“Oh, good. This feels weird. Not as bad as I feared, though. I know you said I wouldn’t feel paralyzed or claustrophobic, but hearing it is one thing and experiencing it is another. It just feels... sort of normal to not have any arms or legs?”

“Zoe, bring up some pictures of me from about ten to fourteen years ago,” Daddy says to the household AI. Zoe complies, projecting an array of four pictures on the opposite wall. Three of the four show Daddy holding a baby, either Sebastian or his big sister Stella, who lives with Mommy now. In one of them, he’s nursing the baby. “Sebastian, do you see what’s different about me back then?”

I’d originally been going to title it “Venn-Splitting for Long-Distance Relationships,” but Sophia had come up with a snappier title, “Splitting for Togetherness.”

Chapter 14

It had certainly been one busy day. I was ready to drop. After we had changed, though, we had a message that there was a private party that we were required to join. It turned out to be in one of the larger staterooms which Kelly had taken for the night.

One day in mid-December, a few days after Meredith came home from UNC Chapel Hill for Christmas, I was taking a break at work and hanging out with Genevieve and Terri for a few minutes. Genevieve was a kind of beetle-bee hybrid, with a bee’s striped fuzzy underbelly and a beetle’s elytra over her wings, and a slightly human-ish face. Terri was a big mushroom with a face and arms and four small feet, apparently based on a fantasy creature from a story she liked, “though the ones in the book are a lot smaller,” she said. I was in one of my more outre dragon-like bodies, slender with silver scales and four smaller wings more like a butterfly or moth than a bat.

I knew very early on that I wasnt like the other boys, I just felt different, I acted different then them. They wanted to wrestle, or play in the mud and I wanted to color pictures of princesses. I would spend hours coloring all the pretty dresses, and long hair, outlining there make up. I would feel jelious of the princesses in my coloring books. They were so soft and pretty, they had curves. I really wanted that. I wanted to be like them.

Smoke was rising from Ivy's mouth and hands as Reginald's silver gauntlet burned her flesh. A very deep growl rose from her throat, and her eyes were getting a wild look. She'd probably have already attacked the wannabe paladin, but it was taking all of her strength just to hold his arm in place.

Not everyone will approve of you as you go along your own gender journey. You'll change and grow in many ways they may disapprove of. But it's not your job to please them.

Captions:

Panel 1:
Idiot: "This is why I don't like being your friend anymore. You've changed."
Lari: "Do you mean the tits, or the complete shift of my beliefs and worldview?"

Panel 2:
Lari: "It's called growing. I've done both."

“Hey now, it’s all right buddy.” Riley said as I was smudging my face into her chest. As I pulled back from the embrace I looked up into Riley’s comforting blue eyes and steady myself once again.

“I’m starting to feel that this might be a little more than a poorly planned ruse to participate in a dota tournament. Just know that I will always be there for you, my little friend. Jason or Emily, whatever floats your boat”

She ended her uplifting words with a little wink. But honestly, I had no idea how to respond.

“Have fun at college.”

 

“Wooo! Girls and partying!” I exclaimed as I waved back. Jada and my big self both giggled.

.
“We can’t beat thinking machines by calculating odds, Noelle. That’s their strength. Intuition is ours.”

A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

Chapter 12

Allan arranged a gig on a Saturday night at a civic party. We did our new look show and it went well. I wasn’t highly excited about it. We played our music and then went home. I may have been the only one feeling a bit jaundiced. But I did have a lot of other things on my mind.

I wondered if it was the prospect of being a father that outweighed the upgrade of becoming a woman. Was I worried about the future of the farm against my likely career as a music star / model / businesswoman?

The figure in the mirror was still a stranger to Keir. Despite having spent weeks in the body, he had not gotten used to it, or let himself study it beyond the basic plumbing problems. It was a perfectly useful body, at least when it wasn't recovering from getting shot and nearly killed. Many people had similar bodies. Still, it wasn't his. Like ill-fitting armour it chafed and pulled in odd and uncomfortable ways.

 
Dare to live 5(5)

After two months, I was back at home.