time travel is real!

but then I realised that same challenge would be infinitely more funny with folks who have atypical or horror OCs

Sometimes, Grace will do it without thinking. That’s how Kiddo and Buddy got their nicknames. Often, Grace will nickname students after their coloration. Gaia got his nickname because he’s blue and green, and apparently looks a lot like Earth. Violet got hers because she’s purple. (She was initially disappointed since color means nothing to Eridians, but then Friend Grace showed them violet flowers and said that humans often associated purple with wealth and royalty, and she changed her tune.) Most of the time, Grace will give his students what he calls “regular human names” like Abby, Carl, or Martin.

But the most coveted nicknames are ones named after Earthen creatures. When ♩♪♬ 🎵 ♩♪♬ 🎵 first introduced themselves, Friend Grace immediately perked up and shouted “Robin!” After a bit of explaining himself and a few videos of bird calls, Robin was trilling and chirping happily, excited at having a nickname that felt like a 1-to-1 translation of their own.

and grace is trying so hard to not accidentally be sexist or assign gender roles to a monogendered species, so like, trying hard not to call someone he/him just because they like sports, or she/her just because they seem caring, or whatever. and he's having a hard time about it because he's like oh man why am I assigning the pronouns I'm assigning, i hope I'm not bringing any of my biases into this. just absolutely eating himself up over it

he tries to fix this by starting to roll a die, or throw darts at a dartboard, but his students immediately throw a fit because the point of the word-gifts is that they are specific, picked deliberately for them, right? and grace tries to explain gender bias and so on, but it becomes clear these kids could genuinely not give less of a shit, they just want to know what their AGAG (assigned gender at grace) is, alright? why is this so hard for him to understand??

eventually grace comes to the conclusion that he's on a different planet, and severely overthinking this, and that his kids really just are having fun--they really don't see the grace-given pronouns as categorization, he figures they see them as something more akin to astrology. or an eridian tiktok trend. when grace learns they call the assigning a word-gift he probably cries tbh

"teacher grace!!! what my pronoun question???"

"hmm. getting big they/them vibes off you"

[part 1] [part 2]

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”