Nothing to See Here, Cousin.

@sharonz-arty-corner03 pointed this ⬇️ out to me the other day and im choosing to take it #outofcontext for my own purposes

You and I are birds of a feather, it would seem. Black scientists who have been successful despite it all. men who are willing to put our fear and distrust of The System to the side to try to do what’s right. men who know how my story ends. i know what i am, Dr. Grace, you don’t have to shy away from it. do you know who you are? what you are?

and grace says “okay!! let’s bring it back to science, buddy!!”

and dubois says, “no.”

as mentioned in my last post abt him, i think grace in this AU is so. put off by dubois. in part bc the niche they fill is too similar. they cannot both survive in this environment, they can’t both be the Smart and Useful Black. but i think in part as well because dubois is always looking to him, looking at him.

i HATE the scene about his and dr. shapiro’s relationship in the book (where he just tells grace flat out they’re “engaged in sexual congress”) but if you interpret it with any sort of grace (haha) against weir’s will, you get a man saying “life goes on. you have to live while you’re alive, and i’m going to. are you?” dubois is also part of the in-book discussion where it’s revealed the vat looks to grace as stratt’s second in command (and also boyfriend), and again he’s delivering a truth grace doesn’t want to hear, “you’re important, stop downplaying your role in this. stop downplaying yourself.”

and it’s all the more uncomfortable for grace if dubois sees him, really sees him, Black man to Black man. grace has no family. in my own headcanon backstory (which you can ask me about 😇) he left home for a reason. but here’s dubois, constantly saying “you’re like me. and you’re important. and you deserve to live.” and won’t let grace weasel out of it.

in any case, dubois’s chosen method of death in the book is by nitrogen inhalation. painless, easy. meticulously planned. it is this excess of nitrogen on board that saves not only grace but both earth and erid by allowing grace to synthesize resistant taumeba. it’s this same nitrogen that allows grace to purge the taumeba when they get loose. the book is explicitly clear, “I owe my life to DuBois’s preferred method of suicide.”

if dubois lived to make it to space, he dies in space, and grace lives on earth. because he dies on earth, grace lives in space. dubois’s death saves grace’s life, but they can’t both survive.

so! The limitations make constant trips up and down impossible. Let's work with the constraints.

This means Grace's ass is STAYING on the hail mary until they have his biodome ready, and they are scrapping as much of the Mary's internals on that same trip, because this is an undertaking they are doing as few times as possible.

Earths most devoted daughter

progress under the cut :3

Hello and welcome to my PHM but I'm making it Black AU. I'm gonna get all the characters with my melanin beam eventually.

Lore Posts: Original Post Original Post w/ My Favorite Tags Eva Stratt Grace, Carl, and DuBois DuBois Again Academia AroAce Ryland Grace

Bonus Content: The Fanfic I Started Art Cast/Faceclaims Grace + Carl Swap AU

you’ll probably see it later but I wanted to send it directly cause it’s sooo good and i feel a brainworm coming in

clickable post link

HELLO >:3c not to make everything abt the dynamics Blackness adds to every situation but. (looks around) who am i kidding thats exactly what im gonna do.

because in this situation, now you have Dr. Carl ProjectHailMary, a chill, laidback teacher w a sharp wit and a barely hidden sense of humor. the kids love him. he was a big name scientist once, but… something happened, and now he’s not. he’s still got all the knowledge, though, and suddenly he’s worth considering again when the astrophage crisis hits. so he gets roped into the project by Stratt, and we have already talked At Length about what Blackness adds to that experience.

and then you add the security. he says his name’s Ry, never tells Carl more than that. no mention of family, no mention of friends. but he’s always there. talking, goofing off, pulling Carl on these impromptu shopping trips. they’re scientific partners. they spend 18 hours a day together. they might even be friends. but at the end of the day, Ry is a white man with a gun, and Carl can never quite forget the power differential between them. Carl is a scientist, and Ry could get away with killing a man. Carl knows what that means. and they’re still friends. by the end, Carl really likes him.

and at the end, his friend is gone, there’s just a white man with a gun, still smiling like he’s not ending Carl’s life.

“Listen, buddy, you’ll do great. This is just what we have to do, okay? Don’t take this personal.”