Posted: May 16th, 2026
Last Updated: June 08th, 2026
OP's Note: Hello everyone! And welcome to the Sun/Moon Master-post! This post is planned to keep being updated as the AU develops so, feel fee to check it whenever you'd like. I wanna thank everyone for your amazing support, you've been amazing so far and thank you for enjoying my ramblings as much as I do. I hope this helps in clearing a bit more the plot and the characters. Without much more to say, sit back and enjoy!
This is an Alternative Universe set between the plots of Project Hail Mary and Iron Lung, focusing mainly on the relationship between Ryland Grace and Simon. At it's core, it's a Canon Divergence from both movies, starting at both character's death scenes.
WARNING: THIS AU (and account) IS RATED 16+ (18+ even)FOR NUDITY AND SUGGESTIVE EROTIC CONTENT. MINORS PLEASE DON'T INTERACT.
Main Plot
Ryland Grace has failed his mission on saving Earth. But he gets ascended and given the role of the Sun God. Now he's got a second chance at fixing it all, but for that he must remember the man he once was to achieve it. In the process he'll re-encounter his little rock friend and also an intriguing stranger, but Grace isn't too sure what his true intentions might be.
A threat looms around the corner, as stars seem to be dimming and Grace doesn't know what he's supposed to do to fix this. Will he push through the pain and get the aid he needs to remember his real purpose?
[Under development]
Characters
Sun!Grace
Backstory
Formerly known as Dr. Ryland Grace, inhabited Earth until humanity discovered Astrophages threatening their sun and all known stars except Tau Ceti. As a last chance at survival, Ryland got sent on the Hail Mary mission to investigate the star, solve the Astrophage problem and save Earth from extinction. Being forced to work through his amnesia, he meets an alien who he names as Rocky, who's planet, Erid, is threatened by the Astrophage infestation as well. The two of them work out a plan to save their planets, to fish out samples from Tau Ceti-E and figure out why it's sun isn't dimming. It's during this mission that Dr. Grace meets his demise. The Hail Mary had taken too much damage, a minute too long unconscious was enough for multiple fuel tanks to get breached and the Astrophage to fly out of control towards Tau Ceti-E during their take off. The crushing force of gravity had propelled Grace into the ship's controllers, his face smashing against one of the multiple screens and almost cracking his skull open from impact in the process. He'd been too weak to move, unable to put the ship back under control. All he'd longed for, was for Earth and Erid to be safe, for his crew mate's lifes to not go to waste. All he could think about is how he'd failed everyone, as his view faded into blinding light and into unconsciousness.
Present
When Grace wakes up next, he's no longer on board a ship. He's met with the vastness of space instead and millions of stars that twinkle at him. Something deep in his gut tells him that this is wrong, that it shouldn't be possible for him to even breathe in this environment, but… was he even breathing? Was he supposed to breathe at all even? He couldn't even remember who or what he was. Maybe this was normal after all. He'd stare at what seemed to be his glowing form. Discolored fingertips, glowing marks all over his body, being dressed in golden clothing matching his longer golden hair that flowed freely on the emptiness of space… Something didn't sit right on the pit of his stomach, but hey, maybe he didn't need to question all about himself, did he?
Personality and Temperament
This version of Grace is more innocent in his ways, more outgoing, bold and open to experiences, as is the reward of not really remembering who you used to be, what your responsibilities were and what you are afraid of. He is an explorer at heart and curious by nature, he wishes to question everything and discover things great and small, even if the greatest mystery of all seems to be himself. He looks at life full of optimism, although he's got some insecurities regarding his past and who he's supposed to be. He finds himself on long sessions trying to remember but always gets stricken by horrid head aches and only able to figure out a minimal thing or two from each session, which leaves him frustrated, irritable and moody. Later on, he realizes that he actually gains the most from simply living through experiences rather than forcing himself to the process.
Moon!Simon
Backstory
Simon was born on a dimming universe. The Quiet Rapture had wreak havoc, every known planet and star dissapearing from existence within milliseconds, leaving the last humans within the cosmos to fight their way through survival. Exploration missions had been sent out, to try and find new resources to aid the cause. In the process, four blood moons had been encountered, so far.
Overall, the trials and tribulations didn't seem to be on Simon's side throughout his life. He'd been raised in a cult, betrayed by his brothers and then thrown into prison for the rest of his days. In there he'd torture himself with his own thoughts of what did he do wrong? Did he really deserve this? What could he have done for things to have gone differently? Did he ever have a say into whatever happened to his life? Because it certainly didn't feel that way. And soon this thought would be proven, as an olive branch was extended, and he was offered some sort of deal: to be the first person to explore the floor of a blood ocean in exchange of his imprisonment. He'd walk out of there with a clean record, is what the C.O.I. had promised. And since by this point he had nothing else to lose… The idea of it was just far too good to miss. And so he accepted. But what seemed to be a simple plan had soon gone to hell as he lost his mind in that ocean. The creature had spoken to him, shown him things that no human should've ever seen, and for that he payed with his sanity and his own life.
The last thing Simon remembered was the red, the blood stained everything and everywhere as it rose. The raw smell of copper and iron blinded his senses, until all he felt was pain. Raw and angry pain of a ripped arm, of broken ribs, of a dislocated knee, of bubbling blisters and skin peeling off his bones. The torture seemed to go on until blood filled his systems and turned him into nothingness, the sweet and pure relief of losing consciousness even if all he ever wanted to do was live.
Present
He'd been reborn… or something of the like. He couldn't remember how long he'd spent in the void before it reached to him. The Eye. The Unknown God. Or whatever name it went by, since it never disclosed it to him. It had seemed apologetic as it changed him, gifted him a new body and a new consciousness. In an almost motherly way, it had said that Simon was made for greater things, that whatever pain he'd gone through was worth it in the end for him to achieve his ascended form. It imposed a mission for him as an exchange for his second chance at life: to fix everything. A God born to fix the mistakes of an ignorant higher entity. Simon had denied to at first but, this seemed like the best option right now. He just hoped he wouldn't be betrayed again.
The Unknown God knew that to save the universes Simon would need help, and so, bestowed him with the gift of knowledge, all the knowledge he'd need to make amends. But even then, Simon would be incomplete. He couldn't place things back in order by himself and for that he needed his second half: A golden child who'd compliment him like no-one else, who actually had the tools and skills to work their way through the hardships. But he hadn't been born yet.
And so, Simon had been left in a decaying universe to wait for some sort of… kid?
Honestly? Simon thought it all to be utter bullshit.
So what, this asshole of a God decides to nuke his entire universe or something and expects him to fix it for him? Yeah. What a joke. But even then he waits, since he's got no other choice. He loses himself into his own thoughts for clues of who this golden guy must be and whatever the hell is he supposed to do to fix all this mess.
Centuries must've passed before the tiniest of flames ignited inside his chest. He felt an urge to find something or, someone. Maybe what he had been waiting for had finally popped into existence? And so, he answered to the pull, traveling between multiverses until he was finally able to find what he was looking for.
Personality and Temperament
Stoic, stubborn and egotistical would be the best ways to describe Simon. But you can't blame him for it really, since he had been thrown all the way to hell and back. Both being centuries old and possessing the infinite knowledge had given him enough tools to remember his past life and how he ended up as a deity, and brought him to a sort of peace with the circumstances of life. But even if he'd reached comfort within his own existence, the pain of betrayal was hard to ignore. Simon was aware of the atrocities humanity was capable of. And if it was in his power to keep pain from reaching others then he'd do so. It's a strange way to show his kindness, but it came from fondness still and his longing for peace and quiet.
Asteroid!Rocky
[Under development]
Adrian
[Under development]
The Unkown God
[Under development]
Comic (On going)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Playlist
Original Artworks
Original Concept Art
Cuddly Sleeps
Stargazing
Giant sun!Grace
Thoughts
Simoon's skirt
Eclipse
Grace's pants (suggestive)
Possession (fanart of fanart)
Beautiful Fanart (by you guys!)
⭐ Simoon by @crackshipsandregret
Cosmic dance by @ohhelloimsotired
Simoon by @coryboringstory
Patron Saints of One Way Trips by @xxdisturbedxx
Simoon by @vioennui
⭐ Three of them by @lothechild
⭐ Size difference by @haunted-art-gallery
Size difference 2 by @haunted-art-gallery
I can fix that by @lothechild
⭐ Protected by @ohhelloimsotired
Grace by @thereal-sillyguy
Cuties! by @earlgrey-with-lemon
Babies! by @3llatricks
⭐ Reaching by @ohhelloimsotired
⭐ Connection by @zenaidazog
Trivia
For this AU, Iron Lung's universe is older, and thus, the events happen earlier than PHM.
Since Grace is a sun / the representation of a sun, he is capable of being affected by the Astrophages.
Grace often has the strange sensation that he's met Simon before, we can't pinpoint exactly why.
Simon is aware of the multiverse. (This is mostly for silly posts and not necessarily influential in canon)
The official color palettes are available on my tumblr!
Hi I’m back again- So I took your advice and made my own tag! At least, I tried to. It’s not working AT ALL and every time I post something to the tag… It doesn’t show up in the tag… I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m new to tumblr and I don’t really know what I’m doing- 😭
How did you get your tag to work when you started this AU? Is it supposed to be this confusing and difficult or am I just doing this wrong-? 💔
I went over your blog and it seems to be working?
You gotta make sure to absolutely tag it the same way on every post for everything to show up at the same place tho!
Tag List: (Please let me know if you would like to be tagged!) @lairongy @ohhelloimsotired @avid-is-here-now @taffyfairy @earlgrey-with-lemon @bawlm @itsjustmebluesilly @fandom-lover-001 @gay-mother-fucker @hildaravio @revenantaleksi @zappy-xander @pause-the-chaos22
There isn’t any time to run, nor to find a better spot to hole up in. The only option Grace sees is trying to make the room they’re currently in into a hiding spot, something much easier said than done.
Moving solely on instinct, Grace grabs the broken door and does his best to wedge it back into the door frame. Ilyukhina quickly picks up on what Grace is doing and rushes over to help. They manage to get it stuck back in the frame, but in an obvious and sloppy way that probably won’t fool anyone who bothers to look. There are still a few gaps that open a tiny glimpse into the hallway, but Grace can’t see anything but darkness when he tries to glimpse through them.
When he looks over, he sees that Yáo has grabbed what looks like a metal table leg. The end of it is sharp from where it’s been broken off, and is as good a makeshift weapon as they’ll be able to find in their current circumstances. Grace quickly follows suit, grabbing a long, thin piece of metal that might have once been part of a light fixture while Ilyukina grabs a couple of broken metal poles.
Yáo pushes both Ilyukhina and Grace behind him as they all fall back to the corner, hopefully blocking them from view by the door. The older man takes up a defensive position in front of them, weapon at the ready, but it’s clear that while Yáo might have some basic military training, he had never been on the front lines of a conflict.
He’d been selected for the mission for his piloting skills, not his combat prowess, much like how Ilyukhina had spent more time around gears than guns. For his part, the most dangerous thing Grace had ever done was fire a rifle once at summer camp before immediately handing it off and never touching one again.
“Lights!” Yáo hisses through the comms.
All of them fumble to turn off the lights on their EVA suits, plunging the room into complete darkness. Adrenaline floods Grace’s veins, making him jittery and anxious. He can hear the rapid thud of his heartbeat pounding in his throat. He strains his ears to listen for any sounds from the hallway, but the station is eerily silent once more. The only thing Grace can hear is his own crew mates’ shallow breaths through the comms.
They wait in a tense silence. Five minutes… ten minutes… fifteen minutes…
“Do you think it was just debris hitting the station?” Ilyukhina asks, so quietly Grace can barely hear it.
“We would have gotten an alert from the Hermes if it had detected debris,” Yáo replies.
While their commander’s posture doesn’t relax necessarily, the other does pull out his tablet. He lowers the brightness significantly to not have it shining through the door, and lifts it for them all to see. The view on screen is from a camera aboard the Hermes, pointed straight at Filament Station. At first Grace sees nothing out of the ordinary - no signs of damage or debris, but then Ilyukhina gasps.
She reaches forward to point at the loading bay. It takes a second to realize what
exactly she’s pointing at, but once he does Grace’s heart falls straight to his shoes. The door of the loading bay, somehow, has been shut.
They’re locked in.
~~~~~
“There has to be another exit,” Ilyukhina is saying, fiddling with her makeshift weapon in a state of agitation Grace has never seen from her before.
They’d waited another fifteen minutes before finally assuming that whatever had made that noise was likely just the door shutting. That didn’t mean they were safe necessarily, but they couldn’t risk waiting around any longer. Their supply of oxygen was far from infinite, and while all of them still had a good amount left at the moment, they would need to find another way out before the situation turned deadly.
“I should have made sure there was something that kept the door from fully closing.” Yáo scowls. “The door might have been on a timer.”
Honestly, hearing the other say as much is a relief to Grace. It’s not an impossible assumption, and it’s certainly preferable to the alternative idea that something had closed the door deliberately. Just the thought of *that* had Grace’s breakfast threatening to make a reappearance.
“Heading for our original goal still isn’t a bad idea,” Yáo says, “There might be controls to get that back open. They aren’t going to make a door they can’t open from the inside.”
“True enough,” Ilyukhina agrees. “I second that.”
“Uh, yeah!” Grace nods vigorously. It’s not like they have any better ideas.
Minds made, the crew switches their lights back on. The door is still firmly in place, but with all their strength combined they manage to get it unstuck. Their lights shine out into the hallway, but illuminate nothing. Grace tries to tell himself it’s because nothing’s out there rather than there being something that’s too smart to be caught.
There’s three of them cautiously exit the room, sticking close as they continue down the hallway. Grace misses the easy air of Ilyukhina cracking jokes before, as now the silence feels all the more imposing. They don’t bother trying the doors on any of the other rooms they pass in the corridor, too focused on finding the helm.
‘And getting the heck out of here,’ Grace thinks fervently.
Grace breathes shallowly, heart beating a mile a minute as they continue down the hallway. The corridor seems to stretch on forever in either direction, and the words on the wall stick with him every second that passes.
He feels like he’s being watched now, eyes on the back of his neck as they continue on. He tries to soldier past it, keeping a hand on the wall to guide him-
“Ack!” Grace yelps as his jolted back.
Surprised, he looks down, only for his eyes to widen when he sees strange black tendrils spiderwebbing their way up the wall. They look like vines or worse, veins, creeping across the metal like some kind of sickly plant matter, glistening with some unknown oily liquid that Grace doesn’t recognize.
Grace quickly realizes his hand has become stuck fast to the wall, the strange substance latching onto it like glue. He pulls his hand back with all his might, straining with nearly his entire body weight. When he barely manages to pull himself free, he sees that the Ilyukhina and Yáo are similarly having difficulty freeing themselves.
hi! Im making my own tarrot deck, and i was wondering if it's okay if i put your grace and simon as The Sun and The Moon cards? It's just for myself lol, all good if not!
It's here!!! No Simoon for now, but more Grace & Rocky shenanigans!
Hope you enjoy!!!
P.S.: The last page is intended to represent the birth of a star! So they are walking away from Grace's ""birth"" place, far away into the universe and not close to Tau Ceti nor the Solar system where the astrophages hasn't reached yet (so no, the pink sky from part 3 - 4 wasn't the Petrova line, yet) ((if my shitty logic makes sense, i'm basing this off on the idea that the universe is constantly expanding so of course there must be places within the phm universe where the astrophage hasn't reached yet, right?? Am I crazy for thinking that??))
(I know with how amnesia works, he is probably very very very unlikely to forget stuff like THIS (though it wouldn't be impossible) but I thought it was funny)
