“I can’t wear that!” I protest, beet-red, at yet another skirt that looks like it would barely cover my ass. This is the fourth item in this store alone that I’ve turned down on scandal factor, so clearly I’m not protesting loud enough.
Bombshell—civvie na Hannah Thompson—pouts at with eyes like saucers. “C’mon, it’s only a little more revealing than your other outfit, and you’re fine with that one, right? So this is just a tiny hop out of your comfort zone!”
“Because no one who sees in that one knows it’s !” I hiss. I hug myself self-consciously and glower at the pushy witch, though I don’t want to make too much of a scene in public. No amount of skimpy clothing can compare to the mortifying ordeal of being banned from the mall—though technically we’re in one of the bigger clothing stores that’s part of the mall complex but not inside the main building, so, maybe not? Beside the point. “It’s easy for you to wear sothing like that, but I haven’t exactly taken care of my appearance. I’m flabby, I’m plain, and god, I can’t rember the last ti I applied real makeup. I’d look like a clown if I tried to dress like you.”
It’s really not fair how good Bombshell looks out of costu. The pink and glittery villainess still sparkles like a star in her plainclothes outfit, a riot of sequins that she sohow pulls off. She’s tried to force into a crop top and shorts combo just like she’s wearing, but I steadfastly refused.
By contrast, I’m in jeans and a graphic tee and frankly I’m missing my hoodie. I feel so exposed being my rat self next to a model like her. But I did agree to go shopping in the first place, so I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied with my pitiful wardrobe. I want to dress nicer! Hannah and I just disagree on what that looks like. Even this location—a fairly middle-of-the-pack shop on the outskirts of the Nessie—was a compromise between her desire for a “proper boutique” and my desire for the cheapest clothing available.
“Sweetie. Are you telling you’ve never looked at a scrungly nerd girl and thought, ‘damn, I want to see her in less?’ ‘Cause if you are, I don’t believe you. Think of all the cute weirdos you’re insulting with that attitude! Your dating pool is shrinking rapidly, honey.”
“Hey,” I try to defend myself, “I never told you I’m gay. That’s a baseless assumption.”
Hannah stares at . “Girl. I’ve seen the way you look at ‘teacher.’ And at , not that I mind the attention.”
I crack imdiately and turn away, blushing. “Okay, okay,” I grumble, “fine, yes, I know it’s obvious, shut up! That doesn’t an I’m willing to apply the sa standards to myself that I apply to others.”
“Girl.”
“It’s not hypocrisy if I admit it,” I say smugly.
“Yes, it is!” Hannah retorts with a roll of her eyes. She shoves a bundle of tops and skirts into my arms and says, “Look, you don’t even have to show , just try them on in the privacy of the changing room. Give yourself a chance.”
I grimace, but am I really in a position to refuse? “Fine, fine. But I’m not looking at the pink ones, that is not even remotely my color.”
“Pink is everyone’s color,” she preens.
I don’t believe her, but I let her shove into a changing room with more pink items than I’d like. And then, once the door is locked and I’m certain she’s not hovering outside listening in, I drop the pile in a corner and pull out my phone.
Alexandria: @everyone help how do i clothes good this is a FASHION ERGENCY!!!
a single femur: Why are you asking us
a single femur: No one here wears won’s fashion
Mordacity: that’s true but i love giving unqualified absolutes
Mordacity: bitch you’re an autumn and you should wear more leather
Mordacity: get ur tits out for the girls
a single femur: Do you actually get off on being muted
Mordacity: you cant prove that I dont
Alexandria: fashion!!!!
Alexandria: ergency!!!!
Mordacity: if u add those exclamation marks together u get the vriska number ::::)
a single femur: I can excuse sexual harassnt but I draw the line at hostuck
Mike Trout: Hi, Mike Trout here from hit AMC cri drama Being a He/Him Lesbian
Mike Trout: I have detailed opinions about won’s fashion
Alexandria: i am in need of detailed opinions about won’s fashion
Alexandria: or i will be trapped in this store forever
Mike Trout: So what’s the context here? Are you just trying to freshen up your wardrobe, or do you have an event you’re going to? What are you trying to accomplish?
Alexandria: oh im going to the ossuary
Visiting the Ossuary has been a dream of mine since I first learned of its existence. An extradinsional nightclub run by the strongest witch on the continent this side of the Catastrophes? Yeah, of course I want to see that. But the portals that lead into it change daily, and the mortals who frequent the club are a mix of groupie-adjacent superfans like and prospective henchn or business partners, so there’s always been enough of a barrier that I never tried tracking down an entrance. The odds of a witch picking any one person out of the crowd are so low as to be nonexistent.
But now I won’t just be going as a fan; I’ll be going as a witch, to be adored and sought after by all the poor, powerless humans who crave a taste of the glory and grandeur only afforded to the Jovians’ blessed.
…Though, maybe I shouldn’t be so excited to wear that label, given everything that Ferromancer and I talked about.
a single femur: Actually?
Alexandria: ye
Mike Trout: siiiick
Mike Trout: now why the fuck is this the first I’m hearing about it
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Mike Trout: “Oh yeah I’m going to the Ossuary no big deal”
Mike Trout: you cannot just drop that shit out of nowhere
Mike Trout: When and how and why
Mordacity: siiiiiiiick
Mordacity: it’s ti for new political forces to enter the fray
a single femur: You realize we have to talk about this right
Alexandria: later!!! everything later!! fashion advice now!
a single femur: Fine
Mordacity: you should really reverse the order of exclamations there so it has a sense of escalation instead of deescalation
Alexandria: DEESCALATE THESE NUTS
Alexandria: gottem
Alexandria: mike please you are literally my only hope, im the most princess-coded leia-pilled ive ever been
a single femur: That’s tortured even for you
Mordacity: you dont even like star wars
Alexandria: i have withc powers now i can find where you all live!!!
Mordacity: withc
a single femur: withc
Mike Trout: withc
Alexandria: oh my god
Mike Trout: But seriously I’ll do my best
Alexandria: thank you
Mike Trout: So my question from before is still relevant here. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Is this about getting a disguise, or do you just want to look nice for the club? Are you planning to flirt with people while you’re there?
a single femur: Wait why do you need new clothes for that? Are you not going transford or what?
Alexandria: not initially, apparently there are private spaces to shift in
Alexandria: which for the record was not my idea
Alexandria: anyway, right, uh, goals. i dont think im going to flirt with anyone there? but i an. i do kinda want girls to look at .
Alexandria: i guess dudes will also look at but it’s a witch club there’s gotta be a bunch of lesbians
Mordacity: yeah i usually see a good few
Alexandria: wait YOUVE BEEN?
Mordacity: dont you have clothes to focus on
Alexandria: fuck you, yes, we’ll talk about this later
Mike Trout: so my experiences are going to be a little skewed here but I think Portland and Seattle are close enough in culture that the sa will apply to Forks.
Mike Trout: there’s a fair few “types” of signaling that I see when I go out clubbing
Mike Trout: Flannels and hair dye are the cliche examples but also completely true
Mike Trout: If you see a goth girl with a sanrio character dangling from her mini backpack, she’s gay and also probably has BPD
Alexandria: my sweet borderline bitches. my kindred souls
Mike Trout: a lot of people will just straight up have a pride flag on a pin or bracelet. bitches love buttons in portland
Alexandria: fascinating
Alexandria: iiiii will think about that and get back to you, ive been in this changing room too long
a single femur: Don’t forget fighting gas tomorrow
Alexandria: yeah yeah ill be there
I do, in the end, reluctantly try on a few choice items from Hannah’s absurd pile. The less said about that, the better.
I leave the changing room behind and toss the lot—except for a single skirt that I probably won’t wear but it had really nice ruffles sue you bastard—into the unwanteds bin. “Alright,” I tell the eagerly waiting witch, “I’ll get the one, but then I have so ideas of my own.”
The rest of our shopping passes in a blur, and by the ti we sit down in the food court for a late lunch—no sign of my intrusion weeks prior, as is typical for Forks—I think I’ve seen the inside of nearly every shop in the entire Nessie. I spent a dizzying sum on new clothes, but I guess that’s just sothing I can do now.
Thanks to Ferromancer’s work, the money I stole from the bank was successfully laundered and put in a secure checking account. She then went the extra mile and got a fancy credit card that gets automatically paid off on a fixed schedule from said checking account, so that I never have to think about the money except for really big purchases.
Financial independence is… it’s weird. It’s new. I went from going to college on my parents’ di to crashing with Sophie and largely living off her generosity. For years I’ve watched my spending money shrink and shrink as gigs fell through and I lost the will to keep up the grind. I didn’t see a world where I could just have the things I want.
Makes a girl think.
“So, like, oh my god where do I even start? You get the basics of wrestling, right?” Bombshell asks , pointing her sandwich vaguely in my direction. We picked out a cheesesteak place and Hannah imdiately went for the spiciest sandwich she could concoct: a buffalo chicken sandwich with banana peppers, plus a drizzle of ranch because it “makes the perfect sauce with buffalo.”
My own humble treat is a kimchi cheesesteak with extra cheese, because it was new and I like trying new things. The flavor profile’s pretty unique, which I appreciate. “I think I do,” I answer Hannah. “Throw two-to-four people in a ring and make them pretend to beat each other up over soap opera drama plotlines.”
“Basically, yeah. It can be more than four but that’s not important. Soap opera’s good! The thing that always grinds gears is when people say ‘wrestling is fake.’ Do you watch Star Trek, adjust your nerd glasses, and smugly brag about how you could tell all the aliens were just human actors in heavy makeup? No! Wrestling is TV where you get to watch criminally undersupported athletes risk real injury while babbling about zombies and cults because that’s what gets ratings this month.”
“And that’s an upside?” I raise an eyebrow skeptically.
“Yes!” the witch says earnestly. “You have no idea how funny it is to watch grown n talk about wrestling bloodlines and the honor of their forefathers as a preamble to sitting on each other’s faces. The ancient Greeks were onto sothing, I’m telling you.”
I snort. “Okay, sure, I buy it.” I take another bite of this admittedly quite good sandwich. I should find more foods with kimchi.
“The thing that makes wrestling interesting for our context,” Hannah stresses, reminding that all of this was ant to go sowhere, “is a pair of terms useful enough to have seen use outside of wrestling itself: face and heel.”
“Oh yeah,” I comnt through a mouthful of kimchi, cheese, and bread, “I’ve seen those on TV Tropes.”
“I’m going to ignore that,” she announces graciously. “To put it succinctly, faces make the crowd wanna see ‘em win and heels make the crowd wanna see ‘em lose. When managent tries to push a heel in the role of a face, you get a Roman Reigns and people boo your ‘hero’ worse than they boo any villain. And this is the frawork that Visage uses.”
My interest sharpens. “I thought they imported a bunch of idol stuff from Japan?”
“Oh, they do that,” Hannah waves, “but Japan has wrestling, too, and you can’t get by just on the idol racket when your idols are regularly getting into property-destroying deathmatches. If you want to control—and profit from—the whole ga, you need to account for that back-and-forth between magical girls and witches and sell it as a narrative.”
Bombshell’s insightful comntary on the inner workings of Visage only lasts so long before devolving into excited rambling about her favorite wrestling matches, which I only half manage to pay attention to. We finish our food, grab the bags, and make our way back to Ferromancer’s hideout.
I’m looking into getting a private apartnt to store any purchases I can’t quite justify to Sophie, but that’s a problem for future Rachel. I want soplace nice that I can call mine, and paying rent twice demands a certain stability of inco that doesn’t quite reflect my current situation. Bombshell has a few ideas on that front.
For now, I’m keeping my luxuries in Ferromancer’s workshop. When I officially accepted the apprenticeship, she set up with a side room to serve as a study. It has a nice storage closet and dedicated space to do private experints with my magic.
“We’re back!” I call to Erica as we bring our haul inside.
The other witch is hunched over a table fiddling with so gadget, but she looks up at our entrance and waves. “Ah, perfect timing. I’ve just finalized arrangents with the Morrigan. I have the date and ti for our trip to the Ossuary.”
I rush over in excitent. “Ooooo, when is it?”
“Halloween night.”
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