A Macaron of a Person

he spent his whole life being strong and threatening, someone praised for their aptitude for violence. now that he's trying to move on from that, i think he'd be afraid to indulge anything close to those impulses. the butcher was mean and physically aggressive and commanding; simon is gentle and loving and sweet. it's difficult to reconcile those two sides of himself when he so thoroughly hates one of them.

he'd need to really warm up to domming. grace would be so encouraging, reminding him that what he does during scenes doesn't make him a monster, but he'd still start off as the gentlest of doms, highly focused on grace instead of himself. he can't bring himself to physically harm grace, not even a swat to the ass. he can't restrain grace without having flashbacks to being restrained himself, how scared he was, and panicking at the thought of making grace feel the same way.

for a long time, the most he can do is be a little demanding, telling grace not to move, overstimulating him, a bit of verbal teasing. even then, he drops hard after; he needs to lay his head in grace's lap or be spooned up in a soft blanket and reassured over and over that he's not a bad person, he has nothing to be guilty for, grace loved everything he did.

Within a 10-15min walk, I could get to 2 different larger malls that had facilities such as a library and connects directly to the subway station, a light rail station and a bus interchange.

I could literally wake up at 2a.m. and walk to the 7-Eleven to get a slushie and a sandwich if I wanted. That was how convenient it was. I didn't need to spend hours commuting to and from the doctor's if I didn't feel well enough for work.

Grocery shopping is a part of many people's daily routine. We go to the market or supermarket on the same day we plan to cook.

And this is common here. We're a small city state, true, so the closeness of everything is kinda forced on us, but even so, neighborhoods are planned in such a way that everyone can easily access a variety of goods and services without too much hassle. And we do use little carts! They're useful and practical things!

it’s not as clear in the movie, but eva stratt does not seem to be a scientist. at least not at the level as the others on PHM. in the book, she seems to purposefully bring grace along to various meetings because she needs his input and his translation. there are several times that a scientist will propose a solution to her, and she turns to her snarky teacher friend second in command and asks his opinion. he’s there because he is incredibly smart and, if needed, can explain things to her so she can understand. before grace? i bet she was largely doing this alone. i’m sure others would explain things to her if she asked, but it comes so naturally to grace. it’s his fucking job. it’s his second language, AND he doesn’t think less of her for it. he knows what she’s capable of, and thinks she’s still right for the job, even if the science of it all is over her head

i’m sure that it started out early, when they were still learning what astrophage was. grace was a leading mind in it, and was needed. but then she brought him along to help translate other things for her. and then because she trusted his judgement. and then because, deep down, he was her friend.

like it starts with sharing passwords and whatnot, but then they have the keys to each others' rooms. grace is glued to her side like they're conjoined twins. she brings him along to meetings to science translate like he's her emotional support dog. he brings her lunch because she always forgets. they both fall asleep working in one office or lab or another all the time.

eventually they straight-up form their own way of communication. grace can say something on the same level of incomprehensible as "carl and i made a baby" and stratt will respond with some obscure hand gesture, and both of them will completely understand. they hold entire conversations like that. one day ilyukhina pops her head in the door to ask grace a question, witnesses this, and wordlessly backs away. she'll ask dubois.

there's a betting pool going on on whether they're hooking up, but one day someone finds out that grace is aroace or something, and it becomes immediately and violently clear that something much more concerning is going on with them.

In the book, Eva most probably gets thrown to the ground by the explosion. As soon as she recovers, the very first person she calls out to is Grace, asking if he's okay.

Alright, maybe that's just because she knows he's the closest person to her.

But that's not what sticks with me.

What sticks with me is what she does next.

She physically goes to him before reaching for her radio to find out what actually happened.

And I kept asking myself: why?

Grace already answered. He said he was alright.

So why not grab the radio immediately? Why not assess the situation first?

Why did she have to go to him?

Because she needed to make sure he was actually okay.

Because she needed to see with her own eyes that he was still there.

Because maybe, no matter what had just happened, she knew she could deal with it as long as he was still there.

Before anything else, she needed to know that Grace was safe.

I actually can't with Eva.

Then there's the movie.

There's a small movement Sandra Hüller makes that you could interpret as Stratt checking on Ryland for a split second before she runs toward the explosion.

But what really gets me is Ryland.

Stratt takes off running without a second thought. It's dangerous. They don't even know what happened yet, but she runs toward the explosion like her life depends on it.

And Grace follows her.

This is the same man who's defined by his fear. The same man who believes he's a coward. The same man who couldn't willingly sacrifice himself for humanity.

Yet when Eva runs straight toward danger...

...he runs after her.

It's the first time we see him willingly throw himself into a dangerous situation without her forcing him or cornering him into it.

It's his own choice.

His instinct isn't to run away.

His instinct is to follow her.

Across all universes, Tofu will find him

At the end of summer, when Covid numbers were at a lower point, I took the risk to visit her in her new apartment and I quickly realized that, unlike when I’d spent the night at her house before, the couch wasn’t made up like a bed. She explained that since her new couch was so fancy and pink, I couldn’t possibly sleep on it, and so I needed to sleep in the bed with her. You know, out of necessity. I woke up with her snuggled around me in the middle of the night.

We’re dating now, and I genuinely think I’m going to marry her. Just the other day, though, I mentioned that if she hadn’t been weird about her fancy couch, I probably never would have like confessed my feelings. AND THEN she stood up, took the cushions off the fancy couch, UNFOLDED IT INTO A HIDE-A-BED, and said “I KNOW.”

there was only one bed