I’ve seen people do au’s of Bloody Mary where Grace’s twin brother is Colt Seavers from the fall guy which I honestly love but I haven’t seen anyone do what I consider to be the funniest option available which is make Ryland Grace an escaped Ken from Barbieland.
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:
“You wouldn’t last an hour in the place I grew up”
