its on Erid, long after Grace and Rocky figure out how to hug and snuggle. Eridians dont really do full hugs like humans because then you can hear everyone's internal organs that close so its a little weird, maybe tapping/hand holding is the usual affection. Everyone assumes the constant cuddling is purely for Grace's human needs benefit, and while Grace obviously does love and need the touch, Rocky being driven to space madness and having every form of ptsd means he is equal if not more in need of constant full body hugs because he likes feeling how alive Grace is.
So random Eridian scientists are talking to Grace and are like, absolutely no disrespect intended, but very interesting Rocky overcame the cultural weirdness and sensory disgust of "hugs" and does them despite no benefit to himself because he cares for your needs! Its sweet!
Grace: actually Rocky freaks out if he cant press himself against my lungs and heart through the thinnest xenonite possible until he can hear every muscle cell in my body moving at least once a day.
Scientist: ok cool so hes kind of a total pervert then okay
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.
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.
“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”
“My.”
“Correct. But only for names.”
“So you’re calling me…?”
Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.”
“Are there other Graces? Why do you need to specify?”
Rocky considers this, tapping his xenonite-encased claws idly against the floor.
“No other Grace,” Rocky says. “We just do this.”
“Like an honorific,” Grace guesses. “It goes before everyone’s name? Everyone you know?”
Rocky whirs in surprise. “No, no, no. Not at all.”
“Okay, then who? What makes me qualify?”
Rocky is silent for a moment.
“...Does this offend Grace?” he asks, voice lower.
Grace blinks. “No! I don’t think so. Is there a reason to be offended?”
“Good,” Rocky says, relieved. Grace is starting to recognize what Eridian relief sounds like. “No, no reason.”
“Who else do you call that?”
“You don’t have this on Earth?”
Grace considers. What for, friends? He couldn’t call Marissa “my Marissa.” That would be weird.
“I still don’t know what it means,” he settles on. “So I couldn’t tell you.”
Rocky groans in frustration. He’s a very impatient tutor. “We just say it.”
“Are you my Rocky?” Grace asks. He hits the two keys to make the my note.
“I don’t know!” Rocky says. “You decide this.”
“I decide? Who do you use it for?”
“You. Adrian. I will use it for my pebbles.”
Grace blinks. “So few?”
Rocky shifts. “I am… you do not have the word yet. Eridian who works alone often, not close to many other Eridians.”
“What, mechanical engineer?”
Rocky chitters with amusement. “Acceptable.”
“Is Adrian your only friend?”
Rocky draws back, like he’s taken offense. “I have friends. Coworkers. But different.”
So just Adrian. And him.
“This worries you,” Rocky says.
“Adrian is your mate,” Grace points out. “I’m not your mate.”
“Correct. You are not. You do not like to be a mate.”
Grace isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he ignores it.
“I’m your friend,” Grace says.
Rocky hesitates, for a second. “...Correct.”
“Like your coworkers.”
“No.”
Grace sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Okay, maybe that’s fair. It’s not like he felt about any of his coworkers like he feels about Rocky.
“Best friend,” Grace amends. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Rocky hums. “Acceptable.”
“Just acceptable? Now you are offending me. Can you just explain?”
This makes Rocky fall silent for a minute longer than usual. Grace is half-ready to apologize and to say let’s move on and to retype his own name without the superfluous my.
“The Earth ‘best friend’ is not strong enough,” Rocky says finally. “It does not translate this way.”
Grace runs his fingers through his hair, a little nervous, for some reason. “Okay.”
“It is…” Rocky pauses. He has to pause more often, now that they’re not using the translator, to simplify his language. “It means that I am not Rocky without my Grace. You are part of… of the whole. When I wake up, I think of you. When I work. When I eat. When I think I am going to die.”
Rocky speaks slowly, but it’s still a lot of Eridian for Grace to grasp all at once. Even as he works out the sentences in his head, he can feel hot tears rising in his eyes.
“It means that when you are sick, I am sick,” Rocky continues. “And it means I will take care of you, because taking care of you is taking care of myself.”
Grace bunches up his sleeve, wiping it across his face, blinking furiously.
Rocky’s voice is soft. “So Grace is part of Rocky. Grace is like a cell. You see? My Grace.”
Grace is quiet, for a moment, trying to get himself together. When he speaks, his voice is shaky.
“...Oh.”
Rocky hums, pressing his carapace gently against Grace’s arm. “You are leaking. Does this make you sad?”
Grace shakes his head, sniffing, crossing his arms across his knees and resting his chin on his sleeves. “Not at all.”
“Good, good.”
“I feel like that,” Grace mumbles. “Just like that. Just exactly—exactly like that.”
“About your old mate?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know I’m talking about you.”
Rocky hums, burrowing closer. Grace curls one arm around his carapace. That’s not enough, so he leans over, dropping his head down so his forehead presses against the xenonite.
“My Rocky,” Grace whispers in English.
“My Grace,” Rocky echoes in Eridian. Grace can recognize the note at the start. He will add it when he plays Rocky’s name.
“How long have you called me that?” Grace asks. “Must’ve been a while. I didn’t notice it change.”
me, calling my brother, urgently: ok, who would win, the knights of the round table or the kpop demon hunters? you may laugh, but listen, the three of them jumped out of a plane with no parachute and landed totally fine IN HEELS at their kpop concert. i dont know that they can take much damage. plus i think lancelot would be really overwhelmed by the concept of kpop. and
initially the knights of the round table appear to have the advantage, attacking the supernatural sirens with confusing hair colors with gusto; huntrix is obviously reluctant to engage with innocent(ish) humans. however, the tides begin to turn when 1) rumi not only holds her own against excalibur, but also glows in a very non-evil-coded manner, which a random hermit explains is the same light as the star of bethlehem; 2) zoey tells sir gawain mid-battle she just wants everyone to stop fighting and he is constitutionally incapable of ignoring a request from a nice young lady; and 3) mira picks up one of the many pieces of cursed furniture lying around and absolutely whales the tar out of sir kay.
at this point actual demons attack and the two groups team up and for some reason lancelot is dressed as a backup dancer. crisis averted, the round table inquires about the obligatory secret familial connection and discover that rumi and merlin have the same demon dad, so that's okay. mira gives kay all his teeth back and they all have a feast, which is interrupted halfway through by derpy delivering a message with the next quest. unfortunately, the WIP is then abandoned before being picked up by a different author who writes 300K about blackpink's quest for the holy grail, the end.
The "abandoned before being picked up by a different author" bit makes it sound like we're talking about a 500,000 word multichapter AO3 story but the medieval romances were exactly like that
what are the correct uses of people of colour and which ones are to be avoided?
Okay. Grammar lesson!
"People of color" is a noun. So use it as a noun.
"I am speaking about people of color."
People who are of color. People. People is a noun.
It is not, as the Internet likes to use it, an adjective!
"POC characters!" is the color blind racist equivalent of "colored characters!"
Do you want to call me colored? Is that the racism we really want to use? Old 1960s racism? Shall I go to the colored water fountain next? I'm sorry- the POC water fountain?
If you are talking about all non-white people as a group, use "People of Color".
"White people are used to being the default- which is why they get to be White and the rest of us are People of Color. The Other."
If you are talking about a specific group of people, and you KNOW that, then SAY their group and NOT "people of color".
"I am not just a person of color, I am Black. Antiblackness is about Black people, not all people of color. Otherwise, I'd just say racism. Words have meaning!"
Further resource:
Find definitions for over 300,000 words from the most authoritative English dictionary. Continuously updated with new words and meanings.