*Is Very Not Asleep*

I probably have no idea what I'm doing at any given point in time. bi.

[achesspiece]

in chess the queens can kill each other which is toxic yuri and the kings can never get within a square of each other which is doomed yaoi

[sctir]

The long-term supply teacher they got in for Grace must have had a fucking crazy time in his classroom. How do you tell a bunch of children that their old teacher isn't going to be back this year because he went to space to save the world and he's going to die there. And yes they still have to do their homework. Even if Mr. Grace went to space to die.

[vampirejuno]

Can you imagine being stuck in space completely alone with only the corpses of your friends for company, and the first living thing you meet after 46 years of that misery is a fucking weird alien creature who just rolls up with crazy advanced tech and goes "hi let's work together" and makes it possible for you to save your world through the power of friendship and molecular biology. AND THEN you find out that in this creature's language, its name means "mercy". Happened to my good friend Rocky btw

[wanderingrestlessly]

imagine your last memory of earth being violent imagine the last human touch u remember being someone pushing u to the ground imagine the last time u feel the sun on ur face or dirt under ur hands is when ur clawing at the ground desperate and terrified to stay on earth ryland grace if i think about u too long i feel physically SICK

[phmthoughts]

Wait. Hold on. Wait. You mean to tell me that Rocky brought his special clothing for celebration when he moved in with Grace, just in case? Pardon me while I go sob in a corner. The quantity of hope still packed into that little carapace, after everything that happened to him (or, perhaps, the quantity of hope that blossomed anew when Grace arrived...).

(Edit: Oh no, it gets worse. Does that mean the whole Eridian crew packed their party clothes, in the hope of having a successful mission and thus cause for celebration? And only Rocky ever got to wear them? And why does Grace have a party hat on the Hail Mary? Did the human crew pack party things with the same hope in mind?)

[scarlct-vvitch]

grace couldn't teach rocky any english swear words because he knew if he did his life would be full of shit like "grace being bitch because no coffee yet, question?" and he'd have to live with knowing it was his fault

[copper-leaf]

Highlights from the Project Hail Mary director's commentary:

*SPOILERS!!!*

Grace waking up from the coma was the first shot they filmed for the movie! They wanted Ryan to feel eased into the character, and what better way to do that than have him play a character who can't remember who he is?

The little "GOOD LUCK!" note in sharpie that's written on Grace's sleeping bag was canonically written by the other astronauts on the I.S.S. before the Hail Mary crew got put into the ship. In real life, Phil and Chris wrote one word each. They said it was like "a blessing on the movie."

Ryan's most nerve-wracking day on set was when he had to shoot with the classroom full of children. Most of the kids were made up of the children of the film's crew members.

The scene where Grace looks through Yao and Ilukhina's photos is footage of him looking at and reacting to actual pictures of the actors with their loved ones.

When Grace calls Stratt to tell her that he and Carl figured out how to breed astrophage, Ryan is genuinely calling Sandra on her day off set, and her audio is her genuine reaction to the unexpected line: "Carl and I made a baby!"

"We like showcasing Ryland Grace's social anxiety while having a lot of people staring at him. LOL!"

Their intention for the space funeral scene was to have Grace convey that he was trying to ease his own sadness by making the dead people with him feel better about being dead :(

The markings on Rocky's body convey his mission patch, his rank in the crew, his wedding band, and his family crest.

Grace and Stratt's conversation on the boat is Grace asking her if they're allowed to be close friends, and the response from Stratt is no, they can't. This gets driven home in the karaoke scene. She understands the value of connection, a part of her wants it, but "Her love for people has to be suspended for her to do her job."

Rocky has different forward-facing faces for different thought processes! They named his "satellite dish" face, his "scrunched up thinking face", and his "monobrow face".

Direct quote: "I love how on the spectrum Rocky is." ROCKY AUTISTIC CODED CONFIRMED!

After Rocky recovers from his injuries: "As Rocky returns to the movie, the lights turn on. The warmth returns. It's like the day breaking."

Confirmed that when Grace and Rocky reunite, Rocky says to Grace, "You came back for me, question?"

They throw this out there for two seconds and do NOT expand on it, but according to Andy Weir, Stratt is imprisoned for life but somehow ESCAPES???

The Eridians built Grace an artificial tree in his enclosure because Rocky knew he liked trees

There's so much more they shared about film processes and the people who were behind making certain effects possible. I highly recommend checking out the commentary if you're able!

[autisticlittleguy]

Apparently Eva Stratt at the end of the movie on the ship had a prison tattoo on her neck that meant something along the lines of "life without parole." So, parallel to Grace and Rocky's adventure, there was a whole subplot where Eva Stratt

- Was eventually trialed by governments of the world as a scapegoat and sent to prison

- She somehow BROKE out of said prison and currently commandeers a rogue paramilitary faction of Project Hail Mary loyalists who believe in her over world governments, who presumably are still hunting her down

- She currently is on the run and staying mobile on an ice breaker ship like some kind of james bond villain base (but you know, good) while STILL working on project hail mary the whole time

- Her rogue loyalist faction controlled enough resources they could go to space and collect the beetles Grace had sent. Alternatively, it was the world government that collected the beetles, and Stratt had a whole ass heist movie to steal them, which is why she had the little xenonite figure at the end of the movie. Either ways she was running circles around them.

Absolutely insane. Never piss off a history major

[alexxuun]

Biblically accurate Ryland Grace from Ryan Gosling himself.

[VD: A Project Hail Mary animatic titled "We ask the Project Hail Mary crew what they would take on a trip to space". The art is toned in purple, yellow, and orange. The characters answer with audio from interviews with the movie actors as microphones are held towards them.

Grace, sweating and laughing sheepishly: "Well, I wouldn't go to space... Just like never, I would run."

Ilyukhina, smiling: "A picture of my family."

Dubois smiles and stands with Yao, who nods seriously: "Nerds Gummy Clusters."

Grace, smiling nervously: "Why do I have to?"

Stratt: "My phone."

Grace: "Can I pick three? (He counts off) Coffee, donuts, and then, like, some choose-your-adventure novels so I can get a few multiple reads out of them. (He holds up his hands defensively) But I don't want to go. Just to be clear."

(Hands appear to drag him away, and Grace looks and sounds mildly panicked.) "Why are you sending me--?" End VD] Cred: @nebulations

[astrugglingacademic]

Do you think they covered up Ryland being forced into space until later when nations are inevitably at war and Stratt is on trial and things come up? Do you think there are audio recordings of Grace begging for his life and his need to stay with the kids that resurface later on? Do you think those kids, now teens or adults, hear those and realize he was just as scared as they were?

[doveywovy]

i really love that project hail mary made it so clear how much grace loves earth. describing it to rocky, showing him bits of the culture and nature. the water and the cities. the birds. he sincerely and deeply loves earth.

you don't even have a dog. he had a whole planet. he loved being alive on earth and they took that from him.

[kaiserouo]

pov you see something alive after being alone for 40 years

[captainkirkk]

Post-PHM Headcanon: Grace's Eridian students create little constructs as gifts for him. Grace teaches them about Earth beaches/ oceans and they're all amazed. Grace mentions offhand the ways his artificial beach is different to a real beach, like the lack of shells, and within days, his students gift him buckets of hand-made shells to litter his beach. The Eridian equivalent of giving him their drawings to hang up in the classroom.

Grace walks up and down the beach, arranging the shells in the sand, placing them far enough from the waves that they won't get washed away. Rocky grumbles that Grace's house is going to FILLED now because Grace made such a fuss over their gifts, but Grace is smiling so wide it hurts and when one of the shells accidentally gets swept away by the surf, Rocky barrels into the water to rescue it for him

[kitty-enjoyer]

[macabro]

In his own ship, mind you.

[alexxuun]

Fist my bump!

Wait until you hear about fist me…

[brothermouse-skeleton]

Rocky: we built our spaceship by unifying every mind on the planet to create a super hive mind, pooling out collective knowledge and problem solving skills to come up with a plan.

Grace: we gave the scariest woman I've ever met two coffees every morning, an unlimited budget, and enough legal immunity to cuss out any world leaders she wanted to and boy did she want to.