#do the eridians even know the rest of planet earth is not That into burgers... #actually tags cancelled i just made myself cough-laugh imagining myself in grace's position #trying to get the eridians to use my cloned lab meat to recreate the humble bunnings sausage sizzle. #okay more seriously how much interplanetary diplomatic awkwardness was caused #by grace and rocky both confidently going 'humans are like this' and 'eridians are like this' #and they both just mean their respective cultures. theres nuance.
first of all lmfao, second of all YEAH!!! Hang on I need to yap about this, I have so many opinions.
To make an example: one of the details in the book I keep returning to is Rocky's attitude around eating. Weir mentioned in various interviews that the idea came to him as a subversion of how aggressively social the act of eating is for humans compared to other biological needs. Which is a fair enough place to start with, but this kind of social taboo is usually tied to reasons like sanitation and avoiding risk of infection. Which fits, since as monostomes the process of nutrition and waste disposal are inextricably tied for an Eridian (not to mention the whole Making An Open Wound Per Meal deal).
Thing is, that wouldn't necessarily extend to the preparation of food, but Rocky is still uncomfortable and asks Grace not to comment while preparing his meal. Meat on Erid requires butchering to separate the viable parts from the nonviable. The Eridians doc describes the act of manually tearing food to pieces as pleasurable, "similar to chewing good food for humans"... except butchering larger prey is something that would require collaboration, and (shared) pleasure is just as much of a biological incentive towards social behaviour as fear.
I think it would be interesting if this was a peculiarity of Rocky's specific culture! Or if there was another Eridian clan who, due to climatic or migratory reasons, had to deal with recurring food scarcity and was used to curing and preserving large quantities of food to stock up as a consequence. This would decouple food preparation from the (gross) act of eating itself, making it more positive and commensal.
Imagine Grace striking up conversation with the nutrition technician that organises his taste tests like, "hey thank you for all you're doing, I know dealing with food is super gross for Eridians. just want you to know i appreciate it a lot" and the technician is like "??? huh? oh—OH. saviour grace misunderstands. preserving food and making it edible very fun where I'm from."
"Seriously? Rocky always said it was embarrassing"
"Not surprising, Saviour Rocky ♩♪♫ Eridian. ♩♪♫ Eridians ridiculous about food."
In the end Grace gets invited to join the seasonal butchering (ie spectate from his xenonite enclosure and try to pay back the cultural exchange by badly recounting how to prepare a thanksgiving turkey). Rocky also insists on being there (he's jealous) except he just lurks near the periphery while visibly uncomfortable and not talking to anyone LMAOO
