Going through an intense Project Hail Mary phase rn I queue almost everything btw! Sometimes I repost adult stuff, so be warned Just an account to show my friends things I find interesting She/They/He? Still Missing Gravity Falls
with the abundance of digital material they have on the hail mary, i am 101% sure ryland got a hold of crappy jokes and started reciting them to rocky. rocky now thinks that human humour is full of dad jokes.
Your human Rocky is AWESOME SAUCE and I feel like he'd be a great singer. I was wondering if you have any headcanons about him as a human?
He is a pretty good singer! The life of the party too! He's definitely the extrovert of the couple, who drags Adrian out to meet new people and have fun. Some other silly tidbits I've thought of is that his favorite animals are whales because he loves their song and that they're very intelligent and compassionate. He's also very fond of the ocean/sailing in general too, as he was stationed on an aircraft carrier when he was a navy mechanic/engineer. He's also great with kids, but he has a bit of a sailor's tongue so he worries a lot about being a bad influence on them. That's all I can really think about right now that I'm okay with revealing, there's other details of he and Adrian's lives that are gonna come up in some other comics !
PHM where the plot is the exact time but he's got my glasses and prescription (-4.25 nearsighted bb) and so can't do all the shenanigans with his glasses because he genuinely cannot see without them
I've been sitting on an Eridian Grace AU idea for a bit and then felt like it was time to make it, so here it is. I've got plans for some adventures that follow this transition for Grace as he adapts to his new body and new life.
And yes, this is a Grocky (Grockdrian) story.
I'll be posting it all on main and reblogging to the @eridian-heart
I think we should all consider that Rocky grew up genderless on Erid, and spent his whole life feeling strange about it. He was naturally drawn to jobs that are dirty, gross, that have a higher injury rate leaving him with chips and dents in his legs, he didn't want to be pretty or handsome. His carapace got dryer and tougher, and a lot of Eridian's thought it was odd.
Then he met Grace and the first thing Grace did was go 'I wonder if they use pronouns? I don't know how their gender works... I'm just gonna use the same pronouns as me!'
And when Grace explains pronouns and gender Rocky goes "Oh.... Oh I am keeping you." Because Grace -without even realising it- described something in Rocky that he couldn't explain. -Rocky is subsequently ecstatic about using he/him pronouns.
Despite being blasé about it, it only takes a few extra weeks before Grace is wearing skirts and singlet tops more often, and letting the facial hair go wild because who cares? And it kinda... Works, on them. And then Grace freaks out realising they've internally switched to using they/them pronouns personally. It's only Rocky explaining that being gender neutral on Erid is normal, and having a strong sense of gender makes HIM weirder that helps Grace a little.
And then they start having a really supportive, yet utterly befuddled conversation about what the heck is going on with gender between the two of them, and the ultimate conclusion is; do what makes you happy and we can figure the rest out later (or not)!
the decision to have james ortiz as the newscaster in the beginning of the movie was so CHOICE i'm chewing on it so hard like that's the very first human voice we hear in the movie that isn't grace's - and it's the first voice that grace remembers. it's not that far of a leap to assume that the newscaster IS the same guy from the voice bank like that's not a crazy thing to assume at all which would mean
the first thing grace remembered was rocky's voice, and he hadn't even met him yet
I had to find a reaction video that paused on some of these clips, because I noticed on my last watch that some of the Eridians at the end are wearing either small bandoliers or ...
LITTLE ERIDIAN BACKPACKS
and I actually screamed in delight when I realized that. That is cute as heck.
Also! Also! The rock variety! Oh my goodness! LONG POST below about geology and rock types and me nerding out about these Eridian carapaces. (Plus Rocky, for good measure.)
I've tried to fact check this as best I could, but if a real geologist sees this and has corrections, please let me know!
A couple key notes. Eridians canonically have a lot of hematite and also silicate in them, based on The Bio Lore Document. Large sections of their carapace would likely be formed accordingly.
There is SO MUCH BLUE! Those really bright light blue Pebbles are visually very similar to both amazonite (a kind of feldspar, which is in that silicate type mentioned in the Lore Document, and relatively hard at a Mohs hardness of around 6), and also some types of jasper (also a silicate) with other impurities.
Amazonite comes in a really wide variety of colour and quality, some of which has brown shades in it. The highest grade stuff is a vivid sky blue that can sometimes also have inclusions like smoky quartz. (If you really want to make Adrian blue and fancy, look up Colorado Amazonite with Smoky Quartz and have at it.)
By the way, labradorite is a type of silicate feldspar, so go ham with that for Eridian OCs. It's valid.
The bright red ones are probably either jasper varieties (higher Mohs around 7) or something more directly related to hematite, just based on a glance. Hematite is supposed to be a lot of the base Eridian carapace, and it's clocking in around Mohs 5.5 to 6.5 depending on the type (just for our reference).
That one in the bottom right is REALLY cool because that looks like basalt with quartz veins. We have a lot of that in my area and I have some in my collection. Basalt is a pretty durable silicate made mostly of feldspar, like amazonite. That one also has green fingers though, and to be honest, I have no idea what those are.
That purple-red coloured one in the middle pic, far left, has some neat legs. That's VERY close to amethyst tone if you have a rough rock that isn't translucent or polished. I'm not sure how viable it would be for an Eridian to form a carapace with a lot of larger crystals like that, because of how they form in nature, but it's entirely possible they've taken in something similar into their diet as they form?
The darker blue in the middle pic, far right are also very interesting. Just eyeballing again, some of those match lazurite, which is what makes lapis lazuli blue. It's a silicate! Could also be a sodalite variety, which is a slightly related silicate of Mohs 5.5-6.
Lazurite isn't as hard a mineral though as others mentioned above (Mohs scale 5-5.5), so either that is a surface marking of some kind that is possibly more pervious to damage ...
Or it's actually meant to be something like sapphire. Which, as a type of corundum like ruby, is harder than anything except diamond (with a Mohs of 9). That would be a dang hard Eridian. Sapphire forms in hexagons usually though, at least of that quality, so ... jury may be out on that too and how it relates to the five-fold-symmetry Eridian bodies prefer. Maybe their shells bring in some more variety than their limb structure. Sapphire is aluminum oxide, which doesn't really fit into the silicates either. Perhaps adornments?
I think the blue dude just to the left of the one we were talking about looks a lot like apatite. I love apatite, but it's also a phosphate, not a silicate, so unless it's a coating again of some kind, likely it's not that. Alas, apatite is pretty but likely not Eridian. Higher chance it's a slightly more green hued form of lazurite. (I have afghanites in my collection that vary in exact blue.)
Now, about Rocky. I've seen a few people say this and I agree -- I think the green gems on Rocky are chrysoprase. It's a microcrystalline quartz (meaning, again, it's a silicate) that often forms in a base stone. It really is that gorgeous, creamy green colour, particularly the higher quality specimens. The green comes from nickel inclusions into the microcrystals.
(Small chance it's a very low grade emerald, but given emeralds are a beryl, and chrysoprase is a silicate, I'm betting on the latter.)
As for his one "mother of pearl" marking, mother of pearl tends to come from organic/inorganic fossil shells. I'm inclined to think it's opal, instead. Which is a silicate.
Also! The jury is actually out on rust or copper patina style oxidization on Eridians, because we don't know how much free oxygen is in Erid's atmosphere. If there's not a lot of free oxygen, they may not experience oxidization the same way some minerals do on earth.
So the chances of the lighter green-blue colour coming from oxidized copper, for example, is probably lower than the Eridian just straight up having a lot of feldspar/amazonite in their carapace.
I imagine a lot of this is locale specific. It is probably somewhat based on the existing composition of the parents (who would then form the eggs that would become the babies). But it is also probably based on the food and raw minerals they eat over time.
some thoughts on eridian biology ....,,,,,,,, finding the canon bio doc andy weir posted on reddit after scrambling for crumbs was what cocaine feels like i just know it
+ temporary rocky and grace designs bc i couldnt wait to draw them
theory why complex life (eridians) on erid evolved gonosimulism (sexual system where individuals have both male and female organs) (male being one that produces a smaller, mobile gamete and female being one that produces a bigger, stationary gamete), but earth gonochorism (sexual system where individuals are either male or female).
the reason earth evolved sexual dimorphism (sexes of the same species have different physical traits), independently over and over is its ability to produce a more fit offspring pool. Males and females have specialized roles: females to carry the egg and males to woo the egg carriers.
But it also comes with downsides: more infighting, selfishness over altruism (we can see in Grace haha), and as previously mentioned role specialization which could turn out to be rigid and disadvantageous.
Erid has a harsher environment, and eridians seem to be more socially connected to each other than humans (thrumming, overpowering sleep instinct, not needing governments to maintain order), so altruism might have been the only viable strategy that could survive the harsher environment. This kind of relates to Grace's gravity -> intelligence theory in the book: it costs more to move around on Erid so people have more success acting together instead of separately, which gonosimulism promotes! There's no role differentiation, both parents have parental instinct, and there wouldn't be a gender divide like we see in humans where one sex holds an advantage over another so powerful that it's been centuries and the inequality still persists.
Why are eiridians different colors (do they have different minerals, perhaps?)
Thank you for asking this question! I jumped out of my seat in joy in anticipation of answering. I will be explaining some speculative ways of how Eridians were able to evolve different colored carapaces :)
Traits in general can be sorted onto a spectrum: they evolved because they are in some way advantageous for survival and reproduction, or is so neutral to evolutionary success it just never needed to be selected out.
Eridians don’t percieve colors, so different color carapaces probably lands closer to the "no effect" end of the spectrum. Happy coincidence that (at least with movie depiction) we have colorful little pebbles!!
We can see the difference between an advantageous trait and a neutral trait demonstrated by the fur coats of wild cats vs house cats. Wild cats don’t have nearly as much fur variation within a species as house cats, because in the wild cats have a way higher need for good camouflage as it is crucial for hunting for prey and hiding from predators. House cats, however, coexisted with humans for centuries -- humans provide cats with shelters, food, and way more variability in types of environment (so a specific coat is not selected for) so even unusual fur patterns could be passed on with way more success.
Colors are likely a byproduct of other physical traits, so let’s consider some physical traits eridians CAN perceive via sonar: 1) texture, and 2) silhouette.
Silhouette is straightforward enough: by how sound bounces off a surface, an Eridian can get the outline of another Eridian, down to the unique spiky protrusions of each finger. They can also get information via the texture of the surface: sound bounces off differently on different textures. This combined with silhouette can allow very fast person recognition!
The Eridian carapace is entirely inorganic, being composed of oxidized metals. If “Eridian” is all one species, all Eridians over Erid probably have very similar carapace makeup, especially Eridians living in close proximity, because they consume similar foods. But if they are different species of the same genus (think modern humans and neanderthal humans), it could allow more possibility for more carapace variation. (If you are interested in the speculative biology different species of Eridians, @lutheban has a great post on it under the tag #eridian biology !!)
Addressing the second part of the asker's question: can the colors be result of different minerals? While pure mineral/crystal Eridian designs are super cool to see, it unfortunately is not super biologically viable (unlikely to be evolved consistently). Eridian carapaces are comparable to shells and scales, being grown and shed as needed; it would take way too much energy to maintain pure mineral carapaces when a mixture of what is most available is an option. But at the end of the day, spec bio is spec bio: if Erid is strange enough, even the strangest traits can become necessary and be evolved.
Now that we know these factors, we can go into the main possible reason Eridians develop different colors: variation that comes along with the mechanisms that create the unique textures and sillouhoutes of each Eridian. Perhaps every Eridian breaks food down just a little differently, making the carapace a little different between each Eridian. Color, in this context, is similar to human fingerprints and palm etchings: due to it having no evolutionary effect, it’s allowed to randomize to no bounds -- to the point it’s pretty much impossible for two humans to have the same etchings!
Random colors then mix and match and go wild with no selection for it or against it! Some of the simpler inheritance patterns are listed. Keep in mind that most of the time the actual genetics of inheritance are way more complex than just one gene, but these are very classic representations. If this is interesting to you, you can look up the term "non-mendelian inheritance" (YouTube and Wikipedia are both great resources), or ask me in the comments! :)
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