Vesta's Symposium

SIDDIG: A lot of gay men at that time, and maybe even gay women, kinda responded to the Bashir character. I think that was because of (Garashir), and maybe the bravery of not only that, but also an implicitly Muslim character being potentially gay, potentially bi, potentially gay if they’d explored that route. That is something Garak brought with him to the party, a bottle of implied homosexuality…

LLOYD [interviewer]: So were you aware in the 90s that it was homoerotically charged and on board with that? SIDDIG: I was aware of it in the back of my mind, yes, absolutely, and encouraged it. At my first meeting with Garak I became visibly flustered. That was entirely my choice. It wasn’t written into the script. So I set off in that direction right from the get-go. And Andy (Andrew Robinson) obviously loved it, and that character became a series-long character because of that first scene…

Also

Think about it throughout PHM Ryland never talks about having a family he mentions having a girlfriend once in the book all we really know about her is that they moved in together briefly and that she had a lot of stuff.

Let’s say after Ken and Barbie break up. Ken decides to go out on his own and stumbles upon the real world. There he learns about science and becomes completely invested in that pathway. He either eventually figures out how to become a human or he stays a doll which could explain why he was the only one to survive his hyper sleep (and so he can live with rocky longer)

It could explain why he so heavily believes in non water based life so much because he WAS a non water based life form. Water doesn’t exist in Barbieland it’s all plastic.

Furthermore this could explain why he decided to become a teacher being a doll previously it’s only reasonable to assume he’d enjoy kid’s presence the same way Barbie does.

He also loves the beach and we all know that Ken’s previous job was beach

In the Barbie movie the CEO of Mattel states “we’re not worried about Ken…. Ever.” Meaning that it’s likely they wouldn’t care at all if a Ken left Barbieland and perused an education became a scientist and eventually a school teacher.

All this to say imagine Simon and Grace getting into some kind of fight where Simon is like

“You have no idea what it’s like to live your life forced to be a cog in the system. Knowing that what you want doesn’t matter, nobody caring about who you are not even your name matters”etc. etc.

and the entire time Grace is having PTSD flashbacks of this:

And then responds with:

Closest match: Hottonia palustris genome assembly, chromosome: 9 Common name: Water Violet