Not a scholar at first, but the guy who wrote Jaws hated that people used it to justify hating sharks so much he dedicated the rest of his life to shark research and advocacy.
(afaik- the woman who popularized gender reveals did so because she had a long history of miscarriages. The reveal was a celebration of the fact that one of her pregnancies had gotten far enough that there WAS a physical sex to reveal. It was never intended to be like... *gestures at modern gender reveals* all that. That same kid later came out as trans and yes, the family had a second gender reveal for that lol.)
L. David Mech, who popularised the idea that there were 'alpha' and 'beta' wolves in his 1970 book The Wolf, has spent the rest of his career trying to debunk this. (The original studies were done on captive wolves, and thus didn't simulate an accurate model of wolf pack dynamics.)
The idea that wolf packs are led by a merciless dictator, or alpha wolf, comes from old studies of captive wolves. In the wild, wolf packs a
In the wild, researchers have found that most wolf packs are simply families, led by a breeding pair, and bloody duels for supremacy are rare.
âWhat would be the value of calling a human father the alpha male?â says L. David Mech, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied wolf packs in the wild for decades. âHeâs just the father of the family. And thatâs exactly the way it is with wolves.â
Saw someone on Reddit asking what the requirements are for going to the library. Not to get a card and check stuff out. Just to hang out there. I don't mean to make fun of the poster for not knowing. I blame capitalism and the reduction of third spaces for making the idea of being able to just exist in a free public space seem like a strange concept to people. Anyway. This inspired a meme.
Be nice and courteous about the space. Please donât smoke, drink, put your feet on the bookcases, talk loudly on speakerphone, or yell at staff when we politely ask. Library staff want you to use the library, but we have to enforce these rules so the space doesnât become loud, messy, and chaotic. Incident reports are a pain.
Ryland Grace is first shown teaching human kids about sound waves (which they canât see) and ends the movie teaching Eridian kids about light waves (which they canât âseeâ)
The green areas on Rocky look a heck of a lot like Malachite... And I've noticed it's most visible in two places: at his joints and his tattoo for Adrian.
If you look at the kids at the end, every one of them is colorful and shiny and polished. I think the darker coloration develops over time, possibly like rings on a tree. The joints experience wear and erosion over time -- keeping them from developing those outer layers.
This also means the Adrian tattoo is carved deep enough to expose those bright, colorful layers. And I bet it has to be 'touched up' and recarved every few decades to keep it bright as Rocky's carapace changes and grows.
I gave them the rest of class to work on their assignment and ask questions. Naturally, some of them would rather goof off. As we speak, the kid who asked the question is fashioning some kind of figure out of modelling clay. Clay seems to be very 'in' right now. I'm lucky I'm not the one who has to clean it off the desks.
I resist the urge to reach under my sleeve and rub my arm. The skin still pinches and pulls uncomfortably sometimes, even all these years later. I started washing with cold water years ago because it's so sensitive to heat. Makes me feel like I should be drinking a kale smoothie and teaching yoga.
I roll my chair over to the keyboard and play: "well, a long time ago, I was exposed to your atmosphere." I make sure to add just the right touch of good-natured annoyance. They should really be working, but I just can't turn down a good biology question.
That gets their attention. If Eridians could gasp, I'm assuming this would be a gasping type scenario. Leiaâwho asked the questionâputs down their modelling clay. A few kids sway their carapaces. I've clearly got their attention.
"You've already been through the basics of human biology before you got here, yes? I key.
"I forgot," chimes a kid near the front with a green-hued carapace. I call them 'Oscar.' Creative, I know.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I've never known any Eridian to forget anything.
"Alright," I key in, accepting defeat. There's no way they'll let this go now. "Can anyone tell me what temperature my biosphere is kept at?"
"22â!" a kid near the back chimes. In Eridian units, of course.
I point to them. My suspicion that they've been pestering my life support team has been proven correct, but we don't have time to get into that today.
There's a bit of shuffling. I guess a lot of them didn't realize just how cold my biosphere is. xenonite really is amazing stuff.
"Now, the human body is pretty great at maintaining internal temperature. when it's too hot, we sweat. when it's too cold, we shiver." massive oversimplification. We haven't gotten to the circulatory system yet. We're supposed to be studying earthâheh, Eridâscience right now, for Pete's sake. (turns out kids everywhere love learning about volcanoes).
"Why didn't skin protect you question?
Right. Why wouldn't my kids would do the Eridian equivalent of anthropomorphizing me? It's a logical fallacy we both have in common. You are a thinking creature like me, ergo we must be just alike.
I stretch my fingers before keying: "because my skin is mostly living tissue. Individual cells aren't so good at regulating direct contact to high temperatures." might as well get it all out of the way now. "Besides, your atmosphere is highly corrosive to me."
There's a long silence. Two littler kids near the front hunker down and pull their arms up around them. There's some anxious chirping near the back. Their writing pads are entirely forgotten. Oh boy.
I try to approximate a consoling tone with the modulation tools available to me. Even after all these years, tone is difficult to grasp in the Eridians' beautiful, complex musical language.
It's occurred to me that I'm sort of like their equivalent of Stephen Hawking.
"It's alright," I quickly key. "There was medicine aboard my ship to help me heal and stop the pain."
This doesn't seem to help. The kids are still upset, and now they know it hurt.
"How did this happen question?"
"Did your habitat fail question?" Another kid asks. This sends a melodic, anxious hum through the whole class.
I sigh and wheel my chair over to my blackboard. It's not really a blackboard, of course--the kids wouldn't be able to see chalk smeared over slate, but that's what I call it. It actually more like a etch-a-sketch. I can use a series of dials and joysticks to control a magnet, in order to manipulate iron filings to create drawings my kids can actually see. It took some practice at first, but I'm pretty good at it now.
It takes me the better part of the class period to recount the story of the dangerous tailspin the Hail Mary experienced over Adrian. Side note: class periods where a whole issue when I first decided to resume teaching on Erid. The science cluster wanted five hour classes. I said 'absolutely not,' and managed to haggle them down to an hour and a half. A short class by all accounts for an alien with a crystal brain, but for me and my mushy bowl of salt and potassium it's more than enough.
"Teacher Grace is a hero," Oscar says quietly. The whole class is quiet. I guess it never really occurred to them before. It's been long enough that these kids were only infants when the Hail Mary came to Erid. To them, I'm probably just their kooky alien teacher. They never thought too long about how I actually got here.
They don't even remember astrophage, I think wonderingly.
That thought is what makes me stop. A strange feeling is growing in my chest. Grief? No, I'm happy. I'm happy they never had to go through that gut-wrenching, existential fear. But there's a bittersweet tinge to it, something I can't quite name. I blink rapidly. There's a burr in my throat.
"You save all of us." It's Leia. The kid with the modelling clay, the one who first asked the question about my arm. Their voice is solemn.
"Yeah. Well." I clear my throat, blinking my eyes clear. "You can thank this old man by working on your volcano assignment for the rest of the class. Quietly."
Finally, they get back to work. I turn away to wipe my eyes.
Insane again. Do people understand just how crazy the Adrian Rocky love story is??? They were separated for like half a decade, human years, CENTURIES in Eridian years. Adrian probably was told by the people around then at every turn that Rocky was dead, that they should start grieving, hell, maybe a particularly rude Eridian told them they should give up and look for a new mate. But they didn't. Decades past when the mission was meant to return, they didn't. They knew somehow, even as every other family of the 22 scientists, engineers, commanders and doctors on that ship started to grieve, that their Rocky was alive and they just had to wait one day more for them to come back.
There's help by governments for people who lost their partners at war, isn't there? I imagine Adrian starkly refusing it. Their family tries to subtly help them instead when it gets too hard. They watch Adrian sleep and Adrian watches them sleep, but everyone knows they would've slept better if it was Rocky.
"Adrian just won't accept it"
"Grief affects people in different ways, we just need to give them time"
Imagine people not telling Adrian that the government was starting talks for sending another ship. Imagine the reaction. Adrian probably could've been very helpful with the new mission, but they just broke down whenever they thought of working on it because that meant they had given up on Rocky, Rocky who they had been with for nearly 150 years. Rocky who they should've been with for another 400 more.
Imagine how they felt when they got that weird radio signal from that weird ship up in orbit. At first no one would've told them, wanting to wait for confirmation for Rocky before getting that poor, heartbroken widow's hopes up. But Adrian found out anyways and they are so goddamn hopeful. Sure it's not an eridian ship. Sure the radio signal is this weird, garbled, non-eridian thing. But what if Rocky is on there.
AND HE FUCKING IS AS WELL
Can you even imagine?? How Adrian must've felt hearing their soulmates voice over the radio once more, once it's been translated to frequencies they can receive? They are dropping everything. They're gone. They're going to the space elevator site. They are demanding to be let up. Rocky is alive and Rocky is home. Nothing else matters. In that moment Adrian doesn't even give a damn if the astrophage problem has been solved. Rocky is safely home.
The microsecond that Rocky has been medically cleared off the ship, he's gone to the room where Adrian waits patiently alone, he's getting tackled. He's getting hugged harder than he ever has before. Doesn't matter is Adrian is taller or shorter than Rocky, they have half a decade of pent up sadness and love and yearning behind them. They tap his carapace, his legs, everything just to confirm it's him he's real he's here he's safe. Words fly out of their mouth, words of relief and love and joy so fast it sounds like someone playing rush e badly. Rocky is shell shocked at first and then starts replying in turn, fast and loud because Adrian is here! Adrian still loves him, still wants him! He saved Erid, he saved Adrian, they're safe again!
Can you fucking imagine? They're the eridian Romeo and Juliet. They're getting books, they're getting (Eridian equivalent) movies, they're getting referenced in every love song from now until forever. Star crossed lovers and they LIVE
eridian children probably start out really small because they hatch from eggs. imagine being ryland grace and walking into a room full of tiny rocks and they all love you because you are their favourite teacher
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