#francois leclerc

[masao-micchi]

was excited to see my mans francois leclerc in the movie but alas

one of my fave characters in the book AAKJSKJS he was so bummed out 😭😭😭

my other PHM art here

[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.

[raviolireptile]

Project Hail Mary side characters

A lot of the side characters in PHM were changed/merged/removed for the movie so I thought I would draw how I imagined them while reading the book. Closeups below the cut!

No Leclerc is not intentionally similar looking to Jon Sims TMA he just kinda looks like that coincidentally I swear.

[mcchickentendies]

Stratt vat hcs ive been thinking about:

- inhabitants of the vat have taken to affectionately calling themselves the vatlings, with Eva as their benevolent dictator and head of their unofficial government on board the ship

- after some weeks of boarding the ship, time quickly becomes lost on everybody so they revert to basing everything around the position of the sun/moon/stars

- this quickly led to an ongoing joke of the vat being a pirate ship with Stratt as the Captain

- and quickly spiraled into the whole ship, save for one Captain and her lapdog, dressing up in pirate costumes one April fool's day (of course Ilyukhina bought extra costumes for those two but the best she managed to put on them was a hat and eyepatch)

- she did get Stratt a real sword though, no one knows how she managed to procure it but Eva proudly brandishes it in her office

- sickness is rare but not impossible on the ship, if one person is down, it is inevitable that everyone goes down (except Stratt and her primary crew, who she drags onto a private jet to wait out whatever disease to run its course)

- if she so much as hears one cough from any of them, she kicks them off and sends them back to the vat (Grace only survives since years of teaching around living petri dishes has strengthened his immune system, while Stratt is always the last one standing, but her cursed sleep and eating schedule ends up being her downfall)

- the multicultural makeup of the ship has led to factions forming among vatlings of similar origins, and mock wars are declared nearly every week that always devolve into petty pranks

- peace treaties too, each with more ridiculous articles than the last, such as renaming little russia to little america after a cold war reenactment between members of ROSCOSMOS and NASA (which did not last longer than a week thanks to Komorov)

- Grace refuses to pick any side during these wars but ends up helping anyway, including stacking neon party wigs on Dubois (with help from Shapiro and Ilyukhina) after he nodded off during another last minute team meeting, or convincing Leclerc that no it's not snowing that's just frozen rain

- they rarely attempt to prank Stratt, once Ilyukhina convinced Grace to try the same prank they did on Dubois on her, but the best they managed was one green wig and a blurry picture when she passed out after three days of irregular sleep (one eye shot open and that was enough to send the pair scampering from her office)

- Ilyukhina often defects for no reason other than to stir drama, while Yáo pretends to not care but is willing to broker information to anyone for the right price (a pack of cigarettes and an hour of their PTO)

- being the dictator director, Eva does not step in during these wars, so long as work is completed by the end of the night (she understands how stir crazy living on a boat can be)

- the mess hall has a rotating schedule to represent the different cultures on board the ship which inevitably means everyone complaining once its time for English-based meals (no one wants to eat mushy peas or beans on toast, but an argument breaks out on whether chicken tikka masala belongs to England or India)

- the Olympics causes a return to nationalism among the vatlings and is the only time Stratt is seen repping her country's flag

- speaking of, the vatlings held a mock Olympics (the Vatlympics) themselves with increasingly strange competitions based not on country/heritage but on respective roles on the ship

-Stratt catches wind of this and forms her own team made of the best in each crew simply termed the Leads (did not last long, Ilyukhina quickly retermed them the Strattlings)

- she tried getting the astronauts to join her team but they chose to stick together led by Yáo who surprisingly became quite competitive

- events included but were not limited to swimming laps around the Vat, running along its length (suprising to no one Redell wins), bowling using discarded equipment and a mannequin head that no one knew where it came from (Grace has shockingly good aim), a spelling bee amongst the science factions (despite being the lead astrophage researcher, spelling is not his forte), extreme hide and seek (won by Shapiro and Dubois who of course knew all the best hidden places), and cultural dance forms (it was impossible to select a clear winner but Lokken did surprise everyone by performing a hallingkast)

- they hold a funeral for Antarctica headed by Leclerc (he's bawling the entire time), Ilyukhina almost poured one out but quickly remembered the newfound Prohibition enforced on the vat

- an illegal speakeasy is formed by the chemists when Stratt limits alcohol usage only for galas and the monthly team bonding events, they take orders from the crew teams until one suspicious request for mead shows up (little known fact, Eva has a sweet tooth)

- a makeshift Eurovision is held (including non-euro crew members), Eva almost considered joining but started getting a sore throat after endless meetings that always ended in her yelling at greedy capitalists trying to profit off the end of the world

- Lokken and Grace's beef is so well known amongst the vatlings that a silent system is formed to alert if one gets within 10 feet of each other (fails every time, those two can rarely hold a civil conversation, Grace likes to think himself a calm man but Lokken knows the exact buttons to press)

- (eg. During the Vatlympics in a particularly heated staring contest between team bio-engineer and team Leads Strattlings, Lokken and Grace had the misfortune of being paired, Lokken only won when she whispered independent evolution, causing Grace to yell about panspermia)

- the vatlings are loyal to their benevolent dictator and fiercely defend her against criticism from the press

[katrandomwrites]

Parts 1 & 2

Stratt's Vat Documented Shenanigans Part 3

Short list this time since I also wrote a little discovery fic for the phone.

You guys have my full permission to use anything in these posts for writing or drawing. Just tag me so I can yell about it, please!

--

Grace is bored. Bored, bored, bored. Capital B, bored.

Rocky, his partner in crime and entertainment is currently 2 hours deep into his 6 hour nap leaving Grace on his own in these enrichment deprived times. He's currently laying starfished on the floor of the dormitory running through every project they've come up with to fill time and get ready for arriving to Erid but none of them are sparking joy at the moment.

Grace groans, rolling onto his stomach and thumping his head on the floor hard enough for Armando to chirp in concern.

“It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine,” he mumbles into the floor, “Not going crazy or nothin'.”

Armando chirps in a decidedly disbelieving way but returns to standby anyway.

Another minute passes before Grace fails his legs in frustration like a toddler and introduces his toes to the wall -hard-. He yelps, pulling his leg up to grab his toes so he can continue rolling around the floor like an idiot.

“Oh, sugar honey iced tea, that was a bad idea. Mother fluffer.”

He almost doesn't hear the panel he kicked fall to the floor..

“Oh good, now I'm breaking the ship,” he wheezes, “Sorry, Mary.”

“Apology accepted, Dr. Grace.”

He drags himself over to pop the panel back into place when he notices a device crammed between the wire bundles. Carefully, in case it's actually a part of the system, he works it out from the space and finds himself holding a smart phone with OLESYA written in silver sharpie on the back.

Heck yeah, contraband.

He sends a quick thank you to his crewmate before scrambling to the junk drawer for a suitable charging cable. Gosh he hopes this thing has games on it. Not that the laptops don't, but playing Candy Crush on anything but a phone feels like sacrilege. Knowing Olesya this thing probably has half the app store installed with all the ads removed.

He crows in delight when he finds the right charging cord and nearly vibrates while the thing charges to 10% before he can't handle it any longer and powers it on. In true Olesya fashion, the power up screen has been modded to say “Go Fuck Yourself :)” in Russian before bringing up the lock screen which is the Hail Mary patch edited so the ship is a vibrator. Grace has to hold back tears because it's so her that it hurts. Luckily, she didn't set a password so a quick swipe opens the device.

Yao, Olesya, and Dubois stand proudly behind a mess of apps littering the home screen. Grace can almost feel his attention span shorten as he scrolls through his new entertainment options before opening the settings to check the storage limits and cackling at the absurd amount of space she'd managed to stuff into this off brand monstrosity.

The gallery storage managed to catch his attention as he closed settings. It was taking up nearly a quarter of the storage space and he needed to know what the heck Olesya was hoarding in there, hopefully it wasn't just porn.

It was not.

--

When Rocky finally woke up it was to Grace holding a small rectangular device and making horrific choking sounds. His glasses were pushed up into his hair and his face soaked in tears.

“Grace?”

His thumb swiped across the surface of the rectangle and he let out another awful squealing sound.

“Grace?!”

Grace raised his hand in a “hang on” position before setting the rectangle down and launching into a coughing fit. 

Ah, wait, Grace is laughing. Rocky vented a sigh and resettled into a “loaf” to wait for Grace to “get his shit together”. It took about five rounds of calming down and then immediately starting to giggle again before Grace was finally able to at least communicate that Rocky needed his light reader before falling into yet another giggle fit.

“Guh! OK,” Grace managed to croak out. He'd crawl over to rest his back against the xenonite tunnel so Rocky could get a good shot at the screen of the rectangle.

“I found this in the wall about four hours ago-”

“What is?”

“Uh, cellphone. I think I kinda explained it a while ago? The whole Apple vs Android rant?”

Rocky nodded, “Consumer loyalty.”

“Right, this one is specially built by Olesya but the system is based on Android. Overall this is what most cell phones look like, at least when I was on Earth.”

“What use, question? No reach Earth for call.”

“No but this is a smart phone, it's not actually intelligent but it's basically an even more portable laptop. Not as much storage and not great for typing but it condenses several other objects we used to carry around like cameras, notebooks, and even our wallets into one small device.”

Rocky gave an impressed whistle, “So what on cellphone make Grace laugh, question? Thought you got stupider while Rocky sleep and forgot how to breathe.”

Grace stuck his tongue out at him before turning the device on and tapping at the screen, “I found some old pictures and videos from the Project. I think half the storage on this thing is dedicated to the crap we did on Stratt's Vat, she even downloaded a copy of the internal ‘Vatchat’ app.”

Rocky hummed like he knew what Grace was saying.

“Here, let me show you.”

--

Carl taking a break on the couch, he's holding a thick novel and wearing itty bitty reading glasses. Grace is being pinned behind Carl to the back of the couch, it looks like he passed out mid-struggle.

Grace, Ilyukhina, and a couple lab techs trying to teach Armando to dance.

Dr. Lamia giving Grace, Ilyukhina, and a couple lab techs a stern lecture for trying to teach Armando to dance.

Compilation of scientists standing up and stretching accompanied by horrific joint cracking.

A sign detailing the newly instated mandatory stretch routine and chiropractor/physio appointments. A note threatening mandatory exercise is scribbled in the bottom corner.

An incident report about citric acid poisoning.

A notes list of all the incredibly out of date sayings that Grace picked up from the older teachers and the old VHS tapes he played for his elementary work-study classes. (Sometimes the American lab techs would go check the calendar date when he said something particularly bad and then yell "It's not 1997, I checked!”.)

A video series styled and edited like the Bill Nye series but it's Grace explaining astrophage and the Hail Mary Project in a kid friendly way. (These were released to the public.)

[grilledcheese-offical]

Tell me again that Stratt is cold hearted and only cares about the mission. Tell me that again. I swear to fucking god I will lose my everloving shit.

[cedar-is-a-nerd]

Ryland Grace playing "Who did this: middle schooler, or top ranking PHD owning scientist?" with Yao and Ilyukhina, with Dubois and Shapiro helping add scientists.

Eventually it expands into different categories and even more people start playing. Some categories are:

middle schooler or Dr Ryland Grace

middle schooler or various other neurodivergent people on the vatt

Middle schooler or Carl

Yao or Carl

Dubois or Stratt

Dubois or android character/autistic coded character

Dimitri or Ilyukhina

Dimitri or children's cartoon villain

Carl or low budget action movie (He loves them)

Ilyukhina or my little pony character

Ryland Grace's ASD class students or the "neurotypical" crewmembers

Yao and Ilyukhina or two characters with a "Grumpy man and his unofficial daughter" dynamic

Grace, Dubois, or Shapiro; AKA biologist roulette

Shapiro or Ilyukhina

Star Trek or Star Wars (They each have a team of Trekkies and a team of Star Wars enthusiasts, and each feel deep shame and disappointment when they get it incorrect. Outside of this specific weekly battle, no one actually cares that much about who likes which franchise more, but they play it up for dramas sake)

top ranking scientist or top ranking engineer

Top ranking engineer or Bob the builder

An sane human adult talking to a piece of equipment or someone consoling an animal/small child

Quote from the happiest moments of their lives or quote from last week when they were gifted a rock (or similar value to rock)

Carl or Grace, where they replace any actual swears with Grace's teacher swears. This got harder as they both started referring to Astrophage outside of work almost exclusively as "Their babies"/"their little girls/boys/babies(yes, again)"

foreboding religious text quote or a threat someone whipped out after 36 straight hours of bullshit.

That last one they call God vs Sleep Deprivation, or God vs [neurodivergency the quoted person has], and every other quote they'll switch things like the 'Ye's and 'thee's to 'you's and vice versa, etc, just to make it harder. They were all baffled to learn that it was not religious texts, but their own Dr Ryland Grace who said, verbatim, "You are withered and old, with countless unforgivable sins, and God has no place for you in his kingdom."

Leclerc had accidentally taken his cardigan while picking up other coats, and this was the immediate response upon returning from having his arms touched for the better part of a six hour meeting. Leclerc cried, for he was also deeply sleep deprived. This was the day they learned Stratt occasionally gives days off, because she gave one to Leclerc. Leclerc does not help with coats anymore, even after forgiving Grace.

[sciles-bilinski]

I really recommend reading Project Hail Mary even after you’ve seen the movie, because you wouldn’t want to miss out on all the insanity that only exists in the book

Like how Stratt brought a lunatic out of maximum security prison to pave the Sahara with black rectangles, which created tornadoes where there shouldn’t be any tornadoes

And some time afterwards they nuked Antarctica