Club Day

Ugh, club day. Too much being a smiley person for me, thanks. It was not helped by the fact that I was running on like no sleep. (I stayed up to make triboards for two clubs, which might have been a bit overly ambitious.) Anyways, that’s why I didn’t post yesterday.

So tonight I used family movie night as an excuse to project all my complex emotions about club day onto some characters from a story I’m writing. I don’t know whether I’ve ever talked about this on the internet before, but I guess this snippet I’m really happy with is a good start. 

The bare minimum context is that it’s about a bunch of high school theater kids, about half of whom are magical in some way; this includes the main character, eleventh grader and threadmage María Soledad “Solí” Armijo Riveras, and her banshee girlfriend Elia Graydaughter. Everyone involved is queer and magical and just trying to get through high school, and they have shenanigans and friendship and stuff. 

(CW: mentions of transphobia, bullying, and mean comments/fictional slurs in general, some food mentions)

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Okay, so the "runes" aren't strictly necessary. A little of it is about proving a point, and a little of it is about providing me a little more thread for an emergency. But mostly I think it looks cool. And I like doing the embroidery for it. 

The downside is that I get some not-fun comments. I'm running the MSU club table, and I've already gotten called an astie (or worse) like twelve times. I'm not the only one; over by the gym, Hannie and Lacey at the Theatre Society table and Kase and Liz with the Tech Club table are reporting their own incidents in our groupchat. Lacey got called a bloodsucker (xe drank bloodsub even before xe went vegetarian) and Kase says someone called him a really rude anti-trans slur. Plus someone brought up the Randy Incident from last year and blamed Han, and it really wasn't her fault.

The theater kids are the only tolerable people in this whole school sometimes. And we're all spread out on club day so we can't back each other up. 

I mean, fixing that's the point of the MSU. My second favorite club. My baby. My brainchild. A safe space for us. (Yes, it overlaps greatly with the theater kids/tech crew. And with the GSA.) The club I'm currently running the table for. 

Beside me, Finn exhales and smoke spills out his nostrils. He's club co-president, so it's the two of us running the table. And Delphi, hanging around to talk to Finn. (Ugh, romantics, I say, as if I wouldn't do the same thing at Elia's table for book club if I could.) 

Anyways. I run my finger over the "runes" I'm sewing on my new skirt, and tuck another stitch into place. And then someone (not an NH, could be a mage but since they're not a frosh I doubt it) shows up and I have to put it down and smile and say my spiel and answer useless questions about social outreach projects and our part in the local magical community. I wish our club was only open to actually magical students. 

And then Elia fades in right in front of me, thank goodness. "Lee, Jackie's spelling me at the book club table for a moment," she says, and we laugh at our little private joke, "so  I brought you some of Thorn's candy, if you want it."

"Yes, please," I say. "Tell her thanks and I hope Singing Club is getting lots of signups."

"I will." She drops a piece of chocolate on the table and flickers a couple of times. "I hate club day." 

"Me too. Did you hear someone brought up the Randy thing? It wasn't even Hannie's fault in the first place!"

"I know, Lee, I know. Hug?" I nod, and she wraps her arms around me. I hug her back, breathing in the scent of old books and that faint smell of grass and sun and dust and banshee that always follows Elia around. She always argues when I say banshees have a scent, but she's wrong, they do. 

"Half an hour," I say, "then we're done. Thank goodness for early days."

Elia echos the sentiment, as do Delph and Finn. "Thank goodness for early days."