Feles Rubrum

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.

you know

this

- I'll hear it no matter where my phone was buried

- it's not going to be confused for anyone else's phone

- it's just silly enough to blunt some of the anxiety around phone calls