"Not rude at all," he assures her. "You're not the first one on the train to be confused.

"Saying them out loud is actually pretty awkward to me, honestly," he continues. "Where I come from, you would just be able to check my public network tag with something like this." He touches the device he's wearing on his face. "Almost everyone lists their pronouns in their network tag. But here, no one's networked, so I have to just. Say them."

He's been crouching on the floor this whole time but now he rocks back against the wall. "On my world, we share pronouns so that no one has to worry about getting misgendered. Apparently, that's a very unusual custom across the breadth of the multiverse." He sighs a little as he says it.