All the Devils are Here

Because Grace isn't just Stratt's henchman. He's also the sole primary expert in the world's new miracle superfuel. He's in as good a position to be offered a golden parachute as anyone ever has been. And he'd take it. Of course he'd take it. He'd watch Stratt on the stand calmly accepting life imprisonment and tell himself she knew what she was getting into. That he's not at fault for her crimes just because he was standing next to her for most of them. He never suggested they pave the Sahara, he never pulled the trigger on Antarctica.

He doesn't share responsibility, thank you, and the sinking heavy feeling in his chest is anger over the raw deal Stratt was handed. It's not guilt.

And who is the leading expert in Astrophage, who has a history of getting children--the most fickle demographic on earth--to like him. Who has been present for every single strategic meeting since the moment he touched down on Stratt's Vat. Yet as you say, he never pulled the trigger on anything. Stratt knows he's likable, that's why she sends him to ask the astronauts how they'd like to kill themselves. He is the velvet glove to her iron fist. He's also a (presumably) heterosexual white man from the US.

So Grace gets out of it fine. Writes The Book on what it was like to save humanity by being the worst of it. He gets to position himself as the coward who disapproved of all the bits people criticize but couldn't say anything. And Stratt gives him what he wants: a classroom to teach to.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

Timelapse under the cut

(cw: flashes)

Find a suitable 3D mass

Peel off its outer layer to get a 2D sheet

Agriculturalist's approach to manufacturing textiles:

Produce a 1D filament

lake inferior

lake normal

lake offtario

lake hurton

yknow what yeah I think that's just about how anyone would react in this situation. fair enough.

alright this isn't how just Anyone would behave in this situation but I'm humble enough to admit that there have been times in my life when I was doing badly enough that I'd probably also fumble it like this