this post is inspired in part by this one by @cheshirepirouette and sponsored in part by convos w @asteriis and @indouscurse here’s to y’all!! this post also goes out to my brothers, who are pale as hell for reasons unbeknownst to all of us (this is a joke).
like any good headcanon, this started as a joke because i thought to myself: Ryland sounds like the type of name that somebody’s Black child would have and only use on church sundays. nobody actually has ever called him that in his whole entire life, except maybe his mama SOMETIMES and that’s why he doesn’t remember it right away. i feel like every Black person knows somebody who is called literally anything except their god given name. people call him lil r, lil grace, gracie, ry, ryry, riri, RG, lando, mr. grace, dr. grace, but nobody calls him Ryland, which is part of why he Can’t Remember for so long.
so of course i went back to the source material to see if he ever actually mentioned being white anywhere and unfortunately it is very much at the beginning of the book. so THEN i started to think about how i could get around that while remaining at least largely canon compliant (as a little treat for myself). what i came up with is what i have affectionately dubbed my “litebrite baby” headcanon.
grace was not particularly dark skinned to begin with, and then spent years in a coma with literally no sunlight. he is downright vampiric by the time that he wakes up, and upon seeing his white ass skin, assumes that he is in his own words, a Caucasian male.
unfortunately for him, this fits in really well with his theme of lack of identity and lack of connection. i think for most Black people it would be extremely hard to forget that we’re Black regardless of how light or dark our skin tone is. but throughout the book, even when Grace is thinking about his old, slowly resurfacing memories, he never thinks about family, he never thinks about friends. except for his students and Project Hail Mary, he is completely unmoored.
i’ve seen a few different headcanons for why this might be: he was an only child whose single parent died young, he was cut off by his parents for some reason or another, he just isn’t ever triggered to remember. but no matter the reason, grace is disconnected from crucial aspects of himself. i think that by making him Black, and his Blackness something he can’t remember, it add an extra heartbreaking layer to his characterization. Blackness is such a communal experience, and when it’s not, it leaves behind an ache. growing up Black in White Suburbia i know well both the experience of clinging to one’s own in a hostile world AND the hurt that comes with being severed from one’s community. grace loses so much of himself with the amnesia, unable to recall who he is at the deepest of levels, and i think if he could remember to grieve it, it would devastate him.
i do think he would remember eventually, either when his hair starts growing out (because in the book Armando shaves him iirc), or when he can finally catch a glimpse of his reflection clearly, or when he has a memory of someone in his family. my personal belief is he has a memory beamed directly into his brain of asking “Mama, am I white?” and his poor, long-suffering mom saying, “Now who the hell told you that?”
and then it still never becomes relevant because he has negative desire to explain the nuances of human racial categories to an alien who quite literally cannot see color.
Bear religion probably fucking rocks. You're a fucking bear, you're the deadliest thing on earth, once a year an endless supply of salmon just flings itself up the river to gorge on and then you nap for 3 months.
The most delicious food in the world is protected by tiny demons who can defend it from everyone except you. Your natural armor is thick enough that you can just eat the damn hive while they buzz around you. God's chosen animals right there
Regular bears tell stories of angel bears sent by the Bear God, pure white and twice as strong as any normal bear could be, who rule the summit of the Earth and kill all who stand in their path.
And they are right, those bears exist and totally do that. Humans just have fake angels as a cope.
love the idea of bears being the chosen species actually. having a near death experience and glimpsing heaven and realising it's just full of bears, no humans at all, humans not ensouled actually, humans an accidental byproduct of God's plan for bears
if I feel like absolutely torturing rocky then I sometimes like to imagine a scenario on erid where a few months into The Scurvy Era grace sits him down like "hey pal. there's a chance that the scientists here won't figure out how to meet my nutritional needs any time soon. I would love it if they can! but it might not happen. and I don't want to die very slowly and painfully of starvation. now listen to me. ideally I don't want to die at all. but more than that. I do not want to die. of starvation. I don't need anything from you to help with this, I can address it on my own, but if this becomes a real problem then I am going to solve it. Do You Understand What I Am Saying Right Now." and rocky isn't even allowed to immediately become evil about it.
I imagine that at this point they've had The conversation about how grace got on the ship in the first place and rocky is aware that his friend has some significant issues about having his personal autonomy overruled, so in the moment he just says "hnnnnnn. Iwouldbesadifthathappened but. I can see why you would. feel that way." then as soon as he's out of range he physically attacks the first person nearest to him.
I think one of the funniest things that book Ryland Grace does is continue to do excessive centrifugal force stuff with the ship after it almost killed him and he's just like "It's okay Rocky I'll just pass out. If anything else happens, you got this." And Rocky is never once a fan of that plan.
Coworkers keep asking why I raised my desk so high up and I keep saying it's to stop my from slouching but really and truly my desk is now the perfect height for me to lounge on my rolley chair like a boy king on a throne while I make phone calls and use my desk for knee support so I don't eat shit and humiliate myself while talking to landlords
Digital circus' biggest problem is that it was written to be a niche show aimed at weird analytical queers with actual media literacy and it accidentally blew tf up and hit the mainstream and a bunch of people who have never had a second thought about anything got into it
Digital circus: hey let's discuss existentialism, what makes someone human, how to cope with loss and regret, and the hedgehog's dilemma. you've all read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, right?
Sometimes on guard duty I have to put my foot down about something and every so often the person I'm speaking to will say some shit like "You get off on this, don't you?"
And while I understand they MEAN to say "you're on a power trip" or "you are taking this rule too seriously", I am always, always struck by the temptation to go, "Yep. You got me. All my life I've been slowly training towards the ultimate sexual high of forcing a thirty-something tryhard in a backwards snapback to remove his dad's preowned Ford F-150 from the dollar store fire lane. Nothing revs my engine quite like forcing guys named Dustin to submit to regional traffic laws. Ooh, are you gonna be a dirty boy and leave it idling too?"
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
romaincrisis
snowghoul
2087
stormborns
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
kianamaiart
