We could just ignore it on Cascade Hall

Yaniel Ayala Velez

January 30, 2023 3:04 PM

We could just ignore it by Yaniel Ayala Velez

OOC: Continued from FnF.

CW: queerphobia/lack of understanding BIC:

Dishonesty was a bad thing. Yarielis knew that. And yes, sometimes to be polite, you had to skirt around the edges of truth, or keep things to yourself, but that was just to be kind. Lenny's implied criticism stung. Especially as Yarielis had been avoiding Lenny for exactly that reason. The Crotalus knew that there were some times where politeness could only cover you so far, before the gaping chasm between it and reality cracked the conversation to pieces. There were not enough polite things Yarielis could say to sustain a conversation with Lenny before the horrible truths would start pouring out.

'It's not just the staring. It's you. It's everything about your whole entire person. So no, it's not okay that you're sitting here, and no, I don't want to play Skeeball with you, because every time I'm forced to look at you it makes me want to scream or set something on fire because you don't get to just decide that all the rules don't exist when they definitely do, and you wouldn't have to correct people all the time if you didn't confuse them on purpose to begin with, and you wouldn't think it was so fun to be a girl if it was something you were forced to be instead of treating it like a costume you can take off any time you decide to grow up and stop treating life like a game.

Lenny said he wanted honesty but he couldn't possibly want that much. It was mean, even if it was all true, and then Cole would never want to speak to Yarielis again and-and it was just another thing where Lenny was wrong! Honesty was one of the most hurtful, damaging things there was.

But there was a little bit that Yarielis could give him, seeing as he wanted it so much.

"Yes," Yarielis agreed, still addressing the eggs instead of Lenny. "I wish I was invisible."

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez We could just ignore it 1554 1 5

Lenny Pierce

January 30, 2023 6:14 PM

That's probably not healthy by Lenny Pierce

Lenny blinked in surprise. Yarielis wanted to be invisible. He had not expected that. Sure she was quiet and reserved, but he'd figured that was just shyness. Wanting to be invisible . . . that indicated low self-esteem and anxiety beyond simple shyness, and he . . . well, Lenny was the farthest thing from invisible. He liked being visible. He made rather a point of it.

And that was rubbing her wrong. People were staring at him, which meant people were looking at Yarielis, too. And that was rather a different concern than he'd initially took it for.

He debated just picking up his plate, and going, to save her the discomfort, but if he invited her to meet him in the more private environs of a MARS room, he wasn't entirely confident the Crotalus would actually show anymore.

And this felt important. He couldn't just leave that there. He wasn't in Teppenpaw because he was nice. (Well, he liked to think he was nice, or at least that his intentions were good, but that wasn't why he was there.) He wasn't in Teppenpaw because he was diplomatic (he honestly wasn't really sure that he was diplomatic much at all). He was in Teppenpaw because he was very interested in the personal development of himself and others, and right now Yarielis had his attention, and Yarielis was very very not invisible to him right now.

"Why?" he asked, simply and Listening. He wondered if Yarielis had someone to Listen to her. Then something Cole said yesterday sprang up as possibly related, and he added, "Is that why you didn't go to Quidditch try-outs?" Cole had been confused and upset by that, though Cole had obviously given his friend the benefit of doubt, and assumed Yarielis had a good reason, and tried not to take it personally that Yarielis hadn't warned him he would be on his own with Billy and Oz.

OOC: I'm assuming she didn't actually attend try-outs given the post about not signing up.

1 Lenny Pierce That's probably not healthy 1547 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

January 31, 2023 1:19 AM

No, see, you keep all your feelings in this box where they can't leak out and damage you by Yaniel Ayala Velez

Yarielis’ eyes widened, looking as if Lenny had just tracked muddy boots right across a clean carpet or blared a fog horn across the breakfast table. The Crotalus took a sidelong glance at the many people still around the hall eating breakfast, wondering who went from ‘Don’t you like being stared at?’ to ‘Tell me why you hate yourself?’ as a logical leap in any situation, let alone over breakfast in a crowded room.

Because I’m normal.

The words caught in Yarielis throat. It was reasonable to not want to be stared at, or asked deeply personal questions by a virtual stranger. It was Lenny who did everything weird and wrong. But that wasn’t a nice thing to say. And it didn’t feel very true, based on the sad, pitying way he was looking across the table. Maybe it would have been possible to argue that that was just everything-is-backwards-in-Lenny-land but Yarielis had been thinking for months about how it was supposed to get easier, not harder. How for everyone else, that seemed to be the case. If they took Cole as the midpoint of absolute normality, sitting a comfortable halfway between Yarielis and Lenny, Cole did not hate himself or want to be invisible or want to die every time they got assigned pair work.

Speaking of Cole, Lenny’s next remark landed like a gut punch. He was mad then. He had to be, to have mentioned it to Lenny… And Quidditch. Quidditch was gone, for exactly the reasons Lenny was saying, and hearing it out loud and knowing that Cole was mad about it didn’t make it hurt any less than it did lying awake at night hearing it on a loop from your own brain.

Squeeze your eyes shut. Breathe.

Crying in public was as bad as sitting opposite Lenny in terms of attracting unwanted attention, and Yarielis was not going to do it.

Unfortunately, even when Yarielis had blinked back the tears, Lenny was still there. Lenny, with his grabby-handed questions, reaching in and rattling at boxes he had no right to be touching. Who didn’t know how to behave like a normal human, and not ask people horrible things. Lenny, who Yarielis had always known it would always end in disaster to have a conversation with.

Yarielis should leave.

But Lenny had dangled the one thread that held them together. And Yarielis couldn’t stop wanting to cling to it, even if it meant having to sit across from Lenny. Even if the answer was already so painfully obvious that it was stupid to ask, and to have to hear it out loud and see that thread visibly snap, but somehow Yarielis just had to…

“Cole mentioned that?”

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez No, see, you keep all your feelings in this box where they can't leak out and damage you 1554 0 5

Lenny Pierce

February 09, 2023 6:05 PM

No, see, that doesn't work by Lenny Pierce

Lenny was pretty sure Yarielis was going to hate him after this, but he was equally sure this was a conversation the Crotalus needed to have, so he wasn't going to back down, even when it looked like she might cry. He felt kind of mean, but he also felt like he was helping, and it was more important to help than to be liked.

He nodded, confirming that Cole had brought up Yarielis' absence from the Quidditch try-outs. "He missed you. You're his Quidditch buddy. He's confused and a little worried. Thought maybe you were sick." After this conversation, Lenny didn't think Yarielis had been sick. Not from germs anyway.

"You do like Quidditch, though, don't you? It's the anxiety of being too seen that made you decide to drop it, right? Not because it wasn't fun anymore?" Anxiety that interfered with day-to-day life should be treated. Lenny wasn't sure she would listen to him if he told her to seek professional help, but he could maybe guide her in that direction? Get her to acknowledge that there was definitely a problem here? "Is there a reason you don't want to be seen?" he wondered, trying to find something he could use to help Yarielis decide that maybe talking to the Healer - or Cole, she might listen to Cole quicker than Lenny, if he suggested Yarielis needed to get medical treatment for anxiety - was a good idea.

1 Lenny Pierce No, see, that doesn't work 1547 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

February 10, 2023 5:16 PM

It did until you came along! by Yaniel Ayala Velez

OOC: CW: microaggressions towards Lenny re gender BIC:

Lenny confirmed that yes, Cole was mad at Yarielis for being a terrible friend. It was fair for him to be - it hadn't been nice to bail. Part of Yarielis had been able to argue that he wouldn't really care either way, though that part now felt like it would just be adding injury to insult to say so. Cole, a Teppenpaw, not care about someone? Of course that didn't make sense. Even though he, Billy and Oz were a group... Cole flitted between allegiances, it was true. The two of them were year mates and bench buddies. But he was one of the boys.

I was. It was tempting to use the easily provided lie. Sickness wasn't anyone's fault... Though Yarielis could still have said something. And hadn't missed any classes. And would be expected to show up the next time... Besides which, Lenny had already seen through it, prying it out from the vault in Yarielis' chest and holding it up to the light, where it had no business being...

"Stop it!" Yarielis snapped, voice quiet but still sharp as he dug in with another question he had no business to be asking. "Stop acting like you understand when you don't. Just because you want attention from everyone all the time- Just because you dress like a girl, it doesn't mean you know how it feels to be one. You keep pointing out that you aren't one, so... Stop it! Just stop it!"

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez It did until you came along! 1554 0 5

Lenny Pierce

February 10, 2023 7:48 PM

Are you sure? by Lenny Pierce

Lenny stiffened a little bit, surprised Yarielis brought being a girl into it. This was an anxiety issue, wasn't it? What did being a girl have to do with why she didn't want to be seen? Unless . . . unless gender was playing a role in why the Crotalus had so much anxiety, so much fear of being noticed.

He'd introduced himself with He/Him pronouns at their group introduction. Yarielis hadn't given pronouns. Of course, most of the others hadn't either, so there was nothing to read into with just that, but . . .

"No," he said carefully, "I'm not a girl. I've never claimed I was. I just think gender roles and expectations are toxic and confining, and if boys want to wear dresses and look pretty, we can. And if girls," he slowed down and spoke very emphatically, "want to play Beater in Quidditch and be butch and shapeless," Yarielis' style of dress was making a bit more sense now, too, "they are entitled to that, too. People are people, gender does not define who we are, and everyone should get to be whatever and whoever they feel most comfortable being. Yarielis? What are your preferred pronouns?"

1 Lenny Pierce Are you sure? 1547 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

February 11, 2023 12:46 AM

It's just how it is by Yaniel Ayala Velez

OOC: CW body image/fat shaming BIC:

“I’m a girl!” Yarielis responded, when Lenny brought pronouns into it. He was the only one who went around talking about those, which he only had to do because he insisted on being purposefully confusing. If he’d just coloured inside the lines like he was supposed to, he wouldn’t need to constantly point it out to people. “And no, girls don’t get to be shapeless. Ever.” Maybe skinny girls like Piper and Levi. Maybe Lenny could keep hanging out with them for years before it started to be obvious that he was never going to fit in with his friends—the way Yarielis had had to be aware of from day one of Sonora, and which had got worse and worse with every passing year. For a while, baggy hoodies had been the answer, but now… It would probably have to come from a six foot tall bodybuilder and have some kind of inbuilt tent pole structure holding it out to be ‘shapeless.’ And funnily enough, they didn’t sell many of those in the girls’ section—it was hard enough to find ones that were nice, neutral colours and didn’t say things like ‘cutie’ on them, or to dissuade Mama from everything bright and sparkly without feeling like a disappointment. ’I’m too fat for that’ worked as a defence against some of the clothes imbued with positive descriptors. However much Mama argued that, it was an acceptable excuse—it was one every magazine and any number of women around the Crotalus repeated constantly. Anyone female who wasn’t a supermodel was supposed to hate her body. That was why it felt like this… It was normal, and Lenny had to go making it about his stupid crusade, and keep poking at raw spots and saying stupid things like that people could choose, when that special exception only applied to him however much Yarielis would have loved to be a boy because it would have made everything so much simpler.

“That isn’t— I don’t—- You can’t just—-” …break the rules. But Lenny would blithely smile and say you could, you could do whatever you wanted because life was a fairyland and he had no real idea of how horrible it was when you actually had to be a girl for real, every day.

But it wasn’t worth crying over. Not in public. It was just part of growing up, and it would all go away if he didn’t keep poking and making things up.

“I said to stop!”

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez It's just how it is 1554 0 5

Lenny Pierce

February 11, 2023 10:35 AM

Sometimes how it is isn't right by Lenny Pierce

Yarielis was a girl. That wasn't quite what he'd asked, but he'd continue to use traditional female pronouns for now, since that was what she seemed to identify as. He wasn't sure if that was just because she wasn't comfortable pushing outside that born identity and was letting society force her into that role, or if she was like him and refused to make society dictate she had to be a different way. One of those seemed more likely than the other given her bitterness and anxiety about her expected gender role. She was far too Crotalus for her own good.

When she told him to stop again, he felt like he had reached the limit of how useful he could be anymore and any further pressure would be more harmful than helpful. So he nodded and stood up.

"I'll be in the MARS room to play arcades in an hour. If you want to come, you can." He doubted she would. She seemed pretty mad at him, and she had a lot to think about before she'd be ready to be pushed again, and he was pretty sure at this point that he pushed her just by existing outside the binary. "But I think you should talk to Cole about Quidditch and why you're not there anymore. It's really not just for boys. There are lots of girl beaters. Tons more than there are boys who dress like me. It's not that revolutionary."

1 Lenny Pierce Sometimes how it is isn't right 1547 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

February 12, 2023 2:42 PM

But it can't always be changed by Yaniel Ayala Velez

He still wanted to play arcade games together, even after this? Why? Yarielis held back the question. It was never a good idea to ask people why they weren't mad at you or still wanted to be around you when the exact opposite should have been true - it could get them thinking about it and changing their minds. Maybe the conversation hadn't been as horrible for Lenny as for Yarielis. He did seem to enjoy stirring up gender-related trouble. But he could hardly think this was going well...

"I have to finish my potions essay. I forgot. Sorry." The excuse was paper thin but at least he wouldn't be standing there waiting and wondering. That would be cruel.

"I know, That's not-" Yarielis said, when Lenny said girls could be Beaters, further proving that he didn't truly get it. But the Crotalus swallowed down any further comment on it. He was willing to wrap things up, and that was an opportunity worth taking. "Yeah, I will..." The one decent point Lenny had made was talking to Cole. It was hard to argue with. If Cole was upset, then Yarielis did have to apologise, however uncomfortable that was. However pointless It was... Cole might accept an apology over Quidditch, but Yarielis had just demonstrated the fundamental other problem that was due to plague them... Yarielis could NOT be in a room with Lenny. And however chill and forgiving he seemed about that... Well, that just made it Yarielis' fault that they couldn't get on. Even though he was the one who had pushed until the other person almost cried...

"See you," Yarielis muttered, leaving a half eaten breakfast, and desperately trying to cram back down everything Lenny had just dragged up.

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez But it can't always be changed 1554 0 5