As things have been growing an awful lot around here, I figured I'd take a minute to actually introduce myself.
So, uh
Hi.
I'm Red, your local friendly cryptid who definitely doesn't want to know your full name for fae-related reasons
I have been in fandom spaces for a long time, mostly quietly writing fanfiction on ao3, and this is my first time back on Tumblr since I was in high school.
Genuinely happy to be back, coming here felt like coming home.
I take requests for fandoms I am in, and am generally here and happy to chat whenever.
Masterlist of my current works for Dr STONE -> HERE
Masterlist of current works for Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba -> HERE
And if you wanna know what other media I enjoy, feel free to just ask.
I see every notification, and I'm happiest when you're enjoying my brainrot with me.
Has anyone talked about how it's extremely unlikely that Eridians are all rock people and that it's also unlikely the sentient peoples of the planet Erid all speak in musical tones, or can I open that can of worms?
I spent some time talking to some friends about this
Let me expand and correct my wording as i said this very poorly, if I may
Eridians are comprised of (according to the book) inorganic materials. And yes, rocks are included in that but you know what else?
Metals. Salts. Acids too, I believe.
Depending on the environment they live in, it makes sense that Eridians don't all look like rock rocks. I've seen lots of ocs that are gemstone-y, and that's beautiful keep doing that, but I think we're missing out on some really funky possibilities.
Eridians that are see-through because they're made of a kind of quartz, or that look like bone, or that appear fluffy because they're covered in small mineral-y needles (which is a real thing, apparently).
Eridians made of iron or gold or copper (or some similar metals)
Diamond Eridians, salt crusted Eridians, Eridians that "sweat" acid. Eridians made of obsidian who can withstand heat better than most but their carapaces are brittle and break easily.
Are we seeing the vision?
But if I'm honest, the most important part of this post to me is the language thing.
Yes, they're aliens so them having a universal language isn't the end of the world, but I really. Don't like that. Erid is huge- bigger than Earth. The idea that Eridians on this side of the planet and that side of the planet singing the same notes in the same tunes with the same "instrument" (for lack of a better word) just doesn't. Make sense to me.
Give me Eridians who speak in strings or horns. Rocky, in the book, is given a kind of electric keyboard sound. Give me classic piano. Organ. Flutes.
But also, consider Eridians who don't use musical sounds.
Eridians who tap their claws together (like Morse code or sign language).
Or if you wanna get weird with it, think of the noises you hear every day that you don't think about.
Eridians that click and/or whistle. Eridians that sound like the whirring of a fan or rustling of leaves. Eridians who buzz like insects.
Has anyone talked about how it's extremely unlikely that Eridians are all rock people and that it's also unlikely the sentient peoples of the planet Erid all speak in musical tones, or can I open that can of worms?
Do I put an oc in my livestreamer Ryland Grace fic as a lab assistant (kind of like the request from the other day but also not bc it might be more romantic than platonic I havent decided yet)
He doesn't look at the camera. Hasn't been, really, for the past several minutes while he's explained what's happening. What's about to happen.
"Or I can save Rocky."
The people watching already know what he's going to pick. He's not asking their opinions, even if it sounds like he might be.
"I don't know how this is going to end."
He finally looks up, his tired yet resolute eyes staring through the lense, his gaze penetrating the void straight to Earth.
"But I know I can't just sit here and do nothing."
Ryland Grace stands, moving to set the camera on a shelf and stepping back, wiping a hand down his face, then running it through his hair. He looks back at the camera and puts his hands on his hips. He can see the chat scrolling by faster than he can read it from the laptop in his periphery.
If no one stops me I will be making a massive fanfiction where I just do All Of It At Once
Ryland Grace and his Best Friend Ever Rocky exploring the stars, searching for other life, finding Simon and other aliens and sharing everything via livestream that goes to Earth and Erid somehow because it brings joy and whimsy and also I said so
Thinking about my livestreamer Ryland Grace and I started giggling cause like.
If we go more into the book lore, Rocky doesn't have a voice. He sings his musical notes, and Grace understands because he's got his translator and actually spent time learning the different sounds and what they mean, but he never gives Rocky a way to speak in the traditional sense. So I'm now imagining that being what people on Earth see.
Just a guy talking, and a rock spider humming whale songs back at him, and everyone is so sure Grace is making half of it up cause there's just no way he can actually understand. It isn't until he sits down and talks through the actual technology and how it works that people realize that he isn't going completely insane, but only a little bit insane.
This came to me in a vision and I simply must share it immediately.
Eva Stratt doesn't go to jail for the things she did during the creation of the Hail Mary. She doesn't go to jail because she forced Ryland Grace aboard the ship against his will. No, she can't. She has diplomatic immunity concerning anything to do with the project.
What she goes to jail for, is releasing Ryland Grace's full video logs to the public after the World Government Leaders decide to try to edit and bury them.
She lets them put handcuffs on her, lets them carry her off to spend the rest of her life behind bars because she refuses to let the memory of Ryland Grace, the man who saved Earth (and Erid) be tainted. She's a historian, and this is her way of making sure the man she betrayed gets his story put into record properly.
It's the least she can do for him, after all she forced him to do.
Bloodymary au with a little sister/adopted kid reader? Young 20's type prodigy who Ryland takes under his wing (he's a teacher legally he's gotta), who Simon can't help but soften around, who Rocky screeches is a baby (yet gets translated swear words from).
Throw a little live streamer Ryland you had for extra sauce if you wanna. Earth is watching an overtired science dad, a local cryptid, a ROCK and a child gnawing at their enclosure.
As you please, my friend. ✌️
Live streamer Ryland Grace lives rent free in my head I will always take the opportunity to write it (i am working on an actual fic for it slowly but surely)
I formatted this in kind of a funky way, hopefully it's okay. I'm getting back into the swing of doing things like this.
~
You weren't supposed to be on the ship in the first place, that much he knew for sure. The ship was barely big enough for the three intended people, but somehow you'd managed to weasel your way on board. He wonders if Stratt knew, or if you'd managed to sneak in despite her constant oversight. He asked, but you didn't exactly answer. And honestly? He's not sure he really wants to know. You were so young, and yet you seemed to know just as well as he did how this mission was supposed to end.
There's always something new happening on the Hail Mary, making it hard for watchers on Earth to look away from the livestream. It was because of you that any of this was even possible in the first place, and Grace still isn't sure how you managed to make it work, but he's glad he let you try.
You have it set up so that there are four different streams connected to four cameras in different areas of the ship so people aren't missing anything. That wasn't how it originally started, but once it was realized that your tinkering had worked, Grace gave you permission to expand.
Below is a short collection of things caught on camera, in no particular order.
Finding Rocky and the Blip-A
"Soo, we met an alien-" This was the first real shock to Earth. Middle School Science Teacher and Science Expert Aboard the Extremely Important Hail Mary, Dr. Ryland Grace, grins at the camera like an absolute goof while you can be heard giggling in the background. The musical notes of the Eridian engineer are initially confused by watchers as a radio or some other Earthly comfort, only for everyone to be proven very very wrong.
Finding Simon
He scares you, at first. Hell, he scares all of you at first. Meeting Rocky and discovering there really truly was more life out there was enough of a shock, but finding a human from a whole other timeline abandoned in space due to what you can only assume is black hole fuckery or some kind of relative anomaly is something else entirely.
He's violent in the beginning, too. Lot's of yelling, and he shoves Ryland into a wall hard enough to give him a minor concussion. You end up putting a camera in the 'Don't Go Crazy' room so people can watch Simon, as that's where he ends up quarantined for several days before anyone tries to talk to him again. Ryland argues that you probably shouldn't do that in case he breaks the equipment, but Rocky is on your side, so he folds pretty quick.
It sends Earth scientists into a tizzy trying to solve the mystery of Simon Nolastname. You're updated daily via chat about progress, but if you're honest, his and everyone else's safety and comfort is slightly more important than how he got here.
Rocky sleeping
It brings your Eridian friend great joy to know that there will always be someone to watch him sleep so long as he does it in front of the camera. It's not the same as if you or Ryland are in the room, but he's grateful nonetheless for all the humans keeping him safe while he rests.
Every scientific breakthrough with the astrophage and taumoeba
You joke that you can hear Earth cheering when Ryland manages to successfully breed the nitrogen resistant astrophage. He quips back that it's only because you're reading the chat instead of working.
Simon becoming part of the team
It's a slow process. He doesn't trust Ryland, doesn't trust Rocky, but you manage to get through to him. You sit in the 'Don't Go Crazy' room with him- sometimes in silence, sometimes talking until your voice starts to give out and he finally finally tells you to shut up.
He's not a fan of being treated like he's fragile. Not when he's physically stronger than you and Ryland combined. Rocky might give him some trouble, if the Eridian deemed fighting necessary, but thankfully that doesn't happen. More than once, anyway.
He's not a science genius, but Simon isn't unintelligent. In fact, you find that he's quite smart. He can logic out puzzles that take the other three of you hours to solve in mere minutes. He's still shocked at the sight of the stars, yet he figures out how to navigate them without a map.
Simon becomes your pilot, secondary engineer, and brute muscle to open or carry things, allowing the rest of you to focus on the science. You keep the fact that people are shipping him and Ryland a secret for as long as you can, laughing so hard you cry when Rocky very loudly asks ['What mean Simon and Grace should kiss, question?'] while your mentor and the other man both turn redder than any tomato and rush to separate rooms, leaving you to explain. Rocky thinks on this for a while before deciding that he agreed. They made good mates for each other.
Ryland Grace realizing he was on the ship against his will, and every foul word Simon says about it
You don't take a camera with you when you explore Rocky's ship, so no one catches the exact moment, but the way he moves upon returning to the Hail Mary is sign enough that something is wrong. Earth watches as he slumps to the ground, curling into himself and sobbing while you stay at his side, trying to soothe him. When that doesn't work, you run to find Simon, who had chosen to stay aboard the ship.
"I don't know what happened," You say, pulling him towards your friend- your mentor- your father. "One minute he was fine, the next he was- well..."
Simon stares at Ryland for a long time. He'd always been a crybaby- quick to burst into tears. But even he could tell this was different. He looks at you, unsure of what exactly you want him to do, but you just look back at him, fighting tears of your own. He pats you on the head, and gives you one of his rare little smiles before telling you to change from your foul smelling ammonia clothes into something that doesn't smell like cat piss.
The chat explodes when he sits next to Ryland and pulls him into his arms, letting the sobbing mess of a scientist curl into his chest. He pets his hair- like you do when he was having one of his panic episodes after a nightmare- and hums an old tune from Eden. Something his mother used to sing when he was very very small. Hearts both inside the ship and across the universe shatter when Ryland explains what he remembered through broken sobs.
Eva Stratt watches in tense silence, making eye contact with Simon through the screen as he glares at the camera, as if knowing she, too, was watching. His gaze is a threat. And a promise.
You and Simon adding to Rocky's ever-expanding vocabulary despite Ryland's attempts to stop you
You do it in secret, whispering to him profanity Ryland avoids and adding his translations to the list. Simon, on the other hand, is less concerned with secrecy. He defines whatever foul word he uses the moment he's asked, ignoring Ryland's attempts to distract or talk over him.
Rocky thinks it's hilarious, and finds a specific kind of joy in the look of exasperation that crosses his best friend's face when he uses a new curse word for the first time.
Scientific Mayhem
Between you and Ryland, things were bound to get a little crazy in the lab sometimes. There was way more downtime between world saving tasks than anyone really expected, which left the two of you a lot of time to play.
It's all fun and games until the twenty-something and their mentor both end up getting treated for illness/injury due to unsafe lab practices while Simon and Rocky both yell at them.
Whatever you do, don't think about the idea that Ryland Grace probably dreams of human contact. Don't think about the idea that it's so real he swears he can still feel it when he wakes up. The warmth. The softness. The everything.
Don't think about the idea that he tries not to cry, but can't help the sobs that escape him as he wraps his arms around himself in an attempt to recreate something he'll never again truly feel.
Don't think about the idea that he doesn't know how to explain the concept of being touchstarved to the Eridians. Don't think about how they try and try and try to bring him the comfort he so desperately needs, and don't think about how they fail over and over and over.
Don't think about how Rocky constantly fears that Grace resents him for keeping him here (yes, it's Grace's decision, but fear and anxiety isn't exactly logical) and that this condition is killing his best friend. The person who saved him. Who helped him get back home. Don't think about how Rocky is so sure he's ruined everything for Grace that he starts to pull away
And don't think about how that makes it so much worse because even if it's not the same, Rocky still tries, and it helps Grace not feel so horribly, terribly alone
Ryland and Rocky meeting another alien out in space who's also searching for a solution to astrophage.
An alien who makes Ryland so uncomfortable and Rocky cant figure out why
They make different sounds. Yes, they're shaped kind of the same, but it's statistically possible for that to occur depending on conditions on their planet, so why does Grace keep staring, question? What is he looking at?
Ryland Grace, who has a deep sense of uncanny valley looking at this non human human, who's face is a little too perfect, their smile a little too wide, their teeth a little too sharp, and trying to explain to Rocky that humans evolved to be afraid of people who looked just like this
So human but so non human, and Ryland is starting to wonder how many of those stories of aliens from ancient times were true.
