Bee's Rambles

Bee 18 he/they The hyperfixation of the season

[tuherrus]

you don't even have a dog

[vee-dmsr]

[pinkchiapet]

🪩

high school reunion

[starri-skye]

You can hate Stratt, but just remember she was also chosen to be a sacrifice.

She was chosen to be the face and voice of a project Earth would vilify in the 30 years it took to get word back if the long shot even worked.

She knew this, and stepped up.

She knew this, and chose the good of humanity over her own good name, reputation, and freedom.

She was on a suicide mission too.

[vontotchuvak]

I can't stop thinking about how weird Grace must seem to Earthlings!

Beatles come to Earth, humanity learns about taumoeba and discovers that they accidentally made first contact! With friendly rock-spider aliens! They have a little English-Eridian vocabulary, great new material, coordinates of their planet and the best fuel for spaceships, so why not make the second contact?

It takes time, but finally four or five astronauts in coma (scientists found the reason for Yao's and Ilyukhina's deaths) go to Erid.

And upon arrival they discover that Eridians' English is muuuch better than they thought and that their idol, the Earth's hero, the savior of humanity Ryland Grace is still alive!

Wtf??? He has no food??? We have posthumous memorials???

And they decide to meet with him and suddenly he:

had been eating nothing but space unicellular slime for four years,

lives in some weird place that's half zoo, half science center,

now eats human flesh burgers (his own flesh but...),

hasn't interacted with another human being in almost 30 years

hasn't had sex in over 30 years (dude, are you asexual???)

spends his days teaching little blind rock-spider aliens physics and human science and experimenting with astrophage and eridian things...

and he is totally happy about it!

He doesn't want to go back to Earth. All that he wants is to grow some of their plants on Erid! They tell him about his heroic status, about memorials and statues, and he is HORRIFIED. Ok, he saved Earth, but statues???

Crazy man.

Then they ask him how he and Rocky didn't kill each other on the way back. Like... Soviet experiments, you know?

And he looks at them as if they're the ones eating human flesh burgers and starts to list for like an hour what you can do with your best rock-spider friend and a computer with all Earth media ever created.

Bonus: Grace is autistic. It's okay, but after almost 30 years without any human contact he doesn't mask. It takes time for poor astronauts to realize that his oddities didn't caused by Erid. He's just like that.

Bonus 2: one of the astronauts is his ex-student. Imagine discovering that your coolest teacher is kinda the craziest person alive in every sense of the word.

[alpinkpaca]

How Eva Stratt was moving around the ship I introducing Grace to literally everyone and their mothers.

[ecobanshee]

For all that we joke about the action itself, the phm Antarctica scene guts me every single time. Never has an apocalyptic scenario been made to feel so threatening and real by the sheer measures humanity takes to save itself. It's the dead of night, bitter cold air and two people with unfathomable power, someone is crying, it's not enough, the shockwave reaches us in ten minutes. I'll be in the cell next to you.

[finzerr]

“shhhh dw” i say as i infect you with my aroace grace propaganda

and rocky disgusted by all human romance things. i think kissing would be terrifying to him.

[hauntedhowlett]

grace finds a camera and a stack of film in addition to the polaroid (of himself, alone) that was tucked into his personal belongings. the first picture he takes is of himself in the lab holding up his cup of surprisingly perfect space coffee in a “believe in the hail mary” branded mug. he scribbles, “time to get to work” across the bottom.

he takes a picture of yao and ilyukhina’s name patches that he’s pulled from their flight suits. another picture of the empty control room. two more pictures of the view from outside the airlock — the vastness of space and the twinkle of stars.

when rocky shows up, he’s found a much more interesting subject to photograph. he’s got some pictures of the alien tinkering with something, giving him a thumbs “up” (“no, that’s down”) or jazz hands. rocky can see him holding something up, can hear the click of the shutter and the whir of the internal components that spit out the photo, but grace has to explain the entire concept to him.

“we take photos to remember things,” he says.

“human brain weird,” rocky replies. “can remember some things, but not all. eridian remember all.”

grace’s collection grows. pictures of rocky in his enclosure, goggles and gloves drawn on the clear xenonite. rocky sleeping and grace in the corner, holding up a peace sign. rocky moving across the tunnel in the lab so quickly he’s just a brown blur.

he’s still got some film by the time they make it to erid. he documents the progression of his ecosphere on the alien planet, from tiny bubble to full on habitat. he’s got a picture of him and rocky, standing proudly in his new and improved life support suit. rocky and adrian, standing by the water. his first class of students, standing behind him in their celebration clothing for the first eridian-human graduation ceremony.

rocky will occasionally sneak away his favorite photos to transcribe them onto small stone slabs that line the walls of his home with adrian. in each of the pictures, there are noticeable changes to grace — more grooves in his face, a dip to his posture.

when grace’s eyes can no longer see light, rocky gifts him with one of these slabs. it’s a picture of grace flanked by rocky and adrian. in front of them is a smaller eridian, half the size of its parents, its carapace made up of marbled grey and brown stone. grace is laughing, watching as the young eridian tries to find its footing in the life support suit.

grace traces the grooves of the stone with his fingers.

“it’s us,” he says. “it’s a picture of us.”

“it is memory,” rocky replies. “for grace.”

“thanks, buddy.”

[feral-em]

Y'all think that Grace and Rocky get mad separation anxiety when they aren't together on Erid? Like, you spend years in a small space, living practically on top of each other, and y'all drive each other crazy because any two people living in such close quarters would, but you also get to know each other in a way that's so personal and you love each other so much so honestly you wouldn't have it any other way. You've almost lost each other too many times and you've seen each other suffer and you've fought tooth and nail to stay together and those things have gotta leave a mark, right?

They get to Erid and they finally have a chance to get some much needed space from each other, but they realize very quickly that they Don’t Want That. It’s scary to leave your favorite leaky space blob alone because he’s so soft and fragile and he has zero self preservation instincts and you feel this need to be with him at all times to fix something if it goes wrong. And it’s scary to watch your best friend walk away from your dome and disappear into the darkness of his planet cause the last time you two parted ways he came dangerously close to dying a slow and painful death. But Rocky can't be with Grace in his dome 24/7 and it's not exactly easy for Grace to follow Rocky around outside, so I feel like there’d be a big struggle with that, at least at first.

Grace sleeps too often for Rocky to be there to watch every time, and that Stresses Rocky Out. And Grace, far too often, wakes up from nightmares and has to remind himself through shaking breaths and a heaving chest that Rocky not being there doesn’t mean something bad happened. Grace can’t help but be filled with disproportionate relief when Rocky comes to visit, and vice versa. They spend as much time together as possible, and it’s a balancing act for Rocky, dividing his time between Grace and Adrian.

I think they’d have to learn how to be apart, learn to be able to let the other out of their sight and to trust that they’re okay.

[evilphrog]

Does anyone ever think about how the only reason the crew were in comas to begin with is that every psych specialist on earth was positive no one could share such cramped quarters together for four years without killing each other or themselves, so the risk of using the brand new technology was lower than the risk of leaving everyone awake?

And then Grace and Rocky managed it WHILE Grace was slowly dying of malnutrition.

Neither of them had any idea if Erid would actually be able to come up with edible food and medical care for Grace. Neither of them knew if he would ever recover. Neither of them knew if he would die from his Every Deficiency Ever before they even arrived. Scurvy and Beriberi both cause severe pain and mental/emotional changes, and those are just the ones he mentioned. But somehow he kept choking down taumeoba for YEARS and stayed sane enough to get them home.

[cherry-cakey]

I still can't get over the scene of movie rocky eating in front of Grace 😭 It's the equivalent of meeting an alien and, assuming they will never encounter another of your species again, say "hey check this out we humans always do this in front of eachother to strengthen pack bonds" then proceeding to drop your draws and start playing in your ass.

I know if rocky could sweat he would be DRENCHED as they got closer to Erid, trying to come up with a polite way to tell Grace that he's been trolling him on Eridian culture this entire time

Like poor movie Grace would probably meet Adrian and immediately request getting to know them over dinner together (a standard human custom he assumed they shared cus of rocky) and Adrian being MORTIFIED. I love rocky he's such a little freak lmao

[irlpim]

hello please watch/read project hail mary

[occudo]

Turns out I'm not done with drawing Grace Project Hail Mary yet

[hedgehogofvictory]

another thing i appreciate about project hail mary the book is that the happy ending in still under construction. and complicated. I loved the film, but the book doesn't give us a magic perfect human habitat and i LIKE that.

Grace only recently got food that tastes okay. the dome is as comfortable as the eridians could make it, but its not a hyper-realistic recreation of earth. the gravity of Erid hurts grace. there's still a literal wall between him and the people (person) he cares about.

when the question of whether grace wants to go back to earth comes up, its not as simple as 'do you want to stay here with your best friend rocky?' its also "how long can your body handle this?" and "how long will you endure it?" and "do you ever want to have arms around you again?"

[occudo]

Guess who finished the Project Hail Mary book and rewatched the movie?

[sticksandstans]

things that absolutely murder me about the project hail mary (book) ending

the chapter title is notated in eridian numbers

grace fully thinks in eridian numbers now actually

IT'S BEEN 16 YEARS. HE'S 53.

he eats his own cloned muscle tissue and calls it a meburger. hannibal lecter who. (i'm gonna be honest my dad told me this one as we walked out of the theater and i fully thought he was lying)

cane user grace. he means everything to me

he's fully fluent in eridian so rocky speaks to him completely fluidly. and also swears.

after SIXTEEN YEARS eridian scientists discover that sol has returned to full luminosity

grace doesn't know what wars have happened and how many died but he DOES know that humanity truly saved themselves. with his help