fandomtownies | The Perk, Tuesday Morning

Entry tags:

The Perk, Tuesday Morning

Lucille wasn't all that happy about the past weekend, but she had experienced worse on this island. Did that mean she was getting used to it? Perhaps it felt better with an insane world that offered freedom, rather than one who locked her up.

She did feel sorry for Dr Lecter and Mr Starsmore though. Next time had to be better, but that still didn't make it good.

To escape the bubble hut she shared with Ringo, she had gone to the Perk, hoping for some quiet time to write a letter to her brother. After doing some research during her library shift, she had found a solution to tell him more about her life.

Dearest Thomas,
Included in this letter is instructions for a code language. I cannot tell you in plain text about my current life, or I might once again be sent to that dreadful place I was before. Please, I insist that you destroy the instructions after memorizing it, along with this letter, or find another way to keep it secret.

She would write a longer letter later, gradually including a few things she had been experiencing here, although she would of course leave out the worst, or he might thing that she had gone mad. Hopefully the rest of this week would be quiet, and offer time to do this. ~~Mwhaha~~.

[Open. That Lucille was writing a letter is ok for the squirrels to notice, but the recipient and the contents is NFB. Lucille knowns how to bribe squirrels.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Roscoe seriously needed some coffee by the time class was over, and he was hoping to stay out of people's way. Or at least, out of the way of the people he knew who could tell were the most affected.

But he got his extra-large, extra-whipped-cream, extra-chocolatey frappe and saw Lucille there, and just didn't have it in him to sit by himself when he could be talking to someone.

"Can I sit?" he asked, hovering over the empty chair.

Lucille looked up, her thoughts interrupted. "Yes, of course." She had been a little taken aback, but as it wasn't Ringo, or Mabel or someone else that was truly annoying, she wouldn't mind.

"Thanks. I'm trying to stay out of people's way who seem, you know, extra traumatized," he explained. "So my room is kinda off limits based on what went down in class. I'm kinda feeling guilty that I'm not screaming and crying about the whole temporary amnesia thing."

"Are they not used to this island by now?" Lucille took a sip of her tea. "Worse things has happened."

Clearly hse wasn't going to panic about it. The worst thing that had happened was drinking with Dante, but she guessed he too would rather forget that.

"I feel sorry for Dr Lecter and Mr Starsmore though. They forgot their own wedding."

"Shit, that blows," Roscoe empathized. "Nah, I think people have a reason to be upset. It sucks being vulnerable and losing your bearings like that, you know?"

Lucille had felt really vulnerable after having been nice for a day.

"Where you here when people woke up as the opposite gender? I looked like my brother. I found that was worse."

"Seriously? That was a day?" Roscoe snorted. "I mean, I'm sure that was kind of trippy for you, I'm not trying to devalue your experience, but I totally wouldn't have cared. Gender is so not a big deal for me."

Said the guy in glitter eyeshadow and platform wedges.

"What?" Lucille looked a little surprised. Even the students from this time had been bothered by it, unless they had experienced it before. As for glitter eyeshadow and platform wedges, she just silently judged modern fashion.

She was also completely oblivious to gender being anything other than carved in stone. You just widened her horizons, Roscoe.

"It's not?"

Roscoe was always happy to widen some horizons. Not dirty. Well, sometimes it could be dirty.

"Nah, I mean, it's this whole arbitrary bullshit binary, you know? Like, humans made it up," he lectured, happy to get on his soapbox for a moment. "And genitals are totally separate from how you feel. I mean, I happen to be pretty attached to mine," he laughed, "but if weird Fandom magic struck and swapped out what I've got for a set of what you've got, it's like, so what, you know?"

It would take Lucille a while to understand this, but perhaps she would eventually if he could be patient.

"Binary? I... think I'm very content to stay the way I am." Lucille was now stirring her tea a little more than necessary. However, since this obviously didn't apply to her, and Roscoe has been happy to answer her questions so far, she continued: "So, feel?"

That was fair. It was a lot and he wasn't exactly going slowly, but he could tell now that it would help to start with more of the basics.

"So there's genitals and then there's gender, but they're actually different. I'm gonna guess that where you come from, guys and girls are expected to act differently, right? Different clothes, different opportunities for jobs and stuff?"

"Yes," Lucille said slowly. "In this time men and women dress very similar. And couples of the same gender marry."

She was missing the point, but she was trying to understand.

Roscoe had never thought about how alike contemporary men's and women's fashion must look like to someone from a different time - to him, they still felt so unnecessarily distinct.

"Yeah, it's similar, but still kinda different," he said. "And there are still a lot of people who still don't like couples of the same gender marrying. There's this whole obsession with the idea that men and women are, like, biologically different, and should have different roles. But let's say you're born and your parents and the doctor decide you're a boy because of the parts you have, but then you grow up and you decide, hey, fuck it, you feel more like a girl. For a lot of people, the way you want to grow up to act in society isn't just pre-determined based on your junk - I mean, genitals."

That was a lot, and he was worried he was going too fast. "Does that make sense?"

Lucille hoped she wasn't being too intrusive, but she asked: "So, would you say you feel like a boy or a girl?"

Roscoe didn't find it intrusive at all. "Both, honestly. There's good parts to both." And then there were bad parts, like toxic masculinity and so on - but he'd save that for another lesson. "I don't mind people assuming whatever they want, 'cause like I said, it's all kinda meaningless to me, but some people like me will want to be called 'they' instead of 'he.' I don't really care, though."

He grinned, and shrugged a little. "Guessing you feel like a girl."

Edited 2016-07-12 13:37 (UTC)

"Oh." It might take Lucille a little more time to fully understand what he was saying, but it wasn't like he was keeping pigs in the dorm or anything like that.

"In my time most men would find it insulting to be compared to a woman."

"And that's the kind of ugliness gender causes," Roscoe said, snapping his fingers. "Men hating women that much. I mean, that's just stupid. Women are way tougher than men in a lot of ways."

"I suppose they are." Lucille took a sip of her tea. "Is it unusual, then, feeling like both a boy or a girl?"

Roscoe shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I think it's becoming more common, but it's still not huge. My ex, back home, was like me too. But a lot of people still see gender as this set-in-stone thing that it was in your time."

He sipped from his drink and then asked, "Were there any trans people back in your day? I mean, people who dressed different from how they were 'supposed' to?" He held up air-quotes when he said 'supposed.'

"I grew up in a remote area," Lucille said. "If there were, it is unlikely that I would have met them. I had read that people could love someone of the same gender as themselves, but I had never met someone myself."

Not someone she knew anyway.

"Lots of new experiences here, huh?" he said sympathetically. "Starting to see why you're not that shocked by the temporary memory loss deal."

Lucille returned to stirring her tea. "And yourself? Does this place offer new experiences other than the obvious?" She looked at him, raising an eyebrow, as she put the spoon down and took another sip of her tea. Talking about her life before coming here was something she avoided with anyone expect those closest to her.

Meanwhile, Roscoe was an open book and would gladly share details about his life, but he didn't have too much to share.

"The magic thing is the big one for me," he decided. "And it's also, like, meeting new kinds of people I wouldn't have gotten to meet at home. But it's good weird. I like the variety."

He knew there were plenty of people out in the world who preferred things to follow a steady, easy routine - but he wasn't one of them.

"I find there is a lot of freedom here," Lucille said, sharing something that was general enough. "I have had time both to improve my piano playing and to read ~~young adult fiction~~ poetry and novels since arriving here."

"Man, I should take more advantage of my time," Roscoe sighed. "I've just been skateboarding around a bunch and goofing off with Dante and that whole crowd. I'm probably getting way out of shape from not practicing any of my dancing, like at all. Or piano, for that matter."

Lucille wrinkled her nose a little when he mentioned Dante, but didn't comment.

"Have you been to the music shop? I'm sure you can find an instrument there that suits you." As an employee she should mention this. "There is also a piano in the rec room. I'm taking harpsichord lessons from Dr Lecter and practice both instruments."

Finally someone who appreciated playing music.

"I want to learn another instrument," Roscoe said thoughtfully. "You ever heard jazz sax?" He wasn't going to make assumptions, but the fact that she was from the past gave him a pretty good clue of what the answer would be. "I think I'd be good at something spontaneous like that. Less of the whole classical thing you get with piano."

"Jazz sax? Perhaps." Lucille recalled some of the music played in Music Appreciation class. "I have to admit I prefer classical."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Perk, Tuesday Morning

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject