Annie's Nest

~~~_(:"3 J L)_~~~

[nohaijiachi]

Through the power of science and friendship Grace and Rocky create some contraption that allows Rocky to see things exactly like humans do.

And Grace is so excited to show his best friend how colorful the universe is! Look, Rocky, this is the ocean you made for me, isn't it beautiful? Look at the colors of the sky you made for me and the sand you made for me-- I'll show you pictures of trees so you can see how green they are. And you have a bit of green on your body, too, right here-- Look at yourself in this mirror! Look, it's you! I have to show you how the stars looks like, how Erid looks like-- If we go up there again I could show you how we can see Tau Ceti all the way from here. Can you believe it? We can see the place where we met all the way from here!

And Rocky is very much excited and enjoying the experience but also keeps turning to look at Grace. Yes, it's beautiful, but you didn't tell me that your hair has so many different shades of color, just like all the colors of the beach we made for you. You never told me that your eyes have colors in them, too. Did you even know? They are the same color of the ocean we made for you. Did you know that? Blue, like the ocean. Is that how my hand print on your arm looks like? I hope it doesn't hurt, but I'm happy I got to touch you at least one time. Yes, it's cool to see myself, but is that how you look when you smile? Show me all of your expressions, please. This is the universe how you see it, you want to show it to me, and I can't stop looking at you. Let me look at you. Let me look at you. Let me look at you.

[hailed-marys]

on the beach, in every life.

[pineappical]

cuteness aggression

[sillylittlestoryteller]

Masterpost for my "Mark Watney gets saved by his teacher, Mr. Grace" AU

I need a better title, I'm open to suggestions 🙃

Here are the links to all the snippets I've posted, and I'll add any new ones. Turn on notifications for this post if you wanna get the updates!

First idea + Part 1 (first contact)

Part 2 (first convo)

Part 3 (Back on Earth: Stratt and Kapoor)

Part 4 (Hailing Earth)

Part 5 (Crush)

Part 6 (Food! disgust-disgust-disgust)

Part 7 (Hobby?)

For now, this au is just a silly concept and I'm posting whatever snippets enter my brain completely out of order (only the first 2 are a direct follow-up), so you can read them out of order too. This might become an actual fic as soon as I have an actual plot lol

(and of course I'll post that here too)

[s-e-v-e-n-p-m]

phm fic ideas/prompts? based around grace watching eridians sleep (anyone can feel free to write or borrow bits and pieces of any of these lol)

whatever predator caused the need for eridians to watch each other sleep is still very prevalent even in densely populated areas. and it turns out they’re some kind of slow moving, low to the ground stealth predator that takes a lot of intense focus to detect even when in pretty close range. fortunately grace can see them coming from a mile away with some good lights on.

imagine grace gets a proper xenonite atmosphere suit and he puts it on for teaching the pebbles so if any fall asleep (involuntary for eridians) then he can just scoop them up and keep them on his desk for easier watching. when the parents find out they’re thrilled because dang that’s a good watching strategy, easy for the whole class to see!

alternatively a majority of his pebbles fall asleep mid class and he dons his xenonite suit to come in and pile them altogether to watch and just hangs out with the remaining few who’re still awake. makes them feel included and helpful and answers less educational questions and jokes around because they’re too small to actually be effective for watching for predators and he needs to keep them calm. a pile of pebbles are appealing prey and he ends up with a pile of 6 fuckass alien millipedes in the corner.

relating to the last one, one of grace’s pebble students is lost in a crowd and runs to him to be scooped up til their parents are located bc grace is well established to be good at keeping pebbles safe from predators.

grace falls asleep while at adrian and rocky’s whilst they’re hosting an extended family get together of some kind. they are very taken aback when he snaps awake, looks around, grabs a xenonite tool off rocky’s workbench and uses it to kill a predator that had been creeping into the home. then wordlessly stalking the perimeter of the house once or twice in clear hunting motions before putting the wrench down and going back to sleep. (rocky suddenly has an epiphany about why grace had seemed confused by the idea of watching people sleep or being watched while he slept when they met)

[lbjsz]

Hand-kissing

[bismuthfool]

Oh, Mary, full of grace, receive the bloodied sufferer into your arms

I really wanted to show how I see what is happens to bloodymary right after the moment when Grace takes Simon from the bloody ocean I feel like I want it to be creepy and disturbing.

oh no, who's that standing against the wall in the last frame? It seems like while Rocky sleeps, Grace will survive the real Ripley-trying-to-survive-on-the-ship-with-Alien experience

[kiapet2]

It's commonly accepted in this fandom that humans have extremely fragile bodies in comparison to Eridians, but I think that's actually an oversimplification.

Because while Eridians are incredibly strong and tough on the outside, on the inside they are actually quite fragile:

They have no immune system, so anything that makes it past their enclosed carapace and internal heating will pretty much kill them

They have no natural defenses to radiation of any kind

In general they have very little organic matter so anything that targets their cells directly is quickly lethal

They are partially cold-blooded and live at a very narrow temperature range (about 20 degrees C)

They rely almost entirely on one, highly developed sense and are helpless if deafened (can't even remember the layout of a room)

They are completely helpless while asleep and can't control when that happens

They will forcibly become dormant after eating AND when badly hurt enough (their equivalent of going into shock)

They require more energy to function than humans do, and have very little organic matter to burn in the case of starvation

In contrast, humans:

Have an aggressive immune system and internal mechanisms for dealing with cell damage

Have adrenaline which allows them to temporarily ignore injuries and perform abnormal feats of strength

Are persistence hunters built for economy of movement and capable of extreme levels of endurance

Exist in a very wide range of habitats and on a diverse diet

Are very hardy in general, able to survive massive injuries, lack of sleep, prolonged starvation, and intense environmental conditions if given proper care

The quintessential example of this dichotomy between strength and endurance is the Going Fishing incident in the book: Rocky is able to survive and move in G forces that are killing Grace and to physically wrestle off the chair crushing him, but he collapses from his injuries almost immediately after. Despite being injured himself Grace then carries his 400lb friend up a ladder, is badly burned returning him to his atmosphere, and then proceeds to get some basic medical care, hype himself up on pain meds and keep working (albeit rather badly, lol) while Rocky forcibly sleeps.

The TL:DR is that Eridians are harder to damage, but easier to kill. They're like an rpg character with high armor and low health. I think Rocky would consider Grace to be very delicate at first, only to be blown away by how deceptively tough his friend can be.

[cozy-stardust]

Imagine Grace defined his name as the elegance definition of grace and Rocky spends years thinking how fucking ironic this clumsy leaky space blobs name is.

Until Grace slips out a sentence along the lines of "could you give me a little grace here" and Rocky immediately points out he used a word wrong so Grace has to explain that yeah, grace means elegance but it can also mean mercy sometimes too.

And Rocky has to suddenly reconcile that the clumsy leaky blob that saved his life twice, that almost certainly doomed himself to come back for him, name is Mercy.

[rockrockgrace]

Eridian Headcanon #I (On Cuteness)

My Personal Headcanon™ is that like Humans, Eridians have a ingrained instinctual sense of what is 'cute' - that, also like us, is tied to the similarity to the appearance and/or the behaviour of their offspring (which I will call 'pebbles' from this point on.)

So what if... humans do a few things that are adorable to Eridians...? Think about it! There are fully grown creatures that we find adorable because they do something that humans find inherently cute! Heck - look at this fandom - a lot (most) of us probably want to be best friends with a ROCK SPIDER ALIEN. (I know I do!) So imagine: Grace: *Bumps into table for the 1000th time like a pebble learning to get their footing* Grace: *Humming unbeknownst to him an Eridian phrase he heard Rocky say once and sounds like a pebble trying to learn to speak* Grace: *snoring which happens to sound just like pebble happy-rumbling-purr sounds*

Grace: *tapping random rhythm not unlike a pebble trying to get a good view of something* Grace: *Curling as close to Rocky as possible through the xenonite barrier like a pebble seeking comfort* All of which would remind any Eridian of a pebble, and so Rocky finds it all adorable. Also: Rocky: Friend-Grace is gross leaky space blob, statement! Grace: ??? *Was just minding his own business when he randomly sneezed* *sounded just like a pebble 'sneezing'* (Translation: You're adorable - how dare you)

[occudo]

They wear suits, but they don't even know basic etiquette.

Based on @cowardsexual 's post of a very sleepy phm science team and Grace's teacher instincts

[hailmarysuggest]

EridTok

Grace: Oh yeah, this place is awesome! And the best part is, when my body starts breaking down, it won’t be that bad because you guys have these gas-pits and when I stick my head over them and breathe, it makes any pain go away! It’s pretty cool.

Rocky: *in the background, frantically trying to get down a hill to his human* Grace don’t smell that no smell die smell don’t smell don’t smell gas bad-

Grace: :) and my lil buddy comes to hug me *flings himself onto Rocky for cuddles* this planet is great

Rocky: Adrian!!! Adrian he’s smelling the gas leak again come fix come fix!

Adrian: Should put the human on a leash.

[alexxuun]

More Rocktiz but he now have an extra arm!

[gracerockyyes]

My leaky space blob

[monsterritory]

𝄞 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 "Humans psychology flaw design: many stress without rest, won't rest when many stress. Bad bad bad. Endless cycle. Rocky fix." 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝄻

[chromaticrainarts]

Eridian scientists proceed to stuff Grace's face with meburgers until Rocky stops screaming

[pineappical]

whole house mad

[mellosdrawings]

Literally this