nyx-aira

Obviously, there are Eridian kids with special needs, and a few of them even filter into his classes. But one specific type of special needs kid has never shown up in his classes, and the only reason he even learned of the condition is because Rocky and Adrien's first pebble has the condition.

It's initially quite a struggle for them to deal with, and Grace sympathizes of course, because the child will apparently have huge learning and academic struggles and will likely never be able to live on their own. That is, until he learns the details of the disability.

Basically, it's a condition where the part of the Eridian brain that gives them their eidetic memory isn't fully developed, and so these kids just... can't remember things the way most eridians do. And in a culture where an eidetic memory is the norm, all things cater to that, so not having that is actually a massive disability.

But Grace is like, so... this kid just learns the same way a human does, or something like. Which is nothing new to him, though he is somewhat boggled at how much Rocky and Adrian struggle with their infant and their "slow" learning curve, even as far as initial developmental stages. Grace, on the other hand, simply treats the kid the same way he would a human infant, and Rocky and Adrien are impressed with his patience.

But, through this, it occurs to Grace that there must be other kids out there with this disability who likely aren't getting the attention and chances in life that they deserve, because Eridian culture is particularly hostile toward this disability, and actively views those with it as unable to function in regular society.

So Grace demands that a special course be put together where he teaches kids with this disability specifically. Rocky is hesitant, as most kids with this disability are home schooled and kind of... kept shut away. But Grace insists and as one of Erid's saviors, he gets what he wants eventually.

His first class is super small, maybe only three kids because so few parents were willing to advertise that their children have this disability. And because of the stigma around it, even those who agreed to it are super unsure and want to be present during the lessons, perhaps paranoid about the impression it will leave on Savior Grace, who is so accustomed to only teaching the most gifted students.

But Grace knows exactly how to deal with these kids. Some of them have varying degrees of function when it comes to their memory banks, which isn't so unlike teaching kids on earth. And so Grace is able to introduce all these tools and teaching techniques that were previously unheard of on Erid (though very normal on Earth) like having textbooks for reference with you at all times and having strategies that are less focused on memorization for understanding, and providing these kids with tools like calculators and teaching them the art of taking notes to look back on, etc etc.

Suddenly, with all these tools that most Eridians don't need, these kids are learning at a much faster rate, and succeeding with the help of all their little tools. And because so many normal eridians are ignorant of Grace's actual biology, it's shocking to them that Savior Grace doesn't have an eidetic memory either (shocking to everyone but Rocky anyway)--that his brain functions quite similarly in capacity to these "disabled" children.

Once this news gets around, suddenly there's more kids in his special classes, and there's all kinds of discourse being inflamed because the real reason these kids can't live on their own or function is lack of support from Eridian society.

If Savior Grace, who is well respected as a genius in his own right amongst the Eridians, can function so successfully, they why can't these kids?

Andy, has, unsurprisingly, been taken with horror movies. They'd started with the Ring ("It's not my favorite," Nile admitted, "but it's foundational") and moved into increasingly schlocky territory. By the time they'd gotten to Human Centipede, Andy had been practically in hysterics at the special effects, Joe had been watching through his fingers, and Nicky had fully fucked off, inventing some truly creative swears in the process.

Nicky mostly refuses to watch movies with them after that, but he does enjoy the music. Nico has always had an incredible voice. Even in the early days, where they one misstep away from slitting each other's throats and Nicky had taken to singing Gregorian chants to irritate him, Joe had thought so. Nile takes to playing music in the background while they train or cook or faff about where ever they're staying, and Joe learns to love Nicky's voice in the tenor of Frank Ocean and Lady Gaga, and, much to his amusement, Britney Spears.

But Joe. Joe likes the Disney movies.

Cause it was always obvious how Stratt would decide. The decision is so clear it hurts. But she still couldn’t sit with the decision. There was no careful consideration. It was quick and terrible and hurtful.

Archaeologist: “Please, could you tell me what this inscription means?”

Like, is XYZ feature that looks like Arabic influence in whatever form of Tamazight Joe and Nicky speak amongst themselves a sign that said feature was already present in Yusuf’s variety due to the Arabic influence in the region in the 11th century, or is it something they picked up from speakers of a different variety later on, or did they develop it independently because they also spoke Arabic a lot? They don’t know.

Was some quirk of a poorly attested & now extinct medieval dialect that Andy/Quỳnh/Joe/Nicky all vaguely remember ever a thing among the native speakers, or is it a result of unconscious changes that happened in their little sociolect over the centuries they weren’t speaking that language to anyone but each other?

Does Joe actually remember what that hapax legomenon means, or did he just guess when he first read the already-very-old text centuries ago, and later forget that it was only ever a guess?

Could Andy ever read Cretan hieroglyphs or is she just fucking with you for lulz or is she not even sure herself at this point?

Maybe Quỳnh could help answer some of these questions since her knowledge of many languages was effectively frozen 500 years ago, but maybe not because she’s kinda had other things on her mind and can’t remember if they were already saying it like that back then or not!

Maybe some of Nicky’s old “how to say hello, please & thank you, and ‘we’re here to help, are you hurt?’ in relevant local languages we don’t otherwise speak” cheatsheets could be useful, but maybe not because it’s not like he dated them!

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability