Grace: "Yeah, with my foot shut down and not working after our last incident, it's best just to get rid of it and it can be used for Eridians to study"
Rocky: "Okay, good good. Rocky replace with Eridian replica."
Grace: "Yeah if a part doesn't work anymore it'll be better put to use in study anyway"
~ 200 years later ~
Grace: "Rocky?"
Rocky: "Yes Grace?"
Grace: "Do you think we went a little toooo overboard?"
Rocky: "What make Grace say that, question?"
~ Pan to Grace who is literally just an Eridian now sitting next to Rocky ~
I honestly like how many agree that even though Grace can't get tattoos carved into his body or certain jems/stones imbedded into his body, Rocky and Adrian find other ways to go about it.
They give Grace jewelry with pieces of symbolic significance like as a way to decorate his glasses, or as earrings, or as a necklace or bracelets. Grace is different, but he is also seen as an Eridian all the same, and they want him to be part of them too in his own way even if it can't be traditional.
Like I imagine Rocky gives him bracelets and just goes "Grace say Grace no have family, Grace Rocky now family, Grace wear family crest on arms"
And Grace is like- "Oh-! You.. I.. Oh Rock you really don't have to I- I mean that's tied to you and your family specifically, your history and bloodline and-"
"Grace say Grace Rocky not family? Not part of history? Family?" Rocky says, seeming disappointed
"No! No no no we are family-! We are, lemme just- uh-" haphazardly puts on the bracelets "See? Family! Do I just- do I put them together when saying my name too or is it well- more of a symbolic thing?" Grace says
Rocky would be giggling "Good good, happy happy happy. Now Grace obligated to go to awkward family gatherings with Rocky." Rocky says before walking off
"Great I- wait what? Rocky what? Rocky-!" Grace follows after him
Thinking about the first time Grace & Rocky inevitably get into a big argument on the journey to Erid. Because, like, they are obviously inseparable queerplatonic besties, but Grace is slowly getting more and more irritable as he, you know, dies of starvation, and Rocky started this trip with decades worth of survivor's guilt and PTSD and is now adding a hefty dose of caretaker fatigue on top of that.
It probably starts as a misunderstanding--they still don't even perfectly speak each others' languages, and there's plenty of room for cultural differences to get in the way, too. They're both on-edge and living in extremely close quarters and for whatever reason it explodes.
And neither of them know what to do with that.
Rocky ends up feeling hurt and guilty all at the same time, frustrated with Grace but also with himself, because he knows his friend is going through a hard time, it's just also terrible to have to watch and he doesn't know how to fix that. Grace probably finds a corner to cry in, convinced he's doomed himself by making Rocky angry because how is he going to convince everyone else on Erid to care about saving his life if he can't even stay on good terms with his friend?
Eventually they get over it. They talk about what happened and get to a less shaky place. It's still a scary couple of hours for both of them, and they know it could happen again. But they still care about each other so, so much, and that makes it worth it.
So maybe I haven't been able to stop turning this over in my head and wrote this today instead of my job applications. 4400 words, be warned :')
---
Since being sent to space, I’ve done a lot of human firsts: first human interstellar traveler, first human to visit an exoplanet, first human contact with an intelligent alien species, first human to eat a different alien species (unless Dmitri and Ilyukhina were serious about doing astrophage shots. I don’t think they were. But they might have been).
I think I might also be the first human to tell my best friend that I wished he and his whole species were dead because I can’t have cake anymore.
I’m a lot less proud of that one.
I think I’m a bad friend.
It’s embarrassing to be upset about little things, because it makes you feel stupid, and feeling stupid makes you feel more upset, and feeling upset about that makes you feel more stupid, in a spiral of feeling bad about everything. Being upset that I was going to die in space? That was normal. Anyone would be upset about that. But about two years into the journey to Erid I realized I had eaten the last of the freeze-dried meals with the chocolate cake yesterday and now I was never going to have chocolate or cake ever again, and I hadn’t even appreciated it.
I stood at the food storage compartments, staring stupidly at them, trying not to either cry or throw something. I was in the third week of my new meal regimen: coma slurry for breakfast, taumoeba slime for lunch, and then real food for dinner, to end on a high note. Intercutting real food with taumoeba was my idea, and I was mad at myself for doing it. I had enough real food to last until Erid, but it was dwindling scarily fast. Rocky was insistent that Eridian scientists would drop everything and figure out how to make food that would keep me alive as their first priority, but… well, I’d come from an Earth that was having the same problems. I didn’t think they’d want to drop everything they were doing to save their own planet to invent a whole new technological infrastructure to keep one alien alive. So I wanted to make sure what I had would stretch out long enough for them to figure out something I could eat that wouldn’t kill me. But what that meant was slime for breakfast and slime for lunch, every day, and the lunch slime was filling but it wasn’t energizing. By dinner time I was always cranky. And this was going to be how every day was going to go for at least the next two years and probably the next rest of my life. And all I wanted was something with chocolate in it and there wasn’t any and never would be again.
I slumped down on the floor.
“Grace?” Rocky called from the other room.
“Just deciding on dinner,” I said.
“From the floor, question?”
“Yeah.”
Ilyukhina had wanted chocolate cake.
The memories still keep filtering up, though by now they feel more like remembering things normally that I just hadn’t been thinking about before. Ilyukhina’s 39th birthday was a few months before launch, and she was making the most of it.
“Cake, champagne, and zakuski should have eggplant, I like the eggplant,” she said, counting off on her fingers the things she wanted for her big birthday bash. Stratt listened with the kind of patience she rarely had time for anymore, but Ilyukhina was good at making you want to listen to her. “Smoked salmon on rye bread. Music, dancing. Flowers. Everyone brings me a little card that says nice things about how much you all love me and how much you all will miss me. Also I want bouncy castle from American movies.”
That actually earned a brief but real smile from Stratt. “We are not importing a… bouncy castle… onto the ship.”
“Will be my last birthday party ever,” Ilyukhina said. “And I have never seen a bouncy castle in real life.”
Stratt held firm on nixing the bouncy castle, but Ilyukhina did get her party with music, dancing, lots of champagne and vodka, eggplant, smoked salmon, and everybody on the ship making toasts about how great she was. There was also a chocolate cake.
My last birthday ever was a month later and was mostly DuBois and Shapiro ambushing me as I left the lab with leftover champagne from Ilyukhina’s party and cookies stolen from the mess hall. If I’d known it would be my last birthday party ever, maybe I would have tried to do something more special. There wasn’t even cake.
Rocky rolled up in his xenonite ball. He was working on a more articulated suit, but hadn’t come up with a design that worked well yet. The suit would help him interact with me and the oxygenated side of the Hail Mary better, and I was torn between feeling like it was really sweet that he would put in all that effort for something that he didn’t really need to do in order to make things easier on me and feeling weird that soon he wouldn’t even need me for the one thing I could do that he couldn’t. But for now he was still in the ball and he still needed me to interact with most things on my side of the barrier.
He nudged me with the ball. “Something is wrong with the food, question?”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “It’s just that I’m out of the one that I wanted.”
“Other ones are not good, question?”
“You don’t taste flavors, or, I don’t know, maybe you do, but sometimes humans want specific things,” I said. Rocky still didn’t love talking about eating, so I wasn’t entirely positive if Eridians had any equivalent to sense of taste or not, but I’d definitely gotten that there was a lot less variety of things Eridians ate than humans did. “And right now the thing I want is chocolate cake.”
“Don’t know that word.”
“It’s a type of food. It’s a dessert. We eat it at parties. It tastes really good and… I mean, it’s really meant for sharing. It’s kind of sad to eat cake alone.”
Rocky made a sound that was kind of like a laugh and kind of like a disbelieving snort. “Human social eating. Strange strange strange. Humans are weird perverts.”
It wasn’t anything new, it was a running joke, but it was not what I wanted to hear right then. “I can’t help it if eating food together is the basic unit of human socializing, okay? Eridians are the weird perverts for getting weird about it! It’s important to me even if you think it’s stupid! I’m allowed to miss it!”
I didn’t mean to snap that forcefully, but I just wasn’t in the mood to be patient. Rocky was quiet, then when he responded, his tone was clipped. “I know. All you want to talk about is food anymore. I sit with Grace while eat because it makes you sad not to. You think I don’t know this.”
“All I want to talk about is food anymore because I’m afraid of starving, Rock. Even Eridians have to worry about that!”
“I know!” The whistle in his tone was frustrated. He made a noise kind of like “ugh” then said, “Was trying to make joke. Was not trying to insult.”
I had the presence of mind not to say “well, you did,” but what I did say was more like, “Mmh.” I got up and rifled through the food packets again. I paused over the babaganoush. That was eggplant, right? We’d has something like that at Ilyukhina’s party, back when I was on Earth and worrying about food was something abstract for me. Something I knew was a real problem in the world, but not one I’d ever faced.
Maybe even if I was still on Earth, I’d be worrying about having enough food. But at least everyone else would be, too, and they’d be willing to commiserate.
That wasn’t fair. I knew Rocky was worried about me. He spent a lot of time fretting over my health and my safety and if I was sleeping enough and if I had enough food and if I was feeling restless or bored and he freaked out a lot the first time I threw up the taumoeba slime because he was afraid his suggestion had killed me. I had to reassure him that I was fine and I wasn’t dying even as I had no idea if that was true or not.
“My turn to choose the movie tonight,” I said, as I mixed water into the babaganoush to rehydrate it. “The Great British Bake-Off.”
“Don’t know two of those words,” said Rocky.
“It’s relaxing. Humans like watching it because it’s calming. And I still miss cake.”
It was not relaxing or calming to Rocky. I could tell he was on edge the whole time. “Grace didn’t say it was food show,” he said accusingly.
“Like I said. Eating food together is the basic unit of human socializing.”
Rocky bunched up his arms around his carapace in a way I could tell was an expression of discomfort, and as much as it made me feel like a total jerk, it was also kind of satisfying. I was feeling like crap, watching this show while eating rehydrated chemical-infused babaganoush was making me feel like crap, and maybe I had decided to do that because I wanted Rocky to join me in feeling like crap. Also, babaganoush is a slime, which I hadn’t consciously remembered until I chose it. Three square meals of slime today. It didn’t even really leave me feeling full, and after I finished it, I couldn’t just heat up another one, because I had a ration schedule. I could eat more taumoeba, but eating taumoeba while watching polite and friendly British bakers in their cute sunny kitchens and green grassy lawns make cake I couldn’t eat would probably have pushed me over the edge.
“Grace feeling relaxed and calm now, question?” Rocky asked.
“I’m still hungry,” I grumbled. It wasn’t Rocky’s fault that he had 220 years’ worth of food and I had three, but it was hard to believe that when my stomach was grumbling and I had only eaten slime all day.
“Can eat taumoeba—”
“I don’t want taumoeba!” I was acting like a child and I didn’t care. I think I was also crying. “I want to go home.”
Rocky rolled his ball closer to me. “What can I do that would make Grace feel more like home?”
“You can’t,” I said. “That’s the problem. You can’t. The Hail Mary isn’t home and neither of us know what’s going to happen on Erid, if I’ll just die or what—”
“Erid will be Grace’s home! Grace won’t die!”
“It won’t be, and you don’t know that!” And now I was yelling, which Rocky didn’t deserve, but—“Nobody there knows me, nobody there will know or care what humans do, even you—you don’t really get it, and nobody ever will again and I’m going to feel like this forever—”
“I have been TRYING!” Rocky’s pitch shot up almost past the point I could hear him, and he had to bristle and compose himself to drop his voice back into the range my weak stupid human ears could pick up. “Trying everything that I can to make you comfortable and tolerate your stupid food rules because everything is about food always and you get sad when you eat alone and get sad when you eat taumoeba and get sad when you eat coma slurry and I watch your human movies where everybody is eating together all the time and you talk about how much you want to eat the food they are eating and it doesn’t matter that I try to make the Hail Mary comfortable for you and change my voice to talk to you and make xenonite suit so I can do outside hull tasks so you don’t have to do them all, because I can’t make more food for you! Don’t know what else I can do!”
“You can’t!” I said. “And I didn’t ask you to do any of that! You can’t fix what’s actually wrong!”
“I know!” Rocky hissed steam out of his vents, then said, in a tone so measured it was almost insulting, “Rocky can’t fix what is actually wrong. So I try to fix what I can. But Grace needs to tell me what can be fixed or else I have to guess and then make Grace angry that I try.” His words were choppy again, like he needed to use small words to get the point across.
The screen still showed happy humans being nice to each other on a sunny, happy Earth that probably didn’t even exist anymore and it was making me feel awful about everything. “I want to go home,” I said. “That’s what’s wrong. And that can’t be fixed, because I’m gonna be eating taumoeba soup alone on Erid forever and that was the stupid choice I made. I wish I’d never turned around.”
Rocky was quiet at that.
I should have apologized. I should have said I didn’t mean it. The problem was, right then, I did.
Stratt once told me I was a good man. She’s not wrong often but I think she was wrong on that one.
Then Rocky rolled forward and bumped his xenonite ball against me roughly. “Grace is being stupid. Grace sleep now.”
“I’m not tired.” I tried to shove his ball. Obviously it didn’t move because he weighs about three hundred pounds.
“Don’t care. Humans can choose when sleep. So Grace sleep now. Statement.”
It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Neither could I come up with anything to say to Rocky that would make what I’d just said not horrible.
So I acquiesced, and I went to sleep.
Or I tried to. I mean, I brushed my teeth (I was running low on toothpaste, too) and flopped into my bed and pressed my face into the pillow and pointedly kept it there.
When Rocky was confident I was actually in bed, I heard his xenonite ball roll away. I looked up from sulking into my pillow in shock, sure that he hadn’t actually just left while I was sleeping. But he had.
It hurt way, way more than I expected.
“Screw you,” I mumbled into the pillow. And then felt bad.
Down the hall in Rocky’s half of the ship, I heard the muffled rush of escaping air I’d only heard a few times before when Rocky was very, very worked up, a sound that meant he was in the other room screaming in frustration.
Me too, buddy. We both got to be mad and miserable, I guess.
Unfortunately Rocky was right that lying down in my bed was making me feel… if not better, at least more tired. It was like the anger that had been pent up inside me that had been giving me energy was gone and now I was just tired. Tired, and stupid.
Was this it? Was this really my whole future? I couldn’t even avoid pissing off and getting pissed off by Rocky, who was easily the best friend I had ever had. He was still so sure that all of Erid was going to love me and dedicate round-the-clock care to making sure I could thrive in his crushing boiling ammonia world, when I wasn’t even convinced he would still love me by the time we got there. Definitely not if I was going to act like this.
It wasn’t his fault that he was going home and I wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault we both messed up the taumoeba breeding because neither of us could have predicted that taumoeba would adapt to escape xenonite, any more than it was anyone’s fault that his crew had all died and Yao and Ilyukhina had also both died and the two of us were the ones who survived due to pure stupid luck.
It wasn’t anybody’s fault, which made it feel really bad to get mad about.
I sniffled into the pillow. It brought back memories of grad school, getting comments back from my committee on my dissertation chapters; my advisor was helpful but thorough with her commentary, rewriting so many sentences and correcting my commas and n-dashes every single time, and I had a pure Reviewer 2 type who would add comments like “What? That’s not correct” and “this sentence is incoherent” and “this isn’t the original source for this theory, you should be citing Whoever, Date.” And it would make me feel like crap every time and I’d punch my bed and sulk and feel sorry for myself, and then take a nap because I didn’t want to deal with that right then. And when I woke up from my nap I would be ready to face the files again and make the changes.
It had never occurred to me before how lucky humans are that if we don’t feel like dealing with our feelings right away we can instead cry and take a nap. Eridians can’t do either thing.
I was doing a lot of napping on the Hail Mary on my way back to Erid, ostensibly to conserve my energy and stretch out my food supply, but mostly because there were long stretches where I had nothing else to do.
When Rocky was alone on the Blip-A, before I’d come to Tau Ceti and after the taumoeba had escaped and eaten all his astrophage fuel, he couldn’t even do that.
Yeah, telling him I wished I had left him like that was a really shitty thing to do.
This was what I was supposed to be going to sleep to avoid thinking about.
Rocky still wasn’t back. I fell asleep feeling bad and also very alone.
—
He was back when I woke up.
“Oh,” I said. “How long have you been there?”
“Hours. Grace feeling less stupid, question?”
“A little.” I was actually still feeling extremely stupid, but close enough.
Rocky fidgeted with something or other in his hands. I didn’t know if it was an actual project or just something to fidget with. He hummed a little, a low sound that didn’t mean anything. I guess he didn’t know what to say any more than I did.
“Uh,” I said.
Smooth.
A few years ago, I’d had to sit a student down and have a talk about why it was inappropriate to tell your classmate you hope they die. What would I say to me if I were a seventh grader having a fight with my friend?
“I’m sorry I said that to you,” I said, finally. I couldn’t truthfully say I didn’t mean it, because yesterday, when I said it, I did. But I felt gross at yesterday-me for feeling that way. And I had to say something. “I don’t mean it. I don’t actually wish I’d made a different choice. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t leave you like that.”
“I know.”
“I’m not actually mad at you,” I went on, because Rocky was being unnervingly quiet. “I’m trying to be hopeful about going to Erid. I really am. I’m just…” I didn’t even know what I was trying to say.
“Erid is not your home,” Rocky said.
“Yeah.”
He kept fidgeting. Then he said, “When taumoeba escaped, I thought I would die on the ship and never go home, never save Erid. Then Grace came back. Gave up everything for me. But now there is nothing I can do for you even close to what you did for me. Never will be, no matter how much I try. Because I am going home and Grace is not and there is no way to change that.”
“I wouldn’t have even had the possibility of going back to Earth in the first place if it wasn’t for you,” I said. “So it’s a net zero change, really.” I wasn’t sure I really believed that. But it was better to believe than anything else.
Rocky made a sound that indicated he didn’t really believe I believed that either.
“If it helps,” I said, “there’s no way I would have ever been happy on Earth again if I’d left you stranded in space.” That was true. When I’d been facing down the choice to keep going to Earth or turn around for Rocky, even when I’d been trying to find a way to convince myself that Rocky would be okay and I could go home… I knew deep down that I wouldn’t know how to live with myself after, if I’d just left him there to die.
Rocky slumped a little. “Going home, or tired and hungry and restless always. No way for Grace to be happy then.”
I knew he’d been stressing about this, but I don’t think I’d realized how much he’d been stressing about this. I mean, I’d been stressing about this, but that was because I was going to have to live it. “I’m trying,” I said. “I really am.”
“I’m trying too.”
“I know.”
I think sleeping did make me feel better, at least a little bit. I didn’t feel as hopeless about the future as I did last night. “And hey,” I said, “If I had to be trapped in a tiny spaceship for four years on the way to a brand new planet with anybody, I’m glad it’s you.”
That earned a little laugh equivalent from Rocky. “We save stars together. We can do anything.”
“Yeah. I believe in us.” I thought about it, and then added, “Although, just so you know, when I’m feeling sad about missing Earth and hungry for Earth food, that’s not a good time to make fun of human eating habits, okay?”
“Understand. Sorry sorry sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt. Wouldn’t hurt on purpose.” Rocky clicked his fingers against the bottom of the ball. Then he said, sounding cautious, “Also. When human movie has eating scene that will be long or gross, please tell Rocky that will happen. So many movies have them, and is uncomfortable when not expecting. Regent of the Southern Kingdom was disturbing.”
“Regent—oh. Yeah. The Denethor scene is supposed to be disturbing, even to humans.”
“It worked.”
“I can do that, yeah. Springing Bake-Off on you last night was mean.”
“It was. I was trying to help and felt like you were punishing me.”
“I kind of was. I was being a jerk.” I sighed. “I think… I don’t know. It feels stupid to say it isn’t fair. But. I think that’s it, isn’t it? It isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t fair,” Rocky agreed.
“And if it can’t be fixed, it just… feels better to know that you know it isn’t fair and can’t be fixed, you know? Rather than try to fix it.”
“Not really.”
“Well. It does.”
“Will try. Well. Try to not fix unless you want.”
“Thanks.”
I sat cross-legged on my bed in silence for a couple seconds. Then, because sitting in silence has never been a thing I’ve been particularly good at, I asked, “Are you mad at me?”
“Not mad now,” Rocky said. “Frustrated. But mostly frustrated because it isn’t fair and can’t be fixed and don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah. Same here.”
I didn’t really know what to go from there, because I was already exhausted from trying to talk about my feelings and my next thought was “I’m hungry” which probably would not be a welcome topic of conversation right now. (It was coma slurry time. Wonderful.)
“Grace wants to see body suit progress, question?” Rocky asked.
“Oh,” I said. “Sure, yeah.” Rocky showing me the stuff he was making was much more comfortable territory.
Rocky rolled away. I stretched and got up. I could sulk about it, but this was going to be my future, and I didn’t want to spend it resenting Rocky.
I had changed into new clothes and was brushing my teeth by the time Rocky came back. He stepped stiffly and awkwardly, the form-fitting xenonite suit still clearly bulkier than was comfortable.
I spit into the sink, which earned a disapproving chitter from Rocky, then rinsed my mouth out and jogged back over to the “bedroom” area. “Hey! That’s impressive.”
“Still needs work on usage flexibility and use-length,” Rocky said. “More flexibility means less air inside, which means harder temperature regulation, so can only wear it safely for 36 minutes. Not good for spacewalks yet.”
“It’s cool that you can walk around in it, though,” I said. “And you can operate the controls on my side of Mary. That’s gotta be useful.” I was selfishly glad it wasn’t great yet, though, so Rocky would still need me to do some things on my side of the ship. I was trying to be optimistic but I wasn’t ready to be wholly useless yet.
“Can also do this,” Rocky said. “Get down.”
“What?”
“Get down. On floor.”
“Um, okay,” I said, and sat down on the floor in front of Rocky.
Rocky took a minute shuffling back and forth next to me in the awkward suit. Then, once satisfied, he braced three of his legs and reached out the other two to wrap around me.
“What—oh!”
“Can give Grace hug like this.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly blinking back tears. “Oh. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, you can.”
“Is this good?”
I shifted position so I could hug him back. The xenonite was gently warm. “Yeah. It is.”
“Sorry upset Grace.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m the one who was an ass.”
“Don’t know word.”
“It’s an English swearword. It means jerk, except ruder. It refers to the human backside.”
Rocky yipped in delight. It’s not like he hasn’t picked up words from movies, but I don’t usually define them.
“Okay to tease about leaking?” Rocky asked.
I sniffed. “Yeah. That’s fine.”
“Grace is leaking all over fancy new suit.”
“You’re bringing me home with you, buddy, you have to get used to it.”
“Think I will,” Rocky said. I really, really hoped so. Even with the stiffness of the suit, it still felt completely different from hugging the hamster ball.
“Feeling hug over yet?”
“Nope.”
Rocky made a fond-exasperated noise but let the hug keep going. After a few moments, he said, “I want Grace to be happy on Erid.”
I need you to know I was reading this as if I was listening to the audiobook and it felt like an excerpt straight out of the book! You really nailed the personality traits of both Rocky and Grace that I saw in the book. With Grace being empathetic, compassionate, patient, and genuinely being a good person but is also being bitter, petty, tempramental and snarky (Just like he is in the book). And Rocky being caring, understanding, patient, and genuinely doing his best, but also being unintentionally insensitive, overbearing, bossy, and snarky (Just like in the book), and most importantly the fact that their bond overcomes any qualms they may have because they would die for eachother always, no matter what was said, their actions always speak louder than their words in their friendship.
And oh my god the internal thoughts from Grace about himself, how he feels, his college days, his interactions with the old crew, felt exactly like how he spoke in the book it is truly incredible (though maaaybe not saying vulgar language like 'ass' atleast casually like that as Grace really despises swearing, so much so that he even avoids it a lot in his internal thoughts lol). You even added in him constantly beating himself up waaay more than he needs to which he does very often (like buddy you lashed out because you are starving and afraid you will die alone and you miss everything I think you can cut yourself a bit of slack).
The playfulness, the crash outs, the bonding, the forgiving, (even adding in Rocky's disgust about communal eating), it all feels straight from the book! Truly I can not stress enough how impressive this is! They really are just two good souls that want what's best for eachother and themselves which can cause issues but at the end of the day they have eachother, and that's good. They both are good. Only the good is ever capable to admit when they were wrong, and that's what makes them perfect for eachother.
Because believe me if it was anyone else on that ship and not Grace? Yeeeaaah most would be too far gone, most of us get that upset over not eating for a couple hours and eating the same thing for days, imagine it being years not knowing if you'll survive? Yeah very much most would be fully losing it at that point as most would snap like a twig with not much restraint
This is really impressive how one to one it is with the source material and I just wanted to let you know that, as it's honestly really cool! ^^
Things can get a little silly, a little fun, a little wacky, as a treat
I like how in most phm fan creations they do try to stick with the scientific semi- realism that exists in phm.
But at the same I also love just how creative these fan creations have gotten lately and all the fun little scenarios being made whether it's art, headcanons, fanfiction, ocs, etc.. etc.., as that need for realism can be thrown out the window when it comes to the idea of Grace and Rocky visiting other stars, or planets, or even Earth and making different discoveries. And everyone just universally goes "Hell yeah that's awesome" because even PHM itself does this as just the idea of lightspeed travel by person is unrealistic and impossible past theoretics and then add a random space micro organism to the mix to be used for fuel to make it possible because it's a fun idea that works well
So some person can just go 'Oh yeah, Grace and Rocky found someway to visit Earth without it taking like 24 years (earth time) and travel back to Erid without problems and barely look like they aged a day because him and Rocky helped a group of aliens one time with their star problem so they made this possible' and people are just like "Yep, that tracks" without thinking into it any further. After all it could've been done in any way and that way can be explored
The mixture of science combined with the not impossible yet improbable space theories combined with the creativity of the mind to create whatever kind of scenerio to make it work is what makes this fandom feel so fun and expressive to me.
AND YES YES I KNOW THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF SCI-FI IT'S JUST
I LOVE SEEING PEOPLE GET CREATIVE OVER THINGS THEY REALLY LOVE, I LOVE SEEING DIFFERENT IDEAS AND POSSIBILITIES BE EXPLORED IT MAKES ME GO INSANE LIKE-
Be fun, be free, be scientifically creative, that's the whole point of sci-fi
Science and the ability to create can make extraordinary things when put together
You have all the social awareness of a banana peel
I know I made a previous post expressing my annoyance about how on literally every single video or comment about the Hail Mary movie people keep saying facts about the book that aren't a thing in the movie when answering people's questions and it's DRIVING ME UP THE WALL because those things never were a thing in the movie and never will be. So now it's confusing people and now I can't talk with anyone about it without people getting the two confused.
But you know what drives me up the wall MORE about all these people?
YOU ARE TELLING PEOPLE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BOOK WITHOUT ASKING THEM WHEN THEY WANT TO READ THE BOOK
STOP
STOP
GENUINELY
People are seeing the movie, they are gonna most likely want to read the book SO STOP REVEALING LITERALLY ALL OF THE BIG THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THE BOOK THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE MOVIE TO THEM WHEN NO ONE ASKED FOR IT JUST TO PROVE A NONEXISTENT POINT. I can be watching a reaction video and there are like 10 comments going "Erm actually, did you know that in the book-"
I WANT people to READ the book, I want them to be surprised and in wonder about all the extra things they didn't get to see in this version of the story AND YALL KEEP TELLING EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER EVERYTHING ABOUT IT BEFORE THEY GET THE CHANCE, LIKE PARAGRAPH LONG COMMENTS, FOR NO REASON
Now im not talking about making posts rambling about it that include things from the book, it's been around for years so at that point that's on the viewer and I understand if someone doesn't want to read the book and they ask for more information about, then go absolutely wild.
HOWEVER if someone just mentions PHM, or that they like the movie, or posts about liking the movie and doesn't explicitly say whether they are or aren't gonna read it that doesn't mean go on a 50 minute speel talking about every single difference in the book because now you spoiled literally everything for them if they wanted to read the book and they didn't even ask for that, you just did it anyway
Why? Why? Genuinely why? I am asking you, kindly, on my soul, why are you guys like this? I wanna study you like Astrophage under a microscope
I feel its not crazy to say that if Stratt saw others defending her actions while shaming Grace for being a coward she would be not surprised at all but also feel validated in saying her and everyone else with her is going to hell except Grace
In the end Grace is the most innocent one here, and Stratt knows that
All Grace wanted to do was help, he didn't have to, but he did anyway, and without him the mission wouldn't be possible. Either way he was going to save the world.
But then an accident happened and he was given only three hours to chose whether he sends himself out to a mission he was 100% meant to die in, or chose to stay at home where he feels like he belongs. Stratt even told him "You have no immediate family, no wife or kids, you don't even have a dog." Driving home how he was already viewed by the world as a disposable stray able to be sent up there, like the many other strays they sacrificed before. Saying that if he truly cared about everyone else he would go up there and complete the mission.
Grace wanted to help, but he was also too scared to die, and was scared he would mess everything up as he said himself. He wasn't simply afraid of death, he wasn't simply choosing himself over others
He was scared of messing up, but then he was chased, held down, and forced up there anyway
He feels bad that he didn't send himself up to die willingly, that he is a coward for that, and some people even agree with that. That him sending himself to possibly die saving Rocky is a form of brave redemption. But, not realizing there was nothing for him to redeem.
Because no one seems to realize that, someone feeling like they need to murder themselves in order to be a good person, that it's wrong if they don't sacrifice their own live for the lives of others, that their life matters less than ours so they need to "suck it up" and do it for the people who deserve to live, as if they aren't one of those people. "You are going to die anyway", yet if successful you all get to live and he still has to die.
No one, and I mean no one, should ever be made to feel like that. That their life matters so little compared to everyone else's. And yet, despite everything, he not only almost died saving Earth, he almost died saving two planets including Rocky when he absolutely did not have to. He sent the Beetles anyway, he did not have to. He didn't have to save the world that only ever saw him as disposable, but he did anyway.
Grace is a coward in many parts of his life, but in this situation? He is not a coward or in the wrong for not wanting to die, and no one should ever feel like they are in the wrong for that. I honestly think he was more selfless than the world could ever hope to be.
That's why Stratt knew he belonged up in the stars, and not down here with the rest of us, because he is a fundamentally good person that did not deserve to be sent to die for a world that only ever treated him as a stray.
For a place that prides itself on accuracy no one is accurate on anything
Now this might just be a me thing but I have to ask
Can we stop confusing facts in the BOOK with facts in the MOVIE? They are two entirely separate things and I feel like we are genuinely confusing people who are fans of the newest film by answering their questions about the movie by stating things from the book that never happened in the movie meaning it isn't part of that universe? I try to have conversations with friends about the new movie or about the book and they keep confusing the two together
Like someone asks about Grace being picked and I see many people say "Oh well it's actually explained in the book that the coma gene-" DESPITE THE CREATORS OF THE MOVIE SPECIFICALLY SAYING IT'S NOT A THING IN THE MOVIE
"Oh in the book they explained that the reason he has food on Erid is because of me burgers" DESPITE THAT NOT BEING A THING IN THE MOVIE THEY SHOWED HIM HAVE PLENTY OF NORMAL FOOD ON THE SHUTTLE AND A BUNCH OF PLANTS THAT THE ERIDIANS MOST LIKELY REPLICATED SO HE DIDN'T NEED IT
I don't know why but it feels so- misleading? I understand a lot of people who read the book and watched the movie tend to use the book to fill in the gaps, and when new fans ask questions about the movie they tend to use their own book information to answer questions about the movie despite said things never happening in movie canon and contradicting things that did happen in movie canon which confuses a lot of people.
I understand that a common idea with two versions of media when they gain extreme popularity is to combine both versions into one main thing especially to cope with what you felt was lost in the newest version of the material, believe me I've been there, we've all been there, but I am here to tell you that it is OKAY to do that for funsies but it's also OKAY to NOT do that when it comes to not misleading people on what actually happened in the two very different worlds
It's okay to see these two as two entirely distinct different worlds, different canon, different things that did and didn't happen. What happened in the book, but didn't appear in the movie NEVER happened in the movie, and things that appeared in the movie but never happened in the book NEVER happened in the book, and that is okay. They are two seperate things, you don't have to combine them, just accept what is and isn't and please stop confusing people between each medium.
It's okay to like both, it's okay to like one over the other, but trying to use one to justify the other or vice versa simply doesn't work. Things were removed in the movie for a reason, they never happened in the movie and it makes the movie work. They added things that never happened in the book, they never happened in the book for a reason, it made the book work.
As Grace himself said in the movie (roughly quoted not prefect) "We are working on the same goal, but we are two, distinct, individuals" and that describes this situation perfectly, these two versions of the same story are two distinct individuals, one doesn't fill the gaps in the other and vice versa, but they compliment eachother extremely well for what they are, but they also don't try to change eachother because they don't need to.
So please, for my own sanity, treat them as such, because I want to be able to have a conversation with someone about one or the other without them getting the two confused together and then nothing making sense.
So we had two book to movie adaptations back to back, Project Hail Mary and Animal Farm, come out recently in extremely close proximity to one another
Now it's not wild to say that a good majority of everyone has been absolutely loving the Project Hail Mary movie lately. Most, like myself, love this updated version of the story and have been glued to it like crazy, others love the movie just as much but personally prefer the original source material which is also epic, and all of us have been happily talking, discussing, drawing, writing, roleplaying, headcanoning about it amongst ourselves like CRAZY (mostly about the newest movie version from what I've seen) and I LOVE it. Finally a book to movie adaptation able to be it's own thing, improving on aspects of the original, having the author's say overseeing the production, all while still remaining faithful to the heart of the source material and impacting the lives of everyone. All of us vibing together riding our wagons into the desert sunset.
SO SOMEONE TELL ME, GENUINELY , why we then had the Animal Farm movie, noted by mostly everyone to be one of the worst book to movie adaptations of all time, the one that has seemingly made Animal Farm fans want to send themselves to the glue factory with Boxer just to not have to bare witness to this film, one that doesn't stay faithful to the original heart of the story, one that would cause the author to roll in their grave, one that makes its own thing but doesn't improve on the original source material and does it worse than the original source material, SOMEONE TELL ME why it came out AFTER Project Hail Mary. Who thought that was a good idea??
You are telling me someone looked at Project Hail Mary coming out and thought "Yeah, after they see that, they will definitely want to watch this" AND THE WORST PART IS THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT HAPPENED, they probably saw how good this book to movie adaptation was doing and went "See? That one turned out to be an absolute hit! Surely they'll give this book to movie adaptation that we made a chance after seeing the other one turn out successful"
Well judging by the reviews that absolutely did NOT work out in their favor let me tell you that, and the worst part for them is that Project Hail Mary was so good and well liked they actually extended it's theater run time with theaters being absolutely packed to see it, meaning while the Animal Farm movie first started showing in theaters Project Hail Mary was still going on.
You are telling me that I get the amazing choice of either eating this lovely hand-crafted baked mac n cheese or eating the moldy sock found on the side of the shower
I can't be the only one that finds this absolutely ridiculous right? This was either these guys falling on their own mess or the universe really aligned the dates this close together just to give an extra "fuck you in particular" to the Animal Farm movie, and either way I'm not complaining, it's definitely deserved, I'm just baffled
I live and breathe for the Project Hail Mary movie, it's my pride and joy
Have the book, read the book, I enjoy both equally for what they are. But just like with Interstellar, and the Martian, the book fans come pouring in to rapidly
And OH MY GOD just like every time before the book fans are PRETENTIOUS as all hell that it is genuinely GETTING UNDER MY SKIN
I like seeing people's reviews for movies, what they think of it, every once in a while
BUT OH MY GOD
ALL I'VE BEEN SEEING IN COMMENTS IS JUST "The book is better" "the book is better" "the book is-"
SHUT, STFU, I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE MOVIE ITSELF NOT THE BOOK, IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BOOK, IT'S ABOUT THE MOVIE, STOP BRINGING UP THE BOOK EVERY 5 SECONDS IT'S LITERALLY ALL I SEE
And yes it's okay to have an opinion and things you prefer more over others. There are times where I like the books more than the movies and the movies more than the books, they are two entirely separate things, entirely separate stories, in entirely seperate mediums, in entirely seperated universes. You ain't catching my goofy goober self comparing the Rudolph book to the Rudolph stop motion movie, I like both, both are equally good, you can't compare apples to oranges
My problem WITH THESE PATICULAR GUYS is that they aren't stating it as a subjective opinion based on two entirely different mediums. They state it as a fact, like it is a genuine fact that the book is better, and they say that constantly and it annoys the absolute goose feathers out of me when they say subjective opinions as facts especially in reviews about the movie which IS IT'S OWN THING, WHY ARE YOU HERE??
AND THAT'S NOT EVEN THE WORSE PART
THEY DO IT IN THE MOST PRETENTIOUS WAY POSSIBLE
Like someone can love the movie and go "Hey guys, should I read the book? I really liked the movie :]" AND SOME GOOFNUGGET SUDDENLY APPEARS LIKE-
"Uhuh, actually, the book is WAY BETTER. The movie you like is 'okay' at best and now I am going to spend the next 5 minutes telling you why the thing you like is inferior to the thing you should be liking. Now after that explanation I highly recommend you read the book"
LIKE NO, NO I WILL NOT
YOU JUST SPEND 5 MINUTES SHITTING ON THE THING I LIKE AND THEN SAYING I SHOULD LIKE YOUR THING INSTEAD
Why would that get anyone to read anything EVER? If you have to tear something genuinely amazing to most people down in an effort to make the thing you like look "superior" despite them being two entirely different things then it shows the person you are talking to that the thing you want them to like can't stand on it's own without making them feel bad for liking something different. And on top of that it makes them feel like they won't like the book because of how drastically different you make it out to be compared to the thing they like
LISTEN, LISTEN, IMA HOLD YOUR HAND WHILE I SAY THIS
You aren't bringing in book fans like this
You are DRIVING potential book fans AWAY every time you do this
AND AND I am here to tell you, I am going to absolutely turn your world upside-down because as someone read the book AND watched the movie
I ACTUALLY LIKE the movie version A LOT more than the book version and I like it A LOT better than the audiobook. The book/audio, to me personally, was entertaining in it's own way but left much to be desired to me in peticular, it's just not my cup of tea
GASP, I KNOW, SHOCKER, CRAZY, NEVER BEFORE SEEN
And notice how I said LIKE and not IS
I said I LIKE it better than the book
Not that it IS better than the book
Because it's a SUBJECTIVE OPINION
And notice how I didn't go out of my way to complain and tear down the book in favor of promoting the movie because both the movie and the book are equally good in their own right? OH MY GOD SHOCKER I KNOW
Yeah so, I just needed to rant about that, because lord knows it's been getting on my nerves because I for some reason can't seem to escape you people
I like the book, the book is cool, but some people like the movie, let them like the movie. If they want to read the book, they'll read the book, if they ask if they should read the book just say "Hey it's so cool that you like this! If you are interested in a different take on the story then I definitely say you should give the book a chance, especially if you liked things in the movie, let me know how it goes :]"
YOU KNOW, like a calm, sensible, and polite human being, but apparently that's too much to ask for these days
We need more genuine, happy, and hopeful interactions about different mediums we like please, genuinely. As Rocky says, it would be "Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!"
There is nothing I hate more than self righteousness
Ever since the beginning of PHM including the book I have seen the most uppity high horse takes on Grace not "manning up" and doing the mission and I SWEAR yall gonna make me crash out
So in the book he threw out every excuse, yelling that Stratt is killing him, that he won't cooperate, that he'll sabotage the mission yada yada as he's about to get held down and sedated, if you read the book you know what I'm talking about, and the movie is a bit different instead of Grace getting confrontational he simply runs away. And if it's even crazier how even THAT gets misinterpreted, no Grace is obviously not going to do anything malicious and you would have to have the braincell of a wet towel to think otherwise, it's meant to show that he sees himself as so low, so unqualified, so unworthy that he believes his very existence on that shuttle will sabotage the mission but that's besides the point
And oh my lord there is nothing I absolutely hate with AM levels of hatred when it comes to humanity is when readers/watchers look down on him, shame him, and say "I can do better" when he had that reaction. Just "Why didn't he do it? I would do it no questions asked"
And no, I am not talking about the genuinely selfless people who would and or have already put themselves in a near inevitable death situation for others, they are cool, they have my respect, and often they aren't the ones who look down on others like that in the first place.
The ones that I HATE are the people who would never actually do it on their life who only knows the comfort of home yet says "I would accept that" in order to make themselves look good and going "He is so terrible for that, why wouldn't he accept that?"
I DON'T FUCKING KNOW, MAYBE, HERE'S JUST A WILD GUESS, IS BECAUSE HE WAS BEING FORCED ON A MISSION WHERE WHETHER HE WINS OR LOSES HE IS GOING TO DIE ANYWAY
WITHOUT WANTING TO BE ON SAID MISSION
NOT GETTING A CHOICE
AND THEN BEING DRUGGED AND SEDATED INTO GOING ANYWAY
WITH NO ACTUAL CONFIRMATION THAT HE'D SURVIVE THE TRIP THERE ANYWAY
BECAUSE HE IS BEING FORCIBLY SENT THERE TO DIE
IN FUCKING SPACE
I don't know about YOU but most people like the idea of, I don't know, LIVING
But no no no go ahead, judge, judge him all you want from the comfort of your own home shriveled up on your comfy little couch not in that situation as you say "How dare he not accept that"
WOULD YOU ACCEPT THE MISSION?
And if you say yes cut the absolute BULL right now, no you wouldn't. You say that because you see yourself as better but let me tell you if you were being sent to your death with no time to say goodbye to anyone while being forcibly sedated into it you bet your ass would be throwing a bigger fit than Grace. Everyone is oh so confident until it is them, then what? What will you really do? If I was Stratt would you still calmly look me in the eyes as I tell you that you are being sent to your death with no say in the matter as I have sedation crew pull up on you?
And oooh I know most of these people who are riding on their high horses saying they would definitely do it and that Grace should've done it are 100% lying because if you REALLY meant that then you would already be out there becoming an Astronaut, or a Soldier, or a Police officer, or a Fire fighter, and putting your life on the line for others. But no, you aren't, you are sitting there simply saying how you would despite never actually showing that you would. And that truly gets under my skin as it comes across as the most disgenuine act of "selflessness" I have ever seen and that's what I can't stand and yet having the gull for looking down on others for being too scared to be brave
Grace is like us, he is simply an 8th grade science teacher, he didn't sign up for this, and I know none of you would either. He is no astronaut, no police officer, no soldier, no firefighter, and neither are a lot of us. He believes others are better for the job, that others will find a way or pull through for us, he isn't the hero, he is the civilian, and thats how we all see the world and ourselves every day. Yet, at the end of the day, he is fundamentally good person that did the right thing because he is, I'll say it again, a fundamentally good person and part of me likes to believe that a lot of us are too
People say that he was fine with what was happening until he was put in that situation, but yet we do the very same thing every, single day. People are out there risking our lives for us but you don't see many of us step in to put our life on the line for them. Ever think about that once in a while?
So knock your asses down a peg and accept that he actually did and accomplished what I fully believe none of you would actually do in a heartbeat if you were in that situation because he is fundamentally a good person and THAT is what ACTUALLY matters here.
YOUR ANGST STILL HAS NO AFFECT ON ME, I UNLEASH genuinely a more realistic take of HOPECORE OF DEVASTATION
Okay okay so all things considered in my last post about this most seem to enjoy my take on the topic of if Rocky will outlive Grace or if he won't, and I know some out there are thinking I'm reaching with it or not thinking realistically about it
But I'm going to counter that by giving a more realistic take on it, regarding THE MOVIE specifically (yeah once again book nerds put your glasses and raised fingers down I DON'T CARE) I still don't think Rocky is going to outlive Grace or if he does it won't be by much or won't ever be shown, and the answer is honestly pretty simple
It just doesn't fit the movie universe. There, it's that simple, no genuinely, really. No in universe explanation, no possible theories or headcanons that I have chaotically thrown together while TEXTING LIKE THIS. It's genuinely just that, plain and simple.
Going off on a more realistic explanation is because unlike the book (yes, I have the book, shocker I know) which is a more bittersweet ending, the movie is specifically a buddy com movie about hope, optimism, and connection. And the movie especially is more specifically about Grace and Rocky. You ain't ever gonna see an instance where old Grace is on his death bed and his depressed space rock bestie lives out his days forever sad because, well, it just doesn't fit the tone and theme of the movie. You can't really have a happy buddy com without, well, the happiness and the buddies, and trying to show something drastically different will sour that original tone with audiences.
And before you say "Erm actually, they can still keep the theme while having it in there", for this one I most definitely just can't see it still fitting in there, and if they could have it then they would've done it without going through every length in the movie to avoid that possibility. Which is probably why the ending showed Grace still young, unaffected by Erid gravity, not older with a cane, and having plenty of light and food while genuinely living his best life with Rocky as a teacher. And unlike in the book, Rocky didn't say how old he was in the movie, all he said was how long he was traveling and how long he was with Adrian. That's it, he didn't even say Earth years or Erid years (One Erid year is 42 days), so how many years old he is might not even be in Earth years (otherwise they would've stated it) and I definitely believe they did that on purpose as to not worry the audience about how long Grace and Rocky will be able to live for together, especially with how it's not meant to be the center focus of the movie.
So it's either they both live long (probably past average human lifespan) together, or die together, or Rocky only very slightly outlives Grace, OR more realistically it's never going to happen or ever be addressed in the movieverse in general as it's a singular self contained story and so it'll never be touched upon and for the reasons mentioned above it probably never will be. These two characters, like every buddy com movie, are soul bound together, you can't imagine one without the other ever again after that bond is formed, so I don't think we'll ever get an instance where they are forever apart like that.
And before anyone says anything no, I don't think there is going to be a sequel and if there is one I don't think it's ever going to be addressed in that either. DESPITE HOW EVERY ANDY WEIR NOVEL THAT GETS TURNED INTO A MOVIE EVERYONE IS LIKE "SEQUEL, SEQUEL, SEQUEL" LIKE SEAGULLS JUST BC ANDY SAYS HE HAS IDEAS THAT MIGHT BE USED FOR A SEQUEL IF HE EVEN DOES ONE WHICH HE SAID HE'S NOT EVEN PLANNING ON ACTUALLY DOING UNLESS HE REALLY GETS INSPIRED
But back on track, yeah it's pretty simple honestly. It's a happy, fun, yet emotionally tugging movie about hope and optimism found by an unexpected friendship. It's not meant to be about the possible end, it's about the journey and how they got through everything together, and that if anything if there is an end it'll be their end together, never apart.
As much as I love angst as anyone does, that type of idea of them ending up apart just simply doesn't fit the hopeful and optimistic theme of that movie, and it probably will never be in it to begin with, and honestly? Good, I like it that way, and I have no shame saying that. We need more optimism and hopeful films that end on an open ending that is shamelessly optimistic and positive. We have enough angst in real life already, let's let the positive elements of a movie breathe and shine on their own yeah? I think that's something we can all agree on
No understand human relationships, bad bad bad (Pt. 4)
Grace: *Hears muffled sounds of others calling for him, however they soon become out of focus as he hears a familiar voice call his name*
Carl: "Dr. Grace? You alright down there?"
Grace: *He quickly sat up in panic, but relaxed when he saw it was just Carl there* "Ah-, jeez you scared the- Rice Krispies right out of me Carl"
Carl: "Sorry about that, you just seemed to be having some kind of nightmare"
Rocky: "Carl, what nightmare, question?"
Carl: "Uhm, well- when humans sleep, we sometimes see and experience things while we aren't awake, it's not in our control what we see or experience during that time. Sometimes, we see and experience bad things out of our control, we call those nightmares"
Rocky: "Oh, Grace okay question? Rocky fix?"
Grace: "Not much can be fixed when it comes to having nightmares Rock, it's just something we experience from time to time but.. yeah, I'm okay. Also.. wait- how long was I even out for-?"
Rocky: "Grace lay for 36000 seconds, statement"
Grace: "10 hours? I- I don't even remember passing out to begin with"
Carl: "Must've been tired, Rocky called me here this morning saying you were making strange movements"
Rocky: "Grace made Rocky worried.."
Grace: "Iiii completely forgot I taught him how to use my phone. Sorry if I scared you Rock"
Carl: *He reaches his hand out to help Grace up*
Grace: *He accepts it as he stands up, stretching a little*
Carl: "He also told me about your recent dilemma, I think I have something that can help you, follow me" *Carl starts walking off, Rocky follows him, Grace is caught off guard as he was still stretching*
Grace: "Still not one for long explanations, huh?" *He says playfully as he tries to catch up with Carl and Rocky's pace*
Grace: "How's.. Stratt doing? After everything?"
Carl: "She's handling herself just fine. They tried locking her in for life but well.. let's just say she has a way of making herself indispensable. The Earth needs her in order to run properly, so they couldn't keep her locked up for long as much as they tried."
Grace: "Well that's Stratt for ya, hasn't changed a bit. When she has her mind set on something she's going to make sure it gets done"
Carl: "Yeah.. listen, about what happened that day, I'm-"
Grace: "Sorry? That's what you were going to say right? Listen pal, rest assured you can keep that apology. Not because I am mad, but because you shouldn't be apologizing for just doing the right thing, it's okay"
Carl: "Huh-?"
Grace: "What can I say, you both were right. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if I wasn't sent up there the Earth would've been, you know-" *Makes exploding gesture with hands*
Rocky: "And Erid" *Mimicks said exploding gesture*
Grace: "So, it's all water under the bridge, for both of you"
Carl: *Gently smiles* "Well, I guess that means you won't want the apology gift we sent you"
Grace: "Woah, Gift? What gift?"
Carl: "Oh just something that should be arriving to your dome on Erid in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1-"
Grace: *Hears a knock on the door, Grace gets off the treadmill and opens it up, Adrian drops of what looks to be a capsule sent to him from Earth. Grace thanks her as he holds it, he then goes back over to the treadmill and continues walking next to Carl and Rocky*
Grace: "What is this? Data from Earth-?" *Grace opens up the capsule and finds a bunch of medals in there.*
Grace: "A nobel prize for chemistry and physics? A nobel peace prize? A congressional space medal of honor? Carl what is all of this?"
Carl: "Your mission was a success Dr. Grace, because of that you both won various awards for your achievements in saving humanity from devastation."
Grace: "Congressional gold medal? Medal of Freedom? UN medal of honor? Space medals? Carl I- I don't think I deserve this, I can't accept all of this-"
Carl: "You can, and you will. We gave ones for Rocky too. The Earth owes you an apology, Dr. Grace, you did plenty sacrificing your life for us despite being forced on this mission. This is the least we can do for you, for both of you" *Carl says as he looks down over to Rocky*
Rocky: *He already put on all his medals* "Grace look! Rocky beautiful" *Rocky says as he playfully moves around him*
Grace: *Chuckles* "Yeah Rock, looking great-" *Grace looks back into the capsule and finds some other things in there*
Grace: "No waay, this can't be.. the candy I use to eat back on Earth! Oh my how I missed this- Mary! Can you send some of these to the Eridian scientists for me please? I want to see if they can find a way to recreate it like they did with the rest of my food. Thanks, here Rocky try some" *Grace says as he hands him some sour candy*
Rocky: *Rocky eats some of it as Grace looks over to Carl*
Grace: "Carl I.. thank you, for all of this"
Carl: "Don't thank me yet, we still have more to see-"
Grace: "No no, I mean this.. thank you. Not just for this, but for believing in me from the beginning. You knew who I was back then before I even knew it myself"
Carl: "Yeah well.. I'm just glad you both made it out safe and sound"
Grace: "... alright, bring it in" *Grace hugs Carl*
Carl: "Woah okay, this is a new thing from you-"
Grace: "Juuust accept it"
Rocky: *Meanwhile Rocky did not take well to the sour candies in the background* "Bad bad bad, Earth candy sting, sting, sting, sting, why sting?"
Carl: "I don't think he likes Sour candies that much"
Grace: "Yeah, probably not, sorry about that Rocky"
Rocky: "Grace have bad taste in candy, bad bad bad"
Carl: "Oh, and you have ceremonies to attend for those medals" *Carl says as he walks off*
Grace: "Wait, what-? Carl, Carl you know I have bad stage anxiety for larger things like that, Carl-"
Carl: *Not responding, but has a playful grin as he keeps walking*
Grace: "Carl, Carl, Carl wait!" *Grace follows after him with Rocky*
Grace's arc would've ended the same way whether his crewmates lived or not
I know some wonder if Grace would've done the brave things he did if his crewmates lived, would he still meet Rocky, save both planets, and live out his days on Erid and honestly? Yeah, and I will go as far as to say it's not even a guess, but rather a fact, and for one simple reason
Grace is fundamentally a good person.
It seems like he is changed simply because of the circumstances around him, but that's not the case. Everything you see him do is who he has always been deep down, it just was brought out more, but it was always there. The circumstances didn't change him, he chose to change the circumstances he was in.
And I will prove this by pointing out one of my favorite scenes in the movie, the Adrian trip. Rocky literally tells Grace they can try again, there is other times to try this, that if he tries to reach for that collection pod he will die. Yet, in Grace's tone he simply says "Be there in a minute." And "I don't think there's going to be a next time" with no hint of fear nor seriousness in his voice. He says it as if he isn't consciously speaking at all, as if he isn't even hearing Rocky, he is running purely on his subconscious drive. And what is that drive? To complete the mission at the risk of his own life. He didn't have to do it, but he instinctively did it anyway.
Because Ryland Grace isn't simply a coward, he is also a fighter and a good person all in one. He may have cowardly ran away from scientists mocking him and became an 8th grade teacher because students wouldn't treat him like that, but he also didn't bend to their ideals or back down either as he still held onto his beliefs, and did what he did for his students sake. He may have ran away from the mission, but he didn't bend to Stratt's word. He ran, he fell, he fought every tooth and nail just to survive. The rest of the crew already accepted the end, meanwhile he refused to accept it even with the possible end staring him dead in the eyes. It may have been the very thing that helped him survive his coma while the others did not.
Grace's very cowardness is the very thing that proves he is also a survivor, a fighter, someone who stands by their beliefs even if they try to shy away from them. That's exactly why Stratt chose him, because she knew out of all of them, if something happened, he would be the one to fight to live and would do the right thing regardless of fear because that's who he is.
So even if the crew survived everything he did would've been the same. Sure it mightve been different, but he still would've been the hero of Hail Mary we know him as
His crew saying not to interact with Rocky? He would've interacted with Rocky anyway
His crew wanting to limit communication? He would've talked to Rocky anyway
Them wanting Grace to stay behind and not risk it during Adrian mission? He would've still risked it anyway
What if his crew would not want to risk saving Rocky? Grace would've left on his own to save Rocky anyway and in the end would've stayed with him on Erid
Because in the end, it's not the circumstances that helped them survive, it was Grace's own choices, and he would've made those same choices whether he had a crew or not, and that's exactly why Stratt sent him up there. Stratt said it herself, he is the solution, despite him not being the only one going up there she singled him out specifically.
Grace wasn't simply forced on the Hail Mary.
Grace is and always was the Hail Mary from the very beginning.
And he always will be the Hail Mary no matter who was sent up there with him or if the crew survived or not. He was always going to be the saving grace of Hail Mary, as that's who he's always been, no matter how much he tried to run from himself. And I think the only one of his peers who didn't know that was simply, himself.
YOUR ANGST HAS NO AFFECT ON ME, I CALL ON ABSOLUTE HOPECORE OF DEVASTATION
EVERYONE IS JUST LIKE
"Oh Rocky may live way longer than Grace" OR "Rocky is going to have to live without his best friend"
AND YEAH, I GET IT, YALL LIKE ANGST BUT I AIN'T NO FOOL I DON'T BELIEVE ANY OF THIS FOR A SECOND
Now now, I'll give you some slack I imagine he won't live forever as Rocky's species doesn't, keep it atleast reasonably releastic, BUT I REFUSE TO BELIEVE HE IS GOING TO BE LIVING YOUR AVERAGE HUMAN LIFESPAN HE IS DEFINITELY LIVING WAAAAY PAST THAT (at the very least in the movie, though its nice to imagine it for the book as well, yeah yeah I see you book nerds getting ready there take your glasses off and put your raised finger down I don't care)
And you can call me crazy for that like Grace was called crazy by other scientists but I STAND by this because you can not LOOK AT ME IN THE EYES and say that ROCKY, the one who monitors Grace every second of every day, and the Eridians who see him as the hero who saved their planet, aren't going to pull EVERY STRING AND RESEARCH THEY GOT in order to make sure Grace lives AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Because IN THE MOVIE they created literally the perfect habit, perfect air, perfect gravity, plenty of food, water, sun, the WHOLE works, if they can CREATE it then they will definitely be finding a way to fix it and make it BETTER
They are going to make sure he sticks around for a very VERY long time, Rocky is definitely going to make sure they live together and go down together
Oxide damage from the air he breathes causes internal and external aging? BAM, fix the oxygen he breathes
Dna and genetics causes both internal and external aging? BAM, some kind of DNA fixer for that
Food he eats? BAM, make it as undamaging to his system as possible
And my personal headcanon is that every Earth year birthday for Grace the planet celebrates by gifting him some new advancement to help him live longer and it became a tradition
And they do try to make a cake but uh, it always ends up going wrong one way or another, Grace appreciates it anyway
BUT YEAH, ADRIAN AND ROCKY ARE GOING TO MAKE SURE THEIR NEW HUMAN FAMILY MEMBER WILL GET TO SEE THEIR MARRIAGE, THEIR CHILDREN, THEIR RETIREMENT, BEFORE BRO STARTS EVEN GETTING GREY HAIRS AND I STAND BY THAT
No understand human relationships, bad bad bad (Pt. 3)
Grace: "I just- don't know if they would handle it well if I talk to them like this"
Rocky: "What Grace mean? Why it not go well if Grace makes up with Grace friends Grace family this way?"
Grace: "I mean.. it's not like we are *actually* here physically on Earth right now, walking on it's beaches. After our last visit to help a nearby planet with their star a few months ago we ended up getting into situations that had Adrian so worried that we got grounded from space travel for a while"
Rocky: "Long lecture, not fun at all"
Grace: "So we are still 16 lightyears away just projecting holograms of us so we can see what is going on with Earth to help Adrian with her study. I mean look at us right now, us walking is just us on a glorified treadmill in my house on Erid and what we are seeing of Earth is just Mary projecting what's happening there to us real time and it's only going to last for a small while. Apparently this is supposed to help us talk and communicate there without the risk of travel and time difference but I don't even know how Adrian made this even possible without the time dilation messing it up too"
Rocky: "Adrian says it work with help of suspension of disbelief "
Grace: "What?"
Rocky: "What?"
Grace: "..Okay..? Anyway, I don't know if they'd even want to see me if in their eyes I couldn't even bother to be there in the flesh" *Grace lays on his back on the sandy beach, watching the sky*
Rocky: *Rocky lays down next to him* "... Well.. Rocky Grace can't fully make contact with eachother without burns"
Grace: "Yeah.. but hey it makes for a cool looking mark huh?" *Grace lifts up his sleeve showing the permanent mark on his arm from Rocky saving him*
Rocky: "Yeah, Grace Rocky matching marks. Rocky Grace still hug, still feel it, makes no difference. Maybe.. Grace family, Grace friends, still feel it too?"
No understand human relationships, bad bad bad (Pt. 2)
Rocky: "Now Grace tell Rocky about family"
Grace: *sighs* "Alright.. alright, uhm- well my dad was like Meteoritics, a bit of a hardcase you know?"
Rocky: "No understand word"
Grace: "Like rough around the edges, like a meteor"
Rocky: "Grace dad look like Rocky, question?"
Grace: "Oh no no, not physically. It means stubborn, a hard person to talk to, once they think of something they aren't going to change their mind no matter what"
Rocky: "Oh"
Grace: "Yeah my dad didn't like me being uh-.. me? He didn't see me as a fighter, he kept trying to work my cowardice out of me, when I got picked on my dad didn't approve of it but he would usually make me try to fend for myself to learn how to not be a uh- well an "easy target", in his words"
Grace: "It's not like he didn't care, of course, but uh- I guess I just could never be what he wanted to make me into, so we hardly had much to talk about with eachother that didn't collide like trying to push two of the same magnetic fields together. And my mom, well, she cared a lot actually, but she was so committed to her job that she was hardly ever around unlike most other parents"
Rocky: "Think Grace got commitment issues from Grace mom and Grace dad"
Grace: "That- is not a bad hypothesis to be frank, you may just be right on that"
Rocky: "Who Frank, Question?"
Grace: "No one It's uh- just a phrase that people say to indicate they are telling the truth"
Grace: "And I do have siblings, I- would get picked on a bit by them for a while growing up, but there were times where they atleast tried to be there. They got better as they got older, they're actually a few years older than me- well I suppose now they are a bunch of years older than me, huh?"
Rocky: "When Adrian with other scientists fix issue with Oxygen causing damage then Grace live longer than any other human including Grace siblings, help Grace live as long as Rocky"
Grace: "Looking forward to that birthday gift Rock. But yeah uh, I suppose as we got older and my- well many failures compared to my family we slowly lost full contact over time. Sure I had my co-workers, some old friends from my school days, but I kept everyone at arms length, they would try to reach out more but I never had the courage to really reach back."
Grace: "I didn't have courage for a lot of things.. and really- I still don't. I don't think I could face them, family and friends if they can be called that, despite us visiting Earth. I mean, how could I when even in the face of the world ending I still chose to run instead of go like the others?"
Rocky: "...."
Rocky: "Not Grace fault.."
Grace: "Hm-?"
Rocky: "Grace crew had choice, Rocky had choice.. Grace crew made peace, crew able to say their goodbyes.. Rocky able to say goodbye, Rocky able to return home."
Rocky: "Grace not have choice, Grace not have gift of choice. Grace unable to make peace. Unable to say goodbye, unable to return home. Grace scared from mission, that okay, Grace still good. Grace save our homes despite fear, Grace save Rocky. Grace brave. Rocky Grace family"
Grace: "....."
Grace: *Grace hugs onto Rocky tightly with a few tears, Rocky hugs back*
Rocky: "..."
Grace: "...."
Rocky: "Grace leaking on Rocky again"
Grace: "Woah okay well that- yeah that killed any moment we were having just now. Rock you don't say it like that- It's called crying-"
Rocky: "Crying leaking same thing"
Grace: "No, not same thing-"
Link to Part 1
(Made this and other little snippets for fun, debating on if I should actually make these silly adventures of Grace and Rocky visiting Earth as Grace deals with the emotional baggage he left behind before he can fully settle down on his new planet as a full fledged fic. I never really wrote a fan fic before, if I did I will probably keep it on Tumblr as AO3 scares me LOL)
No understand human relationships, bad bad bad (Pt. 1)
Grace: "Oh no... why do I have so many of these in the mail? God I have to find a place for these-"
Rocky: "Why Grace say oh no? What oh no? Is bad? Is paper bad? Rocky protect Grace from paper"
Grace: "It's nothing Rock don't worry, just uh-.. just forget it, it's fine, it's fine! Besides we have a lot of fun places to visit while you are here-"
Rocky: "No forget, no forget, wanna know"
Grace: "Rocky- Rocky no- Rocky down, down!"
Rocky: *Bro tackles Grace and steals one of the papers*
Grace: "Jeez! You know we really got to work on your boundaries, you can't just tackle someone for a piece of pa-"
Rocky: "What's.. reunion?"
Grace: "It's just a bunch of humans who knew eachother getting together to celebrate after not seeing eachother for a long time"
Rocky: "Grace invited, question?"
Grace: "Yeees but it doesn't matter, I can't go because well- you know me, I'm just your silly science teacher who happened to save the world, well- worlds, with your help. I have no connections other than that, can't go without connections so oh welll, guess we'll just have to forget about it, right...?"
Rocky: "...."
Grace: "😅"
Rocky: "Grace tell Rocky about family, statement"
Grace: "Rock I- is now really the best time? I mean- we have so much to do, so much to visit, I mean we aren't staying on Earth for very long anyway-"
Rocky: "Grace have pictures of human friends and family, yet said has no human friends and family. Keeps bouncing around question. Why Grace no tell truth?"
Grace: "..Alright alright, don't get your stones in a twist, I'll-.. I'll tell you but if I tell you we are getting McDonald's first as compensation, deal?"
Rocky: "Deal deal deal! Rocky love McDonald's, nuggets nuggets, Rocky want nuggets, with large drink, fries lots of fries"
Grace: "Alright hop into the basket then, *with* your helmet on this time. We are riding this bike to McDonald's, getting food, and then I'll tell the truth. Deal? 👎"
Rocky: "Deal 👎, Rocky ride in basket, Grace pay for food. Burn rubber, burn rubber!"
Grace: "Alright, alright, I'm moving I'm moving. You know we would go faster if you learned how to ride a bike"
Rocky: "No need bike. Rocky have Grace, Grace better than bike"
Grace: "..you know what? Thanks buddy, I think you are better than a bike too"
