weird stuff man

Mythology, fiction, stories, history, art, and other strange happenings of the world - main blog: humblebee-hymn

[occipita]

Some posts on this blog talks about fiction as if it is reality

[pukicho]

will you die for our sins

You are more likely to die from mine, I think

[kiapet2]

It's commonly accepted in this fandom that humans have extremely fragile bodies in comparison to Eridians, but I think that's actually an oversimplification.

Because while Eridians are incredibly strong and tough on the outside, on the inside they are actually quite fragile:

They have no immune system, so anything that makes it past their enclosed carapace and internal heating will pretty much kill them

They have no natural defenses to radiation of any kind

In general they have very little organic matter so anything that targets their cells directly is quickly lethal

They are partially cold-blooded and live at a very narrow temperature range (about 20 degrees C)

They rely almost entirely on one, highly developed sense and are helpless if deafened (can't even remember the layout of a room)

They are completely helpless while asleep and can't control when that happens

They will forcibly become dormant after eating AND when badly hurt enough (their equivalent of going into shock)

They require more energy to function than humans do, and have very little organic matter to burn in the case of starvation

In contrast, humans:

Have an aggressive immune system and internal mechanisms for dealing with cell damage

Have adrenaline which allows them to temporarily ignore injuries and perform abnormal feats of strength

Are persistence hunters built for economy of movement and capable of extreme levels of endurance

Exist in a very wide range of habitats and on a diverse diet

Are very hardy in general, able to survive massive injuries, lack of sleep, prolonged starvation, and intense environmental conditions if given proper care

The quintessential example of this dichotomy between strength and endurance is the Going Fishing incident in the book: Rocky is able to survive and move in G forces that are killing Grace and to physically wrestle off the chair crushing him, but he collapses from his injuries almost immediately after. Despite being injured himself Grace then carries his 400lb friend up a ladder, is badly burned returning him to his atmosphere, and then proceeds to get some basic medical care, hype himself up on pain meds and keep working (albeit rather badly, lol) while Rocky forcibly sleeps.

The TL:DR is that Eridians are harder to damage, but easier to kill. They're like an rpg character with high armor and low health. I think Rocky would consider Grace to be very delicate at first, only to be blown away by how deceptively tough his friend can be.

[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.

[doveywovy]

i really love that project hail mary made it so clear how much grace loves earth. describing it to rocky, showing him bits of the culture and nature. the water and the cities. the birds. he sincerely and deeply loves earth.

you don't even have a dog. he had a whole planet. he loved being alive on earth and they took that from him.

[victusinveritas]

[brightlotusmoon]

[robinwinghood]

Finished this off on Stream today!

[homunculus-argument]

"If you accept any food from the fae, they shall never let you go" is a human belief. The fair folk stand by the principle that if you feed 'em, you gotta keep 'em. If wildlife learns to rely on you for food, you have already fucked up, and you can't just stop feeding them cold turkey. That human is your responsibility now. Because you left your peach cobbler unsupervised.

[friendsimulator]

Me to the fairies that have made me their pet: Look I appreciate the food and the cozy dog bed you've provided me but I promise I will actually still be fine if you throw me back on the street

[mrsterlingeverything]

Its winsday

Dont even think about losing

[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.

[sharkfiinn]

prism's parental situation

[s-e-v-e-n-p-m]

phm fic ideas/prompts? based around grace watching eridians sleep (anyone can feel free to write or borrow bits and pieces of any of these lol)

whatever predator caused the need for eridians to watch each other sleep is still very prevalent even in densely populated areas. and it turns out they’re some kind of slow moving, low to the ground stealth predator that takes a lot of intense focus to detect even when in pretty close range. fortunately grace can see them coming from a mile away with some good lights on.

imagine grace gets a proper xenonite atmosphere suit and he puts it on for teaching the pebbles so if any fall asleep (involuntary for eridians) then he can just scoop them up and keep them on his desk for easier watching. when the parents find out they’re thrilled because dang that’s a good watching strategy, easy for the whole class to see!

alternatively a majority of his pebbles fall asleep mid class and he dons his xenonite suit to come in and pile them altogether to watch and just hangs out with the remaining few who’re still awake. makes them feel included and helpful and answers less educational questions and jokes around because they’re too small to actually be effective for watching for predators and he needs to keep them calm. a pile of pebbles are appealing prey and he ends up with a pile of 6 fuckass alien millipedes in the corner.

relating to the last one, one of grace’s pebble students is lost in a crowd and runs to him to be scooped up til their parents are located bc grace is well established to be good at keeping pebbles safe from predators.

grace falls asleep while at adrian and rocky’s whilst they’re hosting an extended family get together of some kind. they are very taken aback when he snaps awake, looks around, grabs a xenonite tool off rocky’s workbench and uses it to kill a predator that had been creeping into the home. then wordlessly stalking the perimeter of the house once or twice in clear hunting motions before putting the wrench down and going back to sleep. (rocky suddenly has an epiphany about why grace had seemed confused by the idea of watching people sleep or being watched while he slept when they met)

[introvertathome]

Can I just say that I love that we, as a fandom, decided to call baby Eridians 'pebbles'

10/10 name, no notes

[sup-its-cat]

WHY HAVE I SEEN NO ONE TALK ABOUT HOW THE GRACE SCULPTURE LOOKS LIKE THE LITTLE DUDE FROM THIS MEME

THAT WAS LITERALLY MY FIRST THOUGHT UPON SEEING IT IN THE MOVIE

[notes-and-violets]

I had to xD

[cozy-stardust]

Imagine Grace defined his name as the elegance definition of grace and Rocky spends years thinking how fucking ironic this clumsy leaky space blobs name is.

Until Grace slips out a sentence along the lines of "could you give me a little grace here" and Rocky immediately points out he used a word wrong so Grace has to explain that yeah, grace means elegance but it can also mean mercy sometimes too.

And Rocky has to suddenly reconcile that the clumsy leaky blob that saved his life twice, that almost certainly doomed himself to come back for him, name is Mercy.

[assiraphales]

I feel like grace was in such a rush to turn that ship around and hightail it back to rocky that he was indiscriminate about what data he sent back. just shoved it all into the beetle probes, just to realize ‘ok so 20% of that data is scientific breakthroughs to save the world……..80% me and rocky’s movie reviews. and I def forgot to delete the fifteen minute long dance off. hm.’

[lottachaos]

Scientists then go on absolutely prize these "useless" videos above all else... they're chalk full of Eridian and Human culture clashes, and they get to learn so much abiut Eridian dancing, music, body language, culture, etc., from hours of seeing an Eridian interact with another being in a non-scientific way. They spend HOURS analyzing the description of a game Eridians play as children that Rocky offhandedly mentioned and described when Grace mentioned the game "Tag". The scientists then go on to speculate on the Eridians evolutionary niche based on that game, since "tag" helps humans refine our persistence hunting, and they try and figure out what skills the eridians are refining in their games. Lots of fun.

[theriverbeyond]

i think "turning into a pumpkin" is my new favorite way to articulate the state of things when I am at a function and very overstimulated and it feels like my brain is melting. it's like no i can't be a person anymore i have to leave i'm turning into the pumpkin. the time is up yeah i gotta go. yeah see u later. pumpkin time.