perfect paradox

orbit or tim • 30s • any pronouns my gifs • ao3 • letterboxd

[filmgifs]

DONNIE DARKO 2001 — dir. Richard Kelly

[lady-of-the-harbour]

EXCALIBUR — 1981, dir. John Boorman

[movie-gifs]

Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus THE RETURN (2024) dir. Uberto Pasolini

[orlaite]

ВОСХОЖДЕНИЕ (The Ascent) 1977 | dir. Larisa Shepitko

[womansfilm]

David Lean interviewed on CBC's “Close-Up", April 7, 1963

[wardengrill]

Truly, for some men nothing is written unless they write it | Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

[zegalba]

The tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars. It has a height of 25 km, Mount Everest is 'only' 8.8 km tall.

[the-immortal-restless]

I think people forget that Stratt amnesticized Grace with the goal that Ilyukina and Yao would be there to help him, y’know NOT DIE, and then THEY DIED before he woke up.

So like she gets the recordings and realizes Yao and Ilyukina are dead before he wakes up so he’s got no pilot, no engineer, and no memories.

And then you also have to remember that the EXISTENCE of these recordings and the fact they were accompanied by the Taumoeba means that an amnesticized Grace somehow managed to save earth without a pilot or engineer and shoddy memory that only vaguely gives him enough to work with as he works.

Like what the fuck man.

[foralittlewile]

Actually, on the note of Eridians being natural multitaskers (capable of both fully engaged conversations and complex tasks simultaneously), while humans are... Not Like That, I think the human habit of going on "autopilot" would also be totally foreign to them.

Rocky is having a conversation with Grace while he's furiously typing at the computer, going "Uh huh. Mm. Yeah." every time Rocky pauses. What a good listener Grace is today, Rocky thinks happily! No arguing, how unusual!

Then he tries to bring the topic back up later and Grace has NO IDEA what he's talking about. "Grace agreed when Rocky said this meeting was at a good time!" "What?! No I didn't, you literally never talked to me about this!" "ROCKY DID. THREE HOURS AGO. EARTH HOURS. GRACE MADE AGREEABLE HUMAN NOISES AND SAID YEAH. ROCKY OKAYED MEETING WITH GRACE PERMISSION. GRACE SETTING ROCKY UP, QUESTION?" Rocky briefly thinks maybe human memories ARE that bad — but no, Grace has never forgotten a conversation they've had in such a short timeframe before.

He is NOT happy to learn that humans are capable of certain pre-programmed responses that we can just... automatically do when our brains are elsewhere.

What do you MEAN you can fake an entire conversation without absorbing any of it? How does that even work? Why?? GRACE DIDN'T EVEN COMPREHEND WHAT ROCKY WAS SAYING. HOW can Grace give such convincing responses???? And JUST TO TRICK ROCKY INTO THINKING HE WAS LISTENING????!??!? FOR WHAT BENEFIT??????????????? WHY WOULD HUMANS EVOLVE THIS??!!??!!!!!

It sends him into a brief rage of demanding to know why human brains can't just function completely consciously on several levels "LIKE NORMAL," before begrudgingly admitting at least it's not as fucking creepy as sleeptalking.

[bugliest]

i hc that taps are a gesture of affection for eridians so when grace first goes into the tunnel and knocks on the clear panel it comes across as absurdly sweet and friendly. it’s the equivalent of rocky saying hello by holding grace’s hand or petting the top of his head

[thedegu]

I think whenever Grace dies, his gravesite would always have a guard posted. So that for as long as he sleeps, there is someone watching him. I think there would be a very long waitlist to be the Eridian who gets to watch the site, but it is also not a task to be taken lightly. Not only are you tasked with watching Grace sleep, but one also has to keep the area clean, calm, and protected, and maybe be able to answer a few common questions about the hero. It's not quite a holy sight, but it also holds a certain amount of reverence.

When they learn about the program, the second humans to arrive on Erid take shifts watching Grace sleep. They are allowed to skip to the front of the queue. They find that, surprisingly, it isn't a large memorial or anything monumental; they had seen the large statues of Grace and Rocky across two worlds. But this one is small, intimate, a hollow chamber with a few places to sit scattered throughout. It is not a traditional gravesite; instead, it has the layout of an Eridian-style classroom.

[soupdwelling]

i think the core of why aroace grace is so important to me is because so many aroace people are deemed “less than human” for lacking something categorized as “inherently human,” or ostracized for straying from the expectations of an amatonormative society. but grace basically goes fuck (well, fudge) all of that my best friend is an alien and i’m going to live out a beautiful and fulfilling life in a terrarium on his alien planet and eat cannibalism burgers for the rest of my life and it’s going to be so completely worth it because i don’t need a partner or a dog to make my life meaningful and i don’t have to adhere to anyone’s expectations anymore. i think part of why his relationship with rocky is so special to him is that it’s his first taste of how it really feels to be put first, to be truly valued without any expectations of romance, or anything for that matter. yes he loved earth, yes he had meaningful relationships with his students and friends, but on erid with rocky was the first time the constant pressure of an alloromantic society was totally gone. and he proves that you can live a completely bizarre life that most people would be utterly baffled by and be perfectly happy. you can never get married and your kids can be pebbles and your roommates can be robots and literally no one can do anything about it.

[deervsheadlights]

and they were roommates <3

pt 1 || pt 2

[deervsheadlights]

they are so annoying <3

part 1

[deervsheadlights]

[polarity-disturbed]

Ryland Grace and his popularity as a character feels like such an important step in repairing the cultural tsunami left by the long running trope of every genius character needing to be an insufferable asshole to everyone in a ten mile radios about it.

[polarity-disturbed]

Conversely, Eva Stratt is doing wonders for repairing and inspiring a appreciation for commanding women with dubious moral convictions who are fully willing to bend laws for the greater good without hesitation.

[polarity-disturbed]

And together they are doing brilliant things by not kissing or hooking up even once.

[hi-its-the-blackmold]

As both a science and English nerd, I love the idea that since Eridians are cosexual (am I using that term right? Let me know), they don’t have pronouns indicative of sex or gender but rather state of relation. Like how Rocky says, “friend Grace”, he is stating the relation of the subject to him. And taking it further, pronouns of possession, like Rocky talking to another Eridian would refer to Adrian as, “my Adrian”, and the other Eridian would refer to Adrian as “your Adrian” throughout the conversation. Because the state of relation is that Adrian and Rocky are mates. And that shifts based on who’s in the conversation when the state of relation to who is present changes. Say Rocky isn’t there. Same Eridian, who works with Adrian, talking to another Eridian who works with Adrian. Now it’s, “coworker Adrian” or “<job> Adrian”. Same Eridian talking to another Eridian who doesn’t know Adrian at all, and now it’s dependent on the context of the conversation. It could be, “Rocky’s Adrian” or “coworker Adrian”. If two states share the individual equally, you get “our Rocky” for Adrian speaking to Grace.

Now that we have discussed this: I would like you to imagine the first time after Rocky left for Tau Ceti that somebody has the gall to speak of Adrian and Not refer to them as “Rocky’s Adrian” when the context would make that the appropriate way to refer to them. Implying they’re available now.

I would now like you to imagine Adrien crushing them into a smoldering gritty smear on the ground.