Wow. Just discovered that I haven't updated my description in forever. Karlee. 22. Asexual. Possibly Aromantic. She/her/really I'm okay with any. Neurodivergent. Horses, Attack on Titan, Avengers, the lot. Always open to chat!
The first day in Teacher Grace’s class is widely acknowledged amongst the Eridian children as one of the most exciting days of school, partly because what could be cooler than being taught by the alien schoolteacher who helped save your entire planet, but especially because the first day is the day when Teacher Grace helps everyone choose their human names.
The students all take turns telling him about themselves, what they like, what they want to do, who they are, and Grace in turn tells them about the names they make him think of, and the stories (fictional and real) that go with them, and the kids get to pick the ones they like.
It’s a beautiful exchange of cultures and personal experiences, and every class is unique (one class ends up entirely named after niche Star Trek characters after requests from multiple students result in “Earth culture storytime” devolving into Grace infodumping about his favorite show and everyone becomes obsessed).
Grace is known for being a good deal more forgetful than the average Eridian (“leaky space brain for leaky space blob” Rocky once jokingly put it) but he has never once forgotten a student’s name.
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
in conversation about white people who go to Japan and expect their knowledge of anime to culturally carry them, I was once posed with “it’s like if there was a Japanese guy who was obsessed with spongebob and came over here and thought he could get by just communicating in spongebob quotes.” This is a false equivalence because if such a man existed we would crown him king. We’d love him. Americans would fucking love that. sometimes I get sad that this isn’t a real guy I can invite to a party.
chuck tingle accidentally used an AI image on his latest cover and not only did he fix the mistake but he made me think the phrase “the skeleton has been replaced out of an abundance of caution,” for which i am eternally grateful
My favorite category of government program to run across is "program you've never heard of doing extremely important work to solve a major problem which you have also never heard of." On that note, the US drops millions of pounds of sterile bugs over Panama each week in order to prevent a parasite infestation from moving into North America. Everyone say thank you to the Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of the Cattle Borer Worm (COPEG)
This program had its funding cut during the DOGE cuts last year and now the parasitic worm they were trying to slow the spread of has officially arrived in the United States.
I just learned about this recently from a Viking reenactor! Indigo dye isn't blue until it oxidizes, so when you dye with indigo your cloth or thread doesn't come out of the water blue, it comes out and then reacts with the oxygen in the air and seems to spontaneously turn blue in front of your eyes. It's a really cool process to witness.
quarterly reminder that if i reblog something ai-generated it is 110% and always an accident and for the love of god please tell me so i can delete it from my blog
I want to watch an emergency responder procedural that starts off as normal with improbable disasters every week, but as the series goes on the characters become increasingly aware of how statistically unlikely their local rate of disaster has become, and the country and civilians react accordingly. mass exodus of the rich, influx of meteorologists and other relevant scientists, a local doomsday cult flourishes... the emergency responders are still responding to their emergencies but the show has slipped sideways from straight procedural to scifi as the disasters have to keep ramping up to top the previous disasters. like by the end of season two they're battling an alien invasion, an archaeologist has uncovered an ancient cursed artefact in the catacombs under the town hall and absolutely everyone has ptsd
