Copywright Oberlin Trade Corporation LLC

      For a moment, Miranda is quiet. Merely letting the information sink in, while one hand presses into the crook of her opposite arm. Lightly scratching at her own scales, fussing over their coverings. An idle motion while she turns inwards, mulls the thoughts over, processes them. It… Still didn’t exactly feel like something she could understand. More like hearing a quirk of a distant peoples, something strange that they did for and felt, than something that lived and breathed around her and touched her friends in ways she couldn’t understand until, abruptly, it felt like she didn’t share any languages at all with those around her.

       Merfolk didn’t have an experience like this. Sure, there were royals and there were commoners, and that heavily decided how one was supposed to act and behave, but landfolk rather easily understood that, and Miranda could see it reflected as well. Those in power had to look appealing and imposing, and to not do so was indicative of some type of failing. 

      Or, perhaps, some of the other cultures within the Merkingdom, carried by different so many different species of merfolk spread out over so much ocean. Some of them had specific roles who did specific tasks and had specific ideals to carry. But those were still different, still unique to them as much as gender was unique to landfolk.

      It wasn’t based off of… genitalia. Already the idea made Miranda uncomfortable, and it was typically her people who had a much more casual relationship with the intimate. Acting on power and family lines and living up to your lineage was one thing, but judging based on something that should only ever be relevant in sex or in health was… Another entirely. She didn’t want people to consider what she would be like in her bedchambers for every interaction she could have. She didn’t want to know what everyone around her similarly was like, not without already wanting that on its own terms. It was nothing with Vera, they were already in a relationship, though Miranda still was getting used to the idea - but the thought that she could know that for anyone on the street was… Alarming. That someone could make the same judgement for her, without her consent to that kind of privacy.

       Or that it had any weight on behavior? Was… Was someone judging her, how she should behave, based upon such a tiny, private thing as that? That they decided then, if she were to subjugate or be subjugated, based upon nothing but an irrelevant anatomical quirk? What notions had she fallen into? What stereotypes? Things that she had not known about, was not referenced upon, and would be enforced upon her with violence when she came innocent of things she couldn’t be prepared for?

      Perhaps the thing easiest for her to understand was the urge to change. Even with merfolk and their own bodies, that urge still occurred, to shift those biological differences so that it better suited what made them most comfortable. 

       The difference, however, seemed to be that merfolk treated such a thing as… ordinary. That it was something that just happened, and thus had no problem in being fixed as anyone saw fit. Especially with their pre-existing abilities to easily switch, in a manner akin to what was reflected in a clownfish, it was hardly a big deal. Even in the cases where something happened to make that difficult, then that was just all the more reason to make it comfortable, to make it easy, to all the more go out of the way to make sure it stayed safe and to meet their need for comfort. To call those who needed wq’hyek’n kirise procedures their own social group was almost silly then, because not only was it so common as to be functionally meaningless, but they were not treated any different by that fact. Even Miranda had it done once.

       When Miranda finally found the words to speak, they came soft, quiet. Not quite looking at Vera, stared down at her own arms as she kept thinking it over. Head tilted ever so gently to the side.

      “With all due respect to you and the other landfolk, Vera - that sounds… horrible. And I find it hard to believe that only recently have people began to push back against it. I - I think… I think I am starting to get it, but the more I consider it, the more I’m glad that my people have no concept of such a thing. Gender sounds… awful, to have to deal with.”

                                                A flicker of her fins, tips twitching.

      “ …… You do not need any… help, do you? My people have very effective medications and surgeries, if you would enjoy any of them. It might be a bit different as how we usually conduct our methods, as you aren’t seafolk, but it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.”

“Yeah, it is horrible.”

Vera couldn’t help the bitter not that entered her voice at that. She wasn’t always the confident, righteous, and powerful gorgon people knew- Polly of course knew that. Her sister knew that. She had carefully and purposefully crafted herself a new identity to inhabit- a person she could be to get what she wanted without remorse.

Her eyes flicked down for a moment, and Spirulina slithered forward to rub against her cheek with a comforting flick of the tongue. At Miranda’s offer, Vera offered her a smile- a genuine, grateful smile, the likes of which were rare to see on the gorgon’s face. Like a precious flower that bloomed only once a year.

“I appreciate the offer, Miranda- but we both know that I could easily have that done and funded myself by the end of the week. It’s more...”

She was nervous about it. One on hand, she was all for the separation of gender identity from biology, and that not all those like her should have to be surgically altered just to be considered who they were- which conflicted with how absolutely garbage she felt when considering certain aspects of her body.

She was already a bad person, wouldn’t this make her even more of a hypocrite?

Vera sighed, a hand going to pinch the bridge of her nose and slowly dragging down her face in annoyance. How did one explain gender?

“Okay, so- a long, LONG time ago, some people on the surface decided that whatever... genitalia you were born with decided what things you were allowed to do. What clothes you were allowed to wear, what your role in society was. And somehow those people ended up spreading out into some of the more successful empires in surface history, spreading their backwards thoughts on what people were allowed to be in the many nooks and crannies of the world.”

“MOST of those people perpetuating these things were of the phallus-having type- deciding that men and masculine people were supposed to be stronger and more violent, and other such bullshit. Cut to a thousand or so years later, and we have people born to one of these fake societal groups for whom conforming to these standards makes them incredibly sad- that’s a very basic idea of what dysphoria is. And the people who don’t wish to conform to these societal ideas are usually... forced back into them.”

“It’s only been pretty recent up here that people have started to push back and say “No, we do not have to be what everyone else is forcing us to be”, but the damage done by this has grown pretty deep- to the point where some people who were told they were one gender but identify with the ideas and desires of a different one feel like the way their bodies look can’t... coexist with their desires.”

"The Mad Scientist?"

"Gods DAMN IT every time with these damn things!"

"LOOK AT IT! These quizzes OPENLY MOCK ME!"

“Full of ourselves, aren’t we? Well, I think you’ll find us Oberlins to be made of much sterner stuff.”

“Which... you already know, because you’re me- this is getting ridiculous, look we’re both Vera, we both know the best way to come to terms on this, I’ve got my lawyer on speed-dial if you want to hash out some terms- yes, yes, we’re both very scary women, why are we even posturing at ourselves like this when we already both know this fact?”

"Blackmail is such an ugly word"

“...I’m getting the strangest feeling that I’m being flirted with in an alternate timeline.”