tinytree

* Astrophage is more like a virus that either alters people, causing them to commit crimes or violent acts, or a power that supervillains are starting to use.

* Grace is still a middle school teacher who got bitten by the spider, obviously.

* Adrian is the one who stitched up the suit (the Aunt May of this universe).

* He has all the perks of a normal Spider-Man, but he's still Grace, so he's incredibly clumsy. He does have a super-strong spider sense, and that's what saves him 100% of the time, but he absolutely does not have the agility. When adrenaline kicks in, he can do anything, but otherwise he'll trip over the most ridiculous things.

* He was wearing his yellow raincoat the first time he saved someone, so now he wears it over his suit (along with his white Converse).

* The spider was discovered by SHIELD (which is undercover as a scientific research facility that Grace works for part-time). After the original test subjects (who were only able to survive the spider mutations if they possessed a specific gene) were killed in an attack, Eva delivered the spider to Grace so he could be bitten before other villains got their hands on that power. (My boy gets unwillingly turned into a savior in every universe.)

* Simon is still an ex-convict who, in exchange for his freedom, is asked by the evil company of the day to test a series of mines infected by what appears to be blood from a meteorite (which eventually turns out to be the symbiote Ellie!).

Simon is stubborn, however when both the primary and back up engineer die in an unfortunate astrophage induced explosion and he's told he has the coma resistance gene, Stratt says that it's either back in the slammer for the rest of his life (which will be short since no one will keep up the prisons while in an apocolypse and best case scenario he'll be worked to death by the goverment) or he can help save humanity, and she'll make sure he's hailed as a hero (outside of a prison) if he ever finds a way to return.

In this AU the only Eridian that survives is Erid's astrophage specialist, who had been in a room so filled with astrophage expirementing that they weren't affected by the radiation that killed the other crew. The other last person to die was the head engineer, and in their last moments they had a thrum (kind of like connecting their minds together if you haven't read the book or maybe I understood that part wrong lol) which is why the eridian ---Adrian or maybe not who knows maybe I wanna have angst with Adrian finding out their mate died or just have them be raising pebbles back on Erid.--- Is able to connect their ships and do the things Rocky does in the original.

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Grace The Dog* was part of a cult that worshipped infromation he was a prodigy there. He was a gifted student that was on course to be the lead researcher as to why the silent rapture happened. He decided the main theory of why the quiet rapture happened was wrong and challenged(insulted) the most important person in the entire station, he was then shunned and called an idiot. (the highest insult in their community)

Instead of defending his theory and properly researching it he ran away to the COI there he worked on DNA replication for their non plant based food items (meats, dairy etc.)

He then later asked to be transfered to figure out anything he could about the blood ocean, since it could further his research into creating meat products. He advises the crew to learn as much as they can from the surface of the ocean, though due to the lack of proper tools it was bound to only work so far.

after they find out as much about the blood ocean from the surface as they can (and the crew has started to hate him because he's super arrogant, but as soon as someone questions him he'll stop interacting with them as much as he can.) He tells them they need to dive further, he's soooo close to his breakthrough. What he doesn't know is that the COI has found a scientist that needs less resources (Due to Grace's upbringing he needs to research every possible thing even if he knows it's wrong) and is more qualified for bioligy work of this sort, so they tell the captain to send him down into the ocean with an x-ray camera. Ava objects, but she can't do much against direct orders even if she thinks it's stupid to throw away one of the only scientists left after the rapture.

Grace is thrilled to be working inside of the blood ocean, he reads the entire manual front to back twice. However he doesn't mind the prospect of radiation, or thinks it's worth it for the cause. After a day inside the SM-(I haven't decided which number to give him yet) he's brought up from the blood ocean with a couple of pictures then the new scientist tells him what he should do down there through the radio, while they're refilling his oxygen and providing more water. It's not until he's back in the ocean that he realises who they were, he's furious and throws shit around, he yells and cusses the people manning the radio out for replacing him.

He decidedes to go no contact with them after that interaction cutting the radio wire and driving deep, he knew they never intended to bring him up, so he wouldn't even try to convice them. They were just like Alexandria (I'm calling the cult alexandria now because the library of alexandria ykyk) leaving him behind over a small disagreement, calling him stupid. Soon there's a leak. The blood he'd had in such small suply now slowly trickling into his sub, he was down pretty far into the underwater caves, and he'd used the camera more than he truly should hav,e he knew that at least with the few radiation symptoms he was suffering.

But with the few science instruments they'd given him he went to studying. Grace studied everything about the blood, at least everything he could with the limited science instruments he'd been given. He knew he should probably drink some of the limited water or food, but he was so focused on the blood. He fainted from a mix of dehydration, exhaustion and heat stoke*

The transformation is different for him, the transformation focuses on his hands and arms since that's where he touched the blood 1st unlike Simon who had it splatter on his face first.

*I'm thinking that in their cult they held onto last names and threw the 1st names out the window. So that the only thing defining you from your family were your academic achivements. Grace is called "the dog" which is a shortening for "the mad dog" because he went at a task with such fervor that he forgot he could die, and also because privatley people thought he was insane.

*I don't know jack about heat stroke and I'm not learning about it if you need something special to survive heat stroke just think the blood saved him.

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alt for Simon if you think I'm lazy with his half of the story (I'm just far more facinated by the possibilities of the IL universe then the phm verse) you can also think of this as his backstory before prison idc really.