Archive of Our Own

Section 1: Origin and General Knowledge

Imagine, if you will, something like this: It’s a late night, around mid-April, and you’re scrolling through social media, seeing as there’s not much else to do at that late of an hour. As you're scrolling, however, you catch a glimpse of a piece of art or a fanfiction, something so breathtakingly beautiful and profound that it makes you look closer. But as you do, you ask yourself something you never thought you’d ask: “Is that Markiplier making out with Ken from Barbie?” If you have had that thought, then don’t worry, because you aren’t alone.

Hundreds of thousands of people online have become obsessed with the fandom-born, insanely viral, and absolute phenomenon known as ‘Bloodymary’. The fictional relationship consists of two characters in very similar situations. Both are expendable, both meet aliens beyond their comprehension, and both ultimately find a way to save their species.

Who am I talking about? The two sexiest astronauts in cinema since Cooper (Interstellar 2014). Ryland Grace from the science fiction novel and breakout film Project Hail Mary (2026), and Simon, or “The Convict”, from Markiplier's 2026 indie horror classic titled ‘Iron Lung’. The two were brought together for the first time when a creator from the microblogging website Tumblr under the username @bustedjaws made a text post expressing a desire to draw the two of them together.

(Posted Febuary 7th, 2026)

Bustedjaws then ran with the idea, creating fanart and a whole new tag for the newly developed pairing, christening it “Bloodstar”. Mere hours after the pairing's invention, Jaws’ real life friend, Tumblr user @carhorno, went with the idea as well, giving the fandom some of its earliest pieces of fanart.

(Early fanart, posted Feb. 6th, 2026)

Now that you are aware of the origins of BloodyMary, let’s get into some general trivia and facts. As I said before, BloodyMary is the ship between Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary, and Simon from Iron Lung. According to both Fanlore and the Shipping Wiki, it is a crossover slash ship, slash meaning they are a romantic pairing, and crossover meaning they come from two different universes. How the ship normally goes and begins is when Grace and his alien pal Rocky are on course back to Rocky’s home planet of Erid, they will receive a distress call from a strange submarine on a desolate moon covered in blood. 

This is the setting of Iron Lung, where as a punishment for his crimes, Markiplier’s character Simon, or “The Convict” as he is called throughout the movie, is lowered down into a mysterious ocean of blood on an otherwise dead moon, tasked to collect photos of the blood ocean and tell the team above about any anomalies that he encounters.

 Over the course of his stay in the sub, he experiences hallucinations, fever dreams, and hears voices coming from the speaker above him. We later find out that one of the voices that speaks to him most is actually part of a massive hivemind down in the deep, where after a particular trip where Simon encounters the main part of the collective, the blood slowly starts to make him a part of it, culminating in the climax of the film where Simon faces the monster head-on and destroys himself, his sub, and the monster in the process. 

Now, this is where the ship gets started for most writers. Grace and Rocky either find him floating out in space by himself, or they see the bloody, ruined sub and fish him out of it. He then finds himself in Grace’s ship, the Hail Mary, and he and Grace slowly start to trust each other, become friends, and possibly even more. 

Before Project Hail Mary came out, the ship was already decently popular, but when the film finally released on March 20th, interest only skyrocketed, because people realized they could use more aspects of Grace’s personality and who he was as a person in their works. And so, the very first fic for BloodyMary, “The Star and It’s Blood Moon” by Sage_Green_Converse_24678, was released on March 29th. 

And in the months since, the pairing has only grown, now bolstering a solid 1,289 works on Archive Of Our Own, 278,000 followers of the Bloodymary tag on Tumblr, and millions worldwide who have fallen in love with these doomed space explorers.

Now, Bloodstar was already a decently popular name for the pairing, but on March 27th, Tiktok user @sagegreen280 coined the name Bloodymary in the caption of one of their videos, and the name stuck. Now, it is widely recognized as the token name for the pair, although others such as the original Bloodstar and Ironmary are also used.

Section 2: Most Well-Known Fanworks

Even though hundreds of thousands, even millions of fanworks have been made for this pair, only a couple truly stand out within the fandom. Be it fanart, fanfiction, or haphazardly put together Tiktok edits made out of pure passion, fans have united together to create true masterpieces all in the name of crossover space yaoi. Both films are known for their intense yet beautiful visuals, so fans had to step up and truly deliver on pieces of gorgeous art that would be instantly recognizable.

(“Reach for the stars”, posted by @snailera on Tumblr on June 15th, 2026)

Once the ship was created, artists and writers alike used their skills to create visual and oral works that dazzled, intrigued, and broke the hearts of those who've come across them. For example, we have @oofouchyikes’ staple in the fandom, Within A Spectroscopic Binary. First published on Archive Of Our Own on April 11th, the story chronicles the two's relationship as it evolves, starting from a meet-ugly as Simon tries to kill Grace with broken glass, growing into a solid, strong relationship as they confide in each other about their struggles in life and what they wanted in their old lives.

(Fan cover for WASB, created by @thunderzonked on Tumblr, posted June 8th, 2026)

Ever since its publication, the fic has garnered widespread praise across Bloodymary fans for its writing, character moments, and emotional weight. As of writing, the fic had over 300,000 views, 114,000 words, 13,000 kudos, 10,000 comments, and nearly 3,000 bookmarks. The creator has expressed their love for the fandom, thanking them for loving their story and still reading it as it goes on, currently in its 54th chapter of publication with no signs of stopping. 

There is also the most popular piece of fanfiction in terms of likes or “kudos” on AO3, “where nothing bleeds” by @interstellarisms. Published on April 2nd and completed on April 10th, the fic follows around the same plot as Spectroscopic, but also takes its own path by having Simon show up on Grace's ship, the Hail Mary, instead of already being on Erid after the events of the film. Over the course of its 10-chapter run, the two get to know each other on a deeper level, sharing their thoughts, fears, and ultimately their love for each other at the end of the fic.

(“where nothing bleeds” Main page, posted April 2nd, 2026)

The fic slowly gained notoriety both inside and outside fandom spaces, to the point where an aerospace engineer from NASA read it, peer reviewed it, and approved of the science used in its words.Truly life imitates art as the professionals say.

But that’s not to say that the only masterpieces exist in fanfiction, because over on the pairing’s birthsite Tumblr, there are thousands upon thousands of gorgeous pieces of fanart for people to get their hands on and savor, which also birthed thousands of AUs. AUs, or Alternate Universes, are just that, alternate universes where people can showcase their favorite characters in different situations and environments. And Bloodymary was not left out of the party, being involved in Modern AUs, Swap AUs, Mutated AUs, but the one most well-known as of the time writing this, is without a doubt @lainrongy’s Sun/Moon AU. Beginning on April 23rd with 2 full body concepts, the AU quickly grew, sprouting a dedicated fanbase who quickly became obsessed with these two celestial lovers. 

(Sun/Moon AU concept art, posted by @lairongy on April 23rd, 2026)

The AU came about in a “What-if” scenario where both Simon and Grace failed their missions and perished during them, Grace during the Fishing Incident and Simon at the end of his movie. An omnipresent force simply known as “The Unknown God” decides to bring the two back to life so to speak, making them new bodies and ascending them to Sun and Moon Gods respectively.

(“‘Look Simon! Aren't they neat?’ Quick fanart for @lairongy AU which lives rent free in my head” by @kyri45, posted June 9th, 2026)

And on top of all the beautiful fanart and fanfictions worthy of a national magazine, Tiktok took charge as well, creating edits that put scene clips side by side, used music like Ghost’s “Mary On A Cross” and Twenty One Pilots’ “Drag Path” to create haunting narratives, but also put together scenarios and fan series, documenting their journey through their trauma together, with Simon failing to confess his love for Grace due to Eden’s teachings, or when he inevitably finds out how Grace got onto the Hail Mary in the first place. All in all, the fandom put together a devastatingly beautiful narrative once again in the name of space yaoi.

Section 3: Problems and Controversies

But that’s not to say that there wasn’t trouble in paradise. When the ship started taking off, people started complaining that both tags for Iron Lung and Project Hail Mary were being overtaken with fanart of the pairing, neglecting both tags and their own fans. This problem is known as “Tag Flooding”, and occurs when a specific pair within a piece of media or in multiple pieces of media gets to be so popular that it nearly takes over the tag used online for the piece of media, “flooding” fans with art they didn’t need or want to see. The problem became more prevalent on Tumblr’s search portal of all places, when people started noticing that Iron Lung was trending because of Bloodymary, not because of the contents of the movie itself. 

Fans became upset, feeling as if Iron Lung was being undermined and underappreciated by the community and only used as a tag for Bloodymary art and other posts. Some have come forward asking people to only use the #bloodymary tag for their art, and let the film stand on its own as its own property with its own fans. And some are respecting that decision, with standalone Iron Lung Tumblr communities still going strong months after they have been created, only having a minimal amount of Bloodymary posts, but staying relegated to the film canon.

Another problem that fans have with the ship is how people characterize both Grace and Simon. Some believe that the fans haven’t even seen the movies and only use what they have seen in art and fics for their own writings. They seemingly woobify Grace over the point of time in which the ship has existed, and turn Simon into this stoic, angry killing machine with no other emotions whatsoever. But luckily, that problem is fixing itself, with fans going out and writing fics with the characterization they believe is best.

Section 4: Impact and Future

As for the future of Bloodymary, I feel like it’s going to keep on keeping on until either the Sun dies for real or people run out of ideas. But if we’ve learned anything from ships such as Dean/Castiel or Sherlock/Watson, I think it’s going to be the former. People have latched onto this ship like a blood hivemind to a submarine, and the train is only picking up more passengers at the station with no capacity limit in sight. The fandom will keep the ship alive for years to come as the movies solidify their presence on the Internet for their stories, visuals, and the already prevalent thirst edits of the main characters. A peaceful end…

…is what I would say if this didn’t happen. On May 29th, Markiplier released a new video in between his playthrough of Subnautica 2 that said Iron Lung would come to digital later that day, premiering the movie on Youtube TV on Friday, May 29th, 2 days ahead of its confirmed Sunday release. And while people were very happy about this because it meant they could see Mark’s boobs in stunning 4K, it was what he said at the end of the video that made people lose their minds. At 8 minutes and 52 seconds in, he says this:

"This burden will be lifted off of my shoulders. I can finally escape the Blood Ocean, and curl up in Ryan Gosling’s arms, and just- I'm safe. Finally, I'm safe.”

-Markiplier, May 29th, 2026

(Visual aid for reference)

Fans, and how should I say this? Oh right. They lost their collective shit. Tumblr went crazy, everyone freaking out, making post after post with screenshots of Mark’s words on crisp YouTube subtitling. Titles such as “HE KNOWS OH MY GODS” and “Mark found the yaoi guys we’re so fucked” started making the rounds, people wondering if he canonized it, if the ship was even real at this point, if Mark was okay with it. Until people realized that Mark has said, “I’ve seen myself getting assblasted by Springtrap, I think I’m okay.” Then everyone calmed down, only having a comedic laugh when Mark named the ship on one of his streams when asked how he found out, to which he responded with a villain monologue, classic Mark. 

So, everyone was chill once again for a while, until the developer of the Iron Lung video game, the one which inspired the movie that started all of this, tweeted about seeing it on his FYP, asking if he should go see Project Hail Mary as a result. This was once again met with fans losing their shit, albeit less than when Mark found out.

(Posted May 31st, 2026)

Needless to say, the impact of this ship has affected so many people across the fandomsphere. For some, it was a beautiful narrative consisting of contrasting but powerful parallels and stories. For others, it was another addition to their fandom toybox, two more attractive dolls to play with and smash their faces together like when they were younger. And for others, it was a chance to try something new with their writing, put together two wildly different personalities and make them fit together with elegant prose and devastating angst. And for another few, it was a chance to discover something new about themselves and put that new personality trait to writing.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Bloodymary is the type of pair to only come around every few years. The stars aligned, and the gods smiled down upon us as we created and continue to create these pieces and use our skills for good. What started out as a simple idea for a crackship has now grown into one of the most prevalent pairings of the decade, and it will continue to be so for the next decade, taking in new fans while still entertaining the old ones, and keeping on travelling through the cosmos with no signs of stopping.