Project Hail Mary Fan Blog

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

Ryland, somehow back on earth: Okay so, this is my partner, Simon. He comes from a Post-Apocalyptic alternate reality. And this is my best friend, Rocky, with his partner Adrian. They are aliens from 40 Eridani. I met them while being forced in a presumed suicide mission to save earth.

Six: Cool. This is my partner, John, he's probably the best hitman to ever live, he tried to kill me. And this is Claire, my daughter/little sister that I acquired while being a CIA shadow operative being hunted around the world by... anyone in possession of a gun basically.

Colt: ...

Colt: This is my girlfriend, Jody. She's... a producer. A very normal, human producer that I met while being a stuntman. Sorry, how is it that you guys met my brothers again?

Adulthood is a state in which you need to get comfortable with being scared, because so much of life is scary.

You will not, in your lifetime, watch your horse disappear into the Swamp of Sadness. But you will see someone you love in need of help, and you will have to choose whether or not to provide that help, and you will have to accept when you try your hardest and still fail.

You will not, in your lifetime, be menaced by the Wicked Witch of the West, or No-Face, or Ursula - but you will learn that people in your life can become monstrous and untrustworthy when they don't get their way, and you will need to stand against them.

You will not, in your lifetime, become cursed by the iron-ball rot that drove the boar god Jigo into a frenzy. But you will find out that humanity and nature are one and the same, and that rage can pass between them just as fatally as disease.

Eva Stratt’s dead wife…

How did the people of Erid feel when they got that? I mean, here's this thinking machine they apparently had no concept of, containing all this advanced knowledge of things they had no idea about like radiation and relativity...

My headcanon is that they're gonna feel like total assholes for not sending something similar back, so they end up using the laptop and Grace to make a human-compatible primer of Eridian science including the recipe for xenonite and their spaceship, then launch it towards Earth.

But the laptop didn't have just science texts; it had fiction and music and games. So they add a bunch of Eridian cultural stuff too.