Mine was the ever-cheery Tracer saying, “The world could always use more heroes.” I got the impression from Destiny that this marked me as something of a sap.
Then came the cosplay conversation, which was where things began to deteriorate. Or okay, where I began to deteriorate.
Look, I don’t show my Princess Leia pictures to just anyone. Well. There was that one time in Walmart, but it was Halloween-related and thus justified. I may also make sure I have them pulled up at Pride, but who doesn’t want to be a princess at Pride?
The point is, we were talking about cosplay, and it was totally appropriate to show Destiny my sexy cosplay pictures. And no, I did not go as slave Leia (because Leia’s hot, but that whole scene where she’s chained up being rape-threatened by Jabba the Hutt is super squicky), but I did find a skintight white bodysuit with a hood to go with my Leia wig. And my gun, of course.
Destiny laughed when I showed her my pictures. “Aww, you look cute as Leia. That wig looks weirdly good on you.”
“Right? I legit considered growing my hair out. Then I realized that I’d never have the patience to actually do the double-braids-double-buns thing so there was probably no point.” I took back my phone and pushed the last of my nachos to the middle of the table for sharing. “I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours. What’s your favorite cosplay character?”
“In general? Maybe Jessica Rabbit. I’ve seen some not-skinny-white-girl Jessica Rabbits who made me want to go there.”
“Oh my god, you should! That would be great! But you haven’t done it?”
She took a chip and scooped up some black beans and red peppers. “Not yet. I like the challenge of reinterpreting a character who’s not meant to be sexy as a more appealing figure. Jessica Rabbit starts there, so it’s less of a leap.”
“Ohhh. That’s really cool. What’s your favorite character to do that with, then?” Since she was still paying a lot of attention to the chip, I had the impression maybe she didn’t want to tell me. Which was weird? So I did the thing I always do when I get nervous: I rambled. “I mean, not that I’m asking for sexy cosplay pictures of you at all. Obviously. Because I wouldn’t. Photographs not required! I was just wondering how you’d done that in the past because I’ve never thought about it and now that you’ve said it I’m intrigued. Like, I guess you can probably pick any character and sexify it? Not in a creepy way, but in a sort of reclaiming way, or an interpretation, like you said. I’m sure you wouldn’t be able do that with children’s characters or something because that would definitely be problematic but probably with most characters there would be some opportunity to kind of play with how you were portraying them to change the way they were, you know, portrayed.” I cringed and shoved another chip in my mouth. Stop. Talking.
“A friend of mine did sexy Splinter once,” she said after a minute. “From Ninja Turtles.”
Still feeling self-conscious, I managed to say that sounded cool.
We picked at the last of my nachos in awkward silence.
What if she thought I’d been asking for sexy pictures of her? That was awful. “I really wasn’t pushing for pictures. I mean. If that’s...how it seemed.”
“No, I got that. I just don’t want to talk about how I cosplay.”
“Okay.” Because what else was I going to say? On the one hand, why was it a big deal to tell me how she cosplayed? Then again, if my argument was it’s no big deal, then why couldn’t I let it go? Plus, maybe it was a big deal. In which case she should totally not share it unless she wanted to.
And I was being a big jerk about that decision.
Ugh.
“Um, so, any other favorite lines? I once melee’d the hell out of someone as Mercy and she said, ‘You might not want to tell your friends about that,’ which I thought was hilarious.”
Destiny looked up. “Have you heard D.Va say, ‘Boom shakalaka! She’s on fire!’?”
“Oh my god, no, but now I seriously want to.”
“I think I hear it once every fifty hours of gameplay or something, but it’s really funny when she says it.”
We went back to talking about games for the rest of the nachos.
* * *
This time I wasn’t almost late for The Love Study. I was literally late.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I mumbled to Sidney as they let me in. “I swear I’ll be on time next week.”
They didn’t seem at all perturbed by me walking in three minutes later than we were supposed to start filming. “No biggie. I once forgot an entire show when I first started livestreaming; being a little late won’t hurt anyone. Everything’s ready to go.”
I shrugged my bag and jacket into a pile beside the door and slid into the chair I’d been in last time. My mirror image slid into a chair on the screen. Sidney’s image slid into their chair.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” Still kind of panting from running down the block, but sure, ready.
They smiled at me before hitting record and turning toward the camera. “Welcome to The Love Study. The series about love, dating, and the pursuit of queer companionship in a bleak and hopeless world. I’m your spinster uncle Sidney, and this is my series co-host, and our volunteer for the dating trenches, Declan.”
“Oooh, we have an intro,” I said without thinking. Then I winced. “Sorry, forgot we were, like, live.”
“What do you think of the intro? I’m trying it on.” A glance at the camera. “Comment your thoughts.” Back at me. “Does that accurately represent your pursuit? I meant to run it past you before we started.”
“Then I was super late.” I experimented by also looking into the camera. “Um, sorry I was late. I haven’t worked out the best way to get here from my job yet.” Shit, was that okay? I did ahhhhhh-eyes at Sidney and they chuckled.
“You weren’t that late. But the intro?”
“Um, yeah, I definitely feel like I’m pursuing queer companionship. I hope that doesn’t come off anti-het. I’m not against dating straight people!”
“I think it is possible to queer relationships even when straight cis people are involved in them.” I couldn’t tell if they were teasing, but I thought the smirk was threatening again. “Should we get to it? You had your first date of The Love Study this week.”
“I did!”
Sidney smiled and their smile did that weird thing again where it made me feel all warm and fuzzy. “I came prepared with questions, but I thought you could start by telling us a little about it. No names, of course.”