Multiversal Studios @penpenpencil - Tumblr Blog

Ryan Gosling is a spectrum.

More headcanons for this pride month.

I love my country 🗣️ I just like to think of him as ace, i’m ace so I turn characters into this cult because there isn’t enough ace representation.

honestly I think i’m gonna open ych comms with this one lmao.

sharkfiinn

prism's parental situation

animate-mush

Since tumblr is currently very excited about versions of Project Hail Mary we made up in our head, an interesting thought experiment might be: what would Rocky sound like if lexicologized and translated by someone else?

The meat of the story is linguistics being done by a non-linguist, which means that Rocky's use of language tells us something about Eridian language but tells us way more about Ryland Grace's translation choices.

Fffffffffff this dovetails so well with my unwritten space story where the team linguist is NOT the archeologist but rather the techie. Dr Zeke Arnolds my irritating beloved, you coulda been played by Ryan Gosling *wipes tear* .....man, Zeke woulda been so rude to Grace about literally everything. [Zeke Arnolds is of course named after the legendary Arnold Zwicky, styled after my irl colleague REDACTED, and fueled by the sort of linguist rage and pedantry you can only acquire in graduate school. Ah, memories...]

On a side note, Rocky is named after a common noun of English that presumably has nothing to do with whatever meaning is name has in Eridian. The name "Rocky" is corefferent with his actual name but it does not translate it. What if Grace's name is the same way? The name Rocky gives him doesn't mean grace, it means This Guy. But the point of the story is that these guys are exactly the same, so what if Rocky assigned him some epithet that was a common noun in Eridian, based on the substance he's composed of

Rocky: can't proceed. Grace all over floor.

Grace: I - what?

Rocky: not human Grace. Just grace.

Grace: ...describe what that word means

Rocky: small liquid contained. Grace.

Grace: ....

Grace: YOU NAMED ME PUDDLE

....okay this was in no way the point of the post but my new headcanon is that Grace's Eridian name is "Puddleglum." Because he is a sad contained liquid.

Grace: actually my name means "divine mercy freely given"

Rocky: Understand. Humans bad at names

pinkninjapj

I tried to look up the passage where they talk about naming. I got the quote, but couldn't find it in a skim read of the book. It's probably within several weeks or a few months of meeting, where they almost exclusively build their vocab around science/maths/biology terms. Obviously this is Andy Weir's favourite thing, and he doesn't give the actual language learning the space that it needs (and that I desire). The passage is pretty brief about it:

Proper nouns are a headache. If you’re learning German from a guy named Hans, you just call him Hans. But I literally can’t make the noises Rocky makes and vice-versa. So when one of us tells the other about a name, the other one has to pick or invent a word to represent that name in their own language. Rocky’s actual name is a sequence of notes—he told it to me once but it has no meaning in his language, so I stuck with “Rocky.”

But my name is actually an English word. So Rocky just calls me the Eridian word for “grace.”

But I can see Weir and Grace and Rocky being way uninterested in having the vocab and cultural/religious conversation for a real translation of Grace at that point. 100% Rocky just gives Grace a descriptor name too and shrugs it off. Probably they circle back around to it when they get to Erid and get a proper translation.

Awwww so all the official historical Erid documentation has the Proper Grace name, but Rocky still calls him his private little nickname.

animate-mush

OH COOL they did think about it!

But this brings me back to my initial point which is about polysemy and translation choices. What does he tell Rocky his name is, and what does that say about him? Is it -

the quality of being light on one's appendages, the opposite of clumsiness

a prayer of thanksgiving said before or after a meal

the gift of divine mercy

any of a set of three goddesses representing feminine virtues

manners and the ability to move appropriately in social situations

....and might he choose a different answer depending on where in his amnesia journey he is? Or would Rocky choose a different one, if presented cogently with all the options?

Funny version:

Grace: Grace as in graceful, good at movement, not clumsy

Rocky, who has heard him run into things or trip on floor junk five times this week: what else word mean question

Sweet version:

The Eridian word for grace, or at least the one Rocky assigns to his friend after years of hopeless solitude, is almost identical to the Eridian word for thank you

pinkninjapj

GAH okay, let's see if this develops beyond flash fic:

Rocky and Grace arrive at Erid, he's severely malnourished after surviving on coma slurry and taumeba for calories. The Hail Mary docks at the space elevator while Eridians a) save the sun and b) synthesise vitamins in a lab to cure scurvy and other whathaveyou.

Rocky: I have new slurry for you. Scientists create vitamins, you digest, you heal.

Grace: let me see the research. I want to know if they're going to kill me by accident before I drink anything. Hey, this paperwork just calls me Alien!

Rocky: you are alien. Proper name not yet caught on in documentation.

Grace: Looks appetising. You know this is wee coloured?

Rocky: No, I not know this. Now hurry, cure your body. Grace live long time.

Grace: it smells like... Like grossly sweet.

Rocky: Glucose common to both our environments. Your laptop shows glucose very important for human tasting receptors. Drink now.

Grace: Give me a second. This is the first time I've eaten something other than Taumoeba in years. I have to psych myself up for it. I feel like I should say grace.

Rocky: Say Grace, question?

Grace: Oh yeah. That's another definition of my name. I guess we never circled back to that conversation. Grace is a religious ritual said at the beginning of a meal in some cultures of Earth. It's a prayer thanking the deity for the food, acknowledging that the food is a gift.

Rocky: Grace means thank you, question? This should be your proper Eridian name. Thank you.

Grace: Rocky, buddy, that's. That means a lot. Wait. What have you been calling me all this time? What does 🎶🎵 mean?

Rocky: you do this with cup of slurry, *mimes knocking it over* makes grace over the table.

Grace: Puddle?! You named me Puddle?! You said you translated Grace!

Rocky: Rocky lied. Did not understand Grace's definition at the start. Had already mentally named you. Too awkward to explain with little language.

Grace: You've been calling me Puddle for years!

Rocky: You should not be surprised, Puddle. Already tell you, you are leaky space blob.

(Yes, "leaky space blob" is what Rocky actually calls him once. Also rereading the epilogue reminded me that Grace says he was told by Rocky "not to talk about eating in polite company" (a change in the movie. In the book eating is like really private and socially taboo) Rocky responds: I'm not polite company, my friend!)

sharkfiinn

prism is a little overwhelmed

cheeseanonioncrisps

Okay but imagine being the team of Eridian scientists tasked with keeping Erid's Only Human alive for as long as possible while the whole planet's environment is literally trying to kill him. And then Rocky shows up and is like:

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“WHY QUESTION???”

cheeseanonioncrisps

To celebrate Erid getting their sun back on track, Grace asks for some alcohol. There's a small amount left from the Hail Mary and Rocky offers to take it to the science Eridians to see if they can synthesise more.

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”

“WHY QUESTION?????”

cheeseanonioncrisps

Grace is like one of those extremely finicky tropical fish who instantly die if not kept in extremely specific conditions.

Only here the fish can talk and keeps asking you to make it vodka.

wolfythewitch

furthest we've ever been

alleesaur

the productivity creatures

verenakauer

I know there's a popular headcanon that Grace's crew died because of feeding tubes malfunction (based on the paperwork Grace was doing right before the explosion), but — in the book he specifically says that even after the accident he kept dealing with that same paperwork on minor Hail Mary issues, so I doubt that feeding tube problem was left unaddressed. May I offer instead:

Grace was put into coma by the people who cared about him. They (especially Yáo being Yáo) probably double-triple-quadruple checked everything. They watched him sleep for those first few days — I doubt they went into coma immediately after leaving Earth's orbit. They probably talked to him, assuring him that he'll be okay.

Ilyukhina's coma procedure was probably supervised by Yáo. He made sure that everything was in order, but — he is just one man and he is not a doctor. There was much more room for mistakes.

When Yáo went to sleep, he was alone. He had to rely on the technology completely.

We know that he died first.

a-sunset-outside-my-window

megan-is-aa

what the fuck @asimovsideburns

iwasthesouthernpansy

coltland twin au web weave

(quote from Human Acts by Han Kang // picture of Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary // Antigone by Sophocles // When Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley // picture of Colt Seavers from The Fall Guy // Elektra by Sophocles // unknown)