All the Devils are Here

theCryptidZenith on AO3--Warning: I'm Bad At Tumblr

[lakevida]

guy who doesnt realize hes commanding a small army and thinks a lot of people are just going along with his bit

[magnhild]

it's midnight on the 1st of june aest

[dropoutvocalstims]

posting this again cause now its actually true

[mayasaura]

I'm wondering what would have happened to Grace if Dubois and Shapiro hadn't died. Like yeah, sure, food chain collapse and ecological devastation and mass starvation and so on, but I'm wondering more immediately. Everyone but Grace knew Grace was Stratt's right hand arm man. Second in command of Project Hail Mary.

Maybe Stratt had some backup scheme to get him out of it, like a plea deal if he testified against her, or something. But it seems more likely he'd have been strung up beside her when the pitchforks came out. He just never really thought about it.

[arrows-for-pens]

tags from op passed peer review:

#ryland grace king of strategically Not Thinking About It #this isn't to say I think Stratt did him a favor launching him into space #she did what she had to because it was by far the best option for mission success #but I think that might have been on her mind when she said 'if it's any consolation you'll die a hero' #if he had stayed on Earth he would have been.... not that #and I don't think he ever really thought that part through

[mayasaura]

Wait hold on tho, maybe I'm also not thinking it all the way through.

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.

When Stratt makes eye contact with him during the sentencing, and the corner of her mouth twists in that way it always does when something happens exactly the way she'd told him it would—a second cousin to a shared joke—it's not guilt that makes him stand up and leave the room. It's something else.

[thecryptidzenith]

I think there's something about narrative here too. Stratt's a history major, she knows she's spending the rest of her life in prison once the Hail Mary launches but she also knows that, one day, if humanity does survive, the story of Project Hail Mary is going to be one of the most important in history.

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.

I do wonder about the rest of the lead science team. Leclerc thinks he's going down, and i'm inclined to agree. Lokken and Dimitri will probably be fine too, though I bet Dimitri's more likely. Redell is fucked though. He's already a criminal and he paved the Sahara black, he's going straight back to prison and damn Stratt's promises.

[mcdonaldspriteairconditioner]

five four three two one 💥

[cubistemoji]

fandom loves to see a unique and interesting story and go ah this would be great in my little boxes that make everything the same

[pokeballvictim]

I am a grown ass adult and I still get nausea when I feel like I'm in trouble. They're gonna send me to the principals office and take away my toys for a week. Can you just fucking kill me instead of making me stew in my fucking anxiety

[whoopseydaisy]

rattling around my bucket of hot troubled milf blorbos where pyrrha dve and the wizard steel and sandra lynn are hanging out

[oreramar]

Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.

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.

I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.

[burningtimetravelwizard]

Schemers that go scheming

[ruidian-glassworker]

"It is a portentious day indeed"

Timelapse under the cut

(cw: flashes)

[time-thy-pyramids]

Hunter-gatherer's approach to manufacturing textiles:

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

Shape it into a 2D space-filling curve

[rainbowgaez]

evil great lakes

lake inferior

lake normal

lake offtario

lake hurton

lake michigan

[darikbelochka]

The jewel of the ball💅✨

[annabelle--cane]

tragedy protagonist categories:

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

babygirl what the hell are you even doing

[annabelle--cane]

thank you hamlet prince of denmark for being the character ever for the 437th year in a row

[anenfo]

Riz and Sklonda make me fucking Unwell

[atlaari]

I got procreate and this is how I test it out lmaoo

[grynwood]

"I don't let go. It's my one thing"