#twig15

[katliveblogs]

So I’ve been thinking, and given that the stuff I picked up on with Jessie and Jamie was real and intentional on Wildbow’s part, there’s no way the stuff relating to Sy isn’t also. I mean the kid has wished they “were a girl” more than once, that’s obviously not something Wildbow would just include on accident when he’s already planning one trans character.

So either Sy is trans as well, or Wildbow has been pulling a hell of a long ploy of misdirection to draw attention away from Jessie. If nothing else, I want to see what happens the next time Sy has the thought of “I wish I were a girl”, considering it’s now demonstrably an option. Hell Jessie didn’t even really feel a strong desire to present as female as far as we’ve been told, she’s just gender indifferent and decided on being a girl because it helps with other personal stuff.

Also hang on, Jessie and Jamie. Does this make Sy Meowth? :P 

(Who, incidentally, was voiced by a trans woman in the english dub for a long time.)

[katliveblogs]

“And,” she said.  “He was hunting Genevieve.”

“Yep,” I said.

The lead girl gave me a look.  “Now you’re working for her?”

“With her,” I said.  “Not under her.  I see it more as a partnership.”

“Really now?  How did that come about?” goat-eyes asked.

“It makes a lot more sense if you think about the two of us being siblings,” I said.  “Even when we were on opposite sides, we got along pretty well.  Then I left the Academy, and here I stand.”

Given just how smoothly this lie flows, I’m yet again reminded that it’s very unclear why it isn’t the truth.

[katliveblogs]

The girl with the goat eyes was still staring at me.  The rectangular irises made for an interesting effect.  I quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Sylvester,” she said.

“Hm?” I asked.  “Yeah.”

“I’ve met him,” goat-eyes said, to the lead girl.

“Have you?” I asked.  “My memory isn’t the best.”

“I was one of the people sitting in the background while you were talking with Ronnie?  Before everything turned topsy-turvy?”

I shook my head.  “You have me at a loss.  I can think of ten things off the top of my head that that could apply to.”

“The start of the civil war?”

Oh dang, there’s straight up overlap between this group and that one. Not sure how easily Sy can bounce back from this.

[katliveblogs]

I looked over the group of girls.  There were about nine of them, and they moved as a loose crowd, each with a unique style.  I saw a few body modifications here and there, some unconventional hair styles, and very loose interpretations of Beattle’s dress code.  Skirts were hiked or rolled up to show more leg even while they wore jackets and coats that looked like the sort of jackets Mauer’s soldiers would wear in cooler months – oversized and prone to drooping over hands, even when they were rolled up two or three times over.

Makeup was often heavy, often chosen to accent the body mods.  One girl had a lone deer antler at the corner of her scalp, and makeup had been staggered so it seemed to blend into her brown skin.  Another girl with goat eyes lined heavily with eyeliner was staring me down.

The leader wasn’t modded so heavily, but she’d foregone the academy jacket entirely to wear a black sweater with a layered collar beneath a double layer of jacket and military jacket.  I’d thought about clothing as armor as I got ready in the morning, but the fashion choice there was akin to plate mail where it covered her, and there wasn’t much beneath.  Her top three buttons were undone and her skirt was hiked up higher than any of the girls.  Chance more than choice that I couldn’t see anything worth seeing.

But her attitude, I’d seen it on some drunks and some fighters.  She was spoiling.  For a fight, for trouble, for… anything.  She was the queen of her clique here, and the crowd at her sides and back were more armor, on top of the layers she wore.  It let her expose more throat and belly, metaphorically.  Baiting others in even as she looked for a morsel to bite at herself.

I’m interested to see how Sy interacts with this group of cool delinquent girls and how it contrasts with the one way back in arc 4.

Also I think this is the first use of “mods” and “modded”. Seems Wildbow is going with the common term over coming up with some more obscure setting-specific language.

[katliveblogs]

“They’re a three out of ten on the danger scale,” I said.  “Barely worth rating.”

Well that’s not a very useful scale then Sy, if almost 30% of it isn’t worth using.

[katliveblogs]

“The stable is about to flood,” I told him.  “I want a good vantage point when it does.”

“It’s not a stable,” he said.  “It’s the Academy.  What they said before they started talking about stables, the Academy is closing.  They didn’t even talk about the students.  That bit at the very beginning.  We’re a resource to them.”

“You predicted it would.”

“But they’re hurrying it along!” Gordon Two hissed at me.  “Do you know what that does to me?  To my friends?”

“Yes, absolutely,” I said.

“If it was a slow death, then they’d cut us in stages.  Maybe I’d get dropped, I’d be able to go to Sprung, but I’d have a chance.  If they cut us all at once?  That’s a few thousand students who’re looking for a place elsewhere.”

“Oh, I know,” I said.  “And I know who and I know why.”

Seems in line with Genevieve’s methodology, to topple an Academy full of overlooked, bitter students, and then recruit from among them.

[katliveblogs]

“Nah,” I said.  “Simon.”

“You look like some of my cousins from New Amsterdam.  George, Thom, Westie?”

His tone had shifted.  He was begging for me to get it.  To let him go out with a semblance of pride.

Ah ok unrelated to Radham Mice Thom.

[katliveblogs]

I’d prophesied a future and the gun made it so.

Unless he threw me another curveball.

“You wouldn’t be Thom, would you?” he asked.

Would you look at that, two prophesies in a row! Although I’m not confident Sy remembers Thom by name, at this point.

[katliveblogs]

And if this rat-bastard was saying something bad about Lillian, Mary, and Jessie’s standards, well, I couldn’t brook that.

And here’s Sy being more concerned with the way their appearance affects others than with how they themselves feel about it again.

[katliveblogs]

“Even here the girls don’t have standards that low,” he said.  Contempt dripped off his tongue as he looked me up and down.

To his credit, I was a bit nettled at that.  I knew he would’ve said something like it no matter how I looked, but I was nettled.  I’d put effort into preparing for the day.  Girls liked me.  Mostly after they got to know me, but still.

Even Jamie had liked me, and he was a boy.

Sy would you please not. You know for a fact that Jamie was nonbinary, and that they presented as male at least in part due to not having a choice. Not to mention that using “even” there is really pretty heteronormative.

[katliveblogs]

“How does one adroitly manage the topic of a late train, as someone regular who isn’t a passenger?”

“You’re dwelling on the wrong part of this.  Fray has arrived.  That she arrived late might be important.”

“Maybe you think it’s adroit, but they talk among themselves about the odd girl who gets uppity about the train being late, even though she has absolutely no stake in it.”

“Sy.”

“Jessie.  How can I trust an ally if she’s doing things behind the scenes that might hint at grave weaknesses or infirmity?  This could be the fulcrum point by which our partnership regains balance or careens into disaster.”

This is a level of pursuing the tangent that I’d expect from a homestuck character, honestly. It’s great.

[katliveblogs]

The oldest of the cubs ventured forth.  So shaggy of hair and shabby of dress that I couldn’t guess at their gender, the child approached me.

Ok that’s twice now that Sy’s expressed their sub-optimal conceptions of gender, it’s definitely intentional on Wildbow’s part.

I mean I’m not even sure thinking of feral children as having gender is accurate, seeing as gender is socially constructed to a fair degree and they’ve grown up entirely separate from those social constructions.

[katliveblogs]

Jessie was wearing a wool dress in navy blue, with a collared shirt underneath.  Her hair was braided to one side, the short braid just barely touching the collarbone at her right shoulder, and she had the glasses set so that she was looking over them as often as not, to better complete the ‘librarian’ look.  It allowed her to give me a lot of ‘disappointed teacher’ looks.

She gave me one in response to my teasing, before turning to our tutor.  “Anything you can teach us is appreciated, Leah.  Do you think you’re up for it?”

God I’m happy for her. This is such a delightful and fitting look.

[katliveblogs]

“If she went?  What if everyone from student council and Greenhouse Gang to the Rank and the girls on the rooftop was leaving?  They say something like they know people who know people.  You’ll get money, you’ll get lodging.  You just… grab your stuff and go.  And there are none of the Academy rules.  No restrictions.  You can room with girls.  You can be angry, drink, and tell the world to fuck off.”

“Except it’s all manipulation,” he said.

“Well, you know that.  Pretend you didn’t.  Pretend that your alternative would be to stay.  To do nothing except accept that you’d failed.  You would have to tell your mom that you did so badly, collectively, that the school was shut down.  Would you go?”

“I don’t know,” he said.  “But I don’t think I would.”

“No,” I said.  “But some would.  Enough would.”

Hm, this is a heck of a thing to steal from Genevieve. Not gonna be easy, but if it works Sy is gonna get to bolster their ranks real quick.

[katliveblogs]

The two men I was following were good.  I followed them as they followed Avis, and that gave me ample opportunity to study the pair.

Their choice of clothing and hairstyle were accurate enough to fool me.  If they hadn’t been actively following Avis, then I wouldn’t have given them a second look.  Overalls tucked into wading boots and a sweater for one.  Vest, shirt, and slacks for the other.  Their hair was messy, only nominally combed back or parted, and their hands.  Oh, thing of beauty, they had the calluses of hard manual labor.

That is pretty impressive. Less than it could be maybe, in a world where I’m sure calluses can be artificially created fairly easily, but still impressive.

[katliveblogs]

“So… that’s a yes?” I asked.

“I don’t dislike trains.  They make a good reference point for the flow of the city, when I’m measuring it all.  When people come, when they go, the time it takes them to get from A to B, with the station itself oftentimes being one or the other-”

“You like trains!  That’s so adorable!”

It is admittedly pretty adorable. Also kind of an autism stereotype, but in Jessie’s case it’s fitting and understandable.