1x Almadel’s Calling Card: A glossy, white card. In elegant script, Almadel is written in shimmering opalescent ink. On the other side, a holographic circle.
Almadel’s personalized, magical calling card. This item can be used to summon him anywhere, any time. You simply need to place your thumb over the holographic circle on the back of the card and he will almost immediately arrive.
He has a unique magic that allows him to travel to otherwise difficult or impossible to reach locations. This might be an unnamed/unclaimed/random location in space. He may be able to travel to locked or inaccessible locations on Wonders or Homeworlds and he can even reach homeworlds and Wonders of Chaos locations.
He cannot reach some specific meta locations but he may be able to get close enough to view or observe certain conditions. Players can inquire about these but are cautioned that others may be investigating the same meta location so information is not first come first serve. Staff will attempt to give something unique for all RPs, though.
Every visit has a time limit; Almadel’s magic does not work for long and he can only carry one person at a time per card. He can do group RPs but all participants must have a card. This card can also be used to summon Almadel for information or for bargain/trade. This item will be earnable again in the future.
Because this is a very powerful ability, plots will need thorough approval with staff before use. Please PM The Space Cauldron with your character and what they would like to gain from Almadel. We will work with you to plot things out!
Found (Starfest 2024, “A Night At The Museum” ORP), Used (forthcoming).
1x Antique Charm: A small, burnished silver charm that can be unlatched to open.
This little charm would make perfect company for any dress when fashioned on any chain. While it looks a little worn from the outside, when opened it emits small pulse of light. Focusing on this light will allow a single non-moving image to form from the user's past life. This image can be of someone, something or somewhere, but will only be visible to the user. The user can open this locket as many times as they would like but the image inside will remain the same.
Claimed (Jan. 9th, 2023; Winter Holiday 2022), Found (forthcoming), Used (forthcoming).
1x Black Shard: A small, reflective black shard about the size of a finger. Snapping this shard in two pieces releases a black plume that, when inhaled, causes a hallucination that reflects someone’s innermost darkness.
It will affect only one person, and the hallucination will last for up to half an hour before it fades. The hallucination is only as powerful as the mind lets it be; it cannot hurt anyone or do any damage, but the user may be under the impression that it can during the hallucination. The hallucination shows them the darkest part of themselves, either as they see themselves or as others see themselves. It is mean to be a tool of reflection.
Once the magic wears out, it will appear like a translucent smoky quartz crystal, though it may appear as though the black smoke inside occasionally shifts about; it is a reflection of the darkness inside of everyone. It may be kept as a memento.
Claimed (Jul. 6th, 2022; Starfest 2022), Found (forthcoming), Used (forthcoming).
1x Bottled Wisp: A small wisp in a bottle.
Release the Wisp from the bottle. The wisp will lead the user towards an undisclosed location and reveal to them a vision of the past. This vision is vivid and allows the user to relive a single memory as you are transported into the body of your former life. During this time the user will feel, taste and smell everything but they will not possess the ability to control the body they're in. The user will be moved against their will and anything that happens during this memory will feel as though is happening to the user.
When this memory subsides the user will be unharmed, but what they experienced will remain. After the magic has expired the bottle can be kept as a memento.
Claimed (Jul. 7th, 2022; Starfest 2022), Found (forthcoming), Used (forthcoming).
2x Golden Vial: A vial, roughly the size of a finger, filled with slow moving golden liquid. The vial will always be in an unmarked pouch of any color or fabric and can be found discarded or hidden on Homeworlds or Wonders, within the depths of Mirrorspace, or within the Dark Kingdom.
To use this item, you must uncork the top and drink the full dose at once. Splitting the dose will yield no effects. The golden liquid tastes sweet, but has no identifiable flavor. Once emptied, the vial will heat up and the glass will appear covered with a dozen cosmetic golden hairline fracture; the vial is not damaged in this process. Drinking this liquid guarantees that you will have some memory from your most recent past life, regardless of your affiliation or faction. Even civilian characters will have a short memory of their past life.
Only one memory may be recovered clearly, but that night you may also have vague dreams of up to three other partial memories. Mauvians can also use this but should not have memories on Mau; youma can use this item but the memories they receive should be them as a human in their most recent life. The vial can be kept as a memento.
Claimed (Jul. 6th, 2022; Starfest 2022), Found (forthcoming), Used (forthcoming). Claimed (March 16th, 2023), Found (forthcoming), Used (forthcoming).
PERSONAL ITEMS
The Heart’s Desire: A round, palm-sized silver locket with an attached chain necklace. The locket has an engraved floral pattern on the front, a heart made out of rose blossoms and braided thorns. Inside the locket is a small mirror.
Found after it fell through a rift following the battle with the Calamitous Hollow.
PERMANENT ACCESSORIES
Chrysocoin of Comfort: A small, exquisitely carved, wooden coin with a chrysocyon paw carved into it. The coin itself is a light wood, almost birch in appearance, and the paw is stained to a rich mahogany dark shade. Rub the coin over the paw, and a feeling of comfort will embrace you, as if you've just had a long conversation with a good friend of yours. It can be used once per day, and the magic lasts for up to ten minutes in non battle environments. (Chrysocyon Chaos 2024)
CyberCritter: An ancient pocket-sized, handheld virtual pet game of unknown origin. Miraculously, it still works. It utilizes a very simple symbol-based interface. The CyberCritter starts out as a star seed-shaped egg that can go on to mature into an endless variety of two-tone pixelated forms. Good luck keeping it alive for longer than twelve hours. (Artificial Cosmic Power Event 2022.)
Fractured Crystal: A palm-sized crystal shard with dark clouds and a black tar that swirls inside of it; it has faint cracks along its surface. A fragment of the crystal from within the strange pocket dimension during the 2022 Star Festival. The user must hold the Fractured Crystal in the palm of their hand and slash through the air. Once per day they can tear a rift in space and pass through it to another location.
While you may pass through immediately to your destination of choice (on the same plane of existence) you may also get trapped in a strange, dark dimension. This between-space is full of an oppressive air and a dark, sticky tar like substance covers all surfaces. There seem to be untapped amounts of energy here, and characters that drain energy may find this a surprising advantage while gathering energy.
Time seems to pass strangely in this weird dimension and while you may feel like you’re here for up to two hours at a time, you may actually be gone anywhere from a few minutes up to an hour. If you are sucked into the strange portal, you will always be deposited at your location of choice afterwards. In rare situations, up to one other person may be sucked into the strange space as well as the wielder, but they will both be stuck in the between space and will feel significantly drained by the time they come out the other side.
Soothing Bell: A small, round bell with a tiny metal charm dangling from it.
The bell can be rung once per day and for one full hour the ringer will be overtaken by the sensation of a serene peace and will find that all of their worries seem to be gone and they are incredibly clear headed.
If a powered character uses this item while in their respective place of power they will receive additional benefits; A Senshi or Knight using this on their Homeworld or Wonder they will find that restoration significantly improves while using the bell (allowing restoration akin to two visits), Negaverse characters will find that the Rift is easier to navigate and youma are more agreeable (and may even lose significant interest in Corrupted Senshi), Mirrorspace is easier to navigate and Mirrorscape Realms may flourish a bit more. Mauvians may have more past life memories while on their Bonded Senshi’s worlds and may also improve restoration somewhat, and Vanguardians may find that their Source Stones seem to naturally replenish energy and can provide a greater output towards their projects.
The Crystal Rose (Starfest 2022): A black rose in full bloom with the thorns intact—completely black, not the very dark purple-red that gets passed off as a black rose on Earth—eternally preserved in closely form-fitting crystal.
The crystal encasing the leaves is engraved: one leaf has Sailor Murikabushi’s perpetually unsatisfied ouroboros symbol (though here, curled around a rose blossom), and the other has a design of a wolf with wings and a peacock tail. Aside from being eternally preserved in crystal, it has no other magical properties, but it was an item of great personal significance to Airan, the previous Sailor Murikabushi.
The black rose was his family’s sigil and sacred to his people, and this particular black rose was grown in a public garden in one of the poorest districts of the capital city, one that Airan had secured the funding to see built so that the people had somewhere to cultivate food, herbs, etc. themselves, (nominally) free of the whims of the noble elites. Despite his role in seeing the garden built at all, Airan received no public credit and wasn’t allowed to venture far enough from the palace to see it. His lover—a “country mouse in the big city” lawyer with a passion for defending the people, a mind for revolution, and an absolute devotion to liberty—cut the flower for him so he could see that the garden was in use and starting to flourish, had it preserved for him, and had the crystal engraved with symbols representing both of them (the wolf being his self-appointed sigil).
Black Rose Tea-Set (Starfest 2023): A tea-set (1 kettle, 1 tea pot, 4 cups and saucers, and a silver tea infuser on a chain, shaped like a rose blossom) in a black wooden box with a silver latch. The kettle, pot, cups and saucer are white ceramic, painted with designs of black roses and Murikabushi’s perpetually unsatisfiedouroboros symbol. The magic is in the infuser; when it has leaves or flower petals put inside it, it properly dries them out so they will be ready to make tea within five minutes. Historically, the tea set was used in Sailor Murikabushi’s chibi growth ritual.
MURIKABUSHI:thirty-two (one used ~March 2nd, 2023; two traded to Almadel, June 17th 2023; two dumped on Lete, August 21st 2023; two given to Hybris, September 3rd 2023).
Murikabushi’s crystals produce black roses native to his homeworld. Unlike most “black” flowers naturally grown on Earth (i.e., created without using dye)—which are usually very dark reds or purples—Murikabushian black roses naturally grow with true black petals and blossoms. They are non-toxic and durable in any weather conditions, but easily wilt if not given enough attention. Their thorns are very sharp and should be handled with care, but can be easily removed with pruning shears, pocketknives, etc.
One crystal can produce a 12-foot-long rosebush, which can be cultivated horizontally or vertically as “climbing roses”; horizontally grown bushes will be about two feet tall. Additional crystals may be used to add length to the rosebush, maxing out at 60 feet (5 crystals), or to create a thicket by making separate bushes that overlap with each other.
WHITE:four (dumped on Lete, August 21st 2023); three.
YELLOW:three (dumped on Lete, August 21st 2023); two.
“Because we all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.” —Penelope Douglas, Next to Never.
Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 1:15 pm
[reserved for more detail about murikabushi of the past]
“[W]hen [medieval women] ate God [during the eucharist],…[t]hey were also reversing their ordinary cultural role of food preparers and food abstainers.… Moreover, women manipulated far more than their own bodies through fasting. They manipulated their families, their religious superiors, and God himself. Fasting was not merely a substitution of pathological and self-defeating control of self for unattainable control of circumstance. It was part of suffering; and suffering was considered an effective activity, which redeemed both individual and cosmos.” —Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women.
“It’s time to face reality, Doctor. You’re a man who dreams of being a hero because you know, deep down, that you’re not. I’m no hero either, but I do know how to make a choice.…” —Elim Garak (Ronald D. Moore), Star Trek: Deep Space 9, “Our Man Bashir.”
Name: Airan (愛蘭).
愛, ai: “love.” 蘭, ran: “orchid.”
His family name exists—炎黒, Homurakuro, “black flames” (can also be read as “flame in the darkness,” “intense guilt,” “dark passions,” or “anarchist passions”)—but was forcibly stripped from him when he first awakened as Sailor Murikabushi.
Nickname: No, thank you. (A certain Valentín Rochetenue was permitted to call him “beloved,” but you are not Valentín, so do not presume to have that privilege.)
Gender/Pronoun: His people’s conception of gender was somewhat more complex than a binary of “man” and “woman,” but “cisgender man” most closely reflects how Airan felt and experienced gender. He/him.
Age at Awakening: 7.
Age at Death:
Birthday:
Sign: (Optional)
Gemstone: (Optional; follows your zodiac sign)
Fav. Food: (Optional)
Hated Food: (Optional)
Hobbies: xxx (xxx):
xxx (xxx):
xxx (xxx):
xxx (xxx):
xxx (xxx):
Virtues: on the contrary: i always hope for the best.…… (Idealistic):
i’ve given you all the answers i’m capable of (Earnest):
the truth is usually just an excuse for lack of imagination (Clever/Creative):
i knew brutus was going to kill caesar in the first act, but caesar didn’t figure it out until the knife was in his back! (Perceptive):
never let sentiment get in the way of your work (Efficient Compartmentalizing):
Flaws: ……experience, unfortunately, has taught me to expect the worst (Cynical):
my dear doctor, they’re all true.… *especially* the lies (Dissembling):
paranoid is what they call people who imagine threats against their lives; i *have* threats against my life! (Suspicious):
“tragedy” is not the word i’d use; “farce” would be more appropriate (Haughty):
for me, past and present are not so neatly separated. i live with everything in the moment—including the nightmares (Haunted): Just because Airan can bite his feelings back in the name of doing his job, does not mean that the feelings cease to exist.
******
Was involved with a cool little merc group. Didn’t really have the space to be a full member, but he was fully capable of exerting Senshi Influence to swish into wherever they were being held today, dolled up in his finery, and bullshit a cute story to get them out of danger. He’s sure they were only taking jobs that would help people, right, guys? ………Right, guys? :<
“Be gentle on a night like this and you’ll have treasons popping up all about you like mushrooms after a hard rain. The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.”
“I will remember, Your Grace,” said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people’s loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me. —Cersei Lannister & Sansa Stark (George RR Martin), A Clash of Kings.
Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 1:15 pm
CITIZEN VALENTÍN ROCHETENUE
“They made you cry / But that will end tonight / You are the only thing that's right / About this broken world / Go on and cry / But when the morning comes / We’ll burn it down and then / We’ll build the world again / Our love is god” —J.D. (Laurence O’Keefe & Kevin Murphy), Heathers: The Musical.
Also known as “The Peacock” and “The Incorruptible.” Beloved of the last Sailor Murikabushi. A small-town boy from a broken, dysfunctional, moderately disgraced family, who earned a scholarship to university and law school by virtue of his academic excellence, and began working his way up the ranks in the Murikabushian Assembly.
Went on to lead a revolution with Airan against the Murikabushian nobility and moneyed elites, tearing down the monarchy and the old Assembly in favor of a genuine democratic society. However, the tenuous situation after the revolution progressively led things to unravel, and Chaos found an easy in by infecting Valentín. He grew suspicious, even downright paranoid, seeing counterrevolutionary threats in everything and injustices where there hadn’t been any. More and more people wound up sent to the guillotine, including several of his former siblings-in-arms (which many believed to be him grasping at power and taking out threats, but unfortunately, Chaos had so infected his mind that Valentín genuinely believed his friends had turned on him, betrayed the revolution, and betrayed the people who trusted them).
Eventually, he even sent his oldest friend, Camille Desauntain (M), and his beloved Airan to the guillotine for alleged “counterrevolutionary treason”—which led some to posthumously suspect an affair between the two of them (there had not been one). However, this move proved to be Valentín’s undoing. After all the work he’d done to repair Airan’s public image, he’d made the people love and adore their senshi. For a modern comparison, he’d made Airan go from popularly loathed subject of regular mockery like Meghan Markle to revered as a living saint like Princess Diana. And sending the People’s Senshi to the guillotine did not particularly endear Valentín to the already restless, increasingly angry populace.
Died after an assassination attempt against him failed, and met his end as he’d made so many others do: labeled a traitor to his people, denounced as a threat to all Murikabushi, and sent to the guillotine.
Too bad killing him didn’t save their planet.
Idealistic, committed to his belief in justice, and deeply motivated to protect and fight for those in need, Valentín loathed the excesses of the Murikabushian elites with whom he needed to work and, knowing that his background meant he would never truly gain their acceptance, often dressed outrageously and exaggerated his natural behaviors to the point of parodying them. Earned his sobriquet, “The Incorruptible,” because he refused to compromise in his belief that his calling was not to secure power or advance his own positions but to advocate for the poor and downtrodden of Murikabushi.
Needless to say, he wasn’t exactly popular in the Assembly, though he did have a talent for rhetoric, debate, and knowing the right buttons to push with people to make them agree with him and support his different legislative motions even when they didn’t want to do so.
Met Airan when assigned to be the Assembly’s liaise to him (which the other Assembly members pretty openly did as an attempt at getting Valentín out of their hair while they debated things without him). Initially, he didn’t find Airan particularly interesting, having no reason to believe the lies that the senshi’s handlers spread about him in the public imagination but also seeing no reason to think there was more to the senshi than what had been whispered. That is, while he didn’t think Airan was the selfish, vapid doll that his handlers seemed to see in him (it was, after all, Airan who’d demanded a liaise from the Assembly and he seemed anything but vapid in their meetings), Valentín also couldn’t see how the senshi was fulfilling his duty of protecting and fighting for Murikabushi and their people. He hardly even left the palace, and when he did, it was either: 1. accompanied by his handlers, for some public display or other; or 2. to go pursue diplomatic relationships off-world.
Or so Valentín thought, until he happened to arrive early for one of his meetings with the senshi, saw one of the high lords from the Assembly leaving the senshi’s office, and then entered (without knocking, a habit for him; he wanted to keep the senshi on his toes) to find Airan in a state of obvious disarray and still crying. This was when he learned exactly what Airan had been doing behind the scenes to try and fulfill his duties as senshi through whatever means he had available, while working within the constrains that his handlers forced upon him.
In turn, this led him to reevaluate everything he’d believed and thought about the senshi, and to see Airan not as haughty, cold, aloof, and uncaring, but as constantly frightened, deeply wounded, so compassionate that it overwhelmed him on a regular basis, and trapped in a toxic, exploitative system, the same as the people they both wanted to help.
………………Look, I’m not saying that Valentín is essentially Space Robespierre; I’m saying that he’s Sexy Space Robespierre. Very important semantic difference.
HIS MAJESTY, QUEEN CLOVEAU
“Lost in an image, in a dream / But there’s no one there to wake her up / And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning / But tell me what happens when it stops? They go / Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl? / And they say / She’s so lucky, she’s a star But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking / ‘If there’s nothing missing in my life Then why do these tears come at night?’” —“Lucky,” Britney Spears.
KIMADÉSIR
“Life inside the music box ain't easy / The mallets hit, the gears are always turning / And everyone inside the mechanism / Is yearning to get out / And sing another melody completely / So different from the one they're always singing / I close my eyes and think that I have found me / But then I feel mortality surround me…” —“Music Box,” Regina Spektor.
MODEL NAME: Kimadésir MODEL TYPE: Entertainment/courtier droid WORLD OF ORIGIN: Murikabushi
APPEARANCE: Approximately human sized (about five feet, ten inches tall) and very humanoid in body shape, facial features. From a distance, might look like a beautiful human youth, dressed in a violet and silver brocade waistcoat and matching breeches, with his face powdered white and a blush painted on; his soft pink hair falls to the middle of his back, tied in a ponytail. Up close, however, the clothing and makeup aren’t real, but an intricate paint job on his silver casing, and the hair, while originally from some humanoid person, is fixed to his cranial unit like a wig. Additionally, his eyes have no pupils and are instead pearlescent white. Distinctly not human but so very close to human-looking.
SPECIAL FEATURE: Despite his metallic shell, Kimadésir has incredible flexibility, well beyond that of most humanoids. His arms and head can all complete full 360-degree rotations, and his legs are only slightly less so. He isn’t quite as maneuverable as a snake, but he can nevertheless contort himself into tight spots, then wiggle out of them with ease.
MANUFACTURER'S NOTES: Are you tired of your fêtes always being outdone by your rivals? Of how much money a feast can cost? Never fear! The latest courtesan android from Ocranewyn’s best mechanists, Kimadésir, will handle everything. He sings, he dances, he tells charming anecdotes. With state of the art interpersonal interface technology, he’ll never run out of ways to keep your guests entertained, with only the best of hospitality. They make such excellent companions, even His Majesty the Queen and our Senshi can’t wait to have one! Get yours today—before you get forever left behind!
SELF-DESIGNATION: Answers equally to “Kima,” “Dez,” “Kimadésir,” “droid,” “you,” and pretty much any robot-themed insult you might come up with. Won’t get terribly upset about not being “Kima” or referred to with he/him or they/them pronouns, but does prefer that. Affectionate prefixes or suffixes (e.g., “Kima-chan” or “A-Dez”) give him an odd pang of nostalgia, though he no longer remembers why.
[The Green Carnation Café, Marcel's Bar and Grille, Gertrude’s, + The Closet]
“Men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.” —John Steinbeck, Cannery Row.
Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 9:51 pm
OFFICIAL ART
UNOFFICIAL ART
‘Dorian has always been a harlot high and low. Whether he’s in the darkness of a box at Covent Garden, or the darkness of a toilet stall underneath the Strand, his behaviour remains the same, intriguing and besmirching. He’s developed a particular affinity with Thickie Spencer, because like her he’s a psychological parvenu. After all, both of them have bona fides aplenty to be themselves in the beau monde, yet they prefer to act. They find acting so much more real than reality.…
‘Sometimes, I think that it's Dorian who’s the true retrovirus. Because throughout everything, his true self has remained inviolate… Yes… If Dorian has a heart, I envision it as being like this… this dear little iceberg of…crack…cocaine…’ —Henry Wootton (Will Self), Dorian: An Imitation.
greg is honestly the worst(backdated to early march 2022; 1,476 words).
Glancing up from his table to see a distinctly unwelcome silhouette in the doorway, Reiki Rokugin heaved a sigh. “I don’t have time to debate this with you right now, darling.”
“What…is the debate supposed to be? Exactly?” Despite the lack of invitation into Reiki’s craft-room, Greg sauntered past the threshold, vaguely in his fiancé’s direction. “Because I thought—well, I’d say I was led to believe—you know, after our little talk—”
“We live together,” Reiki pointed out. “You’ll need to be more specific than ‘our little talk.’”
Greg stopped dead in his tracks and the middle of a syllable. Unfortunately, this did not ultimately keep him from finishing his advance on the table, or leaning at an angle that could not have been comfortable as he tried to peer around Reiki’s sewing machine, or hmm-ing at what he saw as he would’ve done for a painting he thought didn’t deserve a spot of honor in the art gallery his Uncle Jim bought his second wife as a birthday present. Pursing his lips, Reiki bit back everything he could’ve said. If he dignified this nonsense with an answer, then he’d only invite Greg to waste more time in here, rubbernecking.
Arms folded over his chest, Greg stayed quiet—until Reiki pumped down on his sewing machine’s pedal. Greg pouted, but that didn’t change how Reiki missed whatever all he’d said. Sucks for Greg’s refusal to speak up, but his words got lost amidst the machine’s methodical chug-chug-chug. Politely turning it off and looking at him……that sounded like what Greg wanted Reiki to do. Most other days, Reiki might have even indulged him.
But today, Greg could wait for Reiki to finish this hem. Only when he was done did Reiki let the sewing machine fall silent. Only after he checked the stitches for any protruding threads did he fold his hands on the table and lift his gaze to meet Greg’s.
“I said,” Greg drawled, “‘What’re you making, Babe?’”
“I’m fixing up my dress for the show tomorrow night. Mirri and the tech crew are ready and rehearsed with the cues for my and Brenda’s number to ‘The Boy Is Mine.’” Reiki took a deep breath, pondered whether or not to say the rest of what he had in mind—but one look at Greg’s shirt made him add, “Just because your sister won’t control her children? Doesn’t mean that any member of the Legendary Haus of Disobedience-and-Poppins can get up on stage and look a ******** mess.”
Greg cut himself short, just shy of a groan. Incidentally, that sentiment reflected exactly how Reiki felt about the words splashed across Greg’s chest: “Some People Call Me A LAWYER, But The Most Important People Call Me DADDY.”
Quirking an eyebrow, Reiki huffed. “Please don’t tell me you plan on wearing that to the bar tomorrow.”
“Would it be an issue if I did? I mean, don’t your sisters—your drag sisters, I mean—already know that you don’t—”
“Call you a lawyer?” Until Greg tried retaking the Virginia State bar exam, assuming that he actually passed, nobody could justify doing that.
He frowned like he was trying his best not to pout, and his best simply didn’t cut it. “…I meant they know that you and I don’t…y’know, do that? With all the ‘pass the salt, please, daddy’ stuff?”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to find the shirt distasteful.”
“As I was saying, though?” Shuffling uncomfortably, Greg took a deep breath. “Uh, I was under the impression, after we talked? In the conversation about Congressman Hayes, and me being on his team now, and how much of an opportunity that is for us—”
“For you—”
“Well, I only mean…” Greg shrugged with a feigned ignorance that made Reiki’s nerves itch. “Obviously, the Congressman appreciates having gay staffers? And he appreciates all of his gay, lesbian, bi, and the rest of us in his constituency? But he does have to maintain some of his appeal to more moderate and centrist Democrats—I mean, losing any blue seats is a big deal—and……you know.”
First, Greg gestured at one of the styrofoam mannequin heads resting on a different table, which held a glistening, pin-straight blonde wig. Next, he pointed to the body-form where Reiki had placed a hot pink, polyester satin party dress, spangled with rhinestones all up and down the bodice and the ruffled skirt. He’d nearly gone blind, stoning that dress in the middle of the night, getting it done in fits and starts after different rounds of helping Greg study for the bar exam. How many times had he checked and double-checked those stupid things, making sure that he alternated magenta stones and the fuchsia ones in the right way, following the outline of a harlequin print? Good thing it had a mini-skirt, or it’d likely prove too heavy to move in, much less dance.
Yet, as Reiki looked back to Greg, his fiancé arched both brows expectantly, waiting for Reiki to catch up with some point that Greg held to be self-evident. Considering precedent, Reiki could guess what he meant, and giving him that satisfaction wasn’t an option.
“If you’re worried about someone else appreciating how good I look when I’m up in my geish, sweetheart,” he said, “then you’re always welcome to come to my show.”
Lips pursing like a nauseated frog, Greg bowed his head and looked away. In the back of his mind, Reiki hoped the empty wig-heads didn’t let Greg off the hook, but judged him as harshly as Armand would, were he here to do so, whether as himself or dolled up as Miss Brandy Sazerac. God, how long had it even been since Greg had come out to see him werk it, own it, feel his oats? How many times had he found some excuse—sometimes valid (“I’ve really got to finish this essay for Professor Bantam”) and sometimes credulity-straining (“I don’t know, babe, is Ricki gonna be tending bar tonight, I swear she has it out for me”)?
Muffling a fake cough behind his fist, Greg shrugged like he couldn’t think of anything to say for himself—and yet, he managed well enough to mumble, “I just mean…stuff like this? The wigs, and the heels, and the dresses, and the drag? All that with you dressing up all fancy to lip-synch to, what is it, this time? Taylor Swift? Janet Jackson? Kesha?”
“Ser Dorian Gay and I have been working on a ‘Barbie Girl’ number, which you would know—”
“But what about that one queen? The, like—I don’t know? She’s, y’know, a bigger queen, and African-American, and I think she’s on the Race? So, one of my guy friends, he watches with his girlfriend, right? And Nick says Melissa told him that this queen owns that song now, since I guess she did a good job—”
“Silky Nutmeg Ganache is not the first drag queen in the world to perform to Aqua’s ******** ‘Barbie Girl,’ Greg—”
“I didn’t say she was the first—”
“Nor will she be the last—”
“I didn’t say that—”
“You haven’t said what you mean at all since you barged in on me while I’m working. Clearly, you have something on your mind—”
“It just doesn’t play in Topeka, okay?” Eyes wide and vacant as a naked pancake, Greg fixed Reiki with a Look that begged for guidance on what, exactly, Reiki expected him to do. “Not that Congressman Hayes has constituents in Topeka yet, obviously not? But a six-four Asian-American—”
“Japanese-American—”
“—man with shoulders and a face like you’ve got? Normal people would rather see you on a Netflix show or a movie poster! Not all up in a wig and heels, flouncing around a gay bar to ‘Barbie Girl’ with your one friend who doesn’t know what gender to be today, y’know what I mean?”
Folding his hands on the table, Reiki took a deep breath.
He counted to ten in his head—twice, for good measure. Starting a real fight wouldn’t let him get back to sewing.
“Elijah is not uncertain of his gender, actually. Not that it’s your business or anybody else’s, but none of the different drag characters he plays at shows? Change the reality of him being a man—which you understand perfectly fine for all the cis members of my family, so I need to ask: why do you find Elijah so confusing?” With a huff, Reiki tucked his bangs behind his ear, so Greg could see both eyes. “Secondly: considering Trixie Mattel paints like a demented, broken nightmare doll and still plays to sold out houses everywhere in the country, including Kansas? No, sweetheart, I don’t know what you mean.
“Now, if you don’t mind…?” With a decisive huff, he gestured at the door, and turned back to his sewing machine. “Unless you have something important to tell me? Kindly excuse yourself and let me work.”
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 10:51 am
greg is honestly the worst, pt. ii(backdated to early may 2023; 1,049 words).
Quaint by all outside appearances, Scandals Bar sat in the heart of Destiny City’s unofficial queer district, with a coffee shop to its left, an independent bookstore to its right, and a diner across the street that served breakfast whenever you wanted. At a first glance, someone might not have pegged the innocent red bricks for the current reigning coolest queer nightspot in town. Even the hot pink neon sign above the door didn’t stand out terribly much from the surrounding street with its brightly colored flags (a rainbow here, a blue-pink-white there, an orange-white-pink somewhere else), its kitsch statues in the windows of locally owned shops, its arrangements of vibrant Christmas tree lights, still hanging up in the middle of spring.
Then again, hardly anything about Scandals would stand out overly much at two-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon. The biggest point that might attract notice was the bouncer, already in place outside, though he wouldn’t check anybody’s driver’s licenses until the bar officially opened, an hour-and-a-half later. Still, if one knew the right words to give him, like a speakeasy attendant, he might let you in.
Among the list of people who did know the words were Reiki and the members of his drag family, the legendary House of Disobedience-and-Poppins. Today, he, Jude (alias Miss Sybil Disobedience), and Armand (alias Brandy Sazerac) had come in so far before the bar’s opening for the sake of rehearsal. Not that anyone could tell, at the moment, since they’d spent the past ten minutes huddling together over one of the tables around Scandals’ main floor, going over the performance order for Saturday night’s show.
“What I need to know, Miss Thing,” Armand said, waving his pen at Reiki like a magic wand, “is what sort of costume we can expect for your ‘Fastlove’ number—”
“‘Thot s**t,’ actually,” Reiki added. In the face of Armand’s inquisitively arched eyebrows, begging him to pray, explain, he shrugged. “So, I had an idea in the shower the other week, right? I sat on it long enough to reconsider and still liked it, and then I worked with Tiff to make up a new mix that goes from ‘Fastlove’ into Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘Thot s**t’—”
“Aren’t you in the middle of finals? Don’t you have to, like, care? About grading student papers, finishing your papers, getting Dr. Obaasan’s ducks in a row so she can handle the proper final grades, and all that graduate student s**t?”
“I’ve been doing fine with that!”
“Have you been sleeping, Sweetie?” Taking a sip of water through his metal straw, Jude pointed an immaculately manicured finger at Reiki’s cheeks—no.… Oh, no, wait.… On consideration, Jude was aiming at his eyes. More specifically, he probably meant to aim for the area right beneath them. “God is watching, Baby: what kind of picture would we find if I played the Drag Mom card and made you go wash off your day-to-day eye-beat in the bathroom of your choice?”
Against his conscious will, Reiki’s shoulders stiffened. As he took a deep breath and tried to pretend he wasn’t squirming, he supposed, “It’s not that bad.… Haruhi’s place—well, our place, now, thankfully? And it’s much easier to sleep there than at the old apartment with the man whose name we do. not. speak. Not least thanks to my best girl.”
If no one took the hint, Reiki wasn’t above whipping out his phone to show off pictures of Cersei sitting so pretty with her eyes on a piece of cheese that dangled just out of view, or playing with her new toy dinosaur (which, miraculously, lived up to its promise of being made with rough play in mind, and had yet to lose either stuffing or the squeaky thing that made her love chewing on it so much).
At least Armand picked up on the cue laced in with Reiki’s overly stressed progression of nouns: “Speaking of ‘We Don’t Talk About Some Certain Men’? Really, how much time are you gonna need for a costume change between ‘Fastlove’ and ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’? Dorian really wants to give it a test run at the bar before we show it off for any kids this summer, at like, Star Festival or any other gigs we might pick up.”
Reiki thought about it for a moment. “If I were playing Isabela, I wouldn’t really need any time. The whole thing with the ‘Fastlove’ number is that I’m going to start it looking like I’m in pure boy-drag? But as the song goes on, I’m going to striptease into my usual sort of girl geish—y’know, Disney princess to contrast with the boy-drag, but still slutty—”
“While projecting your Grindr profile on the back wall.”
“Uh, yes, Mawma, obviously.” Jude snorted at Reiki’s affectations, and Reiki couldn’t blame him, really. Nor did he mind. Making his drag mother chuckle always felt good to do. “Either way, I don’t think I’ll need that much time to change. The wig is the bigger thing to change than the costume, so if we could work out two or three other numbers, maybe?” Really, this was all that needed to be said. Regardless, Reiki tacked on, “I still don’t understand why the family decided that I should be cast as Dolores when I’m Jude and Eli’s first daughter, but it’s cool.”
Lips pursed more than a Louis Vuitton handbag, Armand threw Reiki a Pointed Look that refused to outright say he thought his sister was being an idiot, but made the intention clear. “You,” he drawled. “You, Miss Mouth Almighty? You, the one who does Megan Thee Stallion like it’s nothing and can make the rap breakdown in Paula Abdul’s ‘Cold-Hearted’ look ******** effortless? You don’t understand why Dorian and I cast you as Dolores Madrigal?”
“Alright, well, when you break it down like that—”
“Hey, Sayuri!” In unison, Reiki, Jude, and Armand perked up, turning toward the bar. Behind it, Ricki had paused her pre-opening preparations to wave for attention, then point at a distinctly unwelcome figure. “He got past Mike outside, but…you want me to have him escorted out anyway?”
“I had the password,” Greg said, a more than subtle note of whining slithering into his tone. “And why do I need to leave? I only want to talk.”
In which Reiki has a meltdown about his ex, sass-mouths another youma, and gets to awaken as Dark Mirror Murikabushi. He also attempts to explain the plot of Frozen 2 to Soyala because this makes somewhat more sense than the youma-fight that’s happening and everything the talking cat is saying about him being a senshi.
Awakening as Dark Mirror Murikabushi doesn’t mean that Reiki stops needing cheap jewelry to work into different costume pieces, thus: a trip to Claire’s, where he meets a lovely associate. (IN PROGRESS.)
