Mar 29
rereading the book and i just got to the part where rocky & grace talk about age and rocky says he’s been at tau ceti for 46 years trying to solve the astrophage problem all alone and i’m experiencing. many many emotions.
when grace was born his best friend was already out there just waiting for him to grow up and come join in. and neither of them knew it. every time grace felt alone or rejected or like nobody understood him he couldn’t know it but there was somebody out there who’d been waiting for him **specifically him** for his entire life. a best friend. im just really emo thinking about all those years they were both waiting for each other without even realizing it
#im assuming grace is like. idk. late 30s or early-mid 40s.#so even with the time dilation this is roughly accurate lol#anyway WWAUUUUGGHHHH INTERSPECIES BESTIES WITH DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT LIFESPANNSSSSSS#project hail mary#freewheeling bitextual#im also very intentionally Not thinking about how lonely rocky must’ve been#because. ough. the poor guy. what if YOU were a spider-like rock creature who was completely helpless during sleep and#so your society developed a cultural norm of watching others and being watched yourself while sleeping#AND THEN YOU SPENT A SIXTH OF YOUR LIFETIME ENTIRELY ALONE WITH NOBODY TO WATCH YOU SLEEP#(its also fascinating to me that the isolation doesn’t seem to have harmed him the way it would probably permanently destroy a human)