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A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
This is just two to three things I particularly focused on/identified.

Shadell said:
"Watcha doing?" a cheerful and familiar voice practically shouted next to my ear.

I jumped and, mostly accidentally, clubbed the interloper with one wing as I spun around to face em. "N-not so loud!"

Avaritia Wolf stood behind me, aggreivedly rubbing eir ear. Ey tilted eir head to the side, appraising. Then ey gave me a thumbs up.

"Looking good, Invidia." The name sounded like welcome on Avaritia's lips.

"I do?" I asked hesitantly.

Ey nodded, "The wings and the ears are a great addition to the look! You look way more distinctive now."

I blushed, "D-do you have a mirror? I umm," I couldn't really admit that the need to make sure my face looked sufficiently magical girlish had completely distracted me from all my existential dread, could I? I was a guy! Sure, I was a magical girl right now, but, "I was, uh, trying to change back into my boy mode and I wasn't having much luck, so I was thinking maybe if I could see what I looked like now, that would help me, umm…"

I didn't need to ask how Avaritia had found me. Eir presence, now that I was aware of it, practically filled the space next to me. It wasn't a noise, but I couldn't perceive it as anything but; a percussive clash of metal on metal, ringing brightly and clearly, spreading and enveloping everything around it. My own sound was a pitiful whistle by comparison.

"Right, you gotta get back to your dad so you have to hide things," for some reason Avaritia didn't sound very happy about that.

"Umm, we, uh, had a little fight on Friday. Anyway, I'm not going back there for a bit, so, uh, mostly I just need to attend classes, you know."

Avaritia, somehow, didn't seem comforted by that fact.

"So, just Inessa and her crowd then," ey noted.

"They, umm, may have seen me turn into this…" I laughed awkwardly, "I, umm, was staying with Inessa so, uh…"

Avaritia grinned, "Wow! Showing off right in front of your natural enemy and her best friends!" she pretended to nod sagely, "kids these days have a lot of gumption!"

"It's…" I didn't know what to say. Inessa had been everything to me, my only real tie to the world for so long and now that was… what? Did I resent her? Obviously. She had everything I'd ever wanted, an idol I couldn't hope to match; she was simply better than me on every level, and I was… an object in her story, a nice little NPC to hand out advice every now and then with no real chance to participate, a useless boy she could look good saving. Had we ever been as close as I assumed we were? I wasn't sure.

"Sorry," Avaritia grimaced, "that's probably not a fun thing for you. Annnyyywaaay, we can totally get you a room in the Abyssal forest! And then we can go shopping and get you all the girl things you haven't been allowed to have to fill it up!"

I shuddered at that. Could I live in a room permeated with the scent of cinnamon like that? Maybe it would be different. Mr. Noir had never tried to hit me.

"Well?"

"Thanks," I said awkwardly as Avaritia's confident smile "But right now I just need to go back to normal. I can't wander around town with bat wings, can I?"

Ey glanced me over, "right! Mirror. Here, will this work?" I couldn't tell from where, but ey managed to produce a small, if rather pricey looking, compact.

I held it for a moment, nervous. What if I looked strange? What if I was hideous? I shook my head and popped open the compact. The mirror was curved to magnify my features, so it was hard to see, but…

"I'm…" I stared at the girl reflected there deeply. Her hair was tied back into a long ponytail that fell to the small of her back. It, and her eyes, shared a swamp green color with the ribbons decorating her top and the trim on her skirt. Inessa's face had always been adorable, with a button nose and wide innocent-looking eyes, but it was so much nicer now that I wore it, for all I was missing the freckles. A pair of bat ears stuck out the side of her head, but the overall effect was more cute than menacing. She was smiling uncontrollably for some reason, and I could see that she'd gained a pair of positively vampiric fangs where her canines had once been.
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Shadell said:
"Besides," Avaritia flexed eir bicep, "I'm right here; your big bad wolf ready to tear up anyone that looks at his cute little bat the wrong way."

I couldn't help it; I reached out and patted Avaritia on the head, "good dog," I muttered much more quietly than intended. But I barely stumbling over the words.

Ey didn't react. Lupin just stood there in stunned silence, slowly turning bright red.

"Such a good guard dog," I cooed again with something almost resembling confidence.

"T-that's not fair!" ey managed at last, "when I'm not even allowed to do anything serious back or anything!"

I giggled. Despite our exchanges, we'd attracted no unusual attention. Why would we? We were just a pair of high schoolers goofing off on a weekend afternoon. I could almost believe that enough to bury the anxiety.

"Thanks," I whispered.

"T-that's cheating!" Avaritia responded, "G-going from that to that kind of sincerity like that; what kind of monstrous partner am I raising here?"

I grinned back, "A terrifying bat that's almost brave enough to actually go look at clothes."

Avaritia grabbed me by the hand and dragged me toward the mall, "that's the spirit! But you're doing a lot more than looking after that trick miss Chiroptera."

"Hah ha, that's a nice joke," I grinned. Avaritia grinned black; bloodthirsty.

"Please say it's a joke?" I repeated, suddenly right back where we'd started. "You're joking! L-look, browsing is one thing and buying is maybe a yes, but my heart isn't ready for that kind of ordeal!"
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It's cute to see Chiro/Invidia being the vampire bat girl with a good wolf I sorta anticipated.

Shadell said:
"Hiya boss," ey said with a confidence I couldn't understand. Superbia demanded respect. Superbia could obviously crush us for failing to respect him. Superbia was sitting in his chair talking quietly to a reedy figure in a gray robe that left literally everything about its occupant to the imagination.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" Superbia demanded, even as his eyes focused on me for all my efforts to hide behind Avaritia. He snorted.

"Ah," the robed figure said. "So the fourth has finally awoken. With your leave, I will allow you to attend to this, we can discuss the fruit later." Their voice had a lyrical tilt to it, and a strange ethereal quality that felt familiar in a strange way. Where Superbia made a constant show of authority, the cloaked person managed to sound like they were above everything while miming deference.
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Shadell said:
"So," ey said, surprisingly hesitant, "I guess I should start at the beginning. How much do you know about the Saints?"

"Not much," I admitted. "They were opening up a little bit, but I don't think they wanted me too involved in things even at the end and, well, I got the whole making Resinners thing, but I don't know the why or what it's supposed to do."

Avaritia took a moment to gather emself.

"Okay," ey hesitated. "So, this is what they told me growing up, you know, and I don't trust it anymore, not all of it, but…"

Ey set down eir chopsticks and sighed and, after gathering emself for a few more moments, began to speak.

"Long ago, people were weak and powerless, and the forest in which we all lived was dark and scary and full of monsters. The children of the forest hid and ran and tried to survive and eventually they found themselves seeking shelter under a tall ancient tree."

"The First Tree?" I asked, wondering where ey could have possibly heard the story.

Avaritia nodded, "The First Tree was kind and wise and decided to shelter the fragile children of the forest who knew nothing. And the Children grew safe and venerated the First Tree in return. But," Avaritia shrugged, "you can't really live just around a single tree. The children grew curious about the dark forest around them, so the First Tree sent a messenger to give them a single fruit, that contained all its knowledge, to help them understand the forest, to let them find the power in themselves to stand in the darkness and thrive."

Ey hesitated, "The rest is a bit different from what they made you learn in school, but Superbia's like old old and he was there for a lot of it, so I trust his version."

I made a note to inquire about the version Avaritia had learned first some other time; it sounded more credible.
"But only a few people could use the fruit, those who were willing to dive into their own desires, who were willing to try to grow and change and be more, to become beasts that could survive in the forest."

"The fruit is where those seeds we used came from?" I wondered out loud.

Avaritia poked me in the ribs, "Yes, but don't interrupt. Anyway, the other children of the forest were worried about those who started to explore. They decided that it was bad to use the Tree's gifts, that the Beasts were monsters who needed to be stopped, that the First Tree was wrong to let them become Beasts in the first place; so they stole a branch from the First Tree and carved it into weapons that they could use to get rid of the Beasts."

Avaritia paused dramatically and looked to me, expectations clear in eir eyes.

"The Saints' powers?" I asked obligingly.

Ey nodded, then poked me again, "Yes, but I said not to interrupt!"

I debated fighting them over the obvious provocation, but settled for sullenly eating my noodles as I waited for them to finish.

"And well, both sides agree that the Beasts lost. The Saints back then won and banished sin from the heart of the Forest and started to teach everyone to be virtuous and good and…" ey glowered.

"It'd have killed Gula," ey said at last. "It was killing her to be the kind of boy they'd do anything to force her to be, because mandatory virtue is just something you use to hurt people until they can do the same."

Lupin grinned, "And sure virtue sounds nice. Let's make everyone be good and all. Except, well, if you're someone who wants things or needs things or doesn't quite fit in the right way; people can be 'generous' with correcting your behavior; they can hurt you out of kindness to teach you humility, you know, and even if you're someone who can make it through all that, it still breaks you a little inside, right? We need to want, to crave, to rage!"

"Oh," I wondered idly, what I would choose if I could have opted to have all my envy and its attendant wants stolen from me entirely. It seemed instinctively better than just living with it unsatisfied. It wasn't any less horrifying than the way I'd dealt with my sins, not really.

"Any questions?" Avaritia asked after ey'd settled down and resumed messily getting eir lo mein all over my bedspread.

"So, you're," I hesitated. It didn't really change anything, but it was strange to realize how foreign Avaritia really was, "You're one of the Children of the Forest?"

Ey shook eir head. "Nope! Avaritia Wolf is a Beast of the Abyssal Forest. But," ey gave up trying to force a grin, "yeah, that's what we used to be."

"And Superbia?" I pushed aside the familiar sensations his name caused.

Lupin shrugged, "The same. Gula decided to run and, well, I couldn't let her do that alone, could I? And, you know, recent choices aside, she's basically always right when she actually makes up her mind. It was… close," ey shuddered, and I wondered how old they had been when they decided it was better to risk a dark forest only Beasts could survive than stay in their hometown.

"But, we found Superbia sealed away in the Forest from all the way back when that first war happened, and we let him out and he gave the seeds that let us turn into Beasts so we could join him against the tyranny of virtue."

That put a spin on Superbia's power. How much longer had he been doing this than any of us?

"And Michael and that robed guy with Superbia?" I asked. Lupin already knew Inessa was Castitas somehow or other. So naming the Saints' mascot seemed like it was only a small betrayal on top of everything else.

"No clue who Michael is and," Avaritia frowned, "No real clue who the robed guy is either to be honest."

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. Nothing about this idea that the Forest had a civilization or people just living there matched with any of what little exposition I'd managed to wrangle from Michael or the Saints. And, I couldn't believe that Inessa all people was the vanguard of some kind of dystopian society.

"Okay, so why are you here?"

"I'm getting to it, okay! This isn't easy to talk about!" Lupin glared at me.

"Sorry, sorry," I took a large bite of lo mein and waited for Lupin to get back to eir story.

"Superbia knew we'd lose if we fought, and he found a way to a world outside the forest entirely. So, we figured we could come here and empower our seeds and recruit new allies like you! People that need their darker emotions; that crave something more than they can have being all nice and kind and doing what society wants them to do."

I wasn't sure how to square my own envy with that; but any way to pretend that I wasn't a monster who'd sold myself out to team evil just so I could stand on the stage instead of just being a powerless bystander posed obvious temptations.

"And making Resinners?"

"The more monsters we make, the more power of sin we spread, the stronger we can get and then we can go back and show everyone they were wrong. Superbia has it all figured out."

And that was the problem. I trusted Lupin; despite every sane part of me telling me I probably shouldn't. I couldn't bring myself to think anything but the worst of our former guidance counselor. He was too much like dad in so many little ways to feel otherwise.
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So this all began when people who lived in an alternate forest dimension discovering the first tree and this later causing strife among them over the issue of beasthood/use of sin seeds with the side of sin loosing and Superbia being locked away. With only later Avaritia and Temperance (themselves have originated from the forest) discovering and freeing him. This does answer my earlier question about Superbia and the castle somewhat, with it being a remnant of that past, in all likely hood being built by beast hands. However Superbia is going to be an unreliable source over the conflict at best, albeit Avaritia does make it sound like the winners have become oppressive and comformist as an overreaction towards anything that could be construed as a "sin." Giving me christian evangelical vibes from the way Avaritia talks about how they treated em and Temperance.

The revelation of Superbia being that old makes me think that beasts are immortal and perhaps even don't need to eat if he could survive for all those years sealed away (assuming it didn't form a kind of magical hibernation). But I wonder who is that robed figure? I suspect that it is the same kind of entity like Michael probably is. A messenger of the first tree considering they said "So the forth one has awoken" implying, if not outright stating they're not a beast at all. At the sometime Chiro/Invidia did think the figure "felt familiar in a strange way." Of course they could just be Michael as @Terrabrand has offered, but it seems strange to me for Michael to be consorting with Superbia without telling the saints and for what purpose? So that leaves either all "angels" sounding alike which I doubt or more harrowing for Chiro/Invidia. Them turning out to be the mom who abandoned and left her with dad which @Kittle has guessed.

Shadell said:
There were so many questions I wanted to ask. Nothing about this idea that the Forest had a civilization or people just living there matched with any of what little exposition I'd managed to wrangle from Michael or the Saints. And, I couldn't believe that Inessa all people was the vanguard of some kind of dystopian society.
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Shouldn't there be an "of" in between Inessa and all like say "Inessa of all people was the vanguard of some kind of dystopian society."
 
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Azerick01 said:
I mean one thing to note is, if you're placing them within people, seeds can grow, and leech off the 'soil'. While branches can be made into full trees with the right treatments and all, thematically they don't grow and leech off of the 'soil'
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Fits with the whole "don't let your virtue consume you" thing Michael seems to have. So it seems the conflict may have been people reacting badly to the tree's power and getting consumed, with a safer method being developed. Course, that doesn't mean the branch users are immune to falling to their virtue, as we've seen with Ida, and what seems to be the issue with the Children of the Forest.

This story is going into Christian themed alien biotechnology. It's looking pretty cool.
GreatWyrmGold said:
I appreciate this line of thought, but I feel it's worth pointing out that:
  • Characters in fantasy stories often represent things other than literal people. Superbia's role as a reactionary patriarch giving advice to disaffected "boys" which is meant to sculpt them into the kind of men they can control (a la modern conservative assholes) would be muddled if Superbia was mad about the Gauls or whatever.
  • Superbia isn't from Earth. It makes as much sense for him to have a real-world modern ideology as a real-world historical ideology.
  • Superbia hasn't gone deep into any particular ideology—not modern conservatism, not classical Laconophilia, nothing. Superbia has the vibes of a Jordan Peterson, but if the two of them were to actually meet up, they'd probably find a lot of differences in their beliefs; most alt-right types tend to be more open about supporting one specific model of Good Living, while Superbia claims to support embracing your true desires. That's a big difference!
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Fair enough. Though when I said old ideology, I meant old ideology from another dimension. Superbia being so reminiscent of someone from modern Earth had thrown me for a loop.

Kittle said:
My gut reaction is it's going to turn out to be Chiro's missing Mum, because that's the sort of twist that blow everybody's mind. Whether she's also a named fallen angel or something, who knows?
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Chiro thought she was making decent headway defeating her issues. Though looking at the hooded figure, the tree-like face that was obviously her mom, she was sure she'd need a lot more therapy than she expected.
"How unfortunate. I thought I'd at least get some use out of you as a power source, but I guess even now you must disappoint me."
A clatter rang out. Castitas had thrown her bow to the ground.
"Giving up alrea- huh?"
Castitas had loaded a shotgun and aimed it. Mom immediately dove for cover as a shot rang out, the place she was on caught fire.
"Dragon's Breath rounds. Excellent for foliage management."
 
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LampWitch said:
This story is going into Christian themed alien biotechnology. It's looking pretty cool.
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The Evangelion comparison had to be pointed out to me.
Shadell said:
Worried about the Abyssal Forest's growing power, the girls resolve to investigate the whereabouts of possible Saint candidates. They find rumors about an art prodigy known for volunteering her time teaching at a local daycare. However, before the girls can figure out if she has the talent to become Angelic Saint Patientia, Avaritia attacks!
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Oh yeah, had forgotten we had a Patientia candidate. I imagine the relatable "I'm pissed what I made isn't good/I'm not advancing enough" vs "gotta be patient with my work and myself" was her thing?
 
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Eeeuuurhh... Great chapter, but man for every three cute lines Avaritia has ey spout one line that reminds me how absolutely fucked the abyssal forest's worldview is if taken to the extreme. I think honestly that the best line to sum up the good parts of eir worldview is this.
Shadell said:
Avaritia shook eir head. "We don't want a world without virtue, just one that has a place for sin."
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But I don't think that's what Superbia wants, and I definitely don't think the history ey presented is accurate, though ey almost certainly don't know any better...
 
Y'know if an Acedia ever shows up I hope they are a seal/sea lion. It's a little stereotypical, but then we'd have a sea doggo to go with the land doggo (Lupin) and air doggo (Chiroptera).

Spectral Waltz said:
Eeeuuurhh... Great chapter, but man for every three cute lines Avaritia has ey spout one line that reminds me how absolutely fucked the abyssal forest's worldview is if taken to the extreme. I think honestly that the best line to sum up the good parts of eir worldview is this.
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It's quite disturbing, and has parallels to how extremists capture downtrodden people in real life. When what they say is three-thirds being your good buddy and one-third calling for making the world burn, the last quarter starts to sound convincing.
 
Instead of creating a world where they aren't considered sinful for not fitting in, the dichotomy, the narrative is kept, things are just a bit better. It's not a world where Chiro and Inessa can stand side by side, where the people called sinners are equals with the Saints.
 
Tarumath said:
Well that's the thing, right? That would be pretty bad for Inessa but on the other hand Chiro and Lupin would be a very cute couple.
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Yeah, any two of them would make a cute couple.


Walker said:
I'm sorry, did your bat-themed, bat-named supervillain just name her civilian identity after the scientific name for bats?
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Considering the temperance-themed, temperance-named superhero who named her civilian identity after the English word for temperance, who didn't even abbreviate that word, this doesn't seem remarkable.
 
at this point my heart can only be satisfied by the one true poly solve: inessa, chiro, and lupin forming a triad while chiro also has a separate relationship with temperance. unlikely? sure. self-indulgent? probably. powerful? beyond measure.
 
GreatWyrmGold said:
Yeah, any two of them would make a cute couple.
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Kinda awkward considering Chiro looks like Inessa's twin now. Though I have seen the plot of a trans girl copying the appearance of the friend she admired and starting a relationship with her when they meet again twice.
Edit: Just a weird coincidence. Can't even remember the names. Not really important.
Potato Anarchy said:
separate relationship with temperance
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I think there was the implication of something between Lupin and Temperance. One episode preview had Temperance looking at a couple and apparently missing Lupin.
 
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Chiro seems to hold onto Inessa's appearance, even as the seed wants her to Sectonia herself. So if the seed is resonating to her envy, she's keeping Inessa's appearance specifically not out of envy, but likely because she hasn't quite let go of the connection. Also, she has shown a bit of joy at seeing Inessa get screwed over, and the seed was quite willing to beat her and the Saints up. Yet, Chiro was quite unwilling to actually hurt Inessa and the Saints.
So the seed will urge her to steal traits from a lot of people without staying consistent or going for what she actually wants, and beat up the Saints. And the latter will be more difficult to do.
 
LampWitch said:
I think there was the implication of something between Lupin and Temperance. One episode preview had Temperance looking at a couple and apparently missing Lupin.
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On one hand, it seems like they split up due to irreconcilable disagreements about some combination of sin, virtue, and whether following the narcissistic demon dude was a good idea or not.

On the other hand, that's not a lot worse than the ideological divide between Inessa and Avaritia.
 
So I'm gonna make a prediction right now. If Chiro becomes a Saint, she's not gonna be the fourth. If anyone is gonna swap sides first, it'll be Lupin. Lemmie explain why.

Chiro has only made decisions to change her circumstances when under pressure. She didn't run away from her dad until he shattered her excuse of "He's never hit me at least" She only revealed herself to the Saints because they realized something was changing about her appearance. She acts under pressure or not at all. Plus she's terrified of crossing Superbia and is already falling into patterns of making the same excuses for his abusive behavior she made for her dad("At least he never hit me like Dad tried to"), even if she feels she can get away scott free, she worries what he'll do to Lupin. As long as Lupin is still working for Superbia, I don't think she'll be able to leave, possibly being stuck a bit longer once her only go between is gone.

Speaking of Lupin, eir very idealistic and have a tendency to follow Temperance's lead. Being on different sides has probably been eating em up from the start of Temperance switching sides and ey clearly are just waiting for Temperance to come back. Also ey don't want a world WITHOUT virtue, ey want a world where Virtue and Sin both have a role to play... Superbia doesn't strike me as valuing that balance, and probably is lying to em and plans to eradicate Virtue, as soon as ey find out and realize the implications ey'll swap sides.

Plus, what would Lupin switching sides mean for Chiro? Well the saints will know who she is at school probably, and when that happened to Lupin ey lost the potential to spend time at school, and began hanging around the Abyssal Forest a lot more when not on the prowl. If Chiro gets stuck in that situation she'll be in a worse "home situation" than she was with her dad, and give her a chance to take another stand with someone who reflects her dad a lot and make the first step in processing her trauma finally. It'd be a powerful moment in my mind.

This is all just a theory but it makes sense to my dumb ass.
 
My guess is that, whichever of them becomes a Saint first, the other is going to follow within the same episode.

Avaritia has had a long time (at least several months, probably a few years) to recognize that Superbia is an abusive, manipulative snake; ey hasn't. I suspect it'll take more than just Superbia being a bastard to Avaritia for em to realize that he's a bastard. But now, Superbia isn't just being a bastard to Avaritia; he's being a bastard to Invidia, too, rejecting her as anything but a thing to be used and ignored.

Superbia is probably fine leaving Invidia alone for now, but something's likely to change that. If Invidia doesn't compromise Superbia's goals to limit collateral damage, she'll fail to embrace her sin properly, or say something wrong in a report, or push back about names or something when Superbia's already sick of insubordination, or just...exist in a way he doesn't like when he's in a bad mood.

We don't know much about Temperance's heel face turn, but I expect it followed close on the heels of that kind of abuse. Gula took crap from Superbia one too many times, the Saints were available, she bailed before Avaritia could understand why. Even if Avaritia had time to notice, it's possible that Temperance's stoicism made the harm Superbia did harder to notice.

But Invidia? Compared to Temperance, she wears her heart on her sleeve, despite her best efforts. Also, Avaritia specifically knows what it looks like when Invidia tries to hide her pain, because ey met C. And of course, Invidia's response to abuse is to curl up in a ball of self-victim-blaming, which makes it easy for her magical friends to notice something is wrong.

And what happened last time Avaritia realized her trans friend was suffering under their community's leadership?

(That's assuming that Superbia wasn't just super transphobic to Gula when Avaritia wasn't looking. Gula probably wouldn't mention it, Invidia would bring it up next time Avaritia tried to talk her out of pretending to be cis. That would probably be too clean a reason for Avaritia to bail on her boss without needing any kind of introspection about her beliefs, but it wouldn't be out of character for Superbia.)
 
I actually think it would be amusing for Inessa to switch sides first. Seeing her best friend again after transitioning could make a latent crush turn into an active one. Driven by guilt, she'd embrace her own sin of lust and try seducing both Lupin and Chiroptera at the same time. And it kind of works for a little while, but maybe Chiroptera finally has enough of being manipulated and actually starts actively fighting with Inessa in courtly intrigue. And seeing the blatant callousness on display and how Superbia is playing both of them against each other and tearing them both down could finally be the thing that makes Lupin realize that Superbia never wanted balance, but instead wanted supremacy. So she runs off and joins the Saints, leaving Inessa and Chiroptera to their steadily growing acrimony.

And then the robed figure reveals that she's been Michael the whole time and he needs more magical girls to sacrifice themselves at the roots of the tree in order to become fruits. These fruits carry within themselves, hidden until the fruits are destroyed, the seeds of their own unrequited desires. And then we say oops it's madoka again!
 
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TangledLion said:
Well the saints will know who she is at school probably,
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Even with the identity magic, it's weird to think an Inessa lookalike will come to school and the only thing the Saints will notice is that Michael feels something weird from her.
Oh, I bet Michael knows who she is and is just being cryptic for some reason.
Kadath said:
he's been Michael the whole time and he needs
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Michael uses she/her.

Anyway, thinking on Invidia's theming. RiceRockRekt already said, but I had to be reminded that Chiro was used to being depended on, and seems to resent needing help, somewhat thinking people are condescending. Vampires, in fiction, are associated with powerful, impressive nobles. While vampire bats share blood amongst each other when members of the group failed to hunt enough.
 
TangledLion said:
Chiro has only made decisions to change her circumstances when under pressure. She didn't run away from her dad until he shattered her excuse of "He's never hit me at least" She only revealed herself to the Saints because they realized something was changing about her appearance.
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I disagree with this assessment mostly because I think you've misread that last part. Chiro's entire avoidance of decisions wasn't made out of cowardice but apathy. A sin of passive inaction rather than deliberate avoidance. She never went out of her way not to reveal or acknowledge things, only let herself indulge in a fantasy that nothing had changed.

She wasn't even consciously changing her appearance, the saints noticing wasn't them finally catching on to something Chiro was doing intentionally, it was them shattering the fragile illusion Chiro wanted to believe was reality.

The thing about motion though is that motion generates momentum. Now that Chiro had started moving so suddenly and quickly, I don't think she's going to stop any time soon. She might need a few more pushes to change things in the right direction, but I don't think she's going to just hunker down and situate herself again like she was before, mostly because I don't think she can.
 
Kadath said:
I actually think it would be amusing for Inessa to switch sides first. Seeing her best friend again after transitioning could make a latent crush turn into an active one. Driven by guilt, she'd embrace her own sin of lust and try seducing both Lupin and Chiroptera at the same time. And it kind of works for a little while, but maybe Chiroptera finally has enough of being manipulated and actually starts actively fighting with Inessa in courtly intrigue. And seeing the blatant callousness on display and how Superbia is playing both of them against each other and tearing them both down could finally be the thing that makes Lupin realize that Superbia never wanted balance, but instead wanted supremacy. So she runs off and joins the Saints, leaving Inessa and Chiroptera to their steadily growing acrimony.

And then the robed figure reveals that she's been Michael the whole time and he needs more magical girls to sacrifice themselves at the roots of the tree in order to become fruits. These fruits carry within themselves, hidden until the fruits are destroyed, the seeds of their own unrequited desires. And then we say oops it's madoka again!
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This sounds like an in-universe crack fic premise.

Someone who likes writing shipping fics should write that.


Spectral Waltz said:
The thing about motion though is that motion generates momentum. Now that Chiro had started moving so suddenly and quickly, I don't think she's going to stop any time soon. She might need a few more pushes to change things in the right direction, but I don't think she's going to just hunker down and situate herself again like she was before, mostly because I don't think she can.
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There are some small places where I disagree with you, but not in ways I feel are worth arguing about. And then there's this.

Momentum isn't like energy; it can't be converted from one form to another with a few inefficiencies. Momentum is directional. If something has momentum driving it right, that makes it harder for someone to make it start going left, not easier. (Unless you have a functionally immobile object for the thing to bounce off of, but I don't know what that could possibly be in your metaphor.)

If we accept your premises up to this point, it doesn't mean Invidia is a few pushes from returning to the side of good and continuing to improve herself. After all, the changes that Chiro has actually made so far are things like abandoning her old friends and her identity as Charleton. If she keeps moving that direction, moving away from who she used to be, she's going to go into ethical free-fall, letting Superbia turn her into the monster she always thought she was. If she has that kind of momentum, it's going to be harder to turn her around and drag her in a healthy direction.

Luckily, I think your read on Invidia/C is flawed. For instance, saying that C's reluctance to change things comes from apathy is a weird take; to me, it seems pretty obvious that she was un-driven by fear that people she cares about would be hurt if she did something good for herself. Like, Dad would be hurt if his son left the way Mom did, so obviously C has to stay. C would be a burden on the Brandt family, so he can't go there for support. And of course, there's the undercurrent that C is a shitty person who doesn't deserve to be happy, doesn't deserve to escape a has-never-tried-to-hit-me household or receive support from his friend's family or be a girl. Even if you decided that undercurrent was the primary motivator, calling it "apathy" seems bizarre to me.

And the conclusion that Invidia is free to keep changing now that she has some momentum (or now that she's out of her rut) is kinda wrecked by reading the most recent chapter and noticing all of the C things Invidia is continuing to do, especially the gender stuff. Accepting and embracing the fact that Invidia is a girl would be continuing to move away from Charleton; it would be an easy change to make if all that held her back before was "apathy" and the difficulty of being a girl. And yet, she doesn't; she's worried about disrespecting the trans community if a shitty batgirl like her pretended to be transgender. Avaritia has to twist the framing and convince Invidia that acting like a guy would be the real trans disrespect to get her to use she/her pronouns, and even after that, getting her to try on skirts and blouses is like pulling fangs. Chiro isn't a girl freed from C's "apathy" and aversion to change; she's just C in a new situation.

I also don't see why C changing her appearance willingly or not matters to TangledLion's argument. It's pressure either way. That's a non sequitur!

Anyways, I've explained my position on Invidia's sudden but inevitable, um, un-betrayal? The concern for others and self-loathing clearly haven't changed, so unless something comes along to make Invidia realize she's not a shitty degenerate (unlikely in the near future, since Superbia both encourages people to be "degenerates" and treats Invidia like shit), she's only going to change if she thinks it'll help someone else. I anticipate Avaritia running away with her trans partner again, just in a different direction. Maybe they'll go straight to being Saints, maybe they'll be third-party wild cards for a while, but Invidia isn't going anywhere on her own. Not while she's living under the gaze of a disapproving patriarch.
 
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