2026-02-03: A Queer Eye for Coolest to Demystify
- Log: A Queer Eye for Coolest to Demystify
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Maya Amano, Ichika Kawase
- Where: Aoba - Coolest
- OOC Date: 2026-02-03
- IC Date: Thu, Sep 20 2012
- Summary: Maya's looking for trans voices for an article, and Ichika knows just the guy. Luckily, Tsubasa's seen Maya in action, so they'll dig up more than three words for her interview... though there are details of their life as a minority they'd rather not see in print. Ichika gets to consider her own relation to queerness, too! Maya has a proposition for them, hearing their experiences: some good ol' unpaid internship working to edit her article to make sure it's accurate to the teen 'Tojisha' experience.
- Content warning: Discussion of transphobic/polyphobic child abuse.
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
The Coolest Magazine offices are nothing if not lively. Phones ring on end with no one to pick them up; one of Maya's colleagues argues with a printer that was working five minutes ago, but isn't now; two other reporters chat by the water-cooler while someone races by with a stack of papers that rivals the pile collecting on Maya's desk.
Maya is so deep in The Zone that the chaos fails to disturb her; she had to learn how to tune it out or she'd never be able to get anything done. She bites her lower lip, adding what will hopefully be the last edits to the page before her. She flips it over to start work on the next, then becomes suddenly aware of a presence approaching from behind.
"Ichika-chan! You made it!" Maya jerks to her feet, her expression brightening. "And Tsubasa-san, right? I'm really glad you could make it!" The co-worker with the printer suddenly begins jamming the power button aggressively.
"Sorry, it's absolute chaos today! You feel comfortable talking here or should I get us a free office?" The printer co-worker lets out a loud swear. That decides it. "Let's go find an office. Come on!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa is -- a look. Green and magenta hair in a metalhead shock on their head and a fake tan that's hit deep orange; their right side is a little mottled, though it's hard to tell until you're up close, because there's a bunch of concealer applied to there. (It's not quite the same shade as their tan, but it's close.) They're wearing makeup -- cyan and blue -- though it might be better be called war paint, particularly given as they don't actually have any eyebrows worth commenting on. (Though... their body hair's a little more notable on the left side of their body, if you really stop and examine it. And if there's more concealer on their face than normal, don't worry about it.)
They're wearing a white-and-black checkered tank top which ends at their belly; underneath it is a black and blue binder, and underneath that is a pair of rock-washed jeans sitting low on their hips. It helps that their hands are absolutely jammed in their pockets, as they slouch in. (They don't really need to -- they're two inches shorter than Ichika -- but apparently it's a habit.)
"Uh." They state, eloquently, when they walk into this fucking storm of an environment and Maya suggests talking out here. Their deep scepticism is carried in their blue eyes more than their words, apparently.
Then some guy starts attacking the printer, and Tsubasa shoots Ichika a Look. The Look states, plainly: 'wait, you wanna work a place like HERE? like, you're SURE?'
"... sure," they rumble, when Maya decides there's too much violence going on out here, and leads them to an office.
Why do they sound like they've been smoking a six pack a day since they were six years old...?
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Chaos!! It's... exciting, to Ichika; she doesnn't really know the evils of printers, but she sees a lively office full of people doing their own work. This is the beating heart of a real magazine!
"Hi, Amano-san," Ichika answers. She dressed up a little for this purpose, though she still very much looks like a teenager. Layered tanktops in black and yellow; nails in greenn and magenta; a short skirt, stockings, and boots. She's at least a fashionable teenager, so there's that?
But Tsubasa looks at Ichika with that Look, and Ichika? Ichika looks hype. She's totally jazzed to be here. "It's cool, right?" she asks.
"Yeah," Ichika agrees, "Office is better. I'm with you!"
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
"It's deadline week," Maya explains as she leads them down a hallway. "If it were like this all the time, I'm not sure any of us would survive." She gives the pair a wink. "You two will have to visit again to get the real experience!"
Though this experience is definitely a Very Real Part of working for a publishing company.
Maya stops at a door, then unlocks it; automatic lights brighten the room before Maya can even step inside. She turns to look at Tsubasa and Ichika and smiles again. "Both of you look so good today! We should do another Photo Fashion Review with the two of you sometime."
Maya gestures at two seats on one side of a desk as she steps inside. "Feel free to sit down. Did you need waters or anything?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Right," Tsubasa echoes Ichika, though they're clearly still a little intimidated.
But if Ichika enjoys it, like...
Tsubasa makes a quiet note to get Ichika a day planner so she doesn't get slammed with deadlines like this, because the way to avoid cramming before a deadline is to have it all planned out beforehand. What? Paper deadlines are different to school ones? Nah, that can't be right. Gotta be that Coolest's staffed with everyone who forgets their keys in their fruit bowl and leaves their fruit in their sock drawer.
"Cool," they nod, when Maya notices their fashion. "It's yamanto." If a yamanba is an old hag on the mountains, the yamanto is her less-gendered compatriot; so too with the fashion, apparently, which clearly has geneology from both yamanba and sentaa gai styles. They made it up.
They plant themself down on one of those chairs, and shrug. They're easy, water or no water.
They also apparently aren't very wordy.
Ichika sure picked a hard target for Maya today...
Still, Tsubasa does know Maya's on the level -- even if Maya doesn't know they know. (They saw her, protecting Maria from the Joker Killer.) "Cool joint. Uh. Lively," they settle on, which is a nice way to put it. "What ya need, Amano-san?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Deadline week... Ichika nods. "So everybody's extra-busy." She brightens. "I think it's cool. It shows everybody's passion." A beat, "Sure, I'd be glad to come back sometime."
Automatic lights! Ichika smiles. "Thanks," she says of her look. "I didn't want to show up in just anything..."
Ichika can get a planner! She'd accept one from Tsubasa.
But, "I'm good," she says of the water, which probably means she doesn't need one. Instead, she moves to take a seat next to Tsubasa, smiling at them in a particular way that shows closeness before she looks back to Maya.
"Yeah, how do you want to get started?"
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
"I did some research of my own and there's a lot of youth out there that don't believe they know someone who is LGBTQ." Maya uses the western acronym for it. "But statistically we know that's not true. Many tojisha have a hard time coming out to others outside of their community."
And they had good reason to do so, too. Society wasn't kind to anyone who was othered.
"So I really want to come at it from the perspective of someone who doesn't know a lot about the community. 'How do I support my friend who I think is gay?' 'What if I think I might be LGBTQ?' 'What is X Gender?'" Maya rambles on with a few example questions.
"I hope that once they know about these things, they'll be more receptive to it. Maybe they'll even talk about it. Or realize that they might be LGBTQ themselves. That's the kind of article I'm hoping to write... and I hope you two can help me write it!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"You oughta," Tsubasa encourages Ichika, when she says she wants to come back again. Just because they're instantly lost in this chaos doesn't mean she's not thriving in it!!
They will definitely get her a planner sometime though. A nice cute one with a pen on a string that can fit in a pass holder or something. Maybe slap a unicorn on it...
They're interrupted from their schemes by Ichika's smile, and the default scowl on their own face is interrupted with smiling to her in turn. Yeah, they're clearly into her.
They rub at the back of their neck, as Maya talks about how people don't know they know people like them, with an awkward look off to the side. (It's kind of hard to miss Tsubasa, if you know or even have heard any kind of rumours about them. They pass better now they've got a binder, but, uh...)
"Uh. First bit's, like... you got men an' women, right. An' you got people born as one who are really the other, so, like... if ya got a woman what were born as a dude, she'd say she was 'M-t-F', male-to-female. But 'M' an' 'F', they're jus', like... two ends a polarity, like. You got all this shit in th' middle an' outside it. That's 'X'. So you hear a guy call themself F-t-X, that's sayin' they was born a chick but they ain't really either."
Tsubasa gestures, vaguely. "Like, ya got th' ryousei, they take stuff from both sexes and integrate them... chuusei, they see themselves as in the middle of bein' male an' female, but some of them got a specific identity what ain't a dude or a chick, like, uh, you got these Hijra people in South Asia, they recognised in their culture... musei, you got intersex people usin' that as well folks what jus' straight opted out... futei-sei, they go between feelin' like different genders..." Man, and where do they put themself.
Moving on from that -- "Ain't th' only way to think 'bout that shit, though. Like, in th' West they call it, uh, nonbainarii," Tsubasa goes with the transliteration because they cannot pronounce English and they refuse to try. "An' like I said, there's like, cultures what got more than two genders jus' as a fuckin' default, too."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
A unicorn!
Ichika obviously thinks a lot of Tsubasa, too.
"Yeah," Ichika agrees with Maya, "There's more out there than people think." A hard time coming out... "Yeah, I've seen that a lot. I try to be supportive--I mean, I only date guys and I'm happy being a girl, but I figure I can help anyway."
Ichika may not have twigged that a lot of people would assume dating an X-Gender person might make her LGBTQ, too. She can be thick about that kind of thing, when she's found her own categorizations.
"I think you're right though. Most people just don't know, they're not like, intentional dicks about it."
Ichika totally will come back, as it happens.
"And then like," Ichika agrees with Tsubasa on all that, "Pronouns, and stuff. Like, Tsubasa here goes by they and them, since they don't want either gender, but I know some people who just kinda don't care what you use?"
"And then there's the ones who're okay with most of their gender, but want to date among that gender or more genders, instead of just the opposite." Pause. "Guess opposite might not always be the right word..."
"But I feel like a lot people assume, oh, that guy likes to dress up, so he must also want to date men--but that's just not true? I had a boyfriend who loved sex with women, just liked being pretty too."
"On the other hand, some bians want to be more masculine..."
"I guess I'm rambling, but there's a whole ton of it out there. I guess what I'd say is... People should listen to what they actually say, not what they just assume is true."
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
Maya's lips quirk up into a smile at Tsubasa's direct, free way of expressing themselves. Maybe Maya didn't have to worry about their delicate ears after all!
"Oh, I should take notes!" Maya picks up her phone and starts typing furiously into her smartphone's note app. "Okay!" she says triumphantly once she's gotten everything written down. "Now a question for each of you!
"Tsubasa-san, how did you realize that you were X-gender? And Ichika-chan, what was it like when you realized you were interested in X-gender people?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Oh, yeah," Tsubasa says, nodding to Ichika. "Forgot 'bout those. Yeah, they-them, like... th' neutral sets, y'know?" There are a lot of neutral pronouns in Japanese; there are probably more neutral pronoun sets than gendered ones, in fact. (Tsubasa uses 'jibun' for themself, for the record, which is more traditionally but not universally masculine; it speaks to the distance they keep between themself and others.)
How did they realise, though...? "Uh," Tsubasa clams up, and looks to Ichika, again.
"... you better not print this," they warn her. "Me old Boss, she ordered me to break up with me boyfriend... this fuck called Hajime, only been seein' him for four months, he was a piece a shit. Told him I was out, so he hit me... hit him back, an' he was yellin' 'bout how I was only good for one thing as a woman when I was tearin' out. Pissed me th' fuck off... fuckin' disgustin'. Didn't want... none a that shit in me. But I played visual kei, knew 'bout all that costumin'... started thinkin' maybe I didn't wanna be seen like that to start with. Went on th' net, looked shit up... found some shit people was sayin' 'bout it. So I started goin' by Tsubasa, rather call meself a bird than a flower or a second fuckin' daughter." ... second daughter? "Yeah. Family hated that. Got kicked out pre' quick. It was whatever."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Yeah!" Ichika says to Tsubasa. And then, well... Delicate ears...
Maya's going to take notes, and she asks a question of each of them. Ichika opens her mouth and closes hers at the question. "Oh, uh..."
"Yeah," Ichika says then. "Tsubasa's been knowing as long as I've known them."
"As for me, uh..."
"I didn't," she says. "Didn't for a while. I thought I was just friends with Tsubasa for the longest time--Like... couldn't be more than that, because they weren't a boy. Until..."
"It all kinda hit at onnce, after we agreed to just be friends, that... Regardless of what I called them, I was... really into them."
"I still don't entirely get it," she admits. "They're a guy," she says, nodding to Tsubasa, "But not a boy...? That part I get."
"But if it means something for me I dunno what it is."
"I just know I'm into Tsubasa, and that means I'm into X-Gender people because they're X-Gender."
Pause. "Though..."
"That boyfriend I mentioned--he liked to borrow my clothes, and I always thought that was kinda hot. So maybe I was kinda set up for it first...?"
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
"Consider it completely off-the-record," Maya says cheerily. It seems like Tsubasa's had a very eventful life. Still... Maya has one more question for them.
"You don't live with your family?" It doesn't particularly surprise Maya given the research she's done, but it hits harder now that there's someone sitting right in front of her who has experienced it themselves.
"It sounds like it's not always cut-and-dry," Maya says, nodding as she types in notes about Ichika's experience. "Like you might not know if you like something until you have the opportunity to try it yourself."
Maya hums to herself, thinking. "I never really thought about getting involved with another woman," she says. "But is that because I don't have interest in women? Or is it because I've always lived with the expectation I'd grow up and marry a man?" That's something Maya needs to think on. She'd never given it much thought until now.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Nah." Tsubasa shakes their head. "Not since me father threw me out th' door." M--metaphorically, right? They're speaking metaphorically, right?! (They're not speaking metaphorically.) "He been puttin' me up in apartments an' shit so he don't gotta look at me... uh, ran away for a while, but he found me again." Their expression grows a touch distant, relaying that. "Said he'd let me stay where I was stayin' so me an' me friend would sort each other out... whatever."
(They hadn't mentioned it.)
"As... as fer me, uh... I ain't a girl or a boy, but, like, if I gotta pick a side I'd rather roll with th' dudes. Wanna change me body to be more like a guy, 'cuz what matters more to me is not bein' a chick. An' it ain't like there's a category for people me most times, so..." Tsubasa shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah, like. I'm one a th' guys, but I ain't a boy. It's like that. Guess I kinda figured that was, like, close enough for Ichika's feelins'? Like, I ain't her opposite gender, but I'm sure as hell not th' same gender. I'm still different."
They're pretty sure Ichika doesn't just see them as a boy, and that's what matters to them, really. They'd still argue for her right to call herself straight, clearly.
"Me, tho', I like guys jus' fine... so I guess I kinda go both ways on that one. Took me a long time to figure out I liked girls too, like -- had to get a friend raisin' it to me 'fore it got through me thick skull -- an' it took a while after that to realise I liked Ichika, like, specifically. Even after I did, I figured it weren't, like... like, I woulda been happy jus' stickin' by her, y'know? I didn't, like... think it was any kinda realistic, so I jus' put all that shit in a box. Uh. 'Cept then she came back and suggested it, so..." Tsubasa rubs at their shoulder, again, awkwardly. "Y'know."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Tsubasa can explain about their family, though Ichika reaches out a hand in case Tsubasa wants it. If not, she still looks at them with concernn, sympathy. "...That happened?" Ichika wonders. "...Ugh."
But, Tsubasa explains themselves, too. About their gender, and what matters to them. "Yeah, exactly," Ichika assures Tsubasa. "You're not a girl. There's just... more 'not a girls' out there than I thought there were."
But she looks to Maya, and nods. "Right, exactly. And now like... I can't imagine not being into Tsubasa. I feel like I was kinda stupid for not figuring it out sooner."
Pause. But Maya thinks to herself? "Could be either," Ichika says. "If you don't know it's possible, you never really think about it. I guess I'd try with a girl, sometime? Just to see if I liked it. But I'm already seeing my guys seriously, so... not likely to come up."
She looks to Tsubasa. "Yeah, sorry about that... I didn't mean to jerk you around."
But, "I'm still planning on marrying a man," she says. "Kinda hope the boyfriend I've got now is up for it when we grow up a little more. But..."
"I want to be with Tsubasa, too. Not just on the side, but like, for real."
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
Young love! How could anyone be against this? Ichika and Tsubasa seem so happy together. It makes Maya feel all the more determined to write something that really changes people's minds. But all muddled up in that happiness for Ichika and Tsubasa is anger that Tsubasa was treated like that just because of their identity!
Both of them deserved better!
"You two should!" Maya slaps her phone against the table. "What does it matter if two -- or even three -- people love one another? Just because society says it isn't right doesn't make it true!"
Maya's clearly pumped now; her fingers are practically tingling with the desire to write something -- and it's thanks to Ichika and Tsubasa that she feels this way. "I know I'll make people mad that I'm taking this tack in a teen magazine, but I'd rather that than have someone think that there's something wrong with them! If they think there's something wrong with someone writing about LGBTQ in Coolest, they can screw off!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa... does take that hand, after a moment. (They do hear what their father said.) "Yeah. Uh. It's cool," or at least they say it is, "Ren-san was there, too, so..."
(And they're a little scared of what happens to Ren if their father decides they're on his shit list, but Ren's probably not wrong to worry that they're far more likely to hear about it than Ren is.)
"Yeah," Tsubasa nods, to Ichika, when she confirms they're not a girl, before they look back to Maya. "That ain't how it always is, tho'. Someone born as a girl might be happier still bein' classed with girls but still not be a girl themself, too. Like, for me, th' big thing's how I ain't a girl... but that ain't everyone's driver. There's people what value bein' inscrutable more'n bein' not anythin', or people what jus' don't feel like one gender's enough to describe 'em..."
They squeeze Ichika's hand, when she apologises. "It's cool. Ain't like there's F-A-Qs on this shit... I was flyin' blind too."
Still, Ichika wants to be with them, too, and Tsubasa squeezes her hand again. "Yeah. We're serious 'bout this shit. Can say I've got shit for havin' two partners by now, too... tch. Even if I ain't plannin' on marryin' Ichika, tho', be nice to have th' option... was cool seein' Kurosu-san talkin' 'bout this couple days back."
Tsubasa shakes their head. "Mighta been she gave you an openin'," they point out, though they might not need to point it out -- it's surely not a coincidence that Maya asked for this interview now. "As for talkin' in Coolest, like... I always been not fittin' right, even when I did it in me band. People ain't not who they are jus' 'cuz they don't got th' words for it. Jus' means they're way more mixed up 'bout what that is... an' they're way more alone. Prolly fuckin' sucked before th' net... least now you can look shit up, see people thought 'bout it."
They look up, thoughtfully. "Wonder why I don't hear more 'bout how it was then..."
That's surely a research rabbit hole which won't lead to any tears.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika squeezes Tsubasa's hand. They are happy! Well, when Tsubasa's dad isn't actively being horrible at them, anyway. "They were?" she asks. "Well, that's cool, but..." She worries anyway. "Ugh."
"My parents are cool at least," Ichika says. "But I mean, after my last serious relationship... I guess they're just happy it's not like that again, too."
She doesn't elaborate for now. Instead, she listens to Tsubasa. Annd there's--FAQs! "Oh, cool," she says.
Ichika smiles back. "Yeah," she says. "...Society says a lot of stuff that's really messed up."
But, they're serious. "It would be nice to have the option," she says. "Like... There's a lot we're limited on, because of how things are."
But an opening... That does make sense. "I try to find my own way to fit," Ichika says. "I really like this magazine... I think it'd be cool, if we could help like that."
How it was then? "...Dunno," Ichika admits. "Maybe because they didn't write it down as many places?"
It's fine.
"Thanks, though. Amano-san. I think..."
"This is the kind of thing that's important to me."
<Pose Tracker> Maya Amano has posed.
"I think I want to start writing something," Maya says. "But I'd like the two of you to be my editors and tell me what I get wrong and what I miss. I can't offer much in payment, but once it's published, I'll take you both the Wilton Buffet!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Ichika's mom is really nice," Tsubasa says, of her parents.
But society is messed up. "Maybe," Tsubasa wonders, on writing it down. They'll look it up, later. But Ichika says it's important to her, and Tsubasa nods, firmly. "Yeah."
Maya's itching to start writing, though, and she wants to recruit them into more unpaid internship! Tsubasa would have thrown in for Ichika's sake regardless -- this is what she wants to do -- but Maya makes a brave declaration, and so, they yelp: "Whoa, you serious?!"
It's the first time they've raised their voice enough to be worthy of an exclamation point the whole time.
Good job, Maya: you've discovered that bribes totally work.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Editing? Really?" Ichika wonders, and maybe it's not quite the same, but, "I mean, sure, I'll tell you what I think!"
She smiles about her mom. But--
"Whoa!" Ichika says. "The experience was gonna be good for me but..."
"I'm not gonna say no to that dessert table either..."
Totally bribes work.