heckedy-heck

Eridians' perception of the world relies on something that is completely absent in space — sound. They haven't been looking at the stars their entire existence the way we have. Their concept of aliens might only be as old as their discovery of astrophage. They made a bad ship, because it was their first one ever! Rocky himself says they rushed it, and that multiple (vital) things broke. Their mission was just as much of a Hail Mary pass as ours was — they had no idea what they were doing, if they could even travel in space safely. And, as it turns out, they couldn't.

Humans are the ones who have been doing it over multiple lifetimes. Mary is state of the art. We've been space farers longer than most humans have been alive. We can actually see through space. We are more likely to survive exposure to the void. We can encase our lighter, more flexible, more mobile bodies in a material that lets us walk outside of our ship, and, to a degree, we can get our bearings out there in a way Eridians just can't.

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!

I love you Simon Iron Lung

Very important to me that Simon essentially comes from an alien culture from grace’s pov.

I imagine the way you express gratitude or well wishes in Eden has to do with the tree also, a more formal expression might be ‘May thy body rot and nourish the soil and join the creator in eternity,” but in casual speech it gets shortened and sounds. very unsettling. To those not in the know.

Bloodymary au where everything is normal and Simon is just Grace’s weird roommate bc he lives in California on a teachers salary, and sometimes they pretend to be in a relationship so people stop asking Grace questions about his love life (ft coltland twins).

BloodyMary comic based on "It's Worth It" by HulkJanitor (me) on Ao3.

Simon just wants to eat in peace man.

I finished reading a fic called The Patron Saints of One Way Trips! such a fun read hehehd