i think grace is the kinda guy to keep pressing on the bruise. i think he picks his scabs. i think he wants to delay healing because nothing is more gratifying and life affirming than being hurt.
this can mean denying his responsibility for the project, but i think it means indulging in media that actively makes his mental health worse on the trip to erid.
i want him to be consuming locked room thrillers and mysteries i want him to watch invasion of the body snatchers i want him to watch crazy alien horror and think about being drugged and overpowered and eaten alive. i want him to fray at the seams - and i want him to do it to himself.
i think that given the way eridians lack spatial reasoning and memories of spaces, and also visuals entirely, their pattern recognition is not nearly as proficient as humans. they dont need to rely on heuristics for analysis and decision making, so aren't prone to the same irrational paranoia as people are (usually). so i think rocky is really freaked out by the way that grace gets more snippy and angry and depressed in relation to what he consumes. and rocky mother henning him just reinforces graces fear and paranoia.
grace comes out of his funk eventually. i think he gets better, at some point. but i think theres a month or two where he just wants to feel a sense of control over his life and resorts to the only acceptable method of self harm he can really access.
