Don't wake me up

i really love a lot of the comments on the phm subreddit

like, the environment eridians live in just reminds me of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. erid is incredibly hot and pressurized in a similar way, and eridian biology reminds me of a few creatures that thrive in hydrothermal vents too.

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one of the first that came to mind for me are sea stars which have similar anatomy, at least those with only 5 arms, but also with their water vascular system and some species having both reproductive organs as well.

another is the scaly foot snail [or volcano snail] which specifically evolved to thrive living on hydrothermal vents in the india ocean. what's particular about them is that their outer shell is made with iron sulfides but also their foot is armored with IRON mineralized sclerites. it's still speculated on why these sclerites form this way, but one theory is to survive in the intense heat at the hydrothermal vents they live on... a gastropod that strengthens its body with metal compounds. [also a species that has both reproductive organs!]

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this is hardly an idea as much as it is the most logical conclusion to draw from canon eridian biology (the hivemind implications and so on), but every dimension of their society will be maximally collectivist imo. fully automated luxury gay space communism etc. which is not to say there arent factions/clans/what-have-you, or that there is no friction or cultural difference (erid being some sort of utopia is boring 2 me), but i dont see modern eridians as people who will employ the same kind of othering mechanics that humans do. and generally i imagine their social heirarchies to be flatter, because the ability to thrum and thus coordinate with vast amounts of people at once eliminates a lot of the need to concentrate decision-making power in indviduals. same reason i dont think family holds the same importance; if you can feel the same degree of connection to a mind not biologically related to you, what does that do to your sense of belonging?

arts: i think the performing arts are a highly prestigious and busy field. music and dance and everything in-between. live performances might be less of a unidirectional sender -> receiver dynamic (simplifying, of course, ours arent fully unidirectional either) and perhaps more a kind of thrum where the artist in question invites the attending eridians to perform a routine they have conceived of. imagine a cross between water aerobics and a rave, except everything is actually quite coordinated & elegant with seemingly little effort??

economy: i imagine their economy is based on (re)distribution, which covers the bottom two tiers of maslows hierarchy of needs. barter/reciprocity for most other things. GIFT ECONOMY. kind of hinted at this in a fic but i like the idea of gifts having multiple meanings. a) prestige/status items that are functionally useless but exchanged regularly between entities in some sort of cyclical fashion to strengthen bonds but also show off ones accomplishments. this + fields of occupation might be where social class comes in. b) reciprocal gift-giving to commemorate a change in personal relationships. gifts may range from interchangeable to highly personalized depending on perceived significance of the change. these gifts are then probably returned if the parties end the relationship.

i also love that post about eridian religion(s) being centered around erids geological activity. i dont necessarily subscribe to the idea of there being such a thing as eridian gods, but i like to think they land on the agnostic side of things. they might ascribe (spiritual) meanings to geological formations like caves and gorges. dont know how (if) this would work out with erids dense atmosphere, but perhaps there is a large meteorite crater of some sort, the origin of which was understood only in the advent of eridian interest in space. maybe it is/used to be a ritual site.

like, an eridian spending forty years on a spaceship to start a new colony somewhere else is not unlike the equivalent of a human spending 3 years on a boat on their way to settle on a new continent.

of course, without grace, all their spacefarers would have died from radiation poisoning. without grace, their version of the 'hail mary' would have been a failure, or even if rocky had managed to come up with some solution himself, he would still come back with dozens of corpses of his brethren who got sick and died for reasons no eridian was equipped to understand. hard to imagine they'd go into space again at all under those circumstances.

something about how because of a human, the eridian race can spread out amongst the stars.

Erid's atmosphere is thick. It keeps much more heat in, and bc is so hot in there making astrophage fuel is super easy(just throw it on the ocean) They set up the Blip-A having a 70 year safe threshold before things started cooling dangerous amounts. When Rocky and Grace got there with the taumeabe and the solution to all their problems, Erid was just starting to feel the worst effects of the cooling

Earth didn't have any of that. Earth's atmosphere is thin and loses heat rapidly, the planet is already cold so making astrophage fuel is hard, it would take only 17 years for humanity to lose half of its population to starvation. 17 years is nothing to them, they might as well have been told earth had a only months to solve everything

Imagine the Eridians when Grace explains that humans had to make major sacrifices just to keep themselves alive for a fraction of the time Eridians had, Earth couldn’t affort to bring their astronauts home, it couldn’t affort to send other people, it didnt have the time, it didnt even know if the Hail Mary would work

when i rewatched the movie yesterday i noticed three separate occasions where grace slams his fist into something or throws a piece of furniture or equipment when he's frustrated or upset

which i think is a really interesting trait for a guy who is:

1. a molecular biologist (one of the occasions is him throwing what looks like a hazardous waste bin in the argon-flooded lab after discovering that the astrophage is water-based. it's a fairly lightweight object and he doesn't throw it that hard, but he's surrounded by breakable scientific equipment, and he is well aware that if he puts a hole in his PPE, he'll asphyxiate!)

2. a middle school teacher (a job where you're required to deal with frustration a little more constructively than flipping tables and punching walls. notably, grace generally does not swear when he's angry or hurt or surprised. even in his internal monologue in the books, even when he doesn't remember his own name, he's saying stuff like "gosh darn it all to heck" and then wondering why he does that.)

Via @grimark

#obvs i am reading a lot into a few small moments and kind of cherry picking from book and movie canon here #but i do think this is a possible interpretation that is worth considering! #i've also been thinking a lot about the fact that grace is a nice guy who everyone seems to like #(he gets carl to be his buddy almost immediately! stratt seems to genuinely like him!) #but who (in the movie at least) appears to have no close friends. #in the book he has at least one and i think he says he's friends with some of his fellow teachers as well #but in the movie he's like. #guy who is likeable and easy to get along with in small doses #but cannot for the life of him hold down deeper or more long-term relationships. #i find all of this more interesting and sympathetic than someone who finds it easy to be kind and heroic and to do the right thing #some of that's just extraneous detail being cut for time #but some of it is also deliberate #yao and ilyukhina being sent to space with photos of their loved ones. and then we are shown a photo of grace on his own. #on karaoke night he's sitting alone at the bar going over some paperwork while everyone else is with their friends or love interests! #you don't even have a dog! #prior to rocky inviting himself into grace's life it seems really clear that he's lacking in specific personal connections #he loves his job and loves the world and cares about the kids and i do believe he feels a genuine calling to teach #he's good at it! #but stratt is right in that he doesn't have any specific personal obligations like a family or a pet tying him to life on earth. #ik that line rubbed a lot of people the wrong way bc it seemed like it was implying that your life is less of a sacrifice #if you don't have a spouse or kids to miss you. #i think in context stratt just meant he didn’t have any dependents who would suffer direct material harm from his absence #but it's also true that movie!grace really doesn't seem to have any connections stronger than 'that coworker/teacher who you really like' #and that's not nothing! #but the connection of mutual care and obligation that he ends up forming with rocky is much stronger and deeper than that. #wow this was a tangent. what was i saying. #oh yeah. i think it's funny that grace and rocky both punch walls when they're upset.

#since i'm apparently doing grace personality flaws meta tonight. let's contemplate this again. #dr ryland grace self described 'not a people person' self-selected into one of the most peopley careers out there. what is your deal man.

Via @itsoverfeeling

#i have been thinking about this A Lot #when he had his moments of flipping out i was like woah!! this guy has an attitude for someone who wants to be friendly #being unable to regulate his emotions or frustration is just so interesting to me. that and his distance from others are soooo neat #whenever he lets himself get well and truly invested in something he always risks blowing up and losing his cool. which on some level #definitely makes it hard to connect with people!! and w/students its great bc its a job. there is a wall btwn u and the kids. must be easier #-for him to have that barrier up

Via @dentedelion

and soon

please