#transgender pokemon characters agenda GO

[quietwingsinthesky]

6!

number 6! chapter 3 of a pokemon fic i have been. uh. totally definitely working on and didn't forget about no way. title of this document is: blue is tramsgender p3, or (pokemon colosseum announcer voice) RED GET OFF THE FUCKING MOUNTAIN

the fic is currently on anon since it's unfinished and having an unfinished fic on my page was stressing me out lmao, but the first two chapters are here. chapter 3 is... nowhere near complete. but i swear i'll finish it one day. it means a lot to me. i sure love projecting my gender onto characters from 1999.

anyway, i do have a scene right here that i wrote between oak and blue that is. maybe my favorite thing i've written in the fic at all. so i'm throwing it all out on here lmao. (context being that i took the canon fact of blue going to the kalos region and moved it before he becomes a gym leader, meaning that someone else had to take over viridian gym in the meantime and the closest person available was oak. who hasn't seen his grandson in person in a while and even before wasn't exactly... let's say, good at the whole 'blue being trans' thing. not maliciously, but you know, forgetful. and well. you'll see.)

“He’s my grandpa,” Blue says as he pushes past the rookie. “I’m not fighting any of you. I’m dragging him home for dinner.”

“Who even are you?” The other trainer calls after him. Blue turns and cocks a grin. Jolteon bounds around his feet, fur bristling.

“The name’s Blue,” he says, and with a faux salute and a twist of his heel, “smell ya later!” He marches right into the heart of the gym. It isn’t anything like he remembers. It’s been fully remodeled since the days of Giovanni, but it’s also... lacking, somehow. Gramps got rid of all the traces of his predecessor, but there’s nothing filling the space. Blue was expecting at least a poster or three of fun facts about Pokemon, or type advantages, or anything. The walls are bare and beige. The only interruptions are the doors, and eventually, Blue finds the one that leads to Gramps’ office.

Samuel Oak, it reads, Leader of Viridian Gym.

Blue takes a deep breath, fills his lungs before the shouting match begins. He opens the door.

“Hey, Gramps, heard you-” He announces, boisterous. He stops. Jolteon makes a curious chirp at his feet. “Gramps?” He's face-down on his desk. Blue’s heart skips a beat until Gramps snores like a chainsaw, and Blue lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He walks around the desk. “Hey. Hey! Wake up, old man!” Blue should shake him. He doesn’t. He keeps calling until Gramps jumps and sits upright. He looks haggard. It’s only been two years, but there are so many more lines set in his face, his hair thinned, his eyes paler.

“Who-?” Gramps squints at him. “Oh. A trainer? You’re a little late to challenge me. Come back—” He yawns. “—tomorrow.”

“This joke never was funny,” Blue growls. He leaves Gramps’ side of the desk, standing across from him instead and crossing his arms. “What’s your excuse this time? No one said my name in two years, so you just happened to forget again?” He’s not hurt. He’s never hurt. He’s fine, and his eyes aren’t stinging, and his throat doesn’t ache, and he didn’t expect anything different, so it’s fine. Gramps blinks up at him.

“I’m sorry? Do I know you?” His hand slides over his desk, grasping until it finds a pair of glasses. Blue’s only ever seen Gramps wear glasses while he was reading. Gramps puts them on now and blinks twice. “There we are. Now, who are...” Gramps trails off as he takes in Blue’s face. Blue pinches his mouth. Jolteon presses against his leg, purring. Gramps stares at him for a long time, his mouth falling open. He looks heartbroken.

“I’m your grandson,” Blue snaps, “or are you going to pretend you don’t recognize me, too?” Forget a name, and you never have to acknowledge it changed. Forget your grandson, and you never have to see him standing in the place you expected to have a granddaughter. Blue never should have come back. Gramps stands.

“Arceus...” Gramps whispers. He never used that kind of language when Blue was a kid. Blue screws up his face. His throat feels tight. If Gramps starts yelling now, he’s not going to be able to give it his all back, and then what’s the point? “You... You look...” Gramps puts a hand over his mouth. Blue wants it to be horror. He can defend himself against horror and anger and everything in between. It’s not. Gramps’ eyes water, spill, and he’s crying. Just like that, Blue is a disappointment again. He takes a step back.

“Guess I had to get that over with,” he hears himself say. “Time to draw up a new will, huh, Gramps? Keep me off it this time?” He needs to leave. He turns.

“Wait!” Gramps says. Blue ignores him. He runs, because that’s what he’s good at. “Wait!” he hears Gramps call again, but like the rookie at the door, Blue doesn’t stop for him. He can hear Gramps behind him, not running but moving as hurriedly as his old limbs will let him. “Blue!” Gramps yells.

And Blue stops.

He can’t turn around. He hears Gramps approaching, panting heavily, out of breath. He can’t turn around. Gramps puts a hand on his shoulder and tugs. He can’t- Blue turns.

He’s taller than Gramps. When did he get taller than his grandfather?

They stare at each other.

“Look at you,” Gramps says, quietly. Blue swallows. “Why, I’d barely recognize you, my boy, only...” Gramps lifts his hand from Blue’s shoulder to touch his face. He stops before he makes contact. He drops his hand. Blue sniffs. “I wouldn’t recognize you,” Gramps repeats, “but you look so much like your father.” Gramps looks as though he’s seen a ghost, and as though he’d give anything to let it stay and haunt his home. He lifts both his hands now and puts them on Blue’s shoulders, still looking over his face. “And you shot up like a tree. You get that from your mother’s side, I’ll bet, but that face... You’re the spitting image of him the day he came home from his journey.”

Blue sucks in a breath. He wants to say something. He starts crying.

Gramps doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. He pulls Blue an inch closer by the shoulders as though to draw him into a hug, but then freezes and lets him go. Pats him on the shoulder once. Looks like he’s afraid he’s broken Blue, and honestly, Blue’s not sure his fears are unwarranted. Blue wipes at his eyes. With a rough voice, he manages, “Daisy wants you to come home. For dinner. Because I’m back from Kalos.”

“Visiting?” Gramps says, which is all Blue needs to know that he hasn’t been reading all of the letters Blue sends home. Blue looks at the dark circles under his eyes and shakes his head.

“Staying?” He means it as a statement. It tilts up at the end into a question, whether he wants it to or not. Gramps blinks at him.

“Oh,” he says, and he smiles, “welcome home, then.”