though also on the subject of project hail mary, i'm down with the aro/ace headcanons of grace as much as the next romance repulsed aro, definitely don't stop doing that it's great
but i do have a gripe with that side of the fandom saying grace's entire plot was that he was expendable for not having a partner/children/dog
eva stratt said that because she is, above all, pragmatic, and also a little mad at him. she needs to get him on that ship by any means necessary, and she knows that he's going to use the excuse of i can't leave people behind (he does try it anyway), so she's getting ahead of it. if you're going to complain about the people you're leaving behind, i'm going to point out that everyone has people they're leaving behind, and most a lot more than you! in fact yáo and ilyukhina are doing this because of the people they left behind, because those people will die if you don't go, so stop using them as a shield to hide behind the real truth, which is you're scared to go on a suicide mission!
but expendable? he's the least expendable person here
the reason in the book that stratt gives him such a short window to decide if he's going or not (when the launch isn't for a couple of days), is that if he says no, they need to contact one of the other scientists who originally volunteered for the mission but were rejected, and train them up in everything they'd need to know. that's the reason everyone else involved in this mission thinks is the case, anyway
but stratt plays a numbers game. it's why they put her in charge, she is willing to put aside her personal feelings and say i will do this thing that kills 40% of the planet if it saves 60%. every single decision that goes into making the hail mary mission possible, is based on what will give them the highest chance of finding a solution, regardless of what i have to do to get them that. and there is no better person for the mission than grace. she knows him, she believes in him, and she knows without a doubt that if they just get grace to train another scientist, that scientist will not be able to solve this problem like grace can. so how can she, in good conscience, after already doing things like blowing up parts of antarctica or paving over the sahara desert to give this mission the best chance of success, refuse to send the best scientist just because he's her friend?
stratt doesn't have anyone to leave behind either. the person she cares about most in this world is ryland grace. to the point where everyone on that ship thinks they're sleeping together and have just mentally filed grace away as the obvious second in command of this mission (all stuff that grace is totally blindsided by when they mention it, like what do you mean??? no i'm just another scientist on this ship like the rest of you and everyone is just like "...buddy.")
if she could send anyone other than grace on this mission, she would. wouldn't matter how many people they were leaving behind, this is about the whole planet, get over it. but she's looked at this situation from every angle, and the only way to ensure the best chance of her species' survival is to kill her best friend
and she wouldn't be eva stratt if she didn't
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