Iris-Iven-Ibis
Interested-Idiot-Immortal
- Location
- You know
Happy pride month
A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)
- Thread starter Shadell
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Happy Release! (at least, it's on my kindle now?)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is released! The paperback *should* be up tomorrow too! And it looks like I may be included in a cool trans pride themed bundle on itch in a few days as well.
Somnia Virtua is Live!!!
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Somnia Virtua, the crossover between Original SV Magical Girl stories that I talked about here earlier, has now officially gotten going! A Little Vice is of course one of the seven stories currently featured:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Somnia Virtua - A Magical Girl Crossover of SV's own stories Crossover
A cavalcade of SV's own original Magical Girl stories, now together in a combined enchanted adventure! The Vals sans Retour is a magical fairytale world, ruled over by Gloriana with her lady-in-waiting Nanase alongside her. But it's all about to go awry...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I am very excited for both of these things. The paperback appears to be up on Amazon and I will be getting it for myself imminently.
BethofDeath
Girls just wanna have pun
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I just put in my order! ^_^
Now I'm imagining a greedy greedy wolf doing the whole "Moi-chan-dizing!" bit from Spaceballs.
A Little Vice the tshirt!
A Little Vice the seed-like necklace!
A Little Vice the harp!
A Little Vice the Blahaj crossover plushie!
A Little Vice the Temperance putting an end to the skit with a firm "No. And I'll be taking the shark plush"!
Now I'm imagining a greedy greedy wolf doing the whole "Moi-chan-dizing!" bit from Spaceballs.
A Little Vice the tshirt!
A Little Vice the seed-like necklace!
A Little Vice the harp!
A Little Vice the Blahaj crossover plushie!
A Little Vice the Temperance putting an end to the skit with a firm "No. And I'll be taking the shark plush"!
- Location
- Patriarchova
What, no flamethrower?
- Pronouns
- It/Its
Finally caught up
Chiro please, please for once just… just please
Poor girl, we love her
Exited to read the post ending stuff. Love this story, can't help but think every five seconds just how easy it would be for good old Lupin or that bastard Superbia to get me with a wrath seed, or how much I really kinda want that and would take to the role
Gd this is some good fucking writing
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- It/Its
I'd want it tbh, yeah I'd hate Superbia and it'd be bad for my mental health or whatever but I'd make a great wrath uhhhhh fox or something idk. I'd turn the mayor into a resinner and blow up the police station or something, do some good you know
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I suspect a lot of people in this thread would love a Gula Blahaj.
Not enough for Ikea to justify developing and manufacturing them, but whatever.
Flamethrower Castitas
Dantalion
Insight: 365
- Location
- A Guest Room at the Brass Embassy, dying of Frenzy
- Pronouns
- Any
They had one, but someone nicked it.
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You merely adopted the mall. Ey was born in it, moulded by it.
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
Where else COULD the primordial Seed of Greed germinate but an alien shopping mall?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's such a good piece!!!!!
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wall Street. Silicon Valley. Particularly bougie gated communities. Greed comes in many forms, and the consumerism incarnated in malls is one of the less sinful IMHO.
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
While true, Avaritia is specifically Ironic Zoomer Greed, and that can only be accomplished in the economic whalefall that is the corpse of 90's mall culture.
Prom Night
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I decided to skip senior prom. I didn't tell any of them, but it wouldn't have felt right to add the cost of renting a dress and makeup and everything to everything the Brandts had already done for me. All the unexpected expenses must have taken a toll. And sure, part of me wanted to dress up pretty and take photos and get a corsage and do all of those teen girl things.
But a bigger part of me was aware of exactly how I'd have looked in a prom dress, how it'd have compounded the horrible ordeal of being seen in public. It wasn't like I'd gone to the Junior prom or homecoming either. No, it would have been an expensive, miserable experience. That, at least, was a reason I could share to avoid going.
It still hurt to watch Inessa spend all afternoon buzzing back and forth as she worked herself into a tizzy, even if I'd had to talk her out of skipping with me, out of some perverse sense of solidarity. My sister had opted to buck convention and wear a white tuxedo, pairing it with more classically feminine makeup—courtesy of Ida's cousin—and crystal drop earrings as red as her tie. Now she was nervous about the whole ensemble. Of course, she could wear a suit and still look like a girl. Another little spike of envy.
"You look good," I said, speaking slowly and comfortingly. "I wouldn't have called it, but it suits you."
"It's not, like, cliche or anything?"
"No clue." I shrugged and she pouted. "Look, if I can go to school in a skirt, you can manage looking a little butch."
"It's, well, it's more… Ida wasn't saying much, but she was obviously feeling a little insecure about pulling off that kind of girly dress, and I thought you were going to be nervous if you changed your mind and this seemed like a way to…" Self-consciously, she picked at a sleeve. "I dunno, try and help somehow? Like…"
I rolled my eyes. "Really now. You only get to do this once, Inessa. You shouldn't compromise on your night just to try, whatever you were trying to do."
"I mean," she sat down next to me on the bed, leaning her head against my shoulder. She'd always been affectionate like that, but somehow having her do that kind of thing while we were sisters instead of a boy and a girl felt so much more intimate and welcoming, I couldn't help but relax a little, even as I awkwardly tried to fold her into a hug.
"I'm not, like, opposed to the look. I, like, I didn't exactly tell every stranger that I'm a lesbian, but I'm not hiding it or anything. Experimenting with style, trying new things out… I guess it's all just gotten a little lost with all the big things."
And yet, she'd still chosen her prom outfit for us. Honestly, the nerve of her. I gave her a playful shove, then crossed my hands in irritation.
"Look, then stop worrying and go have a great time. Like, I know you were hoping you'd have a date by now, but is it so miserable to go to prom and stand around in a corner with your friends instead of going with a cute girl?"
Inessa pulled away, leaning back on the bed and stretching out. Then, in one smooth motion, she grabbed a pillow, sat back up and launched it at my face. That kind of thing seemed to happen a lot these days.
It was only respect for the efforts that had gone into getting her all made up that stopped me from retaliating in kind.
"Thanks," she said with overacted bitterness.
"It's what siblings are for."
"Are you sure you're okay, not going?"
I bit back my first reply, tried to say something, and then shook my head mutely instead. "It's the option that makes the most sense," I summarized. "There will be other chances to get dressed up when I'm further along."
It was silly, to put it all on my present appearance. But framing things in terms of what could be still gave me a little warm and bubbly feeling that helped push back against the anxiety of what I was at the moment.
"You'll just have to have twice as much fun for me."
Another silly thing to say, trite even. It still helped set Inessa at ease a little, and, as much as a part of me liked it when everyone fussed over me, it felt awkward when it was something where the best course of action had already been decided.
---
Ida and Temperance had agreed to come over to Inessa's house, take some photos together and have her dad drive them to school together.
I wasn't sure if not seeing them at all would have been better than lurking just over Mrs. Brandt's shoulder, smiling and encouraging as they posed for photos in the backyard. Ida looked lovely in a sleeveless bright yellow dress with a high collar. It fell almost to the ground, to the point that there had been a few concerns about grass stains.
Temperance's knee-length blue was simpler, more casual. She also seemed notably less made up than either of her friends. She still looked good, of course. But Temperance has never been one to smile on command and Mrs. Brandt was entirely unprepared to manage photos of the strange statue monster standing next to two vaguely normal highschool girls.
"I need to talk to Chiro," she announced when they took a momentary break. "Take some couple shots of Ida and Inessa."
Mrs. Brandt was too baffled to object as the imperious girl sauntered toward me. Behind her, Ida squawked, her head darting to and fro. The corner of Temperance's lip twitched upwards. And then she was past me, grabbing my elbow and yanking me back through the Brandts' back door before anyone could stop her.
"What?" I asked, confused.
She nodded in the direction of the others.
"Immersion will help Ida figure things out."
It was my turn to cock my head to the side, confused. Figure what out?
Temperance looked at me, then let out a resigned sigh and continued to drag me away.
"No, seriously, figure what out?"
Only as the door closed behind us did she release me.
"You're not coming?" Temperance asked as she took a seat at the Brandts' dining table as if she owned the place. It seemed like she would not be explaining what she wanted Ida to guess.
"It just didn't make sense."
Temperance stared at me in silence.
"I mean, I'm still… If I still looked like I did when I was Invidia, I'd do it. But, I didn't really like crowds before everything and, even if it feels like actually changing myself is better in the big scheme of things, I don't feel good getting all dolled up when I'm this messy in between thing. It just reminds me what I'm missing, you know?"
Temperance made a point of looking me over up and down before facepalming. I braced myself for another lecture about how I actually looked.
"I'll skip too," she said instead.
"Don't. I already had to talk Inessa out of it."
Temperance shrugged, as if to say that Inessa's defeat had nothing to do with her.
"I'd just feel worse, you know? Like, it's hard enough to admit that this is, mostly, my complexes getting in the way of things, that it doesn't make me pathetic if I can't beat my own brain every single time. I'd just feel even worse if I was making you all miss out on things too to take care of me or talk me around or…"
I took a deep breath and flattened my palms against the table, pressing the tips of my fingers in as hard as I could without actually clenching my fists.
"You helped me a lot. You all helped me a lot, but sometimes you just need to have issues and live with that without making everyone bend over to talk you around or fix things or…."
"Oh," she said and lapsed into silence.
"Maybe later, I'll cry about it and we can all admit I was an idiot again and move on. But all this fussing just makes things worse."
"It was 80/20 for Ida," Temperance corrected absently.
"What?"
"15 of the 20 is that I wanted to go together," she added, her face a deliberate blank.
"What?"
She pointed at herself, "selfish, not nice."
I gave her a look.
"Pressuring you into coming because it's nice to have you, not for your own good." She did not sound smug. She did not look smug. Nonetheless, she radiated smugness.
"Temperance." I gave her my best look. "Ever since I've known you, you've been trying to help me."
I wouldn't have called what she was doing helping, not back when she'd been teasing me relentlessly about truths she'd somehow realized long before me. The constant jokes about force-femming me had contributed to my anxiety more than anything else. But there had been a closeness there, a slow-growing intimacy that could have maybe helped eventually, if it hadn't been surrounded by enough emotional noise that it just ended up making the cacophony louder and more confusing.
Something washed over her. She didn't show it of course. Life had taught Temperance to hide her emotions behind a mask in ways she hadn't managed to unlearn. But I was learning her tells, a tiny little dip in her shoulders, her eyes darting to the side for just a moment, the way I could actually just cheat and hear her darkest emotions sing out for a moment before she asserted control of herself and wrestled them back.
"I just felt guilty," she said, a little too quickly.
"What?"
"I hurt people, as Gula. Mostly you."
I sat with that for a moment. It made sense. "You wanted to make amends, and you figured me out, so you thought you'd make amends by helping with all the gender stuff?
Mutely, she nodded.
I understood that need to find ways to atone, even if the need for secrecy kept me from admitting why or receiving any meaningful forgiveness, even if it was just for my own self-satisfaction in the end.
"I mean," I said, a little exasperated. "I can still be grateful for that. Besides, I've hurt you at least as much as anything you ever did to me now. So, you don't need to keep forcing yourself."
Temperance stared deeply into my eyes, drinking me in for a long moment. For a moment she relaxed, then she took a deep breath and bit her lower lip. Her eyes fell to the table then, slowly and deliberately, rose to meet mine.
"Idiot," she announced at last. "Can I kiss you?"
"I, what. Why?!"
She shrugged. "You're dumb. Direct communication seemed necessary."
"I…" What was I supposed to say to that? My first impulse, obviously, was to talk her out of whatever defective thought process had led Temperance to the idea that Chiros could be kissable. But, well, somehow, she wasn't the first person with that idea in her head and…
"Okay, pretending for a moment that you're not messing with me, hypothetically."
Temperance's eyes narrowed.
"What about me is any good?"
"You're very dumb," she said, the corner of her lip twitching upwards. Then she shook her head and spoke again. "You see people. You're clever sometimes. You have a way of seeing things?"
"A way of seeing things?"
She shrugged once more. "I'm not good with words."
"Try?"
Temperance drummed her fingers against the table for several long moments. "I want to drown it all," she said at last, with the tone one might use to say wanted takeout for dinner. "The whole Forest, your whole society, every bit of injustice in the world."
I started to speak, to tell her she wasn't wrong, that caring about injustice didn't make her destructive, that if there was a difference between us it was that the world had hurt her a lot more than it had hurt me, that I envied her moral passions. She pushed a finger against my lips before I could get out the words and shook her head.
"You see beauty in people." She smiled a strange, almost sad, little smile. "It's nice."
We sat in silence for a time. How I could respond to feelings I was starting to maybe accept weren't entirely about teasing me? How could I answer the weight of that undeserved admiration?
"Also, you are cute, bulliable, and Avaritia likes you," she added as an afterthought. "May I kiss you?"
I bit back my instinctual self-deprecating evasion and forced myself to sit with the question. Temperance had, in her own way, bared her heart to me. It would be cruel to respond dishonestly.
"No," I said at last.
"Oh." Her tone was level as always, but I could sense her crumbling at that.
"I mean, umm, not no, not exactly. But, umm…" It was my turn to flail. How were Inessa and Ida doing? Someone was about to come into the room any minute now to ask after us, weren't they? I flinched and looked at the door, then shook my head.
"I'm still a mess," I said finally. "I barely know who I am; I'm transitioning but I can't even look in the mirror and believe I'm a girl. I definitely can't look in the mirror and believe I'm anywhere near as good a person as you think I am. So, like, that probably says a lot about me and transphobia and… It would be nice to, yeah, that." I couldn't say kiss. My cheeks were red enough as it was. "But I need to sort myself out first and, umm, also…"
Temperance let out a breath I hadn't realized she was holding, and the tension ebbed from her body.
"Avaritia," I said at last. "You, umm, and it's okay if you hate me for this. But, when I was still her, you made a joke about, well, having both me and Avaritia and I know that's absurd and that wouldn't—"
"That was not a joke," Temperance clarified, speaking as one might to a child.
"Oh. Oh. Umm," I wasn't quite sure what to do with that information. Was that allowed!?
"But, umm, how?!" My voice came out a bit higher and squeakier than intended.
"Idiot," she said, fondly.
"I-if that's allowed," how could that be allowed?! "Then we should wait until eir back before, you know, anything."
Temperance considered. Idly, she toyed with her bangle. I guessed… waiting so she could have a better relationship with your partners was temperate, maybe…
Then she rose and, blushing ever so faintly, nodded and made her way for the back door.
"You should still come to prom."
"No." Honestly, I didn't even have anywhere near the energy left to go at that point.
"You should let me skip together with you."
"Just… go and have fun, okay?"
She harrumphed as she held the door for me to follow her back out, but she didn't say 'no'.
----
Later—maybe half an hour after we'd defeated the monster—I sat on the gym's roof, listening to the barely audible pop music. The others were probably all back inside, and I probably should have snuck back home, but a part of me refused to leave, even if I couldn't enter either.
"Dance?"
I turned my head. Somehow Temperance'd crept up behind me. She'd definitely left with Inessa and Ida, so she must have sensed my sins lingering over the prom and decided to come back.
"They'd probably hear us," I said. The roof wasn't very thick.
"It's loud in there."
Groaning, I slowly pushed myself to my feet. Temperance smiled.
------
Soooo, here's the first of a few little shorts I promised to write! These are all going to be post-canon and meant to capture the vibe of where things land. Don't expect any major developments or plot or heavy drama even. I'll also go ahead and say that these are somewhat dubiously canon, on the off-chance I ever get around to writing a sequel. But until something contradicts them, feel free to consider these as snapshots of what comes next.
In other news, the published version of A Little Vice is in a pride bundle on itch! There's 62 items altogether, including a number of books, games and other creative works, and it's very heavily transfem dominated and there's a lot of works I personally like quite a lot in there!
You can find the whole thing here: Pride 2024 Bundle by Maria Ying and 30 others
If you haven't been checking the thread, a cleaned up and edited version of ALV is now out as an ebook through various sellers and as a hardcopy through Amazon: @Shadell13 | Linktree
But a bigger part of me was aware of exactly how I'd have looked in a prom dress, how it'd have compounded the horrible ordeal of being seen in public. It wasn't like I'd gone to the Junior prom or homecoming either. No, it would have been an expensive, miserable experience. That, at least, was a reason I could share to avoid going.
It still hurt to watch Inessa spend all afternoon buzzing back and forth as she worked herself into a tizzy, even if I'd had to talk her out of skipping with me, out of some perverse sense of solidarity. My sister had opted to buck convention and wear a white tuxedo, pairing it with more classically feminine makeup—courtesy of Ida's cousin—and crystal drop earrings as red as her tie. Now she was nervous about the whole ensemble. Of course, she could wear a suit and still look like a girl. Another little spike of envy.
"You look good," I said, speaking slowly and comfortingly. "I wouldn't have called it, but it suits you."
"It's not, like, cliche or anything?"
"No clue." I shrugged and she pouted. "Look, if I can go to school in a skirt, you can manage looking a little butch."
"It's, well, it's more… Ida wasn't saying much, but she was obviously feeling a little insecure about pulling off that kind of girly dress, and I thought you were going to be nervous if you changed your mind and this seemed like a way to…" Self-consciously, she picked at a sleeve. "I dunno, try and help somehow? Like…"
I rolled my eyes. "Really now. You only get to do this once, Inessa. You shouldn't compromise on your night just to try, whatever you were trying to do."
"I mean," she sat down next to me on the bed, leaning her head against my shoulder. She'd always been affectionate like that, but somehow having her do that kind of thing while we were sisters instead of a boy and a girl felt so much more intimate and welcoming, I couldn't help but relax a little, even as I awkwardly tried to fold her into a hug.
"I'm not, like, opposed to the look. I, like, I didn't exactly tell every stranger that I'm a lesbian, but I'm not hiding it or anything. Experimenting with style, trying new things out… I guess it's all just gotten a little lost with all the big things."
And yet, she'd still chosen her prom outfit for us. Honestly, the nerve of her. I gave her a playful shove, then crossed my hands in irritation.
"Look, then stop worrying and go have a great time. Like, I know you were hoping you'd have a date by now, but is it so miserable to go to prom and stand around in a corner with your friends instead of going with a cute girl?"
Inessa pulled away, leaning back on the bed and stretching out. Then, in one smooth motion, she grabbed a pillow, sat back up and launched it at my face. That kind of thing seemed to happen a lot these days.
It was only respect for the efforts that had gone into getting her all made up that stopped me from retaliating in kind.
"Thanks," she said with overacted bitterness.
"It's what siblings are for."
"Are you sure you're okay, not going?"
I bit back my first reply, tried to say something, and then shook my head mutely instead. "It's the option that makes the most sense," I summarized. "There will be other chances to get dressed up when I'm further along."
It was silly, to put it all on my present appearance. But framing things in terms of what could be still gave me a little warm and bubbly feeling that helped push back against the anxiety of what I was at the moment.
"You'll just have to have twice as much fun for me."
Another silly thing to say, trite even. It still helped set Inessa at ease a little, and, as much as a part of me liked it when everyone fussed over me, it felt awkward when it was something where the best course of action had already been decided.
---
Ida and Temperance had agreed to come over to Inessa's house, take some photos together and have her dad drive them to school together.
I wasn't sure if not seeing them at all would have been better than lurking just over Mrs. Brandt's shoulder, smiling and encouraging as they posed for photos in the backyard. Ida looked lovely in a sleeveless bright yellow dress with a high collar. It fell almost to the ground, to the point that there had been a few concerns about grass stains.
Temperance's knee-length blue was simpler, more casual. She also seemed notably less made up than either of her friends. She still looked good, of course. But Temperance has never been one to smile on command and Mrs. Brandt was entirely unprepared to manage photos of the strange statue monster standing next to two vaguely normal highschool girls.
"I need to talk to Chiro," she announced when they took a momentary break. "Take some couple shots of Ida and Inessa."
Mrs. Brandt was too baffled to object as the imperious girl sauntered toward me. Behind her, Ida squawked, her head darting to and fro. The corner of Temperance's lip twitched upwards. And then she was past me, grabbing my elbow and yanking me back through the Brandts' back door before anyone could stop her.
"What?" I asked, confused.
She nodded in the direction of the others.
"Immersion will help Ida figure things out."
It was my turn to cock my head to the side, confused. Figure what out?
Temperance looked at me, then let out a resigned sigh and continued to drag me away.
"No, seriously, figure what out?"
Only as the door closed behind us did she release me.
"You're not coming?" Temperance asked as she took a seat at the Brandts' dining table as if she owned the place. It seemed like she would not be explaining what she wanted Ida to guess.
"It just didn't make sense."
Temperance stared at me in silence.
"I mean, I'm still… If I still looked like I did when I was Invidia, I'd do it. But, I didn't really like crowds before everything and, even if it feels like actually changing myself is better in the big scheme of things, I don't feel good getting all dolled up when I'm this messy in between thing. It just reminds me what I'm missing, you know?"
Temperance made a point of looking me over up and down before facepalming. I braced myself for another lecture about how I actually looked.
"I'll skip too," she said instead.
"Don't. I already had to talk Inessa out of it."
Temperance shrugged, as if to say that Inessa's defeat had nothing to do with her.
"I'd just feel worse, you know? Like, it's hard enough to admit that this is, mostly, my complexes getting in the way of things, that it doesn't make me pathetic if I can't beat my own brain every single time. I'd just feel even worse if I was making you all miss out on things too to take care of me or talk me around or…"
I took a deep breath and flattened my palms against the table, pressing the tips of my fingers in as hard as I could without actually clenching my fists.
"You helped me a lot. You all helped me a lot, but sometimes you just need to have issues and live with that without making everyone bend over to talk you around or fix things or…."
"Oh," she said and lapsed into silence.
"Maybe later, I'll cry about it and we can all admit I was an idiot again and move on. But all this fussing just makes things worse."
"It was 80/20 for Ida," Temperance corrected absently.
"What?"
"15 of the 20 is that I wanted to go together," she added, her face a deliberate blank.
"What?"
She pointed at herself, "selfish, not nice."
I gave her a look.
"Pressuring you into coming because it's nice to have you, not for your own good." She did not sound smug. She did not look smug. Nonetheless, she radiated smugness.
"Temperance." I gave her my best look. "Ever since I've known you, you've been trying to help me."
I wouldn't have called what she was doing helping, not back when she'd been teasing me relentlessly about truths she'd somehow realized long before me. The constant jokes about force-femming me had contributed to my anxiety more than anything else. But there had been a closeness there, a slow-growing intimacy that could have maybe helped eventually, if it hadn't been surrounded by enough emotional noise that it just ended up making the cacophony louder and more confusing.
Something washed over her. She didn't show it of course. Life had taught Temperance to hide her emotions behind a mask in ways she hadn't managed to unlearn. But I was learning her tells, a tiny little dip in her shoulders, her eyes darting to the side for just a moment, the way I could actually just cheat and hear her darkest emotions sing out for a moment before she asserted control of herself and wrestled them back.
"I just felt guilty," she said, a little too quickly.
"What?"
"I hurt people, as Gula. Mostly you."
I sat with that for a moment. It made sense. "You wanted to make amends, and you figured me out, so you thought you'd make amends by helping with all the gender stuff?
Mutely, she nodded.
I understood that need to find ways to atone, even if the need for secrecy kept me from admitting why or receiving any meaningful forgiveness, even if it was just for my own self-satisfaction in the end.
"I mean," I said, a little exasperated. "I can still be grateful for that. Besides, I've hurt you at least as much as anything you ever did to me now. So, you don't need to keep forcing yourself."
Temperance stared deeply into my eyes, drinking me in for a long moment. For a moment she relaxed, then she took a deep breath and bit her lower lip. Her eyes fell to the table then, slowly and deliberately, rose to meet mine.
"Idiot," she announced at last. "Can I kiss you?"
"I, what. Why?!"
She shrugged. "You're dumb. Direct communication seemed necessary."
"I…" What was I supposed to say to that? My first impulse, obviously, was to talk her out of whatever defective thought process had led Temperance to the idea that Chiros could be kissable. But, well, somehow, she wasn't the first person with that idea in her head and…
"Okay, pretending for a moment that you're not messing with me, hypothetically."
Temperance's eyes narrowed.
"What about me is any good?"
"You're very dumb," she said, the corner of her lip twitching upwards. Then she shook her head and spoke again. "You see people. You're clever sometimes. You have a way of seeing things?"
"A way of seeing things?"
She shrugged once more. "I'm not good with words."
"Try?"
Temperance drummed her fingers against the table for several long moments. "I want to drown it all," she said at last, with the tone one might use to say wanted takeout for dinner. "The whole Forest, your whole society, every bit of injustice in the world."
I started to speak, to tell her she wasn't wrong, that caring about injustice didn't make her destructive, that if there was a difference between us it was that the world had hurt her a lot more than it had hurt me, that I envied her moral passions. She pushed a finger against my lips before I could get out the words and shook her head.
"You see beauty in people." She smiled a strange, almost sad, little smile. "It's nice."
We sat in silence for a time. How I could respond to feelings I was starting to maybe accept weren't entirely about teasing me? How could I answer the weight of that undeserved admiration?
"Also, you are cute, bulliable, and Avaritia likes you," she added as an afterthought. "May I kiss you?"
I bit back my instinctual self-deprecating evasion and forced myself to sit with the question. Temperance had, in her own way, bared her heart to me. It would be cruel to respond dishonestly.
"No," I said at last.
"Oh." Her tone was level as always, but I could sense her crumbling at that.
"I mean, umm, not no, not exactly. But, umm…" It was my turn to flail. How were Inessa and Ida doing? Someone was about to come into the room any minute now to ask after us, weren't they? I flinched and looked at the door, then shook my head.
"I'm still a mess," I said finally. "I barely know who I am; I'm transitioning but I can't even look in the mirror and believe I'm a girl. I definitely can't look in the mirror and believe I'm anywhere near as good a person as you think I am. So, like, that probably says a lot about me and transphobia and… It would be nice to, yeah, that." I couldn't say kiss. My cheeks were red enough as it was. "But I need to sort myself out first and, umm, also…"
Temperance let out a breath I hadn't realized she was holding, and the tension ebbed from her body.
"Avaritia," I said at last. "You, umm, and it's okay if you hate me for this. But, when I was still her, you made a joke about, well, having both me and Avaritia and I know that's absurd and that wouldn't—"
"That was not a joke," Temperance clarified, speaking as one might to a child.
"Oh. Oh. Umm," I wasn't quite sure what to do with that information. Was that allowed!?
"But, umm, how?!" My voice came out a bit higher and squeakier than intended.
"Idiot," she said, fondly.
"I-if that's allowed," how could that be allowed?! "Then we should wait until eir back before, you know, anything."
Temperance considered. Idly, she toyed with her bangle. I guessed… waiting so she could have a better relationship with your partners was temperate, maybe…
Then she rose and, blushing ever so faintly, nodded and made her way for the back door.
"You should still come to prom."
"No." Honestly, I didn't even have anywhere near the energy left to go at that point.
"You should let me skip together with you."
"Just… go and have fun, okay?"
She harrumphed as she held the door for me to follow her back out, but she didn't say 'no'.
----
Later—maybe half an hour after we'd defeated the monster—I sat on the gym's roof, listening to the barely audible pop music. The others were probably all back inside, and I probably should have snuck back home, but a part of me refused to leave, even if I couldn't enter either.
"Dance?"
I turned my head. Somehow Temperance'd crept up behind me. She'd definitely left with Inessa and Ida, so she must have sensed my sins lingering over the prom and decided to come back.
"They'd probably hear us," I said. The roof wasn't very thick.
"It's loud in there."
Groaning, I slowly pushed myself to my feet. Temperance smiled.
------
Soooo, here's the first of a few little shorts I promised to write! These are all going to be post-canon and meant to capture the vibe of where things land. Don't expect any major developments or plot or heavy drama even. I'll also go ahead and say that these are somewhat dubiously canon, on the off-chance I ever get around to writing a sequel. But until something contradicts them, feel free to consider these as snapshots of what comes next.
In other news, the published version of A Little Vice is in a pride bundle on itch! There's 62 items altogether, including a number of books, games and other creative works, and it's very heavily transfem dominated and there's a lot of works I personally like quite a lot in there!
You can find the whole thing here: Pride 2024 Bundle by Maria Ying and 30 others
If you haven't been checking the thread, a cleaned up and edited version of ALV is now out as an ebook through various sellers and as a hardcopy through Amazon: @Shadell13 | Linktree
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is very nice! I was excited and happy to see the new chapter. At the start when Chiro was going on about not feeling like it was the right choice to go to prom, I was thinking 50/50 on whether it's Temperance or Avaritia who try to bring her out. Which did not happen so I was wrong but it was also just nice seeing Temperance getting through to Chiroptera that she likes her romantically and Chiroptera being in a good enough headspace to have a proper conversation about it with her. Also it was amusing how the narration was just like "after the monster" because the fact that there would be one was never in doubt.
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
Maybe the monster was Avaritia's way of asking her out. We don't get any details on whether it was one of the new ones or not after all.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Respect to a girl that can rock a suit.
Yeah, no matter what your sexual orientation, it doesn't come with a guide.
Why not make a dramatic entrance and sweep a cute girl off her feet?
Yeah, I know how that feels.
Yeah, she was being too forceful then, but it is really good show of progress and your friendship that you can talk openly about these things with each other.
Yeah, it is not the time for that yet. Baby steps.
Ah,
One step at a time.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
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- He/Him
Oooh! Very fun and very cute!
I'm not sure if i'm just failing to parse something, but the 80/20 bit feels like it should be referencing something that i dont see before it?
Also excuse me Chiro, Avaritia got a kiss with you, temperance can get one before ey come back to make it fair
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
She's talking about percentages of her motivation. 80% for Ida, 15% because she wanted a prom date with Chiro, 5% for Chiro's own sake. What I'm unclear on is Ida's buy-in here other than her being the one insisting all the girls go together because "I'm going to make everyone get along despite not knowing shit" has been her thing since Chiro first appeared.
(Also Ida definitely didn't get a date and changed her tryhardery to making it a good girl's night instead).
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