#he always talks about his hrt days with such fondness

[rickybaby]

Daniel and his old gal

[mangaycompany]

Summer Troupe headcanons for @timeskip​

General:

This one isn’t really a headcanon, but I really like the idea of Summer Troupe going camping, sitting around a bonfire and all singing “Orange Heart” while Kazu plays the guitar!

I really like the idea that Yuki’s weak point is painting nails. He won’t admit it, but there’s a reason he never paints them himself, and the reason isn’t “It’s too much of a bother.”

But on the contrary, Kazunari is great at it! His hands are super stable thanks to years of art experience so he can do high quality work in very short time! He finds it fun too, so he often does others’ nails too if anyone wants him to. Misumi always asks for triangular patterns and Kazu is more than happy to oblige!

Muku has a growth spurt somewhere after year 3! Nobody notices it, since they see him everyday, until one day Yuki, while taking measurements, is like “Huh... Muku really is 183 cm tall, isn’t he..?” and everyone freaks out.

Tenma and Kazunari are the most procrastinating duo you will meet. They kind of bond over it; there are night where you will find them in the living room at 3AM desperately trying to finish assignments that were due last week, both just barely holding back tears

Misumi once proposed to Kazunari with a traffic cone, stating that he really needed to be Misumi Miyoshi to fully express his love for triangles (”Miyoshi” is written as 三好, with 三 (み or さん) meaning “three” and 好 (よし or す) meaning “to be fond of / to love”). Kazunari had to explain to him, while holding back laughter, that it’s not how it works.

Misumi loves wearing skirts (especially A-line and long flowy ones) because they’re triangular!

Kumon can’t play any instruments, but he actually has perfect pitch! He’s very good at singing just like his brother too! (Would most likely beat Banri if they went to karaoke together)

Kumon also has very bad memory when it comes to school stuff (his worst subject is history because of all the dates, which he feels bad about, because Juza is good at it) but he easily remembers stuff he’s passionate about

Everyone in the Summer Troupe loves games! They hold a game night at least once a month when they have time.

Tenma is terrible at Mahjong and tabletops, but surprisingly good at various card games

Yuki excels at Poker; always has everyone wrapped around his finger, but he has bad luck when it comes to board games with dice

Muku is, to everyone’s surprise, great (and absolutely ruthless) at Uno, but terrible at Monopoly; he always breaks under peer pressure and accepts all the deals, even if they’re bad on his end

Misumi somehow always wins at Ludo; he has some insane luck and always rolls the exact number he needs. Terrible at Scrabble though

Kazunari is great at Monopoly, Mahjong and Scrabble (everyone is surprised at his vast vocabulary, since he always talks in slang). Bad at Uno; never wants to +4 anyone so he keeps drawing

Kumon is a beast at Monopoly (who would have known he’s that good at playing people into his deals?) and surprisingly good at Hanafuda. Terrible at Poker; he’s too expressive for his own good

LGBT+:

I am well aware how unlikely it is for such a large group of random people to all be LGBT+, but try and tell me any theater kid would ever be straight, I’ll wait.

Tenma never got to explore much of his identity prior to meeting everyone at Mankai. He always thought of himself as a straight dude and didn’t even consider a possibility of being anything else. He starts questioning himself when he sees how different people can be even though they all have similar passion. He doesn’t label himself anything; he’s still learning about what he really feels, but he also deals with a lot of internalized homophobia, which others help him learn to get over.

Yuki is nonbinary! Doesn’t care for gender; thought he might be trans until he learnt binary isn’t the only option. He knows there’s no possibility for him to actually “pass” in society, so he’s accepted he’s gonna be misgendered a lot everyday; he’s fine with being seen as a guy, but when people assume he’s a girl it actually makes him uncomfortable. He’s only out to a handful of people at Mankai (namely: Muku, Izumi, and Azuma) but he doesn’t hide it, he just doesn’t tell anyone.

Muku is transgender! He knew since late childhood (10-12yo); his family was extremely supportive of him (which is still quite rare in Japan) and thus he was able to go on blockers and later start HRT! He passes very well, but is still insecure because of dysphoria; he looks up to Yuki who can still be very manly and masculine despite dressing in a feminine fashion. He comes out to the rest of Summer Troupe around Act 6 and everyone is accepting (Tenma doesn’t quite get it at first but educates himself later on)!

Misumi doesn’t use labels but he’s queer! Sees no difference between different genders; he feels the same way about all of them! Doesn’t have any strong connection to his gender identity either!

Kazunari is pansexual! He knew he was LGBT since around middle school but also dealt with a lot of internalized homophobia at first (likes of “Oh, I’m gay but I’m not like those gays”) but worked hard to figure it out and by high school he grew to be much more accepting; meeting many different people and talking to them definitely helped a lot.

Kumon is homosexual! Never showed any attraction for anyone for entirety of his childhood and early teens, but nobody thought much of it and certainly he didn’t notice it either; he just had the most important things on his mind and finding a girlfriend sure wasn’t one of them. He first learns of his orientation when he suddenly develops a crush on a boy on his first year of high school! To say he panics about it would be an understatement; he doesn’t know what to do, he feels like he should tell someone but he knows it’s foolish to assume anyone would be accepting of him. He goes to the only LGBT person he can think of: Muku! Muku of course reassures him it’s okay and helps him muster up enough courage to come out to at least his brother; something he’d been dreading the most. But of course, after at least an hour of going around the topic in circles, he finally comes out to Juza, who’s, although awkward, very supportive. You know my boy ends up crying for at least another hour.

[elegant-etienne]

🍏🍉🍊

Fruity headcanon asks!

Apologies for the late reply @taetelli​ and thank you for the asks! I quite stupidly kept trying to answer this without a draft and would then accidentally close the tab, losing all of my answers more than once.

🍏  :    how stable is my muse’s physical health?  do they go for regular or semi-regular checkups by a physician?  do they have any diagnosed illnesses and / or take any medication?  how often do they get sick?

Etienne: is in pretty good health! They swim every morning and have gotten back into strength training. They see the healer as little as possible, even though they should know better. Over the years they’ve struggled with self-destructive urges, addiction and depression, which they call their ‘dark moods.’ Since going on hormone replacement therapy, those dark moods have lessened considerably - not that their mental illness is fixed by HRT by any means, but their baseline of absolute hating themselves, their body, etc., has been considerably lifted and they’re much happier.

Etienne severely damaged their aether pool casting black magic, essentially breaking through their considerable well of mana and pulling from their own life force in order to cast a blizzard spell. Since then, they’ve had trouble maintaining their body heat, have somewhat poor circulation, and in the past have had a slow healing time from injuries. Etienne assumes the injury has shortened their life and do any time they cast black magic - one of the myriad reasons they stopped adventuring was the very real possibility they would cast a spell that ultimately killed them.

Etienne is also at risk for a hereditary illness, but so far only experienced the symptom of occasional life sensitivity (but it’s fine, they have those cute pince-nez!)

Adi: suffers from a chronic hereditary illness. His symptoms include sensitivity to light which can be coupled with intense headaches, physical weakness and dangerously low stamina, and digestive issues coupled with frequent nausea. The dry air Thanalan irritates his delicate membranes and he gets nosebleeds and sometimes has coughing fits. Most of the sufferers of this illness die early which is preferable to the alternatives. He handles his illness with potions that help with nausea and have mildly restorative properties and an inhalant potion. He eats little snacks during the day any time he’s not feeling too sick to eat to maintain energy. He’s very food-oriented as a way to battle what could be seen as an apathy for life that also tends to couple with the illness. While he’s begun to occasionally eat dairy products (and eats honey and items made with east), he is a staunch vegetarian, partially out of a literal inability to do harm to other living things.

His organs and bones are a huge mess of scarring and tissue from constant, quick-healing, though aside from his scarred, mis-healed eye, he shows no external signs of what he’s been through. He’s surprisingly able to handle poisons and intoxicants, provided they’re things he’s encountered before, he treats himself with micro-dosing until he develops immunities “to better understand” the illnesses he treats.

Kadin: is the swoll dude who brags about how he never gets a cold. He has an iron stomach and can eat things regular people would probably die eating.

Houmei: suffers a compromised immune system, headaches and fatigue due to his physical and mental trauma. He suffers severe dissociative amnesia. He engages in extremely rigorous care of his skin, nails and scales, in order to try and fight his compulsion to pick and bite himself.

🍉  :    which of the four seasons suits my muse best,  and why?  

Eti: loves spring and autumn equally. They love the changes - both the living and dying - and has a deep fondness for their transitory natures, which they find spiritually inspiring. The bursting into life and the quiet surrendering into death and sleep are equally beautiful. Also, they have a slight preference for spring pastels over autumnal earth and jewel tones 

Adi: loves winter, but only in the Shroud, where it’s constantly cold, wet and rainy. He’s rather apathetic to seasons in general but prefers gray weather.

Kadin and Houmei: both love the activities, warmth, and foods of summer, but are wary about the fireworks.

🍊  :    does my muse desire romance?  is it something they would actively seek out,  or prefer to happen more  ‘  naturally?  ’  what is their love life like?  do they have any exes or past flings,  or crushes?  

Etienne: I feel like if someone asked Etienne this question right now they’d probably just sort of laugh and shrug? They just got out of a serious two-year-relationship with plans to marry, and before that they were in a toxic marriage. Ultimately, they’re not sure that those kind of committed relationships are right for them, and a lot of that comes down to what they feel are their obligations to someone they’re in a relationship with, and feeling trapped by monogamy.

They are pretty used to having other people pursue them, and in truth, are not quite sure what to do when they like someone. They make a lot of excuses for it, like the guy should always ask the lady out, but the truth is they are afraid to be super-open about their feelings. After all, if others are aware you want something, or someone, or the objection of your affection is aware of it, what’s to stop them from taking advantage of those feelings in the worst ways? It doesn’t really cross their mind that they could have something genuine if they risked being vulnerable with others. It’s too scary for them.

Besides, they have their pride. They don’t want to let someone else “win them over,” because that means they lost.

Basically:

Adi: has a boyfriend currently, Zihji’li. I think when it comes to his desires for romance and sex, he is still in very early stages of baby gay (“terrifying religious upbringing” model), while he’s not in total denial he still believes that it would be better if he were not gay, and that he does not deserve to feel good, be loved, or love anyone. Up until growing close to Zihji’li he would never allow himself to consider the possibility of even looking at another man twice, so he really doesn’t have any history with that sort of thing.

Kadin: has lived with his boyfriend for two or three years now! They started out as close friends, but Kadin always had a torch for him even when he was dating his ex. As far as previous relationships go, he’s had a lot of casual sex with men and women but has only dated other men seriously, although the last two guys he dated ghosted him - one of them actually ghosted him twice, and the second time really, really hurt. Considering people’s propensity for not taking him seriously or treating him like a priority, he’s not really interested in dealing with that crap from people! He’s down for casual flings with his boyfriend present, or if his boyfriend wants to have them on his own, but currently there’s no one whom he feels is worth the effort. He loves sex, but he’d rather stay at home with the dogs.

Houmei: has barely been able to leave the FC house until recently due to his level of fear of others. That doesn’t make for a lot of romantic possibilities! He does not have many clear, cohesive memories of his own personal life, just flashes of things, but he does have a sense he had two people who were precious to him in the past, and that bond was severed, and that he’s also taken lovers short-term now and then, people who’s names he might not even remember with a complete memory. Talk of feelings did not feature highly in any of his past relationships. He is somewhat interested in how romance is pursued in Eorzea ‘as an exercise,’ and I think he’s open to the idea, but a bit intimidated by the idea of navigating things when he feels he has little to offer. He has someone he likes but he’s taking it slow with them.

[scramblednoodle]

Day 1

So here we are.  Last we talked, I was contemplating the concept of death, and the way I approached it.  That was...2019?  My friend with ALS died.  Bean died.  And then J and I had the most amazing trip of our lives, a distraction we sorely needed, a trip across the country over 30 days and 8500 miles, camper trailer in tow.  Amazing time, amazing trip.  Did we do Burning Man?  I think we did Burning Man.  Then CFT, then the holidays, then 2020 came around, and we did Further Confusion, with Vardaman gigs interspersed between.

And then Covid19 happened.

I don’t want to talk about all of the things that have happened since then.  I’ll give a summary, though.  We found VR and found a whole new dimension of socializing.  We’ve made a TON of friends, more than we have ever made at any con, and maybe more than we’ve made at many of those cons combined, and we’ve gotten closer to some of our existing friends.  I’ve lost a ton of weight.  We got a kitten.  We’ve stayed home, we don’t eat out, save for the occasional Taco Bell/Papa Murphy’s take-out.  A lot of stuff has been done at home and with the house.  We got a 3d printer, a kegerator, and a freeze dryer.  Life has slowed down, but time has sped forward, and the two are oddly disjunct.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

See, sitting at home, doing things, and not being distracted by going out all the time has caused a certain amount of reflection.  A LOT of reflection.  I’ve had to face some things, and as a result, I’ve realized some things.  Last year I started having a gender identity crisis.  This mulled around in my head, until I slowed down, until life calmed down and I was forced to delve deep and explore this.  Early this year, shortly after FC, I admitted that I was trans, to myself, and to those that know me.  I came out on Twitter, to massive amounts of support.  I mean, folks who knew me well probably weren’t all that surprised, except that it took me so long.  To others, maybe it broadsided them, but I have thought of myself as “she” for so long, and been called “She” or “Lady” or “Her” or “Mistress” or whatever for so long, maybe it got taken for granted.

I was undecided on transitioning, but always kept the option open.  Since I’d been losing weight, I set a goal:  if I could hit 220, I would “consider” transitioning.

Let’s go back to the cross-country trip.  I stopped shaving during that trip.  I grew a great, big, Pacific NorthWest beard.  MANLY beard.  Bushy in all the right ways.  I got complimented on my beard.

I started to hate my beard.

Denial-beard, it’s called, amongst some transgender folks.  For my birthday this year I bought the nicest electric razor I have ever in my life owned, and was more expensive than my last 4 electric razors combined.  For my birthday, I shaved my denial beard.  It was the first time I had entirely removed my facial hair in years, and certainly the first time without it AND embracing my transgender self.

I loved what I saw in the mirror.  I loved her so much that I decided that my goal of hitting a weight and then transitioning was purely a projection of my continued belief that in order to physically become the woman I am inside, that I had to be svelte.  Thinner.  Sleeker.  Beautiful.

What a bunch of rubbish.

I saw myself as a woman in the mirror for the first time in my life, and I felt nothing but giddy joy.  I’m starting to tear up at the memory of it.  Do you have any fucking idea how HARD it is to look at yourself in a mirror for FORTY THREE YEARS and hate yourself?  I bet more than one of you do.

Between 2007 and 2009 I went from 308lbs to 175lbs.  I looked GOOD.  I had hot men wanting to touch me, to fuck me.  It was nice to be liked.

I hated who I saw in the mirror.  And I eventually hated what being fit and thin and desired turned me into.  A Fitness TYRANT.  My way or no way.  I started to look down on those who could not do what I did.  It was gross.

Harley died, work went to shit, and over the next 10 years or so, I put most of the weight back on.

Still hated who I saw in the mirror.

And then, thanks to Covid, I saw a woman in the mirror, and for the first time, I understood.

Fuck the weight goal.  I talked to my therapist.  I needed a head check.  Is this me?  Am I doing the right thing?  Is this a phase?  A phase, LOL.

I’ve presented as a woman online since 1997.  It started as an excuse to have cyber with straight guys; at least. that’s what I told myself.  It felt comfortable from day 1.  Over the years, my male characters either fell to the wayside, or became women themselves.  So easy, transitioning in a side reality.  Very few people would judge, and those who did would easily be blocked or ignored.  I felt comfortable.

When I started to date Kiteless, many years ago, his circles had no problems with she/her pronoun with relation to me.  After all, I was not the only dragoness with a misidentified physical body.  It was...nice.  For the first time, I felt like I could be accepted.  I WAS accepted, as who I felt I was.  That persisted, and continues to persist.  When I started dating J, he would always refer to me as “Lady”.  He never had a problem with my gender, though it took him a while to realize that it was not just a kink for me, that I was not doing it to tease him, but that I was doing it because it was how I felt comfortable.  I think he understands it now.

Speaking of understanding, it was about the time I decided to go through with HRT that the real wall started to erect itself.  Something that grew and grew, and grew strong.

My Dad.

Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t anything he did or said.  My dad is Puerto Rican, and he’s Military.  He lives and breathes the US Army, even though he’s long retired.  I don’t think he understands how to function back in the world.  I don’t think he can handle the entropy.  Or at least, it’s not an entropy he understands.  But this makes him subject to, let’s just say, a rather blunt, lopsided, and sometimes outdated view of the world.

How in the hell would he accept that his son was going to become his daughter?

So I started to build this wall in my head.  Out of bricks that I made myself.  Bricks based on assumption and self-projection.  I have ever been my own worst enemy, and this was no exception.

There is a memory, a very NOT FOND memory I have.  Before I left home, before I escaped from under HIS roof (and he never let us forget that), my parents found out I was gay.  At one point, my dad and I got into an argument, and he said “They need to take you out like that kid in Colorado and beat you.”  He was referring to Matthew Shepard, a gay college kid who was beaten severely in Laramie, WY, and later died in Ft Collins, CO.

I’ve never forgiven my dad for that comment.  I don’t know if I ever can.  The comment came from a place of ignorance and anger, but it came from him, it came from within, and it was directed at his child.  I will never forget that moment, and that moment will forever color the way I interact with him.

SO!  You can understand, perhaps, why I was terrified of telling him.  Despite our rocky relationship over the years, I do love my dad, and he’s the person in the world that, for a long time, I most wanted approval from.  In a way, I still do, and I will probably always want his approval.  Now, my mom accepted who I was without issue.  She’s always been supportive, though there was a time when I think she was hurt that I would never give her grandkids. :P  She follows me Twitter, so it was pretty clear to her what was happening with me, though she somehow missed the big news, that I was going to transition.

It was hard to tell her, but as I expected, she was supportive.  Very supportive.  I’m blushing just thinking about it, the feeling of my mom calling me her girl.  I never would have thought I’d get to this point.

When I first broached transition with my therapist, after much handwringing and self-questioning, the expectation was that I was going to start a long process of approval.  I would need to go through my Primary Care physician, then see an endocrinologist, then get a letter of recommendation from my therapist, then be evaluated for medications.  My doctor was a small-town, country doctor who didn’t listen, and whose answer to everything was Flonase.  He was OBSESSED with allergies and nasal steroids.  I was really dubious he’d be on-board with helping me transition.  So, of course I changed PCPs.  J and I were already super dissatisfied with him, so it was a no-brainer.  Ended up at OHSU, with a primary care doc who specialized in gender confirming action and therapies.  We talked.  I got a lab panel done.  And then suddenly she was prescribing me estrogen and testosterone blockers.

My expectation of 6 months was suddenly obliterated, and boy did the doubt start.  Am I doing the right thing?  Oh my god, I’m not ready for this.  I was supposed to have SIX MONTHS, and it took ONE AND A HALF.

Things moved fast after that.  A few more doctor appointments.  Some medication research.  Some frozen sperm, just in case.

Yesterday was...a roller coaster.  Yesterday, the meds showed up in the mail.  Yesterday, I got the notification that my sperm was accepted into the sperm bank and was healthy and viable.  Yesterday, I called my mom, and we talked for almost 2 hours.  It was a lovely conversation.  And I asked her to help me tell my dad.

A very short while later, I received a message from my dad.  It was cryptic, but Dad is ESL, so he doesn’t really enunciate the way most folks do.  Blunt, coarse, direct, and with odd modifier choices.  Nonetheless he made one thing clear.

He loved me no matter what.

I cried for 30 minutes straight.  My paper towels were a sopping mess of tears and snot.  I was a mess.  

I also felt more free than I’ve been in a long, long time.  That wall I built got torn down, and good riddance.  *I* built that wall, out of my own fear and projected doubts.  It was a real wall.  Those fears were real feelings.  Unfounded, but REAL.  And they’ve finally crumbled.  Finally.

I took my first HRT pills this morning.  As I understand it, I’ll be on them for at least 3 years, assuming I stick with it.  I can expect a second puberty before any physical changes.  In 6 months or something, physical changes will begin to occur, but right now I’m just...Well, my head is spinning.  I still have doubts, but since yesterday, they’re quieter.  They’re less pronounced.  They’re mostly based around trying not to get shanked by a Good ‘Ol Boy.  The usual.

And now we come to today.

Today is a special day.  Today is my Day 1.  Today begins the rest of my life.

I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m giddy.  I am as confused a jumble as I ever was.  But I’m pretty sure of one thing:

This is right.

My intent to is journal things now and then.  Thoughts, worries, etc.  We’ll see how it goes. )

Peace, y’all.

[transtrendhumanity]

lets talk about vex memories.

cws for... non-sexual dubious consent, sexual content, violence, animal death, disordered eating, illness... hopefully thats it?

ey started having dreams about eir shun lifetime during the time ey was about 13 in eir rohan lifetime. or nightmares, really. about hiding, about running, about being cornered and fighting for eir life, about losing friends and loved ones... eir parents, alarmed by these frequent nightmares, put eir in therapy. ey wasn’t particularly impressed with eir therapist, and didn’t stay long, but one thing did stick: draw out your dreams. ey started with simple illustrations, and moved on to short comics, posting all of it as a dream diary online. it became something of an underground hit. although extremely non-linear and disjointed, the comics told a clear story.

after drawing it for two years, ey began to receive offers to write a manga. ey was skeptical of it at first. after all, ey didn’t particularly have a story so much as a near-compulsive need to catalogue eir dreamscape.

at some point though, ey did accept an offer, and start writing a manga. pink dark boy was the story of a boy living in a somewhat surreal world, with both the terrible luck to be constantly in trouble and the excellent luck to always survive it. at first, it was based on real life horror stories, accounts of criminal activities, ghosts, and demons. ey found people with these stories on the web and interviewed them to the best of eir ability, in person when possible, but often by phone or even over forums instead. eir curiosity was insatiable.

during this time, ey grew into mental illness. paranoia and hallucinations of shadow people. the fear both of being watched, judged, and of being ignored and forgotten. eir fears featured prominently in eir work. the shadow people became an overarching plot thread, destined to be the end-game villains, the orchestrators of all pink dark boy’s bad luck. his struggles became more and more public, and the public would always turn a blind eye, or worse, a silently judgemental one.

eir work quickly overtook eir schooling, and ey went from attending sporadically to dropping out entirely towards the end of 11th grade. eir parents questioned the decision, but even they couldn’t deny the cashflow eir comics were generating.

ey moved out and to tokyo. for a short time, ey accepted assistants, but ey rapidly became paranoid that they were working to sabotage eir work. eir accusations of such became a small scandal, but didn’t significantly affect eir sales. ey worked alone after that.

ey worked tirelessly, like a person possessed. often ey would not eat or sleep for days at a time, and often ey would end up miraculously ahead of schedule, despite eir lack of assistance. ey took these opportunities to go interview more people.

eir interviews turned to more and more invasive questions. rumors about eir abounded: that ey was not only an eccentric but a creep, or worse. ey resolutely refused to pay mind to the rumours, but they contributed greatly to eir paranoia.

perhaps because of the stress, or perhaps because of eir terrible lack of self care, or perhaps because of a glitch in eir reincarnation, ey developed terrible stomach problems. too paranoid to consult a doctor about it, ey suffered in silence, half-convinced that the shadow people had laid a curse upon eir. besides the pain, ey began to cough up blood.

though ey was determined not to tell anyone, eir editor did eventually find out. it was her opinion that ey was pushing eirself too hard, and that living in the city was contributing to eir stress, and surely it would be better for eir to move back to the countryside, with eir family.

ey resented the idea, and put up a great deal of resistance, but eventually, in a moment of clarity, realized that she was at least partly right. in a spiteful move, ey researched which towns had the highest rates of unsolved murder, and was surprised to find eir hometown near the top of the list.

curious beyond measure, ey moved back to morioh.

during the time ey had been away, ey had scarcely contacted eir parents at all. they complained that they only knew about eir continued survival because eir comics still came out every month, but “they’re so dreary, can’t you write about something happy for once?” additionally, during the time ey had been away, ey had moved from presenting as a dour and asocial tomboy to presenting as an actual boy, and had started hrt without a word to them.

ey didn’t tell them ey moved back. they found out on their own, and visited without warning. shocked by the changes in eir presentation, they said some unsavory things, and vex kicked them out of eir home, yelling that they had best not come back.

they didn’t.

ey sometimes regretted it. growing up, eir parents had made every effort to be supportive, and ey thought that perhaps if ey had reciprocated the gesture, ey could still have some manner of good relationship with them. with any human being other than eir editor. but more often, ey was overcome with paranoia that they resented eir success, and their visit had only been the precursor to trying to take advantage of em.

when ey was hit with the arrow, ey thought it was another nightmare, though for the past couple years ey had been sleeping poorly and sporadically enough to have no dreams worth remembering.

ey posted one final update to eir dream journal, a revival after years of silence. that ey had, after years of running and hiding and loss, lost for the last time, and been killed by an arrow to the throat.

many fans complained that it had been a better story without the ending, and that the last update felt tonally dissonant from the rest of the work.

thereafter, ey found that eir interviews went differently. at first, it was that ey was able to ask more and more invasive questions and still receive an unflustered straight answer. then ey noticed the texturing on the side of eir subjects’ faces.

reaching out, ey was able to simply open them up. the first time it happened, ey spent a full 6 hours reading the entire life story of the person he was interviewing, and then closed them and asked a variety of questions to confirm eir findings.

ey wasn’t sure at first if ey had further gone mad or if ey had gained a new power, but that didn’t stop eir from using it. it took a while for eir to draw the connection between the thank-you doodles ey would draw as a formality at the beginning of most interviews and the response of eir powers.

during this time, pink dark boy became more tangible in eir thoughts, slowly developing from an oc to a headmate before manifesting in canon events as eir stand.

the first time ey attempted modifying someone’s story, it was as a last measure. ey was interviewing a girl whose friend had gone missing, and noticed that she had a crush on eir. wildly uncomfortable with the idea, ey simply crossed it out.

she woke up unsure why she was even there, visibly disappointed by the thank-you sketch she had been elated to receive not moments before.

this opened up a world of possibilities. if ey could affect someone’s heart so intimately, surely ey could affect their memory for short times, as well. and it turned out that ey could.

before all of this, ey had a keen interest in gore, but very little actual experience. ey worried constantly that this showed in eir work, that it was seen as a weakness. what little experience ey did have involved dissecting road kill.

but now the doors were open for eir to attempt human experimentation. how much pain could one person tolerate before passing out or throwing up? how quickly did blood well up? how far could you bend a person’s shoulder before it dislocated?

with each experiment, ey wrote into the victim that they would forget the entire encounter, and further, wrote in an explanation for any damage done. some were easier to explain away than others. for safety’s sake, ey tried to keep eir experiments to people without close friends or family. people whose injuries would go largely unquestioned.

ey kept these activities to a minimum while jotaro was in town, knowing that he would take issue with them. we won’t go into detail about canon, since most of it is largely unchanged.

post canon, ey continued hanging out with the gang of teenagers, or being pestered by them.

koichi was eir favorite for a long time, but while koichi liked eir well enough, it eventually became clear that ey wasn’t their favorite person to be around.

josuke, on the other hand, seemed to delight in pestering em. ey found it a bother at first. they got in the way of eir work, they messed around in eir house, they invited themself along when ey went sightseeing. eventually, ey got used to their presence, although it would be a long time yet before ey admitted any fondness.

eventually, ey got comfortable enough with josuke to invite them along on one of their interviews. they would be useful, ey thought. ey wouldn’t have to explain away any injury if josuke healed it for em.

josuke was wildly opposed to the idea. though by this point they’d known each other for two years, they hadn’t had an argument on this scale since they met.

josuke threatened to break vex’s wrist, and ey gave in before they followed through. they both went home in a huff.

several days of brooding later, josuke showed up at vex’s place once again. with a proposition: you stop harming random civilians, and in return, i’ll allow you to do to me what you wanted to do to them. within reason, of course.

vex told them that was a stupid idea, they couldn’t heal themself, after all. but they insisted, and eventually, vex gave in.

feeling vengeful that they were taking away the greatest outlet for eir artistic curiosity, the first few experiements ey tried on them were harsh and painful, beyond what ey would usually indulge in.

josuke complained about it: you’re a sick freak, doing this to a fine young thing like me. (you’re an adult /now/, vex retorted.) and other complaints besides. but they continued to bear whatever vex chose to put them through, never running away or skipping out.

eventually, vex discovered a secret: that they were, not all the time but often enough, getting off on it. that between their inherent masochism and the specific way vex looked at them, they didn’t mind the situation nearly as much as their complaining made it seem.

vex was originally disgusted by this tidbit, but grew curious as time went on. eventually, ey introduced a sexual aspect to eir experimentations. what did josuke look like getting off? how many times could ey get them to come? how much edging could they stand?

josuke still complained, loudly and frequently, about vex’s masochism. but they had reached an understanding, now. that they were both benefiting from this in some way. vex felt more comfortable knowing this: that it was not josuke’s heroic nature motivating them, but a selfish desire to be hurt.

somewhere along the line, josuke roped vex into more benign experiences.

somewhere along the line, they admitted that they were dragging em out on dates.

somewhere along the line, vex discovered that ey was perfectly ok with that.

(in the background, koichi and yukako dated for a long while, to the point where koichi’s parents started teasing him about marriage. he complained about this to vex, but still got flustered when vex asked if there was any validity to the teasing.)