#1 regular guy about project hail mary

[presumenothing]

"believe in the hail mary" existing as an in-universe tagline but not from any official source. graffiti on a wall just outside the perimeter, the launch site visible in the background. uncredited but the photo goes viral online. publication of a formal notice that the graffiti has been removed so will people please stop coming to take photos of/with it. the backup crew and some of the team retweet the photo. #believeinthehailmary starts appearing on bios and bumper stickers and t-shirts. someone hacks the taipei 101's LED wall to say 相信聖母號 on the one year launch anniversary. next year there's more, dots of light all over the world. buildings lit in blue-white-orange. drones spelling it mid-air. and yet it all remains unrecognised until the end of stratt's interminable trial, when they ask if she has any last words before the verdict and there is no smile as she leans into the mic and says "just this: believe in the hail mary." and the court breaks out in uproar even as she repeats it in every language she speaks. the clip gets uploaded online in near-real time and people start stitching clips of themselves saying it too, in different languages and different lives. scientists working on climate-resistant species. ryland grace's students. the world is cold but still there is hope, always hope.

[stiffyck]

I haven't seen anyone mention seeing Marissa in the movie yet? She's there for exactly one scene.

I don't think movie Grace ever actually fully remembers her, he just remembers the existence of another person there with him in this moment.

[stiffyck]

I'm thinking about this too much-

We see Marissa in one scene only, and it's just a blurry outline of a person with no face. Grace doesn't remember that he had a friend before project hail mary, he doesn't remember her at all. There's no mention of Marissa by her name, there's no memories with her in it, there's nothing. It's like she just doesn't exist- except she does. We see her in this clip.

Grace lost the memory of his only friend he had before the project. Marissa doesn't know she's forgotten. I wonder if she thinks about Grace, if she wonders why he never said goodbye, why he never reached out. She will probably never know he lost his memory of her, and that she exists only as a blurry presence of another person in one memory.

[project-hail-maybe]

i think maybe grace never fully remembers everything. like Giving Someone Amnesia is no joke and i think it would be cool and also worse if there were just time periods in his memory from pre hailmary that he just can't remember no matter how much he tries. and i think it eats at him a little that they took even some of the time he DID have on earth from him. and i think sometimes rocky asks him a question about himself that he KNOWS he should have an answer to but its just. not there.

[project-hail-maybe]

tags from @insomniaruler you are SO correct and this is EXACTLY the kind of thing i was thinking of when i wrote this.like he just can't remember her. he tries and tries and he cant do it. he knows she drinks whiskey, she likes mint choc chip icecream, and he can't remember her name. he doesn't know what her hobbies were, who she was to him, why they knew each other. all he knows aside from a scattering of unconnected surface details is that she mattered to him enough for him to remember all those surface things once and he'll never know why.

[sodiumvaporss]

eva stratt appreciation post

[project-hail-maybe]

do you think stratt oversaw it when they gave grace the amnesia drug. like bear with here im about to do some book and movie canon blendering. but in the film someone is sat in the room with grace watching over him for like a couple of frames when hes on the gurney. and in my heart thats stratt. but what if she was there when they were administering the amnesia drug. like hes already in a coma, and they've got it going into him via an iv, and shes sat in the room trying not to look at how fragile he looks laid out like that covered in medical equipment. and she cant find it in herself to hope that it means he doesnt remember her. like it would be undeniably better for the mission if he never actually has time to remember her because of the risk of him remembering everything else that comes with that. but at the same time she was one of the few people in his life and arguably the most important to him during his final years on earth. but if he only has what ilyukhina and yao tell him to go by, he might be one of the last three people who ever see her as anything but a villain or a scapegoat. BUT i think she would think that if there were some way to do it without risking him compromising the mission that he deserved to know what she did to him. that it was his right.

[project-hail-maybe]

was gone for a while because of assignmence and will be gone for a while more bc of exams but i did just have a devastating eva stratt thought

[agender-ryland-grace]

more rockies

[kerink]

i like when eridians describe grace in other-worldly, incorporeal, eldritch ways. that he's beautiful and terrifying at the same time. a horror you can't look away from because you don't want to miss a thing.

you can never get a clear listen to him. his primary sense node is covered in "hair" and the part that isn't is hidden by two crystals that refract sound waves in a pleasing but disorienting way. he covers his body in billowy cloth at all times. not snug and sensible and unobstructive like eridian coverings, but loose and layered, draped and flowing.

the most clear part of him are his internal organs. because yes, the alien's carapace isn't sound-proof. his single heart beats insistingly in his core, his lungs exchanging gas constantly, his long digestive tract always bubbling and contracting. his thorax is packed impossibly tight and it's all moving and singing.

and it shouldn't be possible, with how fragile he is, for that internal pressure to maintain. how does the thin membrane of his external organ (another horror that sends eridians reeling) keep it all contained? his "skin" is so easily pierced, cut, bruised, burnt, how does he not split open under his own mass?

when savior rocky first arrived home and described the environmental needs of his alien, the scientists thought he'd made a mistake in his frantic panic to get everything out. it isn't possible this being lives at such low atmospheric pressure, at half the gravity, and in a gas that's nearly double the weight of ammonia. in a gas so dangerous, so caustic. and if it does then how is it obligately terrestrial like rocky claims? shouldn't it fly or float instead? (and then to see it in the water, learning that it can float or sink at will.)

and this alien has come bearing gifts that will not only save your species but launch it into impossible heights of technological and intellectual advancement. he has discovered the solution to astrophage and bred it to thrive on threeworld and translated his instructions into eridian. he has given your people the complete sum of his people's knowledge, advanced in ways the eridians can't believe and behind in ways that seem ludicrous. and he has given his life for your people to have these things.

he knows how your solar system was formed. he knows how the universe started.

his name means beautiful and generous and relieving.

the eridians experiencing cosmic bliss.

be not afraid.

[valeriapryanikova]

hope in this void is graceful and as steady as a rock

[hollenix]

for the good of all mankind

[cjbee]

Drag path.

This has become a three part project:

1. 2. 3.

[hollenix]

i thought you died alone

a long long time ago

[saudade-lovers]

pure passion for this movie has overtaken me, so here is some art with an aggressive amount of symbolism, to mitski of course 🙂‍↕️

[evastrattmyangel]

Amazing! Stratt is captured so well in this one (pun half-intended). I’m obsessed with her silhouette when she watches Grace running away.

[johnssoap]

<brave>

[woodsywarbler]

the game is nearly over + the hounds are at the door

[hauntedhowlett]

so the project hail mary ground team probably had communication with the ship for a little bit before it traveled out of range, right?

i’m talking video feed, microphone, and remote access to the care robot.

stratt watched the ISS crew assist yao and ilyukhina and a sedated grace prepare for their induced coma. she heard ilyukhina make a joke about waking up the most well rested she’s ever been in her life. she watched yao shake hands with the crew captain and thank them for their help. she watched the fate of humanity drift off to sleep, watched as the ISS crew wrote “good luck!” on the sleep pods, watched the hail mary detach from the ISS.

stratt checked the feeds almost obsessively. she would pull up the cameras and tap into the microphone, even though she saw no movement and heard no sound. she scrolled through health reports that she couldn’t understand. it became part of her routine. despite all her bravado, all her efforts to remain distant and detached, these people had become her friends.

and she had betrayed them all, in some way. grace most of all, yes, she had forced him on a mission he didn’t want to go on, had signed his life away to the stars for the sake of a dying star and a suffering planet, but she had also betrayed yao and ilyukhina, sending them on a mission without knowing that grace had said no. a lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.

once the ship had cleared the requisite distance from the ISS and any satellites, the astrophage engines kicked on. the speed increased and with it the distance, which eventually led to delays in communication with the ship. the reports began to slow, delayed by a few hours, then days, then weeks. the video feed became glitchy before going dark. the mic feedback was nothing but static.

the hail mary became a ghost — something that was there but could not be seen or reached.

but perhaps most haunting of all was the last report ground control was able to receive:

STATUS

YAO - DECEASED

ILYUKHINA - DECEASED

GRACE - ALIVE; Vitals: WNL

[project-hail-maybe]

i do love the twizzler behind the ear in the box constructing scene but it does quietly horrify me that grace takes it out from behind his ear and eats it without taking his gloves off. like as far as i've encountered (and all my research experience is in astrophysics or material physics so i haven't encountered much) there is no reason why you would wear gloves that would make it safe to eat while wearing them. either you're wearing them to protect yourself (med/chem/vet/bio/etc) or you're wearing them to protect the research (materials/lasers/electronics/etc) and either way you dont want your gloves touching your food (residue or contamination) or anything that goes in your mouth.

solution: grace is just so used to teaching middle school science (where if its anything like it was for me the gloves and safety glasses are a formality to teach the kids lab safety before they start working with anything thats actually harmful) that he forgot you cant just eat while wearing gloves and then keep working without swapping gloves