the BEST THING about America is that one of their timezones is called mountain time. i cannot tell you how funny that is to me. it sure is always time for mountains in one fourth of america
ive had trans men ask me before how to overcome the insecurity/fear that they are transitioning just to escape misogynist treatment and wondering about the validity of their identity. the simple solution is that u must continue to engage and fight misogyny even when you are not a woman. prove your fear wrong
u really cannot out-validate an insecurity that u do not do the work to fight against the structure that supports it u know. i am the gender i am simply because it looked fucking yummy. the reason i dont experience doubts w it in this way is because any time i do i turn around to face the thing im 'running from' and punch it
Context for anyone who is wondering: Lamine Yamal's parents won an UNICEF raffle for a charity photoshoot in which BarƧa players posed with kids, and 5 month old Lamine happened to get 20yo Messi. Which is like. Literally insane
People on twitter are acting like Artfight is more about getting free art from big artists you like by attacking them and less about appreciating original characters (which have been relentlessly bullied by almost every community for years now) and its getting annoying so heres your reminder that you should be drawing oc designs you like and nobody is obligated to attack you or at all
Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.
I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.
Non ĆØ la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe perĆ² giĆ impegnata a bonificare i
They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government
"The last time any human touched Ryland Grace was an act of horrific violence"
Well... Yes and no.
The last time Ryland Grace was CONSCIOUS of any human touch was when he was knocked out. Absolutely true.
But the last human contact he would have had was Yao and Ilyukhina. Who were told that he was scared about panicking during launch and asked to be sedated. Who did all the pre flight checks before the Hail Mary launched. Who would have carefully, gently carried Grace to his bed in the dormitory, made sure he was secure, and initiated his coma procedure.
There would have been love there. Remember Ilyukhina throwing her hands high and saying "welcome to crew!" Remember Yao saying how he hoped Grace would say yes. Remember how much the crew trusted Grace, Stratt's First Officer, the guy who helped them so much, and was so kind to them, and was the one who they entrusted their preferred methods of suicide to. Who thought they were wonderful and brave.
They would have tucked him in. Maybe brushed his hair out of his face. Maybe said something kind to him before initiating their own coma procedures.
Ryland Grace doesn't remember, of course he wouldn't. But the last human touch he ever had was full of love.
hi. me again. happy pride! this post is my place to collect all of my thoughts regarding the aroace subtext and coding in the project hail mary film. iāve been having a lot of really great conversations with friends about how i believe that the PHM movie is not only a film which CAN be read as an aroace story centered around an aroace protagonist, but one which has intentional subtext (coding) which supports that reading. unfortunately i am very bad at gathering complete, coherent thoughts on the spot, and my memory is terrible, so i wanted to collate them here for my own reference and also to share them with others!
for starters, i do want to clarify that i am specifically talking about the film, rather than the novel (though i will be referencing the novel a few times). i am also specifically talking about subtext/coding here, and not explicit mentions of queerness/aroace identity within the filmās text. i do not expect ryan gosling, phil lord, chris miller, drew goddard, or anyone else involved in the filmās creation to outright confirm via word of god that there was intent to present PHM as an aroace story. itās 2026; large corporations arenāt even pretending to care about queer people by using rainbow logos for pride month anymore - i think the people who worked on the movie (which is distributed by amazon, the final boss of big evil corporations) know that saying PHM is a film with intentional queer elements would significantly limit the filmās reach. which, of course, does suck, but that is the political and cultural moment weāre in so thatās how iām approaching this.
however! i DO think itās notable to observe that many of the filmās creative staff have experience with past queer subtext/storytelling. PHMās directors, phil lord and chris miller, were writers and producers on spider-man: across the spider-verse, which codes gwen stacy as trans. PHMās screenplay was written by drew goddard, who was a writer on buffy the vampire slayer (an extremely notable installment in queer media) and who wrote an official buffy comic in which buffy herself sleeps with a woman. and those are just the folks at the top - many similar instances could likely be found throughout the hundreds of people who contributed to the PHM film!
i obviously do not know if lord, miller, and goddard specifically made the decisions which have imbued the PHM film with aroace subtext, but i think it is reasonable to assume that either they, or some of their creative collaborators, know enough about queer people and queer storytelling to have guided decisions which were made to intentionally present the PHM movie as an aroace story.
now for the decisions themselves!
first off, the movieās color palette! this has been pointed out ad nauseam, by myself and other folks, but so, so much of the lighting, set design, and wardrobing of the PHM movie uses shades of orange, yellow, and blue, which are the stripes of the aroace pride flag.
some notable examples of this color palette include:
this promotional image of ryan gosling as ryland grace in the hail maryās cockpit!
the scene where grace first sees the blip-a!
graceās striped socks!
this one specific lens flare, which contains the actual stripes of the aroace flag in order!
as an additional highlight, in some behind the scenes material, you can see that a portion of the hail mary setpiece has been painted with 4/5 of the stripes of the aroace flag in order. this specific wall isnāt shown directly in the film (as far as iāve been able to find), and i assume that its primary purpose was to assist with the orange, yellow, and blue lighting - but it is very cool to see!
and finally, here and here are some of my favorite gifsets posted on here by other tumblr users which highlight this color palette. i truly canāt capture how orange/yellow/blue this film is with screenshots alone; once you notice how prevalent those colors are, they are impossible to ignore.
obviously, colors have meaning and storytelling functionality in film outside of their use in pride flags, but given the sheer frequency with which these colors appear in the film, and the story told by the film itself, it is absolutely not outside of the realm of possibility that the aroace flagās color scheme was specifically considered during the filmmaking process. as is well-said in that gwen stacy trans subtext article linked above:
In a sequence where she talks to her father about her secret identity, a moment where sheās afraid and anxious, the room sheās in melts away into those pinks, blues, and whites. Perhaps itās all a coincidence, but these artists ā the same ones who deliberately put the āprotect trans kidsā flag in Gwenās room ā are aware of the symbolism of these colors.
i believe this is exactly what is happening in the PHM movie, too. an artist (or multiple artists, who plausibly have historically used lighting/set design to support queer subtext/coding) involved in production realized that the story being told is one which would resonate with the aroace community, and chose/advocated for color choices which support that interpretation.
now, as for the story itself!
to briefly talk about the novel for a bit, i do want to highlight the ways in which book!grace interacts with the topics of sex and romance. because the novel is told in first-person from graceās point of view, we as readers have access to his internal monologue in a way we donāt have in the movie. even with this access, however, there is no moment in which grace expresses attraction towards another person or desire for a romantic and/or sexual relationship. instead, he feels:
baseline curiosity towards his romantic situation, while he is amnesiac and trying to determine how he has such a love for kids. notably, there is no clarification of his sexual orientation OR any preference expressed for a given outcome. i donāt get the sense that grace cares about his romantic situation all that much; i get the sense that he cares about his kids.
no sentimentality about the sole past romantic relationship he mentions:
discomfort while in a conversation about his colleaguesā sex life, even while that conversation is being held for the purpose of professional disclosure:
shock, when his colleagues assume that he has been sleeping with stratt, due to the two of them spending a lot of time together on the project and being in close proximity more often than not:
obliviousness that one of his colleagues might be into him/find him charming:
and total conviction that the astronauts chosen for the hail mary crew wonāt jeopardize the mission by hooking up:
i do not know if there was any intent to code grace as aroace while writing the novel. perhaps andy weir has stated his thoughts on the matter somewhere or perhaps he hasnāt - i truly donāt know, but i also donāt think that it matters, when it comes to identifying intentional subtext in the film! iāve included the specific passages from the novel above to show that book!grace has no strong drive/desire for sex/romance. therefore, i do not think that it is outside the realm of possibility for a screenwriter/artist/creative - especially one who has worked on queer media in the past - to read the novel, see that grace shares traits with aroace people, and to make changes in adaptation which specifically highlight the ways in which PHM and graceās story reject amatonormativity.
now, back to the film, and onto the changes themselves!
broadly speaking, the film follows the same convention that the novel uses, where flashbacks to moments in graceās life on earth are included sporadically as he regains his memories while in space. however, it shuffles around the order and presentation of certain events/plot points to create thematic parallels and structure specific scenes in ways which add aroace subtext.
my favorite example of this is in the āgrace go homeā scene. in the film, rocky decides to sacrifice six years of life on erid so that grace can return to earth. this happens after rocky and grace have talked about rockyās mate adrian, so they (and the audience) both know that rocky has a mate and grace doesnāt. this is a reinterpretation of the sequence of events presented in the novel, where rocky 1) has so much extra fuel that giving grace what he needs does not impact rockyās journey home at all, 2) only brings up adrian afterwards, and 3) never finds out that grace is single. in both versions of the story, this is a sweet gesture of friendship - but in the film, it is also rocky choosing to NOT prioritize a romantic relationship over his friend. this subverts the hierarchy created by amatonormativity, where romantic partnerships are considered the most important type of relationship. it is also presented as a good thing, since rockyās choice here gives grace the tools to save him in the end! thus, the movieās presentation of this moment affirms that the prioritization of non-romantic relationships will benefit everyone.
another example is the scene(s) in which stratt tells grace that he will be a part of the hail maryās crew. both versions of the scene serve two purposes: they establish that 1) grace is too afraid to join the hail mary crew willingly, and 2) that there is a rift in understanding between him and stratt. in the novel, the rift in understanding between grace and stratt is shown by having her state that he is a teacher because of his cowardice, not because he genuinely loves teaching. however, in the film, this rift in understanding is shown when she delivers the legendary āyou have no immediate family; you donāt even have a dogā line - grace has not shown a desire to have a dog even once in the movie, yet stratt brings it up here as though it is something he does/should want. by focusing the breakdown of grace and strattās friendship on graceās lack of romantic relationship, the film calls attention to the fact that grace is Different the way many aroace people are Different. and the film goes a step further as well - while book!stratt believes that graceās lack of romantic relationship is a consequence of his cowardice, movie!stratt implies that because grace does not have one, there is nothing in his life that he cares about enough for him to want to stay on earth. the film shows us here that because grace does not have the ārightā type of relationship and his life does not follow amatonormativity, the people around him cannot understand how he finds fulfillment in that life. that is, unsurprisingly, very resonant with many aroace people!
furthermore, the way the film juxtaposes the grace-rocky and grace-stratt friendships, via the thematic throughline of āyou just need to find someone to be brave forā and small moments (grace calls both mysterious, asks both for time to āthink about itā when presented with the option to leave the planet heās currently on), highlights the fact that graceās most important/defining relationship is a friendship, not a romance. while grace and stratt are not presented romantically in the PHM film, that film still exists within a canon of hollywood films in which many attractive male leads are paired off with attractive female leads, simply because they are attractive and standing next to each other on screen. within that context, it is reasonable to assume that the PHM filmmakers were very aware that a large portion of their audience would interpret grace and strattās relationship as romantic, no matter their intentions. additionally, it is notable that the āsomeone to be brave forā line was delivered by yĆ”o, who has already been shown, by this point in the film, to have a wife and child (presumably, they are the people HE is brave for). thus, when grace finds āthe oneā, āthe right personā who he needs to be brave for in rocky instead of stratt, it is not only a great moment of friendship, but also an intentional subversion of expectations which have been set by other films/media. in explicitly pulling the storyās āyou just need to find someone to be brave forā throughline to the forefront as an in-text motif, the film once again highlights how graceās story also subverts amatonormativity.
this juxtaposition is shown most explicitly, in my opinion, when the film contrasts grace and rockyās trip to tau ceti-e with the party on strattās vat, in side-by-side scenes. in the present, grace and rocky are shown having fun together, singing karaoke, and talking about both adrian and graceās lack of a mate. in the past, however, grace says the line āit is such a weird party. yao is singing, everyoneās so happy, people are hooking upā¦ and they all know theyāre gonna die.ā the first element of note here is that grace and rockyās conversation about mates - the first explicit mention of romance in the film - happens immediately before the cut to the flashback where grace and stratt are at their closest. if the audience is going to assume that grace and strattās relationship is romantic, they are going to do it now! the second element of note is that grace has just been shown singing, having fun, and being happy with rocky, despite knowing that he is going to die. this calls attention to both 1) grace finding fulfillment in his relationship with rocky that he does not find in his relationship with stratt, and 2) that grace is able to find that fulfillment even without āhooking upā or a āmate.ā structurally, the movie is showing its hand in who that āsomeoneā grace is brave for will be - and by emphasizing that it is his friend rocky rather than any potential romantic partner, it is yet again emphasizing how his story rejects amatonormativity, and how he is content without romance or sex.
ā¦ and there are probably many other examples which can be pointed to as well! these are just my personal favorite ways in which the movie has chosen to add additional aroace subtext to grace, and to call attention to that subtext to a degree which, imo, outright codes him as aroace, while adapting the novel.
me making ocs when i was 13: okay i want my character to be cool and different but not too different... i dont want anyone to call them a mary sue... or too edgy... or forced diverrsity.... and i have to draw good or else i could end up on a deviantart youtube video like my friend did that one time... this is hard...
me writing characters now: hes a wolf with blue hair and he has a chainsaw that can turn into a bass guitar. his name is road boy because three bikers found him on the road during the apocolypse and raised him to do stunt motorcycle tricks but they have no idea what his real name is hes bi and ace and his best friend is a trans woman and he lives in an abandoned mall
gracieabrams
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