I am a Ray of Funshine

Call me Cookie. She/they. Here for the fandom, the random, and the social commentary. CookieMonstor86 on AO3. 18+ Fuck terfs and radfems. This *is* a trans inclusive space. We’re queer here sweetie. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/welcomehome-orlakbarnett is my poetry blog. My pen name is Orla K. Barnett. I'd love to hear what you think <3

[djpachipikachu]

in an eridian mood … give them some paws

[ravmycupine]

Grace makes a shocking discovery

[stiffyck]

Heck, if he wanted to do open-heart surgery on me, I’d probably let him.

[wolfythewitch]

Phm doodle requests from twt

[lutheban]

Rocky, once again, being baffled and STRESSED about human biology and the things his human does to keep healthy i dont think mr "my whole crew died of radiation sickness" likes the fact that his alien and most things on his planet needs it for survival very much xD previous

[7-inches-of-satanic-panic]

k but imagine Rocky wanting to learn about how humans became the apex predators of their planet so he has Grace “hunt” him in the biodome as an experiment and during it he thinks Grace isn’t trying or taking it seriously which is bad bad bad because this is for research purposes

only for Rocky to get more and more tired as the experiment goes on just to realize that Grace isn’t which makes him panic so he puts as much distance as he can between them and finds a (hopefully) safe spot to sleep and when he wakes up the human is crouching over him like “got youuu” and Rocky has never shrieked so damn loud before in his life

[fancycake]

okay don’t get me wrong i understand why people might prefer the drama of the book canon where Grace is slowly starving to death on the trip to Erid and is guzzling taumoeba just to stay alive, and why folks might think the implied movie canon of Stratt sending things like seeds/seedlings for growing food with the astronauts as a cop-out

but! i think everyone is severely underestimating how goddamn difficult if not borderline IMPOSSIBLE it would be to grow ANYthing on Mary, let alone to grow enough to sustain Grace for the journey to Erid

subsistence farming is very, very difficult ON EARTH, in the exact right conditions, with access to supplies and the space to grow what you need. adding to that, it is notoriously hard to grow ANYTHING in space. they’d have to devote a relatively large space to this particular hydroponics project, and Mary is NOT that big.

they’d need UV lights running on a schedule, and they’d need fans going to simulate wind to harden the plants and potentially aid in fertilization - talk about a power drain. they’d have to make the whole ship more oxygen rich (super unsettling when your crew member combusts in oxygenated environments). what kind of soil do they have access to? is it microbe-rich enough? how do they fertilize? maybe they add taumoeba in an attempt to augment the substrate they’re using - but what if that introduces the plants to brand new diseases? what if it sterilizes them and makes the resulting seeds completely useless? what if they can only get cabbages and leeks to grow - we’d still be missing some vital nutrients. and even if Grace was successfully eating a decent variety of grown food, he’d still be missing OTHER vital nutrients that he wouldn’t have access to until Eridian scientists come up with me-burgers.

it would be an exhausting, discouraging, infuriating process. and for two beings who have never (as far as we know) farmed a day in their lives, it would be a super stressful venture that would take up a lot of their time and monopolize their waking thoughts. truuuuust me, there’s drama there too - with the added possibility of trying very hard and failing spectacularly, i might add.

[gossamer-green]

i think rocky holds a special appreciation for the insult "eat shit" because it's considered vulgar in both english and eridian

[dogdaysareover365]

Rocky pitching the meburger to Grace/the other eridians

[nol-com]

Grace has to be so weird to eridians. He walks on two legs, as opposed to 5. As established, he is very "leaky" too. And has fur?? What?? But only in certain places. How does that make sense. AND hes squishy? Humans are shitty, statement. I think the most confusing thing has to be that certain feelings can lead to bodily functions. Like oh my god I'm so anxious. Time to puke. Or, oh, I'm so excited let me shake. Or I'm so upset, let me have a waterfall come down my face.

That has to be so confusing. Rocky just turns to grace like "No. Dispensing bodily fluids will not defend you from predators."

[sock-kaleidoscope]

I just think they’re neat :}

Big Adrian Propaganda

[akdw]

Grace’s situation of how he was put into space must be so appalling and horrifying to Rocky and not just because he’s hearing how his best friend got hurt and violated. Both Grace’s amnesia and the coma must be terrifyingly foreign things to Rocky.

Eridians are completely defenseless in their sleep, pretty much no external stimuli can rouse them awake. They’re left defenseless and completely unable to fend for themselves.

Eridians also have perfect memory. It’s why Rocky doesn’t need a translator for Grace, he automatically remembers all the tunes and cadences of Grace’s words and language.

Both of these things are the Eridian norm. So to Rocky it must be so heartbreaking to hear his best friend had both of those violated. Along with his life, his future, his home planet, they took away two key biological necessities, things you’re supposed to be born with.

[through-rose-glasses]

There’s something tragic yet good about how Rocky will remember the sound of Grace’s voice and will never have it fade. He will go centuries without Grace but Rocky will never forget anything about him. Eridian memories keep their clarity, so Rocky will always have Grace as he was.

[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.

[verenakauer]

Grace knows that Rocky has PTSD after the, well, everything. They've been stuck together for four years. He knows.

He understands.

They arrive to Erid, and one of the first things Grace does is playing for Adrian a little speech he made in Eridian using his recordings of Rocky's voice. And it's just... instructions. Mostly.

"He has a lot of anxiety about people's health and will probably freak out about yours at some point, don't dismiss it and let him see that you are okay."

"He is terrified of being alone, please make sure someone is physically close to him at all times."

"He is scared of falling asleep and will delay it as long as he can, you need to pay attention to his sleep cycle or he'll be hurting himself."

"He downplays everything bad that is happening to him, mental and physical, please keep an eye on him or he'll be ignoring his health completely."

"He never gave up, but I might die very soon and I'm not sure how he will react to it. Please be with him, even when it's not easy. He loves you. He wanted to return to you so badly. Even though he probably has changed, this is still him. Please keep loving him. He needs it more than ever. He'll need it when I am gone."

...Adrian is very annoyed because a) the fuck do you mean by implying that I'll leave him, b) the fuck do you mean by implying you know him better than I do (Adrian does have to begrudgingly accept this one later: Grace is objectively more familiar with Rocky's trauma responses), and c) the fuck do you mean you're gonna die no one's letting you die shut up and get into the lab we have science to do. They become friends fast, bonding over worrying about Rocky together.

(Rocky is not sure he likes it, but has to admit he can finally feel safe with the both of them by his side.)

[xiketic]

Something I haven't seen many people talk about in PHM is the fact that Eridians probably don't have the same attitudes towards time as humans do. Think about it: Erid is an inherently dayless place, having an atmosphere that allows no light and thus no concept of day or night. We don't really think much about how our entire lives are structured around this cycle that Earth life has been experiencing for eons. Erid life has no concept of this at all. Eridian sleep schedules are somewhat irregular and not synced to each other (they can't be, not if someone always stays awake to watch). They don't track birthdays like we do, they can't unless they're paying attention to their solar cycle, which I'd expect is a relatively new thing for their culture. Maybe they base age on their near-perfect memories or how many layers their carapace has or how big they are, or experiences/accomplishments. They may have an idea of an Eridian year, if their planet has seasons or something like that, but I doubt it has a whole lot of importance to them.

I'd image having an alien who relies so heavily on cycles and repeated patterns in order to function normally would be mind-boggling to the Eridians. What do you mean it celebrates the exact day of its birth every so often, just because? Wait we need to program a reliable change in light levels to simulate its planet, which has almost no atmosphere? And we have to schedule any interactions we have with it around this cycle? Wait it tracks its age by the scientific year, not by life experience and physical aging?

Constantly being reminded that this guy Rocky brought home that saved their entire planet is, in fact, a complete alien.

[foralittlewile]

According to Andy Weir's Eridian biology document, Eridians are better multitaskers than humans will ever be, but the trade off is they're physically incapable of locking in. SO funny to me. Yes this species can build a diorama while simultaneously blitzing through mathematics equations and also partaking in intense gossiping, but they cannot do any of those things for longer than, like, half an hour without going crazy. Species of supercomputers cursed with the TikTok attention span.

Rocky mocks Grace when he says that Rocky is distracting him by starting complex conversations while he's Trying To Do Science. "Human brain have to stop activity just because talking question? Useless! One track mind!"

Then Grace is on hour six of his "trying to recreate skittles" hyperfocus and Rocky is like What The Fuck. Statement.

Yeah human brains can only do a single very consuming task at a time but it can do it for a very long time. The one track in our one track minds spans multiple countries. Persistence predators, babey.