AnasAbdin
JBB: An Artblog!
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trying on a metaphor
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@void-and-virtue
all i want is to get hellsitegeneticsed. i want to know what kind of creature my post is. god i want it to be something cool sooooooooo bad do you think they have the genetic code for werewolves
String identified: aattgttgtcattatcattgattttgcattatgtcc
Closest match: fucking badass werewolf Common name: hell yeahhhh
so this is what it's like to be god's favorite
Imagine a newly-arrived-to-Erid Grace, sealed in a small oxygenated observation room, lying asleep on a cushioned platform. So far, Rocky has been the only Eridian bold enough to put on a xenonite suit and join Grace in the room; other Eridian scientists are gathered just outside, listening to the alien shifting about -- in its sleep!!! -- and occasionally mumbling.
A particularly pessimistic and irritating Eridian is pontificating to the others, insisting on the highest degree of caution when interacting with the alien in any way, even if that comes at the sacrifice of speed in treating the alien's ailments. Rocky is furious at the implication of "even if that comes at the sacrifice of the alien, period", but silent, unwilling to express his counterargument at full volume and risk waking Grace. Still, he is almost vibrating with anger where he sits on the makeshift 'human-style' bed beside his friend.
"This creature moves about even when supposedly at rest! It's unnatural! Perhaps Rocky-hero only survived the journey here at all because he was safely on the other side of a barrier of xenonite and ammonia, out of this creature's reach. Who knows what violent urges and instincts are contained within that bizarre body?"
The collective attention of the gathered Eridians shifts to focus in on Grace's slumbering form.
As if on cue, Grace rolls onto his side, still snoozing away, and cuddles his whole body in a curve around Rocky's, in a shockingly-close mimicry of a parent [Eridian-cat-equivalent] curling around its [Eridian-kitten-equivalent].
Rocky is quite annoyed when the resulting chorus of [Eridian-"awww"-equivalent] IS enough to finally wake his human friend from his much-needed rest.
DONT YOU DARE HIDE THIS IN THE TAGS
I also like to imagine a small subset of Eridians — maybe not bad people necessarily, but freaked out by a rapidly-and-suddenly-changing world and grasping for anything they can do to try and exert control over their circumstances? — jumping down Rocky’s figurative throat about him choosing to share so much potentially-sensitive information about Eridian anatomy and Erid’s culture, government, etc. with the first random sapient alien Rocky found floating out in space.
And then Rocky has to roll his figurative eyes and patiently (or not. Actually, definitely NOT patiently, that’s funnier) point out to those Eridians trying to scold him — the ‘random sapient alien’ freely chose to give ROCKY a massive data dump of information about the alien’s own race, including the precise location of the alien’s planet and instructions for how to build horrific weapons that could wipe out all life on that planet.
After the beetle probes come back (honestly, probably even before), plenty of things get (re)named after Ryland Grace - Grover Cleveland Middle School becomes Ryland Grace Middle School, obviously, and astronomy/astrobiology buildings on college campuses and STEM scholarships in his name. Astrophage almost certainly gets the scientific name Astrophagus gracei.
Eva Stratt, meanwhile, gets the Eva Stratt Memorial Library (tagline: "she's not dead we just like remembering her") which is not, in fact, a library, it's the predominant hub for internet media piracy. The creators think they're hilarious.
You know, one of my favourite things about Ryland Grace is how sociable he is. How easy it is for people to fall into his orbit. They show it time and time again. How much his students obviously love him, how he manages to hype up the dour suits whilst he's testing the astrophage, Carl playing with him in the Home Depot, the other government people eating his Skittles, Eva Stratt dragging him around everywhere and allowing herself to be just that little bit more vulnerable around him, Rocky and the Eridians embracing him as not just as a savior but family.
I know it's not explicit that Grace is aroace but so often, aroace people are portrayed as distant and independent and happily isolated. Sometimes even to the point of misanthropy. It's so nice to see a character like this who loves connecting with people. He's a rambler, he's excitable. So what if he doesn't have a family or a dog. He doesn't need them because he has everyone he meets and that's enough.
They. They forgor
They were opened in AUGUST 2001. Oh my god. That's both hilarious and tragic.
this is a fucking futurama bit
Grace: *Retroactively freaking out about Doing A Misogyny™*
Rocky: Me and the bestie!!! :)
Dr Ryland grace: *comes back to earth and is revealed to have been alive just living on erid for the past like 40 years*
one day grace hurts his right hand somehow and he's all upset bc he's like gosh dang it now i have to do everything left-handed. and rocky's like ?????still have other hand?? and grace explains the idea of dominant hands and rocky is like. you only have two hands. the FUCK do you mean only one of them can do anything
if an archaeologist says an artifact was probably for “ritual purposes” it means “i have no fuckin clue”
but if they say it was for “fertility rituals” they mean “i know exactly what it was for but i dont want to say ‘ancient dildo’”
Back in the day I worked at a certain very famous and very high caste art museum in the US as a junior curator. Part of my job was to catalog the objects in the museum database. This includes details like provenance, measurements, and a visual description of what the object looked like.
Like I said, the museum was a pretty snotty institution. It’s got a LOT of objects it’s way famous for possessing, but nobody knew about the absolutely massive collection of Moche erotic pottery it had because the curators were totally embarrassed by this stuff.
Some examples:
Pretty hot shit, right? They never, ever put any of this stuff on public view or published it in any catalogues but - we legit had like several hundred pieces of Moche ceramics in the “dirty pots” category. Anyway, I was left alone to just do my job with regard to the database for several years, ok? And I figured, well, these’re accessioned objects in the museum’s collection - better get down to bidness.
I catalogued every goddamn bestiality, necrophiliac, cocksucking, buttfucking, detached penis, and giant vulva drinking cup in that collection. I’d be like,
A drinking vessel in form of a standing man wearing a tunic and cap. He holds an oversized erection in his hands and stares into the distance (note I did not say “like he’s hella-constipated”). The vessel has a hole at both the tip of the penis as well as around the rim of the figure’s head, thus forcing the drinker to drink only from the penis or risk spilling wine all over themselves from the top of the vessel. Red and orange slip covers the surface of the piece.
Pretty straightforward, right? Apparently the deep seated fear of these objects that the curators exhibited was meant to spread to me as well, but - no one ever gave me that memo, because I guess Midwesterners reproduce asexually. When the curators understood that I had catalogued all of these objects in addition to the other, non-sexy pieces in the collection, they were apparently livid, but knew they had no legs to stand on in terms of getting pissed at me for it.
I visited the museum’s online public access database a few years back and - every single description I wrote of these pieces has been totally neutered to say something like Male figural vase.
Long story short? Just call a dildo a fucking dildo. It’s all gonna be ok, I swear.
This is absolutely the MOST unusual reblog I have ever tagged with what is probably my second-favorite tag, “talk to me about your work.”
Plus it’s hilarious.
I love ancient art history !!!!!
@lowercasetrashwriter
Museums should have sections dedicated to artifacts like these with a warning that says “There’s a lot of private parts in here but we’re dedicated to displaying history so we won’t censor these. Enter at your own risk” or something. It’s prudish to deliberately hide history because of some ding dongs.
Fucking Puritanism.
Unpopular opinion: Sex exists. Making body parts taboo is both psychologically bad for us and kinda stupid.
funny idea i just got for an Eridian character. meet Hardtack
like a sick victorian child
sex is a distraction from your true purpose in life which is to go to the aquarium and look at the fish and go "wooooooaaah.... fishies". cmon guys we all need to lock in.
no longer looking for hookups. now looking for women to go to the aquarium and go "wooooooaaah.... fishies" with me
fanfic is extremely hard
Imagine you meet an alien that's entirely blood and fat. Like all the white blood cells and red blood cells and lipids kept in your body are just out there. That's their entire body, a blob of blood jelly. Even their brain is completely fluid. They constantly forget things and don't seem to notice the connection
They see electricity, the same electricity of your brain. If something is not charged they can't see anything at all, and a room of non-conductive objects would be a complete sensory deprecation chamber. They can see a little bit, but they are nearly blind and only use it to notice sudden changes. If you flash a light at them they scream. Instead they just bring a device that generates a charge everywhere they go. They claim their whole planet is charged, but you have doubts
This apparently allows them to see secrets of the universe. They knew about the big bang through out their entire history, because they can apparently just see the beginning of the universe. They find it beautiful, but not all that interesting. You are jealous
Despite being in space, they have not yet discovered steel or had the industrial revolution. It's basically still alchemists and philosophers, but the alchemy and philosophy works and got them to space. You are no longer jealous
They rely on the temperature being way below 40 degrees Fahrenheit so all the fat stays solid and frozen, and die if it's warm. They consider you burning
They get all their energy from air, like eating, to the point they cannot hold their breath at all. They get other things from food, but refuse to prepare it aside from digestion. They just plop it in basically untouched
They age in dog years, dying a few months after turning 9, and only reach adulthood at age 4. That's an absurd amount of time to spend as a child. The one you met is apparently 5 and considers himself a mature adult. The tantrums say otherwise. Yes, he also has arcane knowledge naturally. You are more surprised they live this long considering everything else about them
They have 4 genders and assigned you one, maybe randomly. Kind of rude, apparently very complex, but they have no idea how to explain it. You aren't asking
You are an Eridian and have just met a human. You must now convince your mate to let you keep them.
Today on Afin is sad about Project Hail Mary again, thoughts about sacrifice and doing what’s right, but also how pragmatism comes up again and again in the book.
A scene that I was sad that the movie didn’t include was the discussion with Grace and Stratt about the medically induced comas, and how Grace punctuated his point with: science and morality both give the same answer here and you know it.
Because that idea of science and morality having the same answer comes up again after DuBois and Shapiro both die, and it’s either Grace, who holds a doctorate in microbiology, or someone who has an undergraduate in chemistry with a minor in biology, to replace them.
While what Stratt did is undeniably fucked up, there is no valid justification to prioritise the life of one man, over seven billion lives. Science and morality give the same answer here as they did during the coma discussion, and it’s interesting to me how despite his appeal to emotions, his visceral desire to live, Grace frequently comes to the pragmatic decision, not the emotional one.
He does it during the coma discussion, he does it when Rocky saves him after they go fishing, he does it after the Taumoeba escape, and he does it once he finds Rocky as well.
Of course the fishing moment was before he remembers how desperate he was not to die but the others aren’t. Despite 3/4 of those moments being directly linked to his own survival, he chooses pragmatism over his own life.
And this leads me into what I think is my absolute favourite moment in the book, the mirroring of what Grace thinks to himself when debating whether or not to turn the Hail Mary around, and what Yao says to him when it’s clear that Grace does not want to board the Hail Mary.
Yao: I urge you to say yes, billions of lives are at stake. Our lives matter little, in the face of such suffering.
Grace: But then, Rocky dies. And more importantly, Rocky’s people die. Billions of them.
I love thinking about these two quotes together, I love them side by side so much, because the change in Grace is beautifully highlighted by thinking about them in tandem.
Because I don’t think the weight of what was at stake had really sunk in when Grace was still on Earth, when he was begging Stratt not to do this to him, when he spoke to her in his cell, I honestly don’t think the impact of his refusal had really registered for him.
Despite knowing, on paper, about it all, his fear, his desire for survival, it made it all secondary. He says it himself “human suffering is abstract” and yeah, he’s thinking about his kids, but he does the same thing, he centres himself, and by doing that, his brain makes the impact of “what if the Hail Mary fails” into an abstract concept he can file away and not think about.
Protecting himself from his cowardice. (Please note, I don’t think it’s wrong that Grace was a coward, I actually really like it, but he undeniably is preventing himself from thinking about the consequences of his refusal.)
But, after everything that he goes through, by the end of his mission to find out what’s happening at Tau Ceti, logic and morality have the same answer, going to find the Blip-A and take Rocky home.
And what I think is funny, is that when he’s moving Rocky back to his environment, he voices this thought, “Yeah he’s a good guy and he saved my life, but this isn’t about us. He’s got a planet to save, why risk his whole mission for me.”
It’s so reminiscent of Stratt accepting that she will likely be the world’s whipping boy once the Hail Mary launches. Her peace, her freedom, her life, mean nothing in the face of the total destruction astrophage will wreak. Each individual isn’t as important as the mission itself, as the planets they’re trying to save.
Grace even highlights it again once he finds Rocky and upon Rocky learning that going to Erid spells Grace’s doom, says: then you go home, you go home now, I wait here, Erid maybe send another ship someday
Grace: that’s ridiculous, do you really want to bet your species on that guess?
A pause and then “no.”
Because in the end, the emotional aspect of it, the weight of Grace’s life, doesn’t come close to balancing the weight of the billions of lives on Erid.
But wait! You might say, what about Rocky choosing to risk his life for Grace after they go fishing? His last words are: save Earth, save Erid, he seems very convinced he’s going to die now. Why would he do that?
Because Grace is a science human. It’s an emotional choice, but it’s backed by pragmatism. Rocky, by this point, has spent 42 years in the Tau Ceti system, having no luck in solving the astrophage crisis. He can’t even get a sample of astrophage until Grace shows up because it’s not his field.
And they’re on the Hail Mary, with equipment that would melt in Rocky’s atmosphere, so it’s all useless to him. And even if he could find a solution, something that is VERY unlikely considering he has no clue about human technology, Earth still dies.
Rocky knows about Grace’s beetles, he knows that Grace knows where Erid is, if he dies and Grace lives, there’s the chance of Erid getting the information they need if Grace finds a solution.
If Rocky died there, Earth and Erid have a chance.
If Grace died there, Earth is doomed.
So Rocky makes the pragmatic choice, his life, in exchange for the chance of saving billions.
I just, I get emotional about how Project Hail Mary offers a bunch of scenarios where there is only one right answer, only one way forward, even if it’s only a chance, that’s the choice you have to make.
And the characters who have these choices presented to them, make the same choice, the pragmatic decision, every time.
I just think it’s neat okay.
If eridians had ao3 this one would go crazy.
Do you think I made Adrian too small
