Vaserlord

Named Vill. A hermit. An inhabitant of many fandoms. P.S. no sense to follow me here, cause I switch between fandoms all the time. It's just gonna get really confusing really fast. If you like any of my ideas, they are free for the taking <3

[aroace-ryland-grace]

Hi guys! I thought I should just share my whole mini little library of Project Hail Mary-related things so they're all in one place:

It includes:

A digital copy of the movie (with subtitles in 30+ languages via download)

My transcript of the movie (more on that here)

Audio recordings of the movie

A PDF of the book

An EPUB of the book (for e-readers)

The full audiobook

A copy of Andy Weir's doc on Eridians

A copy of Andy Weir's spreadsheet on Astrophage physics (among many other things!)

A draft of the screenplay for the film from 2022

An audio recording of the director's commentary

My transcript of the director's commentary

There is also a UHD copy (that's too big to fit in the drive) here!:

Proton Drive

Securely store, share, and access your important files and photos. Anytime, anywhere.

Please note that because of the way that google drive works, some of the subtitles only work if you download the file yourself.

The audiobook, audio recordings, and commentary all have their properties programmed so they (should) work just like songs with a track number, album cover, artist, and so on if you download them.

There are two audios of the movie, one is the entire film untouched and one is that same audio cut up and broken down into separate scenes for convenience.

Additionally, there are two versions of the movie transcript, one with time stamps that match the audio recording and one without. The time stamps (+ their titles from the audio) are outlined in that version, so if you double-click on that tab or click "show outline," they'll all show up and you can pick a specific scene.

Similiarly, there are two different versions of the director's commentary transcript. The first is made to listen along to the commentary, while the second is more intended to be read on its own. The first is a direct transcription of everything that's said (an attempt, at least), while the second is slightly cleaned up for easier reading, meaning things like jumbled sentences and stuttering were removed or reorganised, but nothing has been actually paraphrased. Both are broken down into different scenes based on how their conversation goes, and the listening version includes timestamps. 

The first few seconds of the commentary are missing unfortunately as my US friend who was kind enough to record it for me had some technical difficulties at the start, but the she paraphrased the part that was missed. The commentary starts at that first red shot of Ryland Grace's face in the coma suit 32 seconds into the digital copy.

There's also a google doc with some instructions to follow if any of the files aren't working, which usually happens when too many people try to access or download something at the same time.

As always, if anything's not working right or you notice any mistakes in anything, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as I can!

[starrose17]

Race ya to the exit!

[vaserlord]

Court mage (I was just living quietly in the woods, I don’t know how it happened) Grace and queen’s bodyguard (a former war prisoner of a fallen kingdom, given a chance to earn freedom) Simon.

Eva and Ava as married reigning queens (when you become a ruler, your name acquires “-va” at the end, and discards all the other letters from the name except the first one to symbolize your death as a regular person and birth as a ruler). 

Idk. Random thought because I have thoughts sometimes.

[vaserlord]

Bloodymary ass song.

[vaserlord]

Eridians’ art forms head-canon.

Humans’ primary sense and therefore means to engage with the world is sight. And it is reflected on the development of our culture and our earliest ways of self expression.

Everyone knows the handprints:

But that is not the oldest art we’ve found (though probably one of the most famous ones). There are quite a few others, but the oldest known form of art was a shell carving, dated 500 000 BP. Made not even by Homo Sapiens but by Homo Erectus.

So knowing this, how would art form directed to hearing look like? (I’m not talking about songs, although, they undeniably would’ve been one of their first ways of self expression. I would like to explore physical forms of art here.)

Surprisingly, we have quite a few examples to draw from here on Earth. Structures and installations created with an explicit purpose of making sounds:

But all that is a handmade art. And from our culture we know that first art pieces were inspired by the art of nature. Humans saw nature and replicated or used it to express themselves.

So let me show you natural structures that can “sing” and therefore be the first inspiration for ancient Eridians.

The cave on the second picture even called “Bell Cave” because of its incredible acoustics.

So what is the conclusion?

In my humble opinion, first art in Eridian culture followed these natural structures — hollowed out rocks, carvings that captured wind, canyon-like structures that guided streams of air.

With time they, would, of course, advance and diverse. And the development of xenonite would cause an explosion of art because of its versatility.

It is safe to assume (from what I wrote above), that in modern times they construct marvelous structures that create intricate and complex songs both artificially and naturally.

Imagine Eridians “gallery” being the whole valley near the city, that is not only an amazing listening experience, but also built in complex and unique patterns and from various materials that illustrate those sounds when echolocation picks them.

And I’m sure Eridians, just as we are, have a lot more art forms than just these (these being simply the most obvious from what we know).

[kirbythesixth]

i love the "grace somehow lives as long as an eridian" interpretations of the movie ending cuz i honestly think something like that could happen in cannon and it wouldn't feel out of place.

like they all are solomely accepting the fact that grace is going to die in like a scary amount of eridian years, and then as he gets to like 90 everyone is bracing for it, but he just...keeps aging. he keeps his mobility- if anything his back is getting worse cuz of the slightly increased gravity, and his health seems to be steady. on the day of graces 122nd birthday (the oldest a human has ever lived) the eridian scientists that study grace are like. hey. what the fuck. and grace is like ┐(´～｀ˇ)┌

[vaserlord]

1. Grace breeds Taumoeba, speedrunning its evolution.

2. Grace eats Taumoeba but who said it will stop evolving just because Grace thought it should?

3. Taumoeba evolves in Grace’s body, binding itself to his DNA as so many things have done before during our own evolution.

4. Grace becomes capable of consuming Astrophage (the most energy efficient organism in the known universe).

5. Grace’s organism becomes more energy efficient as well and therefore its internal structure ages a lot slower.

6. Magic happened, now Grace can live just as long as his best mate Rocky.

[vaserlord]

I’m gonna headcanon Eridian culture because I need a way to distract myself from real life (not cosmic, unfortunately) horrors.

I have a few thought on their self expression and social structures, so I’m gonna post that as I write during the next few days.

All is widely drawn from reverse engineering human culture to be honest, but it’s not like we have that many points of view, so... Earth inhabitants, after all, are the only inhabitants we know of.

[ctrl-shift-alt-9]

Oh, I just realized the reason why the camera starts to jump-cut between Simon at the pilot's seat and standing at the back of the hemorover <- finally confirmed this is the name btw -- is because he's literally forgetting that he's walking to places.

It's jump-cutting because homeboy is deadass feeling like he's teleporting around the ship.

Great usage of editing there.

[vaserlord]

Decided to rewatch Artemis 2 videos, because I love them aaaa lot. And got way too emotional for a Tuesday morning lol.

Despite everything, what a time to be alive…

[vv0812]

I think that in the first meeting between Grace and Simon, Grace should be allowed to bite and fight dirty.

I know that Simon would win a fight against Grace, they are made different and all that. However, it seems that when they meet Simon always goes ready to kill (which is justificable given his past), and Grace just there been like "Hello I'm Ryland Grace..." and PUM! Simon is over him ready to suffocate him and Grace is like fighting to breath, but never hurting Simon, just struggling against him, and the fight ends usually by: 1) Simon is able to heard reasons and gives Grace a chance but is very suspicious of him, 2) he just passes out, because pain and exhaustation would do that to your body, or 3) (and the funniest one to me) Rocky appears (like the saviour he is) and knocks Simon out.

I would want to introduce the idea of Grace fighting back.

Grace may seem like a stable person at first in comparison to his companions; an alien who had live in solitude so long that has separation issues, and Simon who is his whole case of study with mentions of cults, facing god and been a child soldier. However, Grace is an anxiety bomb, who has a bad history with people, I think that if Simon just jumps over him, Grace would fight like a mad man.

It doesn't matter which Grace you know or like the most (personally my mind have just make an amalgam of the book and the movie) he would have the motivation to fight; Book!Grace, who was drug in the spot and sent to a cell to wait to be sent to die would fight now that he can, because he knows what kind of stuff happens if he doesn't react fast enough; Movie!Grace is a person who panics, but after a moment of shock he reacts as we saw in the movie doing his best attempt to dodge guards and ran as fast as he could. Besides, Grace wants to live, that is the origin of his determination to get through things, so if he thinks that Simon is going to kill him he would fight.

Of course, he can't win, and he knows he can't win, but he would try, bitting and scratching, kicking and squirming. Let him play dirty; If Simon's amputation is fresh, let Grace prick the exposed nerve; if Simon has raw, sensible skin from the mutation, let Grace scratch there; If Simon is close enough, let Grace poke his eyes.

He can ask for forgiveness later, when he is back to be Grace, right now he is just a scare man who wants to survive.

[idgabuck]

Would it be evil to make a Bloodymary AU where Simon is stuck in a time loop on the sub and he tries everything to get out of it until one loop his speaker connects to the Hail Mary?

[vaserlord]

Oh. My. God. PLEASE write it. It’s such an amazing idea 😭

[vaserlord]

Almost said “why, question?” out loud today. I need to take some time away from PHM fics lol

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Grace being kind of a pushover due to a combination of conflict avoidance, low self-esteem and the amount of stuff he had to put up with while working for Stratt (eg, “you live on this aircraft carrier now”).

Rocky and Grace being in some kind of meeting with the science thrum on Erid's surface (Grace in his xenonite suit), shortly after they arrive, when Rocky notices that Grace is being even more clingy than usual. Like he's constantly got at least one arm on Rocky's carapace, and has not moved away from Rocky since the meeting started. He's much stiller than he usually is— even accounting for his weakness from the malnutrition— and his light sensing organs keep rolling around in their sockets, meaning that he's anxiously scanning the room.

Rocky begins to worry. Is Grace getting sicker? Is the higher gravity having a worse impact than they thought? Or is he just nervous to be around strange Eridians? (Though he hasn't had this reaction to anyone else? Is there something up with the science Thrum??)

Rocky is like spiralling into anxiety until they have to move to a different part of the room for some reason and Grace, slowed down by the suit, briefly loses his hold on Rocky.

Immediately, he crashes into a table. And then backs into a wall. And then nearly knocks over some important Eridian science equipment. And then stands in the middle of the room, looking confused and slightly freaked out, both hands stretched out in front of him, opening and closing like he's grasping at the air.

Wait.

“Grace.”

“Yeah Rock?”

“At which point during meeting did light emitting devices in room stop working question?”

“Uh… like two minutes after we got in. Sorry, didn't want to be a bother.”

Never mind. Turns out humans are just idiots.

[satiwi1]

So the Eridian goodbye (movie) is so scrumptious to me.

The basics of the 'goodbye' is the hand/claw rubbing up and down along the arm, right? Theres a 'walking' sort of motion with the fingers in the beginning that speeds up and becomes a sort of dragging of knuckles along carapace, producing a knocking sound. What gets me is the visual of that almost walking away and back again, like finger puppets. That implied state of impermanent farewell or of seeing someone again, of coming back together. Which is just, lovely, but also.

Eridians use sound to see! So them making that crkrkrk sound as goodbye is just. So heartfelt. Because in doing so, they're making themselves more 'visible' to the person leaving (since they don't have eyesight they can see behind them! As long as there is noise and conduction).

It's like they're trying to stay in contact/in range of the other for as long possible, even as they move away. I like the idea that theyre sort of conveying that when the departing returns, theyll be there as they sensed them when going - broadcasting where they are and were, and maybe one day will be again. In addition to the person leaving being able to hear/see them, the person staying behind also can probably 'hear/see' the person leaving better (as the sound theyre producing bounces off the one leaving), until the tone doesn't return to them anymore, just like how the one going isn't returning. (But also, those sound waves bouncing back in that final return, even when the leaver is long gone and going? That conflicting wave like thing, where the Person is going one way, but their thoughts and senses return the other.)

I'd be really interested to know if it's reciprocal during parting or if just the staying party does it. If it was reciprocal or the leaving party typically does the motion, I feel it adds like a whole sweet thing! If you have both making the noise as they leave, it serves both as an anchor and a broadcast. 'I am going, I will show you where I am, I will hear where you are, until we are too far and our sound fades into distance'. Yk??

Tracking the person leaving by the sound they make, or of the two crkrkrk's bouncing off each other (idk how sound works). Their whole primary sense being sound is so interesting to me and in how it might impact perception and interaction. Am I making it too sentimental? Perhaps! But we used to say 'god be with ye' which turned into goodbye which is a whole like, internal wealth of culture/history and emotion, and the idea of parting and rejoining is such a dear theme to me in the movie and book, so applying something like it to eridian culture doesn't seem too outlandish.

Also; Eridians just not having a word for goodbye. Leaving is a process. There's no sudden disappearance, no cut off in line of sight. It's gradual and involved. They're always 'looking back' as they go. Man.

[vaserlord]

In honour of your AU, here’s a little scene.

When the notification of an unidentified mobile craft reached Erid... they didn’t know what to make of it.

Given that several decades had passed since the death of the human Ryland Grace, they hadn't a clue what they were up against.

Any sound probe, any attempt at comms via radio and the like... nothing. Not a sausage.

They tried everything: sending soft trills, then professional ones; some were hostile, others stiff... but nothing. No response.

But, just because an old pupil of the late Dr. Grace suggested it, they used a copy of the interpreter machine.

"Unidentified transport craft, please identify yourself."

"Please, I just want to live—"

...

That was all it took for a team to be scrambled to intercept and "fish" the ship as it crossed Erid’s atmosphere.

They pulled a battered human from the wreckage—disfigured and manhandled—out of a ship that looked like a cylinder filled with boiling, steaming liquid.

When the rescue team hits the Eridian surface, the creature is put into quarantine, sedated, and scrubbed down so that the old doctors of the late Grace can take charge of their new patient.

Rocky is the first to reopen the human habitat dome—along with his partner, Adrian—for use, rather than as a guarded sanctuary. They get the sea running again, switch on Armando, and prep the food synthesis lab to be fired back up.

They look into what they can clone, what organic material is viable, and what can’t be replicated anymore. They’re trying to source everything they need to look after this new human.

Adrian finds the chemical composition for a Skittle. He adds it to the list of grub to be cloned.

Rocky finds an old packet of spicy ramen. Grace had saved it for when he turned 80. It was never opened. Rocky insists it be added to the list of available food.

Adrian has to stop Rocky from tearing the whole house apart looking for Grace’s old clothes, and—using the computer—they figure out how Grace used the washing machine to clean his kit. Regardless, Adrian orders some clothes to be made so the new human isn't left in the buff. The clothes he was wearing, according to the docs, were absolutely riddled with radiation and couldn't be saved.

But no matter what, Rocky refuses to put Grace’s quilt in the washing machine. He washes it by hand himself; it’s too delicate and old to even risk chemical cleaning.

Adrian, despite his massive size, is gentle enough to mend any loose threads. He stuffs more synthetic filling into the old mattress and "fluffs" the pillow. Rocky does the same with the living room armchair; Grace absolutely loved that chair.

Also, for the first time in years, the doctors break out the portable translators they once used to carry, especially back when they were looking after Grace once he’d passed 60 and started getting a bit forgetful.

By the time all the arrangements are sorted... they find out the new human’s name is Simon.

Rocky isn't sure if Simon heard him; he was drifting off under sedation just as Rocky managed to get in to see him.

"Hello, Simon. I'm Rocky. Don't you worry, you're safe now."

This is such a good addition honestly 💛

Imagining how it must’ve felt to do all that again. Reopen the dome that long became a near sacred place — a reminder and a memory of the one who’s no longer here.

Get the house ready. Go through all the familiar but out of habit motions now.

Thinking about Rocky’s nostalgia and never fading grief (“Rocky can’t forget”) …

Simon will never be Grace. Will never heal the gashing wound. But Rocky is, nevertheless, glad that they found him. Glad he can help one more human. Grace would’ve wanted this.

I think they would’ve been therapeutic to one another. For Simon to learn that his worth does not equal his usefulness. And for Rocky to get the chance to know someone once more and have more time to say goodbye. Because Grace, after all, didn’t have that much time with them. He will make sure that Simon has more.

[lilawritesangst]

As much as I enjoy a ship focused fanfic, can we please appreciate the plot driven fics. Seriously. I’ve read some of the most passionate, beautiful fics purely made for the plot and they need more credit form the fanfic community <3

[vaserlord]

Some of the best peaces of media I’ve ever read were those plot driven fics. Better than a lot of published books honestly. So yes, wholeheartedly agree. I love plot driven fics. Plot gives so many opportunities to explore the characters and let them grow.

Put them in all the jars around! Don’t forget to shake nicely 💛

[teh-nos]

this fic is so good i hope i write it