It's a few weeks into the new semester and you're feeling pretty good about it so far. You're still running well off the energy you recuperated over winter break and your classes all seem both intersting enough to keep your attention and easy enough to keep you sane. Case in point: Intro Life Drawing for Non-Majors.
This class is the classic blow-off course: no studying, limited homework, and effort-based grades. And it even satisfies a Gen Ed requirement! You would replace every class this semseter with Intro Life Drawing for Non-Majors if you could, but you don't think your advisor would sign off on such a schedule.
It's a midwinter morning when you walk into the studio for the first session of the week. The sun pierces feebly through the cloud cover and comes in dim through the tall window panes that occupy the back wall of the room. A few of your classmates are already there, as well as the professor. Prof. Alcott was a strange mix of both incredibly serious and profoundly chill. Someone who seems like a stickler for specifically the rules of art and for no other rules that you could determine. You get on well with her. She likes your drawings and that gets you a long way with her.
As you're unpacking your pencils for the day, you become aware of her presence behind you. Turning around, you ask her if everything's okay. "For you? Absolutely. I actually have a favor to ask."
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[[Hear her out.|Intro 2]]"Yeah, what's up Helen?" She had previously told you to just call her by her first name, less as a privilege and more as an insistence. When your friends in the class had called her Professor to her face, she had shot them down.
"So, you're one of the more effective artists in the class. You knew this already, so don't try and act surprised or honored, it's just true." She barrels through any attempt at thanking her, continuing to her request. "Some people in the class are already falling behind and I was wondering if I could pair you up with one of them to help him keep up. You okay with that?"
"Oh, sure! Who were you thinking?"
She cocks her head to the side, indicating your vision over towards a figure hunched over a backpack on the other side of the room. "Boy over there in the corner, the one who's always in the hoodie? His name's Quinton and he is... rather behind. I've tried helping him out but I have to keep teaching the rest of you, too, you know?"
You look over at Quinton. The hood of his oversized hoodie is pulled up over his head, cloaking him into a formless figure of cloth. He picks the individual pieces of his artist's kit out from his backpack and places them gingerly on the table, arranging them in an orderly line along the edge of his drawing pad. He seems to catch you looking at him from the corner of his eye, then unsubtly tries to hide his face from you. Odd.
"Yeah, so if you could sit with him this week and try and get him caught up, I'd really appreciate that. Add/drop is at the end of the week, so just... try and help him decide if he's going to stick with this by then, okay?"
You nod at Helen. "Sure, sure..."
"Great. I'll go introduce the two of you, okay?"
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[[Follow her.|Intro 3]]<<pronouns>>
What is your name?
<<textbox "$name" "Alex">>
[[Begin.|Intro 1]] You walk up to Quinton with Helen. He looks up at her, then at you, then back to her. "Hello, professor. Is everything okay?"
She doesn't take the time to tell him to call her Helen. She starts, "Hello, Quinton. We've already discussed some of the issues you've been having with this class and I figured you could work with $name here. $He-s going to do $his_ best to help you out here, alright?" She claps a hand over your shoulder, curtly nods at you, then walks off to get ready for class. "You two play nice!"
You look down at Quinton. He has a look on his face like he just ate something disgusting at a fancy dinner, one where he can't let anyone know how gross the food is.
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[[Sit down, say hi.|Intro 4]]You pull up a stool next to his and sit down. "Hey Quinton, I'm $name. Helen says you've been having trouble with the lessons, right?" You try to strike a tone that mixes in enough kindness to cut through the awkward air between him and Helen, but aren't sure from his reaction how it lands.
"It's..." He sighs. "It's Quinn. I don't know why she keeps calling me Quinton. I mean... I //know//, you know? But I don't know why she chose that name. I think she just saw my name on the roster and assumed that Quinn was short for that. But it's not and it literally has never been." His head hangs over his paper, a light quiver in his raspy tone.
You like Helen and you're pretty sure she wouldn't do anything malicious towards Quinn here. You honestly don't know what the big deal is, but it seems to matter to him. You pivot your head to look over at Helen, who is working before class starts with another classmate. Looking back to Quinn, you're not sure what to say. So you just go with your gut.
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[["Hey man, it's not a big deal."|Intro 5]]
<<set $attempt = 2>>\
\
As soon as the words leave your lips, you feel a change in the air. Even from inside the big, baggy hoodie, you can tell there's a shift in Quinn's posture. "Please... don't call me that."
"What do you mean?"
The quiver in his voice returns. He turns to face you, a few tears beading up in his eyes. You, frankly, have no idea what is happening. "Please... don't call me //man//."
You react on impulse. "Dude, is everything okay?" One of the tears falls down his cheek.
Quinn stands up, secures the hood over his head, and hustles over to the door of the studio. Helen notices, then turns to you and shrugs. You follow him out the door and catch up to him in the hallway. Your head is starting to hurt but you push past it.
"Quinn... what's up?" You look into his eyes and start to notice the makeup dripping down his face. An odd thing to notice on a guy these days. You also notice that head-on, the unzipped front of the hoodie reveals underneath... a fringed blouse. You start putting pieces together. By the time you notice the long hair pouring out from the hood, things start making more sense. "Oh, um... Quinn are you..."
Quinn is staring at you with tearful eyes. //Her// tearful eyes. You stare, with some sort of growing tunnel vision, into those eyes and feel like you're starting to understand a bit more. She turns around and walks down the hallway. You walk down to catch up to her, call out that you're sorry, that you just didn't know. It's all true. But it doesn't help, because reality is busy unraveling itself around you, like the end of a cut rope fraying into a fuzzy and meaningless haze.
You float in the haze for a moment, too preoccupied by the strange social mishap that just occured to think much about the fact that you currently exist in a space outside of or between realities. You think back about what could have gone a bit different. Your hands, almost subconsciously, trace through the air, gathering up loose strands of fibrous reality between your fingers. As your hands come to meet, those fibers intertwine, stitch themselves back together, and...
----
[[Blink.|First Start]]Reality stitches itself back together in front of you. You're standing in front of Quinn, her eyes glowering in your direction. Helen speaks aloud, walking away behind you, "You two play nice!"
Gazing over the situation in front of you, there honestly were some context clues you might have picked up on the first time around. Her hair hangs long down through her hood and upon closer inspection she is absolutely wearing a face of makeup that you would describe as //doing its best//. Also, there's a large pin stuck on her backpack. Emblazoned with the pink and blue and white stripes of the transgender pride flag, the letters of "SHE/HER" adorn the face of it, staking a claim on her gender for all to see, should they take the time to look.
You sit down next to her, locked in for an attempt to make this go a bit better. "Hey Quinn, I'm $name. Helen says you've been having trouble with the lessons, right?"
You see a faint bit of light enter into her eyes for a moment. "You know, she keeps calling me Quinton and I keep telling people I go by Quinn. But she's the professor so they keep following her lead. So... thanks for that, I guess."
It feels pretty... not okay that, from what you've gathered, Helen seems to be insisting on calling Quinn by a name that she doesn't actually use. You start thinking about what to do here, aware that pure action on impulse is what has left you on your ''<<=setup.ordinal($attempt)>> attempt'' to set things right.
----
[[Assure her that Helen doesnt mean any harm.|Fail Defend Helen]]
[[Reassure Quinn and talk about next steps.|Strategize]]
[[Go tell Helen and the class that they're getting Quinn's name wrong.|Fail Tell Helen]]<<set $attempt++>>\
\
"Okay that's... not okay. Like seriously, she shouldn't be doing that!"
Quinn looks at you with a bit of surprise in her eyes. "Yeah... yeah, it doesn't feel great. I wish she would stop but--"
You shake your head, speaking to cut her off. "But nothing. This stops now." You turn around and walk up to Helen. You look back at Quinn, whose wide-eyed stare at you reads as a deer in headlights. It's fine. You'll set this right. You tap on Helen's shoulder.
"Oh, $name, is everything okay with you and Quinton?"
"Actually, her name's Quinn. It's not okay that you keep calling her by that name when it's not what she goes by, okay?" You wouldn't call your voice //raised//, per se, but nonetheless you become aware of classmates looking up at you. "Don't call her Quinton anymore, okay?"
Helen's face looks bewildered. She looks a bit askance over at Quinn, whose deer-eyed expression seems like it got hit by the car. She cocks an eyebrow, then walks up to Quinn. "Is that the case? You go by //Quinn//?"
Quinn's eyes dart from face to face across the room, all eyes now upon her. She seems like she might have a heart attack any moment now if one hasn't already begun. She stammers out a few syllables, attempting to begin a sentence. You count "I", "Well", "But", and several iterations of "Um". Finally, she manages the first complete sentence. "Yes."
You can't see Helen's face from where you're standing, but you can hear the sense of doubt and derision in her voice. "Okay, //Quinn//." She turns around, looks at you with a furrowed quality to her brow, then walks to the center of the room. "Alright everyone, we're wasting enough time as it is. I want us all to finish up the still lifes we started last week by end of day, okay?"
She turns to look at Quinn, speaking in a lower tone audible only to the two of them and to you. "And Quinn, I'd recommend you start over from last week's piece you showed in the critique. It needs more structural work, okay?"
Quinn nods wordlessly, soullessly. There seems like there's nothing behind her eyes in this moment. A beat passes, then she stands up and walks wordlessly out to the hallway. A few classmates watch as she does, then turn to look at you with expressions emblematic of the word, "Really?"
She doesn't come back. As you sit down next to a friend, they ask you what that was all about. Maybe the aggressive approach didn't serve the situation too well. You space out a bit, still in shock from the strange, quietly explosive interaction you caused there. The world fades into static around you, all those little threads of logic and continuity disconnecting into fuzz.
----
[[Bring it back together and try again.|First Start]]<<set $attempt++>>\
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"Look, Quinn... I'm sure that Helen doesn't mean any harm when she says that, you know?"
There is a sense of instant silence that befalls your interaction. For some reason, her sudden emotional detatchment from your interaction spurs you to keep talking. You have to explain yourself, make sure that she understands your position.
"I mean, I know her, at least as much as anyone in the class does, right? She really doesn't seem like she'd be doing this on purpose to hurt you. Like... why would she?"
Quinn is looking down at her paper again. The pad is entirely blank, a state increasingly reflected by the expression on her face. The connection you had just a few moments ago transmuted itself into diasppointment, then again into nothingness. You start fumbling out another comment in defense of Helen but are cut off when she stands up from the table. She mutters to herself about going to the bathroom, then walks out the door. You've slipped up. Seems that even if Helen really doesn't mean any harm in her behavior, that commentary wasn't what Quinn needed here.
You wait for her to come back for a bit. A minute passes, then another, then another. You begin spacing out, the world around you fraying again into fuzzy irreality.
----
[[Bring it back together and try again.|First Start]]"Hmm. Okay, yeah that's definitely super weird. Why would she even do that?" You look over your shoulder at Helen, who is leaning over another student's desk helping them with some perspective work.
Quinn chuckles to herself a bit. "Why indeed. A lot of people do that with me still honestly." She sighs before continuing. "It's the whole... you know. The trans thing. They assume that I go by Quinn because I must have gone by Quinton back before coming out. And I literally didn't!"
You haven't really had many interactions with trans people before, but you know enough to know you're not supposed to ask her what her name used to be. It's not really important to the conversation anyway. You think back to the root of the problem. "Have you tried talking with Helen about this yet?"
"I've told her once or twice that it's not my name but she just keeps calling me that. I don't know what to do at this point, really." She picks up one of her pencils from her carefully arranged collection of them and begins twirling it passively between her fingers. It seems to calm her. "It's annoying but like... I dunno. I've had some pretty rough experiences with professors reacting poorly when I put my foot down on this stuff. Sometimes it's just in your best interest to let them walk over you a bit."
The solution she's proposed doesn't sit well with you. It feels pretty nasty, the idea that she should just have to put up with being talked to that way. You find yourself searching for a something you can say to help.
----
[[Scold her for giving up so easily.|Fail Scold]]
[[Make a joke about the situation to break the tension.|Fail Joke]]
[[Offer your emotional support in class.|Offer Support]]<<set $attempt++>>\
\
You shift in your seat a bit, furrowing your brow at Quinn. "What, so you're just gonna give up? You're just gonna let her walk all over you?"
She seems a bit shocked, not expecting this response from you. "Well-- I mean-- Okay, look." She takes a deep breath for a second. "I have to look out for myself, you know? I have to protect myself."
"So do it. Go protect yourself."
"It's not that simple, $name," she replies with a sense of frustration. "What I'm saying is that the rules don't always apply in situations like this. Sure, she's not allowed to retaliate against me according to the faculty rules. But what if she does anyway? How will I prove that she's actually retaliating when she already doesn't like me? When the nervous wreck trans girl talks to the admin about this, who's to say that they won't take her side? She's a tenured professor; what is the benefit of siding with me at all?"
You frown. "I just... I don't think you should feel the need to do that."
"Well, I do." She turns away, looking down at her paper and getting out her pencils. She slips in a pair of headphones. She tunes you out for the rest of class. A few times you try to help her with the perspective work that she can't seem to grasp, but she doesn't really listen to you. Seems like it wasn't the best time to push her on her defensive position against the trouble with Helen.
You return to your own art, attempting to draw the still life assigned for the week. Staring up at the small table in the center of the classroom, you observe the bowl of fruit lying there in the middle of it. The bright colors of the apples and grapes seem to become the only grounding bit of reality after a bit, the rest frizzing away like so many loose threads. You blink, and the colors are gone, too. You're back in that void.
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[[Bring it back together and try again.|First Start]]<<set $attempt++>>\
\
"Well it's too bad you don't feel up to picking a fight here," you chuckle to yourself, "when she's all focused on just you she doesn't assign us as much homework."
Quinn looks at you, a sense of confusion and pain in her eyes. "Sure, that's one way to think about it, I guess."
"Oh, come on, I'm just joking!" You immediately go on the defensive, a knee-jerk reaction you can't help but employ. "I'm obviously not actually happy that she's being a jerk, I'm just trying to lighten the mood."
She huffs. "Sure, sure." She pulls out her earbuds and places one in her right ear. "Look, I've got to get caught up on this piece or else I'm gonna have to drop this class, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah sure." You nod along as she puts in her other headphone. She stares down at her paper, her hand puppeted by her will in service of work. But her heart isn't in it. Her lines are jagged and uneven, her perception of the still life poorly transmitted from mind to page. Halfway through class, she puts her pencil down in a huff and walks out to the hallway. She doesn't say anything to you.
You lean back in your chair. You think to yourself about how you just wanted to lighten the mood. But an idea crosses your head. Maybe that only served you. Maybe trying to lighten the mood helped //you//, but it didn't make it any better for //her//. She just felt... more alone in her situation. You look up and realize that you, too, are alone again in the frayed and fraught void of light. The strands of reality lie around you, disentangled once again.
----
[[Bring it back together and try again.|First Start]]You frown to yourself. It really is a tough situation. You think of a bunch of different things you can say to try and lessen what she's feeling, to try and minimize the hurt. But in the end, you just say, "Damn, that really sucks, doesn't it?"
She puffs air through her nose in a little half-laugh. "It sure does, $name." She looks away for a second, then back at you. "Thanks though. It's nice to have someone to listen to me whine about this."
"I mean, you're not whining," you respond, a little incredulous at how she'd downplay her own experience. "It genuinely does suck how she talks to you like that. Just... let me know if there's anything I can do, alright?"
She looks off to the side, perhaps a bit of embarassment or light shame crossing her face. She seems like she feels bad for her self-depricating comment. "For sure. For sure, $name."
You think to yourself a moment, then speak up again. "Hey, how about this. Next time she calls you Quinton, I'm gonna correct her. Nothing too confrontational, just... a little redirection. Let everyone know that that's not what you go by."
She looks back at you, eyes wide but hopeful. "You'd do that?"
"It's literally so easy for me to do that. And maybe it'll help."
She blushes just a little bit, perhaps unused to receiving this care from others. And then... she smiles. And it feels like all those strands of string around you knot themselves back into rope. The world feels a little more at ease in this moment.
"Thanks, $name. You're a good friend."