#popcorn cafe

[aknowwhatyouare]

Rocky, waking up in the middle of his sleep: Adrian, would you still love me if I was a human?

Adrian: Yes, of course, my love.

Rocky: Even if I was a leaky space blob all the time? Isn’t that disgusting?

Adrian: Grace is literally on our bed. You have every limb wrapped around him as we speak. Go tf back to sleep.

[bforgotwhatyouare]

Shit happens.

[aknowwhatyouare]

Eva Stratt watching these recordings like it’s a dead wife montage.

[aknowwhatyouare]

When he found out about what happened to Grace, Rocky was reasonably horrified and livid. On their way to Erid, Grace hears the most beautiful tune he cannot seem to understand. It doesn’t sound Eridian, it just sounds like regular music. He sees Rocky on his laptop messing with Garage Band. Grace asks what’s up, very amused. Rocky tells him,

Rocky made Stratt diss track.

[aknowwhatyouare]

Rocky being hyper aware of Ryland's organ systems and suddenly he's like, "Grace why have a pebble inside, question?" Grace just looks at him, eyes wide, panicking if he's pregnant or something.

Rocky just saw a kidney stone.

[aknowwhatyouare]

When Yao commented Ryland Grace speaks like a child, there’s a reason why he’s a good teacher. He’s an adult with childlike wonder who knows how to make everything fun that makes them worth doing.

He tosses a little earth ball and calls it lava, refers to astrophage breeding as whoomp, there it is, plays around in the hardware store and buys a ton of skittles, You’re not gonna believe this… Nothing happened! He’s not hung up on being serious at all. Shit, he’s not even doing the scientific method systematically and skips ahead. He operates on vibes. His maturity is shown through his work and results, not his methods.

That’s why when reality hits he acts very hesitant. Suddenly the situation escalates and his reaction is I’m not doing that. In fact, Ryland Grace was already dodging the important shit in the first few scenes. The students were asking if the sun’s gonna die and it took a lot of reroutes before he finally caved in.

The rest of the Project Hail Mary felt like grownups. He thinks they’re putting themselves out there more than him, making big choices. He might’ve felt like he’s being treated as a resource, a coworker, not a friend. Like he doesn’t belong in the project, that it’s too serious. So he’s fine being in the sidelines. In his comfort zone. Now remove him from the comfort zone.

The reality is not enjoyable so he has to cope with that. He hates moments of dread. He hates darkness. So he acts like sunshine and rainbows as much as he can. Like a child.

I’m not saying Ryland Grace doesn’t know the gravity of the situation he’s in, he just doesn’t want to feel it.

Arguably, his biggest reasons for doing things are curiosity and care. Curiosity is easy. Caring is harder especially when most people you’re with mostly care about what you can do and not who you are. Rocky cares, he cares about Rocky. That’s enough for him to be fine with the dread, do something about the darkness, all while acting like sunshine and rainbows.

[aknowwhatyouare]

I am really happy the aroace community claimed Ryland Grace.

Ace characters (and hcs) are often non human or have an arc that turns em non human. Nothing wrong with that rep since asexuals can relate to the feeling of being “unfit” or broken and therefore othered, but after a while it does develop a stereotype and arguably, it amplifies the assumptions that we are indeed not normal in a human society.

I might not be in the zeitgeist for aroace rep but it took a while until we had another aroace coded character (intentional or otherwise). He is smart but not cold. He’s not in an arc that’s learning to be less alone, he just is. He is a pathetic sobbing mess but also very competent. He builds connections with people fine and they don’t have to be romantic. Not only that, Ryland Grace being aroace subverted the nonhuman trope in which Rocky is the one who isn’t (you can’t really classify Rocky into human gender and sexual orientation too).

Point is, I’m happy Ryland Grace is ours. :)

[aknowwhatyouare]

Watching Project Hail Mary (2026) the way Phil Lord and Chris Miller intended.