 5billion timea? And literally THE first time martin EVER audibly confronted the fact that he couldve stopped the ene of the world by killing elias (which btw i truly believe that is possible - jon was unable to stop the plan but martin? Technically able if he had figured out which was the lesser of 2 evils. He picked wrong and its def not his FAULT, but it was POSSIBLE and thats where the self-guilt comes in for me), the first time he confronts that is when his metaphysical clone is tell-not-showing him that "no!! You have a guilt complex martin its not true!!" And im just like. Braahhhhhh i feel like martins character is so good, especially in the first 3 seasons that to see him reduced to 1 his insecurities and 2 jons partner just makes me sad. I want better for him unfortch
I can’t believe it’s over and OMG that epilogue is so cute I’m gonna scream on the bus ALDIFJJAJJCJJEJF
I have a bajillion questions like does the better regen mean they get to live long enough to see a forest on Erid I really hope it does
But mostly PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can we know what happened in the politics meeting I love politics PLEASE
(I’m writing this while transporting a month old kitten that my former coworker found if u gimme politics I’ll show pics LMAO)
anything for cat pictures /lh
and yeah i'd like to think the better regen lets them live like maybe twenty extra years? something like that. not enough to rival eridians in any way shape or form and it's not THAT much more if you really think about it but then again the regen isn't THAT overpowered. mostly it'll give them like twenty extra and let them get there a lot healthier and mobile and like. not as old-looking as i imagine someone being like 110 under erid gravity would look like. they'll still probably end up using canes though not as soon as grace does in the book, and towards the end the eridians will make them their five-legged contraptions to scuttle around. and yeah they'd get to see a poplar and eucalyptus forest + their maple
space politics below!
i did mention in the epilogue that the humans agreed to gather for a meeting, and as mentioned in the other chapters this would be the equivalent of a video conference between the spaceships as they come to orbit erid. from the log entries in the game it's not explicitly stated that eden and the c.o.i are the only human factions? eden is the biggest and the c.o.i is at war with them, but i'm just going out on a limb and assuming that there's at least a couple more, obviously a lot smaller. i did also get the c.o.i's number of space stations wrong that's mb (the logs said they had three stations and i forgot the filament entry clarified that it was three not counting filament. whoops)
so the meeting is like five spaceships arriving to orbit erid, one from eden, two from the other two human factions, and one more from the c.o.i that meets up with salvager so they can have the proper representatives present. nobody but the two c.o.i ships makes direct contact, and simon and grace stay in mary in her hangar along with rocky
ok so immediately the first thing about this is that grace and simon (and rocky) are going into the meeting with completely different mindsets. rocky is going to listen in on the humans and offer erid's perspective on the feasibility of their plans and trade ideas as erid's representative. grace is going to sort of mediate in case the humans cannot behave and also to interpret for rocky if needed. but simon is going to war.
simon knows that if they want any smooth cooperation and for grace to be able to act as a mediator at all that they need to establish Dominance as soon as possible, while also retaining grace's sort of. yknow. they can't establish dominance via threatening the others, basically.
he decides that the way they're going to go about this, and he doesn't explicitly tell either grace or rocky any of this, is by demonstrating soft but irrefutable power. he has grace dress in the white crew jumpsuit, which isn't a color that still exists in that shade (that clean) anywhere in their universe, much less in a single non-patched garment. he takes one of the red jumpsuits for himself, because while grace's power has to be somewhat understated, simon needs to be a threat. bright colors don't exist anymore, and muted red and green were always eden's colors. him showing up in (relatively) bright, unblemished, clean red standing right behind grace in white is the best possible way to get them to immediately understand that while grace won't exert power, simon won't hesitate to do so if they do anything funny (guard dog behavior back at it again). he also keeps the sleeves rolled up to show off the prosthetic arm.
someone in the comments of another ask had the idea that simon should make grace a flower crown and i agree so strongly, so while unfortunately they don't actually have enough flowers for this, simon will make grace a vine crown/circlet to wear to immediately cow eden into obedience and stun everyone else. he'll also wave grace's nerves away on having to keep his glasses in place, telling him that he should wear them as he always does: carelessly. glass is so incredibly scarce and priced on their side that the sight of this man being so careless with what is essentially a priceless artifact will only further cement the idea that THEY have the resource upperhand here.
again simon tells none of the reasons behind any of these choices to either grace or rocky, so grace just humours him on the vine crown and thinks nothing of the white jumpsuit and is immediately met with double-takes and shocked expressions the second he activates mary's camera feed (let's assume it has this, it probably doesn't).
simon's plan works, the other representatives are immediately made aware that grace is the main authority here and that any feuds between them will either need to be resolved later or set aside for now if they don't want to lose the oportunity they've been given (they kind of didn't want to believe the c.o.i that a man ostensibly allied with them was behind their sudden apparent salvation). eden's folks will be particluarly shocked to not only see simon alive and healthy and with a prosthetic (unthinkable use of resources), but also to see the vine crown on grace's head. they didn't actually really believe the c.o.i when they mentioned there might be seeds up for trade, but since the situation had already been ludicrous enough they'd decided they couldn't risk the chance of there actually being seeds on the line; so seeing the plant used as an accessory is kind of giving them a heart attack.
so most of the meeting would consist of grace getting the representatives to be honest and use their fucking words and have an honest open discussion on what they want, while rocky studies the humans and gives information on what erid can and cannot do for them (they were all forewarned of the eridians but all the representatives bar ava and the two other salvager crewmembers present still flinch and startle and stare whenever he speaks up). throughout all of this, simon stands in position slightly behind grace, arms crossed, expression impassive, interrupting only when grace's attempts to get them to stop arguing don't work (which is rare because he's a Teacher, but still)
despite there being a c.o.i representative from the organizers of needle, ava carries most of the conversation on their end, to the shock of the representative. she had enough time to steel herself and has been exposed to enough of grace's bullshit that she's almost no longer faced. the other representatives of the other factions are also a bit baffled that she's not taking a solid minute to process every single batshit insane revelation that comes out of grace or rocky's mouth, she's just rolling with it. she also had simon's exact same idea of immediately establishing not only the c.o.i but her particular dominance on this situation as grace's closest point of contact to them (bar simon), so she saved a slice of watermelon from the basket to purposefully eat it on camera in front of everyone. the salvager crew is unnecessarily smug about this. simon clocks what she's doing instantly and can't deny that he approves the tactic
this post is getting long enough so i'll reblog it and add more about the actual contents of the meeting,,,
grace establishes right out of the gate what the options are: a) have something massive to offer to erid so erid will consider housing them in a similar (though obviously nowhere near as grand) way as they do him and simon, b) stay put and live in their space stations and trade resources with erid, c) settle down somewhere in 40 Eridani (and trade resources w erid), d) set off into space looking for another planet to settle in, or e) head to earth
before anyone can say anything else grace will probably also add that, unless they choose to head to earth, they likely won't be able to restart another human society as they had it pre-rapture given their gene pool just isn't big enough for inbreeding not to quickly become a problem
i imagine eden, as the biggest faction of them all, will have the biggest qualms about whether the gene pool is or isn't big enough (strong chances they don't know how that works lbr), and it'll probably take some cussing out from simon to get them to understand that no, 400ish people isn't enough.
but aside from that i think they would come to a farily quick consensus that heading to earth is probably the best idea. dying out on their own or succumbing to the problems of inbreeding doesn't sound ideal to any of them, and the thought of seeing earth and mars (even if uninhabited) again is more than enough to get a little bit of light into the jaded eyes of all the representatives
so i think the meat and potatoes of the meeting would really be about what they could expect on earth, what they could trade with them, how the situation probably looks for them. probably a lot of insisting that they at least agree to a truce because it's gonna be horrible optics if the humans from the other universe do nothing but fight each other. grace might have to hold station-wide classes on relativity and how to operate mary's spindrives and there would be a lot of coordinating on how to integrate those into their spaceships so they can tow their space stations for sixteen light years/four travel years without falling apart. and also storing astrophage somewhere in there.
i think they could absolutely get eden to enter a full truce or even drop the war by just giving them seeds and establishing a sort of. let's just try not to interact more than necessary, with the c.o.i. and have the others act as mediators. they would be too gobsmacked by having actual seeds and soil that they might be too catatonic for too many months to remember why they hated the c.o.i so much. the c.o.i would still be upset with them but i think the knowedge that they're grace's closest human faction (in their eyes) might make them smug enough to be the bigger persons about it. imagine. the respect for grace from the salvager crew spreads through the c.o.i as they start teaching everyone what they learned from the man and they're like. yeah sure we'll hold a truce. its what doctor grace would want and doctor grace taught us to play nice.
adapting the ships to mary's spindrives and breeding enough astrophage for their fuel i think would take at least a couple years, so. they'd still be trading some things w erid and chilling around 40 Eridani, patching up their stations. i do think the utilitarian mindset of most of them would lead to a good chunk of the 'trade' being just letting the eridians study them more in depth. a couple of the older folks might even agree to let their bodies stay in erid for further science if they pass away before the ships are ready to start heading to earth.
(i think it would be infinitely funnier if grace never lets anyone know why he is in erid or what his relationship to earth is other than he's 'a bit of a known figure' there. imagine the chaos when they do get there and find out grace literally saved the stars. eden might start worshipping grace a little halfway through the trip and will feel validated in their views once they see that earth also seems to hold the man on a savior pedestal lol)
in the 5 minutes that happened between posting this on twitter and posting this on tumblr, i had somehow managed to mess up the colors AGAIN and posted the wrong version on here. so the version youre looking at here IS DULLER THAN THE FINAL PAINTING I INTENDED TO POST. im so over it guys time to actually listen to the comments under my last post and fix my damn tablet colors.
i know im not sleeping easy tonight my coworkers will find me smoking out my ears tomorrow morning. i cant believe this
everyone go look at it on twitter it looks much nicer there
I think that in the first meeting between Grace and Simon, Grace should be allowed to bite and fight dirty.
I know that Simon would win a fight against Grace, they are made different and all that. However, it seems that when they meet Simon always goes ready to kill (which is justificable given his past), and Grace just there been like "Hello I'm Ryland Grace..." and PUM! Simon is over him ready to suffocate him and Grace is like fighting to breath, but never hurting Simon, just struggling against him, and the fight ends usually by: 1) Simon is able to heard reasons and gives Grace a chance but is very suspicious of him, 2) he just passes out, because pain and exhaustation would do that to your body, or 3) (and the funniest one to me) Rocky appears (like the saviour he is) and knocks Simon out.
I would want to introduce the idea of Grace fighting back.
Grace may seem like a stable person at first in comparison to his companions; an alien who had live in solitude so long that has separation issues, and Simon who is his whole case of study with mentions of cults, facing god and been a child soldier. However, Grace is an anxiety bomb, who has a bad history with people, I think that if Simon just jumps over him, Grace would fight like a mad man.
It doesn't matter which Grace you know or like the most (personally my mind have just make an amalgam of the book and the movie) he would have the motivation to fight; Book!Grace, who was drug in the spot and sent to a cell to wait to be sent to die would fight now that he can, because he knows what kind of stuff happens if he doesn't react fast enough; Movie!Grace is a person who panics, but after a moment of shock he reacts as we saw in the movie doing his best attempt to dodge guards and ran as fast as he could. Besides, Grace wants to live, that is the origin of his determination to get through things, so if he thinks that Simon is going to kill him he would fight.
Of course, he can't win, and he knows he can't win, but he would try, bitting and scratching, kicking and squirming. Let him play dirty; If Simon's amputation is fresh, let Grace prick the exposed nerve; if Simon has raw, sensible skin from the mutation, let Grace scratch there; If Simon is close enough, let Grace poke his eyes.
He can ask for forgiveness later, when he is back to be Grace, right now he is just a scare man who wants to survive.
Very important to me that Simon essentially comes from an alien culture from grace’s pov.
I imagine the way you express gratitude or well wishes in Eden has to do with the tree also, a more formal expression might be ‘May thy body rot and nourish the soil and join the creator in eternity,” but in casual speech it gets shortened and sounds. very unsettling. To those not in the know.
I also think Simon isn’t technically speaking English, it would sorta be like a modern person trying to talk to someone speaking in Elizabethan English-like you can kinda understand it, but you gotta really focus.
Bloodymary au where everything is normal and Simon is just Grace’s weird roommate bc he lives in California on a teachers salary, and sometimes they pretend to be in a relationship so people stop asking Grace questions about his love life (ft coltland twins).
so yesss!!!! my hypothetical anthrpology #myhypotheticalanthropology
I kinda wanted to approach Eden and the COI not as Evil Cult Society and Evil Industrial Society (since personally i just find that less interesting) but more as two diverging human cultures that adapted to intense circumstances in different ways. that isn't to say that there aren't harmful aspects to them, much in the way that there are harmful aspects to real human societies.
So anyway back 2 my markiplier space movie conlang
