Kirk Not-A-Boy #44 Falken Motorsports #16 Ferrari

So if we take that as true, then arranged relationships are at least a bit of a Thing on Erid. What if they’re a MAJOR Thing??

What if, when the Hail Mary gets to Erid, it’s determined that the most effective way to integrate Grace into Eridian social life is to match him up?

Let’s say one or two interviews with Grace quickly determine that the type of relationship he’d be most open to considering in the near future would be, in human terms, adding himself platonically to an established friend-group. Therefore, one part of his Alien Care Team (Subgroup: Social Needs) is dedicated to seeking a stable and open-minded cohort of between 2 and 35 Eridians to take Grace in and help him acclimate to & begin participating in Eridian society — to the extent that that’s possible, for him.

I figure at first they’d attempt to have this project managed by the planet’s most venerable, most successful, most socially-and-emotionally-astute professional matchmaker who’s willing to take up the challenge of matchmaking an alien. Problem is… almost as soon as the project starts, Rocky starts sticking his (metaphorical) nose in, and he gets So Thoroughly And Intensely Backseat-Driver about it all that control of the project is quietly ceded to him instead.

(At one point, Rocky gets summoned to provide the traditional “people well-acquainted with the person being matched are willing to attest that the person is reasonably socially competent + emotionally stable” confirmation. In most cases, this is just a “oh yeah, I’ll sign something saying that I know this guy and they’re not a serial killer” thing. Maybe roughly 10 minutes of formalities, at most. But no. Rocky comes prepared. The poor professional matchmaker and their team of assistants are subjected to a five-and-a-half-hour presentation/lecture on the topic of Why Grace Is The Best Friend Ever, And Anyone Ought To Be Honored To Even Know Him, Let Alone Be Friends With Him. There are auditory aids. There’s a highly-detailed scale model. There are at least 3 separate puppet shows.)

(The profession matchmaker’s takeaway from this incident would be “is Savior Grace emotionally stable? Probably just enough, for our purposes! is Savior Rocky emotionally stable? Absolutely the fuck not.”)

So now Rocky (with Adrian assisting), who has exactly zero experience matchmaking for anybody, is driving this bus.

Things Rocky does when he got back from Adrien that weirds out other Eridians:

He (subconsciously) picked a facet of his body as his "face" and turns it sometimes to orient towards people or objects he's paying a lot of attention to or concentrating on. 

That thing I've seen Chinese people on social media discuss where they use their own characters to reproduce an English word phonetically, with the actual meaning being a fun sidepoint. Rocky reproducing his closest approximation of words without existing Eridian equivalents (relativity, caffeine, all the colours) that sound like gibberish or odd mashes of existing Eridian terms. 

Thumbs up (down)

Making "random" components of structures transparent for no apparent reason (Grace can't be here, Grace will never be in this part of Erid, but if he were, he'd be able to see)

The Eridian word for "See" is probably something to do with detecting light. Rocky would use this odd, scientific phrase the way a human uses "Oh, I see!" to mean "Oh, I understand." Like someone saying "I've used a Geiger counter to verify the radioactivity of this abstract concept" when they mean, "I get it."

You need to be Silent when watching someone sleep because you could wake them up. A completely incomprehensible idea to Eridians.

You discovered it, you get to name it! No, actually you're Not allowed to call the new molecule "Low Friction, high thermal stability two-parts-carbon-to-four-parts-fluorine" try naming it after your pebble!

1, 2, 3, eyes on me! (Eyes being another phonetically assimilated word)

I mean full-on khaki-shorts-wearing, traversing-wilderness-with-nothin'-but-a-machete Adrian who yoinks snakes outta trees and pets swamp puppies and will unflinchingly dig around in elephant faeces for signs of a rare parasitic tapeworm if needed.

Oh, humans eat socially? No problem, Adrian has observed many many animals eat. Did you know that an obscure species of small underground dirt creature from the north side of Erid also eats socially? Adrian can give you a not-so-short presentation on them.

Oh, the human has no external carapace and so its internal sounds are absurdly loud, wet and off-putting? No problem, Adrian was just conducting an expedition last month researching the incredible eridian animal, the Wet Loud Worm from the south-east region of Wet Loud Wormland. They're desensitised, it's fine.

Oh, Grace leaks often from many orifices and it can be a bit of a learning curve to get used to? No problem for Adrian, see Wet Loud Worm paragraph again!

the concept of star-eating microbes causing a crisis and the solution being the introduction of space wolves to space yellowstone to control the space elk population. i love a good trophic cascade

dr ryland grace immediately pitching "turn the spaceship into a giant centrifuge to generate gravity" and then not balancing his actual centrifuge later on

the entire "life is reason" scene really

grace forgetting to open the mystery alien container in a fume hood AND immediately sticking his nose in it. if we did this in chemistry lab we were executed on the spot

academia drama being one of the cornerstones of grace's character

grace switching through every spectrum setting on the microscope to try to see into the astrophages and not being able to (relatable)

also: the astrophage dying and grace going "ohhh it died..." (very relatable)

grace having his not-scientist buddy Carl to give him frank solutions when he's overthinking. yes, often the solution is just to put the box in another box

copious duct tape usage

just sticking a filter into the path of the petrova line to collect astrophage goop

eva going "so it's alive" when grace tells them the astrophage are moving, and him being like "WELL ok that could be for a lot of reasons" in the tone of someone who doesn't even know where to start explaining why that's a hasty assumption

grace referring to the first new astrophage as his and carl's baby multiple times (HIGHLY relatable)

Someone to be brave for.

excerpt is from chapter 29 of the novel.