She/Her. Gray asexual/demiromantic. You can call me "piso" if you like. Wish I had the energy to scream. Author of ML fan comic @runawaycatwalker. Also on Ao3.
In case you missed something, here are the links to my Loveybug AU fics, all in one place for your convenience. (see also the series page on Ao3)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Marinette contemplates moving to Mexico. Tikki has other ideas. A Loveybug origin story.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Loveybug introduces herself to Chat Noir and they tackle their first akuma together.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Loveybug is the best idea Marinette has ever had! She can now love Chat Noir all she wants! Wait, where did he go?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Marinette doesn't know what happened to Chat Noir, just that Catwalker had replaced him immediately after she became Loveybug. She wants to hate Catwalker for replacing her partner, but when the green-haired hero shows up on her balcony, acting like a friend might be the only way she can get answers.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Adrien and Loveybug hold hands.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Catwalker asks Loveybug about what happened to her predecessor.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Adrien realizes he has some feelings for Loveybug. Loveybug realizes that Adrien still misses Ladybug.
I tried to get a fic done today for the Kwami Swap Day of Loveybug AU Week, but I hit writer's block and the fic just isn't coming together.
Catwalker and Loveybug swap miraculouses, only for a familiar face to show up. (currently unfinished)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Marinette loses the ability to become Loveybug.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Catwalker and Loveybug go into the final battle.
MAJOR SPOILERS for Miraculous Season 5 finale.
As someone who is very bad at recommending books and such to people (especially IRL), I think I might have figured out part of the reason why: I get affected by external opinions too easily. This isn’t exactly a “I am incapable of forming my own opinions”, but more a “I feel like I don’t fit in and/or am a bad person if I don’t agree with the opinions others present.” So, when I try to pitch something to someone who has no familiarity with a thing, I subconsciously react to the vibes I get off the other person that they aren’t invested and I become embarrassed by my opinions and start backpedaling with the insistence that no one else needs to care about this, meaning that I don’t convince anyone to do anything--which only reinforces my belief that my thoughts aren’t worth inflicting on anyone and that I'm just better off keeping my mouth shut.
By far the best and funniest introduction to an immortal character I’ve ever read was in Warbreaker, where Vasher is consistently presented for the first 400 pages as a grumpy, disheveled, ambiguously moral vigilante, who is competent enough at everything that it’s clear he’s an experienced guy, but has no social graces and barely any reputation except among a few people. He wears rags and ties his pants up with a piece of rope and his closest personal relationship is being a dad slash cleanup crew for a very cursed talking sword with memory issues.
Then, more than 2/3 of the way through the book, he finally has a conversation with another one of the main characters, who asks him about how the magic works. He proceeds to spend the next four pages giving a highly technical explanation of how all of the previously mentioned elements of the magic system function and fit together into a larger whole, explaining what is not known about the magic and detailing numerous edge cases and theoretical situations. His audience is understandably confused about where and when and *why* he got a PhD??
Later he explains how he is also three other apparently unrelated historical figures and a zombie. Of course he has a PhD, he’s old enough to be five different people.
I keep thinking about this excerpt, because I have learned over time that the vast majority of people—even many other neurodivergent people—only like me if I present them with this slightly lobotomised version of myself. And while that's ultimately better than constantly alienating people and being lonely, it's also exhausting, because the corrections and explanations I refrain from voicing don't actually go anywhere. They just get trapped in my head like a backlog of jobs stuck in a printer queue, and I either have to live with them pinging around and sucking up my energy, or eventually they all come out like 40 copies of the same document suddenly printing at once. I know from therapy that sometimes the only thing you can do to keep peace is let other people be wrong, but that comes with such an incredible mental toll, and I'm so, so tired.
Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.
It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.
To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.
This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.
Join me below, if you would.
2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.
Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.
It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.
But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.
The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.
“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”
“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”
We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.
"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?
The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.
We had slightly miscalculated.
Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.
“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”
“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”
“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”
“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”
And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.
00000
We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.
It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.
At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.
Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.
So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.
“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.
“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.
Monday is the last day to do this, after all.
00000
So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.
The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.
“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”
So.
Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?
Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.
It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).
Then it starts to rain.
We had not dressed for rain.
00000
Here is how the next six hours go.
We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.
Everyone is so happy.
Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.
People online start making delivery orders.
Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.
A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.
The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.
A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.
Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.
00000
We have Line Neighbors.
Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.
The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.
Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”
“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”
“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”
My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.
“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.
“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”
We stay in line.
It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.
The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.
We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.
It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.
They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.
We still have a -long- way to go.
00000
They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.
It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”
We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.
We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.
I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.
The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.
Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.
The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.
A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“
The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”
We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.
If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.
That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.
There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.
We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)
I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.
There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.
Then we're married.
Then we get in line to get our license.
It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.
Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.
We make it to the marriage records office.
I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.
It's almost 3PM.
00000
There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.
We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.
I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”
He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.
Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.
We get back to our car and climb in.
It’s 4:30 and we are starving.
There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.
We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.
We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.
The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.
My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”
00000
It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”
But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.
It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.
I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.
We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.
Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.
It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.
Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"
And that was that.
00000
When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.
I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.
I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.
I never thought I’d live in this world.
And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.
I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.
The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.
And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.
Had a dream where I had a gap to cross with a treasure chest at the top of the pillar, and the intended way to get to the chest was to lower the pillar with a switch or something and walk up to it, but that process would take time, so I jumped across the gap (knowing that if I fell I would die) and I grabbed the chest and was able to pull myself up onto the ledge and my immediate thought was: "If this was a point-and-click adventure, this would be a bug that they'd need to patch. But since it's a physics simulation, they should leave that in as an alternate means of access for skilled players."
Petition to have somebody give the Fantasia treatment to David Lang’s “Writing on Water.” It deserves to have one of those hand-drawn scribbly chaos sequences depicting a storm at sea for 30 minutes.
Music by: David Lang
Libretto by: Peter Givenaway
Words by: Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Melville.
Lyrics:
(source)
1.
Boatswain!
Call me Ishmail.
It is an ancient mariner.
There was a ship.
Speak to the mariners.
Fall to it yarely or we run ourselves aground!
The ship was cheered,
Washed by waves
The harbour cleared
Blow till thou burst thy wind if room enough!
The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he.
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea
I love to sail forbidden seas
And now the storm-blast came
A plague upon this howling!
Have you a mind to sink?
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, the southward aye we fled
How the wild winds blow it.
We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art
Would thou mighst be drowning the washing of ten tides?
We split, we split we split!
2.
I would fain die a dry death.
Put the wild waters in this roar.
The Sun now rose upon the right, out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left, went down into the sea.
A brave vessel dashed all to pieces!
There’s no harm done.
Wipe thou thine eyes.
They hurried us aboard a bark.
A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged, nor tackle, sail, nor mast.
The very rats instinctively have quit it.
And the good south wind still blew behind, the breeze to blow. To cry to the sea that roared to us, to sight to the winds.
I have decked the sea with drops full salt
I hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
3.
To fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds
Now on the beak, now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
On the topmast, the yards, and bowsprit
The most mighty Neptune plunged in the foaming brine,
To fetch dew from the still-vexed Bermudes.
Think it much to tread the ooze of the salt deep.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free.
To run upon the sharp wind of the north, like a nymph of the sea.
A southwest blow on ye and blister you all over.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea
4.
Come unto these yellow sands, with its sweet air.
Stained with grief at ebb, my father wracked.
5.
Sea water shalt thou drink.
Drenched in the sea, stained with salt water well fished for.
Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change.
Twas sad as sad could be, the silence of the sea.
This ditty dotes remember my drowned father.
Glorious and gracious in the wind, down drops the breeze.
The baser currents of the sea blow my keeled soul along.
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
See the sun – I’ve oversailed him
Water, water, everywhere,
Not any drop to drink.
What strange fish hath made his meal on thee?
Nine fathom deep he had followed up
From the land of mist and snow.
The braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze.
She rechurned the cream in her own white wake
Against the wind he now steers.
My bones feel damp within me and from the inside wet my flesh.
6.
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel.
With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
From the sails the dew did drip.
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes
The sails did sigh like sedge
And the rain poured down from one black cloud.
The lightning fell with never a jag.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe.
Slowly and smoothly went the ship.
I am standing water
I’ll teach you how to flow
Do so.
To ebb
Ebbing men
So near the bottom run
Impossible that he’s undrowned
I’ll fish for thee.
7.
There’s a soft shower to leeward.
Such lovely leewardings.
The sea mocks, the billows spoke, the winds did sing it to me.
Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea?
I’ll seek him deeper than ever plummet sound.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
I shall no more to sea, to sea,
The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I.
Some men die at ebb tide
Some at low water
Some at the full of the flood.
Twas night, calm night, the moon was high,
But soon there breathed a wind on me.
Not sound nor motion made
Its path was not upon the sea.
In ripple or in shade
A billow that’s all one crested comb obliquely from the sea
In the rainbowed air, fell swamping back into the deep
And sank in a shower of lakes.
8.
Circling surface creamed like new milk
Afloat and swimming.
The weltering sea
Amid fiery showers of foam.
Swiftly, swiftly,
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze,
On me alone it blew.
The ship went down like lead.
9.
My body lay afloat.
Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round.
The sledge-hammering seas
Bale out the pouring water as mountain torrents down a flue.
The approaching tide will shortly fill the reasonable shore
That now lies foul and muddy.
This soul hath been alone on a wide wide sea,
And the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
And I only am escaped to tell thee,
A sadder and a wiser man.
One of the best things about being a writer is thinking of something small you can add to your work that’s just. Devastating. Like you’re sitting there going. Oh. That would be diabolical. People would get really riled up about that. Exquisite. Let’s do it.
One of the coolest things about Project Hail Mary imho (SPOILERS AHOY)…
…is how Weir sets up the ending to be leading toward a “they’re friends, but they’re only going to be in each other’s lives for a little while before they both have to say goodbye forever”…
AND THEN IT DOESN’T STICK.
Because Rocky and Grace aren’t merely space coworkers, they are a found family.
And their queer-platonic relationship is just as deserving of remaining intact as the bajillions of straight couples who get a Happily Ever After in so much of our fiction.
You don’t have to be a romantic couple to decide that you want to overcome all the obstacles to pursue a relationship together.
You can be friends.
Sometimes friends are the most important relationships in your life.
And you can live a life where you are not perpetually left behind by your friends whenever “it’s time to move on,” because they always have other people who are “more important” than you.
If you find that rare someone in the entire galaxy who you form that special bond with, then you shouldn’t be expected to give them up just because the relationship doesn’t live up to traditional ideals where only the nuclear family gets to become permanent.
Sometimes the Found Family Story isn't better when it ends with sacrificing the relationship, with a "tragic yet inevitable" farewell.
Sometimes the Found Family Story can be stronger because it ends with them making the sacrifice that prioritizes each other, and that is what finally creates the circumstances where they can stay together.
fun fact! the "discovery motif" here contains a historical motif called the Dies Irae. In particular, the first four notes of the motif are included in numerous places throughout the film's score.
The Dies Irae, a hymn sung in Latin, traditionally appeared at Catholic funerals, and as such is strongly associated with death. It has been quoted in many other pieces of music, and is often used to invoke an ominous or mournful tone.
Pemberton does some really interesting stuff with it in Project Hail Mary, though. Because while yes, it's associated with death (the dying of the sun, the dying astronauts, Grace almost dying at Adrian) and serves to emphasize the mounting tension of the mission, "a weight on your back," as OP succinctly put it, Pemberton also chooses to tie it very strongly to life.
It plays when Grace discovers astrophage is alive, of course.
But it also plays in "Grace Go Home," when Grace learns he is going to live, this time in choral voices, as well as in a major scale.
This same choral version can be found all over the place in "Tau Amoeba," when Grace finds their solution for Earth and Erid.
The traditional Dies Irae is a largely descending melody in a minor key, contributing to its somber feel. But Pemberton chooses to offset it with another four notes that either partially ascend, as in the discovery motif, or fully ascend, as in "Grace Go Home." He flips it on its head, giving what is pretty much the Death Melody a sense of hope, optimism, and life. It's some very impressive musical storytelling!
Associating it with "discovery" is also a very cool connection, as every new discovery Grace makes drags him closer to his own death, with the fate of life on Earth hanging in the balance (Grace discovers astrophage is alive -> Grace discovers astrophage can breed -> Grace is read in on Project Hail Mary -> Grace becomes "second in command/third science officer" -> Grace is sent on the suicide mission -> Grace and Rocky discover there must be a predator -> Grace almost dies on Adrian).
Discovery, Grace's death, Earth's life, all tied together by one melody.
How much discourse do you think there is in the kpop demon hunters universe over Huntrix's breakup? I assume half the fans are analyzing every second of footage from the last three years looking for signs of tension and arguing about the whose fault it was and half the fans are posting that it's actually kind of fucked up to ruin the Idol Awards with a fake onstage breakup just to build up to dropping a new song, even if it is kind of a banger
@sagewiththyme You know that's a fascinating point because I figure the two options are a) no one really remembers what happened at the end because of magic bullshit or b) they play it off as a really elaborate but fully planned performance.
And the second one - can you fucking imagine.
Imagine one of the most popular bands in the world have this ongoing lore bit that they're actually demon hunters and they're always referencing it in their songs. And then one day a new boy band pops up and gets wildly popular with an over-the-top-cutesy hit. They're so soft and sweet and respectful. They're called Saja (Lion) Boys and they're all like "join the pride!" How cute!
And then they announce a new concert and you get there and it's fucking this. They're all dressed as demons/grim reapers. Surprise, "Saja" meant Jeoseung Saja all along! They're singing about how they're here for your soul and they relish in your pain, just a stunning 180 from their previous personas.
And then while you're trying to process the emotional whiplash the fucking demon hunter band bursts in and beats the shit out of them with the most insane pyrotechnic show you've ever seen in your life. They "kill" the boy band demons and then you never see them again. The whole band was a fucking psyop for Huntrix to play up the "demon hunters" bit.
I would never recover. The cheesiest fantasy power metal band has NOTHING on that level of commitment. I'd be stanning Huntrix for the rest of my life.
[ID: A comment by @sagewiththyme that says, "Didn’t they also say that the Saja boys were fighting onstage and that’s why they swapped time slots with the girls? Double breakup and makeup type thing". End ID]
"Yeah, the Saja Boys were a fake band. We paid them to steal the limelight for a little bit while Rumi's voice was out of commission. We thought it would be a cool setup for a triumphant return, you know? The cute little Lion Boys end up being secret demons trying to steal your souls, and Huntrix steps in and slays them in a triumphant return? ...Yeah. We planned it all, the songs, the heel-turn, the special effects, the whole shebang.
Except, uhhhh. We didn't expect them to get so popular so fast? They For Sure weren't supposed to make it to the final round of the Idol Awards. Like, for Legal Reasons. We were almost visibly panicking on stage when they announced that! I mean, do you know how it would look once it eventually came out that Saja Boys were working for us? "Oh, you planted a fake band so you could win the competition!" No joke. I mean, that is a pret-ty clear conflict of interest there. You know?
The Idol Awards are all about the fan's choices, and we just accidentally rigged the game.
The Saja Boys had to win the Idol Awards, now, but there was no chance. They only had two songs, Soda Pop and Your Idol. We couldn't have them push up the debut--I mean, we thought about it, Your Idol's a banger song and it totally would've given us a run for our money--but we'd have to follow it up with This Is What It Sounds Like, first off, and second, 'killing' the Saja Boys onstage would be like. The Media equivalent of announcing we won, like the Fans didn't have a choice in the matter. At the Idol Awards? Ha. Yeah. That's a no-go.
And I mean. Soda Pop is catchy but not that catchy guys, c'mon. We were totally gonna cream them with Golden.
So we were all scrambling. Rumi and Mira and I were trying to write and choreograph a brand new song, Takedown, something good but not Good Enough To Win, to maybe prolong the Rivalry, you know? To make our comeback all the more sweet. But it was all such short notice, and the song wasn't working, and Huntrix never gives a shoddy performance, on principle. We couldn't do it. But it was looking like the only way we were gonna legitimately lose was if something... happened during the competition.
I think some of the loneliness of autism is that you feel like you hurt people just by Interacting Wrong, but you don’t know how to Interact Right, and the more effort you put into it, the more exhausted you are and the more artificial it comes across (with the end result of people still being upset with you). and it’s not anyone’s fault for not liking Being Interacted With Wrong, and it’s not your fault for doing it so wrong, but it is very, very lonely.
