Howdy! @howdywallflower - Tumblr Blog

I like to imagine that if humans and eridians could touch, then eridians would appreciate the feel of scratches against their carapace : )

stiffyck

Okay I know we're all waxxing poetics about Ryland Grace and how reading him as aroace makes perfect sense- how aroace people are often seen as "expendable". I know we all love talking about how Grace deserved to live just as much as anyone else, about how his life didn't matter any less than others just because he didn't have a partner.

May I propose we talk about Mark Watney?

Mark was just one person. One singular person who was stranded on an alien planet, with almost no chance of survival.

And yet- the whole world came together to support him. NASA spent who knows how many millions of dollars to try and get him home.

One person. One man who doesn't have a romantic partner, kids, a dog- he has his parents and that's it. But his life was still important. It was important enough for his crew to spend extra months away from their families to save him. His life was important enough for the Chinese national space agency to give up their secret rocket design to help NASA.

We keep talking about how society views aroace people as "useless" and how Graces life "wasn't important enough" but I think looking at some more positive "rep" would be nice this pride month. ("Rep"- it's not canon and weir most likely did not intend for his character to be read like this, but in my head Mark's story could very well be tied to him being aromantic.)

It would have been really easy to give Watney a girlfriend or a wife back home on earth- someone he'd want to come back to, someone people would feel bad about, someone people would connect to and wish their partner would get back to them- but no. There's no love interest. Marks life matters because he is a human being. That's it. He's a person who deserves to live, someone who deserves to be saved and love happily. Mark fights to survive just because he wants to live.

stiffyck

I also want to point out that everyone else on marks crew has a romantic partner or a family of their own.

All of them except for Mark. Marks the one to get stuck on Mars, and he matters just as much as any of his other crewmates.

stiffyck

Okay I know we're all waxxing poetics about Ryland Grace and how reading him as aroace makes perfect sense- how aroace people are often seen as "expendable". I know we all love talking about how Grace deserved to live just as much as anyone else, about how his life didn't matter any less than others just because he didn't have a partner.

May I propose we talk about Mark Watney?

Mark was just one person. One singular person who was stranded on an alien planet, with almost no chance of survival.

And yet- the whole world came together to support him. NASA spent who knows how many millions of dollars to try and get him home.

One person. One man who doesn't have a romantic partner, kids, a dog- he has his parents and that's it. But his life was still important. It was important enough for his crew to spend extra months away from their families to save him. His life was important enough for the Chinese national space agency to give up their secret rocket design to help NASA.

We keep talking about how society views aroace people as "useless" and how Graces life "wasn't important enough" but I think looking at some more positive "rep" would be nice this pride month. ("Rep"- it's not canon and weir most likely did not intend for his character to be read like this, but in my head Mark's story could very well be tied to him being aromantic.)

It would have been really easy to give Watney a girlfriend or a wife back home on earth- someone he'd want to come back to, someone people would feel bad about, someone people would connect to and wish their partner would get back to them- but no. There's no love interest. Marks life matters because he is a human being. That's it. He's a person who deserves to live, someone who deserves to be saved and love happily. Mark fights to survive just because he wants to live.

stiffyck

Okay I know we're all waxxing poetics about Ryland Grace and how reading him as aroace makes perfect sense- how aroace people are often seen as "expendable". I know we all love talking about how Grace deserved to live just as much as anyone else, about how his life didn't matter any less than others just because he didn't have a partner.

May I propose we talk about Mark Watney?

Mark was just one person. One singular person who was stranded on an alien planet, with almost no chance of survival.

And yet- the whole world came together to support him. NASA spent who knows how many millions of dollars to try and get him home.

One person. One man who doesn't have a romantic partner, kids, a dog- he has his parents and that's it. But his life was still important. It was important enough for his crew to spend extra months away from their families to save him. His life was important enough for the Chinese national space agency to give up their secret rocket design to help NASA.

We keep talking about how society views aroace people as "useless" and how Graces life "wasn't important enough" but I think looking at some more positive "rep" would be nice this pride month. ("Rep"- it's not canon and weir most likely did not intend for his character to be read like this, but in my head Mark's story could very well be tied to him being aromantic.)

It would have been really easy to give Watney a girlfriend or a wife back home on earth- someone he'd want to come back to, someone people would feel bad about, someone people would connect to and wish their partner would get back to them- but no. There's no love interest. Marks life matters because he is a human being. That's it. He's a person who deserves to live, someone who deserves to be saved and love happily. Mark fights to survive just because he wants to live.

stiffyck

Okay I know we're all waxxing poetics about Ryland Grace and how reading him as aroace makes perfect sense- how aroace people are often seen as "expendable". I know we all love talking about how Grace deserved to live just as much as anyone else, about how his life didn't matter any less than others just because he didn't have a partner.

May I propose we talk about Mark Watney?

Mark was just one person. One singular person who was stranded on an alien planet, with almost no chance of survival.

And yet- the whole world came together to support him. NASA spent who knows how many millions of dollars to try and get him home.

One person. One man who doesn't have a romantic partner, kids, a dog- he has his parents and that's it. But his life was still important. It was important enough for his crew to spend extra months away from their families to save him. His life was important enough for the Chinese national space agency to give up their secret rocket design to help NASA.

We keep talking about how society views aroace people as "useless" and how Graces life "wasn't important enough" but I think looking at some more positive "rep" would be nice this pride month. ("Rep"- it's not canon and weir most likely did not intend for his character to be read like this, but in my head Mark's story could very well be tied to him being aromantic.)

It would have been really easy to give Watney a girlfriend or a wife back home on earth- someone he'd want to come back to, someone people would feel bad about, someone people would connect to and wish their partner would get back to them- but no. There's no love interest. Marks life matters because he is a human being. That's it. He's a person who deserves to live, someone who deserves to be saved and love happily. Mark fights to survive just because he wants to live.

radicalgraff

“If you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.”

Spotted in Clackamas, Oregon

anarchopuppy

I can’t stop thinking about this message, so I spent a while trying to isolate just the writing and make it transparent. I might order a shirt with it

Whoever in Clackamas wrote this message on their bus stop, I love you

cntrlaltdelete-what

It has GOT to freak Rocky out that Grace can forget words in his own language, and it's not even an amnesia thing

cozy-stardust

Imagine Grace defined his name as the elegance definition of grace and Rocky spends years thinking how fucking ironic this clumsy leaky space blobs name is.

Until Grace slips out a sentence along the lines of "could you give me a little grace here" and Rocky immediately points out he used a word wrong so Grace has to explain that yeah, grace means elegance but it can also mean mercy sometimes too.

And Rocky has to suddenly reconcile that the clumsy leaky blob that saved his life twice, that almost certainly doomed himself to come back for him, name is Mercy.