Cursed: Jacinda Johnson

background info here

[[OOC: I'm using another one of my muses to progress the storyline... Grey Arrow is one of two muses that fits the criteria I need that Jacinda didn't veto right off the bat. But they've got one interaction in the Hub that didn't go quite so well. Got some fences to mend.]]

Things have been quiet for a long, long time. Always hard to say how long, in the Hub, given the flexible nature of reality, but...

After the Shift, when most of the activity in the Hub seemed to cease, there were still odd... flickers of action. Jacinda would catch glimpses of people zie recognized from the Hub -- usually the Question, some versions of Drake or zir own uncursed self -- but they never reacted to Jacinda. When zie tried to touch them, give a little push just to test if zie was being purposely ignored, Jacinda would instead find zir hand going through their forms -- as if they were ghosts.

A few of the Oracles who remained studied the phenomenon and decided that it was a vibrational frequency shift. The Hub was still the Hub, but some people remained aligned to the original "coordinates" and others had been moved to a slightly different place. Those who had made a home in the Hub were largely unconcerned with the change, as long as it didn't harm anyone. It was annoying, sometimes, but Jacinda had learned to recognize when someone in the Hub was "here" with zir or "there".

Jacinda had nothing waiting for zir in the home dimension. After getting kicked around by transphobes, dealing with almost everyone in the family acting weird around zir (Cass and Alfred being notable exceptions), Dick-from-home's entirely unwanted attraction... Jacinda was over it. The Hub wasn't much of a place, emptied of people as it was, but it was less stressful than going back.
----------------------------------------------------

The Fallen Leaves Taphouse is the same as ever. Jones is still a decent guy, and Jacinda finds less and less reason to growl at him -- now, when he decides zie'd had enough to drink, Jacinda is inclined to agree. (There felt like less reason to get blackout drunk when there was no real pressure to go back "home".)

Jacinda usually claims the same booth when zie visits, and is sitting there now. There's a college-age Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, maybe from the same universe, playing darts on the far side of the tavern. Maybe they don't even realize they're in the Hub.

The more time passes, the more scared I am.

I could bear it when this body was a curiosity -- but familiarity really does breed contempt. The worst part is that this body, with all its femaleness, doesn't always feel wrong... and I'm left wondering if that's the curse. If it's part of "losing myself" that will trap me this way.

I'm a mess. I make everything worse for the family -- more confusing, for sure -- and since I'm no longer of any use to them... what's the point in staying?

I don't want to say something so extreme as "I should have stayed dead", because dying fucking sucked and dead can't be much better. But... things are simpler without me, and they always have been. My coming back from the dead was a headache that nobody needed -- not Bruce, not Dick, not Alfred, not Babs, not me.

I wish it hadn't happened at all. I wish I'd never gone back to my old neighborhood, that I never knew about my Mom not being my birth mom.

(Catherine Johnson Todd was my Mom -- the woman who gave birth to me isn't worthy of the title.)

I wish

But what does it matter what I wish? What I want? The wishing and the wanting isn't going to change what is.

Flame, of the elves, spoke to the mage Dick Grayson, from the world that was being harmed by the Hub. His family has managed to stabilize the place so their world is no longer in danger. They've also built on Dream of the Endless's "doors" to our home universes by adding "lock and key".

The doors remain as they are until people seek them out, but now we have the option of locking our "doors" behind us when we go home, if we no longer wish to be in the Hub.

Melanie, the werelioness who runs The Park Cafe, serves the mage Bruce Wayne from the same world. Bruce tells her that there is a way for people who wish to stay in the Hub permanently to keep from being drawn home.

The doors to go home are unlocked. But if you want to stay, all you have to do is lock your door home.

It's been about a month since Dickie and "Dickie Junior" moved into a place together. I go over sometimes, mostly for dinner-and-a-movie nights. And it's nice. The kid followed Dickie's lead on calling me a guy and using the name Jason, without a bit of hesitation. People here are good about that -- going with what I say, rather than what they see.

I like spending time with them. It feels comfortable and maybe a little... domestic? might be the word for it. Like we're a little family of our own.

But... part of me does feel guilty. There's a family waiting for me back in my world, and they do worry about me, too. I should at least go back for a visit, right? Give them an update, even if it's "still no clue on how to lift the curse"...

I'll go looking for my door... but... on this coming Monday. Tomorrow, the theater by my place is showing "The House of Wax" from 1952 and Dickie needs more Vincent Price in his life.

Start here

[Jason nuzzles your neck.] Bedroom work for you?

Heh. Now that sounds promising... [Jason squirms off the couch and gets to zir feet, tugging you up by both hands.]

At the very start of March, a new kind of Red Hood fell into the Hub. I did the rescue routine, and found out that he is indeed another Jason, just... possessing a body. Stephanie Brown's body.

... a little later on, the two of us get locked into an inescapable room together. So I freaked out a little bit. So sue me.

And then JasonFest 2011 happened.

I'm always kind of testing how to tag with Jacinda-Jason. Aside from a slip-up (or two) where I used female pronouns -- one learns the coping method of identifying with the body and not the gender, and one sometimes cannot shake old habits -- I tried avoiding use of pronouns at all.

Then I tried avoiding pronouns until Jacinda flat-out stated "I'm Jason Todd" (or some equivalent), whereupon I would start using male pronouns, since Jacinda considers himself male despite the curse.

I'm testing out the use of gender neutral pronouns: ze and hir. We'll see how it goes. Gotta love the learning process.

April 8 2011
EDIT: I keep slipping up and typing "her" instead of "hir". Further research into gender-neutral pronouns gave me this option --

subject: zie; object: zir; possessive adjective: zir; possessive pronoun: zirs; reflexive: zirself

and we'll see how things go with this. Jacinda is changing, in my head. Zie is less rigidly male than zie started out as.

"When you meet a human being, the first distinction you make is male or female - and you are accustomed to make the distinction with unhesitating certainty."
--Sigmund Freud

It's not really that simple. People try to make it that simple, but there are some of us who don't fit into your little boxes. Some cultures are better than others, with more options than the male/female binary that is widespread.

I've had a few months to deal, to cope... to come to terms with this temporary change. And I have to think that it's temporary, at least right now. I'm not quite prepared to think about what it means if this has to stop being a bit of a game and starts being my life from now on.

This is me, but it's not. This is... being a stranger, but strangely familiar. I can and do forget sometimes that I've been changed... the only problem is when that forgetting happens in the middle of a fight. So I don't really have a codename anymore, unless you count "Jacinda Johnson". This Red Hood is out of commission for the time being.

I wear clothing appropriate for my new body because it's a little easier than fighting my new shape into an approximation of my old one. Maybe I will, if it does start to bother me more than it fascinates me. I'm not sure. I'm outside the binary and I have no luxury of "unhesitating certainty" anymore. Because this body, while strange in its newness, doesn't feel wrong. It feels different, and I'm not sure what that means for me.

I wear makeup because it's fun. I'm seeing if I can actually pass a girl, just for the hell of it, sometimes. We don't know how long I'm going to be like this. Why not have a little fun while I am?

It's an exploration. I'm facing questions I never thought to ask before, and the only answer I have right now is "I don't know."