seventeen steps

"You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, I know that there are seventeen steps leading from the hall to the room, because I have both seen and observed."

[theseventeensteps]

project prologue | a fanwork audio drama miniseries~

I've never done one of these writeblr "wip intros" before, but now that I'm officially working on a second draft of the scripts of of these episodes, I feel like it may be time!

project prologue is a noir detective story taking place in a steampunk fantasy city. A lone man, forgotten by the world around him, is sent on a mission to retrieve a stolen weapon - but can he trust his employer? Can he even trust himself?

project prologue is a fanwork taking place in an existing fictional universe, and I'm so stoked to be spending so much time in a world that I have loved for so many years, and really excited to someday show it to other fans.

[quietwingsinthesky]

you should come within biting range. no reason

[luna-azzurra]

Writers cannot watch a movie normally. we are sitting there going "oh that's the inciting incident" and "they introduced that object too early it's obviously coming back" and "this dialogue is doing three things at once good for them" while everyone else is just. watching the movie. having a normal experience. feeling feelings without labelling them. i envy that so much and i would never give it up.

[warmfigure]

i am massively overdue for a very very good week where not a single bad thing happens and everything is easy

[unlettered-heathen]

reblog to give prev a very good week where not a single bad thing happens and everything is easy

[picklesinabottle]

I think the ways grace and rocky go about saying "hey don't be sad we are competent" are 1 really sweet and 2 sososo funny because grace, ever the teacher, will be like "hey don't be sad, I'm a science human, we'll figure it out together" and rocky will be like "oh my god stop crying you dumbass, I figured out how to solve the problem twenty minutes ago. lack of sleep is making you stupid. idiot." And they're both like, wow this is exactly what I needed to hear <3

[theseventeensteps]

one of the particular hellscapes of being auADHD is having a brain that relentlessly seeks novelty and a body that requires routine

[irkedisaac]

theres SO many threads on steam abt not being able to kill the predators or have a gun or whatever and its just the worst media illiteracy ever. you are a clone-self working for a space megacorporation who absolutely controls your access to materials and technology. you think they'd give you weapons? ballistic ones, with bullets in them? to their debt slaves?

more importantly, the game could not be clearer: you don't belong here. you are a monkey flapping around in an ocean filled to the brim with things who were born to hunt and kill there. accept your place in that world, and hide under a rock. like smart prey.

[chryza]

I also love how Subnautica 2’s story is fully embracing the horrific implications of both its capitalist horror show and eldritch nightmares. Yeah the sea is full of heavy metals and microbes that destroy your body from the inside out the second you touch the water <3 the ocean is talking to you there’s something In There <3 you’re trapped in a never ending cycle of rebirth though <3 rise and grind wage slave

[theseventeensteps]

man, i'm really hopeful that subnautica 2 is *massive* when it finally comes out for real. like it feels like the first chapter of the game is really more of an intro sequence and there's a ton of shit that's necessary to do in order to progress to the 'final stage' of the game. especially, the presence of the processor and the metal farm as mechanics/tools implies a truly *ludicrous* amount of farming necessary to get parts to advance, which i *really really* like. esp given that the typical depth of subnautica games is like 1,500m and the existing game really only goes down to 500m right now, i think there's sooooo much more.

will def be saving up for a PC upgrade so I can finally play it when there's more of it.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

I see your “Rocky swears like a sailor but only in pitches humans can’t hear/refuses to teach Grace what those words mean” and raise you “Rocky swears like a sailor and now has to explain to Grace that ‘bad bad bad’ isn’t actually a sequence you play on your Eridian speech piano in polite company.”

Grace is both horrified and amused to realise that a more accurate translation for what Rocky’s been saying is “shit shit shit”.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Eridian government representative: Greetings Rocky, Saviour of Erid, and Grace, Saviour from Beyond the Stars. We are pleased to welcome you home.

Grace, haltingly on the keyboard Rocky built for him: Wassup bitches. Fucking jazzed to—

Rocky: GRACE STOP TALKING NOW NOW NOW I EXPLAIN LATER

[theseventeensteps]

ugh i haven't even been awake 3 hours and i've written roughly 3000 words of a script of a video essay about the social & political messages in andy weir's books because he claims they don't have social and political messages and now i'm exhausted and i've bought $100 of books to prove him wrong with

[alonekaleidoscope]

there’s “no social commentary” in project hail mary but ryland grace is a middle school science teacher who ultimately decides to work with stratt because he’s terrified for his students’ futures. he talks about how has to explain things to his students’ parents. he talks about global warming and climate change. when rocky talks about the average age of eridians, grace thinks about how older eridians were alive when columbus “discovered a bunch of people already living in north america.”

these may seem like obvious truths to some, but all books have social commentary whether you acknowledge it or not.

[theseventeensteps]

in retrospect, Knowing What We Now Know, it is simply hilarious going back to old dnp videos where they joke about being losers who are each others' only friend. when in fact the reality was they were very well-liked and had many peers that they actively ditched because they were too mutually obsessed with each other to bother hanging out with anybody else.

[scarlct-vvitch]

it's 3am and grace looks over at rocky like "would you still love me if i was a worm? 🥺" and rocky, already in the seventh circle of codependency, says There Is No Universe In Which I Do Not Cherish You. You Are The Most Important Thing In My Life. I Would Do Everything Over Again For You. No Matter What Form You Take I Will Find A Way To Care For You. What Is This Worm You Speak Of. and the translator chugs out "yes. what is worm, question?" and grace is like "aw thanks buddy :)" and starts talking about worms while rocky starts designing the xenonite suit immediately just so he can beat the laptop to death with his bare(ish) hands

[cloudabserk]

i know we just met but i’ve been thinking about you my whole life

[theseventeensteps]

project hail mary is Autism Nightmare Fuel let me explain why.

imagine you find other people... difficult. in a kind of frustrating, constantly-moving-target kind of way where it feels like everybody got a manual except for you. you're kind of always the weird guy, the guy who's nice and cool but juuuuust two steps to the left of normal conversation at all times. imagine how isolated you feel.

fast forward to adulthood, and you kind of have it figured out. you have a career that makes you super fulfilled, and you've figured out how to talk with people in such a way that you can get the Conversation Points. You can make people feel seen, you can make them feel appreciated, you can earn softness from people who didn't like you before, you can make them laugh. (See: Carl interactions in the movie.) All while offering almost nothing about *yourself*, because why would anyone want that? Clearly being too transparent about your struggles Puts People Off. So you manage to find the Navigational Beacons of normal human interaction and swim through them, and you think to yourself: ah yeah. It's still hard but I've mostly figured it out.

then, in a conversation of coworkers who you've worked with for several years and trust and like and talk with a lot, it becomes clear: they are sending you to die in space. because you didn't do the Conversation Points good enough.

what? you think. but I had it figured out! I know about your mother's sister's fifth house in amsterdam because you told me about the garden party she holds every summer! I got you to laugh at my thermodynamics joke! I thought I was...?

and they say sorry but No. You still do the Conversations wrong. You don't get the RIGHT kinds of Conversation Points. You have not won any Meaningful Relationships. We all know you, but we don't know you like we know each other. You don't even have Family. (I thought we were...?) You don't even have a dog.

I think, if Grace had not been dealing with the much more immediate grief of being asked to die in space, there would have been a lot more room for the grief that is so recurrent when you are Autistic, which is constantly being reminded that you are the uncanny valley of social interaction, and no one will ever ever ever ever ever stop punishing you for it.

[thekneezbeezz]

rocky really ate him up here. i fear