why can't we give love that one more chance?

any pronouns | i draw very little and talk very much

[blue-sunshine-mauve-morning]

Was thinking about my other post and how in the book Stratt has to hunt down a scientist and imagine you're Eva Stratt, right, and you are going to some of the best scientists in the best labs in the world and they keep recommending you to this Dr. Ryland Grace and you're trying to figure out which lab or university he must be with and nobody in the field actually knows where he wound up 'after what happenned' they allude, and so you have your guys do their background investigation and track this alleged top molecular biologist down all to find out.....

He's a middle school teacher.

And you're just like....are they all fucking with me?

The relief she must have felt to find out he was shut out of academia and wasn't, like, a bizarre hoax.

[alexxuun]

Random PHM things.

[alexxuun]

Shots from a PHM animatic I’m doing which I’m planning to post tomorrow!

Edit: it’s now out!!

[mahawavy]

[alexxuun]

A mini PHM comic about Grace growing old. I wanted to explore two ideas: Rocky dealing with Grace’s dementia and Grace wanting to donate his body to science. I spend so much time on figuring out the dialogue (some part still feel clunky to me) but I hope it express my thoughts on where I think Grace’s life would go :)

Title is based on a song by M83

[alexxuun]

[cloudabserk]

grace wakes up out of his coma and immediately puts on a skirt and starts exclusively going by his very feminine last name. he said if i’m stranded alone in space i’m gonna have some fun with gender.

[wgat-fr]

the Backrooms spoilers ahead!!

my friend (@basil-joy) encouraged me to post this.

ok so Backrooms was a decent movie in my opinion, and to quote my other friend (who knows much more about the overall Backrooms lore) i'd give out a 3.5/5. i'm a pussy at horror so i probably missed some portions from covering my eyes out of sheer fear, but to once again quote my friend, the backrooms is a concept that's better without focusing on specific characters (as is required of movies), as the focus is the fantastical aspect of the backrooms themselves.

BUTTTT the cinematography, atmosphere, and overall vibes(?) of the movie? immaculate—not to mention the focus of this ramble: the themes of stagnation and nostalgia, specifically with Clark in the backrooms.

firstly, the backrooms are all about nostalgia, we've known this, we love this, Clark literally explains how the 'rooms are remembering things wrong, remembering less each time (our memories are only as strong and accurate as our last memory, we're constantly rewriting them via the process of consolidation). secondly, the whole theme of the movie, with Clark and Mary's first conversation, is about stagnation and staying the same, looping in the same patterns, wanting to regress to the same comfortable cycles, everything predictable and the same. the backrooms physically show this, manifesting as almost cubical offices (which are stagnant), with musty yellow wallpaper (almost nostalgic, but definitely dusty and stagnant). the 'rooms themselves are stagnant in nature, as is nostalgia and regressing, and while the things within them change, they change as memories do, minutely, but ultimately static, stifling, giving an air that must be stale. it has good commentary on how we are always nostalgic of a time past, we want to go back to "the good old days". we dream of a past, we dream of time stopping, rewinding, and therefore the backrooms exist in a twisted remembrance of things.

i think Clark survives and is allowed to live and survive in the backrooms after the disaster with Bobby and Cat, because the Backrooms recognizes him as its own, where he deep down doesn't want to change, stays in his happy little routine and his happy hurtful ways. Cat and Bobby are young and ever-changing, and so they get merc'd. but, afterwards, i think the reason why his "alternative" (that i call Captain Clark) kills him after his talk with Mary is because even in accepting himself, allowing himself to not change in his destructive cycle (CLARK: i don't want to change. MARY: then don't.) is in itself too much of a change—the first step TO changing is that acceptance, that acknowledgement—that he is not part of the backrooms anymore, but once again, an ever-changing human, and so he is seen to be eliminated. he's not furniture anymore, he's not the same to Captain Clark anymore, because he's aware of the patterns, and that in itself fundamentally changes said patterns.

anyways, for any of it's perceived flaws, the Backrooms' brilliance is just part of this big year for indie horror, with Iron Lung and Obsession also being amazing—as well as just a big year for non-franchise movies, with the aforementioned, but also with Project Hail Mary.

[bstrdr]

Eridian Grace, as in culturally Eridian, not the species Eridian, is so important to me.

Grace who does jazz hands and taps when he's asking a question and says some words three times like Rocky. Grace who makes chirps and trilling noises when he's happy.

Grace who starts thinking and dreaming in Eridian, who sometimes has dreams that are just sound, no visual. (Grace who, if he ever goes back to Earth for whatever reason after years on Erid, forgets some words in English and speaks in the sentence structure of Eridian because he has to translate from Eridian to English when he speaks outloud).

Grace who does scarification (even if Rocky protests at first) - I've read some fics where he does the Voyager pulsar map, or dots and lines showing his route from Sol, to Tau Ceti, turning around towards Sol, and then the line going all the way back to Erid. Even though he already has the scars from Rocky saving him, maybe Rocky's family crest. A scar showing his rank as Captain of the Hail Mary - maybe something to represent her, too.

Grace who wears Eridian gems, as earrings, in a chain for his glasses, in strings draped over him that clink together when he walks - the most important ones, like the earrings he wears all the time, the color of the blueish-green gems (or spots?) in/on Rocky's carapace.

Grace who wears a bracelet on each arm that have ribbed marks like on Rocky's arm so he can properly say goodbye (not something he had to do, but something that felt right to do, something that made him feel more like himself), sound included.

Grace who considers himself an Eridian!! Grace who IS an Eridian!!

[markermagpie]

bloodymary discord going crazy

[st1cksandst4ns]

he's everything to me atp

[vampirejuno]

[galacticsabc]

"Detailed Logs"... sure Grace, sure.

[wgat-fr]

ryan gosling (and by extension ryland grace) is the hardest to draw ever, actually.

[wgat-fr]

Porch Light by Noah Kahan but it's Coltland Twins and their last conversation left on bitter and angry terms (maybe something to do with Project Hail Mary—something like Colt being don't you care about your kids? and you just up a left for this big shot science gig? what happened to forgoing those hoity toity wastes of carbon academics? this isn't you, it's like i don't know you anymore—! and Ryland being like this is for the kids!) and Colt doesn't know that Ryland got shipped off against his will (knows his brother wouldn't have left him without a goodbye, would've been terribly afraid, but... did he know him? after that last fight... Colt bitterly thinks maybe Ryland decided that the Project was more important that him too, that Ryland couldn't be bothered to tell him as he was moving onto bigger and better things, outgrown his brother.) and now he's gone, his brother is gone, he got way in over his head (that whatever made you famous made you sick). he's dead. (you're a ghost, you're a ghost, you're a ghost, you're a ghost, and you're—).

(and Colt's holding onto hope that maybe, one day, somehow, Ryland will come back. i'll leave the porch light on, heartbroken each morning when it's me that turns it off.)

[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

[inkyrainstorms]

Rocky learns that Grace is only in his late thirties/early forties and has a mini heart attack where he instinctively goes “oh fuck that’s a baby. That’s a baby?” because thirty to forty year olds on Erid have the maturity of the average human pre-teen, probably. Of course Rocky understands that Grace is a fully mature individual for his species, it’s just tough to swallow sometimes, especially when Grace spends so much time tripping over himself and being stupid and not sleeping etc etc. just. That urge to protect your best friend in the whole world is heightened by how fragile he is, and how young he seems to you sometimes despite your better senses

[rbtlvr]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Project Hail Mary (2026), Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ryland Grace & Rocky Characters: Ryland Grace, Rocky (Project Hail Mary) Additional Tags: Time Travel, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Ryland Grace & Rocky are Best Friends, Ryland Grace and Rocky are Platonic Soulmates, it’s just that one of them doesn’t know it yet. don’t worry about that though, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Ryland Grace, grace gets one (1) swear. as a treat Summary:

The day Ryland Grace proves the Carl Hypothesis and discovers how to breed Astrophage, a probe is spotted in the outer regions of the solar system. When it’s recovered, the words TO SOLVE ASTROPHAGE PROBLEM are found written on the outside, and below that is written in slightly smaller text, Deliver to Ryland Grace.

Grace, unfortunately, has no idea what’s going on.