take it sleazy

Fanart study of a painting of "the falconer" by Tranquillo Cremona

Wanted the way he can be so unguarded and soft around Otabek. And I feel like he'd be excited to see a wild animal so up close.

Rocky chose a hand to match Grace's scar!

(Thank you @star-critter, @ironthingcreation, and @attorney-gender-al for the inspiring comments and tags!)

There must always be three puppeteers, to represent the three man crew that were on the Hail Mary/the sacrifice of humanity. Grace might have lived, but all three of the humans were sent to die.

The singing voice for Grace is traditionally done by a pebble. Because a pebble is the only one that can get the right pitch and limited vocal range of a human. Every Pebble ever cast to play Grace gets a pair of ‘glasses’ to wear. (This kicks off a fashion trend in Erid youth of stylized glasses worn like jewelry) 

Any time Grace is in the scene, a heart beat is constantly heard and is at the tempo of a how at rest or active Grace’s would have been at this moment. To represent what Rocky remembers hearing at that time. Whenever Grace went on a space walk outside the ship, the ever constant heart beat of the play would stop, leaving Rocky alone again. It would only start again when Grace returned from the airlock.

When Grace sings of his lost memory, it’s in a very haunting way. It’s a horrifying idea to eridians to awaken to a blank mind. Eridians have perfect memories. Any Erid that doesn’t is incredibly rare and usually actively dying or horrifically injured.

It’s the closest thing to show biz on Erid. The orchestra and actors are the stars and divas of culture. Of course someone writes an opra about Rocky meeting the alien Grace and saving the stars together.

The casting call to play Rocky would be so cut throat. And Rocky can’t really give any opinion on who to pick since he’s been out of the pop culture loop for 50 years. (A fact the writers use in writing the script. Purposely giving Rocky dated Eridian slang.)

As for Graces actor, the theater’s master puppeteer becomes invested in making as accurate a puppet as possible to play their alien. In the end they would create a puppet where, instead of stuffing, it is filled with sacks and tubes full of fluid. Including an air pump to churn it and a constant beating of what would be a human heart. The puppeteer tries to capture just how horrifyingly alien Grace is in the best way for Eridians, through sound design.

And that’s just the puppet for the actors to interact with. For the audience, I could see the orchestra Amplifying the sounds of the human body during scenes like when Grace hugs Rocky. Or used for laughs when Rocky points out how flawed the human body is as he describes it to the audience.

Actual Rocky being a puppeteer nerd as a pebble. So when the theater gets approval to send the Opera stars to meet Rocky and Grace during the press tour, Rocky straight up pushes past the glamorous opera divas to meet the puppeteer instead.

Rocky is excited to share with them the fact that so much his and Grace earliest communication was through puppet shows.

screenshot below cut