Reasons why I’m now lowkey obsessed with Marissa, a character who has ONE SCENE in the ENTIRE BOOK:

• She’s the first person Grace remembers from his past. He remembers her before he remembers he’s a teacher, before he remembers Stratt, before he remembers HIS OWN NAME.
• He mentions no other people who he’d consider a friend that he’d hang out with.
• The first thing Grace tells us about her is that she and him have steak and beer together every Thursday at the same time at the same place, at the same TABLE because the staff immediately recognize them every time and know their orders.
• They met in grad school because Marissa dated Grace’s roommate for three months. They have no inkling of romance between themselves at all.
• They’ve known each other for TWENTY YEARS.
• She works at the DOE and learned about the Petrova Line absorbing the sun’s energy before Grace did—she’s the one to tell him about it. The information weighs on her enough that she drinks four whiskeys.
• Every other named character calls Grace “Grace,” “Dr. Grace,” or presumably “Mr. Grace” in the case of the students. But Grace calls Marissa by her given name (doesn’t mention her surname), suggesting she’s the only character who would call him Ryland.
• The dialogue in their one scene together suggests Grace is used to joking around with her without feeling judged
• The book never brings her up again after this one scene. This makes me feel CRAZY.
• WHY did Weir make them seem so close only to give Marissa one singular scene? Her only tangible role appears to be to give Grace exposition about the Astrophage Problem, but there’s plenty of ways to write a scene like that without specifying that she’s also apparently his closest human friend?
• Did Grace ever call her to explain why he can’t show up to dinner anymore? Did he have cell signal on Stratt’s Vat? Did Stratt LET him call people after signing him onto the Project? She seems to have taken care of his job, but she wouldn’t have any reason to know about Marissa and the Thursday dinners unless Grace and Marissa left evidence on social media or something.
• What happened to her after her one scene? Presumably she kept doing her job at the DOE and having a harder and harder time due to the crisis, maybe she worked on trying to get energy to warm people’s homes.
• Did Stratt know about her at all? Did anyone know she was Grace’s friend, did anyone know she had dinner with him every week, did anyone know she would miss him?
• Petrova Taskforce Guys: Oh yeah Grace is a loser he has no family or friends to miss him
• Me: DO THEY KNOW
• How did she feel hearing that Grace became the science officer of the Hail Mary? Without telling her, without saying goodbye?
• Did she think Grace just suddenly cut off their friendship, or did she get suspicious of the government and Stratt because she knew Grace wouldn’t just do that to her?
• I see posts sometimes of people being like “oh Grace didn’t have meaningful relationships before meeting Rocky,” and I feel like I’m waving the book around like DOES ANYONE WANNA TALK ABOUT MARISSA HELLO MARISSA THE GRAD SCHOOL FRIEND SHE EXISTS SHE’S REAL
• Maybe she wasn’t someone Grace would die for—he couldn’t overcome his fear of death even for his kids, and they’re why he joined the Project in the first place. But she was someone he cared about. And she only gets one. Scene.

I gotta be honest, there is no way that Eva Stratt could forget Grace's face, she's not slowly forgetting his face. She's erecting statues, watching remembrance from afar. His face would be everywhere she turned to either by her own hand or not. The entire world knows that Grace went in the Hail Mary just like they would know that Ilyukhina or Yao went.

Grace, however, can forget Eva's face. She's the one deciding what goes on the Hail Mary and what doesn't, and with her counting on his amnesia to make him work, why would she help him remember her? There would be no pictures, no videos, she didn't leave any of the astronauts a ''watch this in case you have no memories'' instruction video. Her face wouldn't be in the terabytes on board, her face wouldn't be in any of the pictures. All the knowledge of humanity is onboard the Hail Mary except for one gaping hole, carved out meticulously, in the shape of Eva Stratt. Grace remembers her now, but for how long?

small reminder for the phm fandom because I have never seen this come up in fan content for some reason:

audio description exists!! stop making Rocky watch movies and TV entirely through his light sensor, he's gonna miss SO much only interpreting a 2D image through the tech he has. we have created the accessibility features Rocky needs to get the full media watching experience, he deserves to have it!

not every piece of visual media has an AD track, but it's a larger percentage than you might think. upgrade your Grace Rocky movie night headcanons today

ok let’s settle this

Ryland Grace did love Earth, but only to some extent. He appreciated it in the way we all do, the way your Average Person would. He loved the fog and misty weather and the beach. He loved his job and his students and he 100% wanted to live on Earth. But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice his life for Earth. So yeah Grace did conditionally love Earth, to some extent.

But Eva Stratt loved Earth completely unconditionally. She knew she’d be villainized, she knew history would paint her as evil. She knew her freedom, her happiness, her wellbeing would be sacrificed for the cause. And she knew humanity is FAR from perfect, she says so in the books how countries wouldn’t ration food and how they’ll kill each other for survival. Yet she still understands that humanity should continue to thrive, and was willing to sacrifice herself for the Hail Mary, the barest chance at survival. History needs a scapegoat, and Stratt is perfectly fine with being one, as long as Earth lives.

Grace might’ve liked Earth, but Stratt LOVED it. Love is an essential theme in Project Hail Mary, and Stratt, despite appearing cold, has some of the most love out of everyone.

If I'm remembering correctly, Rocky was alone on the Blip A for about 46 years, and Stratt is described as being in her mid to late forties. Which is to say I'm now chewing on the idea that exactly as Rocky's crewmates were dying, across 11.9 light years of galaxy, Eva Stratt was born.

grace trusting rocky's skills so much he goes "you couldn't fix your astrophage collector?" in surprise and triggering rocky's "fail fail fail" spiral VS rocky trying to encourage grace by going "we won't give up. we're brave" and immediately triggering grace's memory of getting forced onto the mission. they just looooooove accidentally triggering each others' PTSD it's their favourite game

I love that so many people make Grace disabled by the gravity on erid when he gets there. Not even just when he's still sick from the journey, even after he recovers, the gravity still effects him, he needs a cane or crutches or a wheelchair and I love that so much. But it's got me thinking.

The gravity makes him disabled in a way he himself would recognise as disabled, he struggles to walk, gets tired out extremely easily and has increased joint pain. Falling has worse consequences due to the extra weight his mass now carries, I can see him having an increased risk of dislocations and broken bones if he falls than he would have on earth.

But what about the ways he's disabled that he might not necessarily see as a disability, especially not with how his biodome is set up? The ways that simply being human makes him disabled by eridian standards?

By eridian standards, Grace is blind-deaf or at least severely sight-hearing impaired. In his biodome everything is set up to accommodate him, but if he ever has to leave? He needs disability aids to help him get around. Not just the things he'd see as disability aids, like his cane/crutches/wheelchair, but also his torch.

His inability to see 360° at all times is also a disability in eridian terms. They have to be careful about being on the right side of him, about not stepping behind him or changing anything behind him as he's about to move because otherwise he might trip over it and hurt himself. The same might even go for things in front of him when he's outside the biodome, because they can't see the light of his torch and they don't know for sure where he's pointing it.

They'd have to change a lot about how they do things to accommodate him and I really like that.

Grace would need far longer to be told things and to remember them, would need to write things down, especially if they're complicated. Yes, he's a VERY smart man, but he learns through repetition, the same way most humans do. Eridians can hear something once and then that's it. It's in their heads forever, they can recall it whenever they need.

I really like that by eridian standards, the way humans just exist would make them disabled with pretty high support needs if they were an eridian. The way they hear-see, the way they think and remember, how easily damaged they are, how little they can carry, how easily you can knock them over.

IDK I just love the idea of Grace coming to terms with the disabilities that other humans would also immediately see as disabilities. And then him having to come to terms with the fact that simply the way he is as a human, is also considered a disability in the eyes of the eridians around him.

That deleted scene just confirms to me that Rocky is disabled. You know the one, where they're discussing life on Adrian and he waves those fingers around, which are

1. Much longer than anywhere else on his body,
2. Don't seem to really have a useful palm, and
3. He really doesn't use much; he seems to prefer that leg for walking.

I've been told that the pebbles aren't seen with a leg like Rocky's and we don't see other Eridians so I am taking this as canon also because it explains one book discrepancy.

See, in the book, it's said that Eridians don't really have a concept of 'facing' certain directions because of their five arms, no eyes, and general symmetry. Rocky does *not* do this, I assumed until now it was purely to make him more emotive, more recognisable to us as a living thing instead of a pile of rocks.

However! Rocky would always want to be working with his hands that are more typical of other Eridians as that's the society he's used to living in and they're probably better for precision engineering work like he does! So he probably prefers to stand with those two hands at the front to work with and the other three, including that leg, to stand on for self-support.

OH ALSO: the fact he uses it for miming in that scene is probably cause to him they resemble Grace's fingers more. So imagine living with really long digits on one hand and then discovering a species where this is their norm. Probably in Rocky's eyes explains how Grace is so clumsy.

That plus the respect he's shown as a speaking device user (Grace letting him pick his voice, iirc never having the fact he speaks through a computer Grace can override used against him even when he's annoying) is just. I love it.

I'll be doing more research soon into exploring Rocky's limb difference, mostly from reading posts from other people who are disabled and/or have limb differences themselves. Taking recs for resources!

White Feminism