on our way back home

day 1 - patchwork: tumblr | ao3 | instagram

day 2 - blip-a & hail mary crew: tumblr | ao3 | instagram

1) grass (inspired by his last scene on earth) 2) “you’re murdering me!” 3) book rocky/grace meet movie rocky/grace 4) the blip-a crew

day 3 - newton’s first law: inertia - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

law of inertia but specifically about stratt and grace! “an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion.” some sort of symbolism of how she stays stuck on earth, stuck as the scapegoat, and how he is always on the next thing on erid, and is now a savior for their worlds.

day 4 - newton’s second law: force - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

day 5 - newton’s third law: reciprocal action - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

day 6 - pale blue dot - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

would love to see a prompt for earth’s new climate/ice age before the beatles make it back, and how eva + the phm team post-launch lives! are they renegade scientists aboard that ship in the arctic? was stratt condemned by all of earth for her role in the phm mission and forced to escape imprisonment, or did she continue the mission afterwards with gov’t approval? what do all our cities look like during an ice age? just ice age earth and eva + co. trying to save humanity while grace + rocky are out saving the stars!

day 7 - in a galaxy far, far away (star wars) - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

day 8 - to boldly go (star trek) - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

how about a star trek au? could go many ways. maybe eridians are part of the federation, and rocky and grace are a chief engineer and chief science officer aboard a starship. or maybe the eridians are more like the klingon (or the borg? 👀) hostile to anything federation…….. until a landing party gets attacked and grace has to rely on the help of an also-marooned enemy! or maybe erid has just broken the lightspeed travel barrier, and a first contact entourage is sent down to interview the genuis engineer who invented their first warp drive…

day 9 - many universes - tumblr | ao3 | instagram

1) favorite quote/bit from favorite tv show, but redone as phm fanart 2) seconding the crossover prompt <3

day 10 - first contact

first contact -> grace in the lab, naming and discovering astrophage biology, or any other character or oc first learning about astrophage or the petrova problem, or stuff about the arclight probe :)

day 11 - culture exchange

day 12 - cosmic mythos

- græco-roman mythology or pjo crossover!! - astronomical objects are usually named after greek/roman mythology figures - ryland grace, son of apollo will not get out of my head - grace and rocky orpheus and eurydice parallels - adrian and rocky odypen parallels

day 13 - homesick/earthsick

- homesick - downtime - the crew’s all here - touch-starved

day 14 - radiation damage

- grace gets a ‘sun’burn during a beach day on erid? - fic about the petrova taskforce attempting to find other ways to kill astrophage closer to home? - the bittersweetness of the hail mary quilt fading in the dome’s “sun” over time? - rocky’s 46 year long cosmic horror nightmare? yes

day 15 - laser

grace is playing with a laser pointer as rocky is trying to catch it

(note from me: ok on the surface this is so funny but also how exactly would it work if rocky can't see light 😭😭😭 what if instead rocky tries to make grace chase a laser and it obviously does not work on him but when grace is like "bro. why" rocky explains that he saw videos of people doing it to their cats on his portable thinking machine and that's how grace learns that rocky sees him as his cat. LOL)

day 16 - petrova

i love the petrova lines so much they’re so pretty… there’s also the petrova taskforce, irina petrova, the petrova frequency.. there’s a lot of things

day 17 - xeno-veterinarian

grace’s eridian doctors are large animal veterinarians. there are some awkward adjustment periods.

day 18 - rainbows and/or red string of fate

day 19 - extra-spectral colors

grace describes something as magenta and rocky is confused as to why the light-to-texture device reads it as green. (middle rough) cue grace having to explain that magenta happens when the average wavelength of an item falls into the green section but the item itself actually reflects exclusively red and blue light so our brain interprets it as magenta instead of green. rocky baffled that the human brain just straight up invented a color that doesn’t really exist.

day 20 - echolocation

“rocky’s echolocation "vision”/what rocky “sees”/rocky pov

day 21 - final voyage

- grace has spent nearly a decade on the hail mary by the time he gets to erid. like him it's survived far longer than was ever intended and is looking a bit worn around the edges. - how does he feel leaving the ship? - is it a relief, or does he miss it? - is he sad to go? scared about leaving its safety even though it’s cramped? - or is it falling apart when he gets to erid and no longer a safe haven? - and what does rocky think about all of this?

day 22 - recovery

submission 1: i feel like not a lot of people talk about grace’s starvation near the end of the trip to erid and i think that it should be more delved into with more impact such as the obvious more medical reasons such as unable to gain weight or muscle ect ect, but i would like to see more ed rep, especially because personally i headcanon grace as on the spectrum, and i, who is on the spectrum, suffer from mild arfid. so it's something i’d like to see

(note from me: it has been pointed out by folks that grace canonically does not starve while en route to erid, but rather while he's waiting for eridian scientists to synthesize edible compounds for him after they've already touched down on erid. he does contract multiple diseases and is malnourished etc. from having to subsist off a mixture of rations and coma slurry, but is not actively starving while on the hail mary. this is confirmed book canon & heavily implied in movie canon, though the movie does admittedly gloss over it in favor of presenting us with a younger and more able-bodied grace living his best life on erid.)

submission 2: i want more of grace gaining weight on erid! i want him recovering from starvation (and if you so choose, an eating disorder) and gaining weight and being happy!! also! physical disabilities. maybe grace has to use a cane or a wheelchair or crutches or compression clothes. maybe rocky has chronic pain or joint issues or chronic fatigue. (we should make the rock disabled too)

day 23 - celestial divinity

an au where grace is just an angel sent down to earth to help humans save their universe

day 24 - humans/eridians are weird

silly eridians, sleep, humans are weird, eridian wildlife, scary aliens, culture shock, give grace a reason to cry, the blip-a crew dying of radiation, crossover?!, lovingly parody a fanfic trope you like, cat distribution system (yes even in space), angels/be not afraid, in-universe rpf about grace, draw something that gives you cuteness aggression

day 25 - thermodynamic disequilibrium

prompt in honor of this heat wave. put that man in a 95° spaceship. let him cook

day 26 - astronomical arts & crafts

almost all of grace’s clothes are falling apart. he also needs a new hyperfixation. so he gets really really into fiber arts and makes so many clothes that the eridians get genuinely concerned.

day 27 - planetary surface

prompt: surface of adrian!!

day 28 - eridian biome

eridian biomes? i know they’re under a ton of atmospheric pressure, but what about at different altitudes of the planet? or how about eridian civilization, like do they have villages or cities, what do their space elevators look like? landscape prompt?

day 29 - eridian exploration

grace leaving the biodome and exploring the dark surface of erid, and the cities developed to operate in the pitch black. now, rocky’s the one guiding a be-hamster-balled grace through a foreign world.

day 30 - eridian xenonite

grace’s rock garden on erid! maybe he figured out eridian plants too, or made a patio umbrella out of xenonite

day 31 - in memoriam

row A: hands (and elbows)

A1 and A5: rocky's and grace's farewell thumbs down when grace initially heads back towards earth

A2 and A4: rocky (A2) returning grace's (A4) three taps after he wakes up following their time go fishing recovery period

A3: rocky and grace leaning elbow to elbow in the don't go crazy room overlooking the new york city skyline

row B: technology exchange

B1 and B5: first contact; grace and rocky sharing their origin planets with each other

B2 and B4: "i showed you a clock and you're showing me a clock. we're clock bros."

B3: centrifuge tango

row C: "i like to keep a wall up in my relationships anyways"

C1: hug after time go fishing

C2: grace giving rocky beanbag earth

C3: let grocky hold hands :(

C4: fist my bump

C5: reuniting with your bro and leaning your foreheads together no feet apart because you might be queerplatonic

row D: first and last gestures of friendship

D1 and D5: rocky and grace parting ways and waving goodbye

D2 and D4: "we do the thumbs uuuup.... close enough"

D3: grace save rocky; leaping across the gap between their ships :')

row E: in each other's space

E1 and E5: watching each other sleep

E2 and E4: entering each other's highly toxic and deadly atmospheres :)

E3: "i like earth"

pale blue dot:

if you have even a passing interest in astronomy and space, you will have heard of this speech which is in the opening pages of sagan's book of the same name. (if you have not, reading it is mandatory to understanding the full meaning of this piece!)

the three shorter notes, the two longer excerpts, and the inscription i have written across stratt's photo are all lifted directly from sagan's words. the background is also meant to reflect this line:

"every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

my imagination is that both grace and stratt would have had this speech tucked away somewhere in their notes and research as a way to place further stress on themselves to get their work done. grace's passage is handwritten on a scrap piece of paper, perhaps hastily scrawled in between tasks and continually lost and found amongst his belongings. meanwhile, eva's is neatly typed and better preserved, maybe clipped in the back of a journal or notebook she always carries with her.

lastly, the image of earth used here is from the artemis ii flight!

dried flowers:

the small bunch of yellow flowers to the left of stratt's photo resemble Aurinia saxatilis, colloquially known as basket-of-gold. they are an ornamental species, native to asia and europe, and most notably drought-tolerant once established. this can speak to stratt's drastic measures to speed up earth's climate change, or to stratt herself purposely maintaining a dry and detached composure for the sake of the mission. importantly, i did also include another sprig of basket-of-gold on grace's side, noticeably more faded in color to indicate the effects of the harsher eridian climate.

the scattered small blue flowers below grace's photo are members of the Myosotis genus, colloquially known as forget-me-nots. obvious symbolism aside, it is very much worth noting that our common term for these flowers has german origins (vergissmeinnicht) and even has roots in a medieval german folktale of an unfortunate knight who falls into a river after trying to pick the flowers for his significant other. he is said to have cried out "vergiss mein nicht!" before he is swept away by the current. here we can perhaps consider grace as stratt's knight in a non-romantic context; he is taking orders from her, and she ensures that he is not forgotten in the wake of the hail mary launch. (do note that the flowers hold significance in the folklore of other countries as well, but this is the one that is most commonly cited and also the most relevant to this piece.) another layer to forget-me-nots can be seen from the reign of henry iv, who adopted the flower as his personal emblem during his political exile and retained his use of them once he regained the throne from richard ii. the forget-me-not can thus also symbolize defiance in the face of authority and a refusal to be erased (grace solidifying his legacy on earth for as long as time will allow).

finally, the blue flowers dotted around stratt's photo and the white ones around grace's are hydrangeas, famous for their bushes which can grow as tall as trees. first cultivated in japan before spreading around the world, hydrangeas originally held a meaning of apology and remorse, as a japanese emperor once gifted them to a woman whose affections he had neglected; blue hydrangeas still hold this meaning to this day. white hydrangeas, meanwhile, symbolize grace (!), remembrance, purity, and a cleansing of the spirit. consider also the color blue being commonly tied to emotions of sadness and melancholy, while white is generally associated with hope and tranquility.

interestingly, hydrangeas also took on negative connotations in victorian england, being associated with traits such as arrogance, vanity, pride, or stubbornness. men who were rejected by women would gift hydrangeas to them as a pointed gesture towards the emotional unavailability of the women in question, and any women who grew hydrangeas in their own gardens were said to be unable or unwilling to secure romantic companionship (consider stratt's speculated lack of a romantic connection before and after her time with grace. could she perhaps have mourned his loss, romantically or otherwise, for the rest of her life?)

bottom left: the aforementioned nightingale - historically a symbol of conflicting emotions and elements throughout human culture; it can be seen as a bringer of both life and death, of beginnings and ends, and of hope and despair. it sings in spring, which invites an image of rebirth and resilience, and the persistence of life beyond and in spite of death. but it sings primarily at night, as indicated by the origin of its name, so its song can be interpreted as an omen of darkness and the unknown, or the bird acting as a messenger of grief and mourning.

middle left: a tree trunk covered in moss and other green growth - represents the cycle of life and death, and the miraculous ability of nature to take something decaying and forgotten and bring it new life and purpose; as the remains of something dead wither away and sink back into the earth, it creates room for something alive and new to take its place. the idea that death is both inevitable (disquieting) but also never truly a permanent end (comforting) and will always feed into renewal and rebirth.

top left and bottom right: pictures of yao li-jie and olesya ilyukhina that grace looks at when trying to jog his memory of his crewmates - not only can he not remember who they are, he also cannot recall the significance of his own relationship with either of them; why is grace on the ship with them? what is his purpose on a team he has no memory of joining or being recruited to, and most importantly, how is grace meant to remember and fulfill his role as the missing piece in a puzzle for which he has yet to visualize the completed picture?

middle right: a path laid with stones across a river - represents a boundary between life and death, or effectively the world of the living and the world of the afterlife; different mythos around the world use the crossing of an eternal river, something that is at once static and yet always in motion, as a metaphor for passing over to the afterlife. ancient civilizations would have been acutely dependent upon rivers for their survival; however, due to the volatility of nature, rivers can just as easily bring destruction and disaster instead of nourishment and abundance; two sides of the same coin that humanity needs to go on existing.

top right: the silhouette of an osprey resting on a perch against the light of the rising sun - to understand how i got to this photo, i first must explain that i was looking for more information on what a bird of ancient roman mythology, the caladrius, may have been in real life. the caladrius is primarily known as a bird of healing, and stories tell of its ability to save an ailing human by absorbing the illness into itself and flying towards/into the sun to then heal itself. descriptions of the caladrius note that it is pure white like snow, and speculation has led some to believe it is a bird of prey that lives in and around water. it was with these criteria that i narrowed my search down to herons and ospreys, which are both birds that can be found on six continents—all except antarctica. the osprey also happens to be one of six land birds with a worldwide distribution. while its plumage is not pure-white, it is often depicted in medieval heraldry as a white eagle (and/or termed a "sea-eagle" due to its diet consisting almost entirely of fish), having a mostly white underside which would be visible to humans observing it flying overhead, and—most interestingly to me—according to claims by roman writer pliny the elder, parent birds would make their young "gaze into the sun" as a test and "killing off those which cannot". thus the osprey is one of if not the most likely candidates for the roman caladrius.

middle: top - a cave painting/engraving depicting 5 hands reaching towards the sun, most notably with the hand at the center having its arm replaced with a growing plant. i wanted to find some illustration that could represent grace's significance amongst his team on earth and his inevitable march towards space and tau ceti (and btw did you know it is so hard to confirm an image is not ai-generated or modified these days? i did my best to trace the source for this one but really could not, sigh.) the other four hands can represent yao, ilyukhina, stratt, and carl; the four members of the petrova task force that grace ends up recalling the most about. they surround him and cultivate him for the long journey, without his even being aware of it. bottom - several performers playing drums in half-darkness, only the shadows of their hands being visible. it can act as a call-back to the soundtrack of the movie which incorporated performances from all over the world, including lots of percussive elements, but also something about things unseen and moving in the shadows, the machinations of the story's plot moving grace towards his fate; hands that reach out to help or to hinder, with no way of really knowing which is which until it's too late.

no text version:

eye of horus (egypt) - well-being, healing, protection

maneki-neko (japan) - invites good luck and fortune, often used in businesses to bring wealth

sunflowers (global) - abundance, resilience, longevity, devotion, the light of the sun or the sun itself, spiritual worship, gratitude

dove carrying olive branch (mesopotamia, greece, abrahamic religions) - peace, freedom, hope, pacificism, the human soul, the journey home

sequins (egypt, india, peru, and others) - originated from age-old traditions of sewing coins to one's clothing as a way to ward off evil spirits; also can be representative of fish scales which can speak to balance, harmony, equality, and justice

ladybugs (global) - prosperity, transformation, new beginnings, spiritual awakening or guidance, protection, patience

chinese red dragon - prosperity, celebration, warding off evil, joy, rebirth/reawakening; red in general being a color of good fortune and auspiciousness in chinese culture; i chose a classroom decoration specifically to allude to grace's own occupation as a schoolteacher

cueva de las manos (ancient south america, present-day argentina) - perhaps the most famous and long-running example of ancient human art spanning around 8,000 years, prominently featuring around 2,000 handprints placed by different artists over many generations of contributors. represents a culmination of human connection, communication, passing down of tradition, artistic cultivation, records of human life and values, nature intersecting with culture, and above all (much like in project hail mary) proof that we have left a mark upon the world for better or for worse, and that we each have the ability to choose how we leave our own mark.