Wombats: An Ongoing Study

We know that "color" is a concept that Eridians will never be able to fully understand, and that human perception of it is the only way they'll likely ever have of knowing about it (sorry shrimp colors). What if, after Grace becomes the resident alien science teacher, the concept of "colors" becomes like. the Eridian equivalent of knowing your star chart or something.

Grace kicks the whole thing off by accident by telling his students what colors and patterns they have and they go absolutely nuts over this. Turns into this whole thing where they build these light sensors that can tell what general color someone's carapace is and if there are any patterns, or by knowing what material your carapace is you can have a vague idea of what color you are (like the difference between knowing your whole birth chart and knowing your zodiac sign)

And it becomes the Eridian version of a daily horoscope to look up what the lucky colors are that day or if spots or stripes will have more luck with their relationships. Rocky’s specific shade of brown is seen as supremely lucky by virtue of his mission, but with some more somber implications as well due to the loss of his crew. I imagine whatever Adrian’s carapace is (I’m a green Adrian truther personally) that their color scheme becomes one coveted by Eridians looking for their ideal mate- I mean who else gets to say that their mate saved the stars and then defied death multiple times to return to them??? That’s some Eridian fairy tale material right there.

The color of Grace’s hair or eyes becomes the color of Eridians known to be incredibly curious but foolhardy. Every Eridian in their teen angst phase is hoping against hope that they’ve got a smidge of blue somewhere on their carapace to prove that they’re Not Like Other Rocks.

We watch him through his angsty teen years learning the little things that make him himself -- he likes cilantro, he has muscles, he has a sciencey brain -- but none of that gives him a purpose. He goes into depressed undergrad party mode, in a silly hat, soaked in vodka, asking himself what the point of it all is.

But then he sees the ship's golden wall carved with the mission, the memory of the people before him who worked to get him this far, the children coming after him who are depending on him, and something shifts. His shoulders straighten. He takes a deep breath and tosses the little Earth-ball into the air. He understands very little yet, like a young adult just trying to join the flow of community and history. But Grace has found his adulthood.

And then this from @prof-grace-aspen :

names are our own but they are other people's just as much, if not more so. your tags on the initial reblog with my tags really got to me too:

project hail mary ♡ headers

The Future, Somewhere Far Away From Here

Some dejointed drawings and doodles of my own post-canon headcanons! Where humans send a ship to their neighbors in order to meet them, and make sure their sun didnt die in case Rocky wasn't successful, but end up finding a very much alive Ryland Grace, looking younger than he should and living his best life on Erid

I'm just fascinated by the idea of ​​humans and eridians collaborating and what that would look like. We are so advanced in some areas they lack, while they are so advanced in some areas where WE lack due to our respective biologies, the progress from both sides would be insane.

nasa employee: this guy hasn't interacted with humans in like 20/60 years should he really be giving interviews?

nasa employee 2: ehh just give him some media training and it should be fine

this is more of a silly one bc i just wanted to draw grace in a suit ^^

@interpolationz fellow agender grace truther i summon thee

@interpolationz fellow agender grace truther i summon thee

he and ilya are hanging out in the yard and some bees are buzzing around because some watermelon juice spilled on the ground earlier and shane suggests they go inside or rinse the juice off the patio and ilya teases him about being scared of little bees and shane SO nonchalantly just, "no, but i am allergic and you don't know where my epipen is"

and ilya

reblogging with my own tags because i'm also CACKLING imagining the implications of this not being specific to ilya, either. they're having a barbeque at hayden and jackie's house and hayden is good-naturedly encouraging shane to try a piece of coffee cake or something and ilya just goes, "no, bad for you"

and hayden IMMEDIATELY is on the defensive because what? you get to tell him what to eat now? where do you get o-

"no, bad for him because it has walnuts in it, pike. you want him to die? this is what you want?"

"what are you talking about?"

shane: "i'm allergic"

"??? since WHEN??"

"since always??"

"you've eaten over at my house HOW many times?? and never brought this up? the fuck, dude?"

"jackie knows"

the idea of ilya on instagram accidentally pressing like while DEEP in allergy mommy blogging territory and natalie from That Allergy Mama DMing him to be like "hi, my husband wants me to tell you he says hi and that he's a big fan and also that call against you against san francisco was bullshit." "hello, husband of natalie. also do you have any suggestions for substituting peanuts in this recipe?"

he gets filmed for a what i eat in a day/day in the life type video and is so used to thinking about substitutes at this point that he doesn't even think about it when he mentions them in passing. they keep an allergy friendly household so the stuff he mentions is compliant, but it's paired with comments like, "and then i add some wowbutter, which is soybeans and not peanuts. we also sometimes have sunflower seed butter, but the texture for this is better with the wowbutter. i have also tried this, what is it called-shane: the gross paste with beans" *shane, offscreen from the living room*: "chickpea butter?" "yes, this." "it's nasty" "yes, not good. their jar says it is, but it is not. anyway-"

A. the idea of ilya being lowkey stressed about shane surprising him and potentially being exposed to allergens is so fucking funny. ilya who ends up also keeping an allergy-friendly household PURELY because it's just less stressful that way. meanwhile the motherfucker WITH the allergies is SO fucking casual about it that it wouldn't even occur to him to ask ilya to do that.

B. when they're pushing the friendship cover, ilya gets nudge nudge jokes about trying to copy what hollander's doing, and he's not going to share information shane didn't greenlight to get out, so he just plays along. and now there's like. at least three other players lowkey accidentally following an allergy diet because they don't know it's an allergy diet. why do hollander and now rozanov not eat tree nuts? unclear, but they're also the best two players in the entire industry so it's worth a shot to copy them.