#So I’m placing my bets now on some new trans girls following in my same steps lol

[marcyaugust]

Looking forward to a bunch of trans women coming out and picking the name Vivian in about five to ten years from now :)

[sissytobitch10seconds]

The Skirt

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Summary: Denki wears a skirt in front of her classmates for the first time. Warnings: Coming out, genderfluid character Word Count: 1,796 Ships: Kamanari Denki/Sero Hanta

Archive link!

“You can do this, you can do this,” she chanted to herself over and over again. Despite the affirming words, her hands hovered over the handle to the door. She could do it, she could leave her room and go downstairs. It wouldn’t be any different than it had been the other dozens of times that she had done it. 

“Except this time it’ll be completely different,” she removed her hand from the doorknob completely and sat down heavily on her bed. “Everything’ll be different.”

Panic began to creep up from her stomach and sit heavily in her chest. She ran a hand shakily through her hair, though she was careful to avoid the cute clips that she had worked so hard to get into her hair in a way that didn’t look stupid. A couple more deep breaths had the panic simmering back down for the time being. She could tell that it was there, resting in the background and waiting to spring back up and choke her at any moment, but it was dormant for now.

“Come on, you’ve been female for a week now. You can wear a skirt in front of your classmates and ask to be called your proper pronouns,” she encouraged herself. “Kyouka promised that she’d be there for you if things go badly anyway. You can do this. It won’t be like last time. They’re heroes, they’re not going to be transphobic.”

The other voice in the back of her mind, the one that had stopped her from doing this up until now, spoke up again. It reminded her that genderfluidity wasn’t really accepted as an identity by quite a lot of queer people, and that it was a burden to ask people to remember the correct pronouns when they changed so often.

She didn’t get much of a chance to mull that over as someone knocked on the door. She sat upright as panic fluttered throughout her again, but it quickly settled down as she heard the voice of her childhood friend. “Hey, you missed breakfast. I’m heading to class now, but I’m going to force a granola bar into you during break,” she promised. 

The other teenager heard Kyouka’s hurried footsteps as her childhood friend left to go to class. Denki let out a small hiss. She was hoping that she would have been able to get some of the reaction out of the way before class started, but she had waited too long and now everyone would see her at the same time.

She stood up, a fierce determination taking over her. She flung the door to her room open and fled down the hall after making sure it was securely latched. She was going to do this, she wouldn’t chicken out. She had Kyouka by her side, and she logically couldn’t be the only trans or queer person at this school. Hopefully whoever the other queer people were would recognize that her gender and feelings were real and back her up. If they didn’t at least she had Kyouka.

The trip across the campus was quick and painless. There were very few people traveling over the green or on any of the sidewalks, and those that were didn’t recognize her and she didn’t recognize them. The nervousness that she had been feeling all morning returned to her when she reached the door. She puffed up her chest, smiling slightly as the shirt hung over her differently, giving her the illusion of being physically female like she wished she could be at the moment.

The euphoria of looking like the gender she currently was inside let her open the door and she quickly walked inside. She could feel the eyes of her classmates following her, though there were still the normal speckled conversations that usually took place before their teacher woke up and began classes.

She sat down at her desk, placing her bag next to her. Panic was heavy in her chest but she was doing her best to keep it down and away from the surface. She was doing something that scared the shit out of her, and she couldn’t let them see weakness like she had done in middle school.

Nobody said anything, though more and more of the conversations were dying down as people realized that something was up. Soon she had nearly every single person looking at her, and it was really beginning to get to her. She shifted awkwardly, staring down at her lap. Her nervous mannerisms began to pick up and she started to brush her hands over her skirt and fiddle with the loose strings of her button up shirt.

“Uh, Denki?” someone finally spoke up.

The blond responded by snapping her head up and looking directly at who had spoken. Mina was sitting closest to her and had apparently been the one to finish reeling first too.

“Are you wearing a skirt?” Izuku asked from the other side of the room.

The blond shifted again, swallowing down nothing as she tried to dampen her nerves. She caught the confident smile that Kyouka was wearing and then nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’m wearing makeup too.”

“Why?” Hitoshi asked. 

“If my boyfriend wants to wear a skirt and makeup then he can, whenever he wants to,” Hanta said from behind Denki, immediately getting defensive of her.

Dysphoria flared up in her again as she shifted in her seat. “Actually, um, I’m wearing makeup and a skirt today because I’m a girl.”

“You are?” Hanta asked, blinking. He then panicked, “Not that that’s a bad thing! I just wasn’t expecting it. I still want to be here for you if you need me.”

“Well, I’m not a girl all the time,” the blond got out before any more of the chaos in the classroom could unfold. “I just… I’m genderfluid. It means that I feel like my gender changes. Sometimes I feel like both, sometimes I feel like neither, sometimes I feel female, sometimes I feel male. I know it’s kind of an annoying thing, so I’m not going to ask any of you to change pronouns all the time, but I just want to be myself.”

“Nonsense,” Tenya called over the top of the clamoring of voices from some of the students. “Everyone will respect Denki’s pronouns no matter how often they change, and if you don’t I have some firm words for you.”

“Yeah, same! Disrespect my friend and you and I are going to have a problem,” Eijirou called. “Transphobia is so unmanly!”

To her surprise, the next person from her friend group to speak up was Katsuki. “More than a problem. You might not live to see your birthday if you decide to disrespect her. Got it, you bunch of losers?”

“None of us want to disrespect her, Kacchan!” Izuku called, having become a lot more outward now that he was comfortable around the rest of the class. There were a couple of crows in agreement, before the conversations began to pick back up and people returned to what they were doing.

Momo was up from her chair and gathering Denki up in a hug. “Thank you for coming out to us, it means a lot. I have a couple tips and tricks for this kind of dysphoria if you ever want to spend some time together,” she beamed.

“Ooh! We should invite her to girl’s night on the weeks that she’s feeling like a girl!” Tooru clapped her hands together in excitement.

“Yeah, we could do your hair and paint your nails!” Ochako chimed in, looking just as giddy and excited. “I bet that you could give us some tips on eyeshadow too, you look really good today.”

“Thanks. I used to do it on my sisters and I guess I just got really good over time,” she flushed and rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment. 

Tsuyu was the next one to speak. “Also, you don’t have to be female to come to girl’s night. You can be nonbinary or agender like me and still show up. It’s mostly just for us to do girly stuff like gossip and paint each other’s nails.”

“That sounds really nice,” she grinned. “I’m pretty good at painting nails and braiding hair.”

“This is going to be so much fun!” Mina grinned. “You and I have to go shopping the next time that we get a weekend outside of school. I want to have a fashion show with you.”

“Kyouka already took me shopping when I was in middle school, I’ve got some feminine clothes. And it’s not like I have much of an allowance to spend,” she shrugged awkwardly.

The pink teenager rolled her eyes. “My dads spoil me with a big allowance, and I’m sure that they’d be more than willing to help if I told them that it was to get clothes so that you would feel more comfortable!”

“Yeah, okay,” she nodded finally after a moment of deliberation. Mina quickly got caught up in a conversation with Tooru across the aisle about which shops that they should bring their new feminine friend to.

Denki jumped as she felt someone tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see her boyfriend sitting there with that stupid smile that he always got when he was looking at her. “Hey,” she whispered. “I hope that this isn’t too weird for you. And that you’re not mad I didn’t come out to you first.”

“It’s okay,” Hanta shook his head. “I now that coming out can be really difficult. It took me three years just to be able to tell my parents that I was questioning my sexuality, and even longer to admit to them that I was bi.”

She reached out to grasp the hand that was resting on his desk, threading their fingers together. “I just wanted to get it all done and out of the way at once. Coming out is so hard, so I wanted to do it once instead of half a dozen times.”

“I get that. Thanks for sharing this with us. I’ll try my best to remember your pronouns and change around some of the pet names that I use for you,” he brightened up. “Does this mean that I can finally experiment around with some of the girly ones?”

She laughed, “Yeah, it does.”

“Awesome,” he beamed, leaning across the desk to gently give her a kiss on her lips.

“I love you so much,” she giggled. “Thank you for being so supportive of me.”

“Of course. What kind of a boyfriend would I be if I wasn’t supportive?” Hanta snorted. His face softened and he rubbed the back of her knuckles with his thumb. “I love you too.”

[planetofsillyhats]

(CW: General mid-antiquity misogyny)

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility, so I'm re-upping one of my short essays about one particular trans-woman particularly worthy of visibility: Ancient Rome's loopy god-queen, Elagabalus.

Elagabalus was the 25th Emperor of Rome--and also its first Empress. Born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, she was by modern standards very obviously transgender, and would probably have been delighted to be addressed as Sexta Marcellina, her proper feminine name by Roman conventions.

She was raised in Syria, and was already the head of a major state religion: the worship of the solar deity El-Gabal, whose pedigree is entwined both with Christianity and with Islam. She ascended to the throne at the age of fourteen, succeeding the man who killed her cousin Caracalla and tried to rule in his place--because this was the tail end of the Severan Dynasty, and things were starting to go downhill for Rome. She did this by personally leading the final charge at the Battle of Antioch in 218 AD, actually helping to rout the usurper’s army and claiming Imperial honors for herself that very day. Picture that for a minute: a charging Roman legion led by a fourteen-year-old girl, then the same legion hoisting her on their shields and proclaiming her Imperator. The fact that everyone thought she was a little boy doesn’t really make it any less badass.

Unfortunately, this would be both the high point of her career, and the last time she’d ever have much real power. Once Marcellina settled down, she was little more than a puppet for her grandmother, Julia Maesa, who had tremendous ambition and, as a cisgender woman, no legitimate way of fulfilling it. This gave the Empress a whole lot of spare time to explore her identity--and while her strict henotheism ruffled feathers, and she may not have made many friends in high places for possibly inventing the whoopee cushion, what really made her unpopular was her sexuality.

Romans were a fairly enlightened bunch for the ancient world; they really didn’t care about race or religion one bit. If your faith didn’t involve infringing on the rights of others, they left you be---and the only religions they ever persecuted outright were the ones that involved human sacrifice (like the druids), theft (like certain Dionysian cults who supposedly ran around the countryside naked and slaughtered other people’s cattle), or sedition (like the Christians, who didn’t just refuse to pray to the deified Emperors, but wouldn’t even pray TO their own god FOR the living ones). Their only real social vices were their class issues--which were somewhat lessened by the fact that even the Senatorial elite were little more than a rubber stamp for the Emperor--and their staggering, galloping, ludicrous misogyny.

And when I call the Romans misogynistic, I don’t mean they were “just” sexist the way most modern Americans are, with our sometimes invisible biases and quietly nasty patriarchal worldview. I mean they really, flat-out, openly despised women and anything feminine. To illustrate the difference, Americans are homophobic partly because we have often unthinkingly sexist biases that make us see sex with a man as feminine and femininity in a man as bad. The Romans had the same attitude toward homosexuality, but they were so massively misogynistic that they went and romanticized certain types of gay relationships anyway, because keeping little boys as sex slaves at least proved you weren’t mooning away over--gag--a girl. And lesbianism was considered a form of frigidity; you weren’t really attracted to women, you were just being irrational and man-hating, which could be cured by sufficiently vigorous rape.

This was not a good environment for a teenaged transgirl with unlimited executive power, is what I’m getting at.

One of the things that I think people don't think about enough with regards to the ancient world and its cast of Great Men is how incredibly young a lot of these legendary characters are. Alexander the Great, for example, was... well, first off, he was basically Genghis Khan, but we root for him because he was a rich white guy. But more importantly, he was younger than me when he conquered Persia--which explains a lot about him, like the time he got really, really drunk in 330 BC and burned down Persepolis, probably resulting in a morning-after scene that looked like Cecil B. DeMille's The Hangover. All the the legendarily loony Roman Emperors were also twentysomethings at best--Caligula was the old man of the Bad Princeps Club at twenty-five, and his reign was less about real tyranny than sexual experimentation and snarky performance art. Nero was sixteen, and reading actual accounts of his reign, it very much shows--he was dramatic, emo and bratty, and desperate for attention and approval.

Marcellina was fourteen years old, trapped in a male body, and ruling a city-state where just wearing what would be considered normal men's wear back in Syria--colorful silks, some tasteful jewelry, and a practical bit of eyeliner to keep out the sun--got her ridiculed as a foppish, Oriental despot. But undeterred by legendary Roman normative biases, she took advantage of her Imperial prerogative to do what, to my knowledge, no other person in Western history had up to that point: live openly as a transwoman. She wore women's clothing, took male lovers, and famously offered huge sums of money to any doctor or wizard who could transition her. Of course, this was the Iron Age, so nobody took her up on it, and she still had protocols and traditions to follow--so she got married, tried to produce heirs, did all the usual Pater Familias stuff. But at some point, after the first year of her reign, she seems to have just given up and, like Caligula, entered a rather mean-spirited "just fucking with everyone" phase. She executed people, gave out cabinet positions to lovers, and didn't seem to care about actually ruling anymore.

Now, Romans were really, really nasty to people who didn't fit within their sexual norms--but they also used sexual deviancy as a form of slander in itself, so it's very hard to say just how much of the legend of Elagabalus the Crazy Syrian Drag Queen(tm) is really true. It's doubtful, for example, that she actually held a banquet at which several tons of flower petals were dumped from the rafters, smothering many guests. It's a safe bet, though, to say that she didn't take her marriage vows seriously at all, and seemed to enjoy taking the mickey out of Roman sexual mores. On one occasion, she married a virgin priestess of Vesta, left her for the wife of a man she'd had executed, and then dumped her to go back to the vestal virgin--who she may have married just for the sake of a joke about siring divine children. She went through five wives over the four years she reigned--but the whole time, her true love and only real companion seems to have been her chauffeur, Hierocles, who in my mind's eye is always portrayed by Darren Criss. She wasn't allowed to marry him--there are some things even an Emperor can't do--nor was she allowed to make him her co-ruler. But she did stick with him, and it looks to me to have been genuine teenage puppy love--just about the only thing in her life that was just right.

Now, isn't this just a little bit first-world-problemy? What can really go wrong if you're the ruler of all Western civilization? Well, if you recall, I said that Sexta reigned for only four years--in 222 CE, she and her mother were murdered by their own elite bodyguards, her kid brother Alexander was installed as the new Emperor, and the Romans set about trying their darnedest to erase her from history, or at least paint her as the worst thing since the RIAA. Does her reputation as the worst ruler Rome ever saw hold water? Not really. Could she have been better? Maybe--but so could Rome.

[wo-wann-was-wer]

WHAT I WAS THINKING: DARK SEASON 3 EDITION

EPISODE 1:

Who are these dudes with the harelip and what do they want

Why did she just take him to a cave and leave that’s kinda rude

So everything in this universe is just gonna be backwards. Love it

Ugh I’ve said this a million times but this show has such Fringe energy and I can’t wait to get a tattoo for this too

This is super freaking me out, i dont like that everyone’s in everyone else’s house.

Ooooh Katharina with glasses yes girl you better work.

I like Michael and this hat he’s rocking

Super into the fact that magnus and fransizka are involved in this universe too

There’s nothing cuter than sex before school. Ahhh the nostalgia

Ten bucks says that Hannah gets out of this bed and is pregnant

Fucking YEP

I am loving Martha in this Jonas journey

I know that all they did was flip the lens of the camera but my brain is breaking at this flipped Winden

Who the fuck is this random dude Martha is with

You know what he kind of looks like Jonas. I wonder if that's relevant or if I'm just grasping at straws

Bartosz looks like he's going to his first grade violin recital

I straight up just did not recognize Charlotte with makeup. She looks hot

There's got to be another person in that picture other than Ulrich because that's a lot of space to rip out for one person

okay hold up Woller looks so good and then when I saw that he was missing an arm I almost lost my fucking mind

Oh shit okay Hannah is living in Katharina's house.

Oh my God are Ulrich and Charlotte having an affair

Is it normal in Germany for kids to just walk into classes that aren't there’s and just sit down

follow up he has a clear noose mark on his neck

Aleksander looks so hot with this beard. universe B is the fucking glow up universe

It's weirding me out that the whole school is black and gray instead of light brown

The look of satisfaction on katharina's face

Wow honestly Louis just broke my heart with his facial expression when he realized his mom didn't know who he was

he looks so scared

Yes yes do it afffffffffair

Oh no you done got found out!!!

Oh the theme of the play here is red and set of gold

Fransizka looks so cute in this little outfit

Oh my God she's deaf!!!!

What the fuck. the fact that this actress can talk is blowing my mind

RIP to Regina a real queen

Peter's a fucking priest

All the fucking weird-ass freaky motherfucking trio is back

The dopplers have the same house That's cool

excuse me sir I think your child is broken

these guys are so creepy What the fuck

I definitely don't like the piano wire

oh this motherfucker is the one who gets lost

I feel like winden in this universe is just a little bit fancier

Well Charlotte and Ulrich just be fucking like crazy

Bartosz is the Jonas of this group and I love it

who was that??????

I cannot get over Aleksander in this beard

I like that things are opposite but they also have things that are different enough.

Like I'm so into the fact that they all went down into the bunker

who in the unholy fuck is that. who is that

Oh shit old Martha

What the fuck is this Tannhaus’ factory we're at

hold up Martha's in 1888

What the fuck. why is Jonas in 1888 and looking SO good

EPISODE 2:

casually sitting over your bed watching you sleep

he's look so good though

yo what the fuck everybody else is there too

Oh no things got really ugly at Mads’ wake

Not for nothing but Tronte is a dick

I kind of don't understand why Claudia would want Regina to live in such pain in this type of universe

Peter is such a good boy

lurking is the freaking national past time of this place

Oh shit we got some spin-off timeline stuff good

who is This is blind guy

I love Katharina so fucking much

I know what she's thinking and it's the same thing I'm thinking which is can I kill a child

why does this picture of Tronte make him look like Jimmy Smits

Katharina looks amazing in this jacket

Also I definitely did not just start yelling GO GET YOUR MAN KATHARINA

Regina just gets more and more badass as time goes on. Also all of the women of the tiedemann family are so fucking badass

I am so excited to watch this fucking relationship develop. they're both too cute

awwww he's using signs!

oh they're writing back and forth

DAMNIT PETER

I always feel like little Noah should do fuckboy sign offs when he leaves rooms because he's so smooth

yesterday Laurel said that this was back to the future but serious and just now Bartosz said it's not super easy to get nuclear fuel in 1888 and now I think that Laurel's right

I will never get over how good he looks JONAAAASSSSSSS

This guy feels like the OG inventor of sic mundus right

Katerina why are you even trying to check in at the front desk bitch Go and get your man

Is this Katarina's mom why does she just recognize that woman's name

everyone on the show is so talented.I spend the whole damn time being like oh my god the performances on the show and it's like yeah we know

Katerina get your man

I literally love them so much look at the look on her face She is a mama bear She is not going to let anybody take her man or her children and I love her

Not a huge fan of people who quote Shakespeare right before they kill other people or am I an enormous fan of people who use Shakespeare right before they kill other people

using a garotte to kill someone is ugly as fuck

I feel so bad for Jana

see this is one of the reasons why I'm like why would you bring Regina back to this world.

wowwwww TRONTE what's up dude

YO WHAT

Oh so how did Charlotte get back there but Elizabeth's still there too. didn't they switch places?

oh the head bump

Not excited for the mother daughter abuse stuff that's about to happen

I love these split sequences that they do at the end

anytime somebody stands and stairs for a lonely at a spot on the ground I assume to somebody died there

Oh shit that guy is a tannhausokkkk I see you

a religious images we love to see it.

This show is a whole series of pause that frame.

No I ruined something for myself!!!!

EPISODE 3

got to love those through and through Ariadne references

okay so Charlotte's great great grandfather has her watch?

who are these horrible traveler human beings

they look like less sexy Francis dolarhydes

I can't get over the fact that wollers missing an arm here I swear

we ARE the glitch BITCH

alternate universe Ulrich is a better person than standard Ulrich

what's this new like zoom-y thing they're doing

I was attracted to Magnus at this jump of the show but he looks better with dark hair

How did they not all die of fucking flu

eternally repeating deja vu

I looked at the production stills and I was like what the fuck is this hair do that Moritz has but he looks amazing

Also everyone on this show deserves an acting award

and Magnus is wearing a skeleton sweater

Hannah does that deep dive detective work any bitch knows the Nose doesn't lie

why doesn't anybody want to fuck wöller

omgggg eat the RICH

also he has that x tattoo on his hand that represents the no future thing

oh the light is rectangular and not circular ooooooh fancy

The show is also a lot of people catching each other's wrists as they walk away

I knew we couldn't trust this bitch

What did he give her

I love the parallels and characters behaviors between universe a and universe b

I want to know how Noah factored into all of this on this side

Martha has a type and her type is iconically Aryan

Oh Aleksander's back with that beard he's back

Hannah is such a snake

Omg that's her!!!!! I thought she was a trans actress.. hm. not super happy bout that :/

What is Helge talking about Ulrich did what??? omg

I would be like SIR DO WE NEED TO FIGHT STOP FOLLOWING ME

I stopped taking notes for the last half of that episode cuz I was really sucked in haha

EPISODE 4

FIRST OF ALL I'D LIKE TO GO ON RECORD THAT I DON'T CARE FOR THESE GENTLEMEN AT ALL

second of all why is this guy being like oh I took your name

why does he have Agnes's bracelet I don't like that

I don't like anything about this guy That's the end of the story

Also hold up a red hot second is Agnes dead cuz if so that's a hate crime

see what did I say

I knew that Hannah was going to get involved with Egon

from the second she walked in that office I was like that bitch has her eye on him and as she should he's handsome as fuck

Also he spoils her so much more than any other man she's ever been with AKA is Egon the only man she ever deserved

Is Hannah going to develop a heart cuz I'm not sure how I feel about that

Also what happens if Hannah gets pregnant

why is Ines a bitch I thought she was mad cool the beginning and now I feel fucking deceived

Also it's such a sweet gig that The kids who are playing kids can now play teenagers

poor Doris. Also he was shitty to her but he was far nicer than I would have been

Doris is so beautiful it's bullshit

older Magnus is so handsome

All I wanted was middle-aged Martha

bitch you have been having unprotected sex with him why do you think that pregnancy was not on the tabl

I'm like who's this guy in the church if it's not Noah I bet it's that little bitch

yeah I fucking knew it

Is this the dude that was married to Agnes I feel like this guy isn't real or something

I'm not surprised he let her go but I don't know why I'm not surprised. I feel like she's important to his timeline and I'm not sure why

look at these relationships forming between these sweet little bab

Hannah looks good in this red. Hannah looks good in all of these styles. 

who is this child

I like that already as a child Bernd had his eye on Claudia as someone who was smart and had a ton of potential

 I keep forgetting that I'm taking notes because I get so invested in episodes

Also I realize the zoomi thing which is going back and forth between the universes

Is Agnes Silja’s mom And if so with whom 

he gave her Agnes’ bracelet that dope All right Tronte

Wow Claudia needs to back off her man

Claudia force him into a relationship with her

I fucking hate Hannah but sometimes she speaks so much sense

ooh I don't need anyone Yes girl that's true You don't need anyone You needing people was what made you act fucking crazy You don't need anybody

This was always my big problem with Hannah was that I initially identified with her because she was such a survivor but then she did such horrible reprehensible things I just couldn't let it go and I absolutely couldn't identify with her anymore

Oh here's my daddy Noah looking so good

I mean okay so I have been in this position before where I was cheating and then my man cheated on me and I was like how dare you but also you cannot be mad if your partner cheats on you when you cheated too. You both fucked up

Is Hannah going to have a redemption arc cuz that's a lot

Oh my God she's not going to get rid of this child is she

Oh my great God I cannot believe that she gave Helene that necklace. 

I knew she was fucking connected to Katharina in the older generation I knew it

Louis and Lisa are a super cute couple and I know that they're not dating in real life but I think that they're very cute together

Oh everybody fucking

yeah they created the Apocalypse yeah

Oh no they have a child outside of worlds that's a mess How does that work so they had they gave birth to that ugly fuck

honestly I hate that he's their child for the most part just because he's ugly as fuck and neither of them are ugly as fuck so it makes me mad.

[maulie-dyke]

A Small Lumberjanes Fic

So, I was thinking about the headcanon I sent to @luminouslu about Jo’s past, and I made myself sad. Thus, I wrote a fic. I’m not new with The Lumberjanes, but I am not the most confident with my writing of the girls, so this is the first time I’m posting a fic for this fandom. (I have 3 others in the works now!) I swear the flashbacks are supposed to be in italics on mobile why does Tumblr hate me.

Fic under the cut:

It had been six years. Six years that included some interesting revelations, from Jo coming out to her dads as trans three moths before camp, to said camp, which she was currently being allowed to leave for two days with the rest of her cabin. Sitting in a seat in Ripley’s family’s van, she stared out the window and remembered.

Mothers’ Day, 2014.

Climbing out of Uncle Alan’s car, she she watched as April, surprisingly carefully for a seven-year-old, pulled a box out of the passenger seat. Reaching behind her best friend, she grabbed the vase of flowers and envelope still on the seat, and nested them into her arms, along with her lunchbox from school.

“Come on, Alex! You’re so sloooooow!” April shouted from the steps.

“I’m coming!” she replied, climbing the few stairs leading to the front doors of Group Health Central Hospital.

Following April inside, she reached the receptionist desk and grinned.

“Hi, Ms Betty, how are you?” The greying receptionist smiled at her words, an odd expression on her face (She would later find out Betty thought she was adorable).

“Hello, Alex, April. Here to visit your mother, Alex?”

At Jo’s nod, Betty reached for a clipboard and a pen.

“Since it’s regulation, you still have to give me your names, first and last, please,”

Looking at April, a silent understanding passed between them.

April spoke up, “April Burnett, ma’am.”

Following April, she added, “Alexander Sakiyaki. Do you need it spelled?”

“You’re here every week Alex, I think I know how to spell your name.” Betty made that weird expression again as she filled out the paper in her clipboard, “You can go on back, you know the way.”

Laughing, she raced April through the halls to her mother’s room. Reaching the door, they stopped to catch their breaths and compose themselves before knocking on the thick white door.

“Come in!” a voice, a bit rough, but still musical, called.

While April walked in calmly, with a bit of bounce in her step, Jo ran in full speed and jumped to hug the woman sitting in the armchair by the window.

“Mama!” she shouted, laughing as she was peppered in kisses.

“Alex, April, hello darlings!”

April waved, a grin splitting across her face. “Hi Aunt Kyoko! Happy mother’s day!”

Scoffing, Kyoko opened her arms more, bringing April into her hug as well.

From her place tucked into her mother’s side, Jo spoke up, “We brought you some things!” Sitting up, she grabbed the flower vase and card from April, and presented them to Kyoko with a flourish, at the same time as April with the box.

“Thank you, darlings!” Opening the card, a pile of glitter fell on the Asian woman’s lap to reveal the classic slogan of the holiday. After reading the card and admiring the flowers, she opened the box.

“Look! They’re cookies! We decorated them ourselves!” April pointed at the cookies, half covered in glitter and mermaid scale like designs, one with a shaky Japanese character written on it, and one, pristine, almost perfect flower. “Uncles James and Leo did that one.”

“They’re wonderful!” Kyoko said. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she added, “To be honest, I like yours the best.”

April and Jo beamed.

“How did you and Papa get married?” Jo asked, out of the blue.

“Let me tell you a story.”

April and Jo sat expectantly at Kyoko’s feet, star struck as she began her story.

“Many years ago, at a museum in Paris, was my first ever art show as a professional. I was bored out of my skull, having to talk to so many stuffy business people. Then, I met a man who was charming, funny, nice, and incredibly good looking. I asked him out to lunch, and he complied. At said lunch, I confessed to him that my parents (who were pretty famous business people in Japan, at the time) were expecting me to marry a nice, rich MAN so I could continue the Sakiyaki familial line. I continued with the fact that, as a lesbian woman, I had no plan to do so. The man laughed, and added in he was gay, with a partner back in America. We quickly became friends, so when my parents pressured me into getting married, I married him, with consent from his boyfriend. A year later, I had a baby, a small boy with a head full of hair and very long fingers, that we named Alexander Hiroki Sakiyaki. Then, we got divorced so your Papa could marry Dad, but we still lived together because we were best friends, like you two. The end.”

After a few moments of silence, April blurted out, “You went to Paris? Did you meet Emilie Agreste, the famous actress?”

About an hour later, Kyoko was teaching April how to draw while Jo worked on a project.

Hearing a small bang, then an ouch, Kyoko looked at her child.

“Alex, love, what are you doing?”

“No! You can’t see yet, It‘s a surprise!” Jo leaned over her project, glaring at her mother. “You’ll get to see when you come home! When is that gonna be?”

“Saturday, love. The doctors say I’ll be well enough to go home then!”

Cheering, April and Jo jumped up, bouncing around the room in a hug.

“Mama’s coming home on Saturday!” was all anyone passing by heard.

Two days Later, 2014

It had been a nice day, sunny and not too warm, to get prepared for Kyoko’s move back to the house. Leo and James cleaned and redecorated her bedroom while Jo ran around finishing her project for her mother.

Nice until the phone rang, at least.

Jo watched silently as Leo answered the phone.

“Hello? Yes, this is him. Oh...oh my god.” her heart froze as the normally so composed man’s hand went to his mouth and tears filled his eyes. “Yes, I’ll tell him. And Alan and April, they deserve to know too. Email me the papers and I can send them to you.” hanging up the phone, her father just stood there, hand over his mouth. Sighing, he bent down to Jo’s level and took her hand.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but mama won’t be coming home this Saturday, or any Saturday.”

“Friday?” Jo asked, her heart still frozen.

“No. She’ll be coming home never, love.”

Her eyes widening, Jo dropped her Papa’s hand and walked to the door in a sort of daze. “Nope, nope, nope, nope...”

Now halfway down the long driveway, she startled when her dad picked her straight up off the ground.

“I’m so sorry, buddy.”

She buried her face in her dad’s suit jacket and cried.

Present Day

“Jo! Jo! Jo! Jo!”

A voice broke her out of her thoughts. Ripley’s voice, presumably, as the small girl bounced in the seat behind her.

“Where are we going? Is it somewhere fun? Is it-” The blue haired ball of energy was cut off by Jen, who had placed a hand over Ripley’s mouth.

“Why don’t you leave Jo alone, Ripley? The place we’re going is not fun, it means a lot to Jo.” Jo looked at Jen, then, silently thanking her. “Also, we’re here.”

Once the Roanokes, Jen, and Ripley’s parents were out of the van, Jo started down the familiar path that she had walked on this day for the past six years. Her dads falling into step with her, with April holding her hand tightly, Jo spoke up.

“It’s my mom’s birthday. I want you to meet her.”

“If we’re meeting here, why are we in a graveyard?” Ripley had broken free from her mother’s grasp, and was now bounding along behind Jo.

She heard Mal and Molly go to shush the 12-year-old, but waved them off.

“We’re in a graveyard because she died a few years ago. When I was seven.” she looked down after her statement, kicking at rocks on the path as a silence fell over the group.

“We’re here.”

Her mum’s grave wasn’t anything fancy, just her name, years she lived, and an engraving of her favourite flower on a basic stone tombstone.

After a few moments of silence as the rest of the Roanokes digested this information, Molly spoke up.

“I bet she was amazing.”

“She was. She would have liked you guys.”

“She taught me how to draw, how to be a good investigator, and how to use a sword. She was the greatest.” Jo sniffed, fighting back tears as April grabbed her hand and guided her to sit down in front of the tombstone.

“I bet, wherever she is now, she’s smiling at you, glad her beautiful daughter has such good friends.” her dad said, placing a hand on her shoulder (the most he could do, with all the Roanokes hugging Jo at the same time).

Tears freely dripping down her face now, Jo nodded slightly.

Maybe it wasn’t okay. But it would be.

//END//

A few things explained for clarity:

The idea behind Jo’s mom being said to go home on one day but not doing so was shamelessly taken from My Neighbor Totoro.

This is in the same universe as Miraculous Ladybug, but only because I don’t know of any famous french people besides musicians.

This was completely un-beta’d, so if there are any mistakes they are all mine.

I based the years off of this present year, hence Jo’s mom dying when she was seven, in 2014. Jo in this fic is 13, as one of the writers for Lumberjanes has stated the only one with a concrete age is Ripley (12), but all the other girls are somewhere in between 12-14. 

Jo’s deadname is entirely headcanon.

Thanks for reading my long, rambling thoughts!

XO,

Nath

[dngrdyke]

May The Best Bitch Win Part 2

"Let's go, bitches!" Dyke whooped. "Last one to the Hub has to clean up after the party!"

Poison rallied the engine. "I can't wait to beat your ass twice!"

Dee said nothing, and instead sped off without warning, making Faggot yelp and grab her waist tight.

A vague "motherfucker!" was heard and soon the Trans AM was catching up on her right. On her left, Ghoul and Cola were keeping pace, seemingly effortlessly.

Assholes.

The convoy made it to the Hub just as another gang pulled up. Dyke skidded to a stop in front of the leader of the pack, followed closely by Ghoul. Poison rocked up a split second behind and climbed out.

"I wanna rematch! You've less mass so you go faster!"

"I have better mass," she grinned, kicking down the stand and flicking her hair out of her face.

"Why'd I join a posse with a bike," Faggot mumbled as he climbed off shakily. Dyke killed the engine.

"The Fabulous Killjoys, huh?" one of the other gang scoffed. "Seems like a buncha kids to me."

"And who the fuck are you then?" Poison asked, coming over to stand beside Dyke with a hand on his hip.

"The Angels of Road Slaughter. I'm Roadkill. This is my second, Rock Machine. You gotta be Party Poison, or is it bootyshorts there beside ya?"

"The name's Dyke. Pretty sweet ride ya got there, Roadkill. What is it, a Chopper?"

"Yeah, got her from some Blind warehouse a while back. You don't have a bad bike yourself."

"Power cruiser, baby. I'm gonna smoke all you bitches outta here."

"Nobody's smokin' me out unless it's your little friend there," Roadkill said and winked at Poison.

"I think that's enough conversation for one day," Doctor D said, materialising out of nowhere. "At least while your old man is listening. The afterparty is a different story. Don't gotta pay attention to no-one at a party."

Dyke glanced at Poison, who was looking anywhere but at Roadkill, who was looking directly at Poison. You coulda cut the tension with a knife.

"Oh, hey, D, you'll never believe what happened earlier," Dyke said, seizing her chance to escape the awkward situation unfolding before her. "C'mon, let's get a soda and I'll tell you. Ya still got orange?"

He took the hint. "Sure do, DB. Come on in. I got a tape just about to hit replay so you can pick the next one."

He turned himself around and went back inside. Dyke took Faggot's arm and squeezed gently. He glanced at her and nodded.

"Jet, you wanna go over your battle plan?"

"I- yeah, good call." He silently thanked whatever god there was.

"I'm coming too!"

"Yeah, same here!"

Kobra and Ghoul followed, with Cola shaking his head and coming in the rear, saying nothing.

"Y'know, Roadie, a soda sounds pretty good right now," Rock Machine said. The rest of the gang murmured their agreement.

"Fine. We'll get some soda then. See ya later, prettyboy. You're gonna eat ass on the track."

Dyke bit her lip as she walked away, trying hard not to laugh. Doctor D looked back at her with a glint in his eye.

Poison ran up and draped his arms around Dyke and Jet. "Those are some hardass motherfuckers."

Dee snorted but covered it up with a cough. It was a talent of hers.

"Anyway, DB- you said you had some crazy story to tell us."

"That I do, Doctor D, that I do." She ducked out of Poison's grasp and lead the group walking backwards. "So I was headin' out to the Rendezvous- thanks for those supplies, Cola- and I saw these two assholes without any masks on takin' the kidneys outta some Drac. Y'all know I hate Blind as much as the next person, but you just gotta show some respect, ya know? Anyways, I pulled my guns on 'em and told 'em if they didn't scoot asap I'd shoot. They left together on a bike but they kept the kidneys for some reason. Dicks." Dyke turned back around and smacked her face into the beads that hung over D's doorway. She moved them out of her face and went straight to the kitchen- the only place with a working refrigerator. She took out an orange soda and cracked it open. Everyone else just stood, watching her.

"What? Somethin' on my face?"

"Dyke... Like, no offence or whatever, but how in the hell are you still alive?" Faggot asked. His eyes were huge, as if her head would explode at any second.

"DB my good friend, I'd bet my left arm that you just had a clap with Scarlet Ripper and the Mongoose," D said, running a hand through his hair.

"Those freaky-ass motherfuckers you were talkin' about earlier? Then why ain't I dead?"

"You musta got lucky," he sighed. "I gotta go tell the world to start showin' up. You gonna choose a tape?"

She chugged her soda and tossed the can into the trash. "I nearly died today. Of course I'm gonna choose the fuckin' tape."

"And it's Doctor Death-Defying back at you desert-dwellers with a whole new tape. But first, a drag race update from our very own DB."

Dyke's eyes widened and D motioned to the mic. Go crazy, he mouthed.

She grinned.

"Well hello there, desert kings, queens and everything in between. Tonight's gonna be a clear night with a high chance of road dust. Anyone willing to eat my shorts in the drag race better hurry up and get here, else someone'll take your spot. So far we have tension brewing 'tween the Killjoy squads and the Angels' racers. Who knows what's gonna happen next? Not me, but 'til then, here's Quiet Riot to keep ya kickin'."

D loaded the tape and set it playing.

"Not too bad for a first-timer."

She shrugged. "Sometimes you want the attention. I'm gonna go take a smoke break, see who else is here. We should get goin' soon."

Outside, the Angels were milling around on their bikes with some sodas.

"Hey! Dyke, wasn't it?" Roadkill jogged over to her.

"That's me," she said lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. "You need somethin'?"

He scratched the top of his greasy, black hair. Roadkill sure lived up to his name.

"Party Poison he, uh... he knows I was just dicking around, right? Well, kinda, anyway. Mostly."

"Probably. He's not pissed or anything, if that's what you're worried about. He just hasn't had anyone 'cept the mirror flirt with him in a while."

"Ah," he said and nodded, then "can I bum a smoke?"

She said nothing, but instead drew out the pack and offered it to him.

"Hey, thanks. You know you look like him though, right?"

"Long story. Might tell you one day."

"Hey, Dee! Doc says we're ready to go!" Faggot yelled out a window.

"You two gonna come out and watch?"

Dee knew from experience that he had the Girl scooped up in his arms and was making faces at her.

"Be right there. Oh, and Jet says to meet him out back with the bike."

She stubbed out the cigarette under her foot. "You comin' to the afterparty?"

"Wouldn't miss it, DB."

Jet was standing with his arms crossed when Dyke rounded the corner, pushing the bike.

"Poison wanted me to ask you if Roadkill was being serious. He said he has a nice butt."

"Kinda serious. He would. It could happen."

"God-fucking-damn it."

"Racers!" the crackly sound of Doctor D's PA system came towards them. "If your bedazzled ass isn't at the starting line, go put it there or get it kicked out."

"My ass isn't even bedazzled..."

"C'mon, Jet. We got a race to win."

They took their places at the starting line, Jet with his lanky frame scrunched up behind Dee. She had the motor running and her legs on either side of the bike for balance. Doc had better start the party soon, she thought.

She scanned the crowds lining the track and saw Faggot with the Girl on his shoulders. He grinned and waved, then took the Girl's hand and waved with that.

She smiled.

"Alright racers, I want a nice clean match. No bashing, slashing or body flashing, ya hear? And that includes you audience members, too. We don't care how well God has made you- this is a road race. Save it for the afterparty! But I think that's all an old man like me's gotta say so... On your marks!"

Dyke snapped back into reality and tensed her legs. A few of the racers revved their engines. Road Kill caught her eye and winked.

"Get set!"

She flexed her fingers and tightened her grip on the handlebars. For her, driving gloves weren't just a fashion statement.

A foghorn sounded and Dyke kicked off. "Heads down, elbows tucked in, DB and Jet Star take an early lead," the Doc's voice came over the roar of engines. "But look's like Party Poison and the Kobra Kid are close behind. Damn! Road Kill and Rock Machine leading by a hair."

"We need more speed!" Jet shouted in her ear.

"No fuckin' shit!" She sped up, taking back her spot. No way was she losing to some short, ratty-ass clown. Or Poison either, for that matter.

"Nice view, Dyke! You steal Poison's ass, too?"

"Jet, honey?"

"Yeah?"

"You remind me to break his nose at the afterparty."

"Sure thing, Dee."

She pressed harder on the accelerator. "C'mon. Please. Carla, if you can hear me..." she mumbled.

The bike, against all odds, against all the laws of physics, went just that much faster.

"Holy shit!" Jet shouted. "Dee, we- Dee! We're gonna die!"

"No way, Jet Star! We're gonna win!"

They could still hear Doctor D's voice narrating the race, but quieter now as they sped further away. "And that's DB with Jet still in the lead! I didn't know her bike could even go that fast- but don't tell her that, else I'll lose the use of my remaining working limbs."

"We almost there, Jet?"

Dyke was trying to focus on keeping the bike going as fast as possible. Sure, she had here eyes on the road, but it was a kind of tunnel vision. She didn't care about anything that wasn't directly in front of her.

"Not sure... maybe- yes! I can see someone with a flag!"

Dee whooped. The engine whined.

"Shit, will we make it?"

"If we believe, Jet! Just pray and don't stop 'til we cross that line!"

Sure enough, Jet started to mumble something. Whether he was praying or cursing her, Dyke didn't know.

She couldn't speak Spanish.

She saw Road Kill out of the corner of her eye and her face hardened. They were so close. She could almost taste it.

A rush of colour. The flag was waved. They did it. They did it!

She screamed. "Jet! Jet! We did it! WE DID IT!" She gently lifted the accelerator and braked hard to skid to a stop. Down went the kickstand.

"Did we do it?" she asked doubtfully, looking between Jet's face and the person with the flag.

"Only one way to find out, Dee. We gotta wait for the rest of 'em."

The Trans Am and Road Kill's Chopper had come in neck and neck, while someone riding solo came in just before them. The only people the two had been keeping an eye on were Road Kill and Poison. Other than that- who knew?

The crowd at the starting line started to make their way to the finish. Some people had spread out along the track, but most had stayed at the start where they could see everything that was going on.

"Alright, alright, simmer down you folks."

Doctor D spoke through a megaphone. Where the hell was he getting all this stuff?

"After careful consultation with our flagboy V, it would appear that Dyke and Jet Star have stolen the scene and come in first place!" There was a mix of cheering and groaning from the crowd as accessories were exchanged. Faggot ran up with the girl on his hip and threw an arm around Dee.

"I knew you could do it, you old bitch!"

"Hey! Poison's older than I am!"

"Dee! Dee!" the Girl giggled, clapping.

"Now that first place is settled, in second place we have Maximum Voltage, riding solo."

The crowd clapped half-heartedly. Nobody knew who this Max guy was.

"Wait... Maximu-?" Dee started. She was cut off by the Doc shushing the crowd again. The flagboy whispered in his ear.

"And in an exciting turn of events, in third place is Party Poison and the Kobra Kid tied with Road Kill and Rock Machine!"

More accessories were exchanged. Dyke was even sure she saw masks being swapped.

"Yeah, yeah, all prizes will come in due time, but for now I think we all just need to party."

Dee and Jet were swarmed with people congratulating them, and all thoughts of Maximum Voltage were pushed from her mind.

"We did it, Dee. I can't believe we actually did it!"

"Fuck, me neither! Hey- careful, these pins are sharp. To the afterparty!"

[video-killed-the-radio-host]

Heartbeats on the Airwaves chapter 2

Cecil hummed to himself as he got ready for work. He decided to wear red today, and no tie. He pulls out a pair of black slacks and a crimson dress shirt and laid them on the bed. He bounces on the balls of his feet, singing to himself and to his cat, Khoshekh,, who sat on the bed, watching him.

“Look! How the lights of the town, the lights of the town are shining now.

Tonight, I’ll be dancing around, I’m off on the road to Galway now.” He half mumbled, half hummed the next few lines as he sheds his pajamas. He pulls on his undershirt and leans over the bed. “Khoshekh, do you ever get a weird feeling in your gut? Not like nerves. I don’t get nervous. I’m a reporter. But maybe kinda tingly? Some people call it butterflies.” He muses, reaching out and scratching the cat’s ears. “Oh what do you know? You’re just a kitty. Kitties don’t have to worry about the matters of the heart. You’re lucky that way.”

He stands and pulls on his dress shirt, buttoning it and sliding his slacks on before reaching for his shoes. “Like how you don’t have to deal will crazy bosses. But also you don’t get to talk to cute boys. Cute doctors.” Cecil gives a small smile. “Maybe you can meet him someday.” He pauses. “I bet he has a girlfriend. He’s to pretty to not.”

Cecil runs a hand through his hair. “Either way I hope qe can be friends.”

Khoshekh gives a ‘murrow' and rolls onto his back.

“I know. I know. I’m probably over thinking again. I do that a lot. I need to work on that.”

Sliding his shoes on, he looks over. “You’re in charge. Behave.”

Khoshekh flicks his tail. It was a mutual agreement between the two.

-

Cecil looks up from the article he was reading as Lauren clicks into the room. He braces himself for what was about to crash down over his head. She stands in the middle of the room, a group of interns trailing behind her. Cecil inches forward, curious.

“We are starting a new term of internships.” Lauren announces. “All of you are assigned an intern. You are fully responsible for this intern. You will teach them how we work here and what is expected.”

Cecil perks up a little. He had never had an intern before so this was exciting.

Lauren approaches him last with a dark-skinned girl with curly hair pulled up into a pony tail.

“This one is yours. Try not to screw it up.”

“I’ll do my best Ms. Mallard.” Cecil answers with practiced patience.

“We’ll see.” And with that, she sauntered away.

The intern looks at him. “She really doesn’t like you, huh?”

Cecil sighs. “No she does not.” He turns and gives her a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Dana. Dana Cardinal. And you are?”

“My name is Cecil. Palmer. Nice to meet you. Do you want to go get some coffee?” He offers.

“Don’t they have coffee here?”

“They do but it’s horrible. Come on. I know a place.”

Cecil turns towards the door and waits as Dana follows.

“So are you gonna tell me why she hates you so much? Is it because you have a better taste in clothes or something?”

Cecil laughs as they started down the block. “Oh no. We went to college together.” He starts.

“Did you do better than her or something?”

“No. She was first in class.”

“Of course she was.”

“She asked me out junior year-“

“And you said no because you’re gay as hell?”

“Am I really that obvious?” Cecil asked with a light blush.

“Well you aren’t exactly subtle.”

Cecil opens his mouth to protest, but instead smiles. “It isn’t like I’m trying.”

“So she’s a bitch to you because you don’t have feelings for her?”

“Yep.” He opens the door to the small café. “After you.”

“That is terrible.”

“Oh, you learn to tune her out. It’s alright.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” Cecil grins as he makes his way to the counter.

“Cecil!” Earl greets. “Got a new person to spill coffee on today?”

“That was two weeks ago. Must you keep bringing it up?” Cecil wines.

“Yes, because it was funny.”

“What happened?” Dana asked, a smirk crossing her face.

“Cecil here, being as suave as he is, spilled his coffee all over the head surgeon of Mercy Eastern.”

Dana gasped and laughed. “You didn’t!”

Cecil groans and buries his face in his hands. “Stoooppp.”

“In his defense, the coffee was cold so I was fine.” A caramel voice says from behind them.

Cecil jumps and turns around so fast that he slips and knocks his head against the counter.

“Cecil!”

-----.-----

Carlos wakes up to his alarm blaring. He groans and slaps it off before sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He reaches for his glasses and puts them on, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He stretches before rolling off the bed and standing. He stretches again and pops his back.

“Mmm~”

After shaking out, he approaches his closet and opens it, digging through the flannels and grabbing his favorite red one. It was soft and had a small hole in the elbow, but that didn’t matter because he was changing as soon as he got to the hospital. He was half hoping to see Cecil again. He also knew that Cecil was a newscaster so the possibility of him revisiting the same coffee shop twice was unlikely. Either way, a man could dream right?

Pulling the shirt on, along with a pair of jeans and his shoes. Lastly he grabs his jacket and leaves, locking the door on his way out. He looks at his watch and noticed he was early so he decided to get coffee before rounds instead of after.

The drive to the coffee shop gave Carlos time to think. There was no way he could admit his feelings for Cecil. He could get labeled a creepy fanboy. He sighs as he parks. Getting out, he makes his way inside. He is shocked to see Cecil there, and spots the familiar blush on the man’s neck. He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. Then he spots the girl next to Cecil. She was pretty. And standing close to him. Did he have a girlfriend? But he said he was gay. But what if that girl was actually a trans man? Or maybe he was just looking to much into it-

Carlos finds himself approaching the counter in time to hear Earl recounting his and Cecil’s unfortunate meeting.

“In his defense, the coffee was cold so I wad fine.” Carlos chuckles.

Cecil gives a squeak and turns, tripping and knocking his head against the counter.

“Cecil!” Carlos gasped, crouching down. “Are you alright?” His fingers automatically jumped to the man’s hairline to check for injuries. Dear god what shampoo did he use? His hair was so soft!

“M fine.” Cecil says, wrapping his slender fingers around Carlos’ wrist. “I’m a klutz. Nothing new.”

“Could I still get you checked for a concussion? Just to be safe?” he paused. “ Your girlfriend can come to.”

He didn’t mean to word it that way but it just slipped. Beside him, the girl snorts.

“No offense Cecil but my girlfriend is hotter than you.”

Cecil just laughs. “I’m sure she is Dana.”

The girl-Dana- elbows Carlos and whispers “He's single yknow.”

“Uh…thanks.” Carlos prayed he wasn’t blushing as hard as he felt he was. He stands and offers his hand, pulling Cecil up.

“Dana’s my new intern.” Cecil exains.

“And Dana is a happily engaged lesbian.” Dana adds.

Carlos groans. He was never going to hear the end of this.

“Lets get you check out and then you can be on your way.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Woohoo angst is coming soon.

If any one of you want to know what song Cecil was singing to Khoshekh, click here

undefined

For @acealex-blueiguana

[rwbyremnants]

Casual reminder this is still an AU, and Mr. Schnee is not the same as he is in the show.

THE END BUT NOT THE END!

So this is the last of the main story! Be prepared - we are about to hop forward a few years for a two-part epilogue, so stay tuned for that! Then you can stay tuned for more exciting things from RWBYRemnants, both in this verse and others!

=Chapter 41

The next couple of days flew by in a flurry of activity for the two honeymooning lovebirds. Sushi, shopping, and hitting random local attractions abounded, and they couldn't have been happier to do each and every one. It was all they had hoped for from their little cross-country vacation.

As Yang predicted, Weiss had a single near-emergency the morning after their new experiment, and after that her muscles were completely normal again. There was some vague teasing about diapers, but a good, firm pinch on Yang's bicep ended that fairly quick. Other than that, they were just happy to be intimate with each other again, and it dispelled a lot of that lingering awkwardness borne of their time spent apart.

By the time they made it to the Schnee building and were in the elevator on the way up, Weiss's contentment that her father and sister were both more accepting now had receded very slightly. She felt anxious all over again, stomach tying itself into knots and heart pounding. Sure, her father had said that he was fine with her dating a trans woman, but that could have been so much lip service; an attempt to soothe her and keep her from going off on him right away. Or even just the sheer relief of her being alive after the tragedy overshadowing any other concerns. How would it be when they actually met face to face again?

"This is it," Weiss whispered when the elevator doors whooshed open, taking Yang's good hand and squeezing it gently. "Moment of truth."

As they started to make their way down the halls, headed toward the once infamous office of Papa Schnee, Yang couldn't help but feel nostalgic about the whole affair. Two months ago, she was helping Weiss with her cases after the tour had finished. And three months prior to that, she and Weiss were at each other's throats, with Yang having to punch a security member to try and earn her trust. How odd it felt to be walking these halls again, hand in hand.

"It's gonna be fine," she reassured the diva as they waited outside the door, bracing herself for when Weiss was to knock. "He's been okay on the phone, and I bet Winter's talked him down, as well. Glad we have her on our side now."

"Agreed. So much worse to have to walk in there and face both of them for the same talk." Then she raised her fist, hesitated, and turned to give Yang a quick little kiss. "You ready?"

Taking a deep breath of her own, she took a moment to compose herself again. Before finally facing the door, and nodding. "Let’s do this thing."

So then she raised her hand, took another breath, and knocked. A few seconds later, there was a click, and the door swung open to show Winter blinking mildly at the two of them.

"O-oh!" Weiss breathed, eyelashes fluttering rapidly. "I, um, didn't think you would already be back here from LA!"

"Things were wrapped up fairly smoothly." The taller woman's smile was tight, but at least it wasn't a frown. "Come in; he's been waiting."

When she stepped back to let Weiss in, she glanced at Yang briefly before walking through. They crossed the space to the man's desk, Weiss's high heels echoing in the space much more sharply than Yang's boots. The blonde felt as if she could throw up. Nonetheless, her hand never left Weiss's as she followed her into his larger area of the office.

Of course, Mr Schnee was at first signing a lot of paperwork, until he looked up – and unlike his usual meetings with either of them, he rose from his chair. Still in his best suit as usual, yet the once stern expression was absent. It was more concern than anything else. Watching as his daughter and her new partner approached the desk, he seemed to swallow nervously.

"…Weiss."

"Father," she replied in kind. Short, but courteous. "How are you?"

"Up to my neck in paperwork, to be frank. Paparazzi and talk shows are constantly contacting me to ferret out your whereabouts, and let’s not even get started with your publicists. However… oh, none of that’s important."

He'd already started to step out from his desk to one side, enough so the pathway between them both was clear, and held his arms out for her to run into. It had been too many years since he had shown such a gesture.

"I’m just so glad to see you."

She did not take off running straight away. Releasing Yang's hand, she took a hesitant step forward, very wary of this new side of him. Was it really alright? So many years had passed with him being emotionally closed-off that now she didn't know how to handle him opening up.

"Go on," Winter encouraged very softly from behind her.

And that was all she needed. Dashing across the space, she flung herself into her father's waiting embrace. Immediately, he embraced her right back, stroking her hair softly as he pulled her against his body. After years of no contact, he was certainly trying to make up for it in a single hug. That much was obvious when the odd tear or two fell down his cheek.

And Yang stood back, smiling to herself as she watched them reunite after so long. Just like with Winter, this was clearly what Weiss needed. To repair her tattered family again.

"I'm sorry, Daddy!" she cried into his chest, clinging tightly. "I wanted to tell you, w-when I could, not for the news to do it!"

"Don't be sorry, I should be sorry," he insisted, stroking her hair yet again. "I should never have seeded my girls with so much ignorance. I'm such an idiot, and a failure as a father! And with Yang, you must have felt so awful…"

Taking a deep breath, she was able to cut off her emotional outburst much more quickly than before. So much had gone on recently, and she was in a much better place, that crying almost seemed like a luxury she had run out of.

"I did, but… none of us knew any better. Not before we had this random crash course known as 'my love life', anyway. We were the same as you, not meaning to be unkind to anyone but never learning any different." She chanced a smile that came very near teasing him. "Guess you're never too old to learn, huh?"

"One or two phone calls helped." He then gazed over to Winter for a moment, sparing her a loving smile. Although they were still conducting themselves with similar professionalism to before, both seemed much happier in each other’s company now. Certainly enough to spare a smile to each other.

"Oh, really?" Weiss scoffed. "So you two are talking about me behind my back, are you? That's real nice."

"Don't get snippy now," Winter warned, even though she was wearing a smile similar to their father's. "We were discussing whether or not we should release a statement to the press. Finally, we decided that we should be leaving that up to you, of course."

"Up to you and your… girlfriend." That tone seemed a bit uncertain. Similar to Winter’s when she first discovered the photos of Yang before transition. He wasn't about to lecture her or call her out on that now, was he?! But when Yang shifted about slightly more nervously, Mr Schnee chuckled to himself. "I'm sorry, it just feels so strange for it to say aloud. I was always worried she'd come home with a… a rapscallion of a boy, but she turns up with a girl, who I hired! What a world."

"O-oh… Um, yeah." Yang coughed, unable to help but nervously shrug her shoulders, still keeping a fair distance. Seemed he didn't know of Yang's gender status, after all; Winter had seen fit to keep it under wraps. But that didn't do anything to stop the jitters. After all, she was still dating the boss's daughter.

"Dad, I… want you to meet her. Really meet her this time, not just a job interview." She finally drew back just enough to reach out for Yang's hand, hoping she would be brave enough to come forward but prepared to approach if she wasn't.

There was a moment's hesitation. This was a lot to take in! But in the end, she took Weiss's hand and stepped forward toward them both, barely managing to look up at Mr Schnee's rather stern expression. After a period of weathering it, she glanced at Weiss, who nodded reassuringly. Clearing her throat, she held out her better hand. "It's nice to… properly meet you, sir."

But Mr Schnee only stared at her hand for a moment, seemingly in disapproval. That was until he grasped her wrist and pulled her in toward him, hugging her just as tightly as he did Weiss. Much to the blonde's surprise, of course! That had been the last thing she expected! Right away he patted her back, a friendly gesture he rarely offered anyone, even his friends.

"For what you did for my daughter that day, the pleasure is all mine."

Obviously, Weiss was beaming like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, even jumping up and down very slightly. She drew her arm out from behind her father and placed her hand atop their clasped hands, almost as if sealing some kind of deal.

"Fantastic! I'm glad you approve of her, because we're getting married."

"WHAT?!" Winter burst out almost immediately, dropping the tablet she had just picked up from Mr Schnee's desk with a loud clatter. That same question was echoed by both Mr Schnee and Yang herself, who both quickly looked over to Weiss with concern. Though for Yang it was more fear than anything, as she suspected Mr Schnee wouldn't be all too thrilled with their apparent decision after only a few months.

"I'm kidding!" Weiss laughed, cackling and slapping her leg. But when they did not join her immediately, her laughter faltered. "You… oh no, did you really think…?"

"Oh, thank goodness! I mean… I don’t disapprove, but let me get to know the girl first!" her father reassured, eventually releasing his ‘daughter-in-law's’ hand to ruffle up her hair instead, even as she protested and quite obviously looked over to Weiss, seeming to mimic as though she was choking.

"Lil… Help?"

"Daddy, stop teasing her; she's already worried about how you'll like her." This was perhaps a bit too honest, but Weiss saw no point in beating around the bush now that most of the formalities were out of the way.

"Then perhaps you shouldn't tease us if you do not wish the two of you to be teased," Winter said, not unkindly but with a slight edge to her voice. Clearly, the news had flustered her – because she had picked up the tablet and was raising it with the screen pointing away from her. "Honestly…"

With a laugh of his own, Mr Schnee finally released Yang from his grasp, giving her a final pat on the shoulder. Seemed the formalities really were out of the way, considering the immense grin on his face, and the content smile as he looked Yang up and down. "Well, like I said; it will take some getting used to, but I think you'll make an honest woman out of my youngest." And then he looked to Weiss with the same grin. "Your mother would be jealous of the long hair, though."

"God, I don't know how she does it, either," Weiss sighed, drooping slightly — both in hair-related depression, and because she was relieved that things were going so well. "I mean, I use the best shampoos and conditioners money can buy, and I still don't have that much volume and resilience! Do you know how hard I can pull on this hair and get no breakage?! It's insane!"

Immediately when hair-pulling was mentioned, Yang's cheeks seemed to light up. As well as her putting her hand by her throat, signalling for Weiss to keep quiet about that; it revealed just a little too much about their private lives! But thankfully for them both, her father didn't seem to notice. Or at least, he pretended he didn't while he finally paced back to his desk with a soft chuckle of his own. But once he sat down, he did look to the papers on his desk, pulling out various forms.

"Unfortunately, family reunion aside, there are one or two business matters I do want to address with you both. Things the media have particularly wondered."

Nodding, Weiss took one of the two seats offered. "Naturally. I mean, I'll go on record as 'gay' if that's what they need, but honestly, I don't care about the label as much as I care about Yang."

"Well, the sexuality issue I've put on hold, because I'd rather you were the one to discuss it than it be through me. I may be better than I was, but I'm still learning, and frankly I don't want to screw up again. A-hah!" Finally, he seemed to find one of the papers he was searching for. Pulling it free from among the pile, he looked to it for a moment as he read the various text, smiling contentedly. "More importantly, they’re really clamoring for a full version of yours and Yang's song. Some are even wondering if you plan on an album of that genre; it would be a departure, for sure, but…"

"I… what?" Glancing down at the page he was reading, Weiss then turned to her girlfriend. "Did you know he was going to do this? I mean, asking you up onstage was just a last-minute idea, I never…"

But Yang was just as much in shock as she was. That was clear when she shook her head in response to the question. Looking to her lover's father with a rather confused gaze, she asked, "Do you mean, me specifically? With her?"

"Who else?" he asked, pulling out another form to read and check over.

"But… why me? I'm a bodyguard, I just play as a hobby. You can get any musician you want to do some acoustic stuff that's way more talented than me."

"Somehow, I don't think another musician would collaborate as well as you two. Nor do I think your audience would be happy if it was anyone else." Satisfied with the checks on the other form, he handed it to Weiss for her to look over. To Yang, it made no sense. Just lots of places for signatures and various paragraphs of text.

But Weiss had seen it too often: a recording contract.

"Daddy…" Her voice closed off as she read over it; this was better than he would have offered just anyone. Still not as lucrative as her own contract, and she couldn't fault him for that, but it was ridiculously generous to give a completely untested new talent this much consideration.

"Well," Winter suddenly put in, "once I went back to watch the video again, after I got past my… misgivings about Xiao Long, I couldn't deny that the music was beautiful. Not overly complex, not droll or simplistic; just a heartfelt melody. We'd be foolish not to at least consider signing her."

"Now as you can see, it's not a major deal. This is going to be very experimental, for everyone involved. But, if you want to give it a shot to see how it goes, the opportunity is there. We can let the world decide how famous your new side project gets."

But the warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears. Yang only continued to stare out blankly, completely speechless by the events. All she could think was that this was some sort of dream, that she'd suddenly wake from. But it was all there in black and white.

"Told you," Weiss said, grinning fiercely at her partner. "I told you that your talent was more than you gave yourself credit for! Oh, this is so exciting!"

When passed an identical contract herself, the blonde's focus went to it instead, where she read the various fine print and looked at what she needed to fill in. It was real, everything was real. Not only was she dating the famous Weiss again, but her father had graciously accepted her into the family. And now she was even given the option to collaborate with her, have her own name become famous with their help. Making music. No longer was it a dream, no longer was she just dating her sister's idol; she could be an idol to people herself.

It seemed she wasn't so different to Ruby after all, as shortly after reading the small print, she seemed to slowly keel to one side, letting out a small groan when she herself fainted.

"YANG!" Weiss gasped as her family members started, her father rising to his feet while watching his daughter rush to catch her. "Damn it, not again! What is with you two?!"

Thankfully Yang's recovery didn't take too long. The instant she woke again, Weiss helped her through the process of the contract. She told her what to write, where to sign, and all of the other information she possibly needed. Only a few other questions had to be dealt with that day, until Mr Schnee let the couple, and Winter, be on their way so he could finish the rest. They had earned that much.

But the day was far from over, as Weiss told her girlfriend, anyway. Yang was completely clueless as to what was going on as she sat in the back of Winter's car with her girlfriend. Under her insistence, the snood was completely over her eyes while the car journeyed along. But that didn't stop the occasional question.

"Is it… Taco Bell? Is that the surprise?"

"Of course not," Weiss sighed in exasperation, given that this was the eighth such inquiry. "And keep that snood on or I'll never forgive you!"

"Girls, girls," Winter said in her best matronly voice. "Settle down back there or I'll turn this car around!"

It took a few seconds for Weiss to mutter, "It's scary how much you sound like her when you do that, God."

"Can I not even peek?" But the instant a finger touched the snood, the immediate "NO!" made Yang draw her hand away, and instead she just continued to giggle as she sat contentedly.

However, something had been on her mind since the encounter: how nice Mr Schnee was about the whole situation. When it was Winter first discovering they were together, the more concerning thing for her was the fact Yang was transgender. And yet, Mr Schnee didn't seem to mind at all…

"Hey, Winter?" Yang asked as she shuffled in her seat again. "When you talked to your dad about me and Weiss… What did you say, exactly? Cause he seemed pretty damn… cool about… what kind of girl I am.”

"Ah." As the car was guided around a corner, the elder sister said, "I didn't disclose your gender status. Though I did contemplate it when I told Weiss and she did not seem to mind, in the end I thought it was best to approach you directly instead of him. And I still believe that's best, though for different reasons now."

The car came to a smooth halt. Winter took a deep breath and followed up, "I know now that my actions, digging into your past… yes, I was only doing my job to keep Weiss safe from would-be predators, but the information I found out about you… I wish I could unlearn it and have you tell me yourself. That would have been more ideal. Since I cannot do that, I thought I could at least afford you that luxury with my father. As… some small apology."

Although the blindfold hid away most of her face, the small smile seemed to say enough. They really had come so far from the loggerheads they were right at the beginning. "I'm pretty grateful for that. Thanks, Winter. I'll tell him eventually, but for now, maybe I should just see if it comes up?"

"Perhaps." Then she cleared her throat. "And, um… do you mind if I speak to Weiss alone for a moment?"

"We can’t!" Weiss snapped. "I have to get out to make sure she doesn't peek!"

Though giggling, Yang nodded, blindly reaching for the car door handle as she flicked it open. "Don't sweat it, I'll be good! Just don't let me walk into moving traffic and I'll be fine."

Once Yang had closed the door, Weiss turned back to Winter and tried to assume a less hostile expression than she would have a mere month ago. "Well?"

"Alright. So… we have established that we wish to be more… sisterly, haven't we?" Winter asked, voice clearly a bit nervous. Scared, even, of what Weiss's answer would be on this topic. “Gossip the way other sisters do. Which, granted, I don’t have a lot of firsthand experiences, but I’ve seen them on TV and in movies.”

"Of course. I'm still holding you to the pyjama party, no matter where we end up having it. And you're painting my toenails."

Coughing slightly, oddly embarrassed at that thought, Winter shook it off and pressed, "Sisters can tell each other anything, right? Well…" More fidgeting, and finally the woman turned in her car seat to gaze straight back at the younger Schnee, who was simply waiting patiently for the point to come along. "Yang… um… how big is she? Are we talking average, or…?"

"Big? She's not that much taller than me, but you can-" When the meaning hit home, Weiss's eyes and mouth formed a perfect trio of wide hoops as she gasped, then literally sat up so fast her head hit the ceiling with a thump! "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING ME THIS?!"

"I'm sorry! I just- ever since I figured that out during my research, I couldn't get the question out of my mind, I've been dying to know! I mean, I've never met any women with her equipment, so I don't know how it measures up to-"

"Look up some PORN! God, Winter, I am absolutely ashamed of you for asking about my girlfriend's DICK!"

Ducking her head, Winter tried to cough again to hide the true reason her cheeks were filling with rouge. "Honestly, I apologise! Please don't be angry, I didn't think- you don't have to tell me, I just thought I'd ask, I… I didn't mean to offend!"

"Wow," Weiss deadpanned, still shaking her head slightly. "Gee, I don't know how asking your sister how much dick she's getting could be at all offensive! Or weird! Guess I'm just silly like that!"

"No, no, this wasn’t about you or how you interact with it, just… her basic measurement!" When Weiss inhaled, she squeezed her eyes shut and hastily added, "Not that I still think you'll tell me! Just wanted to be clear what my question was!"

"Fine. You've been clear." As she scooted toward the door, she hesitated with her hand on the handle. "IF… you don't think it's too skeevy for us to talk about this, I'll CONSIDER giving you some details at our slumber party. But not a moment before!"

Completely relieved, Winter sighed and mopped her brow. "Very well, I'll… I'll see about buying a few Blu-Rays and some nail polish. Maybe some pyjamas with patterns of fuzzy pink animals."

"Jesus, you want to know that bad, don't you?"

"THAT ISN'T WHY I-" But she stopped when she caught sight of the smirk on Weiss's face and glared. "You're teasing me. I'm sitting here, feeling like an awful person, and you're teasing me!"

But Weiss didn't directly respond. Instead, she merely opened her door and said, "We'll get our things from the trunk. Enjoy your drive back!"

Winter didn't answer.

Having managed to find her way to a safe spot — at least what she thought was a safe spot — Yang continued to hum to herself as she twiddled her thumbs. She did as Weiss asked; no peeking until she told her she could. But from the sound of the car door, that was going to be soon.

Facing the direction which it came, she grinned happily, asking, "Can I peek now? Pretty please?"

"No," Weiss said immediately as she opened the already-popped trunk and withdrew their suitcases. "Just hang onto your bag, and I'll guide you inside. I will let you know when you're allowed to look." Then she slammed the lid and added, "Understand?"

"Alright alright, Mrs Boss-Schnee." As asked, she held her case with the better hand, having to take Weiss's with the casted one as she guided her away. All the while, Yang was completely in the dark about this surprise. Figuratively, and literally. No hints, no clues, nothing. She really had no idea what awaited her once Weiss let her look. It was scary, but also exciting.

"Just a little further," Weiss said as she unlocked the door, guiding Yang past it and deeper inside. Their steps echoed as if they were in a larger, more open indoor space. The hands took the suitcase and set it aside, turned Yang very slightly, then reached up and nipped the snood away. "Okay. You can open your eyes."

When Yang did, what she observed was a living room. However, it was a very unique one; everything was rounded and in earthy tones, a long, curved couch, a low coffee table made of dark wood. Round little ottomans. An executive chair and a couple of electric guitars off to one side… and as she noticed, the yellow-and-black ‘Tobacco Sunburst’ acoustic was propped up next to them, ready to be strummed. Most distinctive was the floor-to-ceiling panoramic window that looked out over Old Hickory Lake; it was a gorgeous view.

A very familiar view. One that should have belonged to…

"Iron Man," Weiss followed up her train of thought with an elated little bounce when she edged into the corner of Yang's field of vision, her hands behind her back and cheeks bunched up from smiling. "I had a crew start work on building this during the tour, and… well, I didn't think to call it off when you went to Chicago. Now I'm glad I didn't, or there would have been no way it'd be completed by now."

Yang didn't think she could be any more speechless than earlier. But she was. She truly was. Slowly pacing downward toward the huge window, she looked out in awe at the sight before her, one that would no doubt be fantastic in a sunset or a sunrise. But just where were they, exactly? As she slowly stepped to look around the rest of the building, she continued to gape at all of the small quirks and features. This was much more personal, much more of a living space then her sterile apartment in her father's building was. It was alive.

"Did you… Did you build an entire house? For us?" she asked, continuing to look around for a moment longer. Though that question seemed silly. Of course a house couldn't be finished in such little time. But a renovation, maybe.

"For you," she corrected, following her around like an eager puppy. "You said you wanted a place like this of your own, modeled after Tony Stark's. I mean, I don't know how many details I got right; I'm not as big a fan as you are. But I trusted the architect I hired to be thorough in his research."

"This is just…" Continuing to gaze around the living room, to the couch and TV area, she could barely string a sentence together. Weiss did this all for her. And had it prepared for a long, long time. When she walked and finally sat herself down on said couch, she looked up toward her, tilting her head. "And I thought the only home you had was your apartment."

"It was." Then she approached and plunked herself down on the same couch. "But… now I have you. And I want us to have a home; one that you like. Not just moving in with me at my dad's building."

"You… I… wait." Leaning forward, she stared toward the ground for a moment longer to try and process everything. So much had happened today; the recording contract, being accepted fully by Weiss's father, and now this. She wanted them to live together, in a house she'd specifically modelled for her. This was hers and Yang's house, in every way. And Weiss made the arrangements for it while they were away, without her even knowing. It was an incredible surprise. One she knew not how to respond to.

But thinking on it further, she still hesitated longer. The last time she said she had to think about it, that she couldn't admit her true feelings in fear of timing, it nearly got them separated forever. She knew she loved Weiss; and knew from that painful separation, she wanted to be with her forever. Moving permanently was a big step, a big and scary step.

"You… actually want to live with me?"

Weiss scooted forward just a bit and turned in her seat to grasp Yang's thigh with both of her hands. "That's all I want. The only thing I want out of my life… all the glamour and stardom, talk shows, money, being successful… what's the point of it all if I can't share it with the only person who makes me truly happy?"

That seemed to settle it. There was no point in hiding her true feelings. Not when she and Weiss clearly wanted the same thing. Perhaps it was too soon, or perhaps it was just another step. Yang didn't care. She was more than willing to take it this time, and discover what the future had in store for them. Though for a moment, she bit her lip and smirked, before she leant in closer to Weiss on the sofa, resting a head on her shoulder as she looked up innocently.

"Don't suppose there's a lab in the basement with a bunch of iron suits is there?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Weiss said with an affected air. "Haven't you met me? I'm THE Weiss. I don't do things halfway." She stood, reaching out a hand for her love. "Though I'm afraid the technology for the suits to actually fly and shoot laser beams isn't on the market yet. Sorry."

"Did you at least get me a fucking rad cosplay of him? Or Rescue?" Though when the latter of the two raised an eyebrow, as she was confused by the question, she laughed nervously. "Right, the comics aren't your thing. It’s totally fine that I’m the bigger geekburger here."

Laughing self-consciously, Weiss said, "I've never read a comic that wasn't in the Sunday newspaper in my entire life. But…" Pulling Yang in close, she leaned up and kissed her cheek softly. "If you have some, maybe I'll like them. But hey, I mean, never hurts to try something new, right? Y-you can, um… find me a good one, and I’ll try it."

“Really?!” Turning her head to press their foreheads against one another, the blonde’s smile grew into a ridiculous grin. "I'll get them when I grab the rest of my stuff, then."

"You really do have comics? That's pretty cool!" When Yang raised an eyebrow, she shrugged, "Well… I mean, it seems nerdy, but then again I've never known anyone who actually had them. And you definitely are not nerdy! Th-that is, in that lame way…" She trailed off, laughing at herself and gazing down at the floor. "I'll stop before I sound even worse."

She couldn't help but giggle to herself. Weiss seemed to miss the point Yang was getting at. "You realise that was a 'Yes, I'll move in with you', right?"

"Well yeah, but I don’t want you to think I care if you’re a nerd or… oh? I- oh." The diva’s face went slack for a moment as she processed, then brightened considerably. "You… really will? You’re sure? You don't hate it, you… and with me being here? Oh, Yang! Come here!"

Then she leapt up and threw her arms around her neck, drawing her down for a flurry of kisses. She wasn't about to stop showing Yang how unbelievably happy she was for a long, long time.

[hovercraft79]

Winter Song

Ch 25 Carol of the Bells

Chapters: 25/31 Word Count: 5,228 Fandom: The Worst Witch (TV 2017) Rating: Teen Warnings: mentions alcoholism, bitterness, death. It’s based on A Christmas Carol, there’s some darkness there, y’all.

Summary: Hecate lets her fears and temper get the best of her, throwing her whole reconciliation with Pippa into jeopardy. Her father, and three spirits, help her set things right.

Notes: Write about a holiday myth or legend, you say? Plagiarize Charles Dickens, I say!  Sorry about all the angst that comes with that.

While not exactly a myth or legend, once this idea took hold, I couldn’t shake it. Certainly, a great debt is owed to the original – but an even greater debt is owed to the Palazzo young reader’s edition of A Christmas Carol that was abridged by Juliet Stanley. It’s well done and beautifully illustrated if you’ve got a young reader of your very own and would like to start a new tradition.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra does my all-time favorite version of this song.

Sparky returns from her holiday travels today. We can all rejoice.

This particular fic was written over a 24-hour time period – like, I haven’t slept in a hideous length of time, even for me. Please, if you spot any errors, be forgiving, but let me know. Thanks!

Hecate stared at her reflection in the mirror. The connection was dead, and she knew it. She’d cut the call herself and she wasn’t sad about that. She didn’t want to see any more of Pippa’s hurt, angry expression.

Their connection was dead, and she knew that, too. Dead by her own hand. Again. Exhaustion and worry had turned into cross words, a scolding for being so careless, a rejected invitation. Her own fears of losing Pippa morphed into a rigid silence guaranteed to push Pippa away. Again. This time, her own anger met with an equally angry Pippa. She would not allow herself to be sad about that.

Let their friendship be dead.

Just as it had been for most of the last thirty years.

It hurt less that way.

Hecate knew she was a difficult, uncompromising, and unsocial witch. She’d been described as cold many times in her life - was neither the first, nor likely the last. There was so much cold inside her it nipped her nose, hollowed her cheeks, stiffened her walk, made her lips purse and her voice icy. She knew the day the Founding Stone failed was not the only day she’d been frozen.

Nobody ever stopped her in the street to say, ‘Hello, Miss Hardbroom! How are you?’ No children asked her to tuck them in at night and no one ever asked Hecate to their birthday celebrations. But Hecate cared nothing about what others thought of her.

Hecate stood and moved to the window. It was a freezing, foggy Christmas Eve and she had work to do. She’d idled enough time away pretending she could be anything that made Pippa Pentangle’s life better. It was dark already, even though it was only a little after three o’clock. The fog was so dense that the trees of the forest looked like ghosts.

She needed to inventory the contents of her ingredient cupboard. Today seemed as good a time as any. She chose to walk instead of transfer, in the hopes that she would burn off some restless energy. She hoped the corridors would be empty. She did not get her wish.

“Merry Christmas, HB!” cried Dimity Drill, cheerfully falling into step beside Hecate. She’d obviously just flown in from somewhere – the frosty flight had given her a healthy, warm glow.

“What right do you have to be merry?” Hecate huffed. “You’re here.”

“What right do you have to be miserable?” Dimity grinned. “I’m only here for a bit.”

Hecate couldn’t come up with an answer, so she said, “Bats! And humbugs.”

“Don’t be cross, Hecate! It’s Christmas!”

“What else can I be,” returned Hecate, “when I live in such a stupid world. What’s Christmas when the Craft is in decline? When you have no fr—when you find yourself another year older but no better for it? If I had my way, I’d hex everyone who wished me a Merry Christmas.” She stopped and turned to face Dimity. “What good has Christmas ever done you?”

Dimity started to respond with a cutting, sarcastic remark, but the haunted look in Hecate’s eyes gave her pause. Something’s happened, she thought, and she’d bet her best broom that whatever it was, it involved a certain witch with a penchant for pink. “It’s the only time I know of when people seem to open up their hearts. So, Hecate, although it has never put money in my pocket, or a trophy on my mantel, I believe that it has done me good, and it will always do me good.” She placed a firm hand on Hecate’s elbow. “I don’t know what’s wrong, Hecate, but don’t be angry. Come and have dinner with us tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Miss Drill,” Hecate said, pulling away.

“Please come? Mum would love to see you. She still natters on about you helping to make all those cookies.”

“Goodbye,” said Hecate.

“Very well,” said Dimity, relenting. “Goodbye, Hecate, and Merry Christmas.”

Hecate transferred the rest of the way to her potions lab.

****

Hours later and Hecate’s mood had only darkened. Somehow, she’d allowed her potions stores to become recklessly low – even to the point of not being able to make commonly used remedies. Clearly, she had allowed Pippa Pentangle to become a distraction. Well, no more. Back to business as usual.

She flicked her wrist and the door to the ingredient cupboard closed and locked behind her. Flipping open her pocket watch, Hecate decided a quick bite from the kitchens would be her best option for the evening meal. Making her way to the door of the potions lab, she reached for the knob, drawing back sharply when she saw her father’s face.

Startled, Hecate cast an illumination spell, looking closely, however, she saw nothing but the normal knob. No face, no shadows…just a regular doorknob. Shaking her head, Hecate dismissed it as the result of being overemotional and overtired. She transferred to the kitchens and made a cold sandwich from some leftover roast and heated a bowl of nettle soup.

Once she finished, Hecate decided to make the long walk back to her rooms, hoping the empty corridors would provide some soothing familiarity for her jangled nerves. Unable to help herself, she checked each doorknob she passed. Every knob seemed its usual configuration. “Bats!” she spat, as she made her way to her rooms.

Arriving in her quarters, she closed the door with a bang. Remembering her father’s face on the doorknob, Hecate checked her rooms. She went through the sitting room. Nobody was under the table or the sofa. She inspected the bedroom. No one was in the cupboard, under the bed, or in her dressing gown.

Satisfied, Hecate got ready for bed and sat in front of the fire to read. She couldn’t concentrate, though, and found herself gazing absently into the flames, Pippa refusing to leave her thoughts. As Hecate stared, each tile around her fireplace filled with her dead father’s face. Almost at once, she heard the tinkling of a bell, much like the one she used to call time during lessons. Soon, bells all over Cackle’s were ringing.

Hecate had no idea how long the ringing lasted, but it felt like forever. Then it stopped. In the silence, Hecate heard a clanking noise coming from the old dungeons. It sounded as though someone was dragging a heavy chain across the stone floor. She could hear the noise getting closer and closer, until it sounded as though it was right outside her door.

“Bats and humbugs!” She said. “It’s just my imagination.”

Her color changed, though, when the door to her room flew open and in walked her father’s ghost. The room took on a chill, despite the roaring fire.

“W-who are you?” Hecate stammered.

“You know who I am, Daughter. Why do you doubt your senses?”

“Because,” said Hecate, “a stomach upset affects them. You may be an undigested bit of beef, or a piece of undercooked potato. You’re more gravy than grave, I think.” Hecate may have sounded brave, but she was trying to control her terror. The spirit of her father disturbed her down to her bones.

“Why are you here? Father?” Hecate asked.

Her father’s ghost stepped closer. “Anyone who does not share their spirit in life is doomed to wander through the world in death and witness what they might have shared on earth and turned into happiness.”

“But… the chains?”

“I wear the chain I made for myself in life, Daughter. You are making your own chains now.”

Hecate glanced down at her dressing gown, expecting to see chains, but none were there.

“Every withheld kindness, every rejected opportunity to connect with another… My spirit never left the confines of books and the Code and now… a weary journey lies before me. I would spare you that journey.”

“I’ve always followed the Code. I –”

“You will be haunted,” her father’s ghost interrupted, “by three spirits. Without their visits, you cannot avoid the same fate as mine. Expect the first one soon. For your own sake, Daughter, remember what I have said.”

Then, the ghost moved towards the window and it opened wide. Hecate followed. She heard confused noises in the air – the sounds of sadness, regret and pain. The ghost joined the choir and floated out into the night.

Hecate slammed the window shut and hurried to her bed. She magicked every light on and crawled under the blankets, falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

****

When Hecate awoke, the room was so dark she could hardly see. The clock chimed midnight, though she knew it had been later than that when she went to bed. She felt groggy, knowing she couldn’t have slept through an entire day and into another night. She tried to remember the visit from her father’s ghost. It couldn’t have been real, could it?

When a bell struck one, the lights flashed on and off again and her bedroom door flew open. Hecate found herself face to face with another spirit.

Long, white hair framed a youthful face. A girl, Hecate thought, looking closer. Her arms and legs were bare, and she wore a tunic the color of her old Amulet’s Academy uniform. In one hand she held a fresh, green holly branch, in the other, a bundle of fresh herbs.

“Are you the spirit Father warned me about?” asked Hecate.

“I am,” the ghost replied, sounding very far away. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.” The ghost was holding a witch’s hat, but it was a crushed, moth-eaten thing, worse than Mildred Hubble’s hat ever was. “You don’t care for my hat? It was made by the behavior of people like you. I’m forced to wear it year after year.”

“I’m sorry,” Hecate whispered. “Why are you here?”

“To save you from yourself, of course,” she said, clasping Hecate’s arm gently. “Come with me.”

Hecate found herself transferred to the middle of a snow-filled courtyard. To their left, Hecate could see a group of girls in high spirits, laughing and playing together. Her muscles tensed. She recognized them at once: Agnes Monkshood, Piety Pendragon, Rosalyn Thornspike and the rest of her form.

“It’s end of term, though the school is not quite deserted,” said the ghost. “A lonely child, neglected by the others, is still there.”

“I know,” Hecate said, scrubbing a tear from her face. They walked to the school, entering a door in the back. There, in a long, bare room filled with desks, sat a lone girl with long, dark hair, reading. Hecate stiffened at the sight of her poor, forgotten self.

Suddenly, a vivacious blonde girl wearing a pink coat over her uniform, burst into the room. “That’s Pippa!” Hecate called out happily. “She was my friend.” Hecate smiled broadly as she watched her younger self be pulled out into the courtyard to join in with the others, Pippa’s hand never letting go.

“Let’s see another Christmas,” the ghost said, smiling.

Hecate’s former self grew larger, but there she was, alone again, when all the other girls had gone home for the holidays. She wasn’t reading now but looking nervously out of the window. Again, the door burst open. This time, a teenaged Pippa Pentangle darted in, flung her arms around her neck and kissed her on the cheek.

“If he doesn’t come, you really must come home with me, Hiccup! We can be together for Solstice and Yule and Christmas and we’ll have the happiest time in the world.” Pippa twirled around the room. “It will be fabulous!”

“She’s always had a large heart,” Hecate said fondly. She remembered their quarrel earlier today? Or yesterday? Shaking her head, Hecate murmured, “I’ll never understand what she saw in me.”

“Time grows short,” observed the spirit. “Come quickly!” Suddenly, they were in the Great Hall at Amulet’s Academy. Dozens of trees dripping with fairy lights lined the walls. The night sky twinkled against the ceiling while magical snow flurries filled the air. Hecate recognized it at once:  The Winter Ball of her final year at Amulet’s.

Soon, music filled the room and the girls began streaming in to the celebration. They talked and hugged and danced and laughed. There was cake, cold roast, mince pies and plenty of hibiscus punch. Hecate watched as the girls enjoyed themselves, looking for a familiar flash of golden hair.

There! Hecate spotted them, in the prime of life. Pippa was beyond radiant. Her own face lacked the rigid lines that appeared over the years, but she already showed signs of worry and stress. In an instant, they were closer, and Hecate could see the hurt in Pippa’s eyes.

“But… Hiccup? We’re already here? You look beautiful, darling. Who cares what those other girls think?” Pippa frowned at the girls behind them. “Will you at least dance with me once? We’ve been practicing all term.”

“Pippa…I can’t…” Hecate watched her younger self, willing her to change history. To be brave for Pippa. “You don’t understand…”

“I don’t. I’m here. Those other girls don’t matter to me. At all. I don’t understand why they matter to you.” She stepped closer. “I’ve always been happy with you, Hiccup.” A crowd of girls spotted them and began calling Pippa’s name. She waved them off and stepped closer to Hecate. “I’m here with you, Hiccup. You.”

“That’s just it, Pipsqueak. You should be here with them.”

“But…” Pippa trailed off as Hecate exercised her new-found skill at transferring. “But I love you, Hiccup.”

Hecate clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling a gasp. Pippa had loved her. Months before she’d derailed their lives by abandoning her at the broomstick waterski display, Pippa had loved her. “Spirit!” said Hecate in a broken voice. “Remove me from this place.”

Hecate found herself alone in her bedroom once again, every light ablaze. Sobbing, she flung herself into bed, soon sinking into a deep sleep.

****

When Hecate awoke, it was nearly one o’clock. She opened her bedroom door this time, so she wouldn’t be taken by surprise. Then she waited. And waited. Her stomach twisted in on itself as nothing happened. She turned and opened the window, leaning out into the cold air, still seeing no one.

Turning back into the room, Hecate noticed a strange light coming from the next room and a strange voice was calling her name. She stepped into her living room and saw that the walls and ceiling were covered in winter greenery and a mighty fire roared in the hearth. Her sofa and chairs were gone. In their place stood a large table, laden with a rich feast of meats, cakes, fruits and steaming bowls of wine. At the head of the table sat a jolly giant of a man. The man wore a loose green robe trimmed in white fur; on his head rested a crown of holly. His feet were bare and, in his hand, he carried a glowing torch.

“Well met, Spirit,” Hecate said, hand on her forehead.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” smiled the spirit. “Touch my robe!”

Hecate did as she was told. Everything disappeared, and they stood on the snow-filled city street on Christmas morning. It was still cold and gloomy, but the people bustling about were cheerful, calling out to one another as they hurried to their destinations.

The spirit led Hecate through the city and straight to Mildred Hubble’s flat. Hecate could see that Julie Hubble had followed her instructions to the letter. A slim Yule tree stood in front of the patio door, a handful of presents arranged underneath. The candles danced brightly from their place in the Yule log. An evergreen wreath hung on the door.

Mildred sat on the floor, working on her potions notebook. Hecate frowned. On Christmas Day? Why wasn’t she opening packages?

“Millie!” Julie placed a platter of pancakes in the center of the table. “Put your schoolwork away, love. It’s Christmas.”

“But, Mum… I have to get caught up. I’m tired of being the worst witch at Cackle’s.”

“Worst witch? How can you say that, love? You’ve saved that school more times… And you are from a witching family. You’re nowhere near the worst witch.”

“I wish Miss Hardbroom thought so.”

“Don’t you worry about what old lady Hardbroom thinks about you, love. She’s not as perfect as she thinks she is.”

“But –”

“No buts, love.” Julie tapped the back of the chair with her spatula. “Now come get your pancakes before they get cold.”

Mildred sighed and closed her notebook. Flopping into her chair, she picked up the bay leaf that sat in the middle of her plate. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a tradition of some witching families.” She pulled out a marker and handed it to Mildred. “We write a wish on the leaf and then burn it to release the wish. I thought it sounded like a lovely tradition.”

Mildred took the marker, thought for a moment and then carefully wrote her wish on the leaf. Julie took the marker and did the same.

“Can I light it?” Mildred asked, pointing at the bowl Julie put between them.

“Certainly.” She started to hand Mildred a lighter but put it down when she saw her daughter casting a spell. In seconds, both leaves were burning, filling the kitchen with fragrance. “What was your wish, Millie-Bear?”

Mildred shrugged and started spreading butter on her pancake. “I wished that Miss Hardbroom didn’t hate me so much.”

“I don’t hate you, Mildred!” Hecate dropped to her knees next to Mildred’s chair. “I’ve never hated you.” Hecate turned to look at the spirit. “Does she truly believe I hate her, Spirit?”

“Unless something changes, the child will carry the feelings of isolation and inadequacy for all her days,” replied the ghost. “The Craft is in decline.”

Hecate winced upon hearing her own words turned back on to Mildred. “You are not the worst witch, Mildred Hubble. You are clever and resourceful and kind…” Everything she’d always considered Pippa Pentangle to be, she realized.

The spirit stepped closer, holding out an arm. Hecate nodded and climbed to her feet, clutching at his robe.

They appeared on the porch of a stone cottage. Warm light glowed through the windows, flooding into the garden along with the sounds of music and laughter. One laugh carried over the rest and Hecate recognized it immediately.

“She said she’d hex anybody that wished her Merry Christmas, if she could!” cried Dimity Drill, “and I think she would, too.”

A young man Hecate recognized as Dimity’s brother handed her a mug of wassail. “I don’t know how you put up with her, Dim-bulb.”

“Oi!” Dimity playfully punched him in the arm. “Actually, I like the old crone. A lot. I feel sorry for her, though. I couldn’t be angry with her if I tried.” Her brother scoffed at the idea. “S’true! She’s the one who suffers the most because of her attitude. That’s why I will always give her the same chance every year, whether she likes it or not. I just wish she’d pull the broomstick out of her arse long enough to realize she has friends – and a beautiful woman that’s head over heels for her.”

“Sounds like that woman is you, Sis!” her brother teased.

“You’re who needs a bloody hexing,” Dimity muttered, flicking a blob of magic into his wassail and causing it to splash all over his holiday sweater. “But I reckon if HB doesn’t figure things out soon, she’s gonna lose Pentangle all over again.”

“Wait!” Dimity’s brother shook his head. “They were dating? The glamor girl and Mistress of the Night?”

“Don’t call her that,” Dimity said, punching him again. “I don’t know what they were, but they were definitely something. And neither one of them ever got over it.”

After dinner, the spirit took Hecate to visit sick beds, and foreign lands, struggling people and poverty-stricken families – and all these places were rich with hope, friendliness, patience and love. Their last stop found Hecate standing in very familiar territory: Pippa’s rooms at Pentangle’s. She expected to find Pippa with her family, or singing along to modern Christmas music, or at the very least enjoying a quiet evening with friends.

She didn’t expect to see Pippa curled in a chair, wearing the purple sweater Hecate had loaned her weeks ago, her tear-streaked face glistening in the firelight. Hecate stepped closer. “Pipsqueak?” A tumbler of Witch’s Brew rested on her knee. Hecate tried to pry it from her grip, but her own fingers passed right through it. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry I was cross.” She looked around Pippa’s living room. Everything was a tasteful mix of pinks and blacks. Hecate saw her name embroidered on one of the stockings hanging from the mantel. Why couldn’t she just say ‘yes’ when Pippa had asked her to come for Christmas? “I’m sorry I was so me, Pipsqueak. You’ve always deserved more than I’ve given you.” She glanced down, seeing her signature prominently displayed on Pippa’s cast. It was still the only one there. “Please, Pippa… I’ll make it up…” She couldn’t even finish the thought. How do you make up skipping your first Christmas together in over thirty years? Hecate scrambled backwards as Pippa shoved herself to her feet.

“Merry Christmas, Hiccup. Maybe next year.” Pippa took a long gulp from the tumbler then threw what was left into the fireplace, unflinching in the face of the flareup. Without another word, she summoned her crutches and made her way to her bedroom.

“I didn’t…” Hecate turned to the spirit.

“Shall I wait while you hex her?”

A bell began to chime.

****

Hecate hardly had a chance to get her bearings before another phantom slowly and silently approached. She could see no face, no features. Everything was hidden under a black cloak, save one outstretched hand. The spirit’s mere presence filled Hecate with dread.

“W-well met, Spirit. Are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be?” Hecate pressed her hands against her thighs. “You are the spectre I fear above all others.”

The spirit said nothing. Its hand pointed straight out in front of them, but Hecate understood.

“Lead on, then,” Hecate said, resolutely determined to see tonight through.

The village seemed to spring up around them, the same but also different. Hecate found herself standing among a cluster of wizards and witches.

“No,” said a great fat wizard with a massive chin, “I don’t know much about it. I only know that she’s dead.”

“When did she die?” asked another.

“Last night, I think,” said another. “The funeral rites ought to be interesting.”

The crowd strolled away, and while Hecate hoped the spirit would explain, the spirit only pointed at two women. Hecate knew these women.

“Do you think she finally drank herself to death?” Dimity asked. “I don’t know how she lasted as long as she did.”

Marigold Mould shook her head. “I hope not. Do you think she knows yet?” Dimity shrugged her shoulders and hurried on through the cold.

They left the busy scene and went to a part of town Hecate had never been before. She knew it by reputation, though. The narrow streets were filled with crime and misery. As they watched, a lorry pulled up, boxes stacked haphazardly in the back. A dark-haired wizard came out of one of the shops.

“I didn’t think you’d be back with the goods this soon!”

“Well, when you don’t have any heirs fighting over yer ev’ry last button, it don’t take too long.”

The dark-haired wizard opened one of the boxes and had a look at what was inside. He offered a small sum of money for the lot.

Hecate shuddered. “Is the dead witch me, Spirit?” Suddenly, she was standing in a morgue, a sheet-covered body on a table before her. Hecate glanced at the phantom. Its steady hand pointed to the body. Hecate could easily have pulled the sheet away, revealing the face. But she couldn’t do it.  “Please, can we leave this horrible place? Surely, someone is affected by this woman’s death.”

The phantom spread its dark robe and Hecate found herself in the middle of a launderette. Puzzled, Hecate studied the people inside. Who spent Christmas Day in a launderette? No one looked familiar, in fact, everyone seemed to be Ordinary. She was beginning to wonder if the spirit had made a mistake when she felt a slight prickle of magic on the back of her neck. She spun around and came face to face with Mildred Hubble.

Sort of.

Mildred stood outside the launderette, paintbrush in hand, as she repaired the painted window murals. Hecate couldn’t help but smile, even if she didn’t understand why Mildred was here, of all places. She found herself on the other side of the glass, examining the woman that Mildred had grown into.

Her clothes were well-worn, barely above ragged. In her thirties, Hecate guessed. She looked angry, her expression bitter and pinched. In the space of a heartbeat, Maud Spellbody appeared by her side.

“Millie! Your mum told me you’d be here.” Maud waited for Mildred to respond in some way. When she continued painting a snowman, Maud doggedly kept on talking. “Have you heard?”

“I’ve heard. Mum told me.” She finally dropped the brush to her side and looked at Maud. “What’s that got to do with me? You know I left the magic world. I do this now.”

“NO!” Hecate looked from Maud to Mildred and back again. “Left? How on earth did that happen?”

“I know. But I know you have to feel something, Millie. Even if it’s been a while.”

“It hasn’t been long enough,” Mildred snorted, taking up her paintbrush again. “You know I was never really a part of that world.  HB told us all often enough.” She stepped up on a stool so that she could reach the top of the painting. “I have to work, Maud.”

“She left.” Hecate said, confused. “Why did you leave, Mildred Hubble? WHY?” Of course, Mildred didn’t answer.

Hecate turned to the spirit and found herself standing in the middle of a churchyard. The spirit pointed to one of the graves.

Dozens of witches and wizards in formal robes crowded around the grave. “Oh! See Spirit? People remembered. I was mourned!” Hecate pressed through the crowd, trying to see who had come. It didn’t take her long to realize that she didn’t recognize anyone.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” an older witch said. “She died all alone, heartbroken.”

“No heirs, no living family at all,” said another. “I heard she spent her entire life pining away for some mysterious lost love.”

“Pathetic.”

“It wasn’t pathetic!” Hecate shouted. “I never stopped loving her…” Hecate pushed through the crowd, still trying to hear everything being said about the woman in the grave.

“Drunk herself to death is what I heard, not that you could ever tell.” A sorrowful young wizard shook his head. “I never would have guessed it at school.”

Hecate froze. She every cell in her body turned to ice – it burned far more than it did when the Founding Stone died. Cackle’s didn’t allow boys. Hecate staggered to the front of the crowd, finally breaking through, the phantom back at her side.

The ghost said nothing and only pointed down at the grave. Following the finger, Hecate looked down at the headstone and read the inscription: PIPPA PENTANGLE.

“No… NO…” Hecate dropped to her knees, stomach churning. “Spirit, are these shadows of things that will be, or of things that only may be?” She clutched at the phantom’s robe. “I swear, I am not the witch I was before… I can change… I will change… I-I will value my friends, Spirit. I will tell her how I feel. I swear I will live a better life!”

But as Hecate clung to the phantom’s cloak, it shrank, collapsed, and dwindled down into a pillow.

****

Hecate saw that the pillow was her own. That the bed she was in was her own. In her own room. She scrambled out of bed. “I promise I will change,” she rasped. She was so hot and aflutter with good intention, and she had been sobbing so much as she had pleaded with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be, that her broken voice could barely make a sound.

She raced through her quarters, eyes darting everywhere. Her things were still there. Her books still sat on the shelves. Her tea set still sat on the table. She spun around. Pippa’s snow globe still sat on the mantel.

Pippa.

Hecate ran back to her bedroom. As she hurried to dress, Hecate laughed and cried to herself. She turned her clothes inside out, then put them on back to front, forgetting she could simply magic herself dressed.

“No matter,” she said, rapping on her vanity mirror with her knuckles. “Dimity! Dimity Drill! Are you there?” She knocked impatiently until a half-asleep sports witch appeared on the other side.

“Bloody hell, HB, what do you want?”

Hecate sat up, suddenly afraid she was too late. “What day is it?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s Christmas Day, you batty old crone! What do you want?” Dimity tried opening her eyes wide, but she just couldn’t keep them that way.

“I’m not too late, then. May I still come for Christmas?”

“What?” That jarred Dimity into wakefulness. “Why?”

“I want to celebrate with my friends. Please, may I come? I’ll bring food.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can come,” Dimity said, rubbing her eyes. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Hecate bit her lip, working up the nerve to ask her next question. Dimity noticed.

“What else do you want?” she asked.

“Is it all right if I bring a guest?” Hecate waited, rocking back and forth slightly in her excitement.

“If I say yes, can I go back to sleep?” Dimity waved her hand at the mirror. “Whatever, HB. Yes, bring whoever you want.” And with that she closed the connection.

Hecate stared at her refection in the glass. The connection might be dead, she thought, but all it takes is a moment to make another one. Their connection was not dead.

It hadn’t been, not even over the last thirty years.

Their friendship would survive. Thrive, even.

It hurt too much to think of it any other way.

Hecate took a deep, steadying breath before tapping the glass. “Pippa Pentangle,” she said, clearly and calmly. Faster than she thought, Pippa was there. “Pipsqueak… I’m sorry…”

“Hiccup? Is that you? You look like a jumble sale.”

“That’s the one place I haven’t been tonight, actually,” Hecate grinned. “I wanted to… I know we quarreled, and it was my fault… but I wonder –”

Pippa held her hand up to the glass. “Yes. Whatever it is you’re about to ask, yes.”

Hecate placed her hand on the glass against Pippa’s. “I want to spend Christmas with you, Pipsqueak, if you will.”

Pippa’s response was drowned out by the sound of church bells ringing in the village below, so she nodded.  Vigorously. “Happy Christmas!” she said once they stopped.

“Happy Christmas, Pippa, and may the spirits bless us, everyone.”

[blessuswithblogs]

Katsura Hashino is a Big Fat Creep and Other Observations

(for the record all uses of the word “queer” in this post are meant in the academic sense as shorthand for a wide umbrella group of gender and sexual minorities and not as a slur i hope that is evident from my past history and status as Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls but let it never be said i don’t cover my ass)

A few weeks ago, Catherine: Full Body Edition or whatever gross subtitle it got was released. Catherine has had a very checkered history as one of those games that is just kind of slimy, though it has endured with a cult following and a surprisingly successful competitive community by way of the game's multiplayer mode where you compete to see who can climb The Dream Sex Tower the best. Honestly, I don't know that much about Catherine because it is difficult to think of a game that repulses me more on a visceral level, but I want to do my due diligence and not talk out my ass. One of Catherine's initial claims to fame was that it was by Atlus Japan, specifically the same people who made the much beloved Persona games. This is evident in the game's art, music, overall style of delivery, and being basically hate speech.

The original Catherine was a greasy, misogynistic mess with some really vile politics about trans people in particular. Deadnaming your own fictional character in the credits is some next level petty malice. Full Body returns with, stupendously, a double down on this ideology that is actually kind of comical in how convoluted it gets in trying to decry the Degenerate Queer Lifestyle. The game adds a scene with Rin, who is apparently a gay crossdresser from space(???????), getting slapped away and running away crying from their love interest after he learns The Terrible Truth. In another game, with a different writing team, this could have been a teachable moment about the destructive consequences of taking too narrow a view of human sexuality and gender expression, but as it stands it's just another tiresome example of Trans Panic with a sheepish admonishment from the other characters that gosh maybe slapping their hand away was a mean thing to do.

So we're already firing on all cylinders here, but the best is yet to come. The bulk of the outcry comes from the addition of a weird "true ending" cutscene where Catherine, who is also from space, goes back in time to make everybody's life better. Or something. This is already pretty stupid on the face of it because its Fucking Time Travel Out of Nowhere, but the scene then depicts a pre-transition Erica, the game's trans character who got deadnamed in the credits the last time. There has been a lot of exceptionally tedious discussion about exactly when this scene takes place in the game's chronology and what it means for Erica, and some brain geniuses have tied their thinkmeats into pretzel shapes to prove definitively that all this means is that she delayed her transition in this Better Timeline, that might not actually be better, because Catherine is weird and selfish, maybe. And. Fine. Sure. Okay. Let's accept that for now. Given the game's previous track record, and continuing insistence on using Erica's pretransition name in the credits even in the rerelease, it is meanspirited at best to show her before her transition at all (many real life trans people would be utterly mortified for such a thing to happen to them) and overall just in poor taste and pretty lousy writing at that because it's so unclear what any of this actually means. Since the game has not yet received an official english localization, the context of this scene is to begin with muddled by amateur translators on the internet all with slightly conflicting interpretations of the scene. It's a fucking mess, by and large.

So I would disagree that this is a fake controversy manufactured by those damnable essjaydubyas. Even with the most charitable interpretation possible, it's still just really sketchy and gross. Erica's english voice actress, who seems to be very fond of the character, has been vocal about her dissatisfaction with the new scenes on twitter and has recently come out to say that the localization team is going to try and take some steps to make things less blatantly hateful. Between this and Jennifer Hale's recent tweet about it being time to grab our pitchforks in response to Activision-Blizzard's mass layoffs, I'm starting to think that voice actresses are pretty cool. I mean honestly I always thought that but we're getting off topic. One of the top competitive Catherine players, who was by all accounts really hyped for the release of Full Body, just straight up said on twitter that he was quitting the game because he couldn't support something like that in good conscience. I don't know if he's remained consistent on this position since, but it was a bold statement, to say the least.

Now, whenever an incident like this happens, the inevitable string of More-Progressive-Than-Thou white boys who watched an anime once and thought the bouncing titties were a little much appears to start pontificating about the cause of such untoward elements in media. And it's basically all just a bunch of Orientalist bullshit. Every time. For whatever reason, people still really love to be racist towards Japanese people because it's still sort of socially acceptable when couched in the language of "oh japan!!! ecks dee" and so the neverending procession of softboi neckbeards declared with confidence that Atlus's continual inclusion of Actual Hate Speech towards LGBTQ+ people was the result of the inscrutable Japanese Mind and its Mysterious, Antiquated Culture. Many mentions of the philosophy of Wa, wherein the nail that stands out gets pounded down, and lots of very lovely psuedointellectual claptrap. Evidently, people just seem to think that queer people don't live in Japan, or that they don't fight just as hard as we do for equal rights and protections under the law. They do live there, and they do fight as hard as we do. Obviously. You fucking imbeciles.

In their quest to clearly illustrate their moral and intellectual superiority to the backward, collectivist Asiatic Peoples, these highly reasonable and enlightened manboys forsook a very important logical principle: Occam's Razor. Sure, you could blame jApAnEsE cUlTuRe for Atlus's impropieties and just conveniently ignore all of the fantastic queer media it has produced in recent years like My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Horou Muskou, Nier Automata, etc. Or you could go for the simpler and more logically consistent option: Katsura Hashino is a big fat creep. Who is Hashino, you ask? He is the director of every Persona game since 3, as well as Catherine, and all of these games' gross shit and self-contradictory themes of self-acceptance and rebellion against an unust society (unless you're gay, ew) can probably be traced to him and his gaggle of accomplices. In addition to the fact that Atlus games not by Hashino's team tend to just. not have these problems to nearly as large a degree or even at all, Hashino himself has gone on record saying some really kind of hilariously backwards shit. Most infamously, when asked why in Persona 3 literally all of your social links with girls ended up with Hot Makeout Sessions regardless of like. Previously Committed to Relationships. Hashino simply said he couldn't imagine friendships between boys and girls. So that's where his brain is at. Since subsequent games in the series graciously allowed the player the option to not be a Huge Cheating Bastard, one can assume either his moral development has progressed past early puberty or somebody on the team convinced him this wasn't actually a normal thing to think. Given the man's output, I would say it's probably the latter.

It is because of this man's decisions and behavior that so many people are simply unwilling to give Full Body the benefit of the doubt. The game's director is, quite simply, a well known louse, and not in the endearing, Roger Smith way. Once again, it requires far fewer leaps in logic to assume that Hashino is just being a bigoted creep again than to go through some fuckin galaxy brain Kingdom Hearts-esque dot-connecting to justify it as just a LITTLE BIT bigoted not REALLY SUPER bigoted, or simply blaming the whole ordeal on some strange ineffable property of the Japanese Character. He's a gremlin! An overgrown manchild with a warped view of human interaction and society put in charge of games about exploring those concepts for.... reasons. My bet is that his dad knew somebody and then Persona 3 was successful enough for the rest of Atlus to just go "alright fine let him do it while we do mainline games". Unfortunately, Persona became so popular that the mainline games sort of switched places and became side-projects, at least in the eyes of the Western consumer base (which let's be real is the only perspective that any of these Serious Online Commentators even pretend to care about).

So I would once again caution everyone against just assuming that Japan is some sort of quaint anachronistic country of weird gameshows and backwards social mores. This is both a gross oversimplification of an entire culture and the struggles of their own subgroups and minorities and simply a grand display of lacking self-awareness. Like have you fucking seen the guys in the White House? The preposterous media that gets routinely greenlit on prime time TV, theaters, and digitally? Don't make me laugh. The West has no claim to any sort of progressive superiority to anybody else. The white cishet bubble of comfortable middle class affluence might distort what you see of the rest of the world, but believe me: we got problems too. Big ones. Even the presupposed bastions of Demsoc Virtue like Sweden have an awful track record of discrimination and eugenics. But Dazzlyn that's different, you cry! All of these groups and forces don't represent the entirety of Western culture! Yes. Exactly. Oppression is not culturally bound like cuisine or art. It is a nasty, universal thing that worms its way into everything, and it will use any excuse it can find to murder and exploit. It's against Christian values! It represents a genetic defect that must be purged! It's ostentatious and immature! The list goes on. And every time you giggle and go "oh those silly japanese" you're just being another expression of the same vile ideas.

I'm going to relate some of my own personal experiences, because as a noted Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls, I feel like maybe I have some authority on the matter? Just a little? Enough that if I make a well reasoned argument it can't be dismissed out of hand? Let's hope. So, what's the gayest game I've ever played? Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn. Look yeah I know I'm talking about it again but come back this is important. Final Fantasy is a series that has had a lot of LGBTQ+ undertones pretty much since forever, and while they have largely been in keeping with the times in terms of tact and representation (the Crossdressing Cloud debacle is a deeply bizarre, uncomfortable sequence in a lot of ways but there's also some genuine Good Gay Shit in 7 like Cloud's surprisingly cute and genuine date with Barret. I think. It's... it's been a while.), by God, it was at least there, and 13 had honest to god Lesbians, Harold in Fang and Vanille. I don't want to say it has pedigree, but the series has dabbled. XIV continues on the tradition with a vibrant world that's actually got a lot of characters and NPCs that are just incidentally there and kind of gay. The adventurer couple that befriended the Tonberries in Wanderer's Palace, a vendor that appeared in the Rising cosplaying as Minfilia at her wife's behest, a miqote lady bathing in the oasis that lets on she wouldn't mind having cute girls stare at her instead of grabby boys, every horny Elezen in Ishgard, Samson and Guydelot (shoutouts to Lulumi Lumi), and probably more that I've missed. More than that, though, is that because FFXIV is an MMO, it is by necessity a social space, and in my experience it has been one that has gone out of its way to be inclusive to everybody, from the GMs handling reports of abusive behavior right up to the top decision makers who made same sex player marriages a thing just immediately on its implementation and letting boys wear the gold saucer bunny costume too (albeit after quite a bit of pleading). The game's got a huge queer community of which I am kind of part of sort of. It's one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. Hell, they've recently partnered with a pride group in Australia to have an FFXIV float in a parade. I usually turn my nose up at such things as meaningless corporate grandstanding, but it does seem to be more meaningful than two boy pastas getting married or rainbow colored oreos because like. Cheesy as it sounds, it's more than just a brand to a lot of people, it's a place, sometimes the only place, they can go to feel safe and accepted in a community. Having official, vocal support from the dev team means genuinely a lot, I think.

Now, there is one quality about this game of which I am speaking that might strike you as noteworthy: it is Japanese. It's made by Japanese people, in Japan, under a Japanese company. A middle aged Japanese man goes up on stage in Gunbreaker cosplay to speak in Japanese about the upcoming expansion, while a meme obsessed gremlin translates for him. It's not perfect, there are problems, etcetera, why do I even need to qualify that in 2019, when everything sucks, god. But it's better than most things. I hope that it serves as an example to people that even in the supposedly regressive countries of the world, queer communities are still living, fighting, and sometimes even being heard, and that the only thing you're enriching by dismissing them wholesale as socially backwards is your own internet penis. And nobody fucking cares about that you simpleton. I expect 5.0 to be gayer than ever before because they're taming up with Yoko Taro to do a Nier themed raid and by the 12 Warrior of Light Dazzyn Reed is going to kiss 2B or an equivalent model right on the robot lips.

[fuck-bowers]

Derry Queen (Patrick Hockstetter x Reader) Chapter One

A/N: This is an experimental little thing I wrote recently (and I definitely didn’t write it just for the pun… 😂) Let me know what you think!

“You got nominated!” Your friend Shirley cried, pointing at your name on the commons bulletin board. Her excitement was infectious, although you were so physically exhausted from that day’s cheer practice that even smiling hurt.

You couldn’t believe you’d gone the whole day until six-thirty at night before learning that you had a chance at being Homecoming Royalty - more importantly, homecoming queen, as the newly posted paper indicated.

“Oh, wow, I really was.” You muttered to yourself with a slow-forming grin, staring at your name in the typewriter font. You were allegedly competing with Laura Tillman and Jacqueline Werner. You had a feeling you’d win.

Shirley turned to you with nothing but happiness in her expression. “I bet you’ll win, Y/N. How exciting, my best friend might be homecoming queen!”

As the two of you headed to the front exit, Shirley continued talking about who was likely to win in every grade when you wondered whether this was a good thing or not. You were already on the homecoming committee, and would have to make posters and help fundraise for it, specifically during the ‘Fall Fair’ that weekend. You had an ASB zero period every morning of next week, as well as cheer practice every evening preparing for state competitions. Combining that with your AP Bio, AP English class, and every night’s homework from a day full of classes, you weren’t sure you even had time to make it to the homecoming game, much less enough energy.

“… And Clint Cameron’s cute, and nice, so I bet he has a good shot at being king. You know him, right?” Shirley asked.

“I know everyone at Derry High.” You said, with a sarcastic smile. “He’s very nice. I can see him winning for sure.”

Walking out the front doors, you were reminded how little your cheer outfit protected you from the cold. The journey home would certainly feel much longer than usual.

“See you tomorrow, Y/N. Good job on that nomination.” She teased, walking down the sidewalk and leaving you standing below the glow of the streetlamps. Summer had certainly come and gone, the autumn chill surrounding you.

“Thanks.” You bid, quietly.

Alone, in front of the school, you stood and waited for no one. Debating whether or not you should walk home, or maybe even hitchhike to some other city and start a new life, your responsibilities silently strangled you.

Other students dubbed you ‘The Derry Queen’, and that night, it was clear why that had become your moniker. Between your mother’s constant pressure and the occasional enjoyment everything brought you, you’d done everything imaginable (aside from run for mayor) to be involved in your small Maine hometown.

“Fuck.” You murmured under your breath, wishing there was some sort of way you could get out of walking. You were physically and mentally exhausted, and the night had barely even begun.

Maybe if a fellow cheerleader or classmate drove by, they’d be willing to help. You weren’t lying when you said you knew everyone who went to Derry High, and that basically extended to every resident. Maybe someone would drive you and rescue you from the cold walk alone. But still, who’d be aimlessly driving around this late, with the freedom to take someone home on the fly? Your answer purred up beside you in the shape of a blue Trans-Am, filled with the most notorious boys in town.

Car exhaust filled your nose as you grimaced, eyebrows knit, immediately making eye contact with Patrick Hockstetter.

“Hey there, cheerleader.” The delinquent said, sticking his head out of the passenger side window, resting crossed arms on the door. He smiled, looking up and down the sidewalk. “You workin’ the street tonight?”

The back window was down, and you noticed Henry Bowers sitting there, giving you the once over multiple times. You narrowed your eyes at the passenger.

“You can’t afford me, Hockstetter. Keep driving.”

As the two of you held eye contact, the other boys ‘ooh'ing at your reply, something changed in his eyes.

“Huh. You remember my name.” He said, a sarcastic smirk growing on his face. Anger sprung a leak within you.

“I can’t remember a day where your name didn’t come over the intercom. Didn’t you have detention today?” You nearly spat. The smirk became smug.

“It’s tomorrow.” He replied.

After a near stare-down, you took a single step toward your typical route home, and he spoke again. “Come on, Belch is dropping me off anyway, and we both know it’s too cold for you to walk that far, in that little dress you’re wearing.” Patrick insisted, eyes moving over your skirt. You rolled your eyes.

“Don’t do me any favors, okay? I’m fine.”

As sore as you were, as cold as it was outside, it was still difficult to say yes. It was rumored that the girls who got into that Trans Am ended up getting a lot more than just a ride home. And you didn’t want to be around Patrick any longer than you had to, anyway.

Quietly, he said something that made you change your mind.

“Well, I owe you a favor, don’t I?”

Holding eye contact, you could see a flicker of genuine care, something you never thought you’d find in his eyes. Memories that you were so sure had faded with time suddenly threatened to invade your thoughts.

A freezing breeze pushed your hair past your shoulders, and you took a deep breath in. You looked down the street. It seemed he wasn’t going to let up.

“Fine.” You said, quietly. He still heard.

“Henry, make room for Y/N.” Patrick said, stepping out and moving the seat forward.

“Gladly.” Henry flirted, and you made your way over to sit uncomfortably beside him. The way he looked at you put a terrible taste in your mouth.

After Patrick pushed the seat back and got in after you, the car drove off into the night.

The low rumble of the engine was about the same volume of the AC/DC on the stereo. It was the only thing filling your head for a moment, until Henry put his arm around your headrest, and placed the other one on your thigh.

“How was cheer practice, baby? You sore?” He mused in a voice soft and saccharine, tenderly squeezing your leg. 

The bad taste in your mouth turned into a full-fledged knot, keeping you from saying a word. Your cheeks turned bright red.

Before you could muster up the courage to speak, the driver’s voice split the air.

“Henry, could you ease up on the royalty please?”

Henry turned to look at Belch, but didn’t move either of his hands.

“Royalty? What do you mean?”

A laugh. “She’s nominated for homecoming queen.”

You furrowed your brow, surprised that he knew your name, and doubly surprised he cared enough to look at the roster of those nominated at all. Maybe word got around about it - though how would it reach him before it reached you?

Henry smirked, turning back to face you, much too close for comfort.

“Aren’t you the ‘Derry Queen’ already?”

You wondered if the only reason they knew about you in depth like this was because of Patrick. You’d rather be the biggest name in the rumor mill than have Patrick tell them everything he knew about you.

“Yeah.” You sarcastically huffed, turning away from the boy leaning in so close.

“How do you know her, Patrick?” Vic asked, and you nearly forgot he was in the car. Vic seemed less scary than the other guys, but because you knew so little about him, the air of mystery made up for it.

“We’re neighbors. We used to be childhood friends.”

Maybe he hadn’t told them enough about you. It was a relief, but at the same time, now they knew.

The two of you were once friends, sure, but things change. People change. And now, you couldn’t be more of a polar opposite from your next door neighbor, in far more ways than one. No one else knew about it, and if you told them, they probably wouldn’t believe it.

The car slowed to a stop directly between your houses.

“You’re that white house?” Belch asked, looking out the passenger side window. Patrick opened up the car door, stepping out.

“Yeah. Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, lady.” He said, without the same flirty nature that everything Henry said to you carried. He began to light a cigarette as you stepped out from the back. Henry followed, getting into the passenger seat.

“See you around, Queenie.” The leader of the gang called after you.

You wished Belch had never said anything about homecoming. Getting out of the car, you slammed the door shut and quickly stalked off toward your house.

Patrick followed, the car driving off.

“Hey, wait up.”

You quickly turned around, your nerves releasing.

“Stay away from me, Patrick.”

The tone in your voice surprised him. He leaned on one leg, standing a few feet away from you.

“That’s all I’ve done the past few years. I’m pretty fucking good at it.” He bitterly mused.

Looking him up and down, you noticed how much he’d changed, how he’d stayed the same. His dark brown hair framed his face neatly, those piercing eyes both terrifying you and calming you as he stared. You remembered the days you’d spend tearing through your backyards, pretending they were jungles, up through elementary school when you’d help him with his homework, until middle school, when things started changing. Now, the mere sight of him made you feel sick - yet you could still see the boy inside that you’d once called your best friend.

He almost made you feel nostalgic; but it was only for a moment.

“Not good enough.” You said, turning back around and walking away without another glance behind you.

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

[partyatmyhaus]

I don't believe in God, but I believe in this shit

6,000 words of trans!Matt. My b?

READ IT ON Ao3

He knows from the second he reads the definition online, that there’s a reason he feels the way he does- and he’s not weird. He bookmarks the page, even though he knows by heart how to find it again, and he buries the link under a fake title in a bookmarks tab he uses for school stuff- and only opens it when no one else is home.

It’s his secret.

-

[Whenever he closes the tab, he tries to ignore the stabbing feeling of that he’s lost something somehow].

-

The first person he ever tells is his mom. And it’s nothing remarkable- nothing planned but it’s not an accident. It’s over two years since he finds the definition, and it’s just her and him in the kitchen- she’s making dinner while he’s providing her some company. And he makes a split second decision to tell her. He’s going to to college next year, and he feels like it’s a now or never situation.

“I’m a guy.”

-

He knows her mom tells her dad that night, he can hear the frustrated yelling through the walls. The confused whisper/shouting match back and forth. He presses himself up against his wall as tight as he can- he clutches his stuffed dog, the one his aunt brought him for his first birthday- and he listens.

“What do we do, Mary?” After a long while of silence, he hears his dad sigh being followed by the sound of two bodys sitting on the couch.

“We support our baby, George.”

-

He stays the weekend with his aunt, and when he comes home his closet is basically empty of all the dusty dresses and skirts- and when he goes into the living room to ask, he finds his mom reading the newspaper while his dad watches the game.

“What happened to my closet?” He asks standing in the doorway, it’s been a weird few weeks- and he can’t help but internally start to panic that they’re emptying his stuff out because they’re going to kick him out. That this is the last leg so to speak.

His mother doesn’t look up from her newspaper article as she replies, “You were never going to wear them so i gave them to Darla. Her daughter is about your size, besides she is struggling a little bit- why not help out?”

He goes to leave the room- before he starts crying honestly, but he lingers for a moment before saying,

“Thank you.”

-

Right after school gets out for Christmas break, his mom and dad take him out- telling him that they wanted the company while going to get groceries.

They end up at a barber- the one he recognizes that his dad goes too- and before he can ask his mom what’s going on, she’s halfway out of the car saying,

“Your hair is getting a little long, don’t you think?”

He leaves with a men #7, and honestly- it feels like he can breathe a bit better.

-

He get’s his first binder for Christmas. It comes from his Aunt, and it’s not wrapped or under the tree- she instead has him follow her out to her car, and she hands it to him with a wink and then vanishes back into the party.

He opens it in his room, and he sits on the floor- just touching it for a long time.

-

He wears his binder for the first time, on the second day back to school. Between everyone focusing on his hair being short, and the large sweater he wears, it’s probably not noticeable to anyone-

Anyone but him.

-

The summer after his Junior year ends- he gets placed on Testosterone-Hormones. And by the end of the summer, there are changes- little ones but there are changes.

The biggest one being the little bit of darkening peach fuzz on his face; (he spends 30 minutes doing a dance in his bathroom for a little bit after he notices it).

Over the summer himself and his parents start the process of getting his name changed. And the only reason it happens is because one night he cries to his mother for an hour rambling about how he didn’t want his diploma to say ‘that other name’ .

-

The new semester starts and he thinks that everyone (With the exception of like 2 people) think he’s a new student- not the same kid they’d all gone to school with sense Pre-K.

-

[Of course people start to figure it out and there is one incident that still haunts him. He had been in the locker room- putting his shoes back on, when two guys he vaguely remembers from his 3rd period seem to appear out of nowhere.

He never tells his mom how he got the black eye or why his shirt was ripped right down the middle.

And he never shows the bruises around his ribs and forearms- from where he was shoved to the floor and violently kicked for over an hour].

-

A couple weeks after that he makes friends with a group of people from his Spanish class.

-

[Within two weeks of making his new ‘friends’ he finds out it was a bet- placed by the kids from his 3rd period. A bet to see who could befriend him the fastest].

-

By graduation, he’s starting to feel really comfortable. Overall he’s got more hair- and his voice is much deeper than before.

And, to everyone’s joy, his diploma doesn’t say the wrong name.

-

The summer before college, his aunt comes to him and offers to pay for a mastectomy- telling him she has talked to his parents and that if he wants to do it- now would be the best time. Not missing school, being able to be cared for.

-

He gets his mastectomy a week after his birthday.

When he wakes up, his chest feels so light- he cries.

-

College starts and his professors call out the right name in class on the first day, and he feels really really good.

-

He ends up roommate-less for about a month, before a girl moves in. He comes back from class to his door half open and a girl in his room, currently putting sheets on the previously unoccupied bed. She offers a wide smile when she notices him.

“The school told me why no one wanted to room with you, and that’s fucking stupid. Anyways- I’m Jess.”

-

Jess introduces him to her friend Adam, and they hit it off right away. After about 2 months of hanging out about non-stop, he thinks that he should have been more surprised when Adam kisses him. When Adam cuts off his ramble about this seasons baseball picks and leans across the couch and cups his face and kisses him. He could be surprised.

But he isn’t and he doesn’t stop himself from kissing back.

-

Their first date is in some shitty arcade where Adam is better at everything, and by the end of it- Adam uses all the tickets he collected and gets a small green bear (which Adam ends up leaving for him on his dresser table).

-

They go on another date about a week later, they go see some shitty movie; they’re the only ones in the whole theater so they make commentary the entire time and Adam laughs so hard his face is bright red.

Adam spends the last 35 minutes of the movie, slowly and gently moving his hand into his. Slowly slotting their fingers together- and never once looking at him. As if he was trying to play it cool (the thought makes him laugh).

By the end of the movie they walk out of the theater still hand in hand.

It’s a wonderful date.

-

Two months into dating, he tells Adam- only because he feels he has too (like dating him has a disclaimer, and he was obligated to tell Adam).

Adam takes the news with a smile and a gentle laugh, and tells him later that before Jess introduced them, she had told him (along with threatening him, “ If you make him sad Kovic, I’ll fucking kill you. He’s so nice, so don’t be a dick. ”)

-

He finds himself falling in love with his dork of a boyfriend pretty fast, and by the time their 6 month anniversary rolls around- he just knows. He can’t explain how he does, but he just knows.

He can feel it settle deep into the pit of stomach as he watches Adam laugh so hard some of his beer comes out of his nose- and he just knows .

He knows Adam is his person.

-

Adam drops out of college later that year, and instantly Adam seems more cheery- it makes him glad. School had been weighing on Adam and he had hated seeing him so tired and empty all the time.

Around that time he and Adam have sex for the first time. They’ve been dating for a year and a half at that point, and god bless Adam Kovic because he must ask him at least 100 times, “ Are you okay?” “Are you alright?”

He is very okay, and very much so alright.

-

[After they’re cleaned up and settled into bed- limbs criss-crossed and their body’s are sweaty and heavy, he says it- out into the air.

‘I love you, Adam.’ And he isn’t disappointed when he gets a kiss to the top of his head and he can feel Adam’s smile.

‘I love you, too.’]

-

[[He sleeps better than he ever has that night]].

-

He graduates that fall; he tries to hide is disappointment when the only family members who show up are his mother, father and aunt.

-

He gets a job for Adult Swim, an assistant editor for one of their shows, and he hates it instantly. He tries to stay positive, he knows how hard it is to get a job out of college so he tries to remain calm and not let everything bother him.

-

Adam spends the next year gently offering him a job at Machinima (which he always just smiles at and shakes his head at).

-

The next time he actually tells someone is years later, after he’s been in Robot Chicken editors hell for about 4 years when Adam ‘invites’ him out to lunch and when he gets to restaurant- Adam is nowhere to be seen, but Bruce is at a table- waving him over.

And the only reason he tells Bruce, wonderful Bruce who’s offering him a job, is because he feels like he has a disclaimer. Like he has too- like if he doesn’t he’s a liar.

And Bruce, wonderful friendly Bruce, just smiles at him and tells him ‘I don’t give a shit whatever you’ve got going on under your pants- as long as you can do your job’.

-

He leaves Robot Chicken later that month.

-

The first major negative reaction he receives in his adult life- is within his first month of being with Machinima. [Of course he’s had negative reactions, but never one on this scale].

The office Christmas party is in full swing and he feels like he’s the only sober person in the entire room (he doesn’t mind being the designated driver- honestly he feels more at peace knowing his friends will get home safe).

He is sitting at the booth- all of his friends on the floor dancing. The party isn’t at the office but at some bar, close enough to the office that most people had just walked over instead of even trying to move their cars.

He’s been sat by himself for a while now, content just to watch as Lawrence bullies Joel into doing body shots- and he finds himself laughing when Sean ends up out doing all of them.

About the time the party is in full swing a couple of guys he recognizes that work in the little space just outside of ‘The Joel Hole’, and he knows they’re drunk.

“Hey there, Rebecca.”

And it’s something out of a movie the way his body tenses up, and his blood runs cold and no one has called him by that name in years. That name is dead, that person is dead.

“Aw, gonna cry like the little girl you are?” And he can’t breathe but between the two guys and him he can’t leave. They won’t let him. His heart feels heavy, and the entire world feels like the moment in-between being thrown into the air and hitting the pool water.

“Everyone in the office knows, you know. Why you think they’re your friends is beyond me.” Jackass A says, and he’s about 2 seconds away from crying- but they don’t stop. They don’t care about him. He doesn’t even care about how they know- he just wants them to leave. That must show on his face because then they’re laughing even louder.

“Yeah, it’s funny!” Jackass 2 says laughing, his beer sloshes and a bit hits the table, “We all get together and laugh at how funny it is that you think they tolerate you- let alone like you.”

The three disappear after that, and so does he.

-

He emails their boss- Not Bruce or Adam, he goes even higher up than that, and he cashes in a week of ‘personal’ time off.

He ignores the calls and texts from everyone- and he feels terribly, terribly guilty for leaving them all at the bar alone- but can’t bring himself to answer the phone.

(Honestly, deep down, he can’t bring himself to feel the guilt- feel anything really).

He spends the entire week in his apartment, curled up next to his bed (he’s not worth enough to lay on the bed).

-

By the 4th day, he can hear Adam and Lawrence pounding on his door, yelling for him to open up. It’s only after they threaten to call the landlord (and then the police) that he grabs his phone and sends them a text message- not proof read and shaky- but he sends it.

11:24 AM

To: Adda-Boi, Larr

MSG:

Imm fine, pleasd leave before my neighbors compain

-

[They leave 10 minutes later, and he pretends to not hear the cracking in Adam’s voice.]

-

He comes back to work the next Tuesday, and acts as if nothing is wrong. As if he doesn’t know.

They never really liked him, he was just a source of entertainment.

A joke.

-

[He pretends that doesn’t hurt as badly as it actually does].

-

He breaks up with Adam a week later. He shows up at Adam’s apartment at 10 PM, crying and it takes him about 30 minutes to get it out but he does. It comes out rushed, and not planned like he had rehearsed it to be, but he knows Adam hears him.

He leaves Adam, silently crying on the couch.

-

Life becomes a cycle after that.

Wake up. Go to work. Ignore everyone. Come home. Drink. (And if he’s feeling real crazy at some point in his schedule he’ll find time to eat).

-

After a month of the breakup, it seems as if everyone has given up on him- no one seems to try to take him to lunch or ask him what’s wrong. No one pats him on the back, or gives him random hugs. No one texts him anymore and it should make him feel better but it doesn’t.

He misses them, he misses Adam. Oh, God, does he miss Adam.

But he enjoys knowing that he’s ruined their entertainment- that he’s ruined the running gag.

He’d rather be alone and sad than blissfully happy and the butt end of their jokes.

-

He learns the names of the jackasses from the bar- Colin and Brett. And the only reason he comes to learn their names is because their boss (the big one) pairs him up to help them with a new show. For the next 8 weeks, he’s on loan to the dickheads and not going to be anywhere near Inside Gaming.

-

After 5 weeks, he just can’t take it anymore. He starts doing stupid shit- it starts by accident but then he doesn’t want to start.

He picks up a pan from the stove without an oven mit- and makes himself feel the pain for a good 3 seconds before dropping it back down.

He starts taking showers only if the water is either too hot or much too cold.

He eats only when the edges of his vision start going blurry

-

He starts to wish he was normal. That he could have been happy as a girl.

[He starts torturing himself by looking at old family photos- the ones from before he told his family.]

-

By the time the project ends and he’s back working with the Inside Gaming crew, he’s lost 20 pounds and he hasn’t slept in what feels like years. He knows he must look like shit because Sean just kind of looks at him his first day back and looks worried.

‘That’s not a look of worry that’s pity.’ His brain corrects and that’s how he finds himself glaring at one of nicest people he’s ever met at 7:45 in the morning. By the time Sean looks ready to talk to him, he’s turning around and heading to his desk- grumbling about edits.

-

It’s 3 months after the break up, and he’s still avoiding Adam. He knows Adam wants an explanation (All he had said that night was ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I can’t do this. Not to you’.)

But like all things, that comes to an end and by the end of the 3rd month Adam corners him and convinces him to talk to him.

“Not here. Not at work. But...I’ll come by after work? To your place?” And Adam looks so small and honestly so sad, he can’t stop himself from agreeing.

-

Adam comes by right from work- but Adam brings his favorite candy. And he feels like such a dick, why did this happen? Why couldn’t he be the person Adam deserved?

-

He ends up exploding, telling Adam everything- and he tries to ignore the sadness mixed with murder in Adam’s eyes as he asks who it was. Asks who did this.

“It doesn’t matter…” He trailes off and for the first time in 3 months Adma touches him, a gentle but firm grip of his wrist. He wants to cry even more now- he didn’t realize how much he missed touch until now.

“It does. It matters to me. Who was it?” And he tells him, and he doesn’t mean to start crying but he does.

He ends up tucked into Adam’s chest- telling him everything. The dysphoria, how he’s sorry he’s wrong , and that he wishes that he wasn’t fucked up because then they could be together. (He pretends he doesn’t hear Adam’s sniffles as he hugs him).

But Adam, strong Adam, just holds him and pets his hair until he falls asleep.

-

The next morning, he’s awake first- still tucked into Adam, a blanket half hazardly draped over both of them and he can’t stop himself from snuggling closer. And he tries to ignore the smile that creeps onto his face at the way Adam relaxes and lets him closer- like he always has.

-

When Adam comes into work the following Monday, he looks ready to murder. He tries to stop his leg from bouncing as he sees Adam gather Bruce and Lawrence.

He tries to calm down and actually get some work done, but soon enough the receptionist is sticking her head in the door and calling for him. He ignores the worried looks from Sean and Joel as he follows her to one of the conference rooms where inside of it sat Adam, Lawrence, Bruce on one side- and on the other side sitting Colin and Brett. At the head of the table sits their boss.

-

The meeting ends up being the beginning of the end because by the end of the month the seven of them (Joel, Lawrence, Bruce, Sean, James, Adam and himself)- end up joining the Roosterteeth family.

-

Things are starting to get better.

-

[He still sleeps beside his bed, on the floor. He can’t shake off the thought of not being worth it to sleep in it- so he just doesn’t].

-

He feels really stupid when he figures it out. He feels so ignorant for not noticing what had developed. But above all he feels really insignificant and out of place.

They’ve all been with Roosterteeth for months now, but it takes catching James and Sean and Joel making out/on top of each other in the kitchen for them to tell him that everyone (and he does mean everyone: Joel, Bruce, Lawrence, Adam, James, (James’ wife Elyse) and Sean) are in a polyamorous relationship.

A relationship that no one wanted to tell him about.

(He doesn’t know why it hurts as bad as it does).

He doesn’t remember what he says to that- he thinks he made his face go blank and then he just turned and started to walk away- but he doesn’t quite remember.

-

[He does, however, remember how he shoved his hands into the pockets of his outermost hoodie- because they were shaking. And he remembers how he packed up his stuff, ignoring how James yelled after him- offering to explain everything- he remembers shoving past him, laptop under his arm as he left the office. Ignoring the concerned questions of what happened and James’ explaining behind him.

He remembers driving to the wrong apartment, before in the moment remembering that he lives with Bruce now. He doesn’t remember driving to the new apartment, or getting inside.

He remembers being curled up beside his bed when Bruce and Lawrence had come inside. He remembers how Bruce pushed the door opened, and how it creaked oh so gently. He remembers Lawrence’s quiet whisper of, “ Oh, sweet boy , no .”

He remembers not talking to either of them, but instead- standing, and by using his body pushing them out of his room, and closing the door on them.

He remembers locking the door.]

-

The next morning he had woken up, moments before his alarm and tried to swallow the instant thought of, ‘ They all love each other- they really don’t need a freak like you around. ’

After getting dressed (wearing the loosest clothes he could find) and debating if he should or should not in fact go to work, (he ends up deciding he needed to go- his moral side winning) he opens his bedroom door for the first time since shutting it on Lawrence and Bruce.

And there they are. Each on a side of the frame, asleep hunched against the wall.

He wants to be mad at them, wants to be upset (and he still is, but it’s dwindled now). And he can’t help but laugh as he uses his foot to awaken Lawrence and the first sound out of the others mouth is a long groan.

“We’re gonna be late. You owe me coffee.” Is all he says when Lawrence looks up at him with a small smile, laced with concern (and maybe just a touch of hope). He smiles wider at the nod Lawrence gives him.

-

When they get into the office, he offers James a smile- but before anyone can say anything he’s at his desk, in full work mode.

-

This goes on for a couple of days. Him only speaking to them when he had a work related question, (and in the case with Bruce- anything rent/needing food related). And eventually- slowly- he starts to chime into their weird conversations.

-

Elyse joins the team and he wants to dislike her. To hate her even. But he can’t.

She’s amazing and he’s glad they all have someone like her.

-

[He wishes he had someone like her.]

-

No one brings up their relationship, and he’s silently glad for it. Even if he has caught them all playing grab-hand or sharing what they think are ‘secret’ kisses. (He ignores the pit of something he’s identified as ‘jealousy’ in his stomach- whenever he sees them).

-

It’s a boring Tuesday, when the office trembles a bit. It shakes his bobble head off the shelf behind him, and it flickers the power out momentarily- but it’s nothing major. (There are groans throughout the office at the loss of power- and therefore loss of unsaved work).

After a moment, almost everyone laughs it off. The lights and their computers coming back to the life. Everything seems undisturbed and normal. But he notices the way Sean hasn’t chimed in, no joke coming from the youngest corner of the room. He stands up from his seat at his desk and can see the white knuckles clutching the edge of the desk, and he drops his headphones onto the table with a soft ‘thud’ and moves quickly- he knows he’s gained some attention but he’s more concerned with the other male at the moment.

He stands to the side of Sean’s desk for a beat before gently calling out his name,

“Sean?” Being up close he can see the gentle tremor in Sean’s shoulders and the way his chest isn’t moving rhythmically like it should be. He can feel everyone now looking this way, he hears Lawrence and Adam both stand up in tandem.

He opens his mouth to call for him again, but a fire truck wails past the open window and it gathers the youngers attention.

“I don’t...I didn’t...I’m s-sorry.” He’s stuttering and it’s like Sean is trying to look at him but is more so looking through him. And, as true to his character, he acts without really thinking.

He gently pries Sean’s hands off the desk, and places them into his own. He crouches in front of him and offers the more sincere smile he can.

“No need to apologize.” He rubs the back of Sean’s hands with his thumbs, and not-so subtlety takes a deep breath (he’s grateful when Sean starts to mimic him). Sean still looks so scared and childlike that he can’t bring himself to walk away.

“Wanna sit with me on the couch? Maybe do a Reddit AMA?” He knows he’s said the right thing when Sean manages to actually look at him and gives a small nod.

(He also can see out of his peripheral vision, how everyone else seems to take a deep breath and relax again).

-

[Sean doesn’t let go of one of his hands the entire time they’re on the couch].

-

They all head out to go to Austin for RTX. They leave a week and half early, to record with Achievement Hunter and to be on the podcast. The flight out to Austin is pretty uneventful (minus the fact he hates flying and feels like he has a 2 hour long panic attack). By the time they get in the sky is dark, and there’s thunder in the distance and he feels some of the stress in his shoulders go.

He really does love Austin.

-

When they get to the hotel, they all take their room keys- he grabs the ones for Sean and him. He gives the spare to Joel- just in case and they all trudge upstairs, everyone being basically dead on their feet, and Matt unlocks the door and let’s Sean go in first and he doesn’t miss the squeak from the other man.

“Uh. There’s only one bed.” Is his oh-so-helpful observation, and he hears Sean’s laugh before he turned serious again,

“Do you mind? If you do I can go find one of the other guys…” And Sean looks so flustered it makes his heart do a flip and he somehow manages to say,

“It’s all good. This benefits me. You’re always warm, so I won’t have to break the heater trying to stay warm.” And he knows again he’s said the right thing because Sean laughs and mumbles something about ‘last time’.

-

[He throws a pillow at Sean for that.

“ Let bygones be bygones !”]

-

[They stay up watching movies, and ordering room service. He’s really glad they don’t have to go to work tomorrow.]

-

[[They fall asleep before he can really process that he’s in a bed]].

-

He wakes up to the sound of the door unlocking, followed by Joel singing and Bruce’s wheezing. It’s a moment later that he wakes up enough to realize he’s cuddling Sean. Moreso, spooning him. He’s got one arm tucked under Sean’s pillow and and other wrapped around the younger's waist. They’re both facing away from the door, and he opens his eyes just enough to see the sun gently falling in from the window and onto the bed right in front of Sean.

“Well.” Joel says, standing at the front of bed, and he looks at him with wide eyes.

“I didn’t-” He starts and goes to move but is caught off by Seans whine and the motion of Sean rolling over and grabbing the front of his shirt.

“It’s too early for this shit.” Sean says, and he wants to laugh- but he just got caught accidently cuddling with his best friends boyfriend.

He and Bruce just have a staring contest for a long moment before the sound of Joel’s phone camera snaps him out of it.

“The boys are gonna love thi-” And he wants to tell Joel ‘no’ but again Sean cuts him off before he can even begin speaking. Sean’s hands retwisting in the grab of the front of his shirt.

“Do you have scars on your chest?”

“Haven’t Adam or Bruce told you?” He looks up from Sean to Bruce where the other is offering what seems to be a sad-tired smile.

“No one outside of Adam and I know. We’ll never tell anyone unless you give up explicit permission to.” Bruce answers and it’s too early for this shit. Much too early for this, and is the room getting smaller or is it just him? And man he jokes about being too cold, but he’s freezing and what day is it because he can’t remember. And they never told anyone? He assumed they would have. Why didn’t they? And what was his hotel room number? Man, has Joel always been so tall? They didn’t tell anyone?

“You gotta breathe, babes.” Joel is crouched in front of him now, and oh he’s not curled up with Sean anymore, he’s instead now pressed against the headboard. Bruce is off to the side of him, hands outstretched and all his mind can think is

‘Bruce is safe. Bruce is safe. Bruce is safe.’

He ends up kind of just throwing himself into Bruce’s chest, he doesn’t really know how long he stays there, just rambling and letting Bruce hold him- but it’s long enough to where everyone else shows up, having wondered why the fuck they didn’t show up to breakfast.

“I’m really sorry. I’m sorry.” And he doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for cuddling Sean, or being a dick, or clinging to Bruce- all he knows is he’s sorry.

“No one is upset with you.” Is all Adam says, sitting beside them, rubbing his back. For some reason the gesture stirs something up in him.

“I missed you.” He doesn’t know why he says it- he blames the fact his brain is overdrive, despite being awake for an hour (at most), “I really miss you and I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” And it’s an innocent question, from James who is now sitting on the other end of the bed. (He doesn’t see the confused look everyone shoots James, and the gesture James gives back as a ‘lets see’.)

“I..I’m just sorry for everything.” And great now he’s crying. He’s crying into his boss/roommate/friends chest, while all of his co-workers/friends watch. And he can’t stop himself from rambling everything he’s been trying to ignore.

“I’m really sorry I made you guys feel like you had to hide your relationship from me. And I’m sorry for being jealous, I’m trying not to be. I’m really sorry for being so wrong. Different. I’m sorry for not being more. And I’m sorry for cuddling your boyfriend, I didn’t mean too- I swear. I’m really sorry, it just happened. And I’m sorry for freaking out, a lot just happened at once. And- and I just assumed you told everyone, and you hadn’t.” At the last statement he picks his head up and looks between Adam and Bruce- both of which have sandwiched him between them. And he feels his stomach hit the floor at the sight of Adam, his wonderful Adam, silently letting tears drip down his face- even if he is smiling.

“I’m sorr-” And he never gets to finish the sentence because Adam just grabs his face and kisses him. Just like their first kiss- him being mid-sentence and all. And, again, just like their first kiss- the world stops spinning out of orbit and he’s grounded. (He is however aware that he is still basically sitting in Bruce’s lap- but he can’t bring himself to care).

When Adam pulls away- with a soft smile on his face, all he can really manage to say is a very quiet,

“What?”

“We kind of love you, you idiot.” Is James’ helpful explanation, and suddenly the tense air is gone and they’re all laughing.

-

They end up order room service again, everyone finding a way to cram into the room (most of them on the bed)- and he tells them. He tells them the entire tale, from finding the definition to the fact he hasn’t slept in a real bed in nearly 7 months. He tells them details even Adam hadn’t heard before. Tells them about his aunt, and his surgery- he explains what dysphoria is and he explains what taking hormones is like. And by the end of it, everyone is nibbling away on the last bites of food in silence.

“I wasn’t kidding you know. We all do kind of love you.” James says, and it breaks the silence, “We’ve been flirting for months but that apparently doesn’t work. Because we make you share a room with the one person who swoons over you like a teenage girl and all it did was give you a panic attack.”

It’s the way James’ says it, lazy and confident that makes them laugh.

“Well,” He swallows his mouthful of food and looks up with a smile, “I, guess, love you guys, too.”

-

They wait until they get back to L.A. to go on a date, and it takes a while to figure one out but they do eventually and it’s amazing.

It’s at Joel’s apartment, they play the High School Musical drinking game, and have an amazing home cooked meal- made by Lawrence and Elyse and he’s finds himself properly relaxing- for what feels like the first time in years.

-

Somehow the fanbase finds out, and he has a bit of a meltdown. An understandable thing to experience when suddenly all of your social media is flooded with comments and that name . He actually ends up having to have Adam (and Elyse) drive him home, while Bruce does damage control. (Lawrence will tell him later, that someone on Reddit had been looking up their birth certificates at their job and stumbled across his).

Adam and Elyse both just cradle him as he shakes, he clings to them. He rambles as he explains what hearing that name does to him- and they both just listen, nodding and offering whatever help they can provide.

-

Within a week, it’s back to normal. There are still one or two comments here and there but for the most part it goes back to normal. He spends all of his time with someone else however, mostly per Adam and Bruce’s request- both of them knowing him too well, that knowing if he was alone long enough he’d backtrack real bad. (He can’t even be mad at that).

-

RTX Sydney comes around and it’s in the middle of the Dude Soup podcast (panel?) that someone asks ‘ Rebecca-’ and before he can even reply, Bruce is standing up (along with Elyse and Lawrence), looking pissed and almost snarling into the microphone,

“His name is Matt, motherfucker.”

-

[That night they push the two queen size beds in their hotel room together, and Matt doesn’t feel any guilt about sleeping in the bed surrounded by his lovers].

-

After they get back to LA his dad calls him to sort through his childhood relics and he finds his old computer- adding it into the bin of things to keep.

Later, he’ll open it and navigate back to the once secret bookmark and smile at it while he listens to his boyfriends argue over which Halo was better. And he’ll close to the page, without feeling like he’s lost anything.

-

trans·gen·der

transˈjendər,tranzˈjendər/

adjective

denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

[loosecatspen]

Copied texts

PD

After finishing one soft taco (where everybody else was on their second) Raven looked up. Raven: I'm not entirely sure how to ask this, how did we wind up fighting a giant lizard?

Ice and Klesmolv both stopped eating. ICE: I'm not to sure on how it happened exactly but he was a guard for the Demonology department, really it was a section of the building's basement dedicated to adding old occult books and creepypasta rituals and "hoping" that they worked. Well one did and they ended up with a chunk of demon flesh. And of course the first thought that they had was to splice it onto someone without telling anyone that they did anything of that sort. Ground had lost a bet the previous day, involving one of the higher researcher's car and a chicken, so he offered to get spliced rather than go out streaking as he had agreed to do per the bet's rules. They covered it up as a new tat that he got for a month or so until Marina came to our place of research. It triggered something and forced a bond between the demon and Ground, it's form like the one that we fought near the end. He says that it talks to him sometimes, mostly at night or while asleep. Needless to say after the tat was found out to be demon flesh, the department was dissolved and all of the students suspended and others were expelled.

Everyone stopped eating and stared at Ice and Klesmolv. Anilyse glanced at the wall in the direction of the hammock room, and back at the two adults. Finally Falcon spoke. Falcon: sounds like something my school would do. Except, no one would get expelled. Unleeess they were guardians, then they'd be reprimanded. The angel went back to eating.

Raven: was it a trans dimensional demon?

ICE: I don't know the specifics but I think so.

Raven cocked her head. She seemed to lighten up a bit before remembering the logo on Klesmolv's vest. She sighed and went back to her taco.

Melody inwardly sighed, briefly she wondered if it was okay that people not know the truth about the foundation. After a mental debate with he snakes she decided it was so and finished her final soft taco. She got up with her plate and returned to the kitchen. Falcon followed her and helped in washing the dishes.

Jack: why would Marina be at a college?

ICE: She had appeared during a botany demonstration. At least she had appeared in the back of the classroom so not many people noticed her sudden presence.

Jack poked the Queen with his staff. Jack: well that sounds right. Raven finished with her plate and brought her dishes to the sink. She was followed by Anilyse.

After finishing their meal, the adults did the same and departed to the living room.

Melody finished the dishes and shooed the teens into the hammock room. Once Anilyse slipped behind the palm fronds, Melody took stock of the situation. Jack had taken to playing chess against the board, treating it like checkers. Klesmolv was asleep across from the chess set, and Ice was staring out the window. She didn't seem to notice the four legged turret run by, closely followed by the axe skeleton. /not bad for they're first day./ Melody thought, pulling out her loom and beginning to weave. /at least we know they aren't shapeshifters./ She allowed her hands to work for her, and her mind to drift. Melody: we've got a long walk and several climbs tomorrow. Try to get as much rest as you can before dawn. Her advice seemed to be ignored. Melody continued to weave.

She looked at him, his face was kind and gentle. Above her Falcon mumbled about headlights, the rustle of palm fronds signaled that Melody had entered, and Anilyse was watching through heavy eyes.

A mess of crystals had sprung up on the walls in front of the hammock.

Melody knelt next to Marina's hammock. Melody: what happened in- Her head turned sharply towards Ground as he began to thrash and claw at himself. The gorgon stood and began to shake Falcons hammock. Jack got up and tapped Raven on the shoulder, sending a small amount of frost across her arm. The Titan shivered awake. Raven: ugh, wha- She rolled over and saw Grounds thrashing. Raven: oh. She got up and focused on Ground, her powers glowed around his core and she lifted him up slightly. They flickered, and suddenly turned off, almost dropping him through the hammock. Marina got up just as Melody tipped Falcon's hammock. The Angel landed behind Marina with a whomp! Falcon sat up immediately. Falcon: huh? Wha? Max we're not allowed to- wait. Marina: this must be why he was so restrained in the foundation. Poor thing. Her powers puffed in a cloud around her. Melody: I'll bet. Falcon, your eye? Ground felt the cool dirt of his mother's garden between his fingers. He looked over one shoulder to see his mother there, weeding the garden besides him. His Mom stood up and patted her hands on her overalls. MOM: I'll go and make us some lunch, can you keep weeding the garden for me Ike? IKE: Sure mama. He watched her go into their house and continued weeding their averaged sized garden. He did this until he noticed that he could no longer put his head down fully. He scratched at it to find it was a goiter. (A goiter? I thought I was good. Mama said I was good.) He started to panic and scratching harder at the cancerous growth. Eventually, it burst, spraying blood and cancerous cells into the garden bed. He then noticed that there were other tumors starting to grow all over his body. He started ripping at them, bursting every single one and spraying each one onto the ground before him until- He sat up, hands digging into the base of his head, breathing heavily. he felt hot, and sticky, his injuries burned as sweat mingled with blood. ground looked down at himself to see that he had clawed himself up really badly and severed several major arteries. The loose cotton shirt he was wearing had become a torn up mess.

???: are you alright?

GROUND: I I'm fine- He looked at the inquirer. GROUND: thef***. I'd say that I'm still asleep but this hurts more than usual.

Falcon: what? My eyes? I get that a lot. Hold still. His left eye seemed to turn into a spotlight, which he focused on Ground. Immediately his wounds began to heal. Marina allowed her own magic to drift towards the injured man, draining the crystals as she did so. Melody pulled away from the Angel and helped Marina clean up the mess on the wall.

Ground looked at the kids healing him, then collapsed backwards, heels of his hands pushing into his eyes.

Besides the glasslike cracking there was silence. Raven levitated back into her hammock, and Jack slipped silently out of the room. The final injury sealed up. Falcon blinked and his light flickered off, plunging the room back into darkness.

Melody put her hand on Marina’s shoulder.

Melody: how about we go get some tea. Ground, would you like to join us?

He sat up slowly. GROUND: y-yeah, but. How do I get down from here? Raven: let me. Her powers surrounded him and gently lifted the man from his hammock to the ground. Marina left the room in a quick, fluid motion, Anilyse followed close behind. Raven and Falcon flew back to their hammocks.

Melody: here. She handed Ground a new shirt. Melody: I’ll get rid of that for you. She gestured at the bloody mess of cloth. Ground took off the shredded garment and gave it to the girl. He took the new shirt but didn't put it on, leaving his bare chest open for anyone to see.

Melody shook her head and exited the room, putting the ruined short into her pocket.

Ice noticed the two girls leaving the sleeping area. ICE: I heard screaming, what happened? She joined the duo.

Anilyse: nightmares. The Perimeter should have expanded by now though.

Ice paused and waited for Ground to come out of the room. When he did, she linked arms with him. They stood at kitchen bar. Melody pulled out a few tea bags and set them in a pair of mugs. She set the pot to boil.

Melody: do you mind chamomile? Melody poured the water into two mugs and allowed the tea to steep. She took out an eyedropper and put an equal amount of fluid into each mug.

Ground couldn't really tell in the low light but he swore that her hair was writhing like a snake party that he saw when he went on a road trip to Arizona. GROUND: Never heard of it but sure, I'm game.

Anilyse put a hand on Marina’s shoulder. Anilyse: you should sit down. Marina: I'm fine. It was just a dream.

Anilyse: that doesn't mean you shouldn't sit down. Marina opened her mouth as if in protest, closed it, and sat down. Anilyse pulled a chair up and sat down next to her. Marina dropped her head into folded arms and Anilyse put a supporting hand on her shoulder once again.

Melody stirred both mugs and put them before both patients.

Ground took a chair and sat in it with the back of it facing the table. He accepted the drink.

Marina looked up before cradling the drink in her hands and sniffing the contents. She took a tiny sip, then glared at the Gorgon.

Melody shrugged lightly. Marina rolled her eyes and began taking longer sips of the tea.

Ground emptied the cup of its contents in three gulps.

GROUND: Didn't know that I'd be so thirsty from a painful knockout after a short stalk but I guess that's to be expected.

Melody stirred both mugs and put them before both patients.

Ground took a chair and sat in it with the back of it facing the table. He accepted the drink. Marina cradled the drink in her hands and sniffed the contents. She took a tiny sip, then glared at the Gorgon. Melody shrugged lightly. Marina rolled her eyes and began taking longer sips of the tea. Ground emptied the cup of its contents in three sips. GROUND: Didn't know that I'd be so thirsty from a painful knockout after a short stalk but I guess that's to be expected. Anilyse: that's typical of "puppet" links. Given your scenario I'm surprised it's not worse. Marina continued to sip her tea. Melody:I can make some more if you want.

GROUND: Can I have some water instead?

Melody: of course. She refilled his mug with water and placed it back before him. Marina finished her drink and studied Ground.

After he downed that cup, the base of his neck started to flush slightly. He scratched at the area to hide it. (Allergic reaction? To what?)

GROUND: What did you mean by "given my scenario it's not worse"?

Anilyse looked at Marina, who shrugged. Anilyse: in puppet control, the victim's needs are usually ignored except to keep them alive. Though this varies between controllers. The fact that you were being controlled by the all destroyer and undergoing a METAMORPHOSIS- Marina: calm down. Get to the point. Anilyse took a breath. Anilsye: I'm surprised you're not catatonic!

Melody: are you alright? She was looking at the red splotch on Grounds neck.

Ground chuckled. GROUND: Well one advantage of being linked to that bastard is that I get its healing factor along with its adaptations. He stopped itching. GROUND: huh. Oh, yeah I'm fine. It started to fade.

Melody nodded and leaned back.

Melody: good. Marina: my turn for a question. Why were you stalking me? GROUND: Well, I'd thought that I'd heard you and kept low. Call it a bad hunch, but I thought that you were going to be a threat. He shrugged.

Marina: you don't know me very well then. Melody suddenly facepalmed, and all could hear an angry hissing. Melody: stultus, you two must be hungry. What would you like?

Ground leaned forward on his chair. GROUND: I dunno, what do you got?

Melody pulled a saran wrapped sandwich out of her pocket and gave it to Marina. The outer dimensions of her pocket didn't change at all. Melody: everything.

Marina nodded in thanks and unwrapped it. She ate it slowly, relaxing as she did so.

Melody smiled and began pulling out all kinds of other sandwiches, she meticulously stacked them according to what they had, filling up the whole table before Ground. Anilyse got up. Anilyse: I'm heading back to bed. Tell me what happens in the morning.

Marina chuckled and finished her sandwich, pulling one from the growing pile before her. Marina: go on ahead, she can keep up with Scooby and Shaggy!

Ground was about to grab a whole bunch of sandwiches when Ice smacked him on the back of the head.

Ice: Don’t rob her. I know you're hungry but be sensible about it.

Ground pouted but grabbed five sandwiches instead of twenty.

Melody chuckled. Melody: don't worry about it. I've fed a whole army and haven't scratched the surface of my hoard. She accidentally pulled out a live fish, which she promptly returned to her pocket.

Melody: however there is wisdom in going a slower pace.

She nodded respectfully at Ice.

Ground put his sixth sandwich down. GROUND: So what is the All Destroyer? The splotch flared up while he spake but faded again when he was finished.

Marina: 682. Apparently Life Myunchers squared off with him multiple times in the past. Moving him from one dimension to another until he wound up in the Foundation.

She shook her head. Marina: sloppy AND lazy if you ask me. She bit into her third sandwich.

Ice paused momentarily in her rubbing of Ground's back. ICE: So you couldn't just stick it in a spacetime rip?

Marina: a wha?

KLESMOLV: To begin, they couldn't because Spacetime only exist in almost wildly inaccurate mathematical graphs so that we could even start to comprehend what would happen in the area of mostly nothing but somehow something that we unanimously call "space". They could've handled it better however by sticking it into a stringless area that you might call "Travel Space between Pocket Dimensions." Or just by leaving it to rot in an empty pocket dimension would do as well. But if Dr. Harold is to be believed, then it would've broken out or created a new instance of itself in the closest or a random dimension and raised hell there, as his theory of how it came to be proposes it to be a so called "glitch" in our dimensional perception of our universe. And if that's to be true, then it would explain how it survived being compressed to almost <1% mass by converting itself into unknown particles. Also it would explain how it is capable of adapting to any possible thing and being able to surest its left almost on the daily. Of course, there's another therom that I personally like but it doesn't make much sound science is that it is a metaphor for humans sheer determination and tenacity to survive anything that it can inflict upon itself. The group blinked. GROUND: You're still awake? Get some sleep man. You ramble when you haven't slept in a week.

Marina: I'm...lost. Were you talking about 682 or dimension travel?

KLESMOLV: both.

He looked ready to explain further but felt everyone's eyes on him. He put his hands in his lap instead.

Klesmolv stood and walked to a corner of the hut. He was about to sit down when Ground moved from his chair and helped guide him to the sleeping room. He placed Klesmolv on a bottom hammock. He held out his hand. GROUND: Visor, I want you to get some actual sleep man. Also I don't want your eyes to dry out again so actually sleep with your eyes closed this time. Klesmolv took off his visor and gave it to Ground. He stifled a yawn and fell asleep in a tight fetal position. Ground walked out, placed the visor onto his suitcase and sat back down. GROUND: Sometimes I wonder, who hurt him so much that he doesn't realize that taking breaks are okay and is actually helpful for someone his age.

Marina: his age?

Melody cast her an odd glance. Marina immediately took the last bite of her sandwich.

GROUND: Yeah he's- wait, how old do you think we all are?

Marina: weell, I really don't care about age since my own is so unimportant. I'd pin you all at about your twenties or thirties.

Ground: you’re in the right range. I’m 26, Ice is 27, and Klesmolv is 22.

Melody: is he the leader of your group?

GROUND: Somewhat. ICE: Not really. They interrupted each other. ICE: He's more of resource and recon leader while I'm tactics and Ground here is our translator and puzzle solver.

GROUND: It was an easier dynamic while we were five rather than three. But basically they go against each other at times and I show them a better way if they both were wrong, which rarely happens but it does.

Melody: five?

Marina, hurriedly: do you hear 682’s voice in your head?

Melody looked at her student, surprised.

GROUND: Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes really loud, other times like a...bad hunch.

Marina: Mel can I have- thanks. Melody handed Marina a small cardboard box. The teenager began shrinking Sandwiches until they were thumb-sized and placing them in the box. Marina: sounds like my experience with Lightning. Nasty stuff. She began to dismantle a tower lunch food.

GROUND: Lightning?

Marina paused, then seemed to force herself to continue moving. Marina: she's an assassin AI who controlled me through a computer chip in the back of my head.

She began to disassemble another tower.

GROUND: sorry for asking I guess.

Melody broke the silence. Melody: so what do you know about your... What did your foundation call it. Six hundred and eighty two?

Marina: yeah that's right.

Ground leaned back and started counting with his spliced hand. GROUND: For starters, we haven't found a way to kill it that hadn't enhanced it somehow or escaped containment. It has a strange reaction towards Dr. Clef, 173, 053, 689, 272, 702, 536, 524, and 2140. Don't ask about how I know about the last one, I heard about it through the grape vine. No one can talk to it to prevent it going into a rage state. Same goes for trying to touch it, though it could just use both cases to escape. It had escaped about 18 times now? Possibly more. And it's vaguely reptilian.

Melody: hm. Sounds like the rest of its kind.

GROUND: What do you mean by "rest of its kind"? I thought it was just a weird glitch in spacetime which its why it's unkillable?

Melody: well, that glitch happens more often than people would like. Even then, it's not really a glitch.

Melody: besides, they're not restricted to six hundred- Marina: just call him 682. Melody: they appear in many different forms with many different personalities. Not all of them hate life either. Do you mind if I show you what I mean?

Both Ice and Ground shrugged.

Melody pulled out a vial. Melody: this is called living fire. It's purely an illusionary substance an quite affective at visuals. She pulled the cork and put the edge of it on the table. A blue green flame traveled over the table, making it seem like the table was clear of sandwiches, though Marina was still moving them into the box.

The table looked like a cleared board with two sides, blue on Marina's side, and red on Ground and Ice's side. A small, accurate depiction of 682 appeared on the red side. Melody: this is your life destroyer. These are some of his kind that I and my students have run into.

Several creatures, including a massive snake, a giant spider, and several humanoids stood on the table.

Melody: now for a question. Has your facility found 682's cousin or opposite?

ICE: No, or another facility had found one and hadn't told us. But why are there humanoid cases of that being? Melody: what you think the glitch is just restrained to reptilian forms? Anything that can't be killed, is highly adaptive, and has above human intelligence is generally considered one of 682's kind.

Melody: though that's not always the case- Marina: the orange amoeba! Marina's shout was rather sudden.

Marina: what was it called... The tickle monster?

Ground looked appalled. GROUND: How in the hell is that glob of orange jello m- /its/ anti? You would think it would be 343 or even 072-2. But that thing?

Marina: not its anti. It's cousin. Or at least that dimensions half baked attempt at defending itself. Have you tried putting the two together?

GROUND: Yeah it's one of the most popular videos at the site cause of hope they interacted, besides the fact that it killed 2 personnel after it was done.

Marina: oh. Guess i’m wrong.

She shrugged as the last sandwich tower shrank and packed it in the box. She placed several Myuncher Crystals inside and pushed it towards Ice. Marina: for the road.

ICE: Thanks, but what's with the Crystals?

Marina: it's how you grow the sandwiches to full size. You just touch a crystal to one of them and it'll grow.

Ice tested her words on one sandwich. It grew in size predictably. ICE: huh. She handed the sandwich to Ground. Marina: oh I forgot! We didn't do introductions. My name is Marina. This is my mentor Melody.

GROUND: You can call us Ground, Ice, and Klesmolv. He pointed to each person as he said their names, ending with the wall.

Melody: pleasure. We’ll introduce the others in the morning. now that we're all calmed down, how about we all get to bed, hm?

Ground nodded and stood. They both went into the sleeping room. He took the one above Klesmolv and helped Ice to the one next to his. (I'm not going back to sleep anytime soon.) he thought as the palm fronds rustled and Marina climbed into her own hammock. She shifted around, and light from a scroll lit her face

[ecotone99]

[HM] A Girl Named Lucy

Everybody’s had a bad date. But my date with Lucy was definitely the worst date of my entire life. We met online, of course. I don’t think people meet any other way anymore. We really hit it off, she laughed at my dumb jokes and honestly, that’s pretty much all it takes for me to fall in love.

We decided to meet up for drinks and appetizers at Applebees. I was nervous, so I showed up early, had a drink at the bar and waited for her to arrive.

Meeting someone from the internet and finding out they’re significantly less attractive in person brings a uniquely guilty depression. It’s not that the person is necessarily unattractive, but in your mind, you’ve built up the anticipation for how you think the person will look. Expectation ruins reality. Usually this is just a result of normal people trying to look impressive. Which is understandable in the dating world.

But that’s the thing, when I saw her walk through the door, Lucy did not look normal. She looked very far from normal. Her face was too thin and her nose was entirely too big. Freakishly such. She probably knew this because the she covered it up with three or five or nine inches of chunky, pasty white makeup. It could have been Plaster of Paris, who’s to say? That shit was out of control.

She wore a giant green sweater, which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it was almost eighty degrees outside, even after the sun went down. At first, I thought this was to compensate for being overweight, but she didn’t seem overweight. She seemed deformed. Like two or three different skinny people squeezing themselves into the same sweater.

She had shredded blonde hair and walked with a wobbly limp, like an ether-sniffing marionette doll at a sobriety checkpoint. Her feet were disproportionally big, as if her shoes were hiding something nasty.

Oh, God. I can’t do this, I thought. This is just too much. But I feel bad, because the expectations were built up in MY head, right? I’ll just turn and sneak out the back, text her saying I had car trouble or something.

“Seth!?” She squawked. Or barked. It was a bark-squawk that was entirely too loud for the public, very unfortunately public situation at hand. Heads turned.

Ah, shit. She saw me. Of course she saw me. I’ve been staring her down slack-jawed and silly. But really, can you blame me? This poor woman looked like a rubber horse mask wearing another rubber mask of Gary Busey’s face.

“Seth! It is me. I am Lucy! The woman you speak to.” There’s no way she’s been using this voice her whole life.

My voice was too dry so I just nodded. We’re already here, might as well have a few drinks and enjoy the food. How bad could it be?

When my mouth finally began producing enough saliva necessary for conversation, we engaged in small-talk. I intentionally kept it awkward and as far from lively as possible. Maybe she’d catch the hint and we could just chalk it up to a lack of chemistry. I started dumping whiskey down my throat like my soul and sanity depended on it. Which, at this point, I was convinced it did.

“So, where are you from?” I asked, hoping another unknown cultural origin could explain this catastrophic misstep in acceptable courtship.

“Lucy is from Wisconsin. That’s normal, right?”

Jesus Christ, whatever they put in that cheese really did a number on this one. Remind me to never drink Budweiser again, either.

“I don-uh, I mean, yes, yes that is normal. Right. Have you ever been in like, a car accident or something?”

She stared at me with big sickly brown eyes. Eyes that were almost yellow. Maybe she has cancer or something? I’m starting to feel bad for her now. Maybe the whiskey is melting the shock and warming my mind to a temperate state of empathy. She’s alone. She doesn’t get out much. Kinda like me, actually. Don’t be a dick, dude. Get it together.

Then she laughs, it’s a coughy sort of laugh. It resonates from a deeper part of the diaphragm and I’m reminded of an alligator. Bet she used to smoke a lot.

“You make joke! You funny man!” She swipes her hand across my forearm the way women do when they’re being particularly obvious about their intentions. Her fingernails are long. Monstrously so, and badly painted in flecks of a dark red. Her skin is entirely too rough for a woman. Maybe she works with her hands a lot?

Oh. Oh, no.

I check the neck. I don’t actually see an Adam’s Apple, but the skin does protrude in a hangy sort of turkey-neck way. I begin to sweat uncontrollably.

Look, I don’t hate anyone. I believe everyone should live their lives and be happy. But I’m just not ready for this. I’m afraid. I feel like I’m waiting for the cashier in a gas station and a cop gets behind me in line. I compensate with more whiskey. That’ll help.

I have to ask. I can’t just not know.

“Look, Lucy. I’m sorry. But are you, like, are you a girl?”

There’s that laugh again.

“Yes! Lucy is girl. Real girl. Clever girl.”

Of course she is. Trans girls are girls, too. It’s just… I’ve already paid for the drinks, she seems very interested in me, persistent even. I just don’t know if I can do this.

Maybe just a blowjob? That’s not gay, right?

I’m gonna need some cocaine for this.

That’s it! Cocaine! I’ll see if she’s down to score some blow, then we’ll just see how it goes. Worst case scenario I get all coked up and can’t get a boner anyhow, sorta solves the whole situation. I can blame the coke, she doesn’t get her feelings hurt. Win-win.

“Hey Lucy….”

“Hey Seth.”

She does the cough/laugh. Maybe the hormones haven’t been balanced yet?

“You uh, you wanna score some coke?”

“What is ‘score coke’?”

“You know, like cocaine?”

“Cocaine? If we score cocaine, can I get your meat?”

Oh fuck. This is happening.

“My…my meat?”

“Yes. I want your meat inside me.”

Not gonna lie, my dick did a little twitch right then. Jesus. Well, I guess you learn something new every day, don’t ya?

“Okay! Um, I’m gonna pay the, uh, pay the tab. Why don’t you? Like, and I’ll then go to the car. Ya know, then we can like, you know. Wanna follow me while-“

“We ‘score coke’ like cocaine!”

“Yes.” I said. Fuck, I kinda like her now. I can get past the face. And the limpy, wabble-walk. And the…uh. Whatever else I find.

After I pay the bartender, we both walk back to my truck. I guess she took the bus or something because she never mentions a car of her own. I call up my buddy Allen, he usually has decent coke.

Allen says to come on over, I open the door for her, she does that little laugh again. It’s kinda growing on me, actually. I can’t believe this is happening.

As I’m driving, she starts purring and licking my ear. And I’m actually into it. Like, really into it. Once again, I can’t believe this is happening.

We pull up to Allen’s place, he sends me a text saying to come on up.

Allen opens the door and jumps back.

“Holy fuckin’ shit, Seth. Who the fuck is this? You told me it was just you, bro?”

“No I didn’t,” I said, “I told you a had a girl with me, Lucy this is Allen. Allen this is Lucy.”

“Hello, Allen.” Said Lucy, “Can I also have your meat inside me?”

“What the fuck?” Said Allen. Then he laughed, and I laughed, and Lucy laughed, we all laughed.

“You didn’t tell me it was like that. Why don’t you both just come on in?”

We all stepped inside and Allen clicked on the light. As he did, Lucy tripped over the doorframe. She didn’t fall all the way to the ground, but she fell just enough to cause her hair to tilt. Like, all of it just shifted to the side.

This caught Allen’s attention.

“Yo, that’s a fuckin’ wig, bro! The fuck is going on here?”

“Allen.” I said sternly, leaning in close to him. “Don’t fuck this up for me, man. I need this.”

But Allen wasn’t listening. Allen was recoiling in horror because he saw what I had been too drunk and horny to see all along.

While Lucy was fumbling with her wig and sliding around the foyer, her tail had slid out of her floppy green sweater. A tail that was long and scaly. Just as scaly as her scalp beneath the wig.

It was now painfully obvious. This was not a foreign woman. This was not a transsexual. This was a sixty-six million year old chicken-lizard stalking it’s prey from beyond the confines of the traditional understanding of time itself. And I, Seth Fox, horny drunkard and idiot extraordinaire, had fallen for it’s schemes.

Clever girl.

Allen screamed the only sensible thing to be said, “VELOCIRAPTOR!!!”

And we both dove behind the sofa for cover.

The Velociraptor Formally Known as Lucy shrieked, “MEEEAAAAAT!!!”

Why? Why me? Why couldn’t she have just had a penis!?

The Lucy-Raptor soars over the sofa with a dancer’s ease because she’s a theropod. An apex predator from the Cretaceous Period and I notice what made her gait so ungainly. Her shoes had been hiding a giant sickle-shaped talon on each foot with which her kinship would disembowel their prey. Unfortunately for Allen, he was this prey.

The Lucy-Raptor was on him instantly, she sliced open his belly with her toe-claws and his intestines flopped out like folded ravioli.

“Nnnnaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!!!!!” Said Allen as the Lucy Raptor chewed on his neck.

I had no patience for this nonsense, so I fled the scene hoping, praying, pleading with any deity merciful enough to hear my cries. I did not want to be eaten by a velociraptor tonight. I just wanted a blowjob. Is that really too much to ask from the universe? One measly fucking blowjob?

But the Lucy-Raptor wanted to feast on the flesh of living prey, and I was still fumbling with my keys when Allen had breathed his last. She came bouncing into the parking lot.

“CAAAUUUOOGGGHHH, CAAAUUUOOGGGHHH!!” Said Lucy.

The truck door clicked open.

Lucy reared back on her hind legs ready to pounce.

I yanked open the door and hurled myself into the driver’s seat, turned the key and started the engine as Lucy sailed through the air like a shark through calm seas.

Her claws barely missed my fender as I sped from my dead drug dealer’s parking lot.

I stomped the gas.

At 20 mph, there she was, nipping at my window.

I turned onto the street.

There she was.

30 mph. 35, 40 mph.

When I hit 55 mph she slowed down and wailed a roar of defeat. I had bested the Lucy-Raptor. Turns out velociraptors can run at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour. But a ’97 Dodge Ram can go up to like, 120 miles an hour, so FUCK YOU, VELOCIRAPTORS!!

Dating is hard, folks. But remember,

“Life finds a way.”

-Ian Malcolm

submitted by /u/sethfoxcomedy [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2t1qtp3

[cmst138]

The Women Running for President Have Made Life Harder for Women

Senator Kamala Harris co-sponsored legislation that has been widely criticized by sex workers and their advocates. Al Drago/Getty Images

This week Senator Kamala Harris became the latest Democrat to officially announce her candidacy for president, following Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as Representative Tulsi Gabbard. This is already a record-breaking number of women running for the highest office in the U.S., and with a year-and-a-half before the Democratic nominee is decided, that number will surely go up.

Curious about whether the women who’ve announced so far consider themselves feminists, I reached out to their camps. Elizabeth Warren’s press secretary said, unequivocally, yes, and sent me a video of Warren answering that same question. “You bet,” the Senator says. “I call myself a feminist every chance I get.”

While the other campaigns didn’t respond to my question, it seems safe to assume that the candidates would call themselves feminists as well. Kirsten Gillibrand recently tweeted that the future isn’t just female, but intersectional. Kamala Harris and Tulsi Gabbard have also expressed their support for feminist movements, including #MeToo. Besides, any Democratic women who reject the feminist label would kill her campaign before it even started. This may be why it’s especially galling that all four candidates signed a piece of legislation that is making life harder and more dangerous for some of society’s most vulnerable women.

Last spring, Congress passed and Trump signed a bipartisan piece of legislation known as SESTA/FOSTA, which was widely advertised by its proponents as a way to fight human trafficking. What the legislation, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Harris and Gillibrand, actually did was amend the Communications Decency Act, which, until last year, prohibited websites from being held liable for content posted by the site’s users. This meant, for example, that if someone was selling poached ivory in the comments section on Slog, The Stranger wouldn’t be held criminally liable for it.

SESTA/FOSTA changed this, and last year, prominent sex-work marketplaces either shut down voluntarily, like Craigslist’s Casual Encounters section, or, like Backpage, were seized and shut down by the Feds. This is exactly what Harris intended.

“Victims of sex trafficking should be protected and have the ability to seek justice,” she said in a statement after SESTA passed in the Senate. “That’s why, from my earliest days as a prosecutor, I’ve led the fight against Backpage and other sex trafficking platforms.”

The bills were controversial in the tech world, where they were seen by many advocates as a threat to the free and open internet. But some big tech companies signed on. According to a report by the New York Times, Facebook—trying to curry favor with SESTA co-sponsor Sen. John Thune, a Republican who’d accused the company of suppressing conservative news on its platform—broke ranks from other tech companies and supported the legislation.

There was one group, however, that has roundly condemned SESTA/FOSTA, and that’s the group most impacted by it: sex workers.

* * *

Sophie has three degrees and a white-collar job. She’s also a sex worker, and while she doesn’t work on the streets, as a teenager, she did live on them.

“I spent 15 to 17 homeless,” she told me. “It can be a crushing mentality. You feel hopeless. You feel like no one cares about you.”

For the past two-and-half-years, she’s been doing outreach work to homeless people and sex workers in Seattle, going to high-traffic areas and handing out condoms, Narcan, food, clothing. She does this on her own, without the support of any kind of group or nonprofit organization. When I asked her why she called the question “inane.” To her, the answer is obvious: People need help; she’s giving it.

“The system isn't in place to help you. It's in place to keep you where you are,” she says. “People who are homeless will get a littering ticket from the police. They don't have an address. The ticket goes somewhere, they don't know where, then there's a court date that they don't know about, and they don't have any money to pay the ticket anyway, and then there's a bench warrant, and then they get arrested. It's this cycle and it’s insane.”

Most of the people Sophie works with are sex workers, and with Backpage and other sites shut down, the number of sex workers on the streets has spiked. This puts them at risk. Instead of screening and vetting clients in advance—and instead of having a network to blacklist bad clients—they’re meeting them blind. And the extra competition isn’t exactly welcomed.

“Of course the girls who were on the street before are not like, 'Oh, more friends to come work on my corner,’” Sophie says. “They're like, 'Bitch, I'm gonna cut you. Get off my corner.' It's a very difficult situation. A lot of people are really struggling.”

Working on the streets can be particularly dangerous for trans sex workers. “If you're a trans sex worker and you advertise online, people who contact you know what they’re getting,” Sophie says. “But if you are on the street and you get in the car with somebody, that person may be like, 'You have a dick? Now I need to beat the shit out of you because my manhood is threatened.'"

* * *

Maggie McNeill, a sex worker, writer, and public speaker, has been doing sex work off and on since the mid-’80s. She was there before the rise of the internet, through the rise online advertising, to now, post-SESTA, as inexpensive online advertising largely disappeared.

McNeill’s first jobs in the industry were working with escort services, which arranged her dates and took a 30 percent cut for themselves. This didn’t always work out. “When I started working, the person who ran the service was abusive,” she told me. McNeill started an agency of her own, but “If there were no good agencies in town," she says, "a girl was stuck either working for a bad one or putting an ad in the back of the local alt-weekly.”

Many alt-weeklies were often financially supported by sex workers advertising their services in their back pages. But the internet changed that. First came Craigslist, which offered free classified ads, and, by 2000, was expanding into cities across the U.S. Then, in 2004, the owners of New Times Inc., a conglomerate of alt-weeklies, started Backpage. The site soon grew larger than the papers themselves, and it allowed sex workers to go independent. Instead of relying on an agency, or on pimps, they could put up an ad for free or a small fee and set up their own businesses. When the websites disappeared, these sex workers, McNeill says, were “up shit creek.”

“All of a sudden, all the advertising sites that were free or low cost went down,” she says. “A lot of girls were stuck. It's darkly humorous, because as soon as this happens you start seeing news articles about how there's been an explosion of prostitutes on the street. It's like, yeah, because you kicked them off their ad platforms. Their rent doesn't go away because you decided to score political points.”

One former sex worker, Lauren, told me that after 12 years doing erotic massage, SESTA essentially shut her business down. When Backpage shuttered, she lost all of her clients, and, soon after, her office space and her apartment. At the age of 53, she moved back in with her parents. She’s now delivering food, applying for jobs, and considering going back to school to get a certificate as a medical technician. It’s not how she imagined life in her 50s, but with parents to fall back on, she knows she’s one of the lucky ones.

It’s hardly unusual for feminists and anti-trafficking advocates to oppose sex work and sex workers. For decades, some feminists have claimed sex work is inherently exploitative and that sex workers are inherently victims. This includes famed feminists like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who campaigned against pornography and prostitution. This led to a strange alliance in the 1980s when feminists joined forces with conservative anti-porn crusaders like Edwin Meese, who served as Attorney General under Ronald Reagan.

In 1985, Meese commissioned a report on the dangers of porn. To come to its conclusion, the 11-member Meese Commission “watched dozens of pornographic videos, perused hundreds of magazines, listened to recorded dial-a-porn conversations and took field trips to sex shops,” writes Sean Braswell in OZY. “They also heard around 300 hours of testimony from more than 200 witnesses, everyone from FBI agents to former prostitutes to victims of sexual abuse.”

The commission—which included religious leaders as well as constitutional scholars, psychiatrists, and media executives—found that porn was a danger to society, and the feds went about cracking down on businesses that sold it. Penthouse, Playboy, and other nudie mags were taken off shelves all across the U.S., a move some feminists and family values conservatives celebrated—just as, three decades later, these same interest groups celebrated the passage of SESTA and FOSTA.

But many people who work in the sex industry disagree with the idea that they are all victims. “That's a very misogynistic, paternalistic viewpoint,” McNeill says.

Sophie agrees. “I'm 36-years-old and I have 3 college degrees,” she says. “If you are going to tell me I don't have agency and I'm not smart enough to make my own decisions, you are being ridiculous.”

While there are women who do sex work because they have no other choice, McNeill and Sophie say they do it because they enjoy it. They make their own hours, choose who they want to see, and they feel like they provide a valuable service. Sophie started to cry when telling me about a client she’d seen the night before who has cancer.

“We just sat there and talked,” she said. “He was so reassured. It was really meaningful. You don't hear about that kind of work we do in the press. All you hear about is the tawdry, prurient b.s.”

There are, to be sure, women and girls who are trafficked into sex work, but it’s difficult to know precisely how many because so much sex work is covert. It’s somewhat easier in New Zealand, where sex work been decriminalized since 2003, and a 2005 survey found that only 3 percent of sex workers were underage.

For those who are trafficked, there is no evidence that shuttering online advertising avenues saves victims. In fact, many sex work advocates argue that if anything, shuttering these sites just make trafficking harder to uncover: Backpage and other sites worked with law enforcement when they suspected an advertiser was trafficking or using underage girls. Without the ads, the avenue to find actual victims disappears too.

The consensus that SESTA and FOSTA did little good and a lot of bad is near universal among sex workers. And yet, sex-proclaimed feminists continue to push this narrative, including Senators Warren, Harris, Gillibrand, and Representative Gabbard. None immediately responded to my request for comment on SESTA and FOSTA, but perhaps if they actually talked to some sex workers, they’d get a sense of what their legislation has accomplished.

When I asked Lauren, the former sex worker who was forced to move in with her parents after Backpage closed, how she feels about these women in office, she said, “I've got very mixed feelings. I admire and like those women but wish I could get in front of them and make them understand exactly what they did and how it helped absolutely no one. They just passed the law and moved on with their lives. Other people have to deal with the repercussions.”

from The Stranger: Slog http://bit.ly/2Tf9QP4

[iluvtv]

Break Fast with Snack Blankets

I celebrated the Jewish New Year and the masochistic Jewish tradition of atonement by wrapping up season 3 of Difficult People. I had been waiting, savoring, delaying… but can’t seem to hold off any longer.

Finishing a  secular, divisive comedy on the holiest night of the year may seem sacrilege to some but I would argue it is entirely apropos. Much like some choose to fast for their sins, this too is a masochistic “task” as once I finish I will have another ENTIRE lonely year without my dear difficult friends (and that’s counting on another season even being made at all….*).  

In the spirit of the season premiere where Julie found it necessary to medicate just to survive Passover I will wager bets that I may need a tranquilizer (or two) to survive the combination of another terribly sad Yom Kippur along with the end of my annual DP fix. Thank goodness a season premier of Great News will quickly follow. While it is, perhaps a more mainstream, accessible sit-com, it also is fabulous and produced by Tina Fey. Let’s be honest I basically need something fresh to laugh at from either Pohler of Fey at all times. It should be like a law or something that their particular female dream-team is always gifting us with their comedic fruits of labor.  

So, let’s debrief the season (but seriously let’s put the brief back in debrief as I am a little swamped right now, looking at menus from pricey local restaurant in hopes that my exceedingly generous client will treat me to yet another wonderful dinner —and time is of the essence).

We’ll start where I left off…

Episode 3 delves into Julie’s addiction to her Mother. Grappling with her diagnosis Billy asks Julie what the opposite of Endorphins are.

“Judaism” she replies, deadpan.

And of course it is. Hence the desperate need to self-medicate in episode 1.

In episode 4 I can’t help but notice all the subliminal and yet repetitive advertising of shitty restaurant chains (all of which happen to be in serious financial trouble according to my limited research). Why are Quizno’s, Applebees and Subway advertising with such a leftist show?  What is their agenda exactly? Saving face perhaps? Or maybe Julie just really likes sandwiches on terrible bread. And if staring at Applebees doesn’t excite you here are three unbelievably relatable quotes:

Julie: I have plans later

Billy: food or tv related?

Julie: both, I'm curling up with my snack blanket to watch the lifetime movie of all lifetime movies.

Julie (to her doting man): “I need a break from the sweet snack blanket can you grab the savory one from the closet?”

(I literally own both a sweet and savory snack blanket! How am I single?!)

Julie: I know cunt moves, I respect them

And the cunts that move them.

Namaste.

(And that’s literally how I feel about yoga).

And then, of course the episode ends with Billy and his new boyfriend's first kiss taking place in front of Equinox.

And while clearly Equinox and Gay Pride do go together like me and Gay bars (never underestimate a fag hags love of only flirting with the unavailable -- I guess if the “snack blanket” didn’t cinch the deal this might explain things) Klausner and Eichner might be a bit interested in the fact that I (a girl who only flirts with the unavailable) was actually fired from the company on an unfounded accusation of sexual harassment… basically a sexist overreaction to a female saying the word vagina. I know this isn’t really relevant to our debrief but cultural relevance is cultural relevance and basically Equinox isn’t as progressive as you might think....

Which of course, brings me straight into episode 5 where Julie and Billy discover that the part of Central Park which used to be reserved for Gay hookups is now an outdoor Equinox yoga studio. So, it is basically the same thing but with a hefty price tag. Gentrification is everywhere and even fictional butt-fucking in the park isn’t free anymore. Sad face emoji.

This episode is also fabulous for its intense focus on sexism and the tremendous pressure on women to smile at all times.

Julie just can’t do it.

And that’s why we love her.

Then there is episode 6 where there are so many riffs on sex, politics and TV I don’t even know where to start. So, let’s instead discuss OpenTable’s odd arrival to the small screen. First with this quote from a casting agent to Billy and Julie:

We know from your opentable reservations neither of you have NYE plans

(Oh, fuck my life neither do I. Unless, maybe we can count watching the Season Finale of Difficult People on Yom Kippur and call it a day...?)

Later in the episode it is revealed the the aforementioned reservation platform is also “running original content”. And while they may be the one app that isn’t yet doing this I’m sure they actually are close behind. Funny cuz it’s true?

Which reminds me, I must be brief…I have my own OpenTable reservations to make...

But, before we move on I simply must mention one more sexist/tv/food related quote from this episode:

“Like the ad for yoplait where the woman gets so thin she disappeared and the man says, ‘now there's a woman I don't wanna punch’”

If that doesn’t make you lol you’re dead inside.

If you like the recurring theme of how sexist TV is, Episode 7 takes the cake. Julie (thanks to a vision board) is able to try her hand at working in a writer’s room. Clearly though, no matter how hard she tries she simply cannot make the opportunity successful because what we learn from these insiders is TV is written for men by men (though the recent 2017 Emmy’s did prove times are a-changing). The whole episode is perfect but is best summed up with this quote from the writer’s room:

"Oh no I hate women, I got into writing for tv so I could not write for them"

Meanwhile Marilyn decides to “do something for herself” (gasp, I know) and settles on a Bat Mitzvah. And while I (a Bat Mitzvah myself, actually) had no idea, she teaches us you can’t become a woman without a theme. Her theme? “ME”. 

Why didn’t I think of that?

Episode 8 is a perfect representation of modern day city life. Billy and his boyfriend aren’t able to fall asleep next to each other as this quiet act is just far too intimate (I can relate). The lovebirds spend most of the episode trying to tire themselves out in a desperate attempt to move forward with their relationship. Their antics towards exhaustion are, of course, fantastic especially when the most tiring thing Billy can think of to do is calling his cousin and asking her “why she decided to take a break from social media.”

They take part in every boring, typically tourist adventure New York has to offer only to discover that those who visit their city are actually bigger freaks than those who choose to live full-time in New York. Fabulous.

Meanwhile, the two most narcissistic people on the show (Matthew and Marilyn) secretly work to manipulate the other in selfish attempts to steal the other’s identity. 

And if all this wasn’t enough antics, Julie tries to return to improv only to discover she just isn’t the requisite “yes, and” girl of improvisation but does quite well with “a no but girl.” agenda

Me too Julie, me too.

And finally we have episode nine which includes an unintentional ayahuasca trip, a trans-sorority reunion vacay and most importantly a focus on the premise that the opportunity to change on a whim is available to all selfish, difficult people because we don’t have dependents. You’re welcome world.

Here are the most quotable treats:

Billy (who is feeling very over NY) on Bowling Alleys (and I suppose hipsters in general):

"It's like Poor Man: The Ride "

The team’s view of Etsy:

Julie: “Etsy’s a cult "

Billy: "except for with arts and crafts so basically it’s camp"

Yes, OMG, how did I not think of that?!

And then there is the neurotic Jewish Mother’s method of procrastination/anorexia.

Marilyn: “I should have a lemon wedge. I worked out this morning, I deserve one.”

There is one of the best public transportation scenes I have ever witnessed. I won’t even debrief it because I literally just can’t do it justice.

And then we get down to the nitty gritty: the crew accidentally do the trans-sorority girls’ ayahuasca and in a panic of the unknown Arthur finds a step-by-step guide on Miley Cyrus’s website.

Of course.

They all are on board with most of her steps (no-one even flinches in regards to vomiting) but when the thought of confronting their innermost truth they are less than thrilled.

I agree, who wants to do that?

But they do and it seems to be bliss for them all:

Marilyn enters a Marilyn only world

Matthew hallucinates a terribly fat, naked  gay man in a chef’s hat, jumping

Arthur hallucinates Julie taking charge

Billy gets on a tv show and breaks up w/ NYC

And Julie’s crafting persona has a duel with her actress persona

so, basically everyone wakes up glad they did ayahuasca .

Maybe being a difficult person also means you are secretly really well adjusted?

Revelations aren’t easy but they are wonderful from this crew:

Julie reading her closing monologue which is covered in vomit: "because I do comedy I will always be on the misery spectrum...I am an unhappy person but the alternative is being someone I don't know and that, is terrifying."

Motivated to change, Billy starts looking for apartments in LA, but finds the process a wee bit exhausting (even his IMDB page must be submitted— fucking LA).

Meanwhile, the trans-sorority girls recite their pledge:

“never go on CNN to discuss Caitlyn Jenner.”

OH GOD IT’S ALL SO GOOD. 

Shall we mourn it’s passing with a yahrzeit? 

But before we commemorate this tragic, tragic end I’ll have the series finale recap for you shortly....

*sadly since writing this first draft the cancellation of this essential comedy has been revealed