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rylandgracie

what kind of soulmate crack cocaine was everyone snorting in that set when they made this film i'm being serious

occudo

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

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

kokica1

We always talk about how Stratt is haunted by Grace's screams and cries at night, but what about Carl?

Carl, the guy Grace built an entire hypothesis around.

Carl, the guy that learned to have fun with Grace while doing science.

Carl, the guy that fueled Grace's addiction to Skittles and Twizzlers.

Carl, the guy that was there every step of the way until the end. And then he was forced to stand by and watch as Grace was pinned to the ground, pleading for help, calling for him of all people.

I'm willing to bet Carl is kept awake just as much as Stratt was if not more so, utterly tortured by what he'd done to Grace.

loving-jack-kelly

hey. after grace dies. he's buried in a combination of human and eridian traditions. a beautiful carved monument to who he is and what he represents to the planet and people of erid. and they have a permanent sort of honor guard there. somebody always there to watch him sleep.

and generations later, when erid is thriving again and even rocky and adrian are long gone, buried or memorialized right alongside grace, classes of little eridian children come and watch the changing of the watch. feel connected to the history of their planet because they, too, are watching grace and rocky sleep. the saviors of erid will never sleep alone again.

smol-ghosts

They’re stupid your honor

enbyfox

anemia is a really funny deficiency to have when your buddy is an alien who's mostly made of metal

I looked at the readout for my latest blood test and sighed.

"New problem, question?" Rocky asked. We were about ninety days out from 40-Eridani's heliopause, and it seemed like new nutritional problems were popping up every day. Probably from me mixing more taumoeba into the coma slurry to make it last longer.

"Yes," I said. "Apparently I'm becoming anemic."

"New word, question?"

"Anemic. Means my body isn't getting enough iron."

"♪♫♪♩♩♬!" he said, his carapace shooting up. "I fix!" He scampered off down toward the dormitory.

I stared at where he disappeared into the floor. That... sounded a lot like him giving me his word for "anemic". But that couldn't be it. We haven't discovered any overlap of nutritional needs of humans and Eridians, besides a base need for glucose and proteins. And what did he mean by "I fix"?

In retrospect, I really should have seen what was about to happen. However, the brain fog from my various nutritional deficiencies was really starting to settle in, so I just continued to stare in confusion.

I was startled out of it by Rocky yelling. "Grace! Come to airlock! Grace!"

He continued to call my name and pester me even as I moved toward the ladder, and I know he can see me moving. "Alright, alright! I'm coming!"

As I got down the ladder, Rocky became even more frantic, tapping on his side of the airlock. Inside was what looked like some sort of pouch. "Take, take!"

"It has to cool down first!"

"Is cold. You take!"

How long was I staring at the wall, that whatever it was had already cooled nearly two hundred degrees? "Alright, I take!"

I took the pouch from the airlock, and opened it. Inside was a bunch of... metal chips? Each one was about the size of the tip of my pinkie finger. "Rocky, what is this?"

He tilted his carapace in a way I've come to recognize as pride. "Is Eridian supplement. Cannot make you vitamins on Hail Mary, but have iron. Eat, before react with oxygen in you air!"

It took a second before things clicked into place. "Wh- Oxidation doesn't happen that quickly-" I shook my head, dislodging the errant thought. "Rocky, I can't eat this."

"Why not, question? Does not have thallium, or mercury, or any other 'heavy metals'," — yes, he did the air quotes, with three hands — "is just iron."

"Just because it won't poison me, doesn't mean my body can use it. It needs to be in... certain salts... I think." That sounded right, but information recall was becoming extremely difficult these days. I picked up one of the chips; it's very thin. "I might even have to worry about this cutting up my intestines..."

Rocky was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, so I looked back up at him. He was staring at me (don't ask how I know he was staring, I just do) in disbelief. Then he threw up two arms in exasperation. "Human body useless!"

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing.

catthatchats

Project Iron Backrooms 🥹

lewadny

sairitaikutsu

IRON LUNG IS OUT IN YOUTUBE PH IRON LUNG IS OUT IN YOUTUBE PH IRON LUNG IS OUT IN YOUTUBE PH IRON LUNG IS O

WAIT FOR ME WIFE (CONVICT) !!!!! AT-5 IS NOT FAR

blackholesun321

Baby eridians, for a good portion of their lives, are soft-shelled, as Erid likes to call it. It takes a few molts (more than a few, but for abbreviation's sake) for their shells to entirely harden, absorbing minerals from around them and through their food to develop the shell on their exterior. If you need a comparison, consider how human bones fuse and we become less flexible as we get older.

But for a few years (cough, decades, cough), a baby pebble is about as hard as a soft-shelled turtle—or a normal turtle, if they're a bit older. Disadvantages aside, there is an advantage to being able to see your offspring's internal functions. And until their vocal bladders form and they're capable of making multiple complex sounds, being able to see what is hurting is absolutely helpful.

It's a universal experience among parents to lament the day they can no longer hear their pebbles' heartbeats.

That is to say, Rocky knows Grace is an adult, okay? He isn't someone who anthropomorphizes, and he isn't going to start now. Statement.

But when he first heard Grace in all his squishy glory— heart pumping away, lungs filling and deflating, organs digesting food— his brain went full baby-fever mode. Frankly, he was white-knuckling the urge to find the nearest hypothetical cave, bundle him up into a proper nest, and wait for his skin to absorb the surrounding minerals and start hardening properly.

But because Rocky is sensible and proper and not going to infantilize his best friend (he swears to God, stupid fucking instincts, shut the fuck up!!), he won't.

But sometimes the urge to squish his best friend is overwhelming. He just pinches at him through the permeable mesh of his ball. And Grace will screw up his face (so soft) and go what’s up bud? I piss you off or something? (He learns what bruises are and sulks for half a day afterward.)

All of that aside, once again, Rocky has gotten used to Grace's heartbeat, his clumsiness, and his one-tone voice. That's his best friend, and he's smart and just as capable as any other adult. He is also the cutest fucking thing to Eridian hearing. Is he also disconcertingly alien, definitely— His size, the limbs, the head protrusion (and other protrusions), the leakiness detracted maybe. But his cluster-sibling once cooed at and brought home a pet sulphur slug because, oh my spirits, hear his squishy respiratory system and you tell me that's not the cutest thing on the planet! It blurbles, Rocky! It fucking blurbles!

So, as Erid draws closer and Rocky/Grace become more excited and stressed. (The food has yet to run out, and as good as Erid is, they need substantial help from the human side to figure out how to make proper human nutrition. And finding the right informational packs in all of human knowledge is a very big undertaking.)

Rocky dreads the ever-looming talk he’ll need to have with Grace about the fact that Erid may, in fact, possibly find him very, very adorable. And that this might hamper communication for a second while he explains no, that is not a tall baby and no you cannot squish it.

rias-favorites

We NEED to talk about this scene because it shape-shifts when you watch the movie a second time???

On your first viewing, when Grace leaves the party to join Stratt on the deck, you’ve been following Grace's POV for the whole movie. You can feel how he's trying to break the ice and connect with Stratt via humor: "Permission to come aboard, captain?🫡"

And Stratt being Stratt kills the joke immediately: "You’re already aboard." And by killing that joke she also kills his attempt at connecting with her. That's her thing. You feel it in the knock-knock scene and you feel it here because Grace is feeling it. He stammers and he's nervous ("Talk too much, that's my problem, like right now"). His attempt at human connection is painfully unrequited (again).

When you finish the movie, you learn, however, that that is not true at all. You hear Stratt's voice crack when she has to do what she has to do, and you realize how her carefully constructed armor fractures because of him. He is not nothing to her.

And when you (inevitably) watch the movie again, and your POV is not limited to Grace's anymore but you can shift your view to Stratt ever so slightly, then suddenly the whole connecting-via-jokes business drops away to make room for the metaphorical meaning of "coming aboard".

"It is okay to be in your space? Am I allowed to be closer to you?"

And her answer?

He is already in her space, behind her defenses, and he doesn't even realize it (blissfully unaware about SO many things in fact). He is asking to be allowed inside the house while standing in the damn living room.

Of course watching a movie a second time will always deepen your understanding of the characters, but it's remarkable that Stratt's answer does not just gain a more differentiated level of meaning. Instead, it is transformed into it's opposite, from a very clear "I am not letting you in" to an equally clear "You've come in uninvited a long time ago", and both can be true at the same time!

God, the writing in this movie is KILLING ME

paksthestoic

thinking about eva stratt crafting a coffin for her friends. the very best coffin, full of every piece of pirated media the entire world has to offer. crafted for maximum comfort, this coffin, with every bit of authority available to her, which is all of it.

and then thinking about all the people who call her cold or uncaring or clinical about what she has to do to save earth. eva stratt, who had silly t-shirts and vodka and favorite meals stored in the Hail Mary and treated with the same level of importance as the finely tuned equipment and the centrifuge the entire planet relies on for salvation.

and then thinking about eva stratt nodding and saying, “yeah, I’m pretty awful. that’s why i’m in charge” with a neutral expression and even believing it. as if crafting the most beautiful coffin and homage to her soon-to-be dead friends won’t haunt her always.

thinking about eva stratt being the first person on the “eva stratt is a monster” train, welcoming ryland grace aboard and knowing she believed in him more than anyone else.

it’s fine, really it’s fine and normal and eva stratt makes beautiful coffins for the people and things she cares about.

ghstwht

I love how NASA loves PHM...

sharkfiinn

eldest-daughter-syndrome

werewolf-transgenderism

only 62 more frogs until we hit 8,000 species described. the moment we've all been waiting for

werewolf-transgenderism

there are an average of about 150 new amphibian species described per year so I remain hopeful that 2026 will be the year of 8,000 frogs

werewolf-transgenderism

I do love that somebody tagged tumblr's own frog scientist on this post. chop chop dr scherz, we've got 62 more frogs to discover and you're the only frog scientist any of us knows

werewolf-transgenderism

GUYS amphibian species of the world is still at 7,994 species of frog BUT amphibiaweb is at 8,008 species of frog, and do you know who is a co-author on the 8,000th species of frog there???? TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR SCHERZ