1620/A Magical Girl and a Vampire walk into the Quad...

A Magical Girl and a Vampire walk into the Quad...
Date of Scene:	01 June 2024
Location:	Radiant Heart Dorms
Synopsis:	The night before the sun breaks, a restless Taro and Amy happen to cross paths outside the dorm, talk about things, and bond over their varying experiences.
Cast of Characters:	Taro Yamada, Amanda Faust

---

BGM: Yoko Kanno - The EGG and I (Cowboy Bebop OST) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6N1_GJAyFw

Taro Yamada has posed:
It's been a miserable week. It was SUPPOSED to be a week of finally starting his training to become a real, proper villain with Fuyuko-sensei, but now she was in the hospital! All the mahou were gearing up for a huge fight! There was no way he could go drain some tension by picking a fight as the Back Alley Slasher because he'd definitely get blasted to smithereens instantly! Uuugh, he was lucky he'd found someone to drain before this whole mess began or he wouldn't just be tense, he'd be hungry!

He's not hungry now, shockingly. All he's done is do schoolwork and visit the hospital and stress cook - it was cheaper than going to restaurants, anyway, and it spent the time, and even if he messed up, it was usually edible.

But there's only so much he can eat, and his body feels as tense as a taut string, so he's packed up some snacks and is tooling around the dorm plaza after dark. He can't stretch his legs as the Slasher, but he can keep up his skills in this lesser, human form.

So if anyone happens to be wandering around at night - there's a guy in a black hoodie and the pants of the school uniform repeatedly flinging himself at the wall of one of the dorms, climbing partway up parkour style with his bare hands, and then skittering back to the ground.

"One, one more time," he pants to himself, clapping his hands together. "If I can just get to a second story window, that'll be a victory with these slippery walls..."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    It's a nice night outside. And with the power of modern phones, Amy can read her manga anywhere!

    Why did she hate leaving the computer so much?

    She knows, for a fact, that in her past life she did. But something is different now. Just being, wherever, has a feel to it that used to only be in her imagination. When she sort of thought it would be nice to do things but never did.

    And it is a nice night outside.

    So tonight she's sitting against the dorm (so no one can see over her shoulder) reading on her phone.

    Yeah... I know how you felt, Mahiro...

    Lost in her reading, she doesn't immediately notice the sound of someone trying to run up a nearby wall until she runs out of posted chapters and snaps out of it. But then... What? What is someone doing?

    Curiously, she stands up and walks around the corner, and her eyes widen, impressed. "Wow. I used to know a guy who could get on to everyone's houses without a ladder, but the dorms might be a bit harder."

    Then she thinks a bit more about what he said, and cocks her head to the side slightly.

    "Wait, why are you trying to get to a second-story dorm window...?"

    The girl standing off to the side of him has changed out of her school uniform for the evening and gone with a black T-shirt and red skirt. She actually felt like shorts but didn't have any. She'll have to do something about that, eventually.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Because I can, mostly - wait what??"

Taro's partway up the wall when he hears the question and answers without thinking. It's only once the words have left his mouth that he realizes he's being watched, and his grip falters. He half-slides, half falls off the wall, rolling onto his side as he hits the grass so he doesn't hurt himself. He then sputters and spits out a few blades of grass as he sits up, running a hand through his hair.

"It's not for Edward Cullen reasons, I promise," he says, holding a hand up. "I don't want to get rusty is all. Teachers assign so much homework these days...."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Then Amy remembers her suspicions and decides Taro is less likely to be up to anything shady than other boys. She nods. "I get it. That's pretty cool! I always wanted to try parkour, but I'm too old and out of shape-- ah, I mean, I was a fat kid. Who only had a growth spurt recently. Gosh, I guess I could actually try it now?! How do you learn?"

    Edward Cullen? "I never actually read those books. Was he a creep?"

    Homework? "Nah, it's always been like this. ...I mean, uh, I asked my parents and they said-- wait, what do you mean 'these days?'" The redhead furrows her brow as she tries to figure out why someone would say that...

Taro Yamada has posed:
"You're a youth," Taro says as he stands, dusting the dirt off his pants. "You've got plenty of time to learn! Parkour's not like gymnastics, you don't have to get it on it as an infant. It's better since you've got longer legs. I mostly learned by trial and error and using the internet."

Library wifi was SO useful, honestly!

And he shudders. "I was at the library once and a bunch of kids were watching a screening of the movie. The vampire kept on crawling into the girl's room to watch her sleep because he loved her. Gross!"

And he leans down, grabbing his bag from the ground and hooking it over his shoulder and squints at her. She's...talking.. like him? It can't be. Can it? "Do you want to go over to the picnic table? It's a long story and if I'm going to get grilled, we can at least have snacks."

....Honestly, if he has to spill his life story to any of the mahou, he'd rather it be her. He knew her, ish, and she probably wouldn't get too weird about him working for Obsideon as an intern.

Amanda Faust has posed:
> You're a youth.
    It's true, but it feels kind of weird to be called it like that.

    Plenty of time to learn! "I know, y-- wait what? You have to start gymnastics as an infant??"

    Longer legs? She looks down at her legs. "I'm not exactly tall, not that I mind."

    Vampire movies. "He what?! Mega creepy. That doesn't seem like love, why not spend more time with her when she's awake then?! And teenage girls thought this movie was romantic?! ...Was the werewolf less creepy?"

    "You're not going to get grilled at the picnic table, I don't eat people. ...That was funnier in my head, sorry. Uh, long story? About what?" She does start walking that way, though.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Yeah. There was some documentary during the Olympics about how you have to start gymnastics as a little kid or you'll never be a champion," Taro says. "It's weird. I wanted to learn how to jump like that but apparantly I can't ever because I'm an old man."

Or, you know. Sixteen physically. In his....seventies?....mentally? Whatever.

"You don't need to be tall to climb buildings, it just helps," says the guy who's stretched out tall like a taffy. "The werewolf fell in love with a baby in a later movie? I was trying not to pay attention by then but that was just! Weird!"

He cracks a grin at her pun. "Well, 'these days'. You're a yok - " no, NOT a yokai, "a magical girl, right? I have a strange story for you, if you won't turn it into tomorrow's gossip."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    ...Because I'm an old man.

    Amy stops and looks at him. But he goes on about movies that happened a long time ago.

    She can't help responding, "Ah. Yeah, now that you mention it, I think I remember hearing something like that back then. Yeah that's weird, why did people like those movies?!"

    You're a mahou shoujo, right?

BGM Change: Tsutchie - Thank You (Samurai Champloo OST) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMn-c17y-Zs

    "Uhhhhh..." She hesitates. "...I might be more than I seem. I, uh. ...If you want magic to do something for you, I'll help if I can, but, I just got lucky. I can't... promise anyone else a wish. I'm sorry."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I don't get it. I think if people are gonna watch monster movies, the monsters oughtta be acknowledged as monsters. I'd rather deal with an actual werewolf than whatever was going on there. People are nastier than any monster's gonna get."

And he shakes his head. "I don't need magic to do anything for me. A couple months after I met you, I got picked up by Obsideon because I can see all the magic stuff that goes down, and they've provided everything I could wish for. I'm in the know now - but I'm not a magic boy or anything. I'm not going to snitch on you," he says before she can ask. "My boss says that civilian and mahou identities should be kept seperate professionally, and I aim to be professional - and anyway, if I ever do turn into something weird, I'm not fighting someone with a flamethrower."

He pulls open a bento box and offers it to her. It's full of small mochi balls filled with red bean paste - they all have decorative indentations on the tops, though what they're supposed to be isn't terribly clear. The kanji for rice, backwards...? "But anyway. I told you before, a yokai bit me as a kid and I see stuff now. But, also,' he says, and takes a mochi, "my aging stopped working. Like that quote from the movie. How long have you been a teeanger FOR?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
> People are nastier than any monster's gonna get.
    Amy sighs. "True, but Witches are worse than all but the worst of people."

    "I don't have a flamethrower." Amy comments. She takes a mochi ball and squints at the decoration, commenting "Why is it backwards...?" before popping it into her mouth.

    After chewing and swallowing and listening to his story, her mouth briefly hangs open, and then she resumes talking: "Huh. I don't actually know if I age either."

    "...Wait. How long have you been a teenager for? ...Oh my gods if your body is stuck as a teenager forever do we get stuck with teenage hormones forever?!" She holds her hands to the sides of her head, then shakes them in front of her. "Bad enough if I have to go through that for a few years, if it's always like this? I swear it wasn't like this the first time!"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"What's a Witch? Is that like a youma?" Taro asks. "You ought to get a flamethrower, they're cool. I wrote 'rice' correctly on the stamp I used but forgot it stamps backwards."

Damn you, stamping mechanism!

"I was bit in 50s," he says with a rueful smile. "I age, but not fast. I'll probably be an adult in...twenty years, if I'm lucky? I'm guessing you're in a similar boat as this old man."

He had the same slip ups around the things he's done, the reflex to call himself old... "Wait, did you get de-aged?" oh that's even worse!!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Uhh, I guess it's a kind of youma." She considers whether to share that information, then decides that honestly it's something anyone who can retain knowledge of magic should know.

    "They're terrible monsters that--" she stumbles slightly as knowing what Witches actually are contradicts her usual explanation, "--can't usually directly enter our reality, so they have a closed space around them, a Labyrinth, that traps anyone who walks in unless the Witch lets them go, and it marks nearby humans even outside the Labyrinth with a 'Witch's Kiss' that looks like a small tattoo or something and makes them suicidal. Witches then feed off the deaths of those they drive to suicide, or who wander into their Labyrinth and get killed."

    Out to get a flamethrower? "Mmm. A flamethrower strictly isn't in the cards, but I've got close enough."

    She lets out a breath as the timeline is given. The 50's. Older than her father but not as old as her grandfather.

    She scratches the side of her head. "It's, uhh... Yeah." She nods. "I did. Although, this old man was only 36..." Wait. Shoot, she jumped ahead.

    "Uhhh, before we get to that... No, actually, nevermind, go ahead..." She headdesks on the table lightly. Thud.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Alright. So... if I see them, run. If I see anyone with a weird tattoo acting funny, grab them and run." Which may not be terribly evil of him, but they don't sound like they're working with Obsideon and, frankly, that sounded like a pain to deal with. What is it with all these monsters killing what they feed on?? That's not sustainable!

Huffs. "It'll have to do! Flamethrowers are cool."

He does a quick count on his fingers. "So you'd have been born around... end of Showa era? When Tezuka and the emperor died." 1989, he means, though his math's a little off.

He nudges the bento towards her as she headdesks. "So. Witchy curse or wish gone bad? I'm pretty sure doing puberty twice oughta be banned for cruelty, especially as a girl..."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Taro counts the years like a Japanese man. "Yeah, but I'm American." she sits up and confirms, implying she doesn't count the years by emperor but is familiar with the custom. "Before the USSR fell, not that I remember it." she gives the alternative, Western measure of the time.

    Witchy curse or wish gone bad? "Uhhh..." His next words have her watching his face closely. "...You think that makes it worse? Not like, hey, wow, at least I get the neat experience of learning how the other half lives?"

    Whatever his response, she decides to plow on before this gets even thornier: "You're a teenager forever, but uh, if you don't mind my asking..." She gestures, "You look like you -- Ugh, I'm sorry if adults have harassed you for this, but -- you look like you don't care about your body. Like your hair never sees a comb or a brush unless an adult nags you about it, and you're wearing clothes that hide the shape of your body. Does uh, what happened to you have anything to do with that? Or with why you hate mirrors? Or d'you just-- Have you always just hated how you looked?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"The USSR...yeah, that was around when Showa ended," Taro says, nodding. "I remember all the newspapers about it."

Wait. Wait hold on. HOld onnn. "You were a guy before?" Woah. Neat. "I was thinking that, uh - girls bleed once a month and it hurts a lot? And the body does all the big changes?" His hands flail around, failing to illustrate whatever he's trying to convay. "Which sounds bad to do once, much less twice. That sounds painful? But I guess not if you like it?"

He's never really thought about being a girl. Being a boy was pretty inconvenient, but being a girl sounded inconvenient too.

He flinches as she goes on. His hands lace together, knuckles tight. "...I look like a kid. Everyone acts like I'm a kid. But I'm not - a kid. I saw the moon landing, and I'm on my third emperor, and I shouldn't - look like this."

He was a child in the mirror. He was a monster in the mirror. He hated both of them. He wasn't supposed to look like this!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Newspapers? Oh right, yes, Taro was old enough to read at the time.

    Amanda plows ahead with her questions before answering Taro's. She watches his face very closely, and winces at the pain she sees there before relaxing again. "Sorry. I... I had to check. You must be..."

    She looks away, staring into the distance a moment. "That's really hard. I can't imagine having to deal with it for three quarters of a century." Well, her brain reflexively tries to before going NO, BAD IDEA and she shakes her head.

    "I'm so sorry. Do you want a hug?" She'll get up and walk around the table to give him one, if he does. Then she returns to her seat. "I can treat you as older if you want, old man." She smiles awkwardly. Then adds matter-of-factly, "The school nurse is one of the few adults who can remember magic. If you want someone else you can also tell about your true age and maybe get treated like a grown-up--" She holds her hand to her head, "Gah, 'grown-up'. This is getting to me... Don't tell Obsidian, though; We don't need them bothering her."

    "...The bleeding is even more inconvenient than I thought. I'm luckier than some girls, it doesn't usually hurt for me. You uh. You learn to manage, you know? When it's just another regular part of life. Like, you learn to count weeks. There's some positions you can lie in to make it hurt less, too... But yeah, this past year, almost, has certainly made me aware of how abysmal health education is... Thank goodness for Nurse Meiou."

    Wait, where was she? She kind of got into grousing about things from a perspective she usually can't-- ah, right.

    She gives him another curious look. "All the big changes?" Admittedly, she did hate them the first time, for now-obvious reasons. What little research she's now done into trans stuff has led to the astounding revelation that some men are quite happy with what testosterone brings, actually! Ah, how to word that... "Would you rather stay as a kid?" She cocks her head to one side slightly. "I thought that was what you didn't want?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I'm lucky labor laws weren't so strict back then," he sighs. "I ended up leaving home when I looked really young since...between all the weird magic things noticing me, and not aging, I didn't want to make things worse for my family. Ma took me to the hospital a lot to try and figure out what was wrong, but nobody remembers magic stuff, so she just wasted a lot of money we couldn't afford."

Obviously that was a normal thing to do, right? Just leave. Leave so they don't suffer more. It's fine. It happened decades ago. Youre a monster who only hurts people. Just leave.

"...I'll take that hug," he says quietly. He returns her hug awkwardly, with one arm.

"I'll keep the nurse in mind. I won't snitch on her either." And, possibly, he'll need to be careful if he sees her as the Slasher... Or see if he can get a snack. Either, or, both. He has options. "I'm - you're the first person I've told outside of my boss, you know? Everyone always forgets. She thinks I'm a kid too. I guess it's useful since it means she threw a scholarship at me instead of a full-time job, but it's just...." He sighs. "How do you tell someone that kind of thing without people thinking you're crazy?"

Taro listens with focus as Amanda describes the blood issue, nodding thoughtfully. "I'm glad it's managable. They didn't teach it great in my time either." He wiggles his hand, then tries to gesture again. "Like. Boys just get big and hairy, and getting bigger sounds good to me! But girls get..." He gestures, va-va-VOOM. "A lot more changing?" Uh. If that. Makes sense.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy makes sure to put a little extra squeeze into the hug.

    She listens to his story, and tries to imagine dealing with this magic stuff for seventy years. It's more relatable than the Time Abyss that is Sailor Pluto, but still... she suspects she can't really get it.

    She looks at his gesture, and makes a :I expression before glancing downward. "...You know, it mostly doesn't bother me, but when it's pointed out, I feel weird about it? I wonder if this is how the guy slowest to like, grow chest hair feels."

    She looks back to him. "...But, I meant, that you... Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you meant it sounded like either way was just a pain." She smiles awkwardly. "I hope you get big soon like you want."

    "I'm um. Quite happy with this, actually. Hair and eye color weren't my first choice -- I'd have rather kept my natural white, although red's def a solid second choice, and I'm partial to my natural blue although I don't strongly care; I think, perhaps this is because red hair red eyes is common among anime and manga characters -- but, if I have to have a shape for years, and years? This is the best one I could have." She smiles, not so awkwardly this time.

    Amy folds her hands together in front of her. "As for how to tell people... I don't know. I'm bad at keeping secrets. I've been telling... well, at first I only told a couple of magical girls, but after a couple of months things kinda... I started telling more and it's just been easier to not worry so much about keeping it a secret among my, uh, 'coworkers'. Although, um..."

    She scratches the side of her head and glances away. "Look, I get this whole situation is-- it sounds a little creepy, but uh, for the same time... I mean, at the same time, I'm not exactly... There are ways I'm not exactly an adult depending on how you look at it. I can give the longer explanation getting into gender stuff -- Pride month just started, after all -- or I can keep it shorter, I guess. If you care."

    The red-headed girl looks back to him. "But yeah. Some people know anout magic. You can tell them. And like... maybe even people who don't know about magic? I dunno what happens if you like, make up a different explanation, or just leave out key details. But it's not like people have no concept of this. There's stories, in anime and manga and stuff. People can... comprehend the idea, ya know?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I still haven't grown facial hair." Every day he suffers looking like a child. "I mean. Growing up is a pain, but being a child is also a pain. Having a human body is inconvenient and annoying but having a magic body would probably also be terrible." Like having to consume the blood and energy of others! Haha. Imagine.

"....I mean. Maybe I have a gender? I've just had so much else on my plate I haven't really thought about it," he offers awkwardly. "You do make a cute girl. If I got to design my own body, I'd want it to look really cool too."

Well, he was able to design one of his mascots, and he made her EXTREMELY cool. And he's gotten to adjust the Slasher bit by bit over the years. It'll do for now.

"I figure since I"m Obsideon, I don't want to go around telling everyone? especially since this is the second time in two months one of my coworkers kinda committed a terrorist act? I only just started to have a social life!"

....and also. If and when he commits crimes, he's doing it on his own. Taro Yamada works for Obsideon; the Slasher has made no such promises. And in general he's trying not to get his wires crossed professoinally and personally! Which may become impossible! But he's trying!

Taro nods again, grimacing. "Yeah, the whole age thing sounds like it'd make dating weird. And everything weird. I dunno how to explain 'hey I'm gonna be sixteen for ten more years but it's totally cool because I was born in '46' yet, but... Maybe there's something?" A pause. "It might be too late at night for gender but I do want to hear sometime. I still need to learn more about, uh, sukeban?" No. That's not what she called it all those months ago. "Autism! That's it."

Amanda Faust has posed:
> I still gaven't grown facial hair.
    Amy winces as, too late, she realizes she might have touched on a sore spot.

> A magic body would probably also be terrible.
    "Eh." She shrugs briefly.

> You do make a cute girl.
    She blushes. O_O What?! What?! "Uh um... thanks..." she stammers out at the unexpected compliment.

    "None of your coworkers are trustworthy, huh? That sucks. Stay away from Beryl, I hear. And Sunbreaker, right now. She's goin' kinda crazy."

    She winces briefly at the mention of dating being awkward, and then sighs, and takes a deep breath. Glancing at him briefly and then looking away. "I swear I'm not a creep. I-I... she swept me off my feet. I've literally never felt like that about anyone in my life a-and... I told her, and she didn't care, and maybe this is a cope, but like..."

    She stands up and starts to pace back and forth, gesticulating anxiously. "I-I... I'm older, right? S-so I have to... take care of everyone. Like, I'm the adult. But... but... Geeze, I didn't have to deal with magic! I'm no more prepared for fighting monsters than any of these girls or boys! Th-they've shouldered burdens worse than anyone I knew as an adult. I-I, at first I thought it wasn't so bad, even when I had to fight witches, but magic bullshit is threatening their lives, their friends' lives, and the world!"

    She stops for a moment and slumps. "Kinda wounds whatever's left of my pride as a man that two extra decades of experience means nothing in the face of all that... hell, my..." She straightens up and throws up her arms. "Some helpful adult I am, man or woman!"

    She resumes pacing. "And. And. And. Like. You. Don't tell anyone, but."

    She looks at him. Ranting about her situation, feelings, words want to tumble out and, absent someone else who also got turned into a girl, this ojisan-stuck-as-a-teenager might be one of very few who can understand best. It might not be the best idea but things have been bottled up and thinking about it is making her have realizations.

    "I'm not. I. Like I t-talked about the hormones. I may be emotionally comprimised." She winces. "And I hate... like, how shameful is that?! If I can't even control my emotions like a mature adult?!"

    "And, and, I'm feeling shit like falling for someone?! That never happened before! I didn't know I could have feelings like that! I don't know what to do about that! I mean, like, kinda, but it's all new! I never... I never got to learn that! A-and... I dunno how to be a woman, s-save the extremely stilted view media's given me! I didn't, l-learn..."

    She stops and looks away, stating a bit sadly, "I probably know less about being a girl than some of the elementary schoolers do."

    Beat.

    "...I'm starting to suspect I never really learned how to be a man."

    Beat.

    "Jesus, listen to me!" She turns, gestures, returns to pacing. "How sad and sorry is all that?! Am I just making excuses because I fell for a teenager? E-even if I do need help, if I never learned... That's just called 'being a failure'!" She turns to him. "A loser! If magic hadn't happened, I wouldn't be getting a second chance, I'd just be a sad, sorry loser. So how can it be right for me to get that second chance?!"

    She looks at him for a moment, and then looks ashamed again, and holds a hand to her head. "I'm sorry, man." She sits back down, looking away awkwardly. "I lost my cool back there. Must be those teenage emotions. I uh. Like. None of that's really, uh. I shouldn'a dumped it on you. Sorry."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I'm under orders not to start fights with Beryl or Sunbreaker, so it's all defense," Taro groans. "Which, I mean, what am I going to do? Jump on them from a building? Be really rude? Even if I had powers, I'd still be a small fry."

And it burns, how weak he is. How he didn't know how weak he was for decades. That he could have been growing and yet, and yet - !

But then Amy starts to pace and ramble, and Taro just. Sits and listens. Trying to sort out how to respond. (HE is. Bad at this kind of thing. He's a villain by profession, and customer service or short order cook by neccessity. He hasn't done the whole 'talking' thing much since he left his mother.)

"How do you think I feel?" he ends up asking. "I'm nearly eighty and there's nothing I can do about any of this. I'm back in school for the first time in decades. Every skill I've developed in almost a century is just - zip. Nothing. And hormones - ugh, sometimes I'm so mad I feel like I've got to rip something apart, or so sad that my chest will crunch in like an empty soda can... If you're a failure, so am I."

The two of them. Old geezers in this pool of young ones.

"I deal with it by trying to get stronger. I learned how to jump on buildings, I can cook on a budget, I'm really good at Pacman. I don't think I'm ever going to fall in love because I don't know how to look at girls. I'm definitely never going to be able to have a family like this. If I forget everything when i turn eighteen..."

He'll likely be over a hundred by then. Adrift in time. How will he manage after that? - ugh, no, he can't do that. He can't let himself get maudlin. He's like a shark; ifhe lets himself wallow he'll drown.

"What I did, to stop worrying about it, was choose what I wanted to be. Do you want to be a teenage girl? Do you want to be an old woman? Do you want to be something else? Pick something and stick with it. Measure yourself against that. Mount Fuji's not going anywhere, so you may as well climb it."

Become stronger. Become the strongest. Don't lose hope, don't give up, just keep on clawing at life. Maybe it was a kid's dream, or an adult's delusion, or a yokai's fantasy. Maybe there was something wrong with his head, that he'd decided to eat his fears. But it's all he's got.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy sniffles as she listens. At first she looks kind of annoyed at his turning it around with 'how do you think I feel?' but after a moment she sees it as commiseration with his own problems, nodding along. She didn't notice emotional effects of testosterone during first puberty, but maybe someone with more years of experience can tell better. And he goes on...

    She strokes her chin, pacing more calmly. "Damn. Maybe our elders do have some good advice sometimes." Smiling a bit as she says it like that. She thinks and takes a breath. "I... don't know. What I want to be. I haven't really... like, I fell into Magical Girl, but..."

    At first, I just saw this as like..." She waves a hand at the school all around them. "Not a place I belong or am a part of so much as like... an extremely awkward requirement. The body came with the job. If I gotta look like this to be a magical girl, well, I can't show up to my old work, and I'm not getting paid, and like, it'd be weird looking like this and not being in school, so. Having to hang around teenagers and stay in the girls' dorm -- I'm a perfect gentleman! -- was just, like... an unfortunately awkward part of the job."

    "But then!" She starts to pace more quickly.

    I mean, first I made friends. Or at least allies. And like, I had to live with my roommate. You can't not... bond a little, spending time with people, fighting monsters together. Also the extreme awkwardness of getting a girlfriend who insisted what was going on with me didn't disqualify me."

    "But then!" she continues.

    "I find out that, uh, it's possible to be born a girl in a guy's body. Or vice versa. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't understand that like... you could be that and not know it. Or what it was really like. And um." She stops and wrings her hands, looking away from him. "So that's probably why I'm so okay with this body. And maybe I do kinda belong here. With other people going through some of the same things."

    "...And that's about as far as I've thought about this, I guess." She looks back to him. "I guess I've kind of assumed that if I don't die in battle, I'll live together with my girlfriend, and... well, I might be taken care of, but if not I dunno what I'm gonna do for a job. Computer stuff again? Singing? Nothing like..."

    She starts pacing again. "You see other people and they know. They have some dream like being a doctor and every day they work hard at making it a reality. Or they're driven to make art, or computer games, or get better at sports, or something, like, they're driven to unless you force them to stop. But me?"

    She sits back down at the picnic table, with her back to him but over at a corner so she can turn her head to look back at him. "Being a magical girl is all I have like that." Beat. She scratches the side of her head and looks away. "Well... and reading stories about fictional characters in similar situations, because there's no real people like me to connect with."

    She lowers her head a bit. "I dunno how people pick something like that. I'm glad you found something."

    After a moment, she looks back at him. "You dunno how to look at girls? Uh, what do you mean? Maybe I can provide some insight from the other side."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Yeah, boys can become girls and vice versa. It was in the papers even when I was a kid," Taro says, nodding sagely. "Not often, but it happens. So then," he says, and the little gears in his brain are churning.

"Either the magic will reverse when you're eighteen, you'll be old again and you'll forget all this, so there's no point in not doing what you want and being a teenage girl, OR it won't and you'll be like this forever, so there's no point in not doing what you want and being a teenage girl." Yeah, that sounds about right. "Or you won't age and will be like this forever, so at least I'll have company and there's still no bad part about being a teenage girl. Except being in school, but it's like... If you have a second chance, then take it! Who cares about 'deserve'? Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. These are your friends now! This is your world now!"

He pauses partway into his rant, leaned forward, hands on the table, as the gears click against a piece of gum for a moment. "...You'll want to get a new ID and stuff if you're in this body forever. My boss at Obsideon got me one, so there's probably someone on your side who does that too. And if you've got any family from before you wanna talk to, or fake your death for, that's also a good idea."

He - hasn't dared to look back himself. He can't. (What was his last name before? How long has it been since he used it?)

"I had to do lots of jobs that were terrible. Sometimes a job is just a job. Maybe you can get a job that makes lots of money and then turn boys into girls as like, a side hustle? There was a point in the eighties where I used all my spare change to become pinball champion, because being a waiter sucked but at least I could be good at something I liked."

He slumps back down, thoughtful. "Well, like. Girls are supposeed to be pretty and you want to marry them, right? And girls are pretty, but I don't really want to marry one."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods at Taro's comment about the papers. And then--

    She freezes, eyes wide, ice in her veins. She hadn't even considered she might change back. It takes a moment for her to recover from that rattling. "Okay. I don't think it works that way. Even if I can't consciously use magic as an adult, there's no other body for me to go back to." Although, she could end up in a coma, stuck in her soul gem and unable to control this body. That's horrifying, too.

    Maybe she should ask Kyubey. Would he lie about these things? ...Maybe.

    "Oh um. The school... someone faked records and sent an invitation. Otherwise I'd still be in my apartment trying to pay rent as, I dunno, a twitch streamer or something. Weird shit has happened with peoples' memories of me."

    Maybe you can get a job that makes lots of money and then turn boys into girls as like, a side hustle?

    Amy coughs. "I see you've been reading those stories too... No, um, phrasing. I think I get what you meant, though. That I could help trans people. Huh. I guess. It's real hard to make much money without caring as much about something as other people seem to. Although maybe that's less something you invest your own money in and more about helpiong people navigate insurance and the healthcare system? I don't know. I uh, I've only looked a little into what people who didn't get magicced do."

    She looks at him curiously. "Not... everybody has to marry. And some folks like guys. And some folks just... don't feel that way for anyone? Or only for people they have a pre-existing bond with? I think I might have some of that going on, um, what was it..." She looks thoughtful.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"So, it's highly likely you keep this body. You've got an ID and that means you can build a history with hit." He grimaces as she flinches. Boy, being a boy was pretty bad for some people? He brought it up just in case ,but it seemed like it hit way harder than anticipated...

"I dunno what stories you mean? But there was this old manga by Tezuka about a princess who could turn into a boy because angels gave her a boy heart and a girl heart and she was really happy doing it, so there's got to be a like. A thing to do that. Since it's probably hard to do without magic? And expensive. Things are so expensive these days...." He knows fish can change genders, and some frogs, and those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but he hasn't been interested in learning about humans for a long, long time. He was vaguely aware of that kind of thing, but he was too busy trying to keep his head above water to really - think about it. ...That's kind of depressing to think, isn't it?

And also. Uh. "I can't be gay, I've seen gay people on TV and I'm not pretty enough to be one," Taro says bluntly.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "...I think I vaguely recall hearing about that manga but never did get around to looking it up." Amy replies, about the princess. What stories she means? "Uh. Well. There are. A lot of manga about that. ...Most of it's, uh, adult. Most of it's bad. Reading anything you can find in hopes of finding the diamonds in the rough is the lot of us TSF fans."

    She sighs. "I have no idea how many of us uh, 'have the heart of a woman' and don't know it, but not all of us, given a lot of the stuff I see. But also it must be some of us, given a lot of the other stuff I see. I'm also starting to suspect some fujoshis might be gay boys and not know it. But like. There's no way to confirm any of that, you know?"

    She takes a breath and leans against the table, looking up at the sky. "As for nonmagic... like I said, I only looked into it cursorily, but it's like those newspaper articles you mentioned. Hormones change the body, and then surgery changes the bits those can't change."

    She gives him a questioning look. "Uhh. I'm pretty sure sexual preference isn't about what you look like. An ugly guy who likes girls is still straight, right? An ugly lesbian is still a lesbian. There must be ugly gay guys. And they're not all the effeminate kind, right?"

    She lifts her legs and swings them over the seat as she turns to face him again. "And what do you mean? You think you look bad? Like yeah, you're stuck as a teenager an' that feels weird, but there's a load of teenage boys at this school and I don't think anyone would call most of them 'ugly.'"

    Beat.

    "But. Like. If you were gay, I'd think you woulda said you didn't understand why any guy would wanna go out with girls when going out with a guy seems way better, and you said girls are pretty, so... Yeah." She shrugs, dismissing that.

    Although, something about that doesn't sound quite right in the back of her mind... That there's no meaning to thinking girls are pretty but doesn't want to do them... hmm...

    "Oh right! Demi! That's what my friend said. Demisexual. When you don't know if you like like someone until you've gotten to know them really well first. Which uh. Honestly sounds like it makes sense to me? Do other people really not need that?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"....Huh. Auntie said it's not good to read too many adult magazines or you'll never get any jobs done," Taro says, and it is. A little obvious he was born in the forties. "Not that there's anything wrong with it! I just never really tried."

It felt wrong to try and do that kind of thing. Taro wasn't terribly up to date on the latest trends, but he was pretty sure he was a feminist. And it was feminist to be nice to women, obviously. The Slasher usually didn't do his scariest scares on girls, either; it didn't seem fair, and also women tended to hit him a lot harder when they were in danger.

"If you can't do magic as an adult, you could help people who can't change with magic? I guess? It can't hurt." Hmm. "And I know that not all gay guys look girly, some of them have like - chests, and scruffy faces, and - stuff.' His pale cheeks flush. "And I don't. Look like that."

The monster overlaid his face in the mirror. If he was frightening, no one could hurt him. If he was frightening, no one would TOUCH him -

"Obviously going out with a guy would be better!" A pause. "Wait, no, that's not very feminist. Girls are very good to go out with but it's also important to respect their ability to join the workforce," he definitely lived through the seventies, "But also men are probably good to marry?"

A beat. "...I'm not making any sense, am I?" His head sinks down onto his arms. "...I have no idea if other people do the demi thing. You have to like people for that to work, don't you?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy just kind of stares, wide-eyed, at the person she knows is like, 80 or 90 or something, talking about dirty magazines like a child would. Thinking, How are you that innocent? Well, damn, now Mallory feels kinda bad if these comments lead to the poor boy looking up something that corrupts him later...

    He'd also be more annoyed at whichever braincells just misgendered herself if it wasn't just weird. More like forgetting for a moment and then oh, right.

    As Taro continues to talk, Amy continues to stare. Especially at obviously going out with a guy would be better!

    Dude.

    "No. You're making a worrying amount of sense. You'd rather date a guy? And you don't just respect women, you put them on some kinda pedastal like they're so much better that dating a guy would somehow be disrespecting them?"

    As she says that, she leans over with her hands on the table, lifting her knees onto the bench.

    "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do in this situation. We should probably find, like, some actual queer people to ask, but..."

    A thought surfaces and she stares into Taro's face intently, watching for reactions as she asks, "You think very highly of women. Are you sure you wouldn't like to be one, if you could? Or do you feel like you're not good enough and don't deserve it?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro's not sure how to react to all that. Is he putting women on a pedestal? Is he not being a feminist?? Hm. "Let me think."

He closes his eyes and tries to imagine being a woman. If his chest was - heavier? And his hips - no, no, if a girl could have a boy body, he wouldn't have to change all that to be a girl. He'd just have to be a girl. He'd have to be....she?

The thought jolts him with discomfort. He had his ideal body - the monster, ugly as it was, moved like silk and was strong as steel. This human body was alien, but being a girl - being so *joined* with his body rather than merely inhabiting it -

"I could be a girl if I wanted," he decides. "But I don't think I want to be a girl. Girls should like the shape of their bodies, and I don't think I'd like it. If you took my soul out of my body and let it take form, it wouldn't take a girl shape."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    She was expecting that he'd get all flustered and awkward at the thought of such an opportunity, or repulsed, like she just was at the thought of going back to her old body.

    Instead of going down either rail at the switch, the conversation jumps the tracks.

    Amy blinks a few times as she cocks her head one way, then the other, and then stops leaning forward and sits back down again.

    "You said that an interesting way. What shape would it take?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
He opens one eye. Was it that strange? What's the harm in talking about it?

"A yokai. I'm not really human anymore, am I? Why not look the part?"

(And Amanda may or may not have noticed - he's talked about yokai before. He's slipped talking about mahou, calling them yokai. Discussed them idly. They're a topic that's been on his mind.)

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy blinks. Then leans back a little bit and whistles, like, whoo boy. "That... sure is a mood. But you're not just rejected by humanity, you want to be something else?"

    The irony that she herself is technically more some kind of lich than the body he sees briefly crosses her mind.

    "Alright. Yokai look all kinda ways. What would you look like then? And uh... like, what's your yokai deal, so to speak?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"If I'm going to be rejected either way, I want to have fun with it." Shrug! Why not go for broke if he's a monster either way? It's his world!

He can't just tell her about the Back Street Slasher, it'd blow his cover, but... an approximation? "Horns like an oni," he says, gesturing with his fingers on his forehead. "And a face like an oni in kabuki, with the exaggerated mouth and eyes. Blood red claws. Big, really big, like seven feet tall...."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy listens with rapt curiousity, leaning forward a bit. "Huh. Dang. Cool."

    She sits back and takes a breath, thinking.

    "You know, when Second Life went free to play I saw a lot of samey-looking people and places. A not-insignificant amount of virtual real estate was beach houses and clubs populated by muscular dudes and... 'va-va-voom' chicks." She imitates Taro's earlier gesture. "Seeing that I kinda wondered if like, maybe people are more boring and samey than I thought."

    She continues, "But, there were a lot of wild places. People making cool weird stuff just because they could. People who tweaked the character editor to make, like a fat grey giant, or a weird little purple gremlin, or something. And of course there were um... the western kemoners, the furries, building all kinds of avatars by attaching shapes to the base human underneath. And they got more sophisticated over time. I know by the mid-2010s or so you'd see more non-bipedal avatars around, whenever I bothered to visit. I remember once, attending an autism support group meeting in this giant gazebo. And like, the humans and furries are sitting around on chairs and beanbags but this one person is like a 30-foot-long dragon who had to sit outside sticking their head into the meeting area. And I thought it was just, cool, to see the many different ways people would choose to represent themselves."

    She takes a breath and smiles. "And you know, even when I was like, a lot of the human avatars are samey, I didn't take into account that I didn't go for that, with an incredibly generic white dude avatar and a girl avatar that wasn't so exaggerated. And now here I am, looking like this." She points at herself.

    "...What I'm trying to say is... I think there are actually a lot of people who wanna look ways that are... different from just 'normal'. By a little, or by a lot. But it's... it's not really something you usually get to talk to people about in real life, right?"

    She folds her arms behind her head, smiling. "But gods, that'd be cool to see. Imagine how much more fun and vibrant the world would be, if you could be a seven-foot-tall oni and everybody else looked how they'd really like to be, with no stigma..." She sighs.

Taro Yamada has posed:
He's read about these kinds of internet places - on, well, the internet, but he never had enough access to really go on them. He had lurked in forums when he could get access, spreading legends of the Back Street Slasher or looking up new toys he wanted to buy. He's played around with those online dollmakers now and then, trying to find ones that push form further and further - he's even tried taking pen to paper when he's bored or riled enough.

He leans forward with interest as Amanda describes people who have transformed themselves in real life with costumes and technology - humans who became animals, humans who became thirty foot dragons -

To transform without magic, to become something BETTER. To be stronger. To be more than this shell of flesh. To become the person he saw in his mind's eye.

"...You made the self you wanted to be," Taro says slowly. "And people are learning how to be make those selves without magic. It's...a possibility."

....Maybe it's a child's dream or a yokai's delusoin. But maybe he could be himself without magic one day?

He could show her his true form. He's not going to - he's keeping his cover, thanks, and it's her duty to fight monsters like him. And he wouldn't be in character, anyway, being himself and not The Slasher. And yet...

"It would be cool if people could look like what they wanted. Lots of monsters look like people,and lots of people look like monsters, and - they both *exist*, we know that now - "

(This is likely the most animated she's ever seen him. He pushes his hair out of his face - his eyes are narrow and dark, but they're lively.)

"They can look at us like we want to be seen!"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    And people are learning how to make those selves without magic. Amy nods. "That's the dream! Although, uh, for reasons, it turns out that gender stuff is easier to do then any other drastic changes, I guess. If I hadn't gotten magic, like, hormones weren't gonna make me shorter. Or--" she furrows her brow as the weirdness of this thought crosses her mind, "--able to bear children, gods that's weird to think that that's possible now. Not that I plan to use it."

    She blinks and tries to get her train of thought back on the tracks. "...But that's the dream! Transhumanism! Changing ourselves so everyone can be what we want, rather than what nature decides. I don't know how long it's gonna be, or what technologies will develop first. Weird custom cyberlimbs? Stuff like wings and tails controlled by your brain? Whole custom cyborg bodies? Uploading into a computer and living virtually or downloading into a robot body or a custom-designed organic body? Some kind of crazy gene alteration drugs that make you metamorphose into something else over months or years?"

    She shrugs. "Whatever it is that comes first, it's probably really far away, honestly. But with technology advancing faster and faster, I figured I had a decent chance of seeing it by the time I was an old man and getting out of that body. It was always the plan to put my mind in something else one day."

    She holds her hand up in front of her, looking at the back of it. At the deep red SOUL set in the ring on her finger.

    "I'd have picked, mm, something like this, or, well, something like this but a bit more grown up. Maybe add cat ears and a tail or something."

    She lowers her hand. "I guess even more so for us now. It's gotta come in our lifetimes, if the world doesn't end before then. Heck, if things go well, maybe magic will become something people can learn about and we'll find a magical solution!" She smiles. "That would be really cool!"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I guess that makes sense. You can turn into a boy or a girl real easy as a baby. It can't be too hard to change later," Taro muses. "...Yeah, be careful about baby stuff. It's really stressful for women." Hm."For...people with women bodies?" Is that it?? "I dunno why a person would want to be short. I hear girls complaining about it all the time and it's dumb. It's always better to be tall! Women should be allowed to tower over men! It's equality!"

Becoming robots. Becoming monsters. He has a bunch of stuff to check on the internet later, doesn't he? Not just in the urban legend forums he ghosts around in...

"I hope we figure out how to stop the magic that makes people forget when they turn eighteen," Taro says wistfully. "I wasn't able to get anyone to believe me for decades, and you could keep on making a cooler body." Hmm. "I know I'm working for the," quote fingers, "bad guys and I'm not gonna stop, because the good guys aren't gonna give me a scholarship and a job, but I don't really want to end the world? Not unless it's instant. Dying in agony over years as the world falls apart sucks."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    It's easy to change babies! "Uhh, I think that part's still hard. Some of it approximated by surgery. It's the changes that come later that turned out to be easy to do. Some of them."

    It's really stressful for... people with women bodies? She gives him a weird look. "You've really never thought about it. Never imagined it not once. In like eighty years." She says, in mild disbelief. Academically, she understands the basic idea that maybe guys would never think about being a girl or the complications thereof, but it's kinda hard to grok after telling herself for so long that she was just an open-minded and scientifically curious guy.

    Why would anyone want to be short? Amy mutters, "I don't wanna be big. I'd rather be small and cuddly, just, y'know, guys weren't supposed to want that..."

    When he says equality is women towering over men, she looks around for her phone-- ah, on the table, and picks it up and starts tapping at it. "Where was that..."

    "You know, maybe the good guys would? If you wanna switch sides, I could... ask... if anyone knows who could give you that. What's your full name again?"

    "Ah! Here it is. So, I was watching 'So I'm A Spider, So What' awhile back, it's about a girl who reincarnated in a fantasy world as some kind of spider monster and gets ever more powerful as she overcomes other monsters in the cavern she was reborn in. But every once in awhile we also see what's happening with her classmates who were also reincarnated, mostly as humans. Now, I mostly wanted to see more of the story of her classmate Katia, who was a boy before but is a girl in the fantasy world, and yes, I notice, yet another red-hair-red-eyes TSko" She turns the phone around with one hand, while pointing at her own hair and eyes with the other as she shows Taro a picture:



    After a moment, she turns the phone back to herself and swipes to another window. "But, I honestly kind of felt myself kind of vibing with another classmate, Fay, who reincarnated as the dragon familiar of one of the other classmates. She's, uh, also stuck with being nonhuman and doesn't seem happy about the options for what form she could take as a grown-up dragon."

    Amy turns the phone back around while playing a video clip:



    "...And I was like... yeah, I actually kinda like the cute dragon familiar form, if ya gotta be a dragon. I don't really wanna look like any of those either. ...So uh... While I'm sure there are some ladies who feel differently... I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I've thought about it a few times? But it never really appealed to me," Taro says with a shrug. "Girls are really cool, but that sounds uncomfortable."

He's thought about it! He's old! He's had the time! But it's just... It hasn't clicked. Also pregnancy sounded terrifying??

"Being big means you're a threat, means people won't bother you. Or is it different for girls?" Taro asks. It was better to be big, frightening, alien. Keep enemies at arm's length.

"I dunno if I should,or if I can. My boss found me first, and also I'm not really," and he wiggles his hand, "A nice person." Or a good one. Not to mention his, uh, monsterous dietary needs...

He peers at her phone, nodding in interest as he opens his phone and takes notes. "I'm a Spider, So What... dragons..." Hmmmm! Notes, notes, notes... He's got more reading to do, doesnt he? "My ma was real dainty?" he offers. "She was very traditional. She never made the shift to Western clothing like my auntie did. I don't know if she liked being short, but it suited her."

'Amanda Faust has posed:
    Oh, he has a few times. Over eighty years. Yeah fair enough. Sounds uncomfortable? Amy nods, "Yeah, I think so too."

    When he remarks that being big means you're a threat, she tenses, fingers tightening around her phone for a moment, but she continues with finding and showing the anime references.

    Not a nice person? "You seem nice to me."

BGM Change: Umineko OST - Aci-L https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWgEwE1gArE

    Afterward, she closes her eyes, takes a breath, and opens them, frowning at uncomfortable thoughts. "I don't want to be a threat. I don't want to be scary. I'm a nice guy. I mean girl. But I'm big, and loud when I get excited, and that makes people uncomfortable so they won't listen. Be quiet, Mallory. Turn it down, Mallory. Use your indoor voice, Mallory!"

    Putting her hands down on the edge of the table, she stands up as she gets louder. "And if I get upset about that?" She's slipped back to 'ore'. "If I think it's unfair that just how I exist gets others mad at me?! I'm the one who's in the wrong. 'Oh, you're angry and shouting, no one is going to listen to you. No one should listen to you. You're wrong you're bad what is wrong with you you're making everyone uncomfortable! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

    She collapses back to sitting, taking a couple of breaths, burying her head in her arms, not sure if she's going to scream or cry. She mutters, quietly, "'s not fair. I [atashi] was a nice guy. I just wanted to help. I don't want to hurt anyone."

    She takes another breath, starts to lift her head, then decides not to bother and lets it drop back onto her arms, continuing at a normal volume. "Eventually, you learn to stop talking to most people."

    Another breath.

    "The worst part is, I get it now. I know I'm immortal and all, but I feel small. The, like, lizard brain part of me sees people so much bigger and knows they could hurt me, even by accident. S'why I always felt uncomfortable around large dogs and horses. It's, it's physics. A guy with 30, 40, 80 kilos on me bumps into me, I'm gonna get knocked harder than he is. If I weren't magic, walking alone at night could be a life-ruining mistake."

    She sighs, and lifts her head to face him, then glances away. "There's different problems now. I can't see over crowds. I might be overlooked if someone can't see the hair. A lotta guys won't take me seriously and sometimes even seem to just ignore or not hear me??? And that's frustrating sometimes."

    Another breath as she smiles slightly and looks down at her hands. "But I'm never gonna have to feel like I made people bodily uncomfortable, afraid, just by existing in a space with them, again."

    The smile starts to creep over her face. "I'm never gonna feel like I'm taking up too much space, or constantly in the way." She hugs herself. "Gods, I never put this in words. I... I... really, things are so much better now!"

    She looks across the table at Taro, almost beaming. "You can be large if you want. If you're comfortable as a 210-centimeter-tall oni, more power to you! But I'd be miserable."

BGM: The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright (Wiseguys Remix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2W18MbL4iA

    She finally relaxes and lets out a long breath. "Gosh. Sorry about that. What were we talking about, again?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I can be nice now," Taro says bluntly. "And this is as nice as it gets. I can't talk sweetly or use keigo to waltz around a topic. I can only pretend to be normal by shutting my mouth."

He lets Amanda vent and rant - be quiet, stop taking up space be *normal*. It's familiar, even if the circumstances are different. When he transformed - those first few times when he had transformed, he looked near identical to his usual self. He just - when he was scared, his powers activated before he could think. No one remembered *how* his bullies ended up hurt, but they'd known it was him. His teachers had gone from lecturing him that fighting was bad, that it was his fault for reacting, that he just had to be mature and suck it up, that maybe if he didn't come into class in his cousins' hand me downs then he wouldn't get teased, to just - pretending he wasn't there. The whole class ignoring him. He was too loud and mean or he didn't exist at all.

(So he'd make himself exist. If they only look when he's mean, then he'll be mean. If they only look when he's screaming, he'll scream.)

"...My childhood wasn't much like that, but. It was easier not talking to anyone either, at the end," he says sympathetically. He doesn't touch her - it's rude for a boy to touch a girl without permission!! - but he offers his hand across the table. "People were gonna act like I was a menace no matter what size I was, starting when I was real little. I decided that it'd be better to be the menace."

(He'd been real small at the start of things. His talking doll, Jack, said that it was because his ma had been so stressed when he was born and because Japan was all terrible when he was a little kid. Slow-walking his growth had let him counter it - he doubted he'd have reached this height if he'd been -

normal.)

"...I didn't think being short could be good, but I guess it's like. How you can't imagine not being a girl?" Does that. Make sense?? "Good. You should be seen how you want. It's too bad that boys are still morons who don't respect girls, though." booooo who taught themmm

"Uh. I think we were talking about both being old and it spiraled?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy would have more angry ranting to do if she knew how Taro had been mistreated. She only sees the hand across the table, and, after everything else, reaches out to place her hand on his.

    "No, no. You don't have to be the menace. That... that..." She gets up and walks around the table to hug him tightly. "No one should be made to feel that way. The world is cruel. But I've made friends at this school. It's... it's what I should've had. They don't treat us like a menace just for existing."

    "Yeah. We're both old and we're both here. Let's take this chance to have a good adolescence. Even if it's one that comes decades late."

Taro Yamada has posed:
She's hugged him once. He still doesn't quite expect it when she does it again. He's still not really sure he understood it the first time.

Of course he has to be the menace. What else can he be? He's been that way for years. It's not like he can change now.

.... But it is a beautiful dream.

"I guess I need to start making friends too. I've been nonstop studying since and barely talked to anyone. If nothing else, I have... one friend."

One human friend. He'll take it.

And he laughs, a little rueful. "Yeah, let's have the best second teenhood a couple of geezers can get!"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy smiles at being called a friend. "Awww!"

    To second teenhoods! "Yeah!" She lets go and steps back, grinning and holding out a fist to fistbump. "...Or, maybe that was after your time?" If he doesn't fistbump, she changes it to a handshake instead.

    "Ya know, it does bother me that in Japanese the word people treat like 'old man' applies. Like, I was in my thirties! That's not old, despite what my teenage self would've said. He was an idiot who clearly didn't know a lot of things."

    Beat.

    "Did you say I'm your only friend? Geeze, dude, we gotta find you some more, that's way too sad... I'm telling you, this school is a great place. What about joining a club? You have any interests?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro very tentatively fistbumps. He shakes her hand with much more confidence. He knows what a fistbump is but it's still so...new.

"Yeah, I was also a moron in my thirties," Taro says. "That was, lemme see...the 70s? I was a punk back then and got in a ton of fights when I wasn't working. The whole so angry that I'm a crushable tin can thing." He was VERY busy with his Slashing back then. Especially when he'd wandered into a movie theater to rest his legs and, well, movie magic happened...

"Hey, I'm doing way better than I was six months ago!" Taro protests, his pale cheeks reddening. "I've met a bunch of people but haven't gotten around to the friendy thing. And also like, are good guy mahous allowed to be friends with Obsideon guys? Like, Ma said people had to be real careful during the war about what they said or they'd get got," and he smacks his fist into his palm to demonstrate. "I like cooking? And making stuff, especially whittling. When I have more money and time, I want to get one of those robot builder - Gunpla? Is that it? I like robot anime but I think a lot of the new ones have too many people and not enough robots. Oh, and the best girl in Evangelion is Shinji." obviously! "And I like horror movies, especially ones that are low budget so it's all practical effects."

Amanda Faust has posed:
> Yeah, I was also a moron in my thirties.
    "HEY!" Amy objects, hands balled into fists, but she's not really mad, the smile soon resurfacing behind that pout.

> Are good guy mahous allowed to be friends with Obsidianites?
Y"Yeah!" Amy smiles. "I mean, it's kinda part of the whole genre, you know? Your friend is secretly working for the bad guys and you don't recognize eachother in henshin form... or you do recognize them and still want to save them!"

    "Although..." Amy scratches at the side of her head, "I haven't actually seen that many shows where that was the case. Just uh, Mahou Shoujo Charging Nanaka and Kamikaze Ninja Matahari-chan, I guess."

> Hobbies!
    "Cooking and crafts, there's probably clubs for that... anime too. Maybe for gunpla?" She quirks an eyebrow at 'shinji is best girl'. She's not in quite the right corner of the internet but that sounds like an internet meme. "There might even be a Horror club, I dunno, we'll have to check."

    Also: Too many people and not enough robots? That doesn't seem true. Amy tries to think back to the lastest mecha anime she's seen. ...That isn't Witch from Mercury.

    When was... the last time... she saw a new mecha show?

    Amy folds her arms. "You know, if you like mecha, have you ever looked into Super Robot Wars? You'd get all the old references, too..."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"It helps that you're living in a different genre," Taro decides. "Evil is defeated by friendship, and no damage is forever. I never did read a lot of shoujo, but I know it's like... Everyone lives happily ever after, or everyone dies in a dramatically ironic fashion after sparling for twenty pages." He grimaces. "I guess the former is probably better, even if it's not realistic."

...it provably wasn't realistic to have your boyfriend run away with your sister, burn the house down to kill them both, become irrovably scarred from it and then lurk in the ruins of your house about it, anyway. Probably. He'd never dated a girl, he didn't know how that worked out.

"I've been stress cooking a lot since people started being set on fire, but at least I can eat that? It's cheaper than dorm food. Wasn't sure if I could bust into the cooking club late at night. And I"m not sure if I have the money to buy gunpla yet, I mostly play around with scrap wood." Hmm. "A horror club would be very good. Do you do much horror?"

Oh! Oh! His eyes light up. "I had that on my Gameboy! I tried some of the later ones but the PSP is so flimsy that it broke before I could get very far."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy blinks. A different genre? "Look, I know I'm living a gender-bender story now, but it's also magical girl. The two can coexist."

    Can they? Quick, brain, name one that isn't adult! And that doesn't fetishize its main character! ...And that doesn't kill off the only genderbent character halfway through!

    Amy slumps and sighs. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure shoujo isn't automatically not dark. There's... there's probably other stories..." She never did finish reading Fushigi Yugi after borrowing the first volume in high school...

    "Your dorm doesn't have a kitchen? Ours does... one of the guy's dorms must, whatsisname, um, the blind boy, was used to the layout when he came over to make valentine's chocolates with us."

    "Honestly, I was never big on horror... Sorry. Just... like... very specific psychological horror, I guess? Or, uh... I mean, gender bender goes that way sometimes..."

    Oh he's heard of Super Robot Wars! "Dang. I think I did play 2 and 4 a little, not that I could understand Japanese at the time. I'll, uh... do you have a computer? I can probably help you find some--

    She points dramatically, out of the blue. "Magical Girl Incident! And I, Superhero and Magical Girl! And, and Magical Girl La Valliere doesn't, uh, it's not too weird... You can totally combine gender-bender and magical girl!" She slumps. "Oh, who'm I kidding... those're... probably more like some kinda toku plot, right? Although Toku or Sentai and Magical Girl are kinda like mirror images of eachother... I guess there is some overlap, but..."

    Red eyes frown as she holds a fist to her chin thoughtfully, stressing over whether there's any really truly good example of GB magical girl that is very definitely in-genre and isn't weird about it. "Well, if nothing else, there's probably some webcomic. Maybe if I'm able to retire and keep my memories, I can write something based on my story."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"You're in a gender bender magical girl story. Like Princess Knight!" Tezuka has NEVER failed him! "Mahou stories were always about transformation - especially back in the 60s and 70s, which were almost always about little kids turning into adult women to fix problems or fight bad guys!" And he's pretty sure that can also be a gender thingh? Maybe? "Those are fine to mix. I'm just clearly living in a horror story. There's monsters everywhere, adults don't remember that monsters exist, evil is so accepted that it's a job - that was always true but it's wild that it's extra true now?? - and if you aren't a chosen one, you're toast. Completely trashed."

Obviously this is horror! And he is one of the monsters, so he'd know.

"...There's horror where it turns out the villainous woman was actually a man but I'm pretty sure that's not what you're looking for," Taro says, because he may not know the word transphobia but he's starting to put a lot of pieces together regarding certain tropes. "A lot of American slasher horror is very gendery? Where the villains are boys and the victims are girls and often victimization is based on if someone acts appropriately chaste - but that might be a little too traditional gender?? OR... We could watch the Thing, the cast is all men so there'd be no gender to worry about - oh, but you'd need to be ok with blood and rib cages and stuff. Are you good with blood and rib cages?"

The little hamster in his brain is making the wheel groan with how hard it's running, trying to figure out an appropriate introductory horror movie.

"Oh, my dorm has a kitchen - I just try not to go in when other people are in it," he says, waving the idea off. "I have a laptop, and I can read English? I don't know if that helps." Being bitten by a yokai had some...very strange payoffs, but he'd take it. "You could always write it now and keep it for later, too. Just becaues people forget doesn't mean that writing disappears, does it?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy blinks. She really needs to check out Princess Knight, apparently. "No, yeah, I remember that. Stuff like Magical Angel Creamy Mami, and even before that magical girls were like, girls from other worlds who were magic, the first one was named Tabitha after Sabrina and Darren's kid on Bewitched..." She urgently defends her knowledge of genre origins!

    But... he's living in a horror story? "Come on, the world can't be a horror story..." although, the way he makes it sound, she can't actually refute.

    She considers this.

    "D-damn. I hope you're not right. Everyone knows in a horror story the minority dies first... I know I'm too like La Pucelle for my own good, but geeze..." Can a TSko be a Final Girl? Someone draw that gender bender story! Oh wait no she definitely read one like that. Wasn't she doomed to living the plot of one movie after another?

    What about horror villainizing queers "Yeah, no." Slasher horror is big on gender roles. "That's missing the 'bender' part." What about a gorey one?

    "I think you got off track somewhere, although you just reminded me that Shuffle Academy exists. I'm fine with gore, I just, hate jumpscares. I actually don't like feeling scared? Although, uh, I can kind of see the appeal of watching it with your significant other. If Hannah were with u-- oh uh, but my girlfriend is blind. So we'd need one with the like... descriptive audio track? I dunno if she likes listening to movies, though."

    "Well, it's not like I haven't watched horror movies without a girlfriend before, it's fine, you seem pretty cool so it'd be nice to check out a movie together."

    Amy considers the idea of writing a Magical Girl Journal for an amnesiac future self to find. "Gods, what a trip that'd be. Imagine finding this long story clearly written by you about fantastic stuff supposedly happening when you're a kid. Especially when you have amnesia and can't remember a lot of stuff that happened to you. What a mindfuck! There's some psychological horror for you, heh." She chuckles.

Taro Yamada has posed:
He remembers... There was some weird yokai girl, back in the 60s. Loved causing trouble; caused just as much as she solved, in the end. Could she have been a mahou? Or those white cats with the smushed up faces and extra long ears that Jack always tried to hunt. Maybe they were magic?

"Of course the world is a horror story," he says. "Or at least mine is. If you were in your thirties, you'd have...grown up after the economic bubble burst, missed the worst of things. I was born in 1946."

Taro doesn't think he needs to elaborate much on that. The history of the war and what came after has gotten sliced thinner and thinner as the years went on, but things still had to be known.

"How's this. If it's a horror story and I turn into a horrible monster, I won't eat you," Taro offers. (Because he's not going to! Obviously! He has plenty of choices to feed on, anyway, so unless he was really really REALLy starving, it wouldn't! be! a problem! ) Gore and no jumpscares. Gore and no jumpscares... Wait. "What about The Wicker Man? It's an obscure American horror film with no jump scares and minimal gore, about a police officer that goes to a cult island to find a missing child..."...wait. Hm. "You could also watch The Fly with your girlfriend, it's really gory and scary and sad so it'd be good for hugging."

He blinks. "Then... If you can't hold it, I could? I'm not forgetting for decades."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy takes a deep breath. "We got our own problems, man. Our parents were rich and lied to us about what life would be like. I don't even know how the kids of today see it but huh I guess I can just ask. I've kinda like. Been avoiding those conversations 'cuz I gotta stop myself from jumping in about how we had it..."

    The 40's? After the war was a time of record prosperity... in America. In Japan? ...History class last year wasn't focused on that time period, at any rate.

    That joke in back to the future where 1955 Doc can't believe anything good could ever be made in Japan comes to mind. Logically, even without knowing Japanese history, from the shape of things around it, the time between World War II and consumer electronics probably wasn't good, huh.

    "Wicker Man? I never did see it. All cops are bastards, especially American ones, but it could still be a good story." She scratches her chin. "I never did see The Fly, either, I think."

    "And, if it's a horror story and you're the monster you won't eat me, huh?" Amy smiles and nods. "Reasonable enough! And if it's a horror story and I turn into a horrible monster, I won't e--"

BGM Change: Umineko - resurrectedreplayer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNl4PNFubvQ

    She freezes.

    Oh fuck that's actually probably going to happen one day.

    And making that promise would be a lie. She can't lie to someone like that.

    Those red eyes look away from him. Quietly, she continues, "...If I become a monster, I won't be in a state to remember or act on such a promise. Sorry. If you're not trapped, find Kaname-san or Miki-san. They'll know what to do." A thought flashes over her face. "Or Tomoe Mami-san. She's a monster hunter that works with you. She'll get the job done."

    She looks back at him. "If you are trapped, hide until help arrives. Do not expect to win solo. Assume every weird creature you see is hostile. If I confront you do not try to convince me or talk me out of it. It will not work."

    There's a really serious look in those eyes all of a sudden. "Understand? Tell me you understand."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I have no idea either," Taro says. "Kids these days are born in a completely different world than when I grew up. They can eat every day, you know? There's food everywhere in vending machines, in stores, you can buy it wherever. Indoor plumbing is great, too. I didn't get that until I was six or seven? We moved in with my Auntie before I was born because the city burned down while Ma was pregnant."

They're wistful statements of fact. There is food now. There is plumbing now. He's watched Japan change around him. As much as he's clung to the past, the sweet memories of his family, so much of what is here now is - better. (And he does not see what's terrifying about that statement.)

"Oh, it's real good, especially if you don't like cops," he reassures her. "The Fly has a sad romance, but presumably that'd be good for like... that mushy romance stuff after?"

But. Oh. Hm. Hmm. Bad. He's been on the other side of this conversation enough times to - hoo boy. (Once again, the world returns to horror story.)

"If you become a monster, you won't retain your human mind," he repeats. "If you don't trap me, find... I don't know who those two are, but I can probably ask that Tuxedo Flower guy for help to find them. If I am trapped, hide, assume everything wants to get me, and that you are hostile and want to eat me up."

Is that about it? (Bro, where did you get getting eaten from???)

"...Is this a problem that ONLY those two can fight, or could anyone with magic do anything to stop you?" he asks. "And is it something you can return from, or does it mean you're gone?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods as Taro repeats her instructions. "I won't look like me. So if you didn't see it happen, you probably won't know it's me anyway." Although, when he keeps coming back to that specific example she cocks her head to one side. "Not eat. Kill."

    "Anyone with magic. Maybe a soldier with heavy weapons, I dunno."

    Amy looks away at that last question. "...I don't know. Probably not. But if someone's got a crazy plan, do feel free to try it."

    She takes a breath and lets it out in a sigh. "Gosh. Sorry for getting heavy there. I guess we are in a horror story. A magical girl gender-bender horror story. What a genre mashup!" She sort of... giggles at the dark humor.

    "Oh fuck, shit!" She looks at him again. "One last thing. The corpse isn't me. Just an empty shell." She taps the side of her head. "So don't think a dead me means this didn't happen or I'm somethin' you gotta get out of there. If friends have an idea how to get me back into it, great."

BGM Change: New York Musicians - The EGG and YOU (Cowboy Bebop OST) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsLQRfQPSrk

    She looks away. "Sorry again. ...You've really been living in a horror story for the past seventy years...?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
Anyon with magic. His blades are magic. The Slasher is magic. That's gotta be something, right?

"Crazy plans ok but do not get killed." Uh. Hold on. "...And you'll leave a body behind that the monster came out of. And if you can be saved, it means...putting something back in your body? Like a reverse butterfly." Body is the cocoon, soul is the monster is the thing with wings. that's...complicated, but he's got magic dolls that keep him from dying, so he acn't complain. (much.)

He cracks a grin. "Always have been! It's a horror from the cradle to the grave! But giving up means that the world wins. I, Taro Yamada, refuse to give up until this world knows my name! No matter what the genre!" He flexes. "And I won't die even if you kill me! And you won't, because I am too fast and good at hiding!"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    If she can be saved, it means... "I don't fuckin' know." She shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. Trust whatever the plan is if there is one."

    But giving up means the world wins. "Ain't that a mood." She mimes holding up a glass in toast. "It ain't over 'till you lose your last life's last hit point. Get to the next screen." She smiles.

    "Immortal, huh? Guess there's a lot of that goin' around. ...Did I ever actually give you my name? Amanda Faust, Amy for short. Tenth grade."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"It hasn't killed me yet."

And it's not going to. He's going to become the strongest in Japan. It's just that simple. And maybe figuring out how to deal with the whole...butterfly monster thing might be good to chew on, while he gets stronger.

"You didn't. Taro Yamada, tenth grade." He clinks an invisible glass against hers. "It's the least we can get in a horror show, isn't it? It's no fun if the protagonists all die in the first episode."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Pff. Man... I'm pretty sure we're well past the first episode. If it's gender-bender..." She hmms. "Man, we skipped an episode. I haven't gotten a proper shopping for girl clothes episode yet, aside from a couple of special outfits. That's like, episode 2 or 3 material right there!" She folds her arms. "And chapter 9 or so is always gonna deal with what happens about a month in... Man the broadcast order on this one is fucked. An' I had a big gender revelation after two months... Since then it's been more like one of those endless webcomics where like, stuff happens and I have this experience or that experience and ooh what a mood it is, but that isn't really following any kind of 'season' or overarching story arc."

    She taps her chin and looks thoughtful. "If it's magical girl..."

    "Between like. What happened with Hematite and his buddies, and Sunbreaker? If the former wasn't the first season finale, stopping the latter's gotta be, right?"

    Finding out the truth about Witches and Beryl have to have been like, some dramatic mid-season reveals. Wait, but learning about Witches only happened like a couple of months ago, and the Hematite thing was at the end of last year. They can't be at the end of a second season yet, unless it happened over much less time than the first season, it's only--

    Wait. It's June, huh.

    With dull shock, she says: "I... I think we might be on a schedule of a 'season' about every six months..." Her eyes widen. "Oh damn, we even had a between-season Christmas Special." She holds her hands to her cheeks. "I am stuck in an anime!"

    Beat.

    She slowly lowers her hands as she looks at him. "How's it lookin' if it's horror? What, where in the story are we?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Dragonball Z ran for ten years, One Piece is still running, they're still making Gundams and they've remade Evangelion like three times. Who says it's a 6 month season?" Taro says. "Plus there's movies and manga serializations, or it could be forum postings..."

...wait. hold on. "You mean I spent seventy years on backstory? I only came here this January!" HELP!!

"As for pacing in a horror anime... I always thought of myself as being in found footage, which isn't chronological."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy taps her chin as Taro brings up long-runners and remakes... But then laughs when he says he spent 70 years on backstory! "Hey, it was 36 years for me! What about all that, huh?!" She's grinning, but then thinks of Sailor Pluto and her face seriouses up. "...It could be worse..."

    "Found footage, huh?" She taps her chin again. "Yeah, if I'm in a horror movie... if I'm the monster, this is the part you never even see. The mysterious unknown backstory you don't even suspect until you learn the monster was once a maaaaaannnnnn. If I'm one of the characters... I dunno. I'm not making enough logs for it to be found footage." She shrugs.

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Don't say that. I can't go back to not having plumbing and electricity." Living without running water... He can imagine it, but he just doesn't want to! And how is a Slasher going to Slash if there's no alleyways to creep within??

"With that bazooka, you could probably manage an action-horror final girl, or a plucky reporter investigating the monster. I, of course, am the creepy guy who knows too much but doesn't say anything until the horror begins."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy blinks, and stands and poses. "Damn... An action-horror final girl or an intrepid reporter, huh? That'd be pretty cool, I guess!"

    She stretches and yawns. "Ugh... darn school schedule and teenage body... I used to stay up hours later than this... It's been really cool talking with you, we gotta hang out again sometime! Hey, you have a phone or something so we can swap numbers, or Consensus handles, or LINE or whatever you wanna use?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Right?" Ugh, it is getting late. He's got school in the morning...

"Yeah, I've got a phone amd a number. I'm still figuring out this social media stuff so I don't have any, but I text?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods and trades numbers. "Seeya around, buddy. Don't be a stranger!" She waves and starts to turn away, then hesitates.

    She turns back and hugs him, patting him on the back. "I'm a hugger now. Hugs are great. I missed out on 'em for way too long."

    Then she lets go, and steps back, and turns to walk back to the dorm entrance, looking back briefly and waving. "Goodnight! Sweet dreams, you deserve them!"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Sweet dreams. If something bumps in the night, smack it back!"

He waves as she goes. His chest feels... tight, and hot. But in a good way. Friendship, huh?

He ought to get to his dorm room. He has so much to tell his dolls.