culture shock, nerds edition (engineer meets biologist)
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@random-weird-person
culture shock, nerds edition (engineer meets biologist)
my contribution to the eridian welcoming committee
(template credit to @justcakethanks)
I don't understand why "Adrian doesn't like Grace at first" is as popular as it is on fanfics.
Imagine for a second you are Adrian surname The Eridian. Your spouse has been missing and presumed dead for around a decade, and suddenly one day an alien spaceship comes into orbit. And you cheer "Yay alien species have realized we have the same problem and have come to either give us a solution or join or efforts, too bad my mate is still gone."
Except he is not actually gone, because the eridian equivalent of a carebear decided to save them. And he doesn't want anything in return, in fact he is well aware that he might die A PAINFUL SLOW DEATH, shortly after fighting just to get the love of your life back to you. But it's ok :) because Rocky (yes he gave them a silly name) is my best friend! Oh- Are you ok-
No, Rocky is first and foremost a Grace hater (affectionate)
right so reportedly we got the karaoke scene in the movie because ryan gosling overheard sandra hĂŒller singing to herself in some downtime on set and approached the directors to say "if we have her here and don't ask her to sing in the movie then we're insane," so the scene was hastily planned and recorded during the last day they had with that set; stratt grew up singing in an east german youth choir because hĂŒller did, too. a fun meta textual wrinkle this adds is that gosling is also a singer but grace doesn't take a turn with the mic, so you can read the scene not just as stratt saying "I am a full human being, I just can't be for this project, you get to see it for two minutes before I turn it off again" but additionally "you could be doing this exact same thing but you aren't even willing to give us two minutes." his doomed work friend the trained choral singer, his fated bestie the being who communicates only through song, his world-saving probes named for the most famous musicians ever, his choir-based soundtrack underpinning all his actions, and his unwillingness to sing himself.
What doesnât get talked about enough is that, all those 40-something years, Rocky had all the supplies he needed to go back home. He had the fuel, he had the food. But he didnât. He tried and tried and tried. He kept going. He took measurements, gathered data, built new Astrophage samplers but could never get it right. He maintained the Blip-A, a ship that was built in a hurry and just kept breaking, for over FORTY YEARS. When Grace found him, Rocky wasnât just sitting idle in orbit. He was still working, still trying, he hadnât given up. He was tracking the stars, probably to watch for a potential second mission from Erid, when he spotted the Hail Mary in reverse-thrust. Rocky calls Grace brave. Truly, Grace is. But Iâd compare Rocky more to Stratt. How much of yourself would you be willing to sacrifice to save your planet? Rocky was willing to stay at Tau Ceti for the rest of his life until he either found a solution, or died.
most unrealistic part of PHM is that there is no way that dr. ryland grace, PhD, would not have a flock of suitors following him everywhere he goes. that man is like catnip for academic shut-ins, alien enthusiasts, odd women, and gay people everywhere, as this site has clearly demonstrated
now Iâm NOT saying he should have had a partner on earth or whatever because I do think itâs awesome that heâs (implicitly at least) aro/ace/both, but it would have been a great aside to see the cloud of yearning that follows him everywhere which he either has to deal with or has decided to be permanently ignorant of. like the comedy potential of objectively the most fuckable man any of these strange science geeks have ever met being like oh um :) thanks for the coffee and the flowers and stuff and you guys are all so nice to me itâs great to work with you all :)
the devastation he would leave in his wake. like some sort of benevolent aroace whale floating serenely through an ocean of allo heartbreak. feigning ignorance because can you guys lock in we have alien microbes to study
concept: no astrophage au where eridians and humans still make first contact but like, properly. a whole diplomatic mission meeting in the middle of space to save travel time. stratt is humanity's greatest representation. the eridian equivalent is equally as scary and secretly soft. it's all very star trek.
but rocky and grace put the whole diplomacy thing in jeopardy by being too best buddy with it. like they're both really low level members of the mission. some engineer necessary for ship maintenance, and an obligatory molecular biologist they brought along in case they found more alien cells out in space. and these two guys like, somehow keep ending up hanging out essentially "at the back of the classroom." consistently left out of the actually important negotiations, and well, they're bored!
grace steals some laptops and starts jury-rigging his own personal translator for rocky, despite the fact that the official translation software is way quicker to learn and much more nuanced. rocky starts learning english, simplifies his eridian, and immediately starts mocking grace for needing the software. they start blabbing to each other about all the weird quirks of their respective cultures and advanced science their planets can do. the whole time they are ribbing each other about culture stuff. grace eats in front of rocky. rocky forces grace to sleep in a corridor somewhere so he can keep watch.
then stratt and the eridian leader find out and it's like
stratt: you. you've been meeting in private with a member of the eridian deligation?
grace: ... yyyes.
stratt: and you shared with them classified scientific documents?
grace: i... maybe gave him. a laptop. he's so smart! what was i supposed to do?
stratt: HIM? you've assigned male pronouns to a genderless species?
grace: he said he likes to match!
stratt: do you even know the name of this eridian?!
grace: i call him rocky :)
stratt: đ°
then on rocky's side of things it's like
eridian leader: sorry did you say you called the human after one of its digestive noises?
rocky: yeah :)
eridian leader: and. you've been telling it about how to make xenonite. one of our most vital trading resources.
rocky: yes yes, grace is very ignorant about basic chemistry đ
eridian leader: right. and you watch it sleep. despite the fact that all the human beings we have spoken to have described this as a cultural violation?
rocky: well he didn't like it at first but he came around!!
anyway both sides of the delegation are sweating profusely (metaphorically speaking) until they see rocky and grace in action and are like ohh! they're both freaks. we are not to blame for this. these two are just really bad at navigating cultural norms.
cut to grace curled up with rocky while he sleeps like a baby.
I am a huge fan of retiring to my quarters
In this economy you'll be lucky to retire to your nickels
Hua Cheng missed very much... very much..
Okay but teacher Grace on Erid having very little say in which kids get filtered into his class, though he is aware that the selection process is super specific and that most of the kids he gets are high performers with star academics and some even with influential parents. He isn't quite comfortable enough with Eridian culture yet to object to the selection process and make it more inclusive, however. That is, until he learns about the special needs kids.
Obviously, there are Eridian kids with special needs, and a few of them even filter into his classes. But one specific type of special needs kid has never shown up in his classes, and the only reason he even learned of the condition is because Rocky and Adrien's first pebble has the condition.
It's initially quite a struggle for them to deal with, and Grace sympathizes of course, because the child will apparently have huge learning and academic struggles and will likely never be able to live on their own. That is, until he learns the details of the disability.
Basically, it's a condition where the part of the Eridian brain that gives them their eidetic memory isn't fully developed, and so these kids just... can't remember things the way most eridians do. And in a culture where an eidetic memory is the norm, all things cater to that, so not having that is actually a massive disability.
But Grace is like, so... this kid just learns the same way a human does, or something like. Which is nothing new to him, though he is somewhat boggled at how much Rocky and Adrian struggle with their infant and their "slow" learning curve, even as far as initial developmental stages. Grace, on the other hand, simply treats the kid the same way he would a human infant, and Rocky and Adrien are impressed with his patience.
But, through this, it occurs to Grace that there must be other kids out there with this disability who likely aren't getting the attention and chances in life that they deserve, because Eridian culture is particularly hostile toward this disability, and actively views those with it as unable to function in regular society.
So Grace demands that a special course be put together where he teaches kids with this disability specifically. Rocky is hesitant, as most kids with this disability are home schooled and kind of... kept shut away. But Grace insists and as one of Erid's saviors, he gets what he wants eventually.
His first class is super small, maybe only three kids because so few parents were willing to advertise that their children have this disability. And because of the stigma around it, even those who agreed to it are super unsure and want to be present during the lessons, perhaps paranoid about the impression it will leave on Savior Grace, who is so accustomed to only teaching the most gifted students.
But Grace knows exactly how to deal with these kids. Some of them have varying degrees of function when it comes to their memory banks, which isn't so unlike teaching kids on earth. And so Grace is able to introduce all these tools and teaching techniques that were previously unheard of on Erid (though very normal on Earth) like having textbooks for reference with you at all times and having strategies that are less focused on memorization for understanding, and providing these kids with tools like calculators and teaching them the art of taking notes to look back on, etc etc.
Suddenly, with all these tools that most Eridians don't need, these kids are learning at a much faster rate, and succeeding with the help of all their little tools. And because so many normal eridians are ignorant of Grace's actual biology, it's shocking to them that Savior Grace doesn't have an eidetic memory either (shocking to everyone but Rocky anyway)--that his brain functions quite similarly in capacity to these "disabled" children.
Once this news gets around, suddenly there's more kids in his special classes, and there's all kinds of discourse being inflamed because the real reason these kids can't live on their own or function is lack of support from Eridian society.
If Savior Grace, who is well respected as a genius in his own right amongst the Eridians, can function so successfully, they why can't these kids?
I dunno, I just think it's an interesting premise.
i could be your pet rock. id be very good at it
ive had some time to think and honestly i dont think id be a very good pet rock. i dont know what i was thinking. theres too much anger in me
today im happy because every body loves me
I wonder how aliens will react to our communal grooming instinct? Like when you see something stuck to your homieâs clothes/skin/hair and itâs driving you nuts and you just gotta be like âhold still, lemme get that for you real quick.â
One time when I was a kid, I had a science teacher with a snake as a class pet, and said snake was almost done shedding. There was one little bit of dried skin stuck to its face and I was like, âwould it hurt him if I pulled that off?â And the teacher said, âyes it actually could, itâs probably still attached to living skin if it hasnât come off yetâ and I was like âoh, sorry,â and he said, âthatâs okay, you were just wanting to do the primate thing.â And damn, thatâs such an accurate descriptor.
Anyways I hope aliens donât mind me/my descendants having the urge to pluck stuff off of them. If they ask, weâll have to tell them itâs a trait we evolved to survive ticks.
Sometimes you might feel the urge to help someone in a certain way, and sometimes they really don't want to be helped in that way, either because it would not help them (or even hurt them) or because they would rather do it themselves (for various reasons).
It's important to realize that sometimes you're going to be a primate and they're going to be a snake, and it needs to be okay if they do not want their skin pulled off at this time.
a lot of writing is sort of watching the film in your head like oh sorry canât write the chapter yet i have to repeat hallucinate the dialogue first
A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.
Strange women on buses distributing ideas is no basis for a system of artistic motivation
*while sewing*: you are a fabric. you can stay a fabric. you do not yearn to return to being string.
*while spinning*: you are a thread. you can stay a thread. you do not yarn to return to being fluff.
*while embroidering*: you are a thread on a needle. you can just exist as thread on a needle. you do knot yearn to become a tangle.
*while turning wood* you are timber on a lathe. You can stay as timber on a lathe. You do not yearn to become a live hand grenade.
If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)
At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.
Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.
Same guys btw. So they did turn out good yeah
Vulcan teen on Vulcan [tiktok] saying "I have just lost track of my father in the grocery store." The camera turns to show the viewers the grocery store in which almost every single older middle-aged man has a bowlcut and long robes. Camera turns back to show the teen's face which is expressionless and yet communicates all it needs to.