glam, meet your new best friend

[mrglam]

With Armsmaster's death, Miss Militia is promoted to team captain. Even with the losses, however, the Protectorate ENE doesn't get new capes - all teams got hit hard by the last Endbringer attack, and even though it was by all accounts a major victory, it did not cause capes to start lining up to join.

Days pass, and winter hits Brockton Bay. It's pretty mild, as winters go, but it's enough to drastically reduce criminal activity. The heroes have an altercation with white supremacists the following week, but nothing much comes of it, as cape muscle seems to prefer to remain comfortable inside. Capes nationwide are somewhat subdued, perhaps as the aftermath of the victory against Behemoth. Nothing much seems to change, however - the Simurgh continues to fly around in her unpredictable pattern, Leviathan continues to be impossible to locate, lurking in the depths of the ocean. The public gets hopelessly contradictory information about what really happened during the fight from unofficial sources, secretly fed from official ones to make sure people don't jump to the right conclusions, and the topic loses its momentum.

And all of this completely fails to distract Sadde, who seems to not be getting better from the post-battle funk. Or, at least, not straightforwardly better. The depression and fatalism turn - maybe not completely, but at least a bit - into unease and anxiety, or perhaps stir craziness. It is, after all, true that, other than for class, Sadde doesn't really leave HQ a whole lot, not since they reached the comfortable position of being able to patrol from the comfort of the console - of, in fact, being more effective when doing that, for the average uneventful patrol.

Fatalism, depression, anxiety, and unease, all combined into a Sadde-shaped ball, are currently floating upside down in Lorica's workshop, failing to read a book while she fugues.

Comments

[thinkering]

"There are so very, very many places in the world, where we could theoretically go." She gets up and heads out of her workshop. "But I bet you can guess."

[mrglam]

He starts floating after her, grinning. "I possibly could, but if you'd tell me what exactly you wanted to do in that place I might have a better guess."

[thinkering]

"Make faces at you, obviously."

[mrglam]

"Ah, well, but you could've made faces at me in your workshop."

[thinkering]

"Maybe I couldn't have. How would you know?"

[mrglam]

"'Cause you have done it before!"

[thinkering]

"I could have suffered sudden workshop-related face-making deficiency syndrome."

[mrglam]

"Of course, silly me, why didn't I consider this hypothesis."

[thinkering]

"Narrowness of thought," she diagnoses, and she lets herself into his room.

[mrglam]

"Thankfully you're here to correct this terrible fault of mine." He floats after her and conjures a short-lived copy to close the door.

[thinkering]

And she takes her helmet off and kisses him.

[mrglam]

"Oh no I have been misled!"

(Eeeeee kissing!)

[thinkering]

Eee!

[mrglam]

Can he persuade her to maybe remove the armor?

[thinkering]

Yes. Off it comes.

[mrglam]

Good! Never have kisses been so snuggly! They can even proceed to kiss on his bed!

...caaaaan he persuade her to remove any more pieces of clothing? Her shirt, perhaps? He will, of course, do the same.

[thinkering]

Shirts can come off. Mm, shirtless boyfriend.

[mrglam]

Mm, yes, Bella can have her shirtless girlfriend- boyfriend- um-

Boyfriend. Sadde is a boy today. As sh- he was saying, Bella can have her shirtless boyfriend any way she wants him!

[thinkering]

Oh good! She wants him kissed. That is how she seems to be aiming to have him.

[mrglam]

Yup! Sadde's kissed alright! She's feeling a bit uncomfortable about- no, this is not the right time to feel like a girl, she is not a girl right now, she is a boy, and she is gonna kiss her girlfriend.

(The squirming is completely and 100% caused by said kisses. Of course.)

[thinkering]

"You okay?"

[mrglam]

"Yyy-" Pause. Do not lie to your girlfriend. "Um." What is she feeling? ...well, obviously, that she is not a boy. She has years of practice noticing this. But she's been boy-shaped before and been fine, right? This wouldn't be such a problem.

...except for the part where she's gonna be using a boy's primary sexual characteristics. And yes lots of trans people are not that bothered by it but she is.

(She wonders if she'd be bothered if she hadn't ever triggered and hadn't gotten the ability to switch like she can.)

(...how can she even switch like that. It's the one part of her power that isn't strictly reliant on conjuring things. Um.)

(Um.)

"Um."

[thinkering]

"What's wrong?"

[mrglam]

"...gender dysphoria," she grudgingly admits.

[thinkering]

"Oh." She ruffles Sadde's hair. "Rain check?"