"I assume if you introduce yourself again it's probably fine? What's up?"

"...I might tell you after she calms me down? I'm kind of in my head right now."

"...sure, sorry, go ahead. I'm here if you need me."

She takes the notebook.

Hi. Vivian again.

I know I'm not who the spirit chose and on balance I'm glad it went to Pete. But I want to 

She pauses, and belatedly puts an ellipsis.

...get some clarification on what would've happened if I was chosen, I guess. If I even could have been chosen.

I don't know if you could have been chosen! It depends on whether being chosen by the Spirit would be right for you.

I guess that's the thing? I'm a woman. But I try not to... be a girl? I don't like being feminine. And I don't think

I want to

Sorry. Words are kind of hard.

I'm a woman but if I'd found a magic notebook representing the Spirit of Masculinity when I was like 12 then I probably wouldn't be? But I am a woman and I care about that. And I guess the thing I'm asking is. If I found you instead of Pete and you said your thing about transcendent femininity, and then I used your powers to make myself look like so androgynous that old ladies called me "sir" and maybe gave myself a dick but... in a female way.

would you be sad about that. I guess.

Well, I wouldn't be sad about that. I would be happy that you were making yourself beautiful in your own way! I don't think the Spirit would be sad either? It's hard to be sure, though, because the Spirit isn't very good at explaining itself, and because concepts like "what does femininity really mean" are hard to talk about.

Vivian finally exhales.

Okay. That makes me feel less fucked up about all this. Thanks.

...can you hide this like you do for Pete. I feel kind of embarrassed about getting my gender feelings all over you.

Of course! ♡ Now, or do you have more to say?

Nah. I feel like I'm kind of unjustifiably hogging you already.

Friendbook back to Pete. "Sorry. Apparently I have, like, kind of complicated feelings about the objective arbiter of womanhood hypothetically deciding I'm not one. Notebook was nice about it and now I'm just anxious about nothing, which is a strict improvement."

She removes a pill bottle from her backpack, snaps a tablet in half, and dry-swallows it. Thumbs up. "Cured now."

(The notebook ruffles quietly as she hands it back, and the pages they were talking on disappear.)

Gabe offers her her froyo after Peter's taken the notebook back.

"I'm glad it got, uh, resolved? Do you want a hug?"

"Wouldn't say no to one."

He can put the notebook and his frozen yogurt down on the picnic table and hold his arms out for a hug.

She scootches over and kind of curls up against him.

"Why did your omnipotent alien have to have such a dumb special interest," she complains. "Like, I'm glad you're getting your magical transgender nirvana moment, but. Ugh. Gender should stay socially constructed, not grow potential opinions about me."

"Uh, if it helps, the thing the notebook said at the start was that the Spirit is, how did she put it, the expression of everyone who's ever wanted to be beautiful and special and powerful in a feminine way? So it is kind of still socially constructed, maybe? Like, consensus stuff, I'd guess? I think she used the words 'unified wish'."

She makes a face. "Maybe? It's still raising a lot of uncomfortable questions about - man - you ever have that old, like, toy or coat or whatever where you don't really use it and maybe you think it doesn't really make sense to have in your room anymore and your mom goes hey can I donate this and you're suddenly horrified, like, how dare you insinuate that I don't want that fucking Raggedy Andy - that's my gender. Suddenly. I don't want to be anything in a feminine way but the implication that this magic alien might think I wasn't enough of a girl for it makes me want to bite things."

He won't pet her because he's pretty sure that'd be crossing some line but he does squeeze her a bit. "Yeah, I understand what you mean. I was more talking about... that I don't think gender became any more real. Just because there's this Spirit. Um. Tell me to shut up if I'm not helping, I have some metanarrative thoughts that may not be helpful."

"Believe me, I'll tell you to shut up if I have to. Shoot."

"'Emerald Orbs' is a power. I don't... when I say we're in a story I think that our author is very close to what we know as human. I don't know if the reason Mary Sue fics exist was to give us some handle on what the powers are like or, my best guess is that... no I'm explaining this all wrong. I think the Spirit isn't some external thing that cares about objective gender, I think it's more like an author writing Mary Sue fanfic which references the gender stuff they know about, which is exactly the same gender stuff we know about, and it doesn't bottom out at some objective reality, it's just social reality all the way. I don't know what exactly it means for us to be in a story or how true that is but I think our author is writing about the world they know with the gender they know which is just as... unreal... for them.

"Did any of that make sense."

She starts cough-laughing into Peter's shirt.

"Goddammit, you're totally right. I completely forgot the - metanarrative level - we're not dealing with the Alpha and Omega, Arbiter of Womanhood, we're dealing with an internet-poisoned femme-adjacent nerd from southern California. Like - on the level above us. She must be - I mean, maybe it's a dude making fun but honestly it feels way too affectionate for that - fuck. I hope they're having fun. And I totally don't have to give a shit what they think about my gender."

"Now you're getting it! And you will not believe how many embarrassing thoughts I thought here that I then immediately went 'oh shit fuck there's an audience aaa' about before I decided to go 'you know what fuck them I do not give a shit about what they think'. ...variously successfully, I had some self-aware thoughts about Astolfo and, anyway, yeah, fuck the audience and fuck the author. ...unless the author is gonna decide to—no, that's stupid, if the author is writing about us then clearly they must be enjoying us, right? That's how this must work."

"I think they've both gone off the deep end," Marcus stage whispers to Felicia, who's nodding sagely.

"At least I've gone off the kind of deep end that turns me into a magical girl. ...magical femboy. Something like that."