ROCKY NEW TO BALL

Guess who's back, back again: Luckie, she/her. Probably older than you. Previously multifandom, but deeply in the grips of Project Hail Mary these days. Other things here and there, but I tag pretty religiously. (Fair warning, I do ship the man and the rock. I'll tag that too.)

[sanguine-humor]

phm is decently popular in japan and i mostly see this when i check twitter and see accounts posting pictures of handmade rocky plushies that are so fucking round looking it brings a tear to my eye

[sanguine-humor]

he keeps me sane

[fortnitelover24]

Rocky practice doodles!!! My favorite alien

[luckiedee]

Week 7 Recap for the @the-wip-project Summer Writing Challenge

Goals • Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5 • Week 6 June

Week 7:

Words: 1,155 / 1,129

Minutes Outlining: 30 / 24

Snippet from this week’s writing and reflections below.

After a few weeks where progress felt easier if not consistent, this was a rough one. I'll admit that this is in no small part due to the fact that I've completely messed up my sleep schedule again, and I have a hard time (1) writing and (2) feeling positive when I'm this tired.

The other challenge is that the story is spiraling a little, which happens with most things I write. I'm having a hard time wrapping up a critical scene, and I just keep expanding on it and expanding on it to the point where I know I'm well past its natural end, but it just keeps going. I also think I'm losing the characters' voices more and more the longer it drags. Maybe I'll try the editing/rewriting trick that worked for me so well a few weeks ago.

I did have one really good writing day, which was the 16th, where I wrote 311 words. This was the day after chatting about the idea with a fandom... friend? mutual? acquaintance? which actually made me feel excited about the idea again. Something to consider. I typically don't talk a lot about what I'm writing ahead of time because then I feel like I've told the story and I don't have to write it anymore and I lose my motivation. I also don't have a huge community in this fandom (yet?). But maybe I need to find a way to share a little bit more than I am.

(The 509 words yesterday was NOT in any way a good writing day. That was vomiting out words to meet a goal.)

On a more positive note, I'm making huge progress on breaking down some of the issues in the fic I'm plotting/outlining, and I'm looking forward to maybe actually writing it. (Although I know I'll go through all of these same painful stages with it if I do :)

Snippet

Ryland was shaking everywhere. Outside. Inside. In places he didn’t know could shake. His spleen was probably quivering.

(I promise I'm calling him Grace in the fic I'm plotting.)

Words

Minutes

[goldenaltar]

concept: no astrophage au where eridians and humans still make first contact but like, properly. a whole diplomatic mission meeting in the middle of space to save travel time. stratt is humanity's greatest representation. the eridian equivalent is equally as scary and secretly soft. it's all very star trek.

but rocky and grace put the whole diplomacy thing in jeopardy by being too best buddy with it. like they're both really low level members of the mission. some engineer necessary for ship maintenance, and an obligatory molecular biologist they brought along in case they found more alien cells out in space. and these two guys like, somehow keep ending up hanging out essentially "at the back of the classroom." consistently left out of the actually important negotiations, and well, they're bored!

grace steals some laptops and starts jury-rigging his own personal translator for rocky, despite the fact that the official translation software is way quicker to learn and much more nuanced. rocky starts learning english, simplifies his eridian, and immediately starts mocking grace for needing the software. they start blabbing to each other about all the weird quirks of their respective cultures and advanced science their planets can do. the whole time they are ribbing each other about culture stuff. grace eats in front of rocky. rocky forces grace to sleep in a corridor somewhere so he can keep watch.

then stratt and the eridian leader find out and it's like

stratt: you. you've been meeting in private with a member of the eridian deligation?

grace: ... yyyes.

stratt: and you shared with them classified scientific documents?

grace: i... maybe gave him. a laptop. he's so smart! what was i supposed to do?

stratt: HIM? you've assigned male pronouns to a genderless species?

grace: he said he likes to match!

stratt: do you even know the name of this eridian?!

grace: i call him rocky :)

stratt: 😰

then on rocky's side of things it's like

eridian leader: sorry did you say you called the human after one of its digestive noises?

rocky: yeah :)

eridian leader: and. you've been telling it about how to make xenonite. one of our most vital trading resources.

rocky: yes yes, grace is very ignorant about basic chemistry 🙄

eridian leader: right. and you watch it sleep. despite the fact that all the human beings we have spoken to have described this as a cultural violation?

rocky: well he didn't like it at first but he came around!!

anyway both sides of the delegation are sweating profusely (metaphorically speaking) until they see rocky and grace in action and are like ohh! they're both freaks. we are not to blame for this. these two are just really bad at navigating cultural norms.

cut to grace curled up with rocky while he sleeps like a baby.

[harvocel]

a rocky reminder

[fancycake]

imagine never falling in love and spending your life wondering if you’re broken because you just don’t seem to have romantic or sexual feelings for anyone until suddenly you’re shot into space, meet a rock shaped alien, and are immediately plagued day and night by the overwhelming desire to crawl into his carapace and live there forever

[rylandgracie]

Project Hail Mary (2026) // For Your Own Good, Leah Horlick

[spider-mann]

RYAN GOSLING as RYLAND GRACE Project Hail Mary Dir. Phil Lord & Chris Miller

[secret-smut-sideblog]

love when fictional men are so devoted to their partner it makes them dangerous and insane. very slutty behavior keep it up king

[catchymemes]

[lukeishope]

You know, you can’t really be brave without being scared at first. It’s just a matter of finding someone to be brave for.

[pineappical]

touch starved

[thatdassie-evil]

divorce selfie

[nicothespy]

do people still gaf about phm or am i late to the party

[cloudabserk]

baby photos

[jovuuu]

Finally watched phm totally get the hype now

[hungwy]

hey why did you reblog that from someone else and not me? are we not acquaintances any more? i guess the bond between mutuals who dont talk to each other means nothing to you.