oh yeah if you try to go to the parks when you're a kid no one will fuck you

unless you look more like an adult

or use a gloryhole I guess

do they have gloryholes in gilead

I honestly have no clue

Probably need some secret code I never learned before I did a runner

yeah I have no idea how people find places to cruise if they're not just like

labeled

Adults Only Between Midnight And Six AM

At least they're easy to find here!

you should watch more porn! and find out your kinks!

I'm working on it! Give me some time, there's more than I thought

Isn't that a mood

*Opens the internet* 'Surely there's a limited amount of this?'

*There is an endless torrent of dicks*

you haven't even found the exotic ones yet

I'd have no way to tell, honestly

Well have you gotten off to ovipositors

Haven't encountered that one, no!

Something to look forward to.

I will savour it. Only Google it when I feel completely jaded about the world and need the spark of something bizarre to bring me back to my senses.

I wish I had such innocence.

Surely you're also interested in tarnishing it, as well

whenever you want

but not this week because john and I have plans

alas, I'm just going to have to focus on my studies this week

They do manage to arrange a time and place, and it goes well, all things considered. Aang does not end up listed as "LOVE YOURSELF" in Jing Yi's phone, and Jing Yi puts on a command performance of "innocent-but-not-THAT-innocent Gileadite.'

Jing Yi spends most of his time studying. He does well, generally. Not at the top of his class, but up there.

He gets more settled in in Cascadia. He learns to cook things that aren't just microwave meals-- though the things he learns are mostly variants "instant noodles with frozen vegetables".  He goes to see plays and gets to be surprised by Shakespeare and cries more about Ophelia and Juliet's deaths more than is seemly. He works on having an actual social life, even if it ends up being very Lev-Asher-Rose centric with a side of Aang-and-Jon. He helps form a little study group who meets after science class to wrestle with periodic tables and physics algebra and why did so much happen millions of years ago?

He even goes to a Zen temple, run mostly by white people, because it's not right, but it's the correct Vehicle and it's the right sutras even if they're in the wrong language and it's not run by the Theravadans and he will take what he can find. And he sets up a proper memorial table.

He considers his job prospects-- namely that there is no way he would do well in Cascadian law enforcement, oh fuck no, any attempts would go hilariously wrong and he is just not going to try.

...he follows Lev's to do the thing that 'that sounds terrifying and also great and they should try it and see if they like it.' His income is not a lot, but it's enough for cheap drugstore make up and costume jewelery if he saves (Fake gold and plastic gems: another great Cascadian invention.) He puts on his nicest dress (blue and glittery, natch), makes a decent stab at eyeliner and lipstick, and does his hair up in a fancy braided bun. He heads out to a bar-- it had good reviews online, because he checked, but most importantly he had never been there before. Everyone treats him as a woman. It's subtle, omnipresent. He couldn't even say how it would be different, Cascadia does not treat men and women that differently. But people read him as a woman. Because he did that deliberately. He knows exactly what assumptions people are making, and he plays into them. To see what it feels like. ...it's heady and wonderful and also terrifying enough that he gets one drink before heading back to his apartment,

He takes his GED test. He's pretty sure he will pass, he can't see any reason he won't, unless he somehow went into a fugue state and explained the Columbian Exchange in a nonsensical way and did not even noticed. But there's still those tense weeks waiting for the marking to come back.

May as well get some career prep done and not just twiddle his thumbs.

He texts Lev.

Mind if I come over to chat about the time travel thing?

of course, come over whenever

He heads over. "I have given this some thought, and I'm pretty sure I am deeply unqualified to be anything but a professional time traveler."

"Oh?"

"I mean, for one, there are very few people qualified to be a professional time traveler, so there's minimal competition there. And I spent most of my life training for my old job, and those skills are not transferable. I would be a terrible detective, no one should hire me."

"Because we've discovered civil liberties in the past thousand years?"

"No, you've discovered lawyers, and that's worse."

"--did you not have lawyers in Great Tang?"