this is a horde clones blog now

Enter: Minna!

ID's are in alt text and transcripts are available upon request

my daughter cannot, through action or inaction, harm a human or allow a human to come to harm

a daughter at rest or in constant motion remains at rest or in constant motion unless acted upon by another force

daughters are never created or destroyed, only transformed

always treat every daughter as loaded, even if you know she isn't

7. You can fold my daughter through any two points.

10. When two or more daughters are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest daughter is preferable.

11. Any sufficiently advanced daughter is indistinguishable from magic.

12. Without a clear indicator of intent, it is utterly impossible to parody my daughter without someone mistaking it for the genuine article.

15. My daughter will not interfere with the social, cultural, or technological development of other civilizations.

19. Do not get my daughter wet or feed her after midnight.

20. My daughter can only move forward, but she captures diagonally.

21. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by my daughter.

22. My daughter is the mind-killer. She is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my daughter. I will permit her to pass over me and through me. And when she has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see her path. Where the daughter has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

23. If my daughter is bigger than your outstretched thumb, then you are within her blast radius.

Peter Pan edited by Anne Hiebert Alton (2011)

(sorry to interrupt joke post but) this is true!

Children not clapping did happen too, (and some were even expected to have hissed, which was later written into the 1928 playscript and 1911 novel). But my all time favourite anecdote about it is from Pauline Chase (who played Peter)'s intro to Peter Pan's Post Bag 1909:

Children love to clap their hands at the play because then they feel that they are really part of it, and you can see them holding their hands poised ready to seize an opportunity. Their great chance is when I ask them to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, and so save Tink's life. But they are very wrathful if any one claps who has the reputation of being a cynic, and once there was quite an uproar in the front row of the dress circle because of a girl who clapped. Those about her pulled down her arms angrily. "How dare you clap," they cried, "when you know you don't believe in fairies!" There was one dreadfully hard-hearted little boy who came to the theatre not to clap. That was his object for coming, and he came round "behind" to tell me so in the middle of the play. His teeth were firm set. "I won't clap," he said doggedly; "I'm not going to clap." And when the time came he didn't clap; above the clapping of all the others I could hear him shouting from a box, "Peter, I'm not clapping."

Grace is joking around with a selectively violent creature that can rip his soft squishy body apart in an instant!

But it’s also a lot of fun to hear Weir talk about all the stuff he wants to include in a possible sequel, like the fact that eridians can have several conversations at once even with the same eridian. He imagine Rocky and Adrian bickering in one conversation while having a nice conversation at the same time that slowly turns into a fight and all of a sudden they’re yelling at each other in two conversations about different things.

He also says they have terrible spacial memory because they can see everything around them all the time thanks to their echo location so to them it’s crazy that humans can only see in one direction but still remember what’s behind them and even what the last room they were in looks like. Apparently eridians mostly just remember that the room exists and that it has the computer in it but if you asked them where the computer is placed in the room they’ll struggle to give a precise answer.

And Rocky got scared when Grace hugged him because eridians don’t have a concept of expressing affection with physical touch. To them it’s only neutral or violent because thanks to their hard shell they can’t really feel much. They only use it to move each other around or to break through their prey’s shell to get to the soft insides. So in their inter-species friendship only Grace would feel any desire to touch Rocky. It makes it very cute that Rocky joins in on Grace’s hugging ritual. It’s purely for Grace’s sake.

According to Weir eridians never had a reason to develop spacial memory because as soon as they enter a place they know where everything is, even if it’s behind something else, unlike humans who have to look for it. It reminds me of this video by a guy who has facial blindness.

He explains that humans have a part of our brain dedicated to remembering faces because we’re social creatures who need to remember friends and foes, but that part can be damaged despite our memory being perfect otherwise. The way Weir explains eridians memory it almost sounds like something akin to aphantasia but for spaces specifically. They never forget info but visuals are more wishy-washy. Thats why they know what’s in a room but they don’t know where it is if they’re not “looking” at it.

There’s definitely an argument to be made that eridians might feel differently about physical touch in the movie canon, especially because eridians lie on top of each other while watching each other sleep in the movie but watch from a distance in the book. But Weir explained in an interview that hugging is part of an exchange between Grace and Rocky. They do things for each other that makes the other happy despite not enjoying it themselves. Rocky let Grace hug him but would never ask Grace to do it, and Grace let Rocky watch him sleep but would prefer if he didn’t. They both know these things make the other happy and are an expression of care, trust and affection so they do it for each other.

The police ruled it a suicide. The family and local community demanded an investigation. The police refused to change their ruling.