Nightcore Cross-Stitch

Sounds like a neat idea!  Here are some things I might try:

Earrings that give you better hearing.  

Earrings that change the appearance of your ears so that a human can disguise themselves as an elf or a gnome could look like a halfing.  

Earrings that help you discern lies from the truth.   

Earrings that let you store all your money in an invisible extradimensional space behind your ears so you can pull coins from there like a magician!

Nose rings that give you the scent ability so you can track like a bloodhound.  

Nose rings that let you detect poison.  

Lip/tongue rings that allow you to breathe underwater or speak another language or become particularly alluring or persuasive.

Eyebrow piercings that give you lowlight vision or allow you to read really quickly.  

Piercings/Jewelry made with gems of powers you can remove and toss as one use magical weapons. Toss a ruby and it becomes a fireball, that kind of thing. 

Illusion Tattoos: A tattoo of an animal or person that lets you assume their likeness once per day.  

Weapon Tattoos: Get a weapon tattooed on you so you’re always armed.  As a quick action, you summon the weapon instantly to your hand.  When you’re done it returns to your skin.

Wing tattoos that give them the ability to fly once per day. 

Skill tattoos that give them a small bonus to the skill of their choice.  

Friendhsip tattoos: Identical tattoos that let two people transpose their positions or make short range teleports to each other.  

Level 0 Spells as Tattoos:  Imagine getting a cute little lightning bolt tattoo that lets you cast Spark at will, or a thread and needle tattoo that let’s you cast Mending.  You could theoretically make a tattoo for any spell, though I’d make it expensive to do so for the higher level ones.  I don’t know what system you’re running, but if they have rules for the Permanency spell, you can reference that to give you a good idea for costs. 

and diagnosing STDs is always delicate because once I know what it is, i have to ask the patient ‘do you have a steady sexual partner’ so i can bring the partner in and treat them too 

and then sometimes they’ll go “yes i only have sex with my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/etc” and then there is a processing time of about 2 seconds between them telling me that and the information registering, and then they’ll go “WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND -” 

and i have the approximate social comfort of someone who was raised by wolves and then set free among the british royal court, so it’s always a little terrible conversation that goes more or less like 

“are you saying i am being cheated on” 

“i am saying you caught it from someone you had sex with” 

“is there no other way to catch this” 

“uh well not really, no, unless you had a really unlikely scenario” 

“but if i only had sex with my partner and i didn’t have this before then i am being cheated on, right??”

“well i can say you definitely caught it from someone you had sex with”

and we kinda talk circles for a while because I can’t just say “yep your partner is cheating” but at some point I do have to say “i need your partner to take metronidazole too” 

anyway so in comes this lady and i do her prescription and give her the explanations and then i go “do you have a steady partner” and she goes “yes I have a boyfriend” and i say “ok so can I have his name so I can write him a prescription of antibiotics and a referral so he can get evaluated too” 

“I don’t know his name”

“You don’t know… your boyfriend’s name??”

“No, he has a weird name so I only call him [REDACTED] ”

i stare at her, dumbfolded. i blink. “Ma’am while it is your prerrogative to call yourselves whatever you desire, I cannot possibly write a prescription addressed to that. You’ll have to bring him over for an appointment, please.” 

(this will backfire)

so i wrap up my day and go home play with my cat and kinda forget about that fateful encounter. one week later, she shows up with the boyfriend. i bring him into my office while she waits outside and start questioning him for symptoms and whatnot. 

i am writing a prescription of metronidazole. i love metronidazole. it is free on our universal healthcare system. it is an antibiotic that covers gram-negative bacteria, clostridium difficile and also some protozoa and even a worm called dracunculus. metronidazole is great. it inhibits nucleic acid synthesis. 

i love antibiotics. after digimons, antibiotics are my favorite thing to memorize pointlessly. they have awesome names. although the situation is still quite awkward, i am thiking about what antibiotics to add to my prescription. azithromycin. ceftriaxone. thinking about antibiotics makes me happy. i like it when i give someone an antibiotic and i know that instead of getting terribly ill, they’ll be cured and well. this brings great satisfaction. i feel like i am Helping People. i am having a wonderful time.  

but suddenly

there is a commotion outside

i hear raised voices and yelling. the door opens. in walks the girlfriend. behind her, in walks yes, her, the lover. they are screaming. the girlfriend says she is the only one to take the guy to the doctor and that’s apparently why she’s the most official woman (?) . the lover shouts back that the guy only goes around bedding chicks because the girlfriend doesn’t have enough sex with him and that’s why he has an STD (??)

the guy is staring at the two as if this is a perfectly normal occurrence. i am trying to process the fact that the girlfriend and the lover not only know each other and hate each other but apparently there are more women in the middle. that dude is not only holding two monogamic relationships at the same time (???) but he’s also cheating. on. both his girlfriends. with other women. 

the girlfriend slaps the lover. the lover starts pulling the girlfriend’s hair. i am living a telenovela. i expect Soraya Montenegro to burst in through the window at any second. i am no longer having a wonderful time. the doctor opens her door from across the corridor and pokes her head out, and although i am not great at reading expressions, hers clearly says what in the everloving fuck is going on

and then she sees the two women and her face changes to instant comprehension. clearly, this is a Thing Which Happens Regularly. she calls the girlfriend into her office with unquestionable authority. the girlfriend leaves the room still cursing. i am trying to recover. i don’t know what to say. no med school books prepared me for this. 

the lover sees herself out, to the waiting room. i turn my brain off and then back on. the reboot works and some semblance of rational thought resumes. i sit down. i pick up my pen and stare at my half written prescription -

i stand, stumbling, and hurry out of the office like the bundle of beffudlement, confusion and tension that i am. the lover is there, sitting, waiting. she looks at me. i stare back blankly. 

I am annoying sometimes.

And that’s okay. It’s not the death sentence I was led to believe. People will love me even if I can’t read their signals sometimes. Not understanding is forgivable. I don’t have to hold myself back so I don’t annoy anyone ever.

Books with lead butch characters in scifi and fantasy genres.

Fantasy:

Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks

Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon

Royal Rebel by Jenny Frame

Royal Court by Jenny Frame

The Better to Kiss You With by Michelle Osgood

Spinning Tales by Brey Willows

Science fiction:

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum

Ashakaan by Natalie Debrabandere

Proxima Five by Missouri Vaun

The Persephone Star by Jamie Sullivan

The Tea Machine by Gill McKnight