idk tumblr just forced me to make an acc to read stuff i didn't wanted to be here
!!! i dont use this place for communication, just lurking, if you wanna talk write to me on twitter or ao3 under any fic (same name), i basically never check messages here nor really know how anything works
This one goes out to the anon competing at the International Barbershop Harmony convention! I think Grace is smart enough to put that card together pretty quickly.
Eridian Welcoming Committee courtesy of @justcakethanks
Mitch McConnell has been sent to a nice farm out in the country where there's lots of open space to run around and lots of other senators for him to play with
i go to the shop and I ask if they have any raspberries. they say no, they used to sell raspberries, but they haven't had any in stock in the last 15 years. I ask if there's somewhere else I can go to buy raspberries. They say no, with confidence and pride, they're the only shop around who has ever sold or will ever sell raspberries. Other shops might sell other fruit, sure, but they have a monopoly on all raspberries forever. I ask if they're possibly planning on them selling them again in future? they say they can't tell me that.
on the way home, I encounter someone eating raspberries. I ask and they tell me that they grow their own, they got some seeds from the shop back in The Raspberry Days and kept them. They take me to a field of many beautiful raspberry plants and invite me to pick my own, they're free for all the town to pick whenever they'd like.
someone comes up behind us. It's the shop manager, President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa. he hatefully throws a bob-omb that blows up and kills both of us instantly for stealing 200 trillion dollars worth of potential Raspberry Shop That Doesn't Do Raspberries Anymore profits that they weren't making and then he turns around to the camera with a big thumbs up and says don't do piracy or something ok please
Yes, we know Rocky does not have a sense of sight, but what about the others. Can he smell things?
Rocky cannot understand smells, a concept:
A few weeks into their cohabitation, Rocky is making tool containers (because Grace never knows where anything is and poor Rocky can't deal with anymore of his horrific organisation). He passes them through to Grace, who leaves them a few minutes to cool, then picks them up and opens them, but immediately recoils.
"Problem with container, question?"
Grace, coughing, eyes streaming "Nope, they're fine bud, just the smell of ammonia is a little strong. I forgot about that"
"Not understand. You say ammonia colourless, how do you see it, question?"
"I don't see it Rock, I can smell it."
"But how did you know it was there, question??"
The word is clearly not translating properly, and it occurs to Grace for the first time maybe Rocky has no clue what he's on about. He sets the container down, sits, and spends the next hour trying to make it make sense. They settle on 'its kind of like tasting the air except not really because you're not eating it but taste is involved and everyones perception is different' which is of little help to Rocky.
By the time they get to Erid, he has seen Grace react to different smells from different things and is beginning to understand, but he's still a little vague. Confused, but with spirit, he ensures the Eridian scientists know to put some nice smelling gas in the biodome for Grace. What smells nice to a human? Rocky thinks.
The upshot of this is that Grace takes his first steps into the biodome, sniffs, looks confused, and says "why does this place stink of burritos?"
I lovelovelove the "Grace is a predator at heart and is built for speed and instincutal action, which scares the ever loving FUCK outta Rocky" posts, so I'm gonna expand upon it a bit.
- Eridian scientists and doctors doing their best to help him when they first get to Erid. A few weeks in, he's in and out of consciousness but doing better, a doctor (in a xenosuit obviously) comes in to check on him, sees he's asleep, so goes to examine him closely, because, you know, alien. Grace, who was only dozing, jerks away so fast it gives poor Dr Limestone a heart attack.
- the rest of the doctors make an agreement to give Grace plenty of warning before coming near him when he's half asleep again. Rocky explains that yes, Grace just is that quick, and he knows when things are going down.
- when the biodome is done, Grace and Rocky take a trip around it and explore. Rocky thinks it will be funny to throw a stone at Grace. Grace friend has no sound perception, silly. Grace can't view things when he's facing away, Grace will never see it coming. Grace hears Rocky scuffling around and gets the weird human sixth sense, so turns at the last second and catches the rock mid air, in one hand, then skims it across the water. Rocky is VERY unnerved, and also cant work out which bit is more impressive, the catch or the skim.
- later, when teaching the pebbles, they go on a heavily supervised trip into the biodome. One little pebble breaks off and hides in a rocky outcropping. Teacher Grace will never find them here. Cut to Grace stalking through the rocks like a true predator, all senses straining, and eventually snags the wayward rock and carries it back to the group. None of the other pebbles consider going AWOL again. Teacher Grace can find them.
- Grace deciding he needs more exercise, so going for runs around the biodome. He decides to go for endurance. Rocky comes to visit only to watch in horror as Grace runs for an hour pretty much straight. "How long can you do that for, question?" "With proper hydration and calorie intake, and rests, pretty much as long as I like." "What the fuck, question."
I love these ideas but I think some of them would be the other way round. humans are persistence predators but eridians are (imo) ambush predators. so grace would be scarily good at pursuing and finding things like the missing pebble, and of course the physical endurance. but rocky would the one that's scarily good at reaction speed and responding to movement.
rocky is resting on the beach while grace explores the shallows. grace calls something back but rocky doesn't respond, so he chucks a little stone towards him to get his attention. and rocky snatches it out of the air so fast grace barely sees the movement, one moment he was motionless and looked asleep, and the next he's on his feet and poised with the stone in his claws.
they make a textured deck of cards and grace starts by teaching rocky snap. rocky is the first to call out every single match. grace suspects foul play but rocky insists he can't distinguish the cards while they're stacked. they switch to chess after that.
they're working in the lab together and grace knocks a beaker off the table beside rocky. without even stopping what he's working on, rocky reaches out another arm and catches it, instantly shattering it with the force of his grip. "Apology. Reflex is to catch and crush fast movements." grace makes a mental note never to go in for a hug too quickly.
rocky's testing some bit of equipment and needs to monitor whether it maintains the right state over time. grace comes back into the room three hours later and finds rocky hasn't moved an inch. "Have you been sitting there this whole time? Aren't you bored?". "Need word." "Bored? Uh. Mental discomfort, from having nothing to do." "No discomfort. Only waiting." "So how long could you wait for without losing interest?" "As long as necessary." (fifty years, grace realises)
Very worthy additions by wirybug, I only went for the reaction time one in terms of waking up (which Eridians can't do clearly) but both of these boys have the ability to kill you in interesting and varied ways, it figures they would scare each other a little.
Eridians are very dense, low to the ground, heavy, so gymnastics are like, not a thing for them. Any form of flexibility and balance must be incredibly cool, and the first time Rocky sees Grace do anything vaguely bendy would have scared the hell outta him.
Grace doing a handstand against the wall after ages of sitting down to get his blood pumping again. Ilyukhina used to do this all the time on Earth when they were in the Vat to "get the brain working again" and he picked it up. Rocky is surprised, nay horrified that humans can do that, balance their weight just so to keep themselves up. Yeah, Eridians can climb up walls with handholds but this is different.
There isnt space to run in the Mary, not really, so Grace takes up more gymnastics. He learns how to do a wonky cartwheel, half a backflip, and Rocky is amazed.
That is, until Grace shows him videos of ballerinas and gymnasts from Earth, whereupon Rocky is like "I thought you were good, but you are terrible, statement"
(Inspired by a comment on one of my other posts where someone said "what percentage of a backflip can Ryland do" the answer is, not a lot, but Rocky isn't to know how normal that is.)
Fallen too deep into the Humans Are Weird posts (part 2, this time with a cute rock) and come out with the "humans and their ability to throw shit" concept.
Its one of the things that set us apart as a race, when we throw things, we can be damn accurate. I imagine this comes up in conversation a while in when Grace mentions the concept of darts. (I bet there was a dartboard in the communal area in the Vat)
Rocky does not immediately get it, why would humans invent sport from throwing things question? What is point question? So Grace grabs a marker and sketches a small target on the wall, then goes and stands at the other end of the room to throw various items. In three tries he hits it dead on, he's pretty pleased with himself. Not too bad, considering Ilyukhina used to beat his ass every time they played.
Rocky however, is somewhere between deeply unsettled and slightly horrified. What the fuck, question.
I lovelovelove the "Grace is a predator at heart and is built for speed and instincutal action, which scares the ever loving FUCK outta Rocky" posts, so I'm gonna expand upon it a bit.
- Eridian scientists and doctors doing their best to help him when they first get to Erid. A few weeks in, he's in and out of consciousness but doing better, a doctor (in a xenosuit obviously) comes in to check on him, sees he's asleep, so goes to examine him closely, because, you know, alien. Grace, who was only dozing, jerks away so fast it gives poor Dr Limestone a heart attack.
- the rest of the doctors make an agreement to give Grace plenty of warning before coming near him when he's half asleep again. Rocky explains that yes, Grace just is that quick, and he knows when things are going down.
- when the biodome is done, Grace and Rocky take a trip around it and explore. Rocky thinks it will be funny to throw a stone at Grace. Grace friend has no sound perception, silly. Grace can't view things when he's facing away, Grace will never see it coming. Grace hears Rocky scuffling around and gets the weird human sixth sense, so turns at the last second and catches the rock mid air, in one hand, then skims it across the water. Rocky is VERY unnerved, and also cant work out which bit is more impressive, the catch or the skim.
- later, when teaching the pebbles, they go on a heavily supervised trip into the biodome. One little pebble breaks off and hides in a rocky outcropping. Teacher Grace will never find them here. Cut to Grace stalking through the rocks like a true predator, all senses straining, and eventually snags the wayward rock and carries it back to the group. None of the other pebbles consider going AWOL again. Teacher Grace can find them.
- Grace deciding he needs more exercise, so going for runs around the biodome. He decides to go for endurance. Rocky comes to visit only to watch in horror as Grace runs for an hour pretty much straight. "How long can you do that for, question?" "With proper hydration and calorie intake, and rests, pretty much as long as I like." "What the fuck, question."
I do wish we could make it a little more socially acceptable to wander the streets at night weeping inconsolably I feel like that would have a great catharsis factor for a lot of people
Absolutely. I think the reason this became taboo is likely because it was used in magic and then inevitably suppressed by the various churches and warlords that followed.
Irish witches would do this to curse people with social consequences. They'd let their hair down and go wander and weep or scream in front of people's door loudly about all the shit they fucking did so the whole town knows by morning and can point and stare. Then she'd go home and put her hair back up and go about her day like that didn't happen and not mention it again.
But the effectiveness of this type of curse was high in small tight-knit communities. If someone got cursed it's a big deal in gossip so now now the skeletons are out and everyone in town knows the accusations and the whole tawdry situation and can publicly debate their culpability. Pretty effective curse I'd say.
There’s a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, “Yeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.” It’s something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.
Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.
And sometimes you’ll read or watch something and you’ll say, “Ah, low squiggability,” and then you’ll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.
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