[b]On Gensoukyo[/b]

Cygnus is 3V’s favorite employee, but star is still a student, and thus can only work part-time, and still in the sort of apprentice stage where star is learning the ropes. Star leans masc, dresses in hand-sequined vests, and has Opinions about collectible card games and running star’s own diceless roleplaying games. 3V doesn’t actually fully understand star’s gender, but she’s down to support wherever star finds starself happy. Plus, star has good taste in music, and gets control of the streaming while star works.

The person in charge while she’s out is Luisa, who only became a tangential 3V fan after she got the gig, has just the curliest hair, and sometimes brings in tamales. Luisa does Monday, Wednesday and the weekends; Oscar handles Tuesday and Friday, and the downtime on Thursday is just part of small business ownership that’s only trying to pay for itself.

Four employees, then; the owner who lives upstairs and flits in and out, the heart of the community who handles the store more than 3V does, the guy who’s extremely divorced and spends his spare time painting minifigs and battling insomnia, and the queer student who’s soaking up everything the above three have to offer.

***

[b]Heple[/b]

The right move. The kind move. The explosive move. The Renegade move. All one and the same.

She’s a tree-princess, she’s Red Riding Hood with glowing hands, she’s Ceres getting ganked by three Fenrirs at the Jade Phoenix spawn. She’s breathless and glowing and off-balance already, so when she gets hip-checked she giggles like she’s drunk and gives it right back.

She smiles. She glows. She radiates a smile, even as she gasps, even as she backs into fur and muscles and a wordless invitation to be lifted off the floor. It’s a show, and she’s free to put one on. No expectations of intimacy except for that of the body, an audience drinking in what she’s offering and she’s listening to what they have to say in turn.

No wonder she used to be a star in her own little corner of the world. Sure, she was good, but look at her gasp, her silent request to touch what her dance partners clearly want her to admire. Her brain’s off and her persona’s on and she’s not trying with them, she’s not doing fake-dating-with-benefits, she’s just trying to do what Black told her to do: listen. No, more than that: she’s trying to reflect, to take the energy being flung at her and send it back converted into what other people need, without breaking her stride.

Even when she’s hoisted up by her hips and spreads her arms like she’s on the prow of the Titanic by the she-wolf, she’s doing it because it’s what Black wanted her to do. Because that’s how she tries to show people that she hears them, that they mean something, that they matter.

Her blush is real, though. Wolves were obviously the right choice. Deliberate contrast to her persona’s own strengths: cleverness, skill, personability. It’s obvious what kind of basic bitch fursona she’d naturally fit like a glove. Put her on a leash and she’d trot; shut her up and her brain would melt into lo-fi beats to study to until she got words back and she’d try to use all of them at the same time. Probably wouldn’t last longer than a scene, but in the scene…

But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? She’s always in a scene. She’s doing her best to play the part of [i]a good person,[/i] as best as she knows how. Caught between desire and suspicion of desire, caught between chasing her bliss and worrying she’s the grasshopper and not the ant, caught between opening up and then overthinking opening up, caught between performance and performance.

Do you think she’s pretty, Black? Will you share this with the rest of yourself or try to save this, keep it for your portion of yourself, for fear of Blue commissioning fanart and Yellow making [i]suggestions[/i] and Pink being, well, Pink?

What’s it like, being this close to the princess of Anthropozine and being the reason she’s shining?