flipping the van

Carl from project hail mary is totally the type of guy/dad/uncle to wrap a present in like.. 7 different boxed of gradually bigger sizes to prank a kid with a box, in a box, in a box, in a box… etc

This was random thought thursday

His joy and whimsy at seeing this

His acknowledgement of it not being as interesting as the chase

The first time they have to use it (over something stupid like a tiny ammonia leak), Grace wakes up to like three different foghorns and a hundred camera flashes going off at once and is like HOLY GEEZ THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US

"OOooOoo Carl big like Adrien... kinda cute <3"

He goes with Stratt to get Grace, is the implied threat of “you really don’t have a choice/ this is real”, he has an expense account, he’s who Stratt has watching Grace, who is the last guard when Grace gets kidnapped.

Stratt trusts him, clearly. And he’s probably not just a low level security guy, because I dont think a baseline security guy would get a personal expense account, let alone be hired in the first place.

Stratt trusts him. Not just to guard her, the all but dictator of the world but to subdue Grace when he runs. That implies a damn high level of trust.

and Grace trusts him, Grace likes him. Which makes everything so much worse.

and Carl, seems to like Grace! He lets him use his personal expense account for sour skittles and sunglasses alongside the supplies. He gets along well with Grace and genuinely seems to believe what he says in the end. But. How much of that is Carl, really? We know so little about him, who he is outside the few scenes we get. Who is he, outside of the Project?

Who is he on the Project? It would be an interesting parallel to Grace’s utter refusal to think of himself as a second in command, if Carl was someone higher in the Project (still security) and Grace just never realized.

As for Carl's private life... well, I'm a hardcore Carl/Grace shipper, so naturally I want him to be single and to have had something going on with Grace before the inevitable happened. But that's just my shipper heart talking. If I put that aside for a moment and just look at them as friends or kind of co-workers within the project, I could absolutely imagine Carl being divorced (he doesn't wear a wedding ring) and maybe even having kids. For some reason, I can really picture him with daughters. (Twin daughters!) Maybe he's still in love with his ex-spouse, but their marriage couldn't withstand the pressure that comes with his job. He's probably away from home more often than not, practically married to his work, and he can't even tell his spouse any details about most of his work because he's bound by confidentiality. I imagine he was offered the position on Project Hail Mary and accepted immediately, driven by a sense of duty towards humanity. He was already through with the divorce at that point. He carries a picture of his little girls in his wallet.