⭐️

early 20s, any pronouns, loser butch obsessed with the locked tomb, project hail mary my art tag is claysdust, i do not post often

[rosietherivendell]

Here me out. A human!rocky au except it's all technically canon compliant there's no magic and Rocky wasn't a human from the start instead there was a miscommunication...a pretty big horrifying miscommunication about the way in which Eridians are ambush predators.

Grace and Rocky probably had this conversation while they were in the middle of some taumoeba experiment and so something got lost in translation when Rocky tells him how Eridians hunt. "Eridians change. Need word for 🎶. To look like other. Hide." And Grace absent-mindedly types in the new word and says, "Oh camouflage. Like you hide in the landscape because you look like rocks? Or like a chameleon? Why haven't I seen you do it before?" And before Grace can launch into an explanation of what he means by "chameleon" Rocky cuts him off and uses a tone that indicates he thinks it's a stupid question and says there was no need to hunt therefore no need to camouflage also "Eridian culture rule. No watch" and then changes the subject and they quickly become wrapped up in a terrifying conversation about humans being persistence predators. "What the fuck. Statement." And the thing is if Grace asked a couple more follow up questions like he wanted to he would have found out that much like eating, "camouflage" is private because it's straight up body horror, puts them in a vulnerable state, and takes a huge amount of energy and Rocky changed the subject because he didn't want to freak him out because it's not "camouflage" it's mimicry/ shape-shifting. The other life forms on Erid aren't too dissimilar from Eridians and the process is still intense and exhausting so Rocky assumed that it would be impossible to "camouflage" as a human but at some point on their long journey to Erid, Rocky gets curious and while Grace is sleeping he tries it...except it's easiest to "camouflage" as something you're very familiar with and the human he's most familiar with...is Grace. And again Rocky assumes it won't even work but then he feels his carapace shifting and cracking and expanding and it's too late to back out because this is a process that once started cannot be stopped. Cue horrifying transformation that takes hours. Dr. Captain Ryland Grace then wakes up to his own personal space horror movie of finding a creature that looks exactly like him passed out on the floor just outside Rocky's airlock. Eventually things get explained and Grace tells Rocky that he needs him to change back or change into someone else because "I can't have a doppelganger. I will lose my ever loving mind." So after a very long hug, Rocky becomes Rocky again but they spend a lot of time looking through Stratt's library of everything to find a human for Rocky to study for future shape-shifting experiments and Rocky lands on the image of the newscaster from the beginning of the movie (James Ortiz) because he likes his hair. And I'm gonna wrap this up because I've written too much already but basically Adrian gets to keep their Rocky shaped mate, and Grace gets to have a human shaped Rocky maybe even a human shaped Adrian, and everyone lives happily ever after give or take some occasional body horror here and there

[duckngk]

ortiz rocky and eridian grace my beloveds

[synthyk]

Rocky kind of gets slow boiled into his relationship with grace and doesn't define it. because why would he? He spends the first few days in denial that he can feel anything for this alien at all, and when he's finally ready to confront it, well. Rocky's going to go home alone after this. So it's literally not a problem. GRACE never asks to define what they are or what it means, either, so. Leaving it unstated is fine. So the sexual tension culminates in more and more frequent masturbation sessions and egg extraction and so on until its time for everyone to go home. And now it's time for everyone to forget about the weird half a year you let your alien friend jerk off in front of you and squeeze eggs out of your ovaries for health and pleasure. And that's sad, and you like this thing a lot, like it brought you peace and happiness at your worst and you nearly died for it and it for you and you DON'T want to leave it and be alone again, but it's for the best. So you say goodbye and start your trip back and can't help but wonder if your partner has moved on yet, or how fast they will want to when they meet the version of you that exists now after everything.

Then the taumoeba leak happens, and surprise! Grace is going to come live with you and die on your home planet!!! Isn't that fun? Do you want to commentate while I jerk off tonight before I go to sleep? I'm so excited to meet your mate :) I only live for 40 more years btw.

and that's when Rocky really starts to panic.

[clay-g0lem]

[feriowind]

alien loving scientist who cries and yells a lot?? okay u got me....

[asidewalksymphony]

I'm back doing what I love, which is making fanfic covers. All Project Hail Mary this time!

Credits under the cut!

The Wire Mother by nopaintjustpain

The Astrobiology Immersion Program by startingatmidnight

better than your best by goldmonger

pilot study (knowledge gaps) by deervsheadlights

Open Your Eyes by brokenpitchpipe

Come Apart without Daylight by brokenpitchpipe

Some of these are NSFW, please pay attention to tags!

[specialagentartemis]

Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.

Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.

Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”

It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.

It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.

“Ah,” Grace says.

“That,” Rocky says.

“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”

The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”

“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”

“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”

“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.

“Which made sense.”

“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”

“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”

Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”

“What about the wheel?”

Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.

It lands on Rocky again.

He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.

“Rocky!”

“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.

“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“

“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”

“But you WOULD have!”

“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”

“I would not! I would have done fine!”

(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)

[casgirl]

Guy who watched 1 Hail Mary video log: I think he fucked the rock

Guy who watched 5 Hail Mary video logs: comments like that belie a narrow, heteronormative view of relationships. Dr. Grace and Rocky’s bond is something that likely transcends baser human categories like “sexual” or “romantic”. Either way, all this speculation on the nature of their relationship takes away from more important conversations about Dr. Grace’s contributions-

Guy who watched all the Hail Mary video logs: I think the rock fucked him

[thefloatingstone]

When you're an aeronautics engineer and you have to instruct a middle school teacher on how to build Ikea furniture.

[oriixxc]

[cloudabserk]

“the betrayal was better in the book” could not agree less. the movie version is excellent. soooo awkward and unsettling and funny and sad. the way he cries and runs away and is tackled to the ground and begs for his life completely futilely 🩵

[alkyseltzer]

headcanon that stratt kept grace's yellow raincoat post launch

[rienma]

He Scared // Project Hail Mary // Bill Wurtz

[sketchjay]

"Easy for you to say when you're not the one being murdered! You're murdering me!"

(Project Hail Mary (2026) / Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, narrated by Ray Porter / I Bet on Losing Dogs by Mitski)

[vincentheodorus]

hey in case yall wanna lose your mind too

[bitit]

posted this on insta a while back and gained zero traction but i think tumblr could appreciate my joy and whimsy

[findmeinthealps]

my world's on fire, how 'bout yours?

(x)

[jorolle]

when grace sends the beetles back to earth you can see him putting rocky's xenonite figurine of him into one of them. AND HE GIVES IT A LITTLE FIST FINGER BUMP😭