Trash Gnomes Anonymous

first a flow diagram labelled “Maladaptive pattern”, which goes from boxes that read "ewww slimy” to “gross” to “ew”.

then a flow diagram labelled “After cognitive restructuring”, which foes from “ewww slimy” to “one must not disrespect the noble terrestrial gastropod” to the outcome “yay slime”.

i love rocky having no natural desire or drive for touch, and i love the thought of him developing one during the trip to erid. humans need touch and rocky will move heaven and earth to give grace whatever he needs.

i can see rocky coming to resent the xenonite barrier because the lack of direct contact hurts grace. getting frustrated with himself because he knows it's not rational and that grace is being stupid stupid whenever he bumps the panels and sighs that he wishes they weren't there. want grace rocky to die painful, question?! but even after he waves grace off he sits and ponders how to make the panels thinner, more flexible, pushing the limits of eridian technology.

i can see him starting to yearn for closeness so he can cure grace's "touch starvation." the form-fitting suit was built so nothing like what happened on adrian will ever happen again and so when the hail mary starts to complain about her old age he can patch her up. but of course the moment the suit's passed rocky's stress tests grace is throwing his arms around him and rocky has a long long long long long to-do list but he'd rather rip his carapace in half than end the hug a second before grace is full.

he doesn't care about touch. it does nothing for him and means nothing to him. touch is also the single most important problem he has to solve. eridians can make food, eridians can replicate earth, but eridians can never press their carapace against human flesh.

listening to grace waste away, listening to him curl up against the xenonite, listening to him trying to hide his tears as he warbles about how he wishes things were different makes him want to break through the airlock again.

touch has no significance to eridians, but rocky still scoots closer.