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everyone gets onto eva stratt for the "think about it long time" vs. "you have three hours" thing but

operating on book canon a little bit: if grace couldn't do it-- if he said no*-- the alternative was to scramble and fly in the next most qualified volunteer, who had 0 training, 0 knowledge of astrophage, and was not an astronaut. three hours could have been three hours of training for that replacement. three hours could have been three hours of preparation for grace, if he said yes

eva stratt gave grace three hours. not to decide, necessarily, because the decision was going to be made the way it was no matter what. but three hours to come to terms with it, to grieve, to mentally prepare himself. three hours that could have been spent giving humanity a better chance to survive

she borrowed three hours that she didn't have to give grace space to process. to get himself together and come to her, teary-eyed but resolved, and say yes.

how close can we get….

By that I don’t think Grace isn’t some variant of asexual. I read him as demisexual because he mentions a past relationship, but I watched it with my friend who’s asexual and aromantic and she read him as asexual but alloromantic. It was especially the way he looked at Eva during the karaoke scene that made her believe he was developing romantic feelings for her and she was a bit weirded out when I told her some people interpret it as more of a mother/son relationship.

We did joke “this is the result when an asexual man and an autistic woman fall in love” and honestly I love that for them.

nasa employee: this guy hasn't interacted with humans in like 20/60 years should he really be giving interviews?

nasa employee 2: ehh just give him some media training and it should be fine

this is more of a silly one bc i just wanted to draw grace in a suit ^^

Don’t worry, it’s not an insult! Calling someone “the shit” is actually a common earth compliment!

More species swap shenanigans

His ass is not listening 🙏

Stratt was a historian. She wasn't just pirating for the sake of entertainment for the astronauts, she was doing a full historical backup of the planet. Who knows how much knowledge and communications ability, how much art and culture and history, how much niche knowledge of how to make specific pieces of modern technology or modern medicines, was lost as the wars for resources isolated everyone, as the death tolls led to the deaths of specialized trade workers and scientists, as the power grids failing across the planet (or cut off, potentially) led to all the cloud servers going dark. Stratt was facing methods of combating extinction and she did her best to ensure that if/when the Hail Mary worked, it would send back not just the hope of the future in the solution to the astrophage, but the restoration of history and culture and knowledge.