AceDisaster

Queer ace disaster, Any pronouns (my gender is a problem, but it ain't my problem) I like poetry and whatever my current hyperfixation is

[teathattast]

[tunashei]

I love desire paths. There's something so wonderous about seeing an echo of humanity. Depending on it's location, a desire path can mean so many different things.

In a city, like the pic above, they represent rebellion, and efficiency. The messiness of humanity. We like to imagine we're oh so logical and neat so we design our cities to be logical and neat an then real humans literally trample on that idea. The ego required to think you can design something perfect that checks every box. Life is all about compromise and patching stuff when some new problem arises. Though people have certainly tried! Ohio state univeristy let students carve their desire paths, and then paved them over. It looks pretty artsy.

Some people will try to discourage desire paths, but this is almost always going to fail.

Eventually, people just have to accept them. Humans are too dang stubborn.

Certain desire paths are just adorable. A 0.5 second time saver. You just can't design for maximum efficiency, humans will always find shortcuts!

Though on occasion a desire path can actually be the least efficient way...especially if you're superstitious.

In a wilder area, such as below, they show us the curiosity of humans. A desire path somewhere natural often tells you there's something interesting just ahead. (Though remember some ecosystems are fragile and will suffer if trampled! Stick to paths in these sorts of areas)

And how about desire stairs? I always think these look so cool. We get see humans determination to climb, to traverse every kind of terrain.

And for something really crazy...a desire path used for centuries will create a 'holloway'

All of these pics are off the Desirepath subreddit, check them out for more examples! And many thanks to the users who submitted these photos.

[literallyaflame]

love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded

[literallyaflame]

we literally ruined society when we invented the fourth wall. let’s bring back call and response. heckling, even. fuck you hamlet you dumb piece of shit kill your uncle or shut up

[hickeyknife]

"When we took Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” into a maximum security woman’s prison on the West Side… there’s a scene there where a young woman is told by a very powerful official that “If you sleep with me, I will pardon your brother. And if you don’t sleep with me, I’ll execute him.” And he leaves the stage. And this character, Isabel, turned out to the audience and said: “To whom should I complain?” And a woman in the audience shouted: “The Police!” And then she looked right at that woman and said: “If I did relate this, who would believe me?” And the woman answered back, “No one, girl.”

And it was astonishing because not only was it an amazing sense of connection between the audience and the actress, but you also realized that this was a kind of an historical lesson in theater reception. That’s what must have happened at The Globe. These soliloquies were not simply monologues that people spoke, they were call and response to the audience. And you realized that vibrancy, that that sense of connectedness is not only what makes theater great in prisons, it’s what makes theater great, period."

Oskar Eustis on ArtBeat Nation

[canadianwheatpirates]

I was in the front row of a Hamlet performance where the "Am I a coward?" was directed at me and I, being a no-impulse-control gremlin, hollered back "Yes!!" (they'd primed us ahead of time that audience interaction was encouraged). Hamlet got right up in my face as he kept talking and just kept going until I gently pushed him back; I forget what line it was on when it happened but he took the direction of the push and reeled away across the stage.

This meant that I had marked myself as someone willing to be fucked with, and so during the graveyard scene later he approached me again. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed--" he booped my mouth with the skull's "-- I know not how oft."

[shimmywhenyoucantbounce]

I have stories related to me from those at Blackfriars, the American Shakespeare Center (they play in a replica of the original Blackfriars, with modern safety conventions like lightbulbs in the chandeliers, but a great dedication to the way structure shaped the original work in the original Blackfriars. Their house is only about 45 ft deep (roughly 15 m I think), which is about the max distance two sighted people can be from each other and still make eye contact. They play with the stage and house equally lit, they talk to the audience, they enter from the audience, they whip up crowds from within the audience. It’s fantastic. But anyway, on to the stories.)

Hamlet. There’s a scene where Hamlet sees Claudius praying and debates whether to kill him now or wait (because if Claudius dies praying he will automatically go to heaven). The actor playing Hamlet was genuinely asking the audience the questions in the speech, and when he got to “and should I kill him now?” someone in the audience shouted “YES KILL HIM HE NEEDS TO DIE!” Hamlet took the entire rest of the monologue to that person, enumerating his reservations so persuasively that they started to nod in agreement.

Romeo and Juliet. In this production, the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt happens in several rounds, of which Mercutio won the first. Mercutio’s actor made the choice, upon his victory, to run down the audience with his hand out for high-fives. He decided this in rehearsal, so he had time to plan for the three responses people would probably give him: a) a high-five back; b) being stunned and not reacting; and c) the old “oops too slow.” What this Mercutio did not prepare for was the audience member who panicked and deposited their handful of M&Ms into his open palm. The way I heard it, Mercutio was still processing this when Benvolio came up beside him and stole the M&Ms out of his hand to eat them.

King Lear. Edmund has a speech in which he asks whether he should marry “Goneril? Regan? Both? Neither?” Again, the actor was legitimately asking the audience, and again he’d prepared for the audience to respond in favor of any of those choices. What makes it even cooler was that the next line is “Neither can be enjoyed while both remain alive,” which works as a response to any of those options. One night, though, Edmund got his answer as “KILL THEM BOTH AND TAKE THEIR MONEY!” To which he gleefully agreed, “Neither can be enjoyed while both remain alive!!”

[rionsanura]

#Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center#I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts#And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play#Covers of songs relating to the show#Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben#We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited#Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night#And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady#And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?#And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that#And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek#And no one was expecting that least of all Rick#And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering#They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'#And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it#And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on#It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there#In wonderful horrid awkward silence#Until he resumed#Please go if you get a chance#And sit stateside (via @rootingformephistopheles)

[lb1205rb]

I was in a production of Hamlet in a small black box theatre, when a drunk guy came in from from outside, wandered onstage and started singing "We built this city on rock and roll." The guy playing Hamlet just went with it until the stage manager and crew could usher the drunk guy back outside. Then Hamlet continued with his next line, which was (no joke) "Now I am alone." Brought the house down.

[iamramonadestroyerofworlds]

#shakespeare#this is the kind of shit that gets me hyper#I love it so much#best production of hamlet I’ve seen to date was in an historic home where the actors guided you through a house built in the gilded era#and the basement was entirely marble for cooling purposes because it was pre-refrigeration obvs#and the way Hanlet’s howling ECHOED#when he realized Ophelia was dead#it was primal#it made people take a step back#and also you had to stand and watch Ophelia drown in a claw foot tub as she reached out to you offering flowers#it was fucking insane#I loved it#I’m giddy just thinking about it @thebibliosphere please please please say more about this!!!

[thebibliosphere]

I was actually scrolling my blog to see if I’d talked about it before but I can’t find it, which is shocking because it was truly one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.

I forget what year it was, but the play took place in the historic James J Hill House here in St Paul. Hill was a railway tycoon during the gilded age, with all the disparity of wealth and privilege that implies. He was so successful and obscenely wealthy he became known as The Empire Builder and the grandness of his home reflected that. The walls in the dining room are literally gold. It’s breathtaking. It’s obscene. It’s perfect for the kind of corruption and rot that takes place in Hamlet under a gilded veneer.

The play started in the viewing gallery, with actors walking through the literal gilded halls of the mansion, the leather wallpaper stamped with gold filigree glittering in the gaslamp—the perfect setting for the wedding scene. As the opening progressed the lights were dimmed until only Hamlet was visible illuminated from the upper gallery by harsh modern lights above, just this chillingly beautiful cold light after all the warmth of the gaslamp and gold.

As the play progressed we were led further through the house, witnessing Hamlet talk to the ghost of his father on the grand staircase—the stairs further used to show hierarchy among the characters with Hamlet spiraling ever lower until we were invited to descend into the bowels of the house through the servants quarters, an area just as vast as the rest of the house but infinitely colder and utterly devoid of the opulent grandeur above.

The space is also nearly entirely marble, which leeches the warmth from the air, so even huddled together the audience grew colder and colder the longer we were down there.

It also meant the echo was amazing, and listening to Ophelia sing forlornly as she descends into madness was absolutely bone chilling. Watching her climb into a claw foot tub that had been placed in the center of the long hallway was also hair raising. She just kept singing, strewing flowers around the empty floor as we stood around her in a circle, helpless to stop her as she purposefully slipped under the water, holding her hands above the lip of the tub even as her head slipped under the water and the last echoes of her singing faded.

It made the Queen’s account of how Ophelia died just so… the lie of it. Like we were still standing there, she was still in the tub (head now above the water) and we’d witnessed the truth of it, and there was Gertrude telling any one of us in the circle who would listen how the poor maid “fell.” Anything to absolve themselves of the sin of her suicide.

We were turned around for a bit after that, led to the end of the hallway near the boiler room where the gravediggers leaned on gilded age coal shovels, and Hamlet got to do his bit with Yorick, the echo of the marble hallway dampened by having brought us back toward the stairwell, his voice soft and intimate. Showing his quiet resolve and return to sanity.

Only to pull us back moments later to center as he ran to where Ophelia’s funeral was taking place, and when I tell you, Hamlet’s howl of grief echoed. It reverberated. It was terrifying. It was amazing. People took instinctive steps away from him. It was just raw emotion bouncing off the walls of this cold, dark basement, entire worlds away from where we’d started.

The play ended back in the ballroom, the dead lying strewn amongst the wealth that couldn’t save them with only Horatio illuminated in gold by the lights. When Fortinbrass arrived he looked around the space like it was nothing, like the way we’d looked around the empty void of the basement. The wealth meant nothing to him. It was just another graveyard.

It was brilliant. I keep hoping they’ll host it again. It was such a good way to literally walk us through the story and use the environment to set the atmosphere. It was all I could do not to put billing flier in my mouth and eat it.

[bugsnbites]

God can you imagine being Rocky?

You're sick. You recognise the symptoms from your crew, you have radiation poisoning. The astrophages that were protecting you and powering the ship are gone. You couldn't find the leak in time to stop it. And now you're dying out here in space, alone.

The life support systems on the ship are shutting down. Everything is shutting down. Your planet will die– your entire star system will die. They'll never know how close you came to saving them.

You think about Grace. Is his ship dying too? Or is he on his way home, none the wiser to your fate?

Maybe you're fighting until the end, or maybe you've 'made peace' with it.

And then you hear knocking, on the outside of your ship. Furious, desperate banging on the window. Your friend, your lab partner, your first contact, has come back to save you.

Amaze amaze amaze.

[wolfythewitch]

all all all

[orcposts]

do not go gentle into that good night

[orcposts]

be a bit of a bitch about it

[transbian-uprising]

can't in good conscience leave this out

[myidealhousehaschickenfeet]

People talk about book vs movie Stratt. And YES she did nuke Antarctica in the book and YES it is iconic.

But what I haven't seen with it's own post?

In the book, Grace's amnesia is NOT caused by the coma. Stratt gave him amnesia-inducing drugs, developed for interrogation purposes, before he left. She did it on purpose.

Because in a desperate bid to save his own life, Grace threatened to sabotage the mission if he was forced into it against his will. She called his bluff -- she knows that even if he isn't a brave person, he's a good one. He wouldn't sacrifice billions of lives out of what, spite?

But there's a chance. 1% chance, a risk too high for her to take, that knowing he didn't choose this would impact his mission performance. There will be two other astronauts there to remember the details. They'll think it's a side effect of the coma. They'll all think he volunteered, and then forgot.

(Because Commander Yao is a good person. Because he refused to have anyone on his crew who didn't choose to be there. Because Eva Stratt is not a good person, at least not in that way. She knows her choice, and could not make any other.)

The drugs will wear off, eventually. Maybe after he's dead. Maybe while he's still on the mission, but she knows by then he'll be in too deep to quit just because he's remembered that she murdered him.

Is it a mercy? He's on a suicide mission either way. Why not let him believe that he chose it? It's the same mercy she tries so hard to offer, giving him those precious hours to decide. Give him the illusion of choice, hoping he'll choose right, and not notice the walls closing in.

Please, don't make this harder than it needs to me. Please, make the right choice. She's not begging on behalf of humanity. She has already taken that risk out of the equation; it is too vital a choice to be left to Grace's hands. (To any hands but her own.) She's begging for his sake, for her own, for whatever tangled-up friendship they shared. Please, let me pretend the armed security is only there as an overreaction to the explosion. Please, let yourself go onto this mission not knowing what I would have done to put you on board. Please, stay on the path I lead you on, so you don't have to press your face to the walls of the cage we're both in.

Please, let us both pretend there was a choice. Neither of us had one.

I will give you back my greatest mercy, and my greatest cruelty. You ran at every turn. You saw the chains. You pulled against them and wailed and screamed as the cold iron cut against your skin. (One day, that skin will burn at the touch of an alien risking everything to save only your life.)

Forget. Be blind to the chains once more. I grant you the grace of believing yourself to be a good person. Of believing that as doomed as you may be, at least you chose this fate yourself. I will take everything away from you -- your life, your planet, your choices and your memory -- at least I can give you this.

Don't blame me. Not until it's too late. Not until you've already proven me right.

Because Eva Stratt believes in Ryland Grace. She knows him. She believes in him so deeply she knows that forced into this challenge, he will rise to every occasion. The odds go up if he think he had a choice. Her life, the life of the whole planet, is a game of odds. Every percent chance, multiplied out across seven billion lives. Seven million lives saved for every tenth of a percent she can add to their chances. He can't remember; she can't let him.

She's right. He does it, all of it. Presented with the same choice, he chooses right. (Exactly the same choice -- save Erid at the cost of his life. The only difference is this time, he really could say no. There is no Stratt there to force him. Only Rocky, waiting and dying and alone.)

She was right. In every single individual choice, she was right. Earth is saved, and that's all that matters.

And if, for a few precious weeks, twelve light years and a suicide mission away, her best friend gets to think of her fondly? A brief window where he remembers who they were together, without remembering how it ended?

(She can never for a moment forget how it ended. How can she, when the pain of that parting is also her greatest success, her only hope?)

Well. Perhaps it is not earned. But in this doomed, star-crossing friendship, one ending in murder and deepest betrayal-

They have still, despite it all, earned that little bit of Grace.

[radishnt]

which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?

[mothman-misato]

y- you were putting it in cold water?????

[boimgfrog]

Radish. Answer the question radish.

[radishnt]

yeah??? i thought for like. 5 years that ppl just put it in hot water 2 speed up the tea-ification process didn’t realize there was an actual reason

[boimgfrog]

You dont have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes???

[catsnraincoats]

[ID: Tags reading “u think i have the patience to boil water wtf ?????” /End ID]

why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it

[boimgfrog]

Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove

[catsnraincoats]

Its takes less than a minute

[boimgfrog]

Bestie is ur stovetop powered by the fucking sun

[catsnraincoats]

How long does it take you to boil a cup of water on the stove

[boimgfrog]

Like seven minutes

[catsnraincoats]

Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat n it boils in like two minutes… less than that is u use a saucepan…

[boimgfrog]

Crying you’re putting the whole mug on the stove ???? On medium heat???? Ur stove is enchanted

[pidoop]

Every single person in this post is a fucking lunatic

[silverjirachi]

Yet another post that reads like four shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief

[wizardlyghost]

(Enter RADISHN’T, MOTHMAN MISATO, BOIMG FROG and CATS'N RAINCOATS, stage left. They are having a HEATED DISCUSSION.)

RADISHN’T: Prithee, which one of you had planned to tell

Of diff'rent flavours gained by simple act

Of brewing tea with water hot, not cold?

MOTHMAN: Egad! you poured the water cold? Wherefore?!

FROG: An answer from you, Radish, I must beg.

RADISHN’T: Indeed I did, dear friends - why does this shock?

Without the guide of others I assumed

That heat was merely added for the sake

Of expediting this solution’s brewing!

Half a decade I have spent, or more,

Not questioning this worldview I had made.

In fact, I am myself a bit surprised

That you might think that I, your dearest friend,

Might have a patience of sufficient stock

To wait until a pot of water boils.

FROG: Three minutes overtaxes patience so?

The microwave will beep when it is done!

CATS'N: My friend, this answer vexes me the more!

Can it be true that thou dost boil by nuke?!

FROG: Are you in turn, my friend, so shocked to know

That I have not the patience, like our Root,

To boil upon the stove our favour’d drink?

CATS'N: It takes less than a minute!

FROG: On what plate?

Perhaps your dinner cooks atop the sun?

CATS'N: How long can take your stove to fill the task

Of boiling but a single cup alone?

FROG: In minutes?

CATS'N: Yes!

FROG: I counted seven, once.

CATS'N: Perhaps you ought to have your timepiece checked!

If on a middle heat you place the cup

You soon will have the scalding drink you crave.

Two minutes, in a mug upon the plate

Or even less, if you should have a pot.

FROG: You cause me tears - is this how thou dost live?

You place upon the iron stove a mug?

A mug, ceramic, filled with water cold?

How do these flames, though medium in height,

Not shatter like a glass this fragile thing?

Surely, then, your kitchen is bewitched

With magicks far beyond the mortal ken!

(The FOUR realise they have wandered into the THRONE ROOM. The ROYAL COURT watches with fascination.)

KING: Ev'ry single person in this group must be a fucking lunatic, it seems.

[elodieunderglass]

[dustyxoverture]

I’m sorry but the THOUGHT that has been put into this, I actually CAN’T—

The fact that nearly every line is so metrically considered- near perfect iambic pentameter witb the occasional trochee for emphasis, but usually retaining a strong sense of rhythm nonetheless. And then the king comes in at the end, so wound in his disbelief that his response is reduced to prose.

And the even better thing about this is how easy it would have been to structure the king’s line into iambic pentameter: it is effectively already said as such because of the way wizardlyghost has phrased it, yet they haven’t!! They did not break the line, rendering what, by all typically of both Shakespearean canon and other periods context should be the character with the most command and authority in the whole play. If there was ever a more effective way to convey a genuine “what the fuck??”, I know of it not.

But it gets better!! Shakespeare regularly uses meter in order to represent class divide; the nobility usually speak in iambic pentameter, save for a few particularly chosen moments (e.g. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness, Othello’s realisation of Desdemona’s “betrayal”) or just lines where Shakespeare needs to suggest high emotion or when a character is lost in thought. Supernatural characters like the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Witches in Macbeth usually speak in trochaic tetrameter, an inversion of iambic pentameter. Lower class characters, particularly those used for comic relief (usually under the influence of alcohol), speak with no structure at all: their language is plain prose. Therefore, if this is a conversation between these types of characters, as the prompt from silvergirachi suggests, why the hell are the characters speaking so eloquently???

Now, this is Tumblr. It is subsequently logical to assume that this may have merely been a humorous recreation (and a very good one at that) of the Shakespearean style in a way that is widely recognisable to an audience that may or may not have read a great deal of Shakespeare, which is understandable. However, logic is boring so I’m going to probe further into this to the point where future historians will look to this as an example of overanalysing.

The inherent eloquence of the characters here suggests an unusual subversion of the roles typically assumed in Shakespearean comedy. This could be interpreted along two major avenues: firstly, that the rhetoric displayed by the speakers is fundamentally representative of how truth can be expected even from the most seemingly pointless or ludicrous discussions. Furthermore, it could suggest that it matters not how well constructed your speeches are: if you talk bullshit, it’s going to sound that way despite your attempts to hide it.

This is similar but not identical to the second avenue of interpretation: there is the implication that the noblemen in the play are in fact the comic relief characters, therefore implying that the “common people” of the play are the ones whose influence, though not expressed in such a highly spoken manner, makes a lot more sense than whatever the hell this is. If this was a real Shakespeare play, I would call it a subtle exploration into the innate corruption of the rich and powerful. Well done, op.

Now, I doubt any of this is actually grounded analysis in any way, shape or form, but if someone else can take this to the extremes of writing a Shakespearean scene, why can I not analyse it as such? And where else to do so than Tumblr?

[wizardlyghost]

im in tears i didnt think anyone would put this much analysis into this‚ thank you so much

[whetstonefires]

i also like that everyone else gets a version of their handle and then tumblr user pidoop is promoted to king

[tornadointhetundra]

Oh my god you’re right no one mentions that you can use an electric kettle to make the tea.

[wizardlyghost]

i’ve been getting notifications from this post for over a year now and i can assure you, literally fucking everyone mentions that you can use an electric kettle to make tea.

[spaceblobs]

i bet the world was told the tale of how ryland grace heroically stepped up and sacrificed himself as the science specialist after the explosion. i bet his students were told that their teacher bravely chose to die to save them, all of them. ryland grace, the savior of earth.

no one will ever know he was dragged kicking and screaming. no one will ever see the cctv footage of him running, screaming, begging for his life.

the story they will be told of ryland grace, the savior of the universe, will be a bold faced lie.

and no one will know he did willingly sacrifice himself to save rocky.

no one will know he could have come home. no one will know he finally found his purpose amongst the stars.

[395nm]

Fuck Meyer-Briggs whatever typology. This INTFP shit is only for redditors up their own asses to substitute for a personality. Use my new typology instead!

Your ideal environment is:

Hot/Cold

Wet/Dry

Bright/Dark

Loud/Quiet

[titsay]

[evtheacecaptain]

Doing my periodic scroll through of mutual’s blogs and scrolled too fast and my phone got really hot :(

Let me like my cool mutual’s posts in PEACE, please

[interstellarfr0g]

do you think the eridians would repatriate grace's body to earth after he inevitably dies? or would they understand that he wouldn't want to face the cold dark void of space again, and keep him on erid? would rocky trawl through the huge expanse of information stored on the hail mary, hoping to find something about earth funeral customs? do you think they would at least send a message about it to earth - after all, he was theirs first? do you think by that time, there would be people on earth who weren't even born during the astrophage crisis, but nevertheless had grown up hearing the stories of the brave astronaut and his alien friend who had saved the planet? do you think ryland grace, who starts out the movie as stratt's dispensable guinea pig, no partner or family, "you don't even have a dog", would become the first living thing to be globally mourned by TWO planets? yeah just a thought

[margaretencinos]

something something kindred spirits something something abandoned by their institutions but refusing to give up hope something something forming an unshakable bond with an unlikely ally something something grace's ship is the 'hail mary' and jud's church is 'pereptual grace'

[stargirl-and-potts]

Still thinking about how Grace was always treated as disposable. Kicked out of his passion field for his honesty—underpaid as a (very good) teacher, to the point he can’t afford a car—left alone in a room full of argon with a sample that might kill him, while all the indispensable guys who put him there stood on the other side of the glass and watched. Shoved screaming into a mission that would kill him. And then, then this bonkers little alien who just met him gladly trades years off his life (via extended return mission) to save him. Runs burning through deadly air to keep him from dying. Chooses finally to weave their lives together forever and recreate Grace’s best dreams of Earth to make him happy. No wonder Grace told Rocky he doesn’t have to get him a gift, he’s given him everything. To one little spider guy, Grace is irreplaceable. That’s love.

[loving-jack-kelly]

in a world where grace eventually goes back to earth when erid is ready to make full contact. he's officially an eridian and earth dual citizen and is a physically very old man. it's also been a lot of earth years since he was here, especially due to time dilation. he comes off the eridian lander in a hoverchair accompanied by rocky in his little xenonite suit and is like wow, fresh air. rocky isn't it so beautiful here. rocky this is the ground i used to walk on. rocky this is the food i used to eat. rocky these are the people you helped me save. amaze amaze amaze.

and his speech has taken on eridian habits from years of only really communicating in eridian: he drops and raises octaves to show emotion, he's speaks melodically and with a rythmn that pings as music when you first hear it. his creaky old man voice is that of somebody who has spent their whole life singing, somebody who speaks for a living, because he's both of those things. his syntax is strange and his sentences are structured oddly. he looks around at everything with the delight and wonder of somebody who thought he'd never see any of this again.

he watches a sunset. he watches the rain fall. he watches a spider spin a web. he watches a waterfall. he smells and tastes and feels and sees and hears all of the things he left behind. he misses his home on erid. he's never been happier to be anywhere in his life. it's strange. rocky, it's strange. this isn't home, anymore. but it's still part of me. rocky, it's strange.

there's a statue of him in every major city he visits. he stands in front of the school he used to teach at, which was named after a dead president when he was here. now it's called ryland grace memorial middle school. it was named for him as the sun got brighter and the earth mourned his sacrifice yet again, but praised him for saving them. the lab he used to teach in, on the days he got to lead practical experiments, is named after rocky. rocky, it's for you! they love you, too! rocky, this sign is for you, it says your name!

eva stratt is an old woman, now. she was pardoned, in the end, in the wave of relief that followed the beatles' arrival with the taumeba. she's lived out the rest of her life quietly, ambition tamped down in the wake of it all. she's still sharp. harsh. she greets grace with an, "I told you so," but even after so many years, grace can see that she's glad to see him. glad he survived. glad he doesn't seem angry with her.

and it's not that grace has forgive her. he explains this to her over a cup of strong, black coffee. rocky explores the forest to give them time to speak. it's not that he forgives her. what she did, the decision she made for him, it wasn't right. it wasn't good. it saved the world, yes, but it wasn't fair. but. but, he says. i have a good life. i have friends. i have a classroom. i know now that you were wrong about me, back then. i am not a coward, and i am not selfish. i was afraid. i was terrified. i was lost. and now i am none of those things. i do not forgive you, but i am not angry with you, either. it is what it is. rocky and i, we saved two worlds. i can live with that, even if i don't forgive you. and eva stratt nods and understands. and they finish their coffee.

a handful of grace's students, the last class he taught before being wrapped up in the end of the world, they ask to see him. not all of them. some of them didn't make it through the disasters that came with the years long dimming. some of them never really believed that grace was the one who saved the world, falling into the rhetoric of those who say the whole thing was a hoax, and the weather patterns fixing themselves is just proof of it. but the ones who do come are surprised when grace remembers each of their names. remembers where they sat in his classroom, and the jokes they thought were funny and the jokes they thought were lame. they talk to him and he remembers throwing them beanbags in the end of the world and trying to make them laugh. when grace laughs at something rocky sings into the world, he's laughing through more than a few tears. he tells his students, the kids he saved the world for, that they've just been called leaky blobs by the other savior of the world.

when his students leave, grace sits in the setting sun, strong and warm, and looks out over the ocean. rocky, isn't it beautiful? rocky, don't you see? we made this possible, rocky. we saved them. we saved this. rocky, we did it.

and for maybe the first time since it all started, grace believes it. rocky, we did it. we did it. we saved them. we did it.

[ad-astra-per-aspera-1389]

saw someone say grace had dogs on his cardigan bc of laika the space dog, patron saint of one way trips, because he was never supposed to make it back to earth, oh I'm sick

[the-punforgiven]

I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it

[the-punforgiven]

I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally

[the-punforgiven]

Also how funny would it be to see a completely normal regular bear cast magic missile outta nowhere

[the-punforgiven]

Also there is no way ravens wouldn't figure out spells, tbh

They're smart fuckin birds, I believe in them

Either through observing or just figuring shit out ravens could 100% learn how to cast spells I'm sure of it

[the-punforgiven]

Dogs can also cast Magic Missile but every time they do the projectile is shaped like a bone or a stick and they chase after it