A Tolerated Madness

Icon by soitgoes4948, header by greaserink, nonbinary, they/them pronouns, age 26, ace. I am a writer and a field hockey player. I like Markiplier, Transformers, British polar exploration

[knightwithahundredkings]

They should invent a grad school application where they just look directly into my brain and see how passionate and good at research I am and admit me with full funding to any program I want.

[chylerart]

"Do not go gentle into that good night."

Run towards the light grace!!!

another photo study for phm(I am obsessed). always liked this scene. It symbolises despair but for some unfathomable reason it gives me hope. Two people running towards the fireball in the distance which is like earth's dying sun.

Spent 4 hrs on this but I think it's quite well spent.

100 days drawing challenge(9/100)

other vers:

Process vid below!

[vainnoon]

Last seen ….

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[imanutcase-10]

Then bring me luck

[thirddeadlysin]

the day after I posted this last time I was notified that I was selected for a really cool mentorship gig and got an unrelated glowing review at work

[icantbearsedtothinkofone]

Hey Potato, cure my -ing cold so I can have a good time while away.

[dduane]

Here's the potato. Make what use of it you will. :)

[lostcybertronian]

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT | PROJECT HAIL MARY

[ssopimir]

oh okay

[koymadis]

never post again

[lostcybertronian]

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT | PROJECT HAIL MARY

[throwusaboner]

murderbot and arts first meeting is literally so funny. like imagine you meet a biblically accurate angel and instead of being all 'be not afraid' it says actually you SHOULD be afraid. and then when you are in fact afraid it goes oh shit oh fuck. not THAT afraid, sorry. wanna watch tv? and then you watch tv with it and it keeps telling you to pause it when its favourite characters are in danger so it can calm down. and then it asks to do surgery on your bones. Asshole Research Transport character of all time

[kokica1]

Love that Ryland Grace is the opposite of so many male protagonist "heroes" in media and yet he's still so incredibly brave, resilient, and strong. That flimsy little science teacher saves the day.

But he also,

Throws fits when things don't go his way. Not a "I'm a bad bitch" destroying everything-type fit, but tossing a trash can, breaking a screen-type fit.

Cries. A lot.

Pleads. He begs.

Doesn't answer the call to action.

Shows weakness. Being a coward and being fearful are two things he defines himself with.

Doesn't end up with the girl. In fact, that girl isn't even interested and he isn't, either.

Cherishes friendship over a romantic plot or something stereotypically brave like, "I'm going to save Rocky so I can save his world." No, he wants to save his friend, first and foremost.

Squeaks. He squeals. He screams, loudly and very high pitched. He whines. He complains. He physically struggles to open a jar. He's clumsy as hell. He makes some of the least graceful noises one can make.

Is not afraid to be the primitive species lowkey.

I love him and everything he stands for as a male protagonist. Men need to know that they can be just like Ryland Grace and still be just as much of a hero and a man.

[djpachipikachu]

who even cares about this movie

do you think grace would name his fox fursona “laika”

[jazzy-officia1]

OH MY GOD HE KNOWS

[lostcybertronian]

I want to write a multi-chapter Coltland Gentry AU fic SO BAD. You have no idea. But I need ideas and also I suck at maintaining multi-chapter fics…

[hollenix]

if you really cared about those kids

[not-equippedforthis]

thinking about a very specific scenario of a grace with no video logs, with no xenonite failure, who comes back to earth as rocky comes back to erid, heart full but missing a very distinct piece. ten, twenty years go by, and grace is not malnourished nor does he look even half his age, but there's a deepset something in his eyes that has nothing to do with stratt's actions being revealed or the press or adjusting to earth again. about earth getting news of a ship coming down, whose atmosphere is fundamentally different now and causes trouble for that ship. damages sustained on that ship. a red light in the sky. suspected eridian contact as confirmed by dr ryland grace. thank you tom, anna temple here and we're live at nasa's makeshift landing pad, ready to receive, watching- oh, my- a row of officials that cannot pin down ryland grace this time as he, live on air, tears apart every country's anxiety of eridians by ripping from the crowd and jumping the fence into the launching area. a camera pan that judders from dr grace sprinting, the most energetic he's been in years, to a brown eridian kareening towards him in a xenonite suit. prepared to catch ryland's tackle and embrace him properly, there on the green grass, for the very first time. first contact.

[keep-on-rockying]

the thing too is that. I've heard, when the book came out, the big twist was the alien. right? because it was from the guy that wrote the martian, a notoriously hard sci fi book, so this was just another notoriously hard sci fi book and oh my god what the fuck there's ALIENS in here?!

but to me, who decided to watch the movie 1) because it was getting stellar reviews, and 2) Because There Was An Alien, the twist for me was that grace didn't want to be there. the big twist of the film was that grace was a coward and was forced onto this mission against his will. not to mention the taumoeba leak, but. that was it. that was the thing that had be gasping in the theater. the big surprise. not that aliens were involved in a hard sci fi product, but that the main character, the guy we were rooting for, the man whose perspective we had been in for hours, was drugged and shot into space on a suicide mission to save the fucking planet and he didn't want to go. he ran. and to learn later on that in the book, he was given amnesia on purpose? because he threatened, Bluffed, that he would sabotage the mission once he woke up? I mean. when will we ever get a protagonist like ryland grace in a blockbuster movie again.

[lostcybertronian]

In my opinion the film twist actually works better. The former alien surprise twist works because Andy Weir is a hard sci fi author and most alien depictions are not realistic in the least.

The film really banks on its audience having read the book or at least knowing of Rocky’s presence. It’s a large part of the plot, after all.

Of course, reading the book, we know Grace is a coward going in. But what we don’t expect is to be lulled into a false sense of security only to be hit by one of the most devastating scenes to come out of cinema ever. And the movie is centered around this. This build-up and let-down.

One of the reasons it works so well is because of what’s going on around us right now. Unrest, ICE in the streets, fear, fear, fear. We are all afraid. And another reason it works is because what we need right now is not an everyman action hero like John Wick who can do everything and have no consequences and takes no (visible) emotional damage over it. Ryland Grace being a coward and so emotional on top of it makes him one of us.

And I could talk about story structure, about how Rocky’s appearance is more of an inciting event and the running scene is more of a climax type scene (and in my opinion, it IS the climax of the movie because we’ve been building toward this. From the very beginning. This was how it was going to end) but that’s probably for a different post.

Anyway. I’m not sure if I phrased this well, or if there’s even words to express how I feel about this (which is a LOT. I have a lot of feelings about this) but in my opinion the story centering around Grace’s personal conflict and him discovering Who He Is is much more satisfying and well done in the film than it was in the book.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I actually think I like the film Betrayal Scene better.

Like don't get me wrong, the book one is good (the idea of Grace having to spend multiple days locked up stewing about how he's gonna die before they even knock him out is deliciously angsty, as is Stratt's last attempt to beg him to understand why she has to do this) but fuck.

He like literally starts climbing the walls.

Like he came in there relatively composed. He had a rationalisation for what he was going to do, he probably rehearsed his little speech. He's putting the walls up because he knows he's not doing The Right Thing, but he doesn't want to let on that he knows that. He's probably pretending to himself as much as Stratt. He's doing it For The Kids.

And then the switch to just pure, animal terror when the doctor comes in. Like there's a degree of comedy to it. Grace is always slightly goofy, slightly immature (probably why his students like him so much) and now he's climbing and running like a kid playing tag. Except its not a game and it's not working.

Eva's tone when she tells him to “sit down, we'll do it different”. Like I know I'm murdering you, I know that you're not capable of seeing this any other way, but please at least see sense and spare yourself the trauma of having to be literally dragged kicking and screaming. Please.

The resignation when she says “he's running.” Like, she doesn't have to say who's running, or why. She knew this was a possibility. She knew this was a likely possibility but why couldn't he just fucking be the guy she needs him to be? Doesn't he know how hard this is??

The realisation that, if Carl is by the fence, then it's probably because they were concerned that Grace might actually outrun the guards and would need to be ambushed. The possibility that Carl specifically is there because, in that scenario, Grace would be more easy to catch if he trusted his pursuer.

Like I think one reason I'm attached to Ryland Grace is that I honestly couldn't tell you that I wouldn't behave like that in that scenario. Like sure, we all like to say we'd bravely sacrifice ourselves for humanity, but like it's not like I'm currently chaining myself to rainforest trees or throwing soup at paintings in museums or kidnapping oil execs or whatever it is I'm supposed to do. I don't even really attend protests.

There are significantly more things that I could be doing right now to make the world a better place that I don't do because they would involve upending my life and putting myself at more personal risk than I am comfortable with. I have no room to judge Ryland Grace.

I mean, just look at how scared he is.

[sharkba1t10]

Love them so much🌏✏️🦊