#And thought about the time I explained what intersex is to my uncle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tg-headcanons · 2 years

Note

Just woke up from a nap to find myself in a pool of my own blood and it made me think

How would Touka react the first time Yoriko gets her period around her? I feel like she wouldn't be very well versed in human menstrual cycles. Imagine outing yourself as a ghoul bc your girlfriend starts bleeding randomly and you demand she go to the hospital Immediately 😂

Oh she would be TERRIFIED

Also this is under the cut because of periods and Ghussy lore

So ghouls don’t have periods, being a ghoul sucks but that’s one perk. But Naturally, that means a lot of ghouls don’t know about periods. If they don’t interact with humans much or don’t go out of their way to study them, chances are they probably won’t know. Who’s gonna tell them? Their ghoul parents who, if not already dead, don’t have them? Their human friends who they can’t ask without outing themselves as a ghoul especially if they’re female? The female bodies they hunted who they just assume have blood there from a wound splatter?

Touka, like most ghouls, had no idea this was a thing. She was weirded out enough to know humans don’t have heats, are rarely intersex, and usually base their genders around genitals, but she thought that was it. Humans just have stupid weird reproductive systems and cultures around it, that’s all

Well by the time she was in middle school, she noticed that most female humans smell like weird off scented blood sometimes, but thought that was just another weird thing about human sexual dimorphism. But at some point when she was sleeping over with yoriko when they were 15 she had a VERY rude awakening

She accidentally catches Yoriko changing, and sees a HUGE patch of fresh blood on her underwear and SCREAMS. Yoriko asks what’s wrong and touka is already trying to drag her out to get her to a hospital. She’s confused and keeps telling her there’s nothing wrong and to at least let her get some pants on before trying to get her outside, and touka insists that she must have lost too much blood for her to be calm. She says it’s just a period and not even a bad one, is that what she’s freaking out about. Touka is just stunned and asks her what that is. Is that a disease that’s doing this?

Yoriko is stunned as well for a few seconds, then just breaks down laughing, which only makes touka panic more over what her disease is doing to her until her friend collects herself enough to ask her how the hell she got to 15 without knowing what a period is. Touka asks again if it’s a disease and, once Yoriko is done laughing and fixes her clothes, she explains it to touka

So, now with some VERY DISTURBING info on how humans work, she has to answer the question of why she didn’t know. Obviously she can’t say “oh I’m actually a ghoul and instead of menstruating I have a fit of horny murderous rage twice a year and then reabsorb the eggs like any reasonable mammal” so instead she says that her mother died when she was young and she’s been living with her uncle who just didn’t say anything about it. Then scrambling to explain why she hasn’t had one yet she just says she has a rare birth defect where she has no ovaries. Yoriko bought it and she managed to avoid more questions. Well later she looked it up more and she respects humans a hell of a lot more because anyone who can deal with what reads like an episode of the magnus archives about possessed flesh is strong in her book. And though she doesn’t have them she got some supplies for it to keep in her bathroom for when Yoriko is over just in case

It’s only two years later when Yoriko learns what she is that she can tell the truth. That no, she has her ovaries and everything, she just doesn’t have periods because she’s a ghoul and neither yoshimura nor nishiki, the only ghouls she knows who know about them, ever told her they were a thing. It explained a lot and Yoriko had to laugh again at the whole thing. At least that makes sense now, even if she’s less than thrilled at the fact that Touka always knows when she’s having a period because of her sense of smell, but that does explain why she seems to always be carrying extra pads she offers her right when she needs one

#tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul headcanon #yoritouka #yoriko kuoiwa #touka kirishima #notsfw #tw periods

39 notes · View notes

ikiaikainen · 6 years

Text

Changeling

Winter has always known there was something strange about him - and not just his name. When a new student arrives with looks similar to him, he is instantly drawn to the strange new boy. But where this encounter leads is not something Winter had expected, for better or worse. (2017)

Featured on my oneshot collection Something Strange on Tapas.

Winter had always known there was something wrong with him - something more than just his peculiar nature name, of course. It wasn't that he didn't feel like "not fitting in" with others of his age: he did, he had friends, and in general he had a good, healthy social life for a 15-year-old boy. Rather, it was the way he looked that caused not only curious looks from other people, but also confusion in Winter himself whenever gazing at himself from the mirror: he had strong, sharp teeth (the dentists had been forced to polish them by Winter's parents, but Winter himself had refused them to be completely flattened; at that age he had thought his fangs were cool), his nails always kept growing in odd ways and he constantly had to cut them, and the texture of his hair was strange at best, feeling like animal fur rather than human hair.

What was even stranger, however, was the hair growing on his lower back, and what undoubtedly looked like a scar on his lower back.

Winter knew it was normal in puberty to notice hair growing in strange and often unexpected places the sex education classes didn't cover, but he had had this strange, white hair there as long as he could remember, and the same applied to the small scar.

Winter had often asked his parents about these and other strange things:

"Why are my teeth like that? Why do I have to flatten them?"

"Why is there fur growing on my lower back?", a question immediately met with an agitated response of "It's not fur, it's hair; your great uncle was the same."

He'd further ask about the odd shape of his ears, and the the scar on his lower back; about the nails and the way his hair felt, and the weird, small bumps on his head.

The answers always varied.

The strange, white hair was said to be an unspecified genetic disorder that ran in the family, but all the relatives with the condition were long gone by now. Likewise, the scar on his lower back was initially claimed to be a scar from Winter falling badly as a child. The bumps on his head were somehow related to his skull's structure, and the sharp tips of his ears were simply a remain from the more primal past of humans - it happened sometimes, with kids being born this way due to how their normally inactive genes were somehow activated in birth.

As younger, Winter would always play with the idea he was some sort of monster child who had then gone through surgeries to look more human.

However, such thoughts were quickly buried until logic and reason when he matured, and for a good while Winter had basically forgotten his odditions. Things changed when his puberty started: with the new changes his hormones brought with them, the strangeness of his body became much more apparent.

"Maybe you're intersex?" one of his school friends had suggested: Winter's strange medical past and secretive parents seemed to align with what he had read regarding the topic.

"No, no, that's not it," Winter had replied. "It's not like that; it's definitely different. I have read about it and I can't find myself relating to most of the things the books mention, let alone what people say on forums."

Things came to change, however, when a new boy arrived to the school.

He was a year older than Winter was, but although they weren't in the same class, it was easy to notice the peculiarity of the new student: he was tall, his ears shaped so similarly to Winter's it was almost uncanny, and when he laughed a row of almost predatory teeth could be shown.

All this interested Winter greatly, and a week later, during one lunch break, he sat opposite of the young man.

"Hi," he said as he placed the food tray in front of of the new guy's own. "Is this place free?"

"Uh, yeah," the other mumbled, somewhat awkwardly: he hadn't expected Winter specifically to come here and was a little confused.

"You're the new student, right? What's your name?"

"It's, um," the boy started somewhat awkwardly and paused, as if to think very hard. "It's Ethan. I'm Ethan. And you are...?"

"Winter," he replied and smiled. "I know, it's a weird name: my parents had strange tastes."

"I think it's cool," Ethan answered. "It's kind of otherworldly somehow, I like it."

Not wanting to teeter around the issue any further, Winter decided to risk it all and asked as casually as it was just possible for him in the situation:

"Speaking of otherworldly... I couldn't help but notice your teeth. What's up with them?"

Like out of instinct, Ethan covered his mouth with his hands and looked at Winter with an alarmed expression.

"No, don't worry, I'm not making fun of you!" Winter hurried to explain. "It's just that... Well, look," he then said and opened his mouth, moving his lips a little with his fingers to show his teeth in their full, animal-like glory.

"You have them too?" Ethan asked, eyes wide and blinking faster than what was normal - he seemed to be very particularly abashed by the sight. "Are you perhaps... " Ethan started carefully but then shook his head. "No, nevermind."

"Your ears, too," Winter continued, now intrigued by the reaction he had gotten out of Ethan. "They're kind of sharp, aren't they?"

"Well, yeah..." the other admitted.

"What about your nails?"

"What about my nails?"

Winter showed his hand and the sharp nails he hadn't cut off in order to show them to Ethan. "Do you also have nails like mine? They grow really fast, I usually cut them and file the tips of them to make them less sharp, but I couldn't be bothered lately. So many school things to focus on - you know, that sort of stuff."

Ethan hesitated for a moment, looking at Winter's fingernails and then his own.

"I cut and file them too," he finally said with a low, careful tone. "But they look almost like yours, although they don't grow all that fast, thankfully."

Winter was overjoyed upon finding someone who shared these strange traits with him, and as the curiosity got the better of him, he continued asking: "Do you have any other strange things?"

"Strange things?" Ethan raised his eyebrows.

"Like, well, um... Surgery scars, or something like that? Especially around lower back?"

Ethan was silent, looking at Winter with a strange expression the other boy couldn't quite read or understand. Had he spoken too much? Was Ethan weirded out? Gods, he shouldn't have spoken this much after all.

"Is there... something strange with your lower back?" the new student finally asked upon being silent for so long. "Like, anything?"

"Do you promise not to laugh?" Winter asked solemnly. "Or be weirded out?"

"I promise," Ethan said and raised his hand to make a gesture of a vow. "I don't think I have any right to make any comments about the bodies of other people anyway, no matter how strange."

"Good. See, I have a surgery scar there, but also this... strange white something, like fur? I don't really understand it, mum and dad just claim it's some sort of rare condition, but that's basically it - I can't find any information even online."

Ethan looked extremely thoughtful as he listened to this. Then, out of blue, he asked something Winter had not anticipated.

"Were you adopted? Are you the biological child of your parents?"

"What kind of question is that?" Winter snapped. "Of course I am! I have almost the same hair colour as my father too!"

"Hmm... If you say so," the boy replied and took a bite of his food he had momentarily forgotten to focus on. "I just wanted to make sure."

"Why?"

"I just... wanted to, that's all."

He moved the fork around his salad absentmindedly.

"Hey Winter."

"Yeah?"

"Do you believe in ghosts? Things like that?"

Winter shrugged. "Can't say I do."

"I see..."

"I mean it's not like I can't deny them either, but since I have never seen with my own eyes... I'm not that inclined to believe."

"What would you do if you did... see a ghost or something along those lines?"

The boy laughed nervously. "What kind of question is that?"

"Just answer," Ethan replied but looked away from Winter as he said this.

"I guess I would. I mean, if I can have a condition like this even though the rest of the world doesn't seem to even know it exist, then I guess I could understand a ghost or a demon too - it'd be strange, but not too strange, you know?"

"Gotcha."

Ethan stood up from the table, still half finished food on his plate.

"You finished?" Winter asked, not having even touched his food yet.

"Yeah. But Winter..." Ethan murmured, and once more lowered his voice. "If you want to talk more about that condition thing whatever... Meet me after school at the school gym."

Winter nodded obediently, and fast forward 3 more hours, he was standing inside the empty school gym. It was part of the main building so it was locked only when the school was also closed, and so getting inside was absolutely no trouble for him. Even better, it was also never supervised, so sneaking in was easy, and he had no fear whatsoever about getting caught by a teacher.

He walked around, the dimly lit room so dark he could barely see: the windows of the gym had been blocked with large, black curtains, and only the small holes time had bitten into them gave him any light to see around.

And then he heard Ethan's voice.

"Here, Winter! Let's go to the changing rooms, it's better there."

His voice was silent and raspy, and Winter felt something akin to anxiety rise from within him: just what was Ethan planning to do? Was he really going to talk more about this condition of what they both seemed to have? Or was he going to punch him and steal his money? Or assault him? Was that it?

Winter hit his cheeks with both of his hands to cast off such thoughts, and Ethan heard the slapping sound.

"Winter, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly.

"Nothing, nothing!" Winter replied and stopped hitting himself.

"You don't need to be nervous," Ethan spoke as he stepped inside the back of the gym hall, into the small stairway leading into the changing rooms. "I'm not going to murder you or anything. This is just the best place to talk without anyone interfering. And if someone does come, we are sure to hear it well in advance."

"You're absolutely right," the other nodded. "I would never consider you murdering me. No way."

They were now inside the changing room, and once Winter had closed the door behind him (making sure it was not locked, just in case), Ethan switched on the lights.

"Alright, look," he started, voice shaking a bit. "What I'm about to tell and show you is very, how do you say it... personal. So whatever you say or do, don't make a ruckus, alright? I'm sure you understand."

Nervous but perfectly understanding the concern of Ethan, Winter nodded. However, as soon as the other boy started pulling his pants down, Winter yelped loudly.

"H-hold on!" he cried. "W-w-what do you think you're doing?!"

"I'm not going to take all my pants off!" Ethan replied, flustered as he opened his belt. When his pants fell down on the floor with the belt clicking against it, Winter saw something so strange none of his earlier scenarios of what could happen couldn't even compare to the sight.

Sticking out from his back was, undoubtedly, a thin, blond tail. It was not particularly long but one couldn't have called it short either, and it resembled a lion's tail with a tuft on the top of it, except it was much thinner. Ethan then turned around to reveal his back and lo and behold: blond fur was growing just around the same place as where Winter had it.

"What's... the meaning of this...?" Winter finally let out after moments of staring. "Ethan, you're not pulling my leg, aren't you? This is not a prank?"

"It's not a prank," the boy replied and his tail twitched a little. However, probably feeling self conscious or maybe getting cold, he soon put his pants back on and hid the tail inside.

"What... are you?" the other boy finally asked, still staring at where Ethan's tail had previously been in.

"A changeling, I think."

"A what?"

"Did your parents never read you fairy tales as a child?" Ethan asked.

"Not really..." Winter mumbled. "So please, explain me..."

"Changeling is someone who has been traded to another child," the young man explained in a very a matter-of-fact way. "A troll mother takes her own baby and trades it to a human baby, so the troll raises a human, and the humans raise a troll. That's how it usually goes in stories. Sometimes it's the fairy folk too, or elves."

"So are you a troll?"

Ethan laughed and shook his head. "No, I'm a human."

"But humans don't...." Winter started, but decided not to say anything after all - he couldn't find the right words.

"I was taken from my human parents as a child by a demon mother. It's said that when you spend long enough with them, your body starts to change too to resemble them more. But this is all I can do - I don't have horns or anything similar."

"Then..." Winter started slowly, looking at his shaking hand he had rose over his face. "Then that means... I must be a changeling too?"

"If you grew with humans, it means you must be a demon child, unlike me, who is a human."

Winter put his hand over his mouth and stared at the floor so hard he could have made a hole into it through the sheer intensity of his pierce.

Of course, that'd make sense. It would explain the surgeries, the two lumps on his head that seemed to have grown in the recent years; the secretiveness of his parents and the fact that aside from the similar hair colour, Winter didn't have much else in common with his family or relatives. Granted, there were some similarities, but didn't most people have some? If you took a stranger from the street that vaguely resembled you and told someone you're relatives, surely they would find at least one similarity.

"It must be a lot to take at once," Ethan's spoke and his voice pulled Winter out of his haze. "But since you seemed to be completely left into the dark with this, I thought it'd be the right thing to tell you."

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and then looked away.

"I thought there was a possibility that... maybe we were swapped or something, but then I remembered it would have required us to be the same age. And there is a year difference between us, right?"

"Y-yeah... I'm pretty sure I'm exactly the age my parents claim me to me; there were no secrets, hush-hushes or murmurs regarding that topic."

"So... What are you going to do now?"

Winter looked at Ethan.

"I don't know," he then replied and looked away from the changeling. "This is kind of a lot to take. When I came here... I, uh, absolutely didn't expect this to happen."

"Sorry about that," the blond apologized.

"It's fine, now I understand everything that has been puzzling me since I was a kid. But tell me, Ethan, what are you doing here if you were raised by demons?"

"I learned I'm a human only some time ago myself," Ethan admitted with an awkward laughter. "And so I wanted to know what kind of life humans really lead so I came here. Some of my demon friends came too, although they're in different schools - this one refused to take more in due to lack of space and resources."

He laughed again, but this time his cheeks reddened slightly as he continued: "It's not easy being a human, you know? I keep saying and doing weird things all the time; we look similar, but there are a lot of differences between how we and humans behave."

"Like?"

"Like, the demons I grew up with were really playful, in the same way cats and dogs are regardless of their age. Humans aren't like that, people my age are supposed to be much more collected."

"I'm not playful," Winter commented. "Even though it seems I'm a demon."

"It's not entirely biological - it's in the culture too. You have been raised to control your feelings and stuff, haven't you?"

"... you're correct."

"Then... do you prefer to live as a human, or do you want to find your biological parents and live with the demons?" the boy suddenly asked.

"I-I must think about it," Winter breathed. "It's all very sudden, and I'm perfectly accustomed to this kind of life, so I doubt I'd like to change the pace now. But... "

He took a short break and looked at Ethan before speaking: "But I'd like to meet my other parents, one day. Not now, maybe not soon, but some time... And I want to talk to my parents about this too and about them keeping it a secret."

"Sounds like a plan. But say, have your horns grown out yet?"

"No, just two bumps on the head. I was always told it's just my skull being weird."

"Hm, then you definitely want to get something done with them - they should grow out anytime soon. Usually even children have them but maybe the human influence has made you into a late bloomer..."

"O-oh great," Winter stuttered and instinctively touched the two bumps on his head, imagining them bursting out one day to reveal horns. "Um, does it hurt?"

"It might sting at first, from what I have heard - I never got any horns."

"O-okay..."

The two stood there in silence then, looking awkwardly at each other, then the floor and then each other again. Only Ethan's suggestion to leave finally broke the silence, and they both agreed their business here was done.

They sneaked out, made sure to shut off the lights and went outside through the backdoor, as the front door was probably already locked, and the back exit directly led them outside.

"If you want to, like, call or anything or just hang out, just tell me. I can give my number," Ethan spoke once they were outdoors.

"That'd be nice," Winter replied and took out his phone, and Ethan then proceeded to give his phone number.

"Do you like video games?" he then asked, and Winter nodded: "I'm not very good, but yeah, I do."

"Want to hang out in the arcade tomorrow? I can introduce you to the other demons as well - they're all really chill."

Winter hesitated, but only for a moment, and eventually nodded: "I'd love that."

"Great, it's a deal then. Tomorrow, after school, see you there!"

"See you!"

And the two parted their ways. Only then the entire situation where Winter now was in washed over him, and he had to take a hold of the nearby building's wall to keep his balance.

"I'm... a demon?" he thought to himself. "Those surgeries, those secrets, all those were to pretend I'm a human?"

Frankly, Winter didn't mind the fact his tail had obviously been removed as he wasn't very keen on the idea of keeping such a thing a secret. Nevertheless, the fact his parents had never told him the truth upset him beyond words: telling the truth would have saved him from so much suffering and agonizing over a body he certainly liked, but couldn't quite understand.

Once back at home, he would talk about all this. He'd make his parents tell the whole story so that Winter could understand the circumstances of his birth better.

And, the next day, he would meet with Ethan again and talk to demons... Those he was also one of, despite the fact the idea felt absurd at best.

"But Ethan is there," Winter told himself as he now kept walking back home on the silent evening road. "He seems like a good guy, he explains things calmly and so that I understand them too, and he seemed to be happy to be able to meet with me again."

He stopped and took a deep breath.

"What more, he wanted me to understand my circumstances, despite not knowing me at all. He put himself at risk by revealing himself to me, a stranger, just so he could reassure me and show I'm not alone."

Winter smiled, cheeks burning a little.

"I think he is a good guy, truly."

#changeling #original fiction #young adult #oneshot #2017 #hymnia #short story

4 notes · View notes

exilevilifyrp · 6 years

Photo

file: introduction

full name: robyn kane age: 27 identifies with: state of dreaming by marina and the diamonds genesis: organic gender: intersex + female identifying (she/her) portrayal: chloe bennet

file: biography

TW: Guns, hospitals. blood, death

Robyn Kane dreamed of mangoes.

Sweet, sap-fleshed fruits she could describe in such vivid detail you could feel their gold-yellow dripping down your throat. They had, Atticus rationalized, been her mother’s last meal request; three mangoes, halved, (pits still in, please!) cubed at about one inch in diameter. Such a tremendous yearning this must’ve been that it found its way to her daughter, who in turn ate up washers and packing peanuts, swallowed down marbles and screws in her futile pursuit of sweetness. “Normal toddler behavior,” articles on his armlet read. “Just whack ‘em hard on the back if you see ‘em gulping away anything important.” Of course, Atticus never whacked Robyn, but the idea of normality washed relief over the father. “Still,” a voice nagged, often late, often red-eyed on the pull-out couch of their rusted apartment. “What could be said of the planets?”

Well, for one, they were huge! Vast, sweeping expanses Robyn dreamed up with forests high as the SungX building and deserts red as the setting sun. Sands that stung in sporadic blizzards. Skybirds who soared over archipelagos in triangular formations, fighting fish over seafoam, their hunger a constant, bitter pang. Such were the untrekked settings that congregated heroes to Robyn’s stories, that in turn congregated ruddy-faced factory cleaning kids, their stinking mops forgotten, around her during their glorious hour of lunch break. “Pew pew pew!” Robyn would say, her small voice teeming with life, “and then the heroes and the villains became best friends, and no one’s mom had to die, and the planets weren’t lonely for anyone, anymore. I accept tips via my dad’s credit account or in mangoes. The end.” And then, in the same tidy fashion as always, everyone would pack up and get back to scrubbing floors.

The crowds dwindled after parents caught word. Scrap metal never fell far from the ship, people said, and everyone and their android knew that Kane kid was going to turn out bad. That monster - Clemence Kane’s - child had those same foxlike eyes, lips the same raw swath of ochre…a gaze that flickered time to time with the same strange, insatiable hunger. “Stay away from that Kane kid,” workers warned, their fingers shaking, their grey uniforms all the same. Fathers cursed and flicked cigarette butts. Mothers pulled their children to the other side of the litter-caked road. And so the crowd on the back steps of nutripowder factory, which had once overflowed like steel wool from a storm cloud, shrunk to the size of one lonely droplet.

Robyn kept herself steady by looking upwards. She’d work hard, she’d be so helpful they’d all have to come around. Tears found it harder to squeeze by when her face was lifted towards the ceiling, and muscle memory kept her mouth pulled into the same sweet, little grin. At lunch, alone with her flavorless mix of powder, though, her lips would tremble - until her eyes caught sight of the strange heroes who, day in and day out, would flip and fly above her city.

Wash Captains. That’s what her dad said when she asked him. And they weren’t villain fighters - they were actually cleaners like both of them were. Still, hearing their hoots and howls as they tumbled from building to building, their washbots flocking behind them like rafts of ducklings, sent a rush up her little spine. The Captains grew into her new idols, another reason for her to dream. And every day during break, she’d make it further up the walls of her own building, brave a further jump from height to height. All until one day, she plucked up the courage to follow her heroes, trying to keep up, but finding herself slipping behind.

“Talia, you’ve got a tail!” A Captain signaled for the group to slow down. The lot of them, adults between their early twenties and late forties, decelerated to a pace that wouldn’t endanger the kid, though they did this surreptitiously enough that the twelve-year-old thought she was catching up.

“What’s your name, speedster?” The youngest one, Talia, asked.

“I’m Robyn Kane!”

“Well, you’ve got guts coming up here. I like that.” The rest of the group didn’t shiver or scowl, instead, they just shared a kind, collective laugh. “What’s good?” “Nice to meet you, Robyn,” voices chorused. And when they darted off to work on their respective building groups, Talia gestured for Robyn to follow her. She stopped at the edge of a metallic skyscraper, her washbots swarming to wipe the windows of the behemoth adjacent. From dawn until dusk, she let Robyn shadow her, explaining what a Wash Captain’s duties were, the test it to become one, and difficulties the job brought with it. Long hours, limited work lifespan, days without rest…the ability to problem solve and stay cool under pressure was paramount. But if you were the right kind of person, you’d find family here like no other. And Robyn hoped, hoped, hoped that with enough effort, when the year’s test came around, she’d be ready to join them.

Setbacks were inevitable. Sprained wrists, lack of formal training, exhaustion after back-to-back days at the factory…nothing, though, that could quite prepare her for the sickness. A flu, its origin the lungs of a machine operator, spread through the adults, then the children, then to her. Everyone and their uncle hacked up phlegm for two weeks, their faces pale green from the night sweats, though none fell quite so ill as Robyn Kane. A hospital rush led to injections, led to IV drips, led to peals of hushed conversation, led to the sound of a final lamp smashing outside her door.

“The warden promised they’d treated her!"

"The CD4 count-”

“Fuck the CD4 count!”

“Sir, can you just…”

Robyn shivered. What was her dad talking about with that doctor? Was she going to die? And what had made him so angry? Her eyes had already begun drooping shut when Atticus came back in, though, his face shaking with anger.

“What’s going on, dad?” Robyn tried to roll to face him, but he shushed her.

“You’re going to be okay, kid.” He kissed her head, sitting gently at the side of her hospital bed. Only when he thought she was asleep did a sob leave him, the sound of heartbreak, of betrayal, of an uncertain man.

In truth, the doctors weren’t sure how she’d survived so long. ARHIV - or advanced resistant human immunodeficiency virus - was livable with treatment, but going nearly thirteen years without, especially after being born with it…well, complications usually reared their heads sooner. Still, the NRTIs seemed to be lowering the viral load in her blood, and with the aid of intensive anti flu meds, her immune system managed to struggle through.

“Take your meds,” Dr. Ota said, as Robyn and her dad breathed fresh air for the first time in three weeks. “And remember, any fluids that come out of you are not to be touched by others.”

Atticus wanted Robyn to rest. She was still weak from her bout of illness, but almost a month had gone by without any exam preparation, and she wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her dream. She pushed herself to jump farther, to climb higher, to memorize every protocol in the Washbook. And when test day came, she gave it everything she got. “We’ll call,” her examiner promised, though the stern look on his face was airtight. “We’ve only got room for about three people this year, so don’t get your hopes up too high, okay, kid?” But when the buzz rang out on her armlet that evening, her hopes had already soared through the roof.

“Hello?"

"Hey, is this Robyn?” Talia’s voice drifted in through the speaker.

“Yeah, yeah, this is me, Robyn- Robyn Kane - Kane, Robyn - I-”

“Marks Building, speedster. Tomorrow. 5AM.”

And then the call clicked out, and a teenage squeal woke nearly half of the building.

The job wasn’t all games and glory. Most days, she went home with limbs that threatened to tear off, but how many people could say they ended a shift by skydiving off a building? Magnetic gloves carried her to the very top of the city, reminding her of her smallness, though a hoot from one Wash Captain to another reminded her she was never alone. Skyscrapers rushed together as air gave way to metal under her feet, running upwards and downwards, leaping from one to another with an expert’s grace. This was, save for her, the kind of movement reserved for heroes, and shadowing other Captains to get the hang of more advanced techniques ensured she continued to grow. From this vantage point too came new insight on the city - inequity others more often chose to ignore. Apartment Piles - swaying stacks of low-income housing - were collapsing. At first, it seemed accidental, but then the breadth of the falls seemed more sinister. Factories bought out the land. Overwatchers failed to check the sites. And since a lot of first responders wouldn’t set foot in the rougher neighborhoods, the Captains took it upon themselves to search and rescue.

Such was her transformation from girl to hero. Pulling injured folks from buildings, keeping kids safe…it was this grit and responsibility that matured her. Time with her dad became precious. Happy hours with friends began to mean more. But youth was still youth, after all, and when time brought on an admirer, Robyn’s heart began to palpitate.

There’s was a typical teen meeting - boy watched girl soar from building to building, boy plucked up the courage to wave, girl told him she’d come say hi during her lunch break. And so said boy appeared day after day, wonderstruck in crooked glasses, his hand outstretched to offer a cool bottle of water. A Harbor boy, Deek Jenkins. When they talked, her lies grew from goosebumps to mountains - yes, her mom was nice, yes, she’d eaten a mango, yes, her dad was a world-saving space pilot and, if she disappeared for a few days, it was because she helping him fight off evil. Truth be told, she wanted to keep Deek around. But how could a Harbor boy remain interested if he knew about her dark origins, her sickness, how a job washing windows was the most exciting thing that’d ever happened to her? Instead, she told him about the skybirds, the archipelagos, the burning sands. All while the virus inside her was shifting, overcoming her medications, and threatening to overcome her as well.

Time passed. Deek began bringing two water bottles. Robyn always finished the one he brought with a still-thirsty gulp, then gobbled down two, then three, and he was about to bring four when she stopped showing up.

“Check the clinic on Fourth, kid,” the Wash Captain, Talia, who visited in Robyn’s stead offered. So check Deek did.

“Hey,” he greeted, pulling a whole cooler of water bottles to her hospital bed. She uncapped one.

“You’ve found me out, Jenkins.” The twenty-year-old’s lips quirked upward, falling as a hack expelled from her lungs. “I’ve caught an ‘opportunistic infection.’ Tuberculosis. Not fun stuff. And while we’re at it, I’ve got another disease called ARHIV, which my doc just said’ll probably kill me by 35. And my mom-”

“Was a rebel terrorist,” Deek finished for her. “Who killed upwards of a hundred Overwatchers and their associates. She was sentenced to death six months after being turned in by a man named Thomas Martineaux, and would’ve been sentenced immediately had she not been pregnant with you.”

Robyn nodded. “Happy?”

“No.” He paused. “I mean, yes, that you were honest with me.”

“Why’d you hang around then, if you knew?”

Deek shrugged. “I guess I just liked you.”

“I guess I just liked you too.”

Robyn got over her infection. Time went on, work continued, and she was back on the rescue grind. The number of collapses grew, and the public’s anxiety grew with it. Her dad, who’d been promoted to a managing janitor inside the factory, spent time cleaning the inside of apartments despite danger, and three times, buildings collapsed with him in them. Each time, Robyn would hold her breath, her body trembling, her boots pounding miles to find he was okay, but there was never a second to spare for a hug or a word of relief when she got there. Every moment was instead spent pulling people from the wreckage, searching for help, until one day, a shard of glass changed everything.

“Don’t-” Robyn tried, but Talia had already reached in with a cut hand to pull it out. She jerked her leg away at the last minute, preventing contact, but it was in this moment that she realized her own body was a danger, herself a hazard that could be spread on. How could she have been so reckless, so stupid, to endanger everybody? Any time, she could’ve gotten cut. Any day, she could’ve spread her disease. Rescue efforts were abandoned, and happy hours avoided for fear of being seen as a coward. Until Deek Jenkins, again, came to her aid.

A birthday present - the big twenty-five. Robyn was huddled up on the couch, watching a livestream of an apartment collapse from her armlet, when Deek came in.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” She asked, but he just grinned at her, extending a parcel from his hands to hers.

“I, uh, made this.” His eyes sparkled as she unwrapped it, a costume of fine, black material, cape included. “I know the design is kind of corny, but you’ve always been into the hero thing and you’ve seemed so down ever since Talia, um…the fabric’s cut proof. In the case that something gets through, though, there’s a compound on the inside that’ll immediately clot your blood, so people are safe, no spread. And I also wanted to tell you that I-”

“I love it, Deek.” Robyn’s lips rose, then fell as her eyes honed in on her screen. A pair of Overwatchers, their bodies too small to be seen clearly without zooming in, moved in the corner.

A familiar face, familiar gait, familiar everything. Suddenly, it all made sense. She checked her armlet.

“8:30. Pile A7X.” The apartment her dad was suppose to be cleaning. Time to put Deek’s outfit to the test.

The rescue mission was a rush of pure adrenaline. A building scaled, a fire alarm pulled, and hundreds evacuated in the nick of time. She gave no name - a vigilante, in and out before anybody could ask. And now it was time to get to the bottom of the collapses.

She made her way to the factory. Dark, no people or stars to be seen. If she could get into her dad’s office, maybe there’d be a list, some way to predict the next Pile falls. She’d save hundreds of lives, expose a massive conspiracy -and then a dot of red light materialized on her chest.

“Robyn.” Her father’s voice broke the silence. “I can explain-” “Explain what? How you’ve been killing innocent people for years?” All those apartments cleaned, how she thought he’d actually been in danger.

“Rebel suspects, Robyn. They’re killing thousands. Hear me out, I-”

Her eyes hardened. “You’re going to pay for this.”

Atticus’ lip twitched, another Overwatcher making his way beside him.

“We’ll kill her off, Martineaux. Don’t worry about it.” The man raised his mass accelerator, his finger draped on the trigger and then… five shots. A dropped body. But her dad’s weapon had made the blast.

“I’m sorry, Robyn.”

Another rustle. Deek- Deek had followed her. Maybe they could overpower him, find a way out, but Atticus whipped around, firing a shot before the boy could even blink. His body fell, an innocent who’d given his world for her. And then another shot. There was no time to think, no time to process, only dark.

When her eyes opened, they saw earth.

file: known associates

KIT BEISEL - although many of the crew seem eager to hear more of your great adventures, kit always seems to sit in the corner with a glint of skepticism in his eye. it is the kind of look that must come from years of dealing with frauds like you, and your greatest fear is it one day leading to question on the validity of the intricate tales you’ve constructed. you try to avoid him all you can and hope that he keeps his tongue, should he have any real suspicions.

THIS CHARACTER IS UNAVAILABLE.

#robyn #organic #all #closed

2 notes · View notes

artofpeacelove · 4 years

Link

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

I’m 32 years old, and I didn’t find out I was intersex until two years ago, after both of my parents had died. In the midst of an ugly sibling fight over our parents’ assets, one of my six older sisters called me a “faggot.” When I dialed up another, the eldest, to complain about the insult, her response was unexpected. “I don’t know why she would say that, since she knows you were born a girl,” she told me.

I identified at the time as transgender, as someone who had been born male but had transitioned to female, so I thought this was a rare moment of acceptance and progressive thought. It seemed my sister was acknowledging that I was “born this way.” As I turned the comment over and over in my mind that night, however, something didn’t sit quite right with me. So, I called her again the next day.

“What did you mean, that I was born a girl?” I asked her.

She begged out of answering, saying that she didn’t want to change the way I felt about our parents since they had passed, but I persisted. Finally, she told me that I’d been born intersex, or as she called it, “a hermaphrodite,” and that everyone knew but me. According to my sister, when I was born the doctor told my mom that I was deformed, that I would need surgery and hormones to live a “normal” life… as a boy. My mom was sent home with me but told that she’d need to return to the hospital soon in order to “fix me.” I underwent surgery at some point thereafter to remove the “unwanted” female parts of my anatomy, my sister told me. Suddenly, the scars in my genital region, the ones my mother had told me were from chicken pox, made sense. I wasn’t, however, given hormones at the time. The why of this remains a mystery, as I can no longer ask my parents to explain their thought process from all those years ago.

Despite an effort to “normalize” my body with surgery, however, I never felt as though I fit in. I remember looking up at the sky at a very young age: “Why am I so different?” I just felt like there weren’t many people like me, and that I was really alone. I was a boy but feminine. I dressed up like Belle from Beauty and the Beast and the female Power Rangers. My parents let me do as I pleased, and indulged me with outfits meant for little girls; maybe they felt guilty about what’d they’d done and wanted me to be as “me” as possible regardless. I’ll never know.

Then, one day in kindergarten, my teacher noticed there was a penis beneath my dress. She called my parents in and told them they had to start dressing me like a boy or I’d be expelled. That day is burned in my brain, because when we got home, my dad, a barber, told me we had to cut off my Dora the Explorer bob. I cried, as I’d wanted to grow it even longer, and was held against my will, kicking and screaming, as he shaved it. I remember saying to him that I hated him, and him replying that he was so sorry, and that it was hurting him to cut my hair, too. He told me it was for my own good and safety, words I didn’t understand at the time but which stuck with me nonetheless. The first act of violence against my identity took place in the room where I’d had surgery; this was the second.

In the years that followed, I was forced to conform to gender norms as a boy. The small act of rebellion I was still allowed was a refusal to wear pants. I wore shorts year-round instead, which earned me the nickname chores (the Spanish word for “shorts”). I still had no idea that I was intersex; all I knew was that the identity being forced upon me didn’t fit.

When my sister revealed the truth to me so many years later, she also told me that my parents had finally tried to get me hormone treatment when puberty refused to take hold, but that it had been too late. This revelation dredged up the memory of an appointment I’d attended with my father when I was 13. I remembered that the doctor had asked me if I wanted to take estrogen or testosterone. I didn’t know what he meant, but I told him I didn’t want to take anything. Then I told him I definitely did not want to be a boy, but that I didn’t want my father to know I didn’t want to be a boy.

To his credit, this rural Washington state doctor didn’t tell my father the truth. Instead, he told my dad it was too late for me to get the hormones, and that they should let nature run its course. Today I’m grateful for that doctor; however, at the time, I still left his office “a boy.”

Three years later, when I was 16, I began to really question myself and my life and my identity. I became depressed and attempted suicide on multiple occasions. After the last time failed, I decided I was just going to be whoever I wanted. Myself.

I left home for Los Angeles to attend the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. There I met my best friend Johanna. She told me that she was trans, and I said, “I am, too. I think.” At that time, I was dressing fairly androgynously, because that’s what felt best, but as she started taking me into trans spaces, I learned I had to become femme in order to be accepted. Otherwise, I was just “a gay boy in a dress.” I didn’t feel 100 percent onboard with the idea, but I didn’t know where I would find a community for the androgynous, and it was community I so desperately craved.

So, I began to transition via hormone therapy. In this period, I went home at one point and my mom said something odd, which was that she didn’t want me to be like my uncle, who had never married or had children. She also told me that she didn’t like me hanging out with the trans community because I was changing too much, and because I “wasn’t like them” as I’d been “born the way I am.” I argued that they were, too, not realizing at the time what she was trying to say.

My dad had always been more accepting than my mom, than most people, and when he was dying, something beautiful happened. He told my brother-in-law to call all of his daughters into the room. When we were gathered, he said, “You are all my daughters.” It was a such a beautiful moment of acknowledgement, one that healed the trauma from when he’d shaved my identity away as a kid.

After my mom died, and I learned that I was intersex, I realized that what she’d once said—that I was born this way—was her way of telling me that I was intersex. There was another revelation in this time period, too. The uncle she’d mentioned, the one she’d not wanted me to end up like, was also intersex. (By the way, intersex bodies often recur in family trees.)

This revelation helped me to heal my relationship with her, though she was already passed. I chose to replace the anger and resentment I’d felt with appreciation for the fact that she likely thought she was doing what’s best for me, trying to save me from the fate she’d seen my uncle suffer. I chose to accept that version versus the version of anger or mistrust or any sort of negative energy towards her and my father, these two beautiful beings who raised me with minimal education. With all of these realizations, I began the process of healing.

Learning that I was intersex, however, threw my life into a tailspin. At the time, I was doing trans advocacy work, and I wondered if I was an imposter. I didn’t know if I should separate myself not just from my work but from the trans community. Ultimately, I decided that no, I didn’t need to leave my work or my community because I had lived the trans experience before learning my truth. Instead, I added an identity for which I could advocate: intersex. Since then, I’ve identified as intersex trans femme.

I started to acknowledge my femininity and my masculinity at the same time. Finally, I understood why I have some soft features and why I have some hard features, and it allowed me to see myself no longer as what I need to change but as what I already am. There had always been a fight within myself—I was too feminine or not feminine enough—but the more I’ve allowed myself to be this androgynous being, the more that I continue to harness a power that is so beautiful and loving.

I know now that my parents did the best they could with the information and biases they possessed, but I would make different choices with my own child. Every intersex individual looks different—sometimes you might have a penis and a vagina, sometimes a penis and ovaries, etc. It takes innumerable forms. When you decide to change whatever it is that nature has made at such a young age, I consider this genital mutilation and therefore sexual abuse. You’re doing it without their consent, and you’re changing their entire lives. And yet, these surgeries are happening in secret all over the United States, and globally. It’s heartbreaking. We’re not close to enlightenment around this, though. California is the first state that’s tried to pass legislation banning doctors from performing such surgeries on babies and children, which tells you where we are as a nation.

If you’re not sure how to feel about the idea that intersex people should not be forced to gender conform, I invite you to consider how imbalanced this world is at present. We have a dominant gender and a submissive gender. To me, the intersex gender can help us to balance this imbalanced dynamic. I think that’s what we’re brought into the world to be: balance. I think there’s something very beautiful about having both genitalia.

Can you imagine what this world would look like if we acknowledged that intersex people exist rather than erasing an entire population out of existence?

To bring intersex populations out of the shadows, I believe we need LGBTQIA2S+ trainings in school wherein people of different identities speak about their experiences—a lesbian couple talks about lesbian sex, transgender people talk about trans sex, an intersex person talks about genitalia. In this way, these types of discussions would be normalized, and then people wouldn’t have to pose invasive questions (“What’s beneath your skirt?”) to strangers that make them uncomfortable and uneasy about their bodies.

I believe this would lead to a healthier society, mentally, because kids, like the one I once was, will be able to realize they’re not alone.

If you are intersex and struggling with your identity, that is the first thing I’d like you to know. I would also encourage you to harness your energy and focus on loving yourself and the body you’re in, because the shift in consciousness starts with that very personal change. If you are in a dark spot, cling on to the little bit of light for as long as you can until you find a bigger light to cling to. That’s what worked for me.

I know there aren’t many role models out there for intersex people to look up to, and it’s hard to talk about this stuff when elsewhere there’s just silence. I’m trying to create the change I need but there so many against it, and putting up a fight against so many bullies is scary.

Still, I’m going to do what I need to do to make it, and that’s loving the magical being I am, the one who was born between the sexes, perfectly.

***

Alexandra Magallon is a legal services client advocate for the Los Angeles LGBT Center who identifies as intersex trans femme. The intersex population has historically been erased, rendering it all but invisible. She offers her story (as told to Erin Bunch) to shed light on a closeted demographic that’s actually as common as redheads.

Being an ally for the LGBTQ+ community entails more than just wearing rainbows in June; here’s how to make allyship a foundational part of your everyday life. Plus, this ten-second tweak goes a huge distance towards helping the cause.

from Good Advice – Well+Good https://ift.tt/39Prf8i via IFTTT

#and this is what I want you to know about me and my body #I’m intersex #Good Advice – Well+Good

0 notes