i swear i saw a post in the phm tag that said smth like. in the iron lung universe there was a project hail mary and a ryland grace. except in their universe grace did manage to avoid going up on the hail mary, and therefore the mission failed. and ryland grace becomes known as the greatest coward/humanity's scapegoat. so when simon wakes up on erid and finds out one of his saviors is ryland grace, simon hates him initially
i just can't stop thinking abt that post. i looked for it but i haven't seen it again, if anyone else finds it plz link it or send it to me, i wanna credit the op (edit: POST HAS BEEN FOUND! og post was by @finnthephrog and it was linked to me by @ohitsthatguy. i did misremember it slightly but its fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
anyway. i keep thinking abt a scenario where they're constantly fighting/arguing, everyone's upset just all the time, and eventually it all culminates with their worst (and final) argument ending when grace screams "I JUST WANTED TO LIVE!"
and simon fucking freezes.
grace is crying. "i just wanted to live. what's so wrong about that?"
grace is repeating simon's own words back to him verbatim, and that's when it finally dawns on simon that ryland grace's whole situation was, and is, just as fucked up
