Perched on my post

Spin the wheel to find out what!

"How do you say goodbye back home?" "We don't. We do this."

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.

Space (and stars) are a much newer concept to Erid, at least relative to us. They cannot perceive stars. They can't even see their own sky.

And then here we are, utterly obsessed. The number of songs, movies, and TV shows that reference stars, the moon, our sun, it's light, astronauts, space — we can hardly go five minutes without bringing up at least one of those things. NONE of them are things Eridians have an established affinity for; to them, they're scientific concepts, and that's pretty much it.

And yet, stars are one of the first things our kids learn how to draw. We have a specific name for the connections we trace between them, and those constellations have been built into thousands of years of our history. We fought a proxy war based on who could get to them the fastest. I absolutely believe that, to Erid, this would be our defining characteristic above and beyond anything else.

They sleep at night, even in the absence of a light cycle, because that's when the temperature drops. Unlike humans, they don't use blankets. They don't try to preserve heat. They want to cool down faster, because because that's what their body needs shut down and rest! They RELAX in the cold!

Not only that, but their version of breathing is a constant influx of cool air. If they're without that coolant for even a few minutes, they're in serious trouble, and after half an hour, they're dead. Unlike us, they're at constant risk of overheating.

But not while they have a source of cold nearby. Like, for example, a human who lives at a fraction of their temperature.

On the Hail Mary, Grace spends a lot of time pressed against Rocky. Their temperature differences are extreme enough that xenonite can't entirely halt the heat transfer, so it's pleasantly warm. He feels like a cat curling up by the fire. It's relaxing. Of course, he also feels a little bad that he's draping his freezing raincloud of a body all over Rocky, but he figures Rocky puts up with the unpleasant cold okay.

Except: Rocky is chasing the cold just as much as Grace is chasing the heat.

Like, Grace thinking that all Eridians are very physically busy because of their brain structure driving them to engage with multiple different lines of thought or even conversation at once only to find out when they get to Erid that Rocky is just the most tightly wound ball of nerves anyone has ever met and if he doesn't have something to do with his hands he gets anxious.

Rocky thinking it's very normal for humans to have large gaps in their memory and/or occasionally dissociate for several minutes at a time and come back crying, then hearing the nannybot mention 'potential amnestic side effects' one day and falling down a WebMd rabbit hole that ends with a very high pitched scolding.

Grace finding out that for all his badgering, Rocky actually sleeps and eats as little as physically possible for a functional Eridian, a habit he picked up out of mingled fear and practicality as the only remaining crew aboard in case of emergency.

It's an official petition through the Australian Government's e-petition page, which means if it gets enough signatures, it will be tabled in government.

You do have to be an Australian citizen to sign it, BUT!!! PLEASE REBLOG THIS EVEN IF YOURE NOT, because these kind of things have a roll-on effect, and if Australia legislates LED headlights, then other countries may follow.

the color green: 🌿🐸🌱🐢🌳🍃☘️🦎🍀🌵💚