Hi! On this blog, you will probably find lots of the MCU, DCTV, the Buffy-verse, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and Good Omens. I also write things sometimes. And remember: not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.
'rocky learns to swear in english' is great and all but have we considered the equally hilarious alternative: rocky makes grace a little harmonica so he can use tone indicators in eridian, does not realize how terrible of a mistake this is until it's too late. grace catches onto tone indicators FAST and he is DEVASTATING with their application. grace does not use eridian swears but rocky gets to hear "are we choosing kind words" and "I'm not mad I'm just disappointed" in eridian roughly thirty times per day
#grace figures out Disappointed Teacher tone indicators in less than twenty four hours#the first time he uses it rocky is suddenly shaking with flashbacks to being a 30yo eridian in school#pov you are stuck in deep space and your middle school teacher alien roommate has just figured out how to scold you in your native language#rocky is a mechanic. they are immune to being cussed out but the Teacher Voice works on them solidly seven times out of ten#when the beatles get back to earth stratt watches the hail mary footage and every time rocky cringes as grace harmonicas at him#she's like 'ahhhhhh the teacher voice <3 I do miss that'#because when he was still on earth stratt would sometimes sicc grace on members of the phm team#because sometimes the Disappointed Teacher Voice was more effective than the Angry Boss Voice
[ID: A Project Hail Mary comic. Rocky is in an iridescent xenonite tunnel behind Grace, which he taps on the wall of to say, "Grace being a little bitch today, statement." Grace startles, then whirls around with a frown and asks, "... What did you just say?"
He takes the xenonite harmonica-esque instrument hanging from his neck and raises it to sharply play something labeled as the "perfect disappointed/mad teacher noise," which makes Rocky shudder and flinch strongly. End ID]
some more PHM book scenes :] I'm so so incredibly fond of the interactions and characterizations in the novel [i feel like a broken record] and am slowly re-reading it again-- slowly bc I stop to redraw these as I get through it again.
There's nothing that makes a joke unfunnier than over-explaining it, but because of this post I feel obligated to explain why Quan Yizhen stuffing gold bars in Xie Lian's donation box is so funny from a Chinese reader's perspective.
Quan Yizhen & his gold bars happened at a time of the story full of tragic and tumultuous events. He Xuan just killed Shi Wudu and the entire heavenly court was reeling from his death. Soon after, Xie Lian uncovered Ling Wen's role in the Brocade Immortal fiasco. While everyone else was embroiled in these serious and momentous incidents, Quan Yizhen was on his equally important and serious side quest to stuff XL's donation box full of gold bars.
I think an important rule of comedy is that once the comedian shows that he is aware of himself being comical, once it becomes obvious that he's trying to make people laugh, the joke stops being as funny. A good comedy should be performed with serious and sincere intention. And that's why Quan Yizhen stuffing gold bars in XL's donation box is so funny - because he's so incredibly serious about it.
Quan Yizhen didn't just dump a whole sack of gold bars into the donation box - which would be the quickest and easiest way - he actually took the time to stack them up inside the box one by one (“一根一根地塞”, chapter 128). Actually he stacked the gold bars so neatly and tightly that they clogged up the donation box (chapter 133). So you see how seriously Quan Yizhen took this task; he showed the same amount of attention and dedication that a 10-year-old would show to his beloved lego toys. In chapter 128, when MXTX describes Quan Yizhen finishing up with the gold bars, she uses the verb 收工, which means clock out/finish a day's work. So again you see this is by no means frivolous for Quan Yizhen - this is actual important hard work for him!
I think it goes without saying that the situation is funny also because Quan Yizhen's so persistent about it. The heavenly court may have turned topsy turvy and everyone else may have very grown-up and life-and-death stuff to worry about, but Quan Yizhen will get these gold bars into Xie Lian's donation box (come to think of it he reminds me of the squirrel in Ice Age, they're both so locked in).
The second time XL caught Quan Yizhen in chapter 133 is especially funny to me first of all because of the timing. XL just had a tense confrontation with Ling Wen and brought her back to Puqi Shrine, and while the readers are holding their breath waiting for more startling details about the Brocade Immortal unveiled, we see XL opening the door to reveal Quan Yizhen squatting in front the donation box like a clumsy thief. The verb "squat" (蹲) is important here because like I explained in this other post, it's undignified and uncouth to squat; you wouldn't catch any other heaven official concerned with their personal image doing it. However, squatting in front of the box makes it easier for Quan Yizhen to stack the gold bars, which again shows how seriously he's taking this.
When MXTX describes Quan Yizhen stuffing the gold bars, she uses the phrase 鬼鬼祟祟, which means "sneakily" but with exclusively negative connotations, like when you describing a thief tiptoeing around to find stuff to steal. So it's funny that even though Quan Yizhen is doing something nice for XL, he has to do it in a very underhanded way (I honestly never expected to see 鬼鬼祟祟 in the same sentence as "putting gold bars in donation box", which made me burst out laughing when I first read it).
The whole situation is funny also because it's gold bars. There're pretty specific standards of gift-giving in Chinese culture, like certain gifts would show that you're cultured, sophisticated, and have good taste, but other gifts would show the opposite. For example, it'd very cool to gift someone a great calligrapher's calligraphy or a great artist's painting. It'd also be cool to gift someone stuff made from jade (jade has a lot of cultural significance attached to it and is seen as a noble gem). It'd even be cool to gift someone pearls because they have aesthetic value, and the kind that glows in the dark are especially prized. But gold bars have no cultural significance attached to it except crude, vulgar, obscene wealth. Therefore it's deeply uncool to gift someone gold bars to thank them, and the deep uncoolness is why it's so funny.
Anyway I think the overall characterisation of Quan Yizhen is just hillarious, from the cartoonish way he moves to his childlike speech patterns (he usually speaks in short, broken sentences). In chapter 133, when Quan Yizhen stole a melon from XL's backyard and slinked away with the melon in his mouth, the verb for "carrying something in one's mouth" is 叼, which is usually used on animals, like a dog carrying a bone or a cat carrying its kitten. So my mental image of Quan Yizhen is literally this:
(tagging @ghooostbaby because you said you were interested :))
so this guy right he makes ancient egyptian themed furry costumes. he makes all kinds but mostly he specializes in Horus heads. it's his passion really. he loves to make the beautiful falcon head of the Sun God. anyway so he's at a con one day and he sees this whole bunch of people in middle kingdom dress with these indistinguishable animal heads. he's like. oh man these folks could really use a new source, i can hardly tell what animal those are! so he goes over and he says "hey guys! i see you are into ancient egyptian mythological themed furry costumes--if any of you are interested in being the radiant Son of Ra, I am the BEST in the business!"
and the group of people look at each other, then at him. awkward. finally one of them says: "uh. no thanks. we're all Set."
That tag looked so much like a bumpersticker that I went ahead and typeset it. And then I got carried away, and did two other variants because the point of having an arts degree is the ability to inflict colors and shapes on the world at large. Congratulations and my sincere apologies, @jungwildeandfree .
(Relatedly, 2.5 x 8 is a weird aspect ratio to fit text to, especially when it wants three line breaks for readability.)
Fantastic article!! The guys looking for it were fish researchers who saw it one time, knew instantly it was an undescribed species, and then tried for nearly 20 years to find and document it!
It's a type of ghost pipefish, related to seahorses, and it floats around coral reefs looking like a piece of algae and hunting unsuspecting prey
They are, of course, named after Snuffleufagus from Sesame Street!
Later on it the project, they got citizen science involved, and people across the Pacific started reporting sightings of snuffy fish from all over!
Hooray for science and hooray for S. snuffleufagus !
revenge of the sith (2011) by matthew stover / revenge of the sith (2005) dir. george lucas / strangers by ethel cain / the phantom menace (1999) dir. george lucas / the phantom menace (2000) by terry brooks / rainer maria rilke / the oresteia by aeschylus / andrei tarkovsky / star wars: darth vader #4 (2020) by greg pak / norwegian wood (1987) by haruki murakami / revenge of the sith screenplay / star wars: darth vader #5 (2020) by greg pak / bones and all (2022) dir. luca guadagnino screenplay by david kajganich / hannibal (2013) / i know the end by phoebe bridgers / queen’s shadow (2019) by e.k. johnston / the snail and the rosebush by hans christian andersen
